Antony and family at Director Ben’s house with the Pfahlert family
Ministry Apprentice Training (MAT) Zimbabwe is an outpost of the MTS movement in Africa that is growing thanks to the grace of God and the dedication of His workers!
Though most of the population is Christian, many churches do not have pastors and of those that do, close to 80% of the pastors are untrained. Some of the pastors serve more than 3 churches. The need for equipped gospel workers is great!
Learn more about MAT Zimbabwe and founder Antony Dandato in this earlier article.
There are three key ways MAT are multiplying gospel workers through their movement.
Creating Entrusters
MAT Zimbabwe National Director Antony Dandato and his brother Gordon Dandato are both Entrusters of the movement.
Entrusters are MTS Trainers, who have trained someone who then goes on to be an MTS Trainer themselves! This is how the Entrusting Family Tree sprouts and grows.
An Entrusting Family Tree consists of:
Older Entrusters (Pauls) – usually a male or female Gospel worker
Younger Entrusters (Timothys) – someone trained by the Older Entruster. They will usually, but not always, be a Gospel worker, theological college student or an MTS Apprentice
People Worth Watching (Reliable People) – a godly man or woman who is a potential MTS Apprentice.
MTS National Director Ben Pfahlert says, “If you want a movement to grow and to win the world for Christ, you’ve got to multiply gospel workers. You can’t just have one generation get raised up and then end there. You’ve got to have a generation raised up who raise up another generation. There is no success without succession.”
Entrusters play a vital role in furthering the growth of the Kingdom by entrusting the gospel to the next generation of Christian ministry workers. This is something happening right from the beginning with the MAT movement and it’s something really worth being excited about!
MAT Zimbabwe Apprentice Graduation
Multiplying into five countries
MAT Zimbabwe currently works as a Hub Country. They help other nations live out the MTS DNA too! They’ve worked to establish a healthy movement and are now inviting people to watch what they do and replicate it in their country.
Antony Dandato is working with this vision in mind, “From Zimbabwe to Africa and the world at large. We pray to multiply Faithful, Godly, and Competent (FGC) gospel workers for the African church.”
The movement is at varying stages from initial conversations to startup to growth in Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Malawi!
Ben says, “What’s exciting about that is not only are they grabbing hold of the vision of training apprentices, but they’re multiplying the vision.”
Increasing the number of apprentices
MAT is also working to increase the number of apprentices they’re training – but without reducing the quality. Over the past decade, MAT has been seeing exciting growth in its apprentice numbers, as shown in the below graph.
Looking to the future MAT aims to:
- Grow from Fellowship to a Movement (a big change in their structure that requires a lot of money initially!)
- Improve the quality of training (Training Centre visits)
- Instil Apprentice Training DNA through the MAT Zimbabwe G8 Conference
- Train 100 Apprentices by 2028 (cumulative – 40 @2023)
- Provide intentional support to other African Movements
Please pray for the future of MAT and other MTS movements around the world!