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It’s over. I missed it again. Not a single personal Christmas card went out in the mail by my hand. Yet beautiful cards came to me from friends and family; those dedicated people who never miss a year in getting out their Christmas mailings. How do they manage it? The twinges of guilt are at times overwhelming. One of these days, I think to myself; just maybe I will get it together. Do you sometimes feel this way? Perhaps for you it’s not about Christmas cards, but other tasks or goals that you never quite seem to achieve? You are not alone. Truly, we are not alone.

As we head into 2018, Care Net Pregnancy Center has chosen Isaiah 43:19 as its theme verse.

 “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (NRSV)  

This verse encourages us personally as we put behind all of the unfinished business of 2017 and anticipate the “new things” that God will have for us in 2018. We can look forward to opportunities with young men and women who are facing unplanned pregnancies. Our goal is to help them understand the provision that God has given to bring them out of their spiritual wasteland; the hope of eternal life and a personal relationship with Jesus.

He becomes their “river in the desert.”

First, thank you. Just last year you assisted Care Net in giving HOPE to over 640 women in the face of uncertainty! We were blessed as our year ended strong, thanks to your continued support.

As we head into 2018, it is our prayer that each one of you will perceive the things that God is doing, in your own lives and through CareNet.

We ask that you keep the Care Net clients, board, center locations, center directors and staff in your prayers often. If Care Net may serve you in any way in 2018, please call 505-880-8373.

What a year it’s been at MCC!  Here is the second installment of what God has done to transform and use us this past year.  Enjoy, and thank God together with us!

We saw Cache Deterding, Joni Dobran, Katie Barker, and Verity, Hana, & Killian Gray come forward for baptism and had a number of households join us to covenant in membership, not including the several who came forward just last Sunday!

In our Women’s and Men’s Bible studies, people are opening the Word, and learning how to read the Bible for themselves.  They are gaining confidence in reading in context, and seeing what God is actually saying.  Along the way, they are partnering with, caring for, and serving one another.  One group rallied to move one of their members who had to make a change to Los Lunas.  Two other groups stepped out of their comfort zone to serve the community as they came to our church for a meal and a program (more on that later).  And one of those men’s groups also helped host two Men’s Breakfasts this fall, so that men could come together for fellowship, testimony, and accountability.

Our Sunday School classes, and the BSF groups that meet here, are also growing in how to study the Bible.  In both, God uses His Word to show His glorious nature more clearly, to bring His purpose and plan into sharper focus, and to transform people’s lives by His power.  There are “aha” moments, and then there is the steady shaping of a godly heart and mind.  Both are happening regularly, and are seen as we come together week by week.

On Sunday mornings, our music ministry continued to help us sing out God’s truth together, and draw near to Him.  This ministry was co-led by 5 different volunteers.  It is a miracle and a gift that they work together so well!   One of the leaders shared,

“I think my favorite part of the worship ministry is when the congregation takes over a song and sings it loudly — able to carry on even if the team up front quits singing.  When this happens, I humbly feel that this is right and good.  I also especially enjoy the spirit of unity that comes from a group of us playing a song together.  There is something special about voices, instruments all blending to make a beautiful sound.  Usually, we are all amazed — because we come together as individuals who have just had imperfect mornings, weekends, or weeks behind us.  God is faithful to make a beautiful song out of all of us.”

MCC servants shared the gospel and taught Bible verses each week to children in the schools in the East Mountains.  The Follow the Son Bible Clubs watched God open doors for them, and keep them open.  Children memorized Scripture, and took the gospel home to their families each week.  And we had the privilege of hosting a meal and Christmas program for some of these East Mountain families at our church.  Two of our small groups adopted that event. Together with Bernadette from our Fellowship ministry, they worked hard to give these families a special evening, and the message of Christ’s love.

We partnered with International Students Inc. to impact international college students at UNM with the love of Christ.  We served in various capacities; from providing rides and advice and meals and furniture, to tutoring English, conducting hikes, and arranging for temporary housing.  Stan Schug described his own experience serving with ISI:

“In time, trust and relationship has developed into friendship.  I’ve gone from talking to unknown foreign students within a structured format, to becoming closely involved with an Iranian, Muslim couple; to having very dear friends with explicit permission to teach their four-month-old baby, Sam, about Christ, as he grows up.”

Through our support of the Gideon’s ministry, we had a hand in more than 13,000 copies of God’s Word being distributed at this year’s State Fair, and another 5,600 on the UNM campus.  At Highland High School, 181 young people received copies of the New Testament, with 102 of those being given out by our own Mike Brazie and his partner.  In some of these interactions, Gideon’s were even able to share the gospel and offer further follow-up.

If we try to recite how many marriages have been strengthened, describe how our facilities have been updated and improved, count the number of groups that have come onto our campus and been served, and tell the number who have been trained in financial stewardship, surely we will run out of space and time.

God is good and He has been faithful to use MCC’s ministries for His glory over the past year! Join us in giving thanks for all He has done in, through, and for MCC in 2017!

And, there is still more to be thankful for! Stay tuned for our final praise installment, next week.

It’s that time of year again. People are setting the New Year’s resolutions or goals that they want to achieve this coming year. 

Perhaps you want to improve your health, fitness or a relationship you are in. Maybe you want to get those finances under control. There is a Biblical reason and way to do that! 

Here are a few helpful tips that may be useful in the financial arena.

1. Rediscover your pay stub. Look at every category to make sure that everything is correct. You’d be surprised how many times you can find an error!
2. It’s almost tax time again. While your doing your taxes, this year make sure that you are not overpaying each month.  Getting a big tax refund is not a creative way to have a vacation fund, it’s just an interest free loan to Uncle Sam. Increasing your deductions can allow you to have more money each paycheck to put towards your goals.
3. Get your kids involved. If you have middle/high school aged kids get them involved in how the household finances are run, so that they can learn now and apply what they learn later in life.
4. Define Savings Correctly. I think most Americans believe that savings is how much you save when you buy something. Well, that’s just marketing.  Perhaps some actually do put cash into a savings account, but it comes out at the end of the month to cover all the over spending. Savings is actually money you put into an account and it stays there for a specific purpose.  In the last 3 years the personal savings rate has dropped from 6% to less than 3%.

Be more than average.

If you want any help with these tips or other financial resolutions please consider our upcoming Living Debt Free Workshop on February 24th from 9 AM to 3 PM.   If that class does not work for you, please consider taking our short survey (just a few questions!) below on one of the other classes offered through Mountain Christian Church.

MCC Financial Stewardship Survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y9SCFDN

What a year it’s been at MCC!  God has blessed us and used us!  We are truly grateful to be a part of His divine work of transformation. There is too much to share in just one post, so here is the first installment. Enjoy, and join us as we thank God for all He has done this year!

We saw two teens give up their summer to invest in God’s work on mission trips to hard places. Another teen gave her summer to serve mid-schoolers for the Lord at summer camp; and an entire band of youth and adults from MCC made the journey to Bolivia, to further gospel community with the families in Sucre. 

We helped to train pastors in Ethiopia, drill wells and support gospel workers in Peru, and bring audio Bibles to military personnel around the world. 

There was the MOPS ministry creating community, respite and vision for the moms who often serve unnoticed at home; while also adopting a grandmother who is the primary caretaker for her grandchildren.

The Lord raised up two new servants for Fire and Ice, our Mid-High Youth Ministry.  Through Daniel and Joy’s leadership, and the entire youth leadership team, the students studied Scripture challenging them in how their faith should be alive and visible in their daily lives.  They took on two successful service projects - with Both Hands ministries, and with Operation Christmas Child - allowing our youth to reach out and share God’s love.  Our High School Youth also shared the love of Christ in the community, by not only partnering with these events, but also sharing gospel tracts door-to-door at Halloween.  And some of our youth are already making preparations to follow the Lord in going to Bolivia next Spring.

Our VBS last summer was an overwhelming success!  We had hoped for at least 100 students, planned for about 120...and were blessed with 139!  Of these, more than 60% were from outside MCC, and over a quarter were without any church home.  While we sang, and rehearsed the gospel, and walked through “Rome” together, many children prayed for the Roman guard to come to Christ, helped hide fellow Christians from the Roman authorities, and marveled at how different and enslaving the worship was for people of other faiths in that ancient day.

The Lord continued to grow and use the ministry of biblical counseling at our church.  Couples, singles, women, and men benefitted from opening the Word and letting God minister to their needs.  One woman who was fearful and bitter is now a woman of grace and joy.  A woman who was betrayed faithfully re-builds her marriage.  A woman, in the midst of terrible family conflict, serves her church family with great joy. And a sister in the throes of depression has learned the precious gift of perseverance.

The MCC Food Pantry is under new leadership, and has really made waves!  We had wonderful support from the body, and Barbara found new ways to reach those in need.  The Pantry partnered with Shine to help provide for meals throughout the entire Christmas season for several families from A. Montoya!  In addition, we provided abundantly for a family from Edgewood whose house burned down.  Some of those we served were very impressed when they learned that all of the donations had come from members of our church, and not from a large food bank.

And speaking of the Shine ministry, it has been a thrilling year!  God has truly built a bridge between us and the community at A. Montoya this year, and it is miraculous.  Who ever heard of a church being welcomed in to serve at a public school?  But we are!  We've been transformed as we’ve hugged weary moms at food pantry events, seen God provide cakes for a cake walk, created beauty with an indoor garden in the kindergarten wing, helped transform the library, created space in the teacher’s lounge where teachers can come for resources that they would otherwise purchase out-of-pocket, served alongside teachers in the classroom, and interviewed kids as they beamed about their Science Fair projects.

God has abundantly blessed MCC this year! We are so thankful for the eyes to see His grace on us! Though every one of these ministries inevitably faced struggles throughout the year, they can look back and see God’s hand in their decisions, service projects, volunteers and growth! We will be continuing this series to share how God has used other ministries at MCC to transform lives and communities!

We’d also encourage you to look around, to consider your life and/or your ministry, and to see how God is working in and transforming them! Give thanks that He sees and meets you right where you are!

One of the keys to Christian growth is learning to exercise faith as a child in our daily life. Exercising faith teaches us to trust God and recognize the blessings that He constantly bestows upon us. We can often fail to recognize God’s gifts, and the ways that He is at work.

In Mark 10:15, Jesus states, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”  

Early in my Christian life, God taught me how to trust His promises and exercise my faith. 

Second Peter 1:3-7 says,

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises ….”

As a young Christian, I read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.  Hudson Taylor was the founder of the China Inland Mission and grew up in London, England during the late 1800s.  He wanted to go to the mission field in China and tried to grow spiritually in every way that he could.  (He even learned Chinese on his own.)  His employer was very forgetful and often had to be reminded to provide his earnings.  Rather than asking for his paycheck, he decided to trust God to remind his employer that he needed it. 

As he expected, a couple of weeks later his employer forgot to pay him.  He didn’t ask for his paycheck and trusted God to remind his employer to pay him.  He ate his last apple on a day when he went to minister to the poor in London.  On his way home, he was hungry and rather despondent that God hadn’t met his need.  He wasn’t paying attention to his route home and “just happened” to walk by his employer’s home.  His employer saw him walking by through the window, called him to his door, and paid him. 

Hudson Taylor saw his simple faith develop into complete trust years later as he had to depend upon God to provide not only his need, but the need of his ministry on a daily basis.

I have also seen God provide for my food, when I ran out of money.  I chose to trust Him, and He provided an unsolicited check on the day that I ate my last can of tuna.  Since that time, I have seen God work mightily to answer prayer in many other ways.  Exercising faith has made me feel like a child in a candy store of God’s goodness.

God wants to answer prayer and He wants us to grow our faith.  Consider an action today where you might see God grow your faith.