Developing Global Leaders
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
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, last week we talked about how we are a global family of churches and we are also a multi-generational family of churches. And so, we need to be able to invest in the next generation of leaders. And there's leadership development strategies that you guys are pursuing on the Leadership Team. But we are also a global family of churches, as we are constantly saying. And there is work to be done in the nations when it comes to leadership development. Can you give us an update about that?
Mark Prater:
That's right. What I mentioned last week, in terms of how we're pursuing leadership development as a Leadership Team in investing in younger men who either are or will be serving in extra local roles. We're also thinking about that globally, as well, because we want to be a global multi-generational denomination, should God give us grace to do that. So, Dave Taylor, our Director of Emerging Nations, and I have been working on a leadership development program, for lack of a better term, for those pastors outside of the United States. So, the program I talked about last week was for guys in the States. We're going to have a parallel program for guys outside of the United States that Dave and I will lead through. And it's parallel in this sense. Dave and I are thinking about two different groups like the two different groups I mentioned last week. The first group would be guys who are clearly leaders in nations who are either in Sovereign Grace or will be a part of Sovereign Grace. And it's clear that those men are going to help us to expand globally as a denomination over the next five to eight years. So, we want to gather them together and invest into them.
And then a second group of either pastors in Sovereign Grace or a pursuing partnership with Sovereign Grace, might be a bit younger, maybe not as much leadership experience, but we believe those men will not only help us to expand globally as a denomination, but will serve in extra local roles as we expand globally. So, Dave and I are putting together a list of names. I'm keying off him because he knows them best. And we’re starting to talk about topics that we can take those guys through. We're hoping to pull them together as soon as possible. That kind of hinges upon travel related to the COVID pandemic. If possible, we'd like to do that later this year. If that's not possible. as soon as we can in 2022, probably somewhere outside of the States so that they don't have to travel to the States and I can go to them, so to speak. So we're really excited about that. And I wanted our pastors to be aware that we're thinking about leadership development, not only here in the States, but outside of the States as well.
Benjamin Kreps:
I love hearing about how we are thinking about our global friends and not just development here in the States. So good news about leadership development and what we're pursuing in Sovereign Grace. But, Mark, this call to develop leaders is in fact part of what Scripture commands the pastor to pursue isn't that, right?
Mark Prater:
Yeah. And you find that right there in 2 Timothy 2:2 where Paul writes to Timothy and really as a command for us as pastors: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust the faithful men …” and then verse 3 “…who are able to teach others also.” So, it's just a command to pastors that we are responsible to develop future leaders in the church and develop future men for pastoral ministry. So, we obviously feel that burden as a Leadership Team. I hope these two podcasts we have back-to-back will get you talking about it with your eldership, about what you are doing and what you can do to develop leaders of future leaders and future pastors that might be in your church.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's great. And I also know going forward, there's even thinking about how to help us as pastors—talking to Jon Payne and the Leadership Team—to help us in that work of equipping and developing men in our local context as well. So, thank you, Leadership Team for thinking about us in this way and developing the next generation of leaders. And thank you, Mark, for your thoughts. And to everyone else, thanks for joining us. We'll see here soon. Bye for now.