To say that we have it all figured out as to what the future of The Distillery looks like is a little bit like telling you we know what the weather will be next month.  However, we are closer to a schedule and structure than we have ever been.  So let me lay out for you how that looks at this time.  Remember that since a church is made of people, we are likely to change this up tomorrow.  A safe bet is always to just contact us and we will let you know what is going on.  If we change things we will be sure to post those changes up here as soon as possible.  

You can contact us by calling our phone number, (518) 772-5706 and leaving a message.  We get an email whenever you leave us a message and we will respond promptly.  Likewise, you can just email us at inquire[at]thedistillerychurch[dot]org.  We promise to get back to you soon.

So, below is the schedule begining in June 2012. The constants are the 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month. Every month we will have potluck on the first Friday, then 9 days later on a Sunday we have The Gathering.  Then the following Friday (3rd friday) we have a prayer meeting, and then 9 days later The Gathering:

So as you may know, The Distillery Church based in Albany, NY is going on the road and will be making stops in suburbs near you soon.  We have decided as a community to allow our lease to expire at the end of May and not renew it at 67 Watervliet Ave, and it would appear to the untrained eye that EVERYTHING is changing for us.

We are discussing things at present in regards to where and how often we will be meeting as an official church open to the public.  We will announce before June when and where those public gatherings will take place.  In the in between times we will be getting together as friends and community members in more informal ways.

Now that does not mean that these informal gatherings are NOT public or open to the public, but what it means is that you will have to come and join us first on a Sunday that we meet publicly in order to find out about our other informal gatherings, or if you know one of us, just ask.

Sounds like a big mystery I know.  Like some kind of secret cult?   Naah.  We just are tired of doing the whole church maketing thing.  We have decided to just quit trying.  If people want to join us and participate in the crazy things we are doing, they will find us, because we are not hiding.

But for those folks that need an ad campaign and some flashy marketing and maybe a clown or two and a block party and a promise of excellent programming and elaborate rock-style worship bands, fireworks and laser-light shows to get you to go to our church, well you will probably not like our church anyway, so we won't be doing any of that.  :)

However, if you are interested in your children being part of a community of folks who care about them and who bother to talk to them, and include them in worship and communion then you should come hang out with us.

If you are interested in your teenagers making life-long trusted adult friends and having a place to share their troubles and successes, then you should really check us out.

If you are tired of being told you are wrong when it comes to your ideas about God, and you think you have a few good ideas about spiritual matters that you would like to share with folks who are genuinely interested, then maybe you should come to one of our gatherings.

We don't claim to be revolutionary or really any better than any other church out there.  We just claim to like what it is we are doing and the way we are doing it.  It works for us, God doesn't seem to mind, and we think others might enjoy it as well.

So, keep an eye here for our scheduled gatherings in June.  We look forward to our first official home gathering, and we hope to see you soon.

So, as some of you may know the business office of The Distillery was shut down due to a fire that threatened to destroy everything.  The Albany Fire Department was able to stop the fire before it actually burned anything in the office (which also happens to be copastors John and Tammy's home), however there was still a significant amount of smoke damage and some water damage, thus forcing the city to turn of the power and gas and evacuate the premises.

So the distillery web site has been replaced with this.  Likewise, the church site might stay here on posterous even once the server is back online.  Here are a few reasons,  As the site administrator it is nice to not have to keep the server up and running.  Posterous seems to be more community based as a web application as well.

So we are going to give this a try and hope for the best.  So with all of the changes comes the news that we too are changing.  The church, I mean.  After several good conversations we as a community have unanimously decided to let the lease on the building go at the end of our contract in May.  That means that the Distillery will no longer have a single physical home, but many.

We decided to begin meeting in homes in May.  So far we have discussed going to two public gatherings a month, each one hosted by a different copastor's family.  These two meetings will be published on the site here for all to join with us.

As far as the rest of the month, the in between weeks, we will have several private gatherings in homes, restaurants, campsites, parks, and everywhere in between.  These meetings will not be published on our site and are for folks that are participating with us regularly, their friends and family and anyone else we choose to invite.

So there you go.  We will of course offer more on the site here once we know more, but look here to see our meeting times and dates for May soon.  We are all very excited about theopportinities that this new format will present for each of us and all of us and look forward to meeting a few new people along the way.  If you are interested in participating with us in any of our adventures together, please contact us via the website.  We are very responsive to the site and to emails and other correspondence.  Until we see you, take care and God bless.