WHO ARE MTS APPRENTICESHIPS FOR?
There is a range of people who will benefit from a MTS apprenticeship
The person asking, ‘What’s my future pathway in Gospel ministry?’
A MTS apprenticeship will help you work out:
(i) how you’re wired and (ii) where you might plug in to grow God’s Kingdom in the future.
If a person wants to be a farmer long term, they don’t head off to Yanco Agricultural College as a first port of call. They need to head off to a farm and work alongside an experienced farmer for a couple of years. They need to live through a couple of annual cycles. They need to know what it is like to deliver lambs in the middle of the night, drive a harvester to bring in the grain before it is destroyed by rain and grapple with the blurred boundaries between work and rest.
The person intending to go into full-time ministry, and wishing to prepare for it well
A person on the Team Leader pathway will undertake degree level theological study, and a person on the Team Member pathway will undertake diploma level theological study. A MTS apprenticeship provides the practical ministry skills and experience which complement, and make relevant, your future theological study – in short, the practical learning that can only be achieved by actually doing!
As a MTS Apprentice you would be trained and mentored by an experienced trainer, and provided with real ministry opportunities to learn and develop ministry skills. These are “safe” ministry opportunities as the apprentice’s involvement is conducted under the watchful supervision of his/her trainer.
The person seeking to step into ministry later in life
Many people look to serve in Gospel ministry later in life – perhaps the person has been retrenched, previously ran a busy house-hold which is now diminished in size and complexity, or perhaps they are intentionally looking for a career change into ministry – whatever the reason, their life-to-date has not adequately skilled or prepared them for a ministry role. These people are often highly skilled in other areas and have decades of business and/or life skills with which to enrich their future ministry.
An MTS apprenticeship is a great way to acquire the ministry skills, theological knowledge and practical experience necessary to enter paid or unpaid Gospel ministry later in life.
The person seeking to prepare for a ministry role that’s not in a church
There are many valuable ministry roles not directly connected with a church, which will yield fruit for the Kingdom. These include, but are certainly not limited to:
- school chaplaincy
- workplace/factory chaplaincy
- high school SRE teacher
MTS is a great way to prepare for these ministries as you can study for Diploma in Theology or Ministry and at the same time acquire the ministry skills and practical experience necessary to be effective in these ministry roles.