Inspired to Reach the Lost: "Down the Mine"
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Ben Kreps:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our Executive Director. Mark, you do not appear to be at your home like you usually are. Where are you?
Mark Prater:
I'm actually in Louisville, Kentucky, in a hotel room, obviously. And I'm here this week taking a pastors college on sexual ethics, which, I hope to talk about in a future podcast. It's been an outstanding class.
Ben Kreps:
Excellent. Well, on this episode, you wanted to talk about another breakout session and a main session sermon from the recent pastors conference, about evangelism and outreach. Talk to us about that.
Mark Prater:
I did. We designed this conference to have both a main session and a breakout session, actually some updates purposely put as a part of the conference to stir faith and to equip all of us to reach out to the lost with the gospel. And I just think it's a real important time for us to be praying for opportunities to talk to people about the good news of the gospel. I mean, even in the last few weeks here in the United States with the midterm elections. I'm not gonna speak about the politics of it all, but it was clear that abortion was an issue and that the country shifted more for abortion. And so it's moments like that, that you realize as a Christian, you're an exile moving through this world headed to your eternal home.
Yesterday, the Senate passed the quote, "Respect for Marriage Act" that legalizes, at least federally, same sex marriage. So again, it's another reminder that we're really living in a post-Christian culture, and I think that does affect people, especially people that Christ is drawing to himself. They're just wondering, where is our society headed? And I think what the Lord's gonna do is give us opportunities to talk about Christ with them and the good news of the gospel. So, I think it's a very timely moment for us as a family of churches to benefit from the teaching we received at the pastors conference, both in Dave Taylor's main session and in Jim's breakout session.
Ben Kreps:
Yeah, that's excellent. I appreciate how we were strengthened in a number of ways at the conference; pastorally, relationally, but, for our mission as well. And Dave, did such a great job with that. What were some of the highlights for you from the main session and from the breakout?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, Dave Taylor did a great job. His sermon titled "The Pastor and the Lost" and just had this wonderful opening illustration, "down the mine", was really what he was talking about, about miners trapped in a mine. And there was no way they could live unless they were rescued. And it's a picture really of Ephesians too. We were dead in our sins and our trespasses. We needed rescue. And he threaded that opening illustration throughout his entire message and really, I think, inspired us to reach out to people with the gospel. I know someone after the conference told me they can hear evangelism sermons and typically walk away condemned. I mean, most of us feel like we're not doing what we should be doing when it comes to evangelism. So with that sermon, I walked away inspired and with faith that I can reach out to people that don't know Christ with the good news of the gospel. So listen to Dave Taylor's sermon. It is really well done.
The previous day, on Wednesday, we had Jim Donohue, do a breakout session. "Can my church really be evangelistic?" And Jim taught for about 30 minutes. Wonderful teaching on Jim's part, filled with some faith inspiring stories, if you do listen to that breakout session. And then there was a panel that Jon Payne led with himself and Jim Donohue, Matt Gray in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Dave Taylor from Sydney. And I think what's helpful there is that in the panel in particular, they talk about practical things that we can do to befriend non-Christians or for our churches to be evangelistic in nature, I think. And there were simple things that I think any church can do. So please listen to that breakout session.
And then we specifically designed the updates for Thursday morning before Dave spoke; an update from Christian Wegert in Hamburg, Germany, and an update from Chobi in Guadalajara, Mexico, that in their updates they would talk about and tell stories of people recently converted and becoming Christians. And I knew about those stories because I had been in each of those churches this past year. And just hearing those stories I thought was inspiring and faith building as well. So, we'll hopefully put those testimonies up soon on our website. But for now, please listen to the main session, Dave Taylor's main session, The Pastor and the Lost, and Jim Donohue's breakout session along with the panel, Can my church really be evangelistic?
And one other thing just to serve our listeners to this podcast: in addition to our regular releasing of our weekly podcast, each week for the next several weeks, we're gonna release one message, whether that's a main session message or a breakout session message, one message per week. And you can find that on wherever you listen to your podcast, whether that is Apple or Spotify. And that's just another way to get the information out there and accessible to you so that you can benefit from it.
Ben Kreps:
Excellent. Yeah, every pastor knows if you want to have a church that feels condemned easily, just preach on prayer or evangelism.
Mark Prater:
<laugh>. That's right.
Ben Kreps:
So grateful that we walked away from the conference, not condemned, but encouraged and inspired in our shared mission to reach the lost with the gospel. Mark, what, what do you hope to see in Sovereign Grace Churches in the days ahead? When it comes to evangelism?
Mark Prater:
What I hope to see is, obviously, and I'm beginning to see this, I'm seeing more non-Christians who are coming into our churches for the first time. I've met them. And I'm hoping to see more of that; that we would just be intentional, especially in this upcoming holiday season. It's just a great opportunity to invite people to your Christmas Eve service or where there are other Christmas events that you have. And just that we would be, even though our culture's headed more post-Christian, we would be even more bold and more courageous, and at the same time, more loving to those who don't know Christ and just bring them into our church. And just inviting them to church could have an impact because the corporate witness of the church, a church that is loving, a church that wants to be together, a church that's united, is so compelling in a culture that is divided. And I just really wanna see our churches grow that way. And that's what I pray for. That's what I hope for.
Ben Kreps:
Amen. Well, thank you Jim and the other guys on the panel. Thank you Dave, for equipping us at the recent conference. Pray God blesses all of that as we continue to grow and advance the gospel by his grace. And thank you, Mark, for sharing your thoughts. Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.