By Jeff Walker
Features Editor
San Marcos — Calvary Baptist senior pastor Bro. Dennis Spire takes pride in seeing young people in his church grow and mature in their faith: People like Angie McCoy, whom he’s known since she was 12. A loyal church member since then, McCoy is now the children’s ministry associate at Cavalry.
Stories like Angie’s are the major achievements for Spire.
“The greatest accomplishment is getting people to know the Lord,” Spires said. “If you’re not changing people’s lives, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done.”
The San Marcos preacher celebrated his 20th anniversary as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church on Jan. 31. The church celebrated with a special service and followed with an old fashioned pot luck dinner.
Spire has been married to his wife Brenda for 31 years. He has three children: Matthew, 29; Mar, 28; and Shelby, 26.
Spire came to San Marcos from a small church in Chautauqua, Kan. in 1990. After 10 years as pastor, the church began to outgrow its church on Uhland Road, and he lead a vision of building a new facility for Calvary Baptist. Members began developing a concept for a new facility in the late 90s, and did much of the construction themselves over the years. For years, members have held Tuesday and Saturday work nights, hosted garage sales and sold handmade quilts to raise money. They broke ground in 2002 but didn’t move into the new church on IH-35 until June of 2008.
“We framed the building ourselves. Members did the electrical work and hung a lot of the sheet rock,” Spire said.
Even so, Spire dismisses his leadership in building the new church as his greatest accomplishment. He calls it “a secondary blessing that God allowed to come into my life.” It’s the people — the faithful members he’s known over the years — that really matter.
“(As the pastor), you’ve been there when they were born, now they’re maturing into adults. To me, that’s the gratifying part,” Spire said.
