Brace yourself. Fall is coming.

I love Fall.

It brings gorgeous colors, an excuse to drink excessive amounts of coffee, late nights and good movies, time spent with friends in the brisk air, and plenty of time to reflect.

So let's break that down, shall we? If you want:

Gorgeous Colors: 

Head over to the Gallery page for some maybe not quite so gorgeous new graphics we've had at The Stone Church. Wonder why we have such an assortment of strange pictures there? Me too.

Most of them are from various sermon series, some are announcements we've made, print items we've used or, finally, segments we've used on a Sunday morning.

---

An Excuse to Drink Excessive Amounts of Coffee: 

Check out our Free Coffee Fridays where we will be giving away free, organic, shade-grown, Georgia roasted coffee to our friends and neighbors that are driving by The Stone Church on their way to work, school, or elsewhere (hopefully not the coffee shop).

---

Late Nights and Good Movies: 

We are providing Mission Road Elementary School with a Screen on the Green movie event! It's a great way to serve our community and provide a free, family-friendly night out. (But you can't come. Unless you attend Mission Road Elementary. Which you don't.)

And if you read my last post (you didn't, I know) you'll be happy to know that we are not going to be showing Frozen! My vote is for The Lego Movie because Everything is Awesome! Everything is great when you're part of a team!

---

Time Spent with Friends in the Brisk Air:

 Come to our Fall Festival on November 15th from 1-3pm. We'll have some food, games, fun, and (hopefully) some live music!

---

Time to Reflect:

I can't help you there. I'm too busy reflecting on the fact that I'm going to become a dad (again) any day now. Or potentially any minute. *breathing into paper bag*

I may pass out soon from anxiety and waiting. You can reflect on that.

Blogging? Ain't nobody got time fo' that!

I blog? O, yeah I forgot...

I think more and more of my brain-power (which is limited as it is) has been diverted towards October 10th, the due date of my son. This leaves me with less and less brain-power to use for everything else: things like graphics, videos, and presentations for The Stone Church, podcasts and website updates.... brushing my teeth... breathing... blogging.

So with what limited power-of-mind I have left, I bring you news from The Stone Church!

.

Things are progressing nicely here at The Stone Church as we are firmly along in our first year of existence.

We have launched our Middle and High School student ministry and named it SALT. It is being led by some great guys (Mike Culver and Shane Harper). It meets every 2nd and 4th Sunday night @ 6:30pm up at the church and has huge potential and a great group of kids!

.

We have added some cool features to our website (thestonechurch.tv) like a MEDIA tab, where you can see all of our videos, podcasts, pictures, et cetera all in one place. It's still under construction, but it'll just get better (hopefully) as we go along.

media on thestonechurch.tv

.

In October we'll also be hosting a Screen on the Green for the Mission Road Elementary school to help them offer some fun, free things for the kids!

No word on what the movie we'll be showing yet... but please, please let it be something besides Frozen. 

Not that I dislike Frozen... it's just everywhere. 

"Sounds like you need to Let It Go, man." 

GAH!

The Height of Summer

So, what's been happening this summer?

While everyone else has been busy doing their own fun summer stuff, at The Stone Church we've been quite busy, as well:

We had a very successful Picnic at the Park where we were able to hang out and spit some watermelon seeds.

We hosted a Backyard Bible Club that gave the kids in our community a chance to have some fun.

We're taking our middle and high schoolers to a Rome Braves Game...

And then to Tube the Etowa River.

We've overcome a blown-out soundboard (and all the frustration and setbacks that come with that), are doing another Workday to continue to improve our facility, and have met some wonderful people that are now regulars on Sunday morning.

Wow, when you put it all in a list like that it looks like quite a summer.

I can't wait to see what our Fall Calendar looks like.

Burnout

It's the worst thing that could happen.

Okay, not the worst thing that could happen, but when it happens to me it feels like it's the worst thing that could happen.

The worst part is that you never know when it will happen, but you do know that it will happen at some point. And when it does happen you never know how long it will last.. will it be an hour, a day... forever?

That's right, I'm talking about burnout.

The dreaded killer of creativity, the squasher of motivation, the fog that makes a home in your brain and reminds you that everything is awful and that you need to work really hard to make things better but doesn't allow you the space to figure out what needs to be done.

When I start something new, whether that be a new job, a home-improvement project, or whatever, I have the best intentions of the way things should turn out and how long it will take to get there. Spoiler Alert: It always takes 40 times as long as I think it should. And that causes me to burn out.

When I begin new design for an upcoming message series, or start helping to work out the logistics to the next big event, or something else entirely, I tend to start off feeling like this:

But then burnout sets in and after days of trudging through difficulty I feel much more like this:

All I need is a good breakthrough to relieve me of my burnout. And it always happens, but it feels like it'll never come when you're in the middle of it. 

Need some surefire ways to defeat burnout?

1) Drink more coffee (preferably from a french press)
2) Social interaction (not too much for us introverts, just enough to make sure we aren't labeled as hermits)
3) Dress up like Batman and roll around the room on a wheely chair.

---

And now for something completely different:

A Note of Thanks:

Thank you to everyone who has been so generous with us. We are incredibly blessed to be here and to be able to do what we do, working at this church and putting our time towards it's growth and health. Everyday it seems like we are shocked and awed by someone's generosity; by their support and their words of encouragement.

And also a big thanks to my brother Nick for turning me on to "The Ordinary Adventures of Batman". It has helped to rid me of my burnout.

...but, I'm still going to roll around in my wheely chair... just in case.

Summertime

The season doesn't officially start for a couple more weeks and yet it already feels like summer. Everyone is out of school, the weather is hot and (mostly) sunny...

Here's some cool things that have already happened this (not-quite-yet) summer...

Top 5 best things about this summer (so far...)

5. The sun has officially banished the last remaining dredges of Seasonal Affective Disorder (appropriately abbreviated S.A.D.)

4. The gardens are growing and the farmer's markets are opening! Which means ridiculously good produce for cheap.

Fenwick the Gnome guarding the Mint and Oregano in our garden.

3. The summer blockbusters have started playing at the theaters (which seem to be dominated by Marvel this year... something I am not complaining about).

2. Along the lines of #3... certain theaters have already started to play kids movies for free (and will continue to do so all through the summer)!

1. Cookouts, picnics, and summer food in abundance!

The Stone Church's Picnic at the Park happening this June.

---

It has also been an exceptional (not-quite-yet) summer for me because we found out we're having a baby boy this October!

Which means it's the last summer this little one has 100% of my time...

...better make it count!

New Graphics

It's been a while since I've posted about any new graphics I've been able to make for The Stone Church, and since you all really care about what I do-

We really don't care.

Then why are you here?

We were told there'd be cake...

You were lied to. 

 Anyway, here are some of the things we've been up to lately!

Our new series, "Rooted"
You can check out our podcast on iTunes.
That is, when the battery in our mic doesn't die and we're able to record our messages.
Hey, we're learning, right?

Something fun for the summer that we're doing with everyone at The Stone Church, or for whoever want's to show up, eat some watermelon, and play some games.

A new invite card for people to give out. On the back there is a space to write names and contact info so the people being invited can have someone to call with questions.

 All these (and more) graphics are in the Gallery page, in case you ever want to go peruse. Why you'd want to do that I have no idea... but it's there all the same.

Little Ways

Serve
/sərv/ - verb

1. a Church-inese word (much like the word struggling) that can sometimes lose it's meaning when used too often in conversation to describe actions not actually pertaining to serving.

Serving should be highly associated with the church, it's what we're all about.

The Stone Church has said that it wants to be a serving church, which sounds nice... we should be a serving church. But how do we serve people? How can we go out of our way to make people's lives better?

Serving people can be done in huge ways, like opening a food pantry or homeless shelter, and in little ways, like letting someone over in traffic (without giving them the hawaiian-good-luck-sign)...

The Stone Church has made a little change that helps us to serve people... we're buying different coffee.

Seriously? Different coffee? Wow, what a servant....

Hey, I said we could serve in little ways, too.

And it may not seem like a big deal, but it is! We're now buying Fair-Trade coffee for Sunday morning.

Don't know much about Fair Trade? Here's a few reasons why it's super cool:

1. It ensures that the people growing the coffee beans get paid a fair price for their products (which means better health, schooling, and housing for the farmers and their communities)
2. It goes hand-in-hand with a sustainable approach to farming (which means the people who grow the beans get to use their land for a lot longer and the environment doesn't suffer from poor farming habits)
3. It helps to ensure a high quality product that is... well... just great.

I love being a part of a church that tries to even use coffee to help people.

Does this mean we've reached the pinnacle of serving? That we're not missing a single opportunity to serve people in our own community? That we're better than other churches who buy Kroger coffee or use creamer? NO!*

But, if we keep an attitude of serving and don't just look to help people thousands of miles away, but serve people outside our front doors, then we're on the right track, I think.

In the meantime, I don't think the our pens are very sustainable... I've heard that there's a company that makes these bamboo pens filled with naturally-gathered, organic ink from squids who vote democrat... I need to check that out...

---

Informative links:
Fair Trade USA
http://fairtradeusa.org

Cafe Campesino
www.cafecampesino.com

---

*Actually, we are better than people who drink their coffee with creamer... just sayin'...