Around the Globe: Witnessing God's Goodness

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps (02:46):

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches to our executive director. Mark, whenever I introduce a podcast, I reference the fact that we are a global family of Sovereign Grace churches, which indeed we are to our great delight and joy. And that reality, the partnership that we have globally with all kinds of pastors and churches across the globe is just continuing to grow and expand by God's grace. It's very humbling but also very gratifying to hear about, and you have some updates for us about our increasing, expanding global partnerships in Sovereign Grace.

Mark Prater (03:26):

I do. I've got some recent updates and they really do illustrate just God being good to our small family of churches and giving us opportunities to continue to expand globally and to continue to build our churches globally as well. And some of it, as I reflect on it, it's God's amazing goodness towards us that none of us expected. So he gets all the glory and it's happening in a way that reflects the polity that's been put in place since 2013 and the refinement of that polity over time so that we can build carefully as we build as a global family of churches. So as I give these updates, my heart's full of gratitude to God and to our pastors and our family of churches.

(04:18):

So let me begin. In the nation of Columbia, just yesterday signed a new emerging nation letter of intent for a candidate church that's led by Angel Miranda, Iglesia Biblica Gracia Soberana in Sincelejo, Columbia. Angel was sent from Barranquilla in Columbia. They partnered with the other candidate church. By the way, the church in Barranquilla is a candidate church. The church in Santa Marta is a candidate church. They together sent Angel and the team to Sincelejo to plant this church. And so we have another candidate church, three candidate churches now, in Columbia, and Joselo Mercado was telling me yesterday that Angel has actually completed all of his written exams for the ordination process. So he's moving along and will be ordained, we hope before too long. So that's Columbia.

(05:22):

Let's stay in Latin America with some updates in Costa Rica. I've mentioned this in a previous podcast that at the end of this month, Juan Jose Solano, we call him Juan Jo, is going to be ordained in San Jose, Costa Rica. He leads Iglesia La Gracia there in San Jose. But the good news is, is that two of his other elders in that church have completed the ordination exams as well, Andres and Daniel. And on the same day, Juan Jo and Andres and Daniel will be ordained as elders in Costa Rica and then possibly along with them, Chespi Sandoval who has planted a church in Jaco, Costa Rica, he has to pass his oral exam yet. So we're not certain that's going to happen, but if he does, there would be four guys being ordained as the first Sovereign Grace ordaineded elders in Costa Rica. So that's an expression of how that nation is beginning to build itself towards nation status. Someday we hope and pray.

(06:26):

I was on the phone with Rich Richardson yesterday; here's an update from Mexico. I didn't realize that we have 15 churches in Mexico who would like to be adopted into Sovereign Grace. Fifteen. So that's crazy because we've already got, I don't know, nine or 10 partner churches down there now. So, Carlos has got a lot of work, he's got his hands full with really just interest from some wonderful churches in Mexico. So pray for wisdom, pray for the Mexico leadership team as they continue to build their nation that was established just a couple of years ago, that wonderful moment in our Council of Elders when we established our first ecclesiastical nation outside of the United States. That was wonderful.

(07:09):

Let me go from there to Africa and begin in Ethiopia, just got word I think in the last week that another pastor's college graduate from the first pastor's college class that Michael Granger and Josh Pannell established, another PC grad has completed his ordination exams, and that's Abenezer Dejene. He was in the first PC class along with another man who's completed his ordination exams, Amanuel Yehusalashet, and he is just going to be ordained as an elder there in Ethiopia. And then Brian Kiama, who's planted in Nairobi, Kenya, now is ordained. And so there's just wonderful fruit from that first Ethiopia pastor's college class, three of those students graduating and doing internships in ministry and now are going to be ordained. Just so well done, Michael and Josh Pannell for the work that you've done there in Ethiopia.

(08:14):

I was talking to Doug Hayes yesterday. Doug is an elder, pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church where I'm a pastor and he also is the executive director of Covenant Mercies. So he makes two to three trips a year to Africa, and he was in Zambia just a week or two ago and brought with him the ordination certificate for Ector Makaliki, who is now a Sovereign Grace elder, ordained elder in Zambia and is there at Christ Community Church in Ndola. So he's the first ordained Sovereign Grace elder in Zambia that we've had since the passing of Wilbroad Chanda. So there was a lot to rejoice. That was a wonderful day for Doug to be a part of, that ordination service and a wonderful day for Christ Community Church. He said this, he said when we ordained Ector, there was Zicky, Wilbroad's widow standing up and just clapping enthusiastically, which says a lot about her and her heart to see the gospel continue on in Zambia and throughout Africa. So just a few updates, happy updates I would say, of how God is being good to Sovereign Grace as we continue to build globally.

Benjamin Kreps (09:29):

Excellent. That is a wonderful update for all of the guys that were mentioned that are going to be ordained or just recently ordained. Well done. We thank God for you and we are so grateful for God's grace in your lives as this partnership continues to grow. I mean, something you mentioned at the outset of the podcast I think is really important and it reflects a biblical model that we're eager to embrace together, and it's this, we care about wise planning and our polity certainly reflects much thought and planning and strategic thinking as it continues to be refined even in the Council of Elders and so forth. So we do our best, but then we are dependent on the spirit to lead. And so we don't see those in opposition to each other. We want to follow in what the Spirit is doing while we wisely plan. And the reality is I say that because this really is the spirit of God working in and through Sovereign Grace and the growing partnership that we have. And that reality is something that you, recently for the podcast said you've been studying the Book of Acts, you said in your devotions you've been edified and inspired by God's mission advancing throughout the earth, which is really what we're talking about here, a piece of that in Sovereign Grace. So thoughts for us, just more generally, bigger picture about mission and what God is doing.

Mark Prater (10:52):

Yeah, thank you Ben for that question. And one of the things I'm doing in my devotions is working through the Book of Acts slowly. I'm using David Peterson's commentary, which I would highly recommend. It's on Jeff's PC Bibliography, the Pillar Series. It's so good. And just yesterday finished Acts chapter 20, which I worked through slowly because I had to stop at times. I was just emotionally affected by that wonderful chapter in Acts and especially Paul's engagement with the Ephesian's elders in Miletus and just paused and just thanked God and worshiped God, that that chapter is even in our Bibles.

(11:31):

And then this morning, was beginning Acts 21, and Peterson was just commenting about how it's that last part, sort of his final missionary journey that's being captured. He's going to Jerusalem and Rome, and he pulled back from that and he said, it just really does reflect that our God is a sending God, that God the Father, sent his only son Jesus Christ to accomplish the work of salvation that we have all been transformed by and rescued from wrath by. And that work accomplished, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit so that we have power and the Spirit, as you said, can direct us in our mission. And it landed on me in a fresh way today that I never want to take that for granted. I never want that to be familiar in my heart or in my thinking, that God is a missionary God who sends to seek and save the lost. And along with that, just the amazement that God still saves today, that's the greatest miracle we will ever know.

(12:48):

And as we think about these updates, what we're really doing is we're reflecting something of God himself made in the image of God as we send people to plant churches in different parts of the world, as we partner with churches, as they plant churches, it's a reflection that our God is a sending God. And so may we, Sovereign Grace churches, never take that for granted. And may we continue to send our best for the sake of advancing the gospel. And when we do, may God get all the glory because we're imaging for something of his heart, for the lost.

Benjamin Kreps (13:29):

Amen, Mark. If anyone listening to these updates or when you give updates over the course of the year about what God's doing, if anybody thinks that in any way we are taking credit for what God is doing, that would be a mistake. These are updates that you provide us in order for us to praise God and glorify him for what he's doing. I mean, last Sunday, I preached at Redeeming Grace Church led by Jeremy Hetrick in Mechanicburg, Pennsylvania. And what an honor to be invited to preach there and how sort of disorienting to walk into a church surrounded by people that you know well and you lived alongside of for many years, but also being reminded that these are folks that left behind the familiar, they were willing to sacrifice comfort and to leave a church that they loved in order to participate in what God is doing and spreading the gospel in central Pennsylvania. Now, there is a church on the west shore of the Susquehanna River that is in cooperation with other faithful gospel preaching churches there, but another church there full of believers who are passionate about the glory of God, amazed by the grace of God and eager to proclaim the gospel of God. And like you were saying, I mean, if we ever hear updates like this and we find ourselves unaffected where it seems sort of passe, that's interesting, perhaps we are not actually grasping what's being talked about here. I mean, let us be ever amazed at God's saving grace. Let's be amazed. I just reminded you this morning, I was talking to you before the podcast. Let's be amazed that we woke up this morning, Christians, that God has sustained us and has kept us in his grace, and then to our utter astonishment, he actually invites us into his mission and we get to participate in seeing Christ being glorified throughout this world.

(15:36):

So this partnership and the pastors that are involved in that, the churches that are represented through all of this, and their heart for mission and their proclamation of the gospel about the globe, well let us be ever amazed at God's grace at work in our lives personally and in Sovereign Grace corporately. So thank you, Mark, for the updates. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.