At the end of 2021, Mark Prater, Joselo Mercado and two members of Covenant Fellowship Church travelled to Barranquilla and Santa Marta in Colombia, where they had the best of times!
Listen in as Mark talks about it in this recent video… Soli Deo Gloria!
As we continue to walk through the doors that the Lord has opened to us around the world, we do so full of faith. For the Lord is good and merciful and gracious and wise. His Gospel is powerful, and Jesus is always the answer!
And yet as we continue to step forward, we so need the Lord! We are totally reliant on Him for wisdom and insight and favour and discernment and clarity and sustenance and protection, and that’s why we so need your prayers.
Here then is how you can be praying for us in the month ahead…
Please pray for the three internships that we are presently running in Mexico; Karl Sauter, who will be relocating in the near future to serve alongside Manolo in Siloa. Jorge Luis Guiterrez, who will be moving to Juarez, and Andres Contreras, who has relocated to Guadalajara to serve alongside Choby and Luis.
Please pray for Dyonah Thomas, our key leader in Monrovia, Liberia, as he finishes up his Ordination process and looks to fold Gracelife Church, Monrovia, into full partnership with Sovereign Grace Churches in early 2022.
Please pray for our work in Belarus, through Kyle Huber, Lead Pastor of Greentree Church, New Jersey. Belarus is a very difficult country to be a Christian in right now, yet incredibly, there are two Churches that are in the early stages of pursuing adoption into our family of churches. Please pray that we’ll be a help to them in this great endeavour of making and maturing disciples in their dear country.
Please pray for Allen Dicharry, Aaron Mayfield and Billy Raise as they continue to work into Nepal, with our main contact there (who I won’t name here). Nepal has been heavily affected by the covid pandemic, as has our main church there. Please pray for much grace, wisdom and insight as we continue to move forward together in this wonderful country, and as we look to fold them into Sovereign Grace Churches.
Please pray for our ongoing work in Pakistan, India & South Korea, three countries that have done it very tough in covid, but have high hopes for the road ahead. We’re eager to help them and serve them well!
… May He who opens the doors, guide and strengthen our every step!
Rather than give you several different updates this month, as this year draws to a close, I wanted to share with you this one 12 minute video to watch.
During out recent Pastors & Wives Conference, I had the privilege of giving an update on what God is doing in and through our family of churches around the world. This video is that update.
As you watch this video, I hope it encourages you, excites you and reminds you just how supreme Jesus is. All that you hear is His doing, and so may it always be marvelous in our eyes!
Corrie Ten Boom once said,
“What wings are to a bird and sails are to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”
What a wonderful word picture, so vivid and descriptive, and what a wonderful truth. We so need the Lord in all that we do, both personally and missionally, and so here’s how you can be praying for us in the month ahead...
Please pray for Joselo Mercado, Mark Prater, Victor Ko & Bob Wright as they head to Colombia from Dec 2 to 6 to spend time with churches in Barranquilla and Santa Marta, and seek to encourage them. Please pray for Joselo and Mark as they preach at a workshop on masculinity on the Saturday in Santa Marta. Please also pray for them as they teach on our seven shared values and share in the 10-year anniversary service celebrations on the Sunday.
Please pray for wisdom for Bert Turner (Pastor at Covenant of Grace Church in Copley, Ohio) as he travels to Brazil from December 2 to 14 to spend time in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. Pray that his time with Pastor Fabiano Medieros and wife, Marcia, and family in São Paulo will be a time to "encourage one another and build one another up" (I Thessalonians 5:11). Please pray for his time with Igreja Graça Soberana in Rio Grande and Pastor Emerson and his wife, Tati, that it may strengthen and encourage the brothers (Acts 15:32). Please pray, as well, for his meetings with four other pastors who are developing friendships with Sovereign Grace Churches.
Please pray for Michael Granger as he continues to lead Trinity Fellowship Church, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, even in the midst of the civil war that is taking place in Ethiopia. Likewise, please pray for Josh Pannell, as he continues to lead Trinity Fellowship Pastors College, our Sovereign Grace Pastors College in Ethiopia, as well as the 11 students currently enrolled in the college. Everyone is safe and accounted for, but they are in need of much grace and wisdom as they look to the weeks ahead.
Please pray for the new ‘SGC Australia - Pastors & Planters Academy’. We currently have six men interested in signing up for next year and we only announced it a few weeks ago! Please pray for wisdom for everyone involved with the application process, we’re eager to plant and adopt more Churches here in Australia.
Please pray that God would draw many unbelievers to Sovereign Grace Churches around the world, as we hold our various Christmas related services and events. Pray also that God would give the members of our Churches opportunities to share the gospel with unbelieving family members, friend, neighbours, and co-workers over this holiday season.
... Just like a great wind in the sails, may His grace abound to us all.
This year’s Pastors Conference was such a blessing from God! We had over 600 people from 12 different nations in attendance. Heard the word of God read in 6 different languages. Enjoyed excellent preaching from Jared Mellinger, Jon Payne, Jeff Purswell, C.J.Mahaney, as well as in all the breakout sessions, and we sang, fellowshipped, prayed and ate together for three delightful days.
For those travelling in for the conference, it was worth every mile of the trip. And for those that were unable to travel in because of the pandemic, but who got to experience it all online, that too was a great blessing!!
Here is a sampling of how it impacted some of our internationals...
Patrick Chavez, Sydney, Australia,
“The Pastor's Conference 2021 was a gift of grace, even when viewing sermons online at 2:30AM in Sydney Australia, how it served my soul. The songs, the interviews, the updates, the testimonies, the prophecies, the preaching all served and encouraged greatly. I thank God for our family of churches and love our commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Can't wait to be there for the next one, God willing.”
Maddie Spring, Sydney, Australia,
“The livestream of the conference was absolutely fantastic. For the sessions I was able to watch, I was abundantly blessed by the Lord. The rich gospel centrality, the warmth of affection between pastors and the overwhelming sense of joy in the Lord, really served to refresh my soul! Thank you!”
David Del Castillo, Santa Cruz, Bolivia,
“The Pastors Conference was a long-awaited family reunion. The fact of participating in the conference helped us to experience in greater depth our belonging to the great family that is Sovereign Grace. We can’t wait to see you guys next year.”
If you missed the conference but would like to hear the talks then good news, all of the audio and video of the main sessions is now available on the events page. In addition, all of the audio from each of the breakout sessions is now available on the same page.
God accomplished so much through our short time together in Orlando. Our partnership was strengthened, vision for our shared mission was expanded, and our relationships were deepened. Additionally, He equipped us for what He has called us to do in serving our churches by using the preaching we benefitted from in the main sessions and in the breakout sessions.
It was such a good time together. God truly smiled on us and so blessed our time together, to Him be all the glory.
One of the ways we experienced God’s goodness at our recent 2021 Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference, was through hearing stories from Sovereign Grace pastors during our time together. These stories highlighted the partnership we share among our churches, and the joy we have of fulfilling our gospel mission together.
I wanted you to hear and benefit from two of these stories in this update, and so I share them with you below...
The first is from Ed O’Mara, Senior Pastor of Crosspoint Church in Arnold, MD. Ed and his family are looking to relocate to Italy in the summer of 2022, to launch Sovereign Grace Churches, Italia. It’s such a wonderful story of faith, partnership and grace.
The second is from Josh Pannell, Dean of Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Josh relocated from Louisville, KY to Ethiopia in 2020 to launch this Sovereign Grace Pastors College, and to see what the Lord has done with this college, is simply marvelous in our eyes.
As you listen to these stories I trust they encourage you. How good the Lord has been to us!
When we think of Global Missions in Sovereign Grace Churches, we think about the great commission work of making and maturing disciples all around the world. (Matt 28)
It’s the privilege we have to represent Jesus as His ambassadors, and to take the glorious message of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And for us as a family of churches, in an overarching way, that means three things:
Church Planting: The work of establishing new congregations
Emerging Nations: The work of partnering in new places
Missionaries: The work of reaching new cultures
To help us in this great endeavor, I’m pleased to announce that our new ‘SGC Missions’ website has now been launched. There are still some additions coming to certain parts of the website, but there’s still plenty here for you to engage with and enjoy.
I hope this website envisions you for our shared mission and encourages you to play your part... I’m so pleased that we get to do this together. We are so much better together!
What a privilege. What a message. What a Savior!
As we seek to advance the gospel and make disciples of all nations, short term mission trips allow individuals and churches to participate in our global mission in some wonderful and unique ways.
Firstly, they enable to us to strengthen our shared partnership with other Sovereign Grace Church’s around the world, something that becomes so much more tangible when we’re actually present in this way. Secondly, they enable our members to taste what it’s like to serve cross-culturally, overcoming barriers like language, geography and customs, and see firsthand the broader work of God in different cultures. And thirdly, for some, we may be exposing them to a cross-cultural work that God wants to call them to for the rest of their lives, and that we may have a part to play in preparing them for.
With all that in mind, I asked Todd Peterson (Pastor in Cross of Grace Church, El Paso, TX) and Pat Tedeschi (Pastor in Greentree Church, NJ) if they could come up with a way of enabling us to work together in this, as a family of churches. A way that could involve different Sovereign Grace Churches working together on short-term missions trips, a way for members of smaller SG Churches to tag in with another SG Church and potentially go on their missions trip, and a way for any SG Churches that would like to run a trip, to be helped in how to do it.
Well, after many months of work, I am so pleased with what they have come up with! I think it’s outstanding and I think you will too...
Phase One involves ‘Submit a Trip’ and is now open to all SG Churches that have a Short-Term Missions Trip planned for 2022 and who would be open to members of other SG Churches applying to join. When all submissions are in, all the trips will then be posted on our SGC Missions website, so that folk can apply to come on them and so that we can be praying for everyone involved.
Phase Two then involves ‘Find a Trip’, which is a feature that we’ll be looking to activate in February/March 2022. As soon as we get several trips signed up and submitted, we’ll be eager to spread the news on this.
Phase Three is then for those that are keen to ‘Plan a Trip’ and who may need some help with that. This is presently being built and put together, greatly helped by two seasoned Short-Term Missions Trip guys in Allen Dicharry and Pete Schefferstein. Once launched, this will include a Missions Trip ‘Planning Resources’, as well as ‘Training’ to help you either start a trip from scratch or improve a trip that you are already doing. From everything I’ve seen so far, this is going to be a wonderful help!
What I want to encourage you in then right now, is to please ‘Submit a Trip’ if you have something planned for 2022 that you’d be open to other SG Church members applying to join you on. If we could get this done over the next 1-2 months, I’ll then look to help spread the word about ‘Phase Two’ around February/March time.
I’m so pleased we get to do this together!
As a Sovereign Grace Pastor one of the highlights of any year, is the annual Sovereign Grace Pastors & Wives Conference. And this year’s is just one week away, as all our Pastors look to gather in Orlando, November 9-11, for this annual “family reunion”.
Though the pandemic has prevented many global pastors from attending this year, current registration for the conference is still well over 560, with folk still travelling in from places such as Costa Rica, Germany, Ethiopia, Italy, Mexico, Zambia & United Kingdom. We are so encouraged by this!!
For this month therefore, I’d love to enlist your prayers for this special and strategic time for our family of churches. Here are some ways you can pray for everyone involved:
Pray that all that happens at the conference would celebrate the preeminence of Jesus Christ (this years theme) in a way that He alone would receive all the glory.
Pray that God would use the preaching to equip our pastors to live our lives, and pastor our churches, in a way that we make much of Christ as we faithfully serve His people.
Pray for our main session speakers: Jeff Purswell, Jon Payne, C.J. Mahaney, and Jared Mellinger. Pray also for Mark Prater, Eric Turbedsky, and myself as we lead a “Sovereign Grace Missions” main session.
Pray for the work of the Holy Spirit as we spend time together.
Pray that God would give us opportunities to care for one another and strengthen our relationships.
Pray that God would use our time to strengthen and unite us in the gospel mission we share.
... What a wonderful time of year. May the Saviour be truly preeminent in all that we do!
An update from Joselo Mercado, Lead Pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana in Gaithersburg, and Emerging Nations Representative to Latin America…
ReformaDos is a ministry founded ten years ago with the purpose of rescuing the purity of the gospel in the pulpits of this beautiful island. In 2017, I was offered the opportunity to lead this ministry and since then, we have been able to serve the island in the midst of hurricanes, earthquakes and pandemics with resources that help the church to be centered on the biblical gospel.
SGC has been a constant support for ReformaDos by sending resources and helping to organize different trainings for the churches. This year we were able to bring Bob Kauflin so he could train worship leaders and musicians in a version of his intensive, Worship Matters. This is Bob's second visit to the island, and on both occasions it has been an encouraging experience to see the hunger of the Puerto Ricans for sound doctrine. This time around, about 100 leaders and musicians participated in this workshop!
In addition, Miguel Núñez, a friend of SGC, and I, had the opportunity to share pastoral wisdom with a group of about 40 local pastors. We talked about calling, time management, and cultivating convictions. These two workshops took place on Friday October 15th and then on Saturday 16th we were able to launch a conference open to the public.
Due to space limitations due to the pandemic, the quota was only 410 people. Every chair was filled and people were blessed by the Gospel for Life conference. Josue Caceres, the new president of ReformaDos and friend of SGC, planned this event so that the church would be empowered to be propelled by the gospel throughout life. Bob and Miguel preached messages that pointed to the glory of Jesus in work, life, and church. Bob especially did an excellent job preaching a message on Isaiah 6, on the need to be affected on Sundays by the glory of God. And in addition, so importantly, relationships were able to be cultivated and much encouragement was able to be imparted to pastors in such a difficult time.
Thank you SGC, for advancing the Kingdom in places hungry to see Christ in everything in life.
An update from Sergei Lukyanov, our friend and main contact in Belarus…
First of all, we are very grateful to you for the fact that you constantly support us in prayer.
The situation in Belarus continues to remain unstable, therefore the existence and life of the church in these conditions is difficult. We continue to adjust to the new reality that has changed due to the COVID virus and the political crisis.
The Protestant Evangelical Church has again fallen out of favor in the eyes of the current regime. Thousands of people continue to go to jail, including many Christians just because they once took to the streets or wrote a comment on social media against the brutal actions of our police. Our church members constantly write letters to them, in which they try to comfort and encourage them with hope in Christ. In addition, church members regularly collect financial aid to support the relatives and friends of those who are in prison.
There seems to be no possibility of getting our church registration approved by the government. Therefore, we still have little idea of how we can continue our ministry legally. However, God gives mercy and we meet every Sunday. We praise God that new people are regularly coming to us.
Several families left our church because they decided to live and work in another country. But still, many of our people are committed to staying in the country and continuing to serve the people of Belarus. Thus, God makes sure that there are many people in our meeting every Sunday.
Please pray for the leadership of the Evangelical Union of Belarus, so they will have wisdom from God to continue ministry in Belarus at this difficult time. Join us in praying that God will raise up more leaders in the church so that more churches can be planted.
Although there are discouraging circumstances around us, we continue to rejoice that God does not leave us. We rejoice that He has commissioned us to spread the most joyous message in the history of mankind - the Gospel.
Looking back on 2020, we thank God with special joy that New Covenant Church was able to plant another church! Thus, instead of one church, which was once founded in 2015, today two churches are thriving. Baptisms are taking place in both churches, new people are coming who are looking for God's mercy and forgiveness in order to find a new life.
Dear brothers and sisters, please continue to pray for us as pastors: Sergei, Philip, Valery and Vitaly. We are especially glad that you regularly pray for us. Especially in the last two years, it has been very important to realize that we are not alone. God is with us, and our brothers and sisters are with us!
An update from Josh Pannell, Pastors College graduate, and Dean of Trinity Fellowship Pastors College…
Hello again from Addis Ababa, it’s such a joy to write to you again, and I write with great news!
The Trinity Fellowship Pastors College officially launched on September 15th, and the students have already completed 8 of their 41 courses for the year. Each new class starts on Tuesday morning and lasts through Friday for a total for 25 classroom hours. On top of that, they are completing 200 pages of reading as well as submitting projects and papers for each of their classes. They are also studying Biblical Greek in the mornings. It’s a lot, but they are all doing great!
We have both lifelong pastors and top-notch scholars coming to teach these classes, including over 20 pastors from Sovereign Grace churches. Most recently we welcomed Dr. Bryan Blazosky from Bethlehem Seminary in Minneapolis. He spent the week working through Paul’s letter to the Romans with the students, a class he’s taught for the past 14 years.
Because most of these men grew up under prosperity gospel preaching, we have two course on gospel centrality in our curriculum. Michael Granger taught on The Gospel-Centered Life where the students spent the week exploring the gospel from different angles and learning how it functions in the Christian life. Joel Carlson (Emmaus Road Church) taught on Gospel-Centered Ministry where students explored how the gospel shapes both the pastor and his church. We know that the only true and lasting remedy for the prosperity gospel is the true gospel, and we want these men to have the gospel sink down deep into their hearts. To my joy, I can see that happening, and the fruit of those two weeks is obvious. These men are becoming gospel-men!
As I think about all that God is doing, I find myself so grateful. And I’m especially grateful for our partnership with Sovereign Grace Churches. God is on the move, and he’s using prayers and your gifts to do unthinkable things. Thank you for your continued investment in me, these men, and Trinity Fellowship.
Something that we have enjoyed in Sovereign Grace over many years, is the gift of leadership, a gift that we have embraced and cultivated as a family of churches. Over many years a couple of ways that Mark Prater, our Executive Director, and other guys on the leadership team have invested in this, is by having a US Emerging Leaders Fellowship.
This has been wonderful! But as we increasingly become a global family of churches, we wanted this investment to begin to go much wider than just the US, and so Mark and I began a Global Leaders Fellowship, and just recently had our first gathering.
You can all about it here. God was so good to us!!
In a recent missions update I got through by email, the author began with the following observation;
‘Prayer is an amazing invitation from God! First and foremost, through prayer we are invited to have communion with the living God, to talk with him, and walk in his presence. To have this kind of relationship with the living God is incredible! As we grow to know our God, to fellowship with him, and to walk in his presence, our hearts will burn for his glory to fill the earth. And because our Father lovingly listens to us and is intent on filling the earth with his glory, He hears our weak but faith-fuelled prayers and moves with heavens power to invade and act upon the earth. This blows my mind! Incredibly, our prayers impact eternity!’
After reading that, all I wanted to do is pray, and I hope it has the same affect on your hearts today. With all the work that we have going on around the world , we really need your faith-filled prayers. They make such an eternal difference, and so here’s how you can be praying for us in the month ahead…
Please pray for the 11 students (Their names and photos are listed above), that make up the class of 2022 at our newly formed SG Pastors College in Ethiopia (Trinity College). They are from 6 different countries: Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, the USA, and of course Ethiopia... What a year they have ahead of them!
Please pray for Emmanuel Iluzada, Elder at CCSGM, Manila, as he puts together a second Sovereign Grace Churches Philippines, Worship Convention for 2021, to take place on Saturday 9th October, over zoom. This event will involve around 100 worship team members from across the Philippines and Devon Kauflin (Pastor, Grace Church of Clarksburg, Singer and Songwriter for SG Music) will be the main speaker. Please pray for everyone involved.
Please pray for Joselo Mercado, Lead Pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana in Gaithersburg, as he a heads to Puerto Rico, October 15-16th, to preach at the Reformados Conference, alongside Miguel Nuneuz and Bob Kauflin. This is such a significant conference in Puerto Rico, sponsored by Sovereign Grace Churches. May God truly establish the work of their hands.
Please pray for David Del Castillo, Pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana in Santa Cruz, as he leads through our very first Sovereign Grace Conference in Bolivia, South America - "Siervos por su gracias (Servants by your Grace)" Siervos por su gracia – Bolivia. Please pray for Joselo Mercado, Matthew Williams and Chris Deloglos as they attend and speak at the conference. The theme for this year is "The Gospel and the Centrality of it” and God-willing, it is our hope that this will become an annual SG Conference in Bolivia.
Please pray for our newly formed ‘Reaching The Unreached Work Group’, which I have pulled together to help myself and the Leadership Team map a way forward for growth, in reaching the unreached in our world. Please pray for great wisdom, insight and faith for us all: Dave Taylor (Lead Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney & Director of Emerging Nations), Brendan Willis (Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney), Pat Tedeschi (Pastor, Greentree, NJ), Tim Kerr (Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Toronto), Ken Delage (Pastor, Mercy Hill Community Church, VA) and Leo Parris (Pastor, Covenant Fellowship Church, PA). There’s still so many to tell about Jesus.
… Incredibly, our prayers impact eternity, and so what an opportunity they are. May that always blow our minds!
An update from Ed O’Mara, Lead Pastor of CrossPointe in Arnold, MD…
Italy is a country of approximately 60 million people known for its rich history, beautiful beaches, relaxed way of life, and of course its incredible food. There is so much beauty and significance in this country and Italy’s people are known to be welcoming and hospitable. But Italy is spiritually dead. While 80% of the country claims to be Christian, less than 1.5% have an understanding of the gospel. Finding a gospel-preaching church is an anomaly even in large cities. The few believers who live in Italy often travel significant distances to find meaningful community. While I have strong familial ties to Italy on my mother’s side, there was much I did not know about the country’s desperate spiritual state. It was not until the spring of 2016 when my wife, Robin, and I took a trip to Italy that I began to understand these sad realities.
Upon our return, the Lord used a seminary class project to help me both grasp the gravity of the situation and to begin making contacts with evangelical pastors laboring in Italy. The more I learned and the deeper these relationships grew, the more I began to sense that God was calling our local church, CrossPointe in Arnold, MD, to get involved. Our elder team agreed that this was worthwhile investment so we spent the next few years building relationships with gospel-centered church planters to encourage them in their work. We partnered with other Mid Atlantic Sovereign Grace churches to serve in outreaches to children and also served by putting on a marriage conference (led by Larry McCall from Christ’s Covenant in Winona Lake, IN). As time progressed the Lord began to make it clear to our family and elder team that we were called to relocate to Italy to plant Sovereign Grace churches.
This has not come easily for us. We thought we would stay in Maryland for the rest of our lives, loving and laboring at CrossPointe, and we would be very content to do so as we love our local church. But the Lord has confirmed His call and He has led us in this new direction. As such, our desire is to see a network of “Sovereign Grace – Italia” churches over the next 10-15 years. I believe our family of churches can serve well in Italy and we can see that the Lord has already paved the way for gospel inroads in Italy. For example for our family to go, CrossPointe needed a replacement for me as Lead Pastor. In His kindness God provided and excellent pastor, Scott Crook, who is presently the Lead Pastor of Cross of Grace in Chaska, MN. He and his family will relocate to Arnold in March 2022 which will allow my family to depart for Italy in July 2022.
Our first year will take us to Catania in the region of Sicily. We have a great relationship with a church there called Grazia e Verità, led by Giuseppe Fortuna. The focus of our first year will be language acquisition and cultural adjustment. After this, we will likely relocate to central Italy (we are considering the regions of Lazio, Umbria, southern Tuscany). The exact city is still to be determined, but central Italy is the neediest region for churches. Our prayer is that God will help us identify a group of believers eager for a church plant, which will be the first Sovereign Grace church in Italy.
We are desperate for your prayers. There are many things to do and many adjustments we will need to make as a family, but we trust that the Lord will lead us each step of the way. If you would like to hear more or stay connected reach out to me (eomara@crosspointemd.org) and I will be sure to include you on future communications. Finally, we are so grateful to know we are going in partnership with Sovereign Grace. From our local church, to our region, to our national and global family we feel very well supported and are excited to see the gospel of Christ go forward in Italy!
O'Mara Family Serving at a Children's Outreach in Italy 2.jpeg
The Sovereign Grace Emerging Nations team is currently relating to over seventy-five churches in thirty-eight different countries around the world, representing many different nations and cultures. It brings to mind the picture in Rev 6.9 of a “great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb!” What a day that will be!
Yet even ahead of that day, as we continue to give out the invites around the Globe to this great marriage supper of the Lamb, we’re having to grow in our use of different languages. Many nations and tribes don’t speak English at all, and so in a keen desire to reach them and serve them well, back in March of this year, we began to translate our website, along with the Statement of Faith and our Seven Shared Values, into various different languages, reflective of where we have the most work going on around the world.
These websites really serve as a window for people unfamiliar with Sovereign Grace churches to peer in and learn about Sovereign Grace, as well as a way for pastors and churches in all the corners of the world to get connected with us. So far we’ve translated our materials into Spanish, Portuguese, Croatian, Italian & Turkish, with another 8 languages still to come.
Take a look, and rejoice that God is calling people from all tribes and peoples and languages to come to Him. How kind He is, that we get to play our part in this great endeavour.
An update from Rich Richardson, Lead Pastor of Center Church, Gilbert, AZ, and SG Representative to Latin America…
Our abiding mission in Sovereign Grace is to plant and support churches throughout the world. This is what we work for, pray for, and strive for. Yet without called, qualified, and ordained elders, we would be unable to accomplish our mission. So when any pastor passes the rigorous ordination tests and is installed, not only is this cause for celebration but it is a sign that God is providing for His mission.
We currently have 10 pastors from Latin America in the ordination process who are eager to give their lives away for Jesus in their local setting. Enrique Villegas from Gracia Soberana in Orizaba, Mexico, Kristian Tucker from Gracia Soberana in Durango, Mexico, and David Del Castillo from Gracia Soberana in Santa Cruz, Bolivia have passed their exams and are moving forward with the final steps of their ordination and installation. The other 7 men, hailing from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Colombia are in process and anticipating completion sometime in 2022. God is moving mightily in Latin America and it is wondrous to behold!
Enrique Villegas
Mexico
Kristian tucker
Mexico
david del castillo
Bolivia
While this news is cause for celebration, it is also a chance for us to express thankfulness. Carlos Contreras and the team from Gracia Soberana in Juarez, Mexico have tirelessly labored for those throughout Latin America. Each of these men pursuing ordination have been impacted and served heroically by Carlos and the team at Gracia Soberana.
Thank you for your continued prayers. It is exciting to see how God is moving beyond our borders and a deep privilege to be a part of it.
An update from Riley Spring, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Parramatta, Sydney, Australia…
Two years!
It’s been two years since we woke up on a sunny Sunday morning in September, with no idea what it would all look like. We had no idea who would come, who would stay, and how it would all look.
In these two years we’ve “gathered” 100 times on a Sunday to know, apply, and proclaim the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ in Parramatta. We’ve sought to be faithful in loving God, loving each other, and taking the gospel to our friends, families, and neighbours. Although it certainly hasn’t all looked the way we’d hoped, for example spending nearly a quarter of the life of our church in lockdown (gathering only on zoom), it has always been a joy-filled journey.
One of the great joys I have as a pastor is seeing God at work in the lives of our church in many and varied ways. Whether it is the couple battling significant health challenges who continue to fight for joy and serve with all they have or the women facing singleness and infertility who have found contentment in Christ alone amidst the heartache. There’s been countless stories of men and women, husbands and wives, and children giving their all to serve their local church. Late nights making food and decorations for our various outreach events, turning up early and staying late for every service and event, stepping out to serve in new and uncomfortable ways as Life Group leaders or in our Kids ministry, or staying behind to release others to serve in their areas of gifting.
Even in our recent lockdown, we have seen the Lord at work in unexpected ways. We decided to step out in faith to start an online ‘Alpha Course’ so that we could still seek to reach out to the lost even though we can’t physically be with them. The response of our church has been so encouraging. There have been so many stories of gutsy, faith-filled, saints stepping out to invite a friend, colleague, or family member to come along, and then somewhat unexpectedly (due to our small faith!) there have been so many more “Yes” responses than we anticipated or planned for! So now we enter our third year as a church with 20 or so new friends who are investigating Jesus with us!
In these two years, we have steadily grown from our Launch team to twice our starting size, with each new member bringing their gifts, experience, and love of the Lord to make our fellowship all the richer! And we hope that through this Alpha course and many more opportunities, we will see our numbers swell with new believers who have tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord for the first time!
In all this time, we have certainly not done it alone. We have maintained and enjoyed a very rich, personal, and joyful partnership with our sending church, Sovereign Grace Church Sydney. Their Pastoral and practical support has been invaluable! They have cared for myself, my family, and our leadership team in so many ways, demonstrating what true gospel partnership looks like.
It is our belief that we are only just getting started! C.J. once said to us at the PC that it takes 30 years to build a healthy church and that counsel has stayed with me. In an instantaneous age with the expectation of pop-up success, our hope is to lay a firm foundation, and build well for the long haul. I hope to see the Lord raise up Pastors to share the burden with me, future church planters that we can send out, more and more leaders to serve in various and sacrificial ways, and even to be a part of sending out men, women, and families to serve other SG Churches globally! Our hope is to be part of pioneering SG Churches Australia and do our bit in our city and country to magnify the name of Christ for His Glory Alone!
Please, please, please pray for us. We know that we cannot do this alone and that we cannot do it without the power of God. And so, please pray for our health, our strength, our joy, and our protection from the evil one.
On the weekly podcast that is sent to our pastors, our host Ben Kreps always begins with “Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of churches to our Executive Director.
Recently, Ben commented on his introduction and asked an important question:
“Mark, I always say “family of churches” when introducing this podcast, because that’s what we aim to be. That’s what historically we’ve enjoyed together. We want to preserve that relational way of building together as family. We’ve talked a lot over the past number of months about church planting, about global partnership agreements, and churches being adopted and brought in, and that sort of thing. So potentially a lot of growth in the days ahead, as a denomination, as a family of churches. What are your thoughts about the way we build relationally and that value we have in Sovereign Grace?”
This is a really important question, and Mark answered it really well in this podcast. You can listen to it here.
But in addition, there’s another facet to this question which is also important, and that’s the role of the Leadership Team in all of this and our transition to become more Global in the way we think and operate. This was the topic of an excellent discussion Mark recently lead us in as a team, and which he also talked with Ben about on his podcast. You can listen to it here.
God has surely been so good to us!
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!!
With that in mind, here are a few ways that you can be praying for our wider mission in the month ahead…
Please pray for our Pastors College in Ethiopia (Trinity College) as the students begin to gather ahead of the 14th September launch. There will be 13 students attending the PC this year, from 6 different countries: Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, the USA, and of course Ethiopia. Please pray for Josh Pannell, Dean of the Ethiopian Pastors College and everyone involved in this years Pastors College.
Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Nepal as they continue to deal with a new surge of Covid-19 cases. Church buildings have been closed for gathering for almost one and half years now, and yet incredibly, the Church itself continues to grow. The Nepali Christians are continually committed to serving the poor and suffering in the name of Christ, and so may we be praying for them in this. May this be their finest hour and may His grace abound to them in these times.
Please pray for Songhwan Kang and his church, Lord’s Grace Church in Seoul, South Korea. They have recently moved to a new location as a church and are keen to reach out to their new community. Please pray that God would give their members courage and grace to boldly preach the gospel in this new area, as well as reach into the next generation. Please also pray that God would help them identify and train some church planters who can plant new SG Churches in South Korea in the next 3-5 years, a happy hope and prayer that they continue to carry as church.
Please pray for our newly formed ‘Reaching The Unreached Work Group’, which I (Dave Taylor) have pulled together to help myself and the Leadership Team map a way forward for growth, in reaching the unreached in our world. Please pray for great wisdom, faith and insight for us all: Dave Taylor (Lead Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney & Director of Emerging Nations), Brendan Willis (Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney), Pat Tedeschi (Pastor, Greentree, NJ), Tim Kerr (Pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Toronto), Ken Delage (Pastor, Mercy Hill Community Church, VA) and Leo Parris (Pastor, Covenant Fellowship Church, PA).
… May the One who has commissioned us, also give us faith and favour for the road ahead.
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