David and Michelle Homchuck felt something was missing.

Both grew up in churchgoing homes. Both were active in their previous church, where David held a leadership position and Michelle was Sunday school superintendent.

Despite the flurry of church-related activity, the couple too often felt as if they were “playing church.”

“The biggest thing was that we really weren’t growing spiritually,” David Homchuck said.

Michelle Homchuck put it differently: “We weren’t being fed spiritually.”

Almost two years ago, the couple took steps to change all that for themselves and their two daughters, ages 1 1/2 and 2 1/2. Now they drive an hour each way for services at the Calvary Chapel in Bangor, arguably the fastest-growing church in the region.

Known for its down-to-earth style of worship, Calvary started small, with fewer than a dozen worshipers at its first services a decade ago. Today, the congregation has a membership of about 1,000 adults and an annual budget of about $700,000, according to Senior Pastor Ken Graves.

Based in a simple white building at 28 Somerset St. in Bangor, with services across the street at John Bapst Memorial High School, Calvary had grown to the point where members decided it was time to find a home of its own.

On Dec. 11, Calvary bought the former North Orrington School at 154 River Road, or Route 15, in Orrington for $200,000. Built in 1924, the building once housed the community’s kindergarten through fifth-grade pupils. It had been sitting empty for the past few years. This weekend marks Calvary Chapel’s first Sunday in its new home.

David Homchuck said he and his wife are committed to attend two Sunday services at the new location, “one to serve and one to pray.”

Graves, 39, serves as worship leader and preaches and teaches through the church’s radio and television outreach ministries. When he preaches, Graves sits on a stool, alone on the stage, with only a microphone, a small wooden table and bottle of water as props.

He also writes some of the Christian rock music that church members see as another way to praise God and share with others. The church offers simple services in a simple setting. Worshippers sing songs of praise, with some raising their hands, and then they listen to a sermon.

Are the church’s Christian rock and folk music or its come-as-you-are dress code behind its continuing growth? Is it the preacher or the church’s leadership? Or is it the lack of rigid ritual?

Ask virtually any member of Calvary Chapel and they’ll tell you that it’s their church’s focus on the Bible and emphasis on developing personal relationships with Jesus that attracted them and keep them coming back week after week.

“It’s not about ‘church.’ It’s about Jesus,” said Anne Katir of Hampden.

Graves notes that while Calvary Chapel shares doctrine with many other evangelical churches, the “side issues” are different.

One aspect of Calvary Chapel that sets it apart is its lay leadership and lack of a hierarchy. Graves said it follows the path set by Jesus when he chose his disciples and the audiences for his teachings: “He didn’t pick one of the educated elite. They were the ones who killed him. Jesus chose common people and taught them. The common people received him gladly.”

All giving by Calvary Chapel members is meant to be voluntary and spontaneous, even when there is money to raise for special projects and activities. “We have a philosophy: Where God guides, God provides,” Graves said. The $700,000 covers operating expenses and Graves’ salary, but the second-largest component is outreach, including radio and TV and concerts. Foreign missions get about 10 percent, Graves said.

“You’ll never see a thermometer outside our building,” Graves said. “To me, those just advertise how sick a church is.”

Katir said she has been a member for about half a year. With a keen interest in the teachings of Jesus, Katir said she was introduced to Calvary Chapel through its radio ministry. She attended her first service last July.

“When I walked in, I knew it was my church home,” she said. “My major draw was that the church teaches the Word.”

Assistant Pastor Dennis Harvey said he decided to join after searching for a church for his family for some time. He said a deciding factor for him was meeting the “two Johns” – one of them clean-cut and neatly dressed and the other in biker duds. “From that moment I knew I could fit in somewhere between the two,” he said.

In their Dover-Foxcroft home, the Homchucks host weekly Bible study sessions, and about half a dozen other families attend. Michelle Homchuck said that joining Calvary Chapel was for the couple like “walking out of a desert into an oasis.”

Calvary Chapel Bangor is an affiliate, or branch, of the original Calvary Chapel founded in Costa Mesa, Calif., by Chuck Smith, who went on to become a leader in the 1970s Jesus Movement. Today, Calvary has affiliates in more than 40 states and various other countries.

Graves grew up in the Bangor area, but his wife, Jeanette Graves, is a California girl who introduced him to Calvary Chapel. They started the Bangor affiliate, one of two in Maine. The other is in the Portland-Westbrook area.

“I saw that there were some simple people who believed the Bible and were living [Jesus’] word,” he said. According to Graves, the church started out in the early 1990s as individuals teaching the Bible to others. Rock music also figured heavily.

“We got together and started playing heavy rock and preaching Jesus,” said Graves, who once wore long hair, a beard and a black leather jacket with a cross on it.

“So where do you play? The churches didn’t want us and the bars didn’t want us.” Graves said the group landed gigs in small Christian coffeehouses, parks and prisons. He said the music played during services today is more moderate to accommodate a wider range of tastes.

He said Calvary services are centered on a verse-by-verse teaching of Scripture and how its lessons can be applied to their own lives. Participants study during their Wednesday and Sunday worship services and at study sessions, such as those the Homchucks lead. Regulars carry their own Bibles, well-worn with use, with verses and passages underlined and notes in the margins.

“Learning is important [but] it really comes down to what you’re learning and who you learn it from,” Graves said. “We believe that God is the only source of wisdom and that he revealed that wisdom” through Jesus Christ and the Bible. Calvary Chapel members work their way through the entire Bible about every three years.

“It is really an enjoyable journey,” Graves said, stressing that he believes the Bible was written to be an accessible book. “It doesn’t take an expert to understand it. The Bible is God’s love letter to his people. … It’s the simple teachings of Jesus.”

Members have spent the past few months cleaning and painting the former Orrington schoolhouse, building wheelchair ramps and working on other preparations. The church’s artistically gifted members have been creating wall-size murals featuring biblical themes, including the six days of Creation.

Much of the muscle has been provided by participants in Calvary Challenge, formerly known as U-Turn for Christ. The program, which involves prayer, Bible study and hard work, is designed to teach men how to deal with sin in their lives. Some participants are working to overcome difficulties with the law, drugs or alcohol.

Since the mid-1990s, Calvary Chapel had leased space at Somerset Street that has housed the Jewish Community Center and a Hebrew day school.

“We’ve really outgrown it,” Harvey said. “We’d been looking at a lot of different places. We’ve been looking for a place to call our own for probably three years. … We’ve been a mobile church until now.”

Every Sunday since Calvary began holding services at the high school, members have had to haul their public address system, musical instruments and all of their other equipment and supplies to the school in time for the first morning service and back after the last service ended in the evening.

Finding a parking space near Bapst, located in a downtown neighborhood that has several churches, also has proved a challenge most Sundays.

The Orrington move will give members ample parking, classroom and office space. Some plans for the site include an auditorium and one day, a school.

Though the church group is tax-exempt, its purchase agreement with the town of Orrington provides for an annual payment in lieu of taxes. One of the town’s stipulations for the sale of the former school was that it always produce revenue from either taxes or fees for town services.

Because the worship area at the Orrington building can accommodate only 400 or so people, church members hope one day to add a 1,200- to 1,400-seat auditorium. Plans also call for a school, something Calvary Chapel’s younger members and their parents have been wanting for some time.

“It’s inevitable,” Graves said. The program probably would start at the high school level. He said that Calvary Chapel members now comprise the state’s largest home schooling population.

Last Sunday, Calvary Chapel held its last service at John Bapst Memorial High School. The occasion was marked with little fanfare, although Graves remarked on it at the beginning and end of the two-hour Sunday evening service: “God’s been good to us here. He’s going to be good to us where we’re going.”

The public is invited to an open house at the Orrington site from 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 2. Beginning March 3, Sunday morning services will be held at the following new times: 8:30, 10 and 11:30 a.m. The Sunday and Wednesday evening services will continue to be at 6 p.m. Call Calvary Chapel in Orrington at 991-9555 or visit its Web site at www.calvarychapel.org/bangor.