God's Good Work at Relay
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, we've talked about this on podcasts before, but it is a remarkable thing to observe what God is doing among the young adults in Sovereign Grace churches. I mean, we're in a culture where the gurus are informing us that kids are growing up in the church to graduate from high school to leave and to never return. But we're not seeing that exactly. We're seeing a lot of young people actually setting the example when it comes to zeal and a desire to follow Jesus and to be faithful. And one evidence of that is the huge crowd, 650, 700, that gathered again at the Relay Conference just at the beginning of January. You were there. How did it go?
Mark Prater:
I was there. It went so well. It was my first Relay. I wasn't able to attend last year for a number of reasons. And it was outstanding for just a number of reasons. As you said, 650 to 700 young adults gathered at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, and they represented 60 different Sovereign Grace churches, which is a wonderful expression of partnership. I think just in the numbers themselves, it was one sweet sweet time.
I've got some just big takeaways from last week that I've just been thinking about and praying over, and so I just wanted to share this. I got three of them, first of all, after being there and just watching all that's going on.
I think the spirit of God is at work in the third generation of Sovereign Grace's churches in a wonderful way and possibly even in a unique way. And I'm always very careful with that word unique. But there is something really the spirit of God is stirring. You see that in just their passionate singing to God during worship. And I would say it was very close to the Pastor's conference and that's a high commendation because you know how we love to sing at the pastor's conference, but these kids, they sang with all their heart and with passion, there's an obvious hunger for God and the word of God, just how they just leaned in during the preaching of the word, for example. And they just love being together. They just hung out together. It is just a wonderful expression again, of partnership and how our partnership's being strengthened relationally in that third generation. I mean, some people, they just know one another from a different church and they follow up, they stay in touch after the conference via text or however they communicate. And it was just a wonderful work that man can't fabricate. We can't, the Sovereign Grace leadership team, can't fabricate that, it is a good work of God. That is the divine work of the Holy Spirit and I was just so affected by it. So that was my first big takeaway.
The second one is we are at this point in our denomination going through a generational transfer of leadership. First generation is transferring leadership to the second generation. And Relay is a wonderful conference and context where the second generation is actually leading and the third generation gets to experience the leadership of the second generation. So Jon Payne and Jared Mellinger have responsibility to plan and lead this conference. They did an outstanding job. They're leading throughout the conference, but not just them. They are wonderful second generation leaders like Walt Alexander and Jace Hudson and Joel Shorey, Ricky Alcantar and so many others that are serving publicly, teaching breakout sessions, leading pastoral prayers. And the third generation in Sovereign Grace, they're able to say, Hey, those are my leaders and the generation old guys like me, we're just there encouraging all of it. We just want to encourage them on. So that is really wonderful and maybe a picture of our future, our short-term future even as these transitions occur.
And then the third thing, because of the generational transfer of leadership, we're at a place as a denomination like a lot of, I think other denominations right now where we just have a need for men to aspire to pastoral ministry, whoever God may be calling to that desiring and noble task as it says in 1 Timothy. And so there was a pre-conference session, a couple of sessions pre-conference for men who are considering pastoral ministry or aspiring to it. And 40 men were at that pre-conference sessions. And it was just, Jeff, first of all, was telling me who taught there and Josh Blount, he said it was really stirring to see the men that were there that were earnest for pastoral ministry. So those are just some of the big takeaways where I just see God at work being good to Sovereign Grace for another generation, this third generation in Sovereign Grace.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's excellent. Sad to miss this one. I did go to the first one last year, didn't make this one, but I mean it was a pure delight to have lunch actually a couple days ago with a guy who's been to both Relay conferences, 23 years old, aspiring to ministry and just expressing how Relay has made just a huge impact on the way he thinks about pastoral ministry and his desire to grow in knowing God's word. He has this flame that's been lit within with this passion to know God's word. And so that's a joy to interact with these young folks that really, like you're saying, this is not something that is being fabricated by anyone. It's more like you guys are coming in the wake of what God's doing, just seeking to serve. And one important way that you guys were serving those who gathered at the conference was the many main sessions and the breakout sessions. You taught one of 'em, but talk to us about the different speakers and the different sessions.
Mark Prater:
Yeah, and first of all, lemme say Jon Payne and Jared Mellinger again just did a great job of planning and leading this conference. And so they chose messages. Really what we're trying to accomplish is to communicate teaching on the doctrines of grace, just that fundamental Reform theology that you want to communicate to the third generation. And so on Thursday evening, our founder, CJ Mahaney opened the Relay Conference with a message on election from Ephesians chapter 1. And Ben, it was so good. I think I first heard him preach that maybe 20, 25 years ago, I don't remember exactly, but hearing it the second time, was so good, maybe even better. It was just wonderful. So not only it served my own soul, but what really impacted me as he was preaching was just thinking about and actually observing the third generation in Sovereign Grace. Hearing this from our founder, our first generation founder in Sovereign Grace, and transferring this such important doctrine to them, it just brought tears to my eyes and it was wonderful.
That was followed the next morning on Friday morning with Jeff Purswell teaching on Justification by Faith alone, obviously from Galatians 2, and it was so, so good. You got to listen to that message. I told Jeff after he got done preaching, I think I was born again. Again. After hearing that sermon, so please listen to it as well as CJ's. So, so good.
That was followed by Jared Mellinger doing a wonderful message on Grace. It's kind of an overall message on Grace, how Grace is only a gift, but how operates in our lives. And that was from Isaiah 31. He did an outstanding job, listen to that. And that was followed by on Friday evening, Jon preaching on Sanctifying Grace from Titus chapter 2. And just a wonderful call to godliness, obviously in that sermon, that Jon did so well.
And then Dave Taylor, who was there all the way from Sydney. Thank you Dave for being there. He finished up the conference on Friday morning preaching on Future Grace from 1 Peter 1, just looking at what we have in eternity. And in doing so, obviously talked about the perseverance of the Saints. Really, really good message from Dave.
So all of the main sessions and breakout sessions hopefully will be available soon. You can go to the events page of the Sovereign Grace website and look for the Relay logo and click on that. They should be available soon.
There were also several breakout sessions that you can potentially listen to. Ricky Alcantar did a breakout on evangelism, which I look forward to listening to. Walt Alexander did a breakout session entitled Spurgeon on Joy, a wonderful topic. I can't wait to listen to that one. Jace Hudson did a breakout session on the Psalms and worshiping from the Psalms, and then Josh Blount did a breakout session on men and women. I think the subtitle is God's Complimentary Masterpiece, something like that was in the title, which is Josh's fastball, so you've got to listen to that one. And then Joel Shorey did a breakout session titled True Friendship that I heard was packed out and heard he just did a great job. I can't wait to listen to that one. And then I did a breakout session entitled, Called to Work. It was really a breakout session on a biblical theology of work and vocation and included obviously some of the practical challenges in that.
And all the breakout session speakers gathered for dinner on Friday night, and we all had the same experience; these kids were just leaning in during all the teaching, but then they had a lot of good questions. So after my breakout session, I finished a bit early so I could do a little bit of q and a. I did that, didn't want to go over too much at the end of the breakout session and then stayed for almost another hour just answering questions that kids had.
So that was the teaching component, but there were also other facets of Relay that really just were a wonderful work of God, I think is the way to say it. There was a ministry time following Jon's message on sanctifying grace on Friday evening, and kids were just coming up and asking for prayer and many repenting and just wanting to grow, not in godliness, but in their passion for God. It was just a wonderful work of the Spirit again. And then they're sharing meals together, lunch and dinner served there at the building, and so they don't have to go anywhere and they're just hanging out together and getting to know one another across churches.
Again. It was just wonderful to observe all of that. And then both on Thursday evening and Friday evening, they had what they called an after party, which means they just had a bunch of games set up everywhere in our building from cornhole to a trivia game out in the heated tent outside. And you just heard a lot of laughter and a lot of joy and food late at night. Thursday night session ends and there's pizza and wings, and I'm thinking, man, at my age, if I ate wings at this time, I would not sleep well. But those kids, they ate it, man. They ate all, all the pizza and the wings and they just had a great time. So it was just a happy conference where you're seeing the wonderful work of the Spirit of God in the third generation of Sovereign Grace. And I couldn't be more enthused about our future because God's being very good to us.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. Thanks for the report, the good report. It seems inevitable that we're going to start seeing some Relay weddings at some point. It's an unspoken aim for the leadership team in this conference. <laughter>. But one that, yeah, we hope to see in the future as these young adults get together and they're growing together, this conference really is, it's you guys and the leadership team. It's taking the stewardship of what God's doing seriously. This is something to steward, not to manufacture like you were saying when we started the podcast. And it is wonderful to be able to hear about what God is doing in the lives of these young folks. And I wasn't there, but anybody else like me who wants to hear those messages. Well, we have something called the wonder of the interwebs where apparently soon we will be informed about how to listen to this session. So looking forward to all of that.
Thank you, Jared and Jon for leading. Thank you to all the guys who served in teaching and leading throughout that conference. Thank you, Mark, for your role as well. And thank you all for watching the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.