Mission Statement

Calvary Chapel has been formed as a fellowship of believers in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our supreme desire is to know Christ and be conformed to His image by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only to their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.

We believe that the only true basis of Christian Fellowship is His "agape" love which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.

We believe that there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory; and that this triune God created all, upholds all, and governs all.

We believe that all the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God, are fully inspired in the original manuscripts, and are the infallible rule of faith and practice.
 

What We Believe

We Believe: Worship of God should be Spiritual.

Therefore: We remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.

We Believe: Worship of God should be Inspirational.

Therefore: We give great place to music in our worship.

We Believe: Worship of God should be Intelligent.

Therefore: Our services are designed with great emphasis upon the teaching of the Word of God, that He might instruct us how He would be worshipped.

We Believe: Worship of God should be Fruitful.

Therefore: We look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been worshipping Him.

The Calvary Chapel Style of Ministry

The Calvary Chapel Ministries have a style of ministry and several doctrinal positions that we ask guest speakers to respect.
We believe in the inerrancy of the scriptures, the pre-millennial theological position, and the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.
We respect those with other positions, but we do not allow them to be taught at Calvary Chapel because we feel our sheep will get confused by contradictory teaching.
We believe in salvation through Christ alone and His finished work at Calvary.
We believe in the Baptism and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We believe the gifts of the Spirit should be operated decently and in order according to 1st Corinthians 14. We do not allow speaking in tongues out loud in our general services.
We strongly support Israel and believe we are seeing in her the end-times gathering of the Jews prophesied in the scriptures.
We anxiously await the rapture and the second coming of our Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, otherwise known as Jesus, who will return and set up His kingdom of peace on the earth.
Our people tithe regularly, but we do not take up special offerings, or "love offerings," or pressure them in any way in their giving. We do not obligate them with pledge cards.
We pay guest speakers out of the funds of the church. Our people may decide individually to support a ministry, but we ask that any requests for support be without pressure.
We are informal - not because we think it is Godly, but because we like to learn the word and fellowship in a relaxed atmosphere.
 

About Pastor Henry Gainey

I was saved when I was a child, but fell away from the Lord in college and medical school. In 1971, I was in Southern California doing my Medical Residency in Family Practice. Some Christians there witnessed to me about Jesus Christ. They had a love and a joy in their hearts I had never experienced. They told me about Jesus and what He was doing in their lives, and invited me to their church, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and started attending Calvary Chapel.

Jesus became the love of my life, and filled me with His joy, love, and peace. Pastor Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel taught me the Bible, and God used His Word to transform my life. I have read through the Bible several times, and I never get tired of Jesus and His Word.

In 1973, my wife Gale and I were married at Calvary Chapel. We have two married daughters and two grandsons. In 1996, we started Calvary Chapel of Thomasville, with the same philosophy of ministry as Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa.

A Brief History of Calvary Chapel of Thomasville

In 1995, there were several families of believers in Jesus Christ who lived in Thomasville, but attended Calvary Chapel of Tallahassee. We loved the Calvary Chapel style of ministry. Pastor Kent Nottingham encouraged us to start a home Bible study on Sunday evenings in Thomasville. He asked Henry Gainey to be the teacher.

We met at the home of one of our members. God blessed our time together. After several months, we had grown to 25-30 people each Sunday evening. One day Pastor Kent called Henry and said, “I think it’s time to start Calvary Chapel of Thomasville.” We agreed.

We became an affiliate of the Calvary Chapel Fellowship of Churches and began to look for a building. We could not find a suitable one. Finally, after much prayer, someone suggested the Jewish Synagogue. Pastor Henry called the local Jewish leaders, who were his friends, and asked if we could use the synagogue. They said, “Why not, we don’t use it on Sunday.” So when we started Calvary Chapel of Thomasville in August, 1996, our first church “building” was the local synagogue.

The Jewish community was very gracious unto us. We were in the synagogue for 18 months, until we moved into our current facility. God has been blessing us ever since.

To God be the glory, great things He has done.
 

The History of Calvary Chapel ...
From It's Origins in Coast Mesa, California

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 Fellowship, 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 of Costa Mesa, the church which only had twenty-five members has established more than five hundred affiliate Calvary Chapels across the world and is among the world's largest churches with more than thirty-five thousand calling it their home church. It is one of the ten largest Protestant churches in the United States.
 

Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa 1965

Tent Services in the '70s

Pastor Chuck Smith in the '70s

Pastor Chuck Smith Today