“I see a profoundly important part of my task is raising up the next generation of gospel workers and increasing that. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t just have the same number of gospel workers after I depart, but we had twice as many? MTS is an indispensable part of that because it gives us that orientation for our ministry work.”
Andrew Sennett is an AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students) Staff Worker at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. He has trained many MTS apprentices in decades of faithful ministry.
Encountering Christ
In his first year of study in 1987 at the University of Newcastle, Andrew was struck with a sense of his own mortality after attending 7 funerals in 12 months. Having grown up in a Christian environment, he knew he wasn’t right with God. After spending 6 months reading the Bible cover to cover—twice—Andrew says he “met Jesus properly for the first time and God took hold of me”, so he gave his life to him!
The next year, Andrew started regularly attending church and joined the Christian group at Newcastle University. He was still eagerly reading the Bible and recalls being particularly struck by Romans 12. Andrew explains, “The first couple of verses there talked about giving yourself as a living sacrifice. And in the King James Bible, it called it your ‘reasonable service’. And that really struck me. From that moment, I began thinking about serving him with my life.”
Over the next few years, God shaped Andrew’s life toward ministry. In 1990, he attended ‘Club 5’—the very first spark of what are now MTS All For The Kingdom events. That same year, Andrew moved to Sydney, met his now wife and started his career as a CSIRO scientist. But ministry stayed on his mind. In 1995, he left work to do a two-year MTS apprenticeship at St Paul’s Anglican Carlingford trained by Andrew Graham, splitting his time between church and Macquarie University.
MTS showed Andrew that ministry was the right path. He studied at Moore College in 1998, then moved into university ministry, spending five years at the University of Newcastle through Hunter Bible Church. He and his wife eventually moved to Bathurst, where he still works on campus today.
Passing the gospel on and on
After over 20 years in ministry, with a keen passion to see more gospel workers raised up, Andrew is what we call an MTS Entruster. Simply put, Entrusters are MTS Trainers, who have trained someone who then goes on to be an MTS Trainer themselves.
Reflecting on his years in training, Andrew focuses on growing and mobilising people to pass on a culture of discipleship. He explains, “I don’t necessarily instil a training culture; I work to instil a discipleship culture. MTS emerges out of discipleship, and I’ve championed my apprentices to engage in personal discipleship with people. This means I’m working to raise up people who will be disciple makers themselves and who will continue that process into the future.”
This is seen through the legacy Andrew is leaving through his apprentices! They have taken many pathways, and it’s clear God is at work in all of them to further his kingdom.
For Andrew, raising up and training gospel workers is part of the call of the gospel.
He says, “God is on about making disciples around the world until Jesus returns. He’s building his church, and the way he builds his church is that in every generation, men and women are raised up to proclaim the gospel. For me, MTS is an indispensable tool in doing that. It’s a way we can assess people, and they can assess themselves. Then, in fellowship, we can send them out into ministry!”
Some of Andrew’s past apprentices include…
Richard Sweatman
MTS APPRENTICE: 2002-2003, IN 2025: Minister at HUNTER BIBLE CHURCH
Richard was Andrew’s first apprentice. He trained him while he worked with AFES at the University of Newcastle, in partnership with Hunter Bible Church. Richard has now been in ministry for nearly 20 years and trained apprentices himself.
Jonty Perrett
MTS APPRENTICE: 2013-2014, IN 2025: Staff Worker with FOCUS at Griffith University QLD
Jonty was the first person Andrew trained once he moved to work with AFES in Bathurst. In 2024, Jonty began training his first MTS Apprentice, Quintin.
Jared Killey
MTS APPRENTICE: 2016-2017, IN 2025: Bible Translator with Wycliffe in Vanuatu
Hosea Luy
MTS APPRENTICE: 2018-2019, IN 2025: Assistant Minister at St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong
Ryan and Emily Barcham
MTS APPRENTICES: 2018–2019, IN 2025: Ryan is studying at Moore Theological College while Emily is looking after their three young kids.