Mt. Calvary History

 The first worship service of what became Mount Calvary Lutheran Church was held on October 20, 1957 in a small community building near Lincoln Avenue. Mount Calvary was formally organized as a congregation of the Augustana Lutheran Church on February 9, 1958 with sixty confirmed adults. Outgrowing the community building, services were soon relocated to the Retail Clerks Union Hall in Buena Park.

Groundbreaking for the first "real" church building was held on August 17, 1958 on a site that became part of Lutheran Bible Institute’s five acre campus on Western Avenue. The building was constructed by the men of the congregation and dedicated on April 5, 1959. 

After the 1962 nationwide merger of several church bodies into the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), Mount Calvary purchased a triangular-shaped parcel of land at the northwest corner of Valley View Street and Ball Road in what was then commonly referred to as “Dairy Valley” -- now the city of Cypress. A three-year capital fund drive raised $30,000 and a modest Sanctuary was built on the property in 1965 at this major street intersection. The east corner was then sold to the Car Wash and the west end was sold to the Animal Hospital, and a modest Sunday School building was added and connected to the Sanctuary. 

After the merger of the ALC and LCA into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), in 1988 the congregation mustered its resources and strove forward with a Vision to develop a more useful and contemporary sanctuary and fellowship hall. This was a herculean effort for our fiscally conservative congregation, requiring five years and thousands of hours of effort.

In 1989 the property next to the Car Wash –– on which the existing church buildings sat –– was sold to provide core funds for new construction. What had been affectionately called the “Back 40” became the site for Mount Calvary’s new facilities, designed by a nationally recognized architect, Stewart Woodard, who had designed the original South Coast Repertory Theatre. For 15 months during construction, we returned to our former Anaheim home, which had become the Lutheran Bible Institute. 

Mount Calvary’s congregation was committed to music and, fortunately for us, our choir director was an organ builder by trade. Our current “wind-driven” pipe organ was hand-assembled by members of the congregation with ranks of pipes from Bayshore Community Church in Long Beach and culled from silent cinema theater organs in Los Angeles and Hollywood. 

Two fine artists were retained to complete our Vision. Ernst Schwidder, a world-recognized Christian woodworking artist, hand-chiseled the altar, crucifix, pulpits, baptismal font, and other wood elements; Mark Eric Gulsrud, a Pacific Northwest artist specializing in custom hand-blown leaded glass, hand-made the main stained glass windows within the Narthex and Sanctuary.

The third generation of facilities was dedicated on June 9, 1991. Due to Mount Calvary’s hard work and commitment to excellence, these facilities continue to inspire our services, our singing and our faith.