Dear Church Family,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gave Himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

I’m praying for you.  May the Lord give His peace and comfort and encourage you with His protection and grace.

Your Elders have been daily monitoring the situation brought on by the Coronavirus.  After much consideration and prayer, and council from Pastors Randy Steele in Albuquerque and Henry Fernandez in Los Alamos, we have decided to cancel our worship services and Bible studies for the next 2 weeks.  It is our plan to reevaluate the situation at that time for what we will do in the future.  We want all of you to be safe and well, and do not want to unknowingly be the source of anyone being exposed to this virus (should it happen).  The President, as well as the authorities in the states of New Mexico and Colorado have requested we all refrain from meeting in groups larger than 10 people for a short period of time.  Your Elders have come to feel peace that this is a reasonable request and way that we can “do our part” to help keep people well.  This has been a hard decision because God calls us to worship Him and keep His day holy.  Part of that is our meeting together as a church family for worship and prayer and fellowship.  So, we value this above all other considerations.  But under these circumstances that could endanger the health of members (especially the young and the elderly) who could be particularly effected, we believe this is the better part of wisdom to abide by the authorities request.

Fortunately, we are not in the situation of the Apostle Peter and the other disciples who were commanded by the Jews to not preach Christ.  Fortunately, we are free to preach Christ and to worship God and continue to keep the Lord’s Day Holy.  We are working on the ability to put my sermon online.  We would encourage you to access it by going to www.ppcpcafarmington.org; there you will find a link to the morning message.  At least we can all listen to the same message and feel a connection with one another in that way.  We hope to have this available so you can click on the link to the message at 10:00am Sunday mornings and keep your routine of worship with your family (and church family).  Also, please utilize the prayer chain by sending prayer requests to prayer_request@ppcpcafarmington.org and then let us all make a real effort to pray for those needs on Sunday mornings and throughout the week.  If you are not on the prayer chain list, please send a message to subscribe@ppcpcafarmington.org with “subscribe” in the subject field or body of the email.  If this situation continues into the future, we may look into the possibility of having the whole morning service online in which you could participate in hymns and prayers and all the elements of the service.  We are not equipped for that yet, but will be looking into it.

For your further encouragement on the Lord’s Day, we are also sending you three options for connecting with good Reformed and Presbyterian Churches that are set up and able to live stream their services (and then made available as recordings). All the churches we are recommending are on Eastern Time (two hours ahead of us).  If you want to listen to them in real time, that will give you time to get everyone up and be able to watch and participate in the services before you listen to my message.   This will help us all to keep the Lord’s Day Holy.  The churches we will recommend are:

1) Tenth Presbyterian Church (PCA), Philadelphia, PA [link to web site live stream for Sunday: https://www.tenth.org/livestream] – worship is at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time = 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time

2) Second Presbyterian Church (PCA), Greenville, SC [link to web site live stream for Sunday: https://spcgreenville.org/livestream/] – worship is at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time = 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time

3) Christ Covenant Church (PCA), Matthews (Charlotte), NC [link to web site live stream for Sunday: https://christcovenant.org/livestream/] – worship service is at 10:45 a.m. Eastern Time = 8:45 a.m. Mountain Time

NOTE: The times above are when the services will be LIVE STREAMED, but they will be available to view as recorded services later in the day. Also note that Second Presbyterian and Christ Covenant have Facebook pages where you may watch recorded services.

Last Sunday we announced that we would like to have a congregational meeting after the service this Sunday.  That of course cannot now happen, but we would like to inform you of what we were wanting to introduce at that meeting.

Over the last year, the Elders and Deacons have been exploring options for our church facilities.  At the end of last year, we came to the conclusion that adding on to our existing facilities might not be the best plan economically.  So, the Deacons and Elders have been looking for and praying about other options for relocation.  An existing church has come on the market that the Elders and Deacons would like to encourage the congregation to prayerfully consider as an option.  We have included a website that you may go to and see the property and the buildings.  Please go to: https://www.flexmls.com/link.html?1irhx1g4ztxa,4,1,25207.  Please pray for God’s leading in considering this facility in the future.  We know that our God is sovereign and will give us what we need when we need it.  For now, we cannot have a traditional congregational meeting (which is in God’s providence).  So let us pray that if this is God’s will, He will make that clear to us in the future and work in the miraculous way that He can to bring about His perfect will.  And let us also pray that if it is not God’s will, we will recognize that.

Beloved, let us trust in God with all our hearts and remember that He is absolutely sovereign over all things.  He loves us and He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.    Trust that God has ordained all the things we are going through now and He has done so for His glorious purposes.  Remember Deuteronomy 29:29.  May His Kingdom come and His will be done.

In Christ,

Pastor Gary and the Elders