My Last One as Executive Director

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, you are back from the West Coast, having spent the last week there at a leadership team retreat — a retreat you have attended many times over the years. And as you reach the end of your tenure as Executive Director, this appears to be the last one you'll be a part of in that role. But apart from that, even this one was a bit different than past leadership team retreats. Tell us why.

Mark Prater:

Actually, going into this retreat I was thinking: how many of these have I led over the last 13 years? It's about 40, if I did my math right. So — yeah.

And those all have sweet memories attached to them. But this is my last one as Executive Director. And as the guys know, I'm going to stay on the leadership team and still participate in retreats, but not leading them. This one was different, though, because we're in September of 2026 and this is a strategic plan retreat — we're talking about 2027, 2028, and beyond. And so it seemed best to the leadership team and to me to ask Jon to primarily lead this retreat, because we're talking about future things. And we thought that was appropriate to do without being presumptuous about the Council of Elders vote in November — because first of all, these are future things we're planning. But most importantly, we've done Zoom meetings with Jon, and I've done Zoom meetings with every region that wanted them, to talk about the Executive Director transition. Only two regions declined, saying, "We've got no questions here, we're fully supportive of Jon, we don't need to chat" — which is affirming in a wonderful way. And in the other regions we talked to, there were no questions regarding Jon being the next Executive Director. The questions were really more: "I want to hear what Jon thinks about the future of Sovereign Grace." And those were wonderful conversations with pastors in regions across the country. So that's why we took that approach. We think it primarily serves Sovereign Grace, and I think our steps do honor the polity because of the care we've taken. We're so glad that Jon led it — he did a wonderful job in so many ways.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. It only makes sense that Jon is transitioning into that role and playing that role on this retreat. So — a bit different, looking forward to the future. What did you guys talk about?

Mark Prater:

We talked about a number of things that were, for me, faith-building, inspiring, and strengthening. There were a lot of happy discussions during this particular retreat.

One of the first things we did: every leadership team member came with a list of dreams, prayers, and hopes for the next three years for Sovereign Grace. And we just took time for every guy to share that list. It was so good to listen to each one. Of course there were common themes, but to hear those and put them together — to dream together that way, and then end that time praying for our future in some specific ways — was faith-building. What we're going to do now is compile everybody's list, go through it, and as a leadership team ask: what am I responsible for on this list, and what steps can I take to move forward? That was just wonderful — a lot of fun. It informed our prayers for the future of Sovereign Grace. And if God answers those prayers and some of those things occur, Sovereign Grace will continue to be a happy family of churches.

We did do some things related to this year as well. We looked at and approved the Council of Elders meeting agenda — the BCO gives us that responsibility. Just a reminder: that's a virtual Council of Elders meeting on Thursday, October 29th, from 6 to 9:30 Eastern Time. We've got a plan for that, and it'll be going out to the Council of Elders 30 days before the meeting.

We also took time to plan the February 2027 Leadership Team, Regional Leaders, and Directors Retreat, because February will come quickly. We want to make sure that all the guys on the leadership team who have assignments to share and teach are all set for that. That's going to be a great retreat in many ways — I'll probably say more about it before the end of the year on this podcast.

Then we took some time to walk through both the strengths and weaknesses we're seeing in global missions and in our emerging nations, and what steps we should take to continue building intentionally in many nations where God is at work. We talked through specific countries across the world. We did take time to talk about our strategic global centers, which right now are in Mexico, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Manila in the Philippines, and Sydney, Australia. We hope someday there will be one in Europe — potentially in England somewhere. It was just good talking through all of that and getting a plan in place.

We also took time to talk about church planting in parts of the United States where we haven't been planting — a United States development plan, you could call it. We've got areas in mind. Of course, we have our Director of West Coast Development, Eric Turbedsky, who's doing a wonderful job out west, in California in particular. We talked through and prayed about some specifics there. We'd love to develop in the Northwest part of the country as well. We also talked about New England — we'd love to see more church planting there, and we think for that one we give it to the Northeast region and say, "Run with it and we'll get behind you." And then we talked about some specific cities we'd love to plant in — one of them being Dallas, for example, which we think could be a real strategic city. That was a wonderful, faith-building conversation where we came away with some specific ideas for how to expand in those areas.

And then we had a wonderful conversation planning the 2027 Pastors Conference. We have to plan that far ahead. I can't wait for the 2026 conference — our Pastors and Leaders Conference — because we have over 1,450 people registered at this point. It's going to be big. We're going to have a lot of fun. And then as we planned 2027, my faith and excitement were building for that conference as well. That's something you have to get ahead of, and that's why we wanted Jon to lead through that particular conversation.

We also took a look at publishing. Jared gave us an update. When you step back, it really is amazing how through his leadership there's been a resurgence of resources being published in Sovereign Grace. We had that at one time, and then Jared has taken it and really run with it. He talked about what's been produced, what will be produced in 2027 and beyond — there are a number of books that have either just finished being written or are being written that are going to really serve our pastors. One of those being Walt Alexander, who just finished a book on godliness as part of our Shaping Virtues series. Josh Blount has, I think, written his initial draft on a book on masculinity — which is a really important topic in our culture right now — just to give a couple of examples. So that was really, really encouraging.

And let's see — oh, we talked about so much. We also wanted to make sure that everybody on the leadership team was clear, as Jon steps into this role — again, not being presumptuous about the vote — regarding his job description, my job description, who reports to whom, and how we're going to work together. That was a very helpful conversation.

And then, as folks know, Josh Blount is in the process of moving to Louisville. That's another transition — he'll work alongside Jeff over the next year, and then the plan is for him to begin leading the Pastors College so that Jeff can transition and give more time to writing and teaching — writing in particular. So Jeff walked us through a writing plan and a publishing plan for some resources that I don't want to tell you about just yet — I'll let the suspense build on that one. But I can say this: it's a really good plan, and we can't wait to benefit from what Jeff writes. Not only now, but we think it's important for him to do this because he will influence future generations of Sovereign Grace pastors long after Jeff someday goes to glory. So that was a very forward-looking, exciting, faith-building conversation.

Those are just some of the things we talked about. And I think you can hear the excitement in my voice — and that's because of what we talked about at the retreat.

Benjamin Kreps:

Wonderful. It is great to hear your enthusiasm coming off your last leadership team retreat as Executive Director, and wonderful to hear the hope in your voice as you think about the future. So thanks for the update and for giving us some behind-the-scenes perspective. Grateful for all the guys on the leadership team — you guys are certainly putting in the work, and we're grateful for you. We're looking forward to seeing what God has for us in the days ahead through the faithful efforts of our leadership team. So thank you, Mark, for the update. Thank you all for checking out the podcast, and we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.