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 following the podcast know that a number of months ago you hurt your knee, you tore a tendon in your knee. The good news is you're healing nicely right on track. Your doctors are pleased with your progress, but what that also means is that you are back to your regular busy slate of retreats and traveling, which includes next week a retreat for global pastors in Sovereign Grace churches. Talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. First of all, if you prayed for my knee and my recovery, thank you for praying, God answered those prayers. My knee is, I think, where it's supposed to be, the doctor's really pleased, still doing some physical therapy, but very pleased with progress. It does allow me to travel, which I'm looking forward to going to the Global Leaders Retreat.

Myself and other leadership team members will be there. Then a leadership team retreat will follow. It's kind of what we did in February where we had a leadership team retreat and we invited the regional leaders. In this case we're going to the global leaders and starting with their retreat. And that's very strategic for us because we have men in different parts of the world who are leading and building Sovereign Grace with us in their respective nations. And we want to invest into them and care for them and equip them. And that's what this retreat is all about. So in that sense, it's very strategic.

The other purpose of the retreat is really for the leadership team to learn from them. Just like we learned from our regional leaders in February at our retreat, we will take a lot from this retreat that will help us to serve our pastors and churches better, not only here in the States but throughout the world. And so we're looking forward to benefiting from the input and the feedback we hear from them.

So let me tell you just who's going to be there. Not all of our global leaders are able to make it, but Faras from Pakistan is able to come. Barnabas from Nepal, Ed O'Mara and Rocco Dalia from Italy will be there. Michael Granger from Ethiopia, Riley Spring from Sydney, Australia, our leader in Australia. Carlos Contreras, who is our leader in Mexico. Joselo Mercado, as you know, travels throughout Latin America. Jeffrey Jo in the Philippines isn't going to be there. He just didn't have time to get a visa and wasn't able to meet immigration requirements. So we'll miss him, for example. And then some of the guys on the leadership team will be there. As I mentioned in previous podcasts, the February retreat, we have the entire leadership team there. And then I sort of determine who comes from the leadership team to the other two retreats. For this retreat, it'll be obviously Dave Taylor, who's our Director of Global Missions, he's coming from Sydney, as well as Jeff Purswell, Jon Payne, and myself. Jared, his second oldest, his son Ben, is graduating from high school. I want him to stay home because that's more important than a retreat.

So those are the guys that are gathering together next week. And if you think of it, please pray for this retreat and pray for each of those men that I just listed. Not only that God would encourage them and equip them during this retreat, but also continue to pray for them as they lead in their respective nations.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. That is quite a roster that will be gathering at the retreat. So grateful that God has given us the privilege of partnering with these excellent leaders across the globe, around the world. And so eager to hear how that retreat goes. And you actually want to talk to us about what's going to happen at that retreat.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I want to just because I think it's just good for folks to know. I want folks to know, and it can inform your prayers as well. So we're going to start and really spend the very first day just getting updates from each of those guys. We're asking for updates about their family, about their church and about their nation. And then after they give those updates, we want to hear what are the challenges they're facing in their nation as they build Sovereign Grace in their nation. And I think that'll be just a good day for us as a leadership team just to hear and to learn not only to care for them and to pray for them, but also to think about what we can do to serve them in the challenges that they're facing in ministry. It'll be interesting to see how some of those challenges maybe are the same as the states and how they're different than the states. And so I'm really looking forward to that discussion.

And then we've got some teachings that are planned. There are shorter teachings because we want them to set up a discussion. So I'm going to be teaching a message leading toward godliness. The purpose of that is to encourage our leaders to build godly churches and to lead in a way that we build godly churches. And that will set up a discussion that we'll have about how to do that. Jon Payne is going to be teaching on leading towards team ministry. Jon's got excellent material on team ministry and we want to continue to build plurality in team ministry as we expand throughout the world. So that will be a real important teaching and then conversation.

Jeff Purswell is going to do a sermon or a message on leading toward the future. And really that focuses in on 2 Timothy 2 to develop future men and trust the faithful men, the work of the gospel. So it's identifying and equipping future men. It's really more the weight of that text that Jeff brings across for a pastor, that this must be on his job description, if you can say it that way. Developing future pastors. And then Dave is going to be teaching on leading towards clarity and really what he's going to do, I'm so glad he's doing this one, the subtitle is "just seeing through the fog when life is a lot". And I think for any pastor anywhere, life can be a lot, but you think about places like Pakistan where there's persecution, some things we don't face here in the states in quite the same way. That feels like even more than a lot. And so it'll be a great chance for Dave to speak into that biblically and for us to care for our leaders.

So that's a little bit about what we've got planned and discussions we hope to have with our guys. And again, thank you for praying for this, what I think is, a very strategic retreat for the leadership team with our global leaders.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Well, it sounds like an excellent agenda that you're going to enjoy together with these global leaders. It's encouraging that we get to benefit from these men and their particular context across the globe and learn from them. And then that our leadership team can actually bless these men with the excellent encouragement and teaching that we've enjoyed here in North America over many years. So thank you, Mark, for the update. Let's all be praying for this retreat. Thanks for checking out the podcast. 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, before we started recording the podcast, you were telling me about how you and Jon Payne met over Zoom with the regional leaders to give them an opportunity to interact with Joel Shorey, our new director of church planting. And you were talking about how you benefited from some of the input that the regional leaders gave you and you wanted to talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Jon and I met with the US regional leaders along with Joel Shorey just yesterday. And I did benefit from the input that I heard from the regional leaders. It's another example of how the leadership team benefits from our regional leaders. They help us to lead better, they help us to serve our churches better. And I came away from yesterday's conversation, especially grateful for their input. Here's what we got talking about, we were just drawing Joel out on a number of questions about his goals and vision for church planting. But in the midst of that conversation we got talking about risk because I called us at the pastors' conference last year to take risks to plant more churches, to take thoughtful risks, take wise risks to plant more churches here in the United States for the purpose of reaching more people with the good news of the gospel.

And in that conversation, really what came out was that that risk maybe needs to be nuanced just a little bit more. Where do we want to be low risk and where should we take risk? And it was a really good conversation. In fact, Rob Flood, the Northeast regional leader recommended that you and I devote a podcast to it. And I said, you know what? I might even do that today. Today we're recording it. And so again, I thank God for our regional leaders. They help me be a better leader. They help me serve our churches better. And with any leadership issue, a lot of times leadership requires nuance and clarification. And I hope this podcast provides that. And again, I've benefited from the regional leaders yesterday, so in calling our pastors and churches to take prayer filled thoughtful risks to plant more churches. Here's what we mean by risk.

First of all, these are categories where we want to be low risk. We want to be low risk with a man's character according to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. I wouldn't use the term no risk because not every man is perfect, but we want to be low risk. We want to send a guy who has proven Christ-like character. So that would be a category. We want to be low risk regarding Sovereign Grace's theological convictions. And does the potential planter not only know our theological convictions? Does he own them? Does he understand them? Can he communicate them? Are they a part of his DNA, so to speak? So that category is low risk.

And then we want to be low risk when it comes to a man's ability to plant and to build a Sovereign Grace church that is marked by our shared values and our shaping virtues. Because those things are really the fruit of the gospel working out in our lives that we want to mark our churches and we want Sovereign Grace to continue to be not unique in that way, but distinct in that way. And does he have the ability to do that? So those were categories that we were talking about that are low risk.

I would just add a couple of other thoughts, and I don't know how to quite quantify the risk ratio there, but pastors plant churches, that's what we've said in Sovereign Grace. And in other words, does he have a pastoral gift? Can he shepherd and pastor people? Because when you plant a church, you immediately begin to pastor people. And so is there an evident pastoral gift in his life that he can utilize when he plants a church? And then what we've found is that guys who have experience in pastoral ministry really are more situated to plant stronger churches in many cases. Now that's not an absolute rule, but guys like Joel Shorey and Walt Alexander had 13 to 15 years of ministry experience before planting a church. And those churches are thriving. That doesn't mean we would not send young men to plant churches, but we might send an experienced pastor with him because of the benefits that you gain from years of pastoral ministry in terms of what you learn.

So just to clarify, those are the things that we want to be low risk on: character, theological convictions, the ability to build a Sovereign Grace Church, can a man pastor people? Just to bring a little bit of clarity as to what I mean by risk.

Benjamin Kreps:

That is helpful clarification. Thanks, Mark. When it comes to taking risk though, what do you mean by encouraging us to take that kind of risk? So we want to be low risk on what you talked about for sure. And I think that involves a season of assessment living alongside this man and his wife and kids and observing family life and marriage and all of those things and understanding our convictions. But we do want to take risks in some ways. What do you mean by that?

Mark Prater:

What I mean is really something I thought Eric Turbedsky shared really well, our regional leader in the West. He said, at least in my part of the world, I think a lot of churches have been planted out of necessity. And what he meant by that is that you've got a guy on your pastoral team, he's definitely gifted, but you don't have financial room to bring him onto your team. What do you do with a gifted guy like this? And so you send him out and he plants and he does a great job that's really driven by necessity versus, as he said, that's not really as much motivated by missional risk. And so when I'm talking about risk, I think Eric's right about that. I think it's a matter of are we to take risks for the sake of the mission of the gospel? Meaning that, are we willing to send our best? Are we willing to send an experienced guy that we really love doing ministry with out to plant a church that requires a lot of faith? Are we willing to send some of our best members to give him a good church planting core team that he can build with? Because it's that kind of risk that needs to be taken for the sake of the mission of the gospel.

And where you send the guy, I think can partly factor into that risk category. I think that also when you're thinking about a guy that might be more high risk, however you might define that, whether it's further away from you or it's a little more difficult place to plant in, I think his preaching gift is really important there, depending on the place. And does he have a sufficient preaching gift to build a church in an area that would really need that kind of high level preaching gift that might be different for a context where you might send the guy where it feels a little bit more low risk, a little bit near to you geographically, you kind of know the area and the guys that fit for that area. Does he need to have the same level of preaching gift? I don't know that he does, but you have to really assess all of that. The point being is we're trying to reach areas where there's not much of a gospel presence and we're willing to take risk for the sake of the mission.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, that's excellent. I remember hearing from people that follow the podcast, many of them know we planted a church last fall. And I think your encouragement is so helpful because I remember going to conferences and listening to teaching about how you're going to have to send your best, you're going to have to send your best. And that's all theoretically, of course, I'm happy to do so. But when the moment comes, it is painful and it does feel risky. And so it requires faith when you're sending people and money out the door. But it's totally worth it. Like I've told my church, we get one shot at this. And so Jesus is worthy of attempting to do difficult things and to take wise risk in doing so.

Thank you, Mark, for your continued encouragement in this area. May God give us the privilege of planting more and more churches in the days ahead. So thanks, Mark. Thank you regional leaders. You're serving us so well. You're getting it done. So we're so grateful for you. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. 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, many people checking out this podcast, many guys, these pastors checking out the podcast, received an email recently informing us that we have a new Director of Church Planting, Joel Shorey. And so a question is, why is it important for us to have a Director of Church Planting?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a great question. And for those that are listening to this podcast and don't get my emails like maybe a member of our church, one of the members of our church, Joel Shorey is the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, Delaware, a church he planted six years ago out of the church. I'm at Covenant Fellowship Church where he served in pastoral ministry 13 years there before planting a church. So he's got almost 20 years of pastoral ministry experience. And for those that don't get the email, and maybe those who do, just a reminder, this is a non-leadership team director role, kind of like Bob Kauflin as Director of Sovereign Grace Music or Eric Turbedsky our Director of West Coast Development. So we have directors that are not on the leadership team. We wanted Joel to focus on church planting without being encumbered by additional denominational wide leadership team responsibility.

So here's a quick little bit about Joel and the role that he's in. So why do we need one? That's the question you asked me. There are four reasons why we believe as a leadership team that we need a Director of Church Planting. The first one is our mission. Our mission is this: we are a family of churches who advance the gospel of Jesus Christ together by planting and strengthening churches throughout the world for the glory of God. So it seems like if planting churches as one means to advance the gospel is a part of our mission, then dedicating someone to church planting seems like it will strengthen our mission. So that's the first reason.

Second, last year at the Pastors Conference, I called our pastors to take more prayer-filled thoughtful risks to plant more churches, especially here in the United States. And I called us to do that, not to grow Sovereign Grace, but to reach more people in this world who don't know Christ as their Lord and Savior. So it's at the heart of that, a call to risk, is the gospel itself and seeing people come to know Christ as their savior. That's the second reason.

Third, Eric Turbedsky, our previous Director of Church Planting, just did an outstanding job of serving us in that role for over a couple of years, maybe three years if I remember right. And once he transitioned out, we as a leadership team, we did notice a vacuum that was left there. And we wanted to fill that with a good leader, which we think Joel is.

And then fourth, without a Director of Church Planting, Jon Payne took on the responsibility of just working with Mike Seaver, who oversees and leads the National Church Planting Committee. Thank God for Mike. He keeps so much of our church planting machinery moving forward. And those on the National Church Planting Committee, they do a lot of good work that a lot of people don't know about. But Jon was giving them direction and leadership. So I was wanting to get that responsibility off Jon's plate. That's a very practical reason, but a reason that was in our thinking in selecting Joel as our next Director of Church Planting. So please pray for him as he steps into this new role.

Benjamin Kreps:

Appreciate the wisdom of the leadership team. I can think of no finer choice actually for that role than Joel. He is a compelling example of a faithful pastor and planter. So what will Joel be doing in this new role?

Mark Prater:

Well, one of my prayers is that the spirit of God is at work in our churches in obviously a number of ways, but one of them stirring, first of all, pastors, to take faith-filled risks to plant churches, to send out their best like you've done Ben, but also men in our churches who are being stirred by the spirit to plant churches. So what Joel is doing, I pray, is first being led by the spirit of God, that God would lead us and help us to take more faith-filled risks to plant churches.

And so what Joel's going to do is simply serve you, the pastors of Sovereign Grace Churches, in planting a church. And if you've never planted a church before, please pray about doing so because it will change your church. It will strengthen your church in so many ways. And so Joel is coming alongside of you and serving. He's not coming as the church planting expert. Now let me qualify that. Of course, he's going to study church planting. He wants to know the church planting world. He wants to find resources that will help us, but that's not Joel's heart. What Joel's heart is, and you see this in his own church planting experience, is he wants to reach more and more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the planting of churches. And so he wants to serve you. You know your context better than he does. You know where to plant better than he does. He wants to resource you, he wants to help you. He wants to serve you in any way he can. There's a distinction between being a church planting expert and being a guy who's got a heart for the gospel and wants to see more churches planted. And you'll be hearing more from him on that in talking with him. By the way, he's so excited about this role. It's one that he seems fit for. We talked about, actually to be straightforward, three different candidates for this role. All were very good candidates. It was a very hard decision and all have planted strong Sovereign Grace churches, Joel is just a fit for it, we think. And you see that in his enthusiasm and excitement. And so you'll be hearing from him and you'll hear his enthusiasm as he helps us to plant more churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. Well, eager to experience Joel's leadership in the days ahead as he leads the church planting team, the church planting group which is just by the way, so helpful. Anybody considering planting a church and you feel uncertain about what that's going to look like and what the process is, they will resource you and lead you carefully, thoughtfully, through the whole process. So eager for Joel's influence to be felt in all of that. Why don't we end here with that encouragement, repeating for us, reminding us of the encouragement that you shared with us at last year's pastors conference.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. The encouragement really is taking faith-filled risk to plant churches. And I mentioned this in a podcast, I don't know how many episodes ago, but several episodes ago, and I read from 1 Corinthians 3, and I'm going to do that again for 1 Corinthians 3. Let's keep the context in view. There are divisions in the church, people are following Apollos and Paul, et cetera. And so Paul's writing to correct all of that. But he writes in verses six and seven, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. So let us plant and let us water with faith believing that our good God will give the growth. Because as the text says, we're not really anything because it is God who gives the growth. And one of the joys about church planting is seeing God get all the glory when a church is established, when a church is in a community reaching people who don't know Christ. That is a work of God that man can't do without God. And so let us plant more churches for the sake of the gospel, but as our mission says, for the glory of God alone.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. Thanks for that encouragement, Mark. Thank you for the update. God bless you, Joel, as you serve us in the days ahead. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. 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. I imagine by now, Mark, that members and pastors of Sovereign Grace churches have been benefiting from Sovereign Grace publishing. I know Jared Mellinger established that on the leadership team and it's wonderful to have access to resources published by Sovereign Grace for Sovereign Grace people. But a question is why are we publishing?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I'm very grateful for Jared's work. He really has had that responsibility to lead us in publishing since he stepped on the leadership team and recently as a leadership team, we decided to sort of formalize all of that, formalize the department by giving him the title of director of publishing, which is what he's already been doing. So it's just a no-brainer decision on our part, but we wanted to recognize the work and really the importance of that work for our family of churches.

Why do we publish? We want to publish resources primarily to serve our churches. We want to have resources that can serve our members that they can benefit from. And there's several resources like the Journal that's been published and recent books that have been self-published by Sovereign Grace that serve our members. And we're developing right now, “Theo-Pastoral” resources sort of in the line of the old perspective series, if guys remember that who've been around for some time.

So right now Josh Blount is working on a complementarianism one, for example, and there's a book being worked on, on elder governance, and just why that defines our polity that way and has a chapter on Congregationalism to make the distinction between our polity and congregational polity. So those will serve, I think, those can serve our members, but they're written a little bit more theologically and we hope will serve our pastors as well. So that's the first reason.

The second reason is we want to publish resources because they do, if they're done well, they will endure over time. And so we're thinking about future generations in Sovereign Grace, not just the next couple of generations who will be pastors and members of our churches. We're thinking about those we'll never meet and we want those resources to continue to influence and shape them as we build gospel-centered churches that are marked by our shared values and our shaping virtues. So those are the two primary reasons that we publish and we think it's very, very important. And I'm very grateful for Jared's initiative because we've got a number of new resources up on our website.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. The Journal and the books have all been a blessing over the last couple of years. I think one of the things I appreciate is because these resources are being written by Sovereign Grace pastors, then those who read what's being published can trust that these are men who share our values and our shaping virtues. And so these can be trusted pastors that we're reading who share our convictions in Sovereign Grace churches. You mentioned that on the website there is the ability to access these resources. Now how do we access what's being published?

Mark Prater:

Yeah. Recently we made a change on the homepage of our Sovereign Grace website, which is sovereigngrace.com. We did have at the top menu there a Journal link that has been changed to Publishing and now if you click on Publishing, you'll see a dropdown menu that says Journal and Books. So if you click on the Journal, you'll see that all of the previously published Journals are there. The PDF versions are free and if you want to order them, you can order them at Amazon. We don't make any money on that. It's just a way to get it shipped to you and they're listed by the most recent ones first, is sort of the way it goes. And then a new tab that's been added that Jared's been working on is called Books. And if you click on that, there are a number of self-published books that are on that particular page and they are really just very, very helpful resources.

Let me just mention the ones that are up there. Continue in What You Have Learned; sermons by CJ Mahaney that shaped our family of churches. That was edited by Jared Mellinger. It's a gift we gave to our pastors and wives a couple of years ago at the pastor's conference. But that has I think, enduring utility for us. The book Sacred Zeal by Jeff Purswell, which is really a transcript, an edited transcript of his sacred zeal message from a couple of years ago at the pastor's conference. Jared Mellinger has a book entitled The Grace of Partnership, also an edited version of the sermon he preached at a recent pastor's conference. And then a book called Joyful Generosity that four Sovereign Grace pastors worked on. Brendan Willis, who's in Australia, Kyle Houlton, who's in Southern California, Leo Parris and myself who are in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. That really is an accessible biblical theology of generosity and emphasizing the joy you have when you are a generous people.

And then just a recent edition of We Believe which is our Statement of Faith, but this is the editors' edition in print form. In fact, I got a copy right here you can take a look at and it's got a great cover on it. And the editors' edition adds a component to our Statement of Faith that I think enriches our statement of faith. So this is something that guys can access, they can order if they want to give it to their members. And all of those resources are self-published by Sovereign Grace and are available to you with many more self-published works in the queue right now that Jared will get up on that website very, very soon.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I know just a couple days ago we were talking about handing out Joyful Generosity later this year when we do a stewardship series and a bunch of copies and making sure every family has a copy of that excellent little book, very accessible. What recommendations do you have for us when it comes to using these resources?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I think all of those resources can be used in various ways in our churches and even maybe with pastors who might be interested in Sovereign Grace. So I mentioned the We Believe editors' edition. You might consider giving that, ordering that and giving that to every person who goes through your new members class in your church. In fact, I would recommend what you do is what some churches are beginning to do in our family of churches is they actually put this package together and it's the We Believe editors' edition that they'll give new members along with our Journal on Shared Values and our Journal on Shaping Virtues, and that's a package they'll give every new member that's going through their new members' class. So that's a great idea. In fact, we did this at Covenant Fellowship just this past weekend for our Leaders retreat that we do annually, and we gave each of our leaders that package right there. It's just another way to continue to strengthen in them our theological convictions as well as our shared values and shaping virtues.

I think another recommendation would be if you are developing young men for ministry, there are certain resources that are must reads in my opinion. One would be CJ's sermons Continue in What You Have Learned. Those have shaped us as a family of churches and we want them to shape potential future pastors. I would also give them Sacred Zeal, those that you're developing for pastoral ministry by Jeff, because you want that to mark the life of a pastor. Now, they could listen to his sermon, but it's another thing I think to give them that book as well. If there are folks, pastors or churches outside of Sovereign Grace that are interested in Sovereign Grace, I think Jared's book on The Grace of Partnership is an excellent resource to hand them to help them understand how we understand partnership and why it's important to us as a family of churches.

You mentioned how you're using Joyful Generosity. There may be a time when you need to take up a big offering or you need to raise money for a building fund, something like that. That can be a very helpful book to give to each of your members. So those are just a few of the ways. I could go on and on about other ways you can use them, but they're there to serve you. Again, I think all the PDFs are free, so we're not trying to make money on it. And the Amazon cost, if you order them to get published editions, they just cover the cost of that. So they're there. And I hope you use them for the good of your church and to serve even new folks coming to Sovereign Grace churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Yeah, I know many churches in Sovereign Grace are experiencing growth, and if that growth is anything like what we're experiencing here, there are new folks who do not share our theological background necessarily. And so it's wonderful to have physical resources to put into people's hands to help them acclimate to our churches theologically, also to invite them into the culture of grace that we've experienced over many years. And so in Sovereign Grace, we have a culture of reading that I enjoy deeply, and it's wonderful to have these resources. Thank you, Jared, for leading us in this. And thank you to all the men who have written and made contributions to the Journal and these books, and 'looking forward to what gets published in the days ahead. So thanks, Mark. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, as you well know and many who check out this podcast know, it is RAE season and regions around the country are gathering together for their regional assembly of elders. And we don't want to assume that everybody knows what happens at the regional assembly of elders or even what it is because this podcast audience is not confined to pastors. So by way of informing those who don't know or reminding those of us who do, share with us your perspective on why regional assemblies are so important.

Mark Prater:

I think they're vital to the strength of our partnership, to strengthen our partnership and really for the sake of our mission, they're vital in terms of serving our churches and the members of our churches, those churches located within a specific geographic region. So for those who maybe are hearing about a regional assembly of elders for the first time, what is that? This strange thing called regional assembly of elders. It is one expression in our polity in Sovereign Grace of really being elder-led. So that happens on a national level here in the States where the Council of Elders gathers once a year to make decisions. It also happens at a regional level. Again, regions are defined as churches within a geographic region and we want those churches as much as possible to be closer in geographic proximity just because they can benefit from partnership throughout the year.

But the regional assembly of elders meet at least twice a year, typically twice a year, spring and fall typically. And they have a number of important things that they get done at a regional assembly of elders. First of all, there's equipping, there's teaching that occurs that equips our pastors to serve our churches and to really speaking to some of the needs pastors are feeling and leading their churches. There's just lots of time for fellowship and laughter, praying for one another, praying together. Then there is also just hearing wonderful updates of things that are happening throughout the region. And then fourthly, doing the business that a regional assembly of elders does in making decisions that they have because of the authority that we see elders are given in scripture.

So a regional assembly of elders is comprised of every ordained elder in a church in a specific geographic region and they'll make decisions about church planting, about ordinations. They'll approve the budget. A lot of good business gets done there and it sounds a little bit boring, but it's actually very essential for us to be able to work together in the planting of our churches, in developing future pastors and seeing them deployed in the ministry, and in just doing that all together in a way that we can fund all that God is giving us. So I'm so grateful for these regional assembly of elders. We've been doing them for about a decade now and I think we've learned how to do them. They will vary a bit from region to region, although they have those basic components I just mentioned. But a regional leader has the freedom to design an agenda for his regional assembly that he thinks will best serve the churches in his region. That can vary from region to region. One other thing, I'm mostly talking about the states, but we're seeing that beginning to be replicated as we develop polity outside of the United States.

So we approved Mexico as a nation last year. They are just one region. So they will gather together more in a national assembly type of setting, but will do the work, the same kind of work I mentioned for regional assembly of elders. And at some point Mexico will have two regions and they will have a regional assembly of elders meeting while having sort of a national assembly, like a council of elders that we have. So just a little bit about how they work, how they're structured, and I'm so grateful for 'em. They really have strengthened our partnership and really have helped us advance our mission of telling people about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Benjamin Kreps:

I mean even the business at an RAE is not boring because it is simply seeking to steward all that God is doing in our region. So actually those business meetings are going to be quite thrilling as we consider where we are sending money, as we discern what God is doing in and through our churches. What does it look like when you attend a regional assembly?

Mark Prater:

I'll just give you a recap of what happened last week at the Northeast Regional Assembly. From an equipping standpoint, I thought Rob Flood, our regional leader, just did a great job of mapping out the topics that he had guys teach on.

So we heard a message from Shawn Woo on navigating the therapeutic because our pastors are saying there's a therapeutic influence that's in the culture that's affecting our churches potentially. How do we lead through that? So it was a great topic. Jeremy Bell spoke on the devotion to God and the pastor's own relationship and devotion to God. And then Nathan Smith did a session on the pastor and his authority because there's a lot in the culture right now about authority and it's really misunderstood where we see in scripture that authority is actually a gift from God and it's intended to be used like God uses his authority for the good of others and for the glory of God. And so Nathan did a great job of unpacking that because it's clear pastors have authority. Scripture is clear about that. Scripture is also clear about limitations of our authority because we serve under God's authority. It's also clear about how authority should not be misused. You think of 1 Peter 5, for example, not domineering over those in your care, and then the right way, that authority is to be used in a way again that is for the good of the church and the building up of the church and just holding out a vision for that was really good.

And then Rob Flood spoke on the spiritual gifts and how do we continue to pursue those in our churches. Those are the topics that we discussed. They were great. We heard a number of updates from guys on different things happening in the region. We heard an update on guys who are prospective pastors who could be ordained at some point. And then we approved ordination for Nathan Lee, who is now an ordained elder at Redeemer Grace in Newark, Delaware. We approved the budget. So that was the business side.

And then we just had a lot of time just hanging out together, sharing meals, laughing, getting updates. It was just very warm and relational. The Northeast, like the rest of our regions. I think it's just a happy place right now. And you were there because your church is transitioning from the Lower Great Lakes region to the Northeast that's now officially done. But you were at the Northeast region last week and then this past weekend you were at the Lower Great Lakes RAE. What happened there, Ben?

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, well my heart is full this week because I spent essentially five days at regional assemblies in a row going the Northeast last weekend and leaving Sunday and getting back on Tuesday. And both regional assemblies were edifying, strengthening, encouraging, a little similar in many ways, but different as well, different regional leaders. And so it was a joy, but a bittersweet joy, to attend our last regional assembly in Ohio with the Lower Great Lakes region. It makes sense though, because when you think Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, you're not thinking the Great Lakes. And so my first regional assembly in the Northeast, I had just been ordained and we voted ourselves out to join this new region. And so I've enjoyed the past eight years there. Ken Mellinger was the regional leader for most of that time. He established that region. He built that region together. And to be in that first regional assembly with just a few guys really, and then at the last one where the region is flourishing now under Jace Hudson's leadership, his fine leadership, with just a packed room full of pastors and a guy who's going to be a church planter, and prospective pastors, what a joy it was.

And we did some very similar things and we sang together, we prayed together, we heard teaching on earnestly pursuing the gifts, similar. So I got a big dose of that. We spent time praying together for specific spiritual gifts and eating together, laughing together. CJ was there and addressed us on building a culture of joy, which is always helpful to hear from him. So yeah, my heart's full, but excited now to be in the Northeast and to enjoy that expression of partnership. And those brothers that are there, I told the guys in Lower Great Lakes region, we're not leaving because there's any lack of appreciation, admiration, respect, no; great deal of affection for those men, but eager to be gathering twice a year now in the Northeast region.

Mark Prater:

And I think your desire to be back into the Northeast is motivated by what I said earlier. We want, as much as possible, our regions to be built with geographic proximity because it just fosters partnership. So that was a motivation. I said to you before we recorded this podcast, you did a great job sharing it, about joining the Northeast regional assembly, but also saying, I have a vision for us to build a region in central Pennsylvania. And I think that's exactly right. That's how we want to build because again, as we get more churches in central Pennsylvania, let's build a region there so they can experience partnership in a very meaningful way.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, we don't just want our pastors to have this great gift of joyful partnership. We also want our people in our churches to enjoy it as well, as much as possible. Now, some regions are massively spread out by necessity, but it will be wonderful in the days ahead as more churches are planted and more are established that are closer together. So not only do we enjoy as pastors, the equipping edification of partnership, but our people can increasingly do so as well.

So praise God for our regional leaders. They are doing a fantastic job from everything I can tell, certainly the two that I interacted with over this past week and are doing a fantastic job. So thanks to all of our regional leaders. Thank you, Mark, for giving us insight into what RAEs are all about. And thank you all for checking out the podcast. 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, it is wise for every pastor to have familiar paths in scripture; precious promises, easily, readily at hand to serve our souls. One of those promises that you've been meditating on for months, and you talked about at the pastor's conference last year, is the words of Jesus in John 15:5. So we anticipate going to our next conference in the fall. We don't want to leave behind what you communicated to us, shared with us, encouraged us with at last year's pastor's conference. So you want to return to that. So talk to us about that.

Mark Prater:

Yes, John 15:5 has been a very meaningful verse to me, one that I continue to meditate on. Jesus says, there "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit." And then he says, "for apart for me, you can do nothing". And I unpacked that verse a lot in my State of the Union during the Council of Elders meeting, and I talked about the fruit that we can bear as pastors and as churches if we continue to dependently, abide in Christ. And one of the fruits, if you can say it that way, that I talked about that I really wanted to call us to continue to bear in our ministry and in our lives, is that of zeal; that we would be pastors who are zealous for Christ. And I was picking up partly on what Jeff had said, at actually the Pastor's conference before that.

So we're kind of building on two pastor's conferences here. Jeff preached an excellent message from Romans 12:11, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit and serve the Lord. And if you haven't listened to that message again recently, I would encourage you to listen that message, that sermon is also available in print. It's entitled Sacred Zeal, thanks to the efforts of Jared Mellinger who transcripted it and worked with Jeff to get it in a published form so you can listen to it. You can read it, and please do so because I want to continue to hold out for us as pastors and really as even members in Sovereign Grace churches, that we would have a growing zeal for Christ and that would mark our homes. It would mark our marriages, it would mark our churches because we have zeal for Jesus Christ. And I'm praying that that is one of the good fruits we continue to bear in Sovereign Grace.

Benjamin Kreps:

Amen. Why don't you share with us, if you would, why you carry this burden so consistently and communicate it consistently as well, to us as pastors and members of Sovereign Grace churches?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I think it's important because first of all, I think it authenticates the work of the gospel in our lives, is really what it does. And that's real important for people to hear and see in our lives, to see it in our lives, to see it in our preaching, to see it in our leadership. Because it mentions there in Romans 12:8, those who lead with zeal. So it needs to mark our leadership as well. And I think that's been important at any point in history. It's important now, especially in an age where they're talking about the dechurching of the church; people leaving the church, not coming back. And it's important because I think people that are coming to our church, especially new people, they want to see if we really believe what we preach, this Christ that we preach, do we really believe in him and do we have love for him and zeal for him?

I also think it's an important reminder for us as pastors that when people come to our church, each and every Sunday, members and guests who come to our church, they don't need our opinions. They need the truth of God's word. They don't need you to be an expert on cultural issues or on politics. Now, that doesn't mean you can't speak into those things, but what they really need is your zeal for Christ that stems, that comes from you being soaked in the word of God. And so that word that you're about to preach you care a lot about. And I was listening to, well, Kevin DeYoung has written a book recently. I haven't read it. I just ordered it called Secret to Reaching the Next Generation. And I just happened the other day to be listening to a podcast that he was a guest on, and they talked about a number of different topics.

One of them was this book, and Kevin's saying, this is not so much a secret, but it is what we need to do. And he lists several things in terms of reaching the next generation for Christ, those that maybe have left the church and maybe visit one Sunday. And he said, one of the things is, I think he says it like this, grip them with your passion. Passion is a similar word to zeal. And he said this in the podcast, he said, people want to know that this really matters. What you're preaching really matters. And the illustration I've given so many times when I preach is the story of George Whitfield and Benjamin Franklin. I'm sure most of our listeners have heard this story where as people know Ben Franklin regularly went and heard George Whitfield preach. And one of Franklin's friends asked Franklin, why do you go and hear Whitfield preach so frequently? Because you don't believe what he says. Franklin responds by saying, I know, but he does. Whitfield does. So he went back because he was affected by the fact that Whitfield had zeal for what he was preaching. He had zeal for Christ. And that's what we want people to say about us. They may be skeptical, they may not know, but they should leave church on Sunday morning, thinking, well, he believed what he preached and that affected me. And so I'm praying that we would continue to be pastors who preach with zeal, who pastor with zeal and lead with zeal in Sovereign Grace.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's excellent. Thank you for your continuing encouragement in this area of zeal and abiding in Christ in order to produce that kind of zeal in us as pastors. I love the familiar definition of Martin Lloyd Jones of preaching is logic on fire. And so may we be pastors in any context with the people we serve who encounter us, may they encounter zealous, passionate, happy pastors; as an example, a model to them and for their good. So thank you for your encouragement, Mark. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. 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, last Friday, something I look forward to each year, the email for the 2024 pastor's conference dropped into our inboxes. Exciting to start thinking about just a few months from now, heading to the conference again, but you've shared this kind of thing before. It's always good to be reminded though, and people that don't watch the podcast in the past or listen to them might ask "Why do we have a pastor's conference every year?"

Mark Prater:

It's a great question. It's something I want to speak into actually each and every year because you can go to register and think, should we go again and is it worth the effort? Should we take the time it costs to travel? If you've got a young family, you've got to arrange childcare while you're away if you don't bring your kids. And so there's a lot of work that goes into it, and I want to explain why I think it's important to be at our pastor's conference, pastors and wives and leaders in our churches, and why we do them each and every year.

I've got four reasons of why we do these each and every year. The entire context is we are a family of churches, so it is a family reunion, a family gathering in that sense. And we do a conference to cast theological vision for the way that we do ministry in Sovereign Grace Churches. And we want to, as any leader knows, cast that vision over and over again, not to remind us, but to strengthen our theological convictions in how we do pastoral ministry and how we build churches in Sovereign Grace. So that's the first reason that we do that.

The second reason we do a conference is that we want it to be the spiritual and relational highlight of the year for our pastors and wives and leaders and wives from our churches. This is a conference where most of the pastors, leaders and their wives are coming with little or no responsibility, and they can just receive, they can receive and their souls can be strengthened. But there's also just that relational element that pastor's conference does feel very much like a family reunion. Just being together and praying for one another and singing to Jesus with one another and listening to preaching together as we sit next to each other, that just strengthens us. And there's just times of just catching up with one another. And it reminds us that we're not just a denomination in a organizational sense, but we are truly a family, a family of churches. That's the second reason.

The third reason is we do a conference every year to cast vision for our shared mission. And that's just an important thing to do because we can get sort of siloed in our churches at times or even doing things regionally, but when you gather a global family of churches together and we cast vision for our mission, you're hearing updates about how the gospel's advancing throughout the world. You just leave realizing, I'm not doing mission alone. I'm doing it with other like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ.

And then a fourth reason we do a conference every year because it's a unique way to introduce those outside of Sovereign Grace to our family of churches. Now you can do that at a local church level. You can do that at a regional level, and that's very effective. But there's something unique about gathering once a year as a global family of churches. And I just think people who come for the first time, they see something about Sovereign Grace that they do see locally and regionally, but it sort of gets bigger for them when they come to a conference. And one of the common refrains I hear from feedback from the conference, especially from guests each and every year as they say this, I don't think I've ever been around such a joyful group of pastors and leaders and their wives, and that impacts them. They just think, well, maybe I'll consider being a part of Sovereign Grace. So those are the reasons that we do it. I believe it's worth the effort and the cost and the travel. And so I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you at our pastor's conference November 5th through the 7th in Orlando, Florida.

Benjamin Kreps:

I can't wait. It certainly is a highlight for my wife and me each and every year. We've been going for 14 years. This will be our 14th conference, so can't wait. So reading the conference email, we have five breakout sessions that various people will be teaching. They all look very interesting. Talk to us about why you chose the five breakout sessions that we'll have at the conference.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, these breakout sessions, we put a lot of thought into it and we got a lot of input from our regional leaders. So typically the first leadership team retreat of the calendar year, which is typically in February. We meet as a leadership team for a retreat for a few days, but for the first part of that retreat, we ask the United States regional leaders to join us. And a part of what we do in that retreat is just hear updates in different regions and then let the regional leaders tell us what pastors and churches in Sovereign Grace are facing, the challenges they're facing in building churches and doing pastoral ministry. And so this list of breakout session topics really comes from that discussion in February, and we hope that it does serve our pastors and leaders and their wives.

So I'm just going to give you just a sort of a brief overview of each one and explain why we chose it. We do have a women's breakout session entitled The Virtue of Godly Submission. Betsy Ricucci is going to teach on that from 1 Peter 3 as a teaching she's done previously that she'll obviously tweak for the conference. And in her description she says this is what springs to mind when you think of the word submission, especially in our culture today. And she goes on to say, in our day, it's a concept misunderstood, misapplied and misaligned. But she goes on to point out that actually it's a virtue in scripture and even a command in scripture. So this women's breakout session is intended to just equip and inform and give wisdom on this wonderful virtue of Godly submission. I think it's going to be a timely breakout session for our ladies.

Josh Blount is going to do a breakout session entitled, Still Competent to Counsel: The Pastor, the Word, and the New Therapeutic Age. And all of our pastors, we've talked about this before in previous episodes on this podcast, but there is a reemergence of the therapeutic in our day. And as Josh says in his breakout session description, words like therapy and mental health, trauma, wellness, self-care, that language is used much more increasingly now. And we have new people coming to our churches who are saying, I need a therapist. They don't think about, they need a pastor first, but a therapist first, for example. So Josh is just going to, I know, teach this well. He's very excited about it and just talk about how do these cultural pressures emerge and this cultural language emerge, and then how do we pastor folks that have that mindset? So it's not so much about how you do all the counseling, but it's actually building a biblical counseling model or culture within your church. So that's going to be great. CJ's actually going to interview Josh after he teaches, just to draw out a little bit more. I know that's the one you're thinking about attending, isn't that right, Ben?

Benjamin Kreps:

That's right. I'm having trouble picking from the four. Of course I won't be at Betsy's, but that one really sticks out to me. There's been, we talked about it on a podcast recently, about the creeping influence of therapeutic culture in our churches. And so it just seems more and more when you meet with someone to counsel, you're having to sort of undo some things that have been implanted in their thinking before you can actually get to the heart of the matter. Just anecdotally, that certainly is increasing the common language of the culture, the creep influence of the culture, breathing in the air of the culture all week, and then sitting down in the office and having to work through and undo some things that are in place. And so yes, I think that's the one although I'm not going to promise though; they all look so good.

Mark Prater:

Well, yeah, but I think what you just said is what a lot of our pastors would say, and one of the reasons why they may be interested in that breakout. Jeff, first of all, is going to do a breakout session entitled, Putting God’s Word to Work: The Task of Application in Preaching. We want to do a breakout session or even a main session somewhat regularly over a few year period on the topic of preaching because that's so central to what we do in building gospel-centered churches. And there isn't anybody better among us to do that than Jeff. So he's just going to talk about application in preaching, and I think you should read his description because I think it will intrigue you. I think it's going to serve our pastors who regularly preach or who preach even just some.

Jim Donohue is going to talk about the role of an evangelist. He's going to lead that breakout session. He's going to do a bit of a teaching about that role and then do a panel discussion. They'll have some guys on that. As Jim says in his breakouts, that evangelism is one of the most challenging areas for our churches, and evangelists can be some of the most challenging people to deal with. And Jim would say that about himself, actually. But Jim is, and evangelists are, very, very necessary to us building churches that have this culture of reaching out to the lost with the good news of Jesus Christ. So, Jim is going to unpack that a little bit more, and I think it's going to be a great breakout session.

And then finally a breakout session that Brian Chesemore is going to lead and teach, and then there's going to be a panel discussion. John Pannell will be a part of that panel discussion. His breakout is entitled A Glorious Vision for God-Centered Homes. And the reason that we chose that particular topic is because we don't want to lose a culture in Sovereign Grace that rightly prioritizes building a Christian home, building Christian marriages and making sure that we're parenting according to biblical convictions and biblical values that can be lost. I think the founding generation has done that well, and that can be lost in future generations. And even for our founding generation pastors, this can be a helpful breakout session for us. So we're hearing that from our regional leaders. This is something we need to give attention to, is building a Godly home, and Brian is going to do that well. So those are the reasons we chose the breakout sessions. Really want thank our US regional leaders who really gave us input and helped us shape what topics to choose, what breakout sessions to offer. We had a longer list than the ones we did, so we had to prioritize them. And I do hope they serve our pastors and churches.

Benjamin Kreps:

I think they will. It's just wonderful that there's sort of a little bit of something for everybody here to be able to choose from, and I so appreciate how you guys get together and you pray together and you think together on the leadership team about what would serve our churches best. And looking at this list of five sessions, I can't help but see something of your care for us in selecting these various topics to serve the pastors and wives of Sovereign Grace Churches. So can't wait. I'm not promising which one I'm picking yet, but I'm so eager to attend and to attend a breakout and to gather with everyone at our yearly family reunion. It really should be called the Pastor's Family Reunion or something like that to accurately reflect what we're up to.

So thank you, Mark, and the leadership team, for your thoughtfulness, your labors, your care for us reflected in the conference each year. Thank you, Mark, for your thoughts, and thank you all for checking out the podcast. 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 to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. I proudly am wearing my Valley Creek Church swag. Got some new merch recently. Shout out to Nick Kidwell the master of conference trivia games. Shamelessly plugging here. I know you've worn a Christ's Covenant hat. So I just wanna say I'm for sale. If anyone wants a shameless plug send me merch. Large. That's what I wear. Anyway, Mark, great to see you. Thank you all for joining us. So you wanted to tell us about a resource that has recently been helpful to you.

Mark Prater:

Yeah, it's a book called Slow Productivity that is written by Cal Newport and it was just released on March 5th. I had actually, I think CJ had told me about this book, and so I pre-ordered the book and it came in right after my knee injury. So I've had some more time to read and wanted to get to this one because it's a secular written book. But some of those books, and I'm very careful about what I choose, but some of those books can be really helpful to us as pastors or to members of our churches who are trying to be efficient in what they do and either working well in the workplace or serving the church. So Slow Productivity is the book. Here is the cover. You'd like to see that. I think everybody can see it. It's written by Cal Newport who is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He's also an author who has studied work in productivity. So he is written books like Digital Minimalism, a well-known book called Deep Work. I think there's a book written called A World Without Email and Slow Productivity are just some of the books that he's written and I found that I've benefited from him. Cal is a student of work and of productivity in particular.

And his study along with observing just some work-related issues that emerged out of the pandemic and those pandemic issues like we're all isolated in our homes and people are working virtually and trying to figure out what's working and what's productive. Some of the issues that emerged out of that sort of just firmed up his conclusions and crystallized for him what it really means to be productive and what he does. So for example, he's saying right now he believes we live in this world of busyness.

We're busy doing a lot of things, but are we really being productive? Are we doing the right things that have impact? And he uses this phrase called pseudo productivity. He defines it this way. The use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort. So the visible means of activity are things like the number of emails you respond to or write, the number of meetings you attend, et cetera. And he uses that term approximate productivity because is that really productive? Is it really effective? So he says the result that he's seen, and really I think the pandemic sort of even showed us or exacerbated, is this busyness that's causing exhaustion and burnout if you use that term, and really isn't productive at all.

So what he's done in writing this book is he's wanting to offer an alternative to pseudo productivity. It's what he calls slow productivity. It's defined this way. Here's how he defines it. A philosophy of organizing knowledge, work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner based on the following three principles. Number one, do fewer things. Number two, work at a natural pace. And number three, obsess over quality. He's saying that if you choose carefully and do fewer things and you do those things really well, actually what you produce will have greater impact and longer lasting impact. That's what he's really contending for. He kind of rejects busyness and says, let's do the right things and do them well. Now you notice in that definition of slow productivity that he uses this term knowledge work and he uses this term knowledge worker throughout the book. And so what is knowledge work? And so he defines it this way. I believe it's in the second chapter, knowledge work is the economic activity in which knowledge is transformed into an artifact with market value through the application of cognitive effort. So members of any church or a Sovereign Grace Church listening to this podcast, think about that in terms of what you do. Certainly it applies into the fields of information technology, healthcare, accounting, finance. You're a teacher, obviously you're using cognitive effort attorneys. It doesn't mean that you're sitting at a desk all day. So when the surgeon did the surgery on my knee, he better be using the cognitive effort that he has been trained to understand when he does my surgery. But he's also using that physical skill that God has gifted him with to repair my patella tendon.

Just as another illustration, I also think there's application for pastors. There's knowledge work that we do. There's cognitive effort that we put into the writing of sermons each and every week that we preach to feed the souls of those in our church. There's cognitive effort put into pastoral care where we're looking to take what we know about the Bible and apply it to someone's life to help them with the issues that they're facing. So I think you can place pastors in the knowledge work category. Of course, how you measure, I don't think that has market value in the way he's talking about it, but it does have spiritual value. It does have eternal value in terms of strengthening souls each and every week through preaching and pastoral care and leadership. So that's just this brief overview about the book that I was very intrigued by.

Benjamin Kreps:

That sound intriguing. I'm looking forward to checking it out. The reality is, as John Piper famously has written, we are not professionals. Pastoral ministry looks more like agricultural metaphors. It looks like shepherding. It looks like planting, watering, not so much the corporate world, but we can learn from the corporate world. There's insights to be gleaned, but it is a secular book like you said. So what are some of the strengths, but also what are some of the weaknesses of the book when it comes to a pastor reading and applying what's in the book?

Mark Prater:

I think just a few strengths. And by the way, I'm going back through this book, reviewing it and looking to glean what I can and apply it to my own work responsibilities. How do I apply this to my pastoral responsibilities at Covenant Fellowship Church and how do I apply this in serving Sovereign Grace in my role? And I'm still in that process, but some things I'm taking away from it. I think what you just said is very good, Ben, that we are not professionals. As scripture talks about, there is that agricultural imagery that's applied to what pastors do, for example. And I think that's right because one of the takeaways is that for pastors being faithful to do what God's called us to do over many years will be the best way to serve your church, the best way to build your church and will impact generations to come.

In other words, for us as pastors, we sometimes can wrestle if we don't see the immediate impact of our ministry. And scripture says that's okay because what we're doing takes time as God works because that's the way God works. You see that throughout scripture. So I think that's an encouragement that is informed biblically that you wouldn't find in the book, but it's a benefit I think from the book.

Another one is I think just thinking about doing fewer things and what does that mean really begs you to ask the question, alright, am I doing the right things? I think that's good for anyone listening to this podcast occasionally to just do a checkup on what you're doing and are you doing the right things? And whenever in doing so, think about what needs to come off your plate. But it also challenges us, and he does this in the book. He says, when you add a new responsibility to your list or to your plate, you've got to think very carefully and evaluate it very carefully and not just the time it will take to get that responsibility done. There's typically work that you have to do in preparation for, and there maybe some work on the back end. So lengthen the time commitment that you typically might think of accomplishing a specific responsibility and that's going to be more accurate and that will tell you whether you should take that responsibility or not. So those are just some of a quick list of benefits. I could list some more, but for the sake of time I won't.

I think in terms of weaknesses, he says this in the book, but this book is not for everyone. So he says, if you don't have some autonomy with how you manage your responsibilities or with your schedule, this book is probably not going to be able to really help you because he's talking to people who have some degree of autonomy in doing that. Maybe not completely, but some. I think the other thing, another weakness I think for pastors in particular is that there are necessary pastoral interruptions that we need to respond to that sort of interrupt our schedule, interrupt our plan, and to be faithful to the people in our church and to our church. We need to accept those invitations or those interruptions with faith and go about serving those that are entrusted to our care. I think it's the same for maybe they're not, although this related to pastoral, there may be a church crisis of some kind that requires leadership and you've got to think about that. That's going to interrupt your sermon planning and the other things that we do. So I don't think the book factors that in quite, and it is a weakness of the book. That's something I think you can still benefit from it, but just be aware of that.

One other mention, Newport doesn't appear to be a Christian. I don't know that for certain, but certainly not a Christian book. I think in terms of thinking about this book, you've got to keep in mind the good sovereignty of God that God does order all of our days, and so we can live content with that when our days don't go as planned, that's a part of God's plan and we can trust him in that. So obviously that theological point is not in the book and therefore a weakness in terms of Christians applying it. So just keep the sovereignty of God in view.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Well, this sounds like this could be a helpful book for extremely busy pastors. I think it is wise to at times reflect on, evaluate our schedules to see if we are doing the most important things and committing our time to those things. Because as you know, Mark, just because we're very busy does not mean that we're being faithful. Our lives can be busy and full of activity and we're failing to give attention to that which is most important. And also a lack of fruitfulness does not necessarily, like you said, mean a lack of faithfulness on the part of a faithful pastor who is feeding, tending, planting, watering by God's word. I think I was reminded when you talked about how it's for knowledge workers. I was reminded of Paul's expectation to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2 when he says to Timothy, and by implication, all pastors "do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." That all takes slowing down thinking, meditating, communicating effectively what God has said in his word. So thanks for the suggestion. I'll look forward to picking up the book and giving it a read. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.