Pastor Chris B. & Carol R | Interview | Discipleship Night 2026

Thank you. Carole. Hey. How you doing? It's a lot of people. Yes. Guys, give Carole a hand for coming and sharing her story with us. Whoo. So. Talk to me. Yeah, we're just, we're just talking in the back. You know, Carole came to know Jesus about a year and a half ago. May, right? May of last year? May 26. May, yeah. May 26. So, a year and a half you've been following Jesus. Tell us a little bit about, like, what was your faith like? What was your relationship with God like before that moment? Like, what did it look like for you personally? Personally, there was none. Yeah. Because of my childhood trauma, something shifted, and I believed in no one and nothing. And in 2018, in 2018, I had a loved one who needed prayer. And then, and you were part of that non-belief. You called whoever wanted prayer to come up. I went to you to ask for this particular person. You asked for my name. Then you asked. Put your hand on my shoulder. I said, yes. You start praying, but you started praying for me. So I did one of these, and you're all in it. You're in it. You're, and first words that came to my mouth was, like, this idiot. I don't need prayer. She called me an idiot. I'm like, what? In her heart, not out loud. Not out loud, and he's in it, and I'm like, this idiot. I don't need prayer. I'm good. So I leave, and it was a friend who actually invited me to Calvary, introduced me to Calvary, and as we are leaving doors, I'm like, this is BS. Yeah, and so as the time progressed, what was, like, the turning point? What was the season of your life that actually got you to the place where you started to believe, oh, this Jesus thing is real? Like, what was going on in your life? March 2024, I just kept going and going, of course. Doing it my way. I had a health scare, an issue, and I remember a nurse came up to me. I started, like, feeling and thinking of God, and I'm like, okay. I'm good.

It's because of the scare, and this nurse came up to me and said, you know that you're alive because of the grace of God. So she used grace of God, which I've never even, no one has ever spoken to me like that. So, yeah, I just had this pull, and all I knew was 2018, the idiot, and sorry, you know, I love you, and I ended up at Calvary, and you, I went all the way to the left in the corner because I was dressed so inappropriately because I didn't care, and you called an alter call, so I said, I'm just gonna go to this corner, but I don't know why I ended up in the middle, and when I look up, there was the idiot looking down at me, and that was it, and everything, my whole world changed from that day. Amen, amen. So, after that moment, like, what began to change in you? Like, we say, you know, you say it all the time, a relationship with Jesus changes everything. What started to change in you? You know my life is a movie, right? Directed, and written, and produced by the DoD, but everything, I just, I asked for one, I never, like, prayed. I was born and raised a Catholic, and I just asked one thing. Okay, I'm gonna do this, like, you're real, just remove everything that's not of you, and replace it. Replace it with everything, anything, everyone, and he did that. What about, like, I mean, how did you view the world? Like, I know a lot of times God starts to do things in us, where, you know, we talk about fruit. Sometimes he just changes us, and we don't even realize that's happening, until we're like, I'm not the same person. Were there things about you that began to change? Yes, I had a very filthy mouth, which, idiot, was not the only word that I was saying. So, I started noticing that I wasn't cursing, and people were saying that I

was smoking, it wasn't cigarettes, and right before I got baptized, I realized, and a friend of mine told me, like, you know, you're not smoking anymore. I'm not drinking. I'm not, I just wanted to be at Calvary. That's awesome, and so, yeah, you can give her a hand for that, give God a hand for that, what he does in our lives. You know, we just saw this, these slides of this growth track. What are some of the things that you've done over the last year and a half, when it comes to taking those steps of discipleship to become fully devoted? First, the first thing I did was do following with Jesus, and that was the first time that I took the Bible that was gifted to me, and you actually taught me how to read a scripture I didn't know, how to pray. First time I ever heard of soap, so I do that, and pray, what you were just teaching us. After following Jesus, I did a lot of things. Then I wanted more. I needed more. After that, I did Connect. From Connect, I signed up for a mission, never been out of the country, but I went to Columbia. We went to Columbia together. Yeah, that was great. After that, Freedom Group. I went to Freedom Group. After Freedom Group, the women's Psalm 23, and that, I just want to say really quick that I would frown upon that scripture, which I now have tatted on the back of my neck. Every time I went to a funeral, I would hear that, and I just used to reject it. That's my favorite. After that, what was it, Psalm 23, I was invited to a six-month discipleship group. After that, I did an intense inner healing in Boynton, 12 weeks. Then you serve in children's ministry. Yes, at Kids.

Yes, thank you for doing that. Yes. Yeah, you give her a hand for serving in children's ministry. Yes, yes, definitely, and now, presently, I'm an Ethos. She's an Ethos. In just a year and a half, she's done it all. It's insane what God has done in her life, and all of these steps, and it's been an honor for me to watch this transformation in your life. You have become, in a sense, fully devoted, but that next piece of reproducing and doing for others what others have done for you, what does that look like right now in your life? Well, it actually happened in the D group, that I said, oh, I really, you know, the disciples. I prayed, and now that prayer was answered, I moved into a new place, and I said, I asked for this specific place, and he gave it to me. So, I wanted it to be in your foundation, and I just feel this tug that I'm gonna open my doors, start a small group to pour into other women. Amen, amen. And here's the cool thing, Carol's amazing, but there are so many testimonies of other people in our church that God does this when we just begin to take those next steps, and those are available for all of you. Each and every one of you can have a story just like this. So, let's just give Carol a hand for coming and sharing her story with us. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. Love you. Love you. Even though you called me an idiot. God bless you guys. Thank you. Bye.

They're so great. Thanks, guys, for joining us. Of course. Thank you. How's it going? I feel great. Good. Well caffeinated. Let's go. That's right. Let's go. Well, hey, if it is someone, maybe they're in here, and they're new to church, they're maybe new in their relationship with Jesus, or they may be coming to church for a long time, but have never gotten off the sidelines. They've just been sitting, watching, learning. What is their first, best, next step? Yeah, first, best, next step is our Connect experience. Four years ago, I just joined the staff at Calvary, and my wife and I came to a Saturday night service in this room, and we sat right in the back over there, and I knew Calvary was a large church. I grew up here in South Florida. I didn't know it was this large, and so I'm in the back of the room, and I'm looking around on a Saturday night. There's a couple thousand people in the room, just like tonight, and I just had this thought. One, man, do I belong here? Then I thought, man, this church is so large. Will anyone ever really know me? Will they ever know the names of my kids? Just things like that, and Connect experience is really where our big church becomes small. It's an opportunity for people to get out of their rows of seats and to get around some

tables, to tell their story, to hear the story of our church, to find out what we value as a church, how we do ministries, and how they can find their spiritual gift, and find that place where their passions and gifts connect with God's purpose for them, and God's desire to grow His church, and you just see people really discover their purpose, and that can happen for any of you. If you've never been to our Connect experience, come. It's so easy at any of our campuses to come to a service and then just kind of slip out and go just ignored or just unnoticed, right? But at Connect experience, you will leave knowing people's names, and people will know you. You will be left feeling known and seen and valued and a part of the family. So after those first three weeks of Connect, what happens after that? Yeah, so after Connect, we tell people, your next step is join a group or join a team. And groups for us at Calvary are a huge part of what we do. You probably have heard us say it before, we're not a church that just does groups, we are a church of groups. Everything we do as a church, all of our ministries are done in groups. People serve in groups, they learn in groups. Groups are what we do. One of our values is we're better together, right? So everything we do is done in groups. We have groups that study, they're sermon-based groups, so they just go deeper into the sermon text. We have groups that play pickleball together. We have groups that work out together. We have groups, somebody leads a group called WWE Women Who Eat.

I'm still waiting for the men's version of that group. If anyone wants to start a men's barbecue group, holla at your boy. You know, but we have all these different kinds of groups, but why do we do that? Because the Christian life is not life alone, but life together. And so maybe you were encouraged, I was encouraged by what Drew and Alistair were sharing earlier, just the power of community. And that's what the church is. The church is not a place, it's a people. The place becomes the church once the people arrive. And that's what it's all about. It's about dwelling together in community. Absolutely. And sometimes maybe you already went to Connect or did a class or something like that, but you don't realize that there are deeper issues in your heart that the Lord wants to deal with you. That He wants you to be free from. So freedom groups and freedom encounter are an opportunity where you can see God work in amazing ways. Things like addictions, pain, struggles, bitterness, unforgiveness, and many, many more issues like that are dealt with during those weeks. And I know that for me, it was fear and rejection that led me to be a people pleaser.

And God asked me to deal with those issues in my heart. And after praying and a lot of surrendering, a lot of growth happened. And I also have the testimony of a woman in my small group that she was struggling with lack of forgiveness because she thought that forgiving was minimizing the offense or that she had to forget what happened. And it's not that. Forgiveness has to do with what the Lord did for us. He forgave us when we were sinners. Jesus died for us. And that's why we have to do the same thing for others. And it was so liberating for her. So maybe freedom is your next step. You don't know, pray for it. But the next one starts in April, right after Easter. And it finishes with the freedom encounter, which is a half day where we come together to worship and fellowship and celebrate everything that the Lord does through those weeks. It really is so special. Yeah, freedom is an incredible experience. If you're here and you've ever been part of a freedom group, I'm telling you, it's amazing. The stories we hear, the testimonies we hear, people who have tasted and seen just pure freedom from the Lord over all the things that they were holding internally.

Some people are holding onto stuff they don't even know they're dealing with. And it's an opportunity to really learn what that is and to surrender it to God. And with freedom, we also have other classes and experiences that are available to you. One of them you heard about earlier is called following Jesus. If you're here and you're new to the faith, or maybe you've been a Christian for a while, but you've never really learned how to read your Bible, or you never really learned how to pray. Maybe you're trying to figure out like, I gotta go to a building, a church every single weekend. Like, is this what I do now? You know, like, what is this? Come to following Jesus. Learn what it means to follow Jesus. Learn the truth about the gospel. Learn how to tell your testimony and your story. Learn how to read the Bible. We go through all these things in this class, and it's a seven-week class to just teach you the basic steps of following Jesus. And we also have classes like FPU, which will teach you how to manage your finances God's way. Parenting. Parenting, that's right, yeah. I've been a parent for almost 15 years. I still got things I gotta learn, right?

Come on, somebody. And so we got parenting classes available for everybody. We also have a class called The Essentials, which will help you form more doctrinal, like your doctrinal beliefs, and teach you what Calvary believes theologically, and just there to train you and equip you of all these experiences just to help you take your best next step in following Jesus. And what I love about both of our tracks are that they just keep getting deeper, and you just keep growing. Because once again, it is a lifelong commitment in following Jesus. And one of the best parts is really when you start to see the gifts that God has given you activated and mobilized. And oftentimes that happens through serving. And so Duane, you have a really cool story of how you started to see that. What happened for you? Yeah, so in 1999, I got saved. I was married a year. We had our first child, and we just started to come to church. But then as you come to church and Jesus gets more in you, the idea is that, hey, I need to take a class because I wanna be fully devoted,

a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. How many remember foundations of faith class back in the day? Wow. Amen. That was like our growth track. So I did that. My wife and I joined a group. And then after some time, you realize that people begin to look at gifts in you and they start calling out leadership in you. And then people begin to equip you to be a leader now. So the classes you once attended, you're now teaching. The groups you once participated in, you are now leading those groups. And who would have known that in 2014, I would be in full-time ministry, actually doing the same thing that people did for me. And so, here's the thing. You're sitting in these seats tonight and the same thing could happen to you. So I want to take, we want to take the pressure off. You don't have to take 20,000 steps, but can you take one small step tonight in the direction that God may be leading you by his Holy Spirit? Yeah, we're actually just gonna spend a minute

of quiet reflection of just you and the Lord, inviting the Holy Spirit. Ask the Holy Spirit, what is the step that you're calling me to take? What practices do I need to apply in my life? Is there one of these classes or groups that I need to move towards? And just ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate in your mind what's most important to you. You've heard so much. And just invite him to let everything else melt away and what is true for you and remains to be the thing that sticks. And so just invite the Holy Spirit to help guide and lead you on your next step for just the next minute. Take that time now. Thank you. Good night. And so, if you would not mind, just open your hands. And so, Lord, as our hands are open, we believe, Holy Spirit, you are speaking even now. But every heart, every generation, every next step has already been preordained by you. And it's going on a growth track to take a connect, to following Jesus, to join a group, take a class, or to be a reproducer where our mission is to make disciples, God. You've called out leaders tonight to take a next step, whether it's to serve or lead a group, be part of our ethos or church leadership or intern, God. Whatever that may be, Father, I pray it's very clear that you would reveal yourself in such a way that folks would leave here, not just leaving, knowing that they came for a night, but this has all been part of the journey that you've had them on. So Holy Spirit, we ask again, even beyond tonight, that you would direct the steps of

each one that are so important. vested tonight to be on a journey with you. We love you, God, and we thank you for loving us first and choosing us. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen, amen. Amen, amen. Well, it's been such a special night. How many of you are ready to continue on this journey of following Jesus? We really believe the best is yet to come, and to help you take your next step, we have our team in the hallway that would love to help answer any questions and help continue journeying with you. And so we would encourage you to stop and chat with them, as well as text CALVARY to 91868 so that you can have these next steps in your pocket as you leave. But we are praying for you, we're so proud of you, and we cannot wait to see what God is gonna do in and through you as you continue to build your life formed by Jesus. We will see you this weekend at church. God bless you, thank you for coming out.