Pantano Christian Church

We are coming to the end of 2007. I want to take a look at 2007 from a numbers standpoint. Numbers never tell the full story, as the real stories are personal and show the ways God had moved us, changed us, used us and blessed us.

I ended my first year as Lead Pastor. To be honest, it has been a difficult year and a challenging year. I’ve learned a great deal. God continues to refine me – sometimes through “fire.” But I am not discouraged in any way. The great joy of my work is to see and hear weekly about how God has been doing miraculous things in peoples’ lives. I say miraculous because when people change from the inside out, that is a miracle! And I have nothing to complain about, after all my first year was much easier than Moses’ first year after they left Egypt!

I am so grateful for this church. I believe, even in our brokenness, we are attempting to be a church that exists not for itself. We are a gathering of those who, to the best of our ability, are trying to follow Jesus and make a difference in others.

SERVING
In 2007 we estimated that 1070 of our members were involved in serving people beyond our church walls in our community and around the world. That was about 45,000 hours of loving, serving and blessing others! That’s the best numbers I’ve ever seen!

The Angel Tree team gave almost 400 gifts that Pantano folks provided to 180 children who have a parent incarcerated. 51 families were adopted in our first “Walk Across the City” effort to bless some families at Christmas here in Tucson. Way to go Pantano!

CHURCHES & BAPTISMS
Here at PCC we almost doubled the baptisms from the previous year. This year 144 people made a commitment to follow Jesus with all their heart for all the days of their lives.

From four of our international partners who gave us information (India, West Africa, Peru and Uzbekistan) we saw 13,708 people baptized this year – WOW! And 1,224 new churches were started. These are nothing less than miraculous.

FINANCES
I’ll give more details next week on financial and attendance numbers. Here’s a number I don’t like to even think about! We are way behind in our offerings this year. As of today, we are $162,000 behind budget. We have cut every expense we can and are running lean. We have begun to cut back on staff benefits. We have one more weekend this year, if you can, please give generously.

Together to make a difference;

Glen

On behalf of the Elders and Staff of Pantano Christian Church, I want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas! May you experience the joy and reality of God’s presence among us – Immanuel!

I want to remind you that our offices will be closed from Christmas day through New Years and we’ll be back in the office on January 2^nd.

We now have an emergency contact system set up. If you call the main Pantano phone number after hours or on the weekend, you’ll have the option to dial 4 and then leave your contact information. A staff person or elder will be contacted and get back with you as soon as possible.

We have a wonderful Christmas Eve service planned at the Houghton campus. There will be plenty of singing, a powerful Christmas reading, communion and candle lighting. The services will be at 6 and 11pm. There is no childcare during these family services.

Every year we take a special offering beyond our regular giving at the Christmas Eve service. This gift goes to a local or international project outside our immediate property. This year, our offering will go to help launch the Pantano Christian Church site in Sierra Vista. The team there is now forming and planning for an official launch in August of 2008.

May I take this time to say how very grateful I am for this church. I love this church. I can’t imagine serving anywhere else. I love our passion for the lost and hurting. I love how real and authentic we can be here. I love the grace that’s offered and the healing and transformation that happen here all the time. I love our external focus. I love that we are making a difference. I love that Jesus is the center and lifted up.

May we always keep Jesus the center of our focus, not just at Christmas time, but all throughout the year.

Together to bring Jesus to all who need God’s presence,

Glen Elliott

I meet weekly with two other guys. I can’t express how important these guys are to me. Like Proverbs 18:24 says – they are friends who stick “closer than a brother.” We are honest, we confess to each other, we challenge each other but mostly, we just listen to each other.

We’ve all had a tough year. We’ve all had a tough few weeks. Many of those we care about are having tough times. So it was natural that the subject of Job came up. The one thing we all agreed on was that Job is a hard book of the Bible to understand. I don’t have space in this blog to go into all the questions (like, why would God allow Satan to test Job and how come Job never was told about this “game” being played behind his back? etc.) or all the purposes of Job.

But this I do know. We need suffering. That is so counter to everything in our culture. It is counter to what the TV preachers say. It is counter to our self-serving and self-protecting nature.

One of the greatest virtues admired by God is humility. Humility flows from suffering. God wants us to be dependent on him. Suffering breeds dependence on God. Our prayers are deeper, more honest and real and from the heart in suffering. Most of the godly things come through suffering (see Romans 5:3-5).

Notice what the apostle Paul says in Acts 14:22: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

In suffering we are often more fully alive than when everything is smooth and “normal.” The days of gray and rain do pass. And just like we saw this week, when they pass, the sunny snow capped mountain day that follows is even more spectacular!

Scott Peck says in The Road Less Traveled that in fact those who seek to avoid pain and suffering bring greater hardship on themselves and that many neuroses are caused by trying avoiding difficulties.

Maybe my greatest challenge in this life is to learn to welcome and embrace suffering, because I still pray to avoid it. But in my desire to avoid or get through hardships as fast as I can, I actually miss God in the suffering. I miss any discipline and correction that God may want me to gain (I talked about this in my message last weekend on discipline).

The Gospel story is a story of suffering. Jesus was born into suffering and out of the suffering of Mary. Jesus’ life journey led him to the cross of suffering. Yet, by his birth and his stripes and death we are healed.

Suffering together and growing together;

Glen

I wanted to let you know the plans for celebrating the birth of Jesus here at Pantano Christian Church – Houghton campus. A few folks have asked why we don’t do the huge Christmas programs that were done in the past. Of the several major reasons, the most important one is this: collectively, our leaders heard loud and clear from our folks about how exhausting Christmas had become. So we decided a few years ago to use December to try and slow down, catch our collective breath, and be able to focus on the real reason for the season. We want to model and help you unfrenzy this holiday season so you can enjoy time with your family and put the attention on Jesus.

SINGING
Starting this weekend we’ll begin singing Christmas Carols in our PCC Live services. The decorations are up! Yahoo!

CHILDREN
Our children’s group called GLORee will be performing during the weekend services of Dec. 15th and 16th on our Houghton Campus. The musical this year is called “Miracle on Main Street.” Our kids will bring a GREAT message in song.

BETHLEHEM
On the weekend before Christmas I’ll be doing a message finishing our Road Less Traveled Series called Bethlehem. The coming of the King of Kings from the splendor of heaven to the broken world of Bethlehem is indeed a road less traveled.

CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICES
Our two candlelight Christmas Eve services will be on Monday (12/24) at 6pm and 11pm and last about an hour. These are family services and thus no child care.

Our Christmas Eve offering is being designated for the launch of our Sierra Vista campus scheduled for 2008.

RESOURCES
Carl Cherry and I have prepared a devotional and worship resource called “A Christmas Worship Experience.” This tool will help you have a celebration in your home or apartment with family and/or friends. It has some fun ideas and a discussion and worship guide. It also has music background of some favorite Christmas hymns.
You can download the guide and music at http://pccwired.org/christmas

May we experience afresh the gift God sent in Jesus.

Glen