Calvary Baptist Church at 489 Haney Road, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

For the past 5 years my work driving has brought me to the Poconos quite a number of times and I have always seen this church from the road and thought if I ever were in the area on a Sunday I would like to visit there since it has the same name as the church I grew up in as well as another that I attended that was very influential in advancing my spiritual maturity. The opportunity finally came last month when I was driving up to Spruce Lake Camp to pick up a group I had driven up there the previous Friday so of course I knew I had to see if it would fit in with my scheduled arrival up there. Since it did I decided to check them out. Wanting to be certain I did not have any delays due to traffic that would have kept me from being able to go I actually arrived about 45 minutes early which was good since there was at the time a minor detour on the route to the church building that the county did not mark out at all but since I knew I wanted to go and since I already knew that there was no easy off easy back on the highway I was expecting some slight confusion to locate them. As I entered the building I was greeted by many and even asked if I had any trouble finding them but let them know it was not a problem at all since I was determined to go there. While sitting waiting for the service to begin I took the hymnal out and saw that it was one that I have used at a church that I visit near home from time to time so I knew it was good. During the time we were having the opening song service and announcements something happened that also made it a special visit as this was actually my birthday but no one there knew it however it was someone there's birthday as well and they sang happy birthday to them so even though no one was around to sing it to me that day it did kind of feel like I was being sung to.

Let me just pause with my review to say as I have when reviewing other churches that I will not give a review to any church that I cannot give 5 stars to as it is God's place to give blessing or chastisement to a church so if I was concerned about anything I would not even give a review.

Getting back to the review the song service was just as I had hoped when I saw the hymnal, great hymns of the faith with some good strong doctrine and not a bunch of slushy feel good lyrics. The preaching though a little weak from what I am used to was also good and had a biblical base to it.

I have pretty well given up on trying to find a good church to visit while on vacation but if you are in the area and looking for a good church even just to visit while on vacation I would definitely try visiting here.