Taking the operational load off ministry training
What happens behind the scenes of an MTS apprenticeship? Not their ministry, but how do they get funded, do study and comply with needed regulations? They do it through the work of Brett Douglas!
Brett is our MTS Director of Operations. He is the one who thinks through and organises how MTS make the best use of the resources we have.
Brett first found out about MTS through his children. When they were very young it was MTS apprentices who had a big role in caring for them through kids programs, this piqued Brett’s interest in the movement right away.
He shares, “I thought it was such a great movement that was raising up gospel workers to do whatever work God put them in.”
From this experience, Brett and his wife became prayer and financial supporters of MTS and have been for over 20 years! So when the job of Director of Operations came up, Brett was excited to apply and be involved. He’s now been doing the job for over 6 years.
Brett says, “I aim to utilise our resources well, so we can do for trainers what they can’t do for themselves. Particularly in their place in the functional day-to-day operations and administration of apprenticeships.”
This operational resourcing spans from finances to regulation to broader administration. Brett’s work, along with supporting MTS team members Jodi Brooker and Rebecca Cockroft, really takes the distractions away from trainers and frees them up to actually TRAIN their apprentice with effectiveness and heart!
His day-to-day work involves a huge element of apprenticeship operation, including record keeping for apprentice support raising, apprentice scholarship payments, communicating compliance and admin updates to trainers, developing and maintaining systems and helping manage the financial resources of MTS in a wise way.
Brett shares, “If MTS didn’t do this work, every trainer and apprentice would be handling a lot more admin, financing and compliance. Like all the receipt of donations through their own accounts, all employment compliance, regulations for apprentices who are studying and a lot more.”
Effective ministry trainers are ones who are best freed up to train their apprentices to be effective gospel workers – not ones who are good at managing admin and operations. This is why what Brett and others in the MTS team do are a really important part of the MTS ministry.
Brett is excited by how MTS is able to directly impact trainers and their apprentices in such practical ways, and I hope you are too!
He shares, “I get real joy in seeing trainers and apprentices start their training journey. Quite often there is some uncertainty and apprehension about how it will go. Often it’s a question of – how are we going to raise the funds and manage the process? And I love working with them through clear systems and consistent reporting so they have the confidence to go through the process.”
Great systems? Confidence in the funding process? Empowered and free to focus on ministry? Tick tick tick!