About Calvary

The Holy Bible is the inspired Word of God and is the basis for any statement of faith.  The church subscribes to the doctrinal state of The Baptist Faith and Message as adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000.  We band ourselves together as a body of baptized believers in Jesus Christ and personally commit to sharing the good news of salvation with lost mankind.  As evidences of our faith, we affirm baptism and the Lord's Supper as ordinances of the church.

Our vision at Calvary Baptist Church is to be a community of faith that lives, loves, and labors together for the glory of God. We are committed to reaching those who do not yet know Christ in a personal way with the life-giving message of the Good News in Christ.  We long to build flourishing, Christ-centered families in Perry, Florida, that experience the fullness and wonder of honoring God in every facet of life. We yearn to magnify, celebrate, and adore Christ our Savior through the beauty of passionate and authentic worship.  We desire to experience the joys of sharing our lives with each other through fellowship and by cultivating Christ-centered relationships within God's family.  We want to build up the hearts and minds of every member with the riches of Christian truth through biblical preaching and teaching under the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ.  We believe that every person in our church family is uniquely gifted, and we want to help cultivate and deploy those gifts in grateful service to Christ as we reach out to our neighbors in Perry, Florida, and across the world with the power and majesty of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In every way we want to encourage and equip each person to live Christ out loud by loving God and loving each other.

Calvary Baptist Mission first met in the home of Clint and Lou Ella Shaw in August, 1961.  The first officers were Sarah Poppell as Church Secretary/Treasurer and Lou Ella Shaw as Church Clerk.  Interim trustees for the church were Clinton Shaw, Hansel Redd, Clayton Starks, Harold Shaw and Herbert Murphy.  On September 20, 1961, these officers became permanent and Joe Engle was formally called as Calvary's first pastor. 

Calvary Mission adopted the rules and bylaws of the Taylor Baptist Association on October 4, 1961, and requested membership in the Southern Baptist Convention.  As the church began to grow, meetings were first held in a fish market and then in the American Legion Hall on Center Street.  In January of 1962, land was purchased on Sandra Street to be the site of the new Calvary Baptist Church.  Groundbreaking for the church was on March 18, 1962, with occupation a few months later.  The church continued to grow and prosper with a new sanctuary addition to the original building. 

In 1997 the church began to discuss relocation and the building of a new worship facility on land donated on Golf Course Road by the Irene Parker family.  In January of 1998, the church began a Challenge to Build program which culminated on October 8, 2000, with the groundbreaking for our current facility on Golf Course Rd. In April of 2016 Calvary broke ground on our new worship center, the need for which has been largely driven by the success of our AWANA people and program at reaching the young people of our community. 

Today, the people of Calvary stand on the legacy of faith-filled saints of the past who loved, trusted, and served Christ through both blessing and adversity. We look forward to continuing that legacy for future generations by faithfully advancing the kingdom of Christ both locally and globally for the glory of God.