Easter is the time when we receive the most guests and visitors to our weekend services. I refuse to make fun of people who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. Rather, I see these times as opportunities to remind people about and invite them to discover God. My greatest concern is that we might miss the opportunity to “Just Walk across the Room” and help folks move toward God.We just finished the series by that title. Our whole focus was to encourage each of us to take the opportunities God gives us, to see the people that God sees, to love them as God loves them, in order to introduce them to the God that longs to have a relationship with them. Okay, that was a long sentence, but I meant every word.

When you come to a weekend service, remember that every week we have first time visitors. I know that because EVERY WEEK I meet first time visitors. People come for the first time looking for something. Life may have turned upside down. They mostly want to connect with God. They also want to connect with real people.

Here’s the challenge. Don’t just come to weekend services to connect with your friends. That’s fine too, but let’s “Just Walk across the Room” and connect with those we don’t know.

Let me offer some practical advice on this. In a church our size, you and I have no idea who’s a first time person or who’s been here forever. Right!? I begin everyday, and especially on the weekends, with the prayer; “God lead me to people you want me to connect with and help me sense your promptings.”

It’s not rocket science on how to notice who’s new. They often come early or on time (HA!). They often sit alone and are reading the Pathway handbook or bulletin. So take a small risk and move out of your circle of comfort and move into the zone of the unknown.

Here’s what I say. “Hi, I’m Glen. Have you been attending Pantano for awhile?” Or “How long have you been attending?” If they are a person who’s been here for 15 years - they’ll tell you and are not offended. If they are new, they will say so. If they are new, I often follow up with “How did you decide to come today?”

On Easter weekend, be especially observant of others. Greet our guests and welcome them. Easter is a great time to invite your family, friends and acquaintances because this is a time when folks are most attentive to God and his love.

Finally, we need extra greeters on Easter weekend to welcome all our guests. We’ll have a table this weekend where you can let us know you can help out.

Next week I’ll talk about how we hope to invite our guests to continue to join us for our series after Easter.

Together to make the world different,

Glen

The tomb of Jesus is empty! Death, the one power that we will all ultimately experience, that no one can escape, could not hold our Jesus. Death no longer is feared. And the empty tomb affirms what we already experience - Jesus is with us here and now. We’ll remember and celebrate the final days of Jesus’ human walk on earth with three special services.

Maundy Thursday- April 5 (Meal at 6pm and Service at 7pm)
We’ll gather together for a meal as we break our fasting (for those who participated in Lent) at 6pm. Please call the church office to make reservations. Then at 7pm we’ll welcome back our Africa team and hear some of the amazing stories of what the resurrected Jesus is doing in Ghana. Together we’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper - communion.

Good Friday - April 6 (7pm)
We’ll experience the incredible sacrifice of Jesus on the cross through a powerful drama called “The Ram at Dawn.”

Easter Services (Saturday 5:30pm, Sunday 7, 9 and 11am)
We’ll celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the message will be “I almost missed meeting Jesus.” I’ll direct my message to both member and visitor highlighting how the disciples were slow to realize Jesus was actually alive and how we often miss the resurrected Jesus in our lives today.

Honest Questions - Engaging Faith Series
Easter services are a great time to “Just Walk Across the Room” and invite others to join you to celebrate Easter. Many people are willing to attend church on Easter who would otherwise be reluctant. At the end of the service we will show a short video that will introduce the series following Easter called Honest Questions - Engaging Faith. The video is a very real and powerful invitation to honestly explore our questions about God and faith. We’ll let you preview this video the weekend of March 31/April 1). I’ll invite those who are our guests to continue to join us in exploring some tough questions that we ALL have about faith.

Last Easter we intentionally risked doing Easter a bit different in order to reach those who are not active in following Jesus. And it worked really well. What I mean is that even a year later we have many folks who are active here who began their journey last Easter. Our guests loved the service. However, some of us accustomed to a “traditional” Easter message were disappointed. While we’ll not repeat the same format this Easter, we will at the end of our services invite our guests to join the genuine journey of asking honest questions that engage faith. We, God’s church, do not exist for ourselves. We exist to love people to Jesus. Please pray and invite your friends and family to join us.

Together to make the world different,

Glen

I’m going to finish my five “R’s.” These five R’s shape us here at Pantano and shape my life:

Revolution
Risk
Rhythm
Relationships
Reproduction

Reproduction is the very first command God gave to mankind in the Bible. Check it out in Genesis 1:28 - “Be fruitful and increase in number” (NIV). Many of Jesus’ stories (parables) are about reproduction (In Matthew 13 see The Sower, The Mustard Seed and Yeast, etc.). Jesus said we bring honor to God by bearing much fruit (John 15:8).

At Pantano Christian Church we are about Kingdom reproduction. What does this look like? First, in our personal lives we want to reproduce. We must produce spiritual fruit. We bless others, we sacrifice ourselves for others, we put others first. We introduce others to God by “Just Walking across the Room.” Our lives must be characterized by reproduction.

Second, as a church we must reproduce. Every healthy church will grow. We are now intensely praying and looking at how we as a church can reach those who are lost and hurting. Who in our personal lives need to be introduced to God? Who in our community are we not reaching? We are looking at new venues (worship services with a different style) and off campus sites, not for our needs but to reach new people.

Third, we are looking at the strategy of church reproduction (often called church planting through multiplication) to see the Kingdom expand among the least reached peoples of the world. We are focusing in a number of areas of the world where we serve visionary and sacrificial partners to see literally hundreds of churches reproduced every year.

And finally, those of us in any kind of leadership must be reproducing ourselves in preparing others to do what we do. We cannot reproduce and grow if we are not recruiting and training others to join us in ministry. The best training is on-the-job!
When the ever-present living God has his way with us and is forming us to be more and more like Jesus, then reproduction must happen. We must not get in the way of reproduction because God is passionate about those who are lost in self-destruction and need the touch of God.

Together to make the world different,

Glen

First I want to say a huge thank you to the Pantano Christian Church family. Last week in my E-news blog and during our weekend services I shared about our church financial budget shortage. Pantano, thank you for responding so quickly! You gave almost $40,000 above our budget need just last weekend and your thoughts and comments were incredible. We are still almost $75,000 short of our budget so if you did not have a chance to respond last weekend, please do so this weekend. Pantano, you’re the best!

OK, now back to my discussion of the five “R’s” that shape my life and I believe shape us here at Pantano. Let me review quickly the five R’s:

Revolution
Risk
Rhythm
Relationships
Reproduction

Today I’m talking about Relationships. Everything about God is about relationships. God is three in one - the perfect relationship. He created us to be in relationship with him. He created woman because man needed relationship with a being that was a compliment to him and animals alone just would not suffice! Most of what Jesus talks about has to do with relationships.

I’m in three life groups because I need and value relationships. I love doing ministry as a genuine team because I so trust the power of serving in a relational way. God works best in our lives through human relationships. I often hear God better and clearer in relationships. Others often see my sin or when I’m off track before I do. I need their loving confrontation and direction. We do ministry better together. The bottom line is this - we know God and follow Jesus better in relationships. Period.

The counter point is this. In isolation (whether we call it secrets, alienation, hyper-independence, etc.) we are in spiritual danger. Alone we are not as effective in being the love of God in the world. If we are to grow to be more like Jesus, it will be very slow or might not even happen by ourselves. There are no spiritually healthy lone rangers.

So we do life together. We grow together. We serve together. And together, we will make the world different. This is the S of STEP - Sharing life together.

And finally, we introduce others to God through genuine caring relationships. “Evangelism” isn’t complicated. It is simply “Just a Walk across the Room.” Almost every single person was introduced to God through relationships. Take time to walk into someone’s life and listen and genuinely care and watch what God will do!

Together to make the world different,

Glen

I want to interrupt my discussion of the 5 “R’s” to talk about a critical issue. This E-news blog will be a little longer than usual. As of today we are $114,000 behind budget. We operate on a ministry year from July 1 to June 30 each year. Here’s a chart that compares our budget overage/shortage for last year (top blue line) and our current year budget (bottom red line).

I’ve been hesitant to talk about this. Not that I’m afraid to talk about money. Jesus talks a ton about money. But listen to this part very carefully. I never want anyone who follows Jesus to give to a church budget. Yes, our church has a huge need. But our giving MUST always be to God first. That’s what we have consistently taught for the 8 years I’ve been here.

So how or why have we gotten to this place? There’s no pure science here. But I do have some ideas. We are living out what we say we stand for. Our focus is not on serving ourselves but reaching out to others. We put the Kingdom of God first, even above our own church’s needs. Here are just a few examples:

• We gave Tim and Sandy Coop a wonderful and well deserved gift in January.
• We gave a generous offering at Christmas to send Okongo to the Hausa unreached peoples in Northern Ghana.
• Members of our church are providing most of the support of our new mission couple to Mexico. We’ve helped build a medical clinic and purchased a bus and much more. This was money given directly to these needs. Yes Pantano!
• Pantano folks personally support many missions and missionaries here and around the world.
• We started Vail Christian Church a year ago – giving over $200,000 to start it. We sent many mature givers to VCC
• People have given generous gifts for the Towne Hall Extreme Makeover project to make more room for our youth, children and Celebrate Recovery.
• From July ‘06 to now we’ve given $365,000 over and above our tithes and offerings to designated projects and missions.

Pantano, YOU GET IT! I love it. We are externally focused and generous to those outside our organization. I never want to see these things diminish in any way. But in order to continue to do the incredible things we are doing in Tucson and around the world, we need a healthy, strong launching pad. We love watching the space shuttle launch, but it takes an effective organization to even get the shuttle to the pad for a launch.

Here are some basic facts or realities:

• Last year our shortage at this time was $6,000. This year it is $114,000.
• We are short $3,270 each week with 17 weeks remaining in our ministry (fiscal) year.
• We have under spent our existing budget by $47,000 and already begun eliminating expenses. We will not increase our debt. We will not spend more than we collect. That is my promise.
• If we continue on this trend we’ll end up $170,000 short of our budget on June 30^th. Last year we ended just a few thousand above budget.

Here are our 5 major areas of expenses. We have very little room to make adjustments in the first 3 areas (84% of our budget):

• Mortgage debt (15% of our budget)
• Personnel costs (59%)
• Utilities and fixed administrative costs like insurance, etc. (10%)
• Ministry expenses (6%)
• Missions & benevolence (10%)

Today we are not in crisis but IF the trend continues it will lead to a crisis. Here are the consequences if the downward trend continues:

• Our staff, in comparison to others churches, is on the low end of the pay scale. There may have to be personnel cuts. This would be incredibly painful. We are running a lean operation in terms of staff and already utilize several volunteer staff members.
• We may have to delay repairs and improvements and limit the use of our campus to cut back on utilities, etc.
• We may have to cut back on ministry activities and services.
• We may not be able to move ahead with expansion to reach some unreached segments of our culture as planned (like the young adults and singles) and to launch new sites in Southern Arizona.
• We base our next budget on what we actually collect this year. So if we are down $170,000 this year, we have $170,000 less next year to build a budget.

I have been praying about this for months but the trend continues down. To be honest, I’m perplexed by this. Attendance is about the same as last year (that’s not bad considering we sent around 200 people to start VCC). We have a great spirit in our church. Morale is great. The stories of people experiencing transformation are so incredible.

I wanted to just trust God and ride this out. But after wise counsel, I realized I shouldn’t wait any longer to tell you about this. If we get to the point of having to make cuts that affected you and those you love, then you might say “Why didn’t you tell us sooner!” And that is right. We are a family and we need to talk about these things.

Our available cash (cash flow) is okay today. We are a fiscally conservative church. But it has shrunk from $110,000 in July ’06 to $49,000. If this trend continues we could get to the point of having to start juggling what bills to pay when, especially the larger ones.

I’m asking 3 things of all of us:

• I’m asking us to pray about this situation.
• I asking you to give in three ways: sacrificially, generously and consistently. Your giving is an act of worship and obedience first to the Lord.
• I’m asking you to continue to trust us. By giving to your church you are trusting your leadership to invest it to accomplish God’s Kingdom purposes.

Together to make the world different,

Glen