175- How Vision Affects Our Ministry- with Cory Kilgus

175- How Vision Affects Our Ministry- with Cory Kilgus

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Welcome to Strength for Today's Pastor, conversations with current senior pastors and leaders which will strengthen and help you in your pastoral ministry. And now here's your host, Bill Holdridge of Hoyman Ministries. Welcome to podcast number 175.

Today we are going to talk about vision, how as pastors, our vision affects our ministries. Very important subject, vision and how our vision affects our ministries. So with us today is Pastor Corey Kilgus.

(0:45 - 1:18)
He's the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Trujillo in Peru and director of the Calvary Chapel Bible Institute or the Calvary Bible Institute in Trujillo and the focus of Corey's ministry is to raise up pastors and missionaries and church planners that are healthy so that their churches can be healthy. Corey, welcome to the program. I'm glad you could join us today.

I've been looking forward to this. Yeah, thank you so much, Bill. It's a blessing and an honor to be able to join you and I'm looking forward to it as well, so thank you.

(1:19 - 6:09)
Yeah, well, amen. Well, Corey, you're married to obviously Danielle and you have four children, ages four to ten. Your home church, Calvary Chapel Fort Bragg, your sending church, pastored by Kevin Green, wonderful brother in the Lord.

Your father-in-law, Dan Gilman, is also a senior pastor and he pastors in Shreveport, Louisiana. You've been in Peru for how many years now? Just about 12 years, I believe. We got sent out from Fort Bragg, so it's been a while down here.

Yeah, it's been a while and I want you to tell that story a little bit, but also how long have you been in Trujillo doing what you're doing right now? Yeah, we've been in Trujillo for about seven and a half years, seven and a half, eight years now. Okay, yeah, a lot's happened in seven and a half or eight years, hasn't it? A lot has happened. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing what God has done starting from zero, so yeah, it's the grace of God, but it's been quite the journey.

Quite the journey, not without troubles and trials and challenges and all of that, which are still being faced in different ways, but that's the life of service, isn't it? It's the life of ministry. It is, it really is, and you know, we have our difficulties, but it's funny, one of the things we talk about at our school and our training is that ministry is hard everywhere. I mean, everywhere you are, whether you're in Peru or the United States or anywhere in the world, we live in a fallen world, we're all sinners, and there's a spiritual battle, and so we understand that there's difficulties, but we also understand there's, you know, nothing better that we can do than to follow the Lord's calling on our life.

So lots of challenges, but we know that's how it is in ministry. Yeah, so we can have trouble and challenges doing the wrong things, or we can have trouble and challenges doing the right things. That's what I hear you saying.

Yeah, yeah, try to avoid the wrong ones if we can, but they're gonna come no matter what. Yeah, yeah, well you and Danielle both are called, I mean, I can see missionary wife, missionary woman of God all over her as she serves with you in the ministry. Give a brief summary of your calling.

Yeah, and I would say Danielle is the first, or even the real missionary in our family. You know her dad, Pastor Dan Gilman, you helped him even with getting to where he is in Calvary Chapel Shreveport, but her dad was very missional, and she's one of those kids where, you know, she got baptized at six or seven years old, and it was real, and then her dad went on a mission trip, and God spoke to her through Isaiah chapter 6 when she was about nine, and you know, you're never sure when you're nine years old, but it was real, and she did missions in Peru at 11, and then she went by herself without her family to Peru on a mission trip when she was 13. She went to Africa twice before she turned 18, so Danielle had a strong, strong missionary calling before I was even a Christian.

So that's why I say she's the first missionary in her family, you know, and then I got saved later on in life, you know, it was a radical conversion at 23, and I was not interested in missions originally, actually, at all. I wanted to go to Bible College in Southern California. I got saved and discipled in Calvary Chapel, Fort Bragg, and I wanted to go be where the action was.

I wanted to be close to Pastor Chuck and where things seemed to be happening, and it took a lot of persuading, actually, from Kevin, Pastor Kevin Green in Fort Bragg. He was doing a trip to Chile, and he invited me to come, and I said no originally, and the Lord provided the money and opened the doors, and I went, and I fell in love with the culture of Chile, but also the idea of South America, and there was a very prophetic calling that culminated in a prophetic moment at the end of that trip, but to make a long story short, it became very obvious that the churches that I had seen, not the one I was serving, and the one I was serving was great. It was Calvary Chapel Bible College and a ministry of Raul Ruiz, but as we walked the streets, I saw some really crazy, charismatic, you know, give us your money and dip your prayer request paper in a bowl of water, and you'll get whatever you want, a car or a house, and it just struck me that this is not what I knew of church, and that the people here, the Word of God was not being widely taught in many of the churches, and so the Lord...and I was relatively new in the faith on this trip, and so, you know, Romans 10 were not overly familiar to me as a missionary at that point.

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I hadn't thought of them, but, you know, how shall they believe unless they hear? And God gave me those verses three times, and it culminated in a night of prayer and worship, and without having told anybody that God had been giving me those verses throughout the week, they had prayed over a verse for each person on the mission team, and that Romans 10 verse was the one they gave me, and I just got this incredibly strong...doesn't happen often in life, I don't think, hasn't happened often in my life, I'll say at least, but just a very strong impression, I would say, close to a vision of the need to feed the sheep in South America, and to the point without saying a word, I just sat down in the corner, and my pastor, Kevin, was there on that trip, and he came and said...he put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, well, you know you're called. And that was really...I would say that was the beginning of a strong confirmation of a pastoral calling, but also really the beginning of a strong confirmation as a missionary to South America. So that was the beginning of that.

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That's a great story. And, you know, now you're living in the mission field, on the mission field, like you said, 12 years or so, and lots of things are going on. Your day-to-day life, if you're in Trujillo, can seem like the life of anybody, right? I mean, you're homeschooling your kids.

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Your oldest is learning Russian, right? Your oldest boy, your only boy, Noah, is learning Hebrew. It cracks me up, but it's awesome. I mean, there's a vision there for these kids.

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They're growing up in a household context on the mission field, very, very unlike the culture here in the States, you know, where I'm speaking from. But anyway, you are in Peru, and you noted the prevalence of Roman Catholicism there. You noted that there's that trust in the culture rather than in the gospel, and their culture includes their Roman Catholic history since the conquistadors, right? And so people are coming to Christ now in that context.

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How is that happening? I mean, what's going on? How are the people of Peru being awakened? Yeah, you know, and it really is a move of God's spirit, but Peru is an interesting place. It's got Roman Catholic roots, and that's intertwined into their culture, but their Catholicism is mixed with traditional beliefs. I mean, you see a lot of Incan type of things.

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I mean, I've been in Catholic churches where they have Mary, the baby Jesus, and Enti, the sun god, all next to each other in the Catholic sanctuary. So, you know, there's this mix of happening, but I just think right now what we're experiencing is more of a global community. You know, everyone has a cell phone.

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Even I've been into the deepest parts of the jungle, and they have cell phones there. So people are connected now, and I think it's really just a self-centered type of life. You might have Roman Catholic background, or you might say something else, but at the end of the day, people, it's kind of like the book of judges.

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Everyone's just doing what's right in their own eyes. And there's a lot of mixed beliefs. If my good is better than my bad, I should be okay.

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I acknowledge that there's a God, but I don't know him at all. So the way that people are coming to Christ really is, I would say, a product for us of Ephesians 4.12. I mean, we're pretty hyper-focused and laser-focused on equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. In my history as a missionary, I think one of the dangers we can fall into as a pastor and as a missionary is there's so much to do that I have to do it all.

(10:17 - 10:38)
I have to continually just do the different requirements of church or ideas. But that's not what I see in Ephesians 4. And so we want to teach Bible studies and preach on Sundays and all those things, but we have multiple discipleship classes. We have the Calvary Bible Institute, but we also have our church planting class.

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I have a leadership development with School of Servants, and Danielle meets with the wives. We have our staff meetings on Tuesdays and these home fellowships. And so we have, I would say, a strong emphasis on trying to equip the saints.

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But then our vision is to reach South America and to reach the world. So you tie that in, you tie the Great Commission into that, and people are coming to our church, and the love of God, the grace of God is a big part of that. There's a huge, and it's probably worldwide, but in our context, there's a huge amount of people who say they've been hurt or abused by churches, or they've seen things in churches that means they never want to come, or they went as a kid and it was all about money, or it was very controlling, and so they don't want anything to do it.

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And they come and they experience something different at our church, and they're loved. And really, it's just loving them, treating them fairly. I don't think it's anything overly special.

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It's just treating them right, how Jesus wants you to treat someone, and then feeding them. And they get transformed. They've never heard it.

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Many have never heard the teaching of the Word. And it's the old saying we have in Calvary Chapel, I am not, by gifting an evangelist, I do evangelize, but I am not a gifted evangelist. But what happens is there's evangelists in our congregation, and they're being fed, they're being strengthened, they're being encouraged.

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And they're inviting people and inviting their friends. And so, in the beginning, it was more targeted. When we planted a church, we had an English club to attract students, and we did a lot of outreach things.

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Now we're preaching the gospel and we do evangelism on Saturdays, but generally, the way our church is growing is healthy sheep beget healthy sheep. I would say that's, and they're finding something unique when they come to our church. I had one person who was a surfer community, not a Christian, and the way they said it when they came in here is that it has, in Spanish, it's buena vibra, good vibes.

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And I said, well, that's the love of God and the Holy Spirit working in your life. That's why it feels good. And so, I would say that's how people are coming.

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There's healthy sheep begetting healthy sheep, but we have the great commission as our vision, and people are wanting to invite their friends and families and people in the community. I'm glad that you brought that up, healthy sheep beget healthy sheep. That was one of Pastor Chuck Smith's famous lines that he would use a lot.

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In fact, when I was pastoring in Monterey, Corey, there was a Billy Graham School of Evangelism that was held there, and it was a big deal. Lots of people came, and they asked Pastor Chuck to come and speak on the church as an evangelistic entity. And that's what he taught on.

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He taught on healthy sheep reproduce healthy sheep. And the theme of it ended up being the culture of your church needs to be one of inviting. The people need to learn to be inviters, and that's how our church has grown.

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I just think that's classic Calvary Chapel. For those that are listening to this podcast that aren't from a Calvary Chapel background, that's part of our history, everybody, and what we've been taught. Excellent.

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Very, very great to hear that. People are coming. Let me ask you this question, Corey.

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Your focus is discipleship, obviously. Your focus is equipping the saints for the work of ministry, Ephesians 4.12, all of that. How conscious are you when you're ministering the Word of God on a Sunday or in a midweek or anywhere, how conscious are you of that idea that, okay, this message is something God has given me.

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How is this going to equip and disciple these people that are hearing this? How conscious are you of that, as opposed to what we can, in the flesh, be focused on. How conscious am I of this being a good sermon? Right. You know what I mean? Well, I don't know how conscious I am every Sunday.

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I think my DNA is the Great Commission, and that's a biblical vision. I mean, I do discipleship with my family. Yesterday, we were in Acts chapter 1, and I told my kids, like, Jesus went up into the clouds and he left us with a mission.

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We have a clear guideline. We have a clear mandate from the master until he comes back, and that's just what the Bible says. You know, go and preach the gospel to every creature.

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Go and make disciples of all the nations, and I emphasize the later part in Matthew 28, because I think sometimes we forget it. You know, go make disciples of all nations, yes. But then he says, and teach them to all the things that I have commanded you.

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So the discipleship-making process is the teaching of the word of God, and that's what Jesus did, and that's what Paul models for us. He preaches the gospel, and then he takes a huge emphasis on teaching. That's what you see is this preaching and teaching ministry of the apostle Paul and his fulfillment of the Great Commission.

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So I would say it's more, if you've been in our sanctuary, actually around our sanctuary we have quotes of missionaries lining our sanctuary, William Carey and Amy Carmichael and Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, Jim Elliott. So as soon as you walk in our sanctuary, the first thing you see is the flags of about 50 countries that we feel connected with and praying for, and then missionary quotes lining the walls. So the Great Commission hits you as soon as you come in.

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But then on a Sunday, I would say I'm mostly focused on just teaching what God says where I'm at, but I think by nature almost at this point, because I'm so convinced of the vision of the Great Commission, that it comes out. It comes out a lot. This last Sunday, a couple days ago, we were in John 7, and Jesus stands up in the middle of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and he wants to make himself known to the degree he's about to do something.

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What does he do? He teaches. He teaches them the Word of God. So I spent most of my Sunday talking about the Word of God in our life, the necessity of teaching it, and I talked about Hosea 4-6 and the vision of our ministry and our church and that the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, and I went into the corruption and the pain and the broken families of our family and said, we need to go and bring the Gospel and bring Jesus and bring the Word of God to these people because it's the only hope.

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So I don't think I was necessarily, I got to get the Great Commission in there, but it comes out because that's the biblical vision and that's what's in my heart. So our church is very clear on what our vision is, and it helps us that both our church and our school and our umbrella ministry of Gospel South America are all pretty much aligned in those things. You were warned, you had written and spoken about this, that the city of Trujillo was the hardest city in Peru in which to plant a church, and a lot of failed church plants had occurred there, but yet your church, the church that the Lord has called you to open up and pastor, is experiencing huge growth.

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So you've already alluded to some of the factors that are probably playing into this. You're sticking to the Word, you've got a vision, you're sticking with the vision and all of that. Talk about that a little bit because it's, you know, there's this myth that there's certain grounds that are so hard, they'll never be reached.

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Yeah, we don't subscribe to that myth at all. And I teach a class here. It's one of the core things I teach at our school.

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It's in our church planting class, and I call it Principles for Pioneers. And I'm actually hoping that'll turn into a book here in the next year or so. But I have 21 principles that I try, that I believe are from the Bible that I want to implement into our future church planters.

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And we believe in church planters as the pastors, but also we try to build church planting teams. So it's men and women who have a desire or an interest in being part of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. And so it's about 75 people that come.

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It's a three-hour class on Tuesday, and it's amazing because people say, you know, how is that possible? And I don't know how it's possible, but they come. But that's one of our principles is, as I said before, everywhere is difficult. We just want to know what God is calling us to do.

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So that's the key. And if God is for us, who can be against us? In Jeremiah, he says that God is with me, and it depends on your translation. I like it when it says, as a powerful giant, that's how it's worded in Spanish.

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But it might be as a dread warrior, it's different things. But the idea is, and I actually had a student draw me a picture of me standing before the city many years ago, and then there was this huge shadow, and it had that verse under that God is with you as a powerful giant. And that was always a big encouragement for me.

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But really, the Lord, we were living up in the mountains in Cajamarca, as you know, and we would come down to the city, Trujillo, because it was the biggest city that we could get to kind of close. And the idea was, let's go return to civilization a little bit. And so, but we would come, it was a million-person city.

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At that time, there was no Calvary chapels on the north coast of Peru, not one. There was a lot in Lima, they were in Cusco, they were in Arequipa, some of the nicer cities. They were up in Cajamarca near the Bible college that was there.

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But the north coast is tough. We're this very arid, dry, dusty, it's a coastal desert. So I'm on the ocean, but I get less than two inches of rain a year.

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And it's sand and dirt, so everything is dirty all the time. I'd have to wash my car every day to keep it clean here, it's impossible. And then, it's also lately been the most crime infested.

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The crime here, I think maybe because it's a less desirable place to live, there's been less interest. And so, in these bigger cities in the north, the mafias and the gangs have gotten control. There's massive corruption within the governments, as there are in many places.

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But the idea, when you would say, I'm going to Trujillo in Peru, people would go, well, be careful. That would be their response, because it was known for crime and delinquency and all of those things. I love teaching through Revelation chapters two and three, the churches.

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I love studying through them and getting the background. And the background of the church of Ephesus is it was a big city, it was an important city. I would say it was a wealthy city, but it was a very difficult city.

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It had the Temple of Artemis there, one of the seven wonders of the world, four times the size of the Parthenon. It was an asylum for criminals. If you could reach the steps there, as history will say, you could be free of your charges.

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It was probable, or at least possible, but I would say probable, that the temple servants were also doing prostitution. And it was a port city, so it was a loyal Roman city, it was a proud pagan city. They had Diana Artemis there.

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They had sin and crime and sexual things that were all promoted, I would say. And Paul tried to go there early in his ministry and was prohibited by the Holy Spirit. But he stays with his ministry.

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I actually taught this at the missions conference in Philadelphia last week. But he stays there, he's faithful to his calling. And then when God does open the door to go there, he just finds a few disciples.

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We won't get into the theological debate about what those disciples were. But the reality was is there was only a few people there that had probably been ministered to by Priscilla and Aquila beforehand. And the Spirit is poured out upon them.

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There's a baptism of the Holy Spirit that happens there. They were lacking something of the Holy Spirit, clearly, in those men. And then he teaches.

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He goes in the synagogue, he teaches. But what happens is, as some accept and some reject, he begins to teach the word of God every day in the school of Tyrannus. And the city of Ephesus is transformed.

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They're burning their witchcraft books and their pagan things. And the silversmiths are losing their entire businesses because of the change that the gospel is bringing to that city. And then it says it's gonna impact not just, it didn't just impact Ephesus, but the entire region.

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Asia Minor was impacted. And God really spoke to me about Trujillo with that church. That was how God confirmed me to come to Trujillo.

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It's the principal city. It's the biggest city in the north. There's a massive port here.

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It's kind of the hub for the north. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, a couple Calvary chapels had tried and failed.

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But basically, what Danielle and I, and my wife is a missionary woman, as you said, I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, Bill, as you know. And then it was either a misdiagnosis or I got healed on my way back to the States. But after that, I said, what are we gonna do? And my wife just looked me in the eyes and said, whatever God tells us to do.

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And that's how she is. I said, okay, I don't know how everybody's life responds to living in crime-infested, dirty, trash-filled cities. But my wife's looked me in the eyes and says, you're gonna do whatever God says you're gonna do.

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And so, we moved to Trujillo. And our vision was, they said it's very hard, people don't respond to the gospel, they're not gonna tithe, you're never gonna have any resources. And then I was told, for sure, you need to know that because of that crime and reputation, you'll never be able to have a Bible college.

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I was looked in the eyes by several people who said, you just need to know, you'll never be able to have a Bible college there. And I said, maybe that's true. I don't know about any of that.

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All I know is God's called us. And what we said as a family is, we're going to move to Trujillo, and we are going to plant our lives in the city. We wanna be in the community.

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We don't wanna come and go. We believe in a long-term perspective for missions. People need to see that you're committed.

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They don't wanna commit their family to your church if you're not committed. And missionaries come and go, and pastors come and go, and churches come and go. And so we just said, we're called.

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God has spoken to us. And one thing I also teach too is, you know, there's always room for doubt. There's always room to look back, you know.

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But we believe that God would have us walk by faith. And I read it in Jim Elliott's biographies where he doubted at one point, and he made a decision that God would want us to commit and walk by faith. And so we get to this point where we believe it's God, we believe God was sending us, and we're committing to this city.

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And we're gonna move our whole family. We're gonna live right in the heart of it, and we're not gonna move for five years. And we said, look, like I said, you know, I'm inspired by the old school missionaries, Hudson Taylor and William Carey and Adoniram Judson.

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I said, William Carey didn't have one convert for seven years. So I don't care if we don't get one convert, we're not moving for at least five years. We're gonna plant our family and commit to raising our family in this city, and then we're gonna see what God does.

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And so that's what we did. That's how we were called, and that was our mentality. And I have people in my church who come to me and said they watched me for two or three years before they were willing to really give us a serious look.

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So that long-term perspective and being committed to your calling, and I call it the fruit of faithfulness. And we're ordaining a new pastor in a couple weeks here, so we're gonna have... We've got our church planters, but we're gonna have three pastors with me, so four total here at Calvary Trujillo. And these are all guys that I met when they were 16, Santiago, 17, Joaquin, and 20, Mario.

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And now they're all in their, you know, just around 30. And we have a decade together, and they have the same DNA that I have. And it's just the fruit of faithfulness.

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It's the fruit of doing what God calls you to do, and then seeing what He'll do. So that was our calling, and that was our mentality. And now that's something we teach.

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It doesn't matter what anybody says about where you're going. All that matters is what is God calling you to do, and if God is for us, who can be against us? So that's how we came here, and that's become, I would say, a huge part of our training for the pastors we send. Well, obviously, it's contagious because churches are going out from Calvary Trujillo, like you said, church-planting teams in various countries in South America already.

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What are those countries, and tell us a little bit about that story. Yeah, and we're intentional in our church-planting, and then God also just does it by His Spirit at times. Our first church-plant was from our first student.

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We had a huge influx of Venezuelan refugees as we started the church. And, you know, really, it was the grace of God. I feel I owe a debt to the Venezuelan people because they came in hurting with nothing, and for me, we were just here to minister to anybody.

(28:07 - 28:17)
We were here to minister to Peruvian, Venezuelan, it didn't matter. You know, anybody who needs Jesus is who we wanted to minister to. And in the beginning, at one point in the beginning, our church was more than 50% Venezuelan.

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That's changed now because my main guy that was raised up, Pastor Angel, he's the reason that our Bible school started. He was on fire. He wanted more of the Word.

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And I said, well, I could send you to a Bible college. And he said, I don't want you to send me. I want you to do it.

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And he became my first student. And that's how things happened. But he was our first graduate.

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He planted a church in the same city of Trujillo, but in a, I would say, a poor, an immigrant, you know, refugee part of town. I think you were there, Bill. I think you got to visit there.

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And I just knew that as a Venezuelan who had been an immigrant and a refugee, he was going to be able to minister to those people much more effectively than I can. And so we trained him. He was my assistant pastor after he graduated.

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He spent about four years with us, took over our Wednesday, and then he planted a church. And he's out of chairs again. He told me last week, I think he's got about 120 people on Sunday, and it's about 85% Venezuelan refugee.

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And it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful church. He's a great teacher. He's a great pastor, great wife.

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And he actually wrote me yesterday that they're expecting their second baby. So they're doing well. So that was our first one.

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Our second one was also part of that first graduating class. And our school is for Latino Americans, you know, Peruvians, Venezuelans, but also for mission-minded Americans. So our next pastor was Andrew.

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He's from Colorado. And he just had a huge heart for missions. And same thing, he was with us four years or so, graduated, but became an assistant pastor here and took over my Wednesday night.

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And now he's in the Amazon jungle in the capital city of one of the main jungle regions called Moyo Bamba. So that's going well. He's been there a year and a half, two years, something like that.

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And he's still doing it. So Andrew, as I understand Andrew, he did not speak Spanish when he came to Peru. But he became fluent quickly.

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I've noticed that in the students there, the people that come from North America, they learn Spanish pretty quickly. They do. Yeah.

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And we don't teach any Spanish classes, actually. We don't have any formal Spanish classes. Some of the people, there's a lady in our church who's a Spanish tutor.

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So they can do that if they choose. But only a few do. I think the key in that, Bill, is one, they get the bilingual classes.

(30:45 - 31:08)
And so you're seeing Spanish and English back and forth 17 hours a week minimum just in the block classes. But we also have a big emphasis, and this is something I've learned over time, we don't have a lot of on-site Bible study groups for just the students. They're all required to go be a part of our Sunday services, our midweek services.

(31:08 - 31:23)
And then they're all required to evangelize once a week in the community. And they're all required to go to a home fellowship in the city, not in the school. So our students, our American students, and they also have to shop for themselves and cook for themselves.

(31:23 - 31:39)
So they're forced to interact with the community, and not by intention that, oh, we're going to get them Spanish really quick. But it's true. Most of our students within a year are able to communicate.

(31:39 - 31:53)
And then by the end, they're able to speak pretty fluently. And then if they're called, I will put them, like Andrew, he was still learning but pretty good in Spanish. And I had him teach Wednesday nights in Spanish for a year.

(31:53 - 32:13)
And that helps a lot. So yeah, that's something that happens with our students, I think, because of how much they interact with the community and how much bilingual things they're exposed to. I wanted to bring that up because there may be those people listening to this podcast that have somebody on their staff and think, I'd like to go on the mission field.

(32:13 - 32:23)
Well, I remember having a conversation with you years ago. And you were kind of asking me questions. I said, South America, it's wide open.

(32:23 - 32:48)
If you can learn Spanish, you've got an open door to the whole continent, except for Brazil. And Portuguese is learnable if you know Spanish. But anyway, what an opportunity for not just young North American students that are called into some kind of a mission or outreach thing, but what a great way to spend one's life.

(32:48 - 32:52)
My goodness. Yeah. And Daniela and I did not speak Spanish when we came here.

(32:53 - 33:07)
So we were self-taught without tutors. And so I think, again, that probably plays into it. And we get a lot of young people who want to be missionaries and they're inspired by Amy Carmichael or Hudson Taylor and these guys.

(33:07 - 33:11)
And I say, OK, that's great. But learn language. And I challenge them to do it.

(33:11 - 33:24)
I challenge them to do it. And they do. And so it happens by osmosis, in a sense, because of the environment they're in, but also, if you're called to missions, then you're called to language learning.

(33:25 - 33:29)
And I can say, Daniela and I couldn't speak it. And we learned it. And we committed to it.

(33:29 - 33:33)
And you can, too. And so I think all that plays into it. Yeah, yeah.

(33:34 - 33:52)
So the CBI campus, Calvary Bible Institute, it's a relatively recent move of God. And it's become global increasingly. Started stateside, Pastor Gerald Hagerman from Calvary Chapel Yucca Valley.

(33:53 - 34:18)
And the stateside version of CBI was to prepare staff-ready people to staff Calvary Chapel churches, to have them ready after one year to do that. But then it's gone, obviously, to Peru and other places now. And so the emphasis has changed a little bit, or quite a bit, perhaps.

(34:18 - 34:44)
Talk about that, the difference between a CBI stateside versus a CBI, like in your context or in other places, and the flexibility that there has been within CBI to do it consistently with where you're ministering. Yeah. Gerald Hagerman has just been such a wonderful, wonderful influence in my life and become a mentor for me.

(34:44 - 34:55)
And I didn't know Gerald. I didn't know that I was going to be CBI. We had a vision from the Great Commission, but also the Church at Ephesus.

(34:56 - 35:12)
And we had started a discipleship house, and we had just committed to renting a full-time building to start a school. But we didn't even know we were going to call it at the time yet. And so I met Gerald with my father-in-law, Dan Gilman, at the Deep South Conference.

(35:12 - 35:18)
And it was a God thing. It's a really amazing thing how that happened. I was just accompanying my father-in-law.

(35:18 - 35:27)
That was the reason I was there. He had just moved to Shreveport, and you were involved in that, placing him there. And I said, I'll go to the conference with you because it's your first time, and we can go together.

(35:27 - 35:33)
So we did. And the first person I meet at this conference is Gerald Hagerman. And I was just going to say hello.

(35:33 - 35:44)
And as I shake his hand, and you'll know this will make sense to you, Bill, because as I shake his hand, he gets a phone call. And he kind of pulls his phone away. Sometimes with age, we have to pull the phone away a little bit to see the numbers, right? Yeah.

(35:44 - 36:04)
And so he pulls the phone away, and the caller ID on his phone, as I'm standing right next to him, is Matt Carver. And Matt Carver is one of my best friends, and we shared an office in the Andes Mountains of Peru, very close. And I said, do you know Matt Carver? And he says, yeah, his wife, Ivy, grew up in our church.

(36:05 - 36:07)
I married them. I said, no way. And we just got talking.

(36:08 - 36:24)
And he heard about what we were doing, and our vision, you know, to plant churches, and to fill the Great Commission, and to teach the Word of God, and they were going to be very connected with the church. That was something, and I've served in many Bible colleges, other Bible colleges, Calvary Chapel Bible College in Peru. I was a director in Jerusalem.

(36:24 - 36:53)
And one thing I learned throughout all of that experience is that a Bible school will not be healthy if it is not intimately connected to a local church. If the students are not actively participating in the local church, they're not going to be well-prepared for ministry. To bring them away and separate them from the local church, which really that's the way Jesus has ordained it, you know, they're going to make disciples, they're going to equip the saints, they're going to ordain leadership and establish local churches.

(36:53 - 37:05)
That's the heart of the Christian life and ministry. So to take them out of that, to try to prepare them for that, is not an effective method. And many people told me that as I traveled to, you know, Hungary.

(37:05 - 37:14)
They had told me they had experienced the same thing I did, that it needed to be connected to the local church. And so we wanted it to be very connected to the local church. We wanted it to be very active in the community.

(37:14 - 37:28)
And then we wanted to have a big emphasis on the equipping through the Word of God and then sending to reach South America, planting churches and things like that. So it was an easy connection for me with Gerald. That was very similar.

(37:28 - 37:46)
But the key to it, and now there's I think there's about 20 Calvary Bible Institutes around the world. They're pretty uniformed in the states. They have this one-year program and they want to try to, you know, graduate them and then get them connected to churches and interning and sometimes planting, but like you said, mostly, you know, staffing churches.

(37:46 - 38:00)
But the best thing that Gerald has ever done is he said, this needs to be a move of God's Spirit, what we want to do. It cannot get bogged down in bureaucracy and red tape. It can't have people from another continent telling you what to do in your country.

(38:01 - 38:08)
He goes, I don't know what you're doing, what to do in your country. I don't know what Peru needs. And he said, you know what Peru needs.

(38:08 - 38:21)
So we're going to be connected based on our conviction to teach the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit and to equip and send people into ministry. But outside of that, you're going to be in charge. And he has been so supportive.

(38:21 - 38:43)
So we already had a vision in a school, but it was a wonderful friendship and actually a prophetic calling there at the Deep South at that time where there was an afterglow and that was another one of those big moments in my life where I knew what God called me to do. And actually, Tripp Kimball, I think he's a friend of yours, Bill. Yeah, he's on our team at Poyman Ministries.

(38:43 - 38:50)
Yeah, he didn't know about anything that was going on and he came to me that night. And he said, Corey, I just feel the Spirit wants me to pray for you. And I said, okay.

(38:50 - 39:03)
And he goes, your ministry is about to change. And he prayed over me that there was going to be a change, there was going to be a greater impact, there was going to be resources and connections. And at that time, we were a church of about 40 people with five students and nobody knew anything of what we were doing.

(39:04 - 39:20)
And that was a prophetic night where I believe there was a word of prophecy and Pastor Tripp came up without knowing the background and that was his prayer. And so that's stuck in my heart and mind regarding what we're calling to do. So working with CBI and Pastor Gerald has been a wonderful, wonderful blessing.

(39:21 - 39:43)
And it's his commitment to being affiliated on a relational basis based on, we believe the same things, but also giving that full support and autonomy that allows the Spirit of God to move and allows me to freely follow the move of God's Spirit. So it's been a wonderful relationship and I'm very, very thankful. Yeah, me too, Corey.

(39:44 - 40:09)
And having been there just a few weeks ago and seeing for the first time the campus and the church, it's symbiotic. I mean, the church and the campus, the campus and the church, it's all one movement, one thing that God is doing. And with the church planning class and the emphasis and the heart God has given you and the calling, it's just something the Holy Spirit is doing.

(40:10 - 40:37)
And yeah, so there are all the details of provision and everything else that the Lord has spoken to you and that prayer of Pastor Tripp and all of those things, it's a God thing, it's definitely a God thing. And what a great investment. So what are some of the ways that US-based churches can be involved with what you're doing in South America? I think we've already alluded to some, send students.

(40:39 - 41:01)
Not that there's a need for more, because you've got a big, healthy student body, but I mean, what a place to end up. Yeah, well, and the funny thing about the students, is we're actually overflowing on the student aspect. We have a wait list right now, and we're probably gonna try to rent another apartment off campus just to be able to receive.

(41:02 - 41:32)
I would say the biggest ways that people can get involved, if you're a pastor, we try to bring in, my vision for our classes, we teach a lot of classes. And you were here, we do a four-day teaching week, 17 hours, and then you're teaching also in the church planting classes and the churches. And so it's a heavy five or six days, as you just did, but we love to have pastors that have a passion and a desire to invest in the mission field to come and teach.

(41:32 - 41:51)
So, and then on top of that, I wanna bring, I want our students to get the best teaching they can get. So I try to bring guys that I really believe have something special to say. And I asked you to come down because your class on Romans and then your attributes of God were so impactful to me.

(41:51 - 42:09)
I just think those are something, you're gifted in those. So I try to get guys in their niche and they're right in their sweet spot to come down, if you're passionate about Genesis, I would love for you to come and teach Genesis. If you just love digging into the book of Acts and seeing missionaries and church planters, let's have you come do that.

(42:09 - 42:23)
So pastors, coming and teaching, and teaching the word of God and then transferring what God has put in your heart into these future pastors and church planters, that's what I'm trying to accomplish. That's one big way. The students is another thing.

(42:24 - 42:42)
And then thirdly, I would say, financially partnering is a huge thing. We scholarship a lot of these students. And right now, one of our things is, how are we gonna feed all of these South Americans who wanna come and be prepared for ministry? And then sponsoring the church planters once they graduate and they're sent out.

(42:42 - 42:56)
So we need teachers, we want pastors that have a heart for the mission field to come and invest in our student. If you're young or old and you feel called to missions, I just got a call from a pastor in California. He's been a friend of mine for a few years.

(42:57 - 43:09)
He's moving his whole family, he's coming to the mission field. He's gonna actually move into Asia to partner with a local church and start a Bible school. But him and his family are gonna move here first for a season and we're gonna basically prepare them.

(43:10 - 43:23)
So we want it to be a missions hub for training all sorts of people that you wanna plant a church on the mission field and you've been in ministry for ten years. That's my favorite thing to do. You're serious about your calling.

(43:23 - 43:35)
So you've been in missions or ministry, you feel called, you wanna do something, come down here and we'll help you. The way I like to see it is help you do what God wants you to do. That's what we wanna do.

(43:37 - 43:56)
Well, that does give an opportunity, doesn't it? To actually see it, to live it, to experience it, to breathe it. And then you have a vision. I love what you're saying, Corey, about how important it is to have a local church directly connected to the school and vice versa.

(43:57 - 44:08)
I mean, that is such an important part of the vision of CBI and what you're doing there. Such an important part. It takes it from theory to reality.

(44:08 - 44:15)
That's what happens. They are learning from pastors. And I do like to get experienced pastors to teach our class.

(44:15 - 44:25)
And you're able to pour out your heart. You teach the scriptures, but you're also giving them all your ministry experience. And then they go into church and they're so involved in the local church.

(44:25 - 44:32)
And it's a church that's growing. It's a church that's alive. And so they go, that's what he meant.

(44:32 - 44:45)
And it's just nonstop, the theory matches the reality. And it really gives them a clear picture for our church planters of what they're gonna do. They've got the theological, the grounding in the word of God.

(44:45 - 44:54)
We want them to love the word of God and be serious about it. But they also understand what that looks like to minister to their community. And so our next church plan is in the country of Chile.

(44:54 - 45:11)
We have another one going to Argentina next year, another one from north of Peru. And so it's all working together. And then whether they're American or national, what we do is once we have their calling confirmed and their place confirmed, the who and the where, we start prayer teams with our students in church.

(45:11 - 45:24)
And everyone's invited to pray without any kind of commitment. But what happens is it stirs the fire once a week. It makes us dependent upon God and our desire to church plant and do missions.

(45:24 - 45:38)
But it also is usually the formation of your church planting team. And it's done through prayer and relationship. And that becomes a church planter with his prayer team that hopefully will become his church planting team.

(45:39 - 46:04)
And so that's how we do it. Yeah, these prayer teams then are praying for specific countries, specific regions, and the students are gathering around their heart for that particular region or country and praying that way. So yeah, so through our church planting class and our Bible Institute, and I have another ministry I called Servant School for guys I think are called to be pastors that I meet with once a week.

(46:05 - 46:11)
And as I meet with them, I want our school to stay under 50 people because I want to be able to observe them. I want to see them. I want to know them.

(46:11 - 46:37)
And once we confirm their calling as we're discipling them and talking with them, then I say, you need to pick the place because that needs to come from your heart. And once we feel confident about that place, I say, okay, then you're going to start every Thursday at 9 a.m. We have our prayer, and it's, I would say, focused prayer. We're praying for this place that this pastor believes he's called to plant a church or new work.

(46:38 - 46:44)
So last semester, we have a Middle East team. We have missionaries who we believe are called to the Middle East. We have a children's home team.

(46:44 - 46:59)
So it's not always a church plant, but then we have the church plant in Argentina, the church plant in Chile, the church plant in Peru, and then one in the favela of City of God. So we have a leader designated who leads that prayer time. Oh, and the Venezuelans because they want to go to Venezuela.

(46:59 - 47:11)
So a leader designated with a place where he feels called to, and then all of the students and the people in the church planting class are invited and welcome to choose to pray with one of those groups. And there's no commitment there. You're just praying.

(47:12 - 47:27)
But as the spirit leads and as the relationships build, God may end up saying that the reason you were led to that prayer group is because you're supposed to be a part of that church planting team. And sometimes they switch a few groups. You know, we want them to be led of the spirit, but it's a way to depend on God.

(47:28 - 47:36)
And also, sometimes we hear something in life and ministry, God wants me to plant a church in Venezuela. And then we go, you know what? That's crazy. That can't be real.

(47:37 - 47:48)
But praying with intention on a weekly basis stirs that up every week. And it keeps the fire burning. And that's how the confirmation comes.

(47:48 - 47:53)
And then they plan trips. They'll just say, okay, we're going to take a vision trip. And they'll usually bring that prayer team with them.

(47:54 - 48:12)
And so that's kind of just a real...there's intentionality in it, but I also think it allows it to be organic and spirit-led because there's no commitment on that prayer team, but you're just going to pray and seek God's will. But often that leads into the formation of a prayer team for this specific place. So we want to be specific and intentional in those prayer groups.

(48:13 - 48:42)
And then our CBI and our church, as we do mission trips, we go to those places coupled with the prayer, and that's generally how they start. You know, to kind of summarize most of what you've been saying, Corey, we've talked about calling, you know, calling into ministry, calling as a pastor teacher, calling to fulfill Ephesians 4.12 and the Great Commission. Then we're talking about vision that springs from the Great Commission.

(48:43 - 49:18)
Vision is what I see, what I see as I look at the world and my place in it. And then you're also talking about intentionality, and that campus is very intentional, as CBI is. And this is what makes CBI a very wonderfully nuanced addition to the world of Bible colleges, is that there is a specific goal or endgame that they want to see happen in the course of that year or two years that the student is there studying.

(49:19 - 49:56)
And when I went to the campus in Yucca Valley for the first time to teach the students, I walked into an evening session the night before I was going to teach my first session, and the students were doing memorial services, mock memorial services for their deceased relatives. You know, their relatives hadn't died, of course, but they had prepared them. And I think, okay, their goal is to staff churches with biblically sound and ministry-ready individuals.

(49:56 - 50:14)
So they've got to do this kind of thing to make that happen. And so now, you take that whole concept and transfer it to Peru, it's the same kind of a thing. The intentionality grows from the vision, and so you're very intentional.

(50:14 - 50:35)
You just described a part of the typical program for a student in that school. They're involved in the church, they've got their 17-hour block classes, they've got their church planning classes they can go to, they've got prayer groups. If they are called to be a pastor, they can meet with you on Thursdays for that hour together.

(50:36 - 51:03)
I mean, there are so many avenues that are part of training them, and they're involved in ministry, doing their what used to be called M199s in the Bible college. But, you know, it's just intentional, and there's nothing wrong with being intentional as long as it's coming from vision and with a clear endgame in mind that the Holy Spirit has given the leader. Right.

(51:04 - 51:17)
Well, and I just, you know, it's a biblical vision. It's the vision that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us. You know, as we said, before he descended into heaven, he gave us a very clear mandate of what to do.

(51:17 - 51:34)
We don't...and it's not overly complicated. It's actually just a few sentences, but it's to go and to preach the gospel to every creature, it's to go and to make disciples of all nations, it's to teach them all things he said, and to, you know, be his witnesses in the power of the Holy Spirit. So that is not...we don't have to complicate that.

(51:34 - 51:42)
That's the vision. That is the vision. And the way that we do that is through Ephesians 4.12, you know, the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.

(51:42 - 51:53)
I believe that is the most effective way. And I'll say for me, that's my lane. That's my sweet spot is the teaching and equipping and training of pastors and church planters.

(51:53 - 52:10)
That's what I do best. So the best way I can fulfill the vision that Jesus has given us is focusing on that. But everything now is going to rotate around that, the school and the church and everything we do.

(52:11 - 52:16)
We want it to...and I'll say, our goal isn't to make seminary students. I'm not against seminary. I love seminaries.

(52:16 - 52:25)
They have a wonderful place in the body of Christ, and that's wonderful. But I'm not trying to create professors. I'm not trying to create academic professionals.

(52:26 - 52:41)
I'm trying to create, as I like to word it, the next Paul the Apostle or the next Amy Carmichael or the next William Carey, or I even like to say, we're not trying to be normal. We're trying to be John the Baptist. He was very different, you know? But Jesus said there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist.

(52:41 - 53:04)
And so that's our aim. And for me, having the classes and the church planting and the servant school and the conversations and focusing on the pastors and the missionaries, that keeps me in my lane to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And then they are reproduced, and they're preaching the gospel, they're teaching the word, they're discipling, they're equipping, and the work multiplies.

(53:04 - 53:17)
And many more people are reached and in many more places than I could do by myself. So it's intentional, but it's based on the words of Christ. It's based on the mission that he has given us.

(53:17 - 53:50)
And at this point, I'm still learning every day, and the vision becomes clear every day for me, and we learn by error and mistake often, you know? But I can say I know what God's created me to be and what he's called me to do, and I want to run in that lane. I think all of this stuff that we're talking about, Corey, that you've been mentioning is transferable to the life of a senior pastor in a local church. And with vision and intentionality and calling.

(53:50 - 54:20)
So I want to give you a couple minutes at this point as we wrap up just to speak whatever's on your heart to the senior pastor or church elder that's listening to this podcast. What do you have to say to them? You know what I would say is you just start small with this stuff, you know? We started very, very small in the beginning. And what you want to do is get intentional and invest in the men in your church.

(54:21 - 54:34)
You know, and maybe it's one or two guys. But my encouragement would be you just find a couple of guys who are faithful, who love the Lord, and you just start investing in them. You start meeting with them on a weekly basis.

(54:35 - 54:59)
And, you know, we sometimes, like, we teach the book 1 Samuel, or we go through the book of Nehemiah, or we'll take Oswald Sanders' spiritual leadership book, or Alan Redpath's, you know, Victorious Christian Service, and I'll go through that book weekly. But they come having read whatever we're supposed to read. But once we get in that meeting, I am just trying to transfer what's in my heart, what God has put in my heart, into their hearts.

(54:59 - 55:15)
And we do that on a weekly basis to invest in the guys that God has brought us. And you only need one or two. And once you get to where you've really invested and transferred your heart into them, and you've made that sacrifice of time and investment, and, you know, we all have busy schedules.

(55:16 - 55:43)
I know many pastors have a full-time job. But if you make that sacrifice to intentionally pour in to just a couple guys, and then as they bring us more, you keep growing, those will become your Timothys and your Tituses, and they will allow you to do the things that God's called you to do, and then they will begin to understand and fulfill their callings, and it just, it grows. And so that's the, it's, you know, find other faithful men, right? That's what Paul said to Timothy, who were able to teach.

(55:43 - 55:54)
And you just start, but you have to invest. You have to sacrifice your time, invest, and be consistent, even if it's one or two guys. So I would encourage every pastor, every elder, every church to do that.

(55:54 - 56:05)
You know, I talk to my father-in-law in Shreveport a lot, and he's done that, and he's got this group of, like, five or six guys that he meets with once a week. And he goes, Cor, I just love these guys. They're my guys.

(56:05 - 56:07)
They love me. I love them. They're teaching Wednesdays.

(56:07 - 56:12)
He goes, it's so exciting. And, you know, and he just did that. He just gets together with them once a week.

(56:12 - 56:20)
And now, all of a sudden, it's not Pastor Dan. It's a pastoral staff that's being raised up that share a heart and share a vision. And that's very exciting.

(56:20 - 56:28)
And it's also, I would just say, it's very gratifying. It's a wonderful experience of ministry to do that. You know, it's a wonderful thing to do.

(56:28 - 56:38)
So that'd be my encouragement. Great encouragement. Second Timothy chapter two, the things you have learned from me among many witnesses, commit to faithful men who'll be able to teach others also.

(56:38 - 56:44)
And we talk a lot about reaching the next generation. That's four generations in that one verse. Right there.

(56:44 - 56:52)
Four generations. My goodness. And it's so simple, isn't it? Well, thanks, Cory, so much for sharing some of the things that are going on.

(56:52 - 57:05)
And we've talked about vision. That's been the big thing, the big theme of this podcast. And, you know, you talked about healthy pastors pastoring, making healthy churches.

(57:05 - 57:37)
And how can we be healthy apart from biblical vision, biblical intentionality, spirit-directed inspiration, and all of these kinds of things? So the website of Calvary Bible Institute in Peru is calvaryperu.com. And you can email Pastor Cory at calvaryperu.com forward slash contact. calvaryperu.com forward slash contact. Are there other ways they can get in touch with you? Or are those the best ways? Yeah, that's fine.

(57:37 - 57:49)
That's our Bible college. We also have our overarching ministry page, which is gospelsouthamerica.com. And you can contact me there. And that gives you the full vision of everything we're doing with the church, the Bible schools, and other things.

(57:49 - 57:58)
So calvaryperu.com or gospelsouthamerica.com are great ways to get in touch. Okay, great. Well, again, thanks for joining us, Cory.

(57:58 - 58:06)
And to reach out to Cory, just follow that. Again, say that URL, the one you just mentioned. I've already forgotten it.

(58:08 - 58:14)
Gospelsouthamerica.com. Gospelsouthamerica.com, pretty simple. And you'll be able to find out. And ways to respond.

(58:15 - 58:28)
I mean, you're in the middle of, you just got a hold of a piece of land that's paid for right down the road from where you're in. You're in your rented, leased facilities. You've outgrown those already.

(58:28 - 58:41)
You have an opportunity now to build a facility that's going to accommodate more of what God is doing. So financial support. I mean, here's a thing that God is doing.

(58:42 - 59:09)
So you know how to contact Pastor Cory, and if you are so inclined to support that way financially. But man, it would be awesome if pastors listening to this would, and they've got a niche in their teaching and something that can be very helpful to these students to reach out to you and start taking trips down there. Take a trip, bring a couple of your elders with you just to observe and see what's going on.

(59:09 - 59:20)
It's an exciting work of God's spirit. Come with the pastors, bring your elders, and bring a construction team. That's actually a huge need we're going to have because we have one acre of bare land.

(59:20 - 59:33)
So the goal is to kind of locally build the skeleton and then have teams come in and do the finished stuff. So that's another great way to come down and visit. So we'd love to have pastors, teachers, construction teams come down and be a part.

(59:33 - 59:58)
Yeah, and on that light, bringing a construction team, contact Pastor Dan Kihlman in Calvary Chapel Shreveport because he's like the guru of how to put together a construction team that's really helpful in the mission field. He's the best. Well, if you want to reach out to Poyman Ministries, the announcer is going to give you the details at the end of this episode.

(59:59 - 1:00:11)
And may your great commission ministries thrive and bear the Father's fruit. Be encouraged, pastors. You have one of the most strategic and important roles for God's kingdom on the planet.

(1:00:11 - 1:00:24)
So God bless you all until next time. And thanks again to Corey Kilgus, Pastor Corey, for joining us today in Jesus' name. Strength for Today's Pastor is sponsored by Poyman Ministries.

(1:00:24 - 1:00:51)
You can find us at PoymanMinistries.com. That's spelled P-O-I-M-E-N Ministries.com. If something in today's program prompts a question or comment or if you have a topic idea for a future episode, just shoot us an email at StrongerPastors at gmail.com. That's StrongerPastors at gmail.com. May the Lord bless you as you serve Him, His pastors, and His church.