VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, before we started recording the podcast, you were talking about how at the recent leadership team retreat you had a discussion about church planting and why we plant churches. We definitely don't plant churches to merely spread the Sovereign Grace Church brand or anything like that. We actually have biblical convictions about church planting. You guys were talking about that. Talk to us about your discussion.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it was a wonderful discussion that actually Jon Payne led us through, did a great job of leading us through the discussion that he had put together, just a document, really a conversation piece, about our church planting assumptions in Sovereign Grace. And the reason he did that is because he's had this conversation with the Church Planting Group. They are not this independent isolated committee or group in our family of churches. They're actually an extension of the leadership team. So we want to make sure that we're all on the same page, the leadership team and Church Planting Group when it comes to how we think about church planting and why we plant churches in Sovereign Grace. And so I know Mike Seaver has seen this. Joel Shorey, our new director of church planting has seen this. And then Jon brought this draft working document that I'm just going to mention here in just a moment. He gave 'em some input and they'll talk about it again at the Church Planting Group retreat in August. But I thought they were really, really helpful.

I will say before I give these 12 assumptions, that we're thinking of the United States in using these; there are certainly assumptions that apply in other nations, but not all of them will, and would encourage guys that are planting churches outside of the United States, and Dave Taylor will help guys think this, about how can they take these assumptions and have them for their own nation. So just some introductory comments before I walk you through these 12 assumptions that we discussed.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's excellent. Glad that you guys, you're not just kicking around thoughts, you're actually wisely highlighting things that are helpful to the pastors and members of Sovereign Grace churches. When we think about church planting and people talk about church planting all the time, so of course there are assumptions connected with that conversation. So what are some assumptions about church planting that you would like us to be aware of?

Mark Prater:

Right? As I mentioned we have in the working document anyway, 12 assumptions. Those might change. We might reduce that number, but I thought they're all good. So it was worth dedicating a podcast to it. Assumption number 1: we want to plant churches, and here's the reason why. We as a family of churches, we desire to reflect the New Testament model of advancing the gospel by sacrificing for the mission and sending people to plant new churches to reach people that haven't heard Christ or reach an area that may not have a solid gospel preaching church. So that's a biblical conviction. That's a New Testament model that we are wanting to reflect in Sovereign Grace.

Assumption number 2: we want to plant for endurance. So we want to plant churches that will be faithful to God's word, faithful to our theological convictions and endure over time. So what that means is we're not as interested in numbers and we're not going to have these goals for numbers, but what we're interested in is planting solid churches that will be faithful and endure over time.

Assumption number 3: we plant with Sovereign Grace pastors. And what that means is we plant with men who are ordained in Sovereign Grace, who share our theological convictions, our seven shared values and our seven shaping virtues and where possible they also have some degree of pastoral experience. Now that may change based on the planter and how much experience he either has or needs, but we're just learning that guys who've got some degree of pastoral experience plant more solid churches because they've learned about pastoral ministry and that helps them plant well. Basically, Eric Turbedsky, when he was our director of church planting just unashamedly said appropriately, we plant Sovereign Grace churches a Sovereign Grace way. And that's kind of a little bit of what he was getting at in that phrase, right?

Assumption number 4: we value team ministry. That's not new to the pastors and even members of our churches that are listening to this, but where possible we'd love to send a plurality of elders more than just a solo elder. Now that's not always possible, but where we can, we want to do that. Or if we can't send a man already ordained, we'd love to send somebody who certainly is called and potentially on that ordination track because it will strengthen the church plant because pastoral teams are a reflection of the church. And so that'll be a stronger church.

Assumption number 5: we plant with denominational financial support. So in other words, we together as a family of churches, we are committed to replicating this New Testament model of planting churches so much. So we want to give our financial resources; those coming from our national resources, Sovereign Grace Central, those coming from our region. It's just one way to invest into the gospel and that allows a man to really devote his time to planting the church and not needing to find ways to earn other income.

Assumption number 6, which is really the next logical one: we plant with vocational pastors. Now this is one that may not work outside the United States because of the economy in certain nations, guys may need to be bi-vocational. But here in the states, our assumption is we want to plant with vocational pastors again because they can focus on the work of planting and not have to worry about how they're going to support their families.

Assumption number 7: we prioritize preaching, which is again not new in Sovereign Grace. CJ has led us down that road so well. You lead your church from the pulpit and you build your church on God's word Sunday after Sunday in solid expository preaching. And that's going to build churches that endure and that's going to build strong gospel centered churches.

Assumption number 8: we value denominational preparation and ongoing care. It's why we have a Church Planting Group. Those guys exist to help you, a planter, prepare, assess, and prepare. It's one of the roles that our regional leaders play in providing care for the planters. So our denominational structures that we have in place are in part there to foster and strengthen our church planting efforts.

Assumption number 9: we prioritize cooperative efforts. So we just believe that we're going to be able to do more together as a family of churches. And so the sharing of resources and the sharing of prayer, meaning we pray for one another as we plant churches is really important. And when I talk about sharing resources, I'm not just talking about financial resources, I'm talking about people. First of all, people that may be in one church that can join another church's church planting team because they have a desire to be a part of a church plant or the sharing of pastors. You may have a location to plant but not a pastor. And so a church in Sovereign Grace sacrificially gives that pastor to that other church so he can plant a church and the gospel can be advanced. Those are huge sacrifices, but they reflect the resources that we share.

Assumption number 10 is we prioritize pastoral ministry. Planters are pastors. That's something that I think Eric said. It's something that Jon has emphasized. Pastors are planters we want to plant with. Men are shepherds who will shepherd the flock of God that they begin to gather as the church plant forms.

Assumption number 11, we prioritize godly character. In other words, we want to send planters who are proven in godly character, tested in godly character and we can affirm their godly character. I think that's one of the roles of our, not only of our local churches, but our regional church planting committees, as well.

And then assumption number 12, we take faith-filled risks on the right things. So I want to continue to call us to take faith-filled risks, but we've got to take risks on the right things. I won't spend a lot of time on that because I dedicated a podcast to that topic just a few weeks ago. So if you haven't heard that, listen to it. But for example, we don't want to take risks on godly character, but we do want to take risks in sending our best to further the mission of the gospel as we plant churches.

So those are the assumptions, at least right now, those may change, but I thought it'd be a good time just to introduce them to our pastors and members of our churches and as we work on this, pray that God gives us wisdom, and pray that God would give us resources, men called to plant, people wanting to be on church plant teams, and financial resources to plant churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's very good. And I was struck again by a couple of those assumptions that are helpful to perhaps a church that wants to be involved in church planting but doesn't see the way forward but can help financially, help with people, help with resources. The sharing together, this cooperation in Sovereign Grace, is a central piece to how we plant. And so grateful for the Church Planting Group. I know when we planted last year, Redeeming Grace Church in Mechanicsburg, they served us so well. So helpful. So I've said this before, but if anyone's just thinking, I don't even know what it looks like to get involved in planting or the way forward, the Church Planting Group will help you. They will lead you through the whole process and we were helped so much by them.

So thank you, Mark, and the leadership team, and the way that you interact with the Church Planting Group and such thoughtful ways to serve us and may God give us the privilege of planting many more churches in the days ahead. So thank you, Mark, for the update. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

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, when this podcast drops into emails, you will be at a retreat with the leadership team, but also with the regional leaders. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, thank you for asking, Ben. The retreat that will start on Monday, February 5th, is a leadership team retreat. And for about three or four years now, we've been inviting regional leaders to the first half of the retreat. So the regional leaders are with us from Monday, February 5th through about noon on Wednesday the 7th, and then the leadership team is there until Friday and it's such an important strategic retreat. We've done this I think three or four years now. Initially we did it where we had the regional leaders join us in June and they gave us really good input. They loved the retreats. They said, could we do that the first retreat of the year? Because what it does is it helps us inform how we might want to lead through our regional assembly of elders. So that's why we do it in February as a leadership team and we invite our regional leaders in.

You might remember, if you listen to the podcast, that last year we also had our global leaders join us. We'll probably do that every few years, but this year it's just the nine US regional leaders that will join us. And it's such an important time because we believe these men are really the frontline of leadership in Sovereign Grace as they lead each of their regions and collectively help us lead Sovereign Grace together and forward in mission. And we just thank God for these regional leaders and want to not only invest into them, we want to encourage them and pray for them. And so we've just got time mapped out with them that we've thought through.

The first part of the retreat is just taking time to get updates from every regional leader about their region. And that's very important to us because we learn a lot as a leadership team about how our churches and our pastors are doing. But we also learn a lot from our regional leaders about how we can serve our churches better. So we just have some long conversation blocked out for those updates. And as a leadership team, we always look forward to that.

And then we've got three topics chosen that are in a short-teaching, long-q-and-a discussion format. And those three topics are a reflection of some of the things I'm carrying as the executive director, and the leadership team is carrying; just burdens that are on our heart for this year. Some of them actually I mentioned in the State of the Union. So we've got a session related to leading toward encouragement as I mentioned in the State of the Union, I think it's an area that we've gotten weaker in recently as a family of churches. So, just growing and encouragement. Jared is going to do a short teaching on encouragement and then we've got some questions we just want to kick around with the regional leaders.

The next one is a focus on godliness. We want to build Christ-like churches. I also mentioned that in my State of the Union. So, leading toward godliness and then a q and an after that, John and I will lead through. And really the purpose of that is to make sure that the cultural pressures we face that can locate responsibility for our actions outside of us, don't impinge upon the church. And that we continue to see the fact that indwelling sin still remains and we need the grace of God to transform us. That's in a nutshell a little bit what we want to talk about there. We also want to be aware of a therapeutic influence, you might call it the new therapeutic influence, which has more of an expressive individualism component in it than it did maybe back in the late nineties, for example. So we will kick that around.

And then we've got a session entitled Leading Toward the Future, and Jeff Purswell is going to talk about leading into pastoral equipping. And as I mentioned both in the main session and at the State of the Union, we've got guys, about half our pastors, in their fifties and sixties, and we just want to prepare for that transition that's coming up. So it's really about recruiting and sending men to the Pastor' College and just a little bit on how you do that. And then just a q and a discussion. So those are the sessions that we have planned with the guys along with updates, and we're really excited about our time with them. And so if you would pray for each of our regional leaders here in the States and for our time together, that would just be very, very helpful.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I just thank God for the gift of leadership that we've enjoyed historically in Sovereign Grace and that I know the leadership team and our regional leaders, you guys take your work seriously. It's wonderful to hear about the kinds of topics you'll be discussing, but also that you'll be building even deeper relationally by doing it in a retreat atmosphere. But they are leaving on Wednesday and the leadership team remains for a few more days for you guys to go over some things. What's going to happen when the leadership team is meeting together?

Mark Prater:

Some of the things that I have planned, I always have more of an agenda than we typically have time to get to, but some of the things I have planned that the leadership team has been thinking about and is coming prepared to discuss, there's a session entitled Sovereign Grace Vulnerabilities. So, just thinking through where our churches might be vulnerable theologically, vulnerable to the culture, and just trying to identify those so that we're keeping an eye on that and figuring out how do we lead in such a way that serves our pastors as they serve their churches in really protecting their flocks and really being aware of those vulnerabilities. And I've got that scheduled before we plan the pastors' conference because maybe there's something that emerges out of that conversation that might inform either a breakout session topic or main session topic that we want to talk about at the pastors' conference.

But we plan to plan not only the 2024 pastors’ conference, we hope to plan the 2025 conference, because in 2025, as I announced at the pastors' conference last year, that is going to be a pastors and leaders conference where we're encouraging our churches to bring all of your leaders, bring any members you want to bring; those that are not only small group leaders and deacons and ministry team leaders, but also those you might be developing for leadership. And we want to broaden that and we think the theme of that, we've got to sort of maybe even choose first before thinking about the theme of 2024, because we really want to serve our churches with the extra leaders that'll be there in 2025. So we'll plan the pastors' conference. We need wisdom for that, just not in terms of themes, but topics for main sessions and breakout sessions.

Jared is going to give a publishing update, which I'm really excited about. And then I've got Rich giving a Latin America update. And I just want to talk to the team, actually we have a session just about the broad application of our shaping virtues as something that Jared would like to discuss, which I think is really good. We have these shaping virtues. How do they continue to affect our churches? How do we continue to model them as pastors, that sort of a conversation. So that's basically the plan that we have.

As you mentioned, we take our work seriously, but we have a lot of fun in what we do. There will be a lot of laughter with the regional leaders. A lot of laughter with the leadership team guys. These men for me, not just the leadership team, but the regional leaders, they're men I just love working with and I can't wait to see them next week. And so if you're listening to this as it comes into your inbox Monday, thank you so much for praying.

Benjamin Kreps:

We will be praying for you guys as you sacrifice your time and with your church and your family as you serve us. Thank you so much to our excellent regional leaders and to our excellent leadership team. We thank God for you and thank you for the updates, Mark. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. We have a guest with us. You are down in Louisville, and we have the legendary Dean, Jeff Purswell, Dean of the Pastors College, joining us. Thanks for joining us, Jeff.

Jeff Purswell:

It's great to be here. I never thought I would make the lineup here. I've never seen the podcast. I read the podcast every week and to be included is quite the honor, so thank you.

Benjamin Kreps:

Your resume is complete. I attended the Pastors College in 2011 and 12, so I'm going 12 years since I graduated from the PC and we got guys on my team that went to Pastors College. It was one of the most wonderful years of my wife and I, our lives together. We often said we'd love to go back and do it again. It was such a joy. I'm coming to the pastoral ministry class next month, so I do dip back in, here and there.

But at the conference, Mark, you urged us to consider sending people to the Pastors College and talked about how it's an important part of raising up the next generation in pastoral ministry, a need that we have as the founding generation ages out of ministry. And so you had Jeff on because we want to talk about that.

Mark Prater:

Jeff is my good friend. We work a lot together, so thank you for honoring me to be on this podcast. Really what I'd like you to talk about is framed in this question, Why is the Pastors College vital to the future of Sovereign Grace, especially as it relates to theological training for our pastors, and not just theological training, but character development as well?

Jeff Purswell:

Wow, great question. Vital, that's an imposing word. I certainly wouldn't say, and I'm sure none of us would say, that churches cannot raise up pastors, that churches cannot grow and flourish and reproduce themselves, that Sovereign Grace cannot endure without the Pastors College. I would say though, that given who we are as a family of churches, given what the Lord has worked in us, the doctrine that we confess together, our connected polity, our shared values, our shaping virtues, those things that we hold to and treasure and cherish, I think for those to be nurtured and preserved and transferred between generations, I do think the Pastors College plays a vital role.

There's a number of reasons for that, but perhaps the primary one I would say is that the Pastors College exists not just to train men for pastoral ministry, but to train them for pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace churches. In other words, it's pastoral training calibrated to our partnership. It's designed to strengthen our partnership. It's designed to impart values and instill virtues by the grace of God that are vital to our partnership. So we're not just a generic, freestanding academic institution determining our own values and our own standards in a vacuum driven by our preferences or the preferences of random instructors or much less driven by the marketplace. We exist to serve churches. We are accountable to the churches that we serve. And so we seek by God's grace to design and hopefully to continually strengthen a program that serves the interests of our churches, our doctrinal commitments, our philosophical commitments, our missional commitments, even our politic convictions.

And I'll just tell you from my perspective, as you observe the broader evangelical world, as you look at where certain institutions have moved, if you look at the pressures that are upon, especially theological training institutions, if you look at how theological definition has weakened, how denominational fragmentation has occurred, and even more broadly within the evangelical world, the fragmentation that we've all observed in recent years, I do think the Pastors College is helping and will help in the future to preserve and to strengthen and protect us in our doctrine, in our mission, in our relationships. And I trust, beyond all our gospel commitments and ultimately our devotion to Christ and His glory in our lives and in the church.

Mark Prater:

Amen. So well said. I think it's well said for a number of reasons, but one is just equipping men for ministry, specifically for Sovereign Grace churches. Sort of a follow-up question to that would be, what can the Pastors College accomplish that a local church can't?

Jeff Purswell:

Yes, that's a great question, especially for pastors who might be listening. Again, I want to say I think local churches do have a responsibility to raise up pastors, elders; 2 Timothy 2 places that imperative upon the shoulders of every pastor. So it's not that a local church, and none of us would want to say that a local church cannot raise up pastors, obviously they can and clearly not every man aspiring to pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace is able to come to the Pastors College. Although I do want to say over 25 years of experience, I have seen the Lord provide in a remarkable way. So I would politely challenge any guy who just automatically assumes they can't make it. Well, perhaps you can. Not every church is necessarily in a position to send a man and his family to the Pastors College, but if they can, and I would strongly encourage them to consider this, we're just able to accomplish things in the Pastors College that is difficult, if not impossible, for a local church to do.

And that is not because we have created something great in the Pastors College or we have this wonderful expertise in the Pastors College. It's because the churches of Sovereign Grace have partnered together to create the Pastors College, and they are devoted to resourcing the Pastors College precisely to produce a quality of training and an intensity of training that an individual church would love to do, but can't. So it's not as if a church can't do it and we can, it's that our churches have partnered together now for a quarter century to create the Pastors College to create what they wish they could do, but given their limited resources and time and manpower, they're just unable to do so.

The credit for this goes to our churches. And what we seek to do is just build upon what our churches are already doing in the lives of the men that they are raising up now. So examples of that, we could enumerate many things. Obviously there are resources provided by our churches that are available in the Pastors College, the pooled experience or the pooled expertise in the Pastors College through our various instructors. And this is another thing that I think people often are unaware of. The exposure to Sovereign Grace pastors to an array of Sovereign Grace pastors and Sovereign Grace leaders that a pastors college student receives, I mean, they benefit. So in the process, they benefit not only from their own local church, but from many local churches through interacting with the leaders of many local churches, they get to know and interact with Sovereign Grace leaders.

Most of the members of the leadership team typically come through. Many of them teach. They interact with members of the executive committee when they're in town. So they're getting to know the leaders of our family of churches. It's a wonderful exposure. I think of an example, if you think of certain corporations, they'll have an executive training program, a management training program. And so certain people in that corporation, they'll meet the CEO, they'll meet the board of directors and so forth, and they're just meeting people who are leading them, and they're meeting people who are providing guidance for that organization that may, it's a weak comparison, but it's kind of like that; a person, a student who graduates from the Pastors College, they have gotten to know our family of churches in a very personal way. And I think there's real benefit from that.

They also benefit from the staff, obviously, of the Pastors College and of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. And so in addition to the church that sends them, they benefit from another local church, a local church that has a broad range of experience on his pastoral team. So they're learning from CJ Mahaney and his years of experience and his years of faithful example from the team he's assembled there. They learn throughout the year worship from Bob Kauflin and so forth.

And then of course, they are building deeply relationally with a group of men and families from throughout Sovereign Grace. As I always say, the secret sauce of the Pastors College, our secret weapon, it's the men who come. It's the men that our churches send. And I've seen it year after year, what happens among the students and their families. I tell the guys at the beginning of the year, look around; the greatest means of grace to you this year through the spirit's work is going to be the men sitting around you. They become lifelong friends, they become gospel coworkers.

All that to say, when a man graduates from the Pastors College, he has had an intensive, multidimensional exposure, not just to doctrine, not just to scripture, but also to Sovereign Grace as a family of churches.

And then the other part of that, and this may be obvious, but I do want to mention it, there's simply the benefit or the privilege of an intensive undistracted focus on learning, on a biblical and theological education, on a pastoral education, on intensive discipleship that most of them will probably never have that opportunity again. And when a man is in the marketplace serving as a bi-vocational pastor and so forth, and I'm so grateful for our bi-vocational pastors and have tremendous respect for them, because they are adding on top of their labors, providing for their family. They're serving the local church. But when a man has the opportunity, there is a particular benefit to that intensive, concentrated focus that just leverages all that they're learning, I think.

So I think those would be a few of the things that a local church would have difficulty doing, but again, our local churches have decided they want to produce this. So it's not as if we're doing something that are separate from our local churches. We're doing something that our local churches support and have helped to create.

Mark Prater:

Well said. Well said. Obviously there are guys that come to Sovereign Grace Churches with a seminary degree or there may be men in our churches that are thinking about pastoral ministry and they're thinking about seminary, which could be an option. So I'd just like to answer this question, What does the Pastors College do that a seminary can't?

Jeff Purswell:

Yeah, that's a great question. I interact a lot with people over that issue. Obviously, much to be gained in a seminary setting. We are grateful for seminaries. I'm personally grateful for seminaries. We encourage guys to avail themselves, if they have the opportunity, of seminaries and their resources. Like you said, more many guys come to the Pastors College after seminaries. A number of our students will go on to take seminary courses after graduating from the Pastors College. So we just fully encourage that and are grateful for that, especially where seminary education is going, which is going online. It's actually one of the unfortunate things that's happening among seminaries, and this is happening every day. Their ongoing viability for a residential program is becoming very difficult. And so the trend is online, and while that is a qualitatively different experience, I think in pastoral training, nonetheless, it does make available biblical and theological information and doctrinal teaching that I think is a blessing.

But when we think about the Pastors College, the Pastors College is not merely a seminary alternative in other words, a sort of quantitatively lesser seminary experience. The Pastors College is a qualitatively different experience from a seminary in many ways. I'm not saying it's superior, that we're superior to seminaries. I'm just saying we're different. It's a different thing. So the choice is not simply a stark "seminary or the Pastors College". I think you have to look deeper than that and say, okay, what is the Pastors College? What is the college experience comprised of? This touches on what we said a moment ago about the Pastors College training being calibrated to our partnership. A few specifics there. First of all, it's not just theological information that's downloaded online. It is a confessional education. We have a charge from our churches that Sovereign Grace Churches, theological biblical convictions, undergird and inform all of our instruction. And so we look at our statement of faith, which all of our pastors affirm as representing the body of teaching that they're committed to.

Our statement of faith is like a solemn pact between the Pastors College and our churches. So our instruction doesn't waver according to an instructor's idiosyncratic preferences or current fashions or sort of evangelical trends. No, it's tethered to the biblical and theological character of our partnership, and that's just vital. I'd include in that our gospel centrality; that's not a slogan, on a flag, we wave. We're just not in the gospel centered club. No, the gospel embodies certain realities and the pastor's call, it seeks to honor the realities embodied in the gospel. And so we endeavor self-consciously to train men to build their lives and their families and their churches upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and it's glorious doctrinal realities as well as it's existential, it's life implications.

I think another distinction is our connection to the local church. Of the many ways I would describe the Pastors College program, one is the theological training that is informed by our ecclesiology. And so the entire structure, the entire program is just that. It is informed by our ecclesiology because our students are being trained to serve in local churches. We don't want their education isolated from the very context for which they're being trained to serve. And that doesn't mean that it's education just within the walls of a church, but no, training that is informed by, illustrated by, reinforced by, contributed to, from a shared church context. I think of the illustration of medical students that are trained in connection with a teaching hospital. They're in the classroom a lot, but then they get connected to a teaching hospital. Our students, there's a comparison there. Our students, they benefit from that powerful combination of instructional expertise and contextual application. So every day we are making, in every course, we are making connections intentionally between the content of lectures and the life and ministry of the host church that the men are coming from, where they and their families are worshiping and so forth.

And then let me step back and say our ecclesiology informs the entire Pastors College experience from the admissions process. So our students aren't self-selected men who have money and can fill out an application and just pursue a theological education. No, they are sent from local churches with their character and their gifting being affirmed, their internal desire for ministry receiving some degree of external confirmation from their local church. When they graduate, their deployment into local churches is going to be informed by their Pastors College experience. So again, it's not just you graduate, you send out resumes and try to get a job in a church, but those connections that we have in our partnership is informing the deployment of them.

And then another way I sometimes describe the Pastors College, is we're training men to do theological ministry. In other words, we want every aspect of ministry, every methodology of ministry to be informed and shaped by theological convictions. Methodology is not incidental, but we want all methodology to be informed and shaped by scripture and by theological education.

Another aspect that I'd have to throw in there, I mentioned this earlier, but our training is relationally nourished. One of the unique aspects of the Pastors College as opposed to a seminary setting is that students aren't just taking the same curriculum but on their own timetable passing one another in the halls, but they are experiencing everything together. They're experiencing the classroom setting together. They're experiencing fellowship groups together. They're experiencing couples groups together. So every aspect of the program; pastoral, theological, personal, is leveraged by those relationships making each component of the Pastors College experience, I think more fruitful.

And that gets to one other dimension, and seminaries know this and they say this, not that they don't want to nurture the spiritual lives, but you'll typically hear when you enter a seminary, we are not your church now, the Pastors College is not their church either, but because it is informed by our ecclesiology, we do have a distinct life and doctrine focus. If I can just echo 1 Timothy 4:16, that is a verse that the students here exposited on day one of orientation, and it is a verse that will appear on their certificate of graduation when they graduate. Every aspect of the Pastors College is designed to cultivate one or both of those priorities. Watch your life and watch your doctrine. Both are imperative. Neither is incidental and neither is meant to be pursued in isolation from the other.

So, I think all of those things together make the Pastors College a qualitatively different experience from a seminar. Again, grateful for seminaries, really encourage guys to supplement their education with seminary education. But I do think by the grace of God, because of who we are and who God has made us as a family of churches, there's things that happen there that a seminary is just not designed to accomplish or equipped to accomplish.

Mark Prater:

So well said.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. Well, I know firsthand having had exactly the kind of experience you described when I attended way back when, I remember talking to a guy in my class who had an advanced seminary degree, and he was just talking about what a blessing the Pastors College year was and how different it was than his academic experience up to that point. One of my favorite things and I think is most helpful is that, yeah, it's academic in nature. There's strenuous hard work to be done and papers to be written and tests, but everything is oriented towards helping the student understand how to apply this as a pastor. And so that was extremely helpful. I'm confident I would not be anything like the pastor I am today without my PC experience.

And so thank you, Jeff. 'Looking forward to taking a class next month. Typically I go about once a year and find a good class and attend. And so thank you for the many years you have blessed our family of churches by leading the Pastors College.

We are evaluating a couple of guys potentially for PC, so we're excited about that. We got Kevin back from PC a couple of years ago, my executive pastor, and it's so true, I remember the first time I went to a Pastors Conference in 2010. I didn't know anybody, and my wife and I sort of wandered around a little awkward. And 2011, by the time we got to that Pastors Conference, we were in the PC and we had already begun to build bonds of friendship that just continued to this day. And so it really does provide this relational foundation. We care about relational partnership, and so PC serves our churches so well, when guys go through there and come back home to be pastors.

So thanks, Jeff. Thank you all for reading or watching. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. This is the Mark Prater podcast. This is not the Sound and Doctrine podcast, but this is the ultimate mashup. The beams are being crossed in Sovereign Grace podcasting.

Bob Kauflin:

I'm kind of surprised it's called the Mark Prater podcast.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I am too.

Bob Kauflin:

Actually, I don't have one called the Bob Kauflin Podcast, but maybe I should suggest it.

Mark Prater:

Maybe you should. Let me know how it goes.

Bob Kauflin:

Did you run that by a team or anything?

No, I think Ben and I just decided. <laughter>

Bob Kauflin:

Well, it's an honor to be here as part of the Mark Prater podcast.

Mark Prater:

It's an honor and to have you. And by the way, I've wanted to have Bob on this podcast for a couple of reasons. One of them is that this is the most famous man in Sovereign Grace for different reasons. It is a joy to have you on the podcast,

Benjamin Kreps:

And this is a great opportunity for us to talk about Sovereign Grace Music and its vital connection to Sovereign Grace Churches. In fact, I was introduced to Sovereign Grace Churches back 16 years ago through the song "Jesus, Thank You". And then discovered after the fact that there were actually churches involved in Sovereign Grace. And so we wanted to have you on to talk about the vital connection between Sovereign Grace Music and Sovereign Grace Churches. Talk to us about that, Bob.

Bob Kauflin:

Well, Sovereign Grace Music wouldn't exist without Sovereign Grace Churches. That's just the facts. It began because, in the early eighties, we were being taught things about the gospel, about the sovereignty of God, about the doctrine of the church, about our mission, and we looked around for current songs that were being written about this stuff and we couldn't find them, at least not very many of them. So, we started writing songs for our churches, and I remember Mark Altrogge used to send tapes around to different churches, cassette tapes, and we just started doing that on a regular basis that eventually became Sovereign Grace Music. And we've produced over 60 projects, which are intended primarily to serve our churches. But God and his kindness has enabled us to move beyond that and serve churches throughout the world.

Mark Prater:

And we've talked about this a lot, Bob, and how do we continue to strengthen that connection between Sovereign Grace Churches and Sovereign Grace Music?  And I think that gets a little bit at the mission of Sovereign Grace Music. So tell us about that.

Bob Kauflin:

Well, the mission of Sovereign Grace Music is to produce Christ exalting songs and training for the church from our local churches. So again, what we do emerges from the teachings we receive, whether that be at pastor's conference or in our local churches through the resources we provide. What kind of response does that engender in us in song? Those are the kinds of songs we're trying to write. So as we write these songs for the church from our local churches, we're also doing something else, which is kind of a second part of our mission statement. We write songs to strengthen and plant churches.

And Devon, my son, came up with that. It just succinctly describes what we're seeking to do. Songs aren't just singing. They're enabling the word of Christ to dwell in us spiritually. Colossians 3:16 says that the word of Christ is the gospel which transforms lives. So as we think about the people in our churches, we want to serve them with songs that will strengthen their connection to God, to Jesus, to the gospel, to each other. And that's what our hope is as we write those songs, that they'll be able to sing them on Sunday mornings and experience the work of the Spirit in building them not only into Christ, but into each other. And the Lord in his kindness often causes our music to go ahead of our church planting efforts.

So, there are a number of stories where, Ben, you just shared one, I hear regularly: "Oh, I didn't even know there were Sovereign Grace Churches, I just know your music." But in Latin America, goodness gracious, we are planning on being in there in Columbia. We've been in Mexico for a long time and praise God for all that's taking place there. And we're now expanding into other parts of Latin America. But a large part of that is due to the success of the music that we've recorded in Spanish, two albums back in early '14 and '15 made with Jonathan and Sarah Jerez, but now recently, thanks to the major help of Fabrizio Rodulfo who heads up our Spanish section, we recorded En Ti Esperamos. And these songs are just being sung in churches all throughout Latin America. So pastors hear about it, they go, what is this? And then they find out we are actually a denomination, a family of churches, which then provides an opportunity to go in, work with pastors, and Lord willing, see them brought into Sovereign Grace.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Amen. In fact, you've got a trip planned, I believe this spring, to the Philippines.

Bob Kauflin:

Oh, and the Philippines was the other country I thought of where we had been doing some work in the Philippines for many years. And actually we were there in 2013 to put on a conference, a Worship God conference. We had a thousand people come, but there was really no follow-up. We did a concert, had a thousand people come, and there was not much fruit that was visible from that. But because people know our music, Dave Taylor and others went in and started meeting with pastors who knew about the music, didn't know about us, and now we're headed back to the Philippines to be with Jeffrey Jo in Manila. And they've got some big things planned.

Mark Prater:

They Do. We have four partner churches there in the Philippines, and there's another 15 or 16 in the adoption process. So what you did in 2013 wasn't fruitless. It laid a foundation; Dave Taylor went in. And because of the leadership of Jeffrey Jo in the Philippines, now you're going to go and just expand what we're building there because of the impact of Sovereign Grace Music.

Bob Kauflin:

And we're feeling like we're doing exactly what we want to do, using our music to strengthen and plant churches, which is much better than simply trying to write songs to get at the top of the CCM charts. Praise God If our songs get to the top of the CCM charts, but we write them for the purpose of strengthening the body of Christ and along with resources that we provide, the Worship Matters intensive and the Worship God conferences and other things that we do, but the songs are the primary way that we seek to serve our churches for the strengthening and planting of more of those churches.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Amen. You serve our churches very, very well.

Bob Kauflin:

Trying, Mark. I'm trying with a great team.

Mark Prater:

With the songs that you write and produce that we sing in our churches, and then the way that you train our song leaders, our worship leaders, that has a real impact now that serves churches outside of Sovereign Grace, which we are so glad for. But there's something unique about Sovereign Grace Music in addition to that, as you said, helping us advance the mission of the gospel through the partnership of churches who hear about Sovereign Grace Music and want to be a part of Sovereign Grace. And it does lead to the planting of new Sovereign Grace churches. So it's a wonderful way God has blessed this relationship, I think for what, 30 years or more?

Bob Kauflin:

Well, going back to almost 40 years, around 40 years. And I think people often have the misunderstanding that Sovereign Grace Music could just branch off and do its own thing. And we couldn't. Most of the staff, that would include me, David Zimmer, Fabrizio, Bekah Heid, Grace Nixon, our auto engineer, and then Devon works part-time for Sovereign Grace Music while he's a senior pastor, but we could not do what we do apart from the people in our churches. We work with people who are outside of churches, like with songwriters, but for the most part, they come from within our churches. And we're seeking to train the people in our churches; pastors as well as the music leaders and musicians, to serve our churches more effectively, and in God's kindness there are people outside Sovereign Grace who we want to serve as well. I just want to always make sure that our focus is mostly primarily on our churches because that's the little tribe that God's given us to work with. And that's just no other place we'd rather be.

Mark Prater:

I'm so glad you're here. Listen, if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor listening to or reading this podcast, Bob and I want you to know we thank God for you. Hearing that our songwriters primarily come from our churches, that is the fruit of your faithful preaching Sunday after Sunday, where you teach them sound doctrine or you pastor them with God's word. And that has an effect on every member in your church. But some of those are songwriters, and that's your contribution to this relationship between Sovereign Grace Music and Sovereign Grace Churches. So we thank God for you.

Bob Kauflin:

Amen. Absolutely. I'm excited about the Relay Conference. I don't know if this will be before or after the Relay Conference, but we're hoping to appeal to the younger generation and say, we have our eyes on you and we want to see you fill in these shoes in the years to come. Because I'm excited what the Lord has for us; songs, leaders, churches, that are yet to come, and how God will use the music as a means of supporting all that.

Mark Prater:

Amen. May that happen.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Before we go, one way that you also help equip us is through the Worship God conference. I had the joy of attending last year. It'd been a number of years since I went to Worship God. Loved it, including your teaching on a theology of transitions and worship, which I'm confident I've never heard anybody talk about, a theology of transitions, but just fill us in real quick about what we can anticipate for the upcoming Worship God Conference next year.

Bob Kauflin:

Oh, thanks for asking, Ben. It'll be a little different. We have John Piper coming, that's a little different. And HB Charles Jr., Mike Bullmore, Josh Blount, Jared Mellinger. Those are the main speakers. We haven't completed that roster yet, but because we're having it at a different building, we don't have as many seminars, breakouts. So we're doing a lot of stuff in big groups. So we'll have two breakouts, we'll have one for leaders and one for musicians, and then one for general. And so I think the effect is going to be, we're learning stuff to the theme "One with Christ, how our union with Christ affects everything". And I think we're going to be seeing a lot of people coming away with, wow, I didn't realize that Jesus was so much at the center of everything we're doing, not only in our gatherings, but my life.

And when we benefit from our union with Christ, which we should be doing every day, it really addresses so many of the common problems that we come up against; striving, legalism, discouragement, all those things. We are united with Christ, the Son of God, through the Holy Spirit. So I am believing that it's just going to be a fantastic time. We always have a lot of fun. It is for our people primarily, and we have a lot of people outside of Sovereign Grace. But I would love to see as many pastors and musicians come to this and just people from your church, if they want to grow in their understanding of this topic or their appreciation of how the gathering functions to build up their souls, I think they'll be really blessed. And we keep the prices pretty low so that a lot of people can come. 'Love to see you there.

Mark Prater:

And it's important, as you did, Ben, you came as a senior pastor who doesn't lead singing, but you wanted to be there with your worship team just to experience the conference with them. So an encouragement to senior pastors to come to Worship God with your folks.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes. Amen. Senior pastors that are listening or reading the podcast understand we actually are leading worship each and every Sunday as well, whether or not we're on stage singing or not. So I think every pastor, but especially senior pastors, can definitely benefit and be edified by going to Worship God. So thank you, Bob, for joining us.

Bob Kauflin:

What a pleasure.

Benjamin Kreps:

Good to see you, Mark. And thank you all for watching or listening or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

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.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Ben Kreps:

Welcome to the Mark Prater Podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, it is May 11th, Thursday. You are clearly not at home because you are away celebrating your 44th anniversary with your wonderful wife. And as we were talking about before we started recording here, just on your heart, you've been thinking in light of your own anniversary about the importance of a pastor's marriage. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

I have been. It's a joyful day for Jill and I. I honestly can't believe she still said yes 44 years ago. We are rejoicing in the grace of God, which I'll mention near the end of this podcast. But to say upfront, we wouldn't be here at 44 years, were it not for the grace of God, which we're so grateful for. And, I'm sure everyone, every believer, feels that way when they reach a wedding anniversary. But as you mentioned, it did get me thinking down the road about the importance of a pastor's marriage. And there are several reasons why a pastor's marriage is important. I'm only going to mention a few. The first one is that of faithfulness for the pastor in 1 Timothy 3:2. It's actually the second qualification that's mentioned that he should be the husband of one wife for life, unless obviously your wife were to pass.

But, that captures the one wife, husband of one wife. It captures faithfulness over time. And that's so important in our day and time that faithfulness continues to be modeled through pastors' marriages. It's so important. We're older, Jill and I, and I get thinking about Titus chapter 2, the exhortation to older men and to older women. He writes in Titus 2 that older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled; sound in faith, in love. And steadfastness is a similar word to faithfulness. And so, as an older man, I and other older men, we want to be faithful. We want to be steadfast in our marriages because it reveals the faithfulness of God.

And then for older women, verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to too much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train younger women. And so there's this dignity that you see in the text. There's this reverence that's there that hopefully is a reflection of the grace of God as we grow older, a husband and wife remaining faithful for their entire marriage, their entire lives together. And, it reveals the grace of God. So that's just one reason.

A second reason I think a pastor's marriage is important, is that it does reveal the truth of our complimentarian values which is very, very important in our day for a number of different reasons. But how a husband loves his wife, which is a sacrificial love, and how a wife loves her husband, which is a sacrificial love, is so important. So a husband is to love his wife in the way Christ did by laying down his life as Ephesians 5 talks about.

And it's clear in the text that he has authority to lead, but he's not authoritarian at all. He is a man who leads with love, and he leads with gentleness, and he leads with strength, and he leads with wisdom. And it's that kind of leadership that makes it much easier for a wife to follow. There's this laying down of her life, loving her husband, supporting his leadership. And people can critique our complementarian values because of marriage. And, I just think that marriage is actually there to strengthen and reveal the complementary way that God has made us as men and women as seen in the way husbands and wives relate together. And we all run into conflict. I'll talk about this. So, the issue when we run into trouble is not our complementarian values. The issue is the sin in our hearts, obviously. And, another reason why we need the grace of God. And one other one, I think it reveals the importance of our ecclesiology, because Christ loves his church. That's the mystery that's being revealed there in Ephesians 5; how a husband loves his wife and how a wife respects her husband reveals this relationship between Christ and his church.

And as I travel through Sovereign Grace churches, I hear a lot of people say, I love my church. And there are Christians in other denominations and church organizations who say the same thing so it's not unique to Sovereign Grace. We Christians love the church, they love the people of God. They love the saints. And that's a reflection of Christ in them through the work of the Spirit when they say, I love my church. And that's what marriage is to reveal, partly, just how much we love the Church of God and how we relate to one another. So those are just some of the things I've been thinking about. Those are just a few of the reasons, and many more reasons, a pastor's marriage is important. But I wanted to mention them because I'm thinking about that today as a husband, obviously, and to encourage our pastors and wives to just make sure you're taking time to invest into your marriage.

Ben Kreps:

That's excellent encouragement and much needed. 1 Corinthians 10:12 says that if we think we're standing, take heed lest we fall. So we need regular reminders, like the ones that you're giving us. I think about our shaping virtues and the gospel centeredness that we rally around in Sovereign Grace, that is intended to work itself out in the way that we live with one another in marriage. And so those shaping virtues, just thinking about those and how they function within our complementarianism, with humility and joy and love and generosity and all of those things that make up what it means to have a gospel centered marriage. You have some thoughts for us, practically, before you go. Why don't you share those with us?

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Practically, first of all, I just want to say that all pastors' marriages are going to look different. Different couples are put together for specific reasons in the wisdom of the sovereignty of God. So practices should never become principles, obviously. Just a few things I'm going to mention are going to look different for different couples, but just one is to continue to cultivate memories together as you walk through life together as husband and wife, faithfully, by the grace of God, for years. And that includes obviously romancing one another, but finding ways to surprise one another and to delight one another. There should be an evident delight and joy in marriage that emerges from a pastor's marriage, by the grace of God.

Another practice is to be purposeful in working out conflict. All pastors' marriages, all marriages, have conflict because we remain fallen people. And, we have to be committed not to let conflict linger, but to really work at it. And when we can't work it out ourselves, enjoy the fellowship of the church and those that know us well, whether that's a fellow pastor and wife or a member of your church that can help you walk through conflict. One quick resource is Rob Flood's book on marriage and communication, it is really helpful in that regard, if you haven't read that.

And then a third one that just came to mind is the practical aspect of God’s wisdom in putting a husband a wife together, sovereignly, and we can benefit from one another, the wisdom God has given our spouses, making sure that we're drawing each other out asking; hey, what do you think about this? And, that looks different for different marriages, depending on the relationship and gift mix, et cetera. But I often ask Jill her perspective, or I'm thinking about a decision that needs to be made, and I'm just, hey, can you give me your perspective? And she knows when I'm asking that I don't have to do what she says; and sometimes I don't. But I find her to be a real gift to me that way. As I look back on 44 years and think ahead, I'm grateful for the wisdom that God has given her that I've benefited from as I think ahead however many more years we have together. I remain dependent upon that wisdom. So just another way to think, when you have conversations, it benefits, it deepens your relationship with one another.

Let me just close by saying this. I wrote in my journal this morning, and was just thanking God for the grace that he has given Jill and me for 44 years and feeling the dependence upon that grace for whatever years we have remaining together. And just want to commend and give God all the glory and all the credit for anything that we've enjoyed in our marriage because we wouldn't have it apart from his grace, and we wouldn't have that grace, as you mentioned, Ben, apart from Christ and his finished work in the gospel. So it is a day not just to rejoice, but to give Christ glory.

Ben Kreps:

Wonderful counsel and wise suggestions for us in our marriages as pastors. Want to also encourage any guy who might be reading this or watching this: if you're struggling in an area like communication, come into the light. Find a trusted fellow pastor and his wife and sit down, talk about that. Receive counsel. My wife and I have done that a number of times and have been deeply helped by that. So you're not stuck, is what I would say. We have brothers and sisters, trusted brothers, that can help us do all of these things that you're describing. So thank you, Mark. Congratulations to you and Jill on 44 years of marriage, by God's grace. Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Ben Kreps:

Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, One of the hallmarks in Sovereign Grace, our culture, for a long period of time when it comes connecting as pastors, is that we build relationally. It is a joyful hallmark of our culture of grace. And I know you have a passion to see not just enjoying the past 40 years of that relational connectivity, but also for the next generation of younger pastors that are being raised up to also enjoy that as well. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I'm very grateful for one of our founders, CJ Mahaney, who has built Sovereign Grace that way for 40 years. As you mentioned, Ben, it's just been a part of our culture in Sovereign Grace. And CJ led us that way because it's biblical. It's what you see in the New Testament. You study the epistles in the New Testament, and both Paul and Peter, they mention people by specific names, people they know, people they are friends with, people they've done ministry with. I think a great illustration is 2 Timothy 4, that last section, verses 9 through the end of the chapter where Paul writes his very last letter. So these are the last things he's talking about. And in that section, he mentioned 16 different people by name.

Now one of them has deserted him. That's Demas, and there's a warning about Alexander the coppersmith, who's done him great harm, as he said. But everybody else, the other 14, are friends that he's doing ministry with. And, he puts friendship, I think, in the right place. He loves those men. He has affection for those men. He would like to be with them, but if you read that part of his letter, he's deploying them in ministry. So, friendship doesn't trump mission, actually friendship is used in the advancement of the mission of the gospel that you see there in Paul's letter. And I think we tried to take a similar approach in Sovereign Grace, to build that way, because it's one expression of how our interdependence gets worked out, and we try to capture that in a number of ways.

Our seven shared values would be one of those ways. Our seventh value is united in fellowship, mission and governance. And just to remind us, especially our pastors who are listening, this is, this is what is written about that value. It says this, indeed the New Testament testifies to a vibrant interdependence among churches in the first century. And then we seek to express a similar interdependence through our common fellowship, mission and governance. Our fellowship extends beyond mere denominational affiliation. We are committed to applying the gospel together in relationships that foster mutual encouragement, care, and a glad pursuit of Christ-likeness. And I thought, boy, that's well written. I think it is just well written by Jeff because it captures why relationships are important as an expression of interdependence. And that for us as pastors, we have that kind of fellowship that we need not only in our churches, most importantly, but outside of our churches with men, other Sovereign Grace pastors, leading other Sovereign Grace churches, where we have true fellowship. And the whole purpose of it is growing in Christ-like character. And we pray that's used to advance the mission of the gospel. So it's a biblical reason why we want to build relationally in Sovereign Grace. And as I get older, and I think about the next generations in Sovereign Grace, my prayer is that those men, those second, third generation pastors and beyond, would continue to build relationally as well, because it is biblical and because it's always marked our culture.

Ben Kreps:

Amen. Well, Easter season is over, but our R A E season is here. So pastors throughout Sovereign Grace are gathering for the Regional Assembly of Elders. The Regional Assembly of Elders is a time for us to gather, to do business. We have business we need to do together as a region, but that is not purely why we gather as guys who go, know. It plays a key role, function, to help us build relationally together. Isn't that right?

Mark Prater:

It does, that's exactly right. Our Regional Assembly of Elders, it's sort of the spring RAE season, as you mentioned, Ben. Several Regional Assembly of Elders have been meeting. Yours just met this week. The northeast meets beginning tomorrow. We're recording this on a Thursday, we meet on Friday. And, we do get denominational business done. But as you know, our shared value says it's not just about denominational affiliation. Those regional assemblies have been used to equip pastors as well, through theological training, and also just to cultivate relationships among pastors who lead our churches in a given region. And it's just been so sweet to watch it. I think when our polity first started, some guys wondered, is this going to hinder us building relationally? And actually the opposite's been true. Our polity has been used in Regional Assembly of Elders in particular to actually strengthen our relationships with one another.

And I was just at the East Central region last week, a region led by CJ Mahaney. And the time together was just so rich. It's a region that loves one another. Pastors are there for one another and encourage one another. And it was just such a joy. Actually, after I returned, got an email from Jake Cronin. Jake Cronin graduated from the Pastors College two or three years ago. He's been serving as a pastoral intern in Cornerstone Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. And he was just thanking me for coming. And he was just talking about the relational time that the Regional Assembly had together. And he said this, I've known pastors who have been in ministry 30 years or more, and their experience has been one of loneliness. And he said, I'm just so glad that so far in my ministry experience, it's been exactly the opposite. I've rich relationships. And so that was only encouraging because of what he enjoyed. It's encouraging to me, because Jake is probably a second or third generation pastor in Sovereign Grace, and he gets it. He understands why it's important to build relationally. So, I'm just grateful that God is giving us young men who will be leading Sovereign Grace churches in the future and our family of churches in the future, who I believe will be committed to building relationally in Sovereign Grace.

Ben Kreps:

Amen. Yes. At our regional assembly, we did business. We passed a guy in his oral exam, for ordination. Our church plant, Redeeming Grace Church in Mechanicsburg, was officially affirmed. And the partnership was signed, yeah, you signed the partnership agreement. So we're excited to have an official Sovereign Grace Church plant. We did that business though, in the context of friendship. And so when we voted to affirm the church plant, for instance, I was gathered with men who were voting, who have prayed for me and my church for the past several years, and have cared for me and invested in what we're doing as well. We did it together when we announced that this young man had passed his oral exam. It was celebratory because there is care and affection in that room as we do that business.

And I sought to encourage some of the younger guys just observing the younger pastors. I'm 46, I'm not a young pastor, but there were younger pastors there. And to see them relating to each other and encouraging each other, and praying with one another, gave me great hope for the future. It's a joy to see what we've enjoyed over the years being duplicated, replicated, in the next generation of pastors. I praise God for that. And thank you, Mark, for your thoughts on all of us and your encouragement to us. Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Ben 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, before we started recording here, you were telling me about how you've been studying a topic that's of vital importance when it comes to pastoral ministry. That of the biblical motif of shepherding, applied to the role of a pastor. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

I have been studying that imagery and it's affecting my heart, my soul and mind, yet again. I can't believe we get to do what we do as pastors. Isn't it, isn't it amazing? That God would call us to care for his people. That's one of the net effects of this study. I can't believe I get to do what I do. And it's such a joy to be a pastor who gets to shepherd God's people. As you know, throughout scripture, the people that are called to lead God's people are referred to as shepherds. You see that in the Old Testament. In fact, through Ezekiel, you see God commend the good shepherds and condemn the bad shepherds in Ezekiel 34.

And we get to the New Testament, and Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. He refers to himself as the Good Shepherd. Peter calls him the Chief Shepherd in 1 Peter: 2. And 1 Peter 5:2 he calls pastors, he's speaking to elders, to shepherd the flock of God among you. And one of my favorite verses in scripture: Acts 20:28, a verse that just very dear to me, he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. So the people that we're called to care for as pastors, to oversee, they're called a flock. And so by implication, we are shepherds. So just to study this in scripture has affected me.

Some other resources I wanted to recommend: Tim Laniak's book Shepherds After My Own Heart, which is in the Gray/Silver series that most of us are familiar with. Just a wonderful biblical theology of shepherds in scripture. There's also the Shepherd Leader by Tim Witmer, which is a really helpful book. There's another book that I don't have right here in front of me, also by Tim Laniak: While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks. And it's broken down into a 40 day devotional that is the result of him spending part of a sabbatical, I think about a year, with shepherds in the Middle East, just interviewing them and getting to understand what they do to enrich his understanding of the shepherding imagery throughout scripture. So I would commend that book. One other resource we've both listened to recently is the Ordinary Pastor podcast that has devoted a couple of episodes to the Pastor as Shepherd. So, those are all wonderful resources that you can check out.

And, as pastors, I think it's important that we remember that we are shepherds first of all, because Christ is the chief shepherd. He is the good shepherd, and we labor on his behalf as his under shepherds. But it does shape, it does affect our hearts and dispositions and our mindsets towards the people God has entrusted to our care when we understand ourselves and think about ourselves as shepherds.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. I would also recommend CJ's class at the Pastors College on a pastoral ministry. It's a wonderful, unfolding metaphor for what we do as pastors. And I aim to get back there someday. It's been a while and I could be refreshed. It's a great class. So why do you think it's so vital that we keep this in front of us as we go about our work as pastors?

Mark Prater:

I think it's vital because it does shape what we do and how we think about the people we are called to care for. In the Acts 20 passage I mentioned earlier, 17 - 38, Paul has obviously gathered the Ephesian elders in Miletus, as our listeners know, and he's speaking to them for the very last time. And he begins his speech, the only speech in the book of Acts given to Christians, actually the elders, the pastors from Ephesus. And he begins the speech by saying, you know how I lived among you? And so there's that lived among you language that you find. Then later he talks about shepherding the flock that God has entrusted to your care. You do that by living among the people. I think that's important for us because it keeps ministry from being professional.

We have to be careful of that subtle drift in our hearts as pastors, that we don't become professionals and we're somehow detached from the people that we're called to pastor and preach to and care for. And the other thing is that it allows us to make ministry very, very real. Because when we live among our people, we're aware of the issues that they're facing daily in their lives. And that not only affects our pastoral counseling and how we help them apply God's word to what they're facing, it also affects our preaching because right in the application in particular, we're able to bring specific application for a specific flock, for specific issues that they're facing. And that's gonna be different from church to church. So it's so important that we live among our people and not just live among them but know them. One of the things that Tim Laniak talks about in his book, While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks, he interviewed a desert shepherd called Amir who said there's a difference between village shepherds and desert shepherds. Desert shepherds, we spend time with our flock out in the desert. We know exactly what they're facing. And I thought that that's what we want to be in Sovereign Grace. We want to be desert shepherds who know exactly what our people are facing.

I think shepherding imagery is important because we are called to teach them, preach to them, and as I mentioned just a moment ago, we'll do that more effectively if we know the flock and the challenges that they're facing. And the wonderful thing about shepherding imagery, it highlights the fact that we're called to protect our people. Paul says in Acts 20, beware and be watchful because fierce wolves will come in amongst the flock. And we do that primarily by protecting our people from false teaching. Shepherding imagery causes something to rise up within a pastor and say, I'm gonna fiercely protect my people from false doctrine so that they don't go astray. It becomes personal, I think. In Tim Laniak's book, he talks about how shepherds know their sheep by name. He tells this one story of a shepherd who had a flock of 2000 sheep, and somehow seven got lost. And he knew there were seven missing because he knew each 2000 of his sheep by name. Now, that was stunning to me when I read that. Now that doesn't mean as pastors, as our church grows, we're gonna know just everybody by name <laugh>, but on a pastoral team, we should know collectively the people in our church. And so it is just very personal in that sense, and warms the pastor's heart to love his people, when you think of yourself as a shepherd.

So just some of the ways that I want to continue to call us in Sovereign Grace, as pastors, to think of ourselves as shepherds and to shepherd the flock of God that is among us.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. Thank you for that encouragement. I mean, it is amazing grace that any of us have been converted by the grace of God through the gospel, but then to be called to be under shepherds, under the Chief Shepherd. That's enough for a daily wonder as we go about our work. So thank you for the encouragement, Mark. Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.