 As mentioned I'll be sharing with you something I'll be doing a lot of reading because I want to make sure to stay on track and To be accurate I'll depart once in a while from what I've prepared But I want to share with you a foundation and I want to share with you over a series of several weeks The things that make us what we are and I felt that in order to do so I would give to you as the foundational teaching Something related to our history a history of this fellowship Which would include some elements of what the Lord has done in my life to give some of you visitors and all some insight into the heart of this ministry and Give you some insight into me as the pastor so that you might understand Some of the things that should you remain for us for a while that you'll be hearing it'll give you a context So I'll read verses 18 and 19 here in Isaiah chapter 43 and and I'll get into my time with you Isaiah writes do not remember the former things nor consider the things of old Behold I will do a new thing now it shall spring forth shall you not know it I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert So I'll begin a series related to the essentials of our ministry I especially desire to give insight into the history of this ministry because it can be helpful for some of you who might Have a curiosity concerning this as I mentioned a moment ago the things that I'll share are already known by some of you And for others it'll be new information So the question I'll begin with is how did Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley come into existence? I'm gonna begin all the way back when I first met a young lady named Marie who became my wife and I'll start there So when I met her and began dating her at that time. I was teaching two Bible studies a week Monday nights and Also on Tuesday. I attended church on Thursday nights on Sunday morning and Sunday nights I was going to college. I went to Biola five days a week and I played on two softball teams I was going to lectures given by Walter Martin I Later was attending an evening study in Downey After being married I attended school. I worked part-time. I continued teaching. I was teaching three Bible studies a week I was attending church on Sunday mornings as well as Sunday nights Eventually Marie and I had our first child Corinne. I worked full-time in Huntington Park I taught two Bible studies one in Norwalk one in Rowland Heights. I attended night classes at Cal Poly Pomona I later went to Malady Land School of Theology in Anaheim and after that I was taking classes at Cal State Fullerton And around 1978 I served on a church board for Calvary Chapel of Claremont We would meet after I attended night classes at Cal Poly on Tuesday evenings in Claremont Marie and I would drive from Rowland Heights to Downey for church So we moved to Norwalk Where we eventually drove every Sunday to Claremont to go to church at the same time I was attending school in Anaheim. I transferred to Cal Poly and Pomona Eventually started teaching a Bible study on Tuesday nights moved it to Friday nights worked full-time and I quit school When we first married Marie worked up until the weekend of the birth of my daughter Corinne After Corinne was born I tried to support our family by working a full-time job making minimum wage Like many newlyweds of our day. We started with very little We had the cars we brought into our marriage in 1963 falcon in a 1976 Toyota We had a convertible sofa that we slept on Some assorted wedding gifts a $50 table and chairs and a $10 sofa We bought our first television for $99. It was huge. It was 13 inches. I Was making 375 an hour. I was attending school so that I could have the GI bill benefit of 500 a month Which helped to provide income. I received ordination in 1979 Eventually was placed on staff at Calvary Chapel of Claremont. My first salary was $969 a month before taxes and tithes. We had a house payment of $500 a month Marie received her college degree and began to work as a substitute teacher. I Was an assisting pastor during the one and a half years. I served in that ministry Marie worked frequently bringing home needed money to pay our bills. My VA benefits expired We needed her check when Corinne was 17 months old We had David and when David was eight months old. We suffered a miscarriage He asked God to keep me from crying. He said no I have this terrible ability to be back at that place at that moment and The emotions are still there forgive me Marie became pregnant again and When David was two and a half we had Joseph My son Joseph was three months old when we left Claremont We didn't have a church to attend and my sister-in-law patty asked me where we were going to go to church You see when I was the assisting pastor at Claremont The senior pastor who had ordained me into ministry resigned and left the ministry in the hands of a younger man who Didn't appreciate me or my ministry at the church He eventually in a board meeting He told me that I wasn't a pastor and that He was revoking my ordination and that I was going to be a counselor in the church And I remember that conversation and I remember saying to him There's only one thing I know that I am and that's I'm called to pastor. It's just not here so I resigned my position there and I left and So when that happened my sister-in-law patty asked me where we were going to go to church and my sister-in-law patty Was the first person in my ministry whoever answered an invitation that I gave and I had I had Odin Fong a friend of mine had come to do music and and I gave a message and nobody came forward So I went into the back and patty went into the back and her roommate Felicia Went into the back of the stage area and she said, you know, nobody came forward She says I feel really really sorry for you She said so I better give my heart to Jesus and that's how she got saved. I said that's better than nothing and so And so she and her roommate Felicia both came to faith in Christ that night that nobody saw it She's still with us to this day She had asked me where are you gonna go to church and I told her I don't know yet So she said what will you teach me until we find a church and that's how we ended up planting this church I've always believed that it's not the crowds that you want to reach. It's the individuals People matter. It's not that crowds don't thank God when many show up, of course But it has to always be the people that one person that needs Jesus Christ and And that's how this church began because I wanted to minister to her we didn't have a church to go to yet and That's how we ended up planting this church. This church originally was called Ontario Christian Chapel And so we began ministry and there was a lot of sacrifice my screen door at my home in Ontario Had rips in the bottom where my daughter Corrine who was very little in my David Would climb and hold on to the screen and their little feet pressed the screen out of the door and They would they climbed in and would cry there whenever I'd leave to go to ministry or have to go do a weekend ministry trip And I left it with the screen ripped out to remind myself that it costs to serve the Lord Corrine's first year of life was spent sleeping between Marie and me. I worked I went to school I taught Bible studies at night We lived with my parents for a year while I saved up money for a down payment for our first home in Ontario Which cost us forty seven thousand dollars? It just sold for four hundred and sixty thousand dollars I should have held on to it Starting the church was difficult It didn't begin without difficulty when our church began My my salary in our church was five hundred a month We barely made ends meet it was stressful My wife Marie began to lose her hair and was diagnosed with alopecia areata a condition that is stress related She lost a third of her hair. I made a small wage for around a month or two doing a basic landscaping Marie worked for Chino High School as a substitute teacher. We saw that as the grace of God In that she was given work for a full school year teaching Spanish and we laugh about that because Marie doesn't speak Spanish At the end of the year neither did her students Como no It was at this time that we began to learn something about John 12 24 where Jesus said Verily verily I sent you accept a corn if we'd fall into the ground and die it abides alone But if it died it brings forth much fruit He who loves his life shall lose it and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it until life eternal dying to self Results in God moving in wonderful ways When we began our church our first Sunday morning had 25 maybe 30 adults Less than 10 children including two infants Joseph being one of them When this ministry began the Lord gave me three specific scriptures The first was 1st Samuel 24 12 which says let the Lord judge between you and me and let the Lord avenge me on you But my hand shall not be against you. He gave me that scripture because the pastor who had hurt me so deeply I Could I could have carried resentment in my heart towards him and and I could have lashed out at him and tried to To do things that were just not godly and the Lord said no let me judge between him and you you just trust me I'll take care of it So I let go of that and the Lord had moved me to let go of that to move on But a year after starting this fellowship I called him up and I said to him I'd like to meet with you and I gathered together with him in his office and We had it out. We prayed we embraced and I moved on So the Lord was teaching me from the beginning. Let me do your battles. Let me fight for you a Second scripture was Exodus 23 29 through 30 where God says I will not drive them out from before you in one year Lest the land become desolate the beast of the field become too numerous for you Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land So I saw that the Lord by application Was going to going to move slowly in this fellowship It wasn't going to explode in numbers, but it would grow gradually and that's something we saw take place over the years and The third scripture was our first message the one I just read to you Isaiah 43 18 and 19 He wants to do a new thing So over the many years, I've seen the Lord fulfill this word to us He has slowly but surely produced a new work in our midst first in the city of Ontario and Now here in the Chino Valley. I first came to the Inland Empire in September of 1974 I was teaching a home study in Ontario I eventually moved that study to Montclair as a matter of fact that study that that I had in Montclair back in 1975 was in the home of John Matau who does our offerings and teaches and all now and saw staff with me I first met John. I call him John John because that's how I knew him as a six-year-old little boy So I've known John John I met John John first when he was six years old and he's still a monster all these years later And so we had moved the Bible study to his parents house in 1975 but in 1977 we came back and Began ministry and in Calvary until we planted this fellowship When we began in Ontario in 81 there were around 80 churches in the city. We had to ask ourselves Why do we need to plant another church? And so we asked the Lord what would you have for us? Well, we wanted a church that would be fresh that would be vital a Church that was filled with the wine of the Holy Spirit and we believe that Calvary ministry embodied this In Luke chapter 5 verses 37 through 39 Jesus said no one puts new wine into old wine skins or else the new wine will burst the wine skins and be spilled And the wine skins will be ruined But new wine must be put into new wine skins and both are preserved and no one having drunk old wine Immediately desires new for he says the old is better. The old is good enough And so the heart of this statement is that God wants to be alive in his church We don't want to put him in a box of tradition. We want to remain fresh Want to remain fresh in our worship and in our style of teaching and the things that relate to ministry And we want to let people know from the beginning to this day that God loves them That's the key and that's the heart of this ministry and even though I'm an old man now And I'm up here speaking as an ancient of days kind of guy I I was talking to somebody the other day interestingly enough We went out with my daughter Corinne and her husband and kids and it was her husband Scott's a birthday and and we were at the table and and our waiter was a guy who's been in pastoral ministry and and he was talking to us and sharing with us and And he brings up He brings up the Jesus freaks and I smiled at him and I said that's what I am and that's what I've been You know because they used to call us freaks. I mean there was a there was a there was a song where Crosby stills nashin young where he said I almost cut my hair. It happened just the other day Some of you might remember that song if you do you're as old as I am you should be ashamed of yourself But he said something about letting his freak flag fly Well a freak flag was your hair and so they the hippies were freaks They called them freaks at that time So we were freaks when I got saved we became Jesus freaks And that's where that term came from the Jesus freaks and so what I was a Jesus freak So I told that guy said yeah, you know, I said through my dentures. I'm a Jesus freak, you know So Again when we started this work We laid the pure foundation Jesus is the chief cornerstone That the entire work is built on First Corinthians chapter 3 verse 11 says no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid Which is Jesus Christ here where I'm standing and in the platform in the main sanctuary I wrote before we put carpet that scripture every time I teach I stand on the sure foundation Of Jesus Christ every time I speak I'm standing right now on the scripture No other foundation and that's my heart in ministry Jesus is our foundation Our love for him and our service to him is what makes us what we are Philippians 1 21 says for to me to live is Christ to die is gain So Jesus is not a name tacked on to a church to make it seem Christian Jesus is the one we love and it's Jesus that we proclaim Over the years. I have seen too many using his name to further their own interest Paul spoke of this in Philippians 2 21. He said I'll seek their own Not the things which are of Christ Jesus, but we made a decision to keep Jesus the center of all that we do We met for the first time in my sister-in-law's rented home in Ontario The front room was a sanctuary the den and three bedrooms were children's ministry. I sat on a recliner I taught barefooted. I I used to teach barefooted until my mom told me one day, you know son I'm tired of looking at your feet Would you put shoes on and so I started wearing shoes? The next week that we met there. What happened is we did our Sunday morning and I said, I'll see you later If you want to come back I'll be here because I had gone to I had gone to speak to Patty and Phyllis really and People came back and when they came back somebody said to me can we record these messages? And I said, why would you want to do that? Who wants to listen to this more than once? and he said we do and so That's how we began to move towards recording on that day I gave what we call our four pillars God's word the worship of God the witness of God's people and the witness to his glory And so I told him I said this is what we're going to do God is guiding us in this and God is going to do a work in us and this is what we will be We will attempt to teach the Bible. We will teach the word of God Jesus Christ will always be the foundation of this work. We don't have a denomination philosophy We believe in Holy Spirit anointing not an education alone or natural talent We need the power of the Holy Spirit and we're going to teach the word of God under the power of the Spirit And we're going to make sure that Jesus Christ is a center of all that we do Paul said it like this in 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 5 He said we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake We're not celebrity oriented because Jesus is all we need Jesus and John 15 5 said I'm the vine. You are the branches He who abides in me and I and him the same brings forth much fruit for without me you can do Nothing I still remember when my pastor Chuck came to teach at a Wednesday night study our church was a few years old at that time We're meeting in Ontario high school. The auditorium sat 1200 people. It was packed on a Wednesday night There were people not only in all of the seats, but they were on the floor and Pastor Chuck went up. We used to have a picture of him at that particular study. He used to have it in the foyer He went up and he taught we had the fire a fire marshal who attended our church at that time Who came and said I'm gonna have to shut this down. This is dangerously overcrowded So my one of my assistants took her outside to talk to her a little bit about it took about 40 minutes In his conversation with her because he wanted to make sure he understood everything she had to say Which gave Chuck enough time to finish this study. I Know that's bad, but I don't care So we walked out and Chuck and I were walking out together And I'll never forget this under his breath as we were walking out together Chuck muttered and said Who would have ever thought? Ontario I'll never forget that because for me Ontario was the wages of sin I would have thought the same thing Who would have thought Ontario? You see we need to depend on the Lord to produce his fruit to his own glory And we need to know that it's through the teaching of the word of God that you produce health in a church and Healthy sheep will be get sheep You can you can put all your money into a budget and bring in the best speakers most famous Bring in the best musicians and entertainers and all you're gonna produce is gonna be an entertainment place It's not gonna be a church But if you center on Jesus Christ if you center on his word is if you center on loving God With all of your heart with people of like mind you have a church and when you have a church People stop being celebrity oriented. Yes, there are people who will come to church because a special speaker is there I get it. I understand but that doesn't build a church one time here in this church in the early 90s Some of you might remember a young woman named who was a young woman at that time crystal Lewis Maybe you remember her name. She was real big for a while crystal We had her here and this when this this that's when this place was our our main sanctuary And so that wall that's behind us here didn't it wasn't there at that time. There were actually a Plot there's a platform there and so we would see it a little over a thousand people and it was a Wednesday night and Crystal came and she did her music people like crystal I liked crystal, but I remember walking up right where I am right now And I remember saying listen crystals crystals concerts over So we're gonna take a break for a moment because you who came just for a concert who aren't really interested in God's word I want to give you opportunity to leave and People got up and left because they weren't interested in the word of God. They wanted to be entertained So from the very beginning I've always always believed that we're not celebrity oriented It's Jesus Christ who's the center of everything. It has to be Jesus Christ or else. It's not the church It's just a program and so if that's always been our foundation in this church And that's how it went for the longest time and still is We must always depend on the Lord to produce his fruit to his own glory And we need to remember it's the healthy sheep that beget sheep We didn't receive offerings for the first 15 and a half years of the existence of this church We rented schools. We bought properties. We hired staff. We had outreaches went on the radio We began receiving offerings because the Lord convicted me because I was proud of the fact that we didn't I Was in I had one of my board members call me up and he said to me Dave He said I want to talk to you for a minute and I said, okay He said the Lord has told me to tell you something and I said I'm listening what he says it's time to receive offerings It'd been 15 and a half years and I said no, I'm not gonna do that He said well, the Holy Spirit has put it on my heart to tell you that right around the same time We're all recent. I I like to tease about him Rawls a very good friend of mine And and at the same time right around that time Raul and I were invited to go minister in India and so he and I went together to India and we spent almost Almost 10 days or so Ministry in India now never forget how we were in this this room and those of you who've been into India know that It's a hundred percent humidity. There's no air conditioning It is so hot in the room that Raul decided to lay on the concrete floor to try and get something Cool and me. I was laying in the bed. No blankets or anything Just sweating and I remember two things one. I remember him yelling. I remember hearing this sound Then him say what was that because something had crawled on him and was biting him So I remember hearing what's up And then the second thing is the out of the darkness. I hear Raul say David you need to receive offerings and When he did that I that was a witness of two when he did that I knew the Holy Spirit was saying it's time to receive offerings and I came back and I shared with this church I said listen, I know that we've never received offering. We had a copy boxes. I know we've never received offerings We've been able to do so much, but I have been convicted Because I am ripping you off of the blessings of giving I told the church that Because God blesses the cheerful heart that gives and I've been withholding from you the opportunities to be blessed by him And that's why we began receiving offerings. It wasn't a a desire to receive more money It was a desire to have my people blessed, which I had been stealing from them by not encouraging them in that There are those who wonder why our children's ministry is separate from adult church services We developed that out of an awareness of differing abilities for people to understand including children You see in Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 2 it reads Ezra the priest Brought the law before the congregation both of men and women and all that could hear with Understanding upon the first day of the seventh month I looked that up with the commentators and all and it points out that the small children the children who didn't have the Capacity to understand the teaching were not included in the teaching and that's part of what we do That's why we we teach our children according to their ability, but they'd never get anything from a study like this Obviously my style of teaching is expositional. I take that out of Acts chapter 20 verses 26 and 27 Where Paul said I declared to you today that I'm innocent of the blood of all men I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole Council of God and so that's why I teach the way that I do. I want to teach you the whole Council We also emphasize worship. We believe that worship is inspirational as well as encouraging And I've seen God move through worshipful praise Because worship of God should be inspirational we emphasize singing to him Worshiping God in song is not simply a prelude to the teaching. It's a time of intimacy With him and just this last week when or a couple weeks ago when dr. Heinz and with was with us He said this he said some churches that I teach at are led by performers He said but this is a church that worships and that spoke to my heart I'm open to a variety of musical expressions of worship Including Country And I love to praise the Lord and So that's another pillar witness Witness for us is the need for fellowship in a world that People think they have friendships because they have a lot of friends on Facebook or whatever Those aren't your friends and you know that it's sad. It's sad. I read it every day I post, you know, I do I use it as ministry. Of course, it's a great ministry tool. I use Facebook and other forms But sometimes I read things that I actually I actually it makes me sad Where somebody says nobody's writing me back or nobody's liking my posts or I feel this or I'm hurting like this And I'm thinking you need a human being you need a person with a shoulder that you can cry on You need someone who can look at you and I die and can say I love you Not something out there that that you'll never even know who's reading people who will take advantage of you people who will cut And paste and take excerpts of what you say and make fun of you to other people and in their friend list You know, I that I really believe in community I really believe that what's lacking in the church today is a sense of needing one another It's a sense of knowing one another I mean when you read your Bible of the word one another in Excuse me in the New Testament is used script There's over 50 times that one another is used in scripture like when Jesus said a new command But I give you that you love one another or Romans 15 7 where he said receive one another Galatians 5 13 brethren, you've been called to liberty only don't use your liberty for an occasion to the flesh But I love serve one another there's pray for one another exhort one another, you know confess your faults one to another It's a one another thing The church at the beginning was all together in one accord when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them and the church Is supposed to have a one another? Experience it's very unhealthy when you don't have that and then we wanted to have a witnessing church healthy sheep you get sheep And the Jesus movement was and remains an evangelistic movement. I got saved But I witnessed to my family I witnessed to my friends and I still share As a result of desiring to reach people we've developed the food box ministry dinner ministry hospital and home visitation teams Convalescent home ministry new believers ministry prison ministry that presently serves in six California prisons We have lion tamers a drug and alcohol abuse ministry We have new man ministry. We have under his wings ministry support groups We have Friday evangelism outreaches. We have a Pomona outreach. We'd have door-to-door Outreaches missions to Mexico missions to the Philippines Costa Rica Guatemala as well as a Spanish language service here on campus on Thanksgiving and Christmas We provide food for families and fellowship as Well as gifts for kids including the children of single-parent homes our Easter services men's conferences women's conferences and Christmas services Have served to reach thousands of people throughout our community We planted churches in in Mexicali in Fontana in upland in Ontario South Alley, Ohio Valley, Montclair in in Up north in Ciscus the redemption hill in Lake Havasu great Falls, Montana We in Corpus Christi Madison, Wisconsin clay alum Washington and over the years. We've seen God move We saw God take a small Bible study and from the original members extend his kingdom throughout the world Many of you have enabled us to broadcast the message of the gospel throughout the nation on 41 radio stations From Arizona to New York and many states in between You've helped us to reach a new generation with the gospel of Christ and we're reaching many through our Facebook live broadcasts. I Look back over the years It seems as if time has flown by So much life has been experienced We've seen many saved baptized equipped used by God in wonderful ways We've had children born into this fellowship grow up here serve here meet their spouses here get married here And I've dedicated their children Entire lives have actually been lived in the shade of this church. I look back with appreciation But I look forward with anticipation Because I believe God wants to do more In Haggai 2 verse 9 it says the glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former says the Lord of Hosts I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for us. I Want Jesus to return in my lifetime, but should he not I want us to move until he does I want to live in the power of his Holy Spirit with faith for the future And I want to make a difference I want us to keep learning to keep serving to keep working until he returns and And I would like to sum up my feelings for this congregation with these words Where Paul in 1st Estillunians 2 8 said Affectionately longing for you. You were well pleased to impart We were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives Because you had become dear to us. I have been blessed To impart God's gospel to you, but I've also imparted my life you are in many ways My crown and my glory I Love you guys it may not hit you may not realize that You may not even believe it and I can't be the person who has coffee with you and goes with you know that But know this now. I love you know that when I stand up and I share my heart And I tear up like I am right now You need to know you are amongst the very few people who ever see me cry You need to know my wife doesn't see me cry as often as you have Because I'm I'm with you my heart is open and I'm telling you What I feel for you and what I feel for you is Gratitude and love has loved you guys with all of my heart And so I'll close With a with a promise that I'll do the best I can to remain faithful to the Lord to teach his word and As my pastor Chuck said I take my hat off to the past and I take my jacket off for the future because the best is yet to come and Father we thank you for this this journey that we're beginning. We thank you for this first installment and Thank you for your history of working with us how faithful you are to us And we're grateful Lord so many things unable to be said in such a short time But Lord you have guided and you have always provided and I just asked that we would never forget that I Lift up this congregation and I ask Lord that you would have your way amongst us. I Lift up those who are hurting in this place right now as well as those who are rejoicing That Lord you will be the center of wherever it whatever it is may it be joy May it be sorrow at the moment Whatever it may be be the center of that Lord and bring them to where you are and keep them where you are And Lord we ask that you would just keep moving through this series Lord as we build on it platform by platform So that we'll get an idea of who we are what our history is and what you want to do with us So Lord thank you so much for the work you're doing and may you continue to bless us We lift up the needs of this congregation every one of them the emotional The physical the spiritual and yes the material will lift them to you Lord asking that you would Provide because you always have I know you always will and Lord may we remain faithful to you to the end