What's on the Leadership Team Retreat Agenda?

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, I noticed that you're wearing some Winona Lake Christ Covenant swag on the hat. Shout out to Winona Lake. But apart from that you're preparing for another leadership team retreat next week. People that follow this podcast know you guys have three retreats each year. This is the second one of the year. You had one back in February, so I believe this will be the second one of the year. Talk to us about leadership team retreats. Talk to us about why you have these retreats.

Mark Prater:

But yeah, I'm glad to wear Christ Covenant Church in Winona Lake, a Sovereign Grace Church in Winona Lake, Indiana. So, yeah, a shout out to them.

And you're right, it's time for another leadership team retreat and to remind our listeners, we have mentioned this before on previous podcasts; we do three retreats per year. We do them because we're spread out geographically as a leadership team. And so we're able to get a lot of work done over Zoom meetings, but it's just good to be together for a retreat where we can have longer, more strategic discussions and there's time that allows for that. It also allows us to continue to build relationally, because team ministry is important to Sovereign Grace, it's one of our values. And, this retreat will be next week.

And so when this podcast drops in your inbox on Monday, please pray because it'll start the next day on Tuesday and go through Friday. And we've done something recently as a leadership team. We're experimenting with it this year; all the guys on the leadership team come to the first retreat typically in February. And then they've given me the latitude to decide who comes to the other two retreats so that not all the guys have to travel to every retreat. We're just mindful of everything else they've got on their plate. So for this particular retreat, it's going to be a little bit smaller group. It's going to be me, Jeff Purswell, Jon Payne, and Dave Taylor, who's coming all the way from Sydney for the retreat. And so be praying for us. The guys that don't attend, they see the agenda I send, they've already received it and actually, can weigh in on any issues.

And we wouldn't make any big decisions without the rest of the team involved, anyway. So, this is something that we're trying and we're looking forward to seeing how it works. So please pray for our retreat next week, if you would.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah, we will do that. What are you going to be covering this time?

Mark Prater:

Well, we have a full agenda. I always go into a retreat with more than we can cover, and yet being flexible with the schedule, with the agenda, because we believe that God will lead us and that the spirit of God will lead certain conversations down roads maybe we didn't anticipate. And sometimes those can be the most fruitful conversations. So I'm not rigid about the agenda, always have more than we cover, but have an agenda where we've gotta talk about a number of things related to just all the good things that are happening in Sovereign Grace right now.

And one of those is our global expansion. We just did some work, Dave Taylor and I, about the next five years. Rich Richardson did this for Latin America as well. Just trying to get our hands around what does the next five years look like and what will that require in terms of funding and staffing and those kind of things. And if plans go as we anticipate without being presumptuous and only by the grace of God, there is the possibility that we'll go from 90 churches presently to 240 churches by the end of 2028. So it's kind of crazy; churches that we will either adopt or plant throughout the world, including the United States. So we're trying to get our hands around that.

So I've just dedicated a session, that we'll start with, entitled "Taking Another Look at Our Global Strategy". And what I mean by that is, what is it? Are we on the same page in terms of what we're trying to build? What is it we're trying to build? I think what we're trying to build is a global, multi-generational family of churches that partner together to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world for the glory of God alone. And if that's what we're trying to build, then there's certain strategies that we have. And those define really how the leadership team should be giving their time to. So, if we agree on the strategies, and we're going to take a look at those again; do our plans, do our tactics, if you can use that word, are they in concert with our strategy so that our work is a focused work that will best serve our churches? I use words like strategy and tactics. Those are man made words. But they're helpful in doing some planning ahead while recognizing God has full reign and full rule, and he will lead us in the way that he wants. And so whatever we put together, we will put together with a sense of flexibility and adaptability because we want God to lead us. So you can be praying for that discussion in particular. And with the churches that we might add, there's more work to do. So a whole conversation about how do we get the work done and what does that look like for us in terms of deploying more men into ministry? And do they have time? It's talking through all of that.

We've got a discussion about establishing what we're calling global centers, where they're kind of like mission bases like the church in Antioch was in Acts chapter 13, where we've got key leaders and where they have the potential to house a pastors college and host conferences and equip pastors. So obviously one of those is in Louisville where we've got a facility to do that. And the Pastors College is there. But we're looking at places like Manila, Philippines, where Jeffrey Jo is, or Dyonah Thomas in Liberia, Michael Granger in Ethiopia. Carlos Contreras in Juarez already has a facility that does host conferences and can house residents and interns. So we're going to have a whole conversation about that because we want to invest into those key strategic centers.

We've got a whole conversation related to what I've entitled as mature leadership. I read a blog post recently by Samuel James, entitled, Does Maturity Still Matter? And, he begins with a quote from a guy by the name of Mark Sayers who's written a book on leadership, essentially that's entitled A Non-Anxious Presence. And I'm thinking about dedicating a completely separate podcast to discuss this. But essentially what this book is saying is that our world today that is more connected online through social media, et cetera, one of the results of that is that we're living in a more complicated, chaotic, emotionally charged world. And so how do leaders respond to that? And there can even be pressures that churches feel or institutions feel as a result of that. And he just makes a case for leaders who have a non-anxious presence. They will have the most leverage. And I would equate it biblically to, and this is a Christian, so I'm not criticizing the book in terms of his term, but it's the leader, the pastor, who is faithful, who is not anxious, who trusts God and just continues to do what God has called him to do and doesn't overreact to those emotionally charged situations, but continues to keep his nerve and to move forward in trusting God. So we'll have a whole conversation about that. I'm really looking forward to just evaluate how we're doing with that issue in Sovereign Grace.

Dave Taylor is going to take us through one more revision of an unreached people's group proposal in terms of what does Sovereign Grace do in reaching those that are are unreached? And then, I got so much more, let me mention one other, a topic I've entitled Generational Transfer. And so I've asked my assistant Erin Radano to give me statistics on the number of pastors that we have by age group in their sixties, fifties, forties, thirties, and twenties. And, so I've got those numbers. And, if you look at the next five to 10 years, there's going to be generational transfers occurring, not just in senior pastor transitions, but pastors on staff. And so how do we help churches prepare for that? Is there anything we can do to equip them for that? So we've got a whole conversation about that as well.

So that and much, much more we have planned. And this is the way you can pray. And when this drops into your inbox on Monday, ask God to give us wisdom and to lead us by his spirit in a way that we make decisions that best serve our family of churches, because that's our heart. We exist to serve the pastors and churches of Sovereign Grace, and that those decisions would ultimately lead to the glory of God and the furtherance of his mission to save the lost. So please pray for us because we desperately need your prayers and we desperately need God's help.

Ben Kreps:

Well, thanks for that update. One thing seems clear to me whenever you give us an update about the leadership team and the way you guys are going about sacrificially serving and strategizing and planning is that you do so in a way that is God-centered and biblically informed. So grateful for the strategic way that all the guys in the leadership team are thinking and planning together. But even more grateful for the way that it's discernible that you're seeking to glorify God and serve us through what you do. So thanks. We'll be praying. Thank you to all the guys in the leadership team that make the kind of sacrifices to go to retreats in the midst of busy lives of ministry and family. So we'll be praying for you guys and we'll see you here, Lord willing next week. Bye for now.