Church Direction and Pastoral Staff at Calvary

          As you know, Calvary is a diverse congregation that seeks to minister to all generations, various worship-style preferences and in two languages.  That makes our church rich and unique as we proclaim Christ and seek to love people in the McAllen area.  To my knowledge, there are not many other churches our size (perhaps none) that offer a quality "classic" worship experience, a contemporary service in English and a contemporary service in Spanish under the vision and leadership of one pastoral staff that seeks to foster one common bond across worship styles.  Some of the churches our size have decided to specialize in contemporary and do not offer a "classic" or "traditional" option.  There are traditional churches that offer either a traditional or blended style of worship but not a contemporary option (these are often smaller churches).  There are various English language congregations in the area that offer a Spanish language service in their facility but it is often under completely separate leadership.  Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen has the unique privilege of ministering to those who prefer to worship in a classic style, contemporary style or in Spanish while following the same sermon series and leading our people to pursue the same vision.  In other words, while some churches may choose to target specific segments of the population, we want to be a church that ministers to all people, regardless of age, worship-style preference, ethnicity or language preference.  That may be ambitious in an age of specialization but I believe it is biblical and consistent with the nature of the gospel.  To paraphrase a missiological concept, we want to mobilize the whole church to take the holistic gospel to all people.  We are grateful for that opportunity in such a place as the McAllen area and at such a time as this.

          Our congregation has an average worship attendance of almost 200 in our English classic service, almost 400 in our English contemporary service, and almost 400 in our Spanish contemporary service.  As you can see below, total worship attendance for 2011 was the highest it has been in five years and 2012 is off to a great start.  Most of this is due to the phenomenal growth in our Spanish service.  While there is a healthy vitality in our English services, we have not seen significant growth in those services.  We have great potential but it is critical that we continue to pray and work so that our entire congregation enjoys health and vitality.  As Lead Pastor, I am committed to doing what is necessary to develop an ever-growing English language ministry while fostering a spirit of unity with our Spanish language ministry.  I pray that, you as a leader, desire, pray and work toward the same goal.

          With somewhere between 900 and 1000 people each week in total worship attendance, we also minister to about 200 children, 200 students and 500 adults in various group experiences each week.  Furthermore, we seek to mobilize individuals and groups each month in ministering to our community and taking God’s love beyond the Rio Grande Valley to other parts of the world.

          In order to equip and empower our volunteer leaders it is important to have a pastoral staff that is capable, committed to the church-wide vision and assigned the responsibilities consistent with gifting and calling.  Our current pastoral staff consists of Julio Guarneri, Joe Gerault, Rolando Aguirre, Mark Richardson, Gary Faris, Marcus Rodriguez and Susan Sosebee.  We also have one pastoral staff position that is vacant.  The responsibilities of this staff have shifted some within the last year.  They are expected to continue to shift as we look at the ever-growing and often-changing needs of our congregation.

          With the intention of keeping you informed and asking you to pray through these changing times, in the next weeks, I will feature each pastor in this blog so that you can know a little bit about each of them, their family and their current role in our congregation.  As we discuss with the personnel committee how to fill the current vacancy, we are considering what restructuring changes may need to be done to the current staff.  As a Calvary leader, I ask for your prayers in this regard.  I also welcome your input.  The best way to have this dialogue is for you to post your comments on this blog.  You can either sign-in or you can post comments as "anonymous."  Even the "anonymous" option gives you the chance to type your name at the end of your comment.  If you prefer to share your thoughts with me privately, feel free to e-mail me or call me.

          As we think about Calvary's future, there are various questions that we can ask ourselves,

• How are we doing in making disciples of Jesus Christ?
• What is the spiritual health of our congregation?
• How are we doing in ministering to the various generations and language groups in our church?
• How are we making a difference in our community?
• How are we doing in mobilizing our people to be on mission with God locally and globally?
• What are the obstacles that need to be removed for our church to become all that God wants it to become?
• What are the important areas of our church that are being neglected?
• What is the sense of unity in spirit and vision among the Calvary people who attend the classic, contemporary and Spanish services?
• What is it that attracts new comers to our congregation?  What is it that keeps new comers from coming or returning to our congregation?

These are hard questions.  But we must ask them prayerfully and objectively if we are going to allow God to move us forward.