After growing up in church and knowing Jesus her whole life, Aleesha Bransgrove didn’t see another adult become a Christian until she was an adult herself. This experience, while part of the Christian Union group at La Trobe University in Melbourne, ultimately set her on a life-changing path, one that has led her into full-time ministry!
Gospel transformation in adulthood
Aleesha reflects, “It was cool to see both local people and international students becoming Christians as adults. And it really broadened my view of what gospel ministry was and gave me a global view of the church and the gospel for all nations.”
While she was studying Occupational Therapy, Aleesha got more and more involved in the Christian Union group. Seeing MTS apprentices working on campus was a big part of giving her confidence to give ministry a try. She explains, “I saw that all different kinds of people could give ministry a go. I’m a more introverted person, and I always thought you needed to be extroverted and charismatic and really good in the spotlight to do ministry, and that was just not me.”
Seeing apprentices like her made Aleesha more seriously consider ministry, and one of her mentors, Christian Union Staff Worker Peter Leslie, saw the potential in her too! After she finished her degree, he invited her to consider an apprenticeship with Christian Union at La Trobe.
Trained with diversity and breadth
In 2017, after six years working as an Occupational Therapist, Aleesha returned to La Trobe and began a two-year apprenticeship with Peter as her trainer.
Aleesha shares, “I wanted to give everything a go. Both the things I thought I might be good at and the things I thought I wouldn’t be good at. I wanted to try bits of everything in ministry.”
This approach was something Peter encouraged her to do, and it made for a diverse experience! During her apprenticeship, Aleesha did walk up evangelism, got involved in running outreach events, read the Bible one-to-one with students, ran a small group, learned to train others through workshops and was involved in the running of camps and conferences.
She says, “One of the biggest things I learnt was how to be part of a ministry team, and work alongside other Christians of diverse personalities, backgrounds and giftings. I learnt how to do ministry together and how to think big picture about running ministry. I loved giving everything a crack!”
Aleesha credits her trainer, Peter, and the culture of Christian Union for giving her a great experience that taught her a lot and gave her the confidence to take the next steps and pursue vocational ministry.
She shares, “It was nice to be able to give lots of things a go in sort of a safe training environment so that I could take risks, and I could fail at things and be supported to learn through that. And it was really my trainer who had a big influence on helping me to think through what ministry could look like for me and encouraging me to continue that after my apprenticeship finished.”
Every day, ordinary faithfulness across contexts
In 2019, Aleesha went to the Reformed Theological College in Melbourne to study and then moved into church ministry. In 2025, her ministry has her wearing many different hats!
She is on the staff team at the Reformed Theological College as a Women’s Ministry Development Worker, works in a local church setting as Assistant Minister Mission, Kids and Youth at Darebin Presbyterian Church and is working as a Staff Worker in student ministry at Melbourne University.
Aleesha shares laughingly, “It’s done with much juggling, but it’s great. I love doing a diverse range of gospel ministry with different people of different age ranges, and there are lots of opportunities in Melbourne to get involved in lots of different things.”
Across her ministry, Aleesha is privileged to see God use ordinary people for his extraordinary purposes—something she sees he did (and still does) with her too!
She shares, “Both in my church ministry and on campus, I’ve seen people become Christians, and it does look very ordinary and unglamorous. It’s just Christians, often in an awkward way, inviting people to either read the Bible with them or come along with them to an event where the Bible is preached. And people have come along and met Jesus and become Christians through their small invitation. So it looks very uncomplicated on one level, it’s just the faithfulness of very ordinary Christians living openly for Jesus.”
For those considering supporting the work of MTS, Aleesha asks you to consider how you can be part of bringing Jesus to the world.
She says, “We live in a country and a world that really needs to meet Jesus. And MTS plays a really crucial role in raising up and training the next generation of gospel ministry workers, both for our country and for the world. MTS has been such a wonderful thing for me to be raised up and trained in gospel ministry. And what a delight to see men and women have that same opportunity to be trained to help many more people meet Jesus.”
Please consider giving to enable more people like Aleesha to become gospel workers. Give now