During our recent Church in Conference Calvary members who participated in person or via zoom were able to hear multiple reports and also elect people to service in various committees. Three individuals (James Varlack, Grace Roa and Berenice Gordillo) were elected for the deacon screening and nominating committee. The church also elected two search committees to fill currently vacant pastoral positions. You can see the results of that election here.
As Lead Pastor I had the opportunity to share a report of the last twelve months or so celebrating twelve major accomplishments in the ministry of Calvary. I include my report here for your reference. I invite you to rejoice with me at the great things God has done, is doing and will do. I also invite you to double up your prayer efforts for the many needs and challenges we have ahead.
Lead Pastor’s Report
2 May 2021
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you...Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. Isaiah 26:3, 12 (NIV)
These words of the prophet Isaiah express our experience as a church over the last year. The Lord established his peace and he accomplished much through us.
One year ago we were right in the midst of a lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We celebrated Easter gathered as families in our homes and connecting in worship via livestream. A couple of months later, in July, hurricane Hannah came through causing floods and power outages. Our campus was without electricity. We broadcasted our worship that Sunday from one of our staff member’s homes. By year end, we had lost several of our church members to COVID while others fought for their lives. The new year brought with it new challenges as we continued to deal with the pandemic. We had an ice storm that basically shut Texas down. Some were left without power in the cold temperatures. Others without water. Some without both. Parallel to that we have seen an increase in the number of asylum seekers from Central America and other parts of the world who have crossed the border.
On a more personal level, I lost my mother in June of last year, and then my father in February of this year. Both deaths were sudden and unexpected, amounting to a period of sixteen months of grief in my family since my younger sister had passed in November of 2019. As my heart has been saddened by these losses, I have also been so grateful to God for a loving congregation and supportive staff. All of you have pastored me during this time and I thank God for you.
Together as a church family during the last year or so, we have lost loved ones. We have lost income as families, business, and as a church. The way we gathered for worship changed, sometimes completely virtual, sometimes hybrid, and with protocols of social distancing and face coverings things have felt differently. We have missed gathering as classes, summer camps, VBS, mission trips, fourth of July block party. And we even lost some beloved staff members, including two pastors and two ministry assistants, plus our WIT coordinator. We have grieved and lamented over all this. And that is proper.
Yet, the Lord has kept us in perfect peace as we have fixed our minds on him. He has established peace for us and he has accomplished great things for his glory through us.
While our campus has closed completely for a few months and partially for the rest of the time, Calvary has continued to be the church and to do the ministry to which God has called us. We have just learned to do things differently.
We exist to make disciple-makers for the glory of God among the nations. During an extremely difficult year, Calvary has continued to make disciple-makers for the glory of God among the nations! Whatever decisions we made during this year our purpose guided us. When our methodology and delivery methods changed our purpose did not: make disciple-makers...for the glory of God… among the nations!
Advisory Team
Early in the pandemic we realized that the decisions we had to make were many, difficult and unprecedented. These decisions included when to close the campus, when to open, how to open, what to do with classrooms, what protocols to follow, camps, funerals, weddings, events, travel, office and staff protocols, etc., etc.
As a staff team we sought the wisdom and advice of a COVID advisory team. We enlisted about twenty members of our church who had expertise in the medical field, the business environment, finances, education, legal, municipal work and other important areas. These members covered the spectrum of views in regard to the pandemic from very conservative to moderate. The one common principle that guided us was loving our congregation and loving our neighbor. In making decisions we were always aware that a portion of our congregation would think we did too little and a portion would think we did too much. Yet, what was never in question was our love for the people of our church and our community. I’m so thankful for the high-caliber members of our advisory team whose wisdom has been invaluable during this time. We are a blessed congregation!
Twelve Major Things to Celebrate
As I attempt to report on approximately one year of ministry, I would like to highlight twelve major things to celebrate. These are not the only good things that happened this year but they serve to illustrate God’s blessing during this time. Neither do I take credit for these accomplishments. For as we have already quoted Isaiah, “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us” (Isaiah 26:12). God has accomplished these things through the faithfulness of his people. It is through faithful Calvary members, disciple-makers, lay leaders and an exceptional staff that God has accomplished these twelve things:
1. Established a preaching team
A little over a year ago I had the privilege of establishing a preaching team. I sent out a blog post to you via email sharing the plan. This group consists of ten Calvary people. Some of them preach primarily in English. Some of the preach primarily in Spanish. A couple of them preach in both. While I continue to preach at least three times a month in the English services and twice a month in the Spanish service, this team has allowed our congregation to hear from other gifted individuals. Some of them are experienced preachers. Others are interns beginning their preaching ministry. All of them have been a blessing. Our team meets weekly to pray, evaluate, plan series, plan messages, and provide each other feedback. It is truly a disciple-making time. We expect that this preaching team will not only be a blessing to Calvary but to other churches as well. We are a blessed congregation to have ten people in our preaching team!
2. Increased our ministry to include an online congregation(s)
Almost overnight we were forced to launch online platforms to do ministry. This included live streaming from our worship center at first. Later it included running a feed to the parlor and the gym for overflow spaces. It meant opening up platforms through Facebook Live and Vimeo. It meant outfitting our student center space for livestreaming the Wednesday night Remedy worship service. Additionally, it meant making quick studies of our leaders to do ABFs, Children’s classes, C-groups, WIT Bible studies, EQUIP classes and ICC classes over zoom.
When our worship services were completely virtual we had to get creative and pre-record worship music for safety reasons. Our choir learned how to record themselves individually from their homes while a video editor put their individual contributions together to create a synchronized experience.
All this required additional equipment, increased infrastructure, troubleshooting, flexibility, additional volunteers and a fast learning curve. We learned how to do ministry virtually and now in hybrid. And in the process our ministry grew.
An average of 882 people either listen or view one of our worship services on a weekly basis. On the average about 207 people listen to a podcast of one of our worship services or our YA Gen Talk. About 675 people view our worship services either on Vimeo or Facebook, either in English or Spanish, either in real time or as a recording. Most of them are local but many of them listen from other states and even from other countries. You can see a more detailed report here.
In the USA people listen and view our services from the RGV, New York, San Francisco, Houston, Oakland, Austin, San Antonio, San Diego, and Wichita, among others.
Outside the USA people listen and view our services from Puerto Rico, Belgium, El Salvador, Germany, Mexico, Fiji, Brazil, Chile, France, Honduras, Guatemala, Finland, Bhutan, Ecuador, Philippines, Australia, Dominican Republic and Colombia, among others.
Our congregation has grown! We now have an online congregation(s)! And online ministry is here to stay at Calvary. COVID will go away but online ministry will stay.
This last Easter Sunday we provided nine venues in two languages for people to join us in worship: three services in the worship center, overflow in the parlor and student center, and livestream. In addition we launched a new website in both English and Spanish!
While other churches comparable to ours in size have hired additional staff (such as pastor for online congregation, etc.) our focus has been on equipment, infrastructure and retooling our current staff.
Calvary is unique in that we do three different worship styles on Sunday morning (other churches do only one). We do everything in two languages from worship to website to publications to videos, etc. And now we do things for in-person and for online through various platforms. So everything we do is replicated multiple times for multiple "audiences."
Our church has invested financially in this effort and our staff has gone above and beyond the call of duty to do ministry in such varied formats. We are doing more with less!
Yvonne is an 80-year-old who lives in Pensacola, Florida. She has not been able to attend church for quite some time. She began watching Calvary’s services online and felt like it filled the void of worship with others. Soon thereafter she invited neighbors from her 55+ community and this became a watch party of Calvary McAllen’s worship in Florida!
We are thankful for our media and communications team. Their workload has increased tremendously but they have stepped up to the plate and have served the Lord with a positive attitude. Thank you to the staff, the leaders, the volunteers and the members who have been patient, flexible, teachable and supportive as we have launched this new online ministry.
3. Finished our connecting point plaza
The construction of our connecting point plaza concluded right around the time that the pandemic hit. This beautiful and welcoming structure erected for the glory of God has been a gift from Ray and Rosie Wilkinson in memory of the beloved son Stuart.
Although we were not able to immediately have a dedication ceremony for the connecting point it has not gone without use. During the lockdown it offered a place of solitude and prayer for some of our prayer warriors. It was used to hold a memorial service for one of our church members when an indoor service was not possible. Young adults have met there numerous times for outdoor worship and movie nights. The men’s ministry in Spanish held safe gatherings under its roof. First grade children received their Bible in a drive-by format.
And this spring the connecting point has taken on new life. We opened up the connecting point to welcome guests and provide information on Easter Sunday. During the week it is used for Zumba classes and other activities. We are so grateful to the Wilkinson’s for providing this place where people pray, worship, meet and connect with a church that makes disciple-makers for the glory of God among the nations.
We have calendared a dedication ceremony this year on August 20th.
4. Started two new churches (Donna and Reynosa)
Our vision as a disciple-making church is as follows:
We will be a movement of multiplying healthy disciple-makers in community saturating the RGV with the transforming gospel where (1) every believer will be a healthy disciple (2) every disciple is in a fellowship and (3) every fellowship makes disciple-makers.
While we have talked about this multiplication vision for quite some time, it was during the pandemic year that we saw two new congregations started.
In the fall of 2020 we commissioned a group of families from the Spanish service to go out and start a new Spanish language church in Donna. They have been meeting every Sunday, have reached new people for Christ and are making disciples.
Shortly thereafter one of the members of our Spanish service began to do ministry in Reynosa’s red light district during the day, specifically Saturday mornings. She started by serving breakfast to people in the street and sharing a devotional. The group grew and then began to ask for church services. Doris, the lay member from our church and previous WIT en español leader, connected with one of our pastoral ministry interns and his family and they launched worship services on Sundays in an open-air courtyard of an abandoned hotel. About 100 people meet to worship and hear God’s word every Sunday. Many of them have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord coming out of drug addiction and really rough backgrounds.
She shared a Video with us of a recent worship service. The joy of these people, who might otherwise not have a church home, or an opportunity to hear the gospel, is evident as they sing.
We are thankful for these two new congregations started during the pandemic and we hope that we get to see many more new congregations started in the months ahead.
5. Met human needs in Jesus’ name through food distribution, blessing bags, care packages, ministry to widows and homebound
As the need for food and care has grown our bread of life, deacons, volunteers and other church members have stepped up. Our bread of life ministry has not only continued to be an agent of the RGV food bank but has also helped to distribute additional food boxes to families in our community. On a monthly basis over 130 families have received food through this ministry. Just since this past January Bread of Life has distributed over 16,000 meals to families in our community.
In addition to that deacons, young adults and other volunteers have delivered care packages and blessing bags to people who might feel isolated or are having a difficult time. Our deacons have kept in contact with the elderly in our congregation, praying for them and often being ready to meet physical needs. WIT en español has coordinated the delivery of meals to multiple families who have someone in the hospital with COVID or who have lost a loved one. And the many stories of members who have simply cared for their neighbors and brothers and sister in Christ by providing a meal or given a financial gift or given a word of encouragement and prayer.
Our church knows how to show God’s love in the toughest of times.
6. Finished 2020 in the black
When the pandemic first hit giving went down and we became concerned. We began to think of alternate plans as a staff and with the stewardship committee. When the church opted to apply for the PPP loan after prayerful consideration, we felt it was God’s provision for the moment. It helped us ensure that we could keep our staff and ministries through the first part of the summer. By late summer/early fall giving by our congregation increased. More people signed up to give online. Others would come by the office to drop off their offering. And some would mail it.
In addition to the generous and regular contributions of many in our congregation, our staff worked hard to keep expenses under income. With God’s help, not only did we finish the year in positive cash flow, but we had enough to take care of some big items. Among them, we paid off the student loan, we increased our emergency contingency fund, and we left money in the account that would allow us to tend to increasing maintenance matters. God is good! And as always he provided abundantly.
7. Paid off the student center loan
Our student center project in 2019 was a step of faith. Our people made faith pledges above and beyond their tithe for a period of one-to-two years. Our church also approved an interim loan that allowed us to begin the renovation immediately.
As our people gave toward the project much of it applied directly to the cost of the renovation. Once we started using the interim loan, the contributions that came in were applied to the principal of the loan. Even during 2020 people continued to give faithfully toward this project.
The project had a total cost of $593,221. By the end of 2020 our people had given $502,953 toward it. The interim loan’s first payment was due in April of 2021. Some planned to continue to give in 2021. However, our stewardship committee decided wisely to pay the balance of $90,267, thus paying it off before the first payment was due and freeing us to focus on supporting our church budget during this year of transition. We praise God for that!
8. Called an executive pastor
For sometime now we had considered the need to restructure our pastoral staff in a way that we could have an executive pastor role who would work alongside the lead pastor in supervising the staff and implementing the vision and strategy for the church.
At our Church in Conference in November the lead pastor shared the reorganization plan with the church, as the personnel committee continued to refine it. By December the church elected a search committee and by March the search committee recommended J. David Chan to the church. The church voted to call him and he began this new role in mid-April.
This important move is positioning our staff to optimize its effectiveness in leading the church to make disciple-makers for the glory of God among the nations. Both the brevity of this process and the caliber of the person we called are witnesses of God’s faithfulness.
9. Delivered Bibles in indigenous languages to people groups in Chiapas
Although we have maintained constant communication with our missionaries on the field and on stateside during this difficult year, our direct engagement has decreased because of travel restrictions. Nevertheless, we are delighted that in April we were able to send a small team to Chiapas, Mexico to continue the work we have been doing there for several years.
During our time working alongside Pastor Eufemio Bonifaz in the training of pastors and leaders for indigenous people groups in Chiapas we discovered that some of these groups did not have the Bible in their own language. They also did not either have the means to secure them or did not know how to do so. One of our deacons, Jose Luis Jiménez, took this project on and found both the funds and the source of Bibles in these native languages.
Last week these Bibles were delivered by Calvary members. For the first time in their lives the Tzotzil Chenalo people held a Bible in their own language in their hands. What a privilege and a humbling experience it was to be the instruments God used for this incredible thing. This is just one small part of the many ways in which we are encouraging and resourcing God’s mission in the jungles of southern Mexico.
10. Mobilized our pastoral ministry interns
As God called some pastors and staff members away from Calvary, we were able to mobilize our pastoral ministry interns. Josh Rainha, Frank San Martin, Eli Garza and Osbaldo Gamez are all part of our preaching team and God has used them greatly there. In addition Josh Rainha has led worship in our classic service, in our Remedy band and is now working in mobilization. Frank San Martin has continued to lead out in the Young Adult Ministry. Eli Garza has taken on the student ministry in the interim with great passion. And Osbaldo Gamez is working with others in developing a strategy for house churches in Reynosa. We are blessed to have these talented young men in our congregation. Whether they stay here long term or God calls them to serve elsewhere, we are impacting the kingdom of God together for his glory!
Although Julio Varela is not a pastoral ministry intern, he has served as the Spanish Language Ministry interim associate. Dr. Varela has been used by God to be a blessing in our Spanish ministry in the areas of leadership training and encouragement, newcomer assimilation, pastoral care, preaching and teaching. God has been our provider!
11. Thirty-five new members (nine of them by baptism)
As we have slowly reopened our campus and ministries, God has brought thirty-five new members to our congregation, and there are many who are pending to join or be baptized. It is true that God has called some of our members away but God continues to send people our way. Like spring blooms all these new members are an encouragement from God and a reminder from Him that He has great things in store for Calvary’s future.
12. Saw family worship, huddles and home fellowships strengthened
Because of the changes that took place with the pandemic, we were able to see family worship strengthened in the homes. From last March when we led families to celebrate the Lord’s Supper at home in the context of the passover, to VBS, Easter activities for families with children and discussion guides, families have grown together in worship at home.
We have heard of multiple huddles of young adults, men, senior adults and other groupings that have formed as disciples encourage one another. These groups provide community, accountability and mutual support in the Christian walk.
Our home fellowships have not grown in number but many have grown in ministry and outreach to others during this time. Many of them continue to meet via zoom. Some are meeting in person but all of them continue the work of making disciples, which can sometimes be messy but in grace and love, very rewarding.
Lucy recently emailed us to share about the “Who’s your Fiv5?” This was a campaign we launched last spring to pray for five people in our relational network who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. Lucy told us her list consisted of her parents and family. During the pandemic her parents, who live in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, (Lucy lives in the RGV), contacted her expressing the desire to read the Bible but did not know where to start or how to do it. She remembered that she had been praying for their salvation and she joyfully guided them in a Bible reading plan. In the process she led them to trust Christ and their Savior and Lord. While they have Bible reading and study together as a family, they join our Spanish service every Sunday via livestream. This Guanajuato, Mexico, family calls Calvary McAllen their church and refers to us as “our pastor”!
What a privilege it is to see individuals and families become disciples and grow in Christ in various homes and groupings away from our campus!
What a joy it is to know that many, if not most, of these major ministries are carried out by laypeople, deacons and volunteers! We are making disciple-makers for the glory of God among the nations!
Toward 2022
As we look at the eighteen months ahead, we are focusing on restoration for the rest of this year and we are planning to relaunch this fall.
The purpose and vision, which I have already shared here will continue to guide us as well as the values of a healthy disciple. We believe that a healthy disciple is one who is humble, hungry and holistic. We believe healthy disciples grow in community with others. We believe healthy fellowships produce healthy disciples.
With that in mind there are six goals which we would like to accomplish with the Lord’s help, over the next 18 months. Between now and the end of 2022 we pray that we can,
- Call a Pastor for SLM discipleship and a Pastor for Student discipleship
- Align all our programs and ministries with the vision and strategy
- Assess our giving potential and develop a campaign for maximum stewardship
- Launch a multiplication strategy that results in new churches (partnership with Texas Baptists)
- Start a church planting center for the upper valley to train leaders who start churches (partnership with RGVBA and Texas Baptists)
- Establish a statewide welcoming ministry network for immigrants called thirteentwo. (Hebrews 13:2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it).
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