Q&A on Chuck Smith's Approach to Ministry - Brian Brodersen

[00:00:00] Welcome to the CGN Mission and Methods Podcast, Season 4.

[00:00:04] My name is Nick Katie. I'm the pastor of Whitefield's Community Church in Longmont, Colorado,

[00:00:09] and I will be your host this season.

[00:00:12] October 3rd 2023 marks 10 years since the passing of Pastor Chuck Smith,

[00:00:17] who was the man God used to start the Calvary Chapel movement of churches.

[00:00:21] In this bonus episode, I speak with Pastor Brian Brodersen

[00:00:25] about Chuck Smith's approach to ministry,

[00:00:28] including some questions about how Chuck pastored personally

[00:00:31] and what were the major influences that shaped Chuck's theology and his preaching.

[00:00:36] Pastor Brian is uniquely qualified to speak to these questions,

[00:00:40] as he not only served alongside Pastor Chuck and eventually succeeded him

[00:00:44] as the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa,

[00:00:47] but he also shares close family ties with Pastor Chuck as his son-in-law.

[00:00:51] Here's the episode.

[00:01:08] Welcome to the CGN Mission and Methods Podcast.

[00:01:10] This is Pastor Nick Katie. I'm joined by Pastor Brian Brodersen.

[00:01:14] I just wanted to talk about Chuck's approach to ministry,

[00:01:17] and I know that you knew him so well.

[00:01:19] You're a family member of his.

[00:01:21] Maybe you could just kind of introduce our listeners.

[00:01:23] Maybe some people don't know Chuck Smith very well.

[00:01:26] What would you want them to know about him?

[00:01:28] Yeah, well, great to be with you, Nick.

[00:01:31] Chuck, obviously he's known by many.

[00:01:37] I don't know that a younger generation or tons of people

[00:01:41] outside of the Calvary movement would know him.

[00:01:46] They would know his name certainly,

[00:01:48] and I think because of the recent film The Jesus Revolution,

[00:01:52] probably more people are familiar with him now

[00:01:56] than maybe they were before the film came out.

[00:01:59] Yeah, Chuck was just an extraordinary guy in so many ways,

[00:02:03] a simple guy on one level,

[00:02:05] but extraordinary in the sense that God used him

[00:02:09] in a really unique way.

[00:02:11] Chuck was a humble guy.

[00:02:14] He was a California coastal guy sort of to the bone

[00:02:18] through and through and very, very down to earth.

[00:02:24] I think that was one of the things people really connected

[00:02:27] with him on just the level of his humanity.

[00:02:31] Chuck was a brilliant guy.

[00:02:33] He wasn't like a massive theological mind.

[00:02:41] He was very practical, but he was biblical through and through.

[00:02:46] I think if Spurgeon, it was one set of Spurgeon

[00:02:51] that if you cut him, he would bleed by the line,

[00:02:55] and I think that would be true of Chuck as well.

[00:02:58] He was just so full of God's word,

[00:03:03] and that came across from the pulpit when he taught.

[00:03:07] It came across just in his everyday life.

[00:03:11] He was a man that was filled with the joy of the Lord,

[00:03:16] his very upbeat, very optimistic, full of faith,

[00:03:21] and really I think he enjoyed life.

[00:03:28] Brian, when I first met you, we developed a relationship,

[00:03:31] but I didn't know that you were related to Chuck

[00:03:34] and maybe some of our listeners aren't aware of that.

[00:03:36] So let me tell us a little bit about how did you get to know him originally?

[00:03:40] Tell us some of those stories.

[00:03:42] Yeah.

[00:03:44] Right. Well, I married Cheryl,

[00:03:46] who was the youngest of the four Smith children,

[00:03:51] and we got married in 1980.

[00:03:54] And so obviously when I met Cheryl and started dating her,

[00:04:02] the next thing was to meet her dad.

[00:04:05] So funny thing was when I first met her,

[00:04:07] I had no idea that she was Chuck's daughter

[00:04:10] and a friend of mine who I was with.

[00:04:14] We were at a little home Bible study

[00:04:17] and Cheryl happened to be there

[00:04:18] and a friend of mine was really a big, big Chuck Smith fan.

[00:04:23] So he somehow figured out that Cheryl was Chuck's daughter

[00:04:27] and he was so excited that Chuck Smith's daughter was in the room.

[00:04:33] And I was having a great conversation with this young girl

[00:04:38] and just so happened to be Chuck's daughter,

[00:04:41] but I had no idea it was her.

[00:04:43] So after the meeting was over and we were going home,

[00:04:46] he was going on and on and on about Chuck's daughter

[00:04:48] and I was just like, well, great.

[00:04:50] I didn't see Chuck's daughter.

[00:04:51] I was talking to this other girl that was really amazing.

[00:04:55] And it was a couple of weeks later when we figured out

[00:04:59] that we were talking about the same girl.

[00:05:01] And we went back to the Bible study and I saw her again

[00:05:04] and we were having a conversation.

[00:05:06] And afterward he said to me, so you met Chuck's daughter

[00:05:09] and I said, no, I didn't meet Chuck's daughter.

[00:05:11] And he said, you were talking to her.

[00:05:13] So that was the moment I realized that, oh, okay.

[00:05:17] Yeah, so obviously then from that point

[00:05:20] as we started to get a little closer,

[00:05:22] went over and was introduced to the family.

[00:05:25] And I got to tell you, Chuck did not give me a warm welcome.

[00:05:28] He was really, he was tough, gave me the cold shoulders.

[00:05:32] As a matter of fact, my mother in law, Kay,

[00:05:36] later on would say how bad she felt for me

[00:05:40] the way Chuck treated me.

[00:05:42] And she went out of her way to be extra nice.

[00:05:45] But I finally, after a few weeks,

[00:05:48] I won him over.

[00:05:49] We were out at a picnic and we were playing softball.

[00:05:52] And when I got up and hit a grand slam,

[00:05:55] then he all of a sudden liked me

[00:05:57] and gave me the right hand of fellowship.

[00:06:00] Yeah.

[00:06:01] Called me son.

[00:06:02] I ran around the base as good hit son.

[00:06:06] So yeah.

[00:06:07] Excellent.

[00:06:08] Yeah, I would assume that a lot of people

[00:06:10] who know of Pastor Chuck,

[00:06:12] they know him through his pulpit ministry

[00:06:14] and his radio ministry.

[00:06:15] What would you want to share having ministered alongside him

[00:06:19] and having known him on that deeper level?

[00:06:21] What would you want people to know about him?

[00:06:24] Well, Chuck would often say this.

[00:06:29] People would ask him about the success of Calvary Chapel.

[00:06:33] And there would literally be busloads of people

[00:06:37] coming from around the world to try to figure out

[00:06:42] what was going on at Calvary.

[00:06:44] And I remember days where busloads of pastors

[00:06:49] from different countries would pull into the parking lot

[00:06:52] and they'd all jump off the bus

[00:06:55] and we'd give them a tour of the site

[00:06:57] and talk to them.

[00:07:00] And in the end, they would have a conversation with Chuck

[00:07:03] and they would always get around to,

[00:07:05] well, what's the secret

[00:07:06] and how did you do it?

[00:07:08] And Chuck would always say the same thing.

[00:07:11] He would just say, it's the Lord.

[00:07:13] And he wouldn't elaborate on it much.

[00:07:16] And I think that was kind of annoying to some

[00:07:19] because they figured, no, there's got to be more to it than that.

[00:07:22] So you're just withholding the real secrets.

[00:07:26] But he knew that in the end,

[00:07:30] the explanation for what had happened

[00:07:32] was not in himself or not in any person.

[00:07:36] It was in just the sovereign work of God

[00:07:41] who decided at this time, in this place,

[00:07:45] with this person and these people,

[00:07:47] I'm going to do something extraordinary.

[00:07:51] And I think that Chuck managed that pretty well,

[00:07:57] all things considered.

[00:07:58] He kept that perspective right to the end.

[00:08:02] What are some things that you think made Chuck unique

[00:08:06] when it came to his approach for ministry?

[00:08:08] You've mentioned some, but I'm sure there are others.

[00:08:10] Chuck was a risk-taker,

[00:08:15] and I think that that was one of the things

[00:08:18] that even when I was young, I picked up on that.

[00:08:23] I remember one New Year's Eve.

[00:08:28] On New Year's Eve, Chuck would, back in those days,

[00:08:30] he would have the pastoral staff.

[00:08:33] He would give each of us five minutes

[00:08:36] to get up in front of the whole congregation and share.

[00:08:40] And I'll never forget looking at the lineup of guys

[00:08:44] and thinking, man, Chuck is a risk-taker.

[00:08:47] Look at this lineup of guys that he's got on his team.

[00:08:52] And I was one of them, and I was in my early 20s,

[00:08:55] and I didn't know much of anything.

[00:08:58] And neither did the rest of the guys

[00:09:00] that were on the platform.

[00:09:01] We were all kind of wet behind the ears, you know,

[00:09:05] and just making our way along.

[00:09:09] But he took risk.

[00:09:11] I think he believed that God would use people

[00:09:18] who were committed to him,

[00:09:20] and he wasn't afraid to give people a chance.

[00:09:23] And I really am thankful that he was like that.

[00:09:26] And he sort of taught me that too,

[00:09:29] and I followed in his steps in a lot of ways with that.

[00:09:33] But there was that, and then there was the...

[00:09:39] His commitment to the authority of Scripture,

[00:09:44] the inspiration, the inerrancy of Scripture,

[00:09:47] he was just so solid in that area,

[00:09:51] unmovable, unshakable.

[00:09:54] And he instilled that kind of confidence

[00:09:58] in the Scriptures in a whole generation of people,

[00:10:02] especially us guys who were around him as younger guys.

[00:10:06] That was one thing that I just...

[00:10:10] I didn't know any better at the time.

[00:10:12] I didn't know about liberal theology

[00:10:15] or those types of theological disputes and things like that.

[00:10:20] But I just knew that, well, this guy,

[00:10:24] he believes the Bible is the Word of God,

[00:10:26] and he instilled that confidence in me as well.

[00:10:31] Well, speaking of that, where did Chuck's theology come from?

[00:10:34] I think many people might know

[00:10:36] that he was in the four-square movement at one time.

[00:10:40] But which theologians influenced him most

[00:10:43] and was he product of four-square?

[00:10:45] Did he evolve beyond that?

[00:10:49] He was a product of four-square,

[00:10:52] and he was influenced by two professors.

[00:10:58] Chuck went through life Bible college

[00:11:02] and received his bachelor's degree from life Bible college,

[00:11:06] and he was greatly influenced by two professors,

[00:11:10] Van Cleef and...

[00:11:13] Oh my, the other one's name slips out of my mind right now.

[00:11:16] But they were two pillars within the four-square church.

[00:11:24] They were bona fide theologians.

[00:11:27] They actually wrote a book.

[00:11:29] I think the book is called The Foundations of Pentecostal Theology.

[00:11:32] But Chuck really, really admired them.

[00:11:35] He really looked up to them,

[00:11:37] and they, I think, instilled a lot into him.

[00:11:41] So he definitely had theological formation from the four-square.

[00:11:46] But I think later, when he went into

[00:11:50] what we would most know him for his expositional preaching,

[00:11:55] that came from other influences,

[00:11:57] not necessarily people that he was around

[00:12:01] but more authors that he connected with over time.

[00:12:05] So he discovered at a certain stage

[00:12:11] he discovered the writings of W. H. Griffith Thomas.

[00:12:16] And he tells a story about how that really impacted him,

[00:12:20] his little book on 1 John.

[00:12:23] And Chuck tells a story about having to move all the time

[00:12:28] from one church to another.

[00:12:30] And because that's the way they did it in the denomination.

[00:12:33] But for him, it was okay

[00:12:35] because he ran out of sermons after a certain point

[00:12:37] and he needed to move on so he could go back

[00:12:41] and start over with a fresh group of people.

[00:12:43] But he lived in the city of Huntington Beach in California

[00:12:48] and he lived down the street from the beach

[00:12:50] and he liked to get up and walk down and body surf in the morning.

[00:12:54] So he didn't want to leave Huntington Beach,

[00:12:56] so he had to figure out how can I prolong my ministry here?

[00:12:59] I've already run out of my sermons.

[00:13:01] Well, he stumbled across Griffith Thomas somehow

[00:13:04] and this book on the Apostle John,

[00:13:08] I have the book in my library,

[00:13:10] it gave him a series of sermons through 1 John

[00:13:13] and he was hooked and he just said,

[00:13:15] oh wow, this is way to do it.

[00:13:17] I can stay here indefinitely now.

[00:13:19] And then Griffith Thomas and Newell really influenced him

[00:13:24] in the book of Romans.

[00:13:26] And Chuck has a bit of a...

[00:13:29] One of those historic encounters with Romans,

[00:13:33] like we read about with say a Luther for example

[00:13:38] or Wesley or even back to Augustine.

[00:13:42] Chuck had one of those types of things

[00:13:44] where he grew up in Pentecostalism,

[00:13:46] where he grew up in a fairly legalistic system

[00:13:50] and didn't really have any idea of the depth of the grace of God.

[00:13:57] And so it was through the influence of Griffith Thomas

[00:14:01] and his teaching on Romans and Newell

[00:14:05] that really impacted him and changed him

[00:14:07] and then gave him preaching material as well.

[00:14:10] Chuck's favorite, so he was really influenced

[00:14:15] by the Bible guys, guys who like G. Campbell Morgan

[00:14:20] and H.A. Ironside and who else,

[00:14:24] all the guys with their initials in front of their last name

[00:14:28] he was influenced by those guys greatly.

[00:14:31] But Campbell Morgan was his man.

[00:14:33] He was his go-to guy.

[00:14:34] He loved Campbell Morgan and would glean a lot from him.

[00:14:39] He really appreciated Lloyd-Jones as well

[00:14:43] and actually had an opportunity to meet Martin Lloyd-Jones

[00:14:48] to go to London and visit with him.

[00:14:51] Lloyd-Jones sent an emissary to California,

[00:14:54] a man named Richard Bennett

[00:14:56] and he told Richard go to California and find Chuck Smith

[00:15:00] because I think revival.

[00:15:03] Now remember Lloyd-Jones preached that classic series of sermons

[00:15:07] in 1959 on revival that became his book revival

[00:15:10] and Lloyd-Jones thought that what was happening in California

[00:15:13] was what he had written about, preached on and longed for.

[00:15:18] So that was pretty fascinating.

[00:15:20] Wow, that's amazing.

[00:15:22] He loved Barclay too

[00:15:24] and he loved the Barclay tended toward some theological liberalism

[00:15:30] but he loved the brilliance of Barclay,

[00:15:32] he loved the background studies,

[00:15:34] the language component and all of that.

[00:15:37] He just sort of passed all that stuff on.

[00:15:41] When I was a young guy in ministry,

[00:15:44] he one day just gave me about 500 books

[00:15:47] and just said, here you go, these are yours

[00:15:50] and I still have probably most of them today

[00:15:53] and all of the people I just mentioned were part of that.

[00:15:55] Wow.

[00:15:56] One thing I remember listening to Pastor Chuck teach

[00:15:59] is that he seemed to be,

[00:16:01] like you mentioned how he was genuinely moved

[00:16:03] by the teaching of the grace of God.

[00:16:06] I found that he was also genuinely interested in science,

[00:16:10] like in the way that God worked in the natural world.

[00:16:13] Very much, yeah.

[00:16:15] Yeah, there was a guy, again, my memory is killing me,

[00:16:19] Harold Chelfant was one of these guys when Chuck was young

[00:16:25] who was brilliant in those kinds of areas.

[00:16:30] He was a bit of an apologist

[00:16:32] but he did most of his apologetics just from,

[00:16:34] sort of like from nature.

[00:16:36] He would just talk about different creatures

[00:16:39] or different plants or things like that

[00:16:41] and he would run youth camps and things

[00:16:44] and Chuck just loved Harold Chelfant

[00:16:47] and gleaned so much from him,

[00:16:49] but yeah, he really had a natural fascination

[00:16:55] with the world that God created

[00:16:59] and knew the plants and flowers

[00:17:04] and shrubs and could tell you what was what.

[00:17:10] I mean, my wife knows all that stuff

[00:17:13] because her dad used to walk her around

[00:17:15] and point out this is this and that's that

[00:17:17] and I'm just like, wow,

[00:17:19] I wish I would have learned some of that stuff.

[00:17:21] Yeah, he definitely was very, very fascinated

[00:17:25] and he had a good brain for that.

[00:17:28] He was able to grasp a lot of that and retain it.

[00:17:31] I think one of the things that is obvious now

[00:17:34] is that Chuck, like so many, he had a photographic memory.

[00:17:38] He would read something or see something

[00:17:41] and it would just forever be locked in his mind.

[00:17:44] Even in his older years,

[00:17:46] he would be able to quote these poems

[00:17:48] and things that he learned when he was a kid

[00:17:50] and he would quote them word for word and astounding.

[00:17:55] Oh yeah, it's funny because he just had that.

[00:18:00] There was a brilliance there with him.

[00:18:03] Again, it didn't manifest itself so much in him

[00:18:06] going and getting a PhD.

[00:18:08] He didn't really care too much about that

[00:18:10] but he definitely was a student of scripture obviously

[00:18:14] but of nature and life as well.

[00:18:16] Yeah, I'm just curious as a preacher myself,

[00:18:19] how did he preach?

[00:18:20] What were his notes like?

[00:18:21] Did you ever see them?

[00:18:22] Oh yeah, I saw him a lot.

[00:18:24] Yeah, they were generally, I think,

[00:18:27] I've seen your notes.

[00:18:28] I think they're similar.

[00:18:29] He would do an introductory paragraph

[00:18:32] and then he would do three-point sermon,

[00:18:34] five-point sermon, seven-point sermon,

[00:18:36] something like that.

[00:18:37] Sundays, a lot of people think that Chuck

[00:18:43] taught verse by verse through the whole Bible,

[00:18:47] Genesis to Revelation.

[00:18:48] He did do something like that

[00:18:50] but it wasn't exactly that

[00:18:52] but he always did that in the evening

[00:18:55] for a much smaller group of people really.

[00:18:58] On Sunday mornings Chuck preached sermons.

[00:19:01] He preached expositional sermons from,

[00:19:05] always of course, from a biblical text

[00:19:08] but so like on Sunday night

[00:19:11] he would go through Genesis

[00:19:13] and if on Sunday night

[00:19:15] he was going to cover five chapters of Genesis

[00:19:17] what he was going to preach on Sunday morning

[00:19:20] from somewhere in those five chapters

[00:19:23] but usually like with Genesis

[00:19:25] he might cover chapter one and two

[00:19:27] so he's going to preach on creation

[00:19:30] and the image of God maybe.

[00:19:32] When chapter three is in there

[00:19:34] he's going to preach on the fall.

[00:19:36] He's going to preach on probably,

[00:19:39] Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham

[00:19:43] and different, so he would put together

[00:19:48] sermons that most people who preach

[00:19:52] like that he would, in some ways,

[00:19:55] preach somewhat thematically

[00:19:59] as well occasionally.

[00:20:02] Okay so going back to the idea you said

[00:20:04] that one of the things that characterizes

[00:20:06] Pastor Chuck was his willingness to take steps of faith.

[00:20:08] Another thing that I know and I witnessed myself

[00:20:11] was him entrusting responsibility to young leaders

[00:20:14] and so in that vein I'm just curious

[00:20:16] was there someone who did the same for him

[00:20:18] when he was younger took a chance on him?

[00:20:20] I don't think so because when he was younger

[00:20:24] you're talking about a time

[00:20:28] when ministry exploded around him

[00:20:31] and there were just numbers and numbers

[00:20:35] of young people, young men specifically

[00:20:39] that he would entrust things to

[00:20:42] but going back in his own story

[00:20:45] I don't know that there was ever

[00:20:48] that kind of experience.

[00:20:51] I think that was more something that

[00:20:54] he just kind of figured out on the fly.

[00:20:59] We've got stuff to do and I can't do everything

[00:21:04] and there's a bunch of young guys around me

[00:21:07] so I'm going to have to just let him go

[00:21:11] and he was good at that.

[00:21:15] It was pretty amazing how he would

[00:21:18] just sense God's hand was on somebody

[00:21:21] he'd give them an opportunity to get some training

[00:21:23] and then he would let him go

[00:21:27] and that's how so many churches got started

[00:21:31] because those guys would go out

[00:21:33] and I was one of them

[00:21:35] so then we would go out

[00:21:37] and then we would in a sense do the same thing

[00:21:40] that he did.

[00:21:42] Yeah, and in that vein I think a lot of people

[00:21:44] assume that Pastor Chuck's approach to ministry

[00:21:47] is very organic, very led by the spirit

[00:21:49] meaning also kind of like

[00:21:51] not super planned out and strategic

[00:21:53] but I also see that there were parts of him

[00:21:55] that were very strategic, right?

[00:21:57] So he founded a Bible college

[00:21:59] and other things like that.

[00:22:01] Yeah, it's really weird because he was much more

[00:22:05] like you just said, he was much more strategic

[00:22:08] than people would think

[00:22:10] because his personality was so laid back

[00:22:14] in so many ways.

[00:22:16] His public persona was very much a laid back guy

[00:22:19] and he was that in one sense

[00:22:21] but he was very energetic as well

[00:22:24] and very much a doer.

[00:22:27] Chuck was a doer.

[00:22:29] He was going to do something and he was a visionary.

[00:22:31] He had a vision for something

[00:22:33] and he was going to see it through

[00:22:36] and the Lord would, as is often the case

[00:22:39] the Lord would surround him with people

[00:22:41] that were able to carry out the vision

[00:22:44] so he would have the vision

[00:22:46] like a Bible college for example.

[00:22:48] He has a vision for a Bible college.

[00:22:50] He's not going to stop what he's doing

[00:22:52] and go run a Bible college

[00:22:54] but he's going to find the right people

[00:22:56] and put them in place to be able to do it.

[00:22:58] So funny, just a funny little thing

[00:23:00] and you might have heard this, Nick

[00:23:02] a lot of Calvary chapels have a reputation

[00:23:05] of not paying too close attention to the clock

[00:23:10] so don't necessarily start the service

[00:23:13] when the service time rolls around

[00:23:17] and don't finish when it's time to finish.

[00:23:20] Chuck was a stickler for stuff like that.

[00:23:23] I was with him for years.

[00:23:26] We would be backstage.

[00:23:28] He would have his wristwatch set

[00:23:30] to the atomic clock

[00:23:32] and the second hand struck, say 9.30

[00:23:38] because we had a 9.30 service

[00:23:40] we were walking on the platform at that moment

[00:23:43] and I'll give you one example

[00:23:45] one time I preached and I preached a little longer

[00:23:47] than I should have apparently

[00:23:49] and he gave me the riot act.

[00:23:52] How could I be so insensitive

[00:23:55] to not finish on time

[00:23:57] and look at all these people

[00:23:59] and create a traffic jam in the parking lot

[00:24:02] and he was really, he was really

[00:24:04] bent out of shape about me about that.

[00:24:07] But that was him.

[00:24:09] He was very meticulous about certain things.

[00:24:13] It's funny, some things he was very casual about

[00:24:17] and then other things he was a stickler

[00:24:21] for a lot of things.

[00:24:23] That's funny.

[00:24:24] My staff tells me the same thing

[00:24:25] but I'm sure I have different things

[00:24:26] that I'm a stickler about than they do

[00:24:28] certain things that I care about a lot

[00:24:30] and some things that I let slide

[00:24:32] and I tried to tell him the other day

[00:24:33] I said, you know, that's the mark of a genius

[00:24:35] and I don't think they were convinced

[00:24:37] to be honest.

[00:24:38] I'm still trying to work on that.

[00:24:40] So yeah, right.

[00:24:42] Yeah.

[00:24:43] And you know, one thing Chuck was boy

[00:24:45] somebody said that he

[00:24:48] he pinched a penny so hard

[00:24:50] that Lincoln's eyeballs would bulge.

[00:24:54] He was very, very careful with money

[00:25:00] and he was full of integrity in that area

[00:25:03] where so many over the years have fallen prey to

[00:25:08] I don't know, whatever it ends up being

[00:25:16] with finances.

[00:25:17] He stayed as far away from that as he could

[00:25:20] and he was always very, very concerned

[00:25:26] and meticulous about the church finances.

[00:25:30] Well, you know, as a pastor

[00:25:33] having been a pastor of a smaller church

[00:25:35] and then seeing that explosive growth

[00:25:37] one thing I'm curious about

[00:25:38] how did Chuck do pastoral care?

[00:25:41] I mean, if someone called the office

[00:25:43] could they make an appointment with him?

[00:25:44] Did he ever do hospital visits?

[00:25:47] Yeah.

[00:25:48] Yeah, he did.

[00:25:49] He did all of that.

[00:25:50] He wasn't one, he didn't really like

[00:25:54] the come into my office and let me counsel you.

[00:25:59] He, because he was too fidgety, you know

[00:26:04] he wanted to be moving.

[00:26:06] He wanted to be doing something productive

[00:26:10] so he wasn't that good like make an appointment

[00:26:14] and come in.

[00:26:15] I think most people that came to see him

[00:26:16] usually had a very specific thing

[00:26:18] anything ministry wise, of course

[00:26:20] he was happy to see guys and encourage them

[00:26:22] in their ministries and stuff.

[00:26:24] But the one thing that he really did do extraordinarily well

[00:26:29] is he was very compassionate and sympathetic

[00:26:32] and so if there was a real need

[00:26:37] if there was a death in the family

[00:26:39] or if there was some serious kind of situation

[00:26:43] he was right there for that stuff all the time.

[00:26:46] He was very, very faithful.

[00:26:48] He would go to the hospital at midnight

[00:26:51] to be with a family if maybe somebody was in a car accident

[00:26:54] and somebody died and he would be with a family.

[00:26:57] So he was very good at that.

[00:26:59] But again, he wasn't the kind of guy

[00:27:02] to have a schedule like

[00:27:05] book me from nine to five with

[00:27:09] five different counseling appointments

[00:27:11] and I'll be happy to sit behind my desk

[00:27:13] and he didn't so much like that.

[00:27:16] As a matter of fact, when I returned from England

[00:27:18] and joined him, he said,

[00:27:21] okay now you like to do that with people

[00:27:24] I'm tired of it so you do that stuff

[00:27:26] and I'm gonna, he was actually

[00:27:29] doing some construction work on my house

[00:27:31] at the time.

[00:27:32] He said, and I'm gonna do this kind of stuff.

[00:27:34] That's it.

[00:27:35] Okay, that's fine.

[00:27:36] Wow.

[00:27:37] Well maybe a more serious note.

[00:27:39] You know having been leading this

[00:27:42] wonderful fruitful ministry.

[00:27:44] Were there any struggles, internal battles

[00:27:47] that he faced as a pastor?

[00:27:49] I can't imagine that anyone could be a pastor

[00:27:51] and not face internal battles.

[00:27:53] So I'm curious about those

[00:27:54] and how did he work through them?

[00:27:58] He did.

[00:28:00] But there was that side of Chuck that was

[00:28:04] there was a side of him that was very private

[00:28:06] in a lot of ways.

[00:28:08] I had access to him because

[00:28:10] I was in his house.

[00:28:11] I lived with him.

[00:28:14] My wife's daughter, my kids are his grandkids

[00:28:16] so I would see him in context

[00:28:18] that most people would never see him in.

[00:28:21] But he still was a person who

[00:28:23] kept his cards close to his chest

[00:28:25] so to speak.

[00:28:27] But there were times when he went through

[00:28:29] difficulties.

[00:28:30] Chuck was, it's funny because

[00:28:33] nowadays we think of him as

[00:28:36] just this wonderful amazing guy

[00:28:39] who everybody loved.

[00:28:41] Chuck faced tons of criticism

[00:28:43] over the years of ministry.

[00:28:45] He was slandered up one side and down the other

[00:28:49] and there were times that

[00:28:51] that would weigh on him.

[00:28:53] It did bother him at times,

[00:28:55] those kinds of things.

[00:28:57] And I think any kind of family difficulty

[00:29:01] of course would weigh on him heavily

[00:29:03] like it does for any of us

[00:29:04] who go through family struggles.

[00:29:07] Yeah.

[00:29:09] But generally with the ministry

[00:29:12] he didn't seem to

[00:29:15] be too concerned most of the time.

[00:29:17] He really did have the mentality that

[00:29:20] it's the Lord's church

[00:29:22] and it's the Lord's problem.

[00:29:24] So I'm going to trust the Lord.

[00:29:27] He would do that on a lot of different things.

[00:29:31] How did how did Pastor Chuck deal with

[00:29:33] so many younger guys

[00:29:35] and people looking up to him,

[00:29:36] so many people listening to his sermons?

[00:29:38] How did he process that?

[00:29:43] Yeah.

[00:29:44] These are things where he was...

[00:29:50] He was...

[00:29:52] He didn't express himself too much

[00:29:56] about those kinds of things.

[00:29:59] From an observer's point of view

[00:30:02] I could say that he absolutely

[00:30:05] I think he loved the idea

[00:30:08] of young people, especially serving the Lord.

[00:30:12] So he was always ready to give a word

[00:30:15] of encouragement to anybody who talked to him

[00:30:17] about their wishes, their desires to serve the Lord.

[00:30:21] He would have been the guy who would have...

[00:30:23] If he saw something in a young man or woman

[00:30:26] and thought that this would be good for him

[00:30:29] he would send them to Bible college

[00:30:31] and he would cover the cost for them.

[00:30:34] So...

[00:30:37] From the beginning of the revival

[00:30:39] there were so many young people around him.

[00:30:43] I think it just became part of his...

[00:30:46] Almost part of his personality, just to...

[00:30:49] He just sort of lived in the ministry,

[00:30:54] like 24-7.

[00:30:56] There was hardly a time when I was ever with him

[00:31:00] out in public that somebody didn't know him

[00:31:04] and not only knew him but wanted to talk to him for a minute

[00:31:07] and wanted to tell him either how much he touched their lives

[00:31:11] or how difficult their lives are

[00:31:15] and if he could pray for them.

[00:31:17] I mean, he really...

[00:31:18] And he did.

[00:31:19] It just...

[00:31:20] He was Pastor Chuck in that sense.

[00:31:23] He was very much like 24-7.

[00:31:26] He was a pastor.

[00:31:29] How did Pastor Chuck handle theological diversity

[00:31:32] amongst his peers?

[00:31:34] How was his attitude towards those who shared different views in him?

[00:31:38] Chuck was really gracious.

[00:31:42] He...

[00:31:43] I think a lot of...

[00:31:44] As time has passed, of course, we're talking now 10 years after Chuck's passing

[00:31:49] but even toward the end of his life,

[00:31:52] maybe the last 10 years of his life

[00:31:54] there were a lot of controversy that developed within our own movement

[00:31:57] and struggles and difficulties

[00:31:59] and some people wanted to sort of paint Chuck as this

[00:32:04] died-in-the-wool Calvary guy who didn't really think

[00:32:10] highly at all of people outside of the movement.

[00:32:14] But Chuck was way, way more gracious and broader than that.

[00:32:17] He had lots of associations with guys outside...

[00:32:22] Back here in the area, I live in Costa Mesa,

[00:32:26] Chuck would have been friends with the Presbyterian pastor,

[00:32:29] the Episcopal church, the Lutheran, the Pentecostal.

[00:32:32] He would have had relationships with all of these guys.

[00:32:35] In some cases it went back decades.

[00:32:37] He would have known these guys from the time

[00:32:39] when they were all struggling ministers at a certain season.

[00:32:45] And theologically Chuck was very much...

[00:32:50] Had his convictions but he was...

[00:32:54] I never saw Chuck try to force his convictions on anybody

[00:32:58] or insist that they needed to believe like he did.

[00:33:02] Walter Martin, some people will know that name.

[00:33:05] Walter Martin was notoriously post-trib.

[00:33:09] A lot of people tried to pit Chuck and Walter Martin

[00:33:12] against each other because Chuck's pre-trib and all of that.

[00:33:16] But Chuck and Walter Martin were friends.

[00:33:19] They hung out and enjoyed each other's presence

[00:33:23] and things like that.

[00:33:25] He was happy with his theology

[00:33:28] but was happy for other people to hold different theology.

[00:33:32] I mean, he would oftentimes go on Trinity Broadcasting Network

[00:33:36] back in those days.

[00:33:38] TBN has changed considerably in our day.

[00:33:42] But back in those days there were some pretty wild things

[00:33:46] going on there and some, quite honestly, some kind of wacky people.

[00:33:50] And Chuck would go and people would be mad at him for going

[00:33:54] but he would go.

[00:33:56] He would just be a presence there

[00:33:58] and he was friends with Paul Crouch.

[00:34:01] They were like buddies, like they hung out

[00:34:05] but he was respectful and gracious to them.

[00:34:09] Yeah. All right. Last question for you.

[00:34:11] Did Chuck ever watch Cheers or Frasier?

[00:34:14] What I'm getting at is I want to know

[00:34:16] what was his impression of Kelsey Grammer?

[00:34:20] Well, 100% for sure Chuck never watched Cheers.

[00:34:25] Never watched anything unless it was a football game really.

[00:34:29] Who's this football team?

[00:34:31] That was his go-to TV programming.

[00:34:35] I think although...

[00:34:41] Well, I think Chuck, the gracious person that he is,

[00:34:45] I think he would have just been honored

[00:34:47] that Kelsey Grammer played him

[00:34:50] and I don't think that he would have necessarily said,

[00:34:55] oh, I'm not like that.

[00:34:57] He might have thought that to himself

[00:34:59] but he would have never said it publicly

[00:35:01] because I think he would have just been thankful

[00:35:03] that somebody like Kelsey Grammer would step in

[00:35:07] and play that role.

[00:35:08] So I think he would have been very happy to commend Kelsey

[00:35:12] for his effort to play him in the movie.

[00:35:16] Yeah, some of the critiques I heard from people

[00:35:19] and I'm curious what your thoughts are

[00:35:21] is that...and I'm sure there's the whole aspect

[00:35:24] of the cinematic thing, the storytelling part

[00:35:27] but a lot of people I talked to said that Chuck

[00:35:29] was a lot more jovial than was portrayed in the movie.

[00:35:33] Well, that's for sure

[00:35:35] and Kelsey played him in a way, I think,

[00:35:40] for what it is, it's fine but it wasn't...

[00:35:44] Chuck was not pensive in the sense that he wasn't

[00:35:47] a person who was uncertain about what he was doing

[00:35:52] or where he was going.

[00:35:54] I think in the movie, Chuck comes off as a little bit

[00:35:58] kind of not knowing what to do at the time

[00:36:01] and in the film, the Lonnie Frisbee character

[00:36:05] sort of leads Chuck by the hand to...

[00:36:09] let me help you.

[00:36:11] That was not at all characteristic of Chuck.

[00:36:15] Chuck was very much a guy with tons of vision

[00:36:19] and he knew where he was going

[00:36:21] and he was gonna get there

[00:36:23] and he didn't need anybody to take him by the hand.

[00:36:27] So I think that would be...

[00:36:29] and I think even the guys who made Greg Laurie

[00:36:33] I think would say the same thing.

[00:36:35] That's the Chuck we knew.

[00:36:38] Chuck was in charge.

[00:36:44] Look, I'm sure that we could go on and share lots more

[00:36:47] but thank you so much, Brian, for the time today

[00:36:49] and for sharing these thoughts

[00:36:51] kind of giving us a little bit of your insight

[00:36:53] into who Pastor Chuck was.

[00:36:55] Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Nick.

[00:37:00] Thanks for listening to this season of the CGN

[00:37:02] Mission and Methods podcast.

[00:37:04] We'd love to hear feedback from you on these episodes.

[00:37:06] You can email us at cgnatcalvarychapel.com

[00:37:10] Keep an eye out on your podcast feed

[00:37:12] for bonus episodes and information

[00:37:14] about the next season of Mission and Methods.

[00:37:17] Until next time, God bless you.