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BEAUMONT—Churches commonly believe in the unseen hand of God on their congregations, but not all cite it as the chief reason for the effectiveness of their ministry. At Calvary Baptist Church in Beaumont, pastor Nathan Cothen said “the sovereign grace of God” sets this group of believers apart.
“[God] decided to do a work here,” Cothen told the TEXAN. “Secondly, there is a huge commitment to the Word here. This church does not veer to the left or to the right. It sticks with the Word.”
Calvary Beaumont began in 1904 and has started two other churches in the area with the goal of reaching Southeast Texas for Christ. In 2007, it started a new campus in Lumberton, a rapidly-growing bedroom community about 15 miles north.
“That market is exploding for us,” said Cothen, who has been Calvary’s pastor for 22 years. “The population shift and things like that are making it a really good place for us to be right now.”
"The population shift and things like that are making it a really good place for us to be right now."
Beaumont is not an Anglo-majority city, and Calvary is “one of the most diverse congregations that you’ll find,” Cothen said. They have a thriving international ministry, which includes Filipinos, Chinese, Guatemalans, Ecuadorians and people from several countries in Africa. They also have Casa Calvario, an Hispanic ministry, “which is rocking and rolling.”
About 15 years ago, some researchers studied Calvary using a list of about 100 socio-ethnic groups. “They said the average number of groups off that chart represented in the average church was four, and Calvary had 24 at the time,” Cothen said.
The church’s greatest asset, the pastor said, is something he describes as “sweet reasonableness.”
“Sweet reasonableness, in my opinion, is what makes it fun to come to church here—the absence of fussing and fuming and fighting. Two-thirds of our ministerial staff has been here over 10 years, and over half of our support staff has been here over 10 years,” Cothen said. “I think that’s kind of a big deal.”
As the community changes and people are moving from Beaumont to Lumberton, Calvary has tried to get involved in the local schools through mentoring projects and by supplying chaplains for the football team at one of the large high schools. They’ve also partnered with First Baptist Church Hamshire to host a Beast Feast to reach men who love to hunt and fish but don’t have much exposure to church.
“In the last 23 years, we started a television ministry that’s on every week and a radio ministry that’s on in Houston five days a week. We were paying for 30 minutes a day, and they showed favor to us—I believe it was divinely inspired—and gave us an extra 30 minutes free,” Cothen said. “They play our broadcast twice a day on the biggest Jesus station in Houston.”
Disaster relief is a significant ministry at Calvary Beaumont, particularly hurricane relief. “We are more than willing to lose our expertise from lack of use,” Cothen said, acknowledging the challenges of living with dangerous weather patterns. When Hurricane Katrina struck, the church had 400 evacuees come and go, seeking shelter during the first month. “Two of our buildings were devoted just to housing Katrina refugees,” the pastor said.
When Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, both campuses of Calvary remained dry and became ground zero for disaster relief teams.
“We housed 600 Team Rubicon people. We had a group of relief workers from Israel that came and stayed with us. We had a group of New York firefighters that came and stayed with us,” Cothen said.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief workers from at least seven states were housed at Calvary Beaumont in the Harvey aftermath, and Rick Warren rallied local pastors there. More recently, Calvary sent its chainsaw crew as the tip of the spear heading into New Orleans after Hurricane Ida.
Cothen believes the two most important functions of the Southern Baptist Convention are to provide seminaries to educate new pastors and missionaries and to reach the nations through the International Mission Board. “Those are the two biggest reasons that we’re hard core in on the Cooperative Program,” the pastor said.
Through the years, Calvary has prayed to have 100 “sell your house” missionaries come out of the church, and so far about eight families have been sent through the IMB, he said. One of the highlights of CP, the church’s missions pastor Clay Jones said, is that those families don’t have to raise money when they come home. They can recharge and go out again.
“Beaumont is a good place. Some parts of it are pretty tough, but we believe that the Lord called us here for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others to cleave only to the calling he put on us ‘til death do us part or he burns a bush,” Cothen said. “So that’s what we’re going to do.”
