How Did You Choose Our Director of Church Planting?

Benjamin Kreps:

Welcome back to the Mark Prater podcast, where we aim to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Hey Mark, how are you?

Mark Prater:

I'm doing great, Ben.

Benjamin Kreps:

So we got some news last week. You sent an email out to the pastors of Sovereign Grace letting us know that Eric Turbedsky is now our Director of Church Planting on the Leadership Team, correct?

Mark Prater:

He is. I'm excited about that.

Benjamin Kreps:

Me too. I love Eric. And so I was wondering, and I'm sure some would like to know, how was Eric selected for this role? What was the process like to make him the Director of Church Planting?

Mark Prater:

The process involves a cooperation between the Leadership Team and the Executive Committee. According to our book of church order (as most guys know) the Executive Committee has the authority to approve a guy for the Leadership Team and the Director of Church Planting role in particular in this case. So I just work with them. 

I came up with some names of guys that I wanted to interview. I worked with the Leadership Team on the names and we narrowed it down two guys. I flew to both those guys and interviewed them personally. I spent time with them and their wife and spent time with them and their team, because ultimately if either of those guys were chosen, I wouldn't want a decision to be made apart from the local elders. So, that's why I walked through that process. 

So once I had done both those things, I've interviewed the candidates, so to speak, then I took my recommendation to the Executive Committee and we talked through it together and then they voted. And I have to report it was an unanimous vote by the Executive Committee to approve Eric. 

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. So what kinds of questions are you asking in that interview? What are the qualifications for the role that you're considering as you work through that process?

Mark Prater:

In this case for a Director of Church Planting: ideally a guy who's planted a church, just because he's had experience. It'd be a qualification. I don't think that a guy would necessarily have to, but I think it just helps. It helps him in this role to understand the challenges of church planting in particular. I'm asking questions about their vision for Sovereign Grace as it relates to church planting. I'm asking them how they would recruit church planters. I'm asking them what would they change about the culture of Sovereign Grace to help us plant more churches. Those are just some of the questions I had on my list.

Benjamin Kreps:

So the Director of Church Planting, is he the one that's in charge of deciding whether a church is going to be planted or not?

Mark Prater:

Absolutely not. He doesn't have that kind of authority. That is the decision, as you know, and most of the guys know, of the regions. It's really the regional assembly of elders that makes the final decision after the regional Church Planting Committee has done that work. So the Director of Church Planting role is more of to serve and support regions to help them to plant churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

Eric has a wonderful grace on his life as a leader and a pastor. What do you hope for (just personally) as you consider Eric as he steps into this new role and what's going to happen in the days ahead in Sovereign Grace when it comes to his influence on church planting? What are you hoping for?

Mark Prater:

What I'm hoping for I think plays to his strengths and it's one of the reasons that we chose him and I recommended him to the Executive Committee. I think that's why they approved them. One is, we really hope he will (and I believe he will) focus on more of the "why" of church planting rather than the "how" of church planting. 

Ian McConnell did a great job of putting the National Church Planting Group in place and putting a process in place that works within our policy now. And so the National Church Planting Group (guys on that committee or that group) can do a lot of the "how" side of the equation. 

It's the "why," it's the vision casting, it's the inspirational piece that I think will play to Eric's strengths. And to do that specifically by working with regions (regional leaders or regional assemblies) and inspiring them to make sacrifices to plant churches, that's one of the things we're hoping for as well. 

The other thing is (you know this from being with him recently Ben) he just has this grace on his life where he just attracts young leaders. I think we're just noticing that and hoping that he's a guy that will be able to gather and attract young men who want to go and plant churches, whether they're new to pastoral ministry or maybe it's a guy serving on one of our pastoral teams in one of our churches that gets around Eric and gets inspired to plant a church in that team sense and to plant. Those are just a couple of ways. I think he's going to really serve us.

Benjamin Kreps:

Just spending a weekend with him last week, I felt a slight temptation to plant with him in California. It's so enjoyable to be with him, feeling his influence and I feeling inspire with him. Well, I, for one (and I imagine many others of us in Sovereign Grace) are excited about what God has for us in the days ahead. 

Thanks for putting in the hard work of selecting (or recruiting, anyway) the newest member of the Leadership Team. And I'm praying that God will further our efforts to plant churches in the days ahead. Thanks for making time Mark. Thank you everyone for listening, for watching the podcast, and we'll see you here again soon right here on this podcast.