Calvary Chapel Association

Calvary Chapel is an international association of charismatic evangelical churches, with origins in Pentecostalism. It maintains a number of radio stations around the world and operates many local Calvary Chapel Bible College programs.
Beginning in 1965 in Southern California, this fellowship of churches grew out of Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
The association has its origins in the founding of a Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California) in 1965 by pastor Chuck Smith of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel with 25 people. In 1968 they broke away from Foursquare Church. Prior to Smith, Costa Mesa members spoke of their own vision of becoming part of a massive church movement.
In 1969 Calvary Chapel became a hub in what later became known as the Jesus movement when Smith's daughter introduced him to her boyfriend John Higgins Jr., a former hippie who had become a Christian, and who went on to head the largest Jesus freak movement in history, the Shiloh Youth Revival Centers (1968–1989). John Higgins introduced Smith to Lonnie Frisbee, the "hippie evangelist" who became a key figure in the growth of both the Jesus Movement and Calvary Chapel. Frisbee moved into Smith's home, and he would minister to other hippies and counter-culture youth on the beaches. At night he would bring home new converts, and soon Smith's house was full. Frisbee became leader in a rental home for the steadily growing crowd of Christian hippies and he named the commune "House of Miracles"; other Houses of Miracles would develop throughout California and beyond. As Calvary Chapel grew "explosively", a tent was erected during the construction of a new building.
The converts included musicians who began writing music for praise and worship. This became the genesis for Jesus music and Christian rock concerts. Maranatha! Music eventually formed to publish and promote the music. The services led by Frisbee usually resembled rock concerts more than any worship services of the time. Frisbee featured in national television-news reports and magazines with images of him baptizing hundreds at a time in the Pacific Ocean. The network of House of Miracles communes/crash pads/coffee houses began doing outreach concerts with Smith or Frisbee preaching, Frisbee calling forth the Holy Spirit and the newly forming bands playing the music. By the early 1970s Calvary Chapel was home to ten or more musical groups that were representative of the Jesus people movement.
In 1982 John Wimber, a Calvary Chapel pastor, and the Calvary Chapel leadership mutually agreed to part ways. Tension had been mounting over Wimber's emphasis on spiritual manifestations, leading Wimber to withdraw from Calvary Chapel and to affiliate with a network of churches that would become the Association of Vineyard Churches.
In 2012, Pastor Chuck Smith founded the Calvary Chapel Association (CCA) to unite all of the movement's churches around the world.
On October 3, 2013, Pastor Smith died after a long battle with lung cancer. Smith remained as the senior pastor at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa during his battle with cancer; this included preaching at three services on the Sunday before his death.
According to a 2022 census of the association, it had 1,800 churches.
Chuck Smith's "Calvary Chapel Distinctives" summarize the tenets for which Calvary Chapel stands. Calvary Chapels place great importance on the practice of expository teaching, a "verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book" approach to teaching the Bible. Typically, Calvary Chapels operate under a senior pastor-led system of church government, also known as the "Moses" model.
It presents itself as a "fellowship of churches" rather than being a denomination.
Affiliates of Calvary Chapel believe in the doctrines of evangelical Christianity, which include the inerrancy of the Bible and the Trinity. Within evangelical Christianity, they say that they stand in the "middle ground between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism in modern Protestant theology". While they share with a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, they accept charismatic spiritual gifts. However, they feel that Pentecostalism values experience at the expense of the word of God.
According to Calvary Chapel literature, the association strives to "strik[e] a balance between extremes" when it comes to controversial theological issues such as Calvinism's and Arminianism's conflicting views on salvation. Calvary Chapels hold the following views on the five points of Calvinism:
Although Calvary Chapel believes in the continuing efficacy of the gift of tongues, it does not recognize uninterpreted tongues spoken in a congregational setting as necessarily inspired (or at least directed) by the Holy Spirit because of its understanding of 1 Corinthians 14. Calvary Chapel accepts that the Bible affirms interpreted tongues and modern prophecy. Practicing tongues in private occurs more commonly. Calvary Chapel does not teach that the outward manifestation of every Christian counts as speaking in tongues.
Similar to other Pentecostal or Charismatic movements, Calvary Chapel holds that the baptism of the Holy Spirit does not take place during conversion, but is available as a second experience. It is their understanding that there are three distinct relationships with the Holy Spirit. The first is that which is experienced prior to conversion. In this relationship the Holy Spirit is convicting the person of his sin. In the second relationship the Holy Spirit indwells believers during conversion for the purpose of sanctification. The third relationship is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which Calvary Chapel believes is for the purpose of being a Christian witness.
Calvary Chapels practice believer's baptism by immersion. Calvary Chapel does not regard baptism as necessary for salvation, but instead sees it as an outward sign of an inward change. As a result, the Chapels do not baptize infants, although they may dedicate them to God. Calvary Chapel views Communion in a symbolic way, with reference to 1 Corinthians 11:23–26.
Calvary Chapels strongly espouse pretribulationist and premillennialist views in their eschatology (the study of the end times). They believe that the rapture of the Church will occur first, followed by a literal seven-year period of Great Tribulation, followed by the second coming of Jesus Christ, and then finally a literal thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on Earth called the Millennial Kingdom. Calvary Chapel also rejects supersessionism, and instead believes that the Jews remain God's chosen people and that Israel will play an important part in the end times.
Interest in one event during the Tribulation—the building of a Third Temple in Jerusalem—led in the early 1980s to associations between some in Calvary Chapel (including Chuck Smith) and Jewish groups interested in seeing the temple rebuilt.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chuck Smith wrote and published a prophetic timeline that declared the imminent return of Christ.
In the book Snatched Away!, published in 1976, Smith wrote:
In a 1978 book, Smith wrote:
The reasoning had to do with the idea that the seven-year Tribulation would end in 1988, forty years after the establishment of the state of Israel. In his 1978 book, Smith reasoned that Halley's Comet in 1986 would result in problems for those left behind:
Disappointment resulting from the prophecy not materializing in 1981 caused some to leave the church.
Calvary Chapel pastors tend to prefer expositional sermons rather than topical ones, and they will often give their sermons sequentially from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible. They believe that expository preaching allows the congregation to learn how all parts of the Bible address issues as opposed to topical sermons which they see as allowing preachers to emphasize certain issues more than others. Another advantage, they say, is that it makes difficult topics easier to address because members of the congregation won't feel like they are being singled out. It sees expository teaching as providing consistent teaching that, over time, brings the "perfecting of the saints" which is part of their general philosophy for the Church. In teaching expositorily through scripture sequentially, Calvary Chapel believes God sets the agenda, not the pastor.
Calvary Chapels believe that most churches have a "dependent, highly organized, [and] structured" environment, but that most people want an "independent and casual way of life". Calvary churches typically have a casual and laid-back atmosphere. As a practical implication of this philosophy, people may wear informal clothes to church. Praise and worship usually consists of upbeat contemporary Christian music though many of the churches also sing hymns. The style of worship generally reflects the region and the specific make-up of the congregation.
Calvary Chapel does not have a formalized system of church membership. Calling a Calvary Chapel one's church usually means regularly attending church services and becoming involved in fellowship with other "members" of the church.
The form of church government practiced by Calvary Chapel does not conform to any of the three historical forms. They do not employ congregational polity, believing that God's people collectively made poor decisions in the Old Testament, citing Exodus 16:2 as an example. They also criticize presbyterian polity because when "the pastor is hired by the board and can be fired by the board," they fear that "the pastor becomes a hireling". Although Calvary Chapel's governance shares a similarity with episcopal polity in that the congregation has no direct authority over the pastor, it does not have the formal hierarchy characteristic of episcopal polity.
The majority of Calvary Chapels have adopted models of government based on their understanding of the theocracy that God established in the Old Testament they sometimes call the "Moses model". In this system, God was head of his people and under God's authority was Moses, who led the Israelites as God directed him. Moses also had a priesthood and seventy elders providing him support. Calvary Chapel has adapted this order believing their pastors have a role like Moses and their boards of elders function in supporting roles.
Calvary Chapels are independent and self-governing churches. They do not have church membership apart from pastors recognized through their affiliate program. The Calvary Chapel Association has the responsibility of affiliating churches with Calvary Chapel. A church that affiliates with Calvary Chapel often (but not always) uses the name "Calvary Chapel". Three requirements for becoming affiliated exist:
The requirements do not include a seminary degree. In accordance with Calvary's interpretation and understanding of the Bible (see 1 Timothy 3:2 and 1 Timothy 3:12), Calvary Chapel does not ordain women or sexually-active homosexuals as pastors.
Regional lead pastors exercise a measure of accountability. Since no legal or financial ties link the different Calvary Chapels, only disaffiliation can serve as a disciplinary procedure.
The Calvary Chapel trademark is owned by Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, the flagship church of the Calvary Chapel Global Network. The Calvary dove logo is also a "trademark-protected property of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa."
Various criticisms of the organization and of the pastorate role in the organization exist. For example, Chuck Smith has been criticized for drawing connections between disasters (e.g., earthquakes, the September 11 attacks) and divine wrath against homosexuality and abortion.
Calvary Chapel leaders, including Smith, were the subject of a lawsuit alleging that they knew or should have known that a minister named Anthony Iglesias was prone to sexual abuse when they moved him from ministry positions in Diamond Bar, California, to Thailand, to Post Falls, Idaho. Iglesias was convicted of molesting two 14-year-old boys in California in 2004, and the lawsuit stemmed from events in Idaho, but all alleged abuse occurred in or before 2003. The church was dismissed as a defendant in the lawsuit.
As a result of what he saw as micromanaging church elders and board members, Chuck Smith used "an independent board of elders" when he took the senior pastor role at Calvary Chapel. Smith subsequently wrote that "senior pastors should be answerable to God, not to a denominational hierarchy or board of elders". Christianity Today says that Smith's "Moses Model", in which senior pastors do not permit their authority to be challenged, can lead to churches that are often resistant to accountability. In response, Smith says he is following the authority structure that God used when Israel was under the rule of Moses.
According to one article, "Smith's book Calvary Chapel Distinctives teaches that senior pastors should be answerable to God, not to a denominational hierarchy or board of elders." Critics say this 'Moses model' produces pastors who do not permit their authority to be challenged. Calvary Chapel suggests that some churches are led astray by the management of their boards and that a biblical board of elders should aid the ministry and give wise counsel, not control the affairs of the church.
In November 2016, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa left the Calvary Chapel Association and formed the Calvary Chapel Global Network. The latter continues to count the association's 1,700 churches as members unless they opt out.
Calvary Chapel Bible College (CCBC) in Twin Peaks, California is the flagship of at least 50 affiliated campuses throughout the world. The college recently returned to a newly renovated site after about three decades in Murrieta, California. Founded in 1975, it originally offered a "short, intensive study program", but became a college awarding Certificates of Completion, Associate in Theology degrees (for high-school graduates), and Bachelor of Biblical Studies degrees (to students who have an Associate of Arts from an approved college). The college as a whole is pursuing accreditation; and students can transfer CCBC credits to some major accredited colleges such as Azusa Pacific, Biola University, Liberty University, Veritas International University, etc. The college was initially reluctant on seeking accreditation, stating that this allows Calvary Chapel Bible College to keep tuition costs lower and offer courses taught by instructors without master's degrees. But C.C.B.C. has reversed course and is currently seeking accreditation.
Harvest Crusades operate as a ministry of Harvest Christian Fellowship (a former Calvary Chapel in Riverside, California). They carry out an evangelistic ministry similar to Billy Graham's. They meet in stadiums and have Christian music bands play followed by an evangelical message normally given by Greg Laurie. They estimate three million people have attended since its inception in 1990.
Calvary Chapel churches operate several radio stations, including:
In addition, a Calvary Chapel in Twin Falls, Idaho founded the CSN International (originally known as the "Calvary Satellite Network") and Effect Radio networks; though CSN still carries a significant number of programs from several Calvary Chapels, the networks and the church (subsequently known by the name "The River Christian Fellowship") severed their official ties with the Calvary Chapel as part of a 2007 legal settlement. In 2010, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa sold 11 stations and 20 translators in the midwestern United States to the Calvary Radio Network.