 To pray for Pastor Ken Grace, he says, granddaughters, what's her name? Yeah, it's granddaughter. She's an ICU. He's grandmother. Granddaughter, he said ICU. So let's pray for her. Lord, we pray right now for Ken Lord God in. Lord, we know how it is to be a grandparent father, to have your grandchildren sick, Lord. And I do pray that the Holy Spirit would be with him there, Lord God. Lord, give him peace, his wife, Lord. And Lord, we pray that somehow, Lord God, you would just reach down, Lord God, and touch her. And Lord, whoever else is sick here, Father, we pray for them too, Lord Jesus, and her families. Now, Lord, give us wisdom at this moment, Lord God, that you would speak through us, Lord God. And we thank you so much again for the people that are here in Jesus' name. We pray, God. Amen. Read the list. Speak to us. I am the sacrificial lamb here. They handed me this sheet of questions that says the following questions were submitted from some of the pastors that registered for the conference. So I don't know if that's true, or they just wrote these down. But I will ask the questions and aim them at certain individuals to get even. Hi, David. The first question here is, what is the CCA Council? By the way, it seems like a lot of these questions are kind of, some of them are a little redundant. So I might have to make up questions by the end here. What is the CCA Council? How was it established? And how does it work? It's done. Yes, it's done. CCA Council was CCOF first. Actually, CCOF started many years ago, Odin Fong. Kind of when Calvary's first started coming along, Odin kind of headed up a little database. And as people came in, and then as churches were added, then there was questions in a way evaluating if they didn't come directly out of a Calvary that there's familiarity with. And it kind of grew over the years. In the year 2002, when John Corson and I came back to Calvary and Costa Mesa, Chuck asked me if I would restructure CCOF. And how I thought it ought to, when we talked back and forth on it, I was very strong. I thought it should be regionalized. That is that he should begin to look at different sons around the country, around the world that he felt that had gone out, that represented him well. And that they should be the one. If Joe Foce planted a church, Joe should be the one to evaluate if they're a Calvary, if they were the one that he should oversee it, he should affiliate it. And it should happen there, not at a file cabinet in Costa Mesa and processed there. He agreed with that. And we actually let it sit for three months because I wanted to make sure he really had a peace about it because it was meaning giving away an authority that had already always been based strongly at Costa Mesa. And then after three months, he agreed. And then we put it together. And that was the first kind of operational aspect of the regionalization of a CCOF. Then John and I, as Chuck ended up, Chuck was going to retire. He didn't get all excited and re-energized and felt he wanted to stay. And John and I said, great. God bless you. We're going to go do other things. After some processes of events where I went to Laguna a little bit, then Chuck asked me if I would like to, because Gene also had been very involved in women's ministry. And he and Kay couldn't travel any longer if we would work with the movement. And we did that. And we loved that and did that for some time. Then it came down with Chuck and his cancer, began to develop in his age, getting to him. There was the mounting question, Chuck, what is your plan? What is your plan? And he always just kind of left it for quite a period of time while the Lord will work it out. Then actually back in Philadelphia, we were back there to question and answer time. And Chuck made a statement there. He says, well, I'm going to gather together some of my first generation men. And there had been other conversations that kind of led to that, reforming it, bringing it back to that. And I had had a couple of conversations with Chuck that he was kind of indicating or telegraphing to me that he wanted me to be involved in it. And I'll be very honest, I didn't want to do it. And in fact, we were coming back from a conference. And I told him we were actually had the Pastors Conference out in Murrieta. And I backed out of the conference. It was going through First Corinthians. And it's the only conference in my history I've ever canceled out of. But I just didn't feel, I felt Chuck was about to do something. And when I did CCOF before, it was the most difficult time because it was a political thing. All my life before, in ministry, just teaching and helping planting churches. And people liked me. I liked them. It was nice. And then when I did CCOF, every time a decision came back to you, you made a new enemy with everything. And I was actually, I didn't like it. It was a difficult time. And I felt he was wanting to do that again. And I was, Gene and I were very happy. I backed out of that thing. Well, while out of the conference. And I could, I sense he was going to do something. He was close to it. He had made mentioned of it at different events. And I just told him, and he said, why didn't you want to go? I said, Chuck, it's just, I'm happy. And he didn't make sense to him. Well, the conference happened. I guess most of you are probably there. I wasn't. But there was kind of a discussion there with Chuck. What are your plans? And Greg, I saw a video later of Greg and Brian and Bob Coy and Ricky Ryan and Chuck that was showed to me. But during that conference, I get a call from Terry Reynolds, who's here somewhere, I think. And Terry calls me and he says, Chuck wants you to come out to the conference. And I said, Terry, I'm not coming. Why does he want me to come? He wants to redo the CCF again. He wants you to do it. I said, Terry, I'm not going to come. I'm sorry. It's just not me. He calls me back. And he says, Chuck wants you to come and talk about it. And I said, Terry, I'll tell you what. If Chuck wants to, if he wants to come over to my house for lunch on Saturday, he will talk. I just don't feel comfortable about it here. And so he calls me back and he said he'll be there for lunch on Saturday. Joe was there. Terry was there. Greg Laurie was there in Chuck. We had lunch and sat and we had some sandwiches and things. And then finally, OK, Chuck, what's on your mind? He said, I want to do, I want to redo CCOF. I want to call the guys back together. I want to turn it over to him. And I sat there and Joe will remember it very well. I was just, because I looked at him and I said, Chuck, I need to know something. Is this the cancer or is this the Holy Spirit? And he stared back at me for a moment. He says, it's the Holy Spirit. I said, OK, what do you want to do? And we got out a piece of paper, a pen, and we had names. And I said, who do you want? Nobody suggested any names. Chuck, I said, who do you want? There was Rawl, there was myself. Sandy, well, everybody that's up here. There was Wayne Taylor. There was Bob Coy, Greg Laurie. Malcolm Wilde. Bill Stonebreaker. Bill Stonebreaker. Jack Hibbs. Jack Hibbs. And that was the, and Brian wrote it, so that was the list. Brian wasn't there for the lunch, but that was the list. So, OK, we'll do that. A couple of days later, I met with Chuck and Brian. And Brian said that he had said that he wanted to add some more names to it. At which time, and I just sat there, I didn't add some track. I didn't do anything. He wanted to add Ricky Ryan. Bob Caldwell. Tom Stipe. Ray Bentley. Ray Bentley. Lloyd. Lloyd Pulley. And so that was the restructuring of, and Skip Heitzick, who Skip Heitzick was on the original list. And so, OK, we'll call him together, and we'll get him and see where everybody's at. He was on the original list. What? He was on the original list, too. No, did I say Damien? No. Oh, Damien was on the original list, yeah. I'm sorry. And Guzik. And Guzik was on the original list, yeah. I don't. I don't. I've got part timers, OK? Selective or something, I don't know. But anyway, Terry would know the list. He was there for the first one anyway. And so anyway, that's what happened. Well, to be very open and honest, I think that when we started meeting right from the very first, there was kind of a, as a schism, I don't know what it was. We're going to work together. We're going to do whatever we've got to do. And, you know, but seemingly a willingness, we've got to lead this movement. It's turned over to us as a group. And, but then it was soon where there seemed to be some that wanted to go a different way. And the question in terms of, then when CCA Chuck basically changed the name of CCOF to CCA, you weren't grandfathered into CCA. The name was just changed. It wasn't like you were, you went from one database to another. It was just a change of the database, a change of the name of it, you know, from CCOF to give it a fresh name or image or whatever. And a leadership were now, rather than being done by Costa Mesa, it was overseen by the council there at that time. My agreement with Chuck at that time, because of what both Chuck and I had been through in the political aspect, when decisions would be made regionally, and then they would go appeal to either me or Chuck, and it was political. You didn't like it. And I asked Chuck, I said, Chuck, one thing I do ask of this, and that is that neither you or I will have a voice in it, that you will really, truly release it to the regions. What decision they make, it can only be overruled by the entire council, so that we're not in the political loop of it. I just don't have the stomach for that. I don't want to do that. And that one person shouldn't have that. Later on, that was misinterpreted by other emails that kind of came out saying, well, Chuck has been thrown off of his own leadership. And the thing of which, let me tell you, if Chuck Smith had ever sat there and said, I want something, he'd have got it. We all know Chuck. But at the same time, it was something he said, I agree with that. And so he would tell people, hey, don't ask me. I don't have any power anymore. But he actually said he liked that. He was glad to be free from that and turning it over. So anyway, then with time, people say, well, what has happened to the council going from the original number? And that is essentially there that whether you want to call it a split or whatever you want to call it is, there has been a parting of ways. Like Brian in his letter that he wrote, how can two walk together, lest they be in agreement? There was where Brian felt this desire, I wanted to go. I wanted to, you know, and there was different things that he wanted to explore and levels of maybe service of women in the ministry and various things. And I don't know all of them. You could get that list elsewhere from me. But it was something that within the core of us, there was a very strong commitment to the distinctives. One of the things, I actually wrote the first distinctives. And when I ran the Bible College back in the 1970s, I think there were six of them. Later on, Larry Taylor rewrote it, added a few. And then Chuck did some. Roger Wing did a re-he went through four or five revisions. But there were things that basically within us, they were our DNA. Those distinctives by this generation, I think, sitting up here, we would all say, those things aren't just things that we, OK, I'll sign on to join the club. Those are things that we believe that we believe that we believe they're non-negotiable to us. We believe them as much as maybe when Chuck started saying, these are distinctives. And we said, OK, you know, but then one day we wake up as we reviewed the scripture ourselves, we are completely sold on them. And if somebody else doesn't want them or agree with them or want to work with them, then you're free to go. And or whatever Chuck used to say. And I think one of the hard things for us as a group is to become a voice that's been unified. And we had a pastor who, for 40-some odd years, took all the heat, all of it, whether it was the manifested sons of God, the children of God, the perfection of the saints, positive confession, Oral Roberts of vineyards, gold dust, Brownsville, the Toronto Blessing. Chuck took them all straight on Calvinism. And he just said, this is it. This is how it is. If you don't like it, go away. Don't go away mad, but just go away. I mean, he was very, and he took that. And we just went behind and had that solid voice. And I think that if we failed the movement at all, it's been where to come to that, where we together have realized we have a responsibility to speak out and to take that stand that Chuck stood for. I knew that day when I'm looking at him and he's looking at me and I, because I did not want to walk through this door. I just, I didn't know what it was going to be, but I'd been through it before and I didn't like it. And I didn't really want to go through it. I knew there would be heat with it. I knew there would be disagreement. And but yet, it's funny, I'm a Scott. I don't know what you know about the Scots, but they're warriors, I guess. And Braveheart and that stuff, you know? I mean, but I, you know, when they came over to America, there was the Quakers and they're the Puritans, you know, where the Puritans and a lot of the, they came over, they were either Quakers or they were Scottish governors. They didn't get along with each other. The Puritans were Quakers and we're non-fighters. We don't like being persecuted. We want to be what we want. We want freedom of worship, but we don't fight. And the Scots said, we'll fight to our last bone. The 25 of Washington's generals were Scots. And I don't know whether it's my blood or so. I don't, I'm really a Puritan. I'm a Quaker, I don't like fighting. But I also look and say there's a point where I will fight. These are worth fighting for. These are worth taking a stand. And to me, that is, I think what has happened is it's taken us a while as a group, but I believe we're really solidified as one voice and one heart that we just are not, there's nothing new about us. We haven't changed anything that I know of. One bit in our agenda. We just simply all said, you know, what we have been laid for us is what we love. And we believe that if there's anything Calvary Chapel needs, it's just a fresh outpouring of the spirit. We don't need to look at, go back and we read, rewrite or find some new ground. We just need a fresh works. And so I don't know if that helps, but so you wonder where the numbers have gone up and down and basically the group that Chuck originally actually had is kind of what is back to and that happened in my den originally. And so people and the ones that want to be with it, I think God bless them. We're not saying we're the, just like I think Sandy said in his message, we're not right, any righter than anybody else. It's just who we are. It's our tribe. I'm not saying we're better than NACS 29 or Gospel Coalition or somebody else. They've got their tribe. We've got our tribe. This is, we're happy with it. Will that be fair? Probably the one radical change that we all agreed on in the distinctives is that we probably wouldn't include that you can't stand up or raise your hands during worship. Yes, that's true. No, that, that Chuck changed that at the end. You know, he really kind of reverted back to, Chuck, if you ever stood on a platform with Chuck, he not only knew every verse of every song in that songbook, by heart. He sang him by, I didn't, in his own, I hated to stand next to him because he sang the part, you know, the tenor or something. I just sang like people sing and he, and I couldn't share it. He loved the hymns. He was just a hymnologist. He could have, but, and he kind of reverted back to a lot of things. And I think the vineyard standing and some of that confusion kind of. That brought a lot of confusion. Sandy Adams brought up One Liner. We were having a gathering in San Diego and we were going to hold the conference there. And there were people that were contentious with all that. And Sandy had just arrived in San Diego and David was crying and he was upset that, and Sandy had watched a movie. I don't know if it's R or not, but thank you. But he looked at the one person that was the most contentious and said, I saw this just as I was getting off the plane. If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go long, want to go far, then you go together. And we're together people. We want accountability. I can tell you from my point of view, which isn't very much, but I'm sitting with these men because I trust each one of them. I've known them for years, but the wonderful thing is I know their hearts and there's no agenda. There's one thing that we picked up through osmosis with Chuck was that he did not have a plan. He woke up every day and he followed the Holy Spirit. That drove people crazy. Don and I were two of the first intern pastors. He hired it, 75 bucks a week if we needed it or not. He was so fun because he didn't like any of us. We were different than him, and yet he began to love us. And it was good for us to see him go through his stages of growth. Many people ran because they wanted him to be perfect. But we understood, all of us here, that ultimately he is a man of love. I've seen him with people that was overwhelming with no agenda. I sat with him and his son, and Skjepajic in the state house in Beijing, China, being honored by the Chinese government. I have seen him with generals. I have seen him with all sorts of people at the highest level of the world, and nobody even knows it. He had no agenda, whatever the Lord brought in front of him. I don't know if you've ever been in his office. It drove me crazy. And I was able to spend some time with him before he died. And I said, Chuck, I have this question. For years I've been in your office with really heavy burdens, and when I worked for you, things that I could make the decision on, but I wanted your input. And the phone would ring on your line, and you'd pick it up and start talking to somebody. And then I'd be sitting there for 30 minutes, waiting to put my heart on the table and let him do some work on it. And I said, so why did you do that? I want to be able to understand everything about you so that when you're in heaven, I'm able to do my best. And he said, well, I figure the Holy Spirit knows we're in a counseling meeting, and if he wants to interrupt it, he'll have somebody call me. And this person will have a bigger problem than the person that's sitting in front of him. Now, if you come counsel with me, I'd never let anything interrupt it, but that was Chuck's way. We all loved him. We did not have an axe to grind. We've all been thumped by him. He's a hard taskmaster, but he's the most loving person you'd ever meet. Next question, how are regions going to be established under the new leadership? I want to go back a step and address the first question. And I guess I just want to make a statement. Brian Brodersen is a friend of mine. I consider him a brother. I pray for him. I love him. But I do feel like that some separation had to occur. I also respect his many years of faithful service to our Lord. But I feel like some separation ultimately had to occur. He had some different ideas of how the movement needed to be led and the direction that the movement needed to go. It's not for me to define those ideas. He can do that himself. But he had some definite different kinds of ideas for moving us forward. We had a stay the course kind of mentality. We felt like the first thing that needed to be said to our movement after our founders passing was that, hey, the same Calvary Chapel we received is the same Calvary Chapel we're going to pass on to the next generation. It doesn't need to be changed. It doesn't need to be tinkered. We just need to live out the principles that Chuck put into our heart. And so apparently Brian felt like some changes needed to be made. So he's gone a different direction than we have. There's been a separation. But I think that's a good thing. He needs the freedom. He needs the room to do those things that God has put on his heart. We need to be able to follow our conscience and hold fast to the things that God has put in our heart. And you know what's going to happen? God is going to bless whom he chooses. He can now bless either or he can bless both. And I think that that's where we're at. And you know, we don't view anybody here as the enemy. I don't. I couldn't agree more with that. I want to make that clear, right? I'm happy that there is the room within our movement to branch out, to do whatever God puts on his heart. But we just want to stay the course. And we want to make sure that the affiliation process, that's what's important to me, our movement has, it's unprecedented how many Calvary chapels have been added to our movement. And at the same time, they all maintain the same distinctives and the same flavor. That's unprecedented. And I think that's the Holy Spirit's work among us. But I think that's also the fact that we have a relational-based affiliation process that has perpetuated the Calvary chapels as they have. And as long as that's respected, as long as there's one group that's setting that stage and setting that agenda, and that's the CCA Council, then I think we're moving in a good direction and there's freedom for individual Calvary chapel pastors to do as the Lord might lead them. That's just what I wanted to add. If anybody disagrees with that, we'll go out back. Raoul disagrees. Except Raoul. Except Raoul. Raoul, Raoul, kill you afterwards, man. Let's talk about... You know, I think one of the difficult things for all of us is we're Christian men. So we know that Jesus values unity. We know that we're to love one another. We know that we're as much in need of God's grace as anybody. So the hard thing is, you've been in this movement for 40 years. You live and die with it. The guys here on stage to me are the kind of guys you live and die for. And to see the separation in the beginning left us all kind of scratching our heads where you want to be able to say to the Lord at the end of the day, Lord, the church is yours. This is your bride. It's not mine. I have no entitlement here. Make us wise to do this so that however it rolls out here, it honors you because there's no option in regards to loving one another or understanding what the unity of the faith is. And yet at the same time, you know, having strong convictions about what I've invested my life and we all feel the same and how we want to move forward and the men that we have been given the privilege to minister to in our own ministries and the church is born out of our churches. So we want to be that influence there too. So that made it difficult because we want to do what's right. And then what swirled around it was social media and all the stuff that just was like, come on. And have we made mistakes? Absolutely. But let me just say, our pastor has asked us to lead our movement in a way that we don't even lead our own churches. You know, we're all strong leaders. We're all pastor-driven churches. But now we've been asked to come together in a collaborative way and make corporate decisions and there's safety in that. There's safety for you. There's safety for our movement in that. We come to a consensus about things before we move forward. That can become burdensome and cumbersome for people that aren't used to leading in that manner. And maybe that's why other people have decided this is too cumbersome. But for me, this is safe. And I think Pastor Chuck showed great wisdom in establishing it this way because it's not Joe's interpretation of Calvary Chapel that rules the day or Don's or Rawls or mine. It's our collaborative understanding of what God has called us to do that's going to dictate how we move forward. And that doesn't always translate into efficient leadership, but I think in the long run, that will translate more into trusted and faithful leadership. So... Yeah, I'd like to say something because with Pastor Chuck Smith for me, Chuck and Rawl were very, very close. The wonderful thing that I love about Rawl is he's so transparent. And he's not a tough guy, he's a pussycat. He's wasted a lot of money on those lessons. No, I'd like to say that when I met Chuck Smith like these guys do, he gave me an opportunity. I never had opportunities. I was on my own way, and when I got sick, my mother-in-law was trying to take me to Calvary Chapel for two years, and I wouldn't go. And so God had to break me in order for my wife and I to go to Calvary Chapel and to see a loving person. The most important, I saw the teaching of God's work. Every church that I tried to go to, they were always trying to rip us off. And Chuck was very transparent, very, I mean, just, he would tell you the truth. You could trust him, but you can't trust a lot of people. And I never wanted to be a part of a denomination. I thank God the way Chuck taught all of us here. Because he taught us, he taught me how to love, because all my life, I hate people. And he taught me, these guys taught me how to love. And they've been a really great friends of my life. They've been really, I helped me to me that I would never give up these guys because they're real friends. So, Marine, you know, in Vietnam, we learned that we don't leave our dead, we don't leave our wounded. And these guys have been like that. You know, they picked me up and we picked up each other. And we don't want to do anything against anybody. We just want to see the Holy Spirit move. We want to see people get saved. We won't got to use you guys. The way he used us and continues to use each one of us individually. And just like Don said, you know, if you don't want to be part of it, that's cool. That's fine. We're not a denomination. But I'll tell you, that's all I know is Jesus Christ crucified and what I was taught by my pastor. To love people, to forgive people, which I have our hard times many times, especially when they betrayed Chuck Smith, which was like a debt to me. I'm just honest with you guys. You know, and I just really feel my wife has to pray for me all the time because I feel like, you know, why would these guys, why would they want to hurt any one of these guys? We don't know their hearts. I'm Damien Stewart. I'm Damien, Joe, all of us. We've never put on anybody. We really haven't. We pray for you guys. We love you guys. And you have to make up your mind to listen to the Holy Spirit where he wants it to be. And where he wants it to be, he'll bring forth fruit. And I think that's my heart, that I would never trade. All I know is Calvary Chapel. And it's not about Calvary Chapel, it's the teaching that I had in my life. The teaching of the Word of God. I don't know anything else. So that's just my thoughts to you guys. Yeah, I didn't become a Calvary Chapel. Just to be a Calvary Chapel. What I did is I wanted a pastor. And when I saw Pastor Chuck Smith, I saw him as a model. I saw him as somebody I could say, and I still do it my age, that one day I want to be like that. One day I want to grow up to be like him. That was my dad, but that was my spiritual father. So when I became a Calvary minister, if Chuck would have said, one day I'm going to call myself and just call himself by another name. The name of the organization never mattered. What mattered was my relationship with Chuck Smith, Pastor Chuck. And what I got saved, like these fellas here, in a time it was called the Jesus movement. It wasn't called Calvary Chapel movement, it was the Jesus movement. And so we have hearts that are united in essentials that have over the years, like Don was saying, basically evolved, if you will, to a way to say distinctively, this is kind of our heart. So we've never tried to force people, you have to do this and you have to say this and believe this and sign this. It's always been deep calling unto deep. The relationships that many of us have up here have taken years to develop. We've gone through our ups, we've gone through our downs. I've asked advice from probably most everybody up here, you know, help me, I don't know what I'm doing. And like many of you, I would come to the first conferences I ever did and I'd look out there and I'd say, these are men, these are men I want to be like. These are men that I want to grow up to be like except for Raul. But the other ones... But the other ones... He's going to kill you, man. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill you. He's going to kill you. No, no, no, no. You know, those are Raul's glasses. Those are just reading glasses. He got those from Joseph Smith. That's just how I picture them. Okay, let me ask you a question. Have you guys been blessed by this conference? I believe, I'm not speaking for all the fellows, but I think they'd agree, I believe this is what the conferences are supposed to be. Where we love each other, we tease each other, we enjoy each other, we're family in Christ. And it's not because we're called Calvary Chapel. It's because we're believers, and we love Jesus together. And that's what Chuck taught us to do. And that's why this feels so real. It's because these men up here, we love each other. And that's, isn't that the mark of a Christian? Isn't that what Jesus said, by this all men shall know you are my disciples? Not if you're called Calvary Chapel, but if you love one another. And we have been blessed. And I want to give honor right now to Pastor Chuck. I think it's been a long time coming from, you know, in my years, I haven't heard this for a while. But I want to say, we all say this, thank God for Chuck Smith, for his ministry in our life. He was our pastor. Wake up, Damien. No, yes, no. Damien, why don't you tell us how you came to know the Lord and how Chuck influenced your life? Yeah, wow. I probably, you know, I come from the ranks of a pretty big part of Calvary Chapel that we got to know Pastor Chuck by the tapes. And, you know, I met with him a few times through the years in the different meetings, mainly. I never called him. I wasn't opposed to doing that. I always felt like he was so busy. Why would I call him? I should have called him several times, but I wasn't smart enough to use him as a resource. But I developed a relationship with him through just the power, the teaching of the word. And I watched him like a hawk. How he handled himself. The three most influential men in my life in terms of as a Christian man and as a pastor, Chuck Smith, Gail Irwin, and a man named Bill McDonald. And all three of them, just a tremendous example for a guy that would be in a... I had lost everything. I consider to be valuable in life a hundred times by now. That's stupid. And the fact that these guys lived and Chuck among them and let me see something different and learn by watching. So I could just... I can never put into words, but even from that distance through the media, you know, he saved my life. God did it through him. You guys can see how we feel about Chuck. There's no question in my mind that these guys are really men of God and that you guys are men of God. You guys have to have discernment. You have to make choices in life. But the greatest choices are eternity. How are you going to finish? Chuck always used to say, how are you going to finish? We've seen a lot of guys that haven't finished well. And the reason is because they got the rise of Jesus. They got out of teaching and reading and praying all these things, and it went to their heads. And I think when you get prodful, God has his ways of taking you down. And God wants us to be simple, humble. I know all these guys here, we're not looking for any recognition. I don't really care. All I care is that the church, the church will be recognized as a loving church, as a teaching church. And the people would see that example in all of our lives here, you guys. If one guy gets a black guy, we all get a black guy. We have to work as a family and we have to come to that place. The time is short. We're going to finish. And it hurts deep down. I know what Nathan goes through, too. I'm going to step here. Damien knows, because Damien also, he suffers. He's been sick, too. I think most of us here, I suffer from my little seizures. I have one today. It's embarrassing when you're teaching to all these people. You're on the radar life and all of a sudden you have a seizure. I don't pass out. I can't think. I can't read. I can't speak. I don't pass out. I see everybody. It is so humiliating, so humiliating that when I went to Vietnam to do that film Taking the Hill, it really affected me. I lost 41 of my friends. And after all these guys, there's no possible way that I could leave anyone of these guys or anyone of you. That's real love. That's real caring. That's not, you know, bowing not to men, but I think it's a situation when you come to that place where you live with these guys, thank you, where you live with these guys and you know these guys will die for you. And when I went back to Vietnam, I was never the same. I had to go to those places where I had to carry those guys. And it was a heart. And it hurts me. And it hurts me to see that the church can get along. You know when I went to check, I got saved. I saw these guys' testimonies and it's not about giving our testimony. That has nothing to do with it. It's your life. How do you live your life? Your congregation watches you. People watch you. And how many black guys we've seen? Us here. People that they were looked up to. And yet they had another agenda. It went to their heads. Instead of having Jesus in their hearts and watching what Jesus was going to do in their lives. That's my heart with you guys. I would say this too. There's a wonderful sense of accountability. I mean, I see Jeff over there. There's just, you know, the group is bigger. But I know, you know, Sharon and Ryan, your kids and Don, your sons and Jean and Zach. I know your Maria and your families, your kids and what are kids? Accountability is genuine love. It isn't, okay, accountability is this Biblical principle. It is. But accountability is real when there's this kind of vulnerability and there's love. Because I can see it on somebody's face when they're miserable. It's like, how you doing Joe? Great. Oh sure. What's going on with you? You know, just, it's a wonderful thing. I would encourage you guys to, you know, to make sure as the years go on you have been that you're grown closer together with. That you let the Holy Spirit knit you together with guys that are like-minded, like-hearted. Their wives, their kids. It's so important to their kids to see that too. So there's a wonderful thing that goes on here with this. That's why it was hard, it was hard, some of our reaction. These are guys that would take a bullet from me that I would take a bullet for. I would take a bullet for their wives, for their kids, for their, you know, so there's this wonderful coignancy and love given to us by the Spirit. But it creates a great accountability too where we, you know, moving forward we have wanted that to stay in place and unfractured, you know. One of the things that I think has taken a little bit of time is that we've been together for 30 to 40 years, all of us up here. 46 or something. But we've been to like brothers, family, friends and I mean many, many, many aspects that's come together with all of our kids and it's been a wonderful thing but it was always something when we were together we'd meet and plan conferences and we'd be together for a few days. We had a lot of kidding and laughing and fun and like, you know, family, you know, and then Chuck would be there and join in with all of it and then there was a point where Chuck would kind of clear his throat and, okay, now let's get down to business. And we always had in a sense like a father figure and somebody there he had that strength, he cast a huge shadow. He had a tremendous presence. I don't think we could understate that when you look at a movement that has been produced of the magnitude of what Calvary Chapel is. It's a tremendous statement and legacy as time goes on to look at this thing. And we had the benefit of just traveling in his wake. You know, he was like this ship that went through the huge waves but the ship, the ones behind us, we just jumped around in our little dingies and had fun and, you know, and this is great because he's cut in the path through some rugged waters for us all the time. He saved the movement, spoke strongly, you know, when Shepherding came along and a bunch got involved in it and could have destroyed the movement, positive confession, manifested sons of God, all of these, vineyard, all of these things. And Chuck took the heat and people came and didn't understand him or didn't agree and he took, in the meantime we're in our little dingies back there and it's cool and we're going on and then one day the ship's gone and now he says it's yours. And it's taken us, I think, a little time to realize collectively to join together. That's a new role for us. And it's been, I'm sorry in one sense that in our time of just becoming one and our kind of struggles at this new identity in terms of our love for each other, our families, our commitment, the distinctives. That's not negotiable. Those are subtle. It's just having now to come together how do we speak with one voice? Because one of the things I knew when I sat across the room from Chuck that day and he was asking me for days I knew he was going to ask it. I knew that was what he was coming to lunch for. But I also knew there was no way I would ever could ever be that voice, ever. It would only happen if collectively that any single one of us never could have done it. Never could have done it. And it would only happen in whatever time it's taken for us to come together and collectively to say we are one. We know who we are. We know what we stand for. And now to begin to say as Chuck would say if it isn't you, God bless you. Chuck was very gracious and say if you want to go, go. And the door is open to come back. I ordained John Wimber. He spent a year with me in Lake Arrowhead and my brother John McClure went vineyard, broke my heart, tore me to shreds, heart lowest point of things and I felt terrible. Chuck came to me knowing how I felt because 40 some odd churches went with them. And that was a huge number at the time. I was broken hearted although Chuck agreed to ordain him and let him go. He had a lot but he did. But anyway, it came down that Chuck came to me and he says, Don, this is good. I'm fine with this. I said, Chuck, how can you be? I feel terrible. He said, Don, it's John 15. Once in a while there's a pruning. There's a, people want a door out. They're not happy. They want something different. They're looking for it and you need to have a door where they can go out and you want to leave it open if they want to come back. And some did and some didn't. But I think collectively what has happened is that we have really truly become deeper and deeper. We listen to one another. We respect one another. There is no leader amongst us. There really isn't. We sit around and we've had meetings sitting here. Sandy said, Well, I think this. Sandy, God bless you. Sandy's taken care of it. And I'm, he, then Sandy may be passing it to Joe. I don't know it, but it's a wonderful thing being a team where we really mutually say the Lord's will is going to be done collectively and not by one single one voice. And we're learning that, but we're committed to that one heart. We're not airing dirty laundry but I think this is important. What Don just shared. We went to Colorado. He offered us their home to stay in and Chuck had handpicked some guys to just go and be with. I sat next to him with his nurse and he was on oxygen and I really felt he was going to die in the airplane. And he looked so beaten physically in his countenance and you never saw that countenance darkened. Well, after we were singing the next day at breakfast he started reviving and then he revived actually by the time we came back to California. So we didn't know that there were people other than the original people that Chuck had said, I trust you, you men know one voice everybody only has one vote. No direct leader we're not here to control, we're not here to tell you what to do. Sandy made it really clear if you like Chuck's ministry and what came with it, we're here to just carry that on. We're not Chuckites but we have respect. So we had planned a conference year after he died and there were certain people that came up that we knew we're not really just walking straightly with the Lord and in that meeting we all agreed. We love these men but some of them have problems and it's being worked through apparently. So when we showed up that first meet we didn't know who all these other men were. And that surprised us. And then the second thing was when we all arrived at the conference not one time was Pastor Chuck ever recognized or thanked. Let alone a time to bow all of our hearts and pray for his widow and his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That was very difficult. It's hard to get me angry but I became angry. We respect Chuck Smith and we're thankful to God as Sandy said, thank God. You said to David because this man, we're not idolizing him. We were also foreign to his mindset but yet he knew God was working and he stood back for the 47 years or whatever I was with him and he let us be ourselves. He never told us what to do how to do it, where to do it and when to do it. And those were the four questions all of us had for him. He forced you to go to the Lord that you got as much enjoyment being on his staff cleaning the toilets out as you did standing in the pulpit and filling in for him. That sounds kind of silly. However, he saw life as one with Jesus. There was no hierarchy in his mind. There were not certain things you have to do. You just be yourself and fall in love with Jesus and he'll do it. That's the great thing that all of us sit here with right now. We know God has given us gifts and we know we love people and we know for this sick world it is the only answer prayer of the Bible in love and that's all we stand for. Other people didn't want that or be satisfied with that. So all of us realize we don't want to have a war. We don't be the Hatfields and McCoy's. We don't want to be in the North and South. We just let you figure out what you want to do. As for me in my house we shall serve the Lord but can a leopard actually change the spots? My people have. And we all have the word loyalty and trustworthy and faithful in our heart and vocabulary from the Lord. We're not here asking anyone for anything. We just called the clan together and said whoever wants to have fun and see the Lord and have new friendships come and that's all it is. There is no organization. There are no men, women, dogs or cats over you. None. We're here because we love you and we have vision for what's going on and we want to help protect you and your families and your congregations and it's that simple. This guy we wanted to respect and in three years he's never been respected or even mentioned at the conferences. That's why we're mentioning him right now because we know many of you are sad about that and you didn't understand. Every man can go his own way. It doesn't mean he's going the right way but he has a right with his life to go his own way. Simply to help you. Would you say Damian? We're here to help. So there's so many things you could say about Chuck but I never went to anything that he oversaw or led that I ever felt anything was being done to me. It was always being done for me and you know sometimes some people can look and say well these guys are just a bunch of guys a guy like me who needed a father figure and so forth and I certainly I wasn't looking for one but I needed one spiritually desperately but he never asked me or anyone I knew to compromise it was he we have this deep respect for him but he the Lord used him in our lives in a way that he built his own accountability he could not have made any of us compromise to follow him anywhere he never asked for that but it's a lot more complicated than people see it's a lot deeper it's a lot stronger you know it's it's it's not just I was looking for a dad it was it's big in a lot of ways but he never used it he never used anything for his own gain and never asked to compromise I repeat myself but never asked to compromise never did that but he built all of us in such a way that we wouldn't it was about God it was about his word and that was that built maybe an unneeded accountability in his own life but it was there you know sometimes it's a funny thing where you get I mean you can go to any bookstore and buy any number of books about whoever is complaining about their parents currently and you know the single focus is so often on you know what I didn't get and I felt I needed and maybe did need you know and I mean oh that's legitimate I'm not sweeping that away humanity is broad it's diverse our needs are great but we can do that to anybody but when you stop and you think about what we've been given what was there the blessings of the heritage the blessings of the relationship we can destroy every relationship in our life if we want to just look at the one or two or three things that we might have maybe done different but they're not who we are but then you look at the blessings on the other side of the scale that are just immense and I pinched myself to have known him and to be a part of this movement with you I can't believe I get a place somewhere and so so much to be thankful for well I noticed that when the people have clapped Don the majority has come right through here the clapping and these are the volunteers from Ralph's church when he's spoken you can't see it from here but it says applaud it keeps coming up Chuck was not a father figure to me I have a great dad I love him dearly but I look at my ministry today 36 years I've been a Calvary Chapel pastor we started our church when I was 22 and my wife was 20 and I believe that if I had not found Calvary Chapel I believe that I I would still be a minister I'd be a pastor somewhere I'd be doing something but oh how my ministry looks so much different today because of Chuck Smith and because of Calvary Chapel and that is what I'm so grateful for he taught me God's grace he's the first person I met who wasn't afraid of the Holy Spirit he gave us a place where we could grow and minister we had the freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit and yet at the same time too we're a part of something bigger than ourselves where we could have some accountability where else do you get that combination nowhere else trust me a lot of the people that complain about Calvary Chapel I probe into it and I ask them and they were people who were brought up in Calvary Chapel it's all they've ever known well trust me if you've been on the outside looking in that would minimize your complaints and maximize your gratitude let me tell you because in all that's going on out there in the church world we've got a great thing going and I I want to keep our hands off of it what was begun in the Spirit let's continue in the Spirit let's let the Holy Spirit continue to do his work because we've been blessed with a glorious legacy we can trace those roots all the way back to the New Testament it goes far back beyond Chuck but he's the one who was our interpreter and we have a debt of gratitude to him no doubt about that like Joe says we're the best dysfunctional family around I think the word family is I see so many people that they they are in organizations and an organization you know is just a business an organism is a family and our lives are knit together you know and with the one church is a thousand two great nation there's something that's wonderful about being unified working together same heart same philosophy same vision collectively makes us much stronger and you know we're talking about family but you may be sitting out there and you may be saying this doesn't feel like family to me I don't know anybody I've only been at Calvary Chapel for a year I don't know anybody I've gone around here for a day and a half now and I hadn't talked to anybody nobody's talked to me I felt that same way we had these conferences for years and years and years out in California and I would always come from Atlanta and try all the way across the country you know and came and didn't know anybody and I felt so depressed and my church wasn't growing like everybody else's church was growing and I'd come back home and Kathy would why do you go to these conferences you always come back more depressed than when you left and and it took time it just took time and you know what it did it took me getting out of my little bubble and it took me making an effort to reach out to some other people if you know what's the vitamin for friendship B1 you know if you want to make a friend you got it that's the sandyism if I ever heard of B1 why not B2 if you want to make a friend why not B3 it'd be a group B4 B5 B12 B2 yeah then you'd be a mess I'm just saying find a friend find a friend that's all he was trying to say tough to find one up here he who would have friends must himself be friendly if you're here and you don't want to be friends tough luck learn it be friendly turn to somebody say I don't have any friends will you be my friend and they'll say I know why yeah we wanted to be your friend we just couldn't understand what you were saying all that food you eating black eyed peas and stuff well a few minutes ago Mike said we should call the clan together in my part of the country you don't want to call the clan together next question Joe is that a question on here that tops any of this is that all of them no there's we answered a lot of the questions before I asked them so we answered there's a question about regional how will the regional areas work now under regional leadership we are sitting down and working out as some of the regional issues because some of the regions when they were originally set up like there's some that are for example over five states literally and region and getting them to be able to meet together effectively and sometimes in some cases there's over 180 in those five states and so we're going to do some restructuring as we kind of meet in here in the this area down here in Southern California you know actually you and Jack Jack you guys are restructuring together we're going to come up with Southern California it's going to change somewhat to average out and get together how they they're going to work it out and come back and give it to the council and so that will be restructured and redone that's in the process by tomorrow tomorrow there is a question here as a second generation Calvary Chapel pastor I wanted to know if the if church history gives any examples of a movement of God maintaining the same vision of philosophy of ministry for more than a generation beyond after the founding pastor has gone home to be with the lord good question oh I asked it I'm B1 you're B2 and David is be quiet well Jesus said the gates of hell won't prevail against the church he was the founder here's the church 2000 years later we're here so the church abides it changes you know it's skin a little here and there but I think one of the things that Chuck did was he raised up Timothy's denomination sometimes can lack that I think there are strong independent churches that Chuck raised up and it was in the context of family so right now things are moving forward I don't know what we'll see in another generation right now I'm very confident the guys that are here and the way the things are going and we want to stay the course we just want to continue to do what we've always done and we go to the conferences all around the country 98% of the guys want to know can we just stay on course can we just continue to be and we say yes just continue to be what we've always been we have no desire to change that it's our heritage it's our legacy and we think we have the book of Acts and the epistles of the New Testament to back it up so it isn't you know just a calvary thing it's a New Testament it's a biblical model possibly ministry so it's moving forward just at this point we're continuing it's a good idea continue when Raul and I went to school together and we were getting our some degree I forget which one was the doctorate I think we went to lunch with the vice president of the college and Chuck was on one side Raul was on the right side I was on the left side we were down to our last week that we had to come up with our thesis and what we're going to discuss and you know to get your degree we've done all the hoops for six years now we're here at the end so I think he's the vice president he's the guy in charge of the graduate school and he says well fellas what is it you're actually going to do and we hadn't a clue and out of his mouth without blinking a second he said oh Mike and I are going to make a movie it's called venture of faith and we're going to just trace the history of Calvary Chapel and Pastor Chuck Smith and how God is working through churches that just simply preach the word and I look behind the dean and he looks over me and winks at me and I bought him those glasses and he winks at me and I say we're going to do what so we go through the lunch line and we sit down with him and we well Raoul laid it out and we made this video lots of them have gone around the world actually it's simply called venture of faith Chuck always saw life as a venture of faith he did he was an explorer, a pioneer a navy seal he parachuted out of the planes without a parachute he could do about everything so in that we actually interviewed many pastors outside of Calvary Chapel and so Raoul was friends with John MacArthur and even to this day this many years later John said in the overall scheme of things of the church in church history Calvary Chapel will simply be a footnote strange and then when Chuck died the very next week he started slandering Chuck and speaking evil of him there's no way what you're a part of is going to be a footnote there's no way God brought us together when the communists had as much control the USA from the inside as they do today and God used the Jesus movement to take the largest generation ever born they're dying off at ten thousand a day or something right now and Chuck's ministry is not a footnote because there's so many of you that's not a footnote that's a statement from heaven that something's right here it's interesting I was out to lunch with Jim Simbola and two years ago or so and he said and he said how's Calvary since Chuck has passed you know and I said you know I think 96% of the guys 97% want to continue right on track with what I said there's a small percentage that are looking at other places now at these other some of these other ministries Jim Simbola said why in the world would Calvary guys want to look at some other model as you to change the United States in the last 50 years so there's a thousand Calvaries in the United States why would you look somewhere else it's just interesting to hear his perspective as an outsider you know he said the effect that Calvary's had on the country in the last 50 years why would you look somewhere else in another model at this point I think what we need we don't need anything new we need a church at Ephesus probably the strongest church in the New Testament and incredible church the ministry that happened in there the way conversions happened people turning away from idolatry and massive numbers incredible numbers and they you know that Smith's going out of business Gold Smith's Silver Smith incredible thing and yet a generation later in the Lord there in the book of Revelation he speaks to that church and he goes down the list he says you've got and he just gives them incredible credentials you know that speaking to the church at Ephesus how strong you are in the word and you can't stand those that are wrong you can pick them out you discern you deal with what is heresy and things and you cleaned it up you run a tight ship you go and he says I just have one thing against you your first love and I think that the thing that if I would look at us as a movement and that I think every generation that is something that has to be cultivated again and again and again God needs to pour out a spirit of fresh on each generation one of the things that is hard I think about this whole period we've been through in the last few years is you know we've been through but the good part of it is that everybody it's time sometimes to say what do I truly believe what makes me tech this made me make Chuck tech and this made me make these bunch of guys tech this is what works for them what do I believe and were they just kind of sliding on and it's good for them to go through a struggle it's good for them to have questions and good for them to be shaken up a little bit and then to come hopefully a conviction and a conviction leads to a what I forget salvation or I can't remember the list now but were we really were each generation yeah arrested that's it but it's a good thing in a sense to have everybody just this cruising along and all of a sudden sometimes a great shaking up and to say who am I why do I believe what I believe is this something that I am willing to stand with like Chuck Smith did like these other guys did is this that deeply rooted within me or do I want to go look at something else and I think the wonderful thing that I'm hearing is because everywhere I go people are saying what's happening is anything happening with you no they said no we're not changing they said don't change you're doing good well we just heard huge are and then find a fresh and that's what I'm sensing in our worship times here we've had wonderful worship times last night was wonderful I just prayed it tonight and you know that the Lord just refreshes and he pours out the Holy Spirit of fresh on us I need that I long for that in my life so I don't need a new distinctive and or to mess around with them I just need God to make what's there fresh again we've got to stay on schedule with John Randall's on the schedule coming up but would you why don't you close this in prayer Don and for all of us just pray that God would bring us back to our first love that we'd have a fresh feeling of his spirit Lord Jesus we we thank you Lord we thank you for our heritage Lord we want to thank you for Chuck Smith he's wasn't God wasn't perfect but Lord you filled him and you anointed him and you came upon him and you did things Lord upon his life and in and through his life Lord of which we have reaped incredible benefits Lord with with all the battles and the struggles and so many times as you tell one of the churches there in Revelation that you have kept my word and my name and Chuck so highly honored your word and he kept your name and Lord I pray that that that is one of the great secrets of the man and he passed your name he never defamed your name he never took down your name he never hurt your name and he adhered to your word all the way through and Lord I pray that we would have that heart within us and that Lord that you and your mercy and your love would pour out fear upon us and Lord that we would so deeply honor your name and that we would honor your word we again we thank you for the opportunity we didn't think about this at all before we had our question and answer just kind of turned into a time where we realized how grateful we are for our heritage for our founder and realized perhaps he hasn't had that place and Lord we want to give him that place of honor and of respect and for what he means to us and what he has been and so Lord we thank you Lord we pray for Kay in her condition Lord that you would strengthen her that she has good days and not so good days and clear days and maybe not so clear bless her Lord she's been such a wonderful model for the women for the wives Lord what an incredible minister of the gospel was to all the ladies the ladies ministries that came up around the world through her and around the churches and while some people wonder of the place of a woman within the church as a Kay Smith had it in such tremendous proportion it seems like the Calvary chapels while people say well they don't know how to handle women you look at what has been done Lord we're so grateful what Kay produced and we just honor her as well so Lord we ask your blessing upon her and Lord we just thank you now for this time and ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us Lord that this through this these remaining hours that we have as we would wait upon you that your strength that your love that your spirit Lord that's what we need more and more and more of Lord may we get it just a fresh anointing a fresh empowering of your Holy Spirit a sense of the moving of your spirit within our hearts Lord we long to stand before and to be able to say that which I've received of the Lord have I delivered unto you that we have that assurance that the word of God is coming through us so Lord we thank you for your call upon us thank you Lord that you have separated us under the work of the ministry it is a high and holy and wonderful separation and Lord may we continue to separate our hearts and our lives unto you for that work and so Lord we do ask for a blessing on every single one that is here at this conference or whether they've been to many conferences Lord it's such a refreshing one for many of us it's almost like we feel like we've been to the first conference since Chuck died it's just such a unifying wonderful spirit thank you for it we praise you we love you Lord we ask that you would just bless and pour out your spirit do a wonderful work in all of our hearts all of our lives we ask it in Jesus name Amen