If you are reading this, and you are a part of a Calvary chapel, I first want to say that this is not a hit piece or an indictment against you. As a matter of fact, I love the people of Calvary Chapel, and I pray for their congregants every day. It is their leaders that I have major issues with, and I will be highlighting those issues from years of research that I have done and also my own experience attending a Calvary chapel. All names will be redacted for the protection of those people, and also for legal purposes with the exception of prominent Calvary chapel figures. I don’t know how many parts I will be writing for this article but it will be broken down into sections. First history, second the structure of the Moses model and expositional teaching,three the scandals of Calvary Chapel,Four conversations that I have had with people from Calvary Chapel on social media,five testimonies of people who have come out of Calvary Chapel, who have been damaged by their experience, Six I will give my own personal testimony of my experience at a Calvary chapel, and then I will give my sources for each category so that you will, without a doubt know that I am telling the truth.
A brief History
Calvary Chapel started during the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 70s cofounded by Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee a self proclaimed faith healer. when Chuck Smith met Lonnie Frisbee, Chuck was the pastor of a small church that was dying off. I won’t pretend to know the mind of Chuck Smith, but I guess when he met Lonnie Frisbee, he saw an opportunity to reach the hippie culture which Lonnie frisbee was a part of for Jesus. this may have seemed admirable, but this movement saw many hippies Supposedly come to the Lord, but not give up their lifestyle of drugs and free sex. famous preacher and founder of teen challenge David Wilkerson challenged the Christian hippies, who thought nothing of repentance and thought that they could cling to their sinful lifestyles. Although I am not giving my testimony right now, I can concur with this type of attitude amongst Calvary Chapel leaders, they tolerate sinful behaviors amongst their congregants and don’t challenge them at all until it is too late and then they write them off. They are all about tolerating sin and not confronting it at all. You can see the David Wilkerson interview with the Jesus people on YouTube. Search David Wilkerson debates, the Jesus people.
At this point, Chuck Smith was pretty clean. He became quickly known for his expositional, teaching through the Bible, chapter by chapter verse by verse. but Lonnie Frisbee had many demons right from the very beginning and was Calvary chapels first major scandal, but I will get more into that later.
Structure/Moses model/expositional teaching
The structure of Calvary chapel is very simple. They go by the Moses model of the Old Testament, where the pastor is solely in charge of every decision, and even if they do have a board of directors, it is usually in name only. The other thing that is odd about Calvary Chapel is that they have no real membership, there is no membership role at Calvary Chapel. The problem with the Moses model is that it opens up a position of absolute power to narcissistic personalities, who have total control over all decisions and over the spiritual well-being of its congregants this type of model of church government in Calvary Chapel Has produced much spiritual abuse and scandals which I will cover shortly. this Moses style of government is a dangerous cocktail and many people have been hurt by it. Calvary Chapel does not even qualify to be a New Testament church because of this type of government.
Now I will talk shortly about expositional teaching as practiced at Calvary Chapel. Exposition teaching in itself is not bad, but I do prefer topical teaching because I believe it bears more fruit for the hearers. but one thing I noticed when I was attending Calvary Chapel, and from what others have told me they skip over hard subjects like homosexuality, sin, repentance, and judgment. I know this to be true, because that was my experience. In the book Calvary Chapel distinctives Chuck Smith said “the wonderful thing about being a Calvary chapel is nobody really knows what you stand for”. This is a morally irresponsible statement. Another contradictory statement in Calvary Chapel Distinctives is on page 48 where Chuck Smith admits, that he glosses over certain difficult passages as to not cause division and on page 52 he claims that we must preach the whole council of God. These statements are both confusing and hypocritical. You can Google these statements by typing, modern pulpit, Calvary chapel distinctives, priority of the word or just obtain a copy of Calvary Chapel distinctives it is a pretty short read.
In part 2 of this article, I will get into the scandals of Calvary Chapel, which may be lengthy because there were many. Please check that out until then many blessings to you in Jesus name.
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