Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I would like to give all of you a quick update on things FEFC.  As has been reported, December and January were banner months in terms of giving for the church.  December saw the largest single monthly giving in a long, long time - if not since the founding of the church and January was the largest monthly offering in roughly 5 years!  The Lord has clearly blessed us financially and our checking account is nearly up to the same levels it was a year ago.  Certainly a praiseworthy thing!  But it is not a sign to go on a massive spending spree - we still need to be good stewards of the resources God has provided - and that stewardship comes with balance. Good stewardship does not just mean not spending - it can also mean using the $$ we have to further God's work in the church. And we have identified several areas where we can use those $$ to make our facility safer, more attractive and more functional. 

Our top priority is putting up security fencing around the front of the property to discourage vagrancy and vandalism of our property - this will be moving ahead quickly (we have a company preparing a quote and plan for us and we will present it to you as soon as we get it).

Another area that could stand some TLC is the playground - what exactly we can do there is still uncertain - cleaning up the area, installing bird proofing, new equipment, ground covering...are things that are on the table.  Moving the playground to the front of the building is NOT on the table right now! The trees are probably safe as well!

A third area of work is the front of the building - it can certainly use some paint and stucco touch-up work.

A final area would be to invest in better AV equipment to enhance our on-line/streaming capability.  It is sorely needed to bring our live streaming up to a higher standard.  

We welcome your thoughts and ideas on this - please feel free to share your ideas/concerns with our staff and the elder team.

Yours in Christ,

Robert

Dear Church Family,

Many of you have noticed the past several weeks that we have been tweaking our worship service. This is actually a continual process. Some adaptations have been more subtle than others. We wanted to inform you of what we are working to accomplish. 

To continue to grow in excellence and order (1 Corinthians 14:40), we are working to arrange elements of our corporate service in such a way that will help us to have the biggest impact both for building up the body and for contextualizing the Gospel. Order is related to design and purpose as we see that God also arranged and ordered things even in creation (Gen. 1).  

Here are some things we are looking to refine in the coming services:

1) Playing music up to the point of announcements – It would be good to play a playlist. I will be working to recruit and integrate instrumentalists (piano/ guitar/ etc.) to play up to the point of the countdown timer being zero. Regardless, music is important…

2) Stopping music when the announcements should begin -  The music ending can be just as important as beginning the music. That signifies a pause and helps draw people into the announcements. We can pair this with dimming the lights when the announcements start but keeping the side lights on (new bulbs coming soon) throughout worship service. Dimming the lights will provide a visual cue for the next portion of service.

3) More light stuff - When the countdown timer begins for the greet time, the house lights will be turned back on. Then during the Scripture reading, the lights can be turned back down as this will cue people to pay attention to the reading of Scripture.

Thanks for your eagerness to maintain unity! (Eph. 4:3)

That’s all for now!  

Hymns in History: This Saturday, February 25th at 7:00pm, our church is hosting a concert which explores some of the fascinating history of hymns in the church.

Piano students of Lela York, including our own Calem and Rowan Flores and Isaiah Wong, will be performing the hymns in various groupings, incorporating other instruments and voices. Included in the program will be short narrations on the hymns.

Everyone is welcome to this free concert– Come and enjoy!

Any questions? Ask Josie Wong (575) 312-2531

There will be an opportunity to support the Gideon Ministry, Sunday February 26th. The Gideons are an international organization reaching out to 189 countries with the Word of God to share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The local Gideons Camp also provides Scriptures to Hotels, Schools, Hospitals and Prisons around the area. A handout will be available this next Sunday, February 26th, to provide more information for your review (see the Gideons International website: Gideons.org). There will also be Gideon Cards (in Memory, Thinking of you, Congratulations, etc.) available to those who want to give Bibles in Honor of someone special.
Please see Dr. Eldon Steelman or Alan Fisher for more details.

Dear church and church choir, 
 
I along with our church leaders have prayerfully been trying to discern the next steps for the church choir at First EFC. Thank you for your patience during this time in between. The choir did such an amazing job during the Christmas season and has been faithful to serve with their gifts. Let’s keep growing together! 
 
In order to help support the aim of our church and in order to help best leverage our gifts and abilities for local mission outreach, we want to expand our current choir ministry. What that means is that rather than working toward singing special songs in the church service, we will look toward having a concert weekend in which we can invite the community of Las Cruces to attend. 
 
Additionally, we will urge and desire from those who plan to participate in the choir to invite someone to come and sing with them, especially those who are unchurched, “de-churched” or uncertain in their faith. This will help us to both edify our body and to maintain an external focus. We are hopeful that this will help grow and strengthen the choral ministry within our body, as well as grow a Gospel presence in our community and foster a place for people to belong and serve within our church body. Our choral ministry will provide the opportunity for dynamic discipleship and evangelism through both weekly preparation and the concert presentations.
 
Can you imagine God redeeming people’s lives in our community through our choir ministry so that they are able to use their God given talents and passions to serve Christ? This is our heartbeat! The date will be planned around Easter time and we will be singing various themes of music with the intent  to highlight and extrapolate on those of a sacred nature in order to naturally share the Gospel. 
 
In the fall we hope to add an auditioned youth choir as well, that would closely follow the model of what we do with the adult choir this spring! 
 
We look forward to all that God will do and we ask that you join us in praying for the choir ministry here at our church.

Like the Israelites of the Exodus, in our personal ‘deserts’ we “experience intimate dependence
on God’s love and provision in faithful obedience to his every word.”
 
“With All Your Heart” by Ray Vander Laan (six sessions)
Video and Small Groups WOMEN & MEN ARE INVITED!
(view the video altogether, then split into “gender-separated” groups
 
FOR WOMEN’S GROUPS:
Meeting at FEFC—
Tuesday (March 7) Evening at 6:30pm (6:15 for fellowship),
Wednesday (March 8) Morning at 9:30am (9:15 for fellowship),
Thursday (March 9) Afternoon at 3:30pm (3:15 for fellowship)
 
FOR MEN’S GROUPS
Tuesday (Feb. 21) Evening at 6:30pm (6:15 for fellowship)
 
Interested but not yet in a group?
See Mary Eiceman - m.eiceman@comcast.net
Or Pastor Jeremiah - jeremiah@efclascruces.org