Calvary Chapel

Calvary Chapel

Calvary Chapel's logo
Formation	1965
Type	Evangelical church
Headquarters	Costa Mesa, California
Location	World
Website	calvarychapel.com

Calvary Chapel is an association of evangelical Christian churches. Calvary Chapel also maintains a number of radio stations around the world and operates many local Calvary Chapel Bible College programs. It presents itself as a "fellowship of churches" in contrast to a denomination with over one thousand congregations worldwide. Churches that affiliate with Calvary Chapel may use the name "Calvary Chapel" but need not do so.

Beginning in 1965 in Southern California, this fellowship of churches grew out of Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Doctrinally, Calvary Chapel is evangelical, charismatic, pretribulationist, and believes in the principle of sola scriptura.

Chuck Smith's "Calvary Chapel Distinctives" summarizes the tenets for which Calvary Chapel stands. Calvary Chapels place great importance in 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, sometimes referred to as the "Moses" model.

In November 2016, two new Calvary Chapel networks began side by side: Calvary Chapel Global Network and Calvary Chapel Association. Most Calvary Chapels remain affiliated with Calvary Chapel Association. However the leaders' churches of each network have been erased from the other's church locator map.

While Chuck Smith was still a member of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, he reported a prophecy came to him in which the Lord said to him that He was changing his name. His new name would mean "Shepherd" because the Lord was going to make him the shepherd of many flocks and the church would not be large enough to hold all of the people who would be flocking to hear the Word of God. In December 1965, Smith became the pastor of a 25-person evangelical congregation. In 1968, the church broke away from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in Santa Ana, California. Before Smith became their pastor, twelve of the 25 members attended a prayer meeting about whether or not to close their church: they reported that "the Holy Spirit spoke to them through prophecy" and told them that Smith would become their pastor, that he would want to elevate the platform area, that God would bless the church, that it would go on the radio, that the church would become overcrowded, and that he would become known throughout the world.