Sovereign Grace Publishing: Online Resources

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. I imagine by now, Mark, that members and pastors of Sovereign Grace churches have been benefiting from Sovereign Grace publishing. I know Jared Mellinger established that on the leadership team and it's wonderful to have access to resources published by Sovereign Grace for Sovereign Grace people. But a question is why are we publishing?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I'm very grateful for Jared's work. He really has had that responsibility to lead us in publishing since he stepped on the leadership team and recently as a leadership team, we decided to sort of formalize all of that, formalize the department by giving him the title of director of publishing, which is what he's already been doing. So it's just a no-brainer decision on our part, but we wanted to recognize the work and really the importance of that work for our family of churches.

Why do we publish? We want to publish resources primarily to serve our churches. We want to have resources that can serve our members that they can benefit from. And there's several resources like the Journal that's been published and recent books that have been self-published by Sovereign Grace that serve our members. And we're developing right now, “Theo-Pastoral” resources sort of in the line of the old perspective series, if guys remember that who've been around for some time.

So right now Josh Blount is working on a complementarianism one, for example, and there's a book being worked on, on elder governance, and just why that defines our polity that way and has a chapter on Congregationalism to make the distinction between our polity and congregational polity. So those will serve, I think, those can serve our members, but they're written a little bit more theologically and we hope will serve our pastors as well. So that's the first reason.

The second reason is we want to publish resources because they do, if they're done well, they will endure over time. And so we're thinking about future generations in Sovereign Grace, not just the next couple of generations who will be pastors and members of our churches. We're thinking about those we'll never meet and we want those resources to continue to influence and shape them as we build gospel-centered churches that are marked by our shared values and our shaping virtues. So those are the two primary reasons that we publish and we think it's very, very important. And I'm very grateful for Jared's initiative because we've got a number of new resources up on our website.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. The Journal and the books have all been a blessing over the last couple of years. I think one of the things I appreciate is because these resources are being written by Sovereign Grace pastors, then those who read what's being published can trust that these are men who share our values and our shaping virtues. And so these can be trusted pastors that we're reading who share our convictions in Sovereign Grace churches. You mentioned that on the website there is the ability to access these resources. Now how do we access what's being published?

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Recently we made a change on the homepage of our Sovereign Grace website, which is sovereigngrace.com. We did have at the top menu there a Journal link that has been changed to Publishing and now if you click on Publishing, you'll see a dropdown menu that says Journal and Books. So if you click on the Journal, you'll see that all of the previously published Journals are there. The PDF versions are free and if you want to order them, you can order them at Amazon. We don't make any money on that. It's just a way to get it shipped to you and they're listed by the most recent ones first, is sort of the way it goes. And then a new tab that's been added that Jared's been working on is called Books. And if you click on that, there are a number of self-published books that are on that particular page and they are really just very, very helpful resources.

Let me just mention the ones that are up there. Continue in What You Have Learned; sermons by CJ Mahaney that shaped our family of churches. That was edited by Jared Mellinger. It's a gift we gave to our pastors and wives a couple of years ago at the pastor's conference. But that has I think, enduring utility for us. The book Sacred Zeal by Jeff Purswell, which is really a transcript, an edited transcript of his sacred zeal message from a couple of years ago at the pastor's conference. Jared Mellinger has a book entitled The Grace of Partnership, also an edited version of the sermon he preached at a recent pastor's conference. And then a book called Joyful Generosity that four Sovereign Grace pastors worked on. Brendan Willis, who's in Australia, Kyle Houlton, who's in Southern California, Leo Parris and myself who are in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. That really is an accessible biblical theology of generosity and emphasizing the joy you have when you are a generous people.

And then just a recent edition of We Believe which is our Statement of Faith, but this is the editors' edition in print form. In fact, I got a copy right here you can take a look at and it's got a great cover on it. And the editors' edition adds a component to our Statement of Faith that I think enriches our statement of faith. So this is something that guys can access, they can order if they want to give it to their members. And all of those resources are self-published by Sovereign Grace and are available to you with many more self-published works in the queue right now that Jared will get up on that website very, very soon.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I know just a couple days ago we were talking about handing out Joyful Generosity later this year when we do a stewardship series and a bunch of copies and making sure every family has a copy of that excellent little book, very accessible. What recommendations do you have for us when it comes to using these resources?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I think all of those resources can be used in various ways in our churches and even maybe with pastors who might be interested in Sovereign Grace. So I mentioned the We Believe editors' edition. You might consider giving that, ordering that and giving that to every person who goes through your new members class in your church. In fact, I would recommend what you do is what some churches are beginning to do in our family of churches is they actually put this package together and it's the We Believe editors' edition that they'll give new members along with our Journal on Shared Values and our Journal on Shaping Virtues, and that's a package they'll give every new member that's going through their new members' class. So that's a great idea. In fact, we did this at Covenant Fellowship just this past weekend for our Leaders retreat that we do annually, and we gave each of our leaders that package right there. It's just another way to continue to strengthen in them our theological convictions as well as our shared values and shaping virtues.

I think another recommendation would be if you are developing young men for ministry, there are certain resources that are must reads in my opinion. One would be CJ's sermons Continue in What You Have Learned. Those have shaped us as a family of churches and we want them to shape potential future pastors. I would also give them Sacred Zeal, those that you're developing for pastoral ministry by Jeff, because you want that to mark the life of a pastor. Now, they could listen to his sermon, but it's another thing I think to give them that book as well. If there are folks, pastors or churches outside of Sovereign Grace that are interested in Sovereign Grace, I think Jared's book on The Grace of Partnership is an excellent resource to hand them to help them understand how we understand partnership and why it's important to us as a family of churches.

You mentioned how you're using Joyful Generosity. There may be a time when you need to take up a big offering or you need to raise money for a building fund, something like that. That can be a very helpful book to give to each of your members. So those are just a few of the ways. I could go on and on about other ways you can use them, but they're there to serve you. Again, I think all the PDFs are free, so we're not trying to make money on it. And the Amazon cost, if you order them to get published editions, they just cover the cost of that. So they're there. And I hope you use them for the good of your church and to serve even new folks coming to Sovereign Grace churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Yeah, I know many churches in Sovereign Grace are experiencing growth, and if that growth is anything like what we're experiencing here, there are new folks who do not share our theological background necessarily. And so it's wonderful to have physical resources to put into people's hands to help them acclimate to our churches theologically, also to invite them into the culture of grace that we've experienced over many years. And so in Sovereign Grace, we have a culture of reading that I enjoy deeply, and it's wonderful to have these resources. Thank you, Jared, for leading us in this. And thank you to all the men who have written and made contributions to the Journal and these books, and 'looking forward to what gets published in the days ahead. So thanks, Mark. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.