Role: Design Team
About: Coming Soon…
Role: Design Team, Administrator
About:
Betsy was born in Ohio and raised in Massachusetts with her three sisters. She is blessed with a wonderful fun-loving Christian family.
She was raised Episcopalian and then found a Vineyard church in Northampton, MA during graduate school, and she was hooked! Betsy met Curtis a year or two later, and they quickly fell in love and are now happily married. They live east of Albany and Betsy works as a school psychologist in Western Mass while finishing her doctorate in psychology.
Betsy and Curtis met John while attending the Latham Vineyard and really enjoyed attending his small group. They felt called to be a part of this church plant before he even asked, and they are excited to see what the future brings for this community!
Besides hanging out with family and friends, Betsy enjoys visual arts including drawing, painting, throwing pottery (on a wheel, not at other people), making jewelry and sports including running, biking, snowboarding, and DDR (dance dance revolution – which totally counts as a sport too.
Roles: Batch Hostess
Carolyn is a Welsh (NOT English) visitor to the US. She met Martin at Oxford while studying English Literature and married him in 1994. She trained as a librarian (shhh!) but has had various guises since – PA/fundraiser/conference organiser (and that was just one job) and most recently a technical writer. Now she is a stay at home mom (or mum) with 3 energetic children: Miriam (5), Beth (3) and Evan (10 months).
Carolyn loves to sing (even if only along with the Wonder Pets) and has been involved in leading worship one way or another for 16 years. She had the privilege of recording and performing live at a worship event with a swing band before leaving the UK and is excited to be involved in worship at the Distillery. The vision of the Distillery is the perfect next step on from her previous church community in Cambridge, UK and she is looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Carolyn is discovering the joy of knitting since taking it up while pregnant with Evan. She also enjoys scouring the Internet for curtain fabric for the new house. She is often to be found joining in reluctantly with whatever hair-brained X-Box game Martin has on the go and right now is acting out her secret ambition to be a drummer through the game Rock Band. She likes baking and making soup and is also looking forward to the days when the children will be big enough for a decent hike.
Role: Worship Pastor, Design Team
Role: Design Team, Financial Administrator
Role: Master of the Universe, Church Planter, God, Friend
Roles: Lead Pastor, Musician, Batch Host, Still (Gathering) Host, Discussion Leader, Design Team Coordinator
John made the choice to begin following Jesus back in 1982 at a Youth Retreat put on by a Nazarene Church in Houston, Texas. Shortly after joining the Air Force, he married Tammy in June of 1986 and they now have three children together (Ashley 20, Johnathon 19, James 17), and one Grandson (Vincent 1). Well, Ashley actually had the Grandson, they just watched. He Got his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas in 1995.
Most of his time in ministry after college involved leading worship and bringing the contemporary worship of the Vineyard to a few Nazarene churches in Texas, and Tennessee. Then in 2003 he began attending the Vineyard Church in Houston and served as the Youth Pastor for about 18 months. In the Summer of 2006 he moved his entire family out to Albany, New York from Houston, Texas, and there began immediately helping out at the Albany Vineyard in Latham, NY. Before long he was the Youth and Worship Pastor, a home group leader, the leader of deep healing ministries and was doing pre-marital counseling while at the same time participating in the Vineyard Leadership Institute (an Internet Correspondence Seminary Course). All of this while working full-time, and he couldn’t be happier.
Shortly after arriving in Albany though, God began talking to him about planting a church here that was a little bit different than other churches he had been involved with in the past. So in July of 2007 he stepped out on a limb of faith, leaving behind his job at the Vineyard, to plant an independent church along with about 10 faithful others who agreed with the vision of planting a different kind of church. He considers himself to be a student of life and prefers to spend his spare time reading and learning about spirituality, theology, and similar topics, but he is frequently and pleasantly interrupted by his wife and children where he tends to devote most of his time. He is currently trying to make his way through The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a work of fiction by Stepehen R. Douglas that he frequently picks up and puts down. He is still a bi-vocational pastor and is currently employed full-time with Tennessee Gas Pipeline as an I.T. Coordinator for the Northeast Region.
Kevin started attending church in the early 80’s after the death of his father. His mother, seeking some stability and support brought Kevin with her to a Congregational church in Massachusetts. It was there, as a teenager that his relationship with Jesus began.
Although Kevin found some reassurance in his faith; by no means did it seem to be enough. Struggling with weight and self-esteem issues, he often found it difficult to press on through those difficult years. Nevertheless, God brought Kevin through! He attended college, in Western New York, where he met Linda, the wonderful woman who was to become his wife,. In 1993 they married and began life together!
Although both were “Christians” they did not attend a faith community early in their marriage - although drifting, God knew right where Kevin was! After moving to Maryland they found a church where they could connect and began serving and growing greatly.
In 1996 Kevin’s life took many dramatic turns! He and Linda found that they were going to have a baby (who upon further review was two)! Also Kevin had his first occurrence of optic neuritis. Although this resolved in early 1997, he experienced a reoccurrence one month prior to the arrival of their twin daughters. At this point Linda and Kevin celebrated God’s wonderful blessing while dealing with the reality that he had Multiple Sclerosis.
After adding one more daughter to the family in 1998, they journeyed back to New York in 2001. After attending several local churches, they joined together with the folks who comprise the Distillery. Kevin finds it freeing to struggle out his faith with a supportive group who extends the grace of God to himself and others - working actively with one another to understand, to the best of their ability, the Kingdom of God, both here now and some day, clearly revealed, in eternity!
Role: Children’s Pastor, Design Team
Linda grew up in a Christian home here in the capital region and became a follower of Jesus at an early age. More than eighteen years later, after attending a Christian college where she met and married her husband Kevin, she learned that her Christian heritage and biblical knowledge meant nothing until she had truly experienced God’s love and grace.
She and Kevin moved to the Baltimore area where she began her career as a medical technologist and began a family. In sixteen months time she had three daughters: twins Emily and Cassandra and then Hannah. After three years of three children in diapers and Kevin’s diagnosis with MS, they moved back north to this area and Linda began to work full-time.
Linda keeps busy with family and working as a medical technologist in a hospital lab. In her free time she enjoys movies, sudoku, reading and crocheting.
Roles: Associate Pastor, Design Team, Batch Host, Musician, Discussion Leader
Martin is an alien (in the US at least), having grown up in England. He has been trying to follow Jesus since 1982 and for the next 25 years he was involved in various Christian Unions and Church of England churches where he learned (and subsequently unlearned and relearned) a lot about what that means. In 1994 he married Carolyn in Oxford while studying for his doctorate (in Physical Chemistry) and their first two children Miriam (5) and Beth (3) were born in Cambridge (where Martin was not still studying but earning an honest wage). In 2007, Martin moved with two children and a pregnant wife to Albany New York to continue his work in a software development at a high-tech engineering company. A few months later, their son Evan (9m) was born.
While worshipping at the Albany Vineyard, Martin met John and caught his vision for planting a new church in Albany and is currently applying what he learned as a group leader in a big church in the UK to helping to form a new church in the US. As well as working full-time and contributing to designing this church, Martin enjoys music, reading, taking photographs and is currently reliving his rock-band-playing youth through the Guitar Hero games.
Roles: Batch Hostess, Still Hostess, Design Team
Tammy was born in Seattle, Washington – the youngest of three children. When she was 11 years-old her family made a move to Houston, Texas because of her Dad’s job. In 1985 she met John, and later married him. They have been married now for over 21 years, have three wonderful children and one grandson.
Her hobbies include scrap booking, pogo.com gaming, and exploring/recording her family history. One day, she hopes to go back to college and finish her degree in Health Sciences. Her favorite music is country and 80s stuff. She is currently watching Heroes the first season via DVD, and she is hooked. Obviously a Sci-fi fan, she also enjoys watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Battlestar Galactica.