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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Church Celebrates 100th

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
      Parishioners of First Baptist Church, Moriarty, believe reviewing the past includes focusing on the future.
    The church is celebrating 100 years of presence in the community on Friday at City Park with information booths, a snow cone machine and a jumping house for children.
    On Saturday members will review their congregation's history with a music, video and drama program that reviews the decades of change in the church, and the following day they will look to the future during a worship service, said Jeanette Maxwell, chairwoman of the centennial committee.
    In 1908 different denominations met using the same buildings in the Estancia Valley area, Maxwell said.
    “There were circuit-riding missionaries and pastors” who preached on alternating Sundays, Maxwell said.
    In 1917, W.S. Humble, a Baptist missionary, moved his nine-member parish from Pleasant Valley to Moriarty, Maxwell said.
    The parish has had 29 pastors since 1909 including the most recent, Senior Pastor Tom Schenk, who has preached at the church since November 2005.
    One focus of the church for the next two years will be youth outreach in the community, Maxwell said.
    First Baptist recently purchased the building across the street from their church near Circle K, Maxwell said.
    “It's called the Loft. It's been gutted and restructured. Our open house was Sunday. We have someone coming to be the youth pastor,” but Maxwell was unable to give that person's name.
    The youth center will have computers available and people to assist students with homework. It will also be a social center, according to Maxwell.
    Another focus for the church, along with their primary religious focus, will be offering a financial assistance class sometime this fall, Schenk said.
    “Living within your means and encouraging people to not live by credit cards. Giving them a road map to financial freedom,” Schenk said.
   

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