[What We Believe]

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 divisions of the Body of Christ.

We believe the only true basis of Christian fellowship is Christ's love (Agape), which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.

We believe the worship of God should be:

• Spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.
  
• 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.
  
• Inspirational.  Therefore, we give great place to music in our worship.
  
• Fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been worshipping Him.
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We believe in all the basic biblical doctrines of orthodox evangelical Christianity:

• The inerrancy of Scripture, that the Bible, Old and New Testaments are the inspired, infallible Word of God.
  
• God is eternally existent in three separate persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  
• God is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all things.
  
• 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 substitutionary death on the cross, was bodily resurrected from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand of the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us.
  
• All people are, by nature, separated from God and responsible for their own sins, 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.
  
• 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.
  
• The gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures.  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 await the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, and we believe the second coming of Christ with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal, pre-millennial, and visible.
  
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  Therefore,
  

• We are motivated to holy living, heartfelt worship, committed service, diligent study of God's Word, regular fellowship, 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 the person to greater maturity in Christ.
  
• 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 focus our services on a personal relationship with God through worship, prayer, and the teaching of the Word of God.