TAMPA — A well-known Brandon pastor was reported lost Monday, assumed to have been piloting a private plane at the day of his disappearance, a Hillsborough sheriff’s official confirmed.

Members of Bell Shoals Baptist Church were exhorted to pray for their pastor, Forrest Pollock, 44, on Monday night, hours after he flew a plane from North Carolina to Texas, according to the church’s Web site.

Pollock, pictured above, left Florida on Sunday afternoon, the web site said, flying his own plane, bound for North Carolina.

Pastor George Thomasson signed the online plea, telling church members that Pollock had not been heard from since leaving North Carolina early Monday AM for Texas, where he planned to attend a conference.

“We have learned

that Pastor has not yet reached his destination at the moment of that writing,” Thomasson wrote in a info posted at 9:30 p.m. “Everything humanly possibly is being done to locate Pastor’s whereabouts. We are, however, appealing to all of our church family to pray earnestly for God’s supernatural intervention.”

Pollock is senior pastor at Bell Shoals, a politically active megachurch that has been in the news in recent years. Two years ago, its members gathered to protest the opening of a Valrico bikini bar. final year, the church attracted protesters itself when it hosted a two-day conference featuring some of the biggest names in the national Christian right movement.

- Rebecca Catalanello, Times staff writer

Original post by tampabaycom