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.

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.