Calvary Family Church

Apostle Dr. Madalitso Mbewe is the man behind the vision of Calvary Family Church. Dr. Madalitso Mbewe is a third generation preacher in his family line. His father was a Pastor, and his grandfather was a Pastor too fulfilling the third generation principle of passing on the vision.

Dr Madalitso Mbewe grew up in a Christian home and his father brought him up in a Christian environment. But that did not make him a Christian. It was in 1974 when he personally made a decision for Christ. He finished his secondary education in 1975 and came to Blantyre where he got a job with Commercial Bank of Malawi. Soon after getting saved in 1975, God gave him a burden for young people. He started sharing the gospel with them and then started a fellowship group called Young Believers Fellowship. This fellowship of young people from different churches grew. In Blantyre, they used to meet at Nyambadwe Primary school every Sunday afternoons. They had other centres in other places like Lilongwe. Later, this fellowship changed names and adopted the name of Pentecostal Revival Crusade Ministries. The focus of the ministry changed too as now, they were involved in reaching out to people through crusades in various places. However, this led to a big challenge. Those that were won to the Lord were not easily accepted in other churches because of doctrinal differences on the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. This led to the idea of forming a Pentecostal church in 1972 which in the same year materialized by the founding of Calvary Family Church. In 1973, Calvary Family Church got registered with the Government of Malawi. They started with five people in Blantyre.

Calvary Family Church believes in the transforming power of the gospel. Their ministries focus on preaching, open air meeting and church planting. Seventy percent of the memberships of Calvary Family church are young people and therefore, they consider themselves as a church for the young people. “Young people want answers to life, they want to be told the truth and they want to be involved. If you don’t use them, you loose them.” Dr. Madalitso asserted in talking with him.

Apostle Dr. Madalitso Mbewe continued to lead the church whilst working with Commercial Bank. He was doing very well and climbing the ladder of professional attainment. He was the Assistant Manager in the Bank and at a time when a house was found for him to move to Lilongwe for a transfer to manage his own branch; that was the time when God spoke to him to provide leadership for the church full time. He had to decline a lucrative job with all that goes with Managerial position to lead a church which by then had no structure.

The church now has branches in all the regions of Malawi. It has branches in other Countries of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and they have five branches in UK. These churches (except for Mozambique where they sent a missionary from Malawi to Mozambique to start the church), were started by members who went to these Countries for job opportunities.

The church now has a radio station, a primary school, a bible school, a microfinance project where members are given loans to start their own businesses and they are a licensed church to have a television station. Apostle Dr. Madalitso Mbewe says God has given him a vision to take the church out of the four walls and therefore has the “Joseph anointing ministry” where he goes to stadiums to address people with the gospel messages and winning them to the Lord and enabling them to break away from the poverty trap.

He has as well succeeded in the past in bringing together political leaders from different parties during times of crisis and especially after general elections and mediated on very sensitive times in the life of the nation and bring them together for a prayer fellowship.