In 1999 a friend introduced Anna Tyler to the idea of ministry apprenticeships, and now in 2024 she’s training a ministry apprentice herself as part of her role as an Assistant Pastor at Grove Church St Aidan’s in Hurstville Sydney.
Growing heart and conviction for ministry
As a young adult Anna began thinking about ministry. She’d always been involved in serving at church in a variety of ways, but as she took ownership of her faith in a new way in this stage of life, the question of how to do it well began to percolate.
When she was around 25, she moved churches as part of moving to a new place for her job in medical research and instrumentation. It was at this church, that Anna met her friend Sarah who was doing MTS at the time.
Anna shares, “I had been praying ‘God what do you want me to do with my life?’ Cause I had a growing heart and conviction for gospel ministry. I had been considering going to Bible college, but I very much felt the need to be better equipped.”
Enter MTS! Anna didn’t know anything about a ministry apprenticeship, but she became very curious as she saw and heard about it. She says, “So just in the context of getting to know her and becoming friends with her, I was saying to her, tell me more about MTS. What is that? What does it look like? What do you do? What are you thinking longer term?”
Sarah suggested Anna go along to the MTS recruiting conference to even further think through her questions, and so she did! There she met Sarah’s trainer, Kate, and things started rolling from there.
Anna reflects, “I thought, ‘Thank you God – this is what I’ve been looking for!”
In 2000, Anna started her two year apprenticeship through AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students) at Cumberland College which is now part of the University of Sydney.
Equipped for many ministries
After her apprenticeship Anna worked in university ministry for a few years. She eventually got married, and then had the joy and privilege of focusing on the ministry of motherhood for some years too! While she did this she was also always involved in parish ministry at her local church.
Anna’s career took her to work in the Christian not-for-profit space for a few years, and she continued to apply her ministry skills and experience through involvement in the informal training of some female MTS apprentices at her church.
In 2021 Anna and her family moved to St Aidan’s for church, and in 2023 the conversation about Anna formally joining the ministry team was started, and she came on board as a part-time Assistant Pastorin October 2023! A core part of her responsibilities is to be an MTS trainer.
For Anna the desire to be an MTS Trainer has been born out of her experience as an apprentice and her experience discipling young women through her layministry.
Anna explains, “Personally being an apprentice was a really formative time for me. Having the great experience as an apprentice of being trained and nurtured and cared for by an awesome trainer. In the couple of years as a MTS apprentice I grew so much in all areas through the input of my trainer. And I thought I would love to be a part of it at some point.”
Now in her role at St Aidan’s, she is doing just that with her apprentice Emma Yeo.
Grown under God as a trainer
Between doing MTS herself and now training Emma as she does MTS, there has been a long gap, however Anna looks back and sees how God has been preparing her and growing her in this time.
She shares, “I can see so many ways in which God has used the last 20 years to grow me. Under God I’m hopefully a better trainer now than I would have been 20 years ago. And that’s in God’s kindness growing me over that time.”
Anna had already been discipling Emma in her role as a youth group leader in 2023, so now it feels like an exciting extension of the relationship they had already been building.
There is great joy for Anna to walk alongside Emma as her sister in Christ! So far their training relationship has been going (formally) for six months. As trainer and apprentice they have a variety of structured and unstructured touch points.
Anna explains, “Every week just she and I sit down together in that very important “formal” training time where we spend time in God’s word and pray, we also talk about how things are going in the ministries that she’s involved in.”
During this time they also work through MTS training papers or read through a book recommended for apprentices. Anna sees this like a “little program we run through each week.” For her and for Emma this is precious time!
Anna and Emma also spend time working on how Emma is growing personally in her faith, reflecting on the ways in which God is challenging and stretching her and sharing in the joys of how she is growing in understanding theologically, in her gospel conviction and love for Jesus.
Not all Emma’s ministries are the same as Anna’s, but they do get to teach SRE together in a local primary school. Anna says, “That’s a great joy as well, spending time in the SRE classroom with Emma.”
Recently Anna did her six month review with Emma, which was a helpful moment carved out to enable Emma (and Anna) to reflect on Emma’s growth.
Anna says, “I asked Emmato tell me what she thought before I shared with her where I thought she had grown. And it was a great joy to hear the ways in which she felt she had grown – in her own faith, in her theological thinking and in practical ministry skills. It was also great to hear from Emma about some areas where she would like to keep working on growing in as well.”
Reflecting on her history and experiences with MTS, Anna shares:
“I’m personally really appreciative of the ministry of MTS. Praise God that he has been at work through MTS for many years in growing young people, particularly as a pathway to vocational ministry.
Doing an MTS apprenticeship doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to go into vocational ministry. But God will grow your heart for Jesus, refine you, sometimes in unexpected and challenging ways,and give you new eyes for ministry and that can be really powerful whatever the shape of your life looks like from there.
It’s a fantastic way to be better equipped for ministry and to have God use you for life long service of our Lord Jesus, to his praise and glory.”