An update from Francis Mariano, Lead Pastor of Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel ministries (CCSGM), Imus, Cavite, Philippines...

In 2021 the Kawit CCSGM elders began praying for an opportunity to start a church planting mission in the province of Cavite. While praying for this project our lead pastor Jeffrey T. Jo created a church planting team and trained them for a month to lead the mission. As we continued to pray, the Lord led us to start a church in Imus, Cavite. In 2022 the following year, the Lord answered our prayers and we found a place to hold our first worship service on March 20.

We only started with 30 people in our worship service. By God's grace the team evangelised, ran bible studies and visited the area. The team offered free coffee for all to connect with the community, serve and make friends with them and share the gospel, and by God's grace some of the people who came to the church to drink free coffee now regularly attend the church.

Since then, we have run several events to reach the community around us. Last July, the team planned and conducted a medical mission with the help of some Christian friends who were doctors. The medical mission was attended by 45 people. We shared the gospel to them and by His grace some of them are now attending the church service. In December, we ran a gift giving event reaching 15 families, giving us the opportunity to share the gospel to them and they are now being discipled every Sunday. We continue to care for these people.

We regularly share the gospel in our community and plan to reach out to more souls with the gospel in our neighboring town as well. Moreover we have established a weekly prayer meeting every Wednesday at 6am, bible study every Friday at 7pm and a worship service every Sunday at 10am. We also have our Discipleship Accountability Group (DAG) where we group our men, women, young adults and youth into a small group and choose a mature brother to take care of them, encourage them and pray for them. We are also conducting a discipleship training course for our interns with the hope that they will be future elders full of love for the Lord, love for His word, love for His church and love for their families. We are praying for them that they will continue to grow and be used by God for his church. 

By God's grace and faithfulness, the Lord continues to work in the life of his church in Imus and has blessed the church with growth in numbers. Over the last year we have grown to about 50-60 adults every Sunday. We celebrated our first anniversary on March 19. Jeffrey Jo was invited to preach and it was a joy to baptise 6 people during our celebration.

Right now, our present challenge is the small space we have for our Sunday worship service gathering. We are praying for the provision of a bigger place to accommodate more people, especially on Sundays. We are also praying for more volunteer teachers for our Sunday school ministry because the children who have been attending every Sunday are also growing in number. In addition to this, we are also praying to develop more music ministry members.

In all of this, our focus right now is to continue to share the gospel of Christ, to disciple new believers, care for them, guide them to draw more to our Lord Jesus Christ and to be more prayerful as a church. Though we are very young in age as a church, our prayers and vision are to plant churches in our nearby provinces as the Lord leads us.

Thank you for this opportunity to share God’s grace in our church planting work in this region.

Soli Deo Gloria!

In his excellent book ‘Truth on Fire’, Pastor Adam Ramsey writes the following…

‘Relying on our own cleverness to live out the Christian life is like trying to circle the globe in a glider. It might fly for a while, but predictably, it is going to crash. Prayer, on the other hand, is God’s sovereignly appointed means of connecting our never-ending neediness to God’s never-ending power. Prayer is the vehicle through which God will accomplish his invincible purposes, through the lives of weak, dependent people, like you and me.’

If we want our mission to be full of divine power, then our lives must be filled with dependent prayer. We so need Him don’t we? Whatever it is - big or small - we so need Him. So here’s some ways you can be praying for us in the month ahead…

1. Please pray that God would give the members of Sovereign Grace churches opportunities to share the gospel, a life-changing message, with unbelieving family members, friends, neighbors, and coworkers over this Easter weekend.

2. Please pray that God would draw unbelievers to Sovereign Grace churches, and save them, as we hold our Easter related events and services all around the world this weekend.

3. Please continue to pray for the Arche Church in Dnipro, Ukraine that Sovereign Grace is relating to, asking God to protect them, and to use them to offer gospel hope as the war continues. They are still serving over 450 refugees a week and long for people to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Even in such sorrow, they are experiencing the joy of new births!

4. Please continue to pray for our Church Planting efforts around the world. With 19 Global Church Plants planned for 2023-2024, we are in much need of His never-ending power in this.

5. Please 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. All for the glory of His name.

… Thank you for praying for our family of churches. May His grace abound to us all!

An update from Bruce Chick, Senior Pastor of Sovereign Grace Community Church, Roanoke, Virginia, USA... 

In February 2023 I had the privilege to visit Liberia and Dyonah Thomas for about 16 days. Dyonah is the senior pastor of Grace Life Church and headmaster of Grace Life Ministries. Both Dyonah and his wife Mai serve the students and their wives heroically and endeavor to see the Name of Jesus lifted high in their home country of Liberia (and boy can Mai cook some delicious chicken and fried rice!).

While in Liberia I was able to teach both Old Testament 1 and Old Testament 2 to about 10 church planting residents in the Pastors College. This is the first year of the Pastors College in Liberia and it was a thrill to be able to interact with these humble, godly men for over 2 weeks in the classroom (yes, we even had classes on Saturdays). Many of these men are not only enrolled in the resident church planting program but are also taking classes in the Grace Life Seminary (graduate level) or in Grace Life College (undergraduate) while also being assigned specific overseeing duties in serving the children’s school (about 300 students) or the ministry at large, plus being involved full-time with surrounding churches (many are preaching/teaching regularly both at Grace Life and surrounding churches)!

These men have broad shoulders … but more than that, they have hungry hearts and an eagerness to establish gospel centered churches both in Liberia and in their neighboring home countries in Western Africa. Some of the students have relocated for the year from surrounding countries while others travel upwards to an hour to reach the school grounds each day. In God’s kindness, Grace Life is positioning itself to be a training center and launching pad for future gospel expansion for all of Western Africa, not just Liberia.  

I knew upon my arrival, after hearing Dyonah preach that first Sunday, that something special was happening in this place. It wasn’t just the fact that Grace Life was providing hope and new opportunities for numerous young people, or that they were tangibly meeting the needs of the surrounding communities through the local church, what was most encouraging was the fact that the gospel was the center of their theology and practice. Unfortunately, this is not normal. Even in places where there is a Christian witness in Liberia, a biblical understanding of the gospel and its application to Christian living is severely lacking.

A downtrodden people (Liberia is still recovering from a 14-year civil war and Ebola outbreak and thus are listed among the poorest countries in the world) are especially susceptible to the siren calls of temporal prosperity at the expense of eternal Christian transformation. The notion that God sometimes uses suffering, endurance, and difficulty to shine Gospel light in dark places and to magnify His glory through faithful disciples is something that Liberia desperately needs. Grace Life and the associated ministries are providing this light and are eager to both preach and provide a tangible witness to the difference that gospel centered living can provide. This was such an encouragement to me and bespoke of the tremendous privilege and opportunity to come alongside these brothers and sisters.

I watched and listened to the class minister in prayer to the now widow of Grace Life’s first church planter (William, who was the first man sent out to plant a church from Grace Life was intubated while I was there and eventually died of Tuberculosis shortly after I returned to the US); I rode in the car as Dyonah counseled and dropped off a mother of a sickly child to receive medication at a nearby pharmacy; I partook of a glorious pastor and wives dinner of about 25 individuals involved with Grace Life; I saw poverty all around, I shook the hands of transformed men, women and children; I met some who were converted in old age and others who had hope for the first time; I sang along with the joy filled congregation; I smiled and stood in awe counting the many children dressed in their uniforms awaiting for their Christian school to start; I was acutely made aware of the terrible reality of death and lack of health care for so many and I was there when Dyonah received a cancer diagnosis (he is getting treatment in Ghana and seems to be in good hands and both he and his wife are trusting the LORD for provision and health).

In all my experiences in Liberia over those 16 days it became apparent that Dyonah and the Grace Life elders were in the trenches of life in Liberia - experiencing both the joys and trials that come along with living in a fallen world. However, most prominent was the hope and the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in that place where our brothers and sisters are called to minister and give gospel witness. It was a privilege to learn from them and to partner with them in February.

It was a special honor to eagerly share with my local church community in Roanoke, Virginia upon my return regarding all that God is doing in Liberia (and soon to our region at our April Regional Assembly of Elders). Our local church is sending another elder and former missionary to the country of Senegal, to Liberia in late June of this year in order to continue to invest in the Pastors College and to explore how we can continue to partner and support the strategic ministry of Grace Life and its elders. What a joy it is to know that at the conclusion of this school year a number of new church plants with gospel values and gospel practice are by the grace of God going to be established in Liberia and beyond!

An update from Scott Crook, Lead Pastor of CrossPointe Church, Arnold, Maryland, USA…

Through a wonderful partnership between Sovereign Grace Churches and TLI (Training Leaders International) we are seeing the gospel go forth in the nation of Pakistan. For the past six years we have traveled to a neutral site in the Middle East to meet with ten Pakistani pastors. These dear brothers have faithfully served together for many years. They travel on foot and on motorbike to different villages in their country every week preaching the gospel and making disciples. Even though they are under constant threat of persecution, they baptize hundreds of new converts every year. They hold Bible studies and leadership conferences, sometimes under the cover of night. Every time they complete a training with us, they immediately return home and train other leaders with the same material. They are truly faithful stewards!

The TLI curriculum is meant to provide seminary-level training for one week, twice a year. The goal of the training is to equip pastors to understand and faithfully communicate the truths of Scripture. Josh Montague and I recently returned from Jordan for one such training. Drawing from the Book of Isaiah, our studies focused on how to preach, teach, and apply Old Testament prophecy with the ultimate goal of seeing Christ in all of Scripture.

Every moment spent with these brothers is an encouragement. They are full of joy, laughing and enjoying fellowship with one another. They passionately sing and worship the Lord through memorized psalms, using the nearest wooden table as percussion. And they are eager to praise God for everything they are learning. Here are a few highlights:

One of the first lessons focused on how Old Testament prophets should be first understood in the context of the Old Covenant. (Promises made to Israel then, judgments delivered to people then versus trying to apply them directly to people in the New Covenant today. Then we see how Christ fulfills every promise and applies those to us by His grace).

One of the Pakistani pastors stood up in the middle of the lesson and humbly confessed that he had missed this connection. He shared that for most of his ministry he had preached and taught from a legalistic standpoint, giving people commands without giving them grace. He informed the class (peers who look up to him) that he would preach differently from now on. He would keep the gospel central, knowing that we obey because we love Christ, because of what He has done for us, not because we fear judgment. The men agreed this moment was a turning point for them all. Jesus powerfully revealed His grace in a way they had not seen before, and we give Him all the praise!

By the end of the week, each pastor stood before the class and delivered a short sermon from Isaiah using the tools they've learned. One of the brothers is a 75-year-old man whose wife recently passed away last year. Instead of staying home, he told us he came on this trip because he wanted to continue to grow in his understanding of the Bible and how to be a more faithful preacher. He delivered a beautiful sermon from Isaiah 8:1-10, reminding us that while God's judgment is just, there is grace, forgiveness, and restoration for all who trust in Christ.

And then, on the last day of class, and the last sermon of the day, a young pastor new to our training stood to deliver his sermon. All week he had been very quiet and reserved. But he had faithfully been taking notes and paying close attention. When it was his turn to preach, we were all expecting a calm, bashful delivery. But how wrong we were! He preached with passion and courage. With humility and joy. With faithfulness and fire. It was clear he had been affected by the text before he preached it. I was fighting back tears as he proclaimed Christ clearly from God's Word in the power of the Spirit. Even his Pakistani brothers were surprised!

The training for these dear brothers ends with one more trip in June. But our relationship with them, and exploring their desired partnership with Sovereign Grace continues. Thank you to all who have prayed for and supported this work. God continues to bless. And He’s not done yet!

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

Like many small churches, we had sadly adopted a belief that while we needed to be faithful in making disciples locally, we had to be a larger church to play a part in making disciples globally. We could not be more thankful for how God has used our family of churches and men like Rich Richardson and Dave Taylor to help us understand and believe that God can and does use small churches in global disciple making. As we sought the Lord in prayer, God was so kind to have our paths cross with a pastor with a passion to plant churches among unreached people groups in Nepal. 

Over the last 9 years, we have had the privilege of building a strong relationship, friendship, and partnership with this pastor. Until covid, Allen Dicharry and myself (Pastors of Sovereign Grace Church in Midland, Texas) together with Aaron Mayfield (Elder at Redemption Hill Church in Round Rock, Texas), went once a year to work with this pastor doing pastors conferences throughout the nation with a focus on our Seven Shared Values. The pastor we are working with absolutely loves our Seven Shared Values and wants the 160+ pastors and churches he knows and cares for to be equipped and encouraged by this gospel centered, mission minded, and God glorifying vision for ministry. We are so excited and humbled that he is now expressing an interest in becoming a part of the Sovereign Grace family of churches and hopes to be an instrument of God’s grace in planting, adopting and caring for other Sovereign Grace Churches throughout his nation in the future.

In February, we took a small team to Nepal to focus on what it would mean for this church to become a Sovereign Grace Church and how the process might look for this to happen. As such, our goal for this trip was to spend time with not only the lead pastor but to minister, care for and encourage his entire elder team; believing that a healthy plurality of elders would play such a significant role in cultivating a healthy church and guiding it through change.

Our team included Philip Estrada (Lead Pastor at Mission City Fellowship, San Antonio, Texas) and Allen Dicharry, Erik Schmaltz and myself from Sovereign Grace Church in Midland, Texas. Our teaching sessions included the vision and mission of Biblical eldership, the elder and humility, the joy of the Lord as the strength of the elder, and the present and future reward of God’s glory through faithful eldership. We were strengthened and unified by God’s presence in prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit through prophetic ministry. We were privileged to carry one another’s burdens for both personal and ministry needs. These were humble men who opened their hearts to the teaching of God’s Word and to us. As our time together drew to a close, one elder even said, “Woe to us if we do not apply the things we have learned.”

We learned much from their devotion to Christ and His mission. They live with constant thankfulness for the presence, power, faithfulness, and sovereignty of God in salvation. They celebrate the abiding love of our risen Savior preserving them through pain and persecution. They depend upon the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit to empower their mission. They wear well the armor of God in waging war against sin’s temptations and the tactics of the devil. They live with a passion for God’s glory, a loving burden for their church to grow in the character and mission of Christ and a desire to see every people group in their nation reached with the gospel. 

The challenges are great. Laws are in place that seek to limit the growth of the churches. Spiritual warfare is constant as each day finds thousands of people seeking hope and help at the Hindu and Buddhist temples and shrines. Adam’s sin brought spiritual blindness to all mankind but it seems that Satan loves to use religious idolatry to put mud on already blind eyes in hopes of making people doubly blind. Yet in spite of the appearance of hopelessness all around them, these elders have dependant delight and happy hope in the gospel being the power of God unto salvation!

Philip, Allen and I were privileged to be invited to preach at three different churches. The worship of the precious believers there is passionate and grateful! Their hunger for the Word is exemplary and enviable. Their love of their local churches and for the lost tell all those around them that Jesus is their greatest treasure.

On our last night there, God filled us with gospel hope for the future of these churches and this nation when we met with four younger men who are elder candidates. Many of these men are former Hindus or Buddhists that God has radically saved and who now value Christ centered teaching, sound doctrine, gospel partnerships and making disciples for Christ. 

Please keep this pastoral team in prayer as they seek to not merely become a Sovereign Grace Church one day but a Sovereign Grace Church that can be instrumental in reaching the nation and all its people groups through caring for and planting local churches. Please pray for us as to how God would want to best use our efforts in the future to serve them.

An update from Doug Hayes, Executive Director of Covenant Mercies...

My latest trip to Africa was full of reminders of how the Lord is using Covenant Mercies to transform lives. On a three-week, three-country tour with a video team, we captured many encouraging stories throughout. But perhaps the sweetest moment came on the final day of our travels, as we interviewed Sponsorship Program graduate Alex Karuhanga just hours before commencing our journey back home.

Alex’s mother, Jacqueline.

A couple of days before meeting up with Alex in Kampala (Uganda’s capital city), we visited his mother in her village near Kiburara to capture her perspective on their family’s story. Back in 2008 when Alex was first enrolled in our program, she had recently lost her husband to AIDS. She was HIV+ herself, in poor health, and struggling to hold on and continue caring for her son. As a direct result of his sponsorship, she was able to access the medical care she desperately needed to stay alive. 

The remote village where Alex grew up and his mother continues to live.

As we drove to her village on rough roads deep into the bush, it was evident why so many people had died of AIDS back in those days. Even after treatment became available at a hospital in the nearest major town (about 1 ½ hours by car), it would have been impossible for Alex’s mother to access that treatment from her remote village. Impossible apart from her son’s sponsorship, that is. Thanks to Alex’s sponsor, she was transported monthly to the clinic and followed up in the community by Covenant Mercies’ staff nurse. As a result, she remains part of her son’s life 15 years later. 

The odds would have been stacked against young Alex as well. Due to its remote location, Alex’s village is notably squalid. Poorer than average, in an area where average is not saying much. The kind of place where people might ask the age-old question, “Can anything good come from there?” Yet here we were in Kampala, sitting across from a competent, Christian young man, listening to him tell the story of what God has done in his life. Yes, something good can come from that little forgotten village. 

Alex helps with a water system at future Hope Community Primary School.

After graduating from our program with a diploma in water engineering and working for a while in that field, Alex enlisted in the military, where he has thrived. His commanding officers have been so impressed with his character and work ethic that they have put him on an officer track and sent him back for training. For years, Alex’s sponsor invested into his life through prayers and financial giving. How rewarding it is to see the good fruit the Lord has produced through that investment. We look forward to sharing this story in Alex’s own words when the video is complete later this year.

Whether you partner with Covenant Mercies by sponsoring children, investing in our schools and other projects, or lifting us up in your prayers (or all of the above), I hope you feel the Lord’s pleasure as I did while I was sitting across from Alex with tears in my eyes. The work we do is a long-term labor of love. We sow for decades, prayerfully anticipating a harvest that can only be produced with patience over time. 

How sweet it is when we finally taste the fruit. Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).

An update from Stephen Bowne, Senior Pastor of Grace City Church, Frankford, Philadelphia, USA...

Grace City Church of Frankford is a Sovereign Grace Church in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Frankford. Frankford is a very poor and needy neighborhood. Our congregation matches the make-up of the community around us. We are a church of people in recovery from addiction, people that have criminal records, people that come from broken families and low education, people that struggle to get and keep jobs, and people that don’t have their own homes or don’t know where their next meal will come from.

We are a small church of about 40 people (including children) on a Sunday. It’s a beautiful mix of people from all walks of life, different ethnicities, and various levels of cognition. We gather on Sundays to celebrate the gospel together through singing, preaching, and taking communion together. We meet on Wednesdays to study the Bible and pray together. We evangelize and do good works in the neighborhood together. We fellowship together and disciple new believers. We are being a local church in our context, and that is simultaneously very ordinary and also, because of God’s work, very extraordinary.

Because of our demographics, our church survives only through other churches partnering with us to support us. We have received some support from other churches as well, but the vast majority of our support comes from Sovereign Grace churches and especially from our region. We were planted in 2018 in Frankford through this partnership and continue to survive as a church through partnership. In September of 2021 God used our partnership with other churches to make a way for us to purchase a building in Frankford and to begin the process of renovating it into a church.

Like all building projects, it took longer and was much more expensive than we first anticipated, but God continued to supply everything we needed all along the way. Financial support and work teams came from Sovereign Grace churches to supply all that we needed. And, thanks be to God, we had our first Sunday worship service at the new building on April 2nd! We are looking forward to what God has instore for us in this new building. Please pray for us as we seek His direction for the future.

Our story is an extraordinary story of God using ordinary local churches to help our ordinary local church to plant and build in Frankford. Praise God for His work in many different contexts throughout the world! What a privilege to partner together with you all.

Psalm 93, ‘The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from old; you are from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty! Your decrees are very trustworthy; holiness befits your house, O LORD, for evermore.’

None of us really knows what the weather ahead looks like in 2023, but what we do know, and what we can be absolutely confident about, is that the LORD reigns! The majestic and mighty LORD, our sovereign protector and ruler, He reigns!! What a wonderful and inspiring truth this is!

Here then is how you can be praying to Him for us in the month ahead…

1. Please pray for Jeffrey Jo, Lead Pastor of CCSGM Manila, Cavite, as he pulls together seven of our key SG Philippines Pastors, for the first half of our SG Pastors Immersion Training, 3-27th March in Manila. This training will help to put some key foundations into Sovereign Grace Churches Philippines and bring these Pastors together as a foundational leadership cohort. We’re very excited about this step, as our two big groups of Churches start to come together in partnership in this way, all under the one banner of SGC Philippines.

2. Please pray for our SG Asia-Pacific Pastors Conference, 28th-30th March, in Manila, Philippines. Folk will be traveling from Australia, Nepal, India, South Korea, Pakistan, and the US to attend this time. Please pray for Dave Taylor, Jeffrey Jo & Mark Prater as they lead this conference, and for every pastor and wife in attendance.

3. Please pray for Dyonah Thomas, Lead Pastor of Gracelife Church in Monrovia, and key leader of our work in Liberia. He has recently been diagnosed with colon cancer and so will be heading to Accra, Ghana, for further tests and treatment early this month. Liberia does not have an oncology department, and so please pray for Dyonah, for his wife Mai, and for everyone involved in this. May the Lord bring His healing hand to our brother.

4. Please pray for our team of SG Pastors who are traveling to Amman, Jordan, March 4-9th, to train ten Pastors from Pakistan. These Pastors have a long relationship with our family of Churches, represent well over 100 Churches, and are keen to explore full partnership with Sovereign Grace. Please pray for much wisdom, faith and understanding for everyone involved in this opportunity.

5. Please pray for our brothers in LATAM, as they have a busy month ahead! Please pray for Carlos Contreras as he leads a Simeon Trust Preaching Workshop in Guadalajara, March 8-9th; for Aberlado Munez as he leads the same Workshop in Juarez, March 13-15th; and for Joselo Mercado as he speaks at the Revive our Hearts Conference, an 8000 strong conference, in Guadalajara, March 31-April 1st.

… With so many different weathers to navigate across the world, may we never forget: The LORD reigns.

An update from Michael Granger, Lead Pastor of Trinity Fellowship Church, Ethiopia ...

By the grace of God, Trinity Fellowship is a growing community. We now have roughly 100 members with around 15-20 waiting for our next membership intake, and approximately 130-160 in regular attendance on Sunday mornings. Trinity Fellowship's membership consists of a ton of young people, with very few over the age of 30. Back in December, Trinity Fellowship celebrated its 2-year anniversary where we heard testimonies and held baptisms. In that month I also had the privilege of marrying two couples in the course of 10 days. We are certainly growing numerically, but also I trust, in maturity.

Before being sent to Ethiopia, my dear friend and pastor CJ Mahaney told me that in his research, the one thing he'd found common amongst fruitful churches was they “knocked it out of the park” every Sunday. Well, we’ve spent the last two years endeavoring to do just that. I preach my heart out and Abenezer, one of our pastoral interns, leads us in singing - to the best of our ability in the grace of God. We wanted to do one thing with excellence before adding any other components. But now, we feel the church is ready, and in need of some new components. So in December we added a Sunday morning corporate prayer meeting at 9am (one hour before the service), and in March we’ll begin community groups. By the grace of God, this year will also see the establishment of a Wednesday evening Amharic service as well as an evangelistic outreach ministry. We feel our desperate need for the Holy Spirit's leading and blessing of all these categories in the life of the church.

Back in September last year, the Lord filled my heart with gladness as our first cohort of Trinity Fellowship Pastors College students graduated. These men took 42 Masters-level classes spread out over 12 months, sweating, bleeding, and reading together. They are Ephesians 4 gifts from Christ, dropped straight into the lap of the church. 

One student, Muhammed, is fact-finding in order to plant a Somali church in the city, while the other 9 students have become full-time interns at Trinity Fellowship where they will serve until October this year. Amongst these students, Brian is considering a church plant in Nairobi, Kenya in 2024, and Amanuel and Abenezer will probably be ordained into Trinity Fellowship as co-pastors by the end of this year or early 2024. Finally, come September, Trinity Fellowship's Pastors College intends to start its second academic calendar year and we're praying for 10-12 students.

The most meaningful thing a person or church can tell me is they're praying for us. I really don't know what I would be apart from the Lord's people before the throne of grace on my behalf, and so as we look ahead to the next chapter for our local church and Pastors College, here's how you can be praying for us in the months ahead...

• Please pray for the unction of the Holy Spirit in my preaching and in our new Sunday morning corporate prayer meetings.

• Please pray for our pastoral interns, in particular Amanuel, Abenezer and Brian as we consider ordaining them. Please also pray for Brian as we consider sending his family back to Nairobi, Kenya to plant a church.

• Please pray for our members to grow in spiritual maturity - for faith to see beyond merely the physical into the spiritual so that their greatest longing becomes an obsessive desire to surrender to Christ and do his will.

• Please pray for God to give us 12 students for our upcoming Pastors College in September.

We're thankful to our family of churches who have made Trinity Fellowship and the Pastors College a reality. We know that it is all God, but God uses lots and lots of means. You're the means!

Thank You!

One of the ways we experienced God’s goodness at our recent 2022 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 three of these stories in this update, and so I share them with you below...

The first is from Jeffrey Jo, Senior Pastor of Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministries in Manila, Philippines, and national leader for our work in the Philippines. It’s such a wonderful story of friendship, partnership and grace.

The second is from Christian Wegert, Senior Pastor of Arche Church in Hamburg, Germany, and long time partner with Sovereign Grace Churches. Followed by Choby Estupinian, Senior Pastor of Gracia Soberana de Guadalajara, Mexico.

As you listen to these stories I trust they encourage you. How good the Lord has been to us!

An update from Riley Spring, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Parramatta, Australia…

In the first week of February, 31 leaders from over 8 nations around the world gathered for an incredibly significant Leadership Retreat. Represented at this gathering were multiple generations of Sovereign Grace pastors so that our faithful past can be transferred to ensure we have a faithful future. At the Retreat, the Leadership Team served the various spheres of leaders represented: US Regional Leaders, US Future Leaders, and Global Leaders.

Our time began with a stirring introductory appeal by our Executive Director, Mark Prater. He called us to six key imperatives as we move forward, the first of which was to be “leaders who are lovers of Jesus!” That may sound obvious and basic, but it is crucial! In the next 5-10 years Sovereign Grace is set to expand from some 80 churches to over 200+ (as a modest estimate)…and therefore we must ensure that no matter what, we love Jesus through all of this growth! On top of this he charged us to: have Christ-like character, protect and promote our gospel heritage, courageously stand for our theological convictions, take risks to advance the gospel, and have faith that God will bless us! Amen!

CJ Mahaney spoke on ‘Keeping the Heart’ from Proverbs 4:23, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” He so helpfully outlined how we are to guard our life and doctrine by the spiritual discipline of watchfulness. He shared his two great fears: 1) be less astounded by his salvation, 2) that he’d become a professional pastor. Instead, we must keep up the edge and constantly work on our hearts to love Jesus personally, passionately, and persistently, no matter the trials and heartaches.

Jeff Purswell then delivered a tour de force message on ‘The Pastor’s Doctrine’ from 1 Timothy 4:16. This was a denomination shaping and preserving moment. He explicated our need to guard our doctrinal fidelity in order to maintain our gospel longevity. Without sound theology in all of our doctrine, we will lose the gospel in the end. It’s life or death for us, our churches and our family of churches.

Jared Mellinger and Jon Payne then spoke on the biblical category and role of ‘extra-local’ leadership for our churches, regionally and globally, and the need to raise up and unleash men to serve at this broader influential level. In so doing, these leaders are to reflect the ‘extra-local’ leaders we see in the New Testament with respect to their: ecclesiological focus, watchfulness, love, courage and faith.

Each sphere of leaders also met in groups to discuss issues of particular concern to them. I (Riley) had the privilege of being in the Global Leaders meetings, led so well by Dave Taylor, and got to hear of what the Lord is doing all over the world through our Pastors. We shared our hearts for our nations and our hopes for the future. It was exciting and humbling. Be assured the Lord is on the move. 

We all had a great time hanging out, making new friends, eating together, laughing, singing, praying and sharing stories. It was a privilege and honour to be at this gathering, I was pinching myself the whole time. How is it possible that we’re in such a beautiful, faithful, and solid family of Churches? How is that we get to do this together with such joy, fellowship, and friendship? It’s sheer, bountiful, undeserved (but I am never trading it in), grace!

It would seem that God would have us poised to serve Christ in new and ever expanding ways, with joy, and health, for the next forty years and more. Let us all play our part!

In a recent podcast, Mark Prater & Ben Kreps talk about the four Church Plants that we presently have moving forward in the US, planted by men who will preach in three different languages!

It’s a wonderful update, I hope it encourages you!

An update from Brendan Willis, Pastor at Sovereign Grace Church Wahroonga, Australia…

We’re a family of churches with a big heart to pass the gospel onto the next generation.

My life is living proof of this truth. When Dave Taylor arrived in Sydney in June 2010, I was a student at Moore Theological College in my very first year of training. His commitment to train the next generation of leaders to serve in our then fledgling church plant meant that I was invested into, cared for, and prepared for pastoral ministry in Sovereign Grace Churches.

But my story is nothing new. Since the very first disciples were commissioned by the Lord Jesus, some 65 generations have come and gone, each forming a link in an unbroken chain as the gospel has been passed on faithfully from generation to generation. Just as Paul instructed Timothy to entrust the gospel “…to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim 2:2) we stand on the shoulders of so many who have gone before us and diligently obeyed the command of Christ to make disciples of the nations.

Over the past year, we’ve been wrestling as a region with how we might intentionally seek to invest in the next generation of leaders. And out of many discussions was born our Sovereign Grace Churches Australia (SGCA) Young Leaders Internship which began in February this year.

What is the Young Leaders Internship?

The Young Leaders Internship is a program designed to train the next generation of Sovereign Grace leaders to serve Sovereign Grace Churches. Our hope is that each of our leaders will grow in their love for Christ and his local church over the course of the year while being equipped to serve the Lord more effectively for the rest of their lives. 

There are four elements to the program all aimed at growing each intern in their character, convictions, and competency in serving: 

1. Cohort
Each month, on the last Sunday of the month, all of our interns gather for dinner, fellowship and teaching related to one of their 10 units of study. We spend some time reviewing the materials they’ve been reading and applying them, sharing feedback about their various focus services areas and of course enjoying each other’s company. We’ve also started working on our shared project of running a vacation bible school together as a cohort.

2. Study

We’ve designed our internship with young professionals and full-time students in mind so each month the interns also have set study designed to be achievable given those pressures. For example, this month they’re reading ‘What Best Next: How The Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done.’ By Matt Perman. Their assignment is similarly to come up with a plan for how they can grow in Gospel­­–Centred productivity by forming a personal mission statement and a life goal, listing their personal values, and a basic weekly schedule that reflects these principles.

3. Serving

Given our conviction that the local church is ‘the dearest place on Earth’ we really want to help our interns grow in a passion for the Lord and the church by getting them serving. As well as shared projects like the vacation bible school, we’re looking to utilize our interns more during our Sunday gatherings and to provide them with opportunities to serve in areas they are interested in. Furthermore, we have 6 ministry mentoring sessions throughout the course of the year which are smaller groups focused around 6 different character qualities that are vital to faithful leadership.

4. Experiences 

And lastly, it wouldn’t be a true Young Leaders Internship without some shared experiences! Our hope is that our interns not only grow in a love for the Lord Jesus, for one another and our local churches here in Sydney, but that they fall in love with our family of churches as well. To that end, we’re topping the year off by flying all 11 of our interns over to Glen Mills to join the Relay conference in January 2024!!

How has the Internship program been going so far?

We may be only just into our second month of the program but the Lord has been so kind! We’ve seen new friendships already begin to form among the cohort, deep and honest sharing in our ministry mentoring nights and a real sense of excitement and joy for the year ahead. Already several interns have asked for prayer specifically that God might grow them in a love for God’s people and it has been so deeply encouraging to see many putting up their hands to love and serve others.

Praise God for his faithfulness in prompting these 11 young men and women to join our program and please join with us in praying that God would bring radical transformation to the hearts of students and teachers alike beyond anything we could have dreamed!

RELAY Registration is open.

The RELAY Conference exists to inspire young adults, from all over the world, to live for the glory of Christ. Our desire is to inspire this generation to personalize and carry forward our shared doctrine, values, and mission that we cherish as Sovereign Grace churches. As we gather together from many churches to hear God’s word, sing God’s praises, build relationships across churches, and invest in future leaders, we are asking God to use this conference for his glory and the strengthening of our churches for decades to come.  

While the conference is aimed at college students and young adults (18-25 years old), as well as their leaders, we welcome high school students ages 16-17 and those in their late 20s or 30s. We don’t have strict age limits. And while the conference aims at serving Sovereign Grace churches, we welcome and encourage those in other churches to attend.

We are also offering Pre-Conference Pastoral Interest sessions, along with a dinner, for young men who may feel called to pastoral ministry.

The dates for this conference are Thursday—Saturday, January  4-6, 2024.

Some conference details include:

• This year’s theme is Living for Christ Alone

• The conference will take place at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, PA. 

• Lunch and Dinner will be provided on Friday

• Speakers include CJ Mahaney, Jared Mellinger, Jon Payne, Jeff Purswell, and Dave Taylor

• Singing will be led by Bob Kauflin

You can register for the conference here.

Hebrews 12.1-2, ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great cloud a witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.'

We are all in a race, the great race, indeed the greatest race of our lives! And so looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, the One we all need so much, here’s how you can be praying for us in the month ahead…

1. Please pray for the Sovereign Grace Leadership Team as we 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. It’s the first time we’ve come together in this way and so please pray that it’s a great time!!

2. Please pray for Billy Raies, Erik Schmaltz, Philip Estrada and Allen Dicharry as they head to Nepal, Feb 21 - Mar 1, to serve our dear friend Barnabas, our Key Leader in Nepal. Please pray for a growing partnership of faith as they serve Barnabas and his Pastoral Team, and for much wisdom as we continue to map out the best way of partnership in this dear country.

3. Please pray for the 11 young people who just this month started their Young Leaders Internships in SG Australia... Abella Lick (SG Parramatta), Georgia Lick (SG Parramatta), Luke Counsell (SG Wahroonga), Esther Monck (SG Wahroonga), Hollie Roberts (SG Wahroonga), Froilan Samonte (SG Wahroonga), Josh Taylor (SG Wahroonga), Amy Taylor (SG Wahroonga), Marcos Cabral (SG Wahroonga), Hannah Payne (SG Wahroonga), and Sebastian Fasano (SG Wahroonga). That God would really meet with them and bless them throughout the year ahead.

4. Please pray for Rich Richardson, and the team of 8 SG Pastors, who are coming together in Phoenix, Feb 21-22, to talk about SG Church Development in Latin America (outside of Mexico). Please pray for quick camaraderie in the group, for creative ideas, and one heart.

5. Please also pray for the growing number of Sovereign Grace church members that are seriously considering cross-cultural mission. Please pray for me (Dave Taylor), the Emerging Nations Team, Mark Prater (Executive Director of Sovereign Grace Churches), and those asking the question. May we together discern the will of God in each of these situations and may His guidance be clear, as we seek to reach the ends of the earth for Jesus.

   … Looking then to Him, the founder and perfecter of our faith. May His grace abound to us all!

The team coordinating gospel-centred translation work in Chinese: Andrew Leung, Perry Wang, Fengyu Ji and their wives.

An update from Andrew Leung, Pastoral Candidate at Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney, Australia...

It’s a joy to know that God is propelling his gospel forward among all nations. It’s an even greater joy to know that Sovereign Grace churches get to play a small part in this Great Commission. I have been privileged to be coordinating much of the translation work that is undergoing in various parts of the world, and I would love to share some of the highlights over the past year and what’s coming down the line for your encouragement, but also to enlist your prayers for all things developing for Sovereign Grace Churches in these nations.

Over the past year, we have seen Pastor Fengyu and his wife lead a team of pastors to translate the Sovereign Grace website and the Statement of Faith into Chinese. They are also in the process of finishing translating CJ Mahaney’s Humility and Living the Cross Centred Life and are looking to have these published by a Chinese publisher in the coming months. For the first time, Christians in China (and beyond) will be able to access these gospel centred materials! These materials will also be of great benefit to two potential Chinese-speaking church plants in the US this year.   

With the explosion of the number of churches in the Philippines wanting to partner with Sovereign Grace, translation work is in full swing on the Statement of Faith, Seven Shared Values, Book of Church Order, website and even ordination materials to have them translated into Tagalog and Cebuano. These materials will assist greatly in the further training, equipping of pastors, and the development of Sovereign Grace Churches, Philippines.    

Translation work in Thailand has also been progressing full steam ahead, led by our key leader in Thailand. CJ Mahaney’s Living the Cross Centered Life has already been translated, and is expected to be published in print and available on the internet in the coming months. This will help fill the gap in gospel centered resources in Thai, which prayerfully will help strengthen His people in Christ, and reach out to those who are yet to follow Him. The Statement of Faith and Seven Shared Values are also being translated for a Thai website, which will house these translated materials, along with select Sovereign Grace songs that are also being translated into Thai.

Further translation work is also being done in Korea in the coming year. Pastor Songhwan, lead pastor of Lord’s Grace Church in Seoul, South Korea, is coordinating the translation of the Book of Church Order, as well as the recent journal articles on Seven Shaping Virtues and Seven Shared Values into Korean. These materials will assist greatly in the training of three interns and the development of Sovereign Grace Churches, Korea.

Work translating the Seven Shared Values, as well as the Statement of Faith and parts of the BCO into Russian are also in full swing. This is being led by Kyle Huber and being done off the back of several potential Belarussian churches being interested in partnership with Sovereign Grace. 

All in all, there is lots to give thanks for. God is on the move, and what a sheer joy it is to be able to go along for the ride! Come on board, join us and pray into all this work around the world, and let’s together see what God continues to do in the nations through Sovereign Grace. For his glory and our joy!

Working towards Sovereign Grace Churches of Korea through Korean translation work.

An update from our key leader in Thailand (identity concealed for safety reasons)...

If you would’ve told me a few months ago that over 1200 people in our remote location in Thailand would hear the good news shared through the Christmas story in December, I might have believed you, but wouldn’t have had a clue how God would make such a thing happen. Well, He did it, and He brought it about in ways that make us just stand back in awe of our Lord for His spectacular ingenuity, wisdom, majestic power, and mercy!  

So, a quick back drop: Our team has been in Thailand for many years. After a while of training, He led us to a remote location that has very few believers. In this community He’s granted amazing favor and opportunity to serve and build relationships as we share the love and truth of Christ. Through these special relationships, God opened unimaginable doors this Christmas season. Five different outreaches were held over eight days where the team gave the reason for our hope in Jesus. The team was able to share the good news through a Christmas play telling the true reason for Christmas at schools as well as a Christmas party. Christ’s love was also shared with the poorest in our community through a mercy ministry. In conversations that followed from these events, friends conveyed their interest in the story of Jesus and deep gratitude. Many seeds were planted and we ask for your continued prayer that they would grow in good soil.

In all of this, we want to thank the churches and individuals who have faithfully partnered with us through the years. It’s through your visionary faith, sacrificial generosity, encouragement, and prayers that the team has been sustained and God has opened doors. The team couldn’t do this without you, nor would we want to. Oh, the joy and privilege it is to partner with our family of churches! We also want to specifically thank our partner Arche Church Hamburg who enabled the team to bless children with Christmas gifts in the outreaches. It’s through our partnership with you that God has moved in the community, and we thank you friends.

Even with this wonderful news, there’s still an enormous need among the unreached of Thailand. We’ve been praying for years that God would raise up more workers for our team and other places in Thailand. The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are fewer than few. Perhaps the Lord would have you consider coming to joyfully lay down your life for the sake of Christ in this land. If you are interested in learning more, go to the SGC Global site where you can inquire about opportunities to serve in Thailand.

An update from Matthew Williams, Lead Pastor of KingsWay Community Church, Midlothian, Virginia, USA…

“You can’t make this stuff up.”

I have thought as much on multiple occasions as my long-time friends, Josh and Lieze Kruger, step off the plane tomorrow to begin a 12-month church-planting residency at KingsWay. Lord willing, they will return to Windhoek, Namibia in early 2024 to plant the first Sovereign Grace Church in their country. The 17-year journey to this moment is a remarkable story of God’s providence.

Josh was born in South Africa under apartheid. He moved to Richmond, Virginia as a teenager when his dad, Josh Sr., accepted a forensic scientist position with the state government. Think NCIS with less office drama. The entire family arrived at KingsWay Community Church in 2005 hungry for expository, Christ-centered preaching that called believers to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. That’s miracle number one.

At the time, Josh was like many young men in our church. He had a strong passion to serve the Lord and a lot to learn about the basics of Christian spiritual leadership. He was a sponge in the best possible sense, participating in book studies, volunteering on the facilities team, and doing anything he could to spend time with our pastors. He asked countless questions. A gift of leadership quickly became evident. People naturally followed him.

In 2009, we sent Josh to Fredericksburg, Virginia to support Ken Delage in planting Mercy Hill Church. A year later, he moved back to South Africa to get married and began working fulltime for Operation Mobilization, a global, Christian missions organization. We began providing financial support for the Krugers in 2015 around the time Josh assumed a new field leadership position with OM in Namibia. He was only allowed to immigrate to the country because his wife, Lieze, was born there. That’s miracle number two.

We had some pivotal conversations after I attended a conference in Zambia with him in 2017. We talked about the importance of expository preaching. We talked about how biblical missions proceeds out of local churches and results in new local churches. Around the same time, the Lord provided opportunities for him to preach at their local church in Windhoek. Josh loved it. He also developed a growing awareness that much of what he was hearing from the pulpit didn’t come from God’s Word. That’s miracle number three.

Two years ago, Josh and Lieze decided to leave their church after months of futile conversation with their pastor about the false teaching coming from the pulpit. The congregation deteriorated afterward, and many former members began asking Josh to start a new church. They were hungry for biblical preaching and said things like, “Josh, when you preach, you help us understand the Bible.”

To his credit, Josh refused. As his biblical understanding of the pastorate grew, so did his fear of entering ministry unqualified and unprepared. I encouraged Josh to rest and wait, trusting the Lord to confirm a clear call to ministry in his good time and provide the right opportunities to be equipped. I encouraged him to start taking online classes at Southern Seminary a few months later.

When Josh and Lieze began attending a new, evangelical gathering of believers in Windhoek, the Lord again provided opportunities for him to preach. A visit to Namibia in April 2022 confirmed Josh was fast becoming their functional lead pastor. During that trip, Josh expressed his growing confidence that God wanted him to leave OM and become a pastor, an aspiration Lieze readily affirmed.

That’s miracle number four for multiple reasons, chief among them the lack of biblical models of ministry in their context. Josh isn’t compelled to become a pastor by what he has seen in African churches. He grieves what he has seen. He’s compelled by what he reads in Scripture and by what he has tasted and seen of God’s Word lived out in KingsWay and Mercy Hill.

Before I left, I encouraged Josh and Lieze to pray about coming to KingsWay for a 1-year pastoral residency with the goal of returning to Windhoek to plant a church with Sovereign Grace in 2024. We brainstormed ways we could work with the Pastors College to provide a combination of practical and theological training for ministry. They asked insightful questions about Sovereign Grace polity and history. And I gave them a parting homework assignment! Work through our Statement of Faith and 7 Shared Values. I told Josh we had no interest in expanding our brand. But if we share the same convictions, it would be an absolute joy to labor together.

When I got home, I called Dave Taylor, Sovereign Grace’s Director of Global Missions and said, “Help! We’ve never trained an international church planter before.” His counsel was a gift. Three months later, Josh and Lieze told us they were all in. They love our combination of reformed and continuationist theology, the way we build relationally, the accountability we provide for our pastors, and our commitment to church-based missions.

A flurry of conversations with our local eldership, missions committee, and Regional Assembly of Elders followed, plus a grant application to the Africa Development Fund, discussion with the Pastors College staff, and several months of work with Tommy Hill and an immigration attorney to bring Josh and his family to the US. Here’s miracle number five. A visa petition that normally takes 6 months to get approved took 6 days.

The relational favor and financial support the Krugers have received on every front in Sovereign Grace is overwhelming. Gifts from our local church enabled their entire family to come to the US last fall for the Pastors Conference. One of our deacons invited Josh, Lieze, and their two boys to live in their second home for a year. Another member gave them a car. Families from CrossWay Community Church in Charlotte started collecting toys and household supplies. Mercy Hill made a generous financial pledge, as did our region, and the Africa Fund. Sovereign Grace central staff are lining up Pastor’s College housing, employment documents, and health insurance. The list goes on. There’s no way we could do this alone.

Josh and I will be together in Louisville next week for the first of seven classes he’s taking at the Pastors College over the next year to supplement his Southern coursework. Between classes, he will spend time serving with our local eldership, developing his preaching gift, discussing books about pastoral ministry, growing in his personal character, preparing for ordination, developing a church-planting prospectus, and getting a better sense for what biblical community looks like in action. They are eager to learn how our theological distinctives play out in church life and leadership.

Pray for grace to adjust to a new culture, wisdom to learn and retain all the Lord will teach Josh this year, favor in the ordination process, and faith that God will provide all they need to plant a church in Windhoek in early 2024. Josh and Lieze are known and loved in their city. The ethnic diversity in their relationships is remarkable given Namibia is only 30 years out from apartheid. We couldn’t be more excited to see all the Lord will do through them and in turn, throughout southern Africa.

An update from Riley Spring, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Parramatta, Australia…

Last year we embarked on establishing a year-long ‘Pastors and Planters Academy’ with the aim of helping guys discern and pursue a calling into Pastoral ministry. In December, we had the joy of graduating our five Academy students who all excelled this year in their studies, character and serving in their local churches. 

The Graduation Dinner was a special night as we spent time reflecting on where God has been most at work in their lives personally and as a family unit and how we’ve seen God use them at Church. We had a beautiful moment where each wife was given the opportunity to publicly honour their husband and identify evidences of God’s grace in their lives and thank them. Austin Loke was the top of the class and special mention goes to Andrew Leung who completed every page of the reading list for the year! 

Four out of the five guys will go onto to serve in their church either as an Intern (Austin Loke SGC Wahroonga, Joel Seric – SGC Parramatta) or to pursue ordination (Andrew Leung – SGC Wahroonga, Richard Song – SGC Parramatta). Our final student, Jack Packham (SGC Wahroonga) will continue serving faithfully as a church member. 

Brendan Willis, Pastor at SGC Wahroonga, did an incredible job as the dean of the Academy for the year. He compiled a fantastic curriculum, reading list, and assessment tasks to both educate and form the guys as well as stretch them. Dave and Emma Taylor, served the Academy by hosting monthly ‘Cohort’ nights which brought the husbands and wives together to look at Marriage, Family, and Ministry Life. They studied great material and received fantastic real world wisdom from this experienced, wise, and loving Husband/Wife team!

We’d also like to thank the various Pastors who jumped on for our monthly Leadership Link Ups (Jon Payne, Jeff Purswell, Mark Prater, Mickey Connolly, Josh Blount, Bob Kauflin, Jared Mellinger, Brian Chesemore, Eric Turbedsky, and CJ Mahaney). These two-hour long interviews were very helpful for both their content and the chance for our guys to make a connection and friendship with some of the best Pastors in our family of Churches.

It was truly a fantastic year and we hope that we can continue to have the chance to invest in more and more future Pastors and Planters. Please pray that God would bring in many more workers for the harvest! 

An update from Marty Machowski, Executive Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, USA…

It was with great joy that I visited Lord’s Grace Church in South Korea at their new location in Suwon City. Suwon is approximately 30 kilometers south of Seoul, where they met previously. The church was forced to move in September of 2021 due to the high cost of rent in Seoul and lost eight families in the process. Now more than a year later, the Lord has added ten additional families, most attending for the first time in the last six months, as word spread of their vibrant church.

We packed a lot into my short five-day trip. I met with families who use the family devotionals I authored that have been translated into Korean. It was wonderful to hear stories of parents leading their families in gospel-centered devotions daily with a consistency that demonstrated Songhwan’s leadership in their lives. I was humbled as children lined up to have their books signed. Many expressed their thanks and shared how God used these materials to introduce them to Christ.

On Saturday, I spoke on the gospel-centered family with a session on marriage and another on parenting. The question-and-answer sessions revealed a hunger for applying the gospel and a desire to grow. One woman shared how when she came to Lord’s Grace church, she planned to divorce her husband, but after being touched by the gospel, God restored her marriage, and both she and her husband are now actively serving in the church.

The Sunday gathering lasted from 10 am until 3 pm with two messages, a potluck meal, another round of Q&A, and a group photo. On Monday, I spent time with the pastoral interns for lunch. They joined Songhwan, his wife Miran, and I for a trip to the Seoul Tower, with its breathtaking views of the sprawling city of 9.9 million people.

Person after person shared their love for the church and gratitude toward Covenant Fellowship and Sovereign Grace for sending me on this visit. Perhaps most significant was the time I spent with Songhwan and Miran, who are still grieving the loss of their dear friend Larry Malament. Larry’s care and wise counsel over many years served them well. It became clear that the Lord used my visit to reinforce our partnership in the gospel, provide a caring pastoral touch, and a continuation of our friendship which began in my two earlier visits prior to the pandemic.

Songhwan expressed a strong desire for their church to send out a church plant. Lord’s Grace Church has begun saving money for a future church plant and is praying God would raise up a church planter. Join me in praying that God would answer their prayer and raise up a pastor from among their number with a vision to church plant in Korea.