First Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, NM February 1997

the season of lent has been observed in one form or another for seventeen hundred years. It begins with Ash Wednesday (February 12) and continues for 40 days and 6 Sundays until its culmination on Palm Sunday (March 23). Christians are called to look back on the impact of baptism on their lives through prayer, study, and meditation. We ask: have we fully died to sin and come alive to a new life in Christ?

Our congregation has many opportunities for worship, study, and service during this season of our liturgical year. You are invited to join individually and corporately in the activities described in this issue. Let this time refresh you as you seek to follow Jesus Christ more closely.

"TEMPTATION"

IN THE LIBRARY

February 16-March 23

9:00 A.M.

The only Christians not facing temptations are dead ones! Join Pastor John and others in exploring the reality of temptation and the spiritual growth we experience in confronting it.

"We often view temptation as the gateway to evil and we struggle - always in vain - to rid our lives of it. Diogenes Allen professes that temptation is the gateway to spiritual development. Instead of shunning the temptations which constantly challenge us, Allen shows us why we must face them squarely and struggle genuinely with them." (-from book cover)

Temptation is a book and video course by Dr. Diogenes Allen, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has graciously provided this out-of-print book, below cost for only $10.00. (We will let you know when the book box arrives!)

Daily Lenten Devotionals:

Our Daily Bread

These Days

Copies are available in the narthex.

February 12

6:05 Agape Meal

7:00 Worship Service

Join us for a simple meal of chicken

soup and bread in Reeves Hall ($2.00).

Call the church office at 526-5559

to make a reservation.

The worship service will be a simple

one of scriptures, music, and prayers.

Ashes will be used to mark the

worshipper’s forehead with a cross as

a reminder of human mortality and

our salvation in Jesus Christ.

(Childcare will be provided.)

February 8 & 9:

A Special Weekend

to Welcome

Old Friends

Saturday: Vera Seelig will be the guest speaker at the 17th Annual Women’s Retreat (9:00-2:00). Buy your tickets now!

Sunday: The Rev. Keith Seelig, pastor here from 1980-1989, will preach in worship at 10:30.

There will be a reception to greet Keith and Vera following the worship service (in Jones Hall). Let’s give them a big welcome!

Confirmation Course

for

Mid-School & Senior High Youth

February 9 & 23, March 9 & 16; 4:30-6:30 P.M.

Palm Sunday, March 23 - Luncheon & Session Reception

Easter Sunday, March 30 - Service of Confirmation

As a young person, you are facing some important choices about your life. Join other kids learning about baptism, church membership, and developing a personal relationship with Jesus. For those who decide to make a personal commitment of church membership, a public confirmation will be on Easter Sunday, March 30. This course, being taught by John Poling, is designed for you! Plan to come!

1997 SUMMER EVENTS

*Vacation Bible School - June 2-6

*Senior High Mission Trip at Indian Wells, AZ - June 8-15

*General Assembly in Syracuse, NY - June 14-21

*Senior Highs to Montreat West in Ft. Collins, CO - June 21-28

*Junior High Jubilee at Mo-Ranch in Kerrville, Texas - July 2-8

*PW Triennial Gathering in Louisville - July 9-13

*1st Pres. Annual Mountain Retreat at Camp Chimney Spring - July 25-27

1997 Camp Chimney Spring Schedule

Men’s Spiritual and Work Retreat - May 2-4

Family Camp - May 24-26

Intermediate - 6th & 7th Grade Camp - June 15-20

Junior - 4th & 5th Grade Camp - June 22-27

Mid-High - 8th & 9th Grade Camp - July 13-18

Senior High - 10th-12th Grade - Sr Hi Camp - July 20-25

Parent/Child Starter Camp for 1st & 2nd grades - July 25-26

Elementary - 3rd grade Camp - July 31-Aug. 2

*All kids must have completed the grade that each camp starts with.

*Registration forms available in the office. Costs vary according to camp - there are "Early Bird" specials, too!

For more information about the summer trips or camping schedule, please call the church office, 526-5559.

Our Missionaries:

Doing Ministry in Far Places

John & Gwen Haspels, continue to work among the Suri people of Ethiopia, funded by The Presbyterian Church (USA), where they have seen the Christian church grow from five faithful people to several dozen. In November 1996, John baptized 90 people in the Tum church, and the building was overflowing with joyful, thankful people. Praise God and keep these workers in your prayers.

John & Marnie Pickering, serving in Korea with The Navigators, arrived in Mongolia last July. The Pickerings and their children, Christie, Cathy, and Michael, are living in a one-bedroom apartment and facing the challenges and adjustments of a different language and culture. Please pray for their adjustment process and for Mongolian people to be responsive to their ministry.

Ron & Donna Pontier, working with Africa Inland Mission, are continuing service in the Central African Republic under a turbulent political situation. Most of the missionaries who were evacuated earlier have not returned and the Pontiers have emergency evacuation plans. New roads have reduced the Mission’s severe isolation.

Ron & Donna are grateful for protection during a lightning strike that passed through Donna’s body and went into Ron’s hip. Their children are doing well in boarding school. Ron is working on various problems in the Mission’s medical outreach. Thanks for keeping them in your prayers.

Doug, Sherrie and Andy Barron, working with the Jesus Film Project, attended LA2000 in Panama. This gathering of 3600 Christian leaders from Latin America provided many new contacts in providing the JESUS film and projectors for remote villages.

Bob and Donna Waugespack, serving with Latin American Missions in Mexico City, are thanking God for good responses to their evangelistic efforts. In October Bob taught classes on church growth at a pastors conference in the state of Oaxaca. Almost 500 people accepted Christ in the evening evangelistic meetings!

He is also working with the Jesus es Senor Church in El Piloto. A two-month prayer campaign will be followed by three evangelistic meetings and the establishment of cell groups. If you want to join a prayer team for this effort, write Bob at Bruno Traven 90, 03340 Mexico, D.F. Mexico or call 011-525-688-1078.

By December, Bob and Donna had fallen nearly $3,000 below their $16,290 annual level of financial support. They have spent thirteen years developing trust and influence with national pastors and churches and are skilled in the cultural participation necessary for effectiveness in their work. Pray for increased support so their ministry can continue.

Lu Stephens, with The Navigators in Japan, returned in October and is ministering to internationals in Portland, Oregon. This spring she will return to Japan. Please continue to pray for the spiritual and physical health of the staff working in Japan and for the success of the evangelistic and discipling efforts there.

Joel & Barbara Trudell, Wycliffe Bible Translators living in Kenya, have experienced several periods of illness in recent months. Right now they are trying to replace Janneke, their assistant in literacy work and Scripture promotion, who died in August. They made a trip to Togo to promote literacy projects there. Pray for their health and safety.

By Lantern Light: Fidelity and Chastity

Our Presbytery of Sierra Blanca met in its stated meeting the end of January at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Roswell. We celebrated our life in Christ at Communion on Friday evening and as we sang a wonderful new hymn written by the mother of our host pastor, Karl Travis.

An ongoing travail of our life in Christ was very much on our minds that night. We gathered the next morning and prepared for the scheduled vote on what is popularly titled "the Fidelity and Chastity Amendment." Here is the text of it as passed by the General Assembly in Albuquerque last summer and sent to the 171 presbyteries:

Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman

(W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

Many read this and wonder why it even needs stating, assuming that the practices required would be understood by any being ordained. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, so the amendment received support from them.

Those objecting to the amendment express various concerns, primarily referring to the last line:

-possible witch hunts and nit-picking attacks upon leaders may erupt because of the breadth of the confessional statements on sin (statements re. Usury, work on Sabbath, etc.);

-no one can call another’s practice sin without being pharisaic and contradicting the command to love and forgive one another;

-the amendment appears to be a ruse to prevent ordination of homosexuals, mentioning standards for heterosexual practice as a diversion.

Others, of whom I am one, believe that the amendment provides clear Biblical standards for sexual practice that are a clear challenge to a society adrift in sexual license and, that we can welcome such a useful guide for the lives of church leaders. In support of the amendment we say:

-the focus of the last line is to call all leaders to examine their lives, acknowledge error, repent of recognized sinful practice and serve Christ free of the burden of past sin;

-all of us are sinners saved by Christ’s redemptive love and led into joy-filled lives by adherence to scriptural commands;

-those who lead are required to adhere to high scriptural standards in exemplary lives of service, to which all believers are called through God’s love;

-leaders are entrusted with maintenance of the peace, unity and purity of the Body of Christ and maintenance of anything requires identification of malfunction and making it right;

-our entry into grace-filled lives includes the experience of sin repented and forgiven, not defended and perpetuated.

It’s a common thought that those on the opposite side of an issue are being purposely obtuse or stubborn. I know, because I’ve thought that myself. I’ve also found it to be true about me on occasion. I wish we had talked about it more, over time, rather than come into the meeting convinced that all minds were made up. I’ve contributed to that dilemma, since in the process of running for Moderator of our GA, I’ve written and spoken on this subject on numerous occasions. One result is that some friends who disagree with me have given up talking to me on this subject. It is very sad. It also means that mere acquaintances claim insight into each other’s minds and hearts and label one another as Pharisees or libertines. That’s even sadder and I grieve it.

The broader issue, which we face all the time as Christians, is how to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a culture that is fully secularized. The post-modernists believe that no truth can claim to have universal validity and that all moral statements are likely to be delusional. These same viewpoints have seeped into the church. The result is that the exercise of careful judgment is labeled judgmentalism (or pharisaism) and the confronting of sin is seen as condemnatory. Neither is true. God’s loving forgiveness in Jesus Christ is powerfully transforming, making us "dead to evil and alive to all that is good."

Amendment B was defeated in our vote on January 25. I was stunned. We handled other business and recessed for lunch. I carried in some Bibles for the Sudanese and started my race back to Las Cruces for a wedding service later in the afternoon. Enroute through two mountain ranges and the Tularosa Basin, I wrestled with my anger and sorrow and just not knowing what to think. Along the way I began to ask myself, "What remains basic beyond the keen disappointment I feel about the vote against Amendment B?" "What runs deeper than any current issue we face?"

The basics that came to mind then and since are fairly simple. Jesus Christ is God’s Son and my Savior and Lord. He died that I might live. I am committed to Jesus Christ. I best understand him because of the Spirit’s work on me in his Body, the Church. I am committed to the call he has placed on my life to proclaim his love and invitation to all persons. I am committed to exercising that call according to scripture and the historic confessions within the PC(USA) and to further the peace, unity and purity of the Church. I am committed to the passage of Amendment B. In that order.

I know that God is renewing our life in Christ across the entire PC (USA). It is God’s to do, but God uses all of us in that - even when we disagree with one another. The Spirit is on the loose and I want to be of use to my Lord! One way I’m doing that right now is to be in conversation and correspondence with others whose presbyteries have yet to vote.

Please join me in prayer for the health and work of a wonderful part of the Church. I solicit your prayers for me and others in the work set before us to pass Amendment B.

Yours in Christ,

John Clark Poling

Kitchen

Remodeling/Expansion

in 1997

Come see what has been planned!

Dessert in the Kitchen

Thursday, February 20

7:00 P.M.

Reeves Hall

You are cordially invited to attend! Come look at plans, meet the architect, and learn the campaign goals! If you need a ride, call the church office, 526-5559.

STAFF CHANGES

Dutch Matkin is retiring! After 14 years as church secretary and office manager, Dutch is retiring in April. She will really be missed! Watch for details about a thank you party. (Anyone interested in this office position may talk to John Poling).

Noelle Castin will complete her term of ministry with us on August 31, 1997. She will be exploring career opportunities in Europe for the next year as she considers her call to full-time Christian service. (Her position will be filled by the new Associate Pastor.) A job description will be available in the office by mid- February.)

One Great Hour of Sharing has been a response to urgent needs of God’s children since

it began in 1949, when church leaders recognized the great needs of people in Europe and Asia after World

War II. It has always been a celebration of the fact that God is working in history and we have an opportunity

to share God’s gifts and participate in that healing work. Presbyterians have participated since the

beginning. For us it is one of our church’s primary ways to support ministries of compassion, through

Presbyterian World Service, Self-Development of People, and the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

The enclosed "Sharing Calendar" can be used to focus your prayer and giving during this year’s

One Great Hour of Sharing campaign in our congregation. Globe coin boxes are available in the

Narthex. Small purple "coin bags" will be distributed to all the children. The offering will be collected and

dedicated on Easter Sunday this year. You are invited to learn and reflect with us on the world’s needs during

the coming weeks and give generously.

The Lantern

Publisher: John C. Poling

Editor: Jackie Poling

Production/Distribution: Dutch Matkin

The Lantern is a monthly publication of First Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, NM. Articles, photos and comments are welcome, and will be used at the discretion of the publisher and editor. For further information, call 526-5559.

Return to home page

Send comments, suggestions, and requests to Alex. F. Burr or send email to aburr @ zianet.com.
Technical assistance and net access provided by zianet.com .
Last update 2002-07-29 09:46:51