“So what Jesus called us to do, he gave us the power of the Spirit to accomplish and he sends us to do it. And that's why our small family of churches gets to play a small part in advancing the gospel throughout the world because we want to see more people come to know our Jesus and know him as Lord and Savior.” ~Mark Prater

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark gave an update on Sovereign Grace Partnership and gospel advancement throughout the world. Here are a few excerpts from that conversation:

I'm so grateful for how pastors in Sovereign Grace are working to advance the gospel. One of the things that's so interesting to me, anybody that's read Acts knows this, it's nothing brilliant. But as Acts develops, what you see is that partnerships are formed so that they can advance the gospel together. So Jesus gives these words to the 11 that are standing there and they go about advancing the gospel, but they form partnerships with men and other churches who are their coworkers. Paul becomes an apostle and he forms partnerships and churches working together, represented by men who are coworkers with the original 11. And with Paul, they advanced the gospel throughout the world. And that's still happening today. Not in big apostolic ministry. I don't mean that at all, of course, but churches partnering together to advance the gospel throughout the world.

And it's something that we get to enjoy in Sovereign Grace. It makes building relationally only sweeter as we get to know and serve brothers and sisters and churches throughout the world. And what I just said, we've all heard that before, but brothers, we can't take that for granted. What we have is precious, it's biblical, and it allows us to accomplish what Jesus sent his Spirit to do in continuing the mission that he has given us. So it's a glorious mission. It's a glorious cause, and the joy of it all is we get to do it together in Sovereign Grace.

I want to illustrate how partnership in Sovereign Grace is happening. So you may be aware or not aware that recently we've added five churches from Pakistan as candidate churches in Sovereign Grace who are now pursuing a partnership, full partnership, with Sovereign Grace. And those five churches are led by men that we've built relationally with for years. And when I say we, I mean pastors in Sovereign Grace. So through our partnership with TLI Training Leaders International, there've been several Sovereign Grace pastors who traveled to the Middle East to sort of a safe neutral country where the Pakistani brothers joined them. And they went through several years of theological training. Men like Scott Crook made many trips. And then Greg Dirnberger and Dave Quilla and many more guys that are in the Midwest Northwest region. Scott's now in the Mid-Atlantic region, but the Midwest Northwest region, many of the pastors there have made trips to serving those pastors. And Dave Quilla continues to serve the brothers there in Pakistan.

So it's another illustration of how partnership is working in Sovereign Grace to theologically equip pastors in Pakistan. And five of those are now going to pursue ordination as the next step to move from a candidate church to a full partner church. So it's just wonderful that we actually have five candidate churches in Pakistan right now.

In 1927, Roland Allen wrote a book entitled, “The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.” 

He starts the book by describing what you see in the NT - the gospel is shared, people are born again, and churches are planted as the gospel reaches more and more people. Allen goes on to argue that that kind of spontaneous expansion is not limited to the apostolic age but continues today.

“By spontaneous expansion I mean something which we cannot control. And if we cannot control it, we ought, as I think, to rejoice that we cannot control it. For if we cannot control it, it is because it is too great, not because it is too small for us. The great things of God are beyond our control.”[1]

 That would describe what I see in SGC right now - opportunities to partner with churches throughout the world that is beyond our control because it is God’s doing.

Currently, we have at least 75 churches outside of the U.S. pursuing partnership with SG and we will potentially adopt 62 of those churches in the next 2-3 years.

Let us take the greatest risks of all for the greatest cause of all-the preaching of Christ to every tribe, tongue, and nation.

[1] Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Wipf & Stock Publishers 1997, pg.13

Mark PraterApril 29, 2022

In a recent podcast, Mark Prater gave an update on strategic global leaders in Sovereign Grace, and in an Emerging Nations post, he highlighted God’s generous provision for global expansion:

“God is giving us good, strategic, theologically discerning leaders throughout the world. Carlos Contreras is obviously one of them. Manolo Quintal is one of them. Hellman Avila is one of them in Latin America. As well as Joselo Mercado.

But in the Philippines we have Jeffrey Jo, and in west Africa with Dyonah Thomas, and Michael Granger in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Christian Wegert in Hamburg, Germany, Nathan Smith in Bristol, England. These are all men who are important leaders for us to help us steward any global opportunities the Lord gives us. They're not Americans. They're doing ministry in their culture and in their nation or part of the world. And I think that's just going to strengthen and shape Sovereign Grace in the years to come. So we want to be investing into those men which is why I'm taking this trip. And to that end Dave Taylor and I have put together a global leadership development plan. Many of those names, I just mentioned, we hope to pull together in 2022 after Dave can get out of Australia to just do some leadership development with them because we think they're important part of our future.

God is also giving us people who are giving generously to financially support our global expansion. In other words, God is faithfully providing for the God-given opportunities to partner with churches globally through the sacrificial giving of faithful saints, most of whom are members of Sovereign Grace churches.”

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Mark Prater is the Executive Director for Sovereign Grace Churches and serves as an elder at Covenant Fellowship Church.

Dave Taylor is Director of Emerging Nations for Sovereign Grace Churches and serves as the lead pastor of Sovereign Grace Church, Sydney.

The Mark Prater podcast Strategic Global Leaders was posted on Aug 2, 2021. The full post God’s Faithful Provision for Global Opportunities originally appeared on the Emerging Nations blog on Aug. 1, 2021.