New Mexico Ministry Project
	Sierra Blanca Presbytery
		505-623-6235

How does the church get "Good News" to the frontier?  That question has long been a discussion topic in Presbyterian missiology.  Today that frontier has changed.  And the question is how to get Good News, and pastoral services, to small and rural congregations, to racial-ethnic congregations and communities, to distressed communities on the Great Plains where the population is emptying, to new church development opportunities in the diverse and dynamic barrios of the border.

Presbyterians in Sierra Blanca looked to their history for an answer to that, and recalled the "Sunday School Missionaries", many of whom were lay preachers, who began congregations throughout the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico. Something like that is underway with the New Mexico Ministry Project - a joint effort of Sierra Blanca and Santa Fe Presbyteries.

With a grant from the Garrett Fund, from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Presbytery is beginning training programs and classes for Commissioned Lay Pastors to ride the new range, to serve the congregations "on the frontier" of the church's ability to minister. Newly-expanded duties granted to CLP's - through a recent change to the denomination's constitution - make this full-fledged and challenging work.

 

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