MTS is excited to announce that Lee Murray has been appointed as the new Director Of Partnerships. This is a new role for MTS that will enable us to continue to win the world for Christ by multiplying gospel workers through ministry apprenticeships.
Lee grew up in Northern Ireland and became a Christian just before his 18th Birthday which he states “was, and still is the best news he has ever heard”. Since then, God impressed on him the need to share the good news of Jesus and encourage others around him to do the same. However, it wasn’t until he went to India on a mission trip that he truly grasped the magnitude of the mission and the need not only to raise up one or two people, but an army of gospel workers who are compelled by the love of Christ to reach the lost.
Lee with his son and granddaughter
As a past Intensive Care and Emergency Nurse, Lee always believed that this would look like a more traditional “missionary” path and set out for Australia in 2005 with his wife Cathra. Then one day he got the ‘tap on the shoulder’ by someone at church about an upcoming youth pastor role: a job he accepted and soon realized that he needed just a “wee bit more training!”. That resulted in him studying an Advanced Diploma of Theology and Youth Ministry at Youthworks College, whilst working as a youth pastor; which he continued as he completed his Bachelor of Divinity at Moore Theological College.
Lee and his family
Lee did not do a ministry apprenticeship, but is thoroughly committed to them and believes that his training pathway had a strong “apprentice feel”… he could immediately apply his learnings in real life ministry contexts. During his time at college, Lee and his wife Cathra felt compelled to plant a church and got assessed with Geneva Push and finally planted Establish Church in 2015. When they kicked off, they decided to do that with an MTS apprentice James Ayre, which Lee states was a “no brainer” because MTS provided a framework and model to help him live out some of those deep convictions God had forged in his earlier years. Since then Lee has trained a further MTS Apprentice, and various other leaders and ministry workers through Establish.
Lee is Married to Cathra, and between them have 5 kids and one grandchild. Matthew (27) who lives in Northern Ireland, and his daughter Gracie (4); then Joshua (14), Grace (12), Sophia (10), and Éva (8). They love adventures, creating, exploring, music, and football (“real football” aka Soccer), and working out ways to have their home as a place of mission and connection. As a family they are excited for this new stage to see how God might continue to work through them, and through Lee as he takes up this new role.