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We're gonna ask Matt Bradley if he would come before us first. Matt is planning a church in Nashville, and Matt has a lot of stories to tell, a lot of wisdom in terms of exhortation, and also, go ahead, Matt, can, has needs for prayer, and so we're going to be using that in just a few moments as we have our prayer meeting. Come here. Thank you, Cole. It's wonderful to be back here. I think this is my ninth year and one of the highlights of my year. I love to be here and very much appreciate First Pres and the other churches and individuals who make it possible. I was also able to report last year and appreciate the opportunity to report again. We've been meeting and worshiping at All Saints Presbyterian in Brentwood, Tennessee for 18 months now. And things are really going well. There's peace and unity in the church, which is always a good thing. And we've got a congregation of people who are eager to hear the word and love to hear the gospel preached. And those are all encouraging things. A couple of challenges, because it's a church plant, so you know there are challenges. We've hit the typical plateau in terms of growth. So we're having to be patient and continue to pray and be faithful in the ministry and pray that God would send folks to us as we continue to get the word out about the church there in Brentwood. I tell people we have the usual problems, which is always fine. It's the unusual problems you have to worry about. But we've got marriages that are struggling and folks that are struggling with sin, and it's been a beautiful thing to see all of that come together. I've got a leadership team that is beginning to show a lot of gifts in terms of calling to the office of elder. They're shepherding the people well. In fact, since I've been here, just this one day that I've been here, I've already heard from my leadership team about some things that have come unraveled for some of the folks in our church and how the leadership team has gathered around them to minister to them. And so that's been a real blessing. For me personally, it's been surprising. I've been in pastoral ministry now for 13 years, but I've never been a senior pastor until now. And so it's been surprising how easy it is to believe the lie that it's all up to me. I've had to continually fight against that urge, that belief that if I don't do it and I don't do it perfectly, that things aren't going to work and things are going to fall apart. I've had to fight that continually. So I would appreciate your prayers as we continue together as a church plant there in Brentwood. I think Carl asked me if there was any counsel I would give to guys who are planting or thinking about planting. And I think the best thing that has happened for us as a plant is that we, the leadership team, this church is planted by a group of families who started a Bible study and eventually decided that they wanted a church there in their community and came to the Presbytery and asked if they could start that work. And I came on board about that same time. We had some very frank conversations about what kind of church they wanted to have in their community. I mentioned this last year. I pulled out the Twin Lakes pamphlet and showed them those things that David went over yesterday during his welcome speech, his welcome talk with us, and said, this is the kind of church that resonates with me, that I believe is a faithful and a biblical church and very much would want to pursue this path. And they looked it over and said, that's exactly what we want. And the great advantage to that has been that we've been pulling together in the same direction. We've been able to be very clear about who we are and what we value. And that means that the families that have visited us, the individuals who have visited us have heard a very clear message. and heard it consistently, and when they get to a point where they say, we want to be a part of this, they know what they're getting involved in. And so we, as many of you here, we, our church doesn't necessarily look the way all of the broadly evangelical churches look. We don't have all of the trappings, and some of that is because we're a plant, and some of that is because we never intend to do some of those things. And so it's good for them to know that now, rather than finding out later after they've committed themselves. So I'm very encouraged in the work. I appreciate the prayers and support of many of you here. And I've got a member of my provisional session, Nate Sheridan, sitting right back there. And I appreciate his encouragement and counsel. Nate has provided a great deal of wisdom in the work. And so please continue to pray for us as we work there in Brentwood, Tennessee. going to ask Wayne Anderson to come up and speak to us. Wayne, if you've been around Twin Lakes for the last several years, you've met Wayne. I'm not going to steal a lot of what he's going to say, but in your community, and I don't care where you are, I can say this without any fear of being contradicted. In your community, you have Latinos, Hispanics, Spanish-speaking people who don't have an exposure to reformed literature. It's a huge ministry to be able to put that in their hands. Wayne is the person you want to speak to before you leave today. He's going to tell you more, but Wayne, heads up a ministry called Faro de Gracia, Word of Grace. And based out of North Carolina, on his board of directors, includes these lightweight, broad evangelicals like Joel Beakey and Leg Duncan. And so that's who his board are. That's a joke. I know it's early in the morning, but he has really solid godly reformed men and they publish really solid reform publications. Wayne is the go-to if you're looking for, because you go out on the internet and you start looking, it looks like you have a thousand options. Wayne is the place that has great translations, great books, reasonably priced, get them in your hands. And so I'm gonna let him come and talk about their ministry. It is good to be here and good to see so many old faces and new faces as well. Brief introduction for ourself, I drove into Mexico City back in 92, although we went to Mexico in 89, but in 92 we drove into Mexico City in a pickup truck with a printing press in the back of it. And that's how our ministry literally got started. Church planning as well as in literature. I was a printer by trade. And so when we were commissioned to go to Mexico, that was an obvious need, a great necessity. I can count on one hand the number of Reformed titles back in 92. Since that time, we've been working very, very hard. The Lord has prospered our ministry greatly. It grew to a point in Mexico to where in 1998, we needed to open up a warehouse in North Carolina, in the States, in order to supply the need outside of Mexico throughout all the Spanish-speaking countries of the world. And so today, actually last year, we served in a rented warehouse for a number of years. Last year, God gave us our own warehouse, 10,000 square foot warehouse on three acres of property and for a song, literally. And so we're now, this last year, shipped out over half a million dollars in reformed literature throughout the Hispanic countries. The number of titles now is 2,260, almost 60 titles in the last 23 years. So God has been abundantly merciful to us. The need has been overwhelming. We're working just as hard as we possibly can. A number of volunteers as well as other paid staff. And as Brother Carl mentioned, our board of directors, tremendous men that have been of great help and have gotten behind our ministry solidly. We do have a website, farodegracia.org, which you mentioned, which you can go online, order any of our materials, see what's available. It's a bilingual site, so if you want to know if a title is in Spanish, just enter the English into our search window. and it'll pull the Spanish up if it's available. We work as a publishing house. Now, we're not only a publishing house, we're also a distributor, so that we gather from all, anywhere else in the Spanish-speaking world, literally, whoever else is publishing anything that would be reformed, we also supply it, we purchase it, supply it in our warehouse in order to distribute it throughout the rest of the world. And so of the materials that we publish, we add anywhere from 12 to 15 new titles a year. From the ones that we distribute from other publishers, we add anywhere from 50 to 60 a year. So somewhere in the neighborhood of about 70, 75 titles a year, we add to our inventory. Excuse me. And so most of the works that you men would be familiar with, by and large, many of them are now available in Spanish. For example, we spoke of Owen last night, Concerning Temptation, a classic mortification of sin. We haven't yet produced the other work of the trilogy on Indwelling Sin. That is definitely in the works, but at any rate, those two are available. They're in a bridged format, so that makes it a little bit easier to read, particularly for the Hispanic reader. Some of the classics, R.C. Sproul, which are, of course, a more contemporary author on the holiness of God, a classic. J.I. Packer on evangelism and the sovereignty of God. Many of these works, again, just not available until God opened the door for us to be able to supply that need. So if you need any kind of reformed Spanish literature, please feel free. Take a flyer off of our table in the display room or speak to me. There are phone numbers on there as well or email. Give us a call. We're happy to serve you in whatever way we can. Thank you, brother.
Church Planter Interview I
Serie Twin Lakes Fellowship
ID del sermone | 55171014497 |
Durata | 10:16 |
Data | |
Categoria | Conferenza |
Lingua | inglese |
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