MTS Apprentice Mark Mifsud

NewLife Anglican / MTS Apprentice Mark Mifsud

Where are you from?

I’m from the beautiful St George district, specifically in Penshurst. I spent the first 20 years of my life living there until I moved out to Teen Ranch.

Tell us about your family.

My background is Maltese (dad) and Polish/Brittish (mum), and I have a sister who’s 6 years older than me. We enjoy eating our pastizzis and pasta! My wife is named Jess and we’ve been married since 2020. She’s my best friend and my biggest supporter.

How’d you come to know Jesus?

In 2009 I started going to a youth group at Beverly Hills Anglican since my sister and cousins had gone there, and in my first term we were taken on an outing to a conference called “Live out Loud.” It was held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre; thousands of youth were present, Christian metal bands were strumming away at their electric guitars and a guy named Steve Chong preached passionately about living a loud life for God. At the time I was an 11 year old with lots of Sunday School knowledge, with all the God, Jesus and The Bible answers, but I wasn’t living for God in my day to day life. I was quite timid growing up and preferred to fit in with the crowd of primary school friends. I felt two faced, knowing I was a different person at church than at school with my friends or with my neighbours playing street cricket. But God in His mercy spoke through Steve Chong in the exact way I needed! The Holy Spirit convicted me that if I believed Jesus was my saviour, he also must be my Lord! No more living for self, I was convinced that Jesus must be the one I live for and surrender to. I believe the Lord rescued me that very night.

What did you do before you became a MTS Apprentice?

I completed the Year 13 Gap Year program in 2016, then moved on to my first job as a receptionist at Moore College for 2017. In 2018 I started working for Youthworks Outdoors running camp activities for a few months, and then moved into a job at Teen Ranch in July 2018. I moved out to live on site at Teen Ranch, got married in 2020 just before Covid hit, and worked a total of 4 years doing lots of ministry and running outdoor activities such as canoeing, abseiling, giant swing and archery. 2023 is the year we moved to NewLife church to start my new chapter of full time ministry.

What inspires you about this role?

God inspires me to be in this role since he does the work of saving souls for eternity through the preaching of the Gospel! I’m also personally very grateful for my Youth Group leaders who invested in discipling me. I know that approximately 70% Christians say they got saved before becoming an adult and kids & youth are at such an important stage of life where they need to build their lives upon Jesus. God saved me in my youth and I’m inspired by his amazing grace to pass on the good news of Jesus to the kids and youth God has placed around me.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I realised recently that all my hobbies revolve around games. Sport, board games and video games. I played a whole lot of cricket and soccer growing up and I love to watch the Australian men’s cricket team dominating test cricket. I’m a big fan of board games/card games such as 500, Settlers of Catan, and some other not so known games like Scythe, Cyclades and Radlands. I enjoy playing some video games too.
I enjoy going deep into theology and spending time going for walks with Jess. She gets the best out of me.

How can we get in touch?

I’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch via our contacts page.