The Permian Press sat down with local pastor, business owner, and civic volunteer Elvie Brown following recent public attention tied to a city council item involving his church’s building project.

For years, Common Unity Church has been working toward a permanent home on Midland’s south side, a project that includes both a church building and a children’s day care center. The church has met at Bunche Elementary for the past four years and at Kaleidoscope Ministries before that.

Common Unity co-pastor Elvie Brown said that the permanent facility plan began years ago, with a decision to build something on Midland’s south side as a long-term investment in a part of the city he and his church felt called to serve.

“We just felt the call to go back into that community where we come from and to just launch out with the vision of our heart, which is to serve the south side of our city,” Brown said.

That vision centered on a specific property along Lamesa Road, which Brown said the church had been maintaining for years before realizing that about half an acre was designated as unused city right-of-way. The church then began working to assemble surrounding parcels and position the site for development. Brown said those purchases were an intentional way to show that the project was real and long-term.

That effort recently surfaced more publicly during a standard right-of-way vote by the city council to abandon the half-acre of unused land, where the church’s project and the people behind it became the subject of broader criticism and speculation. Brown said he could have ignored that moment. Instead, he chose to address it directly.

“There’s another thing that Jesus did with conflicts. He addressed the conflict. He told the truth about conflict,” Brown said. “If it were just ego and personal, then I’ve got very thick skin. I’m not engaged. I’m not a politician, and I don’t have any aspirations to be one.  I’m serving in the community because that’s what I get to do.”

What he does care about, he said, is making sure people understand what the church’s project actually is, how long it has been underway, and the background that led to this point.

“If you can twist that to make it to where they’re doing this because of me and personal gain, I just would like to tell the truth so people can hear all the facts to it and judge it for themselves,” he said. “Because sometimes when you’re silent, people can take that for a bad actor or you’re doing something wrong.”

Some public comments at the council meeting questioned Brown’s role on the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) board and suggested that the city was benefiting him personally. Brown clarified that the church’s discussions with the city to develop the land began years before the council appointed him to the MDC board.

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Under state law, a conflict of interest requires a substantial financial interest by the elected official, not personal familiarity or overlapping civic roles. During the city council meeting, the city attorney confirmed that no council member had a legal conflict.

Also, the church as an entity holds the property, not Brown individually, and the effort to acquire and develop the site began years before his board appointment.

“The facts of our story for me are long before I ever came to the MDC board. We were already pursuing this reality of developing this property for the sake of serving,” he said.

Brown distinguished between those in the community who offer legitimate scrutiny and those who create an environment where assumptions and accusations replace factual understanding.

“I’m not opposed to transparency at all. I’m not opposed to questioning. I think that’s healthy and can be good,” he said. “But when it comes to just attacking people’s character… we have to be very careful because we can discourage good people from serving our city,”

Brown said that concern extends beyond his own situation. He sees it as part of a broader shift in how some in the community are treating public participation and civic involvement in Midland.

“I believe as a city, there is a measure of accountability we hold as citizens to protect our volunteers from being attacked in ways that would keep people back and say, man, I don’t want to be a part of nothing like that if that’s what it’s going to be,” Brown said.

The project itself reflects Brown’s description of the church’s broader mission. Common Unity operates with multiple pastors and a congregation that Brown feels is representative of the city. The goal, he said, is to create a space that reflects Midland as a whole, particularly in an area of the city that has not always seen the same level of investment.

The childcare center reflects what Brown sees as a gap in the area, particularly as housing continues to expand south of Interstate 20 without a corresponding increase in day care options for families. At the same time, it provides a way for the church to support itself financially. The right-of-way area itself will serve as parking for the church and childcare center.

For Brown, the focus is on what comes next for Common Unity. The church is preparing to launch a capital campaign to fund construction and plans to complete the project within roughly two years. He acknowledges the scale of the effort, particularly in the absence of major donors, but frames it as consistent with how the church has grown from the beginning. At its core, Brown’s goal has remained clear.

“I am 100% unapologetic in trying to build good things for the south side of our city,” he said.