Our Global Expansion

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. And welcome back to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Hey, before we started recording here, Mark, you were talking to me about how you had a phone call with Dave Taylor, the Director of Emerging Nations and the Leadership Team. Just recently you were talking to him. Can you fill us in on some things you were talking about just this past Tuesday evening?

Mark Prater:

So when the guys get this next week, it'll be a week this past Tuesday, and we did a Zoom meeting. We do those every four to six weeks. He is a joy to work with. I just love working with Dave Taylor. One of the reasons why is because every time I talk with him, he's carrying our global expansion in Sovereign Grace on his heart. And so we spent a lot of time talking about how to expand globally in a way that will serve our denomination, our pastors and our churches, but also our commitment to make disciples of all nations.

And he just carries it on his heart. And I think maybe to remind all of our guys, what we're sort of aiming for as we expand globally, is we've got a number of emerging nations outside of the United States. Mexico is close to becoming its own nation. So structurally we'll move from emerging nation status to nation status. They have enough churches and enough elders where they have their Book of Church Order. They could have their own Council of Elders and maybe at some point beyond that they can have their own Leadership Team. And right now we've just got one Leadership Team, here in the States, based here in the States anyway, although we've added Dave on now.

And our role really is sort of a first-generation Leadership Team, tried to expand and grow faithfully and biblically in a way that will serve future generations in Sovereign Grace. So we're responsible to help move emerging nations to nations. And that's kind of what we're aiming for as we talk about global expansion.

Benjamin Kreps:

So what will that look like? It's not nice and neat. Different countries that we're interacting with are in varying places of relationship and things continue to develop and grow. So what will that look like? How does the Leadership Team help navigate us towards, through emerging nations, those nation's becoming their own sort of self sustaining, Book of. Church Order, Leadership Team environments?

Mark Prater:

As we've thought about it as a Leadership Team, we're really grateful for really what we have in place, because we think there are just four particular things that will govern the rate with which we grow and inform the way in which we grow.

So the first one is theological compatibility. And obviously there's the agreement with our Statement of Faith. In that, second, the preservation of our shared gospel values. You see that in our Seven Shared Values and those have to be taught. They have to be caught in that sense. They have to be worked out in different cultures, but they're still the same in the sense that they’re gospel values. The third one in our expansion is really structure informed by our polity. So that's where the Book of Church Order is really so helpful. Now how that gets worked out in a different nation and culture is going to look a little bit different. And then the fourth one is just our commitment to reach the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. So those four things will shape and govern our expansion.

But as you said, Dave and I were just talking about this on Tuesday night. It's not going to be always really clear. Those things inform, those things shape, but how those get worked out in Liberia compared to the Philippines, compared to Bolivia, for example, or Ethiopia where Michael Granger is planting a church, is going to look a little bit different. And so we've got to be comfortable with a little bit of lack of clarity, a little bit of messiness that we have to go through, believing that through complexity we will have clarity.

And I just think that our Council of Elders, the one that we have now, just empowers a Leadership Team to lead through that. And I think trusts us to expand in a way that those four things I mentioned really do shape and govern our expansion.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. And we're very good hands with Dave Taylor leading in this area. What a joyful man and a wonderful leader. So thank you, Mark. And thank you Leadership Team and Dave Taylor for leading us in this way into the nations while we continue to seek to honor those countries and their unique cultures and move towards a deeper partnership together. So thank you, Mark. And thank you everyone for listening, and we'll see you back here next time.