Exploring Providence Part 2: Leadership & Ministries

6 · Asserts that the rigorous ordination process ensures theological reliability and gives the congregation confidence in the teaching they receive at Providence

So it's rigorous to become a Sovereign Grace ordained pastor,

just so you can feel comfortable with that, the teaching that you're getting.

And Chris passed through the ordination process, I passed through the ordination process,

and anyone who preaches at this pulpit will have gone through a rigorous examination period

and training and all those things.

So I think you can feel comfortable with the teaching that you're getting here.

7 · Concludes the leadership section and transitions to discussing church ministries and activities

All right.

So that's our church staff and leadership.

And then let's move on to church ministries and activities.

Church ministries and activities.

8 · Issues direct invitation for attendees to join a community group

So if you haven't been invited to a community group yet,

let me be the first to invite you to come out to a community group.

9 · Explains the structure and purpose of community groups: small group settings for mutual service, care, and spiritual building, meeting first and third Wednesday nights with various formats

Community groups are great small group opportunities

to serve and to be served,

to care for people and to be cared for,

to be built up in the word.

So we have about five or six community groups right now.

We're transitioning some community leadership come the fall,

where we'll have five community groups starting in the fall.

They generally meet on Wednesday nights.

Some meet men and women together.

Some alternate men and ladies, depending on what will serve the group.

And so they generally meet the first and third Wednesdays of each month.

10 · Urges attendees to join a community group, emphasizing the relational benefits (being known, knowing others) and the mutual service dynamic

And if you haven't gotten involved with the community group,

strongly encourage you.

We'll talk about kind of expectations of a member a little bit later,

but strongly encourage you guys to get involved in a small group.

It's a way to be known and to know other people and to serve and be served

and all those things.

That's community groups.

11 · Describes the men's ministry structure, particularly the fourth Wednesday night gatherings studying 1 Timothy's eldership requirements

And then we have men's ministry.

We are, and we'll talk about this,

we really at Providence value and care about and stress our men's and women's ministries.

And we love to invest in our men and our women.

So we've got men's ministry.

So we have fourth Wednesday nights.

So community groups meet first and third.

The fourth Wednesday night of each month is a men's ministry.

And then we also have these discipleship huddles.

So let me back up.

So the men's ministry on fourth Wednesday of each month,

we're currently going through the eldership requirements outlined in 1 Timothy.

And so we're going through that because we believe that those eldership requirements

are very, very helpful for just describing what a godly man looks like.

We want to be, and we'll talk about this, we want to be a leadership factory.

We're building up godly men.

And so we're going through those eldership requirements just to educate ourselves on them

and what does a godly man look like?

How can we grow into that?

How can we aspire for that?

How can we have ambition for that?

And if God raises up more elders for the church, that's great.

We want to grow men to be leading themselves, to be leading their wives,

to be leading their families, and to be leading within ministry within the church

and at work, in the community, wherever.

And we believe that those qualifications,

eldership qualifications are great things to strive for,

for an ambition for and to desire and to build.

So we're doing that on Fourth Wednesday nights.

12 · Uses a golf analogy to illustrate the progressive intimacy and application depth across the church's discipleship structures: sermons drive the ball to the fairway, community groups to the green, and discipleship huddles into the hole through deep personal application and accountability

The movie Discipleship Huddles, which if you think about it,

you think about like a sermon, it's kind of like driving the golf ball

from the putting or from the driving ring or from the tee to the fairway, right?

Community groups, it kind of drives the ball from the fairway to the green,

putting green.

Discipleship Huddles are a great way to get the ball in the hole.

In terms of like, you can do so much personal application in a sermon,

but you can do a decent amount more in a community group where you can really open up and talk within discussion.

And then it's a subject huddle where you don't have, you know, 150, 200 people that are hearing the sermon,

and a community group where you don't have 15, 20 people,

but a subject huddle where you have two or three or five people in a huddle talking about, you know,

what does the word say?

How do I apply this word to my life?

What are some goals I can set for my life?

Hold me accountable?

Things like that.

13 · Explains discipleship huddles exist for men currently with women's huddles coming in fall, then emphasizes the church's expectation that members take personal initiative and responsibility for their own spiritual growth rather than waiting for programs

So we really believe in Discipleship Huddles.

We have them for men right now, and we're planning to start them for ladies in the fall.

So more to come there.

But if you're part of a community group, like, and you want fellowship, just initiate it.

Just, we really believe in, and we'll talk about that, we really believe in initiative,

take responsibility, taking ownership for your growth and sanctification and walk with the Lord.

So if you want to do a huddle, you don't have to wait until August to start a huddle.

You can start a huddle now.

Talk to an elder, talk to a community group leader, think of a good book that you could read together

or a book of the Bible or whatever, and just get involved and pursue,

aggressively pursue your sanctification, and huddles help you to do that.

14 · Describes fire pit nights as monthly late-night men's fellowship gatherings focused on conversations about following Christ and leading as men

And then also, we have fire pit nights, like, once a month or so,

where we get the guys together, and we'll just, we'll fellowship together around a fire pit.

We'll have, you know, good fellowship, usually around 10 o'clock at night.

We'll initiate a conversation, usually something that can help men to lead and follow Christ as men.

So we'll talk about things like that.

And it's just, it's a great way to get to know other guys and have conversations.

So we do fire pit nights as well as part of our men's ministry, among other things.

15 · Outlines women's ministry opportunities including Bible studies, fellowship nights, winter "mom university" gatherings, and book studies, currently studying C

And then women's ministry, we have Bible studies.

As you learned about this morning, we have a fellowship night tomorrow, tomorrow night.

So there's ladies' fellowship nights.

There's a mom university in January, February time frame,

where it's like, it's cold and somewhat gray in the wintertime.

So let's get you out on like a Friday morning and get you some food,

get you some fellowship, hear a good talk, maybe some other ladies.

So that's mom university.

That happens in January to February time frame.

So women's, we've got Bible studies, we've got fellowship nights,

we've got mom university, we have a book study going on.

Right now they're reading a C.S. Lewis book.

So it's just a lot of opportunity for fellowship as ladies as well.

16 · Details various outreach initiatives including monthly Johnson County Community College campus outreach using whiteboard discussions and book distribution, Easter egg hunts, and Make/Bake/Buy events as opportunities for evangelism and guest invitation

And then outreach opportunities.

We do believe that, as Chris talked about today,

that God, that Christ has saved us to send us to our families,

to our community and beyond.

So we do believe in evangelism and sharing Christ with the community.

So we have a Johnson County community college outreach

that goes onto the campus of Johnson County once a month.

And we just, we put up a whiteboard.

It's pretty cool.

We put a whiteboard and we put a question on there like,

is church a good thing?

Or should we celebrate Christmas?

Just questions like that.

That would just get people thinking and talking.

And so we go out on the campus,

we hand out more than a carpenter books.

We hand out invites to our church.

And we're just there to serve the students of Johnson County.

So we do that.

We had an Easter egg hunt a couple weeks ago,

a couple weeks ago for around Easter time.

I mean, last Saturday, I was in track of time.

But we had an Easter egg hunt.

And then we also do something called Make, Bake, or Buy,

which once a year we get the ladies together

and you bring five things that you made

or bake or bought.

And you can just swap them and have a good time doing that.

So there's a variety of ways or opportunities

that you can reach out.

So there's a good opportunity to invite and bring along

guests to the events.

So it's just a lot of outreach opportunities.

17 · Describes the Johnson County outreach team's current activities (20 people in Basecamp group, 7-8 actively going out) and summer plans to read The Insider together to develop evangelistic skills

And even right now,

we're thinking through evangelism as a church

and specifically as an evangelism team,

the Johnson County Community College Outreach Team.

We have about 20 people in a base camp group.

And probably about seven or eight of us

have gone out to Johnson County

and shared the gospel there with the community there.

Over the summer,

we're going to be reading through a book called The Insider,

which is all about how do you share Christ

in your circles of influence.

It's a quick, pretty accessible book.

It's not 750 pages.

It's got theology and then it's got application.

So we're reading through that together,

just thinking about how we can share the gospel with people.

And so that's primarily going to be through our base camp group.

We'll talk about base camp in a little bit.

If you're not on base camp yet,

it's a great way to find out what's going on with the church

and just communicate.

If you need prayer requests, anything,

it can be a lot of notifications.

So I can work with you to set up the notifications

so they're not overwhelming.

You'll get like a thousand emails a day,

but you can turn that feature off

and just have regular app notifications.

We can talk about that.

But all that to be said,

that we're running through our outreach adventures

and team through the base camp group.

18 · Transitions from church ministries to an explanation of the church's relationship with Sovereign Grace Churches

Go from there.

All right.

Real quick, I wanted to give a little bit more focus

on Southern Grace Churches.

Just make sure you know our relationship

with Southern Grace Churches.

19 · Explains Sovereign Grace Churches' mission (planting and strengthening churches) and its theological framework: seven shared values covered earlier, plus seven shaping virtues (humility, joy, gratitude, encouragement, generosity, servanthood, godliness) that a gospel-centered culture produces

Southern Grace Churches' mission is,

to plant and strengthen churches for the glory of God.

So we are a Southern Grace Church.

We have a statement of faith, which you'll have.

Seven shared values, which I went over.

The first thing we went over after Truth and Beauty

and Community was seven shared values

of Southern Grace Churches.

There are seven shaping virtues

that we as part of Southern Grace Churches

believe that a gospel-centered culture will produce.

So we believe that a gospel-centered culture

will produce humility.

will produce joy.

Will produce gratitude.

Will produce encouragement, generosity,

servanthood, and godliness.

So we believe that a gospel-centered culture

will produce those seven shared values,

or seven shaping virtues, sorry.

And so those are some of the virtues that we want to cultivate

within our church.

And you'll see, we'll talk about them more as time goes on.

You'll see us reference them a bit through the podcast

or on Basecamp.

But those are the seven shaping virtues of Southern Grace Churches

that we believe, again, that a gospel-centered culture will produce.

20 · Explains Sovereign Grace Churches' regional governance structure: Providence is in the Midwest-Northwest region which oversees three areas (ordination, church planting, adjudication), with the ordination committee based in Sioux Falls

And then in terms of governance, like I mentioned before,

we're part of a regional structure of governance within Southern Grace Churches.

We're part of the Midwest-Northwest region.

That region oversees ordination.

The region oversees church planting.

And the region oversees adjudication.

So ordination.

If you are interested in pursuing eldership

within Southern Grace Churches,

there's a guy who sits in Sioux Falls.

He oversees the ordination committee.

And there's a committee.

And he will help you walk you through

the process of pursuing ordination

within the Midwest-Northwest region,

within Southern Grace Churches in general.

21 · Responds to a question by explaining two paths to ordination in Sovereign Grace: attending the 10-month immersive Pastor's College in Louisville, or self-directed study under ordination committee supervision covering the same material

And we can talk more about that,

if that's of interest.

Yeah.

You have a question?

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

So you can go to the pastor's college,

or you can do it

you can do it self-taught,

self-directed,

but under the supervision

of the ordination committee.

But there is a pastor's college,

for sure.

Okay.

I was just trying to see

what that is.

Yeah, we'll talk offline.

But Southern Grace Churches

has a pastor's college

in Louisville, Kentucky

that you can go.

It's an immersive experience

for like 10 months

where you live within

the Louisville church

and you get taught

by really fine,

excellent teachers.

But then you can also

pursue ordination

through reading

basically everything

they would read

at the pastor's college

or a lot of what they read

at the pastor's college,

pass the test

and get ordained that way.

So there's a couple

different paths

you can take.

22 · Explains Sovereign Grace's church planting philosophy: Chris chairs the regional church planting committee, and the denomination emphasizes team-based planting, surrounding church planters with 3-5 godly couples rather than sending individuals alone

Church planning.

So Chris,

our senior pastor,

is the chair

of the church planning committee

for our region.

So we're always looking

to see

is God providing

church planners?

Is he raising up men

that could plant churches?

And couples, really.

Men and, you know,

married couples

or single guys

or whoever that could go

and plant a church.

Is he,

is God providing

a team of people?

Is God providing

a place

that'd be good

to plant a church?

Because in Southern Grace Churches,

we believe in

the team approach

to planting.

So sometimes

a church will start out

with one elder,

but we want

to surround them

with three or four

or five

godly couples

that can come in

and support

and help out.

Not just send out

a guy to go

and plant a church

and do it on his own.

We believe in team ministry

in that way.

So Chris,

every church planning

for the region

23 · Explains the regional adjudication function: when issues cannot be resolved at the local eldership level, complaints or accusations can be brought to the region for resolution

and then adjudication

if anything happens

in the church

that we can't solve here

within the eldership structure.

If there's a complaint

or an accusation

that bears weight,

that can be brought

to the region

and the region

can help serve

with that as well.

24 · Outlines Sovereign Grace's national structure: a leadership team, theology team drafting the statement of faith, international church planting team, and sexual misconduct prevention team that provides training and protocols (Ministry Safe training, background checks) to protect children in local churches

And then nationally,

there's a national

leadership team.

There's a theology team

that helps basically

draft the statement

of faith

and oversee

the theology

of Southern Grace Churches.

There's an international

church planting team.

So Southern Grace Churches

is growing internationally

as well

as domestically.

There's a church planting

team for that.

And then there's

a sexual misconduct team

which is

helps

empower,

helps

equip

the elders

of a church

and a church community

to make sure

that our children

are protected.

Our children are protected

as really

as the dear

children that they are

that we want

anything to happen

to them

throughout the context

of a local church.

So if you're teaching

a children's ministry

here at our church,

you have to go

through ministry safe

training

and go through

background check

and things like that.

That's all things

guidance that we're getting

that we believe

that we should do

and then also

we've gotten guidance

from Southern Grace Churches

Central

with help and guidance

for how to

protect our children

really well.

25 · Concludes the Sovereign Grace Churches explanation and pauses for questions before continuing

So, all right.

So that's

Southern Grace Churches.

Let me stop for a second.

We've gone through

a few things

over the past couple minutes.

Any questions or anything

you want to stop me on?

Yeah.