After the Acts 15 Council meeting, we find Paul in Thessalonica in Acts 17 where he shares the gospel.

“Explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.’” - Acts 17:3

Sharing the gospel has always been risky, and it always will be risky. Given the cultural trends, the pluralism, the angst the pandemic has caused, the political polarization, sharing the gospel will be risky, but it is the right risk to reach a world that is chaotic and hopeless.

Let us call people to share the gospel and if they need help in doing that, equip them.

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Mark Prater May 28, 2022

The 2nd quarter Sovereign Grace Mission Video is ready and posted to our website. We also included it below. We are excited to share this one with you because it represents years of prayers, the gift of generosity through ordinary church members who love the Lord and an expansion of our financial practices to reach across U.S. borders in a more meaningful and tangible way. We are taking time in this video to highlight the initiation and use of our Development Funds. We highlight all four that are currently operating.

Our hope is that you will take time to watch this video because it represents a lot of exciting mission update--because, as God would have it, doing mission costs money. So take time to watch and listen. And join us in asking God for even more, all for the sake of His name and His glory so that more could be reached through local church ministry with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can also view/download the video here. As you watch, prayerfully consider giving to Sovereign Grace to fund our shared passion to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, all for His glory alone.

We have also posted a short written piece that speaks to our commitment to church planting. Jeffery Jo, Senior Pastor of Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministry in Manila, Philippines shares an update on his current experience in his country. We also added this piece to our website via this link. It’s also below.

Thank you for your continued investment into our shared mission!

With the number of opportunities that God is giving us outside of the U.S., we can be vulnerable to think that God is not at work here in the States. 

Given the trials we have faced in SG, that have uniquely impacted our churches in the States, we can be prone to think that our reputation has taken a hit, and we can’t plant churches like we used to.

 Given the anit-institutional trends in our culture that tends to look down on the local church, we can wonder if planting churches is even worth it.

I understand those thoughts, but the book of Acts tells us that Paul and others encountered challenges and took risks to plant churches.

Church planting has always been risky, and it will always be risky, but it is a “right risk” to take in reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let us take the greatest risks for that great cause of planting churches.

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Mark Prater May 20, 2022

Building biblically faithful churches has inherit risks.

First, building biblically faithful churches means we take the right risk of continuing preach and counsel our people with biblical truth. Given the rapid movement of the culture away from biblical truth, the faithful preaching of God’s Word will have more inherent risk of us being criticized.

We are on a trajectory where the culture sees the biblical truth we preach as the problem. The culture says teaching on biblical sexual ethics is the problem and must be censored. And, in a growing culture of victimhood, the truth we preach, and the truth we counsel our people with will be targeted as potentially oppressive.

Let us be men who risk our lives for the cause of Christ by preaching it anyway for the purpose of building biblically faithful churches.

Second, building faithful churches means that we take the risk of calling our people to a love for, and a commitment to the local church. Whether it is an anti-institutional mindset, or a suspicion of authority, or the lingering apathy people have post-pandemic, calling people to love the dearest place on earth will be risky.

We must build faithful churches by courageously, and graciously calling people to be faithful to their local church.

May a love for the local church not be a first or second generational phenomenon in Sovereign Grace, rather may it be a multi-generational distinctive.

Third, building faithful churches means we take the risk of honestly accessing the health of our local eldership.

One of the primary ways that Satan seeks to sow disunity in the church is to weaken and divide the pastoral team.

“Conflict, poor communication, and relational disunity on a pastoral team can lead to discouraged and weary pastors, and eventually, can diminish the unity and health of the whole church.”[1]

If we are going to call people to love the local church, let’s make sure that the church we are calling them to love is strong and united. We do that by honestly evaluating the health of our local elders, which can be risky, but it is the right risk to take.

Let’s take great risks for the great cause of building biblically faithful churches.

[1] Jon Payne, “Team Health Evaluation Tool” blog post, October 19, 2021, sgcleaders.com

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Mark Prater May 13, 2022

On April 21st, we posted this prayer request from Ryan Chase, an elder at Emmaus Road Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to pray for his son Caleb who suffers from a condition that results in his muscles and joints not working properly, and included Caleb’s inspiring conversion story:

April 18 was Caleb’s 10th birthday, and that is a huge milestone for us. His twin brother passed away at age 3, and we originally expected them both to live less than a year. Our short-term goal, and the focus of our prayers, has been getting Caleb to Florida next week. Since we can’t get him on a plane, we are planning to make the road trip April 23–30. It’s been Caleb’s dream to see the ocean and visit Disney World. We’re praying for his overall physical comfort; for relief from high fevers, high heart rates, and breathing difficulties; and for his physical strength to tolerate all that driving and sight-seeing.

A few weeks ago, we had the joy of hearing about dramatic answers to prayer!

Here’s an excerpt from Daniel and Heather Youtzy, members of Emmaus Road Church:

Words cannot express how overwhelming the response was to pray for Caleb. Many of you all reached out to Ryan and to others within Sovereign Grace to pray for Caleb's health. We are so unbelievably thankful for that! Only hours after you all joined us in prayer for Caleb, he began turning a corner. By the middle of the week of April 18, Caleb was doing great. His fever was gone, his heartrate was back to normal, and he was feeling like he normally does. God answered so many prayers and the Chase's were able to take Caleb to Disney World! He and their entire family had an absolute blast and Caleb hasn't stopped talking about it since returning home! We thank God for the ways that he answered prayers and the ways that those answers to prayer comfort our souls! We hope that your faith is encouraged. PRAYER IS POWERFUL!

From Ryan:

Thank you so much for inviting our Sovereign Grace family to pray for our son Caleb. We saw a significant change in his health right away and we were profoundly aware of God’s help through the prayers of his people. We made it to Florida and back without issue and had a wonderful time as a family. Caleb made special memories and had experiences we never dreamed possible for him when he was born. A few weeks ago, we were wondering if he was at the end of life, but since returning home, Caleb is doing much better than he had been for months. We continue to marvel at God’s kindness to us.

Thank you for praying!

Ukraine is going through ongoing dark and worrying times. With the outbreak of war, fear and uncertainty are filling the whole nation. Every day brings more alarming news, with continued shelling and growing numbers of casualties. Yet in the midst of this evil and carnage, there are pastors and their churches in the Ukraine that are labouring hard to care for people, and to offer hope that can only be found in Jesus.

We are eager to pray for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, what an important gift that is to them, and we’re also eager to support them financially in anyways that we can. 

To that end, we’ve been working closely with our partner Church in Germany - Arche Church, in Hamburg, throughout this difficult time. A few years ago, Arche Church planted a church in Ukraine with one of the PC graduates, a Ukrainian pastor. His Church is located in a place in Ukraine where people are fleeing from some of the Southern cities, port cities that are being heavily bombed. They’re making their way through his city on the way to the West, trying to find refuge and safety. They’ve set up 90 beds in their church, but typically on a given night, they’ll have over 150 people that arrive with the need for food and a place to sleep. 

To help partner with them in this, through the generous giving of personal donors and churches, we’ve been able to send out over $60,000 in support of this church’s relief efforts, money that we’ve been able to send over to them on a weekly basis. They are so very grateful for this gospel partnership, so much so that our contact on the ground (Pastors name name not included for his protection) wrote this to us just yesterday by way of an update:

           ‘Dear brothers and sisters. I just received the money. We thank the Lord for your commitment to the gospel, for the brotherhood of the cross, for your practical love. You point us to Christ. We spend your donations to receive refugees from the destroyed cities, we offer them hot meals, lodging, showers and administration for further movement to the West.  Also, we make food packages for migrants, for all those who have lost their jobs and livelihoods. We purchased a washer and dryer for the refugees. We refuel the cars of volunteers who transport people from the war zone in their cars. In addition, we help financially single mothers with children. We purchase the necessary medicines for patients with chronic diseases. We have not done this before on such a scale, but now, we are already "professionals" in social assistance to people and their accommodation. Of course, we want to show them Christ in us, and we are therefore looking for every opportunity to speak the gospel to suffering people. May the Lord Jesus be glorified in our ministry together with you.’

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The full post Helping in Ukraine originally appeared on May 1, 2022 on the Emerging Nations Blog; the work of Sovereign Grace Churches partnering in new places around the world.