John Piper famously writes,

            ‘Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, millions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.’

I believe Mr Piper is right. Missions exist because so many people in our neighbourhoods and nations have yet to receive their invites to the incredible marriage supper of the Lamb. And in His incredible kindness, He’s entrusted us with the privilege of giving out those invites, to every tribe, language and nation.

We’re eager then to keep giving out the invites, and so here’s how you can be praying for us in the month ahead…

1. Pray that God would give the members and pastors of Sovereign Grace churches opportunities to share the gospel with unbelievers in our communities, workplaces and on our campuses over this next month.

2. Pray for Pat Tedeschi and Greentree Church’s Short-Term Missions Team as they head to London, UK, to work with Oasis International  Church, 13th-23rd September. The team will be involved with leading church services, youth events, small group discipleship, neighbourhood evangelism, and building relationships with the church members. Greentree has partnered with Oasis Church for the past 18 years, with the work primarily involving outreach to Muslims and the least evangelised people groups in London. Please pray for much grace and favour for this trip.

3. Pray for the Philippine Pastors Institute as they restart up again for another academic year, starting on September 21st, then meeting every Saturday for the next nine months. There are 14 students currently registered for the school, covering basic biblical theology, and the Sovereign Grace seven shared values. It’s the hope that through PPI Sovereign Grace Philippines, in particular in the Mindanao region, will continue to be faithful in the gospel for many generations to come.

4. Pray for Sovereign Grace Church of Parramatta as they celebrate their 5th Anniversary on Sunday 15th September, and Lord’s Grace Church of Seoul as the celebrate their 14th Anniversary on Sunday September 8th. May they know the Lord’s smile on them as they look back and remember His goodness to them over these years.

5. Pray for Trinity Fellowship Pastors College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as they celebrate the graduation of nine students this month. Please pray for each of the students as they consider next steps beyond the PC, and for Josh Pannell and Michael Granger as they continue to move this wonderful work forward. The Lord is doing great things through this Pastors College.

6. Please continue to pray for the Ark Church in Dnipro, Ukraine asking God to continue to protect them, and to use them to meet practical needs, and to offer gospel hope to those around them who have been impacted by the war. There are so many coming to them now, so may His grace abound.

... Thanks friends. May we do all we can to keep giving out these invites.

*This post was originally shared on our SGC Missions website. To view the original post, click here.

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark shared about the recent Fieles A Su Llamado Conference in Juarez, Mexico. Here is a clip from that conversation with Ben Kreps. The full Vlog is linked below.

The theme of the conference was essentially the pastor pursuing a godly life. And the pastor's example is very important in building godly churches, which is something we want to do in Sovereign Grace. So this was a very significant conference for pastors and their wives. And by the way, there were somewhere between 400 and 450 pastors and their wives there, leaders from the churches and their wives there from mostly different parts of Mexico and really all parts of Mexico. There were also some pastors there from other Latin American nations, from Costa Rica for example.

But this was primarily in serving pastors and wives that are in Mexico. And the impact and influence that conference has is palpable.

From July 24-27, over 1300 people gathered in Louisville, KY, to participate in WorshipGod24. Our theme this year was One with Christ: How our Union with Christ Affects Everything.

Going into a WorshipGod conference I never know in what specific ways God is going to meet us. I just know that he always does. And WorshipGod24 was no exception.

We sang. We laughed and learned. We cried tears of joy and repentance. We ate. We fellowshipped. We marveled and reflected. We grew – in our relationship with God and each other.

---

Bob Kauflin (@bkauflin) is director of Sovereign Grace Music. He equips pastors and musicians in the theology and practice of congregational worship, and serves as a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He writes at worshipmatters.com and is author of True Worshipers: Seeking What Matters to God. Bob and his wife, Julie, have six children and an ever-growing number of grandchildren.

This post originally appeared on Worship Matters, on Aug. 9, 2024.

An update from Songhwan Kang, Lead Pastor of Lord's Grace Church, South Korea...

I am Songhwan Kang, serving at the Lord's Grace Church in Korea. I am grateful for the opportunity to share the Gospel & Life Conference that was recently held in our small Asian country of Korea.

The Lord's Grace Church hosted the Gospel & Life Conference from June 6th to 8th with a mission team of 17 people from the United States. This conference first began in 2012 when Pastors Larry Malament and Bill Kittrell visited Korea for the first time. Not considering the pandemic, this year now marks the conference's 10th anniversary. Firstly, I want to thank Pastor Larry, who is now in heaven, for his sacrificial love and dedication to the work he began with us many years ago. I am also grateful for the continued partnership, excellent cooperation, and sacrificial service of Pastor Bill of Cornerstone Church in Knoxville, TN.

When the Lord's Grace Church started in 2010, we were like children in the gospel and did not know what a gospel-centered church was. We wanted to learn and grow in living a gospel-centered life, but did not know how. God heard our prayers and sent a mission team from the United States, who then started the Gospel & Life Conference. This year, at our 10th conference, God poured out great grace on us once again.

For the 2024 conference, 190 people gathered, including members of the Lord's Grace Church and 18 families from outside. The theme of the conference was "Don’t Waste Your Life". Pastor Walt Alexander from Trinity Grace Church in Athens, TN delivered five thematic lectures from Ecclesiastes. He said, “life is meaningless, but God has given life as a gift, and we must live a life that fears and obeys the eternal God”. His message was clear, simple, and showed the excellent wisdom of the gospel.

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark shared about church planting. Here is a clip from that conversation with Ben Kreps. The full podcast is linked below.

Assumption number 1: We want to plant churches, and here's the reason why. We as a family of churches, we desire to reflect the New Testament model of advancing the gospel by sacrificing for the mission and sending people to plant new churches to reach people that haven't heard Christ or reach an area that may not have a solid gospel preaching church. So that's a biblical conviction. That's a New Testament model that we are wanting to reflect in Sovereign Grace.

Assumption number 2: We want to plant for endurance. So we want to plant churches that will be faithful to God's word, faithful to our theological convictions and endure over time. So what that means is we're not as interested in numbers and we're not going to have these goals for numbers, but what we're interested in is planting solid churches that will be faithful and endure over time.

Assumption number 3: We plant with Sovereign Grace pastors. And what that means is we plant with men who are ordained in Sovereign Grace, who share our theological convictions, our seven shared values and our seven shaping virtues and where possible they also have some degree of pastoral experience. Now that may change based on the planter and how much experience he either has or needs, but we're just learning that guys who've got some degree of pastoral experience plant more solid churches because they've learned about pastoral ministry and that helps them plant well. Basically, Eric Turbedsky, when he was our director of church planting just unashamedly said appropriately, we plant Sovereign Grace churches a Sovereign Grace way. And that's kind of a little bit of what he was getting at in that phrase, right?

Assumption number 4: We value team ministry. That's not new to the pastors and even members of our churches that are listening to this, but where possible we'd love to send a plurality of elders more than just a solo elder. Now that's not always possible, but where we can, we want to do that. Or if we can't send a man already ordained, we'd love to send somebody who certainly is called and potentially on that ordination track because it will strengthen the church plant because pastoral teams are a reflection of the church. And so that'll be a stronger church.

Assumption number 5: We plant with denominational financial support. So in other words, we together as a family of churches, we are committed to replicating this New Testament model of planting churches so much. So we want to give our financial resources; those coming from our national resources, Sovereign Grace Central, those coming from our region. It's just one way to invest into the gospel and that allows a man to really devote his time to planting the church and not needing to find ways to earn other income.

Assumption number 6: (This is really the next logical one) We plant with vocational pastors. Now this is one that may not work outside the United States because of the economy in certain nations, guys may need to be bi-vocational. But here in the states, our assumption is we want to plant with vocational pastors again because they can focus on the work of planting and not have to worry about how they're going to support their families.

Assumption number 7: We prioritize preaching, which is again not new in Sovereign Grace. CJ has led us down that road so well. You lead your church from the pulpit and you build your church on God's word Sunday after Sunday in solid expository preaching. And that's going to build churches that endure and that's going to build strong gospel centered churches.

Assumption number 8: We value denominational preparation and ongoing care. It's why we have a Church Planting Group. Those guys exist to help you, a planter, prepare, assess, and prepare. It's one of the roles that our regional leaders play in providing care for the planters. So our denominational structures that we have in place are in part there to foster and strengthen our church planting efforts.

Assumption number 9: We prioritize cooperative efforts. So we just believe that we're going to be able to do more together as a family of churches. And so the sharing of resources and the sharing of prayer, meaning we pray for one another as we plant churches is really important. And when I talk about sharing resources, I'm not just talking about financial resources, I'm talking about people. First of all, people that may be in one church that can join another church's church planting team because they have a desire to be a part of a church plant or the sharing of pastors. You may have a location to plant but not a pastor. And so a church in Sovereign Grace sacrificially gives that pastor to that other church so he can plant a church and the gospel can be advanced. Those are huge sacrifices, but they reflect the resources that we share.

Assumption number 10: We prioritize pastoral ministry. Planters are pastors. That's something that I think Eric said. It's something that Jon has emphasized. Pastors are planters we want to plant with. Men are shepherds who will shepherd the flock of God that they begin to gather as the church plant forms.

Assumption number 11: We prioritize godly character. In other words, we want to send planters who are proven in godly character, tested in godly character and we can affirm their godly character. I think that's one of the roles of our, not only of our local churches, but our regional church planting committees, as well.

Assumption number 12: We take faith-filled risks on the right things. So I want to continue to call us to take faith-filled risks, but we've got to take risks on the right things. I won't spend a lot of time on that because I dedicated a podcast to that topic just a few weeks ago. So if you haven't heard that, listen to it. But for example, we don't want to take risks on godly character, but we do want to take risks in sending our best to further the mission of the gospel as we plant churches.

So those are the assumptions, at least right now, those may change, but I thought it'd be a good time just to introduce them to our pastors and members of our churches and as we work on this, pray that God gives us wisdom, and pray that God would give us resources, men called to plant, people wanting to be on church plant teams, and financial resources to plant churches.

On July 12, Sovereign Grace Music officially released their latest album, Knowing God. This album was inspired by and written to reflect the J.I. Packer must-read, Knowing God. The book, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, is the ultimate result of a series of articles written by Packer in 1973 that has influenced and inspired Christians since its creation. Sovereign Grace Music has carefully crafted each song in this album to help us worship God and know God better. As they shared on their website, “Sovereign Grace Music exists to write songs that are theologically driven, Christ-exalting, congregationally accessible, and artistically fresh. Packer’s book was a perfect vehicle to bring all those elements together in one place.”

Listen and/or purchase today. For more resources (lyrics, charts, videos, and more) visit soveriegngracemusic.com.