The CGN Podcast

Get ready for season four of the Mission and Methods podcast! Host Nick Cady and the CGN Team will be bringing you exclusive interviews with members of the CGN executive team, diving into their roles, passion, vision, and personal history. You'll get to know these dynamic leaders and hear about the unique ways they are furthering the Kingdom and inspiring others within the network.

Get an inside look at the heart and soul of CGN, and gain insights and inspiration from those who are making a real difference. 

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Pastor Ray Ortlund is the president of Renewal Ministries and serves as a pastor to pastors from his home base at Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. A friend of Calvary Global Network, Ray spoke at the 2022 CGN International Conference on the topic of building and fostering gospel-centered culture in our churches.

In this second bonus episode, and the final episode of Season 3, we have Pastor Ray’s message from the conference, as well as a special interview, in which Pastor Brian Brodersen speaks with Ray about his experience in ministry and why he sees such a need for developing gospel culture in our churches.

If you liked what you heard in the bonus episodes this season, then consider attending the next CGN International Conference — which will be held at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa from June 25-28, 2023.

We are currently planning the next season of the podcast. Make sure you are subscribed so you will be notified when those new episodes are posted in early 2023.

Thanks for listening, and God bless you!

In this, the first of two bonus episodes as we close out this season, we have the opening message from the 2022 CGN International Conference, in which Nick Cady shares on how to create a “gospel culture” in our churches.

In the midst of that message, we have a special interview with Cheryl Brodersen, in which she talks about the culture of the Jesus People Movement and the early days of Calvary Chapel.

Cheryl leads the Joyful Life Women’s Ministry at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. She is the wife of Pastor Brian Brodersen and the daughter of Pastor Chuck Smith, which gives Cheryl a unique perspective, having had a front row seat for all that God has done through the Calvary Chapel Movement and CGN from the beginning.

Cheryl shares some insights from the history of Calvary Chapel about how to not only create, but also maintain a gospel culture in our churches.

Stay tuned for the next (and final) bonus episode, featuring a message and a conversation with Pastor Ray Ortlund.

In the New Testament we see how, as the gospel spread, new churches were established as hubs for discipleship and carrying out God’s mission in a local area. But is there still a need for new churches today?

In this final episode of Season 3, Nick Cady speaks with the Core Team of the Cultivate Church Planter Training Program, an initiative of CGN which has developed a local-church based program to assess, train, deploy, and care for leaders who will spearhead new church plants around the world.

The members of the Cultivate Core Team believe that the world needs more gospel-centered churches, and in this episode they talk about why there is a need for more churches, as well as some common mistakes that church planters and sending churches can make, and some proven methods for helping new church plants succeed. Finally, they discuss how Cultivate works, and how people can get connected.

Listen for a clip from Pastor Chuck Smith on the topic of church planting.

The Cultivate Core Team is: Nick Cady, Kellen Criswell, Brian Kelly, and Bruce Zachary. More information about Cultivate can be found at cultivatechurchplanting.com

Send us your feedback on these episodes at [email protected]

Expositors Collective is an organization that hosts training events and provides resources to help people grow as Bible teachers and preachers of God’s Word. Recently, Expositors Collective came into formal relationship with CGN.

Teaching, according to the Bible, is a Spiritual gift, and it is also a skill which can be developed and improved. What is the relationship between the spiritual gifting of teaching, and the responsibility to steward that gift by doing your best to make sure you are rightly dividing and effectively communicating the "Word of Truth"?

As Christians, we all engage with the Bible at some level, so even if someone isn’t preaching sermons on Sunday mornings, they will likely have many opportunities to share Biblical truth and wisdom with others. For this reason, it is important for us to grow in both our private study and our public proclamation of God’s Word.

In this episode, Nick Cady speaks with Kellen Criswell and Mike Neglia about the history of Expositors Collective and what are some of the unique elements of it, as well as how Expositors Collective works with CGN in our mission to Proclaim the Gospel, Make Disciples, and Plant Churches.

Listen for a clip from Pastor Chuck Smith about sermon preparation and how it works together with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. 

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]

In Acts 20:26 Paul the Apostle tells the leaders of the Ephesian church that he innocent of their blood because, during his time in Ephesus, he taught them “the whole counsel of God’s Word.” What does it mean to teach the whole counsel of God’s word, and how can we be sure we are doing this in our churches?

One of the core values of CGN is biblical literacy. In this episode, Nick Cady speaks with Kellen Criswell to discuss what CGN is doing to promote biblical literacy and to encourage the teaching of “the whole counsel of God’s Word.”

As part of this discussion, they talk about biblical theology and Christ-centered hermeneutics, as they discuss the importance of teaching every part of the Bible in relation to the big story that all of the Bible together tells.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]

Since one of the roles of CGN as a network is to provide care and coaching for those in ministry leadership, what is CGN doing to support women specifically, who are serving in ministry leadership?

In this episode Nick Cady and Kellen Criswell are joined by Brenda Leavenworth, who leads the Women’s Care and Coaching Team for CGN. They discuss some of the unique challenges that women face when it comes to serving in ministry, and what CGN is doing to provide resources and support to meet those needs.

They discuss some of the ways that women can be involved in leading in the local church within a complementarian framework, and Brenda shares some stories of ways in which this team has helped women, as well as how those listening can connect with what is being provided.

Resources mentioned in this episode -

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]

One of the things CGN exists to do, is to provide care and coaching for those in ministry leadership. How do we help people to avoid burnout? How do we help those who are struggling with very difficult things, either in ministry or on a personal level?

This past July, we partnered with Cross Culture Missions to put on a conference specifically for those in our network who have been involved in providing aid and relief on the ground, since the war began in Ukraine. 

Using some of the resources and relationships God has provided us with, we were able to minister to these families at our conference center in Austria.

The following conversation is a "Field Report," recorded at that conference, between some CGN leaders and good friends, discussing what was unique about this conference, and sharing and celebrating God’s work through Calvary Chapel in Europe over the past four decades.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]

What does CGN believe about the nature, purpose, and destiny of the church, both locally and globally? What constitutes a church, and what role do churches, and “the church” as a whole, have to play in God’s mission in the world? Furthermore, what models of church government can be found in CGN churches?

In this episode, Nick Cady speaks with Kellen Criswell about CGN’s beliefs about ecclesiology. They talk about the “Moses Model” and other forms of church government, as well as questions of contextualization in different cultural settings.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]

One of the phrases you might hear us use to describe who we are and what we’re about as Calvary Global Network, is the phrase: “Gospel-Centered Renewal.” For example, on our website, we describe ourselves as “a family of churches working together for gospel-centered renewal.” But what do we mean by that? What is “renewal” - and what makes “Gospel-centered renewal” unique?

In this episode, Nick Cady speaks with Kellen Criswell about the biblical basis of this phrase, what it means — and how it applies to different areas of life and ministry.

Listen for a clip from Pastor Chuck Smith, where he expresses his views on this topic as well.

We’d love to hear feedback from you on these episodes. You can email us at [email protected]