A Brief History of Calvary Church 

Calvary Church is a community of believers that finds its roots in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.  During that great century churchmen, like Martin Luther of Germany (1483-1546), John Calvin of Switzerland (1509-1563) and  Thomas Cranmar of England (1489-1556), endeavored to bring reform to the catholic church which led eventually to the Protestant-Roman Catholic schism. [1]   During the 1600s the English Reformation splintered over how extensive reformed measures should be taken.  One particular group called the “Baptists” emphasized the complete separation of church and state (a radical idea at the time), as well as baptism for believers only. [2]   Baptists were considered Protestants who differed from their Protestant brethren on the issues of baptism and the church’s relationship with the state. [3]

Protestants in all their varied forms came to the New World and flourished in a land that upheld religious liberty.  The Protestant (or Evangelical) churches realized the most success early on, though Roman Catholics would eventually find a place in America largely through immigration from Europe.  During the early 1900s many evangelical [4] churches were significantly impacted by theological liberalism, a movement that arose during the mid-1800s challenging the truthfulness of the Bible, the deity of Christ and the necessity of conversion.  Between 1920 and 1950 many churches “came out” of their liberal denominations and formed groups like the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, the Independent Fundamental Churches of America, and the Bible Presbyterian Church of America.  This was known as the “Fundamentalist Movement.” [5]

Calvary was founded in 1947, with thirty-three charter members, as Calvary Baptist Church in fellowship with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. [6]   The church was a part of a nation wide movement involving thousands of local churches comprised of evangelicals who wanted to return to the fundamentals of the faith.  In August 1947, they purchased property on the corner of Harrison Boulevard and Valparaiso Street where they built a church and a parsonage for their first minister.  During a forty year period, attendance grew from thirty to two hundred, with worship attendances reaching almost 300 by the early 1990s when they relocated to the present location on the corner of Evans Avenue and Roosevelt Road in 1995.  

With the rise and influence of the famed Billy Graham [7] many evangelicals became less comfortable with some of the extreme views of fundamentalism.  Leaving liberal denominations may have been necessary in the 1930s and 1940s (though some evangelicals remained within them in an effort to bring reform), but Graham and others felt that, by the 1960s, fundamentalists had gone too far.  While retaining the “fundamentals,” Billy Graham criticized the extreme views of the “fundamentalists.”  Most of evangelicalism followed Graham and the movement became known as the “new evangelical movement.”  Those who left “fundamentalism” were called new evangelicals, often a term of derision among fundamentalists.  New evangelicals emphasized the “fundamentals of the faith” but wanted to lose the baggage.  They grew weary of narrow-minded denominationalism, provincialism, legalism, and the lack of concern for the world's social problems. [8]   New evangelicals wanted to restore the fundamentalist movement to the historic evangelical movement that found its history in the sixteenth-century Reformation. 

During the decade of the 1990s Calvary Baptist Church joined thousands of other churches in America in a difficult transition out of fundamentalism into an evangelicalism that was more in keeping with the historic evangelicalism inspired by the sixteenth-century reformers. [9]   A greater emphasis was placed on teaching the Scriptures verse by verse.  Christian liberty was emphasized and Augustine’s maxim was upheld:  “In the essentials unity, in the non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”  While retaining a commitment to missions and gospel proclamation, the church became more involved in ministering to the poor and needy as “pure religion before God.” [10]   Calvary also placed a greater emphasis on peacemaking and discipline, as well as unity with the larger Christian community.  The name was eventually changed from Calvary Baptist Church to Calvary Church, and less emphasis was placed on adherence to denominational ties, while a strong commitment to solid, Biblical teaching was retained. [11]   During the transition, the church also endured the painful loss of many members who did not agree with the changes that were being made.    

With the strong leadership of the church board and many dedicated families who refused to give up, the church persevered during the difficult transition.  Today Calvary Church is a nondenominational community of 500 members with morning worship attendance that averages between 500 and 600.  Calvary also attracts a number of students from nearby Valparaiso University.  Over the past five years the church has sent missionaries out from their own membership to live and serve in South Africa, Singapore, and the Dominican Republic.  The church also supports missionaries in East Africa, South America, Southern India and other parts of the globe. Calvary has a strong commitment to expository teaching, passionate and relevant worship, church membership, responsible Christian liberty, balancing evangelism with social responsibility, maintaining purity and unity through the practice of peacemaking and discipline, and winning as many as possible in the community and world. 

 In 2005 the leadership unveiled a Five Year Plan that outlines their prayerful vision of seeing God grow the community to 1,000 worshipers by 2010 and seeing God enable them to expand their mission into the community as well as in the far reaches of Sudan, China, and Eastern Europe.   

To learn more about Calvary Church, you can visit us during one of our worship services, or sign up for our pre-membership class held every quarter.