Calvary and a New Youth Pastor

The Leadership Team is pleased to announce that Tyler Clem has accepted the call to serve as the Youth Pastor for Calvary Baptist. 

There will be more details in the next few days regarding his arrival, but we want to welcome Tyler and Andi, their son Liam who is two, and their newborn son, Harper, who was born this past Sunday.

Tyler has been serving as the full-time youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Williamston, SC, for the last five years and has a wealth of proven experience, spiritual depth, and enthusiasm which he brings to our ministry.  We have appreciated your feedback regarding each of the candidates and we weighed carefully the qualifications and experience with what we saw and what you shared.  We clearly sensed that Tyler is the person who has the right mix of ministry gifts and experience for our ministry.  

Thank you for your prayers as we have walked through this process.  

The Leadership Team

Children's Ministry Position Filled

The Leadership Team is pleased to inform the congregation that Michal MacDonald has accepted the invitation to join the ministry staff of Calvary. She plans to begin her work with us in the middle of this month. We are thankful for the Lord's leadership that brought her unique gifting, education, and experience to our attention. For more information, please note the previous blog update.

Also we are thankful for many who have served in interim or transition leadership positions to allow us the time to make the necessary decisions on behalf of the Children's Ministry and the Calvary Preschool Express.  I specifically want to mention Robyn Griffith, Mary Leigh Brown, Lee Cochran and LeAnn George who have served in various capacities!

We appreciate the prayers and support of the congregation. Please continue to pray for Michal and Scott as they begin making preparations to move to Murfreesboro.

Dr. Mark

Children's Minister Update

We welcome Michal MacDonald and her husband, Scott, to Calvary this Sunday. She is a prospective Children’s Minister who is visiting with us. Among her many experiences in Children’s Ministry, she served for two years as an International Mission Board Journeyman in Capetown, South Africa, where her role was developing and conducting children’s ministry. She subsequently began training South African churches to implement children’s ministry.

She also has been attending the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City where the degree she is pursuing is in Counseling which she believes prepares her for ministering to children and their families.  They are currently living in her hometown of Marion, Illinois, while she continues her studies online.  Her undergrad degree is elementary education from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri. 

Her husband, Scott, has a master's degree in theology and is currently doing online work for Moody Church in Chicago.  Scott has roots in Canada and his family currently leads an inner city ministry in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Parents are invited to a meet and greet with Michal following services this Sunday in the children’s lobby.

Leadership Team Announcement: Collegiate/Young Adult Position Filled

After a prayerful and careful search process, the Leadership Team of  Calvary has offered the position of Collegiate Pastor to Micah Hoke, who is currently serving as an Associate Collegiate Pastor in Lubbock, Texas. Micah is from Midland, Texas and his wife Cynthia is from Lubbock.

Micah has been the Part-time Associate College Minister at Indiana Avenue Baptist Church in Lubbock since 2010. The local university, Texas Tech, is of a similar size to MTSU in that it has over 32,000 students. The college ministry at Indiana Avenue has grown from approximately 40 to 400 in the last three years, thus allowing Micah to develop significant staff and leadership experience in the collegiate area. Cynthia has also served as a Part-time Associate in the collegiate ministry. They met when they began working together and then married in May of 2012. He has a Master's in Christian Ministry and she also has a Master's degree. 


It's our hope that he will begin his ministry with us by the end of this month. Pray for him and Cynthia as they begin making preparations for the transition to Calvary.

Update: Three candidates to be onsite for Collegiate Pastor Search

In the process of searching for a Collegiate Pastor, we are now bringing in three candidates for onsite visits. The first will be here this weekend, the second will be with us next Wednesday evening, and the last will join us for the following Sunday. We will provide for interaction with the college students at the normal times on Sunday morning and Wednesday night.

In addition, the candidates will meet interact with the staff and then the Leadership Team.

Pray for the candidates and their families, for the college students as they meet these individuals, and for the Leadership Team as we evaluate how each of them seems to fit our ministry needs.

Collegiate Pastor Search Process

It's been a busy summer, much more so than I expected.  In part since I've been working very carefully and intensely through the search process for an individual who will serve in the collegiate pastor role.

I had intended to blog earlier about it but time slipped by rather fast. So here's an overview of how things are going in that process.

I posted the job on the SBC site back in May, and quickly began to receive resumes.  Now, almost two months later, in excess of 160 resumes have been submitted. The candidates have come from all over the world: some serving currently as missionaries, collegiate pastors, youth pastors, or as senior pastors. There's been a wide variety of educational background including seminary graduates. A good number had doctoral degrees or were in the process of obtaining a D.Min. or Ph.D.

There are a few that have filtered through to a short list of candidates, and have been involved in interviews on Skype or personal visits that I've made.  Three are under closer evaluation and it's my hope that soon we'll be able to have one or more visit with us.  Depending upon the timing of their visit, they will meet with the Leadership Team, ministry staff, and with a number of individuals involved in the collegiate ministry.

I will keep you posted on updates as things move further along.

Dr. Mark

Calvary's New Youth Pastor

Great news on the search process!  The Leadership Team has offered the Youth Pastor Position to Brandon Crews and he has accepted.

It's been an intense process and to bring you up to speed, here's a a synopsis of how things developed.  All together, there were probably over 150 resumes - with an amazing level of qualifications and experiences. Of the 150, questionnaires were sent to 20 or so, and from those responses I conducted almost 20 Skype interviews.  Then began a second round which included some face to face meetings and when not possible, further Skype interviews.  There were 6-8 candidates that surfaced as top tier possibilities - and of those, three began to emerge as the closest matches and strongest candidates for us.  Among that group, it appeared that Brandon and Lauren were the couple that we wanted to bring on site, first.  So, that's why they were with us this past weekend.

We exposed Brandon and Lauren to as many people or groups as possible, including the teaching time on Sunday morning with the youth, the Leadership Team and the Disciple Now Team.  We, the Leadership Team, began to hear strong comments from the youth and adults. We felt there was something of significance developing. We also learned there time constraints for Brandon and Lauren that prompted us to slightly accelerate our consideration of them. In fact, a church in Texas was actively pursuing them, and they were to visit that Church this weekend in view of a call.

Due to the overwhelming response of the youth and adults, and our own observations and conversations with them, the Leadership Team felt very strong in our direction and confident in moving forward.  Thus we offered the position to them and after prayerful consideration, they accepted.

Brandon and Lauren will be with us again this weekend and will be making housing arrangements. It's their hope to move to Murfreesboro the week after Christmas.

They have communicated their excitement to us about beginning this new journey.  Be in prayer for them as they begin to make the necessary arrangements and preparations to move here.