Update from Pastor Cliff
My Dear People,
I am happy to report we had a nice week of family vacation. We had all of our family together except for our daughter Joy and our grandson, Ezekiel. Joy’s husband, Jason is in the Air Force, stationed at Eglin. He is currently deployed in Kuwait and hopes to return home to Crestview, Florida in August. With COVID, Joy feels it best for her and the baby to stay home for now. Of course, we very much missed her and Ezekiel, but we understand. Please pray for Jason’s safety in Kuwait and for his safe return. Sunday, we enjoyed the morning worship service at Fellowship Church of Huntsville, where our oldest son, Cliff, Jr., and his family are members. They had a great service with approximately 200 in the service. Their church reopened their Sunday School about two weeks now. For our longtime members at MBC, Joey Stroud sends his greetings. Joey is the part-time Worship Pastor at Fellowship of Huntsville who served several years during Jay Gross’ tenure as Senior Pastor at Memorial.
After we arrived home, Georgianna and I watched our service online. We felt it was a very worshipful service with great music provided by Joey Watkins and Connie Mallory. Pastor Robby Pollard preached an excellent message. I want you to know Pastor Doug and his wife Donna have been sick and I want you to join me in keeping them in our thoughts and prayers. Since Pastor Doug will be out again Sunday, Joey Watkins will be back for our Patriotic Weekend. We now feel it wise to cancel Sunday’s Family Picnic due to the COVID spike brought on by the recent protest and funeral. However, we will not be cancelling any of our Sunday morning worship services, or closing down the office again. As I said in Saturday’s E-Blast, I am not telling anyone who wants to come to a worship service, they cannot come. At the same time, we are providing everyone the option of online Sunday School classes and the live-stream worship services. And by the way, our plan is to continue the online options even after COVID has passed. This will allow our Senior Adults who are homebound to always have access online to the worship services and Sunday School.
I am excited to inform you that Village Park Church will be having an evening service here at MBC Sunday, July 12. Pastor Robby Pollard is a truly a missionary, a church planter. The Lord led him to plant Village Park Church in Creekside, but they still have no building. They have been renting from one of the Tomball schools in the area. Since COVID shutdown all the schools in the district, Village Park has not been able to meet. You may recall back in the summer of 2017 the Tomball Schools shutdown following Hurricane Harvey. I have known Pastor Robby for years and have been privileged to mentor him beginning back when he served as Pastor of the Berean Church in Aldine. In 2017, it was on a Friday that Robby called me about the possibility of them meeting at MBC. At that time we were still having our two morning services as well as Sunday night services. I had no doubt whatsoever that we needed to accommodate Village Park, so I told Robby we would welcome them that Sunday. The only time I could make it work was between the two morning worship services so they met for their service during Sunday School from 9:15 to 10:30 A.M. I remember them coming in, and I must say, it was great seeing this young and vibrant group of people coming in right on time. What impressed me the most was how they readily expressed their appreciation to us for allowing them to use our Worship Center. I assured them we were blessed to have them. Now, understand on that particular Sunday, our people did not know they were coming, but when I announced the circumstances to them, our people literally applauded and several told me they were so grateful we had them. That is the kind of missionary spirit MBC has always shown and I know it will be the same this time. Now, just to be clear, my only commitment to Pastor Robby is for Sunday night, July 12.
It is good to be back and I am expecting to have a wonderful patriotic service this Lord’s Day.
Pastor Cliff