Gospel Partnership in Nepal

An update from Billy Raies, Senior Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Midland, Texas, USA…

In March of this year, we were thankful to be able to resume what had become for us annual ministry/mission trips to Nepal after being unable to do so for a couple of years due to covid. During those early years, our efforts mainly involved coming alongside our key leader in Nepal, in his pursuit of seeking to strengthen, equip and encourage as many pastors as possible through small pastors conferences (20-30 in attendance) throughout Nepal for those who were planting churches or pastoring churches among the unreached people groups of that country. He has strong convictions that the Seven Shared Values of Sovereign Grace Churches provides a substantial foundation for equipping pastors for gospel centered ministry and mission and he joyfully wants to tell anyone who will listen how these biblical values can bless pastors and churches.

During our trip in March, we focused the majority of our time in meeting with our key leader and his elders because he has increasingly become interested in pursuing a partnership with Sovereign Grace. These meetings were to help them take the first steps in The Partnership Pathway. God gave us grace to begin building deeper relationships with his elder team and to begin to unpack our value of elder governed and elder led churches. On our last day of the trip, the pastor asked if we could come back to teach a pastors conference on our Seven Shared Values for the network of churches he has been a part of for many years. He thought that this would be a way to minister to many pastors, pastors' wives and missionaries at one time rather than merely traveling around the country during our trips there. In total, he said there were 167 churches affiliated with this network in Nepal and India and they estimated an attendance of approximately 400. We asked when the conference would be… assuming he meant some time in 2024. He asked, “Could you come back in May…just a few months from now?”

After spending time in prayer and discussion with our local eldership and with Dave Taylor (Director of Global Missions) and Jeffrey Jo (SGC Philippines - National Leader), we believed we should accept our key leader's invitation, but to not merely minister at the Pastors Conference, but to also seek to help him and his team continue to make progress on The Partnership Pathway. Our team was made up of Pastors Jeffrey Jo and Rey Lacbayo from the Philippines and Steve Avampato and myself from Sovereign Grace Church of Midland, Texas, USA. 

The conference began with 114 churches represented and an attendance that was around the 400 people that were initially anticipated. The first two days of the conference, we taught on three of The Seven Shared Values each day and on the third day, taught the seventh shared value. Each teaching session was about 90 minutes due to the time it took to teach and translate the teaching. Our key leader said that he knew God was at work and that the people were being blessed by the teaching because at the end of the third session on the first day of the conference, after the people had already listened to 4 ½ hours of preaching and translation, no one got up from their seats to leave. They actually said they wanted to hear more teaching! One of the members of their leadership team said that another evidence of God being at work was that the attendance grew on the second day of the conference and grew again on the third day, even though there was only one teaching session! They said that the people were calling other pastors and leaders they knew in the area to come and hear and see what God was doing in the conference!

We felt very much at home with these precious brothers and sisters as their conference had many of the same elements that we value so much at our Pastor’s Conferences. There was passionate worship, devotion to prayer, dependence upon God’s grace, desire for God’s Word to be the central element of the conference, testimonies of God’s work through church planting locally and globally, training future pastors, humility and love displayed in their fellowship and encouragement with one another and gratitude for their leadership. We were also in awe of their commitment to help ensure that a lack of finances would not prevent a pastor from attending. They sought to raise funds to help offset travel costs to the conference. Some pastors were so committed to getting to the conference that they walked for one or two days just to get to a bus that could take them into Kathmandu on the third day! And, because there is so much poverty in Nepal, the members of the Kathmandu churches in their church network prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for each of the approximately 450 people in attendance over the two and a half days of the conference. In addition, they provided cots and mattresses to house as many of the attendees as possible on the church property.

Following the conference we were able to spend some extended time with our key leader and a few of his elders. It seemed that God used the teaching of The Seven Shared Values during the conference to only strengthen their interest in learning more about partnership with Sovereign Grace and desiring for other churches to experience gospel centered teaching, preaching and ministry from Sovereign Grace Churches. We were so blessed to have Jeff and Rey bring encouragement and testimonies for how pastors and churches in the Philippines have come to partner with Sovereign Grace Churches. They skillfully and graciously cast vision and provided strategic thinking as to how they too could continue to make progress down The Partnership Path. Steve, from our church could not participate in these meetings due to illness but I sought to represent the wisdom and planning ideas that he had imparted to me and our team prior to leaving Midland.

Our key leader in Nepal is in a unique situation in that not only has his church planted many churches, but he is also a much respected and dearly loved leader in this network of 167 churches. He said that the conference was very important to him in that he hoped it communicated that his desire is not to pull away from fellowship with these beloved leaders but instead hopes to bless and serve them by bringing the ministry of Sovereign Grace closer to them. In addition, he wants to proceed very carefully and cautiously because historically, Nepali churches who have affiliated with denominations based outside of Nepal are accused of doing so only because of the money they receive.

Our key leader's elders said that they had already started to hear feedback from those who attended the conference that they hoped that we might return to minister at their 2024 conference. The elders added that if this were to happen, they would need to find a larger meeting space because they believed that those who attended this conference would desire to bring many more of their leaders as well as to invite pastors and leaders from other churches! Jeff proposed that if we did return next year, that perhaps the conference could revolve around The Seven Shaping Virtues of Sovereign Grace, which only made our key leader and his elders more excited about the possibilities!

We cannot thank the pastors and churches of Sovereign Grace enough for their sacrificial giving to the Emerging Nations funds that makes trips and ministry like this possible! In addition, we are so very grateful to all those who prayed for us during this time! The Lord answered your prayers in countless ways including sustaining Steve and I during a fairly serious illness during the last few days of our time in Nepal. I am humbled and joyful to say that your prayers were used by God to manifest His power to minister in my weakness in ways I have never before experienced! Please continue to pray for our key leader, his elders and their church! It is such a privilege and honor to partner with such a precious family of churches for the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!