The Calvary Chapel movement continued to grow into the 1980s, partially through the radio ministry of Word for Today. God was using this ministry to plant many likeminded fellowships across the country and world. This installment of our continuing series honoring the life of CC founder Pastor Chuck Smith is reprinted from Issue 97 (Fall 2023) of the print magazine. 

Radio & Word for Today

“A group of people in Pennsylvania had been listening to the ‘Chuck Tapes’, and they called and asked if they could put them on the radio,” related Terry Reynolds, who has served with Word for Today for nearly 50 years. “Chuck Smith and his brother Paul said, ‘Maybe we should start a radio program.’ And Word for Today was born.” Soon a barrage of calls came in. “Almost every [Christian] radio station across the country wanted to broadcast Pastor Chuck. They knew that he would draw tons of listeners, so they offered to broadcast them for free. Before you knew it, we started getting calls to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa from listeners asking us to plant a Calvary Chapel in their city so they could hear teachings like Pastor Chuck’s.” He added, “In the 1980s, God was using Word for Today [radio] to plant so many Calvary Chapels across the country and around the world. Even today, we still get hundreds of requests from other countries for his teaching materials.” 

Terry, who also pastors Agape Chapel of Orange County, CA, recalled that Chuck never took credit for the apparent popularity of his sermons: “Chuck used to tell us, ‘It is the teaching of the Word of God that they are hungry for, and the Holy Spirit has created a hunger in those cities.’ ”

Another benefit of the tapes was that, when men would express interest in becoming a Calvary Chapel pastor, they were told to listen to Chuck’s tapes on the whole Bible. Since Chuck had been teaching 10 chapters a week, he had gone through the entire Bible in just two years. “We never planned that, either; that was just another work of the Lord,” Terry reflected.

 From Tropical Shores

Far away on a beach in Hawaii’s North Shore, a surfer handed 27-year-old Bill Stonebraker a cassette tape. The tape was a Bible teaching from Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, and it was like nothing he had ever heard before. A new Christian, Bill sanded surfboards in his shaping room while the great Carpenter of old, Jesus Christ, began to shape him through the Word of God. Pastor Chuck taught the Bible verse by verse, in a way that Bill could understand; he sent for more, listening day after day. “My mind was so polluted with bitterness and anger; it was the only way I could maintain my sanity.” The Word of God began to wash his mind and fill him with peace. Bill invited other seekers to hear the teaching that was like food for the soul.

Soon, Bill and his wife Danita’s 800-square-foot home was teeming with nearly 100 young people listening eagerly to the Bible tapes from Calvary Chapel. After the message, the group would pray together. “There was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit,” Bill recalled. “I’ve never seen anything like it. … People were coming off drugs and coming to the Lord.” Humbled by God’s power, Bill asked another brother to lead the group. “He said, ‘It’s your house; you lead!’ ” Bill chuckled. “We were fearful because we weren’t sure what to do.” God was setting people free from addiction and emptiness and filling them with His love. Sometimes they would head to the beach near midnight to baptize the new believers. “We didn’t plan that; in a way, it was scary because we weren’t in control—God was. But it was also exciting because we knew it was Him.” Bill ventured into teaching the studies himself.

As his young fellowship multiplied and looked to Bill as their leader, he called Pastor Chuck for counsel. Soon a group from Costa Mesa came to visit. Pastor Chuck graciously taught a Bible study in Bill’s backyard to a small crowd. Soon after, Bill got on a plane and headed to California for more shaping.

One of a dozen men handpicked by Chuck, Bill completed an intensive, weeklong Shepherd School. He witnessed firsthand how God was working in the home fellowships and the church. “I remember that Thursday night, we all went into the prayer room. They laid hands on Raul Ries (currently senior pastor of CC Golden Springs, CA), and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit,” Bill noted. “The Spirit was just poured out. It was radical.” He witnessed Romaine (Chuck’s assistant pastor) correct a brother who was speaking in tongues out of order; he saw believers pray for and deliver a demon-possessed woman. “I was on a spiritual high for the entire week. It was like being completely immersed in the Holy Spirit,” Bill recounted, “like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. I just absorbed it all.”

While in California, Bill went on to enroll in the new Calvary Bible School, started for those who felt a call to ministry and wanted a deeper grounding in the Word. Bill noted, “It was 13 weeks of intense classes taught by several pastors. They served as an example to me as teachers, how they held themselves, how they communicated the Word. I had only been a Christian for three years.” He also learned how to recognize spiritual cults and false teachers. Bill remembered that one pastor shared how he had become involved with another ministry and had been under such legalism “that he couldn’t hear the voice of the Lord anymore,” so the man had returned to Calvary Chapel.

How did God shape this young Christian into the senior pastor of CC Honolulu? “It wasn’t just one thing; it was so many things.” Bill reflected: “Listening to Chuck’s tapes grounded me in the Word; my mind had been so polluted. Shepherd’s School was like a spiritual high, a radical experience of the Holy Spirit. Bible College equipped me for teaching. [The trip also] gave me a love that you see in Chuck. You can’t fake that love; it’s got to come from the Lord.” Bill watched Pastor Chuck’s interaction with his flock, patiently answering questions and praying with people late into the evening after teaching a two-hour message. When Bill returned home to his church, “Walking into the midst of them and hugging them, there was like an outpouring of love that came into my life through those experiences.”

Look for our next installment as we examine the establishment of the school that eventually became Calvary Chapel Bible College.

© 2023 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.