Can you believe the first quarter of 2002 is past? As a matter of stewardship, how is the game going? At the end of the year, statistics are produced, like at the end of a game, to show how it went, who won, who lost, who scored the point, who didn’t?

At the end of the game, or the year, when the statistics come out, its is part of the spectator’s sport to praise or to blame, to say who should have done what, and to get one’s kicks either happily or sadly (and there’s no telling what one’s satisfactions might be), as though the whole thing happened for his or her sake.

But Stewardship for the Christian is not a spectator sport. Figure out how you are doing as you go. If you are keeping books, keep one on yourself first of all. That’s the only one that will count for you, or against you.

Don’t sit. The first quarter is over. There’s no place to sit down. Think about stewardship now.

Sunday, April 21^st has been designated “Bring a Friend Sunday” in our church.

Can you identify a friend, or a potential friend, who does not attend church regularly? Think about it for a moment. What about someone you see at work, at school, in your social circle of friends? Stretch your imagination. Think about everyone you see as a potential guest at our church. Be on the look-out for someone to bring with you to church.

Please notice that this is not “Invite” a friend. There is a lot of difference between bringing and inviting someone to church. Offer to bring your friend with you. If your friend is uncomfortable with the idea of coming with you, agree on a place and time to meet; then sit with your friend.

Gus will be preaching on “From Doubt To Faith”, a message you and your friends will not want to miss. An organized tour of our church campus will follow worship for those interested.

Remember—Sunday April 21^st. Let’s fill the sanctuary as we share our faith.

Our Interim Pastor will begin a series of sermons during the season of Eastertide. The series is entitled “The Re-Entry of Jesus” and will be based upon Jesus’ appearances to His followers following the resurrection. The sermons will be as follows:

April 7

Have you ever found yourself so filled with sorrow and self-pity that you cannot feel the presence of Christ in your life? All of us know what it’s like to try to tidy up life, to pick up the pieces once more. Read Luke 24:13-16 and 28-35.

April 14

Locked doors! Who doesn’t have them? Who doesn’t, at times, lock the doors to our inner selves from other people out of fear? On Resurrection Sunday, the disciples were behind locked doors. Read John 20:1-3; 19-23 and let’s hear more about this.

April 21

Did you ever wonder whether your doubts are really doubts, or just some more fooling around with your head? Did you ever establish a bonafide criterion demand which God actually refused to meet? A message you and your friends won’t want to miss! Read John 20:24-29

There are some passages of Scripture which to me are not meant to be preached, but are stories to be told. Such is the case with this week’s text. It is the story of Jesus revealing Himself once again to His disciples. Read John 21:1-14.

The series will continue through Pentecost. Bring someone to worship with us during Eastertide.

During this time of transition in the life of our church while we seek an installed Senior Pastor, we also have two full-time staff vacancies. The work-load on our church staff and volunteers has become awesome. So, we are looking for volunteers. Volunteers to do what? Read on.

Telephone Operator

The church office is looking for volunteers to serve from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM each week-day. Our main need is for someone to answer the phone, but other assistance could be included. Someone to serve one day a week would be great. A job description is available from the office. Call us today and speak to Kathy.

Information Transcriber

Would you like to do something on Monday mornings? Enjoy coffee and fellowship with two or three other members and at the same time contribute a real service to the church? Do we have an opportunity for you! It is basically to come to the church each Monday morning and go through the Friendship Pad Registrations from Sunday; providing the names and addresses of visitors to our Interim Pastor enabling him to write welcoming letters. A Job Description is available from the office. Call the office or come by to pick up one if you think you would be interested.

Librarian

Our Church Library really needs some loving attention! Anyone out there interested in getting it re-organized; user-friendly; and promoting the gems already there? Give us a call.

Youth workers

And always, always, there is a need for persons willing to make short-term commitments to work with our children and youth. Vacancies exist in Sunday School, Salt and Light, and Youth Fellowship. What a wonderful way to share your faith with children and youth. Call Judith Ames or Ray Carter, co-chairs of the Christian Education Committee.

Attention 7^th through 12^th graders and their parents.

The Christian Education Committee is offering what we hope will be an exciting and informative course of study for all of our 7^th through 12^th graders on the Presbyterian Church (its history, beliefs, and worship). It will begin on Sunday, April 7^th at 9:00AM and will continue thru May 12^th. The course will be taught by Susan Grandle, Ray Carter, and our Interim Pastor.

Following this course of study, those choosing to unite with the membership of the church will be given the opportunity to do so. They will be received into membership on Pentecost Sunday, May 19^th.

Thanks to all for your great response to the “New Pastor Survey”. On Sunday, March 17, some 40 completed surveys had been received. And this in only two or three days after you had received them in the mail. Remember that the survey and its results serve two main purposes. First, it is the way you make known the qualifications and the kind of pastor that you want for your church. Second it tells any prospective new pastor about us as a congregation. Pastors seeking a call are looking for a congregation where they think their talents will be best utilized and that will allow them to accomplish the mission the Lord has called them to do.

In the next few weeks the committee will be collecting and analyzing results and completing the Church Information Form. At the same time we will be writing the job description for the new pastor. At the end of this period we as a congregation will all meet to look at and discuss what we have said we want in a new pastor and how we see ourselves as a church and congregation. Then we can advertise and begin to review applications.

On the lighter side, PNC members are aware of the overwhelming sentiment that “all we have to do is get a guy like Gus” and we are working on that. But we have to remember that he may not be out there and, if he is, he might be a she.

Please keep up the good work and remember, the sooner we get your responses the faster will be our progress.

The Lord bless and keep you.

Presbyterian Women, recognizing the need for prayer and the need for the people of God to pray in one accord, have begun a church wide prayer chain.

Guidelines include:

If you would like to participate in this prayer chain please call Jean O'Neill at 524-1139, Carol Peterson at 523-2926, or Nora Yaryan at 527-0528. We will be happy to add you to the list and/or answer any question.

If you have a request for prayer, call the church office or one of the above names.

April is the final month of our LOGOS program for this school year. The Family of God time (dinner) themes will be

On Sunday, April 28, the Salt & Light Children's Choir will present a musical performance after worship in Reeves Hall. Lunch will be served by our Senior High young people.

Building a house is expensive! Our Senior Highs will be working hard to finance their project of building a small house in Juarez for a deserving family in conjunction with Casas Por Cristo. You can help by donating items that we can sell at our garage sale on April 6^th. Please call the church office for pick-up.

The latest meeting of the Inbetweeners featured our organ as explained and demonstrated by Howard Smolleck. It is a unique and interesting instrument. It is unique for Las Cruces in that it is a tracker organ. A tracker organ uses mechanical means to connect the keys to the pipes. Most organs use electrical wires. Ours uses levers, pulleys, rollers, and rods. This construction means that the organist has just a little more control over how the notes are produced.

Our church is one of only three in town which has a real pipe organ. We have had one for a long time. The first one was obtained in 1925 from an old theater in New York city. The story of how the church obtained it and kept it in repair is quite interesting. Kennett Melgaard wrote up that story. It is available on our web site at www.Zianet.com/fpc/historyorgan.htm.

The present organ was ordered in 1976, but it was not until 1980 that the builder, Robert Sipe of Dallas, Texas, could get time to construct and install it.

Howard told the group about the parts with which most of the congregation are familiar such as the two keyboards and the pedalboard as well as many of the pipes. He also named and described many of the essential but little known parts like the mechanical actuators, wind chests, stickers, backfalls, swell box, and the complicated system of switches that connect the various ranks of pipes to the various keys.

His notes for the program make a distinction between the upper (or swell) keyboard which usually produces notes whose volume can be controlled and the lower (or great) keyboard. He also told of the two types of pipes (flue whose pitch is controlled only by the length of the pipe and reed whose pitch is determined by a vibrating reed). Our organ has 26 stops and 35 ranks of pipes which can be combined in various ways to provide particular effects at the desired volume.

Of course the best organ is useless if one does not have somebody to play it. Howard certainly can. I usually sit in the west side of the sanctuary where I can see him play the organ. It takes physical coordination to play the swell keyboard with the right hand, the great keyboard with the left, while the feet use the pedalboard. He really needs a third hand to adjust the stops.

Of course one needs a great sense of the music to produce the sounds that the composer intended. It is obvious that Howard completely immerses himself in the piece he is playing. When a concluding or climactic chord is to be played, he seems to rise six inches off the bench as he wills the organ to produce the sound required. It is a good thing that the keyboards are solidly constructed or they would have had to have been rebuilt long ago.

Howard is an experienced organist. He has been playing in churches for 40 years. He has been organist here for three and a half years. But just playing experience does not suffice to translate the limited notation which a composer produced into fine sounding music. You have to know what the composer intends. Howard can do this because he writes arrangements and other pieces himself. He uses these talents and other insights to play old hymns in fresh and engaging ways. His talent in this field is widely recognized and, in part, resulted in his serving as Dean of the Las Cruces chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Howard is nothing if not versatile. He also plays the piano, an instrument which requires distinctly different techniques. He spends his spare time teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department at New Mexico State University.

This combination of musical talent with a scientific mind is not all that unusual. When the college I attended hired a new physics teacher, one of the first tasks he was given was to repair the chapel organ.

Howard likes to talk about organs and organ music. If you get him on the subject, he will give you a not so short history of organ construction starting before 1300 AD and tell you why some pipes are short and fat while others are long and thin (and all possible combinations of those qualities). The notes that he prepared for this program and the answers to some frequently asked questions can be found on our web site at www.zianet.com/fpc/organnotes.hem. He also has written articles for the Lantern and more of them will appear in the future. Alex Burr

Vine & Branches is a fellowship group of young couples and singles that gather once a month. If you've never been to a Vine & Branches gathering, we'd love to have you!

Come join us for adult bowling at the Sun Lanes at 4:00 on April 13. No child care will be provided. We will go out to eat dinner afterwards at Chili's. Call Brian McPherson at 524-3831 or at the church office at 526-5559

March 3 271

March 10 269

March 17 253

Communion will be served on April 7 and May 5.

Presbyterian and Disciples

Campus Ministry at NMSU

2511 Chaparral St. 522-6404

David Sallee, Campus Minister

The Lantern deadline for the month of April will be Monday the 22nd. Please get your articles into the office by this date.

Operating Income $31,360.25

Operating Expenses 37, 417.81

Total -$6,057.56

Operating Income $30,994.66

Operating Expenses 30,120.56

Total $874.10

Year to Date Summary

Operating Income $62,354.91

Operating Expenses 67,538.37

Balance -$5,183.46

Kathy and Holly Tucker

523-1944

The Senior High young people are very busy raising funds for their May 26 - 30 Mission Trip, when they will build a home in Juarez, and for their trip to Montreat West, June 26 - 29. Ray Carter is directing them in a drama to be presented on Sunday evening, April 24 as a donation Dinner Theater.

The Senior Highs will also be serving a donation luncheon with the Salt & Light Children's Choir performance after Worship on April 28.

Those who teach children, teens, and adults in our church's Christian Education program will be honored at the After-Church Fellowship on May 5. Our graduates will be honored on May 5, also.

If you know of someone in our church family who is graduating from high school or college this spring, or who has graduated since last May, please notify the church office.