Valuable Pastors Conference Resources

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, we're recording this the week after the wonderful conference that so many of us experienced. I returned home with a full heart and a killer cold as everyone can hear if you're actually listening to this. And you also came back encouraged about what happened over the course of that conference last week. You were responsible for the conference. You did an excellent job leading the conference. What are some thoughts coming off of the conference about what we enjoyed and experienced last week?

Mark Prater:

First, thanks for your encouragement, Ben. God was very, very good to us last week. I am responsible for the conference, but we do it together as a leadership team. So I'm grateful for my fellow leadership team members and how hard they worked last week as well. Yeah, God was exceedingly kind and good to the pastors and wives and leaders from Sovereign Grace Churches and to the many guests that we had there. And he did more than we could ask or think to ask as it says in Ephesians 3:20. You plan a conference and you try to get the right people in the right spots preaching the right messages, but God just works in all of that and brings a cohesion and a unity to it so that people leave thinking I understand what this conference was about. It equipped me in this way to go back home and serve my church.

Not only that, just the times that we had together singing together, hearing updates together, the sense of, at least for me, of palpable tangible joy and unity and faith for our future. Experiencing each main session that I was in was so encouraging, which you can only attribute to the spirit of God at work among us. So it was just a great conference. That's one of my takeaways.

Another one, there was a guest pastor there, a pastor who's not in Sovereign Grace who leads a church in Georgia. And he came up to me on Thursday the last day and he said, this is my second year here. This time I brought another elder with me. What I'm looking for my church is gospel fidelity. That's the term that he used. And he said, I haven't found anyone like Sovereign Grace that models gospel fidelity like you're doing. And I'm just very effected by it. And I want my church to be adopted into Sovereign Grace, which was humbling and exciting at the same time. And I think a statement like that, it commends the pastors and wives of Sovereign Grace, the leaders that were there just by who you are and how you experience a conference. And we go through a conference together even that communicates gospel fidelity. And then you add on that the preaching of the main sessions and the breakout sessions, and it had the effect upon this pastor who now wants his church to be adopted into Sovereign Grace. I had many conversations similar to that that were highlights to me, but that's one of them. So I'm just very grateful for how God worked among us last week and may he receive all the glory.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It was wonderful In every way. We, as we always do, enjoyed rich fellowship, loud and rowdy singing. Meanwhile, as is a conviction of ours, central to our gathering was the reading and the preaching of God's word. And we heard some spectacular sermons that hit on various important topics. Well-rounded diet of excellent preaching. And you sent out an email recently telling us that actually that audio is online. What were your thoughts about the sermons, the main sessions?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I did in fact, not just the audio, but the video as well for the main sessions are all up on the Sovereign Grace website. Go to Sovereign Grace, click on events, scroll down to the conference, the Church of Christ and Triumph of the Word is the theme. Click on that and you'll find all the main sessions. And if you were at the conference, I would encourage you to listen to each of those. Again, if you're a senior pastor, I would encourage you to lead a conversation with your team about the main sessions and just how can you glean from them and how can you benefit from them in serving your church. If you weren't at the conference, I would encourage you to listen or watch those main sessions and do it in the order that they were preached, which is how they're listed on the website.

Because there was something unique I think about this conference about how God took each of those messages and knitted them together in a way that man can't plan for and actually can't do. So I would encourage you to listen to 'em in the order they were preached as well. So those are going to be up on the website. If you're a pastor, consider sending those sermons to other leaders in your church or people that you're developing for leadership because they can really benefit from the preaching that was at the conference. And that's partly how we think about the conference. It's not just a one-time event. It produces resources that you can use for several months in just strengthening your church. And so main sessions are one of those resources that we hope you'll use.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, there is definitely an immediate usefulness in our local context. Even just think about CJ's sermon and potentially having that be a tool to help guys think about pastoral ministry who are aspiring for pastoral ministry. We had a 16 year old guy that wants to be a pastor as an aspiration, and he learned what the contract was. You want to do this, buddy? You better figure it out right away and settle it in your heart and mind ahead of time. What actually the pastor's calling is. So loved all the sermons, but the breakout sessions, I actually haven't heard them yet. I'm looking forward to listening to a couple of 'em today from all accounts were excellent. And you wanted to highlight a couple of those as well.

Mark Prater:

I do. And you haven't heard 'em yet because you taught and led one of those breakout sessions on our shaping virtues. So thank you so much for doing that, Ben. And we hope to talk about that in the next podcast, your breakout session. First of all, the audio for the breakout sessions (and I believe we're going to have video at some point), but all the audio for the breakout sessions is up and available online. And again, if you haven't listened to the breakout sessions or to those that you didn't attend, listen to those as a senior pastor, lead your pastoral team in a conversation about those breakout sessions, looking to bring application to your church and make sure that you make those available to other leaders in your church who can benefit from the breakout sessions as well.

I just want to mention two today, I want to highlight two, and we'll talk about the others maybe next week, I attended Jeff Purswell's breakout session entitled The Pastor in Politics. It was outstanding. And then I listened yesterday to Josh Blount's breakout session Complementarianism, Culture and our Churches: Living our Convictions in an Age of the Gender Wars. It's just an excellent breakout session. By the way, each of the breakout sessions has an outline that you can download on the Sovereign Grace website. So, make sure you look at the outline as you go through the breakout session because it's really helpful.

But what we asked Josh to do, Josh accomplished and did so much more. I was so pleased with his breakout session. I saw the outline beforehand, but to hear him teach it was even better. So he starts with these core theological definitions of complementarianism and he draws from three affirmations, one through three of the Danvers statement. For those familiar with that statement. And then from there, goes to the Sovereign Grace statement of faith and draws out complementarian theology in our statement of faith. And he kind of says, this is the basis, this is the foundation. We've got to remember that now as we walk into what we're seeing really in the culture in evangelicalism. So there's a bit of a stirring in the culture regarding masculinity. Jordan Peterson would be an example of that, for example. And there's also a lot being talked about in evangelicalism right now regarding masculinity and a lot being written. And by the way, what Josh did with his breakout session is he published along with an outline, his book reviews of a number of books that he's read, a lot of them in the area of masculinity that is invaluable. So make sure that you download that and use it.

So he just kind of walks through sort of the issues in evangelicalism not only that are egalitarian in nature, sort of on the one end of the spectrum, but also basically a hyper, I would say, biblical masculinity on the other end that he just walks us through and talks about why those aren't as helpful because they can be more influenced by the cultural moment. They can be more influenced by pragmatism rather than bedrock theology that Complementarianism is built on. So that's just a great review. And then he just ends his breakout session by talking about our bedrock theology when it comes to complementarianism. And he just walks through that at the end, I think very helpfully, and then offers some practical advice for pastors. So it's an outstanding breakout session. I would commend it to you. And again, here's another thought to consider. If you've got people in your church who are new to the church or maybe younger generations that could be wrestling with Complementarianism, this would be a breakout session for them to listen to.

And then Jeff Purswell did one on The Pastor in Politics. Why this breakout session now? is how he started. There's cultural upheaval regarding politics now, and that's just not in the states, that's outside of the states as well. There's political despair for some and there's evangelical reactions to what's happening in the culture and in politics. So he just lays out some foundations for a biblical political theology that is just simply outstanding. And it's something that I would encourage every pastor to not only listen to, but learn from that, to have your own biblical political theology in place. And then he talks, he just walks through really what is happening in evangelicalism as it relates to politics and what he dials in on. First of all, when he builds his political theology, he really does make a clear argument for a separation of church and state, which is really helpful because the government has a call, a role to play. The church certainly has her mission to accomplish. And if we mix those two things, the church won't accomplish her mission. So he just spent time just clarifying the church's mission and clarifying the pastor's call in accomplishing that mission, and then spoke to some of the temptations that are out there for people in our churches that may be caught up in politics, which isn't necessarily wrong, it's just do they have the right emphasis and prioritization when it comes to politics? And he offers some practicals there that I find are not only helpful from a leadership standpoint, but from a pastoral standpoint as well. So two breakouts to recommend to you, download the outlines and listen to those, benefit personally, and then think about how your church can benefit as well.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I look forward to listening to those breakouts. God has given us gifts in the form of effective teachers, and Josh and Jeff are right there as some of our best. So thank you Jeff and Josh for the hard work you put in to serve us through these breakouts in these two hot topic areas that we need to be sure we're settled on and have convictions about. So once again, another expression of the leadership team's thoughtful care for us as pastors and members of Sovereign Grace churches.

So Mark, thank you again. Thank you, leadership team. What a conference. I can't wait to go again next year. Lord willing and thank you all for watching or reading. Actually, we have a podcast feed a lot of guys don't know about. If you go into your podcast, whatever app you use, apple or whatever, and just type in Mark K Prater, you'll see the podcast come up.

I know some guys like to just listen to stuff when they're driving around. So if you put that in your podcast app, that'll pop up in your feed on Mondays and you can get it that way if that's easier for you. So thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here, Lord willing next week. Actually, it'll be after the fact, but happy Thanksgiving everybody. That's tomorrow for us. It'll be last week by the time guys see this. But thank you all. We're thankful for you, our audience, and we're grateful to be able to serve you in this way that you can hear Mark each week. So thanks. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.