Pastor Willy's Blog - Complete Post

            We own the world record! Tom Hudgins, the founder of Judgment House ministry, informed me recently that no church has ever done Judgment House longer than Calvary. For 17 consecutive years Calvary has held a Judgment House and that ministry has been used of God in many ways.

            Yet, every ministry has a life cycle and over the last year we’ve been wrestling with what the future of Judgment House looks like at Calvary. Several significant developments signaled that it was time for a transition and that this was the right time. It also became clear that God had created a path for Judgment House to continue in our area and even expand in the future.

            This year we added a Saturday night service. That service requires the full “all hands on deck” attention of staff and volunteers to succeed and we pray and hope it will continue to grow in the future. This year we also began construction of our new Sports Ministry Complex “The Rock”, and by this fall we will begin hosting Friday night football games, and soon other athletic events on the weekends. Our High School, Calvary Christian High School, is rapidly growing. We have the largest freshman class in our history starting this fall. Over the last several years it has been difficult to manage hosting the Judgment House drama in the same facility as a High School and we’ve even had to shut down our school for two entire days. It became clear that our expanding ministries in key areas was making Judgment House more difficult to host and that it would only be more difficult in the years ahead.

            Yet, at the same time God provided a clear alternative. It seems no accident that during this same time period we also helped plant a church known as “Experience Church.” Our friend Tom Hudgins, who was part of Calvary for those 17 years, and brought Judgment House to Calvary, launched this church plant with our encouragement. The Experience Church has recently moved to a new facility toward downtown Clearwater and they are looking for ways to reach their new community with the gospel message. Since Tom Hudgins is the founder of Judgment House and the Director of the national ministry, and since he is also the lead pastor/church planter, it just made sense that the time was right to transition Judgment House out of Calvary’s facilities and out from Calvary’s ministry direction over to Tom and the Experience Church.

            This is a great tool to help Experience Church reach new people and Calvary is going to help. Since so many Calvary members love this ministry and have a long history of involvement we are actively encouraging our members to help Tom and his team execute Judgment House at this new location. They are actually doing a Judgment House presentation this summer and we’ve made all our props and resources available to Tom. We’ve also encouraged Calvary members to go and help. Hopefully, if this presentation succeeds, it will lead to more presentations in the future and even expand to other churches.

            We’ll continue to encourage our people to help in Judgment House. We’ll continue to use this as a tool in missions and outreach events as the opportunities arise. We’ll continue to support Tom and Experience Church as they grow and reach out. We believe this is a win-win scenario.

            If you are interested in helping out Experience Church as they do their Judgment House presentation call Sandi Hubbard at 729-2221 or go by the Lobby Missions Desk at Calvary to complete a volunteer form.