SG

This week the elders went to Orlando for the annual SG Pastors Conference (teachings are all here). How encouraging to hear about God’s work throughout the world and to be challenged in so many ways! It was the most edifying conference we’ve had in years and reminded us of the gift of partnership.

Mark Prater posted on the SG website the need for prayer as Hurricane Matthew makes its way to us. In particular he mentioned Cedric Moss, one of our SG pastors whose church is in Nassau in the Bahamas. Cedric told Mark that “Matthew is a most unusual hurricane. With other hurricanes, we’ve had a mixture of hurricane and tropical storm impact, but when you look at the forecast map, the entire Bahamas is in the red, meaning hurricane force winds. And Matthew is a Major Hurricane, with winds exceeding 110 mph.”

Cedric's prayer requests include:

At our September business meeting we announced that Phil will transition to working half time starting January 1st. We see this as a tremendous blessing because it allows Phil to slow down some and yet have the church still benefit from his teaching and pastoral gifts.

This past Sunday a group of us met for what we called a "missions round table." The point of the meeting was to talk with others at SGC who are especially interested in the cause of foreign missions. We all agreed that the gathering was encouraging and exciting. God is accomplishing his purposes throughout the world, and it is a joy to hear about some of that. (Don't miss the end of this post where I explain who was there and what they contributed.)

THE BIBLE AND THE NATIONS

We began with a brief look at the Bible's promises regarding…

Josh Blount serves as pastor in one of our churches in Franklin, West Virginia....I asked him to contribute to ours, and he sent a few posts that we'll sprinkle in over the next weeks. Here is one where he addresses some of the key elements of a worldview

This is from the SG blog regarding their new album and devotional:

We recently announced that there is a new Christmas album from Sovereign Grace Music called Prepare Him Room. In that post, we said that there are some other exciting resources accompanying the album (by the same name): a family devotional and a classroom curriculum.

Marty Machowski wrote the devotional and curriculum while Bob Kauflin partnered with him by overseeing the creation of the album. So, I took the opportunity to ask these men some questions to give you a more behind-the-scenes look:

How long does…

As a family of churches we have a unique opportunity to help provide relief to those in the Philippines devestated by Typhoon Haiyan. In God's kindness, we have had a long and fruitful partnership with pastors Nilo Ebu and Pete Valdez, both of whom lead churches in the Philippines. 

Encouraging stuff about the first Council of Elders meeting and foreign missions: The Priority of International Missions for Our Future.

On Friday the Sovereign Grace churches ratified a whole new way of functioning as a family of churches. We introduced a level of organization that far surpasses anything in our history together. That is, we have many more committees and structures than at any point in our past. The question could rightly be asked in the face of this new labyrinth, "Won't this kill mission?"

Yesterday in what was truly an historical moment for Sovereign Grace, our 67 U.S. churches voted on whether or not they wanted to adopt the new polity proposal.