Preparing for the Executive Committee Retreat
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Eric Turbedsky:
Hey everyone. My name's Eric Turbedsky. I serve on the Leadership Team with Sovereign Grace Churches and welcome to Mark Praters podcast. Mark double K Prater, where our aim is to connect our global family churches to our Executive Director. Ben Kreps, the typical, normal host is on vacation again. A well-deserved vacation. And so I'm filling in. It's good to be with you, Mark.
Mark Prater:
And good to be with you, Eric. Thanks for doing this.
Eric Turbedsky:
Oh yeah. Joy to be with you. Hey, I heard that the Executive Committee is meeting in a couple of weeks. And I've done a bunch of ordinations, but I know most guys don't really even understand how everything works here. But I understand you'll be there. Are you a part of the Executive Committee? You’re the Executive Director. Give us a rundown and then we'll talk about what you're going to do and why you do it with Executive Committee?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I'd love to. There is an Executive Committee retreat next week unfortunately via zoom because of the pandemic. But 11 us of us will be there, nine members of the Executive Committee that the Council of Elders votes on, plus myself. I'm a nonvoting member of the Executive Committee and then Tommy Hill is always there as our Director of Finance. He's non-voting. He's not officially a member, but he's there as secretary of the committee. So, next week at the retreat, we have that once a year, there's a number of things that we cover in the retreat that really fulfill the responsibilities of the Executive Committee. Which, primarily, as guys might remember, the Executive Committee's role is to represent the Council of Elders in overseeing evaluating and holding accountable the Leadership Team.
So next week, a part of that retreat will be evaluation of me and an evaluation of every member of the Leadership Team. And they'll also review—yeah, that'll be fun—also review and hopefully approve the next fiscal year budget. And then what we're going to do some, you know, sort of long-term planning. I'm going to present a five to 10-year strategic plan. I always review my State of the Union with them, get an idea of what I would say at the Council of Elders. And I really benefit from that time. I really appreciate the evaluation, the input for me, for how I can grow, the accountability that's there. But I also really benefit from the input I just get from the Executive Committee for leading Sovereign Grace overall. And I just love our new polity and that's just one expression of why I love it.
Eric Turbedsky:
How many guys serve on the executive committee?
Mark Prater:
There's nine, plus me. So officially 10 members, nine of them are comprised of elders that the Council of Elders votes on and they're elected to a four year term that they serve. They can be renominated for another term if they choose to be renominated and if they get voted back on.
Eric Turbedsky:
And I would imagine, if I think about some of the guys that are on there, the ones that I know better, their discussions go long and they chop it up. It's not just a bunch of run reports and rubber stamp. I'm assuming there's some good debates, healthy debates among those guys.
Mark Prater:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's no rubber stamp in that group. You get any 10 Sovereign Grace pastors together, you're probably not going to have much rubber stamping going on anyway, right? But these guys, in particular, they do a great job of talking through things and debating and disagreeing and out of that, you really do get a lot of good input that that does have clarity. And I think provides help for Sovereign Grace.
Eric Turbedsky:
I think it's a wise thing that we have out of the Council of Elders and the Executive Committee. Because you can't have a hundred guys chopping it up. Because how long is just this event every year? How many hours would you be meeting?
Mark Prater:
Oh yeah. it's all day for three days and then a half day is typically how it's planned.
Eric Turbedsky:
That’s a lot of conversation. Okay. Tell me, I've heard a little bit about what you're working on. I don't even know 10 years from now. Goodness. I have no idea what's going to happen. Do you make a 10 year strategic plan every year? And is it a new plan every year for 10 years?
Mark Prater:
No I don't. I don't do that. I think 10 year strategic plans are less helpful. I think something along the lines of five years is probably more helpful and that's just because things change. There's the unexpected and the unplanned. If anything, the last several years in Sovereign Grace, have taught us that we've got to lead through the unplanned. So I think it's good to do strategic plans, hold them loosely and implement them with flexibility. I'm reading a book right now, Institutional Intelligence by Gordon Smith and he makes a great statement, “It's good for institutions to have a strategic plan, but what really makes them good institutions or organizations is how they respond strategically to the unplanned with creativity, innovation, and agility.” And hopefully we've learned some of that over the last few years, so I put it together and hold it loosely. But I think it's helpful. There's some inspiring elements to it that I get excited about as I think about the future of Sovereign Grace.
Eric Turbedsky:
So what are some of the things that you're going to talk to the Executive Committee about and have them listening and review and providing input on.
Mark Prater:
One of the points I'm really kind of excited about it—I've worded it this way—is to rejuvenate Sovereign Grace’s distinctive identity. And I give a little background on that. If you think about Sovereign Grace, we were really born out of what I think was revival, the 1970s, the Jesus movement. So our denomination wasn't started because there was some sort of theological difference and so we decided to leave another group. We were really born out of revival. And so what does that now look like 40 years later right?
But as we were born out of revival, God just did a wonderful work through the leadership of our founder C.J. Mahaney. And I think what distinctly makes us Sovereign Grace is the gospel centered culture that we enjoy that's marked by things like joy and thanksgiving and gratefulness and generosity. And then fellowship, where we seek to help one another apply the gospel to our lives and really in all of life, marriage, parenting, the single life, vocationally. And, as a result, what you experienced palpably in Sovereign Grace is this gospel centrality. And that's just not in one church, that's in churches throughout the world. And there's a consistency that you see in the gospel culture that we share.
And I think that's what people enjoy about Sovereign Grace. And it's not a unique work of God, but it is a distinct work of God that he's done in Sovereign Grace. And what I want to do is rejuvenate that. Partly because I think that the criticism leveled against us, whether external or internal over the last few years, has left some of our members and maybe some of our pastors with a bit of a low level of embarrassment associated with Sovereign Grace, which I understand.
And I think if we just shape the narrative of who we are—this gospel centered culture—there's no need to be embarrassed at all. Let's just find joy in the partnership that we share together. Let's rejuvenate that joy and let's celebrate what God has done that he started years ago as he birthed this nomination out of revival.
Eric Turbedsky:
Oh, that's a really helpful category to put on it and provokes me to think what does a revival, we’ll say, feel like subjectively and objectively, what are the marks, thinking Religious Affections (Jonathan Edwards) things like that, and just to go back and refresh myself on that so that I could think then about what we experience as a communion of saints around the world. And then maybe because this, maybe some fear, which is not helpful, but a concern that what we experience now would be passed off to the next generation so that we turn into an enduring, faithful global family of churches that still feels like we felt 30, 40 years ago. Any ideas of how we're going to do that?
Mark Prater:
I think that's what we're aiming for. Let's say even 10 years from now, Sovereign Grace is a global, multigenerational denomination that is comprised of biblically faithful churches marked by a gospel centered culture that joyfully partners together to advance the gospel through the planting and strengthening of churches throughout the world for the glory of God. That's a mouthful, but man, may we be that years down the road. So that's kind of what we're aiming for. And I think there's a number of ways that we can shape that narrative and celebrate where we're headed. So, for example it's good that we have a Statement of Faith and Seven Shared Values defined and a Book of Church Order. Those have only strengthened us. But when people see those things sort of lived out in a local church, that's what they experienced.
So let's celebrate both. So when we hopefully approve the Statement of Faith at the Council of Elders meeting, I think that's an opportunity to use the Statement of Faith to celebrate our theological convictions, which do inform the gospel centrality that we hopefully live out every day. I think that's just one way to sort of pass this onto our churches and to future generations.
Eric Turbedsky:
Amen. Thanks for all your work Mark on this. These are the kinds of things, the unglamorous things that no one sees, all the hard work you're doing up in your attic or wherever you are. And then engaging with our Executive Committee, which represents our entire Council of Elders so that we both are equipped to accomplish our 10 years strategic plan for the glory of God. So helpful. Thanks Mark. Hey, and if you're watching, thanks for watching. Thanks for being a part of Sovereign Grace Churches. It really is one of the happiest places on earth. And so we're just grateful. So until we meet again. Thanks for watching.