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, it is wise for each one of us at the end of each year to pause and to ponder what God has been doing in our lives in our churches over the last year because he has been at work. We serve a God of steadfast love and faithfulness who loves to give good gifts to his children. And certainly we have experienced so much of God's goodness in Sovereign Grace churches over the last year, you have been reflecting on what God has been doing. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

I have been, it's December 28th. That's the day that we are recording this podcast. It'll drop into inboxes probably January 2nd or third next week. So I've been doing that this week like you have been, just reflecting on how good God has been to our family of churches over the last year. And I'm always amazed at his goodness, I probably shouldn't be, but I am because he just does more than we could ask or even think to ask him. His goodness is just exceedingly good because it's a reflection of his infinite goodness that is one of the attributes of God's character. So I've just been walking around as I've been praying this week as I recount the many blessings toward our family of churches from God this year just worshiping him and being amazed by them. And what I wanted to do is share just a few.

We could record a very long podcast where I could give you a comprehensive list of the good things God has done, but I'll try to distill it down so this episode isn't too long. First of all, here's the first thing I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for the pastors and members of Sovereign Grace churches who have a clear commitment to gospel centrality. What I mean by that is our pastors have a faithful commitment to preach gospel centered sermons each and every Sunday. And it's just always humbling to see really how the members of our churches respond to that preaching by applying the gospel to their lives in every aspect of their lives.

And so what you see, wherever I go really throughout the world in Sovereign Grace churches, I see the fruit of the gospel in that church. It's a reflection of the fruit of the gospel and our gospel culture that is really captured, I think, in our seven shaping virtues. You did a breakout session on that at the pastor's conference. So humility, joy, gratitude, generosity, encouragement, servanthood, godliness. You see that in Sovereign Grace churches and it's not unique to Sovereign Grace. I don't want to sound that way, but it is distinct in Sovereign Grace and it's really seen, and I experience it in every Sovereign Grace church I go to regardless of what part of the world that church is in. And that's really a remarkable work. It is really the fruit of the gospel and God's power at work in us through the spirit to transform us and make us more like Christ. It's an amazing work and God deserves all the glory. So I'm very grateful for that as I've traveled over this last year.

The other thing I'm really grateful for is the number of new Christians, new believers that I've met in Sovereign Grace churches. They recently have come to faith in Christ. They're beginning to grow in Christ. Many of them have just been baptized or planning to be baptized, and it's such a joy to interact with them. And you can see the impact that has on a congregation that some new life in Christ is among them and their own love for Christ affects all the others who have been loving Christ for years and it just makes it exponentially greater. So I'm grateful for how the pastors have faithfully preached the gospel and how the members of our churches and our pastors have shared the gospel with unbelievers and reached out to them and invited them to church. It really is another amazing work of God and I just thank the members and pastors of Sovereign Grace Churches for doing that.

Another thing I'm grateful for is I just see how God over this past year has continued to give us opportunities to plant churches and partner with churches throughout the world. I think we have churches in about 20 different nations now, and that's something that we didn't plan for. It's something I don't think we even anticipated. And yet God has been good to us to partner with really like-minded churches, not just theologically, but also in terms of their own gospel culture that just maps onto ours. And it's just been a wonderful season for us to expand globally and to see how God is using our churches throughout the world to advance the gospel. Another evidence of that this year, we talked about this in a previous podcast, at the Council of Elders meeting, we voted to establish Mexico as the first ecclesiastical nation outside the United States. And that's important because it's a reflection of how our brothers in Mexico, our pastors there and the members of our churches have really labored for the gospel for over 30 years now. So I just thank God for the global opportunities that he's given us.

Another thing I'm really encouraged by, especially as an older man, as I've traveled throughout Sovereign Grace churches this year, I thank God for the young people in our churches. I see younger generations of people, and I'm thinking particularly the teen years into the twenties, early thirties, who really love Jesus and are excited about the work of the gospel and love their Sovereign Grace church. It really is encouraging to see and maybe an evidence that we might be a multi-generational family of churches by the grace of God. And that's why I'm so encouraged by the Relay Conference that will happen this first week of January where we're going to have between 650 and 700 young adults there who are gathered together. And I think one of the effects of that conference is those young adults are going to leave together realizing, boy, we're not on gospel mission alone. We're doing this with other people of our generation throughout the world in Sovereign Grace Churches. So I'm very grateful to God for the young people in our churches.

Another thing I'm grateful for, and I think this is really important given this cultural moment, I'm grateful to the pastors of Sovereign Grace who faithfully preach sound doctrine and build their churches on sound doctrine. Much of that is found in those theological commitments we've made to one another in our statement of faith. And that has a long lasting effect because when you build your church on the solid rock of God's word, it will not be moved. And that's not easy to do right now in this cultural moment. So not only do you need theological precision in your preaching, you need courage to preach it. And brothers, pastors in Sovereign Grace, you have done that well and I thank God for you. And it's an evidence just one of the many evidences of the grace of God on your lives.

I'm also grateful for our commitment, ongoing commitment to build together relationally as a family of churches. So we are a denomination. When we codified the BCO and approved it in 2013, we became a denomination. But since then we've continued to build relationally. And so we truly are a family of churches. And I've seen that even as we've expanded globally, even as new generations step into pastoral ministry, there is a commitment to continue to build relationally. And I think that's always marked us. And it's something that makes doing ministry together sweeter. We know one another, we love one another, we like one another. And that makes doing gospel ministry just so much better. And so that is the grace of God on our lives. It's another expression of his goodness towards Sovereign Grace.

And then let me say one other thing I've got on my list. I thank God for the wives of the pastors in Sovereign Grace Churches. These ladies are the real heroes in my opinion, in Sovereign Grace. Not because of how they selflessly serve in their homes, but also in the church, but they do something unique. They are a unique help to their husband's pastoral ministry, meaning that they pray for their husbands, they encourage their husbands, they also speak truth to their husbands. And we need to hear that. They will correct us when we need to be corrected, which I need, and I'm sure you need Ben, I think every Sovereign Grace pastor needs. And so I'm just very grateful for their love for their husbands, their service to them and their willingness to speak truth to them. And that has only strengthened the pastors in Sovereign Grace. And in a human sense, the strength that lies behind that are the wives of Sovereign Grace pastors and they are an expression of God's goodness to our family of churches. I could go on and on, but those are some things I've been reflecting on and thanking God for this year.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It is wonderful to ponder 2023 and to spy all over the place, God's goodness toward us, his blessing upon our lives and churches. And we don't want to ever take that for granted. And so I join with you having a grateful heart at what God has done and even pondering 2024 and anticipating how God will meet us by and in his goodness in the days ahead for Sovereign Grace Churches.

Mark Prater:

Amen. One other thing I want to just express gratitude for, Ben, is for you. Thank you for doing this podcast with me yet again another year. I believe we've only missed a couple of weeks this year, so we probably recorded 50 podcasts this year, and I just thank God for how you make it so much better. I went back and looked because I'd forgotten, actually, I think I started this podcast in the fall of 2019 and tried to do that a bit alone. I did it with Eric Turbedsky for a bit. And then around the first of 2020, you and I began to record these podcasts together. So we've been doing it about three years now and I'm so glad I get to do it with you again. I think you just improve it. And thank you for making the time and the effort to do this. We both have said this, we do this podcast to serve the pastors and members of Sovereign Grace Churches, and so if it stops fulfilling that purpose, we'll just close it down. We'll shut it down. But if it continues to do that, I'm so glad I get to do that with you. So thank you.

Benjamin Kreps:

Well, you're quite welcome and thank you, Mark. It is an honor and a pure joy to get to record this with you each week. I think we're heading toward, we're around 150 episodes, which is pretty substantial and we're not stopping regardless of whether there may be some out there who wish we would. It is just for those who are checking out the podcast. It's deeply encouraging to Mark and myself when we hear from you, either personally at the conference or through email, that this podcast does serve you because that is the heart that beats behind this. So I'm so grateful that we get to do this together, Mark. I do believe that the pastors in Sovereign Graces churches are just the finest pastors on the planet. And so to be in partnership together with the like-minded churches of Sovereign Grace Churches is such a joy.

So thank you all for giving us the opportunity to come into your inbox so you can hear from Mark every week. And this is the last podcast we're recording in 2023. So when you get this podcast next week, it will be 2024. And so we look forward to continuing to serve you in whatever contribution we can make in 2024. So thanks, Mark. Thank you.

Let me add one more piece of gratitude, and that's for the excellent job that you do in serving us as our executive director. And looking at and pondering what God has been doing through your leadership team and the pastors of Sovereign Grace Churches, I have nothing but a joyful expectation about what God has for us in the days ahead. So thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here next year. Lord willing. Bye for now.

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, if whoever was following along the podcast last week, if they saw last week's podcast, then they know you were in Louisville hanging out with Bob, who you like to call the most famous man in Sovereign Grace. And you're probably right, but you weren't only there to interact with Bob and Sovereign Grace Music and what's going down there in Louisville. You were also hanging out at the Pastors College. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, when I go to Louisville, one of the things I always plan to do is to get a longer lunch with the PC students. I don't teach there during the PC year, so it's important for me to get with them and usually I have a topic I've chosen that I just want to talk with them about and it's always just a wonderful time. I try to do that at least three to four times a year just to invest into our future pastors in Sovereign Grace and this particular conversation with the PC class along just with my experience, that was really just a happy event for me. And here's what I mean by that. It was sort of the evidence of a couple of burdens I'm caring for Sovereign Grace right now. One of them is developing, recruiting, and deploying young men for future pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace. So that's what's represented in this PC class.

Additionally, another burden is that we would continue to plant gospel centered churches, and that's represented in this class as well, which I want to tell you about. Let me just give you a little bit of a profile of the class. There are students there that are representing three different nations; Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. And the week I was there, actually a fourth nation was represented because Josh Kruger Jr. Is going to plant the Sovereign Grace Church in Namibia and has been a missionary there for years in Namibia. So we had four nations represented as we sat around this table just talking a little bit about the future, and one of the things I did just to begin that conversation, it was my first time with them during this PC year, was just to draw them out about their hopes for the future without building any expectations after graduation.

And it was good to hear from each of the men. Let me just give you a profile of who's there. Gil Bosch is there from Athens, Tennessee, Arturo from our church in Juarez, Mexico. Mario Figueroa who is from Tampa, and we'll hopefully plant a Sovereign Grace Church there. We'll talk about that. Nick Richardson, who's from Somerville, South Carolina, Risen Hope Church, Richard Richie Rodriguez from Sovereign Grace Church of Pearland, which is in South Houston, and Emerson Soares who is from Rio Grande Brazil. So that's a profile of the class along with Josh Kruger Jr. this past week who's back in the United States doing some theological training. He took his second week of Homiletics the week I was there and he plans to go back to Namibia.

So it was just a wonderful time with that PC class. And I want folks in our podcast to be praying for them and we're going to talk in a moment about what they want to do in the future. And I want to talk about that because I want to not only ask you to pray for them, I want to ask you to pray about participating in what they may want to do, they may do by the grace of God.

Benjamin Kreps:

It's wonderful that our Pastors College serves not only men in training for pastoral ministry in the States, but also globally, and wonderfully a number of these guys are planning on planting churches, which we care about, we're passionate about, and with some very interesting stories. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, let me start with Mario Figueroa, who is in Tampa, is coming from Tampa, Florida, hadn't been a part of a Sovereign Grace Church. He got to know Joselo Mercado and Joselo was just commending him. And I think it was really because of the relationship with Joselo and his leadership, along with Josh Murphy and his region, the southeast region, that just kind of all converged at the same time. We were able to get Mario to the Pastors College and his heart is to go back and plant a church in the Tampa area that would be a Hispanic church. He's going to take a bilingual approach, so Spanish and English because he is wanting to reach both first and second and third generation Hispanic or Spanish speaking people. And he's just very excited about this. And so I just got talking to him and just wanted to mention on the podcast that if you have a heart, maybe for the Tampa area or you have a heart to participate in a Hispanic church plant, this could be one that you should pray about if you speak Spanish, that would be one to consider. And if you don't or it's a second language for you, again, Mario's going to take the approach of being bilingual. So it may be something that you pray about. I've got this burden for Sovereign Grace Churches to plant churches, but we can't do that without people from our churches that form church planting teams. And that's marked our history for 41 years now and I'm praying it continues to mark us in the future. So pray about that church plant and if you have interest in participating in that, if you're a pastor and have members that are interested in that, I'd say contact Joselo Mercado and contact Josh Murphy, who's the regional leader there in the Southeast. So there's that one here in the States.

And while we're in the States, let me just talk about Richie Rodriguez, who came from Sovereign Grace Church of Pearland, Texas, which is the south side of Houston, and it's Richie's heart sometime in the future to plant a Spanish speaking church there in South Houston somewhere. So again, if you have a heart for the Houston area, or maybe you're listening to this podcast, not a part of a Sovereign Grace church and you live in Houston, or again you're a Spanish speaker and want to participate in Sovereign Grace planting a Spanish speaking church in the south part of Houston in the Pearland area, then I would contact Darryl Shield, who, if you're a pastor listening to this contact Darrel Schiel, who is not only the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Pearland, he's also the regional leader for that area. So those are two that are going to potentially happen in the states that will come out of this PC class. We don't know for certain, I want to clarify that, but we're going to pray that way. And I really wanted to use this podcast to make people aware of both of those plants.

Now let's move outside of the states. As I mentioned, Josh Kruger Jr. was there taking some more training as he prepares to go back to Namibia. So Josh Kruger's father, Josh Kruger Sr. is an ordained elder, a bi-vocational elder at Kingsway Community Church in the Richmond Virginia area led by Matthew Williams. Josh's parents are from South Africa. They came at some point to the States and lived here for quite a while. And so Josh from South Africa grew up here in the States and at one point just went back and he went to the southern part of Africa to the nation of Namibia. He's been a missionary there for years and in recent years has just had this desire to plant a Sovereign Grace Church in Namibia. So he's been back in the States for a year getting training. In talking with him, he and his family will move back to Namibia in the middle of January and they are going to start and plant a Sovereign Grace Church this year.

And it's interesting. I said, well, who's joining you for that? He goes, well, right now it's just my family. So Mark, would you pray, would you pray that other like-minded gospel centered people would join us to plant a gospel centered church there in Namibia? And the city that he's planting in has a number of embassies, so there's a lot of expats there. So he is going to preach in English, although in Namibia they speak Afrikaans. So if you're a member of an English speaking church somewhere in Sovereign Grace and just would have a heart to go to the southern part of Africa to Namibia and join Josh Kruger, boy, please pray about that. Or if by chance you speak both English and Afrikaans, that would actually be ideal. And maybe it's the reason you speak both languages so that you can join Josh in Namibia. So if you have any interest in joining Josh and what he's doing, I'd say contact Matthew Williams, who again is the senior pastor of Kingsway Community Church in the Richmond Virginia area. That's where Josh is being sent from. And also contact Dave Taylor, who obviously is involved in helping with this church plant as well.

So those three are really essentially cross-cultural church plants in some way that will be happening in the future of Sovereign Grace. And I just believe that God has given us members in our churches who have a heart for that kind of cross-cultural gospel mission. And if you do, we thank God for you. Or maybe you’re listening to this podcast and something's stirring in your heart, please pray about that. And if you don't go, you still participate in mission because we are able to plant churches, because we build strong local churches, and our best church plants are sent from our local churches, strong local churches. So if you're not going, please pray for each of those plants that I just mentioned, and may God bless it to reach more people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It is wonderful to hear about the continuing activity as God raises up men in Sovereign Grace, both in the States and outside the states, and we engage in all kinds of church planting; Mandarin speaking churches and Spanish speaking churches. It's exciting to hear. There's some pastors that are likely checking out the podcast and would like to participate in church planting. Don't see a way forward to plant, but there could be members of their churches that could be sent and in doing so, participate in the wonderful work of church planting. So we'll be praying, Mark. Thanks for your updates and your encouragement, and we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now. Merry Christmas.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

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. This is the Mark Prater podcast. This is not the Sound and Doctrine podcast, but this is the ultimate mashup. The beams are being crossed in Sovereign Grace podcasting.

Bob Kauflin:

I'm kind of surprised it's called the Mark Prater podcast.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I am too.

Bob Kauflin:

Actually, I don't have one called the Bob Kauflin Podcast, but maybe I should suggest it.

Mark Prater:

Maybe you should. Let me know how it goes.

Bob Kauflin:

Did you run that by a team or anything?

No, I think Ben and I just decided. <laughter>

Bob Kauflin:

Well, it's an honor to be here as part of the Mark Prater podcast.

Mark Prater:

It's an honor and to have you. And by the way, I've wanted to have Bob on this podcast for a couple of reasons. One of them is that this is the most famous man in Sovereign Grace for different reasons. It is a joy to have you on the podcast,

Benjamin Kreps:

And this is a great opportunity for us to talk about Sovereign Grace Music and its vital connection to Sovereign Grace Churches. In fact, I was introduced to Sovereign Grace Churches back 16 years ago through the song "Jesus, Thank You". And then discovered after the fact that there were actually churches involved in Sovereign Grace. And so we wanted to have you on to talk about the vital connection between Sovereign Grace Music and Sovereign Grace Churches. Talk to us about that, Bob.

Bob Kauflin:

Well, Sovereign Grace Music wouldn't exist without Sovereign Grace Churches. That's just the facts. It began because, in the early eighties, we were being taught things about the gospel, about the sovereignty of God, about the doctrine of the church, about our mission, and we looked around for current songs that were being written about this stuff and we couldn't find them, at least not very many of them. So, we started writing songs for our churches, and I remember Mark Altrogge used to send tapes around to different churches, cassette tapes, and we just started doing that on a regular basis that eventually became Sovereign Grace Music. And we've produced over 60 projects, which are intended primarily to serve our churches. But God and his kindness has enabled us to move beyond that and serve churches throughout the world.

Mark Prater:

And we've talked about this a lot, Bob, and how do we continue to strengthen that connection between Sovereign Grace Churches and Sovereign Grace Music?  And I think that gets a little bit at the mission of Sovereign Grace Music. So tell us about that.

Bob Kauflin:

Well, the mission of Sovereign Grace Music is to produce Christ exalting songs and training for the church from our local churches. So again, what we do emerges from the teachings we receive, whether that be at pastor's conference or in our local churches through the resources we provide. What kind of response does that engender in us in song? Those are the kinds of songs we're trying to write. So as we write these songs for the church from our local churches, we're also doing something else, which is kind of a second part of our mission statement. We write songs to strengthen and plant churches.

And Devon, my son, came up with that. It just succinctly describes what we're seeking to do. Songs aren't just singing. They're enabling the word of Christ to dwell in us spiritually. Colossians 3:16 says that the word of Christ is the gospel which transforms lives. So as we think about the people in our churches, we want to serve them with songs that will strengthen their connection to God, to Jesus, to the gospel, to each other. And that's what our hope is as we write those songs, that they'll be able to sing them on Sunday mornings and experience the work of the Spirit in building them not only into Christ, but into each other. And the Lord in his kindness often causes our music to go ahead of our church planting efforts.

So, there are a number of stories where, Ben, you just shared one, I hear regularly: "Oh, I didn't even know there were Sovereign Grace Churches, I just know your music." But in Latin America, goodness gracious, we are planning on being in there in Columbia. We've been in Mexico for a long time and praise God for all that's taking place there. And we're now expanding into other parts of Latin America. But a large part of that is due to the success of the music that we've recorded in Spanish, two albums back in early '14 and '15 made with Jonathan and Sarah Jerez, but now recently, thanks to the major help of Fabrizio Rodulfo who heads up our Spanish section, we recorded En Ti Esperamos. And these songs are just being sung in churches all throughout Latin America. So pastors hear about it, they go, what is this? And then they find out we are actually a denomination, a family of churches, which then provides an opportunity to go in, work with pastors, and Lord willing, see them brought into Sovereign Grace.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Amen. In fact, you've got a trip planned, I believe this spring, to the Philippines.

Bob Kauflin:

Oh, and the Philippines was the other country I thought of where we had been doing some work in the Philippines for many years. And actually we were there in 2013 to put on a conference, a Worship God conference. We had a thousand people come, but there was really no follow-up. We did a concert, had a thousand people come, and there was not much fruit that was visible from that. But because people know our music, Dave Taylor and others went in and started meeting with pastors who knew about the music, didn't know about us, and now we're headed back to the Philippines to be with Jeffrey Jo in Manila. And they've got some big things planned.

Mark Prater:

They Do. We have four partner churches there in the Philippines, and there's another 15 or 16 in the adoption process. So what you did in 2013 wasn't fruitless. It laid a foundation; Dave Taylor went in. And because of the leadership of Jeffrey Jo in the Philippines, now you're going to go and just expand what we're building there because of the impact of Sovereign Grace Music.

Bob Kauflin:

And we're feeling like we're doing exactly what we want to do, using our music to strengthen and plant churches, which is much better than simply trying to write songs to get at the top of the CCM charts. Praise God If our songs get to the top of the CCM charts, but we write them for the purpose of strengthening the body of Christ and along with resources that we provide, the Worship Matters intensive and the Worship God conferences and other things that we do, but the songs are the primary way that we seek to serve our churches for the strengthening and planting of more of those churches.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Amen. You serve our churches very, very well.

Bob Kauflin:

Trying, Mark. I'm trying with a great team.

Mark Prater:

With the songs that you write and produce that we sing in our churches, and then the way that you train our song leaders, our worship leaders, that has a real impact now that serves churches outside of Sovereign Grace, which we are so glad for. But there's something unique about Sovereign Grace Music in addition to that, as you said, helping us advance the mission of the gospel through the partnership of churches who hear about Sovereign Grace Music and want to be a part of Sovereign Grace. And it does lead to the planting of new Sovereign Grace churches. So it's a wonderful way God has blessed this relationship, I think for what, 30 years or more?

Bob Kauflin:

Well, going back to almost 40 years, around 40 years. And I think people often have the misunderstanding that Sovereign Grace Music could just branch off and do its own thing. And we couldn't. Most of the staff, that would include me, David Zimmer, Fabrizio, Bekah Heid, Grace Nixon, our auto engineer, and then Devon works part-time for Sovereign Grace Music while he's a senior pastor, but we could not do what we do apart from the people in our churches. We work with people who are outside of churches, like with songwriters, but for the most part, they come from within our churches. And we're seeking to train the people in our churches; pastors as well as the music leaders and musicians, to serve our churches more effectively, and in God's kindness there are people outside Sovereign Grace who we want to serve as well. I just want to always make sure that our focus is mostly primarily on our churches because that's the little tribe that God's given us to work with. And that's just no other place we'd rather be.

Mark Prater:

I'm so glad you're here. Listen, if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor listening to or reading this podcast, Bob and I want you to know we thank God for you. Hearing that our songwriters primarily come from our churches, that is the fruit of your faithful preaching Sunday after Sunday, where you teach them sound doctrine or you pastor them with God's word. And that has an effect on every member in your church. But some of those are songwriters, and that's your contribution to this relationship between Sovereign Grace Music and Sovereign Grace Churches. So we thank God for you.

Bob Kauflin:

Amen. Absolutely. I'm excited about the Relay Conference. I don't know if this will be before or after the Relay Conference, but we're hoping to appeal to the younger generation and say, we have our eyes on you and we want to see you fill in these shoes in the years to come. Because I'm excited what the Lord has for us; songs, leaders, churches, that are yet to come, and how God will use the music as a means of supporting all that.

Mark Prater:

Amen. May that happen.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Before we go, one way that you also help equip us is through the Worship God conference. I had the joy of attending last year. It'd been a number of years since I went to Worship God. Loved it, including your teaching on a theology of transitions and worship, which I'm confident I've never heard anybody talk about, a theology of transitions, but just fill us in real quick about what we can anticipate for the upcoming Worship God Conference next year.

Bob Kauflin:

Oh, thanks for asking, Ben. It'll be a little different. We have John Piper coming, that's a little different. And HB Charles Jr., Mike Bullmore, Josh Blount, Jared Mellinger. Those are the main speakers. We haven't completed that roster yet, but because we're having it at a different building, we don't have as many seminars, breakouts. So we're doing a lot of stuff in big groups. So we'll have two breakouts, we'll have one for leaders and one for musicians, and then one for general. And so I think the effect is going to be, we're learning stuff to the theme "One with Christ, how our union with Christ affects everything". And I think we're going to be seeing a lot of people coming away with, wow, I didn't realize that Jesus was so much at the center of everything we're doing, not only in our gatherings, but my life.

And when we benefit from our union with Christ, which we should be doing every day, it really addresses so many of the common problems that we come up against; striving, legalism, discouragement, all those things. We are united with Christ, the Son of God, through the Holy Spirit. So I am believing that it's just going to be a fantastic time. We always have a lot of fun. It is for our people primarily, and we have a lot of people outside of Sovereign Grace. But I would love to see as many pastors and musicians come to this and just people from your church, if they want to grow in their understanding of this topic or their appreciation of how the gathering functions to build up their souls, I think they'll be really blessed. And we keep the prices pretty low so that a lot of people can come. 'Love to see you there.

Mark Prater:

And it's important, as you did, Ben, you came as a senior pastor who doesn't lead singing, but you wanted to be there with your worship team just to experience the conference with them. So an encouragement to senior pastors to come to Worship God with your folks.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes. Amen. Senior pastors that are listening or reading the podcast understand we actually are leading worship each and every Sunday as well, whether or not we're on stage singing or not. So I think every pastor, but especially senior pastors, can definitely benefit and be edified by going to Worship God. So thank you, Bob, for joining us.

Bob Kauflin:

What a pleasure.

Benjamin Kreps:

Good to see you, Mark. And thank you all for watching or listening or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, we've talked on the podcast for the last couple of weeks about the wonderful resources that are now online following the pastors conference, and so we continue to benefit from the conference even though it's been a few weeks since we were at the conference. One of the things we didn't talk about though, and that you'd like to talk about, is your State of the Union address. You begin the Council of Elders (that happens typically before the conference) with a State of the Union, a State of the Sovereign Grace Churches Union address. Why do you start the Council of Elders each year with that State of the Union address?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, first of all because the Book of Church Order requires that the executive director give a State of the Union address at the Annual Council of Elders meeting. And by the way, if you've never been to a Council of Elders meeting, that's typically on the Monday of the week of the conference. And then the conference starts Tuesday evening through Thursday and a Council of Elders meeting is sort of a denominational business meeting. Although what we've tried to do with it is make it more than that; than just a business meeting. We do business, we vote on things, we pass amendments and a lot of good business and I think that strengthens our denomination. But, the context of the Council of Elders is also very relational in nature. We take time to sing together and we have time to catch up with one another and pray for one another.

And then there's the State of the Union message that I give. And really I'm glad it's in our Book of Church Order because it gives me the opportunity once a year to convey to our pastors what has happened over the past year. And then mostly it's forward looking. It's looking into the future and just sharing some things I'm seeing about our future, I'm excited about in our future. And it also gives me an opportunity to share those things that are on my heart that I'm concerned about. In Sovereign Grace, one of the unique things about this role is you do have a viewpoint. Whether it's just because of interaction with pastors throughout the world or through travel or through interactions with conversations or emails that fills out a bigger picture, it gives me a view of Sovereign Grace that I don't know every pastor has. And I count that a real privilege and I want to make sure I steward that privilege well by sharing what I see in an encouraging way, in a way that strengthens our churches, in a way that unites us.

So this State of the Union in particular is something that I have been carrying on my heart for several months, actually. The text I sprang from this year was John 15. I read verses one through eight, but verse five in particular about abiding in Christ. If you abide in me and he abides in us, then we will bear much fruit, for we can do nothing apart from Christ, is really what that verse says. And so I was trying to emphasize our ongoing dependence upon Christ. Even though there are a number of several good things happening in Sovereign Grace, we can't lose that vital dependence upon Christ. So from that, I developed points about just the kind of fruit I was looking for us to develop. And that allowed me to share some things on my heart that I see in Sovereign Grace as executive director. And I just want to encourage pastors who were not at that meeting to listen to that State of the Union and listen to those things that are on my heart because they're intended to help serve you, serve your churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

It was a wonderful address, I so loved. Guys and gals that follow the podcast may remember you talking about how you've been meditating on that text in John for months, half the year or longer. And it showed. John Piper talks about taking scripture and placing it on your tongue like a lozenge and slowly letting it seep into your system. And clearly that happened to you. You came with a burden, you came well-informed because you are well-informed about what's going on in Sovereign Grace. You pay careful attention to our churches and we thank God for that. But you came with a full heart, exhorting us to pay attention to some things, to emphasize some things. What were the high points of what you shared?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, there's several things I shared in the State of the Union, which is why I encourage guys to listen to it. Or if you're a member of a local church, I'd encourage you to listen to it as well. By the way, it can be found on our website on the events page, click on this year's pastors conference and the State of the Union is listed there under the main messages, if I remember right. So you're welcome to listen to it.

But I want to draw out three points from the State of the Union. These things are on my heart and they continue to be on my heart. And you're going to hear more about them over the next year from me and from the guys on the leadership team.

So the first one is developing future pastors, recruiting and developing future pastors. That's real important because I shared some stats in that State of the Union message and in my main session message as well, that show us that over the next decade the first generation of pastors in Sovereign Grace are going to be transitioning primary leadership of our churches, local churches, and even on a denominational level to the second and third generation pastors. And I think it's a transition we're not really completely prepared for. So we want to be a multi-generational family of churches should God allow that and give us grace to do that. And what that means is we need to recruit and to develop men for future pastoral ministry. And I talked a little bit there about the importance of taking some risks there, some calculated risks in developing guys. And once you do that, make sure that you get them to the pastors college. The pastors college will equip pastors in a way that I don't think any other local church can. So that's one encouragement and we're going to try to give you resources to help you do that. In fact, there's leadership development pipelines. One of them I handed out at the Council of Elders meeting from the Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, their pipeline, we're going to put up on our website, the SGC pastors website where there's going to be other leadership development pipelines that you can access as a pastor. So that's the first one, taking risks to recruit and develop future pastors.

The second one is risk to plant churches here in the United States. We're enjoying some wonderful expansion throughout the world outside the United States. And a common question I've been asked by pastors is why does it seem like there's so much growth outside of the states but not in the states? And I think there's a number of reasons for that. I talk about that in the State of the Union. But what I really called us to is let's take risks to plant churches. And as we develop men for pastoral ministry, let's be thinking about church planting and let's just redouble our efforts to plant churches, not to grow Sovereign Grace, that's not the intent, but to reach the lost with the gospel because in any area of this nation, a gospel centered church and a church that proclaims the gospel consistently will have impact in that part of the United States. So just a call for our guys to do that, to take risks to plant churches. I'm so grateful for your example, Ben; you took risks this year in sending out a hundred plus people along with Jeremy Hetrick to plant and that church plant is doing well, and God is already honoring just that risk and your faith by bringing new people.

Benjamin Kreps:

They had two baptisms last week. Redeeming Grace had two baptisms last Sunday.

Mark Prater:

Oh, outstanding. Outstanding.

And then the third thing I talked about, I put it under this point, is protecting and promoting our gospel heritage as we see a transition happening from first generation to future generations of pastors. Let's not lose our gospel centrality and the gospel heritage that we have. And I think the shaping virtues in particular help us to sort of monitor that. That's why we had you teach a breakout session on our shaping virtues, at least in part because we want to build gospel centered churches. And the fruit of the gospel in any church's life, not just in Sovereign Grace, are those virtues that we talked about like joy and humility and encouragement and gratefulness and generosity are just some of those virtues that reflect the fruit of the gospel. And I shared this concern I have as the executive director that I don't think we are as strong in the virtue of encouragement as we were several years ago or maybe a decade ago. I don't quite know how to quantify the time, but I want to call us to be an encouraging people; that we would be encouraging pastors and that we would lead churches that encourage one another because that's what you see in scripture. In fact, it's one of the commands of what we're to do daily, encourage one another. Hebrews talks about that. So it's that important that we should do it daily. It's pretty important in God's eyes. And it's the fruit of the gospel when you're able to see evidences of grace in another and speaking those evidences of grace at times is very timely because they may be discouraged, they may be struggling with sin, and that brings life and it brings them hope and it brings them encouragement and it gives you an opportunity to tie them into Christ and the hope of the gospel. So let us be encouraging churches. In fact, we may do a whole podcast on that topic, Ben, because it's one that I want to continue to hold up. So those were three things in particular I wanted to draw from the State of the Union and share on this podcast.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Well, I certainly was blessed sitting under the State of the Union address. You spoke to us passionately. You clearly had a burden that you shared with us. And certainly my faith was built and I'm confident that all the guys there, our faith was built. We were strengthened to consider the future. So thank you for the discernment that you displayed in the encouragement that you shared. And thank you for the faith building call to take risks for the advance of the gospel. Jesus is worthy of doing the hardest things. If we go down, we go down swinging for the glory of Christ. So grateful for your leadership, Mark. So thank you for sharing this. Let's check out the State of the Union if you haven't done so yet. It's on the resource page with the other conference resources. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

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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, still enjoying what we experienced a couple of weeks ago at the Pastors Conference. Last episode, you highlighted some resources that you guys posted online from the Pastors Conference so that what happened there can continue to serve us going forward. And you wanted to highlight some of those resources including a bunch of testimonies that were deeply encouraging that we heard.

Mark Prater:

I do. God was very good to us in Orlando. I think we all look back and continue to marvel at how really good God was to us during the conference. And we hold a conference not just to experience it in the moment, but we want to use the conference to produce resources to serve our pastors and the members of our churches. And so that's why if you go to the events page of the Sovereign Grace website and you click on the Pastors Conference, we've got a number of resources there. The main sessions, the breakout sessions, I'm going to talk about a couple more today. But we also just published the videos of the testimonies that were shared. And I would encourage pastors or members of our churches to listen or to watch those because they really recount how God is at work through our family of churches throughout the world.

And there's just some encouraging, inspiring updates that I think anyone can benefit from all for the purpose of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ for the glory of God alone. So if you're a pastor, think about who in your church might benefit from watching those, or maybe you could take them and show them on a Sunday morning or some small group context. They are there for the edification of your church. So that's something that just recently has been added. There's also the Spotify song list that includes the songs we sang at the conference. If you're interested in singing or listening to any of those songs, Bob did introduce a new song that David Zimmer wrote with Nathan Stiff and it's called Sing essentially. And it's a wonderful song that'll be on the Knowing God album that will come out next year. So there's a new song on there that you could sing as well. So just some of the resources that have been added and that our churches can benefit from.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I was losing my voice when I was at the conference and that song--I was attempting not to sing to protect my voice for a breakout that I taught on Wednesday--but that song came on. I could not, how can you not sing at the pastors conference? So I was sorely tempted and that is a wonderful song. So grateful for those resources and definitely we'll check out the Spotify list as well.

Last week you talked about a couple of breakout sessions taught by Josh Blount and Jeff Purswell in order to serve us in a couple of different vital areas, thinking about politics and our complementarian convictions. There were a couple more breakouts that you wanted to talk about.

Mark Prater:

I do, before I mention those two, let me just mention again, those main sessions and the breakout sessions are there not only for the edification and equipping of pastoral teams, but for the edification and equipping of members as well. So if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor listening to this or a pastor not in a Sovereign Grace church listening to this, those are resources that you should consider who in your church could benefit from. If you think the entire membership, make them aware of it. There may be small group leaders that you want to direct a main session to or a breakout session to. I find that, let's take for example the one we discussed last week regarding Josh's, Josh Blount's, complimentarian convictions breakout session. There's a lot of common questions that people have regarding Complementarian theology and our convictions there. That's just a great resource to use to give people to answer some of those questions. So just think in some strategic ways, some ways that you can serve your church by utilizing those resources.

I did want to highlight two other breakout sessions that are posted. There's one that you led, what I'm going to talk about in a moment, Ben, on our shaping virtues. And then the one I want to start with is a breakout session that Jon Payne led and taught regarding the privileges and pitfalls of pastoral teams. And it really is a team ministry breakout session. Jon just did a wonderful job of just saying, look, we like other denominations, we value plurality, plurality of elders that you see in scripture in leading the church. We can't just take it for granted. It's actually something we continue to have to remind ourselves of and what scripture says about it. So in his points, and by the way, his outline is available on the website, he uses this word renew.

So he talks about renew your sense of privilege of being on a pastoral team, renew your biblical convictions regarding pastoral teams or plurality. And in that point, he just talks about the overwhelming evidence for a plurality of elders that you see in the New Testament. And he makes the point that there, there's probably more passages on that than parenting, for example, that you find in the New Testament. So it matters to God. Renew your sense of pastoral fellowship or commitment to pastoral fellowship. We on pastoral teams really can really help one another to grow in Christ and how our godly example, not only as an individual pastor but as a team of pastors is so key to building Christ-like churches and then renew your love for fellow pastors. And I really appreciated that point because he just draws, he just used a number of texts to draw out how Paul in particular spoke about fellow pastors. He does so with appreciation and with affection and with encouragement. And that's something we continue to not have to renew but cultivate as we work with men on pastoral teams that we would have just a love for one another as we serve together. And not allowing the busyness of pastoral ministry to swallow those things up because of the tyranny of the urgent, but that we would continue to make plurality and team ministry not only a priority in our thinking because of our biblical convictions, but in our practice and how we fellowship and love one another. So just a really well done breakout session by Jon.

And then the other one is the one that you led, Ben, I think I've got the title right, How to Build a Gospel Culture in Your Church, using our shaping virtues. And Ben, I thought you just did an outstanding job teaching and leading that breakout session with a voice that you were losing by the way, and you got through all of that, but just how you laid it out biblically I thought was excellent.

And then you walk biblically through each of our Seven Shaping Virtues, which really are, as you said, the fruit of the gospel in our lives. So we devoted a breakout session to this because we do want to build Christ-like churches. And the gospel has this unstoppable power that does transform us and make us more like Christ as we pursue his work of sanctification in our lives. And so one of the things we hope for is the virtues, which are the fruit of the gospel are more and more evident in our lives as we grow in Christ. It's also what we hope people experience when they walk into a Sovereign Grace church. They experience, as you said, humility, joy, there's so many others that are there that you talked about, there are seven, generosity, encouragement, et cetera. And you just did a great job of laying those out.

And then you gave 10 ways to build your church culture with these virtues. And I thought those 10 ways were not just only practical and helpful, you included, I thought, just very helpful illustrations of the impact they had on your church or how they helped you address pastoral situations. I thought the illustrations in particular were very, very effective. So really, really well done. Another reason we asked you to do that particular breakout session, I shared this in my State of the Union and we'll probably devote an episode to my State of the Union address, but one of the things I said in my State of the Union, a concern I have for our family of churches as executive director, is that we're beginning to lose that virtue of encouragement. I don't know if it's because we've just gotten lax or we don't readily see evidences of grace in other's lives, but scripture commands us to encourage one another daily, is what the Hebrews text says. And so I want our churches to be filled with people that encourage one another. And so that's another reason for pastors or for members of the church to listen to your breakout session to cultivate that particular virtue in particular. So well done, Ben, on that breakout session.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. It's like so many of us historically have enjoyed not just rich biblical convictions and theology, but also this beautiful culture in Sovereign Grace. And I think just like the famous quote from D.A. Carson about the gospel is preached and believed in the first generation, assumed in the second generation lost in the third. I think you could say the same thing about a gospel culture as well if we're not attentive to that. So thanks for the opportunity to serve. That was wonderful. Looking forward to listening, I haven't heard Jon's yet, but I do want to hear that, grateful for Jon's heart for healthy elder teams and healthy pastors, and it's clearly evident in his care for us, including the paperwork that he developed for elder teams to work through together to help strengthen the fellowship and the health of the team. Certainly our churches notice, they take note, when there are healthy and happy pastors who love one another and together love the church. That is a wonderful experience for the people in our churches as well. So thank you for recommending these resources. Thank you to everybody who spoke, including the wonderful testimonies that really were a highlight. And thank you all for watching or reading or listening to the podcast. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, we're recording this the week after the wonderful conference that so many of us experienced. I returned home with a full heart and a killer cold as everyone can hear if you're actually listening to this. And you also came back encouraged about what happened over the course of that conference last week. You were responsible for the conference. You did an excellent job leading the conference. What are some thoughts coming off of the conference about what we enjoyed and experienced last week?

Mark Prater:

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

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

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

Benjamin Kreps:

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

Mark Prater:

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

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

Benjamin Kreps:

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

Mark Prater:

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

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

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

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

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

Benjamin Kreps:

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

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

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

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, as you've done a number of times over the past couple of years on this podcast, you have some resources you want to recommend to us to help strengthen us and equip us. Tell us about the first one.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I'd love to. It's a book just recently published entitled Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, written by Rosaria Butterfield. And Let me just tell you why she wrote this book. She writes in the preface that “this book is for Christians, especially Christian women who aren't ashamed of the Bible and its teachings, or who are and want to change. For young married women, my hope is that this book will encourage you to press on in holy faith and living. For young single women, I hope that you'll aspire to be faithful and fruitful Christian wives; that is to be helpers, wise counselors, and devoted homemakers to a godly man, raising children to the glory of God.” And then she goes on to talk about really that she's also written this book for moms and grandmoms, grandparents who have children or grandchildren who are wrestling with gender ideology issues or sexual orientation. And she has written this to help them as well. That's kind of who is on her heart.

And even though the book is written primarily for women in view, I would encourage guys to read it. I would encourage the pastors in Sovereign Grace to read it. I'm making my way through it and have benefited greatly from it. And I would also recommend, before I tell you a little bit about the book, Kevin DeYoung did a podcast with her recently that was really excellent. I would encourage you to listen to it. It was on September 27th, just an interview that you can find it by the title of the book: Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age. And it just gives you a little bit more about who Rosaria is and her passion for why she's written this book. So I recommend the podcast, as well.

She's written it because of the times we are living in. I think she sets that up by saying this. She says, "the world is in chaos and the church is divided because we have failed to obey God. And value is planned for how men and women should live. We foolishly believed that we could permanently extricate the gospel from the creation ordinance, key point, that we could have the New Testament without the Old. We foolishly believe that personal piety and love for Jesus require no doctrinal integrity and no foundation in the Bible as God's inerrant sufficient and inspired word. We foolishly believe that we could reinvent our calling as men and women, defy God's pattern and purpose for the sexes, and somehow reap God's blessing. God's plan for men and women, the creation ordinance, is first found in Genesis 1, and it is central, not peripheral to the gospel of Jesus Christ."

So I thought that was just well-written and well said in just a few sentences that describes why the world is in chaos. And here in the states, she mentions a couple of Supreme Court decisions in the last several years that she felt like shifted the culture. So the 2015 Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage that happened in 2015, and then the Bostock position of 2020, giving LGBTQ rights to those that identify that way. She writes this about those two things. She says, “after Obergefell and Bostock, LGBTQ describes who someone is, rather than how someone feels. Freudian ideas about sexuality replaced biblical ones and became the new and preferred anthropology, The study of what makes us human.”

And I think that is a wonderful cultural observation as well. When those laws codified into law, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights, it shifted anthropology in that sense, at least in the way that the culture looks at it and is a shift away from biblical anthropology in particular. So she then unpacks five lies of the anti-Christian age. Lie number one: homosexuality is normal. Lie number two: being a spiritual person is kinder than being a biblical Christian. Lie number three: feminism is good for the world and the church. Lie number four: transgenderism is normal. And lie number five: modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back. So that's the five lies that she addresses. And she speaks not only very biblically and theologically, but very humbly as well, because she is one who embraced these lies in her past and has come to Christ and repented of them and now is really wanting folks to know the truth that not only set her free, the truth that shaped her whole worldview. She wants others to know about that. So highly recommend Five Lies of the Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I just got the book, but I haven't started reading it yet. But I did watch the podcast or listen to it with Kevin DeYoung. I mean, if you want your appetite stoked for this book, go listen to that. It's a little easier maybe. I'm thinking about sharing it with the church even because it's a little easier expectation to have someone listen to an hour long podcast than necessarily read a long book. But she is just a model of biblical conviction, courage, clarity. But at the same time, there's a discernible, like you said, humility and kindness in the way she talks about these things. So she's really modeling a posture, I think, to be emulated, as we continue to hold fast to God's word, providing and preaching about the beautiful alternative to the chaos in our culture when it comes to biblical anthropology and sexuality, the way God has designed it.

Mark Prater:

I really encouraged my wife, Jill, to listen to it because I wanted her to benefit from it. She listened to it and greatly benefited from it. So if you are a husband or a pastor and have listened to that podcast or do listen to it, encourage your wives to listen to that. A particular interview that Kevin does with Rosaria, it will be, I think, really beneficial to them.

 Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, it's very good. Now you have some other books that you want to commend to us and they're written by one of our very own, tell us about them.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I want to commend one more book. It's written by Marty Machowski, a pastor that I have the privilege of pastoring alongside at Covenant Fellowship Church. Anybody that knows Marty Machowski knows that he has been actually a prolific author for a number of years now. Marty just cranks out books and he's got a routine. He writes very early in the morning before he comes to work and it just really works for him. And he's produced some wonderful books for children in particular. That's the niche that he's in. But he's got a new book out called The Treasure. And I wanted to mention this book because first of all, it's wonderfully illustrated. So you can read this with your children and it'll hold their attention. And really The Treasure is broken down into two books.

Book one is an adventure through Luke, the Gospel of Luke. And then book two is an adventure through Acts. So what Marty, I think, skillfully does is he not only teaches through Luke and tells stories that kids can benefit from not only to understand the Gospel of Luke, but to hear the gospel itself, which is really important as you're raising children who you hope come to know the Lord Jesus as their savior. And then he wisely combines that with Luke's second writing, the book of Acts, after Jesus' ascension. The gospel continues to go forth, including in our day. And he walks the kids through the stories, some wonderful stories as we all know, not only in the Book of Luke, but in the Book of Acts as well. And it's just a book that is just really well done, not only in terms of content, but in terms of, as I mentioned, in terms of illustrations.So you have illustrations that kids will enjoy and benefit from.

So, that is produced by New Growth Press and wanted to mention this to all the parents that are listening or to grandparents that are listening, I'm a grandparent. And we can use those with our grandchildren, in my case, or with your children in your home. And if you're thinking about what do I do to help train my kids in biblical teaching, what do I do with family devotions? If you can say it that way, Marty's solved that problem for you, especially with younger kids, just read through The Treasure and you will cover Luke and Acts and that will greatly serve your children and strengthen your family.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's great. Shout out to Marty. Thank you Marty, for so many valuable contributions to helping our families grow and our kids grow. And not just in Sovereign Grace churches, but far beyond. And so that looks like another excellent resource from Marty.

So Mark, thank you for sharing these recommendations with us. I know your heart is to see us strengthened and equipped in all manner of areas and we feel that coming through these recommendations. So thanks for that. And thank you all for watching, listening or reading. I just discovered (this is how dense I am) that you can actually listen to it. There's a podcast feed on your podcast app or wherever you hear most the podcasts. So, how would I know? I'm only posting this podcast, right? But thank you all for joining us. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

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, the Pastors Conference is on the horizon. So many of us that are going are getting excited about gathering together as a global family of churches at the Pastors Conference. But you wanted to share some thoughts to remind those who are watching or reading the podcast or maybe for the first time, the reasoning behind why we have pastors' conferences. Why do we have a pastors' conference every year?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a great question, because as we begin to pack to go to a pastors' conference or our wives are arranging childcare for the time that we're away, we can wonder why are we going to this conference again and why do we have a pastors' conference every year? Those are common questions I think we can all have. And we hold a pastors' conference annually for, I would say, four reasons.

First, it gathers all of us together, the pastors and wives in Sovereign Grace. It gathers our guests, it gathers the leaders from our churches and it gives us an opportunity to cast a theological vision for who we are in Sovereign Grace and how we do ministry together. And any pastor listening to this podcast or reading it knows that you have to keep casting, you want to cast vision for your local church, you've got to say it over and over again. And so the Pastors Conference gives us that opportunity to cast a theological vision for Sovereign Grace churches, who we are and how we do ministry together. So that's the first reason.

The second one is that we see this as an opportunity as a leadership team to care for the pastors and wives that are attending this conference. Obviously we know best those that are in Sovereign Grace, but we want to care for pastors and wives that are coming outside of Sovereign Grace. And this is a conference that pastors and wives can attend where they don't typically have responsibility unless you're teaching a main session or a breakout session. This is a conference that you can come to and just receive. And that's one of the ways we pray as a leadership team that this conference would be both a spiritual and relational highlight for our pastors and wives because the pastors in Sovereign Grace and their wives, they labor so hard throughout the year. And so this is a time to just come and receive and be cared for. So that's the second reason we do it.

A third reason is that we want to cast vision for our mission, the mission that we do together, because we hope one of the effects of this conference is that pastors and wives leave the conference saying, I'm linked in arms with brothers and sisters who have the same heart and same desire to advance the gospel throughout the world. And it just encourages you, it emboldens you, it strengthens you not only for your local mission of your local church, but for our shared mission in Sovereign Grace. And that happens obviously through teaching and through testimonies and updates. So that's a third reason that we do it.

And I've kind of hinted at this a little bit. It's an opportunity to continue for us to build relationally. We are a family of churches and so we've said this in previous podcasts, the conference very much has the feel of a family reunion where we're together again with brothers and sisters maybe we haven't seen for a year. And we get opportunity to just sing to Jesus with them, which can be strengthening itself. We get opportunities to have meals together, to pray for one another, to catch up with one another. And that's something that we don't want to lose as we expand as a small family of churches throughout the world. So the Pastor's Conference provides that unique context and we try to design the schedule to foster that relational element. So those are the reasons that we do it. And I believe we will continue to do it annually should the Lord lead us because we want to continue to exalt God when we are together and strengthen one another relationally for the mission that Christ has given us.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Yeah, can't wait to get there and gather with you, Mark, and everybody else. I saw the new Sovereign Grace Journal dropped recently. It's all about church partnership and full of wonderful articles. And that pastors' conference is a vital piece of that partnership that we enjoy. It's a tangible expression that we enjoy together. So there's a lot of people coming. I think over 700 have signed up, something like that. And not just, of course, from the States. We are a global family of churches. So talk to us about who's coming.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I want to give you a little bit of an idea of who will be coming to the conference. I think registration is around 750. We'll have walk-ins. So we'll have more than that at the conference. And we have pastors and wives attending the conference from 22 different nations, which is really exciting and encouraging and humbling all at the same time. So let me tell you just about a few of them. Dyonah Thomas is coming from Monrovia, Liberia, I think Dyonah hasn't been to a conference for about four years. He told me there were complications in getting a visa. He's got a visa, he's going to be there. In fact, you're going to hear from him during one of our main sessions.

Benjamin Kreps:

Freshly ordained.

Mark Prater:

Freshly ordained. Yes, the first ordained Sovereign Grace elder in West Africa. So if you see Dyonah, welcome him. We also have a gentleman coming from Belarus. His name is Leonid Kovich, and he is the head of the Baptist Union there in Belarus. We've been relating to a number of churches in Belarus. They're potentially interested in pursuing partnership with Sovereign Grace and they're also loosely connected with this Baptist Union. So I'm so glad that Leonid can be there and if you have a chance to greet him and meet him, thank him for coming.

We also have several churches coming from Costa Rica, two that are in the San Jose area. For example, Casa 2:42 led by Rodrigo Fournier, and then a church that just recently signed an Emerging Nations candidate church agreement; Iglesia La Gracia, which is also in San Jose, Costa Rica. So those are just some of the folks that are coming from different parts of the globe.

Also, there are a number of guests who are coming for the first time who are not a part of a Sovereign Grace Church. And those primarily are coming from within the United States. There are churches who have interest within the United States of partnering with Sovereign Grace. And so one of the ways they're exploring that partnership is coming to our conference. So what that does is it highlights our need to just reach out to those we don't know and interact with them. I mean, think about it. You go to a conference for the very first time, you don't really know many people at all, and you're trying to understand should we be a part of this or not? And so when someone reaches out and welcomes them and prays for them, or maybe even invites them to a meal, that gives 'em a glimpse of who we are and why we build relationally. So just to give you a little bit of an idea of who's coming and my encouragement to reach out to those around you that you don't know.

Benjamin Kreps:

It's very encouraging. 22 different countries represented. The more we grow as a global family of churches, the more our Pastors Conference looks like heaven when we're singing together and gathered together. So what are a couple of things that we can pray for in anticipation of the conference?

Mark Prater:

Yes. Please pray. Pray for the conference. Just first of all, pray that God would work in a way that he would glorify his name. Our first prayer request is that our time together in Orlando, both in the Council of Elders meeting and during the Pastors Conference, would please God and bring Him glory. If that happens, we'll be happy pastors and wives.

Secondly, pray for the Spirit to work and to work in a way to do things that we just haven't planned. I think some of the things that I think about in terms of past conferences and ways that God has worked and some of the ways that people were affected were areas and categories that we just didn't plan for. So pray for the Spirit's leading and for the Spirit's help. And obviously that comes through interactions with individuals. It can come in the preaching of his word through the main sessions and breakout sessions. It can come through testimonies. It can come just in announcement slots where we decide in the moment spontaneously to make a change and maybe go a specific direction. All of those things happen at a conference, but they can't happen without God's help and through the Spirit's leading and help as well. So pray for that.

And then I think thirdly, just pray that it would be a time that we are strengthened relationally and that our unity as a family of churches therefore is strengthened as well. We can't assume upon our unity. And so a conference is a wonderful opportunity for us to be strengthened together in the gospel, unified in Christ and unified therefore as a family of churches. So thanks for praying for the conference in those ways and many more. I'm grateful for your prayers.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, please do pray, and we will be praying. I just have in my mind's eye remembering our singing from last year and I am so excited for that first song on first night of the conference. I can't wait to gather with you, Mark, and everybody else for that week. So thank you, Mark for the updates. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.