Transcript:

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, this is Ben Kreps. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where we aim to connect our global family of churches to our Executive Director. You may notice if you watched the last episode, we are still in California because we want to talk about one more thing while Mark is there. Hey Mark, we're a growing global family of churches, and across the world there are pastors who are contacting us and asking about exploring and joining Sovereign Grace, and we're sending men from the Emerging Nations Team all over the world. Who decides who goes where to interact with these pastors and to serve them?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a great question. First of all, let me ask you guys a question. I think both of you along with Dave Taylor were in Liberia about a year ago. Tell us how that trip went.

Benjamin Kreps:

Eric, how do you think it went?

Eric Turbedsky:

Oh, man. I mean, it was my first time in Africa, first time in West Africa, first time in Liberia and I had been in a bunch of countries recently and Liberia was by far the most advanced in training and deploying pastors and planting churches. It was compelling and brought me to tears. I don't know how many times, just driving in the car hearing stories of how guys, particularly Dyona, as he leads a group of churches (and then you might say he is our primary contact). Hearing him and his wife's story and how they've laid down their lives made me want to move to Liberia. Or at least leave you there in Liberia.

Benjamin Kreps:

You guys tried to leave me there. Dave Taylor was looking for an apartment for me.

Eric Turbedsky:

Yeah. Somehow Dave Taylor, you and I went and Dave and I had an ulterior motive. We were hoping to make you be the apostle to Liberia.

Mark Prater:

Ben, how did you get that title, apostle to Liberia, by the way?

Benjamin Kreps:

Well, I gave it to myself.

Mark Prater:

You gave it to yourself. Okay. That's always the best way.

Benjamin Kreps:

I was christened that by Dave Taylor.

Eric Turbedsky:

You've been in contact with Dyona more recently. What is the 15 second highlight? What's going on?

Benjamin Kreps:

I mean, I had phone call with him this morning. I'm taking another group of guys back in March actually, in a couple of months. We're headed back. This time, we're going to do a pastors training, equipping pastors with marriage and family. So Dyona's bringing back something like 50 to 80 guys who just graduated from his Grace College. So there could be 150 (pastors and a bunch of wives) where we're going to be able to invest in marriages, just teaching on things that are not taught on at all really, throughout Liberia. So we're getting excited about that opportunity.

Mark Prater:

That's great.

Benjamin Kreps:

It's quite something to be around Dyona and see what he's doing bi-vocationally (because he works another job) where he is teaching biblical theology, reformed theology, expositional preaching, in a context where it's almost all prosperity gospel. And these men, we're teaching them things about gospel-centered ministry that they've never heard. And just to watch them come alive to it is not to be missed in my view.

Mark Prater:

That's great. Thanks for going. Thanks for going back. I'll be praying for you.

Benjamin Kreps:

It's my joy. Pray for Dyona as well. We're taking him through the ordination process, and he's making progress in that. We're hoping at some point in the near future, the next few years maybe, to see Sovereign Grace Liberia.

Mark Prater:

That'd be so cool.

Benjamin Kreps:

So Eric and I went, and a number of other guys have traveled. Who does decide who's going to travel and be a part of Emerging Nations, Mark?

Mark Prater:

Well first of all, it's not me. I don't decide those things. There are a couple of ways that that plays out.

(Cross-talk)

Benjamin Kreps:

They'll let anybody go apparently… It doesn't appear that there's any leadership happening here because I was invited to go…

Mark Prater:

That works. It's just very organic. It just kind of happens, man.

Eric Turbedsky:

We're just texting you from Liberia. Hey Mark, by the way, I'm in Liberia.

Mark Prater:

That's how I learned. Um, no, it plays out a couple of ways. First, through the leadership of Dave Taylor, who's our Director of Emerging Nations. What Dave has really taken initiative to do is to form an Emerging Global Nations Team that I think has captured the right guys who can serve in different countries. But he's able to find those guys because they themselves are taking initiative towards Dave or someone that they may know (another pastor, for example, in another nation), and just begin to build a relationship with them. So for example, I was just in Annapolis, Maryland with Ed Omera. He's been building relationships with pastors in Italy. And because of his initiative, we're able to have a doorway open to us where at least two churches there are interested in forming a partnership with Sovereign Grace. So I would say it's our pastors initiative and it's the leadership of Dave Taylor.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. And Dave is doing a remarkable job.

Eric Turbedsky:

Can I ask you a question? Mark if there's somebody out there, one of the guys watching the podcast, and he's thinking, hey, I'd like to get involved, I'd like to figure out how I fit into this, what do they do?

Mark Prater:

There are a couple of things you can do. First of all, as you express your desire, is there a particular part of the world that you are burdened for or would love to serve? And when you reach out to Dave Taylor, which would be the next step, email Dave Taylor and tell him you want to serve anywhere, but you have a particular burden for particular part of the world. Let them know that too. And he'll begin to interact with you and figure out: Is there a way that you can be deployed in serving what we're doing globally?

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent.

Eric Turbedsky:

Can I add too? I think one of the most encouraging things on my end (now I'm not traveling with Emerging Nations as much as I was in the past)… but a really cool innovation in Sovereign Grace churches has been the local church's ownership of the mission. So instead of being centrally funded and coordinated, you have a guy who calls Dave and says, I'm willing to serve. Where can I go? Most, if not all the guys that are traveling right now internationally, their local church is funding their travel and their expenses. And they're committing regular time. It's not just a one off, but they're saying, I'll put a couple of weeks a year into this and so many dollars out of our budget. That's been encouraging to watch local churches step up and say we're going to own this (and more than, you know, send us somewhere). We're actually going to fund this thing. We're going to get behind it. And that has been really encouraging.

Mark Prater:

I think that approach strengthens partnership overall. Because a lot of our partnership in Sovereign Grace is among pastors. And we're trying to figure out, how do we have our members enjoy aspects of our partnership more? I think that's one of them. Once a church hears that, for example, you, Ben are going to Liberia and they're funding some of that, they can't wait for you to get back and give a report. They're much more invested into--and tied into--our mission outside of the United in ways that we're advancing the gospel, so that even though they may never go to Liberia, they feel like they're a part.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. That's so true. And to be able to stand in front of my church (as I did last year and I'll do again this year) and commend the church for supporting me to be able to go to Liberia brings a lot of joy to the folks in our church, that they know that they played a part in training pastors in Liberia. So amen to all that.

Mark Prater:

Thanks for going again, man.

Benjamin Kreps:

I'm looking forward to it. All right, well thanks for taking time to watch the podcast. Hope this was helpful to all of you. God bless you, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript:

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, my name is Ben Kreps. I'm the Lead Pastor at Living Hope Church, a Sovereign Grace Church in Middletown, Pennsylvania. I'd like to welcome you back to this podcast where our goal is to help connect our global family of churches with our executive director Mark Prater. How are you Mark?

Mark Prater:

I'm doing great man. How you doing?

Benjamin Kreps:

Doing great. Last year on November 4th at our Council of Elders, you gave our State of the Union address. We're not gonna actually getting the specifics of that. We'll put a link in the transcript. You can click cause it's actually on the Sovereign Grace Church blog. But the Book of Church Order mandates that you give a State of the Union address at our Council of Elders each year and you do, which is wonderful. But I wanted to ask you, how do you approach the task of writing that State of the Union each year and formulating your hopes and prayers and vision for Sovereign Grace in the year ahead.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's something I love doing each year since I've been the executive director. The Book of Church Order doesn't really give any specifics on what the State of Union should be. So being the first Executive Director, I really got to make it up basically. And I really wanted it to be encouraging, so I include a number of updates that are intended to encourage our pastors as well as communicate that we are truly a global family of churches. So the updates that I give are from different parts of the world, but I also wanted the State of the Union to be inspirational in nature, so that it would cast vision for our future. So when we left the Council of Elders meeting and then the Pastor's Conference that follows that there's a sense of vision casting that's happened and that our pastors and our churches are filled with vision walking into the new year.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, so what about the nuts and bolts? So is this something that you're working on? You probably are working on this like on the plane and Orlando, I'm just assuming, but maybe not. So, uh, so what does it look like for you--your process of thinking through what you're going to be presenting to us at the council?

Mark Prater:

Well, the way I've approached it (I'm sure it can be different for different guys that will be in this role), but the way I approach it is I'm actually thinking about it throughout the year. I've already put in some thought to what I might even say in fall of 2020 at our Council of Elders meeting. And the reason I do that is as we go throughout our year, as I visit our churches, as I've talked to our pastors and even to the members of our churches, I'm just making notes of sort of the state of where we're at as a family of churches and from my perspective where we need to grow or how I can inspire us to continue on in gospel ministry. So this last State of the Union that I gave in November, I think I wrote the original draft in July, just to kind of get it down on paper, knowing that by November it may need to change some because of situations that would change in Sovereign Grace. But I actually wrote it several months before.

Benjamin Kreps:

You do visit a lot of churches. So you're going around, you're interacting with pastors and you're prayerfully thinking for months actually what you want to present to us at that Council of Elders.

Mark Prater:

Right. I am. Yeah.

Benjamin Kreps:

So do you get input on what you're going to say?

Mark Prater:

I do. One of the things I've done each year is I go to the Executive Committee retreat and I present them a draft version of the State of Union. I don't fully deliver it; I just kind of give them an abbreviated version and then they spend time giving me a lot of input. So that's nine guys on the Executive Committee giving me input. And I've always found that their input has really helped me improve it so that what I give in November is better than what I gave them in August.

Benjamin Kreps:

So they're not just rubber stamping. They're actually giving their thoughts to help sharpen and improve what it is that you're writing.

Mark Prater:

Their changes are represented in it. Even some of their own quotes are represented in it, and I really feel like they, they improve it. So it's a team effort in that regard.

Benjamin Kreps:

So it's the new year. And you had six exhortations to us in that State of the Union address last year. See the beauty of the glory of Christ, see the transforming power of the gospel, see the beauty of reaching the nations, see the beauty of God's provision, see the hope of future generations, see the beauty of our unity in Christ, which is all wonderful. We would all say amen to that. But if you could add or sort of crystallize a thought, one brief thing that you want to leave Sovereign Grace Churches pastors with as we enter into this new year and think about the year ahead, what would that be?

Mark Prater:

I think I would say this: I would say continue to faithfully preach Christ. And do that with even more faith that your preaching of the gospel every Sunday, of you reaching out to unbelievers in your community throughout the week. and hopefully having opportunities to share the gospel, doing that with a renewed faith or a strengthened faith of the gospel's power to save. As I approach the new year, one of my big prayers for Sovereign Grace is that we would reach the lost and people would be born again, and that the greatest miracle of regeneration that we will ever know would happen through the ministry of our churches. So be faithful brothers to preach Christ, and believe people will be saved.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. Thanks Mark. And as you're working on your thoughts already for this upcoming fall we look forward to hearing from you again at our State of the Union address at the Council of Elders in November. Hopefully I'll talk to you before then. Actually, I think next week. So everybody, thanks for taking some time to watch this podcast. God bless all of you and goodbye until we meet next time.