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, one of the men that I admire most in Sovereign Grace, I know a man that is your friend and you admire as well, is Jim Donohue, and the many ways which he has served Sovereign Grace over the years: the Bridge course and other materials, and investing in us when it comes to evangelism, which is an area I know you want to see us grow in, in Sovereign Grace. But Jim has been working on an initiative to help us grow in the area of evangelism that was launched recently. Can you talk to us about that?

Mark Prater:

Jim is a friend and Jim is truly an evangelist. Yes, yes. I think we can say that. I think everyone that knows Jim can confirm that and he therefore is a gift to our family of churches. And he carries a burden for us as a family of churches to grow in reaching the lost with the gospel. And may we grow that way. I think it is an area that we need to grow as you mentioned, Ben. It's an area that I'm praying for. So we've asked Jim as a Leadership Team to help us in that endeavor; help Sovereign Grace grow in the area of evangelism. So there's a number of things he's been working on, but one of them I was able to drop into just yesterday. It's Thursday. I dropped into the Regional Evangelist Retreat on Wednesday that's being led by Jim.

And a Regional Evangelist Retreat is Jim's initiative to gather men in each region who have a heart for evangelism or want to see the churches in their region grow in evangelism and just begin to strategize with them and pray with them and equip them. So we had six of nine regions involved in this retreat. Jim represents the Northeast region. His brother, Bob, Bob Donohue, twin brother, by the way, represents the Mid-Atlantic region. Aaron Beane who's from Wilmington, North Carolina represents the Mid-South region. From the Southeast, Josh Murphy, many of you know is in Orlando. Matt Gray is representing the East Central region from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the South-Central region is represented by Aaron Mayfield, who is in Austin, Texas. And I was able to drop into the retreat while they were just talking and strategizing to just encourage those men for the heart they bring along with Jim to help churches grow in the regions in the area of evangelism.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, that's excellent. And what a fine list of pastors to be involved in that initiative as well. I went to an interest lunch at the conference and just sat around a table with those men and heard their hearts for the lost and for the mission of Jesus and evangelism. I think they're going to be serving us well in the days ahead. What kinds of things did you go over and look at, or did they go over and look at and talk about at the retreat?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I just was just asking what they were doing. I wasn't there for the whole time. Jim's been leading it very well and had a great plan put together. So they prayed together. I'm so glad Jim emphasizes prayer when we think about reaching the lost with the gospel. And then they just spent some time strategizing together because these guys are going to go back to their regions and then reach out to the churches in their region, either with a point person, whether it's a pastor or member of a church that just has a heart to reach the lost with the gospel. And just ask, "how can we help your church grow in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ?" And so the regional evangelist guys will be doing that. And then they took some time just to evaluate current resources that are available that could be really helpful in Sovereign Grace, and helpful in our churches, to equip members and pastors to share the good news of the gospel. So that's just some of the things they were doing this week. Obviously building together relationally, as we always do in Sovereign Grace, is important because they are going to be able to share ideas across regions with one another. And so the retreat is another picture of how we do partnership in Sovereign Grace. We build relationally, we help each other. And in this case, we hope to help each other grow in sharing the gospel and to reach the lost with the gospel.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, that's excellent. Any other thoughts before we conclude here about evangelism in our denomination in the days ahead?

Mark Prater:

Well, I think it's an important time for us to grow in this area for all the obvious reasons. Certainly the main one is how the culture is headed away from, very rapidly away from, God's word. And the further they head away from God's word, it seems the more hopeless they are. And we have the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we also live in a culture right now that is very polarized and very angry, and the gospel brings perspective and peace to souls that are troubled. And so the opportunity for us to share the gospel right now is just wonderful. I don't think it's very unique in history overall, but it's our moment in history. And I hope that we grow in it and I'm praying I can grow personally, and I'm praying that our churches can grow in this area.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's great. Amen. Thank you, Mark, for sharing that update. Thank you, Jim, for leading this initiative and to all the men that are involved. So grateful for all of you, and thank you for reading or watching this podcast. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

Transcript:

Eric Turbedsky: Hey, my name is Eric Turbedsky, Director of Communications for Sovereign Grace Churches, and I'm here with our Executive Director, Mark Prater on his podcast, which is about getting you what you need to be part of our global family of churches. And today I want to hear from Mark a little update: How did the conference go? What kind of things would you look at to evaluate the conference? Tell us some things that surprised you from the conference. It was a great conference Mark. Thanks for leading us. What were your thoughts? 

Mark Prater:  Well thanks. Thanks for asking. I thought the conference went really well. It actually went better than I'd hoped. I mean, you pray, but God always does more than you ask or even think to ask him. So I'm very grateful to God for how the conference went overall. 

Some highlights for me were: 

-People traveling from 18 different countries to be here in the States was so encouraging. 

-I was very affected (I know a lot of people told me they were as well) on Wednesday night, before we started singing to have Psalm 1:17 read in eight different languages. It just makes the gospel big. It reminds us that the gospel transcends racial, cultural, and language barriers and saves people from tribe, tongue, and nation. So that was so encouraging. 

-The preaching was outstanding. And we could spend a whole podcast talking about the preaching. 

-One of the things that surprised me in a good way was the interest meetings that were held throughout the conference. We had a church planting luncheon where we had 16 guys who are interested in planting a church with Sovereign Grace. It's actually the largest church planning interest meeting that we've had over the last six years. So that was a surprise, and very encouraging. 

-That luncheon was packed out. It was led by the national church planting group. And I heard back from Mike Seaver in particular who said that these guys were engaged. He said he could hardly eat his lunch cause they're just asking him all kinds of questions about how to plant with Sovereign Grace. So in a time when people might be thinking who wants to plant with Sovereign Grace, we're actually finding the opposite to be true. 

-The other thing that was encouraging was on Wednesday afternoon we had the Pastors College interests meeting and that room was packed out. We had to bring more chairs to accommodate the interest there. And there's just this increased interest from people who attended the conference to actually apply to the Pastors College next year. So that was really encouraging. And that same afternoon we had an evangelism meeting led by Mickey Connolly and Jim Donohue and those guys were telling me that room was packed out, and we had to bring chairs into that room as well. 

So that was all just a pleasant surprise that I think gives you a little bit of an idea of where we might be as a denomination. That's a picture of health in some sense you can measure. So that was encouraging. 

Eric Turbedsky: Well those are all outward reaching and expanding. We're chasing the gospel as it works. It felt big on whatever that was Wednesday night when all the languages, people just reading Scripture in different languages. But if you think church planting, Pastors College, so training for the future, and evangelism... it is really encouraging to think all my friends are looking outward and wanting to build and take risks for the expansion of the gospel. That's really encouraging. 

The room seems really big at our conference. This would be a question for everyone that was there this week. Is there a reason why all the chairs are zip-tied together and we're not allowed to spread them apart? Do you know anything about this Mark? And what are you going to do about it? 

Mark Prater: I didn't know they were zip-tied actually, so that's good to know. Last year we were in a smaller room and so we requested that bigger room because it felt like we were too packed in last year. So we moved over to this bigger room. I think we can make some adjustments: either bringing the stage out a little bit more or not zip tying the chairs so people can move around. I'll make sure that gets fixed. 

Eric Turbedsky: I also heard that there were a lot of silver alerts.. explain to those that are still lost that we're looking for them. So we learned there. And I don't think this was ever an issue in the past with Sovereign Grace Churches, but these silver alerts in Florida... 

Mark Prater:  Yeah. The silver alerts are something Mickey mentioned in the panel that he learned about, which is just folks that are a bit older who get confused and lost and they can't find their way. We had some of those at the conference. So it also tells us how we're moving from the first generation to the second generation, hopefully in Sovereign Grace. 

Eric Turbedsky: Do you expect anything--any big expectations for next year, thinking ahead of the conference? What would be different next year? Obviously maybe some different speakers or topics or whatever, but is there anything, in particular, you're thinking next year? 

Mark Prater: I think we'll look at different speakers because that can be helpful. One of the pieces of feedback I got was how well Josh Blount preached at his very first conference. 

Eric Turbedsky: We call him the Jeff Purswell of the West Coast, even though he lives in West Virginia. 

Mark Prater: Right. He's close enough. His state is called West Virginia. So you can claim it. I get it. He just did a great job. 

So a piece of feedback is: There are guys that we don't typically hear from that have that kind of gifting and ability. And so that's one of the things I would be thinking through in the year to come is other guys like him. I would have Josh speak again, obviously, but, I want to think about other guys, for example. 

And we didn't have CJ speak this year, so I want to most likely ask him again. I think it's good to hear from our founder. So that, that'd be something I'd be thinking about. 

The other thing is to continue to look for times of just praying for one another. We did that a little bit on Wednesday night and I'm wondering if there's another place in the conference to do that because it's an opportunity for pastors and wives to be cared for. Typically they're caring for others, but this is a conference where they can be cared for. So I'd be looking for those. There may be one additional opportunity there for next year. 

Eric Turbedsky: I have grown to appreciate it as I've been a pastor additional years and adding those years up that our Pastors Conference is still about word and prayer, which is just so appropriate for men and who are giving their lives to the ministry of the word and prayer to come be ministered to. So thank you for how you lead us Mark. I'm grateful. I think most of us, if not all of us, went home really happy. Thanks for the update. Thanks for being a part of Sovereign Grace Churches. Hopefully this serves you. Until we meet again.

If you have questions or comments, Mark, would love to hear from you. For more videos like this, hit subscribe on YouTube or by email at markkprater.com.