Pastor Jay McCarl is a longtime senior pastor. He also recently retired from a 30 year ministry as a Law Enforcement Chaplain. Jay has seen it all, and shares with us super effective, Jesus-like ways to provide real help to people in great need due to tragedy or loss. The wisdom Jay possesses is God-given, and comes right from God's Word, empowered and applied by God's Spirit. Jay is also the author of an amazing book on the subject: Answering Evil: Crisis, Compassion and Truth in an Age of Uncertainty. At the end of the podcast, Jay shares how to get a copy. These are tools every pastor can use.

Host Bill Holdridge interviews Pastor Bryan Newberry, a senior pastor for 32+ years. Bryan is passionate about connecting with the next generation, and exudes proper confidence in the Lord that it's doable. Many pastors are asking, "why are the young people leaving?" And most of the time, we pastors are unclear about what to do about it! But the next gen WANTS to be reached, and Bryan provides Biblical, practical, Jesus centered, and easy to implement practices that will encourage any pastor to go for it. Part two of this two part series focuses on some of the 'must do' practices for the church that wants to fulfill the Great Commission as it reaches the younger people. Bryan's suggestions, if applied, have the potential to radically change the dynamic of any church.

Host Bill Holdridge interviews Pastor Bryan Newberry, a senior pastor for 32+ years. Bryan is passionate about connecting with the next generation, and exudes proper confidence in the Lord that it's doable. Many pastors are asking, "why are the young people leaving?" And most of the time, we pastors are unclear about what to do about it! But the next gen WANTS to be reached, and Bryan provides Biblical, practical, Jesus centered, and easy to implement practices that will encourage any pastor to go for it. Part one of this two part series focuses on the mindset of today's youth, and how our churches can adjust to that mindset. The message and foundation remains the same as we reach out to young people, but the approach and methods can and must adjust.

"Seven for Seven" - a great tool for all-church discipleship, a fantastic tool for influencing people to read their Bibles and pray every day. This interview is chock full of encouragement and also resources for any senior/lead pastor to properly disciple and equip the people in his fellowship.

Ministry may not have to be as hard as we pastors make it sometimes. Marc Knutson shares with us some of what he has learned over the years, and what he learned from Pastor Chuck Smith up close and personal, about flowing with the Holy Spirit in the ministry. The Holy Spirit has a mind and will—and His mind and will are in complete cooperation with that of the Father and the Son. Host Bill Holdridge joins Marc in this encouraging conversation.

In episode 116 we’re joined by Roger Ulman, senior/lead pastor of Calvary Chapel Kalamazoo Valley, Michigan. Roger planted the church in 2000, after an interesting and God-ordained training process. This testimony is included in this interview. Roger is married to Lisa, his wife of 37 years. They have three children … two boys and a girl. #10 grandchild on the way. Roger Ulman is a pastor who is genuinely joyful, and very optimistic about ministry and life in general. Pastors always can use optimism and encouragement … these are very challenging times for pastors everywhere. So, where does such a positive outlook comes from? This could me a major key re: how we pastors serve the Lord Jesus and His people. Tune in to hear the not-so-secret secret of Divine Optimism in Pastoral Ministry.

Pastor Patrick Farrell shares his testimony regarding a radical and defining moment in his church leadership that allowed the Holy Spirit to rejuvenate, reorganize and resurrect new life into his church. BELOW ARE THE SHOW NOTES AND ARTICLES DISCUSSED: Calvary Chapel Wichita, Kansas Paradigm Shift: Equipping the Next Gen By Patrick Farrell, Senior Pastor Article A Several years ago, I was talking to a pastor friend about prophecy. That’s not unusual for me. I came to Christ through the study of prophecy, and to this day I love to talk prophecy and I love to teach prophecy. So much so that for years I eagerly assembled an annual “prophecy update” and every two or three years turned it into a whole conference. That particular conversation, however, changed my entire perspective not only on biblical prophecy, but on ministry. “Has it ever occurred to you,” my friend asked, “That every generation of the church was convinced it could be the last? And they believed that for good reasons? Have you ever considered that for 2000 years believers have scrutinized the “signs of the times” and concluded the return of Christ was imminent?” I can’t recall exactly what I said in response, but I remember that it was flip. Knowing me, I probably said something to the effect of: “Duh. That’s why they call it the doctrine of imminence.” We went on to talk about other things, but days later I found myself still pondering the implications of my friend’s observation. For centuries (!) believers who had not seen the return of Israel, who could not realistically envision a global government, and who could not fathom “mark of the Beast” technology, still prayed “Maranatha” in full expectation that God might answer that day. And for centuries, Jesus has tarried. “What if…” a voice whispered in my head. “What if Jesus continues to tarry?” At first, the idea seemed laughable. How could He? I reminded myself of all the indications that the book of Revelation must be right around the corner. Geopolitical, financial, technological, cultural, spiritual — it all lined up. Surely Christians of our generation would be the ones that finally saw the return of Christ. But over the next few days the thought that began as a whisper grew louder and louder in my mind: “What if we’re not?” Unable to escape the question, I was soon unable to avoid the answer: I was doing ministry wrong. I was doing all the right things — or at least most of them. I was teaching the Word, sharing the gospel, making disciples, loving the people. And I was “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.” My friend’s question, though, brought me to the disappointing realization that along the way I’d amended Paul’s words to the Ephesians. Yes, I was equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. But I was equipping them just in case Jesus didn’t return in the next few years. My teaching of prophecy had passion and urgency. Jesus was coming SOON. Getting that message out, in my mind, was of utmost priority. Training young people for ministry was a secondary consideration. I was approaching it casually. While I never explicitly thought of it that way, it was essentially a back-up plan. And it needed to not be. We don’t know when Jesus is coming back. We have good reason to believe it might be any day — or even today! But so has every believer since Pentecost, and yet the church is still here. We need to not let our excitement over prophecy blind us to the very real possibility that the church will still be in ten years. Or twenty. Or forty. Or longer. And if the church does remain, it deserves to be prepared for the ministry that’s waiting. More than that, it deserves to be prepared passionately, rigorously, and lovingly — not half-heartedly. It deserves to be prepared as intentionally as my generation was. The way that every generation was. Even as they awaited the soon return of Christ. Article B A pastor friend refers to Calvary Wichita as “a ministry training program disguised as a church.” I find that description somewhat redundant. Aren’t all fellowships supposed to equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph 4:12)? And yet for many years, ours wasn’t. Week over week the same faithful faces would serve in the same familiar places. The ushers, the nursery workers, the worship team — they were all loving, all gifted, all beyond reliable. Except that towering strength had become a significant weakness: because our servants were so dependable, and had been so reliable for so long, leaders saw little incentive to train anyone else. Eight years ago, however, several events conspired to catalyze a transition. The most significant was the “retirement” of several long-serving brothers and sisters. Some were contending with health issues, others felt led to spend more time with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, others were moving out of state. The common denominator, though, was after literally decades of faithful ministry, (including two difficult pastoral transitions) we had a generation of servants ready to pass the baton. In speaking with those stepping down, however, I discovered something both surprising and disturbing: every single one indicated they would have preferred to step down sooner. They’d been hanging on, for the most part, because “there wasn’t anyone else to do the job.” CS Lewis said that when a whisper doesn’t work, God uses a megaphone. God was shouting at us that something needed to change. A few weeks later we held an “all hands” servants meeting with a very simple four-point agenda. Point #1 – effectively immediately, everyone was “fired.” No one was a pastor, no one was an elder, no one was an overseer, no one was a servant. We were all brothers and sisters in Christ, nothing more. Point #2 – effectively immediately, all ministry roles were to be considered open and available. No matter who had been serving where or how well or for how long, everything was up for grabs. The 30-year veteran of the nursery was welcome to pray about serving on the worship team; the brand-new church member was welcome to pray about serving in the nursery. Or the worship team. Or wherever. Point #3 – I’d be scheduling meetings with everyone over the next three weeks to talk and pray with people about where they felt the Lord was calling them. Point #4 — people were exhorted to seek the Lord’s direction for their ministry without concern for where they were needed or what ministries would be left uncovered. The results were amazing. To be sure, the first response for many was shock. Even the elders who helped plan the meeting admitted later they didn’t expect we’d actually go through with it. Once people understood the heart behind the message, however, they took it seriously and took it to the Lord in prayer. A month later, we had two board members step down, an elder relinquish his ministry, three overseers hand over responsibility, and at least a dozen people change ministries. Some were reluctant, and yet convinced that God was leading them to a transition. Some were excited that God had answered their prayers to open new doors. Many were relieved to know that they “had permission” to pray about a new direction. Not surprisingly, after we’d rearranged roles and responsibilities according to God’s leading, some significant holes remained. Looking back, it was at that point our internship program was born. We’d had interns in the past, but observing the gaps in our org chart and recognizing the reason for them, it was clear a more substantial initiative was required. We needed to do more the “fill the gaps” — we needed a sustainable plan. After much prayer, we devoted a Sunday morning service to clarifying a new vision for our fellowship. Our mission would remain to “win, build, and send” disciples for Jesus Christ. But in pursuit of that mission, Calvary Wichita would begin to prioritize discipleship of the “next generation” of ministry-minded men and women. We would, in effect, become a “teaching hospital.” While every church is (or should be) a “hospital for sinners,” those coming to our hospital would be told to expect students and interns to be the front line of care. The pastors and elders would be the “attending physicians” supervising their ministry – all under the headship of the Great Physician. The transitions weren’t always seamless. While many of our “senior saints” were excited about the transition, some were confused and one or two were resentful. For a time, the extraordinary time and attention devoted to one demographic left others feeling neglected (and objectively they probably were). Predictably, we also needed to contend with pride and accusations of pride. Satan is a liar and a thief, and for a time it seemed we were a prime target for his antics as confusion and frustration seemed to spring up out of nowhere. Yet through it all, the Lord was faithful: faithful to guide, faithful to provide wisdom, faithful to supply grace, faithful to reassure us we were on the right track. Today, the day-to-day leadership of our fellowship is largely in the hands of our interns. We currently have eight, but the number varies. True to our mission, we have sent out many men and women to assume leadership roles in other churches and parachurch organizations. As we do, the Lord raises up others to take their place. We don’t have a consistent structure for our internships — we’re a small enough fellowship we have the luxury of praying through an individualized path for each of them to learn, lead, make mistakes, and grow in grace. We also have a stable enough cadre of elders that I can devote a substantial portion of my week to mentoring this crazy band of leaders-in-training, knowing other mature eyes are helping oversee the big picture. Year over year the character of the group changes, and their responsibilities change accordingly. Year over year, our fellowship extends grace, knowing this is ministry the Lord has called ALL of us to. Like a lot of ministries, sometimes we’re not sure how it’s going to all work out. Like a lot of ministries, sometimes we’re absolutely sure it won’t. Like everything the Lord calls us to, it always does! Article C Calling what we do at CCW an “intern program” might be an overstatement. We don’t have a formal program so much as we have a collection of interns — usually seven or so at any given time — that the Lord has called our fellowship to support and equip for ministry. And we didn’t begin with any particular design or structure in mind. We just observed we had a generation of leaders ready to start handing over responsibility, and prayed about how to respond. After nine years, though, we can look back and see how the Lord has worked. Roughly half the thirty-plus men and women who have spent time interning with us are currently serving in leadership roles in their respective churches, including one senior pastor, three assistant pastors, five youth pastors, two church planters, two worship leaders, a high school teacher, and a staff member at a parachurch organization. Many others are living out God’s call as parents and as missionaries in their respective vocations. How do we do what we do? The most honest answer might be: “Never the same way twice.” God seems to constantly be reinventing what we do based on the season our fellowship is in and who our interns are at any given time. That said, I can try to point at a few consistent principles the Lord has led us to: START WITH YOUTH: Our internship program for ministry-minded “twenty-somethings” evolved out of our summer youth discipleship program built around ten weeks of full-time study and service at the church. It brings teens deeper into the greater church community, helps them catch a vision for ministry, and instills in many a true heart to serve. Roughly half our interns are “home grown” graduates from our youth program; another quarter are friends or Bible College classmates who hear about what we’re doing through them. EXPLAIN THE VISION: Seven years ago, we embraced a new ministry concept: we’re a teaching hospital. Every church is a “hospital for sinners” but we’re a hospital that’s also training practitioners. Much like a medical school that sends its students into ERs and ORs and ICUs to provide care under the supervision of attending physicians, we let our folks know up front that the first line of ministry at CCW will often be led by our interns under the oversight of a pastor or elder. COUNT THE COST: Equipping the next generation is an investment. We remind our fellowship of that often, because we’re collectively sharing that cost in many ways. We’re not only supporting interns through our tithes and offerings, we’re also forgoing other opportunities in order to do so. Several years ago, for example, we hit pause on a plan to expand our sanctuary and used the money to buy a small bungalow to house interns instead. We unpack these choices for the fellowship so they understand our interns are a community project that every one of us is a part of. REJOICE IN IMPERFECTION: Putting interns out on the front lines of ministry entails not only an investment of money but an investment of grace. Most of the time they will not teach as effectively, lead worship as powerfully, counsel as wisely, or organize as skillfully as more seasoned elders would. We don’t try to pretend that’s not true; instead, we try to rally around it and urge one another to “celebrate progress” rather than “expect perfection.” RECOGNIZE THE CHALLENGE: One of the most difficult things any of us do is watch someone perform a task slowly and awkwardly that we could do quickly and easily. But that’s exactly what mentoring interns requires. If we don’t let them do the thing we could do in a fraction of the time, they don’t learn. And if we don’t watch them, they might do things badly (and people might get hurt). EMBRACE DIFFERENCES: I come from a large church where I helped start and run a successful “School of Ministry.” We had classes, we had structure, we had a format for everything. CCW is less than 10% the size of my home church, and our internships have less than 10% of the consistency. We have paid interns and unpaid interns. We have full-time interns and part-time interns. Some interns are with us for a summer; some have been with us for years. Some of their discipleship happens in groups, but differences in schedule, gifting, calling, and maturity demand that a fair amount happen 1:1. Some of our interns love to read; others learn much better from audio or video presentations. For a long time we tried to resist these realities in the name of efficiency. Today we accept the inefficiency for the sake of higher quality. PURSUE BOTH BREADTH AND DEPTH: It’s tempting, especially in a small church like ours, to thrust people into the ministry that corresponds to their most conspicuous gifting: put the musician on the worship team, put the organizer in the office, put the “baby whisperer” in the nursery. It’s also tempting to do the opposite: don’t let people serve in their favorite ministry for the sake of learning and growth and (above all) humility! Our answer is a little of both: we strive to give interns the opportunity to refine existing gifting while also expecting them to explore new areas of ministry where they have interest and the church has need. What we don’t do is assign anything purely for the sake of cultivating humility. God, it turns out, is better at that than we are. BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT COMMUNITY: Fellowship within our group of interns usually happens organically. And that’s important — what our interns learn from each other is often as important or more important than what they learn from their pastors and mentors. But just as important is what our interns can learn from people who are neither peers nor mentors. We try to create opportunities for interns to know and serve and pray and live life alongside live life alongside young parents, seniors, singles, new believers, and everyone else that calls Calvary home. BUILD IN THE BASICS: If we’re not careful, in striving to create opportunities for community and ministry we might inadvertently encourage our interns to neglect devotional time and other essential spiritual disciplines. Instead, we lean hard in the opposite direction. We build time for daily prayer and worship into our full-time interns’ schedules, and we ask all interns to pursue accountability around their individual walks with the Lord. As much as we want to train up ministers, it’s more important we teach people to be zealous Christ-followers. PREPARE FOR HEARTBREAK: When we embarked on this intern journey, everyone was excited at the prospect of being a “Paul” to a “Timothy” or “Titus.” What we forgot was that Paul also had disciples like Demas (who abandoned him) and Alexander (who attacked him). Even Jesus — who did ministry perfectly — had both a Peter and a Judas. Mentoring interns has brought me to some of the highest mountains I’ve known as a pastor, but it’s also plunged me to some of the deepest valleys. Getting close enough to wash feet means getting close enough to be kicked, and it’s never going to be different until we get to heaven. DEBRIEF EVERYTHING: Most ministry is “caught” rather than “taught.” That said, we find our interns catch a whole lot more if we set aside structured time to discuss the ministry they are a part of as well as the ministry going on around them. We try to meet as a group after every event, at the end of each week of ministry, and at the close of each Sunday to discuss what happened, why it happened, what follow-up might be needed, how we can be praying, etc. More than anything else we do, these conversations help our interns understand the heart of our ministry. Looking back, the first ten bullet points above are really the product of the last one. It was in talking about and praying over our ministry that the Lord led us to make internships such a vital part of our fellowship’s DNA. And it’s been through discussion and prayer that the Lord has cultivated and refined the “best practices” outlined above. The two questions we ask continually — of each other and of the Lord — are simple: (1) What does love look like in this situation? (2) Who else needs to know what we’re discussing? When someone asks me how to start an internship program, I still don’t know. But what I tell people is to find the young people in your church who want to serve, find a place for them to serve, and start talking about those two questions with them every chance you get. You’ll be amazed at what the Lord will do!

In the earliest stages of his first senior pastorate, Nate Holdridge comes out of the book of Joshua to explain how he knew the Lord would be with him. A powerful reminder of the Presence and grace of God which is upon senior pastors, and which is absolutely necessary for their ministry to be successful in God's eyes. Pastor Chuck Smith introduces Nate, with some interesting and helpful homiletical suggestions at the end of the message

Pastor Don Rypstra is in his last days of a long pastorate in Rochester, Minnesota. He and his wife's move to northern Idaho means that a new normal is waiting for them, but also that someone will be called into an exciting opportunity to pastor and reach the people of Rochester, home of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. Pastor Don is not unlike many pastors, world-wide. Don is conscientious, faithful, thoughtful, and committed to Christ and the gospel. Another thing Don has been: he's been bi-vocational throughout his senior/lead pastor life. Over 25 years ago, he moved his family from California to Rochester in a career related move. Then the Lord called him into pastoral ministry, and to start a church. Which is what he did. Don refers to himself as a small church pastor. More and more, others refer to such pastors as normal sized church pastors, because it's a more accurate description in terms of average church size in the U.S. In this podcast, Don tells part of their story to show host Bill Holdridge. Not only is their story told, but the opportunity is now open to another called and gifted man to assume the leadership of Calvary Chapel Rochester.

Pastor Tim Brown joins show host Bill Holdridge in this huge issue for pastors ... made even more do due to this particular election year. Pastor Tim has a gift of turning complexities into simplicity, which can be very helpful for pastors who want tips on how to navigate these choppy waters and stormy seas. Tim is the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Fremont, California.