A Jacksonville Congregation at the Center of Four Churches
Midnight Cry Ministry Church sits on Hammond Boulevard on the west side of Jacksonville, Florida, and it was the very first assembly of what is now a family of four churches known together as Midnight Cry Ministries. The name lives on in the Jacksonville congregation because the ministry itself grew up around it, and the building on Hammond Boulevard is still where the original body meets each week. The other three churches in the family: Bible Tabernacle in Carthage, North Carolina; Calvary Springs Community Church in Lexington, South Carolina; and Ramona Park Church in Lake City, Florida, grew out of the same fellowship and remain bound to one another by shared leadership, shared broadcasts, and a shared conviction that the Bible alone, under the headship of Christ, is enough to order the life of a church.
Across the wider ministry, the same pair of services sets the weekly rhythm: a Sunday morning gathering at 10:00 AM and a Wednesday night prayer meeting at 7:00 PM. Jacksonville follows that same schedule, with the only exception in the family of churches being Ramona Park, which holds its Wednesday service at 6:30 PM. The two weekly services are intentionally simple, the kind of plain, dependable gathering that the people of the ministry describe as a family atmosphere where almost everyone knows each other.
Bro. C. Parker Thomas and the Birth of the Work
Midnight Cry Ministries traces its roots to Bro. C. Parker Thomas, who was born in 1919 in northern Florida. His early years were marked by hardship: a broken home, time in an orphanage, the long shadow of the Great Depression, an education cut short, a bout with tuberculosis, and a serious car accident. Those trials, the ministry teaches, softened his heart and gave him a deep sympathy for the suffering of others. He came to faith in his twenties, married with two children, when a gospel meeting unexpectedly became the occasion of his own conversion. A minister pulled him aside and asked, not whether he wanted to be saved someday, but whether he wanted to be saved now, and that pointed question brought him to a full surrender.
Thomas began preaching in the 1950s, and the Jacksonville assembly, Midnight Cry Ministry Church, was the first church he founded. Over the following decade he added the other three congregations that today make up the ministry. He served as the founding pastor until his death in August 2004. Throughout his life he was careful that the work should not revolve around him personally; he told people who came to the meetings not to attach themselves to his preaching but to follow the Lord. That principle, that the work belongs to Christ, not to a personality, is still held up as central to the identity of the four churches.
Bro. Phil Enlow and the Voice of the Ministry
Following Bro. Thomas's homegoing, Bro. Phil Enlow became the most consistent preaching voice across the ministry. Enlow spent his earlier years in seminary and has traveled widely on missionary trips, but he is careful not to claim a traditional pastoral title. He describes himself simply as a tool God has chosen to use, and the preaching on the YouTube channel and on the airwaves is almost entirely his. He preaches regularly at Bible Tabernacle in Carthage, North Carolina, and the broader ministry practices what it calls a body ministry: anyone who feels led by the Lord is welcome to share what God has placed on their heart. That openness is part of why the same family of believers has produced a long shelf of books, a steady stream of recorded sermons, and an entire catalog of original songs.
What the Church Believes
Midnight Cry Ministry Church is non-denominational. The people of the ministry are quick to say that their only doctrinal statement is the Bible itself, that Christ is the head of His Body the Church, and that rigid systems of doctrine can actually hinder spiritual growth. They encourage seekers to test everything by Scripture, in the manner of the Bereans in Acts 17:11, and to come to the Word with a heart willing to do God's will, as Jesus taught in John 7:17. The formal statement of the ministry is drawn straight from the language of its radio and television broadcasts: "We are not affiliated with any denomination but seek only, under the headship of Christ, to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Our hearts are open to all of God's elect remnant who desire to be ready for the soon return of our Lord."
Two threads run through the teaching of the ministry. The first is an emphasis on the lordship of Christ: the insistence that calling Jesus "Lord" is not a slogan but a life given over to Him. The second is an emphasis on the soon return of Christ and the call to be ready. Many of the songs, the name of the ministry itself, and the recurring themes of the sermons come from Matthew 25, where the midnight cry goes out to sleeping virgins: "Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him." That same sense of urgency shapes the way the ministry reads Scripture, preaches, sings, and reaches out.
What a First-Time Visitor Will Find
Visitors who step through the door at 1371 Hammond Boulevard on a Sunday morning will find the service scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM. The services across the four churches are deliberately plain, and the ministry's own description of itself is the same: this is not a megachurch, and there are not dozens of programs to choose from. The Wednesday night prayer meeting, which begins at 7:00 PM, is the other weekly gathering, and it is the place where prayer requests are shared and the people of the church carry one another's burdens before the Lord.
For anyone who cannot be in Jacksonville in person, the services are recorded and posted on the ministry's YouTube channel, and audio versions are distributed as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora, and iHeartRadio. A dedicated app is also available for iPhone and Android. Visitors who are curious about the Jacksonville assembly specifically can write to midnightcryministrychurch@midnightcry.org, and the general contact for the wider ministry is info@midnightcry.org.
The Family of Four Churches
Bible Tabernacle in Carthage, North Carolina is the largest of the four and the home base for the weekly preaching of Bro. Phil Enlow. Its address is 7612 NC-22, Carthage, and the church is about a mile from the Highway 22 and Airport Road roundabout, on the left. Calvary Springs Community Church meets at 6635 Platt Springs Road in Lexington, South Carolina. Ramona Park Church is on US-441 in Lake City, Florida, and is the one church in the family that holds its Wednesday service at 6:30 PM rather than 7:00 PM.
Each of the four congregations has its own phone line and its own email address, but the body of teaching, the body of music, the books, the broadcasts, and the quarterly newsletter all flow out of the shared life of the four. The mailing address for the wider ministry is PO Box 685, Southern Pines, NC 28388. The ministry is careful to say that it has no organizational branches beyond these four, and it does not solicit support from outside listeners; the work is supported by the people of the four assemblies.
Sermons, Books, and a Library of Teaching
For many years now, the Sunday services have been recorded in both audio and video, and a deep archive has grown up around the preaching. The bulk of the recent recordings are Bible Tabernacle sermons delivered by Bro. Enlow, with titles that read like a working theology of the Christian life: What Cannot Be Shaken, Attitude of the Heart, The Common Thread, A Biblical View of Race, Spiritual Strength, Today's Jesus, To Do His Will, A Renewed Vision, and a four-night annual convention series each June. Each entry is available on YouTube and as a downloadable MP3, and many of the same messages are also available as Spotify audiobooks.
The book ministry of Midnight Cry Ministries is its own library. Bro. Thomas wrote a series of doctrinal and devotional titles, including Delivered From Demons, Does God Speak to You?, The Judgment of God, Where Are the Keys, Lying Signs And Wonders, The Midnight Cry, Tongues, Your Adversary, Ye May Know, The Sure Foundation, and Sex and Marriage in the Light of God's Word. Bro. Enlow's own titles, also available as free PDF downloads, include Examine Yourselves, The Gospel, How Know, Immortality, Lights in the Present Darkness, What About Genesis, What Does Deception Look Like?, Be Ready, Sudden Death Overtime, and Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant (the last by Ben Johnson). The Kindle editions of both authors' works are linked through Amazon.
Music Written and Sung by the People
Midnight Cry Ministries also produces its own music. The MCM Choir and the Southern Pines Ensemble have recorded a number of original songs, written and performed by members of the four churches and released as free MP3 downloads with lyrics. The catalog includes The Day God Shut the Door, God's Been Good to Me (written by Sylvia Harrison), It's Worth Everything, Jesus Christ Is Still the Same, and Redemption Day. The request that comes with the music is plain: the songs are shared freely, are not to be used for commercial purposes, and are offered for the simple joy of worship. Selections from the catalog, including the MCM Choir Ensemble Songs EP, are also available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.
The Midnight Cry Messenger
Since the 1960s, the ministry has published The Midnight Cry Messenger, a quarterly newsletter that goes out by regular mail to readers around the world. Recent issues have carried articles such as Be The Clay by Phil Enlow and Because He's Jesus by Lawrence Medici, along with a letter from the editor that opens up the family's recent season of life and ministry. The newsletter is offered free of charge, and readers can request a copy by writing to info@midnightcry.org with their name and mailing address. Back issues and a library of articles going back years are available to read online.
Radio, Television, and a Digital Shift
For decades, Midnight Cry Ministries has reached well beyond its four church buildings through a daily radio broadcast and a weekly television program. The radio ministry began in the 1980s, grew through local and regional stations across the United States, and at one point reached around the globe via shortwave. The television program began in the mid-1990s and was carried on the NRB Network, the Victory Television Network, and a list of local stations stretching from Boston to Phoenix, Chicago to San Francisco, Greenville to Milwaukee, and from Joplin to Minneapolis.
That era of broadcast television is drawing to a close. The ministry has announced that, at the end of September 2026, the television broadcasts will conclude. In their place, the same material that once went over the air is moving online: full Sunday services on YouTube, audio sermons on every major podcast platform, audiobooks on Spotify and Audible, and a steady flow of updates, music, and short messages through Instagram. The shift is presented, not as a retreat, but as a new season in which the gospel continues to go out through whatever channels the Lord opens up next.
What the Ministry Teaches About Itself
The people of Midnight Cry Ministries are clear about what they are and what they are not. They are not a denomination. They do not invite other congregations to become "branches" in any organizational sense. The only affiliation they recognize is the spiritual bond between every blood-bought, born-again believer and Christ. Anyone who feels led is welcome to come and worship; the only request is that they come because the Lord is drawing them, and not simply because of one preacher's reputation. The four assemblies, taken together, are described as a body ministry, with room for whoever has something to give that the Lord has given to them. The same posture shapes the church at 1371 Hammond Boulevard: small enough to know one another, rooted enough to last, and open enough to welcome anyone who comes looking for the Lord.
Getting Connected
For those who want to visit Midnight Cry Ministry Church, the address is 1371 Hammond Boulevard, Jacksonville, Florida 32221, and the church phone line is 904-786-0745. The Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM and the Wednesday night prayer meeting begins at 7:00 PM. For the wider ministry, the general email is info@midnightcry.org, and the mailing address is PO Box 685, Southern Pines, NC 28388. Online giving is available, and tithes can also be sent by text message. The prayer request form is the way to send a personal request to be remembered in prayer, and the contact form is the way to share a testimony.