Living the Simple Life

I am excited to announce to the public for the first time, that South Side Speaks is moving FROM Bruegger’s Bagel Shop on Thursday nights at 7pm TO The Brashear Association on Wednesday nights at 7pm (Directions Here).  This is a huge answer to prayer because our former venue at Bruegger’s was getting way too tight and it was hard to host a productive meeting in this tiny shop.  So God has opened this door for us and I can’t tell you how excited I am about it.  I feel like this is more than just a new venue, it is a representation of what God is about to do.  This new venue is a banquet hall that seats up to 100 people.  Everything we could need is already there and we have reserved it every Wednesday night from 7pm – 10pm.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the best part.  We have been allowed to use this banquet hall FREE OF CHARGE! God has literlally given us this amazing venue and it has everything that we prayed our new venue would have!!!  So excited!

This is a season during our process in planting LifeStone Church where many opportunities are coming our way.  We are so grateful for these opportunities but can’t neglect the fact of how important they really are!  All we can do is trust in God that He is in control and leading the way!  Here are some opportunities that are currently in the mix:

1. Building Search – We are currently searching for the building God wants us to use as our home base.  This building will be used for Sunday/weekly services and hopefully (if available) office space.  We have scratched our heads for sometime with this issue and a building has recently surfaced as a prime A target venue.  I won’t go into the details of this situation quite yet, but I will say this, we have met with the owner and we have a very good idea of cost, etc.  The owner is such a great guy and really has connected well with us.  This relationship has become very important to us because this owner has undergone some recent difficult family and health situations.  Our hope is that we can be a support to him through this time, and if this is the building God wants us to attain, He will make it happen as a result of relationship, trust, and partnership.  We actually had a chance to pray with this owner during a meeting!  Please pray for financial favor and provision.  If we are going to get this building, we will need God to make it happen!!!
2. Worship Leader – This week will have a very special guest with us.  He is coming from out of state to participate in an informal interview for the position of the main worship leader for LifeStone Church.  This is a very big week in this respect because Jamie and I have been praying about staff ever since we felt the call to plant this church about two years ago.  God is providing a tremendous staff already with the Associate Pastor, Outreach Pastor, Administrative Assistant, and Media Director already on board and ready to plant this church!  This position is a very big one as you might guess.  The worship leader will not only lead worship in our main services, but this person will build a worship ministry from the ground up.  We have been praying for the right person that God desires to lead and build our worship ministry for some time now.  Again, for this very reason, this week is a very big week for us!  Please keep us in prayer as we go through this process!
3. South Side Speaks Venue – Our South Side Speaks group is the beginning group that will eventually plant LifeStone Church in May of next year.  Our whole goal right now is to serve our community and we are doing just that.  Since Jamie and I started leading this group of 4 in the beginning of August, the team has grown to over 40 people!  Since it is really difficult to get everyone’s schedules to all line up on one night, our Thursday night meeting consists of anywhere between 20-30 people, even though we represent over 40.  The reason I share those numbers with you is because our meeting place at a local bagel shop was great for 5-15 people, but when our team is either all there or even half there, we are busting at the seems.  We have been praying for a new location to meet in that will not only meet our current needs but also give us room to grow into in the future.  We have been actively searching for over a month now and it looks as if we have found a great potential spot.  The only problem with this location is that we would have to move our meeting night from Thursday to Wednesday.  This could be a positive thing or negative thing depending on the schedules of our faithful.  Please pray that this search will come to an end very soon and if this is it, may all the scheduling work out in a positive way for the entire team!
4. South Side Kids Fall Festival – This is the last major opportunity I will share with you at this time.  During our surveys in South Side several months ago, we found out that there is currently ZERO community and family events for the kids and parents.  Absolutely amazing!  Just picture us like Charlie dancing in the streets when he found out that he got a golden ticket to visit WIllie Wonka’s Chocalate Factory!  Because there are no events and current opportunities for families to connect, we have been given that “golden ticket” to begin to meet that need.  Hence, the South Side Kids Fall Festival.  We will be doing this event during the trick or treat hours in South Side on Halloween night.  We have teamed up with a local coffee shop whose owners are just fantastic people!  They have allowed us to use their property for this event.  We will be promoting throughout the entire community and hoping that the candy, hot cider, pumpkins, face painting, polaroid family pictures, cookies, and much more will draw the kids and parents are way.  Our goal is to connect with these individuals and let them know that there is a group of people in this community that care about them and want to provide a safe place for their kids.  This event is also a prelude to our big South Side Easter Egg Hunt/Festival the month before we launch!  Please pray for relational connections with families and kids from this area!

I just wanted to give you an update as to what God is up to and many of the cool opportunities God is bringing our way!  Keep praying for South Side and LifeStone Church.  We need more God and more opportunities!

Welcome GABRIEL LAFORGE THOMAS!

Gabe was born on Wednesday, October 7 at 10:53am at 8lbs. 3oz.  Jamie and I are so proud of him and are so excited for him to be a part of our family!  Our daughter couldn’t be more excited to have a baby brother.  Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during this new season of our life.  We a tremendous responsibility this little guy will be, but what a great reward he is too!  We are so blessed!

Here is a video of My pastor Jeff Leake sharing how the church planting movement began at Allison Park Church.  This really is a tremendous story! But you know what is even more tremendous?  Through Jeff’s obedience to the Lord, today there are eight churches planted from the revolutionary moment Jeff shares about and two more (LifeStone Church included) will be planted by the end of next year.  This vision he shares about, is currently in the making, God is changing lives, communities, and influencing the city of Pittsburgh for the Kingdom of God!  So cool!

Last night was an awesome night as we hit the streets of South Side with one mission in mind, to bless the homeless.  Our teams went out in the pouring rain, ready to go talk to people and hopefully meet some physical and spiritual needs.  Let me first say this, South Side has a very large homeless population and they are very evident.  Since South Side is flamboyant by nature, it draws thousands of people from all over the city every single weekend.  So needless to say, the homeless are drawn to this community because of the people, the money, and the opportunity.  But tonight, seemed to be a bit mellow because of the rain.  There weren’t as many homeless out and about because the rain was coming down pretty good.  Once the rain subsided later on, is when our groups began to connect with people who are living on the streets.

What an awesome, faith building, team building, seed planting, life changing, need meeting event this was!  We do have a lot of donated materials left over and feel God wants us to be repetitive with this event.  We want to build a foundation for our church that is about serving people and serving our community with no strings attached!  What a tremendous night it was to do just that!  I am so thankful for a wonderful team and an awesome staff that helps tremendously in spearheading these events and making them happen!  Go TEAM!

Tonight, we ran into a guy who was sleeping on a stoop.  His name was Tony.  Tony has seven kids that all live in the city and none of them want anything to do with him.  Tony could barely walk because he was sleeping in the same position for so long.  We were able to give Tony a bag full of snacks, a new stocking cap, a brand new jacket, a thick blanket, a couple sweaters, some soap, shampoo, and deodorant!  Tony was so grateful and so were we!  We were able to pray with Tony afterwards and encourage him that He is worth something to God.  Homeless people need to know they are special to God.  That God has not forgotten them.  They might feel worthless because of decisions they have made that have got them to the point in life they are at.  But they are worth more than GOLD, worth more than FAME, and worth His SACRIFICE! This is the word we want to share with them! (Luke 12:6-7)

If you would like to get involved in our homeless ministry, please contact us through the South Side Speaks contact page.  We would love to connect you with some great people!

While Jamie and I were at church planting boot camp several weeks ago, we were interviewed on our call to plant a church by the Church Multiplication Network. Here is the video. God is good!

I thought I would share an update as to what is happening in our neighborhood group in the South Side!  Well, I guess the more appropriate question would be, what ISN’T happening in our neighborhood group in the South Side?  We had our weekly meeting tonight that began with some teaching about prayer walking and the spiritual significance that it demands in starting a new journey in a certain location.  We then spent some quality time discussing our evaluation process of all of our outreaches.  Each outreach that we conduct will have a pre-evaluation and a post-evaluation.  The purpose of our evaluations are to give us an idea of what is actually happening in each event (strengths, weaknesses, etc.).  Then our goal is that each outreach will build on the previous one.  And we will be able to take something positive from each outreach and apply it to our later events.  We want to be productive and effective.  If we aren’t evaluating what is working and what is not working, then we will never grow as a team!  So, after  going through evaluations and discussing the goals for our next outreach, we shared testimonies and stories about how God is currently opening up doors through relationships and serving!  If I literally wanted to make this the longest post in the history of blogs, I would share them with you, but since that isn’t going to happen, I will just say that God is up to some huge things right now.  As things begin to happen and fully open up, I will share some of those victories, but for now, I will leave them up to your imagination.  Just pray for God’s favor upon our group and team and that God’s favor would lead us to man’s favor!  We finished the night out with some prayer requests for a building to hold our Sunday services in, a new venue to hold our Thursday gatherings in since we are officially growing out of the bagel shop, and a worship leader for services and a children’s director.  Immediately following our group meetings, we hit the streets of South Side and took the instructions and teaching on prayer walking with us.  We all split up into different directions and began to pray for a release of past sins and destructive seeds that were sown into this community over a long period of time!  We prayed for people we walked by and current needs such as addicitons, alcoholism, sexual immorality, abuse, spiritual depression, etc.  We also prayed for LifeStone Church and it’s future impact on this community.  We prayed for staff positions, we prayed for authentic relationships to flow naturally.  We prayed for vision to become a reality!!!  We prayed that we would be a key part of spiritual transformation in South Side.

That pretty much completed our night, at least I thought it did.  Our prayer group which consisted of my wife, my daughter, Ron, Fernando, and myself began to walk into a restaurant.  There was a homeless guy that was just down the street from this restaurant that we ended up passing by several times as we were praying.  I felt the Lord drawing me to him and I needed to talk to go back and talk to him.  So they all went in to get seated and I went back to talk to this guy and invite him to dinner with us.  He declined, but I got to talk with him, share Jesus with him , and then pray with him!  Great Stuff!  So, I went back to the restaurant and walked into the side room where they went to sit down and as soon as I walk through the doorway, our entire neighborhood group was there with a birthday cake singing happy birthday!  How awesome was that!  So shocked!  So surprised!  So honored!  That just proves my point when I say, we have the greatest team and we are so blessed to serve God and the South Side with them!  Needless to say, it was a great night!  But what Thursday night isn’t?  Honestly!!!

If you are interested in getting involved in South Side Speaks (the future LifeStone Church), please either email me or comment on my blog!  We would love to connect with you!  God has HUGE plans for South Side and it is already starting!  I’m telling you, get involved now, so you can be a part of this amazing journey from the very beginning!

My good friend Ron Lombardo has started a new blog and I have to say, I love his honesty, transparency, and passion for Jesus that comes out of his writing!  He is so authentic in his approach to his relationship with God and you can feel it just jumping off the computer screen.  God is currently doing some tremendous things through Ron, and I’m sure you will be encouraged, blessed, and filled as you encounter his experiences and teaching.

Not only do you need to read his blog regularly, but you need to share it with others!  He’s also on twitter and Facebook too!

It is hard to believe that today was our last full day of boot camp here in Illinois!  We have made some fantastic friends and can’t wait to see what God is going to do through them in their new churches in the coming year.  Today was cool because Jamie and I were interviewed by the Church Multiplication Network on our story.  It was the first time we had been interviewed on film during this process so needless to say, we were so thankful that the CMN would take the time to do this and put our story out there.

So, what did we learn today???  That is the question.  Well today we had the privledge to hear Steve Pike speak on finances and raising money.  Steve is the National Director of the Church Multiplication Network.  I was highly impressed by the content of today’s financial discussion.  We got some good ideas about raising money and were told about some awesome resources that are available to us because we are planting a church!  Good news there!  But if I had to say I learned something today, here it is.  We have so much to do to get ready for our launch that it’s not even funny! I’m serious guys!  Some material we went through today, showed us that we still have numerous things that must be accomplished, dealt with, and worked on before we could even think about launching.  Good thing we aren’t launching until the Spring of next year.  Don’t get me wrong, we are making great progress and are right on track to a sucessfull and large launch, but we still have a lot to do in preparation.  One area I am so thankful for is the blessing of a staff that we can team up with to accomplish most of this necessary stuff.  If I had to do this stuff alone, there is no question that not only would I be overwhelmed, but I would be finished.  I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own.  We need a team and a team that loves Jesus!  We need a team that is called for such a time as this to lead this church in South Side!  And guess what???  We have one.  God is adding to our team and He is adding the RIGHT people who are in the RIGHT positions on this team.  I am so excited to connect with my team and start talking about how we can accomplish some great things for God in preparing for our Spring launch!

Even though we have a lot to do to get us ready, we know that we serve a God who’s sole priority is to propel us into Kingdom success!  As long as our trust and focus is on Him, He will provide, encourage, and take care of us.  He will mesh every detail together and will build His church!  How exciting is that!?!?!  Tomorrow morning will be our last moments here and then it is off to St. Louis for a weekend with my family.  Very excited about that!

I will finish my Boot Camp series tomorrow night at some point!  I hope you have been blessed by my thoughts and our experiences over the last week.  If you are called to plant a church, then consider some of the things in this series and go to God for clarity, direction and understaning on your call!  As you step to Him, He will step to you!  Don’t ever forget that!

Now that we are officially over the half way point in the boot camp, we are really excited to start implementing some new things into the foundation of our church and the team God is building.  We have learned a lot over the last several days, but today was such a great day as we  went through the question, “Who will do it with me?” This question, talking about people joining our journey to plant a church, was a question that we really could identify with as we are currently in this process of building relationships as we build a team!  Here are a couple of things that as a team we will begin to focus on as soon as we get back:

1. Team building Activities- First of all, let me say this!!!!  We have the best team in the world right now!  These guys are great and we are so blessed to have each one of them!  They are doing great things for the Kingdom of God right now and I am honored to say that I am their friend, pastor, and co-laborer in Christ!  You guys are awesome!  Okay, with that said, we are on the right track with giving our team opportunities to grow as a family.  For example, last Friday we had the team over to our house for some chill time, fun, and food.  It was a great opportunity to get to know everyone a little better and have a fun time.  We drank coffee, ate some good food, played Mafia, Taboo, and even watched the Cardinals whoop the Pirates (oh, how sweet that was).  But we want to take this a step further.  By giving our team opportunities to grow as a team through activities and exercises is just as important as fun and chill time.  Take some time to get your team together and begin to participate in certain activities that will be team building and growing.  Our whole agenda is to develop and build leaders.  We don’t want to create more volunteers.  Rather, we want more people to grab a hold of the steering wheel of this car and help us drive it.  We are looking forward to some awesome team building moments over the next several months.
2. A Community Focus – The next thing that is an obvious question we need to ask ourselves is, “How will we do it?”.  We spent some quality time today thinking about and writing down all of the different needs represented in our community, who we are called to reach, how we will meet the needs, and who we will partner with to accomplish those needs.  As you identify the WHAT in your community and the HOW you are going to reach them, you can begin to formulate the ultimate vision you have for your church and community.  I have felt that identifying our vision as our “community focus” is what we need to do.  I feel that as we begin to share with people what God is up to, I feel that “community focus” will give people more of an idea what we are all about, rather than a “vision”.  Don’t get me wrong, it is the exact same thing, just different terminology.  It seems that church people and Christians might understand what “a vision” is, but if you told an unchurched person, “Hey bro, do you want to hear our vision for the community?” This person might get confused on what this really means.  Although a “community focus” tells people right off the bat what you are talking about.  Obviously, you are about to share what your specific focus for the community is.  In other words, this identifies THE WHO are you reaching, THE HOW you are going to reach them, and THE WHAT will be the result!

Hey Church Planters!!!!!  This is good stuff isn’t it??

If you are planting a church or will be at some point, REMEMBER THIS!!!!! You need to hear from God what He has called you to do in your community!  This is not the time to “copy and paste”.  You need find the needs, meet some people, meet those needs, establish a community focus, establish your mission (how you will accomplish your vision), and then filter all of these things through your core values.  Find out what is specifically important to you as a church in terms of who you will become.  What do you value???

It was a great day!  I believe we will be talking about finances tomorrow so you will need to tune in tomorrow evening for some more good stuff!

We watched this video in boot camp today!  Such a great visual of what the reality is today.  “we don’t find the news, the news now finds us…” Do you think social media is a fad?  Well, this video might change your mind!

Today was our first full day at BootCamp and it was awesome!  We spent countless hours today doing different exercises that helped us answer some really important questions in the process of planting a church.  Our team is fantastic and we have already started to establish some relationships that I believe will go way beyond this week.  Thank the Lord for that!

God really has challenged me today in several ways!  I hope that if you are interested or praying about planting a church in the future, this could be of some encouragement to you.

First, one of the important things that I have been thinking about today is how has God wired me to be the best and most effective church planter/pastor that I can possibly be?  What are certain characteristics, personality traits, past experiences, and passions that when used for His glory, can help me plant and pastor a church?  So as I identified many of these things, I was presented a choice in my own mind.  I could either choose to wish I was more like other people in the church planting and ministry realm by thinking these certain areas of my life just aren’t good enough, or I could choose to be who God has created and designed me to be.  Of course, I have chosen to allow God to use me the way He has designed me to be and give my all to Him.  When you think about it, we all have to have this battle of the witts at some point in our lives, don’t we?  This is one of the first questions that you need to be able to identify and that is, WHO ARE YOU? When you can team that question up with WHAT DOES GOD WANT TO DO? You are on the right track to experiencing a journey like you would not believe!

Secondly, my passion for planting a church is doing nothing but growing!  My heart for Pittsburgh and it’s people is rapidly bounding in love and excitement for the things of God to be delivered to our community.  But one thing that has really been so very clear to my spirit over the last several days, is that as much as my heart is drawn towards this city, people and church, God’s heart for them is level after level above ours in terms of his love for this community!  And let me tell you, we absolutely LOVE THIS COMMUNITY AND CITY (That just shows you how much affection God has for his people)!  Don’t ever forget who has called you to plant a church, who has wired you for this time and season, who has prepared you for this calling and who will show up in a big way!  God’s will and purpose has more energy, strength, momentum, and power than any human force could every muster up.  His purpose for this work you are called to, is bigger than you could imagine, larger than you can see, deeper than you can sense, and wider than you could even possibly wrap your arms around!

Be encouraged that as much as you want to do God’s will in your life, He wants you to do it even more!  Has God called you?  Go plant that church!  Has God called you?  Go build that team!  Has God called you?  Go impact that community!  Has God called you?  Go make it happen and do it all for the glory of God!

Stay tuned for tomorrow nights post!  I am already excited to experience what God has for tomorrow!

You can now visit our neighborhood group online at www.southsidespeaks.com.  This will be a place that you can find updates on events, dates for outreaches, pictures, purpose, and ways to get connected! 

Please reference our wesbite to people you know that might want to get plugged in, get involved or just to get more information!  We are so excited to serve and be a voice of life and transformation in the community of South Side!