Update on LT Retreat
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, last week we talked about your anticipation of this week, a leadership team retreat. You just got back from the retreat, I believe, yesterday. And so can you share with us how the retreat went? I imagine many of us watch that podcast. We were praying about the retreat. What were some highlights for you as you come away from that retreat?
Mark Prater:
I landed in Philadelphia last night and my heart was filled with gratefulness for your prayers. Thank you for praying for the retreat. Everyone that's listening that prayed, God answered your prayers. He was exceedingly good to us and my heart was just filled with joy. We had a really, really good Leadership Team retreat. First of all, it was just good having the newer guys just added to the team there. So Jared Mellinger, Jon Payne, this was Eric Turbedsky’s first in-person retreat. Unfortunately, Dave Taylor can't get out of Australia. The borders are still closed there. But just having them there marked a historic moment for us. It was an expression of equipping the next generation to lead Sovereign Grace and so we're headed down that road. For the older guys who have been on the team, it was a joy just to have them.
And then the retreat was wonderful relationally. We just had some good times of discussion, but obviously sharing meals together and laughing and praying together. And it was the relational aspect of it, was really just one of the highlights. And then God just really led us into some conversations and, you know, rabbit trails in conversations that we didn't plan that we're just grateful for the Spirit's leading. And some of those unplanned conversations, I think, are going to produce some really good ways that we can serve our pastors and churches. So it was just a wonderful retreat.
Benjamin Kreps:
That’s great. Great to hear. And can you share with us some of the updates about decisions or what you came away from the retreat practically when it comes to decision making processes?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, I'd love to do that. One of the things about having more guys on the team and the younger guys, in particular, is we formed a number of subcommittees to work on projects or decisions that we made to move forward. Some of those guys that are being added don't have sphere responsibility. They're not leading departments. And so they're actually freed up to help guys who are, and I think we're going to be more efficient in that way. So that was another highlight actually from the retreat.
But we spend a lot of time talking about our future which was wonderful just to dream together, pray together. So a number of things like reestablishing our voice as a Leadership Team, something I've talked about on a previous podcast where we want to be less polity informed and crisis management driven to really being theologically, equipping inspirational and vision casting. So a number of things we're moving forward.
Let me just point out one in particular. The Sovereign Grace Journal which we are really excited about. Jared brought a proposal, he is sort of going to lead that particular project. And our plan is to publish electronically our first journal in the spring of 2021. I believe our first theme is something like Christ our Treasure.
Benjamin Kreps:
Sure.
Mark Prater:
So it's going to just focus on the glory of Christ and have a number of articles that will not only serve our pastors but we believe will serve the members of our churches as well. So we're very excited about that. It's an expression of just adding our voice or a theologically equipping voice from the Leadership Team. We spent time talking about expanding globally and how do we do that wisely. Not just in terms of the mechanics of it all, but what should our structure look like and how does that structure work with our existing structure here in the United States with the Council of Elders, in particular.
And so we kind of pushed the discussion as far as we could and formed a couple of subcommittees out of that. One of those will involve Dave Taylor and myself and Eric Turbedsky just to kind of move that forward, to put some more flesh to it, to bring some more specifics. And then we'll bring that back to the Leadership Team and discuss, and then that's something that we'll eventually talk to the Council of Elders about. That was a really exciting sort of forward looking conversation.
We also talked just a little bit about what I mentioned in a podcast, last time or a time before, how do we inspire and equip more men for pastoral ministry? And both Jon Payne and Jared Mellinger worked on a proposal they brought that sort of aimed at that, just reaching next generation. So we're going to find ways to work with our Regional Leaders to identify men who may be called ministry and sort of gather them together. And a couple of ways to do that is to invite them to the Pastors Conference and then do a meeting with them during the Pastors Conference. And then another idea is to do a weekender. A weekender is not a novel idea. IX Marks does this all the time. But to do one based most likely in Louisville because they would have access to the Pastors College. And just do a weekender with those men to help them begin to think whether they are called to pastoral ministry or not.
Another idea that we're going to move forward is to create some pre-PC sort of curriculum that helps to both equip and then give our pastors a means to evaluate whether a guy is called or not.
So I wanted to give you some specifics and not just talking generalities. Those are just some of the ways that we discuss, some of the decisions that we made, that we believe will serve our pastors and churches.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful. That's great news. Looking forward to the Journal, getting back to having our guys receive theological instruction and encouragement from guys in Sovereign Grace. It sounds like you guys really are beginning to move toward looking to the future instead of a management type posture. And so exciting to hear about all of those things. So thank you, Mark, for leading the Leadership Team. Thank you, Leadership Team, for gathering and working for our good. And thank you everybody for watching. We'll see you here at next time. God bless.