Gilbert Thurston

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

Life House Church East

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Yesterday Lisa and I visited the Life House Church which meets in Hagerstown, MD.  I had first visited them about 4 years ago and got to know them and their pastor, Patrick Grach, when they used to meet in a local elementary school.  Since then they have moved to the Leitersburg Pike Cinema’s.  It was interesting being back in that building because I once consulted for a church that met there when the place was a real dump.  Patrick and his team have done a great job working with the new owners to fix the place up and it is now a very nice building to walk into.

One of the reasons I wanted to visit is it is looking almost 100% positive that we’ll be meeting in a movie theater as we launch ExponentialChurch.tv this fall.  I met with Patrick for breakfast on Friday morning and he gave me saw great tips for not only meeting in a theater but also for starting the church in general.  One thing Patrick had mentioned about meeting at the theaters was that you need to work harder than normal to get people connected since they’re not used to going into a theater to connect with others in a deep, meaningful way.  So one of the first things we noticed when we went in was that they pull out tons of tables and serve breakfast.  Unlike most churches which simply have a Cafe type area, Life House’s entire lobby is filled with people talking and eating for extended periods of time.

Once the worship time started, the band played some oldies but goodies.  I don’t know why but almost everywhere we’ve visited this summer (including huge mega-churches) have been playing old songs.  Maybe it’s because it’s summer and a lot of the normal band members are on vacation so it’s easier to pull out the old stuff.  In any case, the band did a good job, although something else Patrick mentioned to me was very evident…lack of audience participation.  Since people aren’t used to being in a movie theater; singing, shouting, clapping, etc., you need to encourage participation even more than normal.  This was probably the worst part of the Life House experience…the room was dead…hardly anyone participated.  Definitely something I’ll keep an eye on as we launch.

Having preached in that theater a number of times, I know how difficult it is when you can only see people’s eyeballs because of the high-backed seats.  Patrick did a good job though as he shared how we are all called to be missionaries, even if it just to our neighbors and co-workers.  Altogether the service lasted about 1 hour and 15 minutes and then everyone scattered quickly to get to various 4th of July picnics that Life House was sponsoring throughout the area.

I’m glad we visited Life House, I certainly learned some stuff for how we are to proceed with our launch.  Patrick and his team are very creative when it comes to getting out into the community and reaching people that way.  The theaters were pretty full for both of their services (on a holiday weekend nonetheless) which is a testament to the awesome things they are together accomplishing to reach the Hagerstown area.

Remove the Queen

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This thought isn’t original to me but I want to share it because it’s at the heart of what ExponentialChurch.tv is going to be all about.  My passion and expertise is in creating exciting, relevant, life-changing Experiences on Sunday’s.  At my last church we saw hundreds make first time professions of faith in Jesus and we did it all in some pretty cool ways.  People were not ashamed to invite their friends to church and we saw some pretty awesome life-change occurring.

At Exponential we will be offering just as relevant Experiences but God has also given me the vision to work just as hard “being” the church in the community Monday-Saturday as we do pulling off excellent worship Experiences.  In theological circles this is argued as are you an “Attractional Church” (come and see) or are you a “Missional Church” (go and tell).  I feel strongly that God is calling us to be both and so that’s one of the reasons that we hired Chad Chute.  He’s as passionate about the missional side as I am about the attractional side.

However, I’m still wanting to learn to be more missional myself and the following illustration has helped me in my thinking.  If you’ve ever played chess, you quickly realize that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board.  Chess masters recommend to new players to remove the Queen when first learning how to play so that you don’t become overly dependent on her and so that you’ll better learn strategy with the other pieces.  So how doe this apply churches and what I’ve been thinking about recently?  Well imagine if a church didn’t have Sunday morning worship Services/Experiences?  In other words what if we learned how to be the church without our most strategic piece?  That’s what Chad’s focus will be on but I’m as equally excited about it as well.  Primarily I’m excited for what this will mean for the people of Harrisburg, as we stop just “going to church” and we start “being the church”.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that without a strong Sunday experience the rest will suffer, but until October 17th we have no Queen.  My prayer is that this summer the people of Harrisburg are already starting to feel the impact of who we are and what we’re going to be and that when Sunday morning worship Experiences get added it will just be the icing on the cake.  If you’re interested in helping us “be the church”, let us know.  We are looking not only for people that want to be a part of Exponential long-term but also people from other churches that want to serve as short-term missionaries for 1-10 days.  E-mail either myself or Chad know and we’ll get you started.

Dietsch Brothers

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The picture in this post was taken outside Dietsch Brothers homemade ice cream shop.  It’s a Findlay landmark and let me just say the chocolate marshmallow was awesome!  In the picture you see Dave and Linda Draper (I blogged about Dave the other day), Justin Meier (going to be helping us for 6 weeks this fall get ExponentialChurch.tv off the ground) and of course the lovely and infinitely talented Lisa Thurston (my bride of 15+ years).

Ice cream was after a great meal at Max and Erma’s and after Lisa, Justin and I finished up our meetings at the main office.  I’m excited to see all that God is doing and I’m so thankful to get to be a small part of it.  So the question for today is, what are you doing with your life?  When it’s all said and done, will your life have been about making a difference in people’s lives or that you just pursued stuff?  When I put it that way the choice seems pretty obvious, but why is it that many people’s lives don’t reflect it?  Ponder and hopefully make whatever course corrections you need to.

Road Trip Day 6

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This morning we drove to Findlay, OH so I could sit in on a meeting with all the church planting directors from throughout our denomination.  It was great to hear about what God is doing throughout the country and be able to give my two cents on some ideas and issues they are dealing with.  We started at 1PM and wrapped up about 9:30pm.  We’re on for another few hours tomorrow and then we’ll have some free time before finally heading home on Wednesday.

On an unrelated note, I had a call today that the original facility we were looking at in Harrisburg is now once again available!  We are still looking at some other options but having this back again as an option is certainly going to make my sleep tonight a bit easier.  Thanks to all of you who have been praying about this with us.  By the way, if you haven’t yet joined our prayer team, the address to sign-up is prayerteam@ExponentialChurch.tv.  Each Friday a list of prayer concerns and praise reports goes out, so if you really want to be in the loop, then this is the place to get it.  Please though only sign-up if you are willing to at least 3 times per week remember to pray for these things.

Granger Community Church

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One of the first churches I ever spoke at when I worked for Purpose Driven Ministries was Granger Community Church.  It’s been nearly 7 years since I was last there but through the years I have continued to admire them from afar.  They are one of the most creative churches in the country and their pastors continually inspire me through their teaching, books and blogs.

Today I got to go back and actually be a part of one of their worship services.  A lot has changed through the years including their main auditorium.  It has been reconfigured and as you can see from the picture I took, it includes 5 huge screens, the 3 middle of which are in high definition.  The middle screen is 26 feet high by 50 feet long and is absolutely stunning when everything is going on in worship.  The band was great and they are participating in something I did when I was on staff at Chambersburg called the One Prayer series.  This year the theme is Unstoppable ______.  The video Granger chose to use was of Chris Hodges who pastors Church of the Highlands down in Birmingham, AL.  His message was Unstoppable Focus and it was very good.

We were visiting Granger with Chad and Tammie Chute who are the couple we just hired to be a part of the ExponentialChurch.tv team.  They live in the area (at least for 9 more days) and  have been attending Granger on Saturday nights.  They commented afterward that they had not seen one technical glitch in all the time they’ve been attending…until today.  Now to be fair it was not Granger’s fault at all.  The mother of all thunderstorms came rolling through and I thought the roof was going to come in.  At one point 3 of the projectors cut out, including 1 of the 2 that make the center screen magic happen.  I was very impressed with the Granger team though.  They almost immediately went from what’s called an edge blend to a single shot on the remaining half of the screen that was still lit up.  I know that sounds like mumbo jumbo, but trust me…they did it fast enough that you know there volunteers/staff had trained for such a thing.  The problem with any projector but especially projectors of those sizes is that when they are turned off they need to go through a long cool down period and then they can be restarted again.  Again the crew at Granger did an incredible job of getting them back up and running without it being a distraction.  Great job by all involved and an awesome service…glad we got to go back!

Afterward Tammie’s parents invited us back to their house for lunch.  They are missionaries in South Africa home for a short break.  They are a great couple and it was exciting to hear all that God is doing through them on the mission field.  After lunch we went with the Chute’s over to visit the campus of Notre Dame.  Wow what a beautiful campus!  The architecture is stunning, especially in the basilica.  I obviously hold very different beliefs than the Catholic Church but I’m glad we toured around the campus and were inspired by the sights.

Followed that up with a dinner and meeting with a young lady we are interviewing to potentially be our Children’s Director.   Excited about the possibilities there and excited that our road trip is nearing an end and within a few days we’ll be back home.  Tomorrow we leave bright and early for another 3 hour drive and then I’ll be in meetings all day at the denominational office in Findlay, OH.