On the SGC Mission blog our missionary to Turkey gave an update:

We thank God that His Spirit does not need a visa to operate in Turkey. We are confident that his gospel is bearing abundant, sweet fruit, even in the hard fields of one of the most unreached nations on earth.

We are grateful for the privilege we have had to observe some of that fruit up close. When our home church (Sovereign Grace Church Dayton) sent us to Turkey in 2020, we came to be part of a small Turkish church. This has been a wonderful context for us to spend time with Turkish believers.   

It has also been a unique place for our family to serve. One of my ministries has been coordinating various translation projects of Sovereign Grace resources. By God’s grace, we have completed the Statement of Faith, Living the Cross-Centered Life, Humility, and other Sovereign Grace publications. My prayer for these translations is that they encourage Turkish Christians and bolster their love for the Savior. 

I also have the joy of leading the music for our church on Sundays. I want to mention that I am only able to serve in this way because of my wife who graciously cares for our young children in the back week after week. Both of us are overjoyed that our Turkish church has worked with us to translate some of the songs we love from Sovereign Grace Music. One of the sweetest things for us has been listening to former Muslims joyfully singing these words from the song Before the Throne of God Above in Turkish: Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.

“So what Jesus called us to do, he gave us the power of the Spirit to accomplish and he sends us to do it. And that's why our small family of churches gets to play a small part in advancing the gospel throughout the world because we want to see more people come to know our Jesus and know him as Lord and Savior.” ~Mark Prater

Recently on the Mark Prater podcast, Mark gave an update on Sovereign Grace Partnership and gospel advancement throughout the world. Here are a few excerpts from that conversation:

I'm so grateful for how pastors in Sovereign Grace are working to advance the gospel. One of the things that's so interesting to me, anybody that's read Acts knows this, it's nothing brilliant. But as Acts develops, what you see is that partnerships are formed so that they can advance the gospel together. So Jesus gives these words to the 11 that are standing there and they go about advancing the gospel, but they form partnerships with men and other churches who are their coworkers. Paul becomes an apostle and he forms partnerships and churches working together, represented by men who are coworkers with the original 11. And with Paul, they advanced the gospel throughout the world. And that's still happening today. Not in big apostolic ministry. I don't mean that at all, of course, but churches partnering together to advance the gospel throughout the world.

And it's something that we get to enjoy in Sovereign Grace. It makes building relationally only sweeter as we get to know and serve brothers and sisters and churches throughout the world. And what I just said, we've all heard that before, but brothers, we can't take that for granted. What we have is precious, it's biblical, and it allows us to accomplish what Jesus sent his Spirit to do in continuing the mission that he has given us. So it's a glorious mission. It's a glorious cause, and the joy of it all is we get to do it together in Sovereign Grace.

I want to illustrate how partnership in Sovereign Grace is happening. So you may be aware or not aware that recently we've added five churches from Pakistan as candidate churches in Sovereign Grace who are now pursuing a partnership, full partnership, with Sovereign Grace. And those five churches are led by men that we've built relationally with for years. And when I say we, I mean pastors in Sovereign Grace. So through our partnership with TLI Training Leaders International, there've been several Sovereign Grace pastors who traveled to the Middle East to sort of a safe neutral country where the Pakistani brothers joined them. And they went through several years of theological training. Men like Scott Crook made many trips. And then Greg Dirnberger and Dave Quilla and many more guys that are in the Midwest Northwest region. Scott's now in the Mid-Atlantic region, but the Midwest Northwest region, many of the pastors there have made trips to serving those pastors. And Dave Quilla continues to serve the brothers there in Pakistan.

So it's another illustration of how partnership is working in Sovereign Grace to theologically equip pastors in Pakistan. And five of those are now going to pursue ordination as the next step to move from a candidate church to a full partner church. So it's just wonderful that we actually have five candidate churches in Pakistan right now.

Recently on the podcast, Mark Prater met with Steve Whitacre, President of Trinity College of Louisville, a Christian liberal arts college founded in 2022 as an independent organization, separate from Sovereign Grace Churches, but with a vision of serving Sovereign Grace churches.

“We got thinking, what if we could provide a higher education option that taught and led students with the theology and the values that Sovereign Grace holds dear? We think that would be a great way to do this. And that's how we got started on it. So Trinity College is founded with that in mind, and it's not going to be the right fit for every student. No college could be. Some students go to churches like Cornerstone Church of Knoxville with a thriving college campus ministry, Volunteers for Christ, right there at University of Tennessee and so it's great to stay there. Some students maybe have another Christian college close by that they are excited to attend and some students maybe aren't called to go to college at all. So we're excited to see how the Lord's working in any one of those circumstances. But for students and families or churches who want this kind of education, a higher education with the theology and values of Sovereign Grace, we're excited to be building a Christian liberal arts college that infuses that classical liberal arts curriculum with the delight of the gospel of Jesus Christ in every area of study and life.” ~ Steve Whitacre

If you plan, lead, or participate in the Sunday gatherings of your local church, the WorshipGod Conference will equip and encourage you to serve with greater faith, joy, and fruitfulness. Main session speakers will include John Piper, Jared Mellinger, HB Charles, Jr., Josh Blount, Devon Kauflin, and Mike Bullmore. Musical guests will include Ben Shive, Skye Peterson, Jonathan & Sarah Jerez, Adam Wright (Corner Room Music), Caroline Cobb, and more.

As always, there will be free lunches, loads of gifts, and opportunities to be built up as an individual or with your team. Registration prices go up April 15, but students, church planters, international attendees, and senior pastors are always only $99.

Hope to see you there!

At the end of December we released a mission video about a global leaders retreat we had in Poland in June. I hope you will take time to watch it and celebrate what God is doing through the faithful labors of men and churches in other countries. May God continue to bless our small family of churches in 2024! ~Mark Prater

“As I've traveled throughout Sovereign Grace churches this year, I thank God for the young people in our churches. I see younger generations of people, and I'm thinking particularly the teen years into the twenties, early thirties, who really love Jesus and are excited about the work of the gospel and love their Sovereign Grace church. It really is encouraging to see and maybe an evidence that we might be a multi-generational family of churches by the grace of God. And that's why I'm so encouraged by the Relay Conference that will happen this first week of January where we're going to have between 650 and 700 young adults there who are gathered together. And I think one of the effects of that conference is those young adults are going to leave together realizing, boy, we're not on gospel mission alone. We're doing this with other people of our generation throughout the world in Sovereign Grace Churches. So I'm very grateful to God for the young people in our churches.” ~Mark Prater

“The future of the church is indescribably glorious." ~Jared Mellinger