Our churches embrace the following seven convictions. We believe they are a faithful application of our biblical values and shape our local practices and ministries regardless of our context. They define what it means to be a Sovereign Grace church.
How should we think about singing songs by artists or ministries that we have theological concerns about? Are there any biblical principles to guide us? That's the conversation Bob Kauflin, David Zimmer, and Devon Kauflin engage in on this episode of Sound Plus Doctrine released on May 22, 2023.
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On July 27-30, 650 people from 38 US states and 5 countries gathered in Louisville, Kentucky for WorshipGod 2022. I attended with a group of members from my church, including several other pastors I serve with. It was incredible!
The conference is designed to serve anyone who leads or participates in the Sunday gathering, as well as anyone who wants to better understand congregational worship and grow in loving God, who is worthy of all praise.
The theme of this year’s Worship God conference was Unchanging. We celebrated God’s unchanging character: his independence, trustworthiness, eternality, blessedness, and love. The theme was drawn from the newest Sovereign Grace album.
Worship is always related to missions, as John Piper has explained, because worship is the goal and fuel of missions: Missions exists because worship doesn’t. And, worship is always related to our future, because when we gather and join our voices in song with people from many different churches, we experience a foretaste of the day when we gather in the new heavens and the new earth, to sing “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!”
Jared Mellinger is Senior Pastor of Covenant Fellowship Church, Glen Mills, PA.
With the number of opportunities that God is giving us outside of the U.S., we can be vulnerable to think that God is not at work here in the States.
Given the trials we have faced in SG, that have uniquely impacted our churches in the States, we can be prone to think that our reputation has taken a hit, and we can’t plant churches like we used to.
Given the anit-institutional trends in our culture that tends to look down on the local church, we can wonder if planting churches is even worth it.
I understand those thoughts, but the book of Acts tells us that Paul and others encountered challenges and took risks to plant churches.
Church planting has always been risky, and it will always be risky, but it is a “right risk” to take in reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let us take the greatest risks for that great cause of planting churches.
Mark Prater May 20, 2022
Building biblically faithful churches has inherit risks.
First, building biblically faithful churches means we take the right risk of continuing preach and counsel our people with biblical truth. Given the rapid movement of the culture away from biblical truth, the faithful preaching of God’s Word will have more inherent risk of us being criticized.
We are on a trajectory where the culture sees the biblical truth we preach as the problem. The culture says teaching on biblical sexual ethics is the problem and must be censored. And, in a growing culture of victimhood, the truth we preach, and the truth we counsel our people with will be targeted as potentially oppressive.
Let us be men who risk our lives for the cause of Christ by preaching it anyway for the purpose of building biblically faithful churches.
Second, building faithful churches means that we take the risk of calling our people to a love for, and a commitment to the local church. Whether it is an anti-institutional mindset, or a suspicion of authority, or the lingering apathy people have post-pandemic, calling people to love the dearest place on earth will be risky.
We must build faithful churches by courageously, and graciously calling people to be faithful to their local church.
May a love for the local church not be a first or second generational phenomenon in Sovereign Grace, rather may it be a multi-generational distinctive.
Third, building faithful churches means we take the risk of honestly accessing the health of our local eldership.
One of the primary ways that Satan seeks to sow disunity in the church is to weaken and divide the pastoral team.
“Conflict, poor communication, and relational disunity on a pastoral team can lead to discouraged and weary pastors, and eventually, can diminish the unity and health of the whole church.”[1]
If we are going to call people to love the local church, let’s make sure that the church we are calling them to love is strong and united. We do that by honestly evaluating the health of our local elders, which can be risky, but it is the right risk to take.
Let’s take great risks for the great cause of building biblically faithful churches.
[1] Jon Payne, “Team Health Evaluation Tool” blog post, October 19, 2021, sgcleaders.com
Mark Prater May 13, 2022
On April 21st, we posted this prayer request from Ryan Chase, an elder at Emmaus Road Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to pray for his son Caleb who suffers from a condition that results in his muscles and joints not working properly, and included Caleb’s inspiring conversion story:
April 18 was Caleb’s 10th birthday, and that is a huge milestone for us. His twin brother passed away at age 3, and we originally expected them both to live less than a year. Our short-term goal, and the focus of our prayers, has been getting Caleb to Florida next week. Since we can’t get him on a plane, we are planning to make the road trip April 23–30. It’s been Caleb’s dream to see the ocean and visit Disney World. We’re praying for his overall physical comfort; for relief from high fevers, high heart rates, and breathing difficulties; and for his physical strength to tolerate all that driving and sight-seeing.
A few weeks ago, we had the joy of hearing about dramatic answers to prayer!
Here’s an excerpt from Daniel and Heather Youtzy, members of Emmaus Road Church:
Words cannot express how overwhelming the response was to pray for Caleb. Many of you all reached out to Ryan and to others within Sovereign Grace to pray for Caleb's health. We are so unbelievably thankful for that! Only hours after you all joined us in prayer for Caleb, he began turning a corner. By the middle of the week of April 18, Caleb was doing great. His fever was gone, his heartrate was back to normal, and he was feeling like he normally does. God answered so many prayers and the Chase's were able to take Caleb to Disney World! He and their entire family had an absolute blast and Caleb hasn't stopped talking about it since returning home! We thank God for the ways that he answered prayers and the ways that those answers to prayer comfort our souls! We hope that your faith is encouraged. PRAYER IS POWERFUL!
From Ryan:
Thank you so much for inviting our Sovereign Grace family to pray for our son Caleb. We saw a significant change in his health right away and we were profoundly aware of God’s help through the prayers of his people. We made it to Florida and back without issue and had a wonderful time as a family. Caleb made special memories and had experiences we never dreamed possible for him when he was born. A few weeks ago, we were wondering if he was at the end of life, but since returning home, Caleb is doing much better than he had been for months. We continue to marvel at God’s kindness to us.
Thank you for praying!