Saturday morning setup

We have an amazing group of volunteers that setup and breakdown Foothills Toccoa Campus every week! The are rockstars in my mind! It is really incredible to see them go at it.... It is hard to imagine, but they have the entire gym transformed into an auditorium most times in less than 1 hour! The importance of this team of people can never be underestimated. They are literally creating God's house for us to worship in come Sunday morning. Week after week I am told by first time guests how impressive it is what we do to the inside of that gym....it is warm, welcoming, and looks like it is left up week after week. This is because our volunteers take such great care in what they do.....knowing that lives WILL be changed inside that room!

This week we have several people that will be out of town or unavailable to do setup as they usually do on Saturday morning. If you could spare an hour from 8am til 9am on Saturday morning to help setup our campus for Sunday....please email me at shannonchiles@foothillscc.org or just show up! This may be the second best hour of your week....second only to the Sunday morning experience at FCC Toccoa! We always have a good time setting up...you will do something extremely important, make some new friends, and probably laugh a whole lot!

Hope to see you there.

Shannon

Things coming up.....

It seems to be a very hectic time right now for some reason. It may be because we are starting so many new things in the coming weeks. Here is a list of important things and dates to remember.

Sunday, April 26 - Foothills Toccoa plays their first softball game! The game starts at 4:00pm and is at Shaver Rec Center in Seneca. Come cheer on the Toccoa team in "blue". Any team name ideas?

Sunday, April 26 - Praise Night/Lord's Supper/Baptism 6:00pm at the Seneca Campus! This is a entire church event combining both campuses! This is the first time we have done this! It is going to be exciting...plan to be there!! And if you are interested in being baptized and you haven't let me know......do so soon!

Monday, April 27 - Student Pastor Brian Rhodes will be having an informational meeting for those interested in volunteering in student ministries in Toccoa. Time and Place TBD....stay tuned.

Sunday, May 3 - Belong class at Toccoa Campus, 9:00am. If you are interested in what Foothills is all about and what we believe, plan to attend this class. This is a great class! It is offered monthly....but only occasionally is it offered on Sunday morning, usually they are Thursday nights.

Sunday, May 10 - Parent/Child Dedications. We do child dedications once a year. If you are interested in having you child dedicated, please email me the parents names, child's name, and a picture of the child.

Saturday, May 16 - Shine09. This is a day when the entire church goes out and does service projects to give back to our community! There will be a variety of projects to choose from, each lasting 3-4 hours. Last year we had 1000 people participate in Seneca.... I am expecting a turnout of at least 100 people from Toccoa for Shine!

Thats the next month in a nutshell.......mark your calendars. You don't want to miss any of this!

The mail system - lessons learned

I found out from several people in Toccoa, that they received their Easter letter from me with invite cards AFTER Easter! Obviously that was not planned. So, I went to Seneca today to talk with the administrative support staff to find out how this could have happened. It turns out that the letter and envelopes were printed on April 2 and taken to the Seneca post office to be mailed that same day. We have a bulk rate permit for mailing out of Seneca and that is how we have always mailed stuff. People in Seneca, Westminster, etc that have a 297xx zip code received their letters within a day or two from what I understand.... However, people with a 305xx zip code obviously did not.

When we talked to the post office to try to figure out why this happened we found out something interesting. Here is the travel itinerary that your letter took......if you live in Toccoa. Seneca, SC to Greenville, SC to Greensboro, NC to Columbia, SC to Toccoa, GA. Wow....that letter is more well travelled than some people I know! On top of that, because it is Bulk Rate mail....each of those locations have up to 3 days to process it! I had no idea. The office staff had no idea. So......chalk it up to a lesson learned. But rest assured, the letters weren't sent last minute, they didn't get left behind when the others got mailed..... The USPS just got us!

Multi-site church changes everything....... so many things change when you go multi-site that I can't begin to list them all....and there are some that I probably still don't know. It is interesting to look at other churches who are multi-site and realize that although most of the campuses are with in 30 minutes of the live campus....most are in the same state! Crossing statelines makes it extra interesting.....

Anyway....I am sorry everyone got their letters late....we will try not to repeat that mistake.

Shannon

Vision, vision, vision

I just wanted to give a HUGE shout out and thanks to all the volunteers at Foothills Toccoa! We have so many dedicated people who work tirelessly week in and week out so that the gospel can be accessible to the unchurched people of Stephens County. What is so impressive is that when you assemble any group of people from many different backgrounds, you will have just as many (if not more) different opinions of how things should be done. However, we have seen time and time again people swallow pride, put aside personal agendas, and continue on with one goal. To reach those who are not in church. This means grabbing PASSIONATELY onto the vision and standing by the leadership even when they don't necessarily agree. Craig Groeschel says "If you want to reach those who no one else is reaching, you have to do what no one else is doing." You know what we are comfortable with? What we have already done....that's what we know and what we are comfortable with. Doing something different causes discomfort.....so, doing what no one else is doing is going to be uncomfortable! That is all there is to it! Our desire should ALWAYS be to be willing to sacrifice MY comfort for the benefit of someone elses eternity....if you don't get that, you don't get the VISION of Foothills Community Church.

Vision works....selflessness works.....FCC Toccoa had it's most incredible week EVER this past Easter Sunday. If spiritual decisions are the measuring stick by which we measure if what we are doing is on track (and I believe it should be)...then this Sunday told us we hit the mark. This past week we had more spiritual decisions than in any other Sunday since we launched the campus last September. 3 first time salvations! 7 recommittments to Christ! 6 baptism requests! That is almost as many in one Sunday as we have had cummulative since we launched!

We are just starting to hit our stride....I think God is getting ready to open the flood gates and we are just beginning to see what God is going to do.

Hang in there. Stay focused on the vision. Give God ALL the glory.

Shannon