Pastor Pete Bass

I’m Pete Bass and I am honored to be the pastor of Calvary Chapel Evanston

I am a founding member of Calvary Chapel Evanston and an original board member.

From October 2004 till March of 2020 I volunteered at the Uinta County Jail.  At first, I just provided support to both of the excellent teachers that God put into my life as mentors as they taught Bible studies on a weekly basis. Because I was so shy and scared to teach what I had learned from God’s Word, I left all the teaching to them. A year or so into my joining the team, Pastor Doug Cox of Crossroads Newlife Fellowship turned the ministry over to Jon Turner and me. Jon was the teacher and I was his sidekick adding a little bit here and there at appropriate moments. I felt at the time that my role was just to support Jon for surely I wasn’t called to be a teacher. After a couple of years, Jon informed me that he would not be able to be there one week and I would have to give the lesson. I went into full panic mode and asked Jon to write up a study for me to use.

A few times later, Jon, had me doing the studies on my own when he wasn’t able to be there several times. Shortly thereafter Jon and his wife Debi moved to Colorado to help take care of her parents. For a couple of years, I soloed the Bible studies at the jail until the Lord brought my wife Jill to me and she joined me in the jail ministry.

My wife Jill is a blessing from the Lord. I was at the point where I thought I would probably be alone for the rest of my life. My childhood friend Jill contacted me on Facebook to ask me if I could possibly check in on her cousin who she had heard wasn’t doing so well. A couple of years later in August, Jill came to town with her daughter Ariel for an educational event hosted by the University of Wyoming where Ariel was attending. We ended up going for coffee and riding around the area. Jill visited with my mom, we checked in on her cousin and we drove through a cattle drive out at Almy.

The next day we hung out again until her daughter got out of the event and they left town. As they drove off and I went into my house, I was unsettled and I remember asking the Lord, “What just happened?” After that, we talked almost daily via phone and Skype and I invited Jill back to Evanston for the first women’s luncheon that our church hosted for our new pastor’s wife and she came. By then we were pretty sure about our feelings for each other and decided to go for some premarital counseling with my pastor Mike Bertelsen.

Our first session was on Monday, October 22, 2012, and we met at Jody’s Diner for breakfast, coffee, and counseling. Mike asked us if we had plans for a date to get married and we told him… “Today if we can get the marriage license”. The rest, as they say, is history and that was the day my wife and I, “anteloped” you might say, as we got married on the spur of the moment, Wyoming style. What a blessing my wife has been.

Since my earlier years of being scared to teach Bible study at the jail, I became the adult Bible study teacher at my church and found that I seem to have a gift for it, my pastor recognized it and started preparing me for the ministry. He ordained me to be the Assistant Pastor at Calvary Evanston in October of 2015. In March of 2016, my wife and I were blessed to be able to join Pastor Terry Long and his group of travelers on a trip to Israel, and what a wonderful experience that was.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, because God is the one in control) Pastor Mike and Gina moved their family to Arizona when school got out in May of 2016 and I became the Pastor at ‘Calvary Chapel Evanston’. To say the least, it’s the most scared I have ever been but at the same time, it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever been blessed to do in my life. I love God and His Word, I love God’s people, and I love to see sinners saved by the Lord. What an honor to serve in this capacity.

I am learning as I go and someday I hope to be a good preacher and a capable pastor. Please pray for me as I move forward in and with the Lord.

Whether you are looking for a place to visit or a church home, my wife and I and all the great folks at ‘Calvary Chapel Evanston’ invite you to come and join us.