Announcing the Sovereign Grace Journal

Throughout our membership class, I make a big deal about the benefits of not being an independent church. We are united with likeminded churches for the sake of fellowship, governance, and mission. KingsWay is significantly stronger, protected, and more fruitful in ministry because of our partnership with Sovereign Grace. 

The “united in mission” aspect is easy enough to grasp. By pooling our financial and personnel resources, we are able to accomplish more gospel ministry in our region and around the world than we could ever accomplish alone. The “united in governance” element is a little more complicated. After all, it involves a rather large volume called, “The Book of Church Order” (BCO)! Think of the BCO as the guidelines and guardrails designed to protect the integrity of our witness. Pastors and members alike must be held accountable for living and teaching in keeping with the truth of the gospel. And when a church experiences crisis, we need wisdom and leadership outside of ourselves to help us walk through it in a way that pleases God. 

The “united in fellowship” aspect can feel a little more elusive. Maybe you’re grateful for the friendships we enjoy as pastors with other brothers in our region. If you’ve been around a really long time, you might remember something called the “Celebration Conference” where we gathered with other churches for a long weekend of preaching and worship through song. But if you’re not a pastor rubbing shoulders with other leaders in Sovereign Grace, how can you experience the benefit of fellowship – sharing our life in Christ with other people in other churches? 

Quarterly mission videos highlighting ways God at work in a particular SGC church are helpful, as are the relationships we get to build with visiting preachers. (I’m excited Josh Earl from SGC Wilmington is coming back to preach on July 4!) Lord willing, we will be able to host periodic regional events again in the future. Here’s a new way we can experience the benefit of denominational fellowship, building one another up spiritually. It’s called the Sovereign Grace Journal. Our executive director, Mark Prater, describes it this way: 

“Our journal contains original theological, practical, and devotional articles written by Sovereign Grace pastors for the pastors and members of our family of churches. The journal will also have book reviews, recommended resources and more. The purpose of the journal is to equip our pastors, strengthen the members of our churches, and celebrate the gospel values that we share. The theme of our first edition is “Christ Our Treasure.” We chose this theme because the primary passion and driving influence in our family of churches is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

You can download the entire journal or individual articles here. If you only have time to read a few, check out Bruce Chick’s insight into reading 1 and 2 Kings, Doug Hayes’ account of the life of Wilbroad Chanda, and Jeff Purswell’s meditation on Christ in the four gospels. All of the articles in the journal are devotional in nature. Most read like a long blog post, making them all the more accessible. Consider printing a few off and reading them during a lunch break at work!