On March 5th on the Mark Prater Podcast, Mark and Benjamin Kreps chatted about God’s work in growing and testing our faith for planting churches. Here’s an excerpt, and the full transcript, video and audio are linked below.

God loves us, and because of Christ, we are also his children. And that love is expressed in so many different ways, so many good ways. But one of those is he tests our faith because he loves us. He wants us to have our faith strengthened in him, which not only builds your relationship with him, but it helps you accomplish the things that he's called you to do as a pastor or as a member of a church or as a church community. And we need faith to trust God to do those things.

And so I've been thinking a little bit about that as it relates to church planting. Anybody that was at the pastor's conference last year heard me share my heart and burden that we would take risks to plant more churches here in the States. And those are the kinds of testing of faith that I want to talk about. He tests our faith in trials. James 1 talks about that, but he also tests our faith for the purpose of growing our faith by taking thoughtful risks to advance the gospel. And that includes church planting. And when it comes to church planting, we begin to think about planting a church. Maybe an eldership does or maybe a church begins to talk about it. We can go to the practicals and that's not a wrong thing to do. Many of the practicals are important. Like do we have a person to plant the church? Do we have a guy who can do it? Do we have a location? Is that a viable location? Do we have the finances? Those kind of questions are important to do, but we sometimes miss things that we see in scripture that we're to do. And those things in particular I think strengthen our faith. They test our faith and strengthen our faith.

So the first one is prayer. And I think a great example is in Acts 13, many people know this passage. In Acts 13:1 it says, "Now there were in the church at Antioch Prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who's called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manean, and a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrach, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting", so they're together, they're worshiping, they're praying, they're fasting, "the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off." So that missionary journey that Barnabas and Paul took, the very first one was initiated through the process of prayer and the Spirit made it clear to them what they were to do.

So what did that do to their faith?

We’re thrilled to share with you this conversation with well-known theologian Dr. Steve Wellum, addressed to Sovereign Grace pastors. Listen in as Jeff Purswell interviews Dr. Wellum on a variety of topics, including his personal theological development, his new Systematic Theology, and concerns about the state of evangelicalism.

Steve Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of many books, including Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept. He teaches two Systematic Theology classes at the Pastors College.

In 1859, Austin Phelps published a book on prayer entitled, “The Still Hour.” In his book, Phelps writes, “Any unperverted mind will conceive of the scriptural idea of prayer, as that of one of the most downright, sturdy realities in the universe. Right in the heart of God's plan of government it is lodged as a power. Amidst the conflicts which are going on in the evolution of that plan, it stands as a power. Into all the intricacies of Divine working and the mysteries of Divine decree, it reaches out silently as a power. In the mind of God, we may be assured, the conception of prayer is no fiction, whatever man may think of it.” (Page 21)

Prayer is one of the most downright, sturdy realities in the universe, and in God’s wisdom, He includes prayer as a power that is part of His good, sovereign government of the universe. These truths are not only amazing, they also remind us why we need to pray for one another in Sovereign Grace. As God continues His good plan for our family of churches, we don’t sit passively by, rather we pray knowing that God will use our prayers for one another in the best way He sees fit. 

Let us pray for one another knowing that it is one of the most downright, sturdy realities in the universe. Thanks for praying.

Sovereign Grace Churches Second Quarter 2024 Prayer Requests

§ Pray that God would give the members and pastors of Sovereign Grace churches a renewed desire, and opportunites to share the gospel with unbelievers in our communites and workplaces.

§ Pray for the Ark Church in Dnipro, Ukraine asking God to protect them, and to use them to meet prac;cal needs, and to offer gospel hope to people impacted by the war.

§ Pray for our Sovereign Grace missionaries in Thailand, Turkey, and the Czech Republic (names withheld for security reasons) asking God to continnue to open doors for them to share the gospel with unbelievers, and to form church planting teams.

§ Pray for the Sovereign Grace Global Leaders Retreat in Rome, Italy, June 4-7, 2024, asking God to equip and strengthen our global leaders from around the world relationally and theologically so they can serve churches and build Sovereign Grace in their respective nations. Pray also for Dave Taylor who will lead this important retreat.

§ Pray for our current Sovereign Grace Pastors College class, who will graduate in early June, asking God to give grace for their transition back home, and to use their training to serve their church in any way that is needed.

§ Pray for the WorshipGod Conference, July 24-27, 2024, in Louisville, KY asking God to draw and equip pastors, leaders, musicians, vocalists, tech personnel, and songwriters to return home and serve their churches with theologically-rich, Christ-centered singing every week. Pray also for Bob Kauflin who will lead WorshipGod24.

§ Pray for churches in Bolivia, India, and Pakistan who have recently started the adoption process into Sovereign Grace asking God to strengthen them, and to equip their elders as they pursue ordination.

§ 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.

In March, Bob Kauflin, Devon Kauflin & David Zimmer of Sovereign Grace Music, travelled to the Philippines for a night of Gathering Around the Gospel in song, Scripture, and prayer at the Philippines International Convention Center. They also led a conference for 250 Sovereign Grace leaders and musicians from the Philippines, Australia, Pakistan, Nepal, and Korea, and led a seminar for over 1000 musicians. On Sunday they led a combined gathering of four Sovereign Grace churches. Watch the video recap or read the SGC Missions blog post to learn more.

Video by: Art Love Life Photography

Song: Behold Our God (Live at WorshipGod). Music and words by Jonathan Baird, Meghan Baird, Ryan Baird, and Stephen Altrogge © 2011 Sovereign Grace Worship/ASCAP, Sovereign Grace Praise/BMI (adm. by Integrity Music) Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Churches. All rights reserved.

From Sovereign Grace Music:

In preparation for Holy Week, we wanted to share a Spotify playlist of songs we have compiled that will help you reflect on Jesus's life and death and deepen your affection for our beautiful Savior.
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Without a word You faced the accusations
And joyfully You bore the bitter cross
The Innocent received our condemnation
And paid for the rebel’s cost.

As I consider how the Lord has grown our work over the past few years, I stand amazed. We’re now serving in 46 different countries, on 6 different continents, with a long list of Sovereign Grace pastors involved. It’s an amazing work of His grace in our family of churches, and yet as each nation and work has grown, so have the complexities and workload.

To that end, after some long reflection, discussion, and planning, a ‘Global Development Team’ was created, comprised of five of the finest leaders I know.

Four of them will be serving as ‘SGC Area Leaders’, involved in leading, engaging, and providing oversight and process, for specific areas of the world. Whilst one of them will be serving as our ‘US Global Missions Coordinator’, with the responsibility of being ‘on point’ for coordinating questions from our US Pastors and regions, as well as providing up-to-date opportunities for involvement.

I am so very blessed to be working with each of these men and wanted to introduce them. May His grace abound us all!!

Greg Dirnberger - Emmaus Road Church - SGC Area Leader for Asia-Pacific

Bart Lipscomb - Christchurch - SGC Area Leader for Africa

Ed O’Mara - SGC Torino - SGC Area Leader for Europe

Rich Richardson - Centre Church - SGC Area Leader for Latin America

Leo Parris - Covenant Fellowship Church - US Global Missions Coordinator

This post originally titled Global Operations & Development - Meet The Team first appeared on the Sovereign Grace Missions blog on February 28, 2024.