VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, the last podcast we recorded, you were in Mexico at a conference for pastors. You've since come home, but you're still buzzing from your experience there. What happened in that conference?

Mark Prater:

I am still buzzing. The conference is still affecting me. That is the Fieles conference that is led by Carlos Contreras, senior pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana in Juarez, Mexico. That church had 100 volunteers, by the way; church members in that Sovereign Grace Church serving during this conference that was attended by over 300 pastors and their wives. And it was a Sovereign Grace conference. If you ever go to it, it's a Sovereign Grace conference in the Mexican culture, in the Latin American culture, all in Spanish, obviously. And it wasa joy to sing with them. Of course, I'm making up the words in Spanish as I go. But, yeah, I'm singing with them with great joy.

There were a number of highlights from the conference for me. One of them I mentioned last week is Carlos and myself, along with Joselo Mercado and Rich Richardson, we led an interest lunch for pastors who are interested in knowing more about potentially partnering with Sovereign Grace. And I brought home with me a list of 36 names. Carlos gave this list to me so that I could be praying for these men. About 10 of these names are wives. So there were about 25 pastors at this lunch that we had on Thursday afternoon. And it was just wonderful. Got to share a little bit about Sovereign Grace. And then we opened up to a Q & A. A pastor and his wife were there planting a church in Mexico City and just wondering about partnering with Sovereign Grace. There were men there who have existing churches who were asking questions about how to partner with Sovereign Grace, churches in Juarez and in other parts of Mexico.

And it was just humbling to interact with them. Many of them didn't really ask questions, but made comments about how Sovereign Grace had already served them—how Carlos, in particular, and Abelardo and Hellman, other men working in Mexico, had served them. And we're just reaffirming some of the values that I was sharing earlier. So it was a lunch that was very, very exciting and inspiring. And potentially as some of those pastors or churches may either plant or partner with Sovereign Grace, Mexico continues to grow. So that was just one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. That's wonderful. You were sharing with me a couple of stories before we started recording the podcast. Why don't you share those stories now, a couple of reports back from the field that you got to hear about.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, so many encouraging, faith building interactions at this conference. We could probably do an hour podcast if I told you all the stories. But let me just tell you two quick ones. One is a conversation I had both with Andres Contreras and Roberto Estupinian—we know him as Choby. Choby is now the senior pastor of the Sovereign Grace Church in Guadalajara. Andres Contreras, who is Carlos' son, is there with him. And they were just talking about how that church is just beginning to grow. Even during the pandemic this church has grown. And Andres was telling me when they first arrived there, there were not many younger families, and in recent months people are coming with younger children, younger folks coming, who are obviously younger in their marriage and in the parenting process, and they are excited about being at this church. And what's interesting, the timing of the growth of the church along with Choby very carefully building gospel-centered theological foundations. So one of the things that he was telling me about: Choby is teaching a class every Wednesday evening. And he's just taken one section of the Statement of Faith and teaching a section per week. Just a wonderful way to build theological foundations in a growing church. So that was just very, very exciting, given the fact that you know, you're just rejoicing about what God is doing, but Guadalajara is a very strategic city in Mexico.

And then the other story has to do with a man, I believe his first name is Rafael. He lives in the most Southern state in Mexico, as I understand it, Chiapas, which borders right up against Guatemala. And he just has a heart to reach those in his state with the gospel. He somehow got connected with Abelardo Muñoz in Juarez. And he was sharing with Abelardo, "I want to see people in my state come to Christ. And if they come to Christ, maybe even someday we plant a church, and what do I do?" So Abelardo got him the Spanish version of the Bridge course that's been created by Jim Donohue, a pastor I serve with at Covenant Fellowship. And Abelardo said, “Rafael, I'll take this. I'll find some unbelievers and take them through it.” So the first time he did it, he gathered about 10 people and they went through the Bridge course together. Many of them were born again. And he's now scheduled a second Bridge course. Obviously some of those people are inviting friends and there's like 70 people that are now registered to take this next Bridge course. And so I got to interact with Rafael. Abelardo translated for me. And this man's excitement to see the lost reached with the gospel in this most Southern state of Mexico, it was infectious. It built my faith. And so be praying for Rafael. Maybe there's some sort of revival that happens in Chiapas, Mexico. Maybe he’s supposed to plant a church someday. But pray for his efforts in using this Bridge course as it begins to start here in the next week. So just a couple of stories that really stirred my faith I wanted you to hear.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's great. I think it's safe to say most of us never tire of hearing about how God is at work in Mexico and how God is using Carlos and the other guys there to serve men there in the advance of the gospel. So thanks, Mark, for the update. Thank you all for watching or reading and we'll see 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 churches with our Executive Director. All right, let me get this out of the way. First I realized my hat is fire. Sixers are playing tonight, game three, they will beat the Hawks. They're going to win the series in six, just wanted to predict. You're going to see this next week, but you have to understand that the game hasn't happened yet. And so I want you to respect my impressions in all of us. And also this is for Garrett and Aaron down in Georgia as well, just so they know what's going on.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin Kreps:

So, you just got back from Orlando from the the Leadership Team retreat. And as we talked about in the last podcast, you had the Regional Leaders in this time, you hadn't done that for a few years. So how did that go with your retreat, including the Regional Leaders?

Mark Prater:

The retreat couldn't have went better, Ben. First of all, shout out to the Sixers. I hope they win this series, that's what we're going to see. But the retreat went, I think, better than we anticipated. We prayed and God did more than we could ask or imagine as Ephesians 3 talks about it. It was just a wonderful time together as a Leadership Team. And for the first half of our retreat all of the United States Regional Leaders were with us and it was a sweet, sweet time. It was just good to laugh a lot, we laughed a lot together. It was good to just build relationally. We had the Regional Leaders start the retreat by just sharing updates from each of them and what's going on in their regions, that was encouraging. It also surfaced out of that, the ways that we could pray for them.

So we had some meaningful times of prayer, a couple of different days in a row, for some of the Regional Leaders. And that was just sweet. It was just the kind of fellowship that you want. And then just spending time talking about topics and issues that many of the Regional Leaders told me at the end of the time with us, that it really did equip them to lead their Regions. So for example, we talked, we presented the global partnership plan to them and we Zoomed Dave Taylor in to the meeting. It was just great for those guys to interact with Dave. Those Regional Leaders are excited about the global partnership plan that we're putting in place, and the Council of Elders will see it in the fall. So that's just envisioning to see what's happening in Sovereign Grace throughout the world right now.

Jeff Purswell just spent some time walking through some of the theological issues of our day related to things like gender identity and sexual orientation and complementarianism. Just some of the things that we talked about. And Jeff, what Jeff does so well, he just brings a theological perspective and precision that really will help our Regional Leaders be mindful of theological trends in our culture and even in evangelicalism so that they can help the pastors in their region to guard their churches against any heterodoxy. So that was the effect of that session. Jeff also spent some time talking about "how is a Regional Leader mindful of the preaching that's occurring in the churches in his region?" And so we just kind of talked through that and how a Regional Leader can help pastors grow as preachers which was really, really a helpful time.

And then we gave Eric Turbedsky just time to talk about church planting, several initiatives he has going on that our regions can participate in. That led to some good Q and A about church planting. And I think those guys were just saying that was really, really helpful. And then we had John Payne and Jared Mellinger talk about "how do you develop future pastors and leaders in your region?" And we've got a number of things that we're going to be implementing. For example we're going to do a a pastoral ministry interest meeting at the pastors conference on Tuesday evening after the main session that guys can come to. And John and Jared are working on a weekender where guys, we're hoping to do that in conjunction with the pastors college class, maybe they come in on a Friday, they enjoy part of a class, spend a weekend in Louisville with the eldership there and just give guys some exposure to what pastoral ministry looks like. So all those things we talked about are just some of the things we talked about with the Regional Leaders and it was a sweet, sweet time. We're going to do it again. They were asking if we would do it again. And we said, yes, we're going to do it.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. I talked to Ken Mellinger yesterday, fresh back from the trip and he was just communicating how grateful he was for that time together. It's wonderful to see the collaboration going on there as well when it comes to extra local leadership. So those guys left and went home before you guys went home. And so the Leadership Team, you guys, spent time together for a couple of days then, what kind of stuff did you talk about? Moving forward?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, We had a great retreat together. By the way, it was Mickey's last retreat before he transitions out of his role at the end of August. And so we just took some time to encourage our friend and the wonderful ways that he has served Sovereign Grace actually for decades. But in this situation, the role that he has served in as Director of Church Development. So that was wonderful and a joy for us to do.

But we talked about a number of things that were just very, very encouraging. One of them was developing future pastors and that led to just an unplanned conversation that Dave Taylor was a part of, he Zoomed in on another day about "how do we plant churches in China?" And essentially one of the ways to do that is to plant churches here in the states. And so we put together this plan, or actually I asked Dave after that conversation to have Andrew Leung, who is his assistant and a pastoral intern at Dave's church, and Chinese, to just put together this proposal for us. And we're really looking forward to see what's going to happen with that. So that was an exciting conversation for us. And then Dave Taylor presented a proposal for a group he wants to pull together regarding reaching the unreached, which isn't a new category for us, but we're kind of rethinking it a little bit in terms of what we've learned and how we can go about this especially with the new global partnership plan in place. So that was an exciting conversation that wasn't completely planned either.

And then, as we expand globally, how do we function as a Leadership Team? What should that look like? And we didn't really fully answer that question. We had some good discussions, so that'll be a future Leadership Team agenda item that we will talk about. We also spent some time just preparing and reviewing for next fiscal year's budget. And kind of talking through that a bit. So those are just a few of the things we did as a Leadership Team beyond laughing a lot and just having some meaningful time together.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's great. So it's Friday, you just got back, and you're leaving again Sunday because of next week. What's happening, real quick?

Mark Prater:

Next week. Yeah. Next week, I'm really excited. It's back to back retreats. I'm not going to do that again (laughs). I don't know why I planned it that way. But we've got a Leadership Development retreat next week, gathering some of our pastors together to just invest into them because we think they're some of our future leaders, extra local leaders in Sovereign Grace. I just can't wait to do it.

Benjamin Kreps:

Well, thanks for all your hard work and thank you Leadership Team for taking time, along with the Regional Leaders, to think about, pray about, dream about what God has for us in the future in Sovereign Grace Churches. And so we just appreciate you guys. I'm sure we all do. And thank you everyone for watching and we'll see you here again, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now. Go Sixers!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, I understand that this week you have a Leadership Team retreat coming up. You have three of those each year. This one's a little different than the ones you've had in recent years because you're inviting the Regional Leaders to join you for part of that retreat as well. Which means my guy, my homeboy, Ken Mellinger will be there. So tell us about that. Tell us about what you're thinking as you head into this retreat.

Mark Prater:

We're so looking forward to the retreat next week, just for us to be together as a Leadership Team, given how spread out we are geographically, it's just good to meet three times a year together, face to face. Dave Taylor still can't get out of Australia. So he'll be joining us via Zoom. And we're looking forward to the day when he can travel to our retreat and join us.

But we've designed this retreat so that the first couple of days or so we've invited the Regional Leaders to join us. We did that back in 2016, so it's been five years and probably too long since we've been with them. We wanted to get together with these men because they play such a vital role in our shared mission together. I mean, obviously they are responsible to make sure that the polity functions on a regional level and the committees get their jobs done, but they're really leaders. And the BCO is very clear about that. They're charged really to lead their region by casting vision and inspiring, and just thinking and dreaming about the future together as a region.

And the other role they really play that's so important is in the health of our family of churches. And what I mean by that is our family of churches is only going to be as healthy as our local elderships are healthy. And those men are really responsible to make sure that elderships are cared for, invested into, equipped and strengthened. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that next week. So they just play a vital role and we can't wait to be together with our nine US regional leaders next week.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's great. Yeah. Such an important role they do play in serving us—having known a number of these men, they're just of the highest caliber and quality and are serving our regions so well. So what kinds of things will you be talking about and thinking about during the retreat?

Mark Prater:

Well, first of all, good food, let's start there. We want to have some great meals together and we want to laugh together. But these men really are also responsible to make sure that our values that we share are lived out in our churches, in our regions. So one of those values is that we build relationally. So just being together with them is important.

And we're just going to start by hearing from them. We sent them some questions, things like, "What are you most encouraged by in your region right now?”, “What needs or burdens do you have for your region that we want to hear about?" And then just take some time to pray. So we're just going to begin by hearing from them.

We're going to talk a little bit about the strategic and vital role of leadership that a Regional Leader provides and talk about some ideas that we can just sort of share together. We're going to spend some time looking at the global partnership plan—we want to get their eyes on it and get their input, obviously. And then we're just going to talk a little bit about equipping elderships and Mickey and Jon in particular will lead us through a conversation about using an evaluation tool they've been working on just for an eldership to assess their health, that a regional leader can use. And then we're going to talk a little bit about just developing future pastors and leaders within their region. And Jon and Jared are actually going to lead that conversation.

So just some of the things we have planned that we want to talk about. We're hoping to have time for a competition as well, regional leaders versus the leadership team. We'll see if we're able to pull that off and maybe I can give you an update on who wins that in a future podcast.

Benjamin Kreps:

What are we talking about here?

Mark Prater:

Well, I think Mickey is in charge of that. I think he's thinking miniature golf at this point. I think the backup plan would probably be bowling if it rains, but we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

Benjamin Kreps:

Nice. Well, I'm sure that a number of us will be praying for the retreat and trusting that God will meet you in all sorts of wonderful and even surprising ways. So we'll pray that way for you and and anticipate hearing an update about how it all went. So thank you everyone for watching. We'll talk to you next week, Lord willing, but bye for now.