VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, for any who are following the podcast, they would know that the last episode that we recorded, you were encouraging us on the topic of faith and the vital need for faith, especially in the life of a pastor. Well connected to that and just to continue in this vein, we wanted to talk today about the most significant expression of faith, which is the practice of prayer. And you had a quote you wanted to share with us to encourage us.

Mark Prater:

I do. I got thinking about this quote again this morning because I opened my inbox and there were just issues there and problems that needed to be solved and they felt beyond me. And I just thought, I've got to pray, got to pray. And we all feel that as Christians and certainly pastors face things like that routinely, just issues that you are needing to lead through or help people with and they feel beyond you. And isn't it good that we have a God who hears our prayers?

And one of my favorite expository commentators is Dale Ralph Davis, and he writes this in his commentary on the book of Judges. He says, this, "Yahweh's hearing, God's hearing, is the most crucial matter for all prayer. When God listens to our voice, we must never respond with a yawn. We will trivialize prayer whenever we forget the repeated miracle. It involves the gracious condescension of the kingdom of glory, who stoops down, stoops down to listen to our verbs and nouns, our adverbs and questions, our groans and tears." That's a wonderful quote because it reminds us of this repeated miracle every time we go to God in prayer; that he stoops down and he listens to us and then he answers our prayers according to his good plans and his goodwill. That is an amazing thing that we can't trivialize, that should never become routine. The fact that God hears us and acts on our prayers in just wonderful.

And I wanted to share that because as you mentioned Ben, we talked about the vital role of faith in pastoral ministry. And one of the wonderful expressions of faith is that of prayer; we are men and we're Christians, you're a member of a church listening to this podcast, you feel that need that we have when we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon you, as the Old Testament talks about. And we go to God and we go to prayer. It is a miracle every time we do because God hears us. It's amazing,

Benjamin Kreps:

Amazing. Amen. Great. Very encouraging. And as this podcast drops into whoever subscribes to the podcast in their email, it'll be coming the Monday before the Pastors Conference. So one week before the Council of Elders convenes the following Monday. And so as we prepare to gather together in Florida a week after this podcast drops, of course there's always a lot for us to pray about. So much need. We need God to work. You and the leadership team and everyone involved has worked very hard. You're putting forward your best effort. I'm confident of that. And yet at the same time, unless God meets with us, unless he moves, we labor in vain. So what are some things you would encourage us to be praying for as we head toward the conference?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, just with the conference, the Council of Elder's meeting just a week away, It's not just prayer, it's desperate prayer. It's Lord, please do what only you can do. Move in ways you can only move and work in ways that you can only work. And prayer is so important to so much of what we do in Sovereign Grace, I think to all that we do in Sovereign Grace, including our partnership. And that's what the Council of Elders meeting represents. It's an important meeting for our partnership. That'll be on Monday, November 4th. And so pray that God would give us wisdom, the pastors of Sovereign Grace, who join together to make decisions, to strengthen our partnership, pray that God would give us wisdom in those decisions. And as we debate through them and sort through them, ask the Lord to give us unity in those decisions so that it will best serve our churches and so that our mission together will glorify God. So that's on Monday, November 4th. Just a couple of ways to pray.

And then pray for the Pastors Conference, my favorite conference of the year. The leadership team and I love leading that conference because we want to focus on encouraging and equipping and caring for the pastors and wives and leaders from our churches who come to that conference. That is our heart to do, but we can't do that apart from the Lord's work, as I mentioned earlier. So pray that God would move in such a way that every pastor and wife attending, every leader and wife attending would go home encouraged and strengthened. And may we all go home with just a bigger vision of God and how good he is. Pray that all aspects of this conference would be used for the glory of God because he alone is worthy.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen, when we pray in that way and with great expectation. Looking forward to being together in Orlando very soon. Also, guys be praying for Mark in his role and the unique weight he carries as he leads that conference along with the rest of the leadership team. Before we end this conversation though, we wanted to talk a little bit more about the topic of prayer because before the podcast as we were discussing about what we wanted to talk about, really felt that the Lord was leading us in a specific direction and wanted us to zero in on the need not just generally for folks to pray, but pastors to pray. I mean all believers are invited to the great privilege of prayer, but for the pastor, there certainly is a unique calling to pray when it comes to our role in serving the church as pastors. In fact, we are called to the ministry of the Word and prayer, job description time. And so in that you want to encourage, before we're done here, you want to encourage pastors specifically about this area just a bit more when it comes to prayer.

Mark Prater:

And like you, Ben, I'm grateful the Lord led us this way. Wasn't our plan coming into this podcast, but I believe he's leading us this way to focus in on this prayer request and here's the prayer request. Father or Jesus, fill me with the Spirit. It's that reference to Ephesians 5:18, "be filled with the Spirit". Pastors know it's written in the imperative mood. So it is a command and it's written in present tense form. So it is an ongoing, daily, some I think, hourly need for us to be filled with the Spirit. And I think that's important for us as pastors because all that we do is work that only God can do. And you realize that, obviously, the longer you're in pastoral ministry.

So we need the Spirit to fill us because we need the helper's help. Jesus referred to the Spirit as the helper in his farewell discourse. We need the helper's help, divine help, in all that we do. And we need the Spirit's power. We need divine power to do what we can't as men. We're not that strong. We're not that wise, we're not that good, but the Spirit is, and we are to be filled so that we can receive divine help and divine power so we can serve the people of our church with in a way that strengthens them and in a way that brings God glory. So I just want to encourage guys; pray often, be filled with the Spirit.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah. Amen. I mean the reality is there are seasons in the life of pastor over the course of a life of ministry where I know what this is like. And I think some other guys can relate to this, where we're busy doing the work of pastoral ministry and freely, eagerly giving Jesus to the people that we serve; praying for them, preaching to them, while at times we can find our own souls dry, we can feel distant from God. And so your encouragement is most helpful especially for any pastors that are checking out the podcast that are like, yeah, I know Jesus is for the people I serve, having trouble feeling that personal experience with him in prayer. And so to pray and ask to be freshly filled with the Holy Spirit and to know the glory of a text like Psalm 145, which speaks of the greatness and splendor of the kingdom of God and the king overall, and in verses 18 and 19, the promise that the Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on him in truth, he fulfills the desire of those who fear him. He also hears their cry and saves them. I mean, what a wonder. I mean just apply that Dale Ralph Davis quote immediately in this text. But we do want to encourage pastors to feel and know and experience God's nearness in their work, even in seasons of challenge and critique and all manner of struggles that happen in pastoral ministry. We pray with the promise that God is near to us so near to us, he wants to fill us with His Holy Spirit. And so let that be an encouragement.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. It's one of the wonderful works of the Spirit to point us to Christ and to then treasure Christ. JI Packer has this great quote, I'm sure guys have heard it in his book, Keep in Step with the Spirit, which is basically that the Spirit works to shine a spotlight on Jesus and the Spirit never works in a way that says, look at me, come to me. He's like, no, look at him. Go to him, meaning Christ. And when our souls are dry that way we need the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Spirit gives us power and directs our attention to him in a divinely powerful way that we all need as Christians, but certainly as pastors who can be in a place that you just described so well.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes, I mean, as a pastor going to pray in a season of distance, dryness, that simple prayer, I'm confident God responds to "Holy Spirit, show me Christ, show me more of Christ", which we know the Spirit is most eager to do in our lives. And perhaps that is the simple prayer that is most needed in a season like that in order for us to experience that nearness with God, fresh revelations of the glory of our savior as we move in prayer in pastoral ministry.

So thank you, Mark. Thank you for your consistent example and encouragement when it comes to prayer throughout the years. I can't wait to gather with everyone who's coming to the conference and to have a front row seat, to experience God answering our prayers that we will be crying out to God for his help over the next days as we head toward the conference. So thank you, Mark, for your encouragement. Thank you everybody for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, as you well know, in Sovereign Grace, as pastors in Sovereign Grace, we are not professionals to quote John Piper's classic book on pastoral ministry. We do care about things like productivity and seeing success in our endeavors, of course. But underneath all of our efforts is this vital, irreplaceable, non-negotiable need for pastoral ministry. And that is the role that faith plays when it comes to our role as pastors. And you wanted to talk to us about that today.

Mark Prater:

I do. Faith plays a vital role in pastoral ministry, I believe, and I want to talk about this today because I've had some experiences recently where I'm carrying a couple of groups of men, pastors, on my heart that I just feel like the Lord wanted to devote this episode of the podcast too.

So here's the first group. I've had some anecdotal conversations with wonderful Sovereign Grace pastors recently, men who have been faithful in planting and building and leading their church for many years. And in talking with them, some of them are just weary, they're weary, they're tired, they love what they do, but there's just a weariness that can happen over time. And of course when you get to a weary place, you can ask questions of the Lord and just wonder certain things. Your heart is vulnerable, your mind is vulnerable, vulnerable to go certain directions that you just wrestle with the Lord with. And so I just carry those men in my heart into the podcast, the weary pastor who's been laboring faithfully for years. And I thank God for that group of men.

The second is just church planters. I was just in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the church you planted a year ago out of your church and interacting with, well, I was there at Redeeming Grace Church doing a seminar on the spiritual gifts and got a few minutes just personally with Jeremy Hetrick, the man you sent out. Ben. He has planted, done a wonderful job of planting Redeeming Grace Church. And he was just talking about some of the challenges of church planting for him. And he's responding to those well, but they're challenging and they're hard. I was just thinking about it and it made me think about our church planters like Jeremy that are in the early years of church planting and facing challenges that church planters face. No permanent meeting location, although we have a number of churches that have that challenge. You're taking, for the planter, a group of people, and you are leading and influencing and molding them into their own church. And certainly you have folks that maybe aren't Christians that haven't had a church experience, or maybe some people are joining you that have a different church experience and it's taking them and building 'em into a gospel centered church. That's not easy to do. And then of course, there's the regular preaching of God's word, which all pastors face that. But then in the church planting, you're also thinking about are we being faithful in our outreach efforts because we want to plant this church to get conversion growth and not transfer growth? And those are some of the challenges that planters face.

And then I'm thinking about the planters who are going to plant in the next two to three years in Sovereign Grace. I'm going to speak more about this at the Pastors Conference, but right now we have about 14 church plants planned for the next two to three years. I'll speak more about it, six in the US and eight outside of the United States. And those men right now are preparing for church planting. They may need to move. So they're looking for housing for them and their family. They're looking for a meeting location and the place that they're going to plant. They're hoping to build a church planting team and even wondering who will join this team if you're being sent from a church who will come with us and not knowing yet whether you've got a team, there can be a little bit of anxiety over those kind of things. These are some of the challenges that church planters face even before they officially start the church. I'm carrying church planters on my heart today, as well. And as I thought about those two groups, it is that vital role of faith and pastoral ministry that I just want to speak into during this episode.

Benjamin Kreps:

When it comes to starting something new like a church plant, a new church, a new role for a church planter, certainly there's a lot of excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, something new is being created, but a joy. And then a church is planted, or a pastor is pastoring a church for a long, long season, year after year. And enthusiasm and excitement cannot sustain a pastor. There are so many dangerous toils and snares that we must walk through in pastoral ministry. And so what's needed most is that dependent faith being sustained by the Lord as we cast ourselves upon him in faith. But this isn't just a good idea. This is informed by God's word. And so talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, God's word speaks into it and all pastors know that. And I just want to reference one verse that I've been thinking a lot about and meditating on and reading again, again as it relates to faith. And of course it's in Hebrews 11 and it's verse six in particular that says, and without faith it is impossible to please him. Meaning to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

And so for the weary pastor, for the church planter, we are in those moments when we are just thinking about anxieties or we have fears or we're weary, we're to seek God. And that actually pleases him when we do because our seeking of Him is an expression of faith. It's an expression of we believe that he exists and that he will help us. And it's that kind of faith even in your weariness and even in your anxieties, that God is pleased with, it actually pleases him, which I think is the ultimate aim in pastoral ministry. We do all that we do to please him, which is one of the reasons I think faith is so important in pastoral ministry. And I've just not only been studying that verse, there's just certain things I've been reading that I want to strengthen my own faith.

So I want to read some quotes that I hope will strengthen you as it relates to continue to grow in faith because it's vital for pastoral ministry. The first is from Charles Bridge's book, the Classic, the Christian Ministry. And if you're weak, if you're feeling weary, if your church planting team isn't put together yet, if you don't know where you're going to meet, when you form this church plant, if there's just some unknowns for you, those are wonderful places of weakness that God intends to use. And this is what Charles Bridges says. Faith links our weaknesses in immediate connection with the promises of almighty aid and enables us to say to the mountain of difficulty, who are thou? Oh, great mountain. Thus discouragements, properly sustained and carefully improved, become our most fruitful sources of eventual encouragement. While love to our work bears us on above all our difficulties.

And that is just so well said. There's a love for your work that a pastor has. It's one of the reasons I believe we're happy pastors in Sovereign Grace and that carries us above our difficulties. But in those moments of weaknesses, we can have faith that those discouragements actually that the Lord is going to use to be some of our greatest encouragement when we look back someday. That's a wonderful expression of faith.

The other thing I wanted to read is from one of Spurgeon's lectures to his students, and this particular lecture is entitled The Holy Spirit in Connection to Our Ministry. And the reason I'm mentioning this is because all that we do in ministry we can't do in man's own strength. It takes divine strength and divine power and we are in a work ultimately that we can't do. It's got to be God's work and God's doing, I mean conversion of souls, reaching the lost, for example, discipling people to grow in Christ. We don't have the kind of strength and power to do that, but God does. So an expression of faith is reliance upon the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so this is what Spurgeon says to his students. "Miracles of grace must be the seals of our ministry; who can bestow them but the Spirit of God? Convert a soul without the Spirit of God! Why, you cannot even make a fly, much less create a new heart and a right spirit lead the children of God to a higher, I believe what he means by that, Holy, life. "Without the Holy Ghost, you are an expressively more likely to conduct them in carnal security if you attempt their elevation by any method of your own ends. Our end, brothers, can never be gained if we miss the cooperation of the Spirit of the Lord." Isn't that well said?

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes.

Mark Prater:

We can't even make a fly. That's a good reminder. But the Holy Spirit does wonderful heart changing work either in conversion or growing someone in Christ. And then I just want to end with this, what I'm saying, with one more quote, this comes from a minister's fainting fits, one that I would highly recommend that lecture to weary pastors. And this is what he says between this and heaven. "There may be rougher weather yet, but it is all provided by our covenant HEAD," capital HEAD, "In nothing, let us be turned aside from the path which the divine call has urged us to pursue, come fair or foul. The pulpit is our watchtower and the ministry, our warfare, be it ours when we cannot see the face of our God to trust, yes trust, under the shadow of his wings." That's comforting. Yes, it's that's faith building and that causes us to seek the Lord in faith and that pleases him.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. That is rich encouragement. Mark. Thank you. And I'm sure there's some weary pastors that are checking us out that are grateful for your care as well. That verse in Hebrews, that is a verse worth taking unhurried time to meditate on and to draw the riches of the truth it contains because there's going to be so many times in pastoral ministry where you're going to feel perhaps appropriately or not, I feel alone, to feel like there's all sorts of forces arrayed against me. I'm doing my best. And to know that by our dependent faith in God in those challenging seasons and those moments of weakness, that we can please him. And so what is more sustaining for us than to know, even in the hardest moments, I can please him and to know he has promised he is pleased with me. I don't know what to do. I'm not sure how to proceed, but I can please him. And to know that through that dependent faith God has promised, be pleased and to meet us as we work through all of the challenges of pastoral ministry.

So thank you, Mark, for your encouragement. Thank you everyone for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 11:28, how in bringing his oversight to a lot of different churches that he faced the daily pressure or concern, or ESV says anxiety, for all the churches. And you as our executive director overseeing many dozens of churches and know what that's like. And so here's the question. When you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the concerns you have for Sovereign Grace, what are you thinking about?

Mark Prater:

Well, I do wake up in the middle of the night. In fact, just last night I woke up in the middle of the night and was thinking about several different things. So there's a list of things that go through my mind and I take those and try to turn them into prayers, which is what I did last night. One of the things that was on my mind when I wake up in the middle of the night is actually if God would allow Sovereign Grace to be a multi-generational family of churches, will he continue to provide young men and young women who will be faithful members of our churches, faithful to the gospel, faithful in obeying and following Christ, faithful to pursue Christ-like growth in their life and faithful to share the gospel with others? And how will the Lord do that?

And so I was just kind of praying out of Psalm 78:6 that talks about how one generation tells the next generation about the wonderful works of God in this case, the gospel. And then they can tell their children, just a reminder, of how God works through generations to pass that good news of Jesus Christ. And so that's what I was thinking about last night. That's what I was praying for, asking God to provide.

And even as where we're at at this point as a denomination where the founding generation is my age and will be transitioning at some point, and future generations, younger generations will be leading our churches, leading our regions, leading our denomination, I'm praying that some of those young men who are part of Sovereign Grace churches are compelled and even called to pastoral ministry. That's another thing that I pray for, just godly young men who say, I want to give my life to gospel ministry. That's the other thing that I do pray for. So that was on my mind last night and I was thinking about it. And of course, we don't want to just simply pray, although that's most important, I think in many ways, knowing that God hears our prayers, we want to take steps of faith to serve the next generations as well in Sovereign Grace.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I share that burden with you, Mark. And the past few months at our corporate prayer meeting, we have a monthly corporate prayer meeting; that is a category we've been praying for, not just the next generation at Living Hope, but across Sovereign Grace churches as well. And so one tool that we're using to help equip the next generation and to strengthen them as we pass the baton is the Relay Conference. So we had the Relay Conference this past January, this year actually, it seems maybe like it was longer than that. And the next one's coming up sooner than you might think because the next one's this upcoming January in just a few months. And so this is an opportunity to serve the next generation, the young adults in our churches in a wonderful way. And you wanted to talk about that as well.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's one of those steps of faith that we prayerfully and yet enthusiastically have created and put a lot of time and work into because it's just an expression of really investing into future generations in Sovereign Grace churches. And that's the Relay Conference as you mentioned. I thought it was a good time to mention it in the podcast. I was thinking about it last night, but also because it's January 2nd through fourth, and once we get to this time of year and we get near the holidays, it seems like time flies by.

And it's just a good reminder that if you're not registered for the Relay Conference, you might want to do so soon, certainly before January gets here, so that you can be there to attend. Now, Relay is a young adults conference. It really aims at 18 to 25 year olds, but last year we had high school students there. We had young men and women, young couples, married couples in their thirties. So that's really the age range that's there, the high school through thirties. And if you're in that age group, I really would want to encourage you to attend because it is a conference meant to serve you, your generation, and just to equip you and inspire you. I think part of the thing that I heard from last year's Relay Conference is that there were all these people in this room of the same generation and they realize, wait, there's other people like us who really want to take up the cause of Christ and to further the gospel, and we get to do that with a bigger group of folks than I realized before this conference started. That's just one of the effects that it has.

And as I mentioned, one of my prayers and your prayers, thank you for praying by the way, Ben, and leading your church to pray the way you do. But one of our prayers has been that God would give us young men called to Pastoral Ministry. So there are pre-conference sessions for those young men for the Relay Conference again this year, pastoral interest sessions, there's a few of those that begin on Thursday afternoon on January 2nd. And actually I'm happy to announce that Jeff Purswell is going to be a part of those this year. I don't believe Jeff was a part of those last year. So another bonus or incentive for young men who think about pastoral ministry is to register for those as well.

So right now we've got registration, I think it's around 330; people from 20 plus different states within the United States, but we also have registrations from Australia and Canada. So it's exciting to just begin to anticipate gathering with all those folks. And I just think it's going to be a wonderful conference. Anytime you've got CJ Mahanehy and Jeff Purswell, just those two alone preaching, it's going to be good. So they'll be preaching as well as Jon Payne and Jared Mellinger and Dave Taylor. And then there's several specific breakout sessions that are planned that will be done by Josh Bolunt who was there last year and taught, Walt Alexander, also Jace Hudson and Joel Shorey, just to name a few of the guys that will be doing breakout sessions. So I really want to encourage you to, if you've not registered and you're in either high school through your thirties to get registered before the holidays get here, and come prepared to just rejoice in Christ January 2nd through fourth. That'll be in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania at the church I'm at. We're hosting it at Covenant Fellowship Church.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Yeah, I was able to attend earlier this year at the first Relay, I'd encourage any pastor, but especially maybe even senior pastors, lead guys to consider coming with a crew, big or small from your church so that you can experience what God's doing among the young adults in Sovereign Grace because it is a wonderful experience to be in a packed room. I mean, the news stories, we hear them constantly about the decline of the American church, about how young people are growing up, graduating high school, leaving the church never to return. Well, by God's grace, we're seeing in many of our churches exactly the opposite. And God is doing something among the young adults in our churches. And so this is a wonderful resource to use along with what we're doing locally to serve the next generation of young adults coming through Sovereign Grace.

Dr. Carson, Don Carson has famously noted, speaking about a denomination that has moved away from biblical fidelity, that in the first generation they believed and preached the gospel. And the second generation, the gospel was assumed. And in the third generation the gospel was lost. And so God forbid that would happen to us, and by his grace it won't because as we seek to be faithful, he's going to meet us because he's faithful. And so Relay's just a wonderful opportunity to help invest in that next generation. So please consider coming; pastors, consider joining the young folks that are coming, and we look forward to all who will gather in January.

So thanks, Mark, for your encouragement and for your care for us and for the next generation in Sovereign Grace. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, one of the wonderful things that I enjoy in Sovereign Grace is not only that we are a family of churches that has distinct defined theological convictions and our shared values, but that we also have our shaping virtues, ethical entailments of the gospel that inform the way we hold those theological convictions, the way we live them out. One of those which has been a hallmark throughout our history in Sovereign Grace is the shaping virtue of generosity. And you wanted to talk about that shaping virtue, generosity in our churches, and you have a story for us. But first, talk to us about this wonderful shaping virtue.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a wonderful virtue I think, and for a number of different reasons, but it's language you just used, It is the fruit of the gospel. It's ethical entailments of the gospel that seem lived out practically in our lives. And it's one of those virtues of seven that we have that we hope and pray by the grace of God, mark our lives in Sovereign Grace churches. And we're not exclusive in that. Other denominations are generous as well because they apply the gospel to their lives. So these are not exclusive to our family of churches, but it's something that we want to continue to hold out as something we want; to be known as generous people in this case. And the connection to the gospel, there's several connections to the gospel, but one of them very clearly is in 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul is talking about generosity in chapter 8 and chapter 9, but he makes this connection, clear connection to the gospel in 2 Corinthians 8:9, but let me read it to you: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

And it's one verse that succinctly and accurately captures what God did in the gospel. That God the Father, gave his only son a rich, generous gift to us who came and gave his life for the poor, for us who needed salvation so that we might be rescued from the wrath of God because of our sins and receive forgiveness and have eternal life through faith in his finished work alone. And it's that understanding of the gospel and ongoing appreciation for what Christ has done that does stir the virtues that we've talked about in the past, the shaping virtues in our lives and that of generosity in this case in particular.

And we as pastors, since I'm going to speak to pastors for a moment, we as pastors are called to faithfully preach God's word. And where the text allows, if you're preaching through 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 for example, you want to call people to generosity, not just out of duty. It's what Christians do. It's not just the moral thing to do. It is the fruit of the gospel in your life, meaning that once you see how generous the father has been in the giving of his son, you want to be generous back to God because you're overwhelmed by his generosity. In that sense, we will never out give God, we will never give one of our children like He did in the giving of the Son.

So it's an important virtue not only in our churches, but I think for each individual believer because there for a couple of reasons, it allows you to participate in what God is doing in the advancement of the gospel in your community locally, through your local church and in your area by joining other churches and in Sovereign Grace in terms of what God is doing throughout the world.

But another reason I think it's important for us, there is quite a unique joy that you experience when you are generous and God wants us to experience that joy by being a generous people. So I wouldn't want folks to miss that. And I am a proponent of generosity for that reason, those reasons and many, many more.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent and amen. Yes, wherever there is stinginess lingering in the heart of a believer, I mean that is an issue of actually understanding the immensity of the generosity of God. It's a gospel issue. It's going back to the cross and observing the lavish, undeserved grace poured out on our lives and understanding that, I mean, how can we not then and with our money of all things give to the Lord and to his purposes. And you have a testimony that you want to share with us about a church that we partner with globally where God is doing that now. There are many churches in Sovereign Grace. So there's much generosity and much to talk about. But you wanted to highlight a specific story of what God's doing in a church in Costa Rica, I believe.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I do. And let me just give you the context of this story. I actually was going to talk about a different topic in this podcast today. But last night Jill and I had dinner with a couple who are very generous to Sovereign Grace and there are a number of reasons why I wanted to get dinner with them. I wanted to obviously thank them for their generosity to our family of churches. I wanted to talk to them about a new initiative of stirring generosity that I hope to introduce, I plan to introduce at the Council of Elders meeting in just about a month. I'm very excited about that. I wanted their input and they may potentially be involved in that. And I just wanted to talk about another new initiative that may not get launched quite this year, but maybe the following year because I think we need to trial run it first, just another way to stir generosity in our churches.

And so I just wanted to talk to 'em about all those things. But when I was thanking them for their generosity, I was trying to connect it to the effect it's having. And just that afternoon I had a Zoom meeting with a pastor, Rodrigo, Fournier who leads Casa 2:42, a candidate church in San Jose, Costa Rica, a wonderful church. And I was just asking him how he was doing and he said how the church was doing and he said, I don't know what's going on. I don't know Mark whether this is revival or not, but we have more and more and more people coming. He said, we've got to a place, we have two services and we've got to a place that people come and they have to leave because there's nowhere to sit. So now they're adding, they're talking about adding, a third service because the Lord is just drawing people and they're seeing new converts, people being born again, placing their trust in Christ and people being discipled in the gospel and they're actually having an effect there in San Jose.

They're also just beginning to church plant just south of San Jose. And it's all for the advancement of the gospel. So I was telling this couple that story because in their giving to Sovereign Grace, have given to that nation and helped the advancement of the gospel there. And I just wanted to connect through a specific story, their generosity with how the gospel's advancing. And I wanted to do that because when people give, think about this, when people give, we give in faith not by sight. In other words, we give sacrificially not knowing how God's going to provide for us, will he replenish what we're giving away. For example, when we give, we don't know exactly how God is going to use that money, we're giving in faith that it will lead to the advancement of the gospel. But when we hear stories and when we see how the gospel is advancing, then our faith, we realize in giving in faith, has been honored by God when we are now hearing about the advancement of the gospel.

And they said something to me last night that really stuck with me, which is why I'm devoting the topic of generosity for this episode of the podcast. They said, we love giving. Our motive in giving is really 2 Corinthians 8:9. We give because God's been generous to us in the giving of his son. But what's really helpful for us is after we give, to either hear those stories or to actually meet some of those people, and they've been to different contexts with me and they get to meet some of the people I've talked about and that makes a real difference in people's giving. They know them and they can see and they can hear how God's at work.

And so I just wanted to mention that because we as pastors, again, are called to faithfully preach God's word and call folks to give because that's the right thing to do. It's the biblical thing to do. We want them to have the joy of generosity. But what we also have to do is to strengthen their faith because they, again, they're given faith by telling them stories of how the gospel is advancing. And so look to do that in your local church, wherever you're seeing the gospel advance in your local church, tell the story maybe someone that was recently saved or how people are coming to some sort of course like the Bridge course or Christianity Explored, whatever you might be doing in your church because without their giving you couldn't have those events where the gospel is being preached. It's also why we try to get stories out and we do these quarterly Sovereign Grace mission videos. We're trying to tell stories of how the gospel is advancing so that people who do give to our family of churches actually see and hear stories of how the gospel is advancing.

And it's just something that you see in scripture as I read through Acts. It strikes me that Peter, he goes, directed by the Spirit, he goes to Cornelius, and his household is saved and it causes a little bit of a stir because Peter goes to Jerusalem and reports what's happened; that the Gentiles are being saved. And he got pushback from the circumcision group and he just told a story about what God had done in saving the Gentiles. And it became very clear after the hearing of those stories, what happened at Cornelius's house that they realized, oh, the gospel is not just for Jew but for Gentile. It's for every tribe, tongue, and nation. And so the telling of stories like that I think is just a biblical pattern that you see that we have an obligation as pastors to tell our people. And when you do that, it stirs even more generosity because people find a lot of joy in knowing that their generous giving is being used in the advancement of the gospel.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, excellent. One of the privileges we have as pastors is to exhort and encourage our people to be generous givers. I mean, giving generously unlocks a constellation of blessing and promises according to God's word. One of those being those testimonies of seeing how our faithful giving, perhaps we don't even think about it as much as we might, but just faithfully sowing, sowing into God's kingdom. And then to hear the stories about what God's doing. And certainly on those mission videos, I mean for all of the churches in Sovereign Grace, we hope everyone will be able to participate if they're not, in giving out of our budgets as we've agreed to in our partnership agreement, the 10% to Sovereign Grace, those videos we can show to our churches and say, you participated in this. You played a role in what God's doing and through Sovereign Grace and globally as well. So I just love hearing that partnership piece where there was giving that came that we participated in with Costa Rica, along with their giving and how God's used that kind of partnership in giving. I mean, the reality is in light of the lavish and generous grace of God compelling us to give, and then in light of on the other side of our giving, promises and blessing and glory to God, I mean, there is no downside. So win-win, all joy, all glory to God. And I'm grateful to hear that story and many other stories about generous giving throughout Sovereign Grace.

So thanks for sharing that testimony with us. Thanks for your encouragement, Mark. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, this particular podcast certainly is not an occasion for joy because as we were talking about before we started recording, as many who are checking out the podcast are aware, another recent moral failure from a high profile pastor is all over the news. And because you want to care for us and encourage us, you want to talk about that. So talk to us about what's going on here. Not the details of the situation, but how we can think about in response to it.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I don't plan to use the person's name, the man's name. I don't think that's necessary. It is though a sober warning for those in pastoral ministry. I think even for members of our churches, that we would learn from this. I think what can happen when a high profile pastor or well-known evangelical leader needs to resign because of a moral failure; we can shake our heads and think, oh no, not again, and sort of move on. And I don't think we're supposed to do that. We're to allow something like that to sober us, to warn us regarding our own vulnerability to the sin that still indwells within each of us. This man is 73 years old, married 40 years. And so it teaches you, what the warning teaches you, is that sin is no respecter of age or season of life, that we will have a battle with indwelling sin until we die or until the Lord returns. And until that day we are in fact in a battle.

And that's why I wanted to do a podcast about that, to strengthen us in that fight because we need God's help and we need one another to help us just fight that fight because we can't do it on our own, which I think is one of the lessons that you come away from this. It's very sad. He had to resign from his church and from a ministry that he had and other ministries he was involved in. And this is a man that had written, I think, well over 30 books if I remember right. So he had a wonderful platform and influence and needed to step away from all of it. Our founder, CJ Mahaney, sent a few of us a quote this week from D.A. Carson's book, How Long? Oh Lord. And in that book, he has a chapter entitled Illness, Death and Bereavement.

And this is what Carson says, "But I remember the fate of King Hezekiah when he was under sentence of death. He begged the Lord for 15 more years and received the extra span. And in the course of those 15 years, he blew his entire reputation for integrity in one incident prompted by foolish pride, nor was his reputation alone at stake, the bearing of his action had on the future of his nation was disastrous. That is why I decided there are worse things than dying. I do not know how many times I've sung the words, oh, let me never, never outlive my love for thee, but I mean them. I'd rather die than end up unfaithful to my wife. I'd rather die than deny by a profligate life what I have taught in my books; I would rather die than deny or disown the gospel. God knows there are many things in my past of which I'm deeply ashamed. I would not want such shame to multiply and bring dishonor to Christ in the years to come. There are worse things than dying."

And that is an appropriate sobering quote. There are worse things than dying. And I think it's why you find in scripture, especially as it's written to pastors, this admonition to watch our lives very closely, to pay close attention to ourselves. You see that in Acts Chapter 20 verse 28. This is Paul speaking to and writing to us, speaking to the Ephesian elders: pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. So that "pay careful attention to yourselves" language and then similar language when Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Then he says this, persist in this for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

We as pastors are to keep a close watch on ourselves. And that's not a one-time or a periodic event. We are to persist in this. We are to consistently and constantly keep a close watch on our lives. And I think we need that because the battle with indwelling sin is always going to be there for all Christians. And I think the way that Satan works, he likes to take down Christ's leaders in his church because that has a multiplying effect. And so we especially need to be aware of that tactic of our enemy because we don't only have to battle our own sin, we have to be aware of how the enemy's involved. So brothers, pastors, we must watch our lives closely.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It's a moment. Moments like these certainly are an opportunity for sober reflection about our own lives, but also for a great deal of humility. I mean, Paul says in one Corinthians, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall because there is no temptation that is not common to man. And so while we might wonder, scratch our heads and ask how did he get there, we're all capable of making a shipwreck of our ministries, of our faith. And so your encouragement is needed and appreciated. What are some ways that you would suggest to us about how to go about watching our lives?

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Here's what I would recommend, the things that I try to live in my own life; and all of those require the need of God and the need of others, to say it that way. The first is to remember that wonderful work of the Spirit to convict us of sin. So we must pray. We must ask the Spirit to help us there to convict us of sin. And that's important because sin works very subtly. I would guess that this man felt there were probably subtle, subtle, sinful compromises along the way. And we must be asking daily for the Spirit to show us and to convict us of sin so that we can not only confess that to God and receive forgiveness, but walk out steps of repentance. So there's a reliance upon God and upon the Spirit of God to show us our sin and convict us of sin.

Secondly is to just be in regular fellowship and accountability. What's interesting about the Acts text is he's speaking to the Ephesian elders plural. So obviously the admonition there to watch our lives closely is one that we have responsibility for individually. But they heard that as a group. And so I don't think it's too much of a stretch from the text to say by implication they have to help one another watch their lives, which is why biblical fellowship and being in accountability is so important that you don't jettison that because of the busyness of ministry. You make that a priority in your life. And one of the ways that Jill and I practice that is we have community group that we're involved in twice a month, and then the men in that group meet twice a month for fellowship group. And those are contexts where we can talk about our struggles and our temptations and where we need the help and prayers and counsel of others.

I would say this, as men who are called to faithfully preach God's word, that should include where the text allows you to do that, to preach on the doctrine of sin. And that must begin by preaching that doctrine to ourselves so that when we step into that pulpit, we need that sermon. We need that message as much as the people that we care for need it because we need the word of God, which is sharper than a two-edged sword to help us see what's really going on in our hearts and for the Spirit to show us as well so that we can access the grace of God that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I would just say one other thing is just continue to look at the cross and to be affected by the glories of Calvary, as we've said in the past, that Christ died a horrible death and he paid the greatest price for all of our sins. And that kind of vision of the cross, that view of the cross, that grasping of the cross not only humbles you, it will want you to be sure that you are watching your life, so that you're even honoring the death of Christ by keeping a close watch on your life. So just a few thoughts that I think men already know that are listening to this are pastors, members, men and women of our churches that are listening to this, but they're good reminders at a time like this.

Benjamin Kreps:

Well, it's always good to stir faithful minds up by way of reminder. And so your encouragements are helpful and needed. I was listening to Kevin DeYoung's podcast this morning, actually, and he and the guest he had on, they were discussing, I found this a helpful contribution in light of the recent sad story about this pastor, about how even just a more perhaps organic reality of just living a life of hospitality as pastors, having people in your home, observing your life, family, opening up your life to others is, whether it's like you were talking about in a time where men are in the community group meeting together and specifically talking about stuff, but also just generally living life in the open with others. I mean, in the rigors and challenges of pastoral ministry, sometimes guys can be tempted to isolate and begin to spend more time alone. And that's always going to be a dangerous place for us. We need others, like you said, and more than anything, we need the Lord in all of this.

So Mark, thank you for your care for us. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, you've talked in the past on a podcast about how you lead a Faith and Work group at Covenant Fellowship where you seek to serve Christians in the workplace and you're just about to start another iteration of this Faith and Work group. Why do you do this group?

Mark Prater:

Well, actually this week I start another Faith and Work group study and I went back and looked, I think this is starting the ninth year. It might be the 10th, but I think it's the ninth actually, because I'm old and don't remember. I tried to find when did I start this thing and this will be the ninth year. I started a Faith and Work group at Covenant Fellowship simply because there are Christians, members of our churches, who face real challenges in their vocation in the workplace day to day. And I was somewhat aware of that coming into ministry. I worked for 14 years with a pharmaceutical company before entering into pastoral ministry. So I carried that burden into ministry with me and eventually wanted to help folks face some of the things I faced, which can be ethical, moral, and obviously all those issues are rooted in good theology and using our Bible. That's why I started it. I'm so glad I did.

The purpose of our study at Covenant Fellowship is, we actually wrote this out as a group; one is to study the Bible and resources that give us a biblical worldview that help us address issues Christians face in any vocation in the workplace. And then secondly, it's a context to create biblical fellowship over those issues. And we've actually had that experience where someone needs to give a bad evaluation to an employee or someone in our church has got their own bad evaluation or they're facing their business owner and they're facing decisions where they may have to lay someone off. All of those kinds of challenges. And then more recently, challenges with AI and how does a Christian think about that ethically? So there's just been really good fellowship during our study as well.

It's also a context where I can cast, through the Bible and book study that we do, but also in seminars that I do, just a biblical vision for vocation that you see in scripture. And so what the effect that has is, it keeps work from being just this daily grind actually. It's much bigger and greater in God's understanding of work and vocation since he created work and really in doing faithful work as Christians, we're accomplishing his sovereign will in many many ways. So those are just some of the reasons why we do it.

Now I bring this up. I want to be very, very clear. I don't think churches have to do this at all. It's just a practice and something that I love to do. So I wouldn't want any pastor or member listening to this thinking that a church has to do this. Faithful churches will not have this kind of study or ministry in their church. But if you're interested, I'm glad to share resources because what I found, the way we've just said it to our churches, this is for any Christian in any vocation so that it's not just limited to business men, for example.

And we've just found a diversity of people in different vocations who are all united in Christ helping each other with the challenges that they face. And I think it's more fruit for us just beyond the weekly Bible studies that I'll do. And I usually do about a six week stretch, four to six week stretch, take a break, start another one, we'll choose a book and read it. And obviously I've got scripture we're reading throughout, praying for one another. I've also done a couple of, I don't know, three or four seminars over the years, which are more teaching moments and then typically after that doing a Q and A or some sort of small group discussion. So that's kind of what we've done so far. And because we're starting another one, I just wanted to speak about it again for consideration. Again, this is something a church doesn't have to do, but I've found it to be helpful in pastoring the people of Covenant Fellowship.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I so appreciate your example on that. There just appears to be no end to resources to strengthen, especially, people in full-time pastoral ministry working at churches. And I think a lot of our folks can sort of look at like, oh, you're doing the real work and we're just over here grinding and trying to make a living. And so what you're doing with that group is you're really, you're dignifying, you're honoring, you're seeking to serve people in your church who, in fact, almost none of them will ever be in full-time pastoral ministry. Most of the people we serve never will be. And so that kind of thoughtfulness I think is wonderful and I appreciate your example on that. So what do you do in the group? What's your plan maybe for the upcoming group?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, actually what we do is we have a book and we read the book together. I typically read out ahead and create a weekly curriculum that includes scriptures that they're to read and then the chapters for that week. And then each week I create discussion questions, send those out ahead of time just to give us a basis for conversation. Sometimes we get through the questions, sometimes we don't. We veer off and have some really good pockets of fellowship and conversation.

Just some books to recommend. If you're just getting started with this, Dan Doriani has written a book called Work: Its Purpose, Dignity and Transformation. You used that word dignity just a moment ago, Ben. That's what scripture does with work. It dignifies work because of how God understands work and that includes work of any kind; the stay-at-home mom to the person who works at the 7-11 to the person who's a CEO at a major organization. All of that work is dignified in God's sight. So that's a great start. If you're looking for a book to start with, that would be the one I'd recommend. A good biblical theology actually of work.

He also has a newer one and actually that's the book we're going to read beginning this week called Work That Makes a Difference. And he talks about why is work good and what makes it good. And then in all of that, his thesis, he unpacks challenges that Christians typically face in the workplace. Like what if I'm in a difficult job, do I stay there or not? What's God's will or what if I'm working for a difficult boss, love my work, but it's a difficult boss, how should I think about that biblically? And he does a really good job of addressing those things.

Just two or three more books I wanted to mention real quick. What I'm learning is people are facing the challenge of AI more and more. And I've mentioned this book in a previous podcast, but I found this is the best so far is God, Technology and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke. It's an excellent read and a good biblical treatment of how to understand technology. A book that's been around a long time, redeeming. Oh good, you got it right there. Excellent on cue. I didn't know you had that. That's funny.

Redeeming Productivity is also a wonderful book. If you're looking for something after reading Doriani and you want to give your folks a reformed worldview, for example, there's an older book called Creation Regained by Albert Wolters, and it's just presents a wonderful, reformed biblical worldview, which is basically creation, fall, redemption and consummation. But he unpacks it in a really good way.

And there's one other book called God and Money. We had a wonderful conversation over that book just a few years ago, and it actually stirred a lot in a number of people. One, in creating more desire to be generous because the book is about living on a more limited, make all you can, but live on a limited budget so that you can give money away. And I actually had a member of our church come up to me recently and he said, I've been thinking about that book and what I want to do, Mark, is talk with you about starting a group of guys that have means that I know both in the church and outside the church, I'm wondering if this could maybe even be something for other guys in Sovereign Grace to join us for support. And we have a retreat once a year, get together, we pray for one another, we talk about what we want to do in terms of our own living limitations, in terms of a budget, but what we want to give away.

So that's just one of the fruits that have come out of this Faith and Work group at our church. So I'm not promising that everybody's going to be generous in that regard, but I'm just grateful that when you put biblical tools in the hands of Christians who are in different vocations, some who have means, they, by the grace of God, just take it to heart and it's a reminder of just the joy and privilege we have to pastor the people that God has given us in our churches. And it is just an amazing thing to me, that one conversation is like, all glory to you, oh Lord, and isn't your grace amazing? And just want churches to enjoy that kind of interaction with their people. So something to consider.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Yeah. Isn't it wonderful that in the kingdom of God there is no meaningless work when done for the glory of God, you can glorify and please the Savior through cleaning toilets or cleaning up after in the aftermath of a sick toddler. All of it matters to God when done for his glory in the grace he provides. And so what a privilege it is for us as pastors to be able to invest into the people in our church where they are each day working at their jobs and their vocations of various ways. So thanks for the idea and for your example, Mark. Thank you all for watching the podcast, checking it out. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, when I was growing up, and some people who check out the podcast probably had this experience to of playing the game, maybe watching the TV show, Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? Well, we're playing, where in the world is Mark Prater? Because you're on the move and you are not at home, you're in a hotel room. Where are you?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I am in Bozeman, Montana. It's a beautiful day here in Bozeman. We're recording this on a Saturday and this podcast will drop into the inbox on a Monday. Let me tell you why I'm here. I was actually out on the West coast already this week in LA for a leadership team retreat, and I was asked by Greg Dirnberger, the regional leader in this area, if somebody from the leadership team could come this Sunday and install Ron Boomsma as the senior pastor and elder of the church here in Bozeman; Emmaus Road Church. Greg is on sabbatical and he felt like because of what the church has walked through, they were without a pastor for a couple of years, it would be good just to have somebody come from the leadership team just to encourage Ron and Tami, but also the church as well. And I thought, well, I'm already on the west coast. I can pop up here.

And so I made that call and so that's why I'm here in Bozeman, and maybe some of our pastors listening didn't know that Ron Boomsma is in Bozeman. He is the new senior pastor of Emmaus Road Church in Bozeman. The church has been a part of that process, so I'm not announcing anything that's not to be kept confidential. The church does know and tomorrow's going to be a great day for them. You might remember Joel Carlson led that church and then went to serve another church that was outside of Sovereign Grace and transitioned therefore out of Sovereign Grace. They were without a pastor for a couple of years and Ron and Tami heard about it and prayed and felt like the Lord was leading them here from Pasadena. You might be wondering what's happening in Pasadena? Well, Tim Owens who graduated from the Pastors College just a few years ago and has been there on staff in Pasadena, stepped into Ron's role.

So, two transitions have happened; obviously one in Pasadena from an older pastor to younger. And then in this case in Bozeman, from region to region from the West region to the Midwest Northwest region. And I wanted to mention it because it not only explains where I'm at and why I'm in this hotel room, I just think it illustrates how we want to continue to develop our partnership among Sovereign Graces churches. That as transitions occur in the future, we've got to help one another and share people and pastors with one another so that we can do effective transitions that serve our local churches and mostly give God glory. We want to do God glorifying conversations. So I'm very grateful for the sacrifice the Pasadena Church is making, the sacrifice the West region is making, the sacrifice that Ron and Tami personally are making to move here to Bozeman and to begin to pastor this church. And the church here is very excited about Ron and I just can't wait to do this tomorrow. It's going to be quite an honor.

Benjamin Kreps:

That is deeply encouraging. I mean, it is an compelling example that Ron is setting for us. He could very well have just lived out his days in pastoral ministry in beautiful California, and not necessarily early in life, but a little later in life, to pick up and move to Montana and to serve that church, that is a sweet sacrifice, I'm sure that pleases the savior and it's not the only one. There are all kinds of examples of this kind of sacrificial love for the local church, whether you have Scott Crook coming from Chaska to serve at Ed's Church as he plants in Italy. And here now we have Ron coming over; or Ken Mellinger leaving Living Hope, going down to Texas with Jon Payne. It is the older pastors in Sovereign Graces once again are setting an example for us that I'm deeply grateful for. And I'm sure tomorrow is going to be a happy Sunday in Bozeman, Montana.

But you are in Bozeman because you come by way of California. You were in California last week at the latest leadership team retreat. Tell us about what happened there.

Mark Prater:

We had a great retreat. It wasn't all of the leadership team, it was myself and Jeff Purswell and Jon Payne, Jared Mellinger, and Dave Taylor flew over from Sydney, God bless him, which is one of the reasons we do it in Southern California. It's just one leg of a flight for him. And we just had a wonderful retreat. God just blessed it. It was a retreat I've been praying for quite a bit and I'm just going to tell you some of the highlights. I don't have time to go through all of them or this podcast would be too long. We had a full, important, I would say one of the most important agendas we've had as a leadership team.

So here's just some topics that we talked about. First, church planting. The Church Planting Group and Joel Shorey, our new Director of Church Planting, just had a retreat last month. And so Jon gave us an update on that. It's just so encouraging to see what work our church planting group is doing and now the leadership that Joel is bringing not only to them, but to our church planting efforts. And that's just very timely because we have six to seven, I think, church plants planned here in the states over the next two years. (Ben: "let's go") And then another 10 outside the states over the next two to three years. So in the next two to three years, we're going to plant somewhere between 16 and 17 churches if things go as planned. Again, not wanting to be presumptuous upon the sovereignty of God and part of the reason we wanted to talk about it at the retreat, we're asking are we prepared for that? And that would include financial preparation. Do we have enough resources to fund the church plants we want to fund both here in the states and globally.

And it gives me a chance to mention the Council of Elders Delegates. Just a couple of weeks ago, received some information about our meeting in November, and one of those was a new business motion from the team. And if you've read it in the rationale, we're proposing that the Council of Elders approve making a division between the current church planting fund that the Council of Elders established several years ago, and divide it into a US fund and a global fund because it helps us to use our money more strategically. It helps us to track how we're using it more effectively and it helps us on the leadership team in particular and those in different parts of the world, including the states, to request funds and they know how much they've got to work with. So, just a number of reasons. We'll talk about that at the Council of Elders and potentially that will be approved by the Council of Elders. We'll see.

We also talked through our church adoption vetting process. We've just looked back and thought there's some things we can learn as we go to adopt churches. It seems like there's some things that we can grow in. And so Jon and Dave brought a whole proposal on how to improve that. I was very excited about what they're proposing. So we're going to work through that just a little bit more. It may require some BCO amendments in the future. My guess is it probably will, but looking to just make that process a little bit better so that we're just being wise in the church adoption process.

We also planned, initially anyway, the February leadership team regional leader retreat. That's the one retreat we do as a leadership team every year where we have the regional leaders join us. That's a very strategic time. And so we've got to do a lot of preparation beforehand. And I really like the plan that we've got in place and you'll hear more about that obviously on future podcasts.

We did a discussion about the Relay Conference in 2025, just doing some additional planning, including a pre-conference meeting for young men aspiring to pastoral ministry that most likely will involve Jeff and I can't wait for Jeff to just be exposed to them, to those new men, those young men aspiring to ministry.

There's a number of new initiatives that many of the leadership team guys have been working on that we discussed. I don't have time to discuss 'em now, but most of those will be talked about at the Council of Elders meeting. So if you're not a delegate and you want to hear about 'em, come as an observer. We would love to have you at that meeting. You'll hear about those.

Then Jared gave us a publishing update, really a publishing plan over the next year. It's really exciting to see what is about to be released and what's in the works that will be released over the next year in the categories of the Journal. In fact, next month, October, the next edition of the Journal with the theme Books That Have Shaped Us, I can't wait to read that, that'll be released. And then the category of Theo-Pastoral resources, we're just going to use the old name, The Perspective Series from guys have been around some time. Those are written at a little more theological level and we're about ready to release that first one; Who Governs the Church, you'll hear more about that. And then books we're just self-publishing. In fact, there's a new one up that Jeff has written. It's a chapter that was in a book, that honored Wayne Gruden. We now have permission to use that. And so that is the republishing of that chapter. That's new on our website. But also a number of other things. I think 10 to 12 other projects that are in the process of being published right now. So you'll hear more about that.

And then we planned the 2024 Pastors Conference and we're planning on that and the 2025 Pastors and Leaders Conference. So we hope to announce at the 2024 Pastors Conference that the 2025 conference will be a pastors and leaders conference, where churches can bring leaders, members of their churches, to this conference. And we're tailoring it that way with a number of different breakout sessions that will serve those members who serve our churches. Things like small group leadership and things like parenting and marriage. And there's just a whole list of those. So we did some planning for that too because we hope to announce it with specific dates at the end of the 2024 conference because people need to take time off work in 2025. It's good for them to know ahead of time and then open registration as soon as possible. So those are just some of the things that we talked about this past week in Southern California.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Well, thanks for the update. Thank you for sharing about the hard work you guys were getting done at the retreat. At least it was in beautiful California. If you're going to work hard, that's a great place to do it. So, thank you, Mark. Thank you for all the guys on the leadership team, for your thoughtful and wise leadership and investment in us. And thank you for checking out the podcast. And so we'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, anybody who's been following the podcast or what's been going on in Sovereign Grace over the last several years knows that God has increasingly given us just a wonderful opportunity to partner with the nations and there have been many fruitful partnerships that have been developing, growing, being solidified, and you have some updates for us about some of the things God is doing through our partnerships globally.

Mark Prater:

I do. In fact, I had to sort of keep this list short. I had to shorten this list because there's just a number of exciting things that God continues to do through our small family of churches throughout the world as he does in other denominations. But we're grateful that he's doing 'em in Sovereign Grace and we get to participate in the advancement of the gospel, the equipping of pastors, the planting of churches throughout the world so that more people will come to know Christ so that the nations will be discipled and Christ would receive more glory. So let me just run through a number of these real quick. We have an official new partner church in Italy, they have their website up, which is all in Italian. So I'm going to try to pronounce the name of this church.

Benjamin Kreps:

This is going to be fun.

Mark Prater:

Alright, so I apologize to Ed and Rocco if they're listening to this or any listener or reader of this podcast who speaks Italian. I must apologize, but here I go: Chiesa Grazia Sovrana in Torino, Italy is our new church being planted by Ed O'Mara and Rocco Dahlia. If you go on our Sovereign Grace website and you go on the churches page and you scroll down to Italy, you can click on a link to their website. It's all in Italian, but there is usually a translation option in your search that you can hit and it'll translate into English. It's just wonderful to see though, a new partner church there in Italy.

Also, Jacobis Aldana, who is the senior pastor of Iglesia Biblica Soberana in Santa Marta, Columbia, has officially completed the ordination process. He will be set in place and ordained in a service next month in October. And when he signs the Emerging Nations partnership agreement, we will have our first partner church in Columbia. They're in Santa Marta, Columbia.

In terms of training pastors, young men to be future pastors, let me just give you three exciting four exciting updates. First of all, Mexico has started a pastor's college. They just welcomed three new students that are beginning classes now, all from three different states in Mexico, which prepares the nation of Mexico to continue to reach out with the gospel throughout their country.

Jeffrey Jo is starting another Philippines Pastors Institute on September 21st that has 14 students in it. Now, they don't meet throughout the week. They meet on Saturdays for a complete day. I think they do that monthly or something like that, I could have the schedule wrong. But the whole purpose is to invest into men who are either serving in churches or will plant churches. And with this class in particular, they're looking to invest in the Mindanao region of the Philippines.

Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia will graduate their second PC class comprised of nine men on September 15th. So that's just wonderful to see the fruit from that particular pastor's college. And here in the States, I think it was last week, the US Pastors College kicked off, and we have nine men from two different nations, the United States and from Australia. Again, those men will be deployed into the states and into Australia for the purpose of pastoral ministry and advancing the gospel. So those are just some equipping categories in terms of just mission.

A couple of other updates. Pat Tedeschii, who is a pastor at Greentree Church in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, will be leading a short term missions trip to London, England with a group of folks and they'll be working with Oasis International Church, a church that Greentree has partnered with for well over 18 years. And the purpose of that short-term mission trip is to reach out to that area of London with the gospel. And there's many Muslims that live in that area. So there'll be a Muslim outreach in particular. So pray for that particular short-term mission trip, again, September 13th through the 23rd.

And I just got a wonderful video from Jeffrey Jo in Manila, Philippines of a one year celebration video of a new church plant that he planted a year ago in Dasmariñias City, Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministries was sent from his church, and that church will shortly, I'm sure, become a candidate church in Sovereign Grace. And to see how the church has grown in a year, just from the pictures I saw was truly amazing. God is blessing that church plant in that part of Manila. Dasmariñias City is in the metro area of the Philippines.

So just some mission updates. A lot is going on. I can share more. But first of all, let all of this humble us that God would use our small family of churches to advance the gospel. We're not worthy of that and he could do it without us, but he's choosing to use us. So may it humble us, may all that we do bring God glory and may all that we do be in dependence upon God and his wisdom and his power as we continue to reach the nations with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It is humbling and it is gratifying to see not just simply that we're partnering with pastors and other nations, but there's this cross-pollination going on that's just the fruit of our relational way that we pursue ministry together. We have Australian men in the States at the PC. We've got us guys planting a church in Italy with help from Rocco and so forth. So it is wonderful and gratifying to see God using our little denomination in wonderful ways.

So those are all very encouraging updates, but being in partnership also includes taking on burdens and embracing hard things that our brothers and sisters are going through around the globe. And Ukraine is an example of that. And you want to give us an update about what's going on in Ukraine?

Mark Prater:

I do. I've mentioned this before in a previous podcast and maybe our listeners are familiar with the Ark church in Dnipro Ukraine led by Michael Ostanin. And we continue to send him funds for the relief efforts, the war relief efforts that he's doing there in Dnipro. As long as we have money designated for that, we will continue to do it. He just sent several of us an update last week, and this update came the day after Russia's largest missile attack on Ukraine since the war started. As Michael says in his email, that one day 127 missiles and 109 drones hit different parts of Ukraine. Some of those were power plants. And so he was saying in Nebra, they were in a blackout for 16 hours. But he writes this, he says, "we continue to minister to hundreds of refugees giving them food and preaching the gospel because Russian troops are occupying more and more territories. Hundreds of people are evacuating to our city every day and asking us for help." And on this particular day, he knew after that missile attack that more would be coming and that's been the case. And then Michael just ends it with this. He says, "the scale of grief and suffering of people overwhelms us, and the faithful Lord cares for our souls with his grace and mercy and does not allow us to despair." And then he just thanks us for our support and for our prayers. And I just thought, oh, my life is not like that. My ministry world is not like that. Here is a man ministering in difficult circumstances, kind of hard to imagine what he's facing day in and day out. And yet he remains faithful. He remains faithful. The members of his church remained faithful. He mentions in this email that they've sent people from his church to be chaplains at the front lines. They'll send them in, they'll care for soldiers, they'll make it back. It's that kind of faithfulness. It's that kind of risky faith. It's that kind of sacrifice that marks what he's doing. And he's remaining right there at his post. Of course he's grieved as he says, but he is strong in knowing what God has called him to do.

So I just wanted to mention that because if you have some heart to give to the relief effort there in Ukraine, you can make a contribution designated for Ukraine to our Europe Development Fund, and we will make sure that that gets to Michael Ostanin. As long as we have funds, we will send them along to a man and a church that are doing good gospel work in difficult circumstances. So thanks for praying for them.

Well, one other thing as we end this global update, just got to thank God for Dave Taylor, our Director of Global Missions. Also want to thank God for our area leaders like Rich Richardson who's doing such a great job in Mexico and Latin America, Ed O'Mara in Europe, who I mentioned before, Bart Lipscomb in Africa, Greg Dirnberger in the Asia-Pacific region. And Dave leads those men and he leads Sovereign Grace globally so well for us. So just thanking God for Dave and each of those area leaders and just ask the listeners that you would pray for each of those men; may God continue to give them grace to do, to really respond, to all that God is bringing our way for the glory of God.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes. Amen. I trust that many of us checking out the podcast, we'll be praying for Michael and the brothers and sisters in Ukraine. I think something that we are wise to make sure that we don't miss in this partnership with Ukraine is that they have much to teach us about suffering and faithfulness. And so we thank God for you, Michael, and for the brothers and sisters there. We thank God for you, Dave, and your hard work on our behalf globally.

And so thank you, Mark, for the update. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.