I met Kang Songhwan when he and his wife, Miran, visited our church near Philly. Songhwan already had a seminary degree and almost ten years of pastoral experience. But the shocker was that they were considering moving temporarily from South Korea to the U.S. to attend our Pastors College. I remember being struck with the sincerity and humility of this couple—they were willing to make some serious sacrifices to go where they believed God was leading them. I’ve met few people like the Kangs.

Songhwan and Miran did move to Gaithersburg in 2008, and we were privileged to have them at the Pastors College. Songhwan did a remarkable job of navigating an intensive ten-month study program in his second language. (I mean school was always a challenge for me in my first language!) Songhwan graduated in June of 2009 and moved back to Seoul to plant a church.

Fast-forward to today: There are about 30 adults in Lord’s Grace Church, meeting in an English-language school in central Seoul. Songhwan recently finished teaching a series on foundational doctrines and commitments. On the final Sunday of that series, the church’s first members made a public commitment to the church, and everyone celebrated with a shared meal afterward. It’s no megachurch, but numbers aren’t what Songhwan is aiming for. A recent email from him says that the church “is growing continuously and happily in God’s mercy and grace.”
 
Now that’s good news.
 
Would you pray with us for Lord’s Grace Church? Please pray:

• that God would grant the church favor in their community
• that the church would share the gospel effectively and many would be saved
• for financial provision for this brand new church as it gets started in an expensive city
• that God would give grace and wisdom to the Kangs as they lead this church
  

Thanks for praying for believers in Seoul!

If you’d like to support Sovereign Grace Ministries’ work outside the U.S., you can make a designated gift by clicking here.

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Dave Harvey leads international expansion and church planting for Sovereign Grace Ministries and is based in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. For more information about the Sovereign Grace church-planting process, click here.

Get to know Toby Kurth and you will observe his passion for the advance of the gospel through urban church planting. But urban church planting is more than a passion for him. He has previously assisted in several church contexts and helped in the 2004 launch of Sovereign Grace City Church in Brooklyn, New York. Last year Toby graduated from the Pastors College and he now leads Christ Church, a church plant in urban San Francisco.

During our recent Pastors Conference, Toby explained the reasons why he wanted to plant in the city. He explained his path to planting in San Francisco, recounted some of the answered prayers along the way, and explained why this pursuit promises both reward and difficulty.

Listen to Toby’s 10-minute update for an inside look at the most recent Sovereign Grace church plant:

Download MP3 (2.4 MB)

Each year, Sovereign Grace Ministries presents a short documentary highlighting a few of the activities in our family of churches. This Mission Presentation is usually made in Sovereign Grace churches over various Sundays in October. This year, we produced three shorter films to highlight each of our funding categories—our Pastors College, our ministry among international churches, and our church-planting activities in the United States.
 
This year’s Pastors College documentary features the Arche Church in Hamburg, Germany, which sent Christian Wegert to be part of the 2007–2008 Pastors College class.

The international documentary features Covenant Life Church of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which was planted by two Pastors College students five years ago and is now planting another church in Addis.

The final video is an interview with C.J. Mahaney by Joshua Harris, which addresses some of the structural changes Sovereign Grace Ministries has made to position our ministry for growth in domestic church-planting.

Watch a trailer of the three 2008 Mission Presentation videos here.

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Related: Previous Mission Presentations can be viewed at www.missionvideos.org.