Why Polity Matters
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone. And welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, you have an Executive Committee retreat coming up in a couple of weeks and per the BCO, all amendments that we're going to review at our Council of Elders in November need to be submitted 90 days before the Council of Elders. And you will be reviewing those amendments at the retreat. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I'd love to. First of all, I love our polity. I think it is a strength that strengthened us and helped us in so many ways. And, by the way, if any Council of Elder delegates are listening to this podcast, you would have until August, I believe 9 or 10 to submit any BCO amendments to the to the Executive Committee.
So, I'm beginning to see these BCO amendments. And I just want to encourage our guys when you receive them to make sure you read through them. And not just on the plane on the way to Orlando, if possible, but before then. Because the BCO amendments this year, they will strengthen our polity in a number of ways. They will help us to have united churches. They will help us to plant and strengthen healthy churches throughout the world. And third, they will help us to continue to build safe churches. And so, these BCO amendments, it's tedious to read through them. I get it. It's a bit laborious. But the effect and the outcome of what we're going to vote on actually strengthens us overall as a family of churches in those specific ways: unity, planting and strengthening healthy churches, and also building state churches.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful. Yeah, grateful for the BCO that we have. I know some of us are sort of BCO wonks and love nothing better than a nice, tasty amendment to go over. For those of us that are more like me, could you fill us in a little bit more as we prepare to look over these things?
Mark Prater:
Yeah. Let me just speak in those categories I just mentioned. First of all, to have united churches what that means is there's a number of BCO amendments that you'll be reading that really make improvements and refinements to our adjudication process. So, as we've done adjudications over the years, or been involved in conflicts and trying to work through those, we just see that the BCO needs more clarity. So there's a number of BCO amendments that I think improve our adjudication process.
Ultimately, what that means is we can have united churches and united elderships and that's real important to us as a family of churches. That second category to plant and strengthen healthy churches throughout the world. The Polity Committee did some work regarding church planting BCO amendments to help regional church planning committees just to have clarity on their responsibility in planting churches in their region. I think it's really good.
And then the Leadership Team is submitting BCO amendments related to the global partnership plan that we've presented or made available to our pastors and did Zoom meetings back in the middle of July just to get input. And, by the way, our pastors gave us a lot of good input in the middle of July. We've incorporated many of their changes and thoughts, and now are submitting those to the Executive Committee. That's really important to us right now, because it helps us to respond to the opportunities God's giving us outside of the United States by providing clarity and structure to a process that I think is really going to help us to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. So that strengthens mission.
And then the third category is to build safe churches. There's a BCO amendment coming from the Response Committee for Sexual Misconduct that clarifies when an eldership needs to report to the committee. Now it's already a given in our BCO that allegations of abuse or suspicions of abuse need to be reported to authorities regardless of state law. But this is clarifying when an eldership also needs to report to the Response Committee for Sexual Misconduct, and that would just help us to continue in our efforts to build safe churches.
So, each of these BCO amendments really do strengthen us as a family of churches, even though working through the detail that can get lost at times. So, guys, please read them and come prepared to vote or discuss them at our Council of Elders meeting on Monday, November 8 in Orlando.
Benjamin Kreps:
Great. It is wonderful that our BCO can be refined and can flourish in even more fruitful ways through the contributions of the pastors in Sovereign Grace. So grateful for all the men who've worked hard on amendments. Grateful for you, Executive Committee, for evaluating those amendments. And while it is a long meeting at the Council of Elders, I trust God will meet us in it and it will be a fruitful meeting. So, thank you, Mark, for your thoughts. Thank you everyone for watching. We'll see us here soon. Bye for now.