Wildfires Impact Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena

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, everybody who's checking out the podcast this week by now is aware of and is probably paying close attention to the fact that California is on fire. Southern California and historic devastating wildfires are sweeping across the area. It's just so sad to hear the stories about all the loss that's being experienced there. But for us, while we certainly, some of us, have friends, family members and so forth out there in the Los Angeles area, we also, in case people aren't aware, we also have brothers and sisters out there in a Sovereign Grace Church in Pasadena. So for us, this isn't theoretical at all. We have family out there in Pasadena who are also suffering loss as members who live in and around the fires are experiencing the effects of those fires. Talk to us about what's going on out there in Pasadena.

Mark Prater:

As everybody looks at headlines or pictures or even video, whether it's a news reel or online. It's very sad, as you said Ben, and devastating, really, a tragic loss for so many regarding these wildfires that have occurred over the last week approximately and aren't done yet apparently.

And it is more than theoretical for us. It is family that we have out there within Sovereign Grace. We have three churches in Southern California, one in Santa Ana, California, one in Orange, California. And as you mentioned, Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena. And that church in particular has been impacted by the fires and it's the Eaton fire in particular that directly impacted people in that church. And so first of all, I want to dedicate a podcast to it simply to call us to pray. Pray for Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena. Pray for Tim Owens who just became the lead pastor there back in the fall and is really early on in his lead, Pastor tenure, and has had to lead through just a difficult situation. And the other pastor there is Bill Fisher who's a bivocational elder. So pray for those men as they shepherd and lead the church.

Jon Payne sent out an update today that he got from Pasadena and in working with the regional leader in the West, which is Eric Turbedsky, who happens to be the lead pastor of Sovereign Grace's Church in Orange, California, who's doing all that he can to serve the church in Pasadena. But that update, if a pastor hasn't seen that email from Jon, you can get an update there.

But many members in Sovereign Grace churches listen to this podcast and wanted to give them some information so they can be praying and potentially even help give to disaster relief. But the impact there in Pasadena, initially 24 households in that church had to evacuate. Currently there are 13 households who are still impacted by either evacuation orders or significant smoke damage or contaminated water and they can't move back to their home. They're still displaced in that regard.

And then two families have lost their homes. One of them happens to be Bill Fisher, who is the bivocational elder there, and then a third family, Ron and Tammy Boomsma. Ron led that church for 20 plus years before moving to Bozeman, Montana back in the fall to take the lead pastor role of Emmaus Road Church in Bozeman. Ron and Tammy had their home still in Pasadena, kept it so they could rent it out, and they lost their home as well. So these are the families that are impacted with the loss of homes. And so it's all just very tragic and very hard and they are experiencing real suffering. And the church, from what I can see, is just doing a great job of caring for one another. But we as a family of churches, we want to come alongside them and not only pray for them, we want to try to help in any way we can.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes, at Living Hope on Sunday, so Tim and Bill and anybody from Pasadena who is listening, we prayed for you, I'm sure a number of Sovereign Grace churches did. And so we are praying and we'll continue to pray for you, Sovereign Grace Church. Beyond our prayers, which of course are the most essential piece in all of this, our appeals to God for Mercy, there's actually practical ways that are being sort of developed and a fund that's been created for people who want to help out with the challenges that are there. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I've been asked for several days now, "Is Sovereign Grace as a denomination going to start a disaster relief fund for California?" And what we've chosen to do instead, we think this is a better approach, is to work with Eric Turbedsky, the West regional leader and also Tim Owens, and for the money really to go directly to the Sovereign Grace Church in Pasadena. So I'll give you a URL address, a web address. We will put this in the transcript. There's a couple of ways that you can get to the Give page really. You could just put in sgcpasadena.org and they have a banner at the top to visit the church hub to get to disaster relief. Or you can go here and that'll take you right to the page that describes really what's been happening and gives you an opportunity to give.

And that giving goes to Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena because they're coordinating their efforts to care for their folks. And then they're also working with three, I think it's two or three, other churches there in Pasadena where people in the area can just drop off things that are needed like water and diapers and clothes and food. So obviously most of us are not in the Pasadena area and can give, and what they're going to use their money for, they've got it outlined on that page. They want to be able to purchase and deliver drinking water to areas where there's contaminated water. They want to coordinate professional cleaning of a home or two of a member of a church. They possibly, they're considering helping to pay insurance deductibles for a few families in the church or at least help in some way. And then they're looking to provide places for people to live for one or two weeks just until the insurance gap kicks in and they can find some other housing until they're able to move back in or until they're able to rebuild.

So those are just some of the ways they want to use that money. And it's just a wonderful way to express our love and affection for when a church is going through a tragic situation like Sovereign Grace Church of Pasadena. And if you live in the Southern California area and you want to drop stuff off, please do that as well. So that's the information in terms of being able to participate and give. And if you do that, I want to thank you for caring for one of our churches because we are family in Sovereign Grace. We're a family of churches as we say. So we weep with those who weep and we want to care in any way we can.

I'm very grateful also for partnership because immediately, right away, I was texting with Eric Turbedsky, who's the regional leader, again, and he's in Orange, California and the churches, both in Orange, Sovereign Grace Church in Orange and Cross of Grace Church in Santa Ana just immediately contacted the Pasadena Church and said, we've got families in Santa Ana and Orange that'll be glad to open up their homes. If people just need a place to stay during evacuation period, for example, please let us know. So just another wonderful picture of partnership, in a tragic situation, that we share in Sovereign Grace. So thank you for praying and possibly for even giving.

Benjamin Kreps:

It is our privilege to bear one another's burdens even when it's brothers and sisters maybe we haven't met and don't recognize their faces and yet we are united together by the same spirit in Christ. And so this is a wonderful opportunity, hopefully, as churches have opportunity, to share wherever you put announcements to share that link. We've had some folks coming off of praying for Pasadena on Sunday asking how can we help, which I would expect is going to be a common reaction among our churches. So thank you to everyone who's praying. And Tim and Bill, we got you in prayer. We're for you guys and we will continue praying and asking God for mercy and all of this. So thank you, Mark, for the update. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.