Calvary Free Lutheran Church

Who are we?

Calvary Free Lutheran Church is a community of disciples of Jesus Christ.

Where are we?

Our church building is located at 590 N 96th Street, Mesa, Arizona 85207

Who is our Pastor?

Our Senior Pastor is Daniel Giles (Pastor Dan). He and his wife, Debbie, served together in Latin America, first in Ecuador, South America and then in Mexico for thirty years. They did linguistic field research and literacy work in a dialect of the Native American Quechua language before returning to the USA for Seminary. Dan graduated from our Free Lutheran Theological Seminary in 1985 and they served in Central Mexico until 2008. He was called to serve as our Pastor at Calvary after our beloved previous Pastor Al Monson went to heaven about five years ago. They have a son and two grandchildren in Mexico, a daughter and two grandsons here in Mesa, and one granddaughter already in heaven.

Pastor Dan is greatly assisted in this ministry by a "retired" pastor, Rev Rich Taylor, who has also served faithfully the Christian ministry for many years. Pastor Rich is the Chairman of the congregation and also serves as head Deacon, teaches adult Bible classes and preaches when Pastor Dan is out of town.

A number of laymen and women put in many hours every week making sure that we are all well fed both spiritually and physically and that everything runs smoothly with our ministry to men, women, children, teenagers, seniors, and neighbors of every age.

Our Desert Manna Food Pantry, a separate 501(c)3 organization hosted by Calvary, gathers food donated by local stores and distributes large boxes of groceries to our neighbors who need help every Saturday morning. It takes about 25 volunteers from the community to make that happen. We appreciate the help and support of the United Food Bank and the Feeding America Network, too.

For a year and a half, while our own buildings were under construction and renovation, we met at the nearby Hosanna Lutheran Church, just 3/4 of a mile north of our own campus, at 9601 E Brown Road in Mesa. The food distribution on Saturday mornings also had to be moved their parking lot, and we are so grateful to them for their hospitality and their incredible patience with our long construction project.

As of July 13th, 2025, we were able to move back to worshiping in our own building at 590 N 96th street. The Food Pantry distribution has returned, too, to our campus as of Saturday, August 30th, 2025. We're still waiting for a final inspection and approval from the Maricopa County Health Authorities to allow us to store food in our new warehouse, so until then we're still distributing off the back of the refrigerated trucks that bring the food in on Saturday morning.

What do we believe?

We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and so it's without error and infallible in everything it says. It's the standard and touchstone for what Christians are to believe and how we should live.

We believe that where the Bible leaves open questions, God has done so purposely so that in the Body of Christ there is room for differing opinions, within the parameters laid down for us by God's Word. We agree to disagree about these things and to love each other for Jesus' sake.

We believe that the three great Creeds (the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) are accurate summaries of the Christian faith. We also believe that the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism accurately state the essential teachings of God's Word in even more detail, so we accept them as the true and correct presentation of the Faith. We refer to the rest of the historical confessions in the Book of Concord for a full understanding.

We believe in the personal experience of repentance and faith, and the assurance of salvation that the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the believer, and we expect these things to come about as the Word of God is faithfully taught and believed.

We expect lives to be changed as the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus is applied to each heart. Our own lives are proof that this is real!

We believe that God is actively at work in our lives, hearing and answering prayer and working to bring about His purpose in each of our lives, to fulfill the purpose for which He created each one of us.

How does the church operate?

We believe that God inspired His apostles to plant local congregations everywhere they preached the Gospel and that this is the pattern we should follow today. Such local congregations, being the visible form that the Body of Christ properly takes in this world, are free, not subject to any ecclesiastical authority above the congregation but the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We believe that such free congregations can and should cooperate with other local churches to bring about the work of God's Kingdom that exceeds the capacity of one local church.

Among such cooperative efforts we include the ability to call and send missionaries around the world, to publish hymnals, Bibles, Sunday School curricula and other helpful literature, and operate a Bible college and Seminary to prepare Pastors and other godly leaders for the churches.

For a more detailed explanation of how a church should operate, we refer you to the Twelve Fundamental Principles of the Lutheran Free Church, which are also the guiding principles of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations.