Our fellowship began as a home bible study in August of 1994. Groups of people would come every week to learn about God’s Word so that they could apply it to their lives. As this fellowship began to grow, in the middle of 1995, we moved into a building in an industrial park in the city of Whittier. This fellowship, now a fledgling ministry, under the oversight of Pastor Raul Ries, became what is now Calvary Chapel Into The Light.

In the new location, the church began to expand its vision, from ministering to a few families to trying to make an impact in the community by providing a full fledged Youth Ministry, offering biblical teaching at their level, camps, activities, etc., a robust children’s ministry program featuring solid bible teaching, verse memorization, various kid’s clubs, VBS’s and the like, Men’s and Women’s fellowships and a host of other studies and activities designed to edify the church, evangelize the lost, and glorify God.

Some of the highlights of our time in the building were: our yearly New Years Eve celebration, where we ushered in the New Year with food, games, skits and songs, our Harvest Night Carnival, with homemade booths, games, and dunk tanks, Youth Ministry Lock-Ins, Christian concerts and many other fun and exciting events. We were always pleasantly surprised how God used a little church like us to do so much and impact so many!

In 2005, we took a step of faith and left our building that we were outgrowing to move into a local high school. God used the move to expand our reach even more by using our fellowship to send out a missionary family to Guam, to start a vibrant Hula ministry, to make outreach trips to Mexico, to get involved with a prison mentorship program, aid a Women’s Crisis Shelter and so much more! As we waited upon the Lord to provide the right building for us, we continued to share the love of Christ and extended the reach of the Gospel wherever He had us.

During our time a the high school, the Lord continued to bless the ministry not only in numbers, but more importantly, in the growth of the people.  The years in the school also afforded us a chance to save for the building the Lord would eventually lead us to in November 2009.  After much prayer, we once again took another step of faith to leave the very affordable high school to enter into a lease-to-buy contract for a church that was essentially out of our financial range.  It was going to be up to the Lord to provide additional means or we would begin to eat away at the savings we had been storing up.

But "God is faithful!" - During our first year, we have seen growth in the body unlike any we have experienced in our 16 years together.  We have since added a second service as well as a third service in Spanish, enabling us to reach others in the community that had previously been unreachable.  With thankfulness and a strengthened faith, we look forward to what the Lord will continue to do in and through our body in the months and years to come.