| In 1988, our Senior Pastor Don
Schlichte, and several
other Great Commission Church of Albuquerque members who were living
in Rio Rancho, had a vision of starting a church here that would
meet the spiritual needs of the community. Rio West Community Church
began as the offspring of Mountain View Community Church in Albuquerque.
That summer plans were drawn up to start the church, and over a
four-week period 12,000 homes in Rio Rancho were contacted by phone
by an army of Great Commission Church of Albuquerque members. Those
homes whose residents were not currently attending church, and who
showed an interest in attending our first service, received a variety
of informative and invitational letters. Our first service took
place on October 16th, 1988 at Rio Rancho Elementary School, with
over sixty people in attendance.
Mountain View Community Church merged with RWCC in October 1993,
and its pastor, David Megill, became co-pastor with Don Schlichte.
Reinaldo García was recognized as a third pastor in
January 1994, and Andy Sánchez and Marty Scharfglass were
recognized as pastors in April 2000.
With God’s blessing, RWCC moved into their current
building in January 2002. Over the next few years, by God’s amazing grace RWCC
continued to grow, and in 2006 Ben Johnson was ordained a pastor.
On September 21st, 2008, with much prayer, God’s direction and blessing, RWCC sent Pastors
David Megill and Andy Sánchez, along with 60 fellow RWCC believers, to become a new
church plant called LifeSong.
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Purpose Statement
