What if the Tucson community thought this about our church - “We can’t live without Pantano Christian Church in our community.” Wouldn’t that be incredible? Have you ever heard a community say that about any church? I think I heard you say through your computer, “No!” Unfortunately I haven’t either. What a shame that most communities don’t see churches do anything positive and in fact many think churches rob the community of real estate tax dollars (because we are not subject to property tax).
Most churches focus on what they do on their campus and their weekend services. They want to get people from their communities into their church (as if the two are separate). They want people to come to them to get the Good News (the Gospel), and that’s a good thing. But it is only part of the story.
We are an externally focused church. We want to get our church (our people) out and into the community. We want to launch people who are passionate about Jesus and serving others. We want to take the Good News about Jesus into our communities and demonstrate the love of God to folks through our good deeds and acts of service.
Jesus said it so well: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 - NIV).
My pastor friend Rick Rusaw, who co-authored the book The Externally Focused Church, said this: “Good deeds create good will and give us the opportunity to share Good News.”
May our light shine so well and so bright that our community sees our good deeds and gives glory and honor to Jesus. May our community see that we are making such an impact and such a difference that they declare; “We can’t live without Pantano Christian Church.” That’s my dream and my hope in Jesus. I’ll be sharing more about this during our services this weekend.
Together to make the world different,
Glen
Merry Christmas!
On behalf of the staff and Elders at Pantano Christian Church, I want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a very joyful New Year!
Let me reminder you again of our Christmas Eve weekend schedule.
Regular Weekend services (This Sat. 5:30pm & Sun. 9am & 11am). The message is “Hidden Presence” and will be accompanied by the dramatic presentation of “The Cobbler’s Dream.” We’ll have our regular youth and children’s ministries functioning.
Christmas Eve Evening Candlelight Services (This Sun. evening at 5 and 11pm). We are focusing on “God’s Presence.” These are family services and we have no child care available.
The offices will be closed Sat. Dec. 23 and will re-open on Tue. Jan. 2nd. We give our staff the week off and ask that on-campus events be kept to a minimum. Wages at our church are adequate but not great and we are not a profit organization that gives year-end bonuses. We have the best staff I’ve ever worked with and they serve and sacrifice so much to serve you and the kingdom of God. So this is one way we can honor our staff by giving them the week between Christmas and New Years off - with pay.
If you have a significant emergency needing Pastoral care, call the church office (298-5395) and you’ll receive instructions on how to reach one of our Elders.
I love this church! Our church is not the organization or the facilities, but all of us following Jesus that have connected together to form Pantano Christian. It is such an honor to serve with you. I love our passion for Jesus and for making the world different. I love our honesty, brokenness and transparency. What an awesome journey we are on together.
Together to make the world different,
Glen
Thought the title was a typo, huh? This is our theme for the Christmas season. The messages the next two weeks are about the PRESENCE of God in our lives and not the giving and receiving of PRESENTS. That’s the heart and celebration of Christmas - God became physically present in our world in Jesus. God continues his presence in our lives through Jesus. Hence, the Christmas story should be a reality every day in our lives.
There is no greater gift God could give than his continual loving presence. Everything around me and even in me can be going wrong. I can feel alone and rejected. There are times I want to reject me too. There are times I am afraid. There are times it seems like the events around me are out of control. Sometimes I wonder if I have what it takes. But here’s the wonderful truth and reality. God is with me. He will never abandon, forsake or reject me. I can face anything and anybody, including death itself, because God is with me. That’s the good news of the Gospel.
The challenge for us is to focus on God’s presence and not get distracted by the presents and gift giving and receiving at Christmas. We want to help you keep your focus on God’s presence. So here’s what’s coming this Christmas season:
This weekend (Dec. 16 & 17) - Presents vs. Presence.
Next weekend (Sat. Dec. 23 @ 5:30pm and Sun. Dec. 24 @ 9 & 11am) - Hidden Presence and “The Cobbler’s Dream” drama.
Christmas Eve Evening (Sun. Dec. 24th - 5pm and 11pm) - God’s Presence and candle lighting service.
New Year’s weekend (Dec. 30 & 31) - Great Expectations
Weren’t the kids just outstanding in this past weekend’s services! What a great message. In case you missed it the kids preformed “A Christmas Carol” which was a Christmas musical about giving. Way to go Michelle Moll and her team of volunteers. We were blessed.
As you receive this I’m getting ready to go skiing and snowboarding with my family for our annual family vacation. It is a great time when we get to be present with each other. The focus of our giving is just being with each other.
May we all experience the presence of God with our families this Christmas season.
Glen
Thanks to all of you who signed up last weekend for our e-news. We currently have over 450 subscribers! Sometimes in this e-news or blog I talk about why we do or don’t do certain things certain ways at Pantano Christian Church. Christmas season is upon us and maybe you’ve noticed we are not doing a big Christmas production. A couple years ago the staff decided to discontinue large productions like Pumpkin Patch (a Halloween alternative) and a big Christmas production.
We discovered that such productions really wore out a significant number of folks, who were exhausted after doing one or more major productions a couple of months apart. While folks were willing to sacrifice, the sacrifice really robbed many of the joy and celebration of Christmas. We all have limited resources.
These events are also very costly. So we had to evaluate if these events were truly worth the focus of our people and financial resources.
You might think, “We did these events to bring new people to Christ and Pantano Christian Church. We did these things to bless others!” And that was the reason we did them. But we discovered that for all the work and cost, very few people actually came to Christ or started attending PCC. It was wishful thinking.
We do want to bless our community. And many churches in town do wonderful Christmas productions. We prayerfully decided that we want to bless our city in ways that 1) have a lasting Kingdom impact and 2) that are not being addressed by other churches (filling needs that ‘were being ignored). We’ve begun to refocus our energy, effort and resources toward serving our community and seeking long term transformation.
For example this year we blessed 12 schools and at least two neighborhoods during Make a Difference Day. We built a medical clinic in Rocky Point this year and gave 12 families new homes. We’ve seen a couple barrios transformed. We gave a wonderful Christmas to children who have a parent incarcerated through Angel Tree and shoes for orphans. And these are just a small sampling of our focus toward getting out into our community and world.
So we set aside our Christmas season as a time to rest and breathe as a church. This can be a hectic time and we don’t want to add more to this already hectic season. We want to catch our breath, focus on the reason for the season - Jesus - and be refreshed to sacrificially serve our community in the spring and fall. So just spiritually breathe this season and take in the wonderful life giving oxygen of God coming to our world to make our world different. May we be so filled with Jesus that we make our world different in the coming year.
Together to make the world different,
Glen
