What I have learned from doing MTS
Friday, 13 June, 2003
- Part-time people cannot do as much as full-time people;
- Single people have the freedom to do more than married people;
- MTS will be stressful to the marriage relationship and will make you work harder at loving one another and being faithful to one another;
- Making refreshments and putting out the chairs for Bible Study can be just as important as leading the group;
- Weekly one-on-one meetings with another person is the “bread and butter” of ministry (and therefore more people should be encouraged to do it, not just with MTS workers);
- You cannot effect change in other people's lives; only God can. He just requires you to be faithful to him and to the people you are meeting with;
- Being faithful to people is hard because you are sinful and people are sinful and relationships can be emotionally draining;
- Because people are sinful, people will always fail you. Expect this and also expect to feel hurt by it. However, because God is not sinful, God will never fail you;
- Don't expect people to turn up to things, even when they say that they're going to come. When they do, be thankful to God;
- If you're an introvert and you find relationships emotionally draining, it's okay to do less and take time in between meetings to recharge;
- You can do ministry if you're an introvert; being an extrovert is not a prerequisite. Many of the staff team are introverts but have developed very good people skills;
- Senior staff often do not know the answers;
- You may see the fruits of your labour, even if you've been working for a long time, but if you do, thank God for his great mercy in letting you see;
- Never think that nothing is happening because God is probably doing something but you just can't see it;
- The prime MTS worker prayer point is for holiness, godliness, and faithfulness in reading the Bible and spending time with God;
- Training and encouraging people to do ministry is very important;
- You have not failed MTS if you decide, at the end, that you shouldn't go into full-time ministry. Realising this also does not exclude you from going to Bible college;
- You have failed MTS if you haven't learnt anything about how to do God's work.
Posted in: MTS
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Sounds like a lot of lessons learned, possibly (probably) the hard way.
Some of those I’ve had to redo several times. Sometimes I think I have passed and then find I’ve failed that grade, again.
Shalom,
Jan
Um, Karen, I’ve always wondered what MTS is…?
MTS stands for “Ministry Training Strategy”. It’s like an apprenticeship in how to do Christian ministry. Ben’s doing it full-time with Evangelical Christian Union at the University of Wollongong (therefore he works mostly with students) and I do it part-time. It’s called different things in different parts of Australia. Sydney Uni has another name for it. But we just call it MTS because that was the name given to it when it was started up twenty-odd years ago at the University of New South Wales.