Mark Richardson, Pastor for Music and Worship

          Mark Richardson has been Calvary’s Pastor for Music and Worship for over three years since he and his family returned from Kenya. (Pastor Mark had served Calvary in that role before going to Kenya as a missionary). Mark and Deborah are parents of Paul (23), Jon (20), Rebecca (11) and Sara (8). Deborah stays very busy taking care of the family, singing in the choir and on the worship team and raising parrots. Paul is a student at STC where he works on campus. He also operates the sound for our 11:00 service, loves music and film and is very gifted with computers. Jon is studying theatre and film at St. Edward’s University in Austin. Rebecca and Sara attend IDEA academy and both love music and acting.

          Mark is responsible for leading worship for both English services and serves as a resource for all aspects of music ministry at Calvary, as well as overseeing the sound, lighting, media and video ministries for our worship services.  As Calvary uniquely offers a "classic" style worship service with choir and orchestra, a "contemporary" style worship service with a band, and a Spanish language worship service, we are blessed to have someone like Mark.  Mark is gifted in the leading and arranging of choir music and musical programs.  He also has an understanding and appreciation for contemporary style worship as he gives leadership to that service.  Additionally, Mark is very good about working with the rest of the team in helping to coordinate music and worship ministry that address the multi-language needs of our congregation.  Mark is also editor of the weekly bulletin.  He is very thankful for the incredibly gifted and dedicated team of staff and volunteers who do a lot of the “heavy lifting” every week in worship and children’s music ministry, and he is thankful for his partner in ministry, Benjamin Aguirre who leads Spanish language worship.

          We are grateful for Mark and for his heartfelt ministry.

National Day of Prayer

          This opportunity to gather and pray for our nation at our church has often been a part of the Feature ministry at Calvary.  However, this year Feature is opening up this service to the entire church and to the community.  (We are grateful for the leadership of Sylvia Riddle and Freddy Vaughan).  It is fitting that in the midst of economic challenges, the violence across the border, the instability of the international scene, the moral decay in society and the upcoming elections, we as a church gather to pray for God's direction and blessing on our nation, our leaders and our churches.  Therefore, Pastor Rolando and I, with the help of our pastoral staff will be leading a one-hour bilingual prayer service in observance of this occasion.  As a leader in our church, I want to encourage to take part of or all of your lunch hour on Thursday, May 3rd and attend this service.  I also ask you to encourage those in your circles (within the church or in the community) to join us.


          We will also make time during the service to pray over elected officials, educational leaders, military leaders, law enforcement leaders, emergency response and business leaders.  If you know of some who fit these categories, please invite them.  Please also contact me or Alma Escobar (alma@calvarymcallen.org) with their contact information so that we can send them an personal invitation.

Rolando Aguirre, Pastor for Spanish Language Ministry and Regional Missions

            Pastor Rolando Aguirre was called to Calvary’s pastoral staff over three years ago.  Rolando and his wife Janet have been blessed with two children: Celina and David Jeremiah.  Pastor Rolando’s has lead the Spanish Language Ministry also known as “Calvary en Español.”  This Spanish service has grown in these last three years from a few dozen people to an average worship attendance around 375.  We are so grateful to God for this.

           The Spanish service is not a “mission” of Calvary but an integral part of the congregation.  As pastor to the SLM, Rolando preaches, teaches, provides pastoral care and gives leadership to that segment of our congregation.  Additionally, Rolando has been leading our regional missions ministries: serving as the pastoral liaison to the missions committee; supervising Elizabeth Zamora and Kathy Herzberg; and giving leadership to what Calvary does in our community, Sullivan City and with our Saltillo partnership.  In this last role Pastor Rolando has been serving the Calvary-at-large congregation.

           In an effort to promote greater unity among Calvary’s worship services, in the next few months Pastor Julio and Pastor Rolando will develop a preaching rotation schedule.  Occasionally Julio will preach all three services while Rolando does the same on different Sundays.  We want the Spanish congregation to know and feel that Pastor Julio is not just the pastor for the English congregation but for the entire church.  We want the English congregation to know and feel that Pastor Rolando is not just the pastor for the SLM but a pastoral staff member of Calvary.  This model of doing Spanish ministry within a multi-cultural church is not the traditional model and it is not common but we are convinced is the right model for Calvary.  In fact, we think it may be the future for many multi-cultural congregations in the Valley, Texas and beyond.  There are plenty of congregations where Spanish ministry works independent of the English ministry or where there is a clear distinction between Anglo ministry and Hispanic ministry.  That may work well for some but that is not what we are doing here at Calvary.  We are committed to working hard and being intentional to maintain and celebrate unity across our entire congregation.  We are one church with multiple cultures, ethnicities and two languages.

           Your prayers and support for Pastor Rolando and his family are greatly appreciated.

Holiday Update for Recovery Efforts

The TBM operations team has updated me on the Easter weekend schedule. Although, the Calvary church offices will be closed on Good Friday, the TBM disaster relief operations office in W109 will be opened on Friday from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Crews will continue recovery efforts on Friday. All operations will cease on Saturday and will resume next Tuesday due to Easter. Beginning on Tuesday W109 will open each day from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.

Phase 2: From Canvassing to Cleaning

I am happy to report that as of last night we had assigned 87 blocks out of the 102.  Additionally the EE en español groups did canvassing instead of their regular visits last night.  Although there were 15 unassigned blocks, this will conclude our canvassing phase.


What we are needing now are volunteers to help with clean-up of homes.  We have Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief teams out in the community putting blue tarps on bad roofs, pulling out wet carpets and pressure washing floors.  The priority is on helping the elderly, the uninsured and people who live by themselves and cannot do this on their own.  There are more of these cases than volunteer teams.  They are asking us to provide some volunteers to help with the clean up.  Other teams that were headed down here from other parts of the state maybe reassigned to the Dallas-Fort Worth area after yesterday's tornados.


Those who are able to volunteer half-a-day or a full day tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, etc. should report to W109 at Calvary's West Ed building.  The TBM office will assign them to a team.  Please forward this information to your teams and groups at Calvary.


Also, advice those who have need for TBM to come and help them, to come by the same office to place a priority request.

Brief Update on Storm Recovery in the Community

By Tuesday morning, the Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief operation has been installed in our West Ed 109 building.  A few more block assignments have been picked up.  We still have about 30 blocks that have not been assigned for checking on people.  We have found plenty of homes where the damage has been devastating, people without insurance, elderly and people who live alone.  


The TBM crews have started the work of pulling up wet carpets, cleaning glass and debris.  However, the number of affected homes exceeds the number of volunteers.  If you would like to volunteer or if you know of others who might be able to, please call Mike Tello (956) 289-9976 or the Calvary church office and we will direct you to the appropriate people.


We are still working on restoring the affected buildings on our campus in terms of electricity and air conditioning.  We will communicate to you if there are any changes to our Wednesday night schedule as soon as possible.

JTC & Hail Storm

A couple of months ago when our pastoral staff conceived the idea of doing "Journey to the Cross," we thought of a lot of things.  The one thing that never crossed our mind was that a furious hail storm mutant tornado and hurricane would pound the area around our church campus.  Having lived in Fort Worth, our family survived one the worst hailstorms ever in 1995.  As our family chatted after dinner in our home this past Thursday night, we were grateful for the down pour of rain but never did we imagine that we would end up picking up broken glass and hail in our bedrooms.  Suddenly, we couldn't figure out if we were in Fort Worth or Sharyland!  What a crazy storm!


Our church facility sustained significant damage on Thursday night also.  Most of the north-facing windows in the main building, the Slayton and the West Ed building were busted.  Our offices had glass and hail scattered all over the place.  Our roof in the sanctuary was greatly affected.  We have leaking roofs in the main building, the gym, the West Ed and the Children's building.  We were without electricity in the Slayton/Gym until Saturday.  We have damaged AC units in the West Ed, Worship Center, and the Children's Building chiller was affected.  Our parking lots were flooded and there was debris all over our side walks and plaza.  How could we have Bible Fellowships and worship on Sunday, not to mention "Journey to the Cross."


While our staff assessed damages and as we tried to make decisions about Sunday, David De Los Santos, Ron Corbett and David Heflin mobilized volunteers to cover windows and to conduct a massive outdoor clean-up effort that involved over 60 people.  We are so grateful for that.  Some people had not recovered from the damage they sustained at home and they were already helping restore the Calvary campus to some normalcy.


In spite of the set backs, we decided to have the "Journey to the Cross" experience in an adapted format.  Our pastoral staff and our volunteers did a phenomenal job in mobilizing approximately 1000 people through stations that led them to reflect on Jesus' last week before his crucifixion.  The event was a success and we praise God for that.  It is a reminder that not all things have to be ideal for us to encounter God's presence in a meaningful way.  It is a reminder that when God's people come together with open hearts and  they join hands, we can overcome.


Interestingly, "Journey to the Cross" was an experience that reminded us of the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus.  It was a reminder that in the midst of the highest kind of suffering anyone has ever known, Jesus did not focus on self-pity but on self-giving.  He was willing to suffer because He loves us.  He was willing to sacrifice because that's the only way we could have life.  So in the aftermath of the storm, we can also avoid self-pity and allow Christ's love to compel us toward self-giving.  This is especially relevant as the community around our church property has suffered such loss.


Shortly after the storm, several entities were identifying the area around our church as "ground zero" for Thursday's storm.  Texas Baptist Men have asked to operate their Disaster Relief efforts from our campus and we have agreed.  We have established contact with the City of McAllen's Emergency Response personnel and with the Gulf Coast Red Cross.  We agreed to help gather information for them.  So today as a response to JTC, Rolando and I shared with our congregations that we had 100 (actually 102) blocks that we wanted to canvass, checking on people and identifying needs.  These needs will be screened.  Some may be met by Calvary, others by Texas Baptist Men and others by the Red Cross/City of McAllen.  We asked for 100 families that would each take one block and knock on a few doors checking on people and gathering information.  By the end of the Spanish service, 63 families had picked up block assignments.  One person came up to me while I sat in the Spanish service and brought me back her report!  That's a quick response!  Later, as I drove home I saw one of our families knocking on doors and checking on neighbors.  What a great Calvary family we have!


However, we still have 39 blocks to cover, so if you didn't get your assignment, please come by the church tomorrow and get one.  I want us to fulfill our commitment to the other entities.  The next step will be to respond to the needs of people in our community.


This afternoon, as I was eating lunch with my family, I received a call that someone had found a 90-year-old man who lives by himself, with broken windows, a flooded house and no food.  As I type this blog, we have some of our Calvary folks along with others boarding up their windows, vacuuming the carpet, and cleaning up this man's house.  That's selfless love in action.  That's Christ's love.  That's loving God and loving people.


If you are not able to physically get out and knock on doors in our community, perhaps you can volunteer to help sort our information so that we can forward it to the correct entity.  The team leaders for this are Pastor Rolando Aguirre and Elizabeth Zamora.  We can use the help as early as tomorrow.


(Some may ask, if we are doing this for our community, what are we doing for our own church members who were affected.  We have asked ABF leaders to check on their people and we have asked deacons to check on their assigned elderly folks.  If there's a need that ABFs or deacons can meet immediately, we encourage them to do so.  If they are needing further resources or help, ABF leaders and deacons are to channel their requests through the pastoral staff so that we can respond and/or connect them to the help they might need).


Thank you for all you do and all you mean to the cause of Christ!