After nine years as pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church, the Rev. Mark Lewis is moving on to a much larger congregation in Houston, Texas.

Looking back on his years of service at Mount Calvary, which was the 35-year-old Houma natives first congregation as lead pastor, Lewis said he felt nothing but gratitude and appreciation.

“I look back on having gained wisdom and experience,” Lewis said. “I believe that if there was success, it was due to the glory of God and secondly due to the people who worked tirelessly and engaged wholeheartedly.”

Lewis began his pastoral career at Mount Calvary as an interim pastor under then pastor the Rev. Jason Toliver.

“Pastor Toliver served for five years and we became good friends,” Lewis said. “I was a student pastor at Progressive Baptist Church in Lafayette and he recommended to the church that I serve as an interim pastor for six or seven months.

“I stayed on and was asked to serve as senior pastor, and after some prayer I was led to do so.”

Serving as a pastor for a “historic and distinguished” congregation like Mount Calvary was a lifelong dream for Lewis.

“I’ve been hoping to serve as a pastor for all my life, I often say it was a dream come true for me,” he said.

More recently, Lewis took over pastoral for St. James Baptist Church of Gibson, which he said was a dying congregation when he took over but has since been revitalized tahnks to his family’s stewardship.

But after an offer to serve as a staff pastor for Lily Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, Lewis said he accepted after some prayer. The congregation size is about 6,000 people, and Lewis said the senior pastor there is a Eunice native.

Even though the opportunity is exciting, Lewis said leaving Mount Calvary is bittersweet.

“I will definitely miss the people here,” he said. “I’ll always be an ambassador for New Iberia. We’re definitely going to miss the people of Mount Calvary.”