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. Mark, still enjoying what we experienced a couple of weeks ago at the Pastors Conference. Last episode, you highlighted some resources that you guys posted online from the Pastors Conference so that what happened there can continue to serve us going forward. And you wanted to highlight some of those resources including a bunch of testimonies that were deeply encouraging that we heard.

Mark Prater:

I do. God was very good to us in Orlando. I think we all look back and continue to marvel at how really good God was to us during the conference. And we hold a conference not just to experience it in the moment, but we want to use the conference to produce resources to serve our pastors and the members of our churches. And so that's why if you go to the events page of the Sovereign Grace website and you click on the Pastors Conference, we've got a number of resources there. The main sessions, the breakout sessions, I'm going to talk about a couple more today. But we also just published the videos of the testimonies that were shared. And I would encourage pastors or members of our churches to listen or to watch those because they really recount how God is at work through our family of churches throughout the world.

And there's just some encouraging, inspiring updates that I think anyone can benefit from all for the purpose of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God alone. So if you're a pastor, think about who in your church might benefit from watching those, or maybe you could take them and show them on a Sunday morning or some small group context. They are there for the edification of your church. So that's something that just recently has been added. There's also the Spotify song list that includes the songs we sang at the conference. If you're interested in singing or listening to any of those songs, Bob did introduce a new song that David Zimmer wrote with Nathan Stiff and it's called Sing essentially. And it's a wonderful song that'll be on the Knowing God album that will come out next year. So there's a new song on there that you could sing as well. So just some of the resources that have been added and that our churches can benefit from.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I was losing my voice when I was at the conference and that song--I was attempting not to sing to protect my voice for a breakout that I taught on Wednesday--but that song came on. I could not, how can you not sing at the pastors conference? So I was sorely tempted and that is a wonderful song. So grateful for those resources and definitely we'll check out the Spotify list as well.

Last week you talked about a couple of breakout sessions taught by Josh Blount and Jeff Purswell in order to serve us in a couple of different vital areas, thinking about politics and our complementarian convictions. There were a couple more breakouts that you wanted to talk about.

Mark Prater:

I do, before I mention those two, let me just mention again, those main sessions and the breakout sessions are there not only for the edification and equipping of pastoral teams, but for the edification and equipping of members as well. So if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor listening to this or a pastor not in a Sovereign Grace church listening to this, those are resources that you should consider who in your church could benefit from. If you think the entire membership, make them aware of it. There may be small group leaders that you want to direct a main session to or a breakout session to. I find that, let's take for example the one we discussed last week regarding Josh's, Josh Blount's, complimentarian convictions breakout session. There's a lot of common questions that people have regarding Complementarian theology and our convictions there. That's just a great resource to use to give people to answer some of those questions. So just think in some strategic ways, some ways that you can serve your church by utilizing those resources.

I did want to highlight two other breakout sessions that are posted. There's one that you led, what I'm going to talk about in a moment, Ben, on our shaping virtues. And then the one I want to start with is a breakout session that Jon Payne led and taught regarding the privileges and pitfalls of pastoral teams. And it really is a team ministry breakout session. Jon just did a wonderful job of just saying, look, we like other denominations, we value plurality, plurality of elders that you see in scripture in leading the church. We can't just take it for granted. It's actually something we continue to have to remind ourselves of and what scripture says about it. So in his points, and by the way, his outline is available on the website, he uses this word renew.

So he talks about renew your sense of privilege of being on a pastoral team, renew your biblical convictions regarding pastoral teams or plurality. And in that point, he just talks about the overwhelming evidence for a plurality of elders that you see in the New Testament. And he makes the point that there, there's probably more passages on that than parenting, for example, that you find in the New Testament. So it matters to God. Renew your sense of pastoral fellowship or commitment to pastoral fellowship. We on pastoral teams really can really help one another to grow in Christ and how our godly example, not only as an individual pastor but as a team of pastors is so key to building Christ-like churches and then renew your love for fellow pastors. And I really appreciated that point because he just draws, he just used a number of texts to draw out how Paul in particular spoke about fellow pastors. He does so with appreciation and with affection and with encouragement. And that's something we continue to not have to renew but cultivate as we work with men on pastoral teams that we would have just a love for one another as we serve together. And not allowing the busyness of pastoral ministry to swallow those things up because of the tyranny of the urgent, but that we would continue to make plurality and team ministry not only a priority in our thinking because of our biblical convictions, but in our practice and how we fellowship and love one another. So just a really well done breakout session by Jon.

And then the other one is the one that you led, Ben, I think I've got the title right, How to Build a Gospel Culture in Your Church, using our shaping virtues. And Ben, I thought you just did an outstanding job teaching and leading that breakout session with a voice that you were losing by the way, and you got through all of that, but just how you laid it out biblically I thought was excellent.

And then you walk biblically through each of our Seven Shaping Virtues, which really are, as you said, the fruit of the gospel in our lives. So we devoted a breakout session to this because we do want to build Christ-like churches. And the gospel has this unstoppable power that does transform us and make us more like Christ as we pursue his work of sanctification in our lives. And so one of the things we hope for is the virtues, which are the fruit of the gospel are more and more evident in our lives as we grow in Christ. It's also what we hope people experience when they walk into a Sovereign Grace church. They experience, as you said, humility, joy, there's so many others that are there that you talked about, there are seven, generosity, encouragement, et cetera. And you just did a great job of laying those out.

And then you gave 10 ways to build your church culture with these virtues. And I thought those 10 ways were not just only practical and helpful, you included, I thought, just very helpful illustrations of the impact they had on your church or how they helped you address pastoral situations. I thought the illustrations in particular were very, very effective. So really, really well done. Another reason we asked you to do that particular breakout session, I shared this in my State of the Union and we'll probably devote an episode to my State of the Union address, but one of the things I said in my State of the Union, a concern I have for our family of churches as executive director, is that we're beginning to lose that virtue of encouragement. I don't know if it's because we've just gotten lax or we don't readily see evidences of grace in other's lives, but scripture commands us to encourage one another daily, is what the Hebrews text says. And so I want our churches to be filled with people that encourage one another. And so that's another reason for pastors or for members of the church to listen to your breakout session to cultivate that particular virtue in particular. So well done, Ben, on that breakout session.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. It's like so many of us historically have enjoyed not just rich biblical convictions and theology, but also this beautiful culture in Sovereign Grace. And I think just like the famous quote from D.A. Carson about the gospel is preached and believed in the first generation, assumed in the second generation lost in the third. I think you could say the same thing about a gospel culture as well if we're not attentive to that. So thanks for the opportunity to serve. That was wonderful. Looking forward to listening, I haven't heard Jon's yet, but I do want to hear that, grateful for Jon's heart for healthy elder teams and healthy pastors, and it's clearly evident in his care for us, including the paperwork that he developed for elder teams to work through together to help strengthen the fellowship and the health of the team. Certainly our churches notice, they take note, when there are healthy and happy pastors who love one another and together love the church. That is a wonderful experience for the people in our churches as well. So thank you for recommending these resources. Thank you to everybody who spoke, including the wonderful testimonies that really were a highlight. And thank you all for watching or reading or listening to the podcast. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.