What do my MTS Registration / Management & Support Fees pay for?

Ministry Apprentices that are registered with MTS pay either a Registration Fee or a Management and Support Fee.[1]

What do they pay for?

In short they pay for three things:

M – Movement Growth (both health and size)
T – the Training of Trainers
S – the cost of Sticking with people well beyond their apprenticeship

Let me explain each in turn.

M – Movement Growth – both health and size

A healthy movement needs vision. It needs to know where it is going.

But, vision leaks. It is inevitable.

One of the key things MTS does is remind the Church of Australia (& beyond) to obey Jesus when he said, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matt 9:38).

MTS keeps reminding the church that so many in our world are lost and hell destined and that the need for well trained Gospel workers has never been greater.

The Vision of MTS is:

“To win the world for Christ by multiplying Gospel workers through ministry apprenticeships”

Growing movement health

MTS does the following things to grow, or increase, the health of the movement:

MTS Leaders Training Days:
- These run in most capital cities to grow apprentices and trainers in the 3 x C’:
Continuous improvement of the MTS Apprentice Curriculum
- We want trainers to continually be developing their apprentices in Christ like Character, conviction and competency
- Continuous provision of up to date and high quality resources for Trainers to use with their apprentices
MTS National Apprentice Graduation and Commissioning:
- We celebrate every apprentices achievement
- We also exhort all apprentices to become Entrusters.
Strategic Planning:
- MTS Ltd is continually thinking about how to improve apprentice training
- MTS Ltd refined its strategic plan in 2018
  - The newly developed Vision, Mission and Mission Objectives have been adopted by other organisations wanting to grow their apprentice numbers.
Pastoral Care Frameworks
- MTS wants good, local pastoral care provided to the trainers and the apprentices right from the point of the apprentice being interviewed
  - Coaches are identified right from the start
  - Coaches are the first pastoral point of contact and serve the apprentice and trainer well.
- MTS has a 6 monthly Quality Assurance Survey (QAS) to flag any dissatisfaction early.
- MTS provides pastoral care when a situation cannot be solved by the Trainer, Coach and Apprentice.
Government Compliance – a movement cannot be healthy when it is not compliant
- MTS liaises with all the relevant government departments to ensure that apprentices are trained in accordance with the law. MTS liaises with:
  - FairWork Australia, The Australian Tax Office, the Department of Education and the Australian Department of Home Affairs
- MTS Ltd also communicates all changes in Australian law to the movement.

Growing movement size

MTS does the following things to grow, or increase, the size of the movement:

Partnership Building
- We build new partnerships with like-minded friends who want to recruit more apprentices e.g:
  - We began a formal partnership with METRO (the apprentice training arm of the Presbyterian Church of NSW) in 2015. That partnership has helped METRO go from 5 apprentices in 2015 to 15 in 2019.
- The creation of new Apprenticeship funding models:
  - MTS Curriculum (Est 2012) – apprentices trained in accordance with an MTS approved curriculum can pay the apprentice the minimum wage for 3.5 days instead of 5 days per week.
    - The cost to the Christian Community is $25,893 instead of $36,913
    - 42% more apprentices can be trained for the investment
  - MTS Scholarship (est 2014) – apprentices doing nationally accredited study can raise support tax deductibly.
    - The cost to the Christian Community is $17,477 (assuming a marginal tax rate of 32.5%) instead of $25,893
  - Provision of High Quality Apprentice Recruiting Events
    - MTS Info Nights – across Australia
    - MTS Apprentice Recruiting Conferences (in 7 of the 8 states and territories of Australia)
  - The Training of MTS Recruiters:
    - Every time MTS runs an MTS Info Night, we seek to train 1-2 people to be MTS Recruiters themselves.
  - MTS Entrusters:
    - We encourage all apprentices and trainers to seek to become Entrusters
    - An Entruster is a person who has trained an apprentice that has gone on to train an apprentice.
  - Research Funding:
    - MTS engages qualified researchers every 5 years (aligned with the NCLS) to ascertain:
      - The health of the movement
      - And the blockages to growth
    - MTS also does internal research as required by the movement:
      - For example – we recently wrote a paper about the number of apprentices that continue onto college post apprenticeship
    - Internationally MTS grows the movement in the following ways:
      - We constantly supply information and resources to countries around the world.
      - We run an MTS International Conference every 4 years (aligned with the Olympics)
      - MTS people travel to various nations of the world to assist them in the establishment of indigenous apprentice training movements e.g.:
        
        Tim Thorburn – Zimbabwe and Liberia
        
        Ben Pfahlert – Chile and Cuba
        
        Eric Thurston – Canada and USA

T – the Training of Trainers

MTS Trainers are the “flywheel” of the MTS movement.

The MTS Mission statement is:

To raise up, support and resource MTS Trainers as they multiply Gospel workers through ministry apprenticeships

MTS Ltd seeks to do for Trainers what they cannot do for themselves. MTS Ltd does the following:

Raising Up Trainers:
- we exhort all past apprentices to become apprentice trainers through MTS Info Nights and MTS Recruiting Conferences
Supporting Trainers – we have invested significant resources to provide the following support:
- Book Publication:
  - “Passing the Baton” by Col Marshall (Matthias 2007)
  - “The Vine Project” by Marshall and Payne (Matthias 2009)
  - “All for the Kingdom” by Pfahlert & Omrod (MTS 2009)
  - “Passing the Baton Workshop” by Pfahlert (MTS 2010)
- The Director of Training (Eric Thurston) is a dedicated resource to assist the nation’s Trainers
- The Train the Trainer Course
  - Strand 1 – The Why of training Ministry Apprentices
  - Strand 2 – The How of training Ministry Apprentices
  - Strand 3 – Lessons from Experienced Trainers
  - Strand 4 – Delegation and Coaching
- Additional Resources may be found at:
  - http://www.mts.com.au/training-resources
  - http://www.mts.com.au/resources
Resourcing Trainers:
- Trainer Mentoring – we get experienced Trainers to mentor inexperienced trainers
- MTS Leaders Training Days:
  - These are designed to encourage both Trainers and apprentices

S – the cost of Sticking with people well beyond the apprenticeship

One of the most important things that MTS does is one of the most unrecognised things.

We stick with people well beyond their apprenticeship.

Our Mission Objective #4 is:

Retain and Grow (Develop) Trainers to be Entrusters

We love training apprentices. But we will not reach Australia (& the nations) with the Gospel unless those past apprentices do the 2 Timothy 2:2 thing and train their own apprentices in the future. If a trainer (Bob) has an apprentice (Ted); and Ted goes on to train his own apprentice (John) then we celebrate big time. In this example, Bob has become a grandfather of an apprentice. Bob has become an Entruster (as per 2 Tim 2:2).

We love it when people say, “I did MTS”. But we want them to say it at the right time:

“I did MTS” is an epitaph; not an apprentice graduation slogan.

We want people to train apprentices, who train apprentices, who train apprentices … we want people living the 2 Tim 2:2 life until their dying breath.

[1] These fees cover 30% of the annual costs MTS incurs. The remaining 70% is supplied by generous donors out there in Christendom.