Calvary Baptist Church in Beaumont traces its beginning to a Sunday school that First Baptist Church in Beaumont sponsored around the turn of the 20th century. Gospel worker Sue Cochran led efforts to start the Sunday school in the Cartwright Addition, an area that grew out of an oil boom. After a couple of name changes, the work is now Calvary Beaumont, which the church says has been operating for 125 years.
Lead pastor Justin Buchanan, who has led the church since 2023, said the church exists because of the giving of First Baptist Beaumont. About 700 people attend Calvary on Sundays. The church has two campuses and a Hispanic congregation. Buchanan said Calvary is among the top givers through the Cooperative Program, the Southern Baptist funding plan for national and international missions and ministries.
The church said it sent disaster relief teams to Florida and Georgia during the past year to help after hurricanes. Calvary has sent missionaries through the International Mission Board and other mission groups, and some are fully funded by the congregation. New member classes explain the Cooperative Program, which Buchanan said is important to newcomers who may be unfamiliar with it. He said that when he was a pastor in North Carolina, he saw Cooperative Program dollars fund children's homes, foster care and adoption.