Last year, at the CGN International Conference, my friend and colleague Nick Cady and I had the privilege of collaborating to create something we believe to be extremely needed in this cultural moment: a workshop for pastors and leaders, aimed at understanding doubt and deconstruction and ministering to those who struggle.

Our workshop delved into understanding the issue from its core and exploring potential solutions. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and it inspired us to go a step further. We’re now transforming this content into practical resources for pastors, leaders, and anyone in ministry eager to help, as Jude says, “having mercy on those who doubt; saving others by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 1:22-25).

As many of you might be aware, the deconstruction movement has become quite prevalent. It’s not just a phase for the young; it affects people across all ages within the church, leading to doubts and often a departure from faith. This isn’t always simply about rebellion or a desire to ‘sin’ – the situation is far more complex than that.

Take Nick’s experience, for instance. He went through his own period of doubt and deconstruction while serving as a young pastor… an experience that shook him to his core and propelled him deeper into his faith as he studied to find answers.

I, too, have faced my share of doubts, and seen young people in my ministry, and peers from my Christian community, go through similar struggles. There are myriad reasons behind these journeys, and understanding them is crucial.

Video Series

Here are parts 1-3 of the series, covering the problem and roots of Christian Deconstruction. We hope to have another set of videos out early 2024, discussing solutions. Stay tuned for that. And if these videos bless you, please share them with your ministry teams, or anyone struggling through this issue.

If this content is helpful to you, or if you have feedback, we’d love to know. You can email AaronSalvato@Calvarychapel.com

In our series, we dive into the roots of the modern deconstruction movement. We examine influences like postmodern philosophy and how they shape our cultural moment. We also distinguish between personal struggles with doubt and the broader ‘#deconstruction’ movement that’s gaining momentum on social media.

Our exploration includes various causes of deconstruction, ranging from rejection of the religion one was raised in, to personal traumas such as abuse, hypocrisy, and corrupted theology. The goal of these resources is to equip pastors and leaders with knowledge, compassion, and Christ-centered approaches to support those grappling with these challenges.

This epidemic is one that requires insight and sensitivity. We want to help foster within CGN an approach that is informed, compassionate, and deeply rooted in Christ’s truth and love.

Further Resources:

• CGN Doubt & Deconstruction Resources for Pastors and Leaders
  • This is a massive list we put together filled with books, podcasts, videos, and more on this issue.
• My conversation with Evan Wickham on Hope for Doubters & Deconstructors
  • Evan has spent years working with people struggling through these issues. As a pastor who was stationed in Portland, Oregon, he has a ton of great insight.
• The Full Audio Workshop Nick Cady & I did at the 2023 CGN Conference.
  • If you want to hear the full workshop audio, here’s a recording. The video series goes through the content much more slowly and in depth, but the audio workshop had some good Q&A at the end as well.
• My follow-up conversation with a local pastor asking some clarifying questions.
  • My friend Johnny Zacchio, Jr. had some great follow-up questions around this topic, so I answered them in this podcast.

When I was 18 years old, I boarded a plane bound for Hungary. Despite the fact that I had only been following Jesus for two years, my pastor, the late Tom Stipe, sent me out as a missionary. Three years later, when I was 21, Tom ordained me as I was going out to plant a church.

At the time, these actions didn’t strike me as abnormal or unusual, yet now, years later, I look back on them with a sense of surprise. Why was Tom willing to take a chance on me, as young as I was? Why did he trust that I could serve the Lord in those ways without any formal training?

Later on, I came to realize that the reason was because that is what Chuck Smith had done for him when Tom was a young man: In 1976, Pastor Chuck sent Tom to Colorado to start a Calvary Chapel church here. In the movie, “Jesus Revolution,” millions of people saw the portrayal of how Chuck Smith empowered the young Greg Laurie to plant a church in Riverside, California. Still, the even more incredible reality is that Pastor Chuck did similar things with many young people over the years. Tom was doing for me what Chuck had modeled for him.

I remember sitting with Tom and listening to him tell stories of the early days of Calvary Chapel. One thing that Tom told me was that, in his opinion, the true genius of Chuck Smith was not his verse-by-verse teaching, as many people assume, and as masterful as that was. The true genius of Chuck Smith, Tom said, was that Chuck was willing, and even eager, to empower young people to serve the Lord in meaningful ways because he genuinely believed in the work of the Holy Spirit in and through people who were willing to make themselves available to God.

I finally got to meet Pastor Chuck in Austria, at the conference center that he had acquired for Calvary Chapel as a launching point for ministry in Eastern Europe. He asked about our ministry in Hungary and gave encouragement and affirmation. As I look back on that, I’m full of appreciation for him as a person who was more than just a good Bible teacher but an example of foresight and faith. Not only did Pastor Chuck want the Gospel to go forth into the whole world, but he understood that God wanted to use many other people to do that work. He was willing to support missionaries and church planters, including some of us who maybe wouldn’t have been empowered to do those things by anyone else who didn’t have the measure of faith he did!

Now, ten years after Pastor Chuck’s heavenly homecoming, I’m more inspired than ever to carry on his legacy of Bible teaching, evangelism, missions, and empowering people, especially young people, to serve the Lord.

Originally published on Nick’s blog on April 11, 2019.

At age 19, Augustine Aurelius—later to be known as Augustine of Hippo—read a dialogue by the Roman philosopher Cicero in which Cicero stated that every person sets out to be happy, but the majority are thoroughly wretched. Truly, no one dreams as a child of one day growing up to be miserable, and yet many people’s lives are characterized by conflict, frustration and unfulfilled longings.

Augustine set out to discover why it is that most people are so discontent in life. His conclusion was that for most of us, our lives are “out of order”; we have disordered loves.

Augustine was convinced that what defines a person more than anything is what they love. He said that when we ask if someone is a “good” person, what we are asking is not what they believe or what they hope for, but rather what they love. He stated that what we consider human virtues, e.g. courage, honesty, etc. are essentially forms of love. Courage is loving your neighbor’s well-being more than your own safety. Honesty is loving someone enough to tell them the truth even if it may put you at a disadvantage.

Sin, Augustine said, is ultimately a lack of love, either for God or for your neighbor. He famously stated that “The essence of sin is disordered love.”

Disordered loves means that we often love less-important things more, and more-important things less than we ought to, and this wrong prioritization leads to unhappiness and disorder in our lives.

This is essentially what James says in his epistle:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:1-3)

James is saying that what makes people miserable is not their circumstances, but that they are chasing after the wrong things, for the wrong reasons. The things they love are out of order.

Many times we view people as a means to an end, using them rather than loving them. Oftentimes we seek God primarily because we find him useful, rather than seeking him because we find him beautiful. We relate to him as useful to us, to help us achieve our selfish goals, rather than seeking his agenda for our lives.

Originally published on Nick’s blog December 8, 2020.

Unbelievable News

Through the prophet Habakkuk, God spoke to the people of Judah, telling them this:

“Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.”
Habakkuk 1:5

But what exactly would this thing be that God was going to do, which was so incredible that people wouldn’t have believed it even if they were told? The very next verse reveals the answer:

“For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.”
Habakkuk 1:6

The Chaldeans are also known as the Babylonians. What God was telling the people through Habakkuk was that He was going to raise up the Babylonian Empire to bring judgment on both the Assyrians … and upon Jerusalem!

The result of the Babylonian attack on Jerusalem would be that the Temple would be destroyed, and the people of Judah would be carried off into exile for an entire generation.

The idea that God would allow a wicked nation like Babylon to attack and destroy Jerusalem was inconceivable to the people of Judah; it was the kind of news that was so incredible that they wouldn’t have believed even if someone told them!

After all, they were the people of God! Didn’t God love them? Then why would He let this wicked nation to attack them, defeat them, destroy the Temple, and carry them off into exile, making them slaves and subjects who lived as minorities under pagan rulers?

The Unexpected Blessings of the Exile

But perhaps even more difficult to believe would have been the fact that in many ways, though the exile was painful, it would end up being one of the best things that ever happened to the people of Israel.

The destruction of the Temple and exile in Babylon were their greatest fears, and what God was telling them was that their greatest fears were going to become reality. The people of Israel assumed that because they were God’s chosen people, God would never let anything like that happen to them, and yet He did.

It begs the question: if God loved them, why would He let this happen to them?

The answer is: God intended to use this to accomplish good things in their lives that wouldn’t happen any other way.

In Hebrews 12, God tells us that as a loving father, He disciplines His children. He does this not in spite of His love for us, but because of His love for us!

Some of the Blessings That Israel Experienced in Exile:

• The divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah were reunited (because Babylon conquered Assyria), and they would come out of the exile as a united nation once again.
• Many of the people turned back to God and forsook the worship of idols, which had long plagued them as a people.
• A new form of worship was born: because they were cut off from the Temple, the Jewish people began gathering together in Synagogues, where they would study the Scriptures and pray.

Synagogues developed during the exile, and the Jewish people brought them back home with them and continued them after the exile and after the rebuilding of the Temple. Prior to the exile, the people of Israel had a relatively weak relationship with the Scriptures. Consider the fact that when King Josiah found a copy of the Scriptures in the Temple during the renovation, it was the only known copy, and no one had seen it in many years!

Because of the exile, and fueled by the lack of a Temple, the people began regularly studying the Word of God in Babylon, and as they became familiar with it, their hearts were being prepared for the coming of Jesus in the years to come.

The exile was the people’s greatest fear. It was a form of chastisement from God, but ultimately, it was one of the best things that ever happened to the people of Israel.

More Than Conquerors

The idea of being in exile was considered by the early Christians to be a good picture of what it means to be a Christian: we are a minority group living in a place that’s not our home, and in this place we experience hardships.

As Paul wrote to the Philippians: to be a Christian is to live on Earth but to have your primary citizenship and identity rooted in Heaven. And yet, as foreigners and sojourners in this world, we understand that God has us here for a purpose.

Just as the exile and the destruction of Jerusalem were the greatest fears of the people of Judah, we might have things in our lives that we consider to be our greatest fears—whether on a social or a personal level. Yet what we learn from Israel’s exile and the realization of their greatest fears is that God uses even terrible and painful things to accomplish beautiful things in and through our lives.

This is what it means in Romans 8:37 when Paul says that in Christ we are “more than conquerors”:

it means that because of what Jesus did for us to redeem us and make us children of God, the worst things that could ever happen to us in this life are also the best things that can ever happen to us! And if that’s the case, then you have absolutely nothing to fear!

Trials and difficulties will be used by God for your good and for His purposes. Hardships will draw you closer to Him. Death will literally bring you to Him. All the worst things that can possibly happen to you, in Christ, are also the best things that can ever happen to you—because of God’s love for you and commitment to you. In Him, you’re bulletproof! You’re more than a conqueror through Him who loved you!

 Originally published on Nick’s blog on May 9, 2023.

Nick Cady will be imparting two workshops and in our Q&A Panel at this year’s CGN International Conference!

Don’t miss it and register today!

One of my favorite quotes about preaching comes from Richard Baxter, the 17th century English Puritan pastor and writer. He described his mode of preaching like this:

“I preached as if never to preach again; as a dying man to dying men.”

That quote conveys the sense of weight and urgency that a Christian sermon must have. This sense of weight and urgency can be seen in the preaching of the prophets, of Jesus himself, and in the preaching of the Apostles, recorded in the Book of Acts.

“Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others”

In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul is writing about the incredible hope that we have because of the gospel. It is a hope that enables us to live free from the fear of death, because we know that eternal life awaits us as a result of what Jesus accomplished for us.

And then, in 2 Corinthians 5:11, Paul declares: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.”

To persuade means to convince someone to accept or adopt a certain point of view, belief, opinion, or course of action. It involves presenting arguments, evidence, or appeals that are designed to change someone’s mind or motivate them to take a particular action.

What is it then, that we are called to persuade people to do? In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul says that it is as if God is appealing to people through us: “We implore you, on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God!”

“I have written these things so that you may believe”

At the end of the Gospel of John, the Apostle John lays his cards on the table and says,

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
John 20:30-31

In other words, John was trying to do something more than just convey true information. He was seeking to convey true information in a way that would compel and persuade people to believe.

Persuasion Versus Manipulation

There’s a difference between persuasion and manipulation.

Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 1-2, says that when he came to Corinth, he did not seek to manipulate the Corinthians in any way by use of rhetorical techniques. Rather, he preached Christ, and Him crucified, and he did so with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

So, while we do seek to persuade, we must never be manipulative. How does that work out practically?

The Power of Expository Preaching

John Scott explains the power of expository preaching in this way:

“The skillful expositor allows the text to open itself up before our eyes, like a rose unfolding to the morning sun and displaying its previously hidden beauty.”
John Scott, Between Two Worlds

So, the job of a faithful Bible teacher is to help people to see what the Bible is saying in a way that is clear, and in a way that helps them see that it is not only true, but why it matters for them.

It is not our job to make the Bible “seem” compelling, rather it is our job to help people understand why it is compelling, by helping them understand and even feel the importance and urgency of what the text is saying and how it pertains to their lives.

Our goal is to help people understand the badness of sin, the hopelessness of the curse—and the greatness of Jesus, and the goodness of the gospel, in a way that compels them to believe and to act.

Augustine’s Preaching Manual

Augustine of Hippo, the famed church father, wrote a manual, to instruct other preachers how to preach.

In that manual, Augustine said that the duty of a preacher is not only to instruct and teach, but also to “rivet and delight”—and to “stir and move people to action.”

The goal of preaching, therefore, is not only to pass on true information about the Bible, but to affect the beliefs, actions, and even emotions of those who are listening.

Ultimately, we want to be used by God to reshape the foundations of our listeners’ hearts; to change what they most fundamentally love, desire, hope in, and trust in—so that by seeing what God’s Word says they are compelled to love, desire, hope, and trust in Him, rather than in idols of this world.

Compelling Preaching is Born Out of Two Loves

Compelling preaching is born out of two loves: love for God, and love for people.

Because we want to honor God by rightly dividing His Word, and because we care about the fate and destiny of people, we do not just want our sermons to be informative lectures, but we desire to bring the “words of life,” the Holy Scriptures, to bear on people’s lives in such a way that they are compelled to respond by trusting in and worshiping Jesus.

Bill is the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Inglewood, California — a community that is rapidly changing, and in this episode, Bill shares about some ways they are addressing those changes, reaching out, and discipling the people God is bringing their way.

Bill is also the father of a child with a disability, and he shares how his son’s disability has shaped him and his family, and how it has changed the way he approaches ministry and leads his church to love people who have unique challenges.

As a member of the CGN Executive Team, Bill also talks about what he is excited about in regard to Calvary Global Network in regard to “gospel unity” and the ability to do more for God’s Kingdom together than we can separately.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. Contact us at CGN@calvarychapel.com

On this season of Mission & Methods, hosts Nick Cady and Brian Brodersen are interviewing some of the members of the CGN Executive Team, so that you can get to know who they are and what they are passionate about.

Nate Holdridge is the Pastor of Calvary Monterey, in Monterey, California. He is the author of several books, including his recent book: Whole-Hearted Work, which you can find on his website: nateholdridge.com. Nate is a pastor’s kid, and in this episode, Nate talks about what it was like growing up in a church planting family, and what he learned through that about how Pastors can help their children to grow up in a way that helps them love the church and follow Jesus.

Nate is also a member of the Pastoral Care and Coaching Team for CGN, and so we talk about the importance of pastoral care and sabbaticals, and how to access those resources through Calvary Global Network.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these episodes. Email us at cgn@calvarychapel.com

Benjamin Morrison is a missionary in Ukraine and the pastor of Calvary Chapel Svitlovodsk in Central Ukraine.

Ben is also a leader with City to City in Europe and Ukraine.

To support Ben and the ministry he is doing, visit bit.ly/give2ukraine

Visit the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org to read articles, suggest topics, or ask questions.

Rob Salvato and Ted Leavenworth are joined by Nick Cady (Whitefields Community Church) and Bruce Zachary (Calvary Nexus) to discuss the new equipping resource from Calvary Global Network called Cultivate. Cultivate will help with the assessment, training, and cultivating of prospective church planters.

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Whitefields Community Church — https://whitefieldschurch.com

Calvary Nexus — https://calvarynexus.org