Calvary Bible Institute (CBI)—Part 2
Preparing Students for Future Leadership Roles
Story by Kathy Symborski
Photos by Tom Price
This is Part 2 of a three-part story about the Calvary Bible Institute (CBI) in Yucca Valley, CA. Today we explain how CBI prepares its students for future leadership roles.
Follow this series… Part 1: Examines the need for senior pastors to raise up and nurture younger leadership. Part 3 Discusses the transformation that occurs in CBI students through the Holy Spirit and the dynamics of a successful senior pastor/assistant pastor relationship.
Jerel Hagerman encourages Calvary Bible Institute (CBI) student Angel Wilson after a men’s study. Zach Kullberg and Josh Gray pray together in the background. Jerel is the senior pastor of Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel and president of CBI, both in Yucca Valley, CA.
Ready to Teach
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2
Students at CBI learn the entire Bible through expository teaching. Using a wide-margin NKJV Bible, they keep notes that are always readily available. Jerel Hagerman, senior pastor of Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel (JSCC) and CBI’s president, noted the importance of this practice: “When I have an entire Bible with commentary notes written in the margin, any place I am with any bit of time, I can bring a message from it.”
Student Angel Wilson throws everything into his opportunity to teach a Bible study. .
Throughout the program—and pronounced at every CBI graduation—is the reminder to be “ready in season and out of season.” Adam Everhart, JSCC’s finance administrator and assistant to Pastor BJ Huether, affirmed, “I went to Bible college a long time ago and was taught to always have a sermon ready.” Adam fills in for BJ many Sunday and Wednesday nights, but his first opportunity to step into Pastor Jerel’s shoes was July 1, 2020, the first Sunday that California banned indoor worship. “It was Communion Sunday. Jerel and BJ were both gone, and it was like young kids running the show. It was nerve-wracking for sure,” he reminisced, “but because I am immersed in God’s Word, teaching every chance I get, and always having that back pocket sermon, I knew it would be awesome. Anytime you open God’s Word, people will be blessed.”
(Learn about a missions school training and equipping young men and women in full-time, cross-cultural missions in order to send them to reach the unreached people of the world from one of our sponsors, Calvary School of Missions) 
CBI director and administrator David Enos and his wife, Haley, sing during Wednesday service. Haley was a student when they met and now helps with administrative duties.
Practical Ministry
The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:9
A typical CBI student’s day is about 12 hours, filled with in-person expository teaching, listening to CC founder Chuck Smith’s sermons, practical ministry application, and servanthood opportunities. Everyone has Saturday off and ministers a half-day on Sunday. On Wednesdays and Sundays, students attend the first service and then minister in all areas of the church during second service.
Zach Kullberg questions Pastor Dave Shepardson from CC Nuevo, CA, after class.
The women’s ministry at JSCC and the senior pastor’s wife, Merrily, are also involved with the CBI students. Female students are educated to lead Bible studies, to be discussion leaders at events, and to serve in women’s ministries. “We have an entire group of girls who can teach a ladies’ Bible study and be fantastic!” beamed Pastor Jerel.
During his time at CBI, Frankie Ortega taught children’s church on Sunday mornings. “I felt very nervous at first, but I would teach through the same place in the Bible that Jerel was; that way parents and children were on the same page and could talk about it later as a family.” This experience equipped him for where the Lord has placed him, as youth minister at The Springs Calvary Chapel in Heyburn, ID. Frankie and his wife Jasmine were the first married couple admitted to CBI and graduates of the first class in 2018.
CBI students take multi-colored notes on a wide-margin Bible so they can lead a lesson from any chapter they might be called to teach.
Jasmine Ortega revealed, “I was invited to teach at the women’s conference at Calvary Chapel Playas de Tijuana. I was excited but also very nervous because I didn’t speak Spanish. I’ve never spoken through a translator before; I had to learn to slow down, so it was challenging. It was incredible to see God be faithful to reach the women with the power of His Word through a willing vessel who didn’t even speak the language.” Jasmine now serves in the children’s and youth ministry at The Springs Calvary Chapel with her husband Frankie.
Students are given numerous opportunities to apply what they learn: working sound, helping in a coffee house, assisting in children’s or youth ministry, feeding 500 ladies at a women’s conference, or organizing a Vacation Bible School (VBS) from start to finish.
CBI student Justo Lucero plans a game for Wednesday night youth. The children love being around the CBI students.
Jordan Henry was selected as room leader at VBS during the summer of 2020. The responsibility of turning her room into a different scene each day called for creativity, resourcefulness, and vision from God. She proclaimed, “I had no supplies and was completely unprepared. With the help of some of my fellow CBI classmates, we got all the supplies and daily turned that room into a new and amazing scene for the kids. The Lord blessed me with bonds with those kids and used me in ways He never had before.” Jordan now serves as a children’s ministry director at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, WA.
Watch the video: Calvary Chapel Magazine was on hand to document what God is doing through Calvary Bible Institute (CBI).
Click to learn more about:
Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel
and
Calvary Bible Institute
Follow this series about CBI… Part 1: Examines the need for senior pastors to raise up and nurture younger leadership. Part 3 Discusses the transformation that occurs in CBI students through the Holy Spirit and the dynamics of a successful senior pastor/assistant pastor relationship.
Justo Lucero plays a game with kids during a Wednesday night service.
(To learn more about Calvary School of Missions, visit their website)
All verses above are quoted from the New King James Version, unless otherwise noted.
© 2022 Calvary Chapel Magazine (CCM). All rights reserved. Articles or photographs may not be reproduced without the written permission of CCM. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.® Used by permission.