South Side Speaks

I wanted to share with you some really neat things that God is doing in our journey to plant and pastor a church in Pittsburgh:

1. South Side Speaks – This past week we decided on a name for our neighborhood group.  Let me remind you what our neighborhood group really is.  First of all, our neighborhood group is located at Bruegger’s Bagel on the corner of East Carson St. and 18th St. in South Side.  We meet at 7pm except when we will be conducting outreaches.  Those times we will more than likely meet at 6pm.  The purpose of this group is to serve and be a blessing to our community.  Our goal is not to try and invite or tell people about our church, but rather to serve people and do what we can to let them know that there are people out there who genuinely do care about them.  Our goal is to serve!  With that said, we decided to name our neighborhood group, “South Side Speaks”.  The thought behind this name is that we want to be a voice of Life and transformation in the South Side!  Through our serving, we can hopefully impact the community in such a way that the “voice” of South Side Speaks will deposit seeds and leave marks of God’s love all throughout our community.  We will be putting together a website for South Side Speaks very soon.  Be on the look out for it!
2. LifeStone Staff - God has answered some major prayers over the last two weeks in the area of our future staff at LifeStone Church.  We are thanking the Lord that He has allowed us to bring on board an Administrative Assistant and an Outreach Director.  More on these individuals and positions later.
3. Spiritual Breakthrough Retreat – This weekend Allison Park Church housed their amazing and transforming ministry called “Spiritual Breakthrough Retreat”.  This weekend brought over 90 people who were dealing with tough stuff that could be considered addictions, bondage to sin, destructive habits, relational abuse, bitterness, etc.  There were also people there who were just hungry for more of God and wanted to grow in their relationship with Him.  Jeff Leake’s teaching and coaching people through these areas was amazing.  The personal prayer moments with prayer leaders was tremendous too.  Breakthrough happened, chains were broken, clouds were lifted, hope was given, and Jesus transformed lives.  One thing I learned from this weekend was, we will need a breakthrough ministry like this at LifeStone Church.  In our South Side location, we will be ministering to people who have life-controlling issues, addictions, and habits.  We will be ministering to people who are trying to escape thier problems by running to South Side.  This is a community that does contain a lot of of these types of problems and I really believe that a spiritual breakthrough ministry similar to this would be an effective and life-changing ministry for people.  Stay tuned to see how this will surface in the structure of LifeStone Church.

All in all, God is really advancing our group and bringing awesome people to team up with us!  We are praying for more growth and more opportunities for ministry!  If you are interested in joining South Side Speaks, you can email me at jackt@allisonparkchurch.com or you can just comment on this blog!  We would love to get you plugged in!