One of our churches, Sovereign Grace Church of Santa Ana, created and released this video just before Easter. We were so encouraged to see the faces of members of that church–people proclaiming joy in the midst of the pandemic, looking for God’s blessing during restrictions. Take a few minutes to watch this video, thanking God for his grace to this church while things are just hard. We hope that it will lead you to rejoice in God’s goodness to each of us specifically, to Sovereign Grace Church of Santa Ana and to our small denomination of churches. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Where can you find joy in the midst of this pandemic?

Watch the video here.

We say this often in Sovereign Grace: “church planting is in our DNA.” From our start nearly 40 years ago we have planted churches because we want people to hear the good news of the gospel. Currently, we are planting churches in:

• Santa Ana, California

• Zapresic, Croatia

• Rogers, Arkansas

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Frankford section)

Each of these locations is picked with one goal in mind: to see people worshipping Jesus everywhere. This is the vision that my friend, Stephen Bowne shares for his church plant in the Frankford section of Northeast Philadelphia in our first mission video for 2018. With the theme, “Throughout the World”, we wanted you to hear how God is using our small family of churches to do kingdom work. He’s using the members of our local churches to plant new churches, reach unbelievers, and disciple new Christians. As I say in this video, this isn’t really about what Sovereign Grace is doing. This video is simply an update of what God is doing through you, the members of our local churches in Sovereign Grace.

In the next two years, we also intend to plant churches in:

• Wilmington, North Carolina

• Salem, Massachusetts

• Des Moines, Iowa

• Kingston, Jamaica

• Sao Paulo, Brazil

• Newark, Delaware

• Sydney, Australia

You will hear more about these church plants in the coming months. But, in the meantime, please pray. Pray that God would establish these churches. Pray that he would provide strong launch teams. Pray that the gospel would be a light through these churches in the neighborhoods where they are established.

And take time to watch the mission video below. Without you, without your participation, without your prayers, without your financial support of Sovereign Grace, ventures like this would not be possible. We have more gospel opportunities than we can fund. So if you are not currently giving to Sovereign Grace, please consider a financial donation via our give page. You can choose how your donation is applied so please take time to consider those options.

We, the Leadership Team of Sovereign Grace, “give thanks to God always for all of you” (1 Thess 1:2). Thank you for being church members who love Jesus and his gospel. Thank you for loving unbelievers and sharing the hope of the gospel in dark places. Thank you for making it financially possible to plant churches. We thank God for you.

If you are interested in further information on the mission of Sovereign Grace, we have an electronic copy of our mission fund booklet posted here.

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Mark Prater is the Executive Director for Sovereign Grace and serves as an elder at Covenant Fellowship Church. He and his wife, Jill, have three married daughters and a growing number of grandchildren.