Calvary Chapel Pastor's Conference

So this past week I was at the majority of the Calvary Chapel Pastor's Conference in Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Here is a bit of what I experienced and what I thought of the conference.

Monday:
I arrived at the conference and came to the registration line where Brian Brodersen was standing.

Brian Brodersen, for those of you who do not know, is the lead pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, the successor of Chuck Smith, the founder of the Calvary Chapel movement of churches. As such, Brian is also the head of the entire Calvary Chapel movement (or the half that identify with the Calvary Global Network at least). So it was certainly a blessing to meet him, let him know who I was and finally meet him and speak to one another in person.

The first session of the conference was led by Brian. He spoke of the Calvary Movement and what he loved and what he saw going forward. It was a great session and very encouraging to hear the direction Pastor Brian sees the Calvary movement going in, that is a theme for the conference, the future of our little movement of churches is certainly looking bright, even with the recent hardships within it.

After the first couple of sessions I found Mike Neglia, who was going to skip on dinner to study for his workshop the next day. I decided I should try the shop across the street for something Mike could eat whenever he had time. On my way, a car pulled up and Clay (formerly pastor of Calvary Waterford, and now Calvary Tri Valley in NorCal) asked me if I wanted to join them for food. After a couple of seconds of humming and hawing I decided to go and got into the car to see Brian Brodersen was the driver and his son, Char was there too. So I got to go have dinner with Brian the first day of meeting him. I'm not like the Quinity is Father, Son, Spirit, Chuck Smith and Brian Brodersen here or anything, it was just cool.

So with the guys we talked about Ireland, my future there, Clay's time there, Brian used to pastor in Westminster, so we talked about the differences between Europe and America in how people think and in ministry. It was just a blessing. Plus, they were already on a mission to get Mike food! So it worked out very well!

After all the conference activities were done I went back to stay with a lady, called Donna, who works in the church there. She lives with someone who works in the school of worship at Costa Mesa too. So, Donna and I shared some of our life stories and it was just such a blessing to get to know her and the life God has walked with her through.

Tuesday:
On Tuesday the stand out moment was certainly Christopher Yuan's workshop on how Christians should approach speaking to homosexual people. Christopher is himself someone who gay and now isn't living that life anymore. What an amazing time listening to how he has thought about how to talk to people and how clearly he presented it. What a blessing to the church!!

The other stand out moment was Paul David Tripp speaking in the main session. Knowing he would be there inspired me to read some of his books. We had one Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands in the CCBC library, so I read that first, then I bought Dangerous Calling from the CCBC bookstore, because it deals specifically with pastoral ministry. It was some of the content of this book that Tripp spoke on and it was so good!

Wednesday:
Wednesday is the crazy day. Wednesday morning at around 7:20am the police in Costa Mesa found Mike Neglia after he had been hit by a car. The car was travelling 45 mph and he was thrown 30 feet. It is a miracle he is alive.
Thus began one of the longest, most tense days of my life. Clay and Char were with Mike, and later Joy (from Calvary Cork) joined them. They relayed news to us, which Brian relayed to the conference at large. We waited for hours to learn that Mike was not paralysed. Then we waited hours more to hear his bones were okay, having previously heard he had a broken neck and two spinal fractures. God really had his hand on Mike, but it was certainly a tense day.

My brain didn't focus too much on the conference that day, until the news of Mike being well came in. Instead of sitting in sessions I hung out with Kellen and George, who are friends of Mike's and certainly have become friends of mine. They work for Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and they as well as Britt, Josh, Matthew and some others were doing the live streaming of the conference, recording it and filming interviews and things. Seeing as film is a big interest in mine it was so great to be able to sit and observe and sometimes adjust cameras and little things like that, with them.
Wednesday we ate ribs together and it was great!

On Wednesday I also met John Henry. Back in the 80s John used to get Chuck's sermons sent to him in Tipperary. After some communication with Papa Chuck, Chuck invited him to Costa Mesa for a year. John never left. It was so good to get to sit with him and talk with him. He stayed in America because of his love for Chuck, and that was beautiful. I was talking to him about Mike and the possibility of my returning to Ireland to help Calvary Cork for a bit until Mike recovers, and he told me about how he did similar things with Chuck. I later learned that Chuck has circulation problems with his legs and John Henry used to massage them, often and for a long time, and if he hadn't done this Pastor Chuck could have died a number of years before he did. What a beautiful servant of God, helping Chuck to succeed in ministry by taking care of his physical and some administrative needs! We spoke about me planting a church, and the feeling I have of where the Lord is leading and the journey that I was on in coming to that place where, with confidence I can say exactly where it is (the middle of a blog post is not the place to announce that if you don't already know from personal conversations with me).
We also spoke of his time in Ireland and the joy he has in seeing the continuing of the Calvary movement there. All in all it was just such a great conversation!

At the last session, just before Christopher Yuan spoke, Brian announced the results of Mike's tests, there is a video on my instagram (@WaveyCowpar) if you want to see it. There are also pictures of some of the speakers and a paraphrase of a quote they said, because I often cannot remember the exact quotes!

Thursday:
Thursday I went straight to the live streaming area. I hung out with George mostly, and prayed for Kellen's stress levels. Then, at lunch time, some of those guys were heading to film three episodes (again there is a picture on my instagram). So I got to see the Calvary TV studios and the equipment they use to film. My goal is to have a Calvary Church that undertakes similar projects, because film is such a big part of my life!
It was great to see the studio and listen to Brian interviewing three wonderful people, Efram, who is a pastor in London and once a member of Brian's own church there; David Guzik, who's just a genius and a very gracious and humble man, and Lu Wing, who is writing one of the most interesting titles I've heard, but it sounds like it will be so good!

All in all, the conference was so good, and speakers really inspired the pastors present to look to the future by being informed of our past and the work of Pastor Chuck. Especially blessing was Johnathan Domingo talking about the example of how Chuck delegated ministry responsibility allowed Calvary to fail at times, but ultimately to grow and be the influence it was in the early days and is now in Mexico. It was also great to meet lots of different people, and to finally meet Brian and see the human behind the image!

Please continue to pray for Brian Brodersen as he leads and directs the Calvary movement and is pastor at Costa Mesa, there were times my heart went out to him, its a lot of weight to carry especially with all that's happening in the Calvary movement today!
Pray also for Mike's recovery, and for Rachel, Eoin and Rosie, and for Calvary Cork as they function without Mike!