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, when this podcast drops into emails, you will be at a retreat with the leadership team, but also with the regional leaders. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, thank you for asking, Ben. The retreat that will start on Monday, February 5th, is a leadership team retreat. And for about three or four years now, we've been inviting regional leaders to the first half of the retreat. So the regional leaders are with us from Monday, February 5th through about noon on Wednesday the 7th, and then the leadership team is there until Friday and it's such an important strategic retreat. We've done this I think three or four years now. Initially we did it where we had the regional leaders join us in June and they gave us really good input. They loved the retreats. They said, could we do that the first retreat of the year? Because what it does is it helps us inform how we might want to lead through our regional assembly of elders. So that's why we do it in February as a leadership team and we invite our regional leaders in.

You might remember, if you listen to the podcast, that last year we also had our global leaders join us. We'll probably do that every few years, but this year it's just the nine US regional leaders that will join us. And it's such an important time because we believe these men are really the frontline of leadership in Sovereign Grace as they lead each of their regions and collectively help us lead Sovereign Grace together and forward in mission. And we just thank God for these regional leaders and want to not only invest into them, we want to encourage them and pray for them. And so we've just got time mapped out with them that we've thought through.

The first part of the retreat is just taking time to get updates from every regional leader about their region. And that's very important to us because we learn a lot as a leadership team about how our churches and our pastors are doing. But we also learn a lot from our regional leaders about how we can serve our churches better. So we just have some long conversation blocked out for those updates. And as a leadership team, we always look forward to that.

And then we've got three topics chosen that are in a short-teaching, long-q-and-a discussion format. And those three topics are a reflection of some of the things I'm carrying as the executive director, and the leadership team is carrying; just burdens that are on our heart for this year. Some of them actually I mentioned in the State of the Union. So we've got a session related to leading toward encouragement as I mentioned in the State of the Union, I think it's an area that we've gotten weaker in recently as a family of churches. So, just growing and encouragement. Jared is going to do a short teaching on encouragement and then we've got some questions we just want to kick around with the regional leaders.

The next one is a focus on godliness. We want to build Christ-like churches. I also mentioned that in my State of the Union. So, leading toward godliness and then a q and an after that, John and I will lead through. And really the purpose of that is to make sure that the cultural pressures we face that can locate responsibility for our actions outside of us, don't impinge upon the church. And that we continue to see the fact that indwelling sin still remains and we need the grace of God to transform us. That's in a nutshell a little bit what we want to talk about there. We also want to be aware of a therapeutic influence, you might call it the new therapeutic influence, which has more of an expressive individualism component in it than it did maybe back in the late nineties, for example. So we will kick that around.

And then we've got a session entitled Leading Toward the Future, and Jeff Purswell is going to talk about leading into pastoral equipping. And as I mentioned both in the main session and at the State of the Union, we've got guys, about half our pastors, in their fifties and sixties, and we just want to prepare for that transition that's coming up. So it's really about recruiting and sending men to the Pastor' College and just a little bit on how you do that. And then just a q and a discussion. So those are the sessions that we have planned with the guys along with updates, and we're really excited about our time with them. And so if you would pray for each of our regional leaders here in the States and for our time together, that would just be very, very helpful.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, I just thank God for the gift of leadership that we've enjoyed historically in Sovereign Grace and that I know the leadership team and our regional leaders, you guys take your work seriously. It's wonderful to hear about the kinds of topics you'll be discussing, but also that you'll be building even deeper relationally by doing it in a retreat atmosphere. But they are leaving on Wednesday and the leadership team remains for a few more days for you guys to go over some things. What's going to happen when the leadership team is meeting together?

Mark Prater:

Some of the things that I have planned, I always have more of an agenda than we typically have time to get to, but some of the things I have planned that the leadership team has been thinking about and is coming prepared to discuss, there's a session entitled Sovereign Grace Vulnerabilities. So, just thinking through where our churches might be vulnerable theologically, vulnerable to the culture, and just trying to identify those so that we're keeping an eye on that and figuring out how do we lead in such a way that serves our pastors as they serve their churches in really protecting their flocks and really being aware of those vulnerabilities. And I've got that scheduled before we plan the pastors' conference because maybe there's something that emerges out of that conversation that might inform either a breakout session topic or main session topic that we want to talk about at the pastors' conference.

But we plan to plan not only the 2024 pastors’ conference, we hope to plan the 2025 conference, because in 2025, as I announced at the pastors' conference last year, that is going to be a pastors and leaders conference where we're encouraging our churches to bring all of your leaders, bring any members you want to bring; those that are not only small group leaders and deacons and ministry team leaders, but also those you might be developing for leadership. And we want to broaden that and we think the theme of that, we've got to sort of maybe even choose first before thinking about the theme of 2024, because we really want to serve our churches with the extra leaders that'll be there in 2025. So we'll plan the pastors' conference. We need wisdom for that, just not in terms of themes, but topics for main sessions and breakout sessions.

Jared is going to give a publishing update, which I'm really excited about. And then I've got Rich giving a Latin America update. And I just want to talk to the team, actually we have a session just about the broad application of our shaping virtues as something that Jared would like to discuss, which I think is really good. We have these shaping virtues. How do they continue to affect our churches? How do we continue to model them as pastors, that sort of a conversation. So that's basically the plan that we have.

As you mentioned, we take our work seriously, but we have a lot of fun in what we do. There will be a lot of laughter with the regional leaders. A lot of laughter with the leadership team guys. These men for me, not just the leadership team, but the regional leaders, they're men I just love working with and I can't wait to see them next week. And so if you're listening to this as it comes into your inbox Monday, thank you so much for praying.

Benjamin Kreps:

We will be praying for you guys as you sacrifice your time and with your church and your family as you serve us. Thank you so much to our excellent regional leaders and to our excellent leadership team. We thank God for you and thank you for the updates, Mark. 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, clearly you are in a professional setting with professional equipment, which means this is not a normal podcast from your home. In fact, you are in Louisville.

Mark Prater:

I am. I'm sitting in the brand new music studio with my friend Steve Whitacre.

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey, Steve.

Steve Whitacre:

Hey guys. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be with you. I want you to know, first of all, I want to say thanks for what you do. I am always excited to get your email in my inbox. Always look forward to reading the transcript of what you guys have done, and really grateful to have the opportunity to hear almost every week about what's happening, how the Lord is at work in Sovereign Grace. So thank you. Thank you for producing this podcast.

Mark Prater:

Well, thank you for listening. You're one of the tens and tens of our fans.

Steve Whitacre:

So glad to be one.

Benjamin Kreps:

Small but mighty. Thanks for your encouragement, Steve. But Steve, you're here today as a guest on the podcast to talk about your role as president of Trinity College of Louisville. And as we talk about that over the next few minutes, why don't we start by helping to provide clarity for everyone checking out the podcast, about what Trinity College is.

Steve Whitacre:

Yeah, great. I'm really glad to speak to that. First, Trinity College, just broadly speaking, is a new venture. So Trinity College is a Christian liberal arts college that we started a year ago. So we're a year and a half into this. This is our second year. And if people are unfamiliar with Trinity College, two places to get started to get acquainted with what we're about first is our website, trinitycollegelou.com, or on YouTube. We recently published a brief promotional video that explains about the mission and purpose of Trinity College. So that's youtube.com/trinitycollegelou. And it's pinned right at the top. You can't miss it. So that's a brief bit about what we're about. I think it helps some people to understand the relationship of Trinity College to Sovereign Grace. That's a question that's come up sometimes. And I think it would probably help people to know that Trinity College was founded as an independent organization.

So we are separate from Sovereign Grace; we have our own board, our own budget and that sort of thing. And yet at the same time, Trinity College was founded with the vision of serving Sovereign Grace churches. We got down the road thinking, what if we could provide a higher education option that taught and led students with the theology and the values that Sovereign Grace holds dear? We think that would be a great way to do this. And that's how we got started on it. So Trinity College is founded with that in mind, and it's not going to be the right fit for every student. No college could be. Some students go to churches like Cornerstone Church of Knoxville with a thriving college campus ministry, Volunteers for Christ, right there at University of Tennessee and so it's great to stay there. Some students maybe have another Christian college close by that they are excited to attend and some students maybe aren't called to go to college at all. So we're excited to see how the Lord's working in any one of those circumstances.

But for students and families or churches who want this kind of education, a higher education with the theology and values of Sovereign Grace, we're excited to be building a Christian liberal arts college that infuses that classical liberal arts curriculum with the delight of the gospel of Jesus Christ in every area of study and life.

Mark Prater:

And by the way, for pastors listening, think about either members of your church, or if you're a parent listening and you have a student, one of the instructors at the college is Josh Blount. If you've attended the Pastors Conference in the last few years or listened to Josh's breakout sessions, he is an outstanding teacher. So, think about your child or a member of your church being trained by, at least partly by, Josh Blount. Steve also is an instructor, and obviously as a Sovereign Grace pastor and brings those values and theology. I think it's one of the ways to illustrate what you're talking about.

Steve Whitacre:

Yeah. Josh teaches our biblical anthropology class, and uniformly has been one of the most popular classes we've had. So students in that class, they study the Imago Dei. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? How does sin corrupt the image of God? How is the gospel restoring the image of God in Christians? And then how does that play out? And really key issues in the world today, like gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, human flourishing. It's a fantastic class.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I've heard you say this. I think it's important for anyone listening to hear this, Steve's shared this with me. Trinity College is a separate entity, it's separate organization, but he started it because he had a vision to provide a different higher level education than what some universities can offer today. And knowing some of the challenges on university campuses that are currently happening in our culture. So he's bringing that, but it's with the heart to serve Sovereign Graces churches. And this is what you've told me specifically, you not only want to educate students, prepare them for the future, but you want them to return home and be really good members of Sovereign Graces churches, or if they're not going to be in a Sovereign Grace church, then a good member of a church that they attend.

Steve Whitacre:

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think there's maybe at least three ways that Trinity College does that. I think first that happens because one of our highest priorities at Trinity College is personal holiness. So we really want students who live godly lives, we want them to graduate and be more holy, more committed to godliness and have a better understanding of how the gospel transforms all of life than they did when they started college. So that's really important to us.

Secondly, we want them to be really well-equipped theologically and biblically for discernment. In a fallen world, our culture opposes the message of the gospel at every turn and in new and different ways every day. And so through the curriculum, we're trying to equip students with convictions about what scripture says on these topics, and then the courage to act on it, to live out a godly Christian life and to speak up when necessary in the public square.

And thirdly, and this is I think an important one too, is we want students to graduate debt-free. The rise of tuition costs in this country over the last few decades, it's out of control. It's unbelievable. And many students, I've read as many as 60 to 70% of college graduates will graduate with significant loads of student debt. And that means for those students, oftentimes the major milestones of mature adulthood get delayed. And so in Sovereign Grace, we've always put a really high value on marriage and on family. And so if students can graduate debt-free, then they're in a position to be used by God. They're in a position, they have the freedom to go ahead and get married, to start a family, maybe participate in a church plant, to go serve overseas for a period. All sorts of options open up to them. So that's a really important component as well.

Mark Prater:

And to help people listening to this podcast just understand how you accomplish that, talk a little bit about whatever you want to talk about, whether it's the Bridge year or the two-year or the four-year.

Steve Whitacre:

Right at the center of this is what we call the Bridge year. And so the Bridge year is a one-year certificate program that's designed to serve students with a wide variety of skills, insight, knowledge, and ability, so that they can, well, there's a few different possible outcomes for some students. Some students want to go on to a more technical degree, maybe math, science, medicine, something like that. They're going to need more technical training than we can offer, but if they're going to have to go out into a secular university, they are going to encounter all sorts of ungodly ideologies and anti-Christian worldviews. And so the idea with the Bridge year is, look, just take one year between high school and that education and get equipped for everything that's going to get thrown at you in that year. The Bridge year serves that way. And we've already had several graduates from last year's Bridge year tell us what a difference that it's making in their college experience now as they've gone on to secular universities. So I've been very encouraged to hear how that works.

Some students graduate high school without knowing what they're going to do, and maybe they want to take a year off. They plan on taking a gap year and they work, maybe they travel a bit, all kinds of different options. Those are great options, but we're thinking, Hey, look, if you're going to take a year anyway, why not come spend it with us? And one of the things that we do in the Bridge year is we try to help students understand the doctrine of vocation. What is the calling, or maybe even better, the callings that God has put on your life, and how do those change over time? We want to help them develop the wisdom and discernment to understand how God is leading them into the future. So for a student who's unsure what to do, it's a really great way to have some time to explore. We're going to give them some guidance and do some workshops together to start determining how the Lord leading them into their future. So the Bridge year works really great in those ways.

And for other students, if they come and they're a part of this and realize this is great; love studying history and literature, love studying theology and philosophy, and love learning language, and love how all this happens in the setting of a thriving local church, they want to stay longer. And so for them, the Bridge year becomes the freshman year of a two-year or four-year program. So we're only in our second year now, so we're building out a two-year associates and a four-year bachelors program. And so that'll take us a few years to get that curriculum all ironed out. But we're in the midst of that now. And so the Bridge year, it's the exact same curriculum. It just serves as the freshman year of those longer programs.

Now, I know some parents would ask at this point, oh, two-year associates, that's interesting. What could a student do with those credits from that two-year associates degree? Well, we are working right now with an organization that helps to facilitate the transfer credits moving from one institution to another. So we're trying to do everything we can to make it as easy as possible if students come to us for the one-year Bridge year program or a two-year associates or even a four-year bachelors, then to be able to make the most of that if they want to go on to further education later.

The other program that I want to mention, along with the Bridge year and two-year associates. The other program that we're really excited about is our dual enrollment plan. So dual enrollment is for high school seniors. So if you're currently a junior, or parents, if you have a junior right now, you might want to consider this for next year. For students who want to finish out their senior year pretty strong while also getting credit for college classes, dual enrollment is great and students can do this over Zoom. They can participate with this over Zoom while staying at home and benefiting from their own local church and the discipleship from parents and pastors and whoever else. And so the dual enrollment program, it is a la carte. Students don't have to take all five of the classes with the Bridge year, they can choose whichever they prefer, but it's a full-blown experience. So they're right in there taking the class, doing the assignments, and we have several dual enrollment students this year. So they'll graduate with their certificate from the Bridge year right when they graduate from high school. So it's fun to watch.

Mark Prater:

I remember when I think I first talked to Steve about even this idea of starting a college. My question was, you can do that? You can start a college?

Benjamin Kreps:

Apparently, you can.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I guess you can. And what Steve has accomplished in a year really is remarkable, I think.

Steve Whitacre:

Well, we've had a lot of help. So Mark, you're on the board. We have a really great board who is incredibly supportive. We've had some very generous donors in Sovereign Grace, and we're very grateful for folks who have contributed to make this happen. We have some fantastic professors, and most of all, we have students and parents who see the vision of what we're trying to do. They're willing to take a risk and give it a try, and I've been really encouraged to see how it's served them so far.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I mentioned this at the Pastors Conference; by God's Grace, by God's Grace, we want to be a multi-generational family of churches. And you see that happening. I mean, just the feedback from the Relay Conference is amazing. That generation excited about Christ. Those young folks, being in our churches, that's who we want to be. And I just thank you for your heart in starting this college for that kind of an education, and your heart to serve Sovereign Grace churches. And really what you're doing is you're serving future generations in our churches. So thank you for that.

Steve Whitacre:

Well, you're welcome. I'm grateful for the opportunity. I think about my experience growing up in Sovereign Grace all those years, all those conferences, 30 years I've been a part of Sovereign Grace, and hearing over decades now, hearing CJ saying, we are building something for a generation that we won't yet see. And I think Trinity College is just an extension of that vision, and so really grateful to be a part of it.

Mark Prater:

Amen.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's excellent. Thanks for giving us all that info about Trinity College. I mean, it's wonderful that we can trust the theology and practice of what's going on at the college for those of us who love and cherish our shared values and virtues. I mean, there's a Christian, so-called University up the road, fairly large, statement of faith looks kosher. It is completely corrupted with theological liberalism. And so to have an option where we know we can trust the doctrine and practice of the men who lead and teach in the college is a wonderful thing. So thank you for putting that together. Yeah, consider checking out the website, trinitycollegelou.com to learn more, and we're looking forward to someday saying it's year 20 and it's a thriving and growing Trinity College. Thanks for joining us.

Mark, anything else you want to add?

Mark Prater:

Just appreciate folks checking out the website and do look at the video. I've watched the video, by the way. It's outstanding.

Benjamin Kreps:

Check out the video; listen to Mark Prater. So thank you. Thanks for joining us and thanks to everybody for watching or listening to the podcast or reading. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

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. We have a guest with us. You are down in Louisville, and we have the legendary Dean, Jeff Purswell, Dean of the Pastors College, joining us. Thanks for joining us, Jeff.

Jeff Purswell:

It's great to be here. I never thought I would make the lineup here. I've never seen the podcast. I read the podcast every week and to be included is quite the honor, so thank you.

Benjamin Kreps:

Your resume is complete. I attended the Pastors College in 2011 and 12, so I'm going 12 years since I graduated from the PC and we got guys on my team that went to Pastors College. It was one of the most wonderful years of my wife and I, our lives together. We often said we'd love to go back and do it again. It was such a joy. I'm coming to the pastoral ministry class next month, so I do dip back in, here and there.

But at the conference, Mark, you urged us to consider sending people to the Pastors College and talked about how it's an important part of raising up the next generation in pastoral ministry, a need that we have as the founding generation ages out of ministry. And so you had Jeff on because we want to talk about that.

Mark Prater:

Jeff is my good friend. We work a lot together, so thank you for honoring me to be on this podcast. Really what I'd like you to talk about is framed in this question, Why is the Pastors College vital to the future of Sovereign Grace, especially as it relates to theological training for our pastors, and not just theological training, but character development as well?

Jeff Purswell:

Wow, great question. Vital, that's an imposing word. I certainly wouldn't say, and I'm sure none of us would say, that churches cannot raise up pastors, that churches cannot grow and flourish and reproduce themselves, that Sovereign Grace cannot endure without the Pastors College. I would say though, that given who we are as a family of churches, given what the Lord has worked in us, the doctrine that we confess together, our connected polity, our shared values, our shaping virtues, those things that we hold to and treasure and cherish, I think for those to be nurtured and preserved and transferred between generations, I do think the Pastors College plays a vital role.

There's a number of reasons for that, but perhaps the primary one I would say is that the Pastors College exists not just to train men for pastoral ministry, but to train them for pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace churches. In other words, it's pastoral training calibrated to our partnership. It's designed to strengthen our partnership. It's designed to impart values and instill virtues by the grace of God that are vital to our partnership. So we're not just a generic, freestanding academic institution determining our own values and our own standards in a vacuum driven by our preferences or the preferences of random instructors or much less driven by the marketplace. We exist to serve churches. We are accountable to the churches that we serve. And so we seek by God's grace to design and hopefully to continually strengthen a program that serves the interests of our churches, our doctrinal commitments, our philosophical commitments, our missional commitments, even our politic convictions.

And I'll just tell you from my perspective, as you observe the broader evangelical world, as you look at where certain institutions have moved, if you look at the pressures that are upon, especially theological training institutions, if you look at how theological definition has weakened, how denominational fragmentation has occurred, and even more broadly within the evangelical world, the fragmentation that we've all observed in recent years, I do think the Pastors College is helping and will help in the future to preserve and to strengthen and protect us in our doctrine, in our mission, in our relationships. And I trust, beyond all our gospel commitments and ultimately our devotion to Christ and His glory in our lives and in the church.

Mark Prater:

Amen. So well said. I think it's well said for a number of reasons, but one is just equipping men for ministry, specifically for Sovereign Grace churches. Sort of a follow-up question to that would be, what can the Pastors College accomplish that a local church can't?

Jeff Purswell:

Yes, that's a great question, especially for pastors who might be listening. Again, I want to say I think local churches do have a responsibility to raise up pastors, elders; 2 Timothy 2 places that imperative upon the shoulders of every pastor. So it's not that a local church, and none of us would want to say that a local church cannot raise up pastors, obviously they can and clearly not every man aspiring to pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace is able to come to the Pastors College. Although I do want to say over 25 years of experience, I have seen the Lord provide in a remarkable way. So I would politely challenge any guy who just automatically assumes they can't make it. Well, perhaps you can. Not every church is necessarily in a position to send a man and his family to the Pastors College, but if they can, and I would strongly encourage them to consider this, we're just able to accomplish things in the Pastors College that is difficult, if not impossible, for a local church to do.

And that is not because we have created something great in the Pastors College or we have this wonderful expertise in the Pastors College. It's because the churches of Sovereign Grace have partnered together to create the Pastors College, and they are devoted to resourcing the Pastors College precisely to produce a quality of training and an intensity of training that an individual church would love to do, but can't. So it's not as if a church can't do it and we can, it's that our churches have partnered together now for a quarter century to create the Pastors College to create what they wish they could do, but given their limited resources and time and manpower, they're just unable to do so.

The credit for this goes to our churches. And what we seek to do is just build upon what our churches are already doing in the lives of the men that they are raising up now. So examples of that, we could enumerate many things. Obviously there are resources provided by our churches that are available in the Pastors College, the pooled experience or the pooled expertise in the Pastors College through our various instructors. And this is another thing that I think people often are unaware of. The exposure to Sovereign Grace pastors to an array of Sovereign Grace pastors and Sovereign Grace leaders that a pastors college student receives, I mean, they benefit. So in the process, they benefit not only from their own local church, but from many local churches through interacting with the leaders of many local churches, they get to know and interact with Sovereign Grace leaders.

Most of the members of the leadership team typically come through. Many of them teach. They interact with members of the executive committee when they're in town. So they're getting to know the leaders of our family of churches. It's a wonderful exposure. I think of an example, if you think of certain corporations, they'll have an executive training program, a management training program. And so certain people in that corporation, they'll meet the CEO, they'll meet the board of directors and so forth, and they're just meeting people who are leading them, and they're meeting people who are providing guidance for that organization that may, it's a weak comparison, but it's kind of like that; a person, a student who graduates from the Pastors College, they have gotten to know our family of churches in a very personal way. And I think there's real benefit from that.

They also benefit from the staff, obviously, of the Pastors College and of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. And so in addition to the church that sends them, they benefit from another local church, a local church that has a broad range of experience on his pastoral team. So they're learning from CJ Mahaney and his years of experience and his years of faithful example from the team he's assembled there. They learn throughout the year worship from Bob Kauflin and so forth.

And then of course, they are building deeply relationally with a group of men and families from throughout Sovereign Grace. As I always say, the secret sauce of the Pastors College, our secret weapon, it's the men who come. It's the men that our churches send. And I've seen it year after year, what happens among the students and their families. I tell the guys at the beginning of the year, look around; the greatest means of grace to you this year through the spirit's work is going to be the men sitting around you. They become lifelong friends, they become gospel coworkers.

All that to say, when a man graduates from the Pastors College, he has had an intensive, multidimensional exposure, not just to doctrine, not just to scripture, but also to Sovereign Grace as a family of churches.

And then the other part of that, and this may be obvious, but I do want to mention it, there's simply the benefit or the privilege of an intensive undistracted focus on learning, on a biblical and theological education, on a pastoral education, on intensive discipleship that most of them will probably never have that opportunity again. And when a man is in the marketplace serving as a bi-vocational pastor and so forth, and I'm so grateful for our bi-vocational pastors and have tremendous respect for them, because they are adding on top of their labors, providing for their family. They're serving the local church. But when a man has the opportunity, there is a particular benefit to that intensive, concentrated focus that just leverages all that they're learning, I think.

So I think those would be a few of the things that a local church would have difficulty doing, but again, our local churches have decided they want to produce this. So it's not as if we're doing something that are separate from our local churches. We're doing something that our local churches support and have helped to create.

Mark Prater:

Well said. Well said. Obviously there are guys that come to Sovereign Grace Churches with a seminary degree or there may be men in our churches that are thinking about pastoral ministry and they're thinking about seminary, which could be an option. So I'd just like to answer this question, What does the Pastors College do that a seminary can't?

Jeff Purswell:

Yeah, that's a great question. I interact a lot with people over that issue. Obviously, much to be gained in a seminary setting. We are grateful for seminaries. I'm personally grateful for seminaries. We encourage guys to avail themselves, if they have the opportunity, of seminaries and their resources. Like you said, more many guys come to the Pastors College after seminaries. A number of our students will go on to take seminary courses after graduating from the Pastors College. So we just fully encourage that and are grateful for that, especially where seminary education is going, which is going online. It's actually one of the unfortunate things that's happening among seminaries, and this is happening every day. Their ongoing viability for a residential program is becoming very difficult. And so the trend is online, and while that is a qualitatively different experience, I think in pastoral training, nonetheless, it does make available biblical and theological information and doctrinal teaching that I think is a blessing.

But when we think about the Pastors College, the Pastors College is not merely a seminary alternative in other words, a sort of quantitatively lesser seminary experience. The Pastors College is a qualitatively different experience from a seminary in many ways. I'm not saying it's superior, that we're superior to seminaries. I'm just saying we're different. It's a different thing. So the choice is not simply a stark "seminary or the Pastors College". I think you have to look deeper than that and say, okay, what is the Pastors College? What is the college experience comprised of? This touches on what we said a moment ago about the Pastors College training being calibrated to our partnership. A few specifics there. First of all, it's not just theological information that's downloaded online. It is a confessional education. We have a charge from our churches that Sovereign Grace Churches, theological biblical convictions, undergird and inform all of our instruction. And so we look at our statement of faith, which all of our pastors affirm as representing the body of teaching that they're committed to.

Our statement of faith is like a solemn pact between the Pastors College and our churches. So our instruction doesn't waver according to an instructor's idiosyncratic preferences or current fashions or sort of evangelical trends. No, it's tethered to the biblical and theological character of our partnership, and that's just vital. I'd include in that our gospel centrality; that's not a slogan, on a flag, we wave. We're just not in the gospel centered club. No, the gospel embodies certain realities and the pastor's call, it seeks to honor the realities embodied in the gospel. And so we endeavor self-consciously to train men to build their lives and their families and their churches upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and it's glorious doctrinal realities as well as it's existential, it's life implications.

I think another distinction is our connection to the local church. Of the many ways I would describe the Pastors College program, one is the theological training that is informed by our ecclesiology. And so the entire structure, the entire program is just that. It is informed by our ecclesiology because our students are being trained to serve in local churches. We don't want their education isolated from the very context for which they're being trained to serve. And that doesn't mean that it's education just within the walls of a church, but no, training that is informed by, illustrated by, reinforced by, contributed to, from a shared church context. I think of the illustration of medical students that are trained in connection with a teaching hospital. They're in the classroom a lot, but then they get connected to a teaching hospital. Our students, there's a comparison there. Our students, they benefit from that powerful combination of instructional expertise and contextual application. So every day we are making, in every course, we are making connections intentionally between the content of lectures and the life and ministry of the host church that the men are coming from, where they and their families are worshiping and so forth.

And then let me step back and say our ecclesiology informs the entire Pastors College experience from the admissions process. So our students aren't self-selected men who have money and can fill out an application and just pursue a theological education. No, they are sent from local churches with their character and their gifting being affirmed, their internal desire for ministry receiving some degree of external confirmation from their local church. When they graduate, their deployment into local churches is going to be informed by their Pastors College experience. So again, it's not just you graduate, you send out resumes and try to get a job in a church, but those connections that we have in our partnership is informing the deployment of them.

And then another way I sometimes describe the Pastors College, is we're training men to do theological ministry. In other words, we want every aspect of ministry, every methodology of ministry to be informed and shaped by theological convictions. Methodology is not incidental, but we want all methodology to be informed and shaped by scripture and by theological education.

Another aspect that I'd have to throw in there, I mentioned this earlier, but our training is relationally nourished. One of the unique aspects of the Pastors College as opposed to a seminary setting is that students aren't just taking the same curriculum but on their own timetable passing one another in the halls, but they are experiencing everything together. They're experiencing the classroom setting together. They're experiencing fellowship groups together. They're experiencing couples groups together. So every aspect of the program; pastoral, theological, personal, is leveraged by those relationships making each component of the Pastors College experience, I think more fruitful.

And that gets to one other dimension, and seminaries know this and they say this, not that they don't want to nurture the spiritual lives, but you'll typically hear when you enter a seminary, we are not your church now, the Pastors College is not their church either, but because it is informed by our ecclesiology, we do have a distinct life and doctrine focus. If I can just echo 1 Timothy 4:16, that is a verse that the students here exposited on day one of orientation, and it is a verse that will appear on their certificate of graduation when they graduate. Every aspect of the Pastors College is designed to cultivate one or both of those priorities. Watch your life and watch your doctrine. Both are imperative. Neither is incidental and neither is meant to be pursued in isolation from the other.

So, I think all of those things together make the Pastors College a qualitatively different experience from a seminar. Again, grateful for seminaries, really encourage guys to supplement their education with seminary education. But I do think by the grace of God, because of who we are and who God has made us as a family of churches, there's things that happen there that a seminary is just not designed to accomplish or equipped to accomplish.

Mark Prater:

So well said.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah. Excellent. Well, I know firsthand having had exactly the kind of experience you described when I attended way back when, I remember talking to a guy in my class who had an advanced seminary degree, and he was just talking about what a blessing the Pastors College year was and how different it was than his academic experience up to that point. One of my favorite things and I think is most helpful is that, yeah, it's academic in nature. There's strenuous hard work to be done and papers to be written and tests, but everything is oriented towards helping the student understand how to apply this as a pastor. And so that was extremely helpful. I'm confident I would not be anything like the pastor I am today without my PC experience.

And so thank you, Jeff. 'Looking forward to taking a class next month. Typically I go about once a year and find a good class and attend. And so thank you for the many years you have blessed our family of churches by leading the Pastors College.

We are evaluating a couple of guys potentially for PC, so we're excited about that. We got Kevin back from PC a couple of years ago, my executive pastor, and it's so true, I remember the first time I went to a Pastors Conference in 2010. I didn't know anybody, and my wife and I sort of wandered around a little awkward. And 2011, by the time we got to that Pastors Conference, we were in the PC and we had already begun to build bonds of friendship that just continued to this day. And so it really does provide this relational foundation. We care about relational partnership, and so PC serves our churches so well, when guys go through there and come back home to be pastors.

So thanks, Jeff. Thank you all for reading or watching. 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, those who are listening, checking out the podcast probably are having the experience of their church focusing on prayer. It's the beginning of a new year. Many of our churches do have a focus on prayer. We certainly do. In fact, we're spending the whole month of January focused on prayer. You guys at Covenant Fellowship are having a week of prayer including fasting, I believe. And so the beginning of the year seems to be a natural time to focus specifically on our prayer lives in the new year and throughout the coming year. You certainly have been thinking about the topic of prayer. Share your thoughts with us, please.

Mark Prater:

Yes, thanks Ben, and thanks for praying. I was in Knoxville last week and they're devoting a week of prayer next week, actually the week that this podcast ends up in your inbox. So just another example of churches in Sovereign Grace that do that at the beginning of the year, which is a good thing. And I'm so glad that we are a praying group of churches and want to continue to encourage us that way. Partly just because of what I've been talking about in previous podcast episodes where I've mentioned John 15:5 where Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, he it is that bears much fruit". And then he says this, "for apart from me, you can do nothing". And prayer is an expression of that; apart from him, we can do nothing. In fact, the text even says that, because two verses later in verse seven, Jesus says this, he says, "if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you". So one of the ways that we abide in Christ and one of the ways we express our dependence upon Christ is we ask. And so it's something I've been thinking about because I want us to be a family of churches that prays together and prays for one another.

So, these are things that folks already know, but are good reminders: when we pray, we want to pray in line with what Jesus taught us and how we approach God and our mindset towards God. Dale Ralph Davis says in his commentary on 2nd Kings, he says, "speaking truth about God to God may stir assurance in God". And it's a great quote because it really captures how Jesus teaches us to start to pray; "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name". So we're speaking truth about God, our father is in heaven. And from there he rules and he reigns and he moves forward His good sovereign plan for our lives as individual Christians, as local churches, and as a family of churches. And we are to go to God with our needs. I'm going to speak about that. Jesus teaches that in the Lord's prayer. But our motivation always should be for the glory of God, which is why we say hallowed be your name. May you answer all these prayers for your glory. And so as we pray, may our main motivation as a family of churches be the glory of God.

I came across this story about Martin Luther recently that really does capture that he seemed to understand that when he prayed for requests, he wanted God to answer them for his glory. So in 1540, Martin Luther's friend Friedrich Myconius became terribly ill and his friends thought he would shortly die. And one night with his trembling hand, he wrote a farewell note to Luther, whom he deeply loved. Upon receipt, Luther shot back his reply. He wrote back his reply, "I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church. The Lord will not let me hear while I live that you are dead but will permit thee to survive me. For this I'm praying, this is my will and may my will be done because I seek only, seek only, to glorify the name of God." That's what he wrote back. And so Friedrich had already lost his faculty of speech when Luther's letter came, but he survived and he lived and he recovered and he actually outlived Luther by two months. So God answered Luther's prayer. Now, I'm not saying that God answers all prayers like that. The point of that story is that his motivation is that God would answer that prayer for the glory of God. And so whatever we pray individually, whatever we pray as a local church for our church, whatever we pray together as a family of churches, may it always be motivated by the glory of God.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. It is quite a promise that Jesus makes, that whatever you ask you will have it. And clearly the Apostle John whose gospel you're quoting from, applied that to his life. We read in 1 John where he talks about "we have confidence that if we pray anything according to the will of God, we will have it". And so one of the things we're doing in our sermon series is we're preaching through four of Paul's prayers because one way to be confident you're praying according to the will of God is to pray the words of scripture back to God, and the promises of God as well. So thoughts on us personally emulating Martin Luther's faith on bringing our requests and our needs to God. How exactly does that glorify God?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, exactly. I mean I think certainly it's what Jesus teaches in the Lord's prayer; we're to ask for daily bread, we're to ask for forgiveness. We're to ask that he would keep us from temptation, deliver us from temptation. Those are all needs that we have. And I think it glorifies God because when God answers those prayers, the only explanation is that the power of God has been at work within us. That's what it says in Ephesians 3:20, which is one of Paul's prayers. He's praying for the Ephesians that they may receive power, be strengthened by God's power by asking God to draw from the riches of his glory there in Ephesians 3 and give them power to live for him and to follow him and to give him glory. And when we do that, as the text says in verse 20, then the glory of God is really revealed because it reveals the power of God at work within us.

So we are not to be shy about bringing our requests to God. And so the question really is, where in your life or where in your church's life (I think about this when I write the prayer request for Sovereign Grace), where in our family of churches do we need God's power? And however you answer that question, wherever that need is for God's power, that's where God is calling you to pray. Where do you have a need? It might be growth in Christ, it might be a financial need. It might be a desire to see one of your adult children who's wandered away from the faith to come back to Christ, whatever that need might be. That's where God is calling us to pray. And I think that's a part of prayer. There's a man by the name of Ole Hallesby who wrote a book on prayer and he says this, he says, "helplessness becomes prayer the moment you go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with him about your needs". And that's what Jesus wants us to do, to come to him with our need to speak candidly and yet confidently that as he hears those needs, he's more than able to answer them.

So let us again be a family of churches that prays for the glory of God as we pray about our needs, asking him to meet those needs and to give us power where we need it all for his glory.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I was preaching from Colossians 1 last week and I was struck by one of Paul's burdens in prayer in chapter 1:11 where he prays that the Colossians be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. And you think, okay, what remarkable thing that will be the fruit and effect of all power of God at work in our lives and it's endurance and patience with joy. And so just even in the ordinary everyday experiences of our lives, we need that power simply to endure patiently and joyfully through the pressures of this world. So in ways big and small, expansively across the whole of our lives. We certainly need to pray and we want to be a family of churches that does pray in Sovereign Grace. Mark, you help us do that when you send out your quarterly prayer requests, prayer updates for prayer, to help us understand what's going on, which I think will drop the day after everyone receives this podcast in their email next week because we record a few days of course before it drops. Talk to us about your heart when it comes to us, as a denomination, a family of churches, and prayer.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, thank you. My heart would be that we could all get together regardless of where we're at in the world. I don't know where we would gather, but that we could all get together, all the members of our family of churches and just cry out to God together. Wouldn't that be sweet? That's what I really want. But that's not possible, obviously, practically, until that day when we go and see Jesus or when he returns, then it'll be possible. But until that day, I think the best we can do is just to purpose to pray together, and for one another, as a family of churches. And that's why for several years now, I've been writing and sending out quarterly prayer requests for our family of churches. I send them to the pastors asking them to consider praying for Sovereign Grace and praying about those needs in a Sunday meeting or maybe in a corporate prayer meeting you have at your church.

We also post those on the Sovereign Grace website on our blog every quarter. And so you can look for those. And if you want to pray for our family of churches, please do that. I'm writing the first quarter prayer requests this week. They'll be sent out next week and they'll be on the blog next week as well. The other thing that's just a recent initiative by one of our pastors, Joel Shorey, who's the lead pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, Delaware, he's started at quarterly prayer Zoom meeting that any Sovereign Grace pastor can join. In fact, I think you told me he's got one scheduled for next week, the week of this podcast. So if somebody's interested, if you're a Sovereign Grace pastor and you're interested in joining that prayer meeting, contact Joel Shorey. He's in Newark, Delaware, and you can find his email in the directory. So there's just a couple of ways that we do pray together. And if you pray for our family of churches, thank you. Thank you for praying. And may God answer all those prayers for his glory.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Yes, I'm looking forward to that; my first time on that Zoom call, praying for Sovereign Grace. So grateful for Joel's leadership in that. Joel is a compelling model of a praying man, that I appreciate. So if guys want to join that, I'm sure Joel would love to have you if you email him.

In Philippians, which is probably one of the healthiest experiences Paul is having with the church in the New Testament, we see there clearly that partnership is nurtured by prayer, is nurtured in prayer. And so it is our joy, privilege, to pray for one another in Sovereign Grace and throughout Sovereign Grace and to strengthen and nurture that partnership that we enjoy in Sovereign Grace. So Mark, thank you for your encouragement. Thank you all for watching, reading or listening, and 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. Anyone who's following along in the podcast, Mark, knows that last week you spent some time thinking about 2023 and how God was so good to us all throughout that year in Sovereign Grace Churches. Now we are in 2024 as we record this, and you have hopes for 2024, you're looking ahead and praying and hoping for God to do even more in 2024. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, first of all, Happy New Year, Ben, and Happy New Year to all those that either listen to or watch or read this podcast. We're grateful for you.

Yeah, I've been praying just about what the Lord would have for our small family of churches in 2024 and written down hopes that I have for Sovereign Grace Churches. I actually have five of them. I just want to touch on very, very quickly.

The first one is that we would be a people, we would be a family of churches that have a pronounced zeal for Christ. You remember Jeff's message from Romans chapter 12 verse 11. "Do not be slothful in zeal but fervent in spirit." And what that means is that we are zealous for the Lord Jesus Christ and for the work that he's done in the gospel and that we get to participate in advancing that gospel together. May our churches be filled with zealous people. May it be heard in our singing. May it be heard in our preaching. May it be heard in our fellowship. May it be heard in our evangelism; that we love nothing more and are zealous for nothing more than Jesus Christ.

And just a couple of resources to mention there: Jeff's message on zeal is still up on our website, not from the recent Pastors Conference, but from the 2022 Pastors Conference. If you haven't listened to that and you watch or listen to read this podcast, listen to that message. Also, Jared Mellinger took that sermon and published it in a book called Sacred Zeal, and that's available on Amazon for you to read. It's also going to be available on our website in A PDF format that you can read for free. This is something we're going to be doing with our resources. So that's my first one, just that we would be a people who have a pronounced zeal for Christ.

And when we're those kinds of people, it leads to the second hope, that we would have joy in Christ, that Sovereign Grace churches would be happy churches, that we would be full of joy because we are stunned and amazed in an ongoing way for what Christ has done for us in the gospel, the finished work of Christ in the Gospel. And so we just want to be people who are joyful. When newcomers walk into Sovereign Grace churches, may they experience our zeal and may they experience this joy. It's actually one of the consistent feedback pieces of information I get from our Pastors Conference every year. Pastors who come, or leaders, for the first time, they'll contact me and they'll say, I've never been around such a joyful group of pastors and wives and leaders. And so may that continue by the grace of God in our churches.

The third one is growth in Christ-likeness. That our churches would work out our salvation with fear and trembling as God works in each and every one of us. That's Philippians 2:12-13, that ongoing Christ-like transformation by the grace of God. And may we be intentional to pursue it. And I think that's really important at any time I think in history, but certainly this is the time we're living in. And I want to remind all of our pastors and members of our churches that the ordinary obedience of pastors and the ordinary obedience of members, it has real effects in a culture that is heading away from God's word. It will stand out. I mentioned this in my State of the Union message. There was an article entitled A Return to Counter-Cultural Sexuality written by Jonathan Swan in the Spring 2023 Eikon Journal.

And he talks about this anonymous letter written by an apologist to a person named Diognetus. And he just talks about how the ordinary obedience of Christians had a transforming effect. And this is what he wrote in that letter. "They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh." And he just goes on to talk about how ordinary obedience by Christians really help the gospel to spread. And he makes this comment whether the issue is abortion, divorce cohabitation, marital infidelity, homosexuality. So-called same-sex marriage, or the legion of issues associated with gender ideology. The church today has the opportunity to present itself once again as a true countercultural culture. And Christians should seize the opportunity to communicate and demonstrate the fullness of the gospel as a better, richer, fuller, more satisfying life. And I'm praying that by the grace of God and through the transforming work of the grace of God that happens in each of our churches. So growth in Christ-likeness.

A fourth hope is to continue to have theological clarity and strength. And I think that's real important right now because of the culture that we live in, which is not only moving away from God's word, it's very confused. And the church of Jesus Christ has answers for that confusion. And we will offer the best answers by being very clear about what we believe and what we live and why we love it. We love living that way. And so I think there needs to be theological clarity and strength. It's also going to be, if we remain just with the fidelity to sound doctrine, our churches will be a respite from the world that is very, very confused. And that not only is going to be restful for some, it's going to be transforming for others.

And so just a commitment that we would share our truth clearly and with strength, but also with love as well. And let me mention just a couple of resources, a couple of messages by Kevin DeYoung I just recently listened to. He gave these at a preaching conference at Westminster Theological Seminary, and they're two messages, one entitled The Necessary Ministry of Building Bridges. And then the second message is The Necessary Ministry of Building Walls. And both those messages, he talks about essentially standing for truth, but communicating truth in a way that is receivable. It's communicating truth in love. It's kind of the Ephesians 4:15, speak the truth in love and at the same time, don't be so loving that you don't guard your churches from false teachers. So I would commend both those sermons. Those can be found on the Clearly Reformed website, Kevin's website.

And then lastly, kind of transitioning from that point to the next one, that we would be churches that are marked by the love of Christ. That's what you see in 1 Corinthians 13. The distinguishing mark of the Christian and of the Christian Church is that of love and not love the way the world defines it, which is more selfish in orientation, but love as biblically defined that is other centered; love is patient and it's kind. It keeps no records of wrongs, it does not boast. It believes all things, hopes all things and love's at all times.

So those are the things that are on my heart that I'm praying for our family of churches. Nothing new there, nothing striking there. But if we live out those five things by the grace of God, I think we will be a light in darkness and we will continue to have opportunities to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ that changed us and our desire that it would change them as well.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's wonderful, Mark, and I am struck by how your prayers in these regards for Sovereign Grace, they really do reflect, I think, and highlight things that God wants us to pray for as reflected in His word in the prayers you read there. I'm working on a sermon for Sunday from Colossians 1, and just as you were sharing these, I just thought Paul prays "And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him; bearing fruit in every good work and increasing the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." I think it would be wise for each one of us to consider joining you in praying the way you are praying, as your priorities certainly reflect God's priorities for his people. So thank you for your prayers, Mark. Anything else you want to share before we go?

Mark Prater:

Just lastly, I just thank God again for the pastors of Sovereign Grace Churches and for their wives. And I thank God for the members, the faithful members, of Sovereign Grace Churches. We are just ordinary pastors and ordinary church members that are trying to live out the good of the gospel in our lives. But we get to do that together and I'm so glad I get to do it with this group of family of churches. So I thank God for the pastors and their wives and the members of our churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. Well, thank you, Mark, for your heart for us and for Sovereign Grace Churches. And thank you all for watching or reading or listening. 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, 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.