Becoming a Global Leadership Team

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our executive director. Mark, I can see you got a little color sitting out in the warm California sun this past week, I understand. We talked about it last time on the podcast. You were heading to a leadership team retreat where you guys were going to explore the question, “What does it mean to be a global leadership team?” You're back, you're tanned, you're fired up. Tell us about what fired you up.

Mark Prater:

I'm fired up.

Benjamin Kreps:

How did it go?

Mark Prater:

It went great! We had a really good retreat on a number of fronts. A lot of good strategic discussions that we could linger over. It was good relationally. We laughed a lot. Eric and Rich fly east for a lot of our retreats. So, we just thought, “Let us go to them this time.” And Eric Turbedsky pastors in paradise. That's what we kept saying throughout the entire week. So, it was beautiful in California. We sat outside as much as we could and did get some sun. But it was a wonderful retreat. And God was very good to us.

One of the things that we kicked around was with the number of churches potentially being added to Sovereign Grace from outside of the United States, what does it mean for us to be a global leadership team?

And we went into that discussion aware of our need for God's help. I told the guys, I'm aware in leading this discussion of my own weaknesses and finiteness. And this seems beyond me, and maybe us. And, so, we just took some time to pray and ask for God's help and God's wisdom. And we still feel that even though we had a lot of good discussion, we need God's help in knowing how to serve our family of churches throughout the world as a Leadership Team. But God answered those prayers. And as we dropped into the conversation, we kind of framed it in some ways where, you know, what does it mean for us as a global leadership team to lead in a way that we maintain our value of building relationally? Certainly as you have more churches, that's a good question to ask. How do we maintain our gospel centered values, our seven shared values? How do we do that consistently? And then how do we maintain theological consistency as more churches are added?

And as we talked about it, we, we just thought we're not as concerned about the relational piece. Not that don't want to keep our eye on it, but our guys are building relationally. And I really do want to commend the pastors here in the States who have been reaching out, whether that's informally or formally through Dave Taylor's Emerging Nations Team and just befriending pastors throughout the world. What you're doing, Ben, and befriending Dyonah Thomas in Liberia. What Dave York is doing and befriending Jeffrey Joe and Nilo in the Philippines. What Todd Peterson is doing, and befriending JP in India are just some examples. What Joselo is doing in befriending several pastors throughout Latin America. And those have been good relationships. Those have been strengthened over the last couple of years, our guys are excited about it. So I think that will continue. And thank you guys that are doing that both formally and informally. You’re just doing a great job.

So, as we talked a little bit more, dropping into a discussion about how we maintain theological consistency. And we had some great conversation around that. It's actually some specific ideas that came out of that discussion. We, at least for me went into the retreat, not thinking about it, and God really helped us.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's wonderful. It is beautiful to see relationships being created and developed and cultivated, not just here in the States, but across the globe as God continues to work in our denomination. So, what are some of the ways that you guys talked about maintaining that theological consistency going forward?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, we talked about several things. Obviously, the ordination standards that we have in place. And, obviously, we're going to vote on those again as a Council of Elders in November because they have been reworked to just map onto our new Statement of Faith more. And, so, if the Statement of Faith sort of is the document, the theological anchor for us, the ordination standards will help at least test guys in that area. So, ordination standards and ordination exams and doing those well will be one way to maintain theological consistency.

The second thing we talked about is sort of the category of theologically equipping pastors. And some of that is equipping young men for pastoral ministry. And there's a number of ways that we talked about, but there are more Pastors Colleges being established outside of the United States, either that exist or being established. Obviously, the one in Germany, for example, has been there for some time. Dyonah Thomas has his in Liberia. We’ve had one in Zambia for several years because of Wilbroad’s leadership. And then just this week—get it just this week—the Ethiopian pastors college started. They had their first day on Tuesday. And Jeff Purswell shared a picture of I think 11 students in that class. So really Jeff giving some of his time to equip the men who are leading those Pastors Colleges to lead them. In fact, I think next week, at the initiative of Dave Taylor, Jeff and Dave will be meeting with Markus Kniesel, who is in Germany, Dyonah Thomas from Liberia and Josh Pannell who is on point for the Pastors College in Ethiopia. It’s just a step in that process to equip those men. So that will help.

And then we just got into a conversation about ongoing education, or continuing education that would be maintenance, if you can say it that way, to just protect us theologically. And there's a number of ways that we can do that. But Jeff had this great phrase, “Producing theo pastoral resources.” So, theologically rich, pastorally minded resources that any pastor throughout the world in Sovereign Grace can read, obviously making sure they get translated into native languages. But within that, a couple of resources we talked about. We've got the journal that's being published that will serve our pastors. However, the primary aim of that is shorter articles that I think will serve and are serving the members of our churches. So, we thought, “What can we do to just to help our pastors more?” And we talked about producing resources like the old perspective booklets if you remember those. Resources that are a little bit more theologically rich and yet maintain a pastoral mindedness to them. We’re looking to produce those. I don't think we'll use perspective series as a name but looking to produce resources like that.

So, that's a step we're going to start working on and was one of the wonderful parts of the conversation that I didn't plan on. So, the next step is that Jared and Jeff and I, who are sort of the editorial committee for the Journal, will begin to sort through what topics we could use to write theo pastoral resources, like the old perspective booklets. And making sure that those get translated into native languages so they're accessible to men throughout the world. So those are just a few of the things that we talked about and actually got very excited about as a Leadership Team.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. That all sounds quite promising. And I think I can safely say that all of us serving in pastoral ministry and Sovereign Grace are looking forward to having more resources like that. Whenever we can get resources from Jeff, we are grateful men. So, thanks for spending time last week, laboring in the warm California sun and seeking to serve our family of churches. We appreciate the thought and the prayer and the commitment that went into that week. Thank you to the whole Leadership Team.

Also, I will say this, check this out!

Mark Prater:

Do justice, love mercy.

Benjamin Kreps:

Shout out to Doug Hayes and Covenant Mercies. This shirt is fire. I think you can get it on the website. Thanks, Mark. And thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see here next time. Bye for now.