Weekly Witness for Facebook & Friends

January 16, 2025

For this Sunday, January 19

Livestream worship and bulletin.

If you are having problems accessing the worship livestream (not the recording), please let the church office know.

Liturgist: Adam Pitts Psalm: Linda Hood

Dollars for Deacons This Sunday

Our monthly Dollars for Deacons offering is taken on 3rd Sundays. Donations are used for emergency assistance to church members, to help with the deacons' operating costs, and with the deacons' regular monthly donation to Storehouse West for assistance with their clients' utility bills. Your continued generosity in supporting the ministry of the deacons is greatly appreciated. Someone will hand you an envelope as you enter.

Finance Corner

The Finance and Stewardship Committee is grateful for your pledges and contributions to our per capita assessment. We met our per capita goal for 2024, and are happy that the cost per member for 2025 has not increased — still $37. We are now accepting this year's. If you have not completed a pledge card for the 2025 church operational budget, you can still do so. Please contact a member of the committee about how to make your pledge.

We appreciate your continued support of our mission and send God's blessings for a joyful, peaceful new year.

Finance Committee members: Beth Miller, Chuck Roth, Pam Scalco, Bill Shanklin, and Verona Schmidt. Pastor Frank is an ex-officio member.

Church Women United's Mini-Retreat Jan 25th...

... at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1100 Indian School Rd NE, just west of University Blvd at 9am. There will be a light breakfast after registration. The theme is “Women in the Old Testament Who Manage a Way When There is No Way”.  Rev. Dr. Nancy Bowen, United Methodist Church, will be leading. Rev. Bowen is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Earlham School of Religion. We will hear some of Nancy’s favorite stories of women in the OT. Join us and bring a friend! For more information: Shirley Nilsson, (505) 463-3657.

From the New Horizons Band of Rio Rancho

Thank you for joining us and your JuBellation Choir for the December Holiday Concert. And a big thank you for your kind donations that night to the band. We appreciate your being there that night and your generosity very much.

California Fires and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) – Donations Needed

More than 40,000 acres have burned, with over 12,300 structures destroyed, entire communities wiped out, and tens of thousands of residents displaced. For stories from a conference call with impacted church leaders and Presbytery staff, click here. Currently, 92,000 residents are under evacuation orders, and 89,000 more remain in evacuation warning zones. In addition to providing emotional and spiritual care, PDA has already released emergency grants to meet urgent needs of the communities affected by the fires, and to provide immediate assistance. Though the final outcomes of these fires are yet to be known, the magnitude of these events will require the development of long-term projects and assistance. Presbyterians in the region are participating in calls with nonprofit and faith-based disaster organizations to ensure that no one is forgotten. 

Please make your check out to RRPC, write disaster relief in the memo line, and put it in the offering plate or mail it to the church. Or go online to give.

Free COVID Test Kits

You can get 4 free at-home COVID tests mailed to your physical address through COVIDTests.gov. For tests that are more accessible for people with dexterity or vision challenges. Note: Expiration dates on the boxes you receive may have been extended by the FDA since they were printed; click here for revised ones. If you need to place an order by phone, call the COVIDTests.gov order fulfillment helpline. 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489) | 8 am - Midnight ET, 7 days/week.

Mission Corner

Churchwide Yard Sale Coming April 25th and 26th! Please Save the Dates and Bring Your Donations in NOW!

Money raised from the spring yard sale will go to the church operating budget, with a small percentage to Mission Committee programs. Your donations can be put in the nursery (Christian Education room) anytime Monday through Thursday 9a-3p, or you can put the items on a cart to be located in the narthex on Sunday morning. If you come in to the Christian Ed area through the Fellowship Hall (going through the women's bathroom doesn't work for everyone!) while Share Your Care is in operation, please be respectful of their ongoing programs.

We won't be selling any books or clothing. You can take books to the Friends of Libraries and Literacy, (formerly Friends of the Library), 4300 Ridgecrest Drive #J/K, and clothes to Savers or Goodwill.

Questions? Call Liz Bushma, 505.974.1628.

Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon

The Martin Luther King event will be held 11:30am-2pm Monday, Jan 20, at St. Thomas Aquinas, 1502 Sara Rd. SE, Rio Rancho 87124. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased here. The speaker is Dr. Clayborne Carson, Professor of History at Stanford.

Pastor to People

Dear Friends in Christ,

Our Presbyterian Book of Order gives us the "Six Great Ends (or Purposes) of the Church." In other words, what should we focus on in the life of the church? The fifth one is "the promotion of social righteousness."

What does that mean? It means we have always cared about our local community, our nation, and indeed our world. Our hope for our society is both its conversion to Christ and its transformation into a more just society . "Social righteousness" means living in a world where equal justice and good order are practiced. For instance, few Presbyterians would want to live in a world where people are discriminated against simply because of their skin color, their economic status, their gender, their sexual orientation, etc.

For me, "social righteousness" means caring deeply about two things: 1.Our Common good

2. Our Common Commitment to the Truth.

The two are closely linked. What we think is our common good is based on what we think is true about our situation. One example: We all seek the common good of a clean and healthy environment. But we often do not agree on what threatens our environment (is global warming real and is it mainly human caused?) Our common commitment to the Truth seems very much threatened in our nation's life together. Our different media silos isolate us from each other. That means we are not "drinking from the same wells" of information.

I think of Jesus' Parable of "a house divided cannot stand" (Matt. 12:25).

Lincoln used that phrase in discussing a nation divided over slavery. The nation disagreed about the common good and the truth about slavery. So we went to war with each other. We are currently "a house divided".

Jesus also said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). My sisters and brothers, I believe the church in our time is called to pursue the common good and a common commitment to the truth. My sincere prayer is that in the days ahead we keep "social righteousness" in our minds. And we keep the "common good" and a "common commitment to truth" in our hearts.

God be with us all, Frank

Church Calendar for Jan 19 – Jan 25, 2025

Prayer Concerns

Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

~ Henri Nouwen 

For the Angelinos, many who have lost everything in the seemingly endless wildfires in Los Angeles County; those who have been injured, and the families of those who have died.

For firefighters from Canada, Mexico, Ukraine and Iran, in addition to five states in our own country, fighting in California.

For our divided country.

For the people of Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, and Ukraine.

For all victims of gun violence, war, and unrest.

 Rio Rancho Presbyterian Church

1004 24th Street, SE, Rio Rancho, NM 87124

505.892.6664

info@rrpchurch.org

Office Hours

Monday – Thursday | 9am–3pm