From the Archives | Chuck Smith: Man of Impact Part 2

Everybody Greg Laurie here.

You're listening to the glory podcast and my objective is to deliver hopefully compelling practical insights and faith culture and current events. From a biblical perspective to find out more about our ministry. Just go to our website harvest.org so thanks for joining me for this podcast of Pastor Greg Laurie has the opportunity to interview Pastor Chuck Smith, founding pastor of the Calvary Chapel network of churches now.

Pastor Chuck has been a mentor reviewers for many years and it all started on his front porch when you're a teenager, you really did Dave.

I was 17 years old I was newly converted that was attending the church word. Chuck is the pastor Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and he did this sermon one Sunday morning on John four with the woman at the well, you know where Jesus said to her. If you drink of this water you'll thirst again but if you drink of the water. I give you'll never thirst again so II had this idea for a cartoon strip. No understand that my background is graphic design. The pretty much throughout my childhood I was a cartoonist I was submitting my cartoons to a various publication Summit already been published to me my whole goal in life was to be a professional cartoonist and so when I heard this message. It kind of went through the filter of my cartoonist brain, if you will, and I reinterpreted it and made little booklet out of it or is it our track as we sometimes call them and II called living waters on the cover of the words living water in and as you open it up.

There's a little cartoon character. He's got a hole in his heart, and he's trying to fill with various things and in the end, like waters coming out of his heart and so I was in high school still at the time and then my art class.

The assignment was draw cartoon strip will for me that's easiest thing I could do. I did it all the time but I thought I would illustrate Pastor Chuck sermon on the woman at the well and so I came up with this living water truck and I decided after it was done I went to go show Chuck and I found out where he lived, and I knocked on the front door and he opens it up there.

I'm standing before hello Chuck I'm Greg Laurie and I'm a cartoonist and I go to school.

You're not far from your house and I do this little booklet called living water and I showed it to him and he was looking it over and I saw little smile.

Come on his face and he said Greg I really like this and Chuck get the idea of taking this little booklet in printing it out and so he said why don't you redraw it again but do it in this size format know will make them in the little booklets and hand them out and so I went back and redrew it and brought it back to him and then it was printed. I think they did 10,000 the first time out and then maybe 100,000.

The second timeout. By the time it was all done the work well over a million of those crazy little things that went all around the world, but that was my first meeting with pastor Chuck Smith. But what I saw from the very beginning was this is a guy who envision this is a guy who wanted to reach my generation. You know I was young at the time he wanted to reach us in a way that we understood and speak in our language and I think that's a great quality for any leader to have is we want to continue to reach the next generation absolutely was going to listen to this rare personal interview with pastor Chuck Smith is Pastor Greg you know I think the people to know about you, Chuck is on you that a lot of ups and downs in life you because you're such an optimistic person on people may think oh he's had a really happy life and really what we talked about so far as been really happy life. I know Raven born in Ventura living around the beach and great times and open but you've had your hard times as well. You know, not all of your churches were successful people think of Chuck Smith.

Dr. cover Chapel huge church head of a movement, etc. but when you were in Corona. Your attendance fell from 57 to 26 so you better discouragement. But I member I was with you in Hawaii once we were going to harvest to see their member and we were one night in and all of a sudden we get called early in the morning.

There's a hurricane coming hurricane in the and they're telling us that this and this was in the wake of hurricane Andrew which had devastating effects. There and and so I Dennis I get Jeannie and was there any somebody. I saw the ruin from routine. Andrew you gotta scrub your family on the post and hold on and I was getting all worked up and I went into a panic and I wanted to town.

Everything was closed. I went to subway about 20 sandwiches.

I don't really know what I would've done with 20 sandwiches but I know I go over to where you're staying. We had little place right next to each other and you're just in this do here is calm as can be and we all cannot calm down and then I recall, we had a little tennis candidates that it rated how can you be calm okay will use that as a metaphor that was a little hurricane but your calm in the middle of a lot of storms and that will give a talk about the storm you're in right now, but in your book, a memoir of grace you write. Quote grace does not shield the cruel realities of the world damaged by the fall were not in heaven yet and God does not spare us from the crushing blows that come to everyone we lose people we love. We suffer, we grieve, we journey on but were not abandoned and Chuck is an unimaginable tragedy happened to you when your father and your brother were killed in a plane crashes where were you when you heard that news and how did you react to such a horrific thing will my brother had started the motorcycle shop at the Victorville and he had a plane and my dad went up to my dad and retired and went up to help them because my dad was sharp in business and accounting and all and so they were going to fly on down to Orange County and the from Victorville and my brothers plane.

It was a stormy night and so I we went out to the Orange County airport to pick them up and figured not the intended beat me there and they did it show if we waited an hour and became a little apprehensive so we went on home. We were living in Huntington Beach at the time and the we got the call from them and they were of my brother had just gotten his license and really wasn't that familiar with clay, but he got on the wrong vector and it blended in San Diego rather than Orange County and so they were going to refuel and fly up to Orange County and so we went back out to the airport but that storm they came right into the center of the storm just in the plane was a small plane and it just had run out of fuel when they were over a central free area and that they crashed it down there and they both were killed in the crash and so you know it was an interesting thing that was extremely hard for me to handle because it was so sudden you not prepare for and are not ready for.

And it's a shock that just really hit you right to know in the guts and so I had a hard hard time. I would after that dream that might dad and brother. We did a lot of things together that an overly and I would be so excited in my dream you know that here we are having a great time waterskiing or whatever and then you wake up to the reality you know they're not there in a minute, which is so hard. Took me a long time to actually you'll get over that.

But to out with my mom who I was really closer to then my dad would get when she went that she had been ill for a while and it was easier to let her go, though I was closer to her, because you know you realize will no more pain than an inland bed. Of course after my dad and brother she'd lost her will to live. Actually, because that was all that she had at home and so it was that it was a hard experience but yet the Lord was with us and I actually did the funeral service for the I'm sure it's giving you greater compassion only seen a Billy Graham said got this and comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters and anything a comforter to so many. When our son Christopher was killed in an automobile accident. You weren't the kingdom my home and we sat and talked and I remember one thing that you said to me, that was one of the most hopeful things of all you said never trade what you do know for what you don't know and I think and I don't want you know you can explain it but my understanding was what do I know will I know that God loves me. I know that my son love the Lord. I know he's in heaven. I know because I put my faith in Christ all be in heaven someday and I'll be reunited with them and I don't know why the South and the only right we don't know why your father and your brother were killed in that horrible accident and there's just unanswerable question spent time in a for somebody. Maybe that that is watching this or sharing this. Maybe this is just happened.

You know they just lost a loved one unexpectedly.

What would you say to them willing again. Don't give up what you know for what you don't have because the question is always why in on that question on chewing and make you crazy trying to figure out why did this happen and so forth.

But I don't know why but what I do know is you know that God is good and God loves me and God's working out his perfect plan in my life and so I'm just content, but that you said many times that whatever we go through is preparation for something out through everything that you want to even your failures in church and in other areas that you know prepared you for unbelievable success was to, who would've ever dreamed that through you would play a role and I think now that we have some years of the past but we can look back objectively at the Jesus of them. Call it what it was. It was a genuine full-blown revival the street and I think most historians pretty much agree with this you what was happening.

We in him. Maybe I least I didn't know what it was. You probably had a much better perspective. But God used you in a revival, but I want to talk a little bit about what happened at Calvary Chapel and and and how God was getting you ready did the Lord come due one morning and you know maybe the Mission impossible theme song began to play in the voice interview hello Charles wordsmith, should you decide to accept this mission, you know, if not this cassette tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds, or if you consent to because of the technology of the day I'm referring to mission impossible but you didn't get a know was coming that you know I surely didn't so you're pastoring these different churches your most successful of the church. The date was Corona, California. Things are really cranking but you get this invitation to come to Costa Mesa to a fledgling little congregation called Calvary Chapel. I don't think he was real excited about it but you said I feel this is what the Lord wants me to do right very interesting how that worked out because basically you know that that's the gist of the story. This was the second time that we were in Corona and a group of guys out there that said, you know, how about starting an independent church with a seared crone, and I've been with the denomination for many years and I wasn't really happy you didn't really fit and so the opportunity to start an independent church was very exciting to me and so we went out to Corona. We had a home in Newport Beach and we had lease that Alton.

We will now not to Corona and of we bought a brand-new home in Corona in the new subdivision and the it was just really great and God is blessing the church was just greedy growing like everything in just, you know, just sort of the dream fulfilled yet. It was interesting because the fellow who had been in the church that I pastored in Huntington Beach was going to this little church, Calvary Chapel and the he was saying you know who are pastors resigning and we need a pastor to take over and why don't you know, there'd think about coming on down and I said well you know I've always liked living down in that area and so I would know prayerfully consider it and so I started praying about it and I mentioned it to Kay and she said you gotta be kidding. You know we got this new home out here and the church is growing. People love you here. Why in the world would you even think of going down enough there to that little church down there and I civil honey, all I said was I was going to pray about.

I didn't say it was indigo.

She said you don't have to bring about something you know that God wouldn't call you. You know to go deciding like that when these blessing the ministry here and I civil honey I just said I would pray and so we really couldn't talk about it but this is the negotiating were talking earlier with the marriage and the successful long marriage is little give-and-take there so I was teaching a Bible study done here in the holding Costa Mesa and the good people in the Bible study were encouraging me to come on down and the idea went home from the Bible study that I had here in Costa Mesa. Got home about midnight and keyed was up and she met me at the door, which had never happened before that I have a good night in the and the silhouette I could tell that she been crying and I said are the kids okay you know the kids alright and she said yeah and I civil you been crying said yes I civil but what what what is it she civil the Lord's been speaking to me and I civil but see telling you and she said he is telling me that you are the husband.

Then you are the one that is the minister and you are the one that has to listen to the Lord about the ministry and of the Lord is calling you. I can't really stand in the way I've got to submit to you in this and I said oh, honey, that's great, because I said at the at the class tonight. They were pressing me to see that I would make the decision to come undone and so I she said don't talk to me.

Don't tell me anything about I don't hear it I'm not. I didn't say I was ready to move. Submit resume any further than that. And so she did submit an we came on down and she is spending the rest is history. And let's get by and let's give Kate her know her word just do case men I think is the unsung hero of the Jesus movement. What I mean everyone knows about your role in and another fellow wouldn't talk about the moment but but Kate, your wife had a hard to burden. I should say these hippie kids and there you guys live there would be little you know hippie kids that would want back and forth in front of your house and they were on drugs and she prayed for them and you know what I told her.

Years later when I found it where you live as a KI was one of those kids.

I literally is this kid that I knew we used to go get high in this house and we would walk right by your house within the legal work and your wife was praying for us and in the Lord give you this burden, but she didn't know any hippies, so your daughter Jan I met a genuine hippie named John and he hooked you up with with the super hippie Lonnie Frisbee through and got some people it maybe heard Lonnie's name and and Lonnie was an unusual character I've never met anyone like him. Lonnie was a guy was preaching when I came to faith in my high school campus, but money to me in many ways, a sort of like he was nitrile your glycerin, you know, the two of you were an explosive combination and I think kids came for Lonnie but the state forget it. You sustain things, you know, because Lonnie came he had a powerful ministry in and then he moved in a different direction. He was only there was sort of almost like the guy that got used to help exploding this movement because he had as a Christian then and so I'm I'm sort of just running ahead, but tell us a little bit of your reflections on Lonnie Frisbee and the role he played in the Jesus movement, a Calvary Chapel. Well, of course, as you mentioned the our daughter was in her first year of college and our sons were both in high school at the time at Harvard I and the so it was, you know that's the thing that really cause K real concern because all of these hippies and the Syrians.

Such a use of drugs and free use of drugs, of course, the drug of the time was that acid and help you know it would. The kids were getting high in and of course she just was concerned for her own children and the just kept saying you know we gotta reach these kids there. They just need the Lord honey and ice and other dirty hippies and on they need a bath in a good she No pressing well.

She said them would would to reach them somehow we gotta reach them well when Jen started going with John. He was in a hippie been straightened up the was going to Bible college and that 30 met him. It's on the California college.

There and so he was little short hair and cleaned up kid and we didn't know his background, but then when we started immediately when Lonnie came in and then he showed his his drivers license and he had the long hair. The whole thing and we reserve shock, but he was he was a real soul winner. He will was driving down Fairview Pass Orange Coast College, and he saw this hippie kid hitchhiking in it whenever he saw them hitchhiking a victim.

That's a good witness to them about the Lord and so he picked up his get started with the Stoneman, he said, were you going is that not going anywhere, is that I just hitchhiked so I can witness to ever picks me up and telephonic friend that was Lonnie Frizzell and Silva. He said well I is a guided I need to introduce you to met you. That was me and how he bothers them over the house and the he reached out his hand and introduce any redundant firm grip and you and you know that he had a charisma to immune on and so we invited them in and we sat down and talked in life and he actually then moved into the house and was living there for a couple weeks and they bring kids over to baptize them in our doughboy pool in the backyard and the and and you introduce them to your nonmajor congregation Calvary Chapel. You're doing a series on the end time and I was growing and you bring Lonnie in and you have him share with his wife, Connie, and now kids are coming, the young hippies are coming the coverage up of this is something nobody else was doing as you yourself the been very candid about the fact that you were, you know, resist the first the dirty hippie graduate you open your heart, you overcame your prejudices and let the kids in embracing these crazy kids show up with guitars and they've written these songs.

One of them was serving time in jail in the weekend and they call themselves lump sums on right and you let them go on the platform and sing for your congregation is and what was happening was an explosion in over a whole new genre of music right was being born really contentedly Christian music for contemporary praise and worship was about to be born in the wake of that. So Calvary Chapel just was an overnight wasn't known know when you when would you pinpoint it historically like what your when you said you would say this is what was really starting to take off.

Well actually about in 1970. I would say that have to.

We we had to move. We are little church on Church St. in Costa Mesa. We outgrew it so we had to find another place to have services and so we actually thought that we were going to get a lot over on Church Street from Theodore Robbins for their they had an extra lot we were going to buy it and build our church there and the so we went to the city and they looked at the plans and said this looks good, but then I when we went before the planning commission.

They simply don't have enough parking and so you know you gotta provide offstreet parking and so the neighbors and that were there when they heard that the prices of the lots are the houses all went up and so we just couldn't afford it. And so we just had to back out of that one. But in the meantime, when sold or little church on Church Street and so what we had to go to figure out a place to move and so we know that the Lutheran Church on the bluff was actually a going to build a new church and so we went down to the pastor and we made arrangements that the state had bought they were going to put a freeway through there in the state about the property and so they we knew they were going to move and so we made arrangements with the state and with them that when they moved out at least make a move in for a little while until the property was in a use for the freeway, there were gonna put down below 1 Pacific Coast Hwy. and so it was an interesting thing because we were going to use in the meantime, of course we had to move and so we made arrangements with the Lutheran Church to meet in the day. Afternoons on Sunday and so as the Dwight Moody said never have Sunday afternoon meetings.

The people are full of belief and unbelief and you know it's just not a good time to have a meeting so we thought well you know we've been growing in the Lord's been blessing and so we can just maintain during this time the Tilden Lutherans moved out we could take over the building completely and we just maintain and then when we can go back to regular services. We can get start expanding again about the while we were there in the Lutheran Church we actually began to outgrow it and the people were sitting in the choir loft upstairs, and so forth and so it was at that time that we brought the that little country school out in Greenville, Inver right off of Fairview and that's you know we started then building our own church because we didn't have room in the Lutheran Church anymore so and that's where we that's when I came I came in 1970 and that I walked in that little country church that's made by LOL no way 1972. Critics were saying. Well this whole Jesus movement is over with. But it was just getting started. Because now, sort of like a subtle ways that the first wave explosion at your church on a whole new kind of music, praise and worship courses.

Well guess what you guys are getting safe and there feeling called to serve the Lord so guy name while reading Sue's a martial arts expert goes and starts a Bible study in his dojo worries teaching students guy named Jeff Johnson goes up to Downey another guy name Mike McIntosh goes down that San Diego was Steve Mays off the South Bay and on the list goes in and I went off to Riverside and you know sometime when these little Bible studies, Gruen all of a sudden John Corson to Oregon and in before you know it, we we have churches sprouting up and next thing you know they're big churches and next thing you know there's 30 there's 40 there's 100. There's 200 now there's 1400 churches that is in the US occurs when you look at the midline just even more much more everybody Greg Laurie here.

Thanks for listening to our podcast in the learn more about harvest ministries. Please subscribe and consider supporting this show. Just go to harvest.org. By the way, if you want to find out how to come into a personal relationship with God. Go to know God.org that's Cano W GLD.org