Missions Work, Church Planting, & Church Revitalization: Getting to Know Clay Worrell

[00:00:00] Welcome to the CGN Mission and Methods Podcast, Season 4. My name is Nick Katie. I'm the pastor of Whitefield's Community Church and Longmont, Colorado and I will be your host this season.

[00:00:11] The goal and vision of this podcast is that it would be a forum for communication about Calvary Global Network.

[00:00:20] We want to share with you some of the stories about what God is doing. We want to talk about some of the initiatives we're involved in spearheading and we want to answer the questions you might have about who we are as a network.

[00:00:31] On the episodes in this season, I'm joined by Pastor Brian Broderson, the founder and president of CGN and the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California.

[00:00:41] For Season 4 of the podcast, Brian and I will be interviewing the members of the CGN Executive team so you can get to know their stories, hear about their ministries and the roles they play in CGN and find out what they're excited about for the future.

[00:00:54] In this, the final episode of Season 4, Pastor Brian and I speak with Clay Worrell. Clay has been the executive director of Calvary Global Network since 2022, but prior to that he planted in Pastor to church in Waterford City, Ireland.

[00:01:10] More recently, he passed through the church in the Bay Area of California and in this discussion Clay shares with us what it was like coming back to the US after years in Ireland and how different cultural contexts shaped the way you do ministry.

[00:01:24] Additionally, we discussed the merits of short-term mission troops and how to make them effective and successful for long-term fruitfulness. Here's the episode. Welcome to the Mission Methods podcast. This is Nick Kady. I'm joined today by Pastor Brian Broderson and Pastor A. Clay Worrell.

[00:01:43] How are you doing? Doing great. Awesome. Good to have you on here. So this season on Mission Methods, we are interviewing all the members of the executive team.

[00:01:53] You are not just a member of the executive team, you are the executive director of Calvary Global Network. So we are excited to talk with you today. I'm excited too. Good to be here. Pastor Brian, can you tell us where we're at?

[00:02:09] We are on the campus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and we are right in the midst of the CGN International Conference. This is actually our last day, so we're already in kind of sad that we have to end this wonderful party. But it's good. It's a great place.

[00:02:29] Great. Yeah. I'll say the same. For us, my staff and people I brought with me just really excited about what's going on with CGN. But also just excited for the environment to spend here with the worship and the teaching has just been really rich. Yeah.

[00:02:45] I'm seeing this year, we've said it over and over, but it's the spirit of Lord of the Pena from Isaiah 61. And man, we just felt the tangible presence of the spirit since the moment we started Sunday night with worship through this entire week. It's been amazing. Yeah.

[00:03:02] Yeah. I think the message is from the pulpit have been extraordinary. Yeah. Very, very relevant. Like you sense prophetic words going out. And the worship times have been really, really phenomenal. I mean, yeah, what a great team that these guys I posted today.

[00:03:20] Just part of the song from last night because it was just a moment of like, this is powerful. Yeah. So it's good. Yeah. Well, Clay, we're here to get to know a little bit about you.

[00:03:31] So tell us a little bit about who you are, where you serve and what's been your journey up into this point. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:03:38] As you mentioned, I serve at Calvary Global Network now as the executive director, since February of last year or some about a year and a half into this role. And it's been an adventure. It's been a blast. I love it.

[00:03:53] But before I was working at Calvary Global Network, I was a church planner primarily. So I started my ministry after I graduated from Calvary Chapel Bible College in 2006 by going to Ireland. And I was in a city called Waterford City.

[00:04:08] And we planted a church there, a Calvary Chapel. It just started a Calvary Chapel Bible College campus and a coffee shop. And then after we transitioned that church and headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, the East Bay City called Pleasanton.

[00:04:22] And we re-planted a church there at church called Calvary Tribal. We were there for seven years as well. Cool. Yeah. And Waterford, most famous for your grandma's porcelain. Crystal. You were crystal. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:36] One of the primary claim to fame is the crystal ball that drops in New York City every New years Eve, New Year's day, whatever it is. That's Waterford Crystal. Interesting. How old were you when you moved to Waterford?

[00:04:49] You know, well, I moved to Ireland when I was, I think, 22. And then we started our church plant while we were living in a town called Dundock up towards the North of Ireland. But still in the Republic, just north of Dublin, about halfway between Dublin and Belfast.

[00:05:02] And commuted for the first eight months of the church plant. And then we moved to Waterford City in 2008. And I was 23, I believe. Well, yeah, so many stories that we've heard of guys on the executive team as well, but some

[00:05:19] people in Calvary Chapel just God using young people right out of Bible College or maybe not. Bible College? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I did Bible College, but we don't need to talk about high school. Okay. Brian and I have something in common. Yeah. I know our skeletons.

[00:05:38] We have three letters after our names. They're called GED. I'm threat. Yeah. Um, yeah, this, this Ireland year's were sweet. They were, it was great. You know, when we get to come and see you and kind of just see what the Lord was doing.

[00:05:55] And obviously you left, but the work goes on. Yes. And it's strong. God's doing great things. And of course, one of our other executive team members is Mike Neglia. Yes. He carries on now 20 years in the court court and you know, Clay, that substantial work. Mike's just amazing.

[00:06:16] Yeah. I was just an England and some of the guys from Ireland came over. They see the Irish national guys that are really excited about what God's doing. And just forward. Yeah. So good. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Well, two things.

[00:06:33] One neat thing is that the start of relationship with you Brian was really revolved around me going to Ireland. Yeah. As I was in Bible College, I felt the strong call to Ireland. I was a kid.

[00:06:44] So I got a lot of the pastors in my life were like, you're too young. I'm going to give you a youth pastor for a while, you know, go get a job somewhere in America. And then maybe someday.

[00:06:53] But I met with you Brian and you didn't know who I was but you were open to meeting with me. I just shared my vision and your response was, well, why don't you just go? Oh, my God.

[00:07:04] I mean, money is like, well, if I buy you a plane ticket for this summer, would you pray about not coming back? I was like, yeah, man. So that was the start of my ministry there was was here in coverage up close to me.

[00:07:17] So meeting in your office. And I think that you know, I mean, some people would say that is totally reckless. Sure. But I think, you know, there's some good fruit that came out of that. So I would say maybe we were just being spirit led to things though.

[00:07:32] In that case, at least, yeah, absolutely. I think of, you know, the years because when we started church planting in different parts of Europe, you know, nobody really knew. I mean, we jokingly sometimes saying, we don't know what we're doing. Well, this is no joke.

[00:07:48] We did not want to show you the results. And but we were just trying to do what we thought the Lord was leading us to do. We were just putting one foot in front of the other.

[00:07:58] You know, and we were we were sending guys to take up life in Europe. And a lot of these guys would spend, you know, decades there after that. But we, you know, there was no language preparation. There was no cross cultural training.

[00:08:12] It was man just getting thrown in the deep end and figuring it out. You're shaking your head because you were one of those guys. That's sick. I'm sick. Did that same thing. And I want to say this, and that this is what I want to say regarding that.

[00:08:24] Because, you know, we've had a, you know, a bit of a shift in recent years. And especially with C.G.N. We have a partnership with Western seminary. We've all gone through graduate school. But we haven't done that.

[00:08:40] And just said, oh, all that stuff we didn't pass was so wrong. And you know, we're never going to do that again. No, we're probably are still going to send some guys that we just say, hey, let's just go check it out.

[00:08:52] And then other guys, we're going to encourage to get some more education. Yeah. So it's not, it's not either a word thing. You know, you got to do this because people have asked me, well, do you have to, especially a lot of people outside Calvary.

[00:09:05] They assume because they've had a Bible college for so many years. They assume that the road to the past, or automatically assume that it includes Bible college education, right? Which, of course it does. Yeah.

[00:09:18] And that's one of the things that I love about our partnership with Western seminaries. Probably I'd say large majority of our students from C.G.N. that have gone through Western have gone through the M.A.B.L. program,

[00:09:29] which is a cohort masters program that is designed for people who have been in ministry for at least five years in a full-time context or equivalency to get that value added graduate level education. And that even by design kind of shows our heart, right? Yeah.

[00:09:48] But we've said it forever. I think the Chuck probably said it first. I don't know, but God doesn't necessarily call the equipped. He often times equips the, the call. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about that partnership.

[00:09:59] And one of the things when I was in Hungary that Hungarian Christians and pastors told me that they admired about Calvary Chapel is that they said, we will like ponder doing things for years and you guys just do it. Really? I love that.

[00:10:15] Hey, there's like two people in this city over there and they kind of want to Bible study maybe and we're like sending somebody over there and they're like, we've been thinking about doing that for years. And yes, just did it while we were still pondering it.

[00:10:27] And I hope that we never lose that personally like we can. We can't. Yeah. Yeah. We want to add to that. Right. We don't want to replace that. We want to add into that the infrastructure and the strategy and the training and things like that

[00:10:42] to hopefully continue that walk of faith and taking those steps of faith but then to equip and prepare those who are taking those steps of faith more effectively. And there's not a one size fits all with CGM or with anybody's call, right?

[00:10:56] So everything that we've designed is catered in a way or is designed in a way to where it caters to a specific context and for each plant or person who's stepping in a mystery. Well tell us a little bit about the story of that church plant.

[00:11:09] I mean, I love hearing the story because every church has this like, oh yeah, you know, legendary story of how it came into being. Oh my goodness. Yes, so as I mentioned, I moved to Ireland straight out of Bible College.

[00:11:22] My wife and I dated long distance while I was there and she was still here. Came back, got married and moved together to Ireland two weeks after our wedding.

[00:11:32] So I don't necessarily recommend that universally but it worked for us and we started our church plant within months of being married as well. And as I mentioned, we plugged into a local Irish church in Dundock and that was he for our process.

[00:11:48] Because I think it was Rod Thompson who told me I was interning with him at the Bible College after I graduated in between trips to Ireland.

[00:11:54] And I think he's the one that originally directed me to find a local pastor and ministry leaders who can teach me the culture and a place a safe place where I can make mistakes. So I'm going to plant cross culturally and I found that in Dundock community church.

[00:12:11] So serves there did their youth ministry was kind of an assistant pastor. And then but shortly into that process we started a Bible study in Waterford City with three three people who had came to faith through a short term mission trip that another coward chapel had done.

[00:12:27] And so we started with these three Irish brand new believers in the kitchen of a man's house and for eight months just commuted down midweek and top those three people. And it grew like crazy in those eight months from three people to four. People it was substantial.

[00:12:44] Yeah, I mean if you could put a percentage on that that's actually not too bad. So yeah, then we moved down and started the slow process of planting and you know this is something that's really significant about our story as well is I was young.

[00:13:00] I was ambitious. I was really naive and unexpected things to really happen, you know. I think the first two years of our church plant we didn't cross over a dozen people and it wasn't until we had spent this.

[00:13:14] Subsequently significant amount of time in graining ourselves into the community in Waterford City that the church started actually growing rather rather rapidly.

[00:13:24] And we did that through a number of ways one of which was when we moved to the city we just got involved in the local farmers market and my wife and I started making these janky little crafts that nobody wanted to buy but it was a way in to be in the community with the people.

[00:13:42] And we built those relationships and begin to get known in our city not as the weird American Jesus freaks. But as just people and build those relationships that people who make the media. So yes, it started as that didn't last very long.

[00:13:58] We wound up getting involved in coffee and that was a lot better. I partnered with a third wave coffee roaster and we that started our path into using coffee for the gospel which that's a significant story as well. Let's tell us about it. Okay, sure.

[00:14:13] So yeah that farmers market all the while we're doing our Bible study eventually we start Sunday mornings we started Sunday mornings with I think eight people or so.

[00:14:23] But that farmers market was really really key and as I mentioned we partnered with this local coffee roaster is an Australian guy who we met through the farmer's market. We wound up doing his coffee stall for him in the farmers market. Really great.

[00:14:37] So we do festivals we do the weekly farmers market of waterford and in Kill Kenny and so on and so forth and that created a little bit of income for us which was super helpful but also made those connections.

[00:14:47] And a lot of our outreach was certainly in coffee and he as well we would go into the city center of waterford and we would just have a big sign saying free team coffee and just handed out.

[00:14:57] And as people would come by sometimes they would just take it and walk away other times they'd take it and say why are you giving me free coffee and we would just say something simple like for a local Christian church.

[00:15:06] And we should have loved Jesus practically and that often would turn into a conversation and often would it but that was kind of this theme of our ministry was highly relational and just being consistent and present.

[00:15:18] And one of the ways that that kind of grew into maturity and our ministry is we had the opportunity later on a couple years before we transitioned out and came back to America.

[00:15:29] To open a full blown coffee shop in our city there was a vacant space in the city center that I passed on my way to my office and it just felt the Lord.

[00:15:40] It was one of those rare times in my life where I had that just almost audible voice and got not audible almost audible voice like that's a coffee shop you know.

[00:15:49] And so I called the letting agent and it was super cheap this teeny little shop front and we opened what we called Portico which was our coffee shop owned by the church operated by the church.

[00:16:01] And we laughed it with our Bible called students that were in town and volunteers.

[00:16:05] And but it wasn't churchy, wasn't Christianity, it was just good coffee in our city and the amazing thing with that is you know people came to faith by coming to church and by being invited to church.

[00:16:18] But the people who came to faith through that coffee shop through the relationships that they built there where people that would have never in a million years stepped to foot into. Even in the church or what we perceived as a Protestant church.

[00:16:32] We had two guys come to faith who were I won't say their names but were active members of the IRA at the time that they were coming to our coffee shop.

[00:16:41] One of which married a point of the American missionary girls which is hilarious later on after you got saved. Another one was this this woman who she was a kind of like druid, wick-in type lady.

[00:16:53] And I mean I could go on and on but these things these stories came from relationships that were built through us just serving good coffee and being friendly people in our city center.

[00:17:07] And in highly relational context like Ireland, I think that that is so much more effective than going out and handing out tracks or trying to do big attraction to events at a church. And I'm so thankful for those years.

[00:17:20] We just jump in on the topic of short-term mission trips. Oh yeah. Because you're mentioning these three people, you know, there isn't that like the story that I told earlier right? We got three people over here let's do this right? Yeah.

[00:17:33] So you got three people they got saved on short-term mission trip. I've heard a lot of people be down on short-term missions and I kind of get it because when we were long-term missionaries sometimes we would get teams and we got teams of varying quality. Yes.

[00:17:46] And sometimes it felt like we were babysitting people as a waste of our resources, et cetera. It would be better if you just gave us the money that you would have spent on the trip. Right. And yet I think that short-term mission trips are actually a good thing.

[00:18:00] I don't think they should be diminishing. You do them better or worse. Yes. But Pastor Ryan, let me speak in the short-term missions. What's your take? Yeah.

[00:18:09] I believe in them, but I think exactly like you think about it because of course I lived overseas and we had lots of people that wanted to come and help out that ended up being much more of a burden than a help.

[00:18:24] So you do, you know, you have to if you're on that end of it you have to really be selective with who you're working with and be clear about what you know you're expecting. And I think if you're taking a team, you're really going to surf.

[00:18:40] You know that's what you're going to go do. So you're going to go do whatever they need you to do not. Well we've got this agenda. We want to do this. Maybe those two things will go inside but maybe not. But I do think they're very valuable.

[00:18:55] And I think there I found this and you guys probably did too for the local people they're super encouraged. Because a lot of times we take young people. So they're like, we've never seen young people like this before. We've never seen young people that are happy.

[00:19:09] We've never seen young people that are like wanting to help and do stuff. We've never seen young people that actually loved God. And so this is a it could be really impactful for the local people you know in that regard.

[00:19:26] And then I think for the short term missionary it's radically impactful because for some reason or another. When you hit the ground in another country you just know that this is not going to be like my everyday ordinary Christian experience back at home.

[00:19:43] This is a place where we're going to be in it's action pack. Yeah and I think the great thing is and usually what happens is when you get back home you're like, wait a second.

[00:19:53] We were two and all of this stuff over there maybe we should start doing the stuff here too.

[00:19:57] So yeah I'm a big fan but I do get that they can sometimes be some a bit counterproductive but I think you just have to know what you want and everybody needs to be on the same page.

[00:20:09] I think what you said is key there Brian that you're going to serve right and you alluded to this that. I think a good rule of thumb for doing short term mission trips if you're the one sending or going.

[00:20:21] Is to ensure that you're partnering with a local ministry both for the sake of like you said being there to serve and to support.

[00:20:31] Also though for the sake of making sure that you're not going to make huge cultural blunders because that happens sometimes sometimes often with short term missions and then also so that there's follow up for what you're doing.

[00:20:45] And because that is something that we saw in our city and waterford before we got there.

[00:20:49] There were some churches with some calories with great intentions that were doing really good things they would come for years to waterford city and do these like you know kids clubs and do these outreach is and all the stuff.

[00:21:01] And it would generate a lot of excitement and a lot of people come out and Jesus would touch lives but they didn't connect with a local church because there wasn't a Calabri Chapel in existence.

[00:21:13] And that was actually told when we were first being called there that there's no good churches in waterford and that's why they hadn't partnered with a local church. Once I moved there I found there were some very good churches in waterford they just weren't Calabri Chapel's.

[00:21:27] There was a need for more but but what happened and we we heard these stories for years to come because those teams were connected with the name Calabri Chapel.

[00:21:37] Is it wound up actually really hurting some of the people in the community because they felt abandoned because there was this this team would come all this excitement happened and then it would just drop off and they would leave them feeling kind of alone you know.

[00:21:51] And so I think that's just an important principle is even if there's not a calabri if you're from a Calabri Chapel context even if there's not a Calabri Chapel in the place that you're going there's almost always I'm not saying every every place there's almost always.

[00:22:05] Some sort of Christian group that you can connect with and then use for that that follow up afterwards. Yeah, also I've noticed that almost every long term missionary I know has kind of gotten introduced to missions to show sure to missions.

[00:22:24] You know that I was a missionary in hungry long term missionary and Dave Downs came on a team of high schoolers from Calabri Chapel Costa Mesa to Hungary later on.

[00:22:35] I mean Dave now is in Italy for many years plenty of church in Torino and then just be basically Italian. Yeah, I mean yeah so and I can think of many people over the years maybe there were 20 people on a team made from that team two people.

[00:22:48] Yeah, God was using that trip in an amazing way to introduce them to what he was going to use them for in the future.

[00:22:55] That was a case with me too. I want a short-term trip. Yeah, my name is Bob and in the whole work in Hungary and Yugoslavia and Serbia it all began with a short-term mission trip.

[00:23:05] Exactly. Yeah, I mean it was that you know that was really kind of I mean it was a mission trip but we didn't quite know what it was you know, it was just sort of let's

[00:23:13] We've been invited by this couple to come and visit them and see if maybe something could happen and they would set up meetings and churches you know three or four churches that we were okay these American you know Christians are going to come and visit these churches.

[00:23:31] I mean one of the churches we went to was probably a 200 year old reform church and there was not a person under 75 in the church and there was probably only six people in the church.

[00:23:43] So when we showed up with guitars and stuff I mean pretty much frightened the heck out of them you know like what in the world.

[00:23:51] That was just part of the journey to finally getting to the streets of a city called Supertezza where we could connect with some young people but it was you know, but it was quite an adventure.

[00:24:01] Yes. Yeah, if I love that willingness right that's like Jonathan and his arm and bear like let's just go peek over the hill and see what the line is.

[00:24:09] Yeah, that's the word. Well with the remaining time I want to hear about that so you went from this you know amazing thing going on in water first you hand that over to an Irish leader.

[00:24:21] Yes and then you come to the US tell us about them. Yeah, so Brian's a part of this story as well. There's a theme here in my life Brian. Now look at us. Look and we can't just can't you can't get rid of him.

[00:24:33] I did this to myself. Yeah, so yeah, so you know the goal in Ireland was always to raise up local leaders to lead the church and by God's grace that happened we were able to hand the church over to Tyrone power who's a waterfall guy through and through

[00:24:53] As lead pastor at the time in Danny Keating as the associate pastor at the time too Irish guys who now just aside. No, just because I'm so blessed by it

[00:25:01] Tyrone has gone out from that church to plant another church and then they bring town and Danny is now the lead pastor of Calgary Waterford which is just so cool.

[00:25:09] And so it came back to the states at the word was calling us. I was sitting with Brian and he told me about the small church in in Livermore, California The Tri-Valley that needed a pastor and it was kind of needing a fresh start as whatever we plant.

[00:25:25] And I prayed about it did a candidacy and we'd invited to take that church. So that was the replant in the Bay Area and you know the thing that really was significant in that process is I had this mentality after planting from scratch in Ireland

[00:25:41] And having relatively speaking a significant amount of success there I felt like coming back to California was going to be just sort of a walk I hate to say it is so prideful book sort of a walk in the park.

[00:25:54] Like this is going to be great. It's going to grow we've got some resources to church because we've got this like 20 people to start this is going to be awesome.

[00:26:03] And so I felt these expectations on myself and then I also felt some expectations from others not negatively but it's like oh you're going to come back you're going to kill it.

[00:26:12] You comments like that and let me tell you just that was not our experience we came back and and I can say this like replanting in the Bay Area was harder than planting in in Waterford City.

[00:26:23] And we've been underestimated the the the reality of culture shock coming back to our home state, which was significant. We underestimated the complexity of replanting even a small church but a church that existed for a long time and we also understood the fact that hey doing

[00:26:41] Gospel ministry anywhere is hard you know so it was seven years of what felt like just really really hard working God did a great thing there the church was very healthy when we when we transitioned out never got big but it was it was very healthy.

[00:26:59] We survived COVID in that time but but it was it was a challenging very challenging season yeah. Tell us about what was the difference I mean really between the Bay Area and in Ireland.

[00:27:12] Yeah so I mean and that's one of the things you couldn't have more opposite little draw context right so Ireland. Very high level of unemployment a lot of people on social welfare highly relational culture everybody has time for people are more way more important than than time.

[00:27:30] You know it's it's Ireland it's a beautiful culture in that sense the Bay Area as Amber Skobay area is just the opposite we were in a very affluent suburb of San Francisco.

[00:27:40] Everybody was so career driven nobody had time and people were not that important relationship was not that important you're in the Bay Area for your career you know and you're building your career.

[00:27:52] And so that you can make your nest egg get your resume and get out right so so that was a shot because we had been formed by our time in Ireland both in the way that we do ministry but also the way that we do life.

[00:28:08] And so I think the word used because I think that this principle it's one of the cultural aspects of Irish culture that's quite biblical is community. Is a very foundational biblical principle when it comes to the church.

[00:28:25] Individualism is not right we're saved from individualism into the family of God and so I think God used that but that was one of the biggest shocks and one of the biggest challenges there is we found it to be such an uphill battle to build a church that was actually a.

[00:28:45] Family or community and not just a place to go to check your church box and then go on about your life. Hmm. Yeah I was at that church last year I did some things with them and man it's a it is I would describe as a vibrant church.

[00:29:01] Yeah, I loved it yeah so that's awesome. Please let me just ask you final question what is it that you're excited about for the future of C. G. N.

[00:29:11] Man all the things let me just say this I could I could say so many different things when you ask me that question because I'm I'm so excited about C. G. N.

[00:29:21] But but you know just because we're at this conference and experiencing this I think one of the things that I'm most excited about about C. G. N.

[00:29:29] Is that God is is building this network to be a group of churches that are just so excited to be together but not just to be together but to work together.

[00:29:40] And that's one of our big emphasis in C. G. N. Right is is that we want to fulfill the great commission together you know where family of churches working together to make decide proclaim the gospel make disciples and plant churches so it's just about who we are but it's about what we're doing together.

[00:29:58] And I'm seeing that culture just really begin to to blossom in our family of churches where that cooperative spirit of hey we're going to we're going to plant churches you know we're going to work together for the health

[00:30:12] of the pastors and leaders in our family of churches where we're going to we're going to actually do things together because we can do more together than we can on our own so I just love that.

[00:30:24] All right well clay how can people get in touch with the network if they're interested in learning more about the initiatives you know getting connected.

[00:30:31] That's way you can go to cover global network.com. There've got tons of information there all of our initiatives are listed there you can email us at cgn at coverageappel.com

[00:30:41] Also head on over to coverageappel.com to see all the amazing articles and content that we're putting out there and yeah we'd love to hear from anybody who wants to learn more awesome.

[00:30:52] Thanks for listening with this season of the cgn mission and methods podcast we'd love to hear feedback from you on these episodes.

[00:31:02] You can email us at cgn at coverageappel.com. Keep an eye out on your podcast feed for bonus episodes and information about the next season of the mission and methods podcast until next time.