Leadership Team Retreat Update
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Last podcast, Mark, you shared with us that this week, or I guess this'll be airing next week, you had a Leadership Team retreat over Zoom. What was that like? Can you give us some highlights about what you guys talked about over the course of those days?
Mark Prater:
Be glad to. First of all, if you listen to the podcast and you pray for our retreat, thanks for praying. God answered our prayers. That's the first retreat we've ever done via Zoom. And it's not ideal obviously, but God did answer your prayers. I think we all agree at the end of a couple of days after being on Zoom for a total of 10 hours, that we had some good conversation and the purpose of those conversations really is to serve our pastors and our churches.
So I had sent a question out before the retreat asking guys to come prepared to discuss it during the retreat. That question was, “What obstacles or challenges do you think our pastors are going to face in the future as the pandemic continues to play out?” I wrote that before George Floyd's tragic murder, but we then talked about that as well. So we were just answering that question because we want to identify what those things might be and equip our pastors. So things like politically polarization type issues that we think will be heightened potentially during the party conventions over the summer and then the general election in the fall. So we had some good discussion around that. Obviously right now with the peaceful protest, following the tragic death of George Floyd issues related to race and ethnicity and how that affects different churches in Sovereign Grace in different ways and what can we do to equip them?
Benjamin Kreps:
It sounds like a profitable conversation. You guys are going to talk about church planning, right? Were you able to do that?
Mark Prater:
We did. We had another good conversation, one of our best conversations I think, about church planning during the retreat, Eric came with, I think, 4 or 5 questions that we kicked around. So things like what are the minimum qualifications for a church planter in Sovereign Grace? We wanted to look at that again. So should he have so much pastoral ministry experience before he goes plants a church as an illustration? The question, like, what do we think about a bi-vocational elder planting churches. And we had a great conversation around that.
He was asking questions just to challenge us about funding. Do we want to keep funding our church plants in the way that we do? And it really pushed us to kind of think outside the box more. So those are some of the questions that he brought to us and that we discussed.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's great. What other discussions did you have?
Mark Prater:
We had a long conversation about the budget. We have to do that in this spring/summer retreat because we have to prepare for the Executive Committee retreat where they review and approve the budget. So that was a little more difficult conversation because we're anticipating either no increase in income, possibly even a drop. And so we had to talk about potential budget cuts in a budget that's pretty much bare bones already. And I came away from that conversation, thanking God for Tommy Hill and Mark Donovan who do a great job of stewarding our finances and help us to fund mission and Sovereign Grace.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah. Are those concerns connected to what's happening with the economy? Is it connected to the fact that we're not doing, asking to do a typical giving Sunday as we have in the past or in the same way? What were the concerns there?
Mark Prater:
I think the concerns were more economic related, just trying to anticipate. We really don't know how the economy is going to restart. So I think we’ve got to prepare a little bit more for the worse in that kind of situation. So less related to individual giving and the offering that churches might do and more related to the economy.
Benjamin Kreps:
Any last thoughts about coming away from that retreat impressions?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, one other thought, and we talked about this and I want pastors and Sovereign Grace to know that we're thinking about you and praying for you. I find right now that pastors are really juggling a lot at one time. So there's issues related to the pandemic. There are people that you are pastoring through certain pastoral situations because of the pandemic, you're planning to reopen, and as you announce those reopening plans, you're getting all kinds of different input from the members of your church, some who are not very happy with you. You have to pull off this reopening while continue the live stream. And then, for all of us, the George Floyd situation is really on our hearts and affects churches in different ways. And so you're trying to pastor, but lead your churches through that. So right now it's very unusual time and our pastors are working very, very hard and they're juggling a lot.
And I want you to know we're praying for you. We thank God for you, and we're asking God to strengthen you by his grace.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's wonderful. Thanks, Mark. And we thank the Leadership Team for these gifted men who are serving us so well, and even as you lead those men and we appreciate your prayers and your efforts on our behalf. Alright. Well, next time, we'll see you here. And until then, God bless you.