This past week my group and I were the first group to present our case study on Miller’s book “Reinventing American Protestantism”.  Throughout this book the author touches on three paradigm churches: Calvary Chapel, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and Hope Chapel. After our presentation of the book, a few of our fellow classmates asked us some interesting questions that we were unable to answer due to the year that the book was published.  So I did some extra research after class and was able to find the answers.

A question that came up was if there are other Calvary Chapel’s worldwide or are they only in the United States. It turns out that there are tons of Calvary Chapel’s in each continent.  In the book, Miller only talked about the ones in the United States (Downey, Riverside, New York, etc.). I am not sure if Miller already knew that there were other Calvary Chapel’s worldwide or if he simply just didn’t state it in his book.  Nevertheless, it was crazy to me to see how many different Calvary Chapel’s there are worldwide.

Another question that came up was about how different the churches are from the book compared to today.  I also did some research on this and found the names of the current staff members who are at that church.  For the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Brian Brodersen is the senior pastor. Unfortunately, Chuck Smith died on October 3, 2013.  For the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Anaheim, it seems that they have different people speaking every week. I also found that John Wimbers died on November 17, 1997.  Last but not least for the Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach, Zac Nazarian is still the current pastor.

These are just a few questions that I was able to finally find the answers to.  Miller’s book was very interesting to read and it was fascinating to see how these churches are currently doing today.