Although the steeple and auditorium gracing the Jackson Avenue neighborhood for almost 70 years will soon be gone, the Rev. Caleb Clark assures the community that Calvary Baptist Church is “leaner and meaner” than it has ever been.
“We're at a good place at Calvary,” Clark, 35, said recently. “It is a great time, a great season in Calvary's present and future.”
Due to longstanding structural problems in the church's “auditorium” – Clark sees the church's members themselves as the “sanctuary”– a local contractor and a demolition company have been hired to take the auditorium “to the ground,” as local contractor Paul Parker Jr. of Parker Builders described it.
Demolition work was scheduled to begin this week.
An incident last May cinched the need to address the structural problems, which had been known for decades.
“We were up here cleaning and throwing stuff away, and a part of the outside wall fell out and crushed an awning,” Clark said, adding that a few members who earlier were reluctant about dismantling the building became convinced of the urgency when they saw the damage.
After the church's final services in the auditorium Aug. 16, the church will host services in their three-story education building, located behind the auditorium. Ironically, Clark celebrated his eighth anniversary as the church's pastor Aug. 16, the final service in the church's auditorium.
Clark credits the auditorium wall's inferior cinder block as one of the reasons for the structural problems plaguing the auditorium, which was built in 1947.
Slamming his fist on a wall to illustrate the auditorium's defect, he explained the sound coming from inside the wall.
“All that (sound) is the cinder block behind (the walls) and it's just crumbled,” he said. “Back in the '50s, they voted to put red brick over it, but the builder did not tie the red brick in to the cinder block.”
He noted a further illustration of the structural problems by pointing to two rooms that had been added to the auditorium.
“These are kind of extension wings that used to be the church office until part of the wall collapsed inside and crushed the desk and the computer and the file cabinets,” he explained. Longtime member Marie Kelly, who became a member of the church in the late '50s and is one of the church's oldest members, said the wings also had served as Sunday School rooms.
In the early '70s, the church purchased a different parcel of land north of the site of Yazoo
City's Hampton Inn and planned to move, but later sold the land. Engineers were called in later to survey the auditorium's structural problems and, after having inspected the building, one engineer said, “I will never step foot in that building again.”
Since that survey, the church has had services in the auditorium for 40 years or more. Following the 2010 tornadoes, personnel from Samaritan's Purse, set up shop in Calvary Baptist Church for several weeks as they ministered to Yazoo County's recovery needs. The church also serves as a relay station for Operation Christmas Child. The church produces more Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes than any other church in the county.
One misconception spreading through the community is that the entire church plant will be demolished. Not only will services continue in the education building, which is located behind the auditorium, but plans are to build a chapel between two oaks located on the church's current site.
“Another misconception that I heard is that we're closing up shop, and that we're pulling our shingle in and Calvary is dissolving,” Clark said. But I can say with all certainty. We're in a better, stronger position than we've been in a decade. We're infinitely healthier than we've been in a long time spiritually, but I would say we're positioned to be one of the stronger churches in our community just from a faithful standpoint (and) a generosity standpoint.
“There are very few church communities in this town that can say they've been as effective, as lean and mean, as muscular as we have been.”
Clark's wife, Teri, echoed her husband's faith in Calvary Baptist Church.
“We're not leaving,” she said. “We're just in a transition to update our facilities for better longterm ministry to our community.”
Mrs. Kelly's dedication to her church is partly evidenced by the many meals she has hosted in her home for Calvary Baptist Church's pastors and music directors through the years. She's hoping not to let sadness be too intense when the auditorium goes down.
“I hope not (to be too sad), but I'm going to probably feel down to a certain extent for a while, but I'll be busy down here,” she said.
“We'll build back a chapel; not a church because we are the church,” Clark said. “I hope that we have a building that sits between these two oaks out here. We hope that within the next two to three years to be moving firmly in the direction of a new building.”
