VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone. And welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, we talk a lot on this podcast about global church planting and partnership, but we also want to be planting churches here in the states as well. And to that end the National Church Planting Group is holding an assessment weekend to help our churches plant more churches here in the U.S. Can you tell us about that?
Mark Prater:
That National Church Planter's assessment weekend is scheduled for this coming weekend. So when guys get this in their inbox on Monday, it will have been this past weekend. So it's January 22nd and 23rd and it's something we're really excited about. It's a new initiative that's being led by Eric Turbedsky and involves the National Church Planting Group. The guy in the National Church Planting Group, that's really leading this, on point for the National Church Planting assessment weekend is our own Greg Dirnberger. He's gonna do a great job. Let me just tell you a little bit about it. There's actually six couples from different churches and different regions here in the states that will be traveling to the west coast for the National Church Planter's assessment weekend. And that alone is very encouraging. Exciting. The fact that we've got six guys along with their wives who have faith and are inspired and desire to plant a Sovereign Grace church is very, very encouraging and they'll get there on Friday evening.
And then all day on Saturday will be the assessment. And then we have three couples who are the assessors: Greg and Laurie Dirnberger, John and Nancy Loftness and Dave and Mary Beth Odom. And as you hear those names you men probably know, men and women know, that each of those guys along with their wives have planted Sovereign Grace churches. And also have years of pastoral ministry experience. So I'm really excited that these church planting candidates along with their wives are going to be assessed by men and women that we trust and who have been involved in church planting and have years of pastoral ministry experience. So I just can't wait to see what this weekend produces. And then at the end of this weekend those assessments will be sent back to the sending church just as a means to serve them. It's really for any eldership, the opportunity for someone else outside of your eldership or even outside of your region to assess a church planter and just sort of determine their readiness to plant a church. So that's a little bit of an overview of what's gonna happen this weekend.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah, that's excellent. And we're sending a couple actually. And so when I learned who was doing the assessment, I just thought, boy, excellent, excellent pastors and their wives, that are trustworthy men. And I look forward to their evaluation. I think it's gonna serve us big time. It will be very helpful. So what's the schedule look like? What kinds of things will they be doing during the retreat?
Mark Prater:
They've got a wonderful plan mapped out and some of the things that those couples will be doing is they want to get to know them. They've got a session where they say just tell us your story, and are really asking them to just share about their life. Some of their greatest joys, some of their greatest challenges, for example. So it'll take some time to do that. They're also gonna to do what they call a marriage checkup. They want to assess and determine how strong the marriage is and where they can encourage them and where they can help them. That's so important in a church planter's life, for their marriage to be continuing to grow in Christ. So I'm glad that's a part of it.
They're going to ask them to share the gospel. They want to ensure that a church planter knows the gospel, he and his wife, and can effectively share the gospel. So that's a portion of the time. And then they're gonna take some time and just ask the couple to share their vision for their church plant, which I would just love to sit there and hear those guys share their vision, as their wives are a part of that and will chime in, I'm sure, their vision for their church. So those are just a few of the things they're going to be doing over the weekend and will be part of the assessment that these three assessing couples we'll put together.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's wonderful. That sounds like a fruitful time. I love how it gets at how we love to build and grow relationally and that marriages are being invested in. And all of that just sounds wonderful. So any other thoughts about church planting before we end?
Mark Prater:
Well, in my State of the Union that I gave to the Council of Elders, I was calling us to take the right risks for the cause of Christ. And I think this is a right risk for us to take; to plant churches. Not to grow Sovereign Grace. It's not about that at all. It's really about planting churches to reach the lost with the gospel. And that's why we plant churches. We want to reach men and women who don't know Christ, and may of our church planting efforts result in people being saved and more people joining us around the throne on that great day singing "worthy is the lamb".
Benjamin Kreps:
Amen. Well, thanks to the faithful men and women that will be leading this time, this weekend. Thanks to all of you. Thank you, Eric, for leading the National Church Planting Group. And it's wonderful to see the investment being made into couples here that are exploring church planting. So thank you Mark, for the update. Thank you all for watching or reading, and we'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.
