In March, Bob Kauflin, Devon Kauflin & David Zimmer of Sovereign Grace Music, travelled to the Philippines for a night of Gathering Around the Gospel in song, Scripture, and prayer at the Philippines International Convention Center. They also led a conference for 250 Sovereign Grace leaders and musicians from the Philippines, Australia, Pakistan, Nepal, and Korea, and led a seminar for over 1000 musicians. On Sunday they led a combined gathering of four Sovereign Grace churches. Watch the video recap or read the SGC Missions blog post to learn more.

Video by: Art Love Life Photography

Song: Behold Our God (Live at WorshipGod). Music and words by Jonathan Baird, Meghan Baird, Ryan Baird, and Stephen Altrogge © 2011 Sovereign Grace Worship/ASCAP, Sovereign Grace Praise/BMI (adm. by Integrity Music) Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Churches. All rights reserved.

From Sovereign Grace Music:

In preparation for Holy Week, we wanted to share a Spotify playlist of songs we have compiled that will help you reflect on Jesus's life and death and deepen your affection for our beautiful Savior.
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Without a word You faced the accusations
And joyfully You bore the bitter cross
The Innocent received our condemnation
And paid for the rebel’s cost.

As I consider how the Lord has grown our work over the past few years, I stand amazed. We’re now serving in 46 different countries, on 6 different continents, with a long list of Sovereign Grace pastors involved. It’s an amazing work of His grace in our family of churches, and yet as each nation and work has grown, so have the complexities and workload.

To that end, after some long reflection, discussion, and planning, a ‘Global Development Team’ was created, comprised of five of the finest leaders I know.

Four of them will be serving as ‘SGC Area Leaders’, involved in leading, engaging, and providing oversight and process, for specific areas of the world. Whilst one of them will be serving as our ‘US Global Missions Coordinator’, with the responsibility of being ‘on point’ for coordinating questions from our US Pastors and regions, as well as providing up-to-date opportunities for involvement.

I am so very blessed to be working with each of these men and wanted to introduce them. May His grace abound us all!!

Greg Dirnberger - Emmaus Road Church - SGC Area Leader for Asia-Pacific

Bart Lipscomb - Christchurch - SGC Area Leader for Africa

Ed O’Mara - SGC Torino - SGC Area Leader for Europe

Rich Richardson - Centre Church - SGC Area Leader for Latin America

Leo Parris - Covenant Fellowship Church - US Global Missions Coordinator

This post originally titled Global Operations & Development - Meet The Team first appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on February 28, 2024.

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark encouraged listeners to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts as an expression of loving others. Here is a clip from that conversation with Ben Kreps. The full podcast is linked below.

We don't want to just be in name continuation, we want to be it in name and in practice as well. And the New Testament speaks about our pursuit of the gifts in particular. In 1 Corinthians 14 verse 1, "Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy". And then in second Timothy chapter one, Paul is writing to Timothy. And in chapter one verse five, he's reminding Timothy of his sincere faith. And then he says to Timothy in the next verse, verse six, "For this reason (or because of your sincere faith), for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God..."

So that language of earnestly desiring and fanning into flame, that is active language that exhorts us to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. In other words, they need our intentional pursuit and we need to be reminded of that. That's what Paul is doing in 2 Timothy 1, he's reminding him of his sincere faith and then he's reminding him to fan into flame the gifts that God has given him. And that's so important to us because we need the work and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the members of our churches and the pastors of our churches because it's the Spirit that empowers our gospel ministry and gospel mission. And we will do that best when all of the gifts that God has given every member of a Sovereign Grace church are being used for the common good as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, to serve others. And it is an expression of loving others because we are pursuing love. So it's just something that I want to remind our pastors of, that you would be intentional to remind the members of your church to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.

On the SGC Mission blog our missionary to Turkey gave an update:

We thank God that His Spirit does not need a visa to operate in Turkey. We are confident that his gospel is bearing abundant, sweet fruit, even in the hard fields of one of the most unreached nations on earth.

We are grateful for the privilege we have had to observe some of that fruit up close. When our home church (Sovereign Grace Church Dayton) sent us to Turkey in 2020, we came to be part of a small Turkish church. This has been a wonderful context for us to spend time with Turkish believers.   

It has also been a unique place for our family to serve. One of my ministries has been coordinating various translation projects of Sovereign Grace resources. By God’s grace, we have completed the Statement of Faith, Living the Cross-Centered Life, Humility, and other Sovereign Grace publications. My prayer for these translations is that they encourage Turkish Christians and bolster their love for the Savior. 

I also have the joy of leading the music for our church on Sundays. I want to mention that I am only able to serve in this way because of my wife who graciously cares for our young children in the back week after week. Both of us are overjoyed that our Turkish church has worked with us to translate some of the songs we love from Sovereign Grace Music. One of the sweetest things for us has been listening to former Muslims joyfully singing these words from the song Before the Throne of God Above in Turkish: Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.

On March 8 we released a second single from the Knowing God album. I was grateful to be a part of writing it, along with Jon Althoff from Redeeming Grace Church in Franklin and Nate Stiff from Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. It’s a song that reminds us that God often hides his purposes so we can learn to trust him.

J.I. Packer said God is always perfectly wise and "we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here.” The proof of that wisdom is giving us his Son to save us from our sins, assuring us that nothing in heaven or on earth can separate us from his love.

Help us trust when we grow weary

Free us from our anxious thoughts

Give us grace to see more clearly

You are God and we are not