Mark Kirk

Senior Pastor

           Mark Kirk is our Senior Pastor. He and his wife Tracy were married in 1991. They now have a family of four daughters. Mark has been serving in pastoral ministry since 1992 and began Calvary Knoxville in 1997. As the founding and lead pastor Mark oversees all areas of ministry. His primary focus, however, are our four corporate meeting times where he teaches our adult congregation systematically through God’s word, equipping us for the work of the ministry. Mark’s desire is that the congregation of Calvary would be the best fed and most loved people in Knoxville and abroad.

Pastor Mark’s Testimony

Growing up in the south made it very easy to go to church on a regular basis, especially because my dad was a pastor. Not only was it easy, but it was expected. I was very religious, but my life was not very different from that of my friends, even those who didn’t go to church. To me church was boring, and I would have rather been doing almost anything else. As a matter of fact, I only went to do my religious duty, so I could be free to do what I really wanted. After all, I was taught and believed that everyone was going to heaven anyway, so what I did didn’t really matter.

As I got older, I began to find that I could do things I knew were wrong and still go to church without even feeling guilty. My heart was growing colder and harder as time went by. And since I believed, as I said, that we were all going to heaven anyway what did it matter? It wasn’t like I was killing anyone. Certainly God graded on a curve and I wasn’t as bad as some.

I eventually graduated high school and left for the University of Tennessee. As I watched how everyone else was living around me, it seemed that worrying about what God thought really didn’t matter.  No one else seemed to care, and since church was so boring and the Christianity I knew was so empty, I decided there was no reason to continue going to church at all. At least partying was fun and I didn’t have to dress up. I left church completely at this time and began to play music professionally in clubs and restaurants. In this environment I found that women were easy to come by, drinks were free to the singer, and people in the audience were more than willing to do drugs with me. As a matter of fact, they not only did them with me, they gave them to me for free!

At last I had everything the church couldn’t give me: women, parties, and popularity. But as a few years went by, it all became less exciting and I began to wonder if this was all there was to life. I was becoming emptier and emptier as the days drew on. Sure, being popular was nice, but would they still like me if I wasn’t a musician? And my friends in this world seemed as shallow as my life had become. With the drinking and drugs, it took more and more to satisfy me, and the effect was no longer as pleasurable. This drove me to head out west to “find myself,” but I didn’t like what I was finding. I used to think I was a pretty good person, but now I felt dark, empty, and alone. 

Shortly after this, I made contact with my childhood sweetheart who had moved out west as well. She invited me to attend a church with her that was meeting at a hotel, which seemed strange for a traditional southern boy who grew up in stained glass church buildings. But my life was strange, so what could it hurt? Once I arrived, I immediately noticed that this was very different from any church I had ever attended. First of all, they weren’t dressed up. They actually had on blue jeans and even shorts! But the most shocking thing to me with my denominational background was that they took their Bibles to church! I had never seen this before in the churches I had attended, and it had me baffled . Maybe they were fanatics.  Maybe it was a cult.  But if taking their Bibles wasn’t strange enough, they actually seemed to believe them! I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but I had always been taught that the Bible had some truth in it, but it was not truth itself.  Hadn’t they been to college? Didn’t they know science had proven the Bible wrong? Didn’t they know you can’t take the Bible literally? After all, man, not God, wrote it. Right?

Well, it disturbed me so much that I escaped to Phoenix, Arizona. You see, I knew in my heart if they were right, that meant I was wrong, and my pride would not allow for that. While in Phoenix, my life became even more hollow, shallow, and meaningless. But how could that be? I had everything the world says will make you happy. Every college buddy would seethe with envy to see me now! You’re a walking Budweiser commercial. Fun, fun, fun! But I began to realize that Budweiser and the world had lied to me, and now I was trapped in a world that seemed inescapable.

A year and half went by in my misery, and I finally decided that if I was going to do anything with my life, it had to be in music. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to “make it big.” Or so I thought. I played in a couple of places and got a bartending job at Bennigan’s to help cover the bills, but I still felt this hole in my heart. I thought, “Certainly if I make it in music, I will be happy, won’t I?” Then suddenly I remembered that group of Christians out west and wondered why they seemed so happy and fulfilled. I understood so much more than they did. Or did I? I decided to pray for real from my heart for the first time in my life. I asked the Lord if I could really know Him personally and have my life changed like those people in the “hotel church.” I asked Him to reveal Himself to me like He did to them. Still, deep inside I knew that I couldn’t just leave my current lifestyle. The drugs and alcohol had taken over my life and had complete control of it. I knew that without His direct intervention I could never be free. So, I decided to ask for His help. I said, “Lord, if you want my life to change and if you want me to be set free from drugs and alcohol, You will have to do it, because I can’t. Please, Lord, help me and set me free.”

A week later to the day, I was invited to a gig, a club job,  in Murfreesboro where a friend of mine was playing. I cordially accepted and went. During the course of the evening, I became extremely drunk as usual, and my friends begged me to stay the night and not drive. I agreed because, as best as I can remember, they took my keys and I had no choice. Somehow, though, I found my keys and left when my friends weren’t around. When I was about a mile or so from my apartment, I lost control of my truck, and through the noise of screeching tires and breaking glass, I came to a sudden stop in a parking lot. I later learned that I had totalled my truck. During the wreck, although I was intoxicated, I literally felt two hands on my upper chest holding me in place until I came to a stop. It seemed so surreal that it took my mind a while to wrap around it. The first thing I saw when I looked up was a church steeple. I had wrecked and totalled my truck in a church parking lot 7 days after I asked God to intervene in my life! The next thing I remember was a pair of blue lights pulling up to my truck. Right across the street, sitting at a 24-hour gas station and market, was a police car with two officers. The officers proceeded to handcuff me and put me in the back of the squad car, then they briskly took me off to jail for the night under D.U.I. charges.

I know this may sound strange, but I now know that this was one of the best days of my life. Had it not been for this day, I would have not fallen on my knees and asked the Lord to come into my life and rescue me shortly after. The moment I made that decision, I was overwhelmed with the reality that I was not only saved from sin and judgement, but I was also completely forgiven of everything I had ever done wrong! For the first time in my life I understood what weeping really meant. I felt as if 1000 pounds had fallen off of my back. I finally understood what those people out west meant when they said you could know God personally and not just religiously. I could talk to God, and He actually talked back! Not in an audible voice, but in a voice in my head and heart that was as clear as anything verbal I had ever heard. Now, for the first time in my life, the Bible made sense; I actually understood it! Since then, I have had a burning passion to share what I have found with others, especially with those like me who went to church and were religious but had no real relationship with God. 

I eventually left Nashville and moved back west for several years of training at a Calvary Chapel in Santa Fe New Mexico. While there, I was reunited with my childhood sweetheart who I married. Then, after 7 years, God sent me and my family to Knoxville to teach His Word here as I had heard it taught out west: line by line and verse by verse through the entire Bible.  

We arrived in Knoxville in June of 1997. Although we didn’t know anyone in the area but family, we immediately started a Bible study at our apartment complex’s clubhouse. Needless to say, it was a very interesting beginning. I had no degree and no vocation that would pay nearly enough to support a wife and two children. Which quickly became four over the next three years! I went to the only thing I knew I could do, which was waiting tables like I had done years before. Our yearly salary was somewhere around $13,000 so all the rest was simple faith. God always showed Himself faithful. Over the first two and a half to three years, we supernaturally received surprise gifts and unexpected letters in the mail that paid the bills, even though we never asked for a penny. We were totally trusting in God to provide, and He did.  It took a while for the study to get off of the ground, but God took care of the rest. We put up flyers on our apartment billboard and set a starting date which was on a Thursday. We decided to begin with only having a midweek service, avoiding the traditional Wednesday so that we would not interfere with already established churches in our area.

On the first night, we were shocked to find out that our landlords had double-booked the clubhouse, and we were the losing party. They were letting us use it for free and the others had paid to rent it that night. Choosing not to give up, we went around back to have a Bible study at the swimming pool. No one was there except my wife, my sister-in-law, her new baby, and myself. Honestly, at the time I felt that my sister-in-law only came to be a support on our first night and may not have really even wanted to be there! Needless to say, I was somewhat discouraged sitting by the pool with no one there but family, but after a moment, someone who was swimming came over and joined us. We ended up with four adults and one baby, but we had officially started. From there people began to trickle in and it didn’t take long to figure out we needed a kids’ ministry as well. The problem was we had no one but my wife to do it. And with four children of our own and only one room in which to meet, our apartment quickly became our kids’ church and nursery, and my wife became our kids’ ministry leader. But that was okay. I was wearing multiple hats as well. I was the greeter, worship leader, pastor, and counselor. We personally grew tremendously during this time, and so did the study. After a year, we had grown to about 20 people and had expanded our meeting times to Sunday night, for which we met at a local church that had no evening service. The problem was we were either going to have to recommit to another year at the apartment complex or move on. We knew that if the study kept growing we might not have enough room for another year in that location, so we began to pray for a new place to live and to meet. While we were praying, I was looking for a one-size-fits-all building–a place we could meet in but also live in. I pictured a big room with some type of dividing wall for our living quarters on one side and the church on the other. But as always, God had a bigger and better vision than I did. This is where the story really gets interesting.

Not too long after that, we got an unexpected phone call. My sister-in-law knew a couple who needed a house-sitter until their home sold, and they asked if we would consider the job. When I say “job,” I don’t mean it was a paid position but that it required watching over the place. We heard it was nice, so we went to look at it, wondering if it would work as a church and a place to live. To our amazement and shock, we discovered it was a mansion in the wealthiest part of town! It was a four story, 10,000 square-foot home with a pool and tennis court! What a great church! We took the offer and promptly moved in. We now had a place we could afford–it was free–and we also had plenty of room for the church to meet and grow for a while. We used the top floor for our kids’ ministry, the next floor down for our living quarters, and the next floor down for the adult services. We didn’t use the basement as it was not needed. There was a room on the west wing that held 50 chairs, and they soon began to fill. Others began stepping forward to help with the ministry load, and this freed my wife and I up in many areas. We stayed at this location for a year and a half, and by that time, we had close to 90 people coming to the church. We would need to find another location.

I came upon an old shopping center that had burned down with only the shell having been rebuilt. Although there would be lots of work involved, it looked like a perfect place. We convinced the landlord to purchase the materials in exchange for us doing all the labor. It was a win-win situation. After about $70-80,000 dollars and 6 months of work, we were in our new church. It was perfect for our needs at the time. There was plenty of space for kids’ church and a large sanctuary that could easily house around 250 adults. We had grown to right around 100 people, and although the building was a little big, it gave us room to grow. We were finally becoming more established. We had a worship team, multiple teachers for our children, and different ministries that were popping up on a fairly regular basis as God continued to grow us. After the first year, we had doubled in size. Then, after 13 years in that location, God gave us 43 acres of land and a new building which is our current home. 

I don’t know what will come next, but what I do know is that God has been faithful since the beginning and will continue to be faithful to the end! As it says in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that He Who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

In Him, 

Pastor Mark