Gospel Concert: Restored Trio

On March 15, we had the opportunity to be inspired by Restored Trio, a Southern Gospel Group. It was an awesome night. We can't wait to have them join us again.

Restored Trio is a family-oriented and ministry-minded singing group. They have a song to sing and a message to be heard-- especially now in the day and age in which we live. As a group they know that there are a lot of hurting people who needs to be uplifted and with the Lords help it’s our goal as a group to see lives changed and people touched through our ministry. 

To find out more about Restored Trio, you can click here to visit their website.

"Be The Light" Missionary Convention 2013

Our Annual Missionary Convention is a one of the most important events of the year. This year's them was "Be the Light." 

Our convention kicked off on Sunday. February 10 with an inspiring message from Rev. Tuy, a Cambodian Pastor who is well informed about the Lord’s work through the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. The Christian and Missionary Alliance is celebrating 90 years of missionary service in Cambodia this year. 

The week continued as we hosted an American Missionary couple from Russia and the Ukraine. Mr. and Mrs. Hope were with us for four days. They shared with us about Family life, Food, relationships, history of the Ukraine, church services and about their ministry in Russia and the Ukraine for the past 19 years. 

 We had a  wonderful Valentine’s Pot Luck banquet,  a Fellowship breakfast and three other inspiring services. As a church we took a step of faith and pledged $10,000 as our  Missionary Faith pledge for 2013.  As of March 17, 2013, we have contributed $1,803. 

Below is a collage of pictures from our Missionary Convention. 

Great, Grand and Glorious Opportunities

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is providing two great, grand and glorious opportunities at the same time.

My beloved brothers and sisters, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is providing our C&MA family with TWO UNPRECENDENTED OPPORTUNTIES AT THE SAME TIME.

Opportunity One: Extensive repairs of our physical property provided by Pastor Pablo Gamaz

The reality is that no repairs have been made since our “new sanctuary” was completed 30 years ago. The only exception is some emergency repairs of severe leaks during the rainy season. Why have we sorely neglected repairs? We do not have people available for the work. We do not have money to hire contractors.

Pastor Pablo Gamaz is a one-man construction company. He volunteered to fix everything. Remember, he installed new security locks in all the outside-facing doors. He has painted The Elliott Eastman Room (Fellowship Hall) and Guadalupe Avila hung lovely new curtains. He recently installed a new door to the conference room as well as having nearly completed building a totally NEW bathroom in our lovely, large nursery.

Opportunity Two: Our C&MA church is now on the World Wide Web and Facebook provided by Mark Ragan assisted by Ira Barker, and Heather Svihl assisted by Bonnie and Austin Perez

Simply put, everyone, anywhere in the world, on the internet may now hear our Pastor and can connect with our church. Already, we have had 15 people listen to Pastor’s sermons, 19 people like our Facebook page, and we have received a prayer request for a State Senator. This is just since March 4th, we launched the sites.

Now, here is the faith part for our C&MA family. Both of these golden opportunities are expensive. Reality is this. Your contributions do not even begin to cover the basic operating expenses of the church.

The General Fund of the church is empty (and the quarterly insurance payment of $750 is due). We have borrowed from the Youth Fund, with the permission of the contributor. This cannot continue.

The Lord is our Source, our provider. You are his instruments.

The traditional Easter Love Offering is designated for our General Fund. May we be united in prayer as the C&MA family?

“Whoever puts their trust in Him will never be put to shame.”

Romans 9:33

Low-tech Pastor in High-tech World Goes World Wide

Our Pastor always says he it a low-tech guy in high-tech world, but that does not limit his willingness for others to use technology to spread the gospel. This past Sunday we officially launched our Sound Cloud ministry. We are using the media website Sound Cloud to upload our Pastor's weekly sermons on so that members who can't make it to church can still listen and to reach people who don't yet know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. (Click here to check out our SoundCloud Profile)

We will know have CDs of pastor's sermon for people who want one.
God is opening doors for us to expand ministries of our church.

Our Pastor being presented with his first official CD/Web Sermon.

United in Christ

“I have given them the glory that you have gave me, that they may be one as we are one.”

John 17:22

We now have three different ethnic Christian and  Missionary Alliance (C&MA) churches meeting on the same property. This is a rare occurrence anywhere in the United States. On February 3rd, 2013, all three churches came together for a Communion-Unity Service. We gathered not  as an English congregation, Spanish congregation or Cambodian churches, but as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. We had special music for each church in their own language, each Pastor gave an inspiring mini-sermon and we remembered what Christ did for us on that cross many years ago. Five new members were welcomed in to the C&MA. This is the most  members received at one time in the last 15 years. After the worship service, our Cambodian brothers and sisters treated us to an authentic  Cambodian lunch. This service was a spirit-filled inspiring service. 

Our full sanctuary during the service we had 122 people in attendance. 

 

 

Clothing Giveaway Ministry

On the first Saturday of every month our church has a monthly clothing giveaway. People from all over the valley are welcome to come and hear brief message about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, at the end of the message they are able to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life.

Our Lord and Savior provides these clothes from our Pastor's Christian chiropractor who delivers bags of clothes each week to our Pastor's home. Our Pastor then brings the clothes to the church and we have a team of women who work hard to sort the clothing and prepare for the next clothing giveaway.

Blessed & Extraordinary January

As a church, we want to thank our Lord Jesus Christ for 11 blessed and extraordinary events that happened in January. This is the strongest start of a new year in decades. 

1. Attendance: Average attendance in January increase nearly 10% over 2012 average for the year
2. Church Secretary: Heather Svihl now serves as the creative, efficient church secretary
3. Clothing Distribution: The distribution on First Saturday of month and every Sunday was reorganized and improved
4. Fiances: Two Large unexpected, generous gifts were contributed to the church. 
5. Improvements were made in the physical facilities: Too many improvements to list everything, but here are a few: west exterior wall was repainted, many rooms have been reorganized and our lawn and grounds are beautiful now.
6. Inspiring services were held: 
1. Teen Challenge came with 25 beautiful women who shared how the Lord transformed their lives 
2. Unity-Communion Services with the three ethnic congregations who share the Lord's facilities...English, Spanish, Cambodian. 122 people were in attendance and after the service a nice Cambodian lunch was served.
7. Membership: Five people were welcomed into official membership. This is the largest number of new members at one time SINCE Novemeber 1997.
8. Mission Contribution: Your missionary contributions for support of missionaries were more than $9,000 when the missionary pledge year ended in January. 
9. Nursery: A completely new bathroom was built by Pastor Gamaz who contributed his construction skills. Bob Bellet helped with termite elimination.
10. PowerPoint: For the first time we have Power Point for our Worship Services.
11. Sing-Along, Evening Service: Ed Maxwell volunteered and led a Sunday Evening Sing-Along in which 27 people were in attendance. There are more sing along services to come. 

All these blessing and benefits happened in just ONE MONTH.  

Our Pastor and his wife have been encouraged for many years by Galatians 6:9, 

"We shall reap in DUE SEASON if we FAINT NOT."

Will the year 2013 be our churches "DUE SEASON" ?