The Jesus Movement has made a big impact on the church back in the 70's and it's impact is still being felt today. Ed Stetzer talks with Pastor Brian Brodersen about how the Movement impacted his ministry. They'll also talk about how we can know what God's call is for us on our own lives on Ed Stetzer Live.
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And this is Ed Stetzer live and this and every Saturday at this time, we come to you with, I think, pertinent conversations about the day, the mission, engaging our culture, and more. And so I'm excited to bring to you today our guest and our guest and I, we will. We're friends. We've traveled. I've probably gone around more around the world more with you than anybody else except my wife. Uh, Brian Brodersen. Brian has been involved in pastoral ministry for 35 years. Senior pastor of. Well, first you were here at Calvary Chapel, but before Calvary Chapel Costa mesa. But before that, you were at Calvary Chapel Westminster in London, and before that, Calvary Chapel Vista in Southern California? Yes.
And you're reading something that's a bit dated, because 43 years is my total period of time pastoring. Strange. Okay. Which just came to a conclusion, as you know.
Well, I'm, like, living in the past. I'm like, living the dream era.
When you were still the pastor, you could have asked me and I would have told you.
That's probably true. So Calvary Chapel, Costa mesa, you have left. You've walked out the door. You've slammed the door. You're done, you know?
Yeah. No. Well, no. I have moved into the enviable role of pastor emeritus.
That is like the coolest title. It is. So when I was at Moody Church, I served there for years. And when, you know, Pastor Lutzer was, um, we didn't use the word retire. And I guess you're not using the word retire, right? So, um. And he just loved it. He loved being the pastor emeritus. It's like I don't have to put up with all the other stuff. I just get to preach. Yeah, go speak, write books.
And that's it. I mean, you know, because many people have asked me about how's your retirement going? And do you, like, slap em or do.
You get mad? You know, I'm.
Not against retiring, if that's what I did, but it's not a bad thing I didn't do that. Okay, so, um, I'm still very active in active in ministry, but I'm no longer the lead or the senior pastor. And who is Costa mesa? My son, Chas Broderson is the new lead pastor of the church. We did a four year transition. Yeah. And we just finished up just two weeks ago.
He's a great preacher.
Yeah, he's.
A good guy. It's interesting because you have a little bit I mean, again, I don't know if it's a Calvary Chapel thing. I guess in some ways it's a Calvary Chapel thing. I've seen others do it. So Chuck Smith was your father in law? Yes. And so. And then your your son is now pastoring. Is that a common thing in Calvary Chapel World?
I would say, you know, I kind of think it's a common thing in, in evangelicalism is it is.
I think that and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Right. And a lot of times when it works, it works because sometimes the voice of the of the successor is kind of similar. It's like, okay, so even sometimes sound or think similarly. And people are like, oh, I trust that person.
Yeah. And you know, I said this to the congregation. I said, I'm I'm very thankful Cheryl and I both. We were on the platform together, so we're very thankful that our son is taking over the leadership of the church. But he's not taking over the leadership of the church because he's our son. He is taking over the leadership of the church because we believe that God has appointed him to do that. And so. And you went.
Through a multi-year process. And it is it's a it's an interesting thing to see, but probably the most my my friend that, you know, Jonathan Falwell following Jerry Falwell. Uh, it just it just worked. It just worked. And there was that that sense. Okay. We sort of trust that voice. We trust that that that heritage. And Jonathan has done a great job as pastor of Thomas Road. So, yeah.
And of course, you know, I, I succeeded, as you said, Chuck Smith. And so that was, um, you know, as his son in law. Yeah, that had some really great aspects to it and it had some challenging things.
Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. So how long were you at Calvary Chapel Costa mesa, as a senior pastor?
As senior pastor, I was 11 years I've been here 25 years. This stint, I was here back in the early 80s, and Chuck and I more or less co-pastored for 13 years. And so, yeah, so I was just about, um, 13 and 12, 25 years.
Is it weird to be I have two amazing professors at Talbot School of Theology. I have lots of amazing professors. But to Sean McDowell and Kyle Strobel and you hear those names and you automatically think, oh, wait, is that? And it is. It's Josh McDowell's son and it's Lee Strobel son. Yeah, but there are scholars in their own right, you know, uh, you know, Sean's got a PhD, and both of them PhD college PhD focused on Jonathan Edwards. Fascinating theologians or apologists. So, I mean, you're Chuck Smith's successor. And, you know, Chuck Smith, to me, was one of my great heroes. So is that weird? Is that how did you navigate that?
You know, for me, Ed Chuck was, Um, he was kind of my father in law. More than my pastor. I mean, he was my pastor, for sure in, in the early days of my Christian walk, but he was my father in law, and he was, you know, I've told people like he was the the best grandpa I have ever seen. And he was he was a great father in law to by the grace of God, I think I didn't have a whole lot of mental hang ups about being the successor to Chuck Smith, or trying to fill the the shoes of Chuck or any of that. The Lord gave me just a sense of, you know, I am who I am. I'm not Chuck. I never will be Chuck. I never aspired to be Chuck. And so I'm just going to go with who God has created me to be. And so succeeding him in ministry wasn't that difficult for me In that sense, I think fascinating.
And what about when people, you know, I was when I became a professor, the first time I was just what was it, a hundred years ago? So I'm 28 years old. So that was 30 years ago. Yeah. And I became a professor at a seminary to teach church planning. And I said to the people who hired me, okay, I got to go visit some churches that are kind of leading in this space. So I fly out here, so and I visit like, I visit Saddleback, I visit, I visit Calvary Chapel Costa mesa, and I visit four churches. And yet this was on my list. So, I mean, in a sense, you are pastor pastored. You're done now at this, but you're pastored under somebody who's globally known for planting. You didn't, you know, growing this church. So how is that? Is that is that a is that a weird thing, or are you just kind of receive the constant Chuck questions like, I'm asking you Chuck questions, and yet you've been the pastor for 20 years.
Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I loved and respected Chuck. So for me, it was never a problem. It was never a competitive thing. Like, hey, well, I'm the pastor now. You know, you I feel like it was a privilege to be able to follow in his footsteps and to kind of just, you know, participate in the blessing that God gave to him. I inherited some of that. So for me, it was good.
So when you you came you have you're in and out sort of, you know, you're here for a season, you're you're in England for a while, etc., etc.. So we probably most people became reintroduced this idea of the Jesus people movement. And, you know, the Jesus Revolution film. Your friend Greg Laurie was Greg's been on on my program as I've talked about this. Um, so what is your interaction with the. When do you start interacting? Are you hanging around with hippies? I mean, you're old enough to be hanging around with hippies.
No, I'm a little bit younger. You a little younger? Yeah. Greg's a little older than you. Yeah. So Greg's four years older than I.
Okay, well, that makes a difference in the timing.
It really does. Yeah. So he was, you know, right there in that. That hippie thing. Um, so I was As I was a bit younger. And then when I was at that point, I'll just say 16 years old when I was 16 years old, um, that's when the the building that we exist in today, this building was completed when I was 16 years old, when I was a sophomore in high school. And so prior to that, the tent existed. And anybody that saw the Jesus Revolution knows that the tent was kind of where everything really exploded, everything took off. So I was approached often by strange looking people inviting me to come to a tent. And it is the last place I wanted to go, and those were the last people I wanted to be seen with. Wow. I was kind of turned off by the hippie thing myself, you know?
Fascinating.
Okay. Even to the point where I thought, I think the Jesus thing is okay, but the hippies are messing it up for me.
Really? That's so fascinating. So? So then, um, so when do you, like, begin to interact? Like, when is Maranatha music launched? Is I mean, where is it historically you begin to interact?
Yeah. So for me personally, my interaction here was 1976. So everything was exploding here.
Yeah, this was crazy in 1976.
Yeah, yeah. So everything was exploding here from, you know, 68, uh, through, you know, 1973, 74, um, all of the love song. Yeah, yeah, all the Jesus People music, Maranatha! Music, all of that stuff that was going. So I came in a bit on the tail end of that first big, um, move of the spirit. So 1976, I so from 76 then through the rest of the 70s, I was sort of in and out. 1979 I planted the flag. I'm like, I'm following Jesus, I'm not messing around anymore. And this was the place.
This was the place. That's the place. Okay. Fascinating. Fascinating. Okay. So, um, when you look back at the Jesus People movement, um, you know, partly you're part of the fruit of it, so, you know, and then Calvary Chapel and the Calvary Global Network, part of the fruit. But I want to talk some about what the Calvary Global Network is. But first, talk to me about I mean, part of it, it seems like I mean, we talk about Jesus people movement. I want it now. So you got to see it decline. Yeah. Like to me, that's so heartbreaking. Now I want to I'm so thankful that it happened. I didn't interact much with it. I'm a decade younger, so I missed those times. But I look back at it and I'm jealous for you. But then to have watched it decline is hard too.
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, funny enough, I mean, it didn't like when I came into it, it didn't seem like it was declining because I didn't really, uh, you know, I was I wasn't part of the earliest part of it, and I wasn't, like I said, I wasn't of age, and I wasn't culturally, necessarily Really excited about that part of it. So when I came into it, there was still plenty of great things happening and it was happening with me and my friends now. So it wasn't like we were looking back at Love Song and saying, oh dang, we missed that. No, but I.
Mean, but you were I mean, it was still peaking at that point. Yeah. But by the time you get to I mean, you've been around. So by the time you get to the 80s. Yeah. Well, the.
80s here was explosive. Still blowing.
Going. Yeah.
I mean, the 80s, the decade of the 80s was probably the the decade where Calvary expanded the most. And this church was at its height in attendance in the 80s. Yeah, in the 80s.
And so when does it begin to, to the movement decline? I'm actually surprised by you saying the 80s, because, I mean, Mother's Day, 1980, the vineyard, you know, Lonnie Frisbee, Mother's Day 1980 is kind of the famous spiritual birthday of the vineyard. Yeah. So the vineyard sort of blows up. In the 80s, I was thinking Calvary Chapel as a movement was beginning to not have that same crazy, explosive energy.
But it was different because I think, you know what happened with the vineyard. Most, most people probably know that the vineyard was Calvary.
Chapel, right? Sure.
Sure. Yeah. But it was that the vineyard wanted to take a more sort of a Pentecostal direction that Chuck just simply said, look, I grew up in that. So kind of been there, done that. I don't really want to go back there. We're going to do this. So then you had sort of these two streams. They were more experimental and we were drilling down more into expositional preaching. Yeah. You know, teaching through Scripture. And so it was there was a lot of excitement around Bible study at that time. I mean, there were, you know, 2000 people coming out midweek to listen to a verse by verse study through the Gospel of Luke.
We're going to continue our conversation with Brian Brodersen. We're actually here at the studio of Calvary Chapel Costa mesa called K-wave, the radio station as well. This show is pre-recorded this week, and we're going to continue our continue our conversation with Brian Brodersen, but we're not able to take our call your calls today, but we look forward to continue to learn about the history of the Jesus People movement and ultimately to to learn a little about your life, your ministry and more. So stay with us as we continue our conversation with Brian Brodersen. Okay. We're back continuing our conversation with Brian Brodersen. I'm Ed Stetzer. I actually didn't introduce myself at the beginning of the program because I was so enamored with my guest, and he's a good old friend. And so but I'm Ed Stetzer, I'm the dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, and we're just down the road from that. We're actually recording today at the studio of K-wave. K-wave is one of our partners. And so we broadcast here at 9 a.m. in the West Coast and noon in the East Coast, and 250 outlets across the country. So we get to have some pretty fun conversations. And today, this is one that's pretty fascinating to me because, again, you and I have known each other for a while, so that makes it fun. But fun. But also, as you know, like a lot of people, I've always been fascinated with the Calvary Chapel movement. So, so the Calvary Chapel movement, then you're I mean, there's there's the Calvary Chapel Church and then you lead the Calvary Global Network. That's your new role, right? Right. Okay. I mean, you've been doing that before, but now this is your full time role. So tell tell us about what the Calvary Global Network is.
Well, from from kind of the beginning with going back to the earliest days of Calvary Chapel, guys began to go out from here, you know, people who would come and spend some time serving alongside of Chuck. And there were different locations around the country where people were hearing what was going on and saying, man, we would love to have that happening in our place. So somebody from here would venture out and do a basically kind of a church plant, you know? So that happened from the earliest days and it's just continued to happen over the years. Back in the 90s, I was the person that me, me and a couple of others were the ones that God used to kind of be the tip of the spear into ministry in Europe. And so we went into what was just freshly the former Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc countries, and began to plant churches and then flowed over into Western Europe. And so this is what I've been doing basically my whole ministry life alongside of pastoring the churches that I've pastored. And so Calvary Global Network is the continuation of that work. We are continuing to preach the gospel, plant churches, make disciples. That's kind of our vision to do that globally.
Good, good. And how many churches are in the global network?
About a thousand.
About a thousand churches. Okay. So fascinating. So it's I mean, in my lifetime, you know. Calvary chapel goes from one church to a global movement and and really is like, the size of a denomination. I mean, I do a lot of denominational annual meetings and a thousand churches is a lot of churches in a movement. And so what are some of the focal areas you mentioned? Church planting. I know expository preaching. What would be some Calvary Chapel distinctives?
Calvary chapel distinctives. Well, expositional teaching and preaching is definitely a distinctive. And I and I think also with a, you know, we talk about the Holy Spirit, we talk about the Holy Spirit, uh, empowering. We talk about the Holy Spirit as ministry. A lot of times when people mention the Holy Spirit, people automatically think of, you know, maybe Pentecostalism or or charismatic type stuff. Gift of tongues, that sort of thing. And we believe in all of the gifts being in operation today. But I think when we think of the Holy Spirit in the context of context of ministry. We're thinking of the Holy Spirit empowering us to do the ministry, to teach and preach God's Word. And it's through the the teaching and preaching of Scripture, by the empowering of the spirit that we're seeing beautiful life, transformation with people, conversion, discipleship, growth, maturity, all of those.
And so one of the things I've had the privilege of training in Hungary, where you have a Bible college and I hope people are aware of all of those things, it's not even just churches. There's whole movements, and particularly in Eastern Europe, a lot of impact there as well. You're part of that. Tell us more about that.
Yeah. Well in the in the 90s, as I mentioned, the Lord just was, you know, was a strange, uh, way that it all developed. But I ended up in what was then Yugoslavia. Right. Some people don't even know.
Right. You have to be old enough to know who Tito was.
And all that, right? Exactly. Yeah. So I ended up there on an invitation from a couple of people. We went out on the streets, we preached the gospel. It was still under Tito. Tito wasn't part of the Soviet bloc.
He was his own own thing. Tito was a dictator who ruled over what was then Yugoslavia. Now it's a bunch of minor countries, smaller countries, not minor countries. They're wonderful countries.
Yeah. So we went in and we just hit the streets. We began to preach the gospel. The police shut us down immediately because, uh, how old were you? We're communists. We don't do that here. I was 32.
So you're there preaching the gospel in the streets of the former communist Yugoslavia? Yeah.
Wow. And subsequently, young people responded. They they came to faith, and we realized, okay, we got to help these kids. We can't just abandon them. So I came back to California, and within a month, I sent a team of four people, and they went back to follow up and minister. And this began the ministry in that part of the world. So we ended up planting a couple of hundred churches over a 20 year period throughout the former Soviet bloc. The former Soviet Union. Russia. Ukraine. All the way down to Kyrgyzstan. The Bible college you mentioned was in Hungary for many, many years. It's relocated to Tbilisi, Georgia. Oh, I didn't know that. I just talked to the director today and he said, we're getting started next week and things are exploding and we got to plant another church. Unbelievable. Yeah. So a lot of great things.
Why do you think that? You know, because it just exploded there. What was I mean, in a sense, you're kind of you oversee a movement that exploded in Southern California and then explodes in the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe. What about that? What's the mix that causes this explosion? Because I want those.
Yeah. Well, you know, I think here it was a case in some ways of the right person and the right place at the right time. And I happened to be the guy that showed up in Eastern Europe at the right time. Yeah, yeah. And it wasn't strategic from my standpoint. I didn't plan it. I didn't know that this was even going to happen. Uh, it took me by surprise, but I feel like we got to experience the Jesus people revolution in Eastern Europe. Yeah. I mean, I preached on the streets of 10,000 people. Yeah. You know, so you don't get to do that too often in your lifetime. But I got to do things.
That's crazy. That's crazy. So was it. I mean, it's post the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yeah. And, you know, so much of that was a desperate times for people. You know, they we think of it as the rise of freedom, and I think rightfully so. I think the Russian Empire is reasserting itself, you know, invading Ukraine and more. Those are those are not good things. But simultaneously, the fall of the Soviet Union was a disaster for people, and they were helpless and hopeless. And the gospel stepped into that place. Was that a key part of it? Yeah, I.
Think so, yeah. Yeah, I think the whole thing was, you know, Holy Spirit orchestrated in the sense of God preparing 70 years of communism. You know, the people are spiritually hungry, and we just happen to roll in with the gospel in a relevant way. Yeah, we were ministering mostly to teenagers. And they they loved American.
Culture, embracing American culture.
So that was an in for us immediately.
And you were I mean, you weren't hippies by then, but I mean Calvary Chapel. I mean, I was speaking to this meeting of, uh, this private meeting of the 400 most influential churches in America. It was a supposedly secret meeting. I tweeted about it so it wasn't secret anymore. And it's called the I don't know, the 400 or something like that. It was a weird thing, but I'm there. And I said to them, I got up and gave a history of the modern evangelical movement, and I said, your church, probably you've heard me talk before this before because you disagree with what I said. I said, your church probably worships like a Calvary Chapel and is led like a saddleback. And you don't. Even these young pastors don't even realize the influence. Now, you pointed out the Calvary Chapel was pretty traditional over those years, but it birthed a lot of those contemporary expressions. You were going.
To say, yeah, well, the traditional part of it was for, for whatever reason, Chuck kept Sunday morning very traditional, but but in the earliest days, not so much. I mean, he had drum solos on Sundays. Yeah, we.
I mean, we saw the movie. So you got to have drum solos on Sundays.
Yeah, but. But when you went into the later part of the 70s and on through the 80s, Sunday morning was fairly traditional, but nothing else was traditional. So if you came back on Sunday night, Chuck's sitting up on a stool with his turtleneck on.
Yeah, totally.
Just like you would see in the Jesus Revolution movie, though.
Kelsey Grammer is way older than Chuck Smith was. Way. Like, how old would Chuck Smith been?
Chuck was 42 years old, and.
Kelsey Grammer was like in the 70s in the the movie, wasn't he?
Yeah. Late 60s.
That's so funny. So. But he looks younger. He looks younger. I thought he did a good job. I mean, I.
Everybody who knew Chuck would agree that Chuck wasn't. Uh, he he he was never a guy to second guess himself. You know, he wasn't looking around trying to figure out what to do, which is a.
Key part of the movie.
Yeah, he was a kind of take charge guy.
Right, right. Right, right. He would know. What should I do? No, he knew it.
Yeah, he knew it.
So talk us about the movie a little more. So the movie, of course. Jesus. Revolution. It's kind of the biography of Greg Laurie. So it obviously omits some things. We've you know, I think Greg and I talked a little bit about Lonnie Frisbee's story is not particularly embraced or told there.
You know, one thing I'll say about it, it's just absolutely amazing how far and wide it has spread. I mean, I've been traveling around the world crazy.
Like, I see it on movies, on on airplanes.
Yeah, I was in London last summer and I'm talking to a girl, and I used the movie to share the gospel with her because she happened to be. She stepped into Westminster Chapel, which is a church, but has a cafe. She didn't even know what it was. She just was looking for something to eat. And I said, oh, well, this is a church. And then one thing led to another in the Jesus Revolution movie came up. It's a great thing to point people to. It is.
Fascinating. It is. So what do you think about it? Because I know there were some. Yeah. And Greg was super. Right. He just basically said, yeah, I mean you fictionalize. I mean, it's based on a true story.
I saw the before it was finished. You know, we went to a showing and Greg just said to me, he goes, look, there's going to be some things here that obviously are not the way it happened, right? He just wanted me to know that he knew that.
He knew that it was. But I mean, I sort of it's based on a true story. It's not a well, here's.
Here's what I say. I think the big picture look at it is very, very accurate. I think that that is they really captured the cultural moment in the film. That's good. And then the details of, you know, like people think that Chuck's daughter is my wife. Right, right. My wife was ten years old.
I said, where was your wife in this film? And you're like.
She was ten. She was playing with Barbies. You know. Was she.
Did. She did. Was there anyone the other sister? Because I don't think so. It was just the older, older sister.
Right? Yeah. Jan. Jan, the person who played Jan was the only the.
Only the only daughter. Yeah.
So there are two, two sons and two daughters. Okay.
Right. And so, yeah, I mean, fictionalizations look like that. Yeah.
And so some of those things, it's like, okay. Yeah. You know, and I got.
To tell you, I know Greg Laurie and that dude was way better looking than Greg Laurie. So he got, he got he got the movie stars coming in to play him.
Well, you know, I'm not going to say anything.
Yeah, yeah, but it was good. He I mean I thought and I thought for I think Greg has, for what it's worth, I mean, it's become this huge movie. He just handled it well. He's looked for those opportunities and he's just it's been fascinating to sort of watch as someone who, you know, who knows Greg's heart for evangelism and more.
Greg Greg is about one thing, and that's evangelism. He's about sharing the gospel to people, and the movie is a means to do that.
Yeah. So we're going to have a reunion of a group of our pastor friends here, and you're going to take us around to the Jesus Revolution places. Have you thought about where you're going to take us around?
I'll take you to the original Calvary Chapel.
Is it still exist? Yeah, yeah.
Okay. Yeah, it's in Costa mesa.
What is it.
Now? Yeah, it's a Baha'i. Wow.
Okay. I have a weird thing for you to tell you. And then I'll let you tell the story, okay?
And then we'll go to Pirate's Cove. Yeah.
So Pirate's Cove is where the baptism you got to Pirate's Cove. So Baha'i is this weird non-Christian religion that kind of thinks it's the fulfillment of all these other religions. And if you Google religion and, you know, I'm the most common one that comes up, gets written a lot. But the other one is actually a guy named Frank Stetzer, who's a Baha'i scholar and more. And so yeah, so there you go. So Baha'i as well. Anyway, I want to continue the conversation in just a moment. We're with Brian Brodersen here and we're having a conversation. Thank you so much for K wave 179 and 111 111 0 a.m. for uh for letting us record here as well for the team doing that as well. We're very thankful for the team that's helping us out here. We're gonna continue our conversation with Brian Brodersen. Remember, we're pre-recorded so we can't take your calls, but we've got more to come on. This fascinating conversation about about Calvary Chapel Brian.
And his ministry plans.
Okay. We're back with Brian Brodersen is our guest. We're here at K wave in sunny Southern California. Okay. So we're having this little reunion of some pastor friends of ours, and you're going to take us around to the original Calvary Chapel, which is now a Baha'i temple. Yeah. Um, and that should be. Did they let you in or are we just gonna look through the windows?
Just.
No, let's get in.
It's very, very small. I don't think they'll let us in, but there's a couple of locations actually, where Calvary was. So we'll tour the the couple of other.
Holy ground, Holy.
Ground. And then one of the places that everybody would remember was the the little chapel they called it. And that's where everything really began. That's where it all exploded. That's where Love Song was discovered.
Love song. The band. Yeah.
And it's just, um, actually, it would have been. We could, we could have seen it from here, but, um, somebody purchased the property years ago and put an Alzheimer's facility there. Oh, wow. Okay. So we can drive by it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And we're going to go Pirate's Cove. We should do.
We should do.
Baptisms in Pirate.
Cove. We can baptize each other. Yeah.
No, we don't do that. Don't do that. It's one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Don't go to Israel to baptize people. You've already been baptized. Anyway, another story for another day. Do you do that, though, don't you?
We're Anabaptists, you know. We believe in another baptism.
No, no, you're not Anabaptist. You have no historical connection to Anabaptists? No. So? So. Okay, so. All right. So. So then you're experiencing all this sort of walking through all this. You go to Europe and do all this kind of go from there. Okay. So then come back to my earlier question. You come back and the movement, the Jesus People movement is not the Jesus People movement today. It's a maybe it ended in the 80s. I don't know when you say it ended right. So for me, I hear the gospel with some of the kind of leftovers from the hippies Jesus movement. It's this little touring band of charismatic Episcopalian hippies. And there's ten years after the Jesus movement, and I go to this camp and I hear the gospel, and I'm changed by the power of that gospel. But, you know, the charismatic movement, um, goes different directions. It's not in the mainline denominations anymore. So help me think about what it's like to sort of walk through seeing the waning of an explosive movement like that.
Well, it's probably.
A hard question.
Yeah. And you would know, obviously the culture changes. So the hippie thing, it I mean, by the early 80s, the hippie thing has passed. They got jobs, but it's kind of been replaced by a new generation of younger people that were sort of punk rockers, you know? We had a ton of punk rockers around here back in the early 80s, and we had the music went from sort of folk, country rock to sort of new wave, as they called it back then.
You're telling me that in your church under Chuck Smith? Yes. You had punk new wave.
I'll tell you something you should talk to. You should talk to Greg Laurie about this because Greg tells the story. It's funny because Chuck puts on a concert. There was a band called undercover, and they were kind of a punk band.
Oh, brother. They were ska.
Undercover brother was a ska. God rules. God rules. Yeah. That's them. But they were not God.
I'm googling it right now.
Ska has horns. They were punk. Okay. And or new wave. But anyway, Chuck puts on. This is in the 80s. Chuck puts on a big event at the Anaheim Convention Center, invites everybody out, and it's love song and all these people. But then he has undercover. And Greg is like, what is Chuck doing? This is ridiculous. And all of a sudden Greg realizes, oh, no, I'm like, older than you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So you gotta. I remember this like God rules.
God rules.
It was like screaming. That's not ska though. That's screaming. It was punk was punk.
Okay.
All right. I don't know.
I don't know. So anyway, again the hippie thing passed. Yes. But it kept with the as the culture changed, the the ministry changed along with it. Now there was a point. Yes. Where and I'll use this church as an example. There was a church, a point where the church just began to age, was no longer holding the, you know, big attraction to the younger generation. But that didn't even happen really until the mid to like 2010 or so around there. You know what? What happened then the things just got noticeably older. Okay. So even in the early 2000, I mean, we were doing some really great stuff around here with young people, lots and lots of young people. Um, and then, you know, think of our friend Doug Souder in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Which I guess is the largest Calvary Chapel.
It's the largest Calvary Chapel in the world. And it's still a place that's it's it's dynamite. I mean, you go there for services.
But it's also, I think, Calvary Chapel. There are great private chapels. We have friends that you mentioned, Souder. We could name ten others great chapels. But the fact is there's an explosive movement culture wide.
That's where it's missing. Right.
And that's what I'm saying. So I'm not, you know, and some people call it Third Great Awakening, but it ended. Yeah. And so I'm trying to figure out what's it like to have walked through the end of an awakening. Yeah. But you remained faithful. Continue to be a ministry.
And and I think, you know, again, walking through the end of it, I think I have never felt that so much because I've been actively engaged in ministry the whole time. You know, about my ministry in the UK. We've been together in the UK. You know, I have a festival that I'll go to this summer with thousands of young people that come to it. So I see God still moving in that way. So, you know, when you're you're kind of in a place where, yes, in the bigger picture, in the culture, there's nothing like what happened back then. But there's still things happening within the church and in proximity to the church that are that remind me of it. It's just not culture wise.
I love that, I love it because so are we going to have another culture wide awakening?
I sure hope so too. I mean, I what do we need to do? I believe.
We pray. What do we do?
You know what? Here's what I because of course it's it's sort of like in the air right now. Right? It's, you know, revival is in the air and things are happening. I mean, you know, you hear about this thing at Ohio State with all these.
Yeah, it's crazy football.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff like, you can't script this.
And we but you know, it's also we Asbury was was it two years now ago now the Asbury Outpouring thing. But but at the same time, I mean, it has to be it has to not just be Asbury and Ohio State with the Jesus People movement. It was it was everywhere.
It was everywhere. Yeah. And I think that this is my personal opinion. Some people won't agree with me on it. I think, you know, we can't focus on that. Okay. We got to focus on Jesus. Let's just focus on Jesus. Let's focus on doing what Jesus called us to do. Let's preach the gospel. Let's love our neighbor as ourself. Let's live the Christian life. Only God can do what we imagine being done and what has been done in the past. I think from my point of view, I look back at the whole thing, and this is the one thing I'm absolutely convinced of. God is responsible for that.
Yeah. It does. I mean, scholars have awakenings. Scholars of awakenings seem to say that, you know, our role is to be faithful and to be fruitful and show and share the love of Jesus. And then God then supernaturally intervenes. And that's what an awakening is. I mean, it's faithful Christians, but God blessing in a in an enormous way. Yeah. I'm also of the view, though, that our cultural moment is a lot of ways similar to the 60s, a lot of ways different, but a lot of ways similar. Everyone's the world's on fire. Yeah. I mean, the world is breaking down. And so for me, I wonder if that's going to cause.
And here's what I don't know. And maybe you would even know more better than I do on this. I because I wasn't a Christian, so I didn't know the temperature of the church. Let's say from 1960 to 1965, I was nowhere near the church. And so I didn't know anything about it. All of a sudden, what I knew is that, man, there's a lot of people talking about Jesus everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I knew. I didn't know what precipitated it. I, you know, I had no idea. I hadn't been in a church. I was in the Catholic Church, but that was a whole different story. Right?
Right. And it seems that the place of evangelism always so elevated in awakenings as well. And it's interesting because, um, there was a there's a group in Ohio and they love to study churches, and they sent out people to Calvary Chapel, Costa mesa, but also to others. They sent out people to well known churches like Willow Creek and others. And they said they said Willow Creek is a well-known church in Chicago. But what they said was is that the Calvary Chapel people they interviewed had the highest percentage of people who came to Christ from non-Christian backgrounds in the life of the church. This was an evangelism machine. Yeah. And so if we want to see an awakening, one of the ways to do is to elevate evangelism again.
Yeah. And it wasn't. Let me let me be careful about how I say this, because I'm not against preparing for evangelism, training for evangelism, all of that sort of thing. But it wasn't even that. It was just people. People who were touched by God and couldn't be quiet about it. That's what it was. And nobody had to tell me when I became a Christian. Nobody told me, now go out and evangelize here. Take an evangelism class, because you got to get out there and share the gospel.
And how would you advise people today to be the kind of evangelistic witness? What does that look like for people today?
Yeah, I think it looks different from person to person in some ways. You know, I'm very you know me well enough to know I'm I'm organic is probably not the best word, but it is a word that's descriptive for me. Natural? Organic.
You're kind of granola, you know?
Yeah, I mean, granola, you know, I have a certain personality, and I feel like the evangelism that I do is going to flow through my personality. I'm not going to have to become somebody else to be an evangelist. So I just look for opportunities to share with people wherever they come. And I encourage people to do that. Just have conversations with people that will prayerfully lead to deeper conversations about Jesus and do outreach. If you pastor a church, if you lead a ministry, be proactive. Get out there. Get get out into the places where people say, oh, you can't do that out there. Go there and watch what happens because you can do it. God will open doors for you.
Yeah. Fascinating. Are you encouraged that we might see this kind of outpouring again? Or where are you?
I am I you know, when I came back 25 years ago from Britain, I came back with a sense that the Lord said, I'm going to do I'm going to going to do that thing that you want to see done. So go back and be be preparing for it. So we've now stepped away from leading the church. But Sheryl and I are both. And this was the final message that we gave to the church on the Sunday. That was our final day. Both of us gave a prophetic word over the church that basically had to do with God's going to do. The glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former. I don't know how that's going to happen or what it's going to look like, but I believe that that's what God sent us back with, and I believe it's still coming.
We're going to take our conversation with Brian Brodersen.
In just a moment. Okay.
Brian Ferguson, I got a little excited that last segment because we two too, we share a common passion. We want to see men and women transformed by the power of the gospel. I think that's probably why I like you from the beginning. I remember when we first met. Do you remember when we first met? I did you invite me to speak at a Calvary Chapel thing?
Yeah. You spoke up at Twin Peaks, right?
Was that was that the first time? That was the.
First time we met face to face. We. I think we kind of had online meeting before that because I used to like your stuff.
On the Insta, and I was like the pastor of Calvary Chapel.
Costa mesa. You weren't.
Doing that. Yes, I was, I.
Was going, who is.
This guy? No, no, no, I love Brian Peterson. I love Brian Peterson. That's awesome. I love Cheryl Bergersen as well. She's awesome. Yeah. She's amazing okay. So let me first as we've got one final segment, let me remind you that we are a pre-recorded program. And so I'm actually here recording at the studios of K Wave in Southern California. Let me thank our guest ahead of time, Brian Brodersen, for joining me today. Also, our behind the scenes team at Moody Radio, my producer Karen Hendren, engineer Merle Saint James, and of course the team here at K-wave and Chad Kelly. And we're thankful for the good work that they're doing as well. As always, you can follow the radio program at Ed Stetzer live on all the social media, you know, Twitter, Facebook, whatever. It's all Ed Stetzer. See what's coming up as as well. Okay, so continuing our conversation, um, Jesus revolution, we can agree that this world is in need of a Jesus revolution today. Yes. Um, what might be some ways that that were regular people? I mean, again, I think part of the thing that again, keep in mind, I really like the movie. I should, I should text I watched it again the other day with my kids. Yeah, I really should text Greg and tell. Well, he probably gets enough text, but telling him that I watched it again. So I really like the movie. Um, but to those were those were really hippie people, like like, you know, they were not, uh, you know, most people listen to us. They're not walking around without shoes, without jobs, living in tents, you know? Um, so so we think of revolutionaries. We think of people who have nothing to lose. Right? But all the people in our program, they got all kinds of stuff to lose. But how can they be a revolutionary? Should they be?
Well, I mean, you know, revolutionary is a loaded term. I mean, what it's, you know, what does that mean? I heard somebody recently describe, you know, oftentimes you think of revolution as as going the opposite direction when revolution is actually coming all the way around. And I think that's what we want to do is come all the way around to, you know, we were in Oxford together, remember, and we were talking about the book of acts a lot. And we were I mean, to me, the book of acts. I've been reading it for six months straight, just once again looking at what God did in those early decades of the church and just saying, Lord, do that again. And I mean, the people back then kind of looked like the hippies, but the hippies copied them, right? So we don't have to go find people in robes and sandals. But but what I think it comes down to and you know this in the ancient world, everything that the people had hoped in and lived for, for generation after generation, had just proven to be futile. Yeah. Crushing. And I think that's we are at a moment like that, I think to some degree in the culture. So whatever people look like is irrelevant, because I think what's happening to people's hearts is that and we're seeing it. People are starting to ask questions and they're wondering, well, you know, what is life about? And so I that's where I'm encouraged. Um, but, you know, like you, I have a global vision. So I'm super excited about the Latin world. I'm excited. I'm going to El Salvador in a few weeks. I'm going to Lima, Peru.
And this is your sabbatical, where you're traveling to all these places, doing conferences and encouraging pastors. Exactly. You're really not good at sabbatical.
Well, that's restful to me.
It is restful. That's fair. I went to Oxford and did my sabbatical, and I taught a class and spoke at events. Spoke at some places with you.
Yeah. So, you know, to me, it's like, globally, I want to tap into those places where you sense every time I go to South America, I feel like everybody wants to hear the gospel.
Yeah, God's doing some great stuff.
Yeah. So. But we know that preaching the gospel is one part of it, but discipling people is another part of it. And church planting is the key to discipleship. So that's what I'm passionate about getting out there, preaching the gospel, planting more churches.
And so for you, transitioning out of the senior pastor role to the well, what is your title with CBN?
I'm the president.
You're president of the president. The king of CBN. I probably shouldn't call it that. But you're the ruler. The Moses I don't know. Yeah the I like the emperor. Emperor. That's good I like that it's subtle. It's subtle. And you're so iron fisted over that as well. Not at all. Um, so so like so when you look to the movement, church planting is going to be a key part of that. Obviously you have Bible colleges that are a key part of that as well. So what does it look like to lead a movement that's different than leading a church?
Boy, that's well, it's it's bigger.
I guess you've been doing the same thing. How long have you been the head of Global Network like since it founded.
I founded it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then before that, it used to be called, um, it was. Oh, gosh. Uh, cc. Calvary Chapel outreach fellowships way back. And then there is that other section of Calvary Chapel, which is known as CC. So I was part of the crew as well, which they, you know, they have a thousand churches as well. So, um, yeah, you know, I have been doing this basically my whole. Yeah.
So it doesn't feel like a big shift. You're just not doing the church stuff.
I'm just not doing the church thing. Exactly. And what I feel excited about is, of course, doing the global ministry and pastoring a church. I felt like the church was a lot of times getting the short end of the stick because I'm traveling and doing this, so I'm just thankful to now, okay, I'm freed up, church is covered, and I can now, without, um, feeling that additional responsibility of, oh, man, I got to get home because I because I got to, you know, I got to get back to the church. I got to be in the meetings, I got to preach and so forth. I feel like I'm freed up now to just do whatever.
It is that. Well, I'm excited to see what the Lord's going to do through you and through the global network and more and what that ultimately looks like. But let's come back to the local church level for a little bit. You know, most of our listeners, you know, it's not it's not really like I have a podcast called the Stetzer Church Leaders Podcast, which is more geared towards pastors and church leaders. This is just regular Christian folks who love Jesus, etcetera, etcetera. So, you know, they can get sometimes frustrated with their churches. They want to see movements. They want to see life change. And why should they stick and be a part of a local church? Why would that be? Why would that matter?
Yeah. Well, I think when you look at scripture, the local church is, you know, God is the one who brought the church into existence. Jesus is the head of the church, you know, universally, globally. But he's the head of a local church as well. And it's the place I have found within the church. And I know there's all there's all kinds of problems and difficulties in churches. Believe me, I know that. But I've also found in the church that this is the place where you really grow. You know, you get taught. You get to experience life with other believers. I can't tell you how many times another Christian has said something to me. They didn't even know the impact that it had. But God spoke through them to me about some aspect of my life, or I saw what they went through. So being together with the people of God is vital to growth, and I think it's also the major component in service, because you're going to serve God by serving the people around you, and you're going to get vision to go beyond that with the people that you're with, too.
Yeah, but, you know, it's hard sometimes.
Yeah. And, you know, if if it's just simply about me getting more information, that's fine. But it's called the Christian life. It's not, you know, it's not compartmentalized into just learning more about the Bible and about God. It's about experiencing God. And you experience God in the context, not exclusively in the context of the church and his people, but that is a major part of it.
The community does deeply matter for sure. The community a lot. So yeah. Okay, so so exhortation to Christians. We want to pray for revival. We want to pray for Jesus Revolution again. What might it look like for me just in my prayer life?
Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, revival can start with us. And I would just say in our prayer life, you know, Lord, revive me, here I am. I've just transitioned out of 43 years of doing this pastoral thing, and I'm at a place where I'm saying, okay, Lord, I'm at a new season. Would you show me what you have for me? And I would just encourage every Christian to do that. Lord, here's my life. Um, what do you want to do to do with my life? This is what I've been doing. This is what I am doing. Lord, do you have a different plan? You know, just being open to what God might want to do. I just did a memorial service for a dear, dear friend who passed away. Suddenly, uh, cancer came up and took him very quickly. 80 years old. But at 62, he left a very, very lucrative job in the corporate world. And he went to the mission field, and he spent the rest of his life there. And, you know, a lot of times people say, oh, well, you know, I'm too old. I don't think I can do anything like that. Oh, you'd be surprised at what you could do and what God could do through you if you just give yourself over to him and just say, Lord, my life is yours, and do with me as you will.
Brian Brodersen, thanks for taking the time to have a conversation with us on Ed Stetzer Live. We appreciate you. We appreciate the Calvary Global Network and look forward to what the Lord's going to do.
Appreciate you too, my friend.