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Calvary Chapel is a non-denominational Christian church which
began in 1965 in Costa Mesa, California. Calvary Chapel's pastor,
Chuck Smith became a leading figure in what has become known as
the "Jesus Movement."
It has been estimated that in a two-year period in the mid
'70s, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa had performed well over eight
thousand baptisms. During that same period, we were instrumental
in 20,000 conversions to the Christian faith. Our decadal growth
rate had been calculated by church growth experts to be near the
ten thousand percent level.
A remarkable pattern kept repeating itself. As soon as we moved
into a new building, our fellowship would already be too big for
the facilities. In two years we moved from our original building
(one of the first church buildings in Costa Mesa) to a rented
Lutheran church overlooking the Pacific. Soon thereafter we
decided to do something unprecedented at the time and move the
church to a school that we had bought. The building did not match
up to code so we tore it down and built another. But by the time
the sanctuary of 330 seats was completed in 1969, we were already
forced to go to two services, and eventually had to use the
outside courtyard for 500 more seats. This was all fine in good
weather.
But by 1971 the large crowds and the winter rains forced us to
move again. We bought a ten-acre tract of land on the Costa
Mesa/Santa Ana border. Orange County was quickly changing and the
once-famous orange orchards were making way for the exploding
population of Los Angeles. Soon after buying the land, we again
did the unprecedented and erected a giant circus tent that could
seat 1,600 at a stretch. This was soon enlarged to hold 2,000
seats. Meanwhile we began building an enormous sanctuary adjacent
to this site.
By the time Calvary Chapel fellowship had celebrated opening
day in 1973 moving into the vast new sanctuary of 2,200 seats, the
building was already too small to contain the numbers turning out.
We held three Sunday morning services and had more than 4,000
people at each one. Many had to sit on the carpeted floor. A large
portion of floor space was left without pews so as to provide that
option.
Calvary Chapel also ministers over the airwaves, and this must
account for many of those who travel long distances to fellowship
here. A Nielsen survey indicated that our Sunday morning Calvary
Chapel service is the most listened-to program in the area during
the entire week. As of 1987, Calvary's outreach has included
numerous radio programs, television broadcasts, and the production
and distribution of tapes and records. The missions outreach is
considerable. Calvary Chapel not only supports Wycliffe Bible
Translators, Campus Crusade, Missionary Aviation, and other groups, but we donate to Third
World needs. We then built a radio station in San Salvador and
gave it to the local pastors there. We also gave money to Open
Doors to purchase the ship that, in tandem with a barge,
delivered one million Bibles to mainland China. Our financial
commitment to missions exceeds the local expense budget by over
50%.
Today, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, the church which
only had twenty-five members, has now established 1327
affiliate Calvary Chapels across the world and is among the
world's largest churches with 20,000+ calling it their home
church. It is one of the ten largest Protestant churches in the
United States.
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