Lifestone Church Blog

This past Saturday was an amazing day!  LifeStone Church hosted the first annual South Side Easter Egg Hunt called, “The Big Hunt”.  They day started off at 10am for most of us with the set up of the entire event.  There was a lot to set up with food stations, sound system, games, craft tables, face painting table, prize table, registration, and of course a bunch of decoration!  We were blessed to be able to use the Armstrong Field in South Side.  This was a perfect location for this event!  the event started around 1pm, but by 12:30pm, there were already lines forming outside of the fence of the park!  It was a great site to see!  Everyone was so excited and so patient as we kicked off right at 1pm.  Parents and excited children began to file into the field where they had their choice of so many different activities.  The food line was long most of the day (go figure…lol).  But it seemed as if everyone was having an awesome time!  The weather was perfect and to top it off, Rita’s donated 5 gallons of italian ice to us.  People loved it!  Right at 2pm, people started to navigate over to the section of the field where all 7,000 of the Easter eggs were located.  As soon as we said “GO”  300 kids went crazy!  It was an amazing site!  Once they had filled their bags, they went over to the prize table to collect their candy and prizes they won.  Each egg had a number in it and that number represented a type of candy or prize they could redeem.  After they got their prizes, most people began to head home or at least leave the field.  We finished up right at 3pm and began to tear down what was one of the best if the best day LifeStone Church has had up to this point!
We want to thank all of the parents/grandparents/guardians, etc. who brought their kids to The Big Hunt!  We hope you had an amazing time and will always remember that there is a church that truly cares about you and your life!  This opportunity to host an Easter Egg hunt was not about us, it was about the families!  We did this so the families and kids of the community could have a connection point with each other and to help bring the sense of community back to South Side!

Next Up:  Our fourth monthly service on April 18th. YOU ARE INVITED!!!

WHERE: American Serbian Club (2523 Sarah St.)

WHEN: Sunday mornings @ 10:30am

WHO: YOU and EVERYONE you know!

Below are some pictures of the day!

As many of you know, we have recently finalized our search for a building to host our Sunday morning worship gatherings in (Thank you Jesus!).  We are so thankful that God has opened this door and are so excited about the future of LifeStone Church in Pittsburgh!

During this process of working with the great people of the ASC, there is one slight adjustment that we are going to have to make.  Most of you know that our launch date has been schedule for May 16, 2010, right?  Well, the ASC previously scheduled an event on May 16, 2010 that is unchangeable and Memorial Day is the following weekend.  So that means that the earliest we can launch into our weekly services is June 6, 2010.  In fact, that is precisely what we have done.  OUR NEW LAUNCH DATE IS JUNE 6, 2010! Please spread the word to as many people as you can that LifeStone Church will not be launching on May 16 anymore.  Rather we will be launching our weekly services on June 6.

PLEASE CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR AN UPDATED LIST OF EVENTS.

We are so pumped!  “God is building His church and the gates of Hell will NOT prevail”!

GREAT NEWS EVERYONE! LifeStone Church has found a place to meet for our weekly services!  This facility will be a perfect location for us.  It has everything we need to offer relevant and life-giving services on Sunday mornings:

• A large space for KidsLife to meet (separate spaces for elementary, and for pre-k/babies).
• A large meeting space that seats up to 300 for the weekly LSC worship gatherings (built in stage, chairs, and tables).
• A large amount of off-street parking.
• The facility lay out is set up perfectly for a church.
• The facility is in a great location in the community (located on Sarah Street in between 25th and 26th streets).  This location is in the residential part of South Side and is also several blocks away from the South Side Works (the Works is where most of the expansion and growth of South Side is happening)!
• The management of the ASC are amazing people!  Vince, who is the manager of the club, is already becoming a friend of mine!  I am so thankful for the awesome relationships God is starting to develop!

Now that we have a home in our community, we can start to move forward with designing promotional materials for upcoming preview services and our Grand Opening!  So many doors have begun to open because this piece of the puzzle is in place now.  God is so faithful!  A HUGE Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us in our search!

This Sunday is LSC’s second monthly service and we couldn’t be more excited about it!  It is going to be an amazing service!  We have everything available for you and your family if you choose to worship with us.  We even have an awesome kids ministry called “KidsLife”.  Any child ages five and under will be taken care of and taught from God’s Word in a relevant way!   If you are reading this blog, consider yourself PERSONALLY INVITED to our service.  Below is the information that will help you get there:

Location: 2201 Duncan Avenue, Allison Park, PA 15101

Time: 10:30am

Date: This Sunday, February 21

If you have any questions regarding who we are as a church, please visit our church website at www.lifestonechurch.com.

Look forward to seeing you Sunday!

Next Sunday, January 3rd is going to be a monumental time for LifeStone Church!  On this Date, South Side Speaks (our outreach group) will make the big transition into the LifeStone Launch Team!  This is a major thing because our team will go from just doing outreach, to also forming the structure, ministries, teams, and foundation of LifeStone.  This team will hit the ground running very soon to start living out our community focus, “Bridging All Cultures to the Cross”. Also on January 3rd, we will be introducing all of our staff for the first time and all of our team leaders.  Each staff and team leader will be giving a full description of their ministry and how it will assist LifeStone Church in “Bridging All Cultures to the Cross”!  It should be a great night!  Below is a list of all church staff and team leaders we will be introducing on that night:

LifeStone Staff

• Associate Pastor
• Worship Leader
• Administrative Assistant
• KidsLife Director
• KidsLife Pre-K/Babies Director
• Media Director
• Assimilation Director
• Outreach Director
• LifeGroups Director (Future Ministry)
• Student Ministries Pastor (Future Ministry)

Team Leaders

• Guest Services Director
• Lead Service Host (Ushers)
• Lead Greeter
• Lead Security
• Cafe Hosts
• Sign Team Director
• Set-up/Tear Down Director

Each of these staff members and team leaders are in place, committed, and already planning/building their ministries and teams!  I have been praying for the last two years that God would assemble a FULL team and staff to launch and build the church!  People thought I was crazy to believe for this!  Well guess what???  He did it!  As I mentioned earlier, this team will be introduced on January 3rd and the LifeStone Launch Team will officially begin!  I am so proud of each of these people and thankful for their servants hearts!  We have the best staff and team in the entire world and I am honored that we get to assist and cooperate with Holy Spirt to build LifeStone Church together!  Please keep our team in your prayers as we are “Bridging All Cultures to the Cross”!

Well, very soon LifeStone Church will be launching its website.  For the last several years, this blog has served as the online presence of LifeStone Church, but was never meant to become the actual website for LifeStone Church.  This was an avenue to inform and present what God is doing to the online world.  We will be transitioning in just a few weeks to a Launch Team that will launch LifeStone Church on May 16, 2010!  How exciting.  At that time, www.lifestonechurch.org will be directed to our main website, www.lifestonechurch.com.  So now you might be wondering what happens to this blog.  Well this blog will turn into www.lifestoneblog.com.  It will remain a blog for the LifeStone staff to write, update, and share thoughts.  I encourage you to continue to visit this blog although its purpose and structure will change a bit.  We will also have it linked to our websites main page so you can access it from there also if you wish!

This change will happen sometime just after the first of the year!  Thanks for all of the support and encouragement!

Here are some pictures of the most recent outreach we did in South Side.  The South Side Chamber of Commerce asked us if we would help organize this awesome community wide event!  South Side Speaks was able to connect with so many people and families during this event!  We were specifically in charge of all of the kids festivities: cookie decorating, ornament decorating, and even face painting.  We had 34 people from our team there serving in any way we could along with set up and tear down.  We hope we were a blessing to the chamber and the community and are looking forward to next year’s Light Up Night already!!!  Just a huge shout out and thank you to the Chamber of Commerce for inviting us to be a part of this great night!  THANK YOU!

A BIG THANK YOU TO KIMBERLY FLEEGER FROM SOUTH SIDE SPEAKS WHO TOOK THESE PHOTOS!

Just recently the Church Multiplication Network highlighted LifeStone Church’s newest “Community Focus Video” on their website.  What a great way to let people all around the globe know what God is doing in the community of South Side in Pittsburgh, PA!  Check out the post here.  Thanks for spreading the vision all of my friends at the Church Multiplication Network!

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!

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!

Jack & Jamie Thomas from Church Multiplication on Vimeo.