VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Ben Kreps:

Hi 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. If guys are following along in the podcast, we recently had one with Dan Birkholz while filming from the Regional Elders Retreat and this is our second one with another pastor. We take advantage of being with these guys and being together. So why don't you introduce our guest.

Mark Prater:

I would love to Ben, and again, we kind of look like we know what we're doing rather than just using the iPhone. We've got these really nice mics that we didn't have to set up or do anything. <laughter>

Ben Kreps:

Exactly. Alright, this is our friend Stephen Bowne. Stephen is the Senior Pastor of Grace City Church, which is in the Frankford section of Northeast Philadelphia. It's a unique neighborhood, it's a unique context where he is doing ministry, where he planted this church. And I wanted to hear just a little bit about what God is doing there. So Stephen, first of all, thank you for your faith to plant this church in Frankford. Just tell us a little bit about what Frankford is like and the context within which you planted this church and are doing gospel ministry.

Stephen Bowne:

Sure, yeah. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm a first time caller, long-term listener. So grateful to be here. Frankford, it's a difficult neighborhood. It's the kind of place that people even in the city say, oh, you're in that neighborhood. It's known; it has a bad reputation, rightfully so. There's a lot of violence, a lot of crime, a lot of drug addiction and just kind of open out in the streets, even with looting and things like that that happened recently. It's all just in our neighborhood, all around where we're at. It's just the way that the neighborhood is. There's a lot of poverty, a lot of broken families. Schools are awful and it's just a very difficult place, a very difficult place to raise a family and have kids and to live.

Mark Prater:

So you've made sacrifices, obviously, to move Abby and the kids there and to plant this church. You did that for a reason. And tell us why you think it's important to have a church in Frankfurt in a place like that.

Stephen Bowne:

Yeah, you look at the problems of the urban poor, you look at the problems of the cities in America and it really breaks your heart and you think there are so many needs, there's so many problems, there's so many layers of issues, there's so many generational things, so many systemic things and individual things that are there. And you just see it. It just oozes over everything. And the thing that we have to offer is what nobody else has to offer.

And that's the gospel. To speak into those situations and to talk about repentance and to talk about living for God's glory and to talk about how we can be forgiven for our sins and to talk about systemic problems and the evils in the world and what Christ has done to address those things and how we can be redeemed and how our dead lives can be made alive again. It's a hope that we can give that really meets people's needs. There are, as difficult as our neighborhood is, there's a ton of agencies, there's a ton of programs, there's a ton of things that are there to help people, whether it be for jobs or whether it be for education or whether it be for feeding them or whether it be job training. There's all kind of programs, but none of them offer life transformation hope and only the gospel does that.

And so as a church, we're able to not just proclaim that but live it out in a community in that neighborhood. So it's different than just coming in on a missions trip and handing out some tracks and telling the people there "Here's Jesus." It's like, come and see how our lives have been transformed and come and live in our midst and be part of our family and be part of our church family and see how this works out in real life. And that's why it's so important to have a church community in these neighborhoods and living in the neighborhood, not just ministering to the neighborhood, but being in the neighborhood and with the neighborhood and having a church there matters so much and it's so transformative in the neighborhood and so life-giving to the neighborhood. So that's why we want to have a church.

Mark Prater:

I'm so glad you're there. So glad you're there. You've kind of spoken to this a bit generally already, but what are some of the unique challenges to do a ministry in Frankford?

Stephen Bowne:

Yeah, it's just that things that are typically extreme are more normal. So it's just expected that someone has served time in jail. It's just expected that someone is battling with an addiction or maybe not even battling with the addiction but just surrendering to it. It's just expected that people have multiple partners and multiple kids with multiple different people. Not even a sense of shame about it. It's just kind of like, this is just how we live. So it makes it hard.

On one sense, it is nice because people are open and they'll say, this is my life, this is where I'm at. It is what it is. Philly already has a reputation forever for being blunt and just saying what they are, and our context is Philly--but even more extreme, so just like, this is who I am, I'm a real person and this is what it is. And then it comes with all the, here's my mess. So there's a difficulty in that. There's a niceness in that because people aren't hiding and acting like they're perfect and things, there's not a self-righteousness in it. But it's also hard because it's like here's all this mess and how do we know what's going to be dealt with in the long-term? How do we know what to hit right now? How do we know what needs to be cleaned up before we can baptize you? What needs to be cleaned up before you can become a member? And what is just your culture and this is where we're at. And so there's a lot of challenges that way.

Another big major challenge is mental illness and that's often combined with drug use and even just trying to figure out level of comprehension that people have and how much they can understand and how much can you hold them accountable. And just working through that on an individual level and then it's so many people like that.

It is overwhelming all the time. It can be. You're always overwhelmed and I'm constantly reminded, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to help. I don't know what to say. I don't know, I'm just overwhelmed. Every Sunday I'm overwhelmed. And it's just a reminder that it's God, he has to work. God has to be the one to do it. God's the one that's going to make a difference in their lives and he has to change their hearts and take people that are dead and make them alive again. And so the glory of it is being able to have a front row seat to it, but it's very messy.

Mark Prater:

Tell us about how you see God at work and include there a building you just recently put work into.

Stephen Bowne:

So we see God at work in so many neat ways, in all kinds of individual stories and all kinds of neat pictures of people that their lives have been just a train wreck their entire lives and God is just redeeming them and stuff.

But we also see God in the fact that we're even there, existing, and were able to get a building in the last couple years. We were renting a space and then we bought a building just right down the block from where we were renting before. And it was just God's provision in all of it. God providing the money, God providing work teams, God providing the resources to be able to do it. And then every time we'd come across something that was like, oh no, this is going to be another so many thousand dollars, then another person would step up from some random church somewhere or the region would step up and it just kind of kept coming and kept coming and kept coming and you just see God making it happen. And now that we're in our space, it's just such a neat place to be.

We're right underneath the L. So if you think about any of the Rocky movies you've seen Rocky running underneath that elevated train line, that's where we're at, underneath that blue train thing. <laughter> There's so much traffic, and foot traffic. And so one of our ministries that we have is to have the church open on Mondays from 10 am to 2 pm and we had put out a sign that says coffee, prayer and conversation, come on in. And we just have people that come in off the street continually every week and it's just such a need. People are hurting. And sometimes people just want coffee, or if it's hot they want to get cool, or if it's cold they want to get warm.

And it's just an opportunity to pray with people and talk with people and you just see God at work. So many people just come in crying and just laying their burdens out and it's so intense, just the amount of things. But God is just working and it's so neat to see those people then come to church on Sunday and get plugged in and get fed and get well. So it's really neat to see God at work in that way.

Mark Prater:

Thanks for being there. Bonus question for you. Tell us one thing you've learned as a pastor in doing ministry in the Frankford section of Northeast Philly.

Stephen Bowne:

The one thing that I learned when I was studying urban ministry and was going to go into urban ministry, I assumed that a major part of that was going to be a lot of mercy works that we would do. And so we would have food pantries and soup kitchens and clothing giveaways and all these kinds of job trainings. And I thought that would be kind of what we would do and that would be the thing that would get people to come in. What we've found is that there are already several churches in the neighborhood doing stuff like that that aren't preaching the gospel. And those churches don't get people to come and people aren't changed by those churches. They come in, they use their services just like they would the corner store or use their bank like, let me get this service, but it's not connecting them to God.

And so the one thing that I knew, we need to be about the gospel, and we need to be about preaching the word. And obviously we're still helping people, so we do a lot of mercy ministry type stuff, but it doesn't have the accent that I thought it would have, because what people really need is the word of God. And what people really need from the word of God is Jesus and for him to save their souls. And so the message and the importance of solid biblical teaching and the importance of proclaiming the gospel over and over again in all different kinds of ways to try to get the word out being the main thing that we do as a church. That's the thing that I think I've learned, especially doing urban ministry, that the word is the thing that should matter the most, the thing that we should accent the most, even in the midst of such a hard, physically hard place.

Mark Prater:

That's a compelling lesson.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. And for you to go and plant in a hard place where there is a famine of God's word and bring the bread of life with you is a beautiful saying as I said to Dan in the last podcast, if you haven't seen that podcast or read it, please go back and read Dan's testimony.

'Just want to commend you and thank you for your example in a world full of celebrity pastors and selfish ambition. You did not plant in Frankford for the glory or for the money of which there is little of both, but you did it to see Jesus glorified in a hard place of Philadelphia. So, thank you for your example. And thank you to those who are watching or reading this podcast.  We’ll see you here next time, Lord willing.  Bye for now.

Benjamin Kreps: Hey, everyone! Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. And on this podcast, we're actually together.

Mark Prater: We are.

Benjamin Kreps: Together at the Northeast Regional Assembly of Elders. And we've had a joyful day. Full of worship updates and teaching, but on this podcast a little bit different. Not just we're together, but because we have a special guest with us. Why don't you introduce our guest?

Mark Prater: Yeah. Before I do that, we actually look like we know what we're doing here. We got these mics. So, we'll see how this goes. Anyway, this is our friend Dan Birkholz. Dan is the senior pastor of Mercy Gate Church, which is in the Wissinoming section of Northeast Philadelphia. And I wanted Dan to join us because he has been a faithful pastor in a neighborhood that has its challenges and difficulties. And his church exists in a part of northeast Philadelphia that I think is a little bit different where compared to where other churches do ministry. And I just wanted you to hear from him and how God has been at work in his church. And to also then pray for Dan as you listen after listening to this podcast. So Dan, thank you for being a faithful pastor. Tell us about the context or really the neighborhood that Mercy Gate is in. Start with that.

Dan Birkholz: So, yeah, we're in the neighborhood called Wissinoming, which is kind of lower northeast section of Philadelphia. And it's kind of a middle, lower class neighborhood. Demographics is about a third of white Caucasians, a third of Hispanics, and then a third of African-Americans. A growing population that we're seeing more now with Asians moving into the area as well. And so, plenty of diversity and plenty to think about in terms of working through some of the cultural differences in terms of sharing the gospel, unique needs of people, and just feeding boots on the ground for when it comes to serving.

Mark Prater: And being in Wissinoming, just knowing a little bit about the neighborhood, tell us about some of the unique challenges of what it's like to do ministry in Wissinoming.

Dan Birkholz: Yeah, so first you do have that diversity aspect. So that becomes a challenge because it's not just some of the cultural things that we would readily think of. But, I mean, it gets into language barriers oftentimes. So this past week we were out doing outreach and it was like every person we were running into spoke a different language. So, we're trying to figure out translation, get our phone out to translate. And so those are significant challenges that we're now seeing and we're having to pivot a little bit. So even a few months ago, we bought translation equipment for the church thinking, okay, folks are going to be coming in, they may be speaking different languages. We need to make sure that we're making the gospel accessible beyond those limitations there. So we're processing that. Also then with those lower income neighborhoods there's various levels of crime and violence on the ground. And so we're dealing with a lot of hurt and brokenness. So even in the last couple weeks, there's two individuals within our church family who's one, her son, his girlfriend was murdered. Another family had a family member who was murdered. And so you're dealing with various levels of grief as well. And so it's just being careful and thinking pastorally and ensuring that even your church body is aware of just handling some of these sensitive issues.

Mark Prater: That is sobering. It's something that not every Sovereign Grace pastor faces. So with all those challenges, God has placed you there and you have been faithful. Tell us how you see God at work through Mercy Gate.

Dan Birkholz: Yeah, so there's a few specifics that I do want to just toss out there. And that is there's been some folks who have just carried a burden specifically to kind of meet this need where people are grief stricken. And so, they've taken it upon themselves, folks in our church, to start a Grief Share. So we've seen a number of folks coming out and attending that. We went through the first set of Grief Share. We saw about 20-25 folks coming from the neighborhoods, some seeing it online that we were doing this. And it gave just a wonderful opportunity not just to connect with those are hurting, but also then bringing some of the church family along who haven't necessarily gone through difficult things, but in that process of grief they’re seeing how we correctly can minister to those who are. So it's equipping people just as they're coming in to go through those particular things.

And so, then the other thing is that for about two years, my kids and some other kids within the church are going to the same local high school. It's a charter school. And they've dealt over the years now with some unique challenges of just sharing the gospel and standing up for Jesus in really difficult contexts. And so, just two weeks ago, they began a Jesus club. They had their table set up, they had a whole banner, the balloons and all these kinds of things. There they were in the gym and hundreds of kids coming through and checking out these different clubs. And of course, here's Jesus Club and all the different reactions that come with that. Folks making fun of it, people kind of saying, “Are you kidding? They're actually doing a Jesus club here?” But, then 20 kids signed up. It's an opportunity for our youth within our church to just be a shining light in their high school. And so that has been wonderful. Then there was a number of younger students who just didn't fit the age gap for that club and so there's the possibility that a younger Jesus club maybe starting with those kids. So, amidst the mess and the hardship, it creates wonderful opportunity for a light to shine in the darkness and we're seeing it.

Mark Prater: Wow, that's a great story. Alright, bonus question that I didn't prepare you for so we'll see how good your answer is. Given the number of years you've been doing ministry at Wissinoming, what is one thing you'd say you learned as a pastor?

Dan Birkholz: One thing? What I think comes to mind are these particular words: keep your eyes on Jesus. There's so much to captivate you in terms of difficulty and hardship. And if you give undue attention to those things, you're going to collapse. Or you're going to resort to striving in your strength to try to become something in the midst of that difficulty. And keeping your eyes on Jesus has just been a rescue to my soul time and time again as the storms come in and difficulties abound. It's Jesus, just keeping our eyes fixed on him.

Benjamin Kreps: Yeah. Well, that's good counsel for all of us. It's a joy to be talking about Dan. I went to Pastors College with Dan, so I was with him the year that he was preparing it to plant. And just the fact that you chose a hard place to plant. We heard a teaching earlier today from Hebrews 13 about going outside the gate to where Jesus is, and you modeled that. There was an integrity to your exortation because how you have modeled that. Before we end, could you describe your experience of sustaining grace? I mean, you've only skimmed the surface of all that's been happening at your church over the last 10 years.

Dan Birkholz: Yeah. When it comes down to it, there's so many details that we don't have time to talk through. But it is God's providence. There are things that we prayed, and we prayed and we prayed and we prayed for, and there's no human possibility that you could manufacture the particular needs that you carried. But in God's providence, he has just constantly shown himself faithful on the ground. It’s not just in major ways where it's like, “Yay!” But in those really specific heartfelt ways where it's just like, “I need this right now. If I don't have this, I'm going to crumble.” And he's just again and again shown himself faithful. That has sustained us.

Benjamin Kreps: Excellent. Well, we're grateful for pastors like you, Dan, and the example that you set for us. You certainly did not get into that church plant for glory. Precious little of that. You did so for the glory of Christ and the advance of the gospel. So we we're grateful for you, Dan.

Dan Birkholz: Appreciate it.

Benjamin Kreps: So, thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

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, as you well know, we were very much encouraged over the past week by the response to last week's podcast, received a number of messages from guys expressing their gratefulness for the way that you were able to minister to them, encouraged them when it comes to the area of criticism, last week we said that you had a different plan and the Spirit led you to that and certainly the fruit that we saw from that podcast, it seems evident to me that that's true. It happened again, as you said, you wish it happened more often, but you had a different plan and you felt that God is leading you to continue to talk about this area of criticism in order to encourage guys.

Mark Prater:

I do. I did have a different plan for today and felt like the Spirit of God again directed me in a different direction. And for that to happen two weeks in a row, that for me is once in a millennium event. Quite honestly.

Ben Kreps:

You wish it happened all the time.

Mark Prater:

I do. I wish it happened all the time. I wish it was more a part of my life and my ministry, but I'm grateful for the Spirit's leading because it does seem from the feedback you and I received from last week's podcast, that that's what the Lord wanted to care for his people. And I pray that's the case with this podcast as well.

So picking up on last week, we talked about criticism and really a godly response to criticism, was the main topic of the podcast. And when we get criticism, there can be different responses, in my case, sinful responses in my heart that are various in nature. One of them is actually unbelief and I see it in a couple of different ways. If the criticism is accurate, you can wrestle with, as a pastor for example, am I really called to do this? If that criticism is accurate, am I called to do it? Should I stop being a pastor? Those are some dark roads you can go down. But if the criticism isn't accurate or isn't helpful, I find in my own heart that you can go down some dark roads that are filled with just godless thoughts. God's not in those roads at all. And it can take you to some dark places regarding how you view yourself, how you might view others regarding just your future for example. And all of those are expressions of unbelief in response to criticism we might receive. I think I'm an ordinary guy, I'm an ordinary pastor, and so probably there are others, whether you are a pastor or you work in a non pastoral vocation or you're a homemaker at home raising kids, we can all in response to criticism, I think wrestle with unbelief at times. And in those moments we really do need perspective. And it's one that's informed by scripture and it's a reminder of the promises of God in our life. That's what we desperately need in that moment.

Ben Kreps:

Yes, I can completely resonate with what you're talking about. I know my life can be filled with all kinds of encouragement from many different people and then that criticism comes and I've had that experience. I guess maybe this ministry thing is all over now. Certainly I think about back during the pandemic and how difficult that was to navigate through, but you're so right. We need to be able to cultivate, build a perspective of faith and battle unbelief in those dark moments. And you have some excerpts you want to read from really one of the great books "The Christian Ministry" to encourage our faith in this.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a classic work written by Charles Bridges and it's one that I encourage pastors to read over and over again as they're able.

Ben Kreps:

That's a favorite.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it is a favorite. He's got a section in there entitled Want of Faith. And I'm going to read some excerpts that I hope are helpful. They really are aimed at pastors or people in ministry, but I think it applies to any Christian. So even though he's writing to pastors, keep in mind any Christian can benefit when it comes to wrestling with unbelief. So he just begins by saying that the life of faith is the life of the minister's work and the spring of his success. He's saying that if we don't have faith as pastors in our role, we don't have faith as Christians in following Christ. We're not going to be able to follow him. And in pastoral ministry, we're not going to be able to serve his people if we don't have faith. And so I think he's not overstating it. I think it's vital. It's why Paul writes in the pastoral epistles to Timothy to fight the good fight of the faith because it's that important.

And he goes on to talk about just why it's so foundational. And what he does is he reads from Isaiah 9:7. The very last sentence which says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. The zeal, the passion of the Lord of hosts will do this. So you've got to have that chapter in that verse in context. So 6 and 7: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord will do this." And obviously it's prophetic regarding the coming of Christ, the incarnation and the life and death and resurrection of Christ, the coming of the kingdom where he brings justice and righteousness for all those who will trust in him. And that's a work that man cannot do. And Isaiah emphasizes that by saying, "the Lord of hosts will do this". And so Bridges is saying that should be something that bolsters our faith. He says that in response to that verse, how overwhelming is the thought of this affection, this zeal, possessing the heart of God, of the deep interest in his infinite mind, in the progress of the kingdom of his dear son, his thoughts engaged in it, his unsearchable plans embracing it and controlling all the mighty movements of the world to subserve this main design. Oh, solid therefore, is the rock on which the Christian ministry rests and the grand engine for the accomplishment of the purposes and promises of God.

That preaches, doesn't it? That preaches. From one verse you're like, okay, I've got faith.

Ben Kreps:

Don't you wish you could write like that?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I wish I could. But when we're criticized, I think we can lose that verse. We can forget that promise that the zeal of the Lord will do this and it can come in different ways. He talks about hindrances to faith. He talks about indolence and he talks about just self-reliance. He uses the term self dependence. Those two things can really affect our ability to continue to trust God. And he says this, but he says this in response: difficulties heaped upon difficulties can never rise to the level of the promise of God.

And typically criticism is coming when there are difficulties heaped upon difficulties. And in those moments we're losing. I know I am losing perspective, because of a lack of faith. And we can forget that those difficulties heaped upon difficulties, can never rise to the level of the promises of God that are found in scripture. And so I just think he's right. When we are criticized in pastoral ministry or in our homes or in our vocations, we've got to have a godly perspective.

And then let me just give one more quote because I think this is so well written and so true, and it's a reminder of our need to continue to strengthen our faith in God, to foster our faith in God. And this is what Bridges says. And of course again, he's writing to pastors, but I think this applies to anyone. "It is faith that enlivens our work with perpetual cheerfulness. And we want to be joyful pastors. We want to be joyful people that follow Christ. It is faith that enlivens our work with perpetual cheerfulness. It commits every part of it to God in the hope that even mistakes shall be overruled for his glory and thus relieves us from this oppressive anxiety often attended upon a deep sense of our responsibility. The shortest way to peace will be found in casting ourselves upon God for daily pardon of deficiencies of sins and supplies of grace without looking too eagerly for present fruit." And that's just so well said. We live in a world, I think especially in the western culture, where we want to see immediate fruit. And he says, don't look for that immediate fruit. Don't look for present fruit. Just keep casting yourselves upon the Lord being faithful to do what God's called you to do with faith. That the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. So just some thoughts that I might encourage those that might be wrestling with unbelief as I do so often in God, partly in response to criticism.

Ben Kreps:

That is wonderful encouragement. I think many of us as pastors, we can be far better at applying the gospel and building faith into those that we serve and find ourselves deficient and doing the same for our own lives. So I appreciate the encouragement. I think a great way to help to grow in faith is to read that chapter. If you don't have the book, the whole book is gold. But that chapter, I think will serve guys that are looking to be strengthened in the Lord. It was famously said of Jonathan Edwards that his happiness was out of the reach of his enemies. And so as we lean into Christ, dependent on Christ, clinging to Christ in dark moments, we will find a joy there that knowing and nothing can touch. So I'm so grateful for your encouragement.

Mark Prater:

Amen. I mentioned last week that I was carrying people in my heart that have been the recipients of recent criticism and the responses to that have been so encouraging. I came into this podcast in a similar way, carrying people in my heart that just would wrestle with unbelief at times. And I want you to know, I'm praying for you, praying that God through his word, strengthens you, enlivens your work so that you'll have perpetual cheerfulness and that you'll do what Bridges said, just cast yourself upon the Lord. And sometimes we just need reminders to do that. And hopefully this podcast serves that way. And after you listen to this podcast, know that I'm praying for you in that regard.

Ben Kreps:

That's excellent. Yeah, we certainly want our people to experience us as happy pastors, as we seek to serve them faithfully. And so Mark, thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your example of being sensitive to the Spirit's leading and for encouraging us, caring for us. And thank you all for reading or watching the podcast. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

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, as we were talking, preparing to record before we started recording here, you mentioned that you had a topic that you wanted to discuss, but in the moments before we started recording, you felt that God led you in a different way and I think a wonderful way to care for, in a specific way, care for pastors who are reading or watching this podcast. Pastors and anybody else, actually. So talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's those moments that I only wish I had more often: thinking about the podcast, praying about it and thinking I had a particular direction I was going to go, and then the Spirit of God just interrupted that thought process and sent me in a different direction. And even that experience is a reminder that we as pastors, we as people, not pastors only, are people who are dependent upon the Spirit of God and we need to be listening to the Spirit's voice as he does lead us. So the direction that the Spirit led me, I believe, is to talk about the topic of criticism and what was on my heart coming into this podcast is for some listening to this podcast. There's been recently a season of criticism for you. It seems like the criticism has been more frequent and some of it has been more piercing to the soul, if you could say it that way.

You've experienced moments of discouragement and even moments of just anger-type responses that we can have to criticism in our heart. And I just believe the Lord wants me to just talk about that today. And I've got pastors on my heart, obviously. But I think about people in our church, members of our churches, who are working in different vocations and they get criticism often. And it's really important that we have an understanding of how to respond to it biblically and in a way that can please God because it is in those moments, we feel very vulnerable in a number of ways. We feel attacked at times. We can feel very vulnerable regarding our heart response. As I mentioned, we can respond by criticizing back or we can respond in anger and self-righteousness. We don't want to do that. We want to please the Lord obviously.

So God uses criticism in a number of different ways in our lives and a resource that I've mentioned before in a podcast, it may have been either earlier this year or last year. This is specifically for pastors: "Pastors and Their Critics" written by Joel Beeke and Nick Thompson. If you don't have this book, please read it. Especially for pastors. Sinclair Ferguson does the forward. I find it's been the most helpful thing written regarding criticism that people receive in ministry, pastors in particular. So that's what I really want to talk about today. And what I want to do is not only talk about what Beeke says and a couple of thoughts, but just know that I'm carrying you, whoever's listening to this or reading this and is in a time of criticism. I'm carrying you on my heart and I'm praying for you, obviously generally, I don't know who by name, but I just bring that burden into this podcast and I give God all the credit for that because I was actually headed down the road toward a different topic. So hopefully this serves you what I'm about to share in a moment and know that I'm praying for you.

Ben Kreps:

Excellent. So many of us are grateful for how for you in your role as executive director are not just doing business. You carry us on your heart and you have a strong desire to minister to the pastors and members of Sovereign Grace churches. And this book, which I got from you a year or two ago, so thanks for that, is full of rich wisdom and encouragement for people experiencing criticism. So you wanted to share a couple of excerpts from that to serve us.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, the book is excellent, I think because it's very honest. Joel Beeke is very honest and it's very helpful. I think his chapter 4, "Receiving Criticism Humbly", is worth the price of the book alone, just that chapter. But the whole book is wonderful and I want to read a couple of quotes from the very last chapter, which is "Reorient Your Perspective". But the heading for that last section of the book is just having a theological perspective on how to respond to criticism, even a theological vision for that. And that's really, really important. I'm so glad he ends the book there because we do need that God-centered, theological understanding of how to respond to criticism so that we can respond to it personally in a way that pleases the Lord. But criticism is a tool that the enemy can use to divide.

Criticism can be a means to sow division because very quickly we get in defensive mode and we are ready to fight. And it doesn't lean us towards responding to it in a godly way. That doesn't mean you don't defend yourself, but in a way that can actually strengthen unity. And that's why I think it's important. So just a couple of sections in this last chapter, "Reorient Your Perspective". He says, "Have a God glorifying vision for response to criticism. That's a criticism, that's one theological perspective." And he starts by saying, "the chief end of man is what? To glorify God and enjoy him forever". He writes the chief end of our ministry, so he's speaking to pastors, is the glory of God and enjoying him forever. And he unpacks that by going to Acts 20 verse 24, which happens to be one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Paul is speaking to the elders in Miletus and he's seeing them for the very last time. And he says in Acts 20:24: But I do not account my life of any value or as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And Beeke picks up on that verse, and this is what he says. Verbal and physical opposition did not move Paul. He wasn't shaken by it. Why? asks Beeke. "Because he did not prize his own life. The apostle understood that he was a servant of Christ, a man who had been entrusted with a massive stewardship from his Master. And he was consumed with a passion to faithfully carry out that stewardship with joy."

And that's just an excellent, I think, recommendation from Beeke that we not account our life of any value or precious to ourself. He's basically saying, when you get critiqued, the temptation is to put your eyes upon yourself. And we need the grace of God to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them on the glory of God. And how do we respond in a way that pleases God? Because if we respond to it the right way, for pastors in this case, it will only strengthen our ministry rather than weaken it. And you and I were talking before the podcast, Ben, that's not an easy thing for me to do in the moment. It's not an easy thing for you to do. I think most people listening or reading this podcast say, that's not easy for me to do. And again, that reminds us of our dependence upon God to respond to criticism in a way that glorifies God. We really need as grace.

So, that's one point. Let me just read one other section or one other quote from a section that's entitled A Church Building Vision. And I say that because as I mentioned before, criticism can sow seeds of division and it can affect the church, it can affect the family of churches, honestly. And we have to be mindful of that because we can't give into that and we can't give into the ways of the enemy who may be using criticism in that way. And so Beeke says this quote "lift your vision above yourself and your circumstances and remember the reason why Christ has commissioned you to the ministry in the first place, to serve and build up his church". That's what we are primarily called to do. And again, it's an exhortation to take our eyes off of ourself and off of our circumstances and put 'em on a bigger vision of what God has for the church and that we've been given as pastors responsibility to steward, to care for, the flock that he's given to us. And that will help us reorient our perspective to serve the church and to look to sow unity into the church rather than division. And sometimes the criticism we get, it comes from the members of the church. And our response in that moment is really, really important. And that doesn't mean we don't have very honest conversations with them. But as he talks about earlier in the book, how you receive that criticism and how you speak in response to that criticism, the tone with which you do it, that's huge.

And it actually makes you more effective as a pastor. And for anyone who's listening to this and not a pastor, I think those same principles do apply to your life and I hope they do serve you. So those are some thoughts related to criticism and what I carried on my heart as we started this podcast this morning.

Ben Kreps:

Well, thank you for that. That is encouraging. I have leadership development groups that I work through each year, and one of the first things that we read is that old article that cross and criticism, because these guys need to know they aspire to leadership, which means criticism inevitably. To lead is to receive criticism. And that criticism can be deeply helpful, can be formative. God can use it as a gift to open our eyes to areas of weakness. But there are times where you know, more than most, where we want to respond, we want to defend ourselves, and then we have to die to ourselves. And in the end say, well, I did not defend myself. That person may have a view of me being weak or something like that, but my right is with the Lord. And in the end, our right is with the Lord. And so he carries us through these kinds of things

Mark Prater:

Amen. He does. Just one last thought before we end the podcast, and this is for the pastors in Sovereign Grace that might be listening to this. If right now you are experiencing just a season of criticism and it's been difficult for you brothers, thank you for being faithful. Thank you for going to God and crying out for his grace to help you. Thank you for responding based on that grace in a Christ-honoring way. And thank you for remaining in ministry and remaining in what God has called you to do; to be faithful, to preach his word and to administer the sacraments and to exercise church discipline where you have to and to care for the church of God as a shepherd in a way that honors Christ and is similar to Christ. So I want to end on encouragement in case you are listening to this podcast and you're discouraged because of the criticism you've received.

Ben Kreps:

Wonderful. Just as you're talking, I'm thinking how grateful I am and I imagine we all are, that we build together in Sovereign Grace relationally. We have a plurality of eldership, we have regional connections. We're not alone. And so we don't have to carry those kinds of burdens by ourselves. We get to receive and give encouragement to those who are downcast because of unjust criticism. So just another reason I'm grateful for our partnership together, and I'm grateful for you, Mark, and your care for us. And thank you to everyone who is watching or reading this. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

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, you were telling me before we started recording that you and the leadership team met this past week and you're planning and thinking about the upcoming pastors conference and you have some updates about that that you wanted to share with us. Why don't you do that?

Mark Prater:

I do. I've got a number of updates I want to share in this podcast. The first is the Pastors Conference, and as the leadership team and I plan for the conference, we couldn't be more excited. We're eager to be together. Our faith is stirred for how God is going to work among us. The last registration report I got, which is a few weeks ago, we are at 600, probably over 600 people now. So I just can't wait to be there and greet everyone face-to-face and where I do remember names, greet them by name as well because we are a family of churches and I can't wait for our family reunion this year, is another way to say it. Just a couple of updates related to the Council of Elders meeting and the Pastors Conference.

The Council of Elders meeting will be held on Monday, November 13th, and just to remind everyone who's coming to the conference and who's coming to the Council of Elders meeting, the Council of Elders meeting is in a different hotel than the conference will be held. Erin Radano has sent an email out about this. You can look in your inbox for that or you can contact Erin, but the Council of Elders meeting will be on Monday. It'll start at one o'clock at the Hilton Buena Vista, a wonderful hotel that we actually will be at next year for the conference. So It will give you a little bit of an idea of where we're headed next year. And so if you're coming in on Sunday, you'll want to stay there Sunday night and Monday night, our conference is being held at the Wyndham where we've been the last few years. We can't check into the Windham until Tuesday because our friends known as home base are there over the weekend. They'll be checking out Monday morning, the hotel needs time to clean all the rooms, et cetera, to prepare for us to come on Tuesday afternoon.

So if you're coming to the Council of Elders meeting, you either will stay there Sunday night, Monday night, or just Monday night if you're flying in Monday morning and you can register for sleeping rooms through the link that Erin Radano sent you in the email. Any questions that you have about that, please email Erin.

And again, the conference starts on Tuesday evening, November 14th at the Windham. And please register for the conference if you haven't. Also, if you haven't registered for sleeping rooms yet, please do that. Contractually, we have an obligation to fill so many sleeping rooms. Running a little bit behind on that. So if anyone could make a reservation for a sleeping room that would help us fulfill that contract as well.

I can't wait for what we've got planned in terms of preaching topics and in terms of updates and breakout sessions. I just can't wait to see how God is going to work among us. One of the reasons, one of several reasons we hold an annual pastors conference every year, one of those reasons is because it unites us and it strengthens us in our mission as a family of churches to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world by planting and strengthening churches. And one of our hopes and one of our prayers is that we leave there knowing we're sort of linked arms with brothers and sisters in Christ who have a heart together to advance the gospel throughout the world. So I hope that's accomplished and I'm praying that's accomplished in this conference yet again this year.

Ben Kreps:

Amen. It is a sweet time of fellowship but also equipping. I remember Jared's message from last year was to me particularly impactful as he exhorted us to church planting in Sovereign Grace. And actually there are some updates about how the gospel is advancing through church planting in Sovereign Grace churches. Tell us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I want to give you just a couple of updates that guys may not be aware of that I have the advantage of hearing about in my role in serving Sovereign Grace. So the first one is a church plant that you sent from your church, Ben, you sent Jeremy Hetrick to lead what is now Redeeming Grace Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. And you sent a number of your best and really longtime members, good members, good leaders with him, and they had their first service the 1st of September, I believe you probably remember the date. And from what you told me, the feedback you gave me, they had 180 people at their very first service, which is really exciting. Now, some of that obviously includes guests coming to support a first Sunday service church plant. But still that's a remarkable number of folks that came and it's a wonderful start for Redeeming Grace Church. So thank you, Jeremy Hettrick, for leading that church plant. Thank you, Ben, for sending your best and sacrificially sewing into the West Bank of Harrisburg to see the gospel advance there.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah, I was corrected by Jeremy. They actually had 190 people and continue to, over the last month, continue to have guests, new folks coming, connecting with the church. So we are sad that they've gone, but we're grateful to see how God is already blessing that church and giving them increasingly some influence and some recognition in the community over there in the West Shore, Mechanicsburg. So yeah, it's a joy to watch God work.

Mark Prater:

It is, isn't it? Yeah. And it's a joy to see what's happening in Mexico as well. If you saw a recent blog post Carlos Contreras wrote on our missions website, he was talking about how they sent from Juarez two church plants, two church planting teams, one to Reynosa, Tamaulipas Mexico, which is a border town across from McAllen, Texas, and the other is in Huajuapan, Oaxaca, Mexico, another church plant there. So that was a real important day in the history of Sovereign Grace Churches, Mexico, to send out two church plants that now will be getting off the ground in the months to come. So I wanted to mention that because if you think of it, please pray. Pray for both of those church plants, one in Reynosa and one in Oaxaca, Mexico as well. So just a couple of updates for just recent and ongoing or current church plants that I thought might encourage our listeners.

Ben Kreps:

That's excellent. I continue to be profoundly impacted by what God is doing in Mexico and grateful for how we get to partner with what God is doing in Mexico. There are church plants happening by God's grace, but there are also churches that have been planted in recent years who are enjoying anniversaries.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, and I think it's important to mention these because as I mentioned in the last podcast, we want to build slow because we want to build well. And that doesn't mean we won't have failures in church planting. We don't want those, but we could have those, but we don't really want to try to aim for that, we want to build something that lasts and just some updates are evidence of that.

Valley Creek Church in Malvern, Pennsylvania, just celebrated their one year anniversary and that church is reaching its community with the gospel. Also, Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, Delaware just celebrated their five-year anniversary and that church has grown to over 300 and is reaching their area with the gospel. And then next month in October, Redeeming Grace Church in Franklin, Tennessee will celebrate its 10 year anniversary. That church has grown. That church is reaching its community with the gospel. So it's a wonderful picture. A church plans to have one year, five year, and 10 year anniversaries. And it's an evidence of God blessing each of them and giving them grace. But it's also an evidence that we want to build well and continue to do that, to build churches that will last and exist in their communities for decades. We pray so that the gospel can continue to be preached because we plant churches to reach the lost with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Ben Kreps:

Excellent. I believe on the Sovereign Grace Instagram feed, there was a picture that Joel's church had posted where it's just an amazing picture where the whole church has gathered, this large crowd that started with 28 people in that group and now five years later, just a crowd of happy church members at Joel's church. So we exist to plant churches and to care for churches. And in all of that, there are people looking on globally who they say, I want to be a part of that and have been exploring adoption with us. And so you actually have some updates about adoptions as well?

Mark Prater:

We do. We have a number of new churches that are pursuing adoption into Sovereign Grace. And as it relates to our polity and our global partnership plan, these are now official candidate churches that are in the process of pursuing adoption. That first step for them is for one of their elders in each of these churches to go through and complete the ordination process and become an ordained Sovereign Grace elder. So there is a church in Cochabamba, Bolivia that is now officially a candidate church. They've related to David Del Castillo who is in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and they have just developed a relationship saying we want to be a part of Sovereign Grace. In fact, they just had a conference there in Bolivia, Joselo Mercado spoke there, Abelardo Munoz, I believe and Matthew Williams from Richmond as well as Chris Deloglos from Richmond spoke at this conference that was held there by our Sovereign Grace Church, Iglesia Gracia Soberana there in Santa Cruz.

And there were a number of churches that gathered and were encouraged by that conference. Abelardo Munoz, following the conference that Sunday, actually drove four hours to Cochabamba and preached in this church that's pursuing adoption into Sovereign Grace. I talked to Abelardo this week and he was just saying, "this is going to be a wonderful church in Sovereign Grace". So that's a wonderful update and thank you for all the good work that's happening in Bolivia. Thank you to David, but also Joselo has made many trips there. Matthew Williams, Chris Deloglos, in particular, has made many trips to Bolivia and it's just wonderful to see those men's labors bear fruit for the gospel.

We also got candidate churches now in Africa, West Africa in particular, two candidate churches in Sierra Leone, both in the Freetown area, a candidate church in Guinea, and four or five churches in Liberia, all of those candidate churches are actively pursuing adoption into Sovereign Grace.

And I wanted to mention that because as we go into the pastors conference this year, especially for pastors and wives listening or reading this podcast, keep in mind you never know who's sitting around you. And I'll never forget the story that Dyonah Thomas told me when I was in Liberia just a couple months ago. He said he became aware of Sovereign Grace through the songs produced by Sovereign Grace Music, and he began to wonder, is Sovereign Grace Music connected? And he realized, oh, there's a whole family of churches. And he was interested. But he said the first conference that he went to, and in particular when he heard CJ Mahaney preach and he said, CJ's preaching, it just moves me. That was a factor, big factor, along with what I experienced with those brothers and sisters at that conference. I left there saying, this is my home. This is who I want to partner with. And there'll be guests at our pastors conference this year that may have a similar experience as Dyonah. They're looking for a home. And just a reminder to our pastors and wives, those attending, leaders attending the conference, do what you do so well. You typically do. Just reach out to those around you who you don't know and introduce yourself and get to know them and have them experience our family in Sovereign Grace. Doing that strengthens our mission.

Ben Kreps:

Yes, it does. And it is increasingly exciting to think about this countdown as we move closer to the Pastors Conference. I know a highlight for me in the past few years is I've been a part of this sort of global dinner pre-conference, and to be in a room just packed full of people from all kinds of countries and interacting with them and seeing what God is doing is just a visible expression of our expanding partnership globally. And so thanks for all the updates, Mark. The last thing that Sovereign Grace is, is stagnant. I think that's a little bit I can say in response to all of that. And so how grateful we are that God has given us the privilege to see his gospel advance, not just here in the States, but globally through our efforts. So thank you, Mark, and thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

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, as a faithful pastor, you are committed to being a learner and a reader and as a wise executive director who cares about us, you have some recommendations, some resources that will help equip us as pastors and members in Sovereign Grace churches. Why don't you tell us about what you want to recommend?

Mark Prater:

I do, and the first one is hot off the press, Ben just being published this morning. We're recording this on Thursday, September 21st. An article written by Bob Kauflin published this morning on Desiring God. The title of that article is The Physicality of Faithful Worship, Why We Bend Knees and Lift Hands, and it's just a wonderful article. It's typical Bob Kauflin who lays out a wonderful biblical case for expressive worship, essentially using our bodies as we sing to God. And I think anybody that's been in Sovereign Grace for some time, whether it's a pastor or a member of one of our churches that's listening or reading this podcast, and reads Bob's article will say, we've heard this before, we practice this. But I think this is a very important resource. It's a very important tool for pastors because we have a number of new people that are coming to Sovereign Graces churches who know nothing about Sovereign Grace.

As I've talked with pastors in the States and actually outside the states, the new people coming into our churches are either recently converted, which we celebrate that and want more recent converts, or they've never been in a Sovereign Graces church before and really don't completely understand who we are. And a part of what pastors are facing is helping new people understand how we build churches in Sovereign Grace. And what we value in Sovereign Grace is biblically defined. And one of those is expressive worship. So this is a wonderful article that you can use as a tool to give to a new person or maybe even incorporate into a new member's class that will help them understand biblically why we do bend our knees and raise our hands during worship.

Ben Kreps:

It is an excellent article. I'm so grateful for Bob and the gift he is to Sovereign Grace Churches, and it is gratifying to see his influence and theologically informed instruction about singing physicality go broader. And so this is just the kind of thing that lots of folks have never learned about, but that we have benefited from for many years. I know that in planting our church, we sent off a lot of members and we have a lot of new people who are not aware of what Sovereign Grace is and didn't come to our church because of that. And so I'm definitely going to be looking to use that as a resource to help encourage the newer folks in Living Hope Church. So, wonderful article, highly recommended as well. You have two more recommendations for us.

Mark Prater:

I do. And the next one I want to mention is one I've mentioned in a previous podcast, but I want to explain why I mention it again, it's God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke. Again, if you're a pastor or a member of one of our churches reading or listening to his podcasts, please, I encourage you to read this book. And I think it's important because of what I'm learning, the members of our churches are facing, the members of my church are facing. This Saturday, September 23rd, I'm actually leading and teaching at a Faith and Work seminar for Covenant Fellowship members. And the topic that I'm teaching on is The Christian and Technology in the Workplace. And I'm teaching on that because of the progress of technology, rapid progress of technology and artificial intelligence, AI has raised ethical questions that Christians face in the workplace. So on one hand, artificial intelligence is good. We can be a tech optimist as Reinke says. I just read an article that was published this week, September 19th, that an AI tool that's been produced by Google DeepMind is able to identify genetic mutations that lead to the cause of diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and cancer. And this AI tool categorized 89% of the 71 million possible missense genetic variants. And so once you're able to do that, it's a lot easier to predict those diseases and to treat those. So that's a good use. At the same time, AI can be used in wrong ways and possibly even in evil ways. I mean, we've talked before, Ben, we've laughed where we've seen online just a guy write an entire worship song using AI. And so is that okay?

Ben Kreps:

It wasn't that bad. It was actually kind of decent.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it was on the holiness of God if I remember right. And I thought, that's not so bad, but is that integrity? It raises those kind of questions and Christians are facing that in the workplace. So what I'm doing in this teaching, and I'm relying heavily upon Reinke's book, is teaching just a brief theology of technology because I think we're not able to sufficiently answer those ethical questions unless we have a good biblical basis, a good meaning, a good theology of technology and biblical wisdom to prayerfully then figure out what do we do with ai, especially as it begins to be used more in the workplace. And then after teaching on a theology of technology, I end my teaching by presenting just convictions. I've written eight of them that they can consider for themselves in guiding them and hopefully helping them give wisdom in facing and addressing the ethical challenges that they face.

So, here's my encouragement to our pastors in Sovereign Grace. Consider in the future either a sermon or one class or a brief sermon series on technology where you're able to teach a theology of technology where you're able to equip your people in your church with some biblical wisdom, maybe convictions they can use for themselves, and I think it will serve your folks. So that's the second resource I wanted to mention.

The third one is a book I'm making my way through right now. It's entitled Mission Affirmed: Rediscovering the Missionary Motivation of Paul. It's written by Elliot Clark. Elliot Clark has been a cross-cultural church planter, mostly in Asia now. He works for Training Leaders International, an organization that we've related to, an organization that theologically equips pastors and leaders throughout the world. And that's what he's doing now. And the reason I'm reading through it actually was a book recommended to me by Joshua Jordan, senior pastor of Lifegate Church in Seguin, Texas.

And there's a couple of things that Clark says in his introduction that really resonated with me and that he's making points from throughout the rest of the book. Those two things are these: number one, he said that in his experience and in watching other missionaries, that missionary failures typically happen a lot of the time because there is no strong partnership. And when I read that, I thought that just makes a lot of sense and it reminds us, especially the pastors in Sovereign Grace of why we have a polity in a book of church order that defines and brings structure to our partnership. Not just so that we can get the business or the machinery of church life and denominational life done, but because that partnership can actually strengthen our mission to reach the lost with the gospel and we can help each other do that more effectively together.

So partnership is a key point that he makes, and obviously he spends much of the rest of the book just unpacking second Corinthians. And obviously when you study Paul and you rediscover his missionary motivations, partnership is there because he has a number of mission partners that he serves and they serve him and together they just advanced the gospel throughout the world.

The second point that he makes in the introduction that really resonated with me is that we need to build something that lasts. And he makes the point that in our Western mindset, we can want results very, very quickly; send a missionary and immediately we want to see fruit, and he's making a case for slowing down and building thoughtfully and carefully because we want to build something that lasts. There's a couple of things he says in his introduction that I just want to read to illustrate this. He said this: "from my years living in Asia to my current travels around the globe, what I find are missionaries and ministries with the unbiblical view that when it comes to missions, any effort is commendable. Equally troubling, many assume that the all important goal of reaching the lost validates our use of almost any means." What he's saying there is that it's a bit troubling because everything doesn't go as planned and we don't want to just use any means. We want to be thoughtful and we want to be biblically informed in the way that we build, especially as we do mission. So I thought that was a very good point.

Here's another quote. He says this: "at such a time as this, we don't necessarily need more impassioned pleas about opportunity and urgency. While those are important, I'm convinced that what we desperately need are voices of discernment, calls for wise investment and plans for better building." And those couple of sentences are really well said and that resonated with me as well because I think historically we've always joked in Sovereign Grace, that we're just slow and we build slow and we laugh about that and maybe there's some good even critique in that. But there's something about building slow, and building thoughtfully, for the purpose of building something that lasts, whether it's church planting or some sort of global mission's effort because we want to be effective in spreading the gospel and reaching those maybe even who are unreached at this point with the good news of Jesus Christ. And we'll do that best if we have that mindset. And really Elliot Clark draws from Second Corinthians to show that Paul took a similar approach. So that is Mission Affirmed, a book that you might want to check out as well.

Ben Kreps:

Excellent. Thanks for the recommendations. I think it was C.J., I remember hearing years ago say about Sovereign Grace. We're slow but we're stupid. <laughter>

Mark Prater:

Yeah, exactly. <laughter>

Ben Kreps:

So, it is gratifying to observe; we do have a number of guys that are doing missionary work, they've gone overseas from the states. And to see these guys, including in our region, meaningfully connected to not just to sending churches but to regions where there is financial support, there's encouragement, there's prayer, and they are doing that good, slow, but good work in their labor. So thanks for the recommendations, Mark, that I'll be certainly checking out. I have a copy of this, I'm reading. It's excellent. Very thoughtful. He's a great guy, Tony Reinke. So grateful for that book and grateful for your recommendations and your care for us expressed through recommending good resources to us. And thank you all for reading or watching. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.

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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, you are back from another leadership team retreat, this time I believe, in Los Angeles, where you gathered with the team and you were sharing with me before we started recording about how valuable that you think it is that you guys actually gather together physically in one place, apart from doing monthly Zoom calls and that kind of thing, that there's great value in that. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it is a value. I think it's even a conviction for us as a leadership team because we love serving our family of churches and there's much that we get done over Zoom meetings, but actually being together face-to-face for a few days accomplishes a number of things. First of all, we are able to build relationally, not just in terms of deepening our friendships, but it allows the team to function as a team. We value team ministry in Sovereign Grace. Each of our churches has teams or are building teams because we share that value. And that really gets at plurality. We want to lead together as a team. We want to lead Sovereign Grace together, and that's our heart. It's also a BCO mention that the leadership team will function as a plurality. So it's not only a conviction we have, it's an attempt to honor our BCO.

So just being together for a few days does help us to accomplish that and to build relationally. It also just gives us a chance to have, as I've mentioned before, strategic conversations and to do strategic planning. That is a little bit more difficult to do over Zoom, not only because of the limitations of technology, but because Zoom meetings that go longer than an hour or an hour and a half begin to lose their effectiveness. Yes, Zoom fatigue. So this just allows us to linger in certain conversations. I always go in with an agenda. I always go in with a bigger agenda that I know we're going to get through because when we linger in conversations, the spirit of God helps us and we go down paths that we didn't plan. And sometimes those can be our most fruitful decisions in serving our churches.

I think that's become even more important to us as a team because we are realizing that the family of churches that we serve is a little bit more diffuse and diverse and well, here's what I mean by that. As a pastor of a Sovereign Grace Church, a pastor knows his flock and he knows the flock, he knows the context within his church exists. And so that can help you pastor people. It can help you to know how to preach to your people. That gets a little bit more complicated when you've got a family of churches that exist in different nations in different cultures. So we are a more diffuse and diverse family of churches and knowing who we are has a little bit more complexity than just knowing a local congregation. So we want to make sure we know who Sovereign Grace is and we want it to be able to lead us in a certain direction based on that.

So those are just some of the reasons that we think it's important to gather physically together three times a year. This one was in Los Angeles, by the way, because Dave Taylor did join us from Sydney, and that's just one leg of a flight for him rather than flying deeper into the states. So it does help serve him. And a decision, I can't remember if I mentioned this on a podcast or not, that we decided as a leadership team is that all leadership team members will attend one retreat a year. And the other two I'll decide who from the leadership team comes. And so this was a smaller group of men from the leadership team. It was Dave Taylor, Jeff Purswell, Jon Payne, Jared Mellinger, and myself. Even though the other guys, I'll bring them up to speed and we'll send out notes and decisions that they can read and then I'll follow up with them verbally. So we're just so grateful. I'm so grateful for this team and that I get to serve with them. Being with them again this week made me even more grateful to God for them.

Ben Kreps:

Wonderful. Yeah, it reminds me of the Apostle Paul, of course didn't have Zoom. He sent letters, but how he would communicate in his letters to those whom he sought to serve, those he loved that he wished he could be there in person. So that's wonderful that you guys were able to do that. So what was it like? What did you go over? What's an update coming out of the leadership team retreat about what you guys talked about?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, we talked about a lot. I felt like we got a lot done. So I'm just going to pull out some highlights. This is a partial list of just things that we talked about. We talked about how leading Sovereign Grace really is becoming more of a wonderful complexity. It's kind of what I mentioned before. We are diffused and we're diverse. For example, what I mean by that is that there are cultural issues in the states that really are important and that we need to help our pastors equip our pastors to lead through. That could be things like gender ideology or sexual orientation, or how does politics impact the church, those kinds of things. Those may not be issues that other Sovereign Graces churches face in other nations or they may be, but they're of lesser degree. One comparison: churches in West Africa and East Africa, for example, those in Liberia and Ethiopia, they are facing a more heightened prosperity gospel. That's the big issue or one of the biggest issues that they face. And so how do we equip them with addressing that when it's not quite to the same degree an issue here in the States? That's just one example.

So we had a wonderful conversation where we're getting down different issues that we need to equip our pastors to face, and it's a diverse list. And so then we talked about how do we take that and lead effectively? Obviously the good news is that the word of God speaks into all of those situations, right? So it does heighten our need in our commitment to provide biblically based theological leadership. And we just talked about ways to do that. So that was a wonderful conversation.

We had a conversation that I entitled Tone and Truth. Part of what we were talking about there is what should our tone be in communicating truth and what should our tone be in standing for truth? Because that's becoming, I think, more necessary that we stand for truth. And I sent the leadership team an article that Andy Naselli wrote before the retreat, which we did discuss a bit. That article is entitled Winsomeness Can Be a Virtue or a Vice, and it is a wonderful article. You could Google it and read it yourself if you'd like to. Obviously he's for Winsomeness. We want our tone to be godly and gracious and to be Christ-like because that's a reflection of what we believe about the gospel. But it shouldn't be so winsome that we water down our ability to stand for truth. Because in this cultural moment, I think even in this evangelical moment, we've got to be very clear and at times strong in defending the truth. And so I illustrated that by just pulling from an introduction that Kevin De Young recently wrote for that 100th anniversary edition of Machen's, Christianity and Liberalism.

And if you haven't read Christianity and Liberalism by Jay Gresham Machen, please do. I would get the hundredth anniversary copy that just came out a few months ago. If you've already read that book and don't have the hundredth anniversary copy, I think it's worth the price just for Kevin Young's introduction in Machen's book, because he really just pulls out why standing for truth is so important and what Machen did, if you don't know the history that Machen's book didn't start as a book, it began as an address that he gave to a presbytery in the Philadelphia area. And what he was addressing in that speech was that there was a move at that time to unite 18 different denominations as sort of one unified denomination. And Machen was against it because their creed was theologically ambiguous and really didn't represent Presbyterianism specifically. So he gave an address against what was known as the Philadelphia Plan. B.B. Warfield, a contemporary, joined him in that opposition, his denomination at the time, the PC USA, Machen's denomination, who was embracing this plan. And so he was speaking against it, making a strong stand against it, and it was so well received that he gave the address in 1921. And that was so well received that he was encouraged to turn that into a book, which was published in 1923. So this is the hundredth anniversary, and DeYoung reviews the book and then pulls out seven lessons that are important for us. And you should read those seven lessons. I walked the leadership team through them. One of those being it's important that we make sure we clearly communicate what truth is, but it's also important that we clearly communicate what is false and what is false doctrine. And we have to do both of those things.

So there is a place right now for us to stand for truth and to be clear on what's true and what's false and where possible do that in a winsome way, but don't allow tone, don't allow winsomeness to trump truth. We've got to be clear and standing for truth. So we had a great conversation around that, which was really, really helpful. A part of the reason we were having that conversation is another topic that we discussed is something I think maybe a lot of pastors are, or at least watching and asking the question, what is really happening in Evangelicalism right now? So what is this current evangelical moment or current cultural moment? If you can marry those two things together. So is it one of, as you watch Evangelicalism splinter a bit, is it one of just sad self-righteous separation or is it one where there's theological erosion?

And if that's the case, which we believe it is a bit as a leadership team, we have to guard our churches against theological erosion. And of course, we don't know what God is doing right now in this evangelical moment. We don't know where the dust is going to settle and what evangelicalism will look like. But what we do see is a drift theologically, certainly some theological erosion, which heightens the need for us as a leadership team. And I think for us as pastors in any Sovereign Grace church to provide, again, biblically sound theologically informed leadership. So we had a great conversation about that. We've asked Jeff to capture our thoughts and write it. And we may even find a way to get that into our pastors' hands. We talked about that. Jared Mellinger gave a wonderful publishing update for the journals that we have planned to be published in the next year or two.

And then a number of other publishing projects we're working on that will be self-published that are going to be released fairly soon. One of them on Joyful Generosity that was written by three or four Sovereign Grace pastors. It's about 10,000 words it was written so that members can interact with it and just have a biblical theological basis for generosity and giving first and foremost to their local church. Jared's taken Jeff's message on zeal that he gave at the pastors conference from Romans last year, put that into a book form and that will be published. And so we're going to begin to self-publish publications or books mostly drawn from resources we already have; put the Sovereign Grace logo on them so that someone makes a connection that it's a Sovereign Grace resource and may want to read it. And we hope that it serves both the members of our churches and the pastors of our churches as well.

And then we talked about, I've mentioned this before in a previous podcast, we plan to publish Theo Pastoral resources, kind of like our old perspective series. Some pastors listening to this or reading this podcast would remember that name. And we may even use that same name. There's a draft right now written of elder led, elder governed churches. What do we believe about that? Why do we think that theologically? Why is that a value? I know Jeff is thinking about a Theo Pastoral resource in the area of pneumatology, which I think would really serve our churches. So just some things that were exciting to talk about and that we have planned. And just a reminder on the Journal that's written primarily for our members, but I'm talking to pastors like yourself, Ben, that are using it to actually reinforce the leadership they're bringing their local church. So you were telling me right before this podcast that in just a few weeks you're going to start a series on shaping virtues and you plan to use that. Tell us about that.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah, we're having our community groups, actually, some of them already started doing this, but we're going to have each community group use the Journal as we go through the series. It'll take longer because they meet twice a month, so they can't interact about every sermon in real time, but they're going to be using the Journal; the article for each virtue and application questions as just a shared resource to get the conversation and application going in community groups. So we did just plant a church, sent out over a hundred people. We got a lot of new people. So we're endeavoring to acclimate them and for them to understand and be clear about what it is that we're after when it comes to discipleship and a culture of grace at Living Hope. So the Journal is serving us big time in that way.

Mark Prater:

That's good leadership on your part. Thanks for using it. And a reminder to our guys, we publish those resources because we hope some of them will be tools that you can use as pastors to serve your churches.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. Well, thanks for the update. And thank you to each member of the leadership team. Thank you for your sacrifice leaving home, heading to Los Angeles to serve our family of churches. And thanks for the update, Mark. So we'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

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, those who've been reading or watching the podcast consistently are aware that you recently highlighted a journal called eikon by CBMW, that is a journal dedicated to facilitating conversations about gender, sexuality, marriage, and so forth. But you wanted to hit that again, because you want to impress on us the importance of how we think about these things and you want to equip us to be able to function as best we can as pastors in these areas. So tell us about why you want to go back to talking about eikon.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, thank you Ben. I do want to talk about it again because I do want to emphasize the valuable resource eikon with the subtitle Journal for Biblical Anthropology, and I really want to highlight the spring 2023 edition because as I've been reading through it, I think this is a very important resource that every Sovereign Grace pastor should be reading. I would also encourage members of our churches to be reading. The spring edition is dedicated to responding to articles written or chapters written in the most recent publication Discovering Biblical Equality. They just put out a new edition, and so the authors of this journal are responding to those specific articles. And so as I've made my way through the journal, there are a couple of things that have really stood out to me that I think are really important for our pastors, but also the members of our churches as well.

So two things. First of all, we as pastors have to be able to teach and to show and even protect our complementarian convictions biblically. We just don't want to say it's a value that we have. We have to be able to prove from scripture the complementarian values and the theology that we embrace. And I say that because as you read through this journal, people get to an egalitarian position really through flawed exegesis. And so I'm very grateful for CBMW to publish a journal that is so solid exegetically to defend, even prove complementarianism from scripture. So the main point there is we've got to know our Bibles, we've got to be men and pastors and men and women members of our churches who understand why we embrace complementarian theology because that's what the Bible teaches. So that's very, very important. That's the first one. Let's have sound exegesis.

The second one is that, and this newest edition of Discovering Biblical Equality can show you trends in flawed exegesis with the egalitarian position that can take you to begin to embrace same-sex relationships, same sex marriage. And there's even an article in this most recent Discovering Biblical Equality addition that embraces transgenderism. So you can see the pathway they go down that begins with flawed exegesis and isn't just about an egalitarian theology anymore. It is embracing gender ideology and issues related to biblical sexual ethics. So another reason why I think this particular journal (eikon) is really important, and I would just encourage our pastors to be reading it and even members of our churches to read it. I believe you'd mentioned before we started recording that the journal is actually available free online. Is that on the CBMW website?

Ben Kreps:

It is, yeah. CBMW.org/journal. And the PDFs are all there, including the newest one here, I think. Yeah, that's excellent. There has apparently been a cottage industry that has sprung up in recent years of popular books that are written by exvangelicals or now supposedly enlightened Christians who have come out of the complementarian world, condemning, not only disagreeing, but condemning and declaring that it is toxic. And so we are going to get questions, no doubt from our folks as that kind of material is interacted with. So a journal like eikon is much appreciated. What are some highlights for you from this latest edition?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I'll mention just three articles briefly and reasons I'm mentioning them. The first one I want to mention is written by Denny Burk, who actually is the president of CBMW and I believe he is a professor at Boyce College. The title of the article is Misunderstood Mutuality: Responding to Ronald W. Pierce and Elizabeth A. Kay, “Mutuality in Marriage and Singleness”. As Burk says, they don't really define mutuality in their chapter, but essentially earlier in the book, mutuality is the term used to embrace the egalitarian position, and they talk about mutuality in marriage and they do faulty acts of exegesis from 1 Corinthians 7.

What Denny Burk does is he just skillfully does solid exegesis to prove that their take on one 1 Corinthians 7 is wrong. And one of the reasons that's important is because where they go, it's an illustration of where Egalitarians go. They misapply mutuality and marriage and they apply it then to singleness in a way that they say it's okay for same sex attracted couples to have an intimate non-erotic relationship, which is something that's been a debate in the last several years, that Christians can have these same sex attractions and yet be in a chaste relationship with someone who is the same sex. And that's okay as a believer, and that can spring from a faulty understanding and misapplication of 1 Corinthians 7. So again, we're not obviously for that as a family of churches, but it's not just saying that we're against something, we've got to prove why we're for something, which is I think what Denny Burk does so well with his article and a good exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7.

Another one I want to mention is written by Andy Naselli. If you know Dr. Naselli, he's up at Bethlehem Seminary. His article is entitled, Yet Another Attempt to Justify What God Forbids: A Response to Cynthia Westfall, “Male and Female, One in Christ”. And I put out this one because what Cynthia Lang Westfall does is she takes Galatians 3:28, a familiar verse for all of us and says, we are all the same. She's trying to stress sameness between men and women, which is a faulty exegesis, as Andy Naselli points out, because what Galatians 3:28 is really about is that we are all justified. It's a justification text, men and women, slaves and free, Greek and non-Greek and Jew are justified through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. So that's where we find there's equality in our justification, but there's not sameness.

And he does just a brilliant job near the end of this article quoting John Piper and Wayne Gruden who do their own exegesis of Galatians 3:28. This is the quote, "the context of Galatians 3:28 makes abundantly clear the sense in which men and women are equal in Christ. They are equally justified by faith. Galatians 3 24, equally free from the bondage of legalism, verse 25, equally, children of God, verse 26, equally clothed with Christ, verse 27, equally possessed by Christ verse 29, and equally heirs of the promises to Abraham verse 29. He does not say you are all the same in Christ Jesus, but you are all one in Christ Jesus. He is stressing their unity in Christ, not their sameness.", which I think is a thoughtful and accurate exegesis. So Galatians 3 can be sort of a classic egalitarian argument, and it's important for us as pastors to understand why we exegete that differently as complementarian. So that's one I would commend to you.

Let me just mention one more, and this one is written by Colin Smothers, who is the, I believe, the Executive Director of CBMW. And the title of his article is Rejecting Gender Essentialism to Embrace Transgenderism? And a question mark there, he's writing in response to Christa McKirland's article, "Image of God and Divine Presence". When I read this, it sort of saddened me of where an egalitarian can go. Basically, McKirland rejects gender essentialism, and that takes her down a path of embracing transgenderism. This is what Smothers writes. McKirland is critical of gender essentialism, which she defines as the idea that men and women are essentially different on the basis of being a man or woman. So she's using image of God and says that basically we are not defined by our masculinity and femininity because of the image, her argument of the image of God. McKirland is upfront about the payoff of rejecting gender essentialism. The scriptures do not make maleness and femaleness central to being human, nor can particular understandings of masculinity and femininity be rigidly prescribed once these are culturally conditioned. So it's a flawed exegesis of the image of God, and really a misunderstanding biblically of just basic biblical anthropology.

We are defined as male and female, and God has chosen us that way. And where it really leads her is down a road where she does embrace transgenderism as okay and even biblical because of the image of God argument. So again, it's an interesting article to read. It's one that we are going to face more and more I think as pastors, I think regardless of what nation we are pastoring in, and therefore we've got to be able to prove from scripture why we believe what we believe, not just on our complementarian theology again, but where in protecting our complementarian theology, we do protect other areas like a biblical understanding of gender and sexual identification. So just some examples of why I think this journal is important. Again, to our pastors, please be reading it, and to our members, I would encourage you to go online and read the free copy and you'll benefit as well.

Ben Kreps:

Excellent. Well, Mark, I so appreciate how you carry the pastors and members of Sovereign Grace Churches on your heart, and you have a real zeal to see us equipped and strengthened in the scriptures and in this important area as well. I mean, the reality is the more you stare deeply into the scriptures and what we are taught about men and women and marriage and sexuality, it's not just defending from charges of it being cruel and crass and all of those things, but there's such a beauty to it. There's such a beauty to God's design. To be able to speak clearly to our folks about the beauty of God's design for men and women is such a privilege. So thank you, Mark for the recommendation. Thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.