Planning for the Future of Sovereign Grace

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin 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, your knee is on the mend and you are on the move once again. And as you talked about on the last podcast, you are at the Global Leaders Retreat, which has been going really well as we were talking before we started recording. What's that been like? What's going on?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's still happening right now. I just stepped away while Jeff Purswell is leading the session which, because it's Jeff, it's very hard to leave, but wanted to record a podcast.

The Global Leaders Fellowship Retreat is going really, really well. You plan, you prepare and you pray. But God has been so kind to answer our prayers yesterday. It was just a day where we heard updates from the men that are serving in different nations. So the nations we heard updates, obviously some of 'em were Italy, Ethiopia, Australia, Pakistan, Nepal are just some of the nations that we heard updates on, Mexico and Latin America. And I laid down last night and went to sleep and put my head on the pillow. And I was just thanking God for our day yesterday because it was humbling, it was challenging, it was inspiring and it was instructive on all those levels in each country.

It's humbling to hear what some of these men are facing, some of them, really severe persecution as they advance the gospel of Jesus Christ in their nation; to hear how they're committed to the word of God and advancing the gospel despite that persecution was faith inspiring. To hear some of the guys talk about the future that they see in their nation was also inspiring.

And then it was just very instructive. We as a leadership team, we just took notes all day because we're just learning from them and hopefully we plan to debrief after this retreat and just say, okay, what do we learn from this and how can we be serving these pastors who are representing Sovereign Grace in different nations? So it was such a good day. I don't have time to drop into stories, but they are faith building and they're inspiring all at the same time. So we get to serve with a group of men throughout the world that is truly a privilege to serve with in the cause of Christ in advancing his gospel.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I just love the dynamic of give and take. I mean you guys are there, the leadership team is investing in the global leaders, but these men are also equipping the leadership team through their example, a compelling example. I remember being at a gathering a few years ago before the pastor's conference of a bunch of guys from around the globe giving updates. And I just remember being deeply humbled as they talked about the challenges they face and their faithfulness in the face of hostility. And I remember it got to me and Dave Taylor was asking, how can we pray for you? And so it got to me and I was sort of like, we have a VBS that's coming up, so I know exactly how you feel, the humbling effect of being in the presence of faithful men like these leaders. But this isn't the only retreat that you're involved in because next week the leadership team will remain and you will have a retreat just for the leadership team. Tell us about what's going to happen at that retreat next week.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, because we're together at least the guys on the leadership team attending this retreat with the global leaders, I wanted to talk about a couple of things, or actually let me mention some things that we'll be doing at the leadership team retreat.

The first one is really to debrief from this week because all of us are taking notes and learning and we're wanting to just talk about what did we learn to serve these men more effectively, to serve their churches more effectively? What did we learn in advancing the gospel in different parts of the world in terms of challenges they're facing and how can we serve them in that? So we'll spend quite a bit of time doing that, but I've always got a long agenda. We never get through all of it. I design it that way. But I just wanted to point out a couple of things on that agenda just for our podcast listeners or podcast readers to be aware of and even be praying for as we work through these issues.

So the two issues are this, first of all, I've designed an entire discussion, Sovereign Grace in 10 years, and it's really more of a future oriented type of discussion I want us to have because there are things that we can do now as a leadership team that can impact Sovereign Grace 10 years from now. So I've got some questions I wrote that the leadership team guys will come and we'll just answer together, questions about for example, what do you hope Sovereign Grace looks like 10 years from now? What would that look like? And just building on that, just trying to figure out how do we lead in a way now, that Sovereign Grace will be what we hope for, this is why it's important.

By God's grace, we are becoming a global multi-generational family of churches. So as we expand in different nations, which is all of God's doing and God's work, and as we pass leadership to the next generation, we can't assume that things will always be as they are now. And so we have to prepare for that kind of transition.

Here's the other thing that I've been thinking about and pastors who they know this, as you study denominations historically and you see them begin to grow again by God's grace, what can happen in some of those denominations is that fractures begin to form. You've got a conservative wing or a progressive wing theologically within that denomination and it causes issues. So we could be vulnerable to that if we are growing and expanding globally, that could happen in Sovereign Grace. So what do we do as a leadership team to keep that from happening? And I've been thinking through some of those answers. I don't know if they're any good or not because the other guys will help me figure out if they are. But we really want to try to unpack that a bit as well as a means to serve the future of future generations in Sovereign Grace.

So that's going to be a really important discussion. 10 years is going to go by fast and in that 10 years, 10 years from now, half of our churches will be led by the second generation and maybe more than half. And so what will those churches look like and what will our family of churches look like? So that's one conversation.

The other one is because of what I've mentioned last year at the pastor's conference and just referenced in my comments that I just said, about half of our pastors are in their fifties and sixties. And so the primary leadership of our churches and of Sovereign Grace is going to transition in the next 5 to 10 years to a second generation. And so we've really got to think through that as well.

And so I've got a whole session planned on leadership transition principles and maybe best practices because I think when you think about leadership transition, you can begin to think very practically, which isn't wrong because there's a number of steps you have to think through.

I want us to think, obviously, biblically first because there's principles in scripture that you see. And then I want us to just talk about what is it that we want to model in a transition, not only leadership team transitions, but even how we hope this serves our pastors. What can they model to their church and to the future generation of pastors in Sovereign Grace so that when another transition occurs 30, 40 years from now, there's been something modeled that is biblically based, that is God honoring and that serves the church and brings glory to Christ.

And so we've got a whole conversation planned and my hope is to come away with what do we want to model; some principles, maybe even some best practices that can somehow be packaged together and made available to our churches as these transitions happen over the next decade. So as you can hear, this leadership team retreat is a lot future oriented, although it's not that far in the future. It's only 10 years in the future. And that's intentional on my part to put an agenda together like that. We will talk about present issues in Sovereign Grace, but we just need time to pull away as a leadership team and have those longer strategic, future oriented discussions.

So those are just two that we're having. And if you think of it and you're listening to this podcast or reading it, please pray for us and ask that God would give us wisdom because we don't have all the answers. He knows what will, Sovereign Grace will look like in 10 years. He knows how those transitions will go. We don't. So we need him and we need his help and we need his wisdom. So please pray if you would.

Benjamin Kreps:

Will do. Thank you, Mark for the update. Thanks to all the guys on the leadership team that are participating in this week as we're currently recording with global leaders. And then next week when this podcast drops at the retreat, I know that standing behind that assembly of leadership team guys, is sacrifice. You guys have left wives and kids and church, spending time together to serve us and I thank you to all the guys for the ways that you serve us and think about the future and the present.

So thank you, Mark, and thank you, leadership team guys, and thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.