The book that took 25 years to write

One of the great privileges of my Christian life has been to be able to observe "” at reasonably close range "” the development and growth of the Ministry Training Strategy (MTS). During my years on the campus at the University of New South Wales in the early 1980s, Phillip Jensen and Colin Marshall were just starting to formulate their ideas and strategies for recruiting and training the next generation of gospel workers (including one Gordon Cheng "” I'll come back to him in a minute).

Now MTS has grown to be not just a very important national training and apprenticeship movement, but one which is also beginning to have a significant impact overseas.

Over more than 25 years, Col Marshall's great work has been to develop and promote the strategy of recruiting and training men and women for gospel ministry. As National Director of MTS until last year, he has had to formalise and develop the methods that he and Phillip used almost intuitively in the early days, so that the ideas can be effectively transferred and implemented in many other contexts.

So it's fair to say that Col's new book, Passing the Baton: A handbook for ministry apprenticeship, has been a quarter of a century in development.

Passing the Baton is about ministry apprenticeship. It's about recruiting godly, ministry-hearted Christians, placing them under the guiding hand of an experienced minister, and giving them a two-year full-immersion experience of working for a church or a related ministry. Passing the Baton is a convenient handbook which introduces the what, why and how of ministry apprenticeship. It includes first-hand testimonies from trainers and apprentices, and loads of detailed information and practical suggestions about how to set up, run and maintain a ministry training program in your local church or fellowship. For ministers who see the need for such training in their churches, or for potential trainees who want to understand what apprenticeship is about, Passing the Baton is the place to start.

And what of Gordon Cheng? After many years of student and parish ministry, Gordon now works for Matthias Media, and worked closely with Col as the editor of Passing the Baton. Having learnt the art of recruiting and training from Col and Phillip in the early 80's, Gordon went on to recruit and train many others himself, 27 of whom are now in ministry leadership positions, including Col's successor as National Director of MTS, Ben Pfahlert.

The Ministry Training Strategy has been used by God tremendously. Hopefully with the publication of Passing the Baton, the blessing can be multiplied even further.

Ian Carmichael is a senior editor at Matthias Media and regularly contributes insights into new publications for Your.sydneyanglicans.net readers