About Our Church      

     In 1979 Jim and Debby Ramsey along with some friends and family, with the help of Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, established the first Calvary Chapel in the state of Montana.  In those early years, the church met in various hotels and restaurants; including the Red Lion, The Holiday Inn, Perkins (which is now Flanagan's over Rattlesnake Creek), The Butrey Suburban Building, and the Chimney Corner Building across from the University of Montana.

       In those years, Calvary ran a Coffee House Ministry for college students as well as housed a number of college men in the rooms above the restaurant and coffee house.  In addition to the College Ministry Calvary established Christian clubs on each of the high school campuses in Missoula averaging 40-80 students on each campus.  The College Ministry later merged with Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship and the high school program ended when Jim Ramsey was able to establish a Youth for Christ board in Missoula and finally, after two attempts, found a full-time director for Missoula Youth for Christ.    

     After meeting at the Chimney Corner Building for a year or so, the church was moved to the Ramsey's home and met for a year on the main floor, in the area that is now the dining room, front room and music studio.  When the church outgrew that area it moved to the basement of the house and met there until the congregation reached about 80 people.  At that point, the church moved to the Seventh-day Adventist Church on South Avenue and met there for a couple of years.    

     Finally, in the early 90s Calvary had the opportunity to buy The World Theater for $50,000.  The building had been completely stripped and the church had to  buy all the chairs back and then haul them all the way from Billings back to Missoula on a flatbed trailer with improvised sheetrock walls to hold 300 metal chairs which must have weighed "tons".  The fact that an ordinary truck pulled that load back to Missoula safely is one of the miracles in our history.  The fact that 16 people were able to raise the money to buy the building and begin the refurnishing, was another.    

     A third, was the fact that over a period of seven years, the World Theater was completely renovated, requiring $100,000 in material and donated labor from church members.  During that time period, some kind of work was going on at the church building on any given week and yet the people maintained good morale.    

     In 1997, the name, Calvary Chapel, was changed to Calvary Community Church. In 2000 the nonprofit organization, Citizens for Wholesome Entertainment was established by Jim Ramsey and the Good News Diner variety show was produced once a month as a community service project of the church and Wholesome Entertainment Productions (WE Productions).    

     In 2005 the name of the building was changed to The World Theater and Event Center. The name of the building was changed so that more nonchurch people would feel comfortable coming into the building for various community activities sponsored by We Productions, and as a result become exposed to the ministries of Calvary Community Church, which continues to own the building and hold services there.    

            Now, after 28 years we feel like the church is entering a whole new era and pastor Ramsey speaks about starting the second half of his ministry in Missoula.