My family and I started attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in 1974 when I was 11. It was during the height of the Jesus People movement and an exciting time to be around the church. Every night, something was going on at the church, and the main services and concerts were always packed full of people of all different ages. It was truly the way the music group Love Song described it in their song “Little Country Church”:

“Long hair, short hair, some coats and ties / people finally comin’ around.
Lookin’ past the hair and straight into the eyes / people finally comin’ around.“

I remember going to the Thursday night Bible study in the Sanctuary with Pastor Chuck. The place was packed full of people. Not only was every seat taken in all of the pews, but young people ages 11 to 18 were sitting on the floor up and down the aisles as well as on the floor in front of the stage.

Everyone was there to feast on the Word of God. Everyone, including all of us younger people, was super attentive. There was no hype, no fanfare. It was truly a revival, although none of us really even knew what that was at the time. God was doing something amazing in a generation of people, and God used Pastor Chuck as one of His key vessels during that time.

My First Encounter With Pastor Chuck

My first personal encounter with Pastor Chuck happened during that same year. I started attending Maranatha Christian Academy, the school at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. I was in the 5th grade, and the school and church staff were playing a flag football game against the kids.

Pastor Chuck was playing running back. If you have ever played sports with Pastor Chuck, you know how competitive he could be. Well, there was this play where he took a pitch and was running a sweep right. He made it past the line, and the only obstacle between Pastor Chuck and the end zone was me; I was playing safety.

As Chuck came running toward me, I got into position to try and pull one of his flags. I expected him to try and put some move on me. But instead of putting a move on me, he just ran me over. As I lay there on the ground, completely unhurt, I might add, I remember thinking, “Wow, that guy is my pastor.”

Seeing The Ripple Effect of Pastor Chuck’s Leadership

My next personal encounter with Pastor Chuck happened about six years later, during my junior year of high school. Randy Osborn, the high school pastor, was leaving, and I had been a part of the high school group at the church for three years at that point.

Under Randy, I felt like the group was going as well as it had been in my three years of involvement. The group had doubled in size, and I was really vested in the group. I went to a public high school, and high school ministry was my sanctuary, my refuge, my lifeline, so I really wanted Pastor Chuck to make a good decision in picking Randy’s replacement.

One Sunday after the morning service, I waited in the line out in the courtyard to speak to Pastor Chuck. When it was finally my turn to talk to him, I introduced myself and told him my thoughts about the high school ministry. I asked him if, before he made a decision, he would come and visit the group on a Wednesday night and see what was happening there.

When I think back on that conversation today, now as a Senior Pastor of a church, I think how silly it was of me that Pastor Chuck would need to visit the group or have the time to visit before he could decide on who was supposed to lead it.

Well, Pastor Chuck didn’t visit, but he did send a little Italian guy named Richard Cimino to come and check it out. Richard became the high school pastor, and God used him to make the single greatest impact on my life from the age of 17 to 21.

It was Richard who gave me my first opportunities to serve the Lord and to teach the Bible. Richard has been a dear friend in my life for the last 41 years. Chuck definitely made the right choice.

Richard served in the role of the High School Pastor at CCCM for nine years. During those years, hundreds of kids were saved and became true disciples of Jesus. At last count, at least 100 students who were involved in that high school group over those nine years went on to serve Jesus in full-time ministry as pastors, pastors’ wives, missionaries, and church planters around the world.

Wondering If God Could Use Me

Aside from Pastor Chuck’s faithfulness to teach the Bible, he faithfully loved the sheep at CCCM for all his years there. The single greatest impact that Pastor Chuck made on my life is one that he didn’t even know about when he was alive.

It happened during a Preach The Word conference that Greg Laurie was hosting. I was a young man serving as a youth pastor and wondering if I had a call on my life to be a senior pastor. I was looking for this conference to help me grow in my preaching. Pastor Chuck was one of the speakers, along with Chuck Swindoll and a few other noted and well-esteemed pastors.

Pastor Chuck was the last to speak, and the pastors who preached before him gave these very polished and masterful sermons. They were textbook sermons with great introductions, great connected points, humor in just the right place, and personal illustrations to drive their point home.

I remember listening to these amazing messages and thinking, “I could never do that!” “I could never preach like that.” I later found out that several of my friends who were there that day were all thinking the same thing about their lives. These men were such gifted communicators that my friends and I realized we just didn’t have that kind of gifting.

But then it was Pastor Chuck’s turn to give his message, and Pastor Chuck did something that day that I had never seen him do before and never saw him do afterward. As he was giving his message, he suddenly paused and said, oh, I forgot something. Then he started flipping back through his notes until he found it.

When he found it, he said, “Oh, there it is,” and proceeded to share that point. It was such a weird, awkward moment that stood in stark contrast to the other perfect messages the other speakers had given that day.

Realizing That God Can Use Me!

To this day, I don’t remember what the point was, but that moment impacted me and, later found out, also impacted all my friends who were there. It was at that moment that we all had this thought, “I can do that!” “Maybe, just maybe, God can use me to teach the Bible to people. ”

Later, as I reflected on that moment and those other speakers, I realized that none of them have had many other men who have come out of their churches and have gone out to plant other churches, but to this day, there are at least 1500-2,000 churches that have been planted out of Calvary Chapel that can trace a connection back to Pastor Chuck who lived by the principle to simply teach the Bible simply.

Pastor Chuck’s impact on my life through his example and his faithfulness to teach the Bible has shaped me deeply as a pastor. I have often said that should the Lord tarry another 100 years, which I doubt He will, but if He does, in 100 years, people will be talking about Pastor Chuck and the influence he made on the church in the same way that we currently talk about the influence of Spurgeon.

I greatly miss the stability that Pastor Chuck brought to our family of churches.

In this bonus episode of the Leadership Collective, we are sharing a recent episode from our partners at the When She Leads podcast:

In this episode of the When She Leads podcast, Brenda Leavenworth is joined by Jen Bursch (Calvary Murrieta), Annie Harley (Calvary Fort Lauderdale), and Shirley Ruiz (Reliance Church) in a candid conversation about the necessity and value of the presence of women at the table of church leadership. We pray that this conversation encourages you to continue to lead with humility and transparency by the filling and empowerment of the Spirit.

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When She Leads is a podcast for women in ministry hosted by Brenda Leavenworth, Krista Fox, Rosemary Cady, and Kelly Bell.

Email us at whensheleadspodcast@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @whensheleads

Rob Salvato and Ted Leavenworth are joined by Benji Horner (Light Church) and Casey Kendell (Bridgetown Church) to discuss the benefits and importance of starting a new church with the support of a well-established planting network.

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Light Church — https://www.lightsandiego.com

Bridgetown Church — https://wearebridgetown.com

Rob Salvato and Ted Leavenworth are joined by Richard Cimino (Metro Calvary) to candidly talk about our experiences with healthy and unhealthy ministry workloads and the effects they could have on our family health and relationships.

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Metro Calvary — metrocalvary.org

Rob Salvato and Ted Leavenworth are joined by Miles DeBenedictus (Cross Connection Church) to discuss how current societal trends and economic forecasts help form our vision-shaping process. More specifically, we will talk through forming vision for our churches as move past the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and into an economic recession in 2022.

—-

Cross Connection Church — lifeinconnection.com

The recent years have presented new challenges for pastors and leaders, and many studies are showing that discouragement is at an all time high. Even apart the unique events of the past few years, pastoring and leading can be difficult.

What is CGN doing as a network to provide care and coaching for pastors and leaders?

In this episode, Brian Brodersen, Kellen Criswell, and Nick Cady are joined by Rob Salvato, who leads the Leadership Care and Coaching Team for CGN. In our discussion, Rob shares about the ways their team is developing systems and providing resources to help pastors and leaders in practical ways, including providing resources to help them lead, and providing a lifeline for those who are struggling.

Together we share about some of the struggles we’ve faced as leaders, and how relationships within our network helped us in those times; as well as how we would like to make that experience available to anyone who needs it.

Check out the Leadership Collective Podcast here.

The Calvary Chapel / CGN International Conference is coming up soon — it will be from June 26-29 in Costa Mesa, California. For more information and registration, visit conference.calvarychapel.flywheelsites.com

New episodes are being released every 2 weeks, so make sure you subscribe to the podcast, so those episodes will be delivered to your device as soon as they come out.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at CGN@calvarychapel.flywheelsites.com

In this episode of the Leadership Collective Podcast, Ted & Rob talk candidly with Wayne Cordeiro about the nuanced process of structuring and organizing a healthy church board, identifying toxic board behavior, and prayerfully selecting board members.

References:

• Alliance Defending Freedom – adflegal.org
• Church Law Tax Report (Geographic Compensation Benchmarks) – churchlawandtax.com
• Leading With Questions by Michael J. Marquardt
• New Hope Oahu – enewhope.org

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The Leadership Collective podcast is a roundtable discussion with seasoned pastors, focusing on the nuts and bolts issues of ministry. Each month, we tackle the common challenges that leaders face and discover the practical lessons they’ve learned along the way.

The Leadership Collective podcast is a roundtable discussion with seasoned pastors, focusing on the nuts and bolts issues of ministry. Each month, we tackle the common challenges that leaders face and discover the practical lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News joins Rob & Ted for an honest conversation on navigating through church conflicts and splits.

The setting was sobering. Our tour group of 51 people was at Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Remembrance Center) when our amazing tour guide told us, through tears, the gut-wrenching story of how his parents both survived the horrors of World War II. When he was finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in our group.

As we left Yad Vashem that day, my heart was heavy.

It always is when I visit that place, but this time, there was something else going on inside my heart as I thought about the horrible atrocities that have been heaped upon the Jewish people throughout the centuries. I thought about how the Jewish people as a whole do not see themselves as victims, despite the horrible evils that they have had to endure. Rather, they see the difficulties that they have endured as opportunities to rise above. The people of Israel have gone through more difficulties than any people group that has ever existed in the history of mankind, yet they are such industrious people. The nation of Israel is a world leader in innovation, security, agricultural technology and fresh citrus fruit production and exportation, just to name a few.

When I think about how the people of Israel have chosen to be opportunists rather than victims, it reminds me of what we are called to be as followers of Jesus Christ. Romans 8:37 tells us that we are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us!” Now, we all know what a conqueror is. In Paul’s day, it was the Roman army who beat the world into submission. Today, it is the UFC fighter who destroys his opponent in the octagon. It is a football team that destroys the other team 56-0. We can think of numerous examples of someone or some team being conquered, but what does it mean to be “more than conquerors?”

I appreciate this insight from John Piper:

“One biblical answer is that a conqueror defeats his enemy, but one who is more than a conqueror subjugates his enemy. A conqueror nullifies the purpose of his enemy; one who is more than a conqueror makes the enemy serve his own purposes. A conqueror strikes down his foe; one who is more than a conqueror makes his foe his slave. Practically, what does this mean? Let’s use Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 4:17: ‘This slight momentary affliction is preparing [effecting, or working, or bringing about] for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.’”¹

Here, we could say that affliction is one of the attacking enemies. What has happened in Paul’s conflict with it? It has certainly not separated him from the love of Christ, but even more, it has been taken captive, so to speak. It has been enslaved and made to serve Paul’s everlasting joy. Affliction, the former enemy, is now working for Paul. It is preparing for Paul “an eternal weight of glory.” His enemy is now his slave. He has not only conquered his enemy, he has more than conquered him.

We live in a day and age where more and more people tend to assume the role of the victim.

I know that there are many people who have experienced much more tragedy than I ever have, and that tragedy has left them deeply scarred emotionally; but the scar that has been left from the wound that has been afflicted has the opportunity to define their lives in one of two ways.

For some, a scar is the reminder of the event that ruined their life, or their marriage, or their faith, but for others who, through the grace of God and the Spirit of God working through embracing the Word of God, that scar becomes the symbol of the thing that should have ruined their life, and is now a testimony of the abounding grace and power of God that turns the conquered into those who are more than conquerors. The affliction and the enemy have moved from being the master to the slave for the glory of God and for helping others who have gone through similar trials learn to overcome.

The Apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.”

May we who are followers of Jesus learn from our Jewish friends to not allow ourselves to be victims, but through the grace and power of Jesus working in us, be victorious and industrious for His kingdom and glory!

Notes:

¹ John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), pp. 96-97.

We were about six months into our church plant in Oregon, when I headed out one day to a nearby lake just to spend some alone time with the Lord. For a church plant, things were going ok. We had a great school to meet in, and people were coming; but the ministry I was now involved in was a far cry from where I had come from. I had spent the last seven years serving as a high school and college pastor at Calvary Chapel in Vista, California, a church that had grown tremendously and was very active in missions and outreach. I was overseeing two ministries that kept me extremely busy teaching studies, planning and overseeing retreats as well as taking teams on overseas mission trips. We also, as a church, did a yearly crusade in our community and were active in the Harvest Crusade when it came to San Diego. Calvary Vista was a place of action, activity, and God seemed to always be on the move. But now I was in Oregon, trying to birth a church from the ground up, and it was slow going.

The activity level was a snail’s pace compared to what I was used to.

So on this sunny afternoon at a lake in Oregon, I had a very honest conversation with God. I asked Him, “Lord, what am I doing here?” “Why am I here?” I felt like I had been used in a greater way back in California. It was at that moment that the Lord spoke to me in a very clear way. It was not an audible voice, but it was very clear and very distinct. He asked me a question. He said, “Rob, if I took everything away, the ministry, the church, your family, everything, so that all you were left with was Me, could you find your satisfaction in Me alone?” The question took me off guard.

After I thought about it for a few minutes, I answered the Lord with a tearful, “No!” It was then that the Lord showed me that somewhere in the midst of my seven years of ministry at Calvary Chapel Vista, my sense of joy and satisfaction had begun to be wrapped up in being involved in what the Lord was doing in and through our ministry and not the Lord Himself. It was an alarming revelation. I was discontent in my life at that moment in Oregon because, in comparison to the ministry that I had been involved in back in California, I felt like the Lord wasn’t doing much of anything with me. That is when it hit me; my identity was in being a minister of Jesus and not in who I was in Christ. That was a monumental day in my walk with the Lord and in my ministry.

A New Focus

The next four years in Oregon were largely about getting my heart back into a right place with Jesus, discovering who I was in Christ and allowing Him to speak to and mold my heart once again. We read in Luke’s gospel that “Martha was distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40, ESV). The interesting thing about that statement is that Martha was serving Jesus and His disciples who were at her house. I think this is a trap that every servant of Jesus can fall into; we get distracted from much serving because there is so much service to be done! What was Martha distracted from? Jesus answered that question when He continued to say to her, “You are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part” (Luke 10:41–42).

You see, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus enjoying His presence and taking in His word. Well, Jesus could have said the same thing to me when describing my latter years of ministry at Calvary Chapel Vista. I had become distracted with much serving. Now, like Martha, I was serving God, but the one thing needed for me was to get back to cultivating the intimacy with Jesus that had marked an earlier time in my walk with Him. From that day forward, my passion became to know Christ more, not only through His Word, but also through the victories, defeats and experiences of life.

In Acts chapter 13, it says that the elders in the church of Antioch were ministering to the Lord. I find that phrase interesting; they were ministering to the Lord, not for the Lord. Ministering for Him consists of the daily responsibilities and needs that are a part of our calling. Ministering to the Lord involves sitting at His feet, listening to His heartbeat, being still and knowing that He is God. It is coming to Him in worship and being amazed at who He is. Because of my sports background, I have always been a disciplined person, and I was disciplined in having daily morning devotions; but to be honest, my devotional life had become mechanical, sort of like eating breakfast or taking vitamins. I read my chapter, prayed for the day and was on my way.

After that conversation at the lake, I knew the Lord was calling me to have a more passionate and intimate daily time with Him, to get back to sitting in His presence and being still and knowing that He is God. Taking time to be caught up in the awe and wonder of the reality that the almighty and awesome God actually desires to have a daily love relationship with me. I have also realized that in order for me to keep the right perspective and priorities, I need to set aside specific times and days for ministering to the Lord.

At least once a month, I try to set aside an entire day to pray and seek the Lord.

I take my Bible and journal with me, spending the first part of the day focused solely on my relationship with the Lord. Only after I have heard from the Lord personally do I move into praying about areas of ministry that I have the privilege of overseeing. The beauty of this change in my life is that whether I am in a season where ministry is full and exciting and God is moving in powerful ways, or in one of those dry, difficult seasons that we all go through, my heart is full of joy because my joy and satisfaction are in my relationship with Jesus; and not in what I am doing for Him or what He is doing through me. Ministry fluctuates, and can be forever changing, but Jesus is constant, and He loves us so much. Press into Him and find your joy and satisfaction in being His child, His friend, and everything else will be like icing on the cake!

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James‬ ‭1:2-4‬, ‭NLT).‬‬ ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

A CULTURE THAT PREFERS EASE

Near where I live in Oceanside, California, is a bike path known as the San Luis Rey River Trail. It is a path that you can ride a bike or walk on that will take you 10.7 miles from the eastern part of Oceanside all the way to the beach. My wife and I have ridden our bikes down that path many times. The trail is a fairly flat and easy ride that is safe and fun. However, when the wind picks up, the ride can become extremely challenging, and sometimes the wind can be blowing so strongly that you barely feel like you are moving at all. I don’t know anyone who enjoys riding against the wind unless, of course, you are on a motorcycle. Don’t motorcyclists like to talk about the wind in their faces? On a bicycle, however, we prefer the wind at our backs.

What is true of a bicyclist is equally true of the Christian life; we prefer the wind at our backs instead of in our faces. It is a part of the mindset of the age in which we live. The current mindset tends to regard burdens, struggles, hardship and pain as simply bad and to be avoided at all cost. This age will medicate, distract, deny and try virtually anything to make the burdens go away.

LEARN TO LEAN INTO THE WIND

However, according to God’s word, the struggles and the trials we encounter and the pain that often accompany them have a purpose. James tells us that the purpose of the trial is to produce something in us. The trial produces endurance. Trials are not meant to break us; they are meant to make us stronger, to make us better, not bitter. But here is what we must understand: That the result all depends on how we respond to the difficulties. It is for this reason that James says, “So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” Let it grow; learn to embrace it’s difficulties; learn to lean into rather than away from them.

RUN AT THE GIANTS INSTEAD OF FROM THEM

In the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, we see young David coming upon the battle scene. The army of Israel was encamped on one hillside and the army of the Philistines was encamped on the other side. In the valley between was the giant Goliath who stood over nine feet tall. Every day for 40 days, Goliath issued the challenge to the army of Israel to send out a man. For 40 days no one volunteered until David showed up. David arrived on the scene and heard the rants of Goliath and said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he would defy the armies of the living God?” Why did David see the situation differently from everyone else? According to the Reese Chronological Bible, and many Bible scholars support this information, David wrote Psalms 8 and 19 shortly before coming to the battlefield. In these two Psalms, David found himself meditating on the majesty and glory of God. In Psalm 8:1 he writes, “O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!” Also, in verses three through four, David declares, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?”

David was contemplating similar things when he wrote Psalm 19:1-4, in which he declared:

• The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.
• Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
• There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
• Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

THE GIANTS ARE OUR BREAD

So when David approached the battlefield, he had already been contemplating the bigness, the glory, the majesty and the power of Almighty God. The result of that mindset was that he saw Goliath, who was the trial, the challenge and the obstacle, as something little in light of the bigness of his God! I love hearing about what David does when he was finally cleared by King Saul to go out and face the giant.

We are told in 1 Samuel 17:48 that David RAN AT GOLIATH! People who believe in a big God who loves them learn to run at adversity. They learn to run toward the trial knowing that God is going to use it to do something great in them and through them. I love what Caleb said about the giants in Numbers 14:9. When the other 10 spies were seeking to discourage the people of Israel from going into the land of promise because of the giants in the land, Caleb declared, “Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.”

Consider that line: They are our bread! They are our nourishment, in other words. They are the very obstacles that God wants to use to nourish and strengthen our faith! When is the last time you looked at a trial with this perspective?

I, too, am challenged by the early church’s response when they were faced with persecution. Acts 4 tells us that they gathered together to pray. I think most of us would be prone to pray that the persecution would stop, that it would be taken away. They, however, prayed for boldness to speak and to stand in the midst of the persecution. Why did they pray that way?They knew that Jesus loved them; they knew that Jesus was with them, and they knew that Jesus had promised that persecution would come. So instead of running from difficulty, they leaned into it. In reality, they were leaning into Jesus, believing that what He said was true. Trials had a purpose, and the purpose was to make them more like Jesus and to help them impact their world for the gospel. Someone once said, “Don’t pray for a lighter load; pray for a stronger back.” Lean into Jesus by leaning into the trial and watch how He shows up with strength and power to help you be victorious!

Recently, I was asked to be one of the speakers at a retreat for millennials where the theme was “Legacy.” The definition of legacy that was put forth was: something transmitted by or received from a predecessor or from the past. In my experience, legacies are born out of relationships and moments that leave a mark and make an impact. As I prepared for my message, it caused me to think back on two men who shared moments with me and gave me opportunities that have left a legacy upon my own life and ministry to others.

A LIFE-CHANGING CONVERSATION

Richard Cimino was my high school pastor during my senior year when I attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. It was a conversation with Richard over lunch one day that changed the whole trajectory and focus of my life. Richard lovingly said to me, “Rob, do you know what your problem is?” I was taken off guard but curious as to what he was about to say, so I responded, “No. What?” Richard proceeded to tell me that my problem was that Jesus was only a part of my life and not the center of my life.

Those words cut me to the core. I knew he was right. I definitely was a Christian and loved Jesus, but my life and priorities were divided like slices of a pie between school, friends, family, playing baseball (which was a major passion), my job and Jesus. Sometimes Jesus was a big slice, but at other times He was a small slice. The Lord showed me that He wanted to be in the center of my life and that all those other things needed to revolve around my relationship with Him. It was that conversation with Richard that would be the catalyst for what would happen a year later when I was in college on a baseball scholarship, and the Lord called me to quit playing baseball and pursue full-time ministry.

OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE

Richard gave me my first opportunity to serve in ministry, as a leader in the high school youth group at CCCM. At first my role was just to help out in practical ways and to try to spend time encouraging kids the way that Richard encouraged me. Eventually it led to teaching Bible studies, leading home groups and co-leading the Sunday night youth gathering at the church.

However, it was Brian Brodersen who gave me my first opportunity to teach a Bible study. Shortly after the Lord called me to quit playing baseball in college and to focus on serving Him, Brian asked me if I wanted to take over teaching a lunchtime Bible study that he had been doing at University High School in Irvine, California. I told Brian that I didn’t know how to teach a Bible study. He told me that God would show me and to take a step of faith. So I did.

After my morning classes at college, I cruised out to the high school and basically shared with the students what God had been showing me in my morning devotions. Surprisingly, the students liked it and asked me to come back! I taught that Bible study every week for the rest of the semester. The students at University told some of their friends at Woodbridge High School about the study, and they invited me to come and teach a Bible study at their school as well. So all of a sudden, I was ministering to a group of students at both of those schools, even though I really didn’t know what I was doing, and God was blessing it. At the end of the school year, both groups wanted to keep meeting and suggested that they combine over the summer at a house on Thursday nights. So now I was driving to Irvine on Thursday nights to meet with over 60 high school students in a house. I still didn’t know what I was doing, and looking back on it now, I am sure that I taught some things that were heretical! But God was moving and working in spite of me, and through me, all because I was available and Brian gave me an opportunity.

A TRIP TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Another way that Brian left a lasting mark on my life was when he took me on my very first missions trip overseas. We went to Eastern Europe in 1989, right after the fall of communism. It was an incredible experience. One afternoon during the trip, I was able to lead a group of about six young men to Christ and then throughout the following week, a friend and I met with this group twice a day to disciple them. We met in the morning before school and then we met up in the afternoon, when they got out of school. By the end of the week, that group of six guys had grown to 30 teenagers who were hungry to know Jesus. It was a church in the making! When it was time leave the kids and head back to the United States, I told them that we would bring someone back who would continue to teach them about Jesus and help them grow in their relationship with Him.

Two weeks later I was on a plane with a young man named Mike Harris, who I knew from Richard’s high school ministry. Mike was a surfer kid that loved Jesus and had a gift in music and evangelism. By the end of a week back with the kids, things exploded, as over 100 young people were gathering every day to come and hear Mike preach the word and play music. That gathering would turn into what became Calvary Chapel Suboticia Yugoslavia.

Personally, that experience led me to never look at a city the same again. Now, when I go to any city in the world, my first reaction is always to have eyes to see what the Lord is doing and to ask Him what He wants to do in that city and if He wants me to somehow be a part of it. That shift in my heart and mind toward missions took place because someone gave me an opportunity to do something that I had never done before and to be used by God in a way that I didn’t think was even possible.

You see, the impact that Brian and Richard had on my life has inspired me to give young men and women, whom I have encountered over the years, an opportunity to be used by God. I have had the privilege of seeing many of them go on to do great things that have far surpassed anything that I have ever done. That, to me, is a tremendous joy! Sometimes I think we can overcomplicate serving God. I was taught that God is not looking for ability but availability.

I believe that we who are leaders in this season need to look for those in the generation behind us who love Jesus, who are available and who desire to serve Him, and give them opportunities that will allow God to blow their minds. It might look messy, and they may not get it right all the time; but we can inspire them to go for it and rejoice with them as God blesses. In doing so, we will leave a lasting legacy!