1965

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 2-year period in the mid-1970s, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa had performed well over 8,000 baptisms. During that same period, they were instrumental in 20,000 conversions to the Christian faith. Their decadal growth rate had been calculated by church growth experts to be near the 10,000 per cent level.

A remarkable pattern kept repeating itself. As soon as they moved into a new building, their fellowship would already be too big for the facilities. In 2 years, they moved from their original building (one of the first church buildings in Costa Mesa) to a rented Lutheran church overlooking the Pacific. They soon decided to do something unprecedented at the time by moving the church to a school that they had bought, which they promptly demolished and rebuilt to a higher standard, but by the time the sanctuary of 330 seats was completed in 1969, they were already forced to go to two services, and eventually had to use the outside courtyard for 500 more seats (weather permitting).

1971

By 1971, the large crowds and the winter rains forced them to move again. This time, they bought a 10-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, they erected a giant circus tent that could seat up to 1,600. This was soon enlarged to hold 2,000 seats. Meanwhile, they began building an enormous sanctuary adjacent to the new site.

1973

By the time Calvary Chapel fellowship had celebrated their opening day in 1973, moving into the vast new sanctuary of 2,200 seats, the building was already too small to contain the number of worshipers. They were thus forced to hold three Sunday morning services, with more than 4,000 people at each one — many had to sit on the carpeted floor.

Calvary Chapel also ministers over the airwaves, and this must account for many of those who travel long distances to fellowship there. A Nielsen survey indicated that their 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 programmes, 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 also donates to Third World needs. They have built a radio station in San Salvador and gave it to the local pastors there. They also gave money to Open Doors to purchase the ship that, in tandem with a barge, delivered one million Bibles to mainland China. In fact, their financial commitment to missions exceeds the local expense budget by over 50%.

2009

Today, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, the church that once only had 25 members, has established more than 500 affiliate Calvary Chapels across the world, including Calvary Chapel Oxford, and is among the world's largest churches, with more than 35,000 calling it their home church. It is one of the ten largest Protestant churches in the United States.