Calvary Bible Fellowship Church has gathered on Penn Avenue in Sinking Spring since 1963, but its vision reaches across Berks County from West Reading and Wyomissing east toward Womelsdorf along the Route 422 corridor. The church keeps two campuses running from one budget and one staff, with the same sermons preached at both locations on a given Sunday. A Welcome Desk staffed by friendly volunteers, three different worship styles on Sunday morning, a preschool, a live Spanish translation booth, ASL interpretation in one service, and a long list of small groups for every stage of life have all grown up around that original prayer meeting in 1960.
Two Campuses, Three Sundays in the Room
The Sinking Spring campus at 4891 Penn Avenue hosts three Sunday morning services. At 8:20 a.m. the Blended service opens the day with a mix of hymns and choruses. At 9:45 a.m. and 11:10 a.m. the band leads two Modern services that share the same sermon and the same feel. The 9:45 service carries Sign Language interpretation for the Deaf. The 11:10 service carries live Spanish translation for Calvary en Español.
Six miles east at 161 West Penn Avenue in Wernersville, a single Reformed worship service meets at 9:00 a.m. The Wernersville campus is part of the same church - the same pastors preach on the same topic, the same small groups are available, and one elder board governs both locations. What changes is the liturgy, the building, and the neighborhood.
Wednesday-night ministry for kids and students happens only at Sinking Spring, so families from Wernersville travel in for Illuminate Student Ministry and Flight 56. Preschool (Launch) is also at Sinking Spring, so families with a wide geographic spread all converge on the same Penn Avenue property on Wednesday evenings and weekday mornings.
What a First Morning Looks Like
Most people come dressed casually, in whatever feels comfortable. Worship gatherings run about an hour: brief announcements, a few songs, and a message from one of the preaching pastors.
Visitors who walk in the front doors see the auditorium straight ahead and the Welcome Desk to the left. A volunteer from the Guest Services team meets newcomers there, escorts families with children to the kids wing at the east entrance (closest to the pavilion and playground), and answers questions about where to go. First-time families are asked for a small amount of registration information and receive matched security tags for parent and child so that only an authorized adult can pick up each kid at the end of the hour.
For adults who want to keep going after the service ends, discussion-based Sunday classes meet on the lower level of the Sinking Spring campus, friendship-oriented and open to anyone who walks in.
Spanish, ASL, and a Wider Doorway
Calvary en Español is the church's effort to welcome Spanish-speaking neighbors into the same worship gathering without asking them to choose a separate service. At 11:10 a.m. on Sundays, a translator works in the sound booth to render the Modern service live in Spanish. The Spanish-language giving fund and Spanish-language interest groups are listed under their own names in the Church Center app, and a separate Fondo General del Campus Hispano, Fondo de Benevolencia, and Fondo de Misiones carry giving for that ministry.
At 9:45 a.m., Sign Language interpretation is provided for the Deaf. Kids ministry, student ministry, and Wednesday night programming round out the accessible entry points.
Calvary Kids and the Flight 56 Preteen Track
Calvary Kids runs alongside the 9:45 and 11:10 Sunday morning services. Each age group meets in its own suite, with background-checked and trained adult leaders at every door.
Infants and toddlers land in the Nursery/Preschool Suite, where volunteers care for them and pray simple biblical truths into their earliest years. Preschool and kindergarten classes fill the same suite on Sundays with games, activities, and small-group time. Elementary children (first through fourth grade) gather in Room 109, where games, worship, and conversation are paired with small groups so the lessons stick. Flight 56, a separate track for fifth and sixth graders, meets Sunday mornings at 9:45 and 11:10, and again Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. during the school year. Flight 56 is built around the questions preteens are already asking - identity, belonging, friendships, calling - and walks through them with the Bible as the guide.
For new families, online pre-registration is available in the Church Center app so the first visit can be as quick as possible.
Illuminate Student Ministry
Illuminate is the ministry for seventh through twelfth grade students, and it has its own language and identity. On Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30, students gather in the Youth Room at the Sinking Spring campus for teaching, small-group time, and the kind of community that makes the transition years less lonely. On Sunday mornings at 9:45 a.m., Illuminate AM walks through guided small-group discussion, private and corporate Bible reading, and prayer, plus a fair amount of fun.
Illuminate runs three major events a year: a Winter Weekend retreat, the Harvey Cedars Beach Retreat in the summer, and a stretch of Summer Nights that has included outdoor movies, trivia nights, putt-putt, and Box Fort battles with Nerf guns. Senior Night closes the year by sending off graduating students. Honduras mission trips and summer conferences round out the student calendar.
Anchor Young Adults: Thursdays on the Sinking Spring Campus
Anchor is the church's young adult community, designed for college students, early-career men and women, and anyone still figuring out what the next season looks like. Community Nights are the anchor (so to speak) of the ministry: Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m. on the Sinking Spring campus. The schedule includes family dinners, trivia nights, the annual Putt-Putt Palooza, bingo nights, and the Anchor Talk resources that flow through the Anchor Instagram and Facebook group between meetings. The tone is unmistakably an open door - come as you are and find the friendships that carry a person through a decade that can feel rootless.
Women's Ministry, Marriage Resources, and Moms Alive
Ignite is the women's ministry at Calvary, with women's groups for Bible study and the High Point Women's Retreat at High Point Camp each May as the signature annual event.
Moms Alive runs on the first and third Tuesday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30, September through May, and welcomes mothers of children below first grade. Mentor moms and guest speakers come alongside, breakfast and coffee are on the table, and a paid childcare program watches the little ones. The registration fee covers the year of meetings and the childcare workers.
The Marriage Ministry focuses on strengthening couples through one-year marriage mentoring relationships that pair experienced couples with those who are newly married or decades in. A resource library of marriage podcasts (FamilyLife Today, Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast, ONE Extraordinary Marriage, Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage, Fierce Marriage) and books (The Meaning of Marriage, Vertical Marriage, Sacred Marriage, The 6 Pillars of Intimacy, What Did You Expect?) supports couples between sessions, and a list of approved Christian counselors in the region covers situations that need professional help.
Men's Ministry and the Conquer Group
The Men's Ministry centers on three weekday small groups. The Brochu Group meets Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. in Rooms 20/21. The Men's Breakfast and Bible Study meets Wednesdays at 8:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary - walk-ins are welcome to either. The Felbeck Group meets Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. in Room 26. A monthly Saturday breakfast gathering adds another touchpoint.
Conquer Group is a confidential, ten-week men's discipleship series that meets Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. in the fall. The teaching focuses on sexual purity and freedom from sexual immorality, adultery, and pornography, drawing on both biblical strategy and practical tools. Sign-up is confidential, and the heart of the group is heart transformation rather than behavior modification.
Young at Heart: A Ministry for the 55 and Up
The Young at Heart 55+ Ministry keeps a full social calendar for older adults. Recent and recurring events include a Christmas Dinner, Dessert Social, Popcorn and Movie Night, Soup and Sandwich Social, a Bird-in-Hand Theater bus trip, trips to Sight and Sound theater, Longwood Gardens, and the Wolf Sanctuary, plus the smaller gatherings that bring the group together between big outings. Information on the next event shows up in the digital bulletin.
Launch Preschool on the Sinking Spring Campus
Launch Preschool is the church's weekday preschool program, housed in the same Penn Avenue building and run with the explicit purpose of giving three to five year olds a first school experience that is permeated with God's Word. Director Nyssa Sattazahn, a Liberty University graduate who joined as director for the 2026-2027 school year, leads the program alongside teacher Kim Swanson.
Three class levels are offered. Three-year-olds meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for $195 per month (children must be potty trained). Four- and five-year-olds meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the same window for $225 per month. Kindergarten Readiness is a five-day-a-week class for $325 per month. Stay and Play extends the four-year-old and kindergarten classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with a shared meal and playtime for $20 a day, billed only for the days attended.
Weather-related closings follow the Wilson School District. Online registration, tour scheduling, and tuition autopay are available through the Church Center portal.
Car Care, Meals, and the Hands of the Congregation
Car Care is one of the more distinctive volunteer-driven ministries at Calvary. Several times a year, a team of church members with car-care knowledge offers basic maintenance - an oil change, fluid checks, light and wiper checks, tire pressure - to people in the church and the wider community who cannot easily afford it. Service is by appointment, lasts about an hour, and is supported by voluntary ten-dollar donations toward supplies. Pastors and ministry leaders are quick to mention the practical angle: a working car is often the difference between keeping a job and not.
The Meals Ministry sends a hot meal to families navigating the heaviest seasons - recovery, a new baby, or hard stretches. Other serve teams include the Café (coffee on Sunday mornings and clean-up after the last service), Guest Services (the Welcome Desk itself), Worship and Arts (vocalists and instrumentalists, audition required), the Media Team (sound, lighting, computers, cameras, training provided), Grounds Keeping, and Small Group Hosts who open their living rooms for ten to twelve people.
Roots and the Bible Fellowship Family
Calvary Bible Fellowship Church began with a prayer meeting in 1960 and was chartered in 1963. The wider fellowship to which Calvary belongs traces back to 1858, an association of churches that have stood together for mutual help and ministry across more than a century and a half. Roughly sixty-five Bible Fellowship churches work together today across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Delaware.
The belief ties are listed in plain language on the What We Believe page. The Bible is the Word of God, inspired and without error, the final authority for faith and life. God is one true living God in three co-equal and co-eternal persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who created all things out of nothing and continues to sustain, provide, and rule all things to accomplish his purposes. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who added full humanity to perfect deity, born of a virgin, obedient to God perfectly, who died for the sins of humanity, rose again, and ascended to the Father. The Holy Spirit is equally God, comes from the Father and Son to complete what Jesus began, convicts of sin, forms Christ-like character, and gifts believers for ministry. People are created in God's image, marred by Adam's sin, sinners by nature, unable to reconcile themselves to God apart from Christ. Salvation is the gift of God, by his grace, received through faith in Jesus and his finished work on the cross. The Church is a new people of God under the authority of Christ, called to share the truth and love of Jesus, marked by two practices: baptism and the Lord's Supper. Jesus Christ will return physically to establish his millennial kingdom, after which God will raise the dead for final judgment - believers to eternal joy in his presence, nonbelievers to endless suffering apart from him. The complete statement of faith is published through the Bible Fellowship Church denomination.
Mission Reach: From Haiti to the Philippines, from France to Berks County
Calvary tithes ten percent of its general fund giving to missions and relies on additional gifts to the missions fund to support roughly twenty-nine missionary families around the world.
Hope for Kidz is the partnership most asked about from the pulpit. For $40 a month ($480 a year), a sponsor can put a Haitian child through school, supply books and supplies, and in some cases provide a daily hot lunch. The partner list grew recently with a new group of students waiting for sponsors. The second Haiti tie is Vieux Bourg Baptist Church, the church's sister church in Haiti, where gifts toward water filters, food boxes, farming tools, and goats support a community of Haitian believers sharing the gospel among the poor. Lee and Tina Nunemaker direct Centre Lumiere in Les Cayes under the Mission of Evangelical Baptist of Southern Haiti, equipping Haitian women through Bible, English, cooking, sewing, embroidery, hospitality, decorating, and other skills. The Philippines trip runs through Rob Lopez, who travels to schools and remote mountain communities each fall to encourage pastors and share the gospel with students; church members can give or pray for the trip through a designated Philippines giving fund. Joe Mellon, his late wife Karen, the Moyers, and the March family are the French connection, planting and strengthening churches there and equipping university students along the way. Joshua and Juli Dupiche are planting Hope Church in Delaware. John and Suzanna run a special-needs, senior, and medical ministry in Southeast Asia. Locally, DiscipleMakers campus ministers Tori Zbinden (Kutztown) and Steven and Danielle Detwiler (Alvernia and Albright) carry the gospel into the county's colleges.
Closer to home, Calvary points its people toward five Berks County partners that meet practical needs: Hope Rescue Mission (shelter, food, and resources for men experiencing homelessness), LightHouse Women's and Children's Center (shelter, food, and resources for women and children), Hannah's Hope (transitional housing and support for mothers with children), Mercy Women's Center (a listening ear and reliable information for women in difficult circumstances), and North Star Initiative (advocacy for survivors of sex trafficking). The elders regularly ask the congregation to pray for the leaders of these ministries and to volunteer where possible.
Watch, Listen, Give, and the Church Center App
Sunday morning services are livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook, and an extensive archive of sermon series is available on demand - recent series have walked through The Gospel of John, The Church, Forgiveness, Easter, Discipling, The Sins We Keep, Faith that Works in James, and Core Values. RightNow Media is offered free to regular attenders as the church's library of Bible-study video content. The digital bulletin is sent to inboxes on signup, the Church Center app is the single front door for groups, registrations, giving, and the directory, and the way to serve is as close as the I'm Ready form on the serve page. Giving can be set up by ACH (the lowest-fee route), credit or debit card, check by mail, stock transfer, or Qualified Charitable Distribution from an IRA for those 70 and a half.
A History of Bible Q and A, and a Question Box Still Open
Curious attenders and longtime members alike send questions in through a Bible Q and A form, and the pastors post answers online. Recent topics have included how Scripture addresses homosexuality with both truth and grace, why the books of the Bible are arranged by genre rather than chronology, whether the life of Christ appears in any secular historical records (the short answer: yes, in Tacitus, the Babylonian Talmud, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and others), how to influence coworkers without becoming religious about it, what tongues is and is not, whether Christians can drink alcohol, whether believers who take their own lives are still in Christ, and whether believers can befriend unbelievers (the answer: yes, Jesus was called a friend of sinners).
From a prayer meeting in 1960 to a two-campus church along the 422 corridor with a preschool, a student ministry on Wednesday nights, young adults on Thursday nights, and missionary partners on multiple continents, Calvary Bible Fellowship Church's fingerprint in Berks County is a steady one: same sermons at both campuses, the same elders governing both, the same gospel being shaped into whatever shape the next person needs.