Just one beggar telling another beggar where we found The Bread.
About Ark of Mercy Church of God
Our Pastor
Pastor Janice was born and raised in Winchester Kentucky growing up in Melbourne Park, also known as “the holler” with her father, mother, and three sisters.
Growing up here instilled an evident love deep within her heart for the residents of this city, one that undoubtedly played an essential role in the journey this story speaks of and the ones that are yet to come!!
Pastor Janice was raised in a small family church and always had a desire to serve the Lord even as a young child. It was apparent even then that she had a great call of God on her life but no one could have foretold the impact her relationship with him would have on the lives of others in the years to come!
Growing up in the “holler”, Janice’s mother had a little store where she would feed people and help tend to and meet the needs of others, all the while, sowing seeds in the lives of her children that would one day reap the harvest of a city!
Pastor Janice married former Chief of Police, Bill Claypoole who served faithfully as the men’s Sunday school teacher at the Ark until God called him home in 2020 and together, they raised two ministers of the gospel, their children.
Dr. Billy Ray Claypoole and his wife Joy who have served the Church of God in many positions throughout the years and currently serve as Administrative Bishops of the Arkansas Church of God.
Their daughter Francie Keathley and her husband Pastor Chad who both served at the Ark for over 20 years until they were called to Pastor in Okeechobee, Florida.
They share two grandchildren who also aspire and apply themselves to be ministers of the gospel: Carrie Lee Claypoole and Blaine Keathley.
Her family has shared in the vision of the harvest as they have all worked in and are currently still working in multiple outreach ministries in multiple states and cities.
Janice felt and accepted the call of God on her life to preach the gospel over 40 years ago in the early 70’s and began preaching revivals in the 80’s. Pastor Janice served in ministry in many different platforms and positions. She’s been a Sunday school teacher, a children’s church teacher, she led a kid's outreach club, she sang in the choir and served faithfully where she had been planted.
Throughout her time of ministry, God opened many doors for her to minister within this city. She did outreach ministry at the St. George hotel and won many to the Lord, she ministered on the back of wagons, at camp meetings, and in the jails bringing hope of deliverance to the bound!
All of these milestones in her life led her to one moment that would not only change her life forever, but the hearts and lives of many. One day while sitting at the intersection of Broadway and Mainstreet, she saw a homeless man with his blanket and as her eyes looked upon him, her ears inclined to the voice of her father and she knew God’s heart for the harvest! She surrendered it all that day as she made a plea with the Lord to fix it! Fix the broken within this city!
The love she felt for this man and the hundreds of others like him birthed the first Ark of Mercy in 1989, also known as the “little Ark on Main Street”. A willing vessel with a vision took Luke chapter 4, verse 18 and took a leap of faith into the will of God! There, Janice defeated the odds as a woman minister as she became Pastor Janice Claypoole!
She served at the Little Ark winning lost souls, tending to the needs of the homeless and hurting within this city, even ministering to wanderers from the pool hall next door.. It was the prime location for this heart for the harvest to get her start and her feet grounded!
Eventually, the congregation at the Ark outgrew the little storefront on Mainstreet and in ‘91, they moved to “the Middle Ark” on Broadway. Here, the church would branch out even further in this city to be the hands and feet of Jesus as they began their feeding ministry. Starting with just a box of bread distributed to the city, the Ark would soon be known as a place for the hungry to come and there, they would be fed!
During their time spent on Broadway, the church bussed in kids from all over the city as well as bussing many people in from the Hope Center in Lexington to feed them and let them attend service before taking them back home. Surely, the Little Ark and MIddle Ark combined were major stepping stones that would lead to the next big chapter in Pastor Janice’s book, THE Ark of Mercy!
As time grew on and their building at the Middle Ark continued to age and deteriorate, the Lord spoke to Pastor to build a new building and build it big! He provided all of the finances needed and construction was underway.
This building would be built with the vision of this city in mind. It would be complete with a basement large enough to host this generation (the first grounds Pastor shouted on as they were building this property), a kitchen large enough to cook for the hungry and a cafeteria spacious enough to feed them. It would include an office where a Pastor would sit and counsel those seeking wisdom, where she would hold the broken. A place where she would pray and weep for the lost.
It would have a prayer room where intercessors assemble and intercede for the needs of others, it would have a studio for the worshippers to worship in and then later, it would have a rehabilitation home where the bound could become free!!
This building was a vision until it became the reality we all call home, today.
Without a doubt, the seeds sown in Pastor Janice as a little girl watching her mommy feed the hungry were very much so reaped as the Daily Bread Ministry came about. Taking out and delivering hundreds of meals a day to families shut-in in this city is only half of what this ministry entels. Every week day, the Ark doors are open to anyone in the city hungry and needing a meal, no questions asked!
The kitchen workers don’t just serve food, they serve Jesus as any of them at any given time will stop their work and pray to see the needs of others met! Our cafeteria also houses one of our largest outreach ministries on Friday nights, Coffee House; where different ministers preach each week as they fellowship with and feed all who attend. Her desire to see the hungry fed has become a reality in the giving of these ministries.
Her compassion for the homeless man still deep within her heart opened a home on the church property better known as, “The Mercy House”. Living up to its name, this house would be used as rehabilitation center for addicts to not only recover but develop a relationship with their Redeemer. The number of lives that have been impacted by this ministry are uncountable as it placed a roof over the heads of many and goes to the root of the original vision.
Pastor Janice has now pastored for over 30 years. She has seen many come and many go! She has won some, and lost some. But, she has stood faithfully and she has remained steadfast, as she has held on to the vision that the sanctuary will one day soon be filled with the harvest. That as the glory of the Lord settles and abides in this house, that lives will be changed, that seeds will be sown. That the captives will be made free, the hungry will be fed, the broken will be mended; and that every little homeless person with their blanket finds their place as they rest their head upon the Father’s chest!
Pastor Janice holds many titles in this life: wife, mother, daughter, sister. She’s a Pastor, a singer, a musician, and teacher. She’s mamaw to her two grandchildren whom she loves delicately and unconditionally. She is “mama Janice” to spiritual children who needed the love of a mother in their life.
She is a giver to those in need and a taker of nothing short of God's gifts in her life. She is a pillar and a patriarch and the very heart of the Ark of Mercy. Of all the titles attached to her very well known name, the one she lives by the most will always be “humble servant”. She never once looked at the homeless man and saw herself above him or his need. No; she saw a child of God that was hurting and she went after the heart of Jesus, indeed.