In his devotional book, “Life As A Vapor: Thirty One Meditations For Your Faith” John Piper writes this about prayer: “We pray to God for the enablement of what He calls us to do, and what He calls others to do. In fact, that is exactly why prayer is necessary.” Piper is right. Prayer is necessary. It is vital. Without prayer we can’t fulfill what God has called us to do as a family of churches. Therefore, as we start 2023, let us consistently, and fervently pray for one another asking God to enable us to do what He has called us to do in advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world for His glory alone.

Prayer requests are listed below. May God answer our prayers, enabling us to accomplish all that He has planned for our family of churches in 2023 in a way that brings Him glory.

Thanks for praying.

Sovereign Grace Churches First Quarter 2023 Prayer Requests

• Pray that God would give the members and pastors of Sovereign Grace churches a renewed desire, and opportunities to share the gospel with unbelievers in our communities and workplaces.

• Pray for the Ark Church in Dnipro, Ukraine asking God to protect them, and to use them to meet practical needs, and to offer gospel hope to people impacted by the war.

• Pray for the U.S. National Church Planters Assessment that will be held in Southern California in January asking God to give wisdom to Greg Dirnberger and his team in assessing future church planters in Sovereign Grace.

• Pray for Jeffrey Jo, Dave Taylor, and Mark Prater as they lead an Asia-Pacific Pastors and Wives Conference March 28-30, 2023, in Manila, Philippines. Pray that God would use the singing, preaching, and fellowship to strengthen and encourage the pastors and wives attending the conference in the gospel.

• Pray for the Sovereign Grace Leadership Team as they lead a retreat, February 6-8, 2023, that will include our U.S. Regional Leaders, Global Leaders, and a group of future leaders asking God to envision, strengthen, and equip our leaders to serve our churches throughout the world.

• Pray for our missionaries in Thailand, asking God to continue to open doors for them to share the gospel with unbelievers.

• Pray for Jeff Purswell, our Director of Theology and Dean of the Pastors College, as he teaches a new Pneumatology class, January 31-February 3 in Louisville, KY that many Sovereign Grace pastors plan to attend asking God to deepen their understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

• Pray that God would continue to provide financially for Sovereign Grace Churches so that we can fund the gospel opportunities He is giving us throughout the world.

Recently on the Mark Prater Podcast, Mark mentioned Season 2 of the Ordinary Pastor Podcast and recent episodes discussing our 7 Shaping Virtues:

These guys have devoted the first several episodes to our Shaping Virtues. They talk about why we created these shaping virtues, which are really not unique to Sovereign Grace. They are the work of the gospel, the fruit of the gospel in our lives. And so then they dedicated a podcast to each of our Seven Shaping Virtues, and then dedicated a podcast to resources for anyone; members of our churches, pastors, those that are not a part of Sovereign Grace, to read and grow in those areas, in each of those virtues that are mentioned.

Over the last few years the Sovereign Grace Leadership Team has worked on this project that we’ve now called The Shaping Virtues of Sovereign Grace. Most of the credit for this work should go to Mickey Connolly who labored to produce the fundamental draft of these virtues, and to Jared Mellinger who worked hard at the editing process. We would also like to thank Ben Kreps—his idea to promote a list of Sovereign Grace virtues, and his own list of virtues, inspired us in this project. We are also grateful for Dave Taylor's valuable insight about the usefulness of a list like this in introducing Sovereign Grace to inquiring pastors around the world. Our desire is that these virtues would continue to motivate pastors to build churches that reflect the gospel. We never want to be churches of doctrine without application, of gospel preaching without gospel-shaped character. There are several brief posts from Mickey that discuss the value of each of these virtues, and you can also listen to the second season of the Ordinary Pastor Podcast, where Jon Payne and Jared Mellinger discuss the importance of these virtues in leading a local church.

In Sovereign Grace, the explicit gospel-focus that has marked our history has led us to value seven particular Shaping Virtues: humility, joy, gratitude, encouragement, generosity, servanthood, and godliness.

Rather than give you several different updates this month, I wanted to share with you this one 14 minute video to watch, our 2022 Global Update.

What a wonderful year this has been!

As you watch this video, I hope it encourages you, excites you and reminds you just how glorious He really is. For this is all the Lord’s doing, and so may it always be marvelous in our eyes!

This post originally appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on December 28, 2022. Dave Taylor is the Director of Global Missions for Sovereign Grace Churches.

Through financial support to Sovereign Grace, we have planted 12 new churches in the last 2 years, 9 of which are outside of the United States in countries like Liberia, Guinea, and the Philippines. We have also adopted 4 churches that enjoy full partner status in countries like Bolivia, the Philippines, and India. By God’s grace, we plan to adopt 60 more churches in 10 different nations over the next 3 years. I am humbled that God has given our family of churches these opportunities.

Many of the opportunities include stories of churches who learn about Sovereign Grace by singing songs produced by Sovereign Grace Music. In other words, Sovereign Grace Music is essential to our mission of advancing the gospel because they write and produce theologically rich, gospel-centered songs that are sung each Sunday in churches throughout the world.

As Devon Kauflin has said so well, Sovereign Grace Music writes songs to plant churches. Whether you are a member of a Sovereign Grace church or not, most likely you have sung a song produced by Sovereign Grace Music on many Sundays in your church. Songs that declare the glories of Christ, and songs that are used to advance the mission of Christ.

We are eager to invest into Sovereign Grace Music by building out a studio in the facility where they are located in Louisville, KY. This studio will be used to record songs, live albums, music videos in different languages, and equip worship leaders to serve their churches. Bob Kauflin, Director of Sovereign Grace Music, and I recently recorded a video to tell you more about this studio. Please take a few minutes to watch this video, and then prayerfully consider giving to Sovereign Grace Music before the end of 2022 (in the designation box, choose Sovereign Grace Music from the dropdown). It’s our hope that we can raise $300,000 for this studio buildout now as an investment into our future.

Should God allow us to be a multigenerational family of churches, giving to the buildout of the Sovereign Grace Music studio now will allow us to continue to produce theologically rich, gospel centered songs for years to come for the good of our churches, the advancement of the gospel throughout the world, and for the glory of Christ alone.

Todd Peterson, Pastor at Cross of Grace Church, El Paso, Texas, and Emerging Nations Representative to India along with Erik Rangel, Lead Pastor of Legacy Church in Yuma, Arizona, have been working separately in India for about 20 years combined and started working together in the last 3 years.

They recently traveled to Prayagraj, which is in northern India in the state of Utter Pradesh to meet with a pastor that Erik has been working with for the last 12 years as a partner in their Bible College which has planted nearly 100 churches in the region around Prayagraj. This pastor is interested in getting to know Sovereign Grace more formally and they are excited about the possibilities of partnership and serving there.

Todd and Erik were also able to visit a church in Bhubaneswar, Odisha of about 200 in the heart of one of the biggest slums in India, to explore partnership with them. During this time they were able to see the city and the surrounding region, meet their families and spend many hours trying to understand the challenges that they face. They look forward to continuing to move this relationship forward.

The last stop was the southern village of Gundugolanu, Andhra Pradesh, the home village of pastor Jaya Prakash (JP) Ravuri who became a fully ordained pastor in SGC. One of the purposes of this stop was to be there on Sunday at his church to formally ordain JP as a Sovereign Grace elder. The ordination service was a tremendous blessing! 

Valley Creek Church, Malvern, Pennsylvania, a church planted by Covenant Fellowship Church on October 2nd, launched in strength with 52 adults and 40+ kids (most under the age of 10!). This is a group of people committed to the Gospel and eager to serve.

An update from Nick Kidwell, Senior Pastor:

What a joy it is to share with you all what God has been doing in and through Valley Creek Church thus far. Thank you for all the many and varied ways that you have provided support for us along the way. We are so grateful that we do not walk this path alone!