Gilbert Thurston

Random Thoughts About Life, Ministry and Whatever Else Happens to be on my Mind

My head is spinning

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  • With everything going on and the weirdest “cold” I’ve ever had to top it off, I’m not quite sure if I’m coming or going.
  • Everything’s great at the new house, but it still feels like I’m living in someone else’s house or on vacation at one of our time shares.
  • It’s frustrating not knowing where light switches are or where to find a fork, or last night searching for at least 20 minutes looking for my cordless drill.
  • For 3+ weeks I tried to work with Comcast to get our TV and Internet package put together.  I made 4 phone calls and they couldn’t get it straight.  On the final phone call they had lost all my information but promised to call me back last Friday…as of this morning…nothing.
  • So yesterday, I decided to go with Embarq’s phone, satellite and Internet package.  One quick call and it will all be installed by tomorrow.  Hurray for Embarq….boooooooooooo….Comcast.
  • So much for Comcast being Comcastic….should be more like Stinktastic.
  • My talk on Contemporary Worship went well yesterday despite my voice still not being back to normal.
  • It’s not that my throat is sore…it’s something deep in my chest that’s keeping my voice from working properly.  However, other than a minor tightness in the chest, I feel fine…no hacking cough…no spitting up phlegm (I know you wanted to know that)…it’s weird.  Oh well I’m weird so why should this surprise me.
  • Finally got caught up on some shows we had missed…LOST was incredible!  Why are we even wasting our time with AI at this point when it’s so obvious that David Archuletta is going to win…I read this morning that the company that produces Idol is already having writers write music for his album.
  • Tonight is small group…it’s been great to hear all the stories that are coming in from groups and especially the leaders of groups about how awesome getting to know each other has been.
  • Just ran the spell checker and the suggestion for Comcastic was Communistic…just saying.

    • Inside Today’s Experience

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  • Woke up this morning for the first time in the new house only to discover that week’s of packing, the move itself, paint fumes and big in and out of the cold yesterday had rendered my voice almost completely useless.
  • No problem…not the first time it’s happened on a Sunday morning.
  • It’s amazing what prayer will do and trusting that God will provide a voice when I need it.
  • As usual He was able to take me from almost nothing to fairly clear, but a bit deeper.
  • The team was calling me Barry White but I was always a bigger fan of Luther Vandross.
  • It was nice not having a long commute this morning to church!
  • Great energy in the room today for the music.
  • Great to see Brian stepping out of his comfort zone and leading another song.
  • We’re starting to get a pretty good routine down on Sunday mornings and that is helping make the tech end of things go a lot smoother…I’m a big fan of things running smoothly so I very pleased with the way things are going.
  • How awesome to have 3 young girls sitting on the front row holding up signs professing their love for all things United, but especially for God.
  • I found out later that they actually called their grandmother last night and begged to be able to come today…how cool is that!
  • I didn’t have as much time as usual this week to work on the message, with the move and everything, but I thought it went well, bad voice and all.
  • I love talking about vision and reaching the lost…when I got to that section of the message I knew God wouldn’t let me down voice wise and he didn’t!
  • I can’t get enough of watching the Outdoor Baptism Video from last summer.
  • Having been the one that edited it together, I’ve probably seen it well over 100 times and I still get chocked up every time.
  • As I said, “Life change is what it’s all about.”
  • Speaking of…congratulations to the man and woman who prayed today to receive Jesus into their lives!
  • A huge thank you to whoever invited them to come out.
  • It was worth the risk wasn’t it?
  • Now don’t forget that everyone needs to invite at least 10 people to come with them for the Easter Experience on March 23rd.
  • Gene’s comment during the announcements about the spaghetti dinner being my idea was hilarious.  To find out why and to learn more about our vision to reach 5000 people in the next 5 years, click here.
  • I can see sleep in my future.
  • Please pray tomorrow morning that my voice has returned for the talk I’m giving to a bunch of pastors on Contemporary Worship Services.

    • Post Move Re-cap

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    • Everything went very well!
    • Friday night we we’re able to get a few of the rooms painted, lay some tile in the basement where the washer and dryer are going and re-run some cable connections.
    • Andy and I never left the new house until about 1:15am.
    • On the way home I got pulled over by a cop just a little bit down the road from getting back to the old house.
    • He said you didn’t do anything wrong, I just wanted to let you know that you’re license plate holder light-bulb is out.
    • He asked if I was coming home from work and I explained what was going on.
    • Turns out he lives right around the corner from our new house.
    • We probably talked then for a good 5-10 minutes….sort of funny since I had bright flashing lights behind me the whole time…the neighbors must have thought I really did something bad.
    • Saturday I picked up the big 26ft truck and we we’re starting to load by 8:40am or so.
    • We completely loaded, drove and unloaded by noon time.
    • Big thanks to all 34 of you who helped this weekend!
    • After most of the movers had left a hand full of us started setting up and unpacking.
    • We stopped around 5:00pm…then Lisa and I returned the truck, came to the church to check our e-mail, since we don’t have Internet service yet, then went home to crash on the couch and catch up on American Idol.
    • I was asleep by 9:30pm.
    • Woke up at 4am.
      Funniest line of the day came courtesy of Bob Faubel who said, “Gilbert why is there so much dust on your weights.”

    Killing time

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  • Our closing on our old house went super quick so now were just waiting to go to closing on the new one.
  • I told Lisa that it feels good to be 100% debt free for a couple of hours.
  • She reminded me it also means we’re homeless.
  • Oh well, I tried.
  • We sold our old home to someone that is a member of the church I used to pastor in MD.
  • I’m sure the title company found it weird that the buyers and sellers were hugging each other.
  • They have an autistic son who is almost 5 and he has never spoken a complete sentence until just a few days ago.
  • He actually interrupted their normal bed-time prayers for him and prayed out loud.
  • They’re having a great week!
  • Andy just e-mailed for directions to the new house…when you have to add new words into the spell checker in order to give directions you know you live in a weird development.
  • Wow am I sore…and the real moving hasn’t even begun yet.
  • Please pray everything goes smoothly in the morning…there’s supposed to be snow showers in the afternoon.