Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark shared about the future of Sovereign Grace Churches. Here is a clip from that conversation with Ben Kreps. The full podcast is linked below.

There are things that we can do now as a leadership team that can impact Sovereign Grace 10 years from now. So I've got some questions I wrote that the leadership team guys will come and we'll just answer together, questions about for example, what do you hope Sovereign Grace looks like 10 years from now? What would that look like? And just building on that, just trying to figure out how do we lead in a way now, that Sovereign Grace will be what we hope for, this is why it's important.

By God's grace, we are becoming a global multi-generational family of churches. So as we expand in different nations, which is all of God's doing and God's work, and as we pass leadership to the next generation, we can't assume that things will always be as they are now. And so we have to prepare for that kind of transition.

An update from Bob Kauflin, Director of Sovereign Grace Music...

Joselo Mercado, Fabrizio Rodulfo, and I recently had the privilege of serving at the La Adoración Centrada en el Evangelio conference (Gospel-Centered Worship), in Barranquilla, Colombia. It was hosted by Iglesia Alumbra, not a Sovereign Grace church, but one we have been building relationships with for the past few years. Fabrizio and I led the worship in song with musicians from Alumbra, and Joselo and I had the joy of preaching from God’s Word numerous times. 

About 150 leaders, interested in or part of Sovereign Grace, came to the pre-conference on Thursday and Friday morning. We focused on the biblical foundations of worship, and practical ways musicians and preaching pastors can work together to serve God’s purposes for our Sunday meetings. The final session dealt with ways musicians can best serve the singing of their congregations, followed by a Q&A. We weren’t able to answer all of the questions, so we’ll be video recording the answers to the remaining questions and sending them to the attendees. 

Around 400 came to the actual conference on Friday night and Saturday morning, which was for a broader audience. During the conference we explored a gospel-informed view of worship both in our gatherings and in our lives. Again, Joselo and I had the privilege of preaching God’s Word. 

It was deeply encouraging to see the effect of the relationships Joselo has sown into over the past few years. In particular, he has been building with Jacobis Aldana from Iglesia Bíblica Soberana Gracia in Santa Marta. His friendship with Jacobis and other pastors has resulted in a deep respect, love, and appreciation for him and for Sovereign Grace. On this trip we were reaping rich fruit from his investment.  

This post first appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on May 31, 2024.

This blog was original published May 31st on the SGC Missions site and titled “Things to Pray for in June”…

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 have been given as Christians 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 this 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 the Pastors College graduating class of 2024, students and their families from 3 different nations who having moved to Louisville, KY for the past 10 months, now head home to make a difference in their local churches. Please pray for a smooth transition back home and for faithful and fruitful days ahead for each of these graduates.

2. Please pray for the missions teams from Cornerstone Church (Knoxville) and Trinity Grace (Athens), as they send a group of 18 to South Korea, with Jake Cronin and Walt Alexander, June 4-11th. In addition, please also pray for the missions team from Sovereign Grace Church, Toronto (Canada) as they send a team of 7 over to Trinity Fellowship Church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, along with Timon Lau and Tim Kerr, to partner with and serve the church there.

3. Please pray for Jeffrey Jo, National Leader of SGC Philippines, as he and a team head to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, to visit church members there and explore the possibility of a Church Plant. May God give them much wisdom and grace as they consider this great endeavour.

4. Please pray for Songhwan Kang (Lead Pastor of Lord’s Grace Church, Seoul, South Korea) as he leads the annual Gospel & Family conference. Please pray that they find great favour with the parents and kids alike, and that the Gospel goes forward in wonderful ways.

5. Please pray for Bart Lipscomb (Lead Pastor of Christchurch, Texas, and SGC Area Leader for Africa) as he heads to Guinea, West Africa, June 4th-7th to invest in our key leaders there and serve the local church. Please pray for safety and stamina in travel, for the Holy Spirit to guide him and for his teaching to be clear, Christ-centred and affective. 

6. Please pray for the Sovereign Grace Global Leaders Retreat in Rome, Italy, June 4th-7th, asking God to equip and strengthen our global leaders from around the world relationally and theologically, so they can better serve the Churches and endevours in their respective nations. Please pray also for me (Dave Taylor) as I lead this retreat, that I’d know His grace and wisdom, and that I’d serve these dear brothers well.

   … It’s a big world out there, so how good it is to know that He holds it all in His hands!!

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark shared about Sovereign Grace Publishing. Here is a clip from that conversation with Ben Kreps. The full podcast is linked below.

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.

An update from Ed O'Mara, SGC Area Leader for Europe...

The steady decline of Christian witness, liberalization and ongoing extinction of gospel-preaching local churches, and fragmentation amongst once vibrant denominations have made for a dark spiritual climate in Europe. Pastors often feel alone in their call. Interdependency plays a vital role in nourishing healthy churches and supporting pastors. We need one another, and when we say this we mean that our conviction is not simply “association” but “partnership.” We believe in being bound together in shared values and vision to press forward our commission, jointly defend biblical doctrines we hold dear, and encourage one another in our walk as pastors.

In Europe, we are beginning the exciting steps of establishing this sort of meaningful partnership as part of the Sovereign Grace Churches family. For this reason, from 12-15 March, 14 men from various European nations gathered near Milan for our second annual SGC European Pastors Retreat. The retreat was divided into two portions in which the first half of the retreat focused on building strong SGC partnership structures. We began by fostering our relationships and caring for one another. We then moved to charting a path forward for future development. We do not take for granted that we have inherited robust partnership structures from our SGC family. Yet we also know we have a responsibility to apply these to our European context. As such, we talked through what a European BCO might look like, and how we would proceed with church planting evaluations, ordinations, and adjudications in ways that take ownership for a maturing SGC-Europe.

This post first appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on April 3, 2024.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet…You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:1, 6-7

Jonathan Edward’s says of these verses: “I know of no place in the Bible, where so strange an expression is made of to signify the importunity in prayer…How strong is the phrase! And how loud is this call to the church of God, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to him for this great mercy!” 

Now, who am I to edit the great Jonathan Edwards; but if I would be so bold, I would edit his quote to read: “And how loud is the call to pastors/elders, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to him…”

In the context of Isaiah 62, Isaiah is speaking of his own importunity on behalf of Zion, and of God giving ‘watchman’ to put the Lord in remembrance. It is an example of prayerful leadership from Isaiah and a statement of God’s design for other godly leaders to ‘not keep silent’ - to ‘not be quiet’ - to ‘take no rest’ - to ‘give him no rest’. 

What an invitation and calling to us as pastors! Godly leaders are to be watchmen on behalf of God’s people. According to Isaiah 62, we are called to use our prayers to call God to remember his people and to make of them a “crown of beauty” and a “royal diadem” in the hand of our God. 

I want to be a faithful watchman, and as a fellow pastor, I imagine you do as well. There are many needs in our family of churches and many exciting opportunities for God to move. 

And so, let’s pray! 

It has been a privilege to pray with many of you this year, already. The SGC Prayer Initiative started in January and we have had two prayer meetings over Zoom so far. In this one hour prayer meeting we pray over the quarterly prayer bullets and then we break into small groups to pray for local needs. It is a relationally rich and rewarding time. It is a joyful opportunity to be watchmen together. 

If you want to join us in praying, please email me at jshorey@redeemerde.org. 

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Joel Shorey is the new Director of Church Planting for Sovereign Grace Churches and the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, DE. Joel and his wife Ashley have four children.