What Happens At The Executive Committee Retreat

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Mark Prater Podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our executive director. Mark, next week, you are actually—the week that this episode drops, because it drops on the Monday of each week typically—you are headed to the Executive Committee retreat, which is a yearly event for you and the Executive Committee. But we realized that there could be newer folks checking out the podcast who aren't really familiar with the Executive Committee and who's on the committee. So, remind us: what is the Executive Committee, and who is on the Executive Committee?

Mark Prater:

The Executive Committee is really a function of our polity. So, when we ratified our Book of Church Order way back in 2013— way back in 2013—we really became a polity that is elder-led. And what I mean by that is the leadership team that I have the privilege of leading exists to serve our pastors and churches. In the work that we do, we're accountable to the Council of Elders. The Council of Elders has tasked the Executive Committee with the responsibility of oversight, accountability, and evaluation of the leadership team. In addition to that, they are responsible to steward our finances and to make sure that finances are planned and used with integrity. They have oversight over legal matters and are involved in legal matters. It's an oversight of the leadership team; it's financial, it's legal in nature. To distill it down, even though they do more than that, the Executive Committee does exist to evaluate me, for example, and all the men on the leadership team. That will occur next week.

My experience has been—I'm very grateful for our polity and very grateful for the men on the Executive Committee who serve the Council of Elders this way—because I think it's just very, very healthy for the leadership team to have oversight and evaluation of what we do. I think it's a very healthy thing. I've also benefited from their input over the years, and I'm grateful for each of the men that serve on the committee. They are wonderful men. They're local pastors, just like you and I are, Ben, who are giving time to serve Sovereign Grace in this wonderful way.

So, members of the Executive Committee include Bruce Chick, Abelardo Muñoz, Andy Farmer, Brian Chesmore, Dave Odom, Dave York, and I'm missing somebody. Missing somebody or two. We just had a change on the Executive Committee because Ken Mellinger needed to resign due to health reasons. The Executive Committee chose Mike Plewniak to take his place. So he's on the Executive Committee, and actually Mike will be presented as a candidate to fulfill Ken's term, which ends in 2026, at the Council of Elders in November. And they asked Dave York to chair the Executive Committee. So those are the men on the—oh, Steve Teter! That's who I forgot. We got Steve Teter on the Executive Committee. These men, they just do such a great job, and I thank God for them.

Benjamin Kreps:

It's sad, of course, that our friend Ken had to give up his role there, because he served as the chair of the Executive Committee for years and did such an excellent job. And the reality is, these men work hard, and there's sacrifice of time that's involved—time away from families, even at the Executive Committee retreat next week. And that's normal for people to often not know exactly who's on the committee because they're not serving for recognition or the applause of others. They're quietly serving to ensure the health of our family of churches. Thanks to all the guys who do serve on the Executive Committee. So, next week, heading to the retreat—where is the retreat and what are you going to do?

Mark Prater:

Yeah, I thought we could talk about what happens at an Executive Committee retreat. We're actually going to have it at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, PA. This year we've moved it around; last year, or actually the last two or three years, we were in Louisville. And we decided to have it here for a number of different reasons. Oh another Executive Committee member—Bill Patton!—just now remembered. So Bill and Steve, sorry to remember your names after I first gave the list.

So, what happens at an Executive Committee retreat? I'm just going to walk through a bit of our agenda and give you a little bit of ideas.

First of all, we'll take some time to pray. Obviously, I will give a Sovereign Grace update. Really, it's an overview of what's happening in Sovereign Grace, and I frame the update in a way that I talk about just a number of good things that God is doing. Then I also define vulnerabilities or weaknesses that we as a leadership team believe we need to address to strengthen our mission.

One example of vulnerability is—and this is something any denomination faces right now—having enough young men who aspire to pastoral ministry as our first-generation pastors begin to transition leadership of their church to younger men. That's, I think, a need that most denominations have today. So, I will talk about ways we're trying to address that vulnerability, for example.

But within my update, just to continue categories, I talk about preparing for our future. That vulnerability is under that—praying for our future. Stewarding our gospel expansion wisely—we've had wonderful expansion, we will continue to expand, but we've really got to make sure we steward well what we've got now so that what we build is strong globally. Protecting our theological borders—I'll talk a little bit about that just because every pastor is called to protect their flock from false doctrine. A little bit about church planting, and we'll spend time talking about missions and evangelism because there are some wonderful things that are happening both in global missions and evangelism that are encouraging, but areas we still need to grow. I'm very encouraged by some of the work that Jim Donohue has been doing to encourage us in evangelism, but I wouldn't say it's a strength for Sovereign Grace at this point, for example. So I'll kick through that.

So that's a little bit about my update—I've got several more categories I won't take time to go through. And then I might take some time to talk with the leadership team about some strategic initiatives. Those strategic initiatives are meant to address some of those vulnerabilities.

One example—and most likely we'll talk about this at the Council of Elders meeting—is we've been working on, for probably a year and a half, a global Pastor's College certification plan. So it's wonderful to see Pastor's Colleges begin to function, like in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mexico has one in Juarez right now. Those are really good. And people are going to want to call those Sovereign Grace Pastor's Colleges, which is great. But we feel like if it's going to be called a Sovereign Grace Pastor's College, there are certain criteria that it needs to meet—in terms of curriculum, in terms of student care and discipleship, for example, in terms of producing fruit. And if they demonstrate that, they will be certified as a Sovereign Grace Pastor's College. Now, if a Pastor's College chooses not to go through that certification plan, that's fine; we just wouldn't call them a Sovereign Grace Pastor's College. And still pray for them and do what we can to support them. So that's an example of strategic initiatives.

Then, the Executive Committee asks me to give a report of departments and regions. So I walk through each department in Sovereign Grace and give an update there. You know, the Department of Theology that Jeff leads, Department of Music, Sovereign Grace Music that Bob Kauflin leads, are a couple of examples. And in regions, we just sort of generally summarize what we see in the regions. We don't drop down into each region and get into details at all, because it's not really the role of the Executive Committee. It's just more, "How are the regions doing overall?" And that's the update I give there.

Then we spend a lot of time evaluating the leadership team and me. What I do is I sort of give them a leadership team overall update. Then I share my evaluation of every member on the leadership team. Then they ask me to leave the room, and they evaluate me. Then they bring me back in, and we talk about that.

So, my evaluation—just so guys would understand, people would understand—involves a local elder evaluation, and then the Executive Committee sends my church, every leadership team member's church, a local church evaluation, basically asking, "Is he being an elder in a genuine way in your church? Are you in unity with him? Do you continue to support him in this role?" And then each leadership team member evaluates me as the executive director. Those are all passed on to the Executive Committee, and then I do a self-evaluation. So we try to be as comprehensive as possible in my evaluation, which I think is a really good thing—and again, a healthy thing. So that can just take some time to walk through all of that.

Then we'll also spend a lot of time on reviewing and hopefully approving the fiscal year 26 budget. That's a specific role the Executive Committee has: to drop into the details. They have a finance committee that does that and works with Tommy Hill, for example. They will ask a lot of questions about it and get to a point where they will vote to hopefully approve it. The Executive Committee approves the budget; the Council of Elders affirms it. So it's a unique function the Executive Committee has that the Council of Elders has given them to do.

And then we'll give some legal updates as well. We're always trying to keep the committee up on that.

So that's just some of the things that we will be doing next week. It's a full schedule. It's a few days. So would you please pray? If you're listening to this podcast or reading it, please pray for the Executive Committee as we gather next week.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. Well, I mean, again, thanks to everybody who's sacrificing time with family and regular work to head to the retreat to serve us in this important way. What's one or two specific ways that we can be praying for your time together?

Mark Prater:

I would say pray for the nine guys on the Executive Committee, asking God to give them wisdom for decisions they need to make. And I think pray that their input for me would strengthen the leadership and strengthen Sovereign Grace. Then, anything that comes out in evaluations that we need to grow in—that we would have grace to grow in those things. Those are just a few things that come to mind. Because ultimately, what that all aims at is the leadership team's desire and heart to serve our churches. And that aims at strengthening our desire together to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, which ultimately aims at the glory of God.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah. Amen. Well, we'll be praying. Thanks for the update. And look forward to hearing about how God is going to meet with you over the course of those days together in Glen Mills.

So thank you, Mark, for the update, and thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.