Name A Church You would like to go visit in Person & Why

Calvary Chapel-Costa Mesa Website


When I eventually do get around to making my SoCal Road Trip, I want to go visit CALVARY CHAPEL-COSTA MESA in Orange County . . . Pastor Chuck Smith was one of the first 'Word of Faith' preachers to hit Southern California in the mid 1960's; Him & his wife had a heart early on for reaching out to the Hippie kids, who were into the drugs/sex/rock & roll scene of the time. Many of them got born-again and then they went out and told others about Jesus (and they told 2 hippies, who told 2 more hippies, and so on, and so on . . . .). At this same time, Pastor Chuck (who had been in a denominatioal church for many years) became the pastor of a small church called Calvary Chapel; Folks soon started flocking to this church, and they told 2 people, and they then told 2 more people, and so on and so on . . . After a couple of moves, they ended up at their current location in Cosat Mesa. As they were building the main building, church was held in a big tent in the parking lot. Folks started coming out in droves and they soon had to expand to 2 and then 3 services on Sunday.

He is credited with being the 'Father' of the JESUS MOVEMENT of the late 60's/early 70's. Under him early on were associate pastors Greg Laurie & Mike MacIntosh, who would go on to start their own mega churches (Orange County & San Diego respectively, I think). Today, Calvary Chapels are located all over the world. I went to one of their affiliate churches a couple of times over here in SW Charlotte a few months back (I might drop in again at some point . . . I think the pastor at this one knows Mike MacIntosh pretty well having grown up in SoCal 'back in the day').

EDIT: Oooops, I forgot to mention that a lot of the early born again Hippies who attended CALVARY CHAPEL were fledging Rock & Roll singers. Soon after their conversion, they started writing songs about Jesus/God/Born Again Experience in the early 70's. The music they started singing originally was called Christian Rock (?), but today we call it CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN MUSIC . . . See, you can always learn something on TBR !!!!!!

 

wow, I get the historical significance of this cat, but man, I fell asleep in the first 30 seconds of that clip.

Edit: to answer your question, it would probably be the Imago Dei Community in Portland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8geCU-HLoa8

 

There you go . . .