Prospective Pastor Meet, Greet, and Eat

This Saturday, September 22 at 4:00 p.m., the Pastor Search Team will present our prospective new pastor, Bro K. Bro K. and his family will be at the ARC to meet with and speak with the Cleary Family.

Afterward we will be eating in the dining hall. Bring a covered dish and have dinner with our prospective new pastor.

Finally, Sunday morning, Bro K. will preach in view of the call from Cleary Baptist Church. This will be Bro K.'s trial run. Immediately following the service Bro K. and his family will leave and Cleary will vote on calling him as the new pastor.

Please come by and welcome Bro K. and his family to Cleary.

Lunch in the ARC

This Sunday, August 26, after morning service, we will be adjourning to the gym. The tables will be set up and lunch will be served. The main entree, drinks, and bread will be provided. We will have beef brisket, pulled pork, and sausage. As usual, iced tea, sweet and unsweet, water, and coffee will be available. Some cola may also be availalble.

If you are a member of Cleary we request that you bring a side dish of potato salad, green salad, baked beans, or desserts.

Immediately following lunch, we will have an brief service while seated at our tables. Please come for service and stay for lunch.

Morning service begins at 10:00 a.m.

Grand Opened

The Grand Opening was great. We had so many children come. It was a real eye-opener. We saw many new faces. Sunday evening we had an activities night. I did see one of our local skate boarders playing ball. I know Bro Kev has been working on and with this young man. It was good to see him there.

We gave away many hotdogs and drinks. Bonnie B. was our grand prize winner. She received a couple of Ladies Ministries tee shirts as well as two passes to the upcoming Ladies Conference at Cleary.

The inflatable was a huge hit. There were kids who got in as soon as they arrived and stayed inside playing for hours!

I know the volleyball court and basketball net were certainly worked overtime. At one point I thought I saw Bro Chris hanging from the rim after an under both legs, twisting, behind the back, two-handed slam. Maybe I was just imagining that.

Many, many thanks to all who helped us put on the event. We wanted to glorify God in our endeavor. I pray He was blessed by the work of so many hands and that he will bless Cleary and His family here.

Grand Opening

Dedication Sunday has come and gone. What a great day for the Lord! It was so good to see Bro. Gene again and to hear how the vision developed. Bro Chris delivered a strong message. Even though the construction of the building is finished, the work is just beginning. What next? is indeed the question!

Immediately Cleary will host the Grand Opening for the ARC this Saturday, August 18 from 10:00a to 2:00p. Many different things will go on Saturday. To list a few:

• Star 93 FM live doing a radio remote


• Inflatable obstacle course for the kiddies


• Hot dogs and refreshments for all


• Tours of the facility


• Door prizes

If you have a chance, please do come by and see us!

Welcome, Banner, and Clean up

Well, we have our banner up. As such I hope you're a new reader to this blog about the Cleary Activities and Recreation Center (ARC). We will be making updates regularly regarding the progress of construction as well as planned activities, events, goings on, and anything else we can think of here at the ARC. If you have any questions about it please feel free to contact me. I encourage you to visit Cleary's website and if you're Youth oriented, Kevin Wade, the Associate Pastor for Youth and Activities, has a website, S.O.S. and a blog.

Several folks showed up today for a general clean up day. There was a bunch of cleaning going on. I worked for a bit in the Upper Room Cafe. That is going to be a really hot spot for The Youth! The carpet is not yet installed in that room. I believe it will be done next week.

The A/V Team is putting forth a proposal tomorrow to purchase and install a dual projector system for the Upper Room Cafe. In that room there will be a dual projector system, several intelligent lights, a smoking sound system, a large equipment room, and "the cafe". I have not seen the plans for the layout of the cafe; however, it looks like there will be plenty of seating as you'd expect in a cafe as well as a bar, non-alcoholic, of course!

There are several things left to do in order to open the doors: carpet in The Youth room, finish a few doors, touch up painting, finish the restrooms, and a few electrical loose ends.

All in all, God is so good! It is amazing so much has been done by so few in such a short time! Once again, thanks to God for using Eckels Evans, Newt Roberts, Roscoe Singletary, the contractors, all the volunteers, and whomever else has had a hand in building this ARC!

26 Days, Paint, Lights, A/C, Banner

With 26 days left before launching the ARC I have several things to report.

The inside of the building is largely painted. While there may be a few things to touch up most of the paint is on the wall and dry. This allows us to begin hanging the grid work for the lights. That is the next thing going up.

Later this week the air conditioning will be finished up and turned on. We need to have the A/C on for several days to remove the humidity in order for the gym floor installation to begin. It is looking like the gym floor is one of the final pieces to the puzzle.

We have a banner that will be hung outside telling all about this blog. If you are a guest reading for the first time because of the banner, "Welcome!" And thank you for stopping in. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a line. You can also visit our church website at http://clearybaptist.org.

Construction Update and Meeting People

Several of us met today to discuss publicity for the ARC. We will be issuing a press release tomorrow. I will post that press release as soon as it is released!

Eckels has indicated there will be two showers in the men's and women's facilities. This is in direct response to the American Red Cross in regard to the disaster shelter.

Kevin relayed a story during our meeting. He met someone walking around the ARC, checking it out. The person he met was not attending church regularly. However, he was certainly curious about the ARC. He asked if we were going to have basketball when we opened up. We certainly are. And God is certainly good! He's using this incomplete project to make contact with folks! Awesome.

Welcome Kevin Wade

Kevin Wade, Associate Pastor for Students and Activities, has come aboard as a contributor to The Cleary ARC blog. Kevin has been with Cleary for about a year now leading the youth like a true man of God.

Kevin has been instrumental in feeding information about the progress of the construction. Now he can file reports directly.

Thanks Kevin!

Welcome to Cleary Countdown

Welcome to Cleary Countdown. Thank you for visiting. The purpose of this site is to raise awareness of and raise funds for the Cleary Baptist Church Family Life Center in Florence, Mississippi. The purpose of the project is to glorify God. We intend to do this by introducing a place unlike any in the community where people can gather and worship God.

If you have driven by Cleary for the past couple of years you have noticed a partially constructed building on an overgrown lot adjacent to the church. Many felt the languishing state of the project did more to harm the witness of the church than help it. At the end of February the body of Cleary Baptist Church voted to move forward with this project and complete the building. Early in March construction began in earnest under the guidance of Eckels Evans, Cleary's resident Fish Fry superchef and general contractor.

In the near future look for posts with pictures, videos, timelines, interviews, projections, intentions, and reports all about the progress of this project. For today, please accept our thanks for visiting.

Welcome to Countdown Cleary!