Cultivate (verb)
- To prepare for growth
- To acquire or develop a quality or skill
We engage, equip, and empower churches to plant the next generation of churches. We believe that the local church is the garden in which church planters are cultivated.
Trellis (noun)
- A structure to support plants.
Personal
Every church planter is unique, and our assessment helps to identify and leverage your strengths, and recognize targeted areas for growth. You’ll receive personalized mentoring from an experienced pastor in the context of a local church, and coaching from specialists who are called to support church planters.
Pastoral
You will be nurtured and cared for as you are mentored to pastor others. We will make sure that you receive robust theological training, learn to be a more effective Bible teacher; and we will ensure you are equipped to care for God’s people.
Practical
Built upon a rich history of the Calvary Chapel movement, you’ll receive practical training to prepare you to lead a gospel-centered community in your current context or in proximity to the area where God is calling you to plant.
You complete our brief prospective planter questionnaire, provide references, and later complete the Lifeway Church Planter Candidate Assessment. This will help us to have a holistic picture of relative strengths to maximize, and areas of development to address during training. Also, a later detailed assessment will ensure your theological, philosophical, and practical preparation.
The duration is 6-24 months depending on your prior experience and training. We help cultivate the character, skills, and knowledge necessary to fulfill your calling to lead, teach, and serve through personal mentoring and online resources, including those from our collaboration with Western Seminary’s Center for Leadership Development. You’ll learn who should plant, why we need healthy gospel-centered communities, and how to plant. You’ll be taught the practical lessons you’ll need to be an effective church planter. You’ll learn core values that have been part of Calvary Chapel’s DNA, with direct interaction with seasoned practitioners and leaders, including Brian Brodersen, Rod Thompson, Wayne Taylor, and others.
Gatherings
Regional in-person and online gatherings encourage, equip, and engage church planters. Together we forge healthy relationships that promote healthy planters and churches, and foster a culture of church planting.
Support
Post-Launch Support: You will continue to receive support as you begin to plant. During the first year you’ll receive at least one post-launch support meeting every 1-2 months, and an in-person visit. In the second year you’ll receive at least one support meeting every quarter, and an in-person visit.
We determine funding on a case by case basis. Every situation is unique and will be assessed by our team. Nevertheless our commitment is to help support you so that you can support others.
CGN will invest time, talent, and treasure resources to help support committed planters advance the gospel. We seek to invest resources with planters who are committed to supporting future CGN church planters by committing one percent (1%) of their church budget to the CGN mission. We prioritize funding where there is great need for new gospel-centered, Bible-teaching churches.
Take the assessment to help ensure that you are equipped with a robust understanding of theology, philosophy of ministry, Bible teaching, practical pastoral ministry training, and your gifts.
Being a mentor to a church planter is as rewarding as it is enriching. Cultivate mentors participate in the great commission by coming alongside prospective church planters to help them fulfill their calling.
Coaches provide the highest level of expertise to work with many different candidates, mentors, and churches implementing the overall vision and strategy of Cultivate.
Nick Cady is the lead pastor of White Fields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado. He holds an M.A. in Integrative Theology from London School of Theology. Prior to moving to Colorado, Nick spent 10 years in Hungary as a missionary, pastor and church planter with Calvary Chapel.
Nick has a heart for the mission of God through the Church, and prior to leading the Cultivate team, was involved in equipping and training church planters in the US and Europe.
For the past twenty years Brian has been involved in church planting and mission work in East Africa, New Zealand, and the United States. Brian has a passion for planting churches and has hands-on experience seeing churches grow from the ground up. Brian has been involved in five church plants, and has been a sending pastor for dozens more. He is a graduate of Calvary Chapel Bible College, and the founder of the CCBC campus in East Africa. Currently, Brian is planting a new church in Florida, where he lives with his beautiful wife Lynne and their three children.
Raised in a Jewish home, Bruce came to faith in Christ as Messiah over 30 years ago. He and Karen, his lovely bride have been married since 1991, and are blessed by their sons Joshua and Jonathan. Bruce taught at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa’s School of the Bible, and is a graduate of CCCM’s School of Ministry. He has been an ordained pastor for near 30 years, and was an attorney for 25 years. In 1996 he planted Calvary Nexus in Camarillo, Ca. where he continues to serve as teaching pastor. Bruce is the author of 17 books, and has directed the Calvary Church Planting Network [CCPN] a global church planting initiative.
Ed is the lead pastor at Shoreline Calvary in Morro Bay, California. Previously he served as a church planter and trainer of church planters in Nairobi, Kenya and in the process helped establish several churches in Kenya and Tanzania. Returning from the field, Ed served with Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators helping churches send their missionaries well. His passion is to see the fame of Jesus spread in His local church.
Kyle Curry is the lead and founding pastor of The Table Fellowship. Born and raised in southern CA, Kyle truly started walking with the Lord in September of 2007 and immediately desired to serve Him in any way He could. He was a youth and young adults pastor for 11 years, operations pastor for several years, and has a true love for people getting discipled and poured into. Back in 2018 the Lord put church planting on His heart, and after a year and a half of praying and planning, his family moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee the beginning of 2020 to be obedient to the Lord’s calling. He and his wife, Sarah, are high school sweethearts, they have been married since 2007. They have three wonderful kids, Bella, Lynlee, and Judah.
Originally from the island of Mallorca, pastor Rafael became a Christian in the USA and attended Calvary Chapel Bible College in Austria. He then served with pastor Brian Brodersen in a church plant in London, where he met his wife, Loretta. They sensed the Lord leading them to move to Mallorca in 2001 and took over the pastorate of SPCC in 2002. They opened a Calvary Chapel Bible College affiliate campus in 2005, and they trained many students and interns in love for the Word and service in local churches and the mission field for ten years. They continue to serve the church and their community with a desire to introduce people to Jesus to help them grow in Him and equip them for joyful service to and for Him. They are also working on a long-standing vision to open a Christian school on the island.
Manolo Matos is part of the Executive Team at Calvary Global Network and serves as the Lead Pastor of Calvary Lima in the South American city of Lima, Perú. Manolo was born and raised in Lima and met his wife Holly during their time studying together at Calvary Chapel Bible College in Perú. They are now parents to Macy and Isaac and are leading a thriving community of believers. With over a decade of pastoral experience, Manolo looks forward to helping raise the next generation of church planters and leaders and provides a unique perspective for those looking to do ministry in Latin America.
Terry came to know Christ through a street evangelist in Los Angeles during the Jesus movement. He married his wife, Christy, in 1980. They moved to Palm Springs where they discovered Calvary Chapel. Terry’s career in radio soon took them to the Inland Empire where they attended Calvary Chapel San Bernardino. It wasn’t long before Terry became the youth pastor. In 1995 Terry moved his family to Germany where he and his wife served at Calvary Chapel Siegen. In 1997 they relocated to Texas and planted Calvary Chapel of the Springs in San Marcos. In 2009 Terry was asked to serve as pastor at Calvary Austin. Terry has authored several books including “Pain In The Offering: Hoping and Coping in a World of Hurt”. Terry uses his experiences with chronic pain and childhood trauma to speak hope into the lives of others.
Joe Paskewich got saved at the tail end of the Jesus Movement while bouncing around the USA homeless and a vagabond. Having never heard the gospel, immediately upon conversion he felt the call to return to his native New England and tell his friends about Jesus. Through personal witnessing, concert promotion, and leading Bible Studies, Calvary Chapel in Eastern Connecticut was formed, now a multi-site congregation. Joe has been a pastor for nearly forty years, a church planter, missions mobilizer, disaster relief organizer, Police Chaplain, Bible School teacher, husband, father, and grandfather. Joe believes the revival he was swept up in will happen again.
Shaun Sells has been pastoring for nearly 30 years, 24 of which have been at Calvary Chapel in Cheyenne Wyoming. Shaun loves teaching the scriptures, teaching others to teach the scriptures and helping other pastors think through and process how they are doing ministry. Shaun has been led by God to step aside as the Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Cheyenne July of 2024 so that he can focus on pastoring pastors.
Cultivate + CGN have created resources to help equip you to prepare to plant, pastor, launch + lead better. In addition, you’ll find resources available from others whom we respect and
recommend.
