It maintains a number of radio stations around the world and operates many local Calvary Chapel Bible College programs.

Beginning in 1965 in Southern California, this fellowship of churches grew out of Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

The association has its origins in the founding of a Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California) in 1965 by pastor Chuck Smith of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel with 25 people.

Prior to Smith, Costa Mesa members spoke of their own vision of becoming part of a massive church movement.

[5] John Higgins introduced Smith to Lonnie Frisbee, the "hippie evangelist" who became a key figure in the growth of both the Jesus Movement and Calvary Chapel.

[9] Frisbee featured in national television-news reports and magazines with images of him baptizing hundreds at a time in the Pacific Ocean.

[6] By the early 1970s Calvary Chapel was home to ten or more musical groups that were representative of the Jesus people movement.

[12][13] In 2012, Pastor Chuck Smith founded the Calvary Chapel Association (CCA) to unite all of the movement's churches around the world.

Smith remained as the senior pastor at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa during his battle with cancer; this included preaching at three services on the Sunday before his death.

[27] According to Calvary Chapel literature, the association strives to "strik[e] a balance between extremes" when it comes to controversial theological issues such as Calvinism's and Arminianism's conflicting views on salvation.

Similar to other Pentecostal or Charismatic movements,[34] Calvary Chapel holds that the baptism of the Holy Spirit does not take place during conversion, but is available as a second experience.

Calvary Chapel also rejects supersessionism, and instead believes that the Jews remain God's chosen people and that Israel will play an important part in the end times.

[39] During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chuck Smith wrote and published a prophetic timeline that declared the imminent return of Christ.

In the book Snatched Away!, published in 1976, Smith wrote: the generation that was living in May 1948 shall not pass until the second coming of Jesus Christ takes place and the kingdom of God be established upon the earth.

In his 1978 book, Smith reasoned that Halley's Comet in 1986 would result in problems for those left behind: The Lord said that towards the end of the Tribulation period the sun would scorch men who dwell upon the face of the Earth (Rev.

[48] Another advantage, they say, is that it makes difficult topics easier to address because members of the congregation won't feel like they are being singled out.

Calvary Chapels believe that most churches have a "dependent, highly organized, [and] structured" environment, but that most people want an "independent and casual way of life".

They do not employ congregational polity, believing that God's people collectively made poor decisions in the Old Testament, citing Exodus 16:2 as an example.

For example, Chuck Smith has been criticized for drawing connections between disasters (e.g., earthquakes, the September 11 attacks) and divine wrath against homosexuality and abortion.

[47][58] Calvary Chapel leaders, including Smith, were the subject of a lawsuit alleging that they knew or should have known that a minister named Anthony Iglesias was prone to sexual abuse when they moved him from ministry positions in Diamond Bar, California, to Thailand, to Post Falls, Idaho.

[59][60] Iglesias was convicted of molesting two 14-year-old boys in California in 2004, and the lawsuit stemmed from events in Idaho, but all alleged abuse occurred in or before 2003.

Christianity Today says that Smith's "Moses Model", in which senior pastors do not permit their authority to be challenged, can lead to churches that are often resistant to accountability.

[61] According to one article, "Smith's book Calvary Chapel Distinctives teaches that senior pastors should be answerable to God, not to a denominational hierarchy or board of elders."

[62] Calvary Chapel Bible College (CCBC) in Twin Peaks, California is the flagship of at least 50 affiliated campuses throughout the world.