Our greatest desire is for people to come to know God personally. The simple truth is that there is a God who created you and loves you very much. (Genesis 1:1) He gave us life and deserves our gratitude and love.

We, however, have chosen to disobey Him and sin against Him; all of us have done wrong and failed to do what is right. (Romans 3:23) We may not be more sinful than our neighbor, or we may be far worse than anyone we know, it does not matter. Either way, we are guilty before God. (1 John 1:8)

God is perfect, completely good, always right and fair. He cannot tolerate sin. He cannot simply overlook the fact that we have chosen to disobey Him. The Bible says “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) This means that the fair payment for our rebellion against God is death. It is the punishment that we deserve.

Jesus, the one and only Son of God, came to earth and lived a perfect sinless life. He was crucified even though He was completely innocent. He received the punishment that we deserved. He was the perfect sacrifice, He was put into our place and took on Himself the sentence of death that should have been ours. (Romans 5:8)

Jesus did not, however, remain dead. After three days, He rose from the grave and later ascended into heaven. He will return for all those who are trusting in Him as their Savior.

Jesus died for you. You can be saved by asking Him for forgiveness from your sins. If you are willing to repent of your sin, He is waiting to forgive you. It doesn’t matter what you have done in the past, if you cry out to Jesus for forgiveness, He will not reject you. The word “repent” literally means “to turn away from.” You need to look at your life, admit that you are a sinner, genuinely desire to turn your back on that sin, and ask Him to forgive you. If you do this, He promises to forgive you.

True Christianity is not about attending a particular church, or how your parents raised you, or what country you were born in. Being a Christian means that you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that He is your Savior. It’s not good enough that your priest, pastor, mother, or aunt knows Jesus, you must know Him for yourself. They cannot believe in Him for you, you must believe for yourself. They cannot repent for you, you must repent for yourself.

Jesus is everywhere all the time. He can hear you now if you ask Him for forgiveness. Please turn your life over to Him now. Time slips by so quickly, don’t miss this opportunity. If you want to pray and ask Jesus to be your Savior, you can say a prayer something like this:

“Jesus, I know that I have sinned against you. I know the truth is that I have sinned by my own choice, and I am the one responsible for it. I know that I have earned punishment from You, and that the fair punishment would be death. Jesus, I believe that You died in my place. Forgive me for my sin. I cannot cover or take my sin away, I am relying totally and only on You. You are the only one who can save me. I reject my sin, I turn away from it, I repent. Come into my life, take away my sin, and show me how to live my life in a way that is right and pleasing to You.”

If you have prayed this, YOU ARE SAVED! You are now completely forgiven, a new creation, innocent in the eyes of God. Welcome to the family of God!

It is important for you to start to grow in your relationship with Jesus. Just like any relationship, you need to spend time with someone if you want to know them well. The way to know God is through the Bible. We have a few different Bible studies here that will help you get going. It’s also important to find a church you can attend where they teach the Bible. This will allow you to talk with a pastor who will help explain questions you might have, and it will give you a chance to spend time with other Christians who can encourage you.

You can start to study the Bible by going through our New Believers Booklet. After that, we recommend that you start a Bible study through the Gospel of John.

The Calvary Chapel Church has been formed as a fellowship of believers in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Our supreme desire is to know Christ and to be conformed into His image by the power of the Holy Spirit

We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.

We believe that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is His (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 a great place to music in our worship.

We Believe Worship of God Should Be Intelligent, therefore, our services are designed with great emphasis upon teaching the Word of God that He might instruct us how He would 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 truly been worshipping Him.

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.