The National Church Planting Group is looking forward to gathering again at this year’s Pastors Conference. We’ll be hosting an Info Meeting that will be held Wednesday, November 6th from 3-4 pm at the conference hotel. We hope those of you who are attending the conference can join us!

At Sovereign Grace Churches, we seek to serve both church planting candidates and local churches in a number of ways. You can read more about the Assessment for Church Planters, the Small Towns Initiative, and the Antioch Program in more detail on our SGC Pastors website. We also have a number of tools and resources available there to serve church planters.

See you soon in Orlando!
Joel Shorey

Joel Shorey serves as the lead pastor at Redeemer Fellowship and Director of Church Planting with Sovereign Grace Churches.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet…You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:1, 6-7

Jonathan Edward’s says of these verses: “I know of no place in the Bible, where so strange an expression is made of to signify the importunity in prayer…How strong is the phrase! And how loud is this call to the church of God, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to him for this great mercy!” 

Now, who am I to edit the great Jonathan Edwards; but if I would be so bold, I would edit his quote to read: “And how loud is the call to pastors/elders, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to him…”

In the context of Isaiah 62, Isaiah is speaking of his own importunity on behalf of Zion, and of God giving ‘watchman’ to put the Lord in remembrance. It is an example of prayerful leadership from Isaiah and a statement of God’s design for other godly leaders to ‘not keep silent’ - to ‘not be quiet’ - to ‘take no rest’ - to ‘give him no rest’. 

What an invitation and calling to us as pastors! Godly leaders are to be watchmen on behalf of God’s people. According to Isaiah 62, we are called to use our prayers to call God to remember his people and to make of them a “crown of beauty” and a “royal diadem” in the hand of our God. 

I want to be a faithful watchman, and as a fellow pastor, I imagine you do as well. There are many needs in our family of churches and many exciting opportunities for God to move. 

And so, let’s pray! 

It has been a privilege to pray with many of you this year, already. The SGC Prayer Initiative started in January and we have had two prayer meetings over Zoom so far. In this one hour prayer meeting we pray over the quarterly prayer bullets and then we break into small groups to pray for local needs. It is a relationally rich and rewarding time. It is a joyful opportunity to be watchmen together. 

If you want to join us in praying, please email me at jshorey@redeemerde.org. 

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Joel Shorey is the new Director of Church Planting for Sovereign Grace Churches and the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Newark, DE. Joel and his wife Ashley have four children.

Ephesians 3:10 - “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known…”

Redeemer Fellowship celebrated our five-year anniversary on September 9 this year. God has been very good to us as a young church family in Newark, Delaware. As I think about the past five years and all that God has done, I can’t help but pause and celebrate the gift that church planting is and how powerfully God uses it for his glory. 

I don’t even mean to celebrate a particular way of church planting (though I wouldn’t want to do it with any other denomination than Sovereign Grace!). But rather, I want to celebrate the act of church planting in any form. Whether in perceived ‘strength’ or ‘weakness’; whether with 30 or 300; whether near or far; the planting of new Gospel preaching churches is a primary and powerful way that God continues to do his good work in this world and in our lives. 

Church planting multiplies the manifold wisdom of God. 

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Joel Shorey is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship, Newark, Delaware, USA.

This post originally appeared on September 24, 2023 on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog.

I love the book of Acts, but sometimes my local church experience doesn’t seem to line up with what I read there. My church in Newark, DE is the dearest place on earth to me, but it does not always seem to echo Acts 2:42-44:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

But 􏰀1 Corinthians? First Corinthians is different. This early letter of Paul to the messy and seemingly dysfunctional church in Corinth is exactly what I often need to read. God’s love for these messy people and their local expression of church life is powerful to consider. What we see here is that our sin aects church life. Yet, while the church might not always look like the book of Acts, it is no less a part of God’s powerful plan for this world. God is present in both the shine of revival and in the dirty mess of personal conflict, wrong priorities, prideful spiritualism, and over-realized eschatology.

Lessons from Corinth

Unity Matters

If you were to look for a main idea or thesis statement for 􏰀 Corinthians, a solid choice would be chapter 􏰀 verse 􏰀􏰄 where Paul says, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you...” Paul wants the Corinthian church to be united—and for good reason! They were deeply divided by loyalty to dierent leaders, disagreements about liberties, economic division while celebrating communion, one-upmanship with spiritual gifts, and many other issues. This led the church to have more discord than harmony, more conflict than communion, more division than unity.

But Paul earnestly desires them to be united. He appeals to them to be united. And what reasons does he give for them to be united? Well, there are many, but one stands out. The centrality of the cross. All of the secondary and tertiary things that divide our churches are nothing compared to the singular priority of Christ crucified. The world around us is so divided because of its many dierent priorities, but our local churches are able to remain united because the cross has taken center stage in our lives.

Our unity displays the centrality of the cross. In fact, the presence of division often means that the cross is no longer central to us. Paul says that divisions come when we live with worldly wisdom. This is because we quickly focus on ourselves. But unity comes about when we center on the cross because we see there the ultimate example of selflessness and the greatest priority in this world. The cross for Paul is a rallying point. When the cross is at the center of our lives, it draws Christians together. When the cross is displaced, division is not far away.

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Joel Shorey, Lead Pastor, Redeemer Fellowship Church (Newark, DE)

Reposted from the Sovereign Grace Journal, March 2023.