Calvary Chapel Stands Tall on Fundamentalist Tenets : Religion: Santa Ana church draws 12,000 people on Sundays and operates a vast outreach program.

In an era of fallen televangelists and mass-marketed religion, Pastor Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa approaches its 25th anniversary unscathed by scandal and seemingly ever mindful of the pride that could precede a fall.

According to a new survey, about 12,000 people attend services at the chapel each Sunday, making it the third-best-attended Protestant church in the nation.

The church also claims 386 affiliated churches in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Far East; religious programs on about 140 radio stations; missionaries in 15 countries; and a booming book, music and Bible-on-cassette business.

Yet, unlike its better-known neighbors, Melodyland and the Crystal Cathedral, Calvary Chapel does not advertise its services. It shuns publicity. And as an article of faith, it never solicits contributions. “If you ask for money, you’ll probably get fired,” said assistant pastor L. E. Romaine.

The church has even forsaken the Sunday collection plate in favor of a simple bag.

“That way everybody doesn’t see what everybody else is giving,” another church leader explained.

At 63, Smith himself is an easygoing man with unassuming manners. On Thursday, he showed visitors around the chapel dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, and said he was “totally and completely” surprised to learn that his flock is the third largest in the nation.

“This is as big as we want to get, really,” Smith said. “We have deliberately limited the growth. . . . We are low profile and it’s really by design.”

The church’s 21-acre campus includes a religious bookstore, the chapel, the newly expanded Maranatha Christian Academy with 1,500 pupils in grades K-12, a fellowship hall and several hopelessly overcrowded parking lots. Smith’s tour though hallways and gymnasiums on Thursday was interrupted by several students who threw their arms around him for hugs.

“What I knew about religion before this was, every time you went to church they tried to put their hand in your pocket and any time you turned on the TV . . . it was ‘Give me money, if you don’t I’m going to die,’ and that really turned me off,” said one former Catholic who has been rebaptized at Calvary Chapel. “They do the Lord’s work and they’re very loving and giving about it.”

“Jesus never asked for money . . . ,” said Lew Phelps, who manages the chapel’s outreach ministry. “He never had to get emotional and have big fancy circus acts to draw people. Jesus just preached the word, and that’s what Chuck has done.”

Even Calvary Chapel’s origins are low profile. The fundamentalist church began amid the bean fields of Santa Ana, but membership had dwindled to 25 when Smith took over in 1965.

After several moves to other churches and a two-year stint in a tent, the fellowship moved to a low-slung building at the corner of Sunflower Avenue and Fairview Street in 1971, where it is still located. By then, it was attracting crowds of young people, including many ex-hippies, in what later became known as the Jesus Movement of 1969-1974.

“They were accepted just as they were--long hair, granny dresses, fur-covered Bibles, whatever . . . ,” Romaine said. “And they just started accepting Jesus Christ.”

Many still worship at Calvary Chapel.

“They grew up and cut their hair and got married and had children, and a lot of them are back,” Romaine said.

Smith, who is known to his flock as “Pastor Chuck,” began conducting mass baptisms at Pirate’s Cove at Corona del Mar, which continue to draw huge crowds.

A five-day Harvest Crusade at the Pacific Amphitheatre in August drew 18,000 to 20,000 people each night, church leaders said. The following week, Smith baptized 1,000 people.

Smith’s teaching is fundamentalist, stressing basic Bible study.

“It’s back to basics without a bunch of weird interpretations and all that funky stuff you hear so much about,” Phelps said. “He just relies upon the Lord and reads the Bible for what it says, not for what he thinks it says.”

A graduate of LIFE Bible College, Smith pastored the evangelical Foursquare Gospel churches for 17 years before taking over Calvary Chapel.

“I discovered that God did not call me to be an evangelist,” Smith said. “God called me to be a pastor-teacher.”

His Bible-teaching method is simple: start with Genesis, proceed chapter by chapter through Revelations. Smith says the approach gives his flock a well-rounded education without overemphasizing pet themes.

Smith said some of his flock practice charismatic devotions, such as faith-healing or speaking in tongues. But the tone of the church’s public sermons is more restrained.

“We don’t believe in the actions of the charismatics which are so often excessive--for example speaking in tongues in church and making a heavy emphasis on acts of faith,” he said. “We have elders who pray for the sick, but we don’t make a big display of it. It’s not a circus-tent environment.”

Through Word for Today, the outreach ministry, the church owns radio station KWVE (107.9 FM) in San Clemente, which broadcasts 24-hour religious programming. Affiliate churches also own radio stations in Honolulu, Oregon and Idaho, Smith said.

The church also purchases air time on 120 to 140 other radio stations in the United States and overseas, as well as several cable networks. However, Smith said he stopped airing his sermons on the Trinity Broadcasting Network on Oct. 1 because of rising rates.

“There’s talk that Jerry Falwell is maybe going to drop the Family Network, so we’re talking about picking that up,” Smith added.

Calvary Chapel’s total budget was $9.5 million last year, all from donations, Smith said. Two-thirds of the income is spent on missionary outreach and one-third to operate Calvary Chapel. The church has no debts. Smith said surpluses are used to subsidize tuition at the Christian schools and to loan $10 million to affiliate churches to help them expand.

Word for Today publishes Christian books and thousands of religious tapes, including the entire Bible in 323 cassettes. The tapes are sold for $2.50 each and are donated to juvenile halls, prisons and missionaries around the world, Phelps said.

Calvary produces its own music and television programs through its Asaph Studios in Santa Ana (Asaph was the biblical David’s chief musician). The chapel was recently rebuffed in efforts to build a 550-acre religious resort and conference center in a quiet valley on Palomar Mountain. This month, it announced plans to build the retreat near Lake Arrowhead instead.

Overseas, Calvary Chapel has helped build stations in San Salvador and Guatemala, delivered 1 million Chinese-language Bibles to the underground Home Churches in the People’s Republic of China, and purchased a castle in Austria from which it runs outreach programs to Eastern Europe, Smith said.

Several years ago, the church donated $453,000 to the Israeli government to help establish settlements in “upper Galilee,” now known as the occupied West Bank, and built baptismal sites for Christian pilgrims on the River Jordan, church leaders said.

Experts say that Smith’s music ministry and informal approach to a younger generation in the 1970s and 1980s has paid quiet dividends.

“Smith’s style is so casual, laid-back, so California,” said Columbia University historian Randall Balmer, author of a book on what he calls the evangelical subculture in America.

Smith said the church once had a business manager but found it too costly. His philosophy is, “Where God guides, God provides.”

“Jesus said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my church.’ We have taken him at his word,” Smith said.

CALVARY’S LOCAL BRANCHES Calvary Chapel claims 357 affiliated churches in the United States and 29 overseas. Sunday attendance at the home church in Santa Ana is 12,000, and attendance tops 1,000 at several of the other Orange County branches. The following lists the 15 local branches and where services are held:

Calvary Chapel, 25975 Domingo Ave., Capistrano Beach

Calvary Chapel, 92 Argonaut, Laguna Hills

Calvary Chapel North County, 1830 Kellogg Drive, Anaheim

Calvary Chapel of Anaheim, 12181 Buaro St., Garden Grove

Calvary Chapel of Brea, 1200 W. Lambert Road, Brea

Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, 3800 S. Fairview Road, Santa Ana

Calvary Chapel of Cypress, 5202 Lincoln Ave., Cypress

Calvary Chapel of Irvine (services held at Franklin Avenue and Michelle Drive, Tustin)

Calvary Chapel of Orange (information on Sunday services unavailable)

Calvary Chapel of Placentia, 3456 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Anaheim

Calvary Chapel of Saddleback Valley (services held at Mission Viejo High School, 2505 Chrisanta Drive, Mission Viejo)

Calvary Chapel of Seal Beach (services held at McGaugh Elementary School, 1698 Bolsa Ave., Seal Beach)

Calvary Chapel of Westminster (services held at Chapman Junior High School, 11700 N. Knott Ave., Westminster)

San Clemente Calvary Chapel (services held at San Clemente High School, 700 Avenida Pico, San Clemente)

Westminster Christian Center, 7111 Trask Ave., Westminster

Source: Individual chapels