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 the only true basis of Christian
fellowship is Christ's (Agape) love, which is greater than
any differences we possess, and without which we have no
right to claim ourselves Christians.
• 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 should 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 been truly worshipping Him.
• We believe in all the fundamental doctrines
of orthodox evangelical Christianity.
• We believe in the inerrancy of Scripture,
that the Bible, Old and New Testaments is the inspired,
infallible Word of God.
• We believe that God is eternally existent in
three separate persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe that God the Father is the
personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all
things.
• We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and
fully human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless
life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His
vicarious death on the Cross, was bodily resurrected by the
power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand
of God the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for
us. After Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy
Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to
fulfill His command to preach the Gospel to the entire
world, an obligation shared by all believers today.
• We believe that all people are by nature
separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but
that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely
offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When
a person repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as
personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person
is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit,
all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a
child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.
• We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit
mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for
today if they are exercised within the Scriptural
guidelines. We as believers are to covet the best gifts,
seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of
Christ might be edified. We believe that love is more
important than the most spectacular gifts, and without this
love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless.
• We believe that church government should be
simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy, and we depend
on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly
promotion.
• We await the pre-tribulation rapture of the
church, and we believe that the second coming of Christ
with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal,
pre-millennial, and visible. This motivates us to holy
living, heartfelt worship, committed service, diligent
study of God's Word, regular fellowship, and participation
in adult baptism by immersion and Holy Communion.
• We seek to teach the Word of God in such a
way that its message can be applied to an individual's
life, leading that person to greater maturity in Christ.
• We reject: (1) The belief that true
Christians can be demon possessed; (2) "5-point Calvinism"
(i.e., a fatalistic Calvinistic view that leaves no room
for free will; specifically, we reject the belief that
Jesus' atonement was limited, instead we believe that He
died for all people, and we reject the assertion that God's
wooing grace cannot be resisted or that He has elected some
people to go to hell; instead we believe that anyone who
wills to come to Christ may do so); (3) "positive
confession" (the faith movement belief that God can be
commanded to heal or work miracles according to man's
will), (4) human prophecy that supersedes the Scripture,
(5) the incorporation of humanistic and secular psychology
and philosophy into Biblical teaching, and (6) the
over-emphasis of spiritual gifts, experiential signs and
wonders to the exclusion of Biblical teaching.
• In our services, we focus on a personal
relationship with God through worship, prayer, and the
teaching of the Word of God. We teach both expositorily and
topically. We do not allow speaking in tongues loudly
during services, nor prophecy while a Bible study is in
progress because we do not believe that the Holy Spirit
would interrupt Himself. We have specific "after-glow
services" and believer's meetings when these gifts of the
Spirit may be exercised.