The 2025 Pastors Conference scheduled for November 18 in Orlando, FL is now open for registration.

This conference is for pastors and their wives, church leaders, and anyone who hopes to someday be a pastor or church planter. It’s a time for both teaching and fellowship. Most of all, we gather as pastors around God’s Word to celebrate the glorious gospel and better apply it to the churches we love and serve.

On the night before his death, Jesus prayed, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24) Why would Jesus pray that we would see his glory? John Owen answers it this way, “The Lord Jesus desired that his disciples should see his glory in order that they might be filled with joy and happiness for evermore.” 1 To labor for the joy of their people (Philippians 1:25) pastors need to behold the glory of Christ. To build joyful churches, pastors need to show their people the glory of Christ. At our 2025 Pastors Conference, we will look yet again at Christ and behold his glory for the purpose of delighting and strengthening our own souls so that we might continue to build happy churches who see and savor Christ, who is our glory.

For more information about the conference, speakers, sessions, and schedule, click the link below.

An update from Marty Machowski, Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania…

After a one-day flight delay caused by a rare (and immobilizing) inch of snow in Dallas, my trip to Lord’s Grace Church in Suwon, South Korea, went smoothly. Following my Sunday sermon, Songhwan gathered the pastoral team and deacons for an extended question-and-answer session. The leadership at Lord’s Grace Church expressed deep gratitude for my visit and the connection it represented with Sovereign Grace Churches. It was a true joy to partner with these devoted servants in spreading the gospel in Asia!

During my visit, Songhwan hosted a seminar for a group of gospel-centered pastors and their wives from the surrounding area, whom he has affectionately named “Together for the Gospel Korea.” I delivered five messages on our Shared Values, and Songhwan followed up with a session on how to apply these values within the Korean context. His church serves as an exemplary model for these area pastors, and several expressed a desire to explore a partnership with Sovereign Grace.

We wrapped up the week with a family seminar titled “The Holy Spirit and the Family,” where I taught parents about the Holy Spirit’s role in the family. The session focused on the Spirit’s work in areas such as conviction of sin, the regeneration of our children, assurance of salvation, and the operation of spiritual gifts within family life. The participants were deeply encouraged, with many commenting on how helpful it was to understand the Holy Spirit’s vital role in the family.

The group photo (shown above) taken after the Sunday service captured a growing and joyful congregation, one that is living out the shared values and virtues of Sovereign Grace!

This post was originally shared on our Missions blog on February 24, 2025. Click here to see the original post:

Matthew 28.18-20, ‘And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

The great commission that we’ve been given is far bigger than we could have ever asked or imagined... But how wonderful, comforting and inspiring it is to know that the One who has called us, is always with us, even to the end of the age. What a mission changing reality that is!!

With that in mind, here are a few ways that you can be praying for our wider mission in the month ahead…

1. Please pray for Mario Figueroa as he prepares to plant and launch Vine Church in Tampa, FL, USA, with their first service planned for Easter Sunday. Please pray that they would treasure and cherish Christ in this labor of love, and that many in Tampa would hear about Christ and Him crucified as a result.

2. Please pray for Walt Alexander, Taylor Hollingsworth, and Steve Teter as they lead the one day US Small Towns Summit on Thursday April 3rd, looking at what faithful pastoral ministry could look like for Sovereign Grace Churches, in small places. Please pray that the Lord would encourage weary and under-resourced pastors in their high calling as under shepherds. Instil a vision for faithfulness in pastoral ministry and bring pastors into healthy friendships where they can find help and camaraderie in gospel ministry.

3. Please pray for the pastors and wives of European SG partner and candidate churches as they meet in England from 22nd – 25th April for a time of refreshing and building relationships. Pastors from Ireland, UK, Spain, Turkey, Italy, and Belarus will be attending with their wives. This will be the first time that many of the wives will have the opportunity to get to know each other in this way. Please pray for Ed O’Mara, SGC Area Leader for Europe, as he leads this retreat, and for everyone involved. That they’d be refreshed in the gospel, refreshed in their marriages, and that this would bear fruit for each pastoral couple as well as in our SG-Europe churches.

4. Please pray for our SG Asia-Pacific Pastors & Wives Conference, 8th-10th April, in Manila, Philippines. Folk will be traveling from Australia, India, South Korea, Pakistan, and the US to attend this time. Please pray for Dave Taylor, Jeffrey Jo & Riley Spring as they lead this conference, and for every pastor and wife in attendance. With over 200 registrations, from all over Asia-Pacific, we’re eager to see all that the Lord will do during this time.

5. Please continue to pray for Brian Kiama (Church Planter in Nairobi, Kenya) and Jonathan Leslie (Co-Planter in Kenya), as they continue the soft-launch of Sovereign Grace Church, Nairobi. Please pray that God would continue to bring the people that He wants to be a part of this new endeavour and that His Word would speed ahead and be glorified in Nairobi and beyond.

… May the One who has commissioned us, also give us favour and faith for the road ahead. Soli deo gloria.

This post was originally shared on our SGC Missions blog on April 1, 2025.

The following transcript was originally shared on the Mark Prater Podcast and was published on March 24, 2025 . To learn watch, listen or read the full podcast, click the button linked below.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, we are back with another mail bag, another "you asked, we answer" because we have a question from someone who watches the podcast. None other than young Timothy Praveen, actually, from Covenant Fellowship, the church you serve. And he asks a really good question, an important question I think that we want to talk about on this episode. So Timothy's question is this, he expresses, he's been listening for a few months, so there's somebody out there listening and they're just happy. And we're happy.

But Timothy asks, his question is about the gifts of the Spirit. He writes, as a younger member of the church, keeping in mind verses like 1 Corinthians 14:1, how would I earnestly desire spiritual gifts? Great question. How would someone get them and how would you know if you have it and why would I need to have it? Or, at least desire it when there are others in the church who have that gift? Well, of course Timothy is referring to 1 Corinthians 14:1 which reads, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. And this is a great question too, because this is a clear biblical exortation, biblical command that has been given to us. And so we want to lean in of course, to what God's will is for us as we live together in the church and using the gifts that he's given us.

So Mark, why would we need to have spiritual gifts or at least desire spiritual gifts when there are others in the church who have spiritual gifts?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, great questions, Timothy. And Ben and I, we love getting questions like this from any member of our churches, but especially younger men who love the church. So thank you for submitting it. That's the place I wanted to start, that last part as you said, Ben, why even pursue the gifts at all? And if other people have got gifts or use them, why do I even need to use them? It's a great question. And in answering that, I want to read a couple of quotes from Jeff Purswell's book, The Spirit and the Church: Priorities from 1 Corinthians 12-14. That's a small book that we have on our website. And Timothy, if you will submit your address through the markkprater website, your mailing address, I'm going to send you this book as a gift for submitting such an excellent question.

An update from Pastor Greg & Pastor Dave (names concealed for security reasons), on an incredible work and partnership forming in South Asia…

From December 5-12, 2024, Pastor Dave and I had the privilege and pleasure of visiting our Sovereign Grace ministry partners in a country in South Asia. Our purpose was to observe and evaluate first-hand (and for the first time) the status of the churches in that country that have requested an official relationship with Sovereign Grace Churches.

We were able to visit eight different churches over the course of seven days. We enjoyed a special gathering of all 21 pastors and wives (along with their children). Both Dave and I had the opportunity to preach, teach, exhort and speak at least 7 times. We conducted a baptism for 15 professing believers. We experienced the hospitality of four of our six candidates for ordination, while enjoying meals with their families in their homes.

The 21 men provide pastoral leadership to approximately 200 churches. They are well organized, and have formed a cohort that gathers monthly for prayer, planning, and mutual care.

These pastors are diligent with a remarkable work ethic. They each go two by two, from meeting to meeting, preaching in two churches (at least) every night of the week, except Saturday. They’ve been carrying on this pace for years.

The social, religious and economic context for their ministry is stark and dangerous. Brickmaking dominates the economic fabric of the three districts where our ministry partners live and serve. The brickmaking industry is a systemically corrupt, enslaving, and evil institution. There are impossible quotas to reach. Though housing is provided for those employed, there is no electricity, plumbing, heating, or secure enclosures. Nearly everyone is sick from the toxic smoke produced by brick kilns. Women are abused. Infant mortality is high. People are trapped and impoverished for life.

Since the days of Moses and Pharoah, little has changed.

Nevertheless, this is the primary context where our men have planted dozens and dozens of churches.

This blog was originally posted on our SGC Missions website on March 3, 2025. Click the button below to continue reading and for access to our Missions blog.

On a recently released episode of The Mark Prater Podcast , Mark reviewed a recent regional men’s conference on the topic of Biblical Masculinity. The following is a portion of the podcast, but you can click the button below for access to the full video, audio, and transcript.

”There are many in our society right now, our culture, if you read, that are saying we have a crisis of masculinity in our culture today. And there would be some stats that would back something up like that; men feel undervalued because of changing gender roles. They wonder about if they going to have less economic opportunity, etc., etc. Some pundits will talk about how suicide rates among young men are up - all those pointing to a crisis of masculinity.

But, I think for the Christian, we don't really have a crisis of masculinity.

Not that we don't have struggles and issues. What I mean is that scripture gives us clarity about what it means to be a man, clearly defined in scripture. There's not a searching for definition or even identity as a man because we have God's word in a world that's very confused about gender right now - with masculinity being one of those areas where they're confused.

I'm very grateful for Darrel Schiel, the regional leader here, for putting this conference together because he just wants to strengthen men in Christ.

And part of a biblical understanding of masculinity is that it's centered in Jesus Christ.” - Mark Prater