About Calvary Chapel Poole

Calvary Chapel Poole is a ‘new’ fellowship of Bible-believing Christians that initially are meeting together once a month for fellowship and to study God’s Word. Sadly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find churches that believe and teach God’s word, with many of the mainline churches given to compromise, denying the authority of God’s Word. In one sense, this should be no surprise, we were warned just over 1900 years ago that this would happen:

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Tim 4:2-4)

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2 Peter 2:1-2)

Calvary Chapel Poole is not ‘the answer to the problem’, nor do we intend to be; Jesus said of the ‘wheat’ and ‘tares’: “Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matt 13:30). Jesus said it is not for us to uproot the tares, that is His business, not ours. It is however, interesting to note that the tares are being gathered into bundles, just as Jesus said would happen as we approach the harvest. In the meantime, His true wheat are to keep growing, looking forward to the harvest when we will be gathered into His barn (John 14:3 / 1 Thes 4:16-17).

Our desire and purpose is simple: “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Eph 4:12-15)

 

About Pastor Barry Forder
 

Barry was born and raised in a Christian family, in Deal, Kent. His parents were actively involved with both the youth club and music in their local Anglican church, so he became very accustomed to church life. At a defining moment in his life (at around age 8), during a church service, Barry asked himself: ‘What is all this about?’ ‘Is it real?’ ‘Why do I come to church?’ ‘Is there a God?’. Having been taught to think for himself, Barry had seen through the fallacy of Evolution – a scientific impossibility – so that left the BIG question: ‘Where did we come from?’ As it’s impossible for nothing to explode and become everything, the only sensible and logical conclusion is that we were created by a Creator God. We see a painting and we know there was a painter, we don’t have to physically see the painter, the painting is proof the painter exists. The same with a building; we see a building, and we know – even though we have not see him with our eyes or handled him with our hands – that there is a builder. Just so with God. We see creation, there must be a Creator; we couldn’t want better proof of the Creator’s existence than the fact that we have creation.

At age 13, Barry was bought a One-Year-Bible (a Bible divided into 365 sections that you can read through in a year). At the same time, Barry was given the opportunity to drum in a Christian band – he had been drumming since age 8, and regularly played in church. Barry recalls: “If I was going out in a band to try to talk to people about what I believe, I ought to read the Bible to find out exactly what I do believe!”. That year Barry read the Bible all the way through, and then again the next, and again the next. Soon, the interest became a hobby, then a passion, that has carried on ever since.

At around age 18, Barry started becoming more and more uncomfortable in the ‘family church’ due to inconsistencies in the ‘teaching’ and a continuing watering down of what the Bible actually said. One Sunday morning, prompted by the Holy Spirit, Barry made the decision to leave, and moved to a local Baptist church, that at least believed the Bible, even if they shied away from anything ‘controversial’ for fear of upsetting people.

8 months later, Barry’s parents also left the Anglican church – like so many, they stayed so long believing they could change things. Once again, with clear leading from the Holy Spirit (and encouragement from the late NZ evangelist, Barry Smith), they started Deal Christian Fellowship and soon after Barry joined DCF.

In 2003, Barry, Pastor Bob & Maureen attended the F.A.C.T. conference in Portsmouth, Hants, and were exposed to even more Bible teachers that actually taught the Bible! And believed it! And could prove it! Barry recalls: “I was in the front row, and Dave Hunt was declaring ‘we can prove the Bible is true, we can prove Jesus is the Messiah’, I though to myself ‘can we?’ ‘can we really prove it?’ a big grin appearing on my face. Don’t get me wrong, I believed it, but no one had ever told me just how solid our faith was.” Chuck Missler then took it to a whole new level (anyone who has heard Chuck teach will understand!) demonstrating that (in Chuck’s words) we can be ‘more certain that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, than we can about any other fact in the universe’. Barry returned from the conference like a coiled spring, and set about studying the Bible, verse-by-verse, using Chuck Missler’s audio commentaries as a basis – arguably this afforded a much better grounding in God’s Word than most Bible colleges can offer.

One of the other speakers at the conference was Ron Matsen, pastor of Calvary Chapel Portsmouth. Over the next few years Barry & family and Ron became good friends. Ron introduced DCF to the whole idea of teaching expositionally through the Bible, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, book-by-book. To some, expositional teaching through the Bible may be nothing new, but to those who have come from an established church background, it is unheard of. The impact this had on DCF was profound, and eventually led to DCF becoming affiliated to Calvary Chapel.

In 2007 Ron was given the opportunity to teach verse-by-verse through the book of Genesis on Genesis TV. The program consists of an hour’s teaching, followed by an hours live phone in for Q&A’s. Ron asked Barry to co-host the live Q&A phone in with him. As a result of this, Barry was contacted by a couple who had seen him on the program, with a view to him starting a Calvary Chapel in the Poole/Bournemouth area. After much prayer, and after an initial visit / teaching weekend in October 2008, The decision was made in early 2009 to start a monthly Bible study / time of fellowship. Where this will lead is totally in the Lord’s hands. One thing is certain, it is Christ who builds His Church, not men with church growth programmes. We are told in Acts 2:47, it is the Lord who ‘added to the church daily such as should be saved’. We are called to take up our cross daily and follow Him, and that’s the intention of Calvary Chapel Poole.

Barry currently lives in Deal, with his wife Joy and their 20mth old daughter, Mahlah. At present, as well ‘pastoring’ Calvary Chapel Poole, Barry is still assistant pastor at DCF, and teaches at their Monday night Bible studies (currently going verse-by-verse through the book of Leviticus). His ‘tent-making’ is done as a business account manager for BT.

 

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