Clarifying "Risk" in Planting Churches

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, before we started recording the podcast, you were telling me about how you and Jon Payne met over Zoom with the regional leaders to give them an opportunity to interact with Joel Shorey, our new director of church planting. And you were talking about how you benefited from some of the input that the regional leaders gave you and you wanted to talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Jon and I met with the US regional leaders along with Joel Shorey just yesterday. And I did benefit from the input that I heard from the regional leaders. It's another example of how the leadership team benefits from our regional leaders. They help us to lead better, they help us to serve our churches better. And I came away from yesterday's conversation, especially grateful for their input. Here's what we got talking about, we were just drawing Joel out on a number of questions about his goals and vision for church planting. But in the midst of that conversation we got talking about risk because I called us at the pastors' conference last year to take risks to plant more churches, to take thoughtful risks, take wise risks to plant more churches here in the United States for the purpose of reaching more people with the good news of the gospel.

And in that conversation, really what came out was that that risk maybe needs to be nuanced just a little bit more. Where do we want to be low risk and where should we take risk? And it was a really good conversation. In fact, Rob Flood, the Northeast regional leader recommended that you and I devote a podcast to it. And I said, you know what? I might even do that today. Today we're recording it. And so again, I thank God for our regional leaders. They help me be a better leader. They help me serve our churches better. And with any leadership issue, a lot of times leadership requires nuance and clarification. And I hope this podcast provides that. And again, I've benefited from the regional leaders yesterday, so in calling our pastors and churches to take prayer filled thoughtful risks to plant more churches. Here's what we mean by risk.

First of all, these are categories where we want to be low risk. We want to be low risk with a man's character according to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. I wouldn't use the term no risk because not every man is perfect, but we want to be low risk. We want to send a guy who has proven Christ-like character. So that would be a category. We want to be low risk regarding Sovereign Grace's theological convictions. And does the potential planter not only know our theological convictions? Does he own them? Does he understand them? Can he communicate them? Are they a part of his DNA, so to speak? So that category is low risk.

And then we want to be low risk when it comes to a man's ability to plant and to build a Sovereign Grace church that is marked by our shared values and our shaping virtues. Because those things are really the fruit of the gospel working out in our lives that we want to mark our churches and we want Sovereign Grace to continue to be not unique in that way, but distinct in that way. And does he have the ability to do that? So those were categories that we were talking about that are low risk.

I would just add a couple of other thoughts, and I don't know how to quite quantify the risk ratio there, but pastors plant churches, that's what we've said in Sovereign Grace. And in other words, does he have a pastoral gift? Can he shepherd and pastor people? Because when you plant a church, you immediately begin to pastor people. And so is there an evident pastoral gift in his life that he can utilize when he plants a church? And then what we've found is that guys who have experience in pastoral ministry really are more situated to plant stronger churches in many cases. Now that's not an absolute rule, but guys like Joel Shorey and Walt Alexander had 13 to 15 years of ministry experience before planting a church. And those churches are thriving. That doesn't mean we would not send young men to plant churches, but we might send an experienced pastor with him because of the benefits that you gain from years of pastoral ministry in terms of what you learn.

So just to clarify, those are the things that we want to be low risk on: character, theological convictions, the ability to build a Sovereign Grace Church, can a man pastor people? Just to bring a little bit of clarity as to what I mean by risk.

Benjamin Kreps:

That is helpful clarification. Thanks, Mark. When it comes to taking risk though, what do you mean by encouraging us to take that kind of risk? So we want to be low risk on what you talked about for sure. And I think that involves a season of assessment living alongside this man and his wife and kids and observing family life and marriage and all of those things and understanding our convictions. But we do want to take risks in some ways. What do you mean by that?

Mark Prater:

What I mean is really something I thought Eric Turbedsky shared really well, our regional leader in the West. He said, at least in my part of the world, I think a lot of churches have been planted out of necessity. And what he meant by that is that you've got a guy on your pastoral team, he's definitely gifted, but you don't have financial room to bring him onto your team. What do you do with a gifted guy like this? And so you send him out and he plants and he does a great job that's really driven by necessity versus, as he said, that's not really as much motivated by missional risk. And so when I'm talking about risk, I think Eric's right about that. I think it's a matter of are we to take risks for the sake of the mission of the gospel? Meaning that, are we willing to send our best? Are we willing to send an experienced guy that we really love doing ministry with out to plant a church that requires a lot of faith? Are we willing to send some of our best members to give him a good church planting core team that he can build with? Because it's that kind of risk that needs to be taken for the sake of the mission of the gospel.

And where you send the guy, I think can partly factor into that risk category. I think that also when you're thinking about a guy that might be more high risk, however you might define that, whether it's further away from you or it's a little more difficult place to plant in, I think his preaching gift is really important there, depending on the place. And does he have a sufficient preaching gift to build a church in an area that would really need that kind of high level preaching gift that might be different for a context where you might send the guy where it feels a little bit more low risk, a little bit near to you geographically, you kind of know the area and the guys that fit for that area. Does he need to have the same level of preaching gift? I don't know that he does, but you have to really assess all of that. The point being is we're trying to reach areas where there's not much of a gospel presence and we're willing to take risk for the sake of the mission.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, that's excellent. I remember hearing from people that follow the podcast, many of them know we planted a church last fall. And I think your encouragement is so helpful because I remember going to conferences and listening to teaching about how you're going to have to send your best, you're going to have to send your best. And that's all theoretically, of course, I'm happy to do so. But when the moment comes, it is painful and it does feel risky. And so it requires faith when you're sending people and money out the door. But it's totally worth it. Like I've told my church, we get one shot at this. And so Jesus is worthy of attempting to do difficult things and to take wise risk in doing so.

Thank you, Mark, for your continued encouragement in this area. May God give us the privilege of planting more and more churches in the days ahead. So thanks, Mark. Thank you regional leaders. You're serving us so well. You're getting it done. So we're so grateful for you. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.