One of the great teachers affiliated with Calvary Chapel is a man named Bob Hoekstra. He may be one of the most undervalued teachers in the movement as well. I had the privilege of taking four classes with Bob in Bible College and I am still using the material I learned back then. He has a laser like focus on the New Covenant. And most of his teaching has to do with the nuances and ramifications of the New Covenant.

One of the greatest things I learned from his was his teaching on Faith and Humility. Based on Romans 5 and James 4 Bob taught that grace is given to a person who is expressing their faith towards God and is humble. He memorably said, “The expression of humility is: God I can’t do it. And the expression of faith is: God you can do it.” It is when we as believers are walking in these two attitudes of faith and humility that God gives us his grace.

So how does this apply to Calvary Chapel?

In early days of the Calvary Chapel movement there was an amazing display of God’s grace, power, life, and sufficiency. I think this correlates to the overall disposition of the men and women in Calvary Chapel at that time. The circumstances were influencing men and women to walk in faith and humility. In turn God was giving grace the the movement.

I was thinking about the Venture of Faith film and the Calvary Chapel Distinctives that talks about taking ventures of faith. Faith was required of those who wanted to obey God’s call during the CC movement. Guys were taking ventures of faith to plant churches, build buildings, take missions trips, start radio stations and the list goes on.

But now the circumstances are different. Many of those churches have now matured into full ministry centers. There is tremendous wealth in many Calvary Chapels and staffs that sometimes top 200 people.

Instead of being influenced toward faith and humility there is a pull towards pride and self-sufficiency. I’m not saying that all Calvary Chapels are prideful and lacking faith. I’m only saying that the circumstances aren’t necessarily encouraging our attitude in the direction of faith and humility.

We need to be ware of this reality. And we need to return to the Lord for fresh revelation on what it means for us to now be full of faith and humility in the midst of our current circumstances.

It’s that time of year again. The Senior Pastors Conference in Murrieta, California will run from June 7th through the 10th. There are over 1000 men attending this years conference. The college won’t have a real presence this year except for our Senior Pastor, Bob Hallman.

If you can’t make it there are a few ways that you can follow from a far. The Director of Kauai Bible College, Josh Turansky has created a twitter list of Calvary Chapel Leaders. Most of these men are attending the conference and posting updates.

The second way to follow along is to look at Calvary Chapel pastor’s personal blogs. Here are links to a couple of them:

Corby Stephens

Mike Macon

Pedro Garcia

Chuck Lindsey

We are ready to releas version 1.0 of Movements vs. Methods. This article has been slowly developed since the end of September 2009 and draws from a number of resources. It can be downloaded here. We are releasing this knowing that the copy is rough in its overall composition. We welcome any english editors who would like to correct our grammar or spelling.

If you are interested in reading the introductory article you can click here.

And if you are interested in taking the original survey you can click here.

We had a lot of fun researching this subject and feel like we have barely touched the surface. We also learned a lot about how we want to develop these projects in the future. (Yes, we are preparing another survey and project for the future.)

What’s next?

We are going to be reposting some of the content from the report and then asking for your input over the next few weeks. We are eager to hear your interpretation of history. Maybe you will agree and maybe you will not. But your view is important as you strive to fulfill your calling.

If you have any questions related to the content of the article you can contact the lead editor: Josh Turansky at joshturansky (at) gmail (dot) com.

Please note: this post was originally posted on the main KBC site at the end of September. We wanted to place it here to provide readers of the Movements vs. Methods article with a context.

Fill the survey out here!

As the Calvary Chapel movement gets older it is interesting to watch the changes that take place and the new concerns that arise. I am not old enough to have seen the Calvary Chapel movement in the early 70′s, but I have now been around CC leadership for the last ten years. I have seen enough to know that the future success of Calvary Chapel is not written in stone and some serious conversations need to take place.

Because our focus at the Bible College is on equipping a new generation we often feel like we are at tennis match: on one side looking at the historical foundation of the Calvary Chapel movement, and on the other side strategizing how best to train leaders for the future. Unfortunately I have to confess that I have been critical of Calvary Chapel in the past. I have complained about the things Calvary Chapel is not doing rather than appreciate all the good things that it has done. But whether I am an appreciator or complainer, I still am relating to young adults on a daily basis. And I feel the pressure to be fruitful today.

I find myself sorting through snippets of Calvary’s history; evaluating what is of greatest worth to pass onto these young adults. For a while I was critical of Calvary Chapel’s lack of one to one discipleship. I really felt like Calvary was dropping the ball on discipling young believers, and budding leaders. But this last week that critique changed a bit.

I realized the awesome reality of one man (Chuck Smith), modeling biblical church life, sending out hundreds of pastors to plant churches, that in turn saw thousands saved and mature in Christ. It is kind of dumb to take shots at what is missing in Chuck’s discipleship model when he is the leader of 1500 CC church plants. You go and get your own 1500 churches and then you can take your shots. (I may regret saying that later in this article.)

Chuck’s model has been simple; teach the Word in a home Bible study. As it grows rent a store front. If you keep growing, buy a big facility, start a bookstore, radio station, K-12 school, and maybe even add a Bible College. This model has been copied time and time again. It has been duplicated so many times that it almost seems unspiritual and boring. But lets assume that it is a God inspired model that served the first generation of Calvary Chapel church plants well. There are a lot of Calvary Chapels that have followed this model and done incredibly well. A lot of people have gotten saved, discipled, and equipped through this model.

But then, us young folks come on the seen and see this incredible model fully developed, and we begin to poke at the problems. This could be pride, and ingratitude toward those who have laid such a terrific foundation. But at the same time we have to carry the baton in a few years and want to be fully convinced that what we are doing is biblical, and quickened by Spirit.

So we are caught in a precarious position of looking prideful and ungrateful as we ask questions and test the creeds of the first generation. How can we lead a future generation if we have some serious concerns or questions?

With that in mind I intend to write a series of articles that wrestle with the future areas of growth. These articles are based on questions students have asked in the classroom. I am interested in input from all directions. I am by no means the smartest guy in the room. I am only asking questions and posting the ideas I hear and come up with.

There are a few ways that you can add, disagree, contend, challenge. I will be creating a survey that accompanies each question. You can also e-mail me at joshturansky (at) gmail (dot) com. You can follow me on Twitter at @JoshTuransky. Or you can facebook me.

I really want to hear from current leaders in Calvary Chapel, but I also want to hear what young adults are saying. Also, those of you outside the CC movement; I want to hear your thoughts as well. Please engage whether your thoughts are fully developed or not. There are young adults being discipled at this Bible College and at a dozen other campuses that represent future leaders. Your input could really benefit their development.

Here are some of the questions I want to ask:
- If the success of Calvary Chapel came from a work of the Holy Spirit, and not a method, but we don’t have that same movement of the Holy Spirit today, what methods are we to follow?

- Why did Calvary Chapel find so much success in suburban areas, but there has not been as much success in urban/inner city areas?

- What is Calvary Chapel’s philosophy of missions?

- Why does Calvary Chapel tend to be anti-intellectual, but rely heavily on seminary scholars in sermon preparation?

- What leadership role does the Pastor’s Conferences play in the movement, and why does Calvary Chapel have the same guys teach year after year at most of these conferences?

- Why does Calvary Chapel tend to be exclusive from the rest of Christianity in America? Or in the positive; “Who outside of Calvary Chapel do we co-labor with?”

- Why does Calvary Chapel find Acts as a model for church life, but an Old Testament leader (Moses) as a model for church government? This question has been asked and answered in other places, but I want to aggregate those answers here.

- Is it a false perception to see that the older Calvary Chapel leaders who have been around since “the Tent” days reach tenure, and join the “Good Ol’ Boys Club”? Maybe this is a question about accountability.

If you want to have input on these questions please start by filling out the survey linked here. I also would love to read your e-mails.

God bless,
Josh Turansky

This article was originally posted by Josh Turansky in 2007

For years now Calvary Chapel has ministered to thousands of people. And from the start of the movement people have asked why Calvary Chapel has been so successful. Many people look back on the decision to welcome hippies into the church as the reason for Calvary Chapel’s great success. Others would point to the openness to contemporary worship as a cause for success. Maybe one would suggest our stance on the Holy Spirit made us successful or the way that we viewed eschatology.

But as good as these things were, they were not the true reason for Calvary Chapel’s success.

God has blessed Calvary Chapel because of how it handled the Bible. Calvary Chapel esteems the Bible zealously, holds to it emphatically, examines it thoroughly, and trusts in implicitly. Calvary Chapel believes the Word of God is written by God (inspiration), does not have error (inerrancy), is able to be interpreted literally (clarity), and it is applicable to all of life (authority). This is why God has blessed Calvary Chapel.  We have been consumed with our love for the Bible.

And it was from this foundation on the word of God that Calvary Chapel acted. We had the “hearing of faith” as it says in Galatians 3:5. We obeyed what we read. This obedience to the Word lead to a ministry to hippies, an openness to spiritual gifts, contemporary worship, pretrib and premil eschatology, a middle road between calvanism and arminianism, the emphasis on the New Covenant Grace of God, and the strong stance against humanistic psychology.

But lets not forget the foundation: the Bible. The danger is to focus on the right actions and forget the foundational cause of those actions. Jesus’ Church is not built by man’s abilities and man’s energies. Jesus builds His Church on His foundation: the Word of God.

We are not the first great move of the Holy Spirit upon a generation. We are only a part of the most recent awakening that has taken place. There was the great reformation of the 1600s, the awakening of 1727. the awakening of the 1790s, the awakening of the 1830s, the awakening of 1859, and the awakening of 1885. Then there was the Jesus movement of the late sixties. But when we look back at all of the recent works of God we see over and over the foundation of the Word of God. Men and women were called back to the Bible by the inward tug of the Spirit. And this is true of Calvary Chapel’s foundation as well.

Sometimes we can act like we created verse-by-verse teaching or were the first ones to invent a Spirit filled worship service. Nothing could be further from the truth. Calvary Chapel merely represents a recent group of believers that have obeyed the basics of Christianity. This was our foundation: The Word of God.

Welcome to the Kauai Bible College blog on all things Calvary Chapel. This blog will host the series of articles first introduced on our KBC blog at the end of September. We are finishing up the first edition of the Movements vs. Methods article this week and should be posting it here the last week of November or the first week of December.