An update by David Del Castillo, Pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana, Santa Cruz, Bolivia

This has been a time of growth for our church. Although we have already started conducting pastoral interviews for the group that finished the last membership process, we have many waiting to start the process because they arrived once it had already begun. They are very encouraged to be part of our church!

So much so, that our place is already getting too small. We added 15 more chairs which is the capacity limit and after worship time we have to wait for the children to go to Sunday school so that people have a chair to sit in. Every Sunday we have between 80 - 90 people in attendance and so we pray that God guides us in what to do, since the place we have is very low cost compared to the increase we would have to pay for a new meeting place.

Mission team members from both Greentree Church (New Jersey) and Covenant Fellowship Church (Pennsylvania) in the US.

A recap of a short term missions trip to London, England:

From September 8th-18th our church sent out a short-term mission team to do Muslim evangelism with a church plant in central London, England. You can find people from much of the world in London, where over 300 languages are spoken. This church is located in a neighborhood where there are dozens of unreached people groups, and so we had an amazing opportunity to proclaim the gospel in a place where it is really not understood, where secularism and many false religions like Islam abound. 

Our team members were very effective in engaging with Muslims as well as other internationals. A main goal for this trip was to come alongside this church’s members (most of whom are converts to Christianity from an unreached Muslim people group), and to help equip them in evangelism so that they would be encouraged to continue reaching out to friends, family and even strangers after our team had gone. 

While there we also had the opportunity to help lead in Sunday worship services. One of the highlights was seeing seven former Muslims be baptized in the name of Jesus! Many of these new believers had to escape their home country because of having converted to Christianity. They have faced much loss and persecution in embracing Jesus and remaining faithful to Him, and yet they are filled with joy because of God’s rich mercy to them in the Gospel! 

We are hopeful to see this church become more involved with Sovereign Grace in the future. We desire to see others within our denomination consider participating in this strategic ministry in order to strengthen that church, and to see other Sovereign Grace churches planted throughout London and even other parts of Europe. Please continue to pray for this ministry. 

~Pat Tedeschi, Pastor, Greentree Church, Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey

Sovereign Grace Executive Director, Mark Prater, with Dyonah Thomas, Senior Pastor of Grace Life Church and key leader in West Africa. Dyonah is the first ordained Sovereign Grace elder in West Africa.

An excerpt of a recent West Africa update from Mark Prater:

The best way to summarize what happened at the first Sovereign Grace Churches West Africa Pastors & Wives Conference is that a family of churches was born in West Africa known as Sovereign Grace. Attended by about 80 pastors and wives from 6 different West Africa nations, 2 of them French speaking, God worked to truly forge a family of churches.

Dyonah Thomas has established key leaders in different nations to help build Sovereign Grace in West Africa. Samuel Kotee, Senior Pastor of Saving Grace Fellowship in Conakry, Guinea, Morlai Kamara, Senior Pastor of Sovereign Grace Life Church in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Roland Blackie who is the Senior Pastor of another Grace Life Church in the Monrovia, Liberia area. Each of these men, along with Dyonah, led through the main sessions at the Pastors & Wives Conference.

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The post Our First SGC West Africa Pastors & Wives Conference originally appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on August 29, 2023.

Psalm 139.7-10 declares, ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there you hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.'

There is nowhere we can go where we are outside of God’s presence, nowhere, and that’s one of the many things that makes prayer such an incredible and daily opportunity. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is always present, always with us, and always eager to hear us.

And so here’s some specific things that you can be praying for, and talking with the King about, in the month ahead…

1. Please pray for the National US Church Planting Group as they meet for a final retreat with the 2022-23 Church Planting Cohort, June 15th-18th. With 3-4 US Church Plants planned for the next 12 months, this is such an important time together.

2. Please pray for Nate Treguboff (Cross of Grace, Minnesota), Josh Montague (Cross of Grace, TLI), Dave Quilla (Covenant Life Fellowship, Oregon) and Joshua Chambers (formerly of TLI) as they travel to Amman, Jordan, June 8-16th, to train ten Pastors from Pakistan. These Pakistani Pastors have a long relationship with our family of Churches, represent some 400 Churches, and are keen to pursue full partnership with Sovereign Grace. This is the final instalment of a five year endeavour and so please pray for safety, for fruitful classes and for wisdom and understanding on wise next steps in this great opportunity.

3. Please pray Justin Crews and Spencer Vaughn (Sovereign Grace Community Church, Roanoke, US) as they head to teach at the Gracelife Pastors & Planters Academy in Liberia, with our friend Dyonah Thomas, June 19th-26th. Please also pray for their strategic trip to Sierra Leone to put boots on the ground as we look to a possible SG Church Plant in 2024. Exciting times!! In addition, please pray for Andy Farmer (Covenant Fellowship, Glenn Mills, USA) as he heads to teach at the Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Ethiopia, June 16th-19th. Would this be a rich and blessed time for everyone involved,

4. Please pray for the Pastors who will be coming in from Germany, Prague, Italy, Belarus, Turkey, Sweden, and the UK, for this month’s SGC Europe Pastors Retreat, June 20-23rd. They will be joined by Mark Prater (SG Executive Director) and Dave Taylor (SG Director of Global Missions), as they dream together and plan together for the future of Sovereign Grace Churches in Europe.

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. We really do have more opportunities than we can fund and so we are so in need of His grace in this.

6. Please continue to pray for the ARK Church in Dnipro, Ukraine. This dear church continues to feed over 400 people a week, care for refugees on a daily basis, and share the good news of Jesus Christ with any and all that will listen. They are doing an amazing work in Ukraine, may we never tire of praying for these dears saints.

… May His grace abound to us all.

Dave Taylor – Director of Global Missions, Sovereign Grace Church (Sydney, Australia)

This post originally appeared on the SGC Missions blog, June 3, 2023

Todd Peterson, Pastor at Cross of Grace Church, El Paso, Texas, and Emerging Nations Representative to India along with Erik Rangel, Lead Pastor of Legacy Church in Yuma, Arizona, have been working separately in India for about 20 years combined and started working together in the last 3 years.

They recently traveled to Prayagraj, which is in northern India in the state of Utter Pradesh to meet with a pastor that Erik has been working with for the last 12 years as a partner in their Bible College which has planted nearly 100 churches in the region around Prayagraj. This pastor is interested in getting to know Sovereign Grace more formally and they are excited about the possibilities of partnership and serving there.

Todd and Erik were also able to visit a church in Bhubaneswar, Odisha of about 200 in the heart of one of the biggest slums in India, to explore partnership with them. During this time they were able to see the city and the surrounding region, meet their families and spend many hours trying to understand the challenges that they face. They look forward to continuing to move this relationship forward.

The last stop was the southern village of Gundugolanu, Andhra Pradesh, the home village of pastor Jaya Prakash (JP) Ravuri who became a fully ordained pastor in SGC. One of the purposes of this stop was to be there on Sunday at his church to formally ordain JP as a Sovereign Grace elder. The ordination service was a tremendous blessing!