What Happened at the LT Retreat

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. And welcome to the Mark Prater podcasts, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, this past week you and the Leadership Team had a retreat in Orlando. Very smart, good leadership. Can you fill us in, give us a little insider view into what the Leadership Team retreat looked like?

Mark Prater:

We had a great retreat this past week. We do those three times a year. They're so important both in building a team and doing team ministry together when all of the guys are spread out geographically and also in serving the pastors and churches in Sovereign Grace. So, let me just begin with that first one of just being together. It's really a time for me to gather the guys on the team and I typically start with encouraging them. So, I started this retreat by reviewing 2020 with them and point out for each guy what they were specifically doing, what they accomplished in serving the pastors and churches of Sovereign Grace. I do that because I think they forget what they accomplished over this past year. And it's just a way for me to specifically thank them for how they, they just serve so well.

And then usually in that update, I end by expressing my appreciation by giving them gifts, typically that's books. It's just my way to theologically invest into them. So I gave them Michael Reeves’ new book which is entitled Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord. I started reading it on the way home on the plane. It is so good guys.

Benjamin Kreps:

I can’t wait for that one.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. And then I pre-ordered a book that's available in the UK, but not here in the States yet from IVP. It's in the NSTB series which is that gray series that our guys would be familiar with. And it's a new one entitled The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People. I gave that book for two reasons. First of all, the Leadership Team exists to serve the pastors and churches of Sovereign Grace. So I told them that I'm giving them this book so that as we study a biblical theology of servanthood, may it strengthen how we serve the churches in Sovereign Grace. But, secondly, I gave it because it's written by Matthew Harmon, who is a member of one of our churches. He's a member of Christ Covenant Church in Winona Lake, Indiana (USA). And in Winona Lake there was also a Bible college and theological seminary where Matthew is a New Testament professor. And he's just a solid guy, not only theologically, but he's a good writer and I wanted our guys to have that as well. So that's how we started the retreat.

We also just had a good time relationally being together. Dave Taylor obviously couldn't join us. But we did plan it so that he could Zoom in for a couple of afternoons of our meeting, which means it was very early in the morning for Dave in Sydney. But it was just good being together, praying for one another, getting updates, laughing together. We laughed a lot and it strengthened our team and I'm just grateful that if you prayed for our retreat, God answered your prayers.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Can't wait to read this book. I mean if anybody hasn't heard it and you want a taste of what that book's going to be about, he preached on that topic at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville so you can go listen to that wonderful sermon. So great to hear about the relational connections that you were making and strengthening. What kinds of issues and decisions were you working through over this week?

Mark Prater:

We had a lot of good discussion on more strategic, big picture issues that I think will hopefully serve our guys and their churches over this next year. So we continued our discussion on our global expansion, something that you and I have discussed in a previous podcast. And we've gone through a couple more refinements of that particular plan that Dave Taylor and I worked on together, presented to the team, and the team had really good input and feedback. And so, we'll take that, and we'll go through another round. I just think that we don't want to rush this plan because it's so important. So, I'm actually really pleased with the progress we made on that discussion, even though a number of questions remain that we would like to try to answer before taking that first to the Executive Committee and then to the Council of Elders. And it was just so good to have Dave Taylor as a part of that, that discussion. So that, that was really, really good.

We also talked about Leadership Development. That's something that we're committed to obviously. As we think about the future of our denomination, we want to develop leaders who will serve extra locally. And we've been doing that for several years now and made a decision to just change our approach a bit in this way. We're still going to do Leadership Development but create two groups. Some of the guys who've been in that group we've had for the last few years, we'll continue to invest into them, but create another group of younger guys who we think could potentially serve extra locally in the future and gather them together as well. So, two Leadership Development groups going on, at least in Sovereign Grace.

Jeff took time, and I typically ask him to do this, to give just thoughts on current theological and evangelical issues. And he spent a lot of time giving us an update on Wayne Grudem’s second edition of a Systematic Theology. And it was fascinating to listen to Jeff. It was so good. I said, “I want you to do that for our pastors.” And so, we've got one of those quarterly Zoom meetings that our pastors can voluntarily participate in. I think we'll have one in February where Jeff will do exactly that and you guys need to tune into that. It's was just so, so good. We had a good discussion about communications philosophically that we needed to have to make sure we're on the same page and then made some decisions on how we can communicate more effectively as a Leadership Team especially now that we're producing more content. Eric Turbedsky just did a great job of leading us through that discussion.

We also talked about you, you would appreciate this Ben, about the shared values that we have. But creating another, we were calling them shared virtues. I don't think we'll stay with that name. But it's those virtues that mark our gospel centered culture, things that you've actually taught on in your church, like joy, humility, servanthood, and gratitude. So Mickey Connolly is going to move that project forward. I think that will help our folks know what it's like when you experience a Sovereign Grace Church.

And then let me just mention one other thing. We had a great discussion about Pastors College and getting guys to the Pastors College. And we were thinking the category of recruitment, but I don't think that as we talked, we learned it was not so much a recruitment issue. It's actually casting vision for it. So it's a leadership issue. So, we're thinking of addressing this at the Pastors Conference where we cast a vision for theological education for future pastors and a vision for just sacrifice for the greater mission. Meaning that one of our pastors may send a PC student knowing that they may not come back and serve in their church because there's another need in a region, in their region or another part of the country. So, I could go on and on. That's just some of the things we discussed. There's a lot more we discussed, but God was very, very good to us.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Did I hear you say Pastors Conference?

Mark Prater:

We did talk about the Pastors Conference and we decided that unless something catastrophic happens, we plan to have a Pastors Conference this year, knowing that a lot of our folks globally won't be able to travel in. We just think, you know, two years in a row not being together would not be good for us. So, we're moving ahead with a Pastors Conference and planning it. We did some planning the conference actually at the retreat and the guys will be hearing more about that soon.

Benjamin Kreps:

Great news. I think it's safe to say, to speak on behalf of all the pastors of Sovereign Grace, when I say thank you Leadership Team for your dedication and investment and hard work. It's gratifying to hear the good work that you're doing and serving us because that is what you're doing. You're serving the pastors of Sovereign Grace Churches. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you, Leadership Team. And we'll see here on the podcast real soon. Bye for now.