Bible Way Missionary Baptist Church dedicates new Family Life Center

By BRITTANY FHOLER
Cove Leader-Press

Nearly two years after the groundbreaking ceremony, the Bible Way Missionary Baptist Church of Copperas Cove held a dedication service for the new S.D. McMullen Family Life Center Sunday afternoon. 
The new building is adjacent to the church’s sanctuary building. Named after the church’s late pastor, Shannon (Shawn) D. McMullen, the Family Life Center has been a vision brought to life, according to the church’s current leader, Pastor Will Jackson. 
McMullen’s widow, Anne, and their son, DeMeras, both attended the dedication ceremony held in honor of McMullen and later cut the cake inside the Family Life Center. 
Anne shared her thanks to the church for building the center and for dedicating it in her late husband’s honor. She added that this would help continue the church and its congregation’s “mission to win souls to Christ.” 
Assistant Pastor Rev. George Blake was on the building committee and gave brief remarks about the new Family Life Center during the service. 
“This is a good way, a great way that we can honor [McMullen], remembering what he did, and all of the sacrifices, not only that he made but [Anne] and her family made for this church,” Blake said.
Blake added that this building will symbolize the church and its members’ devotion to God. 
“The building represents more than you think it does,” Blake said. “When people drive by, and they see this, they ought to know that ‘Those are people who worship God.’ The true and living God. See, there’s a whole lot of people that say that they have one, but we’re talking about the true and living God, the God who we know that Jesus is Lord-so when people come by and they see that and say, ‘This is a place that I know that stands for truth.’ As the pastor has stated in his sermon, the building is nice, and we need the building, but let’s do all that we can on our part because just as God built the building, God also built a building with people. Let us do our part by going out and telling someone about the goodness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Church members viewed a slideshow presentation of McMullen’s legacy and its fruition in the Family Life Center before the service concluded and the reception began in the center. 
Lead Pastor Rev. Will Jackson said that the process of building and opening the Family Life Center was lengthened due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Winter Storm Uri earlier this year as well as other delays with the city. 
With the Family Life Center finally open, this chapter of the vision was now complete. 
“It just means that the Lord is faithful and lets you know that if people of God have a mind to do something, then they can not only verbalize it in vision but that it can come together in actuality, and so, a lot of times faith speaks to what people don’t see, but faith, my belief, is further with what you do see,” Jackson said. “This is a culmination of the journey to be able to celebrate not only being able to have it come into existence, but also be able to reflect and have it be a reminder of the faithfulness of the Master.”
In addition to being the Family Life Center for the church, Jackson said it will also serve as a center for the community. 
“At different times, our facilities have been used by the community for different things that have happened, but also we’re open to anybody in the community to come in to fellowship and to worship with us, and we want the community to know that that’s what we’re here for: to aid and to help and to disciple, and so the Family Life Center and the campus in its entirety will serve for that as well,” Jackson explained. “So, we’ve been blessed, even despite “Snovid”, the pandemic and some insurance settlements and stuff that we’re doing, that everything has kind of come together so from a facility standpoint, we’re able to aid people in wherever they need, but mainly as a threefold purpose of a place to worship, fellowship and be discipled.” 
The church also received a $3,500 donation from the McMullen and Thompkins families during the service to go towards the construction of a gymnasium/auditorium on the north side of the wchurch’s campus, which is the next phase for expanding the church. 
Bible Way Missionary Baptist Church is located at 2306 S. F.M. 116 in Copperas Cove. 
McMullen became an ordained deacon while serving in the military in Erlanger, Germany, and he accepted the call to preach while living in Copperas Cove. He founded the Bible Way Missionary Baptist Church in Copperas Cove in January 1980, and served as the lead pastor for more than 37 years, until his death in 2017. 
He served as the President of the Bell County Ministerial Alliance of Killeen/Copperas Cove; as a board member of the Evangelical Home Mission and the Foreign Mission Board of the Missionary Baptist General Convention of Texas; and as past Dean/Bible teacher and past chairman of the Evangelical Board of the Good Hope Western General Association of Waco, Texas. He also was the founder and organizer of the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial March and Worship Service in Copperas Cove.