Do You Encourage Regional Events?

Benjamin Kreps:

Everyone, welcome back to the podcast where we're meaning to connect our local family of churches to our Executive Director. Hey Mark, how you doing?

Mark Prater:

I'm doing great. Ben, where are you at?

Benjamin Kreps:

I am in California in Idyllwild with a bunch of Sovereign Grace guys. I was invited by Eric Turbedsky to come and teach at a men's retreat they have every other year for churches that are in California. So we're having some lunch and hanging out with Sovereign Grace guys, having a great time.

Mark Prater:

That's great. So, which churches in California are at this retreat?

Eric Turbedsky:

Old Town Orange, Santa Ana, and Pasadena.

Benjamin Kreps:

So Mark, a question for you: As we're enjoying the fellowship together as Sovereign Grace Churches, sort of a thin echo of past days having Celebration, what do you think about churches in regions getting together to have events like used to happen with Celebration? Would you like to see that more? Or what are your thoughts on that?

Mark Prater:

First of all, I think it's a good idea. I like regions getting together and doing those kind of regional events or regional conferences together overall. I think it's going to look different for each region, depending on how spread out you are geographically, depending on what are the needs that you see in the region, and what specific either conferences or retreats that you want to do. 

So for example, you may decide as a region to do a leader's conference for all of the small group and ministry leaders in your church and just do a conference to invest into them. Doing that together connects leaders across churches in Sovereign Grace together relationally where that kind of relationship continues a lot of times over social media, as they continue to build the relationships and just get ideas for how they can lead their respective ministries or small groups better.

Benjamin Kreps:

You're in the Northeast region there, right? So you guys had a Celebration, didn't you? A few years ago?

Mark Prater:

We did. We had a Celebration event that went really well. It was a lot of work. And quite frankly in Pennsylvania, because the laws had changed so much since Sandusky and Penn State, there were a lot more challenges in terms of getting approval and background checks on all the people that would be serving in children's ministry. So that was a real challenge for us. And we scheduled a second one but didn't do it for a number of reasons. It had to do with cost and time of year and the challenges related to protecting our children. So if you do a celebration event or not, it really depends on what state you're holding that event in.

Benjamin Kreps:

What would you say, looking forward, if you had your way? How would churches getting together for fellowship look beyond the Pastors Conference?

Mark Prater:

Well, first of all, I never get my way, so this is just a dream list, right? 

First of all: Pastors getting together, not just in a regional assembly of elders, but together like you guys are right now is just a wonderful. Sometimes that's limited to geographic distance in between. 

And then: What regions can do to bring members of their churches together. So we just had a conversation in the Northeast region about different conferences that we could do. A marriage conference is one working idea. A women's conference is another working idea. Because I think one of the ways we want to continue to grow is to connect our partnership with the members of our churches. And I think the regional events are one way that we can do that. 
Benjamin Kreps:

That is the challenge.

Mark Prater:

It is. Yeah. Right.
Benjamin Kreps:

All right, well we're gonna have lunch over here. Thanks for taking the time to talk.
Mark Prater:

Ben, how many times are you speaking at this conference?
Benjamin Kreps:

I'll be speaking three times, and a Q&A, so I've got to finish lunch and then work a bit.

Mark Prater:

That's great man. Thanks for doing it. Thanks for serving the guys in California. It's good to see you guys. Good to see Ron, Eric. Lynn, I saw you. Have a great time together.

Benjamin Kreps:

Thank you everybody for watching. We'll see you next time here on the podcast.