An Independent Bible Church on North High Street
Calvary Bible Church sits on North High Street in the Columbus neighborhood north of downtown, where it has shaped a generation of families with a steady diet of expository preaching, Sunday school for every age, and old-fashioned small-group fellowship. The congregation identifies itself as a Bible church - a fellowship that holds faithfulness to Scripture above allegiance to any denominational name - and the building it has occupied has become a kind of shared house for several different expressions of ministry. Two language-specific congregations, a Spanish-speaking church and a Korean-speaking church, worship alongside the main English-speaking body on Sunday mornings, and a Christian school that spans preschool through twelfth grade operates as a ministry of the church on a separate campus.
The church's mission statement runs: For the glory of God, Calvary Bible Church is committed to equipping the saints and gathering disciples from all peoples to the end that they might grow up in Christ, worship God, and enjoy Him forever. That sentence sets the rhythm for everything that happens on the property: warm worship gatherings, careful Bible teaching, small groups built around real relationships, a year-round calendar of special ministries for women, men, students, and internationals, and a missions program that supports church planters and gospel workers around the world.
A Sunday at Calvary: Family Bible Class, Morning Worship, and an Occasional Evening Service
Sunday mornings are built around two anchor gatherings and, several times a year, a third. The morning opens at 9:30 with Family Bible Class, a church-wide Sunday school hour in which every age group meets in age-appropriate classrooms for verse-by-verse study through books of the Bible or themed studies. Adults are broken up by age group and life stage, children from Pre-K through sixth grade gather in the Children's Wing upstairs, and babies and toddlers join a clean and secure nursery where adult volunteers - all trained and background-checked through Protect My Ministry - care for them in a separate sleeping room or a reserved nursing room.
At 10:45 the congregation moves into the main auditorium for Morning Worship. Greeters hand out a printed Order of Worship at the door and walk first-time visitors to their seats. The Order of Worship guides the room through Scripture reading, congregational prayer, congregational singing, and preaching. The church describes its worship as a blend of energy and reverence, designed so that everyone can participate wholeheartedly while honoring the transcendence of God. Expository preaching - working carefully through books of the Bible - is the centerpiece of the service, and the morning gathering is built to emphasize God's greatness and holiness.
Several Sundays a year the church adds an Evening Worship at 5:30 p.m., but only by announcement. These evenings are used for missionary presentations, family meetings, occasional preaching series, and gatherings that intentionally focus on the imminence of God in everyday life. Past series such as Life in the Everyday have run on Sunday evenings on topics ranging from depression, anxiety, and stress to entertainment, technology, work ethics, biblical communication, prayer, and the doctrine of sin.
Expository Preaching and the Authority of Scripture
Preaching is the through-line of the church's identity. The Bible, the staff writes, is "the inspired Word of God, the infallible and only rule of faith and practice," and Calvary Bible Church has committed itself to working through books of the Bible passage by passage so that the whole counsel of God shapes the church. Sermons are published on SermonAudio and through the church's YouTube channel, where a livestream is also carried, and the church keeps an archive that stretches back years for anyone who wants to follow along between visits.
The lead pastor, Dr. Eric D. Sipe, completed a Doctorate in Expository Preaching from The Master's Seminary in 2023 and preaches each Sunday at the Morning Worship. He is joined on the bench by Associate Pastor Dr. Chazz Anderson, who completed a Th.M. in Old Testament and a D.Min. from The Master's Seminary and gives special attention to college students, singles, and young professionals at the church. The third ordained voice on the pastoral team is Dr. Henry Cruz, who pastors the Spanish-speaking sister church Iglesia Bíblica del Salvador Jesucristo, which meets in the same building.
Shepherd Groups: Elder-Led Small Groups Built on the "One-Another" Commands
The small-group ministry at Calvary is called Shepherd Groups, and it is treated as the foundational relational structure of the church. Each adult family in the church is assigned to one of these groups, led by one of the elders and served by a deacon. The groups meet at least once a month and are composed of a cross-generational mix of young adults, couples, families, and seniors so that the "one-another" commands of the New Testament can be lived out across generational lines.
Each group has a two-part job. First, they nurture koinonia fellowship: talking, sharing, praying, getting to know one another in homes and at church. Second, they provide personal care during the ordinary difficulties of life - baby showers, hospital visits, job losses, financial needs, marriages in trouble - so that members do not face the crises of life alone. The church's goal is simple and explicit: every person who attends, regularly or not, has a place in a Shepherd Group where someone is paying attention to their needs.
Children, Teens, and the A.L.I.V.E. Youth Ministry
The next generation has a full pipeline at Calvary. Nurseries are available for infants and toddlers during every Sunday gathering and during the Wednesday evening ministries, and they are staffed by trained, screened, and capable caregivers. During the 10:45 Morning Worship, children age three (potty-trained) through second grade are dismissed partway through the service for a Children's Church that splits into two age-appropriate classes. On the first Sunday of each month, children in grades three through six stay for a Catechism Class built around The New City Catechism.
The teen ministry is called A.L.I.V.E. - the name comes from the phrase Adoring, Living, Instructing, Verifying, and Exalting Jesus Christ - and runs during the 9:30 Family Bible Class on Sunday mornings and again during the Wednesday evening prayer meeting. Teens do prayer, Bible study, elder teaching, and discipleship together, and throughout the year there are outings and retreats designed to deepen friendship among the students and between students and their leaders. All adult volunteers in the children's and youth ministries are background-checked through Protect My Ministry.
The summer months bring a CREATE Art Camp, an outreach program for children in the community that uses art projects to teach Bible stories, and the year-round music ministry includes a Children's Choir that meets on Wednesday evenings. Children who grew up in the church eventually flow into internships, volunteer teams, and the Young Adult ministry that gathers on the first Friday of every month for food, fellowship, a devotional, and prayer.
Two Sister Churches Under One Roof
Calvary Bible Church has long understood itself as a multilingual family, and two of its language-specific ministries share the same building and the same parking lot.
Iglesia Bíblica del Salvador Jesucristo (IBSJ Columbus) is the Spanish-speaking church-planting work led by Associate Pastor Dr. Henry Cruz and his wife Maria. Henry, a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and The Master's Seminary, was called from a Cicero, Illinois congregation to begin pastoring IBSJ in August of 2024. IBSJ meets in the Calvary Bible Church building for a General Service (Servicio General) at 11:00 a.m. on Sundays and Estudio Bíblico (Bible Study) at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays, and livestreams services through its own YouTube channel and Facebook page. The Cruz family and their church are part of a broader effort to plant and strengthen Spanish-speaking churches in Central Ohio.
Columbus Calvary Korean Church meets in the same building at 11:30 a.m. on Sundays under the pastoral oversight of Rev. Soung ho Yoon. The Korean congregation is its own self-governing body, with its own services and pastoral leadership, and it shares only the physical space with the English-speaking church. Together the three congregations represent a vision of one church family worshipping in three languages under a single roof.
Music in the Order of Worship
Music at Calvary is taken seriously as a ministry, not as decoration. The current Worship Coordinator, Dr. Jennifer Whitehead, grew up at Calvary, sang and played flute and piano in the music ministry as a young person, and later earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Bob Jones University along with master's and doctoral degrees in voice from The Ohio State University. She now directs the worship music program while teaching voice at Ohio Wesleyan University, and her late father, Jerry Maxwell, served the church in music for over sixty-seven years before his retirement.
The Order of Worship arranges the music ministry around Scripture. Congregational singing is treated as a musical confession of faith; the words are weighted more heavily than the arrangement; and the words are screened for the excellence and character of God. The choir, ensembles, soloists, and instrumentalists from the music ministry support the congregation's singing rather than perform in front of it. The church's own document on worship, Thoughts on Music, is available for download and reflects the conviction that worship is participatory, that everyone from the most demonstrative singer to the most reserved believer should be able to engage, and that worship through the week is the foundation for worship on the Lord's Day.
Adult Ministries and the Thursday Institute
Beyond Sunday morning and Shepherd Groups, the church runs a deep adult ministries program. A Recently Married Fellowship gathers engaged and recently married couples (within roughly the first five years of marriage) for fellowship and learning together. A Ladies' Bible Study meets biweekly during the school year for verse-by-verse study or topical work, and a men's ministry gathers on a similar rhythm.
The Thursday Night Institute is the church's flagship teaching series for adults who want to go deeper into doctrine. It runs in quarterly sessions (winter, spring, summer, and fall) and focuses on systematic theology, church history, and practical theology in a multi-week format. Recent topics have included Biblical Counseling, and the institute is led by one of the elders. A companion Saturday morning class called Theological Hall meets for systematic theology on a similar multi-week plan.
Outside of these scheduled classes, adults serve in the music ministry, teach Family Bible Classes and Children's Church, run nursery care, usher, decorate the building, maintain the grounds, run AV and technology, organize fellowship meals, coordinate meals for those in need, make encouragement visits, write cards, and provide crisis care. Many of these service roles are open only to members of the church, while others are open to anyone who calls Calvary home.
Northside Christian School: Preschool Through Twelfth Grade
Calvary Bible Church owns and operates Northside Christian School, a preschool, kindergarten, elementary, junior high, and senior high school located on West Schrock Road in Westerville, a few miles north of the church campus. The school is governed by a board appointed by the elders of Calvary and exists to assist Christian homes and the church in equipping the whole child for ministry in the church and the world.
The mission statement runs through four commitments: a biblically-based, superior education from a thoroughly Christian perspective; a redeemed faculty who model and mentor the disciple-making process; a thoroughly Christian environment in which students can grow in godliness and service; and a consistent Christ-like pattern of input into the lives of students through accountable, loving relationships. Faculty and staff share the church's confession of faith, and admission is open to families who support the school's educational and spiritual mission. The school is a tangible expression of the church's commitment to passing the gospel to the next generation, and the church encourages its members with school-age children to consider it as one of the primary Christian schooling options in Central Ohio.
International Ministries and ESL Connections
Columbus has long drawn international students and immigrants to Ohio State University and the surrounding job market, and Calvary has built a steady ministry to internationals. The International Class ministry welcomes people who are new to America or for whom English is not a first language. An International Family Night gathers families for a meal on the first Monday evening of each month, and a Friday Night Meal and Bible Study meets most Friday evenings from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. International Friendships, Inc. is a partner in the work. Spanish speakers and Korean speakers are referred to IBSJ Columbus and Columbus Calvary Korean Church respectively for their language-specific services, and English-language internationals are folded into the regular Sunday morning gatherings and Shepherd Groups with assistance from church members who can translate or pair with newcomers.
Foundations, Membership, and the Work of the Church
Anyone interested in learning more about the church or becoming a member is invited to the Foundations of Calvary class, which runs periodically through the Family Bible Class hour. Over six to ten weeks the class covers what it means to be a Christian, the symbols of salvation, the church's statement of faith and purpose, the framework of leadership, the meaning of membership, and the commitments members take on. The class concludes with an open door for anyone who wishes to commit formally to membership.
Members commit to the church's doctrinal statement, agree to abide by the Constitution, and are eligible to vote in the twice-yearly congregational meetings - usually a March meeting to elect elders and deacons and an April meeting to vote on the annual budget. The work of Mercy and Reclamation, two of the church's stated priorities, falls to the deacons and the elders respectively: the deacons oversee a benevolence fund and outreach to those in need (a food closet, pregnancy centers, financial help, care for single mothers, widows, orphans, and the handicapped), and the elders shepherd members through the church-discipline process set out in Matthew 18, with the goal of restoration rather than exclusion.
Prayer, Missions, and Church Planting
Prayer is treated as the engine room of the church. The Wednesday Evening Prayer Service gathers adults in the auditorium for corporate prayer, while teens and children meet for their own age-appropriate ministries at the same hour. The service runs at 6:30 p.m. from fall through spring and shifts to 7:00 p.m. in summer. The Sunday evening gathering on occasional weeks also includes a prayer emphasis, and prayer undergirds every special series and missionary visit.
Outside of Columbus, Calvary supports a roster of missionaries and mission agencies, and the church's leadership treats church planting as a defining mark of a healthy church. Several members of the staff have children and family members who are themselves church planters, including a Sipe family member who is planting a church in Marseille, France and another who is pastoring Good Shepherd Bible Church in Blacklick, Ohio. A formal pastoral internship is offered through the church as well: prospective pastors who are nearing the end of their seminary work are invited to live into ministry alongside the staff, attend all leadership meetings, observe counseling and discipline cases, preach under oversight, and write and defend a personal statement of faith.
What We Believe: The Bible, the Trinity, the Fall, and the Gospel
The doctrinal statement posted on the church's main site is intentionally short and gospel-centered. The Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice. There is one God in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - co-equal and eternal. Humanity was created in innocence but fell in Adam and is now unable to remedy its lost condition. Salvation is the gift of God, brought by grace and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins. Believers are saved eternally, and those who reject Jesus Christ face eternal judgment. Christ instituted two ordinances - baptism and the Lord's Supper - to be observed until He returns, and every saved person is responsible to make disciples.
Calvary Bible Church identifies itself as a Bible church because of the priority it places on the Scripture over any denominational affiliation. "Bible churches consider faithfulness to the Bible to be more important than allegiance to a denominational name or group," the church's doctrinal explanation reads. The church does not oppose denominations as such, but chooses not to incorporate a denominational name, preferring to remain independent so that it can "maintain allegiance to the purity of God's Word, rather than to man-made tenets." Within the world of Bible churches, the staff writes, Calvary holds to a believer's eternal security, with sanctification occurring at the moment of salvation, and prefers a traditional style of service centered on strong Bible teaching, relational discipleship, and reverent worship.
The Staff and Pastoral Team
The Senior Pastor is Dr. Eric D. Sipe. Eric began his ministry at Calvary in July of 2010, came up through church planting and missions work, and completed his Doctorate in Expository Preaching from The Master's Seminary in 2023. He and his wife Cindy have three married children and eleven grandchildren; their oldest daughter and her husband are planting a church in Marseille, France, their son Quentin serves as a worship leader at a church plant, and their son Hunter pastors Good Shepherd Bible Church in Blacklick, Ohio.
Dr. Chazz Anderson joined the staff as Associate Pastor in 2022 and is particularly focused on the church's college students and singles. A Central Ohio native and University of Cincinnati communications graduate, Chazz earned his M.Div. and Th.M. at The Master's Seminary before joining the staff and completed his D.Min. in 2024. He and his high school sweetheart Chelsea have three children.
Dr. Henry Cruz came aboard as Associate Pastor and pastor of IBSJ Columbus in late 2023 and began pastoring the Spanish-speaking sister church on August 11, 2024. A Chicago native, Henry served for nineteen years at a church in Cicero, Illinois before answering the call to Columbus. He earned his M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and his D.Min. from The Master's Seminary. He and his wife Maria have four children.
The remaining staff includes Dr. Jennifer Whitehead as Worship Coordinator (a Bob Jones University graduate and Ohio State University doctoral voice student who also teaches voice at Ohio Wesleyan University), Hannah Musser as Ministry Assistant, and Gale Kaufman as Property Maintenance Manager.
Visiting Calvary: Parking, Accessibility, Children's Care, and What to Expect
First-time visitors will find the main entrance and parking lot at the back of the building, accessible from Hollenback Road. The first couple of rows are reserved for those with disabilities, older adults, and visitors. If the lot is full, overflow parking is available at the Whetstone Library lot just across Hollenback Road. Handicap-accessible parking spaces line the building by the main entrance at the rear, and platform lifts inside the building reach both the Main Auditorium and the lower level. Assistive hearing devices are available at the Welcome Desk upon request.
Children's care is available for every scheduled gathering. Nurseries for infants and toddlers are staffed during the Sunday morning services, the Sunday evening services, and the Wednesday evening ministries. Children's Church is offered during Morning Worship for children who are three (and potty-trained) through second grade, and the children join their parents in the auditorium for the first portion of the service before being dismissed to age-appropriate classes. Children in grades three through six are dismissed once a month for Catechism Class on the first Sunday of the month.
Greeters hand out an Order of Worship to every visitor on Sunday morning, and the church keeps a printed Order of Worship rather than a script-less flow. Visitors who arrive on Sunday are welcome to wear whatever is comfortable - the dress at Calvary reflects the broad middle of an American evangelical church. Office hours run Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and the phone line is answered at (614) 262-2006. Visitors with additional questions are invited to call Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. or to send a message through the church's contact form. International visitors and those new to the United States are warmly welcomed, and English-as-a-second-language connections are available through the International Ministry.
Getting Connected, Serving, and Giving
The simplest way to get involved, the church teaches, is to come. The first step toward membership is the Foundations of Calvary class; the next step is to plug into a Shepherd Group; the third step is to begin serving in one of the church's ministry areas, whether in music, teaching, hospitality, building and grounds, or crisis care. Many service opportunities are open only to members, while a number are open to anyone who calls Calvary home.
Giving is available online through the church's Realm giving platform, with a designated fund for missionaries supported by the church and a separate fund for the YA Young Adult ministry. A sermon archive, an events calendar, and a regular rhythm of Sunday evening gatherings and special series keep the rhythm of the church visible from week to week. The Foundations of Calvary class and the membership application are both available for download from the website for prospective members.
Calvary Bible Church exists, in the words of its own mission statement, for the glory of God, to equip the saints, and to gather disciples from all peoples to the end that they might grow up in Christ, worship God, and enjoy Him forever. Whether a visitor arrives on North High Street on a Sunday morning for the Family Bible Class hour, joins the Wednesday evening prayer meeting, or simply wants to learn more through the Foundations class, the door is open.