About Us

The History of Calvary Chapel of Paradise

Calvary Chapel of Paradise was founded in April of 1978. Both CC Paradise and CC Napa grew out of a home fellowship that Pastor Dave was teaching in Napa, CA. As CC Napa was getting started in 1975 several families moved to Paradise. The Napa fellowship was growing and being established some of the folks in Paradise asked Pastor Dave to help start a fellowship here. Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa gave his support for this fellowship as needed for the Napa church.

The first service was held April 22, the first Sunday following Easter 1978. Pastor Dave commuted between Napa and Paradise until August 1, 1978 when he and his wife Betty and their two children, Christopher and Jeanette, moved to Paradise. About this time the fellowship moved from the Financial Savings building where we began with 25 people to the Veterans Memorial Hall where we began to grow in numbers. In 1984 the fellowship moved to the Rustic Inn Bar at the corner of Elliott and Clark Rd. until 1989. We called the place the "Rustic Inn, Born Again". The Building was the original saloon and dance hall on the ridge and ended up as Calvary Chapel of Paradise. We had the privilege of Pastor Chuck Smith dedicating the building.

The corner was sold in 1989 so we made a transitional move to the Seventh Day Adventist Church until 1994 when we purchased the "Our Lady of the Pines" Catholic Church from the Sacramento Diocese through the St. Thomas More Catholic Church here in Paradise. Both the Adventist and Catholic Church showed us much kindness and brotherhood. May the Lord bless them both.

Where God guides, He provides is the reality of the fellowship and our church building. During the earliest days of our fellowship we learned that this building and the approximately 4 acres it is on was going to be for sale. A group of us came up to look at it. The parking lot was dirt and the building had a metal roof. It was originally a small truss manufacturing facility. It was converted to a sales office for the upper ridge development called the Paradise Pines. We walked the property, we prayed that the Lord might give us this property. So the Lord gave it to the Catholic Church as they had money to turn it into a church and we did not. About 14 years later, the Catholic Church sold us a "turn-key" church with all the furniture , etc. We moved in April 1994. The facility has gone thru extensive renovations by some very faithful Christians. As of the writing of this brief history, the property will be paid off this first week of August, 2007. PTL

It has been my privilege to be the Pastor of some of the finest, most loving and faithful Christians in the world today- to God be the Glory- Thank you, Jesus!~

Love in Christ,
Pastor Dave Sweet

 

The History of Calvary Chapel

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 decade 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.