Christian Radio CSN
Calvary Chapel began as a Bible study for shut-ins at a trailer park
in Costa Mesa, California. The group struggled until 1965, when it hired
Chuck Smith, a dynamic Bible teacher with a rousing tenor voice who
pastored an independent church in Corona, some 30 miles away. For 17
years, Smith pastored churches in the charismatic Foursquare
denomination, before becoming fed up with denominational politics and
bureaucratic control.
In Costa Mesa, Smith continued his signature practice of teaching
through the Bible from beginning to end. Hal Fischer, a former police
officer who was on the board of Calvary Chapel when it hired Smith, told
CT, "We had never heard teaching like that in all our years of
attending churches." The church grew, but Fischer says he could never
have imagined what happened next.
Smith began ministering to hippies—a radical thing for a pastor
to do at the time, says Larry Eskridge, associate director of the
Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. (Eskridge is author of
a forthcoming Oxford University Press book on the Jesus movement.)
Through cutting-edge outreach, Smith and his disciples sowed
seeds that in time helped transform evangelical worship and churches
nationwide. Eskridge says Calvary Chapel's influence on mainstream
evangelicalism has been massive. It was among the first proponents of
contemporary worship and early on developed a seeker-sensitive church
atmosphere. It influenced everything from intentional communities to
Willow Creek, and it also birthed the Vineyard, which eventually formed
its own association.
Fueled by the changed lives of hippie converts, Calvary Chapel
Costa Mesa exploded in size. Smith's new disciples started Bible
studies, which grew into churches.
"Chuck Smith was able to respond to cultural events in a very
creative way," says Donald E. Miller, a University of Southern
California sociologist of religion and author of Reinventing American
Protestantism, a history of Calvary Chapel, the Vineyard, and Hope
Chapel. Smith's sermons traveled around the country by cassette tape;
his Word for Today radio ministry broadcasted Calvary Chapel Bible
teaching; and Maranatha! Music, started by Smith, recorded the hippies'
Jesus-inspired folk songs.
"While Smith may not have been an innovator on a personal level,
he allowed young converts around him who were extremely culturally savvy
to do the innovation," says Miller.
Smith's followers, including Greg Laurie, Raul Ries, Mike
Macintosh, and Skip Heitzig, started more than 50 megachurches, Bible
schools around the world, camps and retreat centers, and a radio
network.
Throughout Calvary Chapel's growth, Smith has remained opposed to
forming a denomination. He says it promotes the power hungry instead of
the spiritual.
http://calvarychapel.com/
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