Trucking to Calvary

Our history with Calvary Chapel started in 1969 or 70 about a year after we were saved. Calvary Chapel was pretty young too. We were traveling to Malibu (2 hours away) on Friday nights for a Bible study. Frankly we did not know where to find another one.
We grew up as Episcopalian church kids. God sent Father Keith to our church because he got in trouble for preaching the gospel. He lead us to the Lord and we followed him to help a dying Episcopal Church in a Eastern Los Angeles.
One Sunday after church, we went for a drive to the beach and on the rocks of the jetty, in Corona Del Mar there were people playing guitars and singing. We thought, who does this but Christians? It was in the beginnings of the Jesus movement and there were not too many Christians our age, at least we knew.
They told us about this church that everyone was going to. Bible teaching and there was this pastor Chuck who was really cool. There was a concert on Friday nights and you did not even need shoes.
We checked it out and heard things about God we had never heard before. The Bible came alive.
For me I was so excited as there were only non-hymns. Sort of camp songs but from the Bible. And there were concerts. A new type of music. Worship like nothing seen before and it would be the start of Christian contemporary music.
We started taking our youth group down there every Friday. Costa Mesa was about an hour away from our house. The Lord’s coming seemed so near...we would see clouds on horizon and wonder if the rapture was on its’ way. When we were coming home from Calvary I would know the tunes to the songs and Dan would know the words.
We continued for about 2 years in our truck ministry. We had a homemade camper on our old Ford truck. We piled kids into the back. We took people that we didn't even know down to Calvary Chapel where they would get saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
We thought we would always be Episcopalians but when Calvary Chapel started in Whittier, we felt released to become a part of the new church. We were there on the first week.
We had great teaching, wonderful pastors and excellent fellowship there for some years. We especially enjoyed our home groups. As the church grew we met in a elementary school, then theater and eventually in the gym of a chiropractic college.
There were certain Calvary Chapels in the early 1980's that were experiencing powerful moves of the Holy Spirit. These churches were asked to change their name. This way they were free to go where God was leading them.
Our Calvary Chapel was experiencing those same things so we became a part of the Vineyard Churches. It was very awesome, those first years. It was amazing to watch what God was doing. We became more and more involved with ministry but someplace along the way, we did not even notice that commitment to teaching the Bible went by the wayside.
We moved up to the Tri-Cities to start a Vineyard Church but there was no Calvary Chapel there either.