Gilbert, Author at Gilbert Thurston

Guerrilla Lovers

February 2, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

A few years back I got to know a pastor down in Virginia Beach by the name of Vince Antonucci who is not only a really fun guy to hang with but as passionate if not more passionate for evangelism as I am. Vince has a really funny testimony that he shares of his journey from atheist to follower of Jesus. More recently Vince moved from Virginia Beach to Las Vegas where he is getting ready to start Verve a church right on the Strip for the people of Vegas. Lisa and I are going to be out there in a few weeks and we’re excited to get to see him again and experience all that God is doing in and through him.

I shared all that because today is another exciting day in Vince’s life. His second book, Guerrilla Lovers is being released. If you want to not just say you love Jesus but also show the love of Jesus to others, this is the book for you! If you’re still struggling with the whole what’s it mean to become and then be a follower of Christ then check out his first book, “I Became a Christian and All I Got Was this Lousy T-Shirt.

For pastors and church leaders, Vince is also providing all kinds of cool guerrilla loving resources for individuals and churches at www.guerrillalovers.com

Inside Today’s Experiences

January 31, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

I am loving this series!
So many awesome stories already from people on how they are seeing changes in their marriages and relationships!
After having been in San Diego all week, getting to church a little after 8am seemed like 5…ughhh I hate mornings enough as it is.
The building was drawing a lot of power during the morning run-through and the light fixtures were pulsating. I re-set the breakers and everything seemed fine.
As we started the 2nd Experience though, we had no lights on the singers at all and I thought for sure that the breakers had tripped.
I sprinted as hard as I could all around the perimeter of the gym, through the backstage area, climbed the ladder, sprinted to the breakers and…nothing. Everything looked fine.
I repeated the sprint but now in reverse, got back to rear of United and…everything was working.
Tim said, “Oops my bad I fixed it right after you left”.
Oh well at least I got some good exercise. :)
Other than that and some sound issues, we had a pretty routine day.
It was great to have Cressa lead the worship team today.
She did a great job!
It’s amazing how many talented people we have on the worship team and to realize that every one of them have done music professionally in one way or another over the years.
So awesome to see them use their talents for God instead of just to make a dollar.
For anyone interested, here is the Wikipedia page for Howard Thurston that I mentioned during the message.
Andrea did a great job of transporting both the Thurston books off-stage for me. :)
As I mentioned today…there are so many people who need to hear what we’re talking about in this series. Why not send them over to our site (www.UnitedWorshipExperience.org) to hear what’s happened so far and then invite them to come back with you next week.
Time for a nap and then off to meet with some of our small group peeps for dinner.

Inside Today’s Experiences

January 24, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Another awesome day!
5 more people gave their lives to Christ!
The day got started a little earlier than normal since we launched Fellowship One officially today.
I’ve been working on this project since last June so it was good to have another big part of it roll out.
For a few weeks lines will be long as people get used to checking in their kids, but for the most part everything went smoothly and I didn’t hear any complaints.
As for the Experience itself, it was a really smooth day.
Brian and Thom did a great job of re-deploying some of our lighting and it added for some neat new effects.
Aaron and Adam also did a great job with the graphics and video packages.
I really like how Aaron put together video backgrounds for each song that were series specific.
As I said last week, there is an incredible team that works behind the scenes that make each Experience so memorable.
Thanks to everyone who serves…it was great being back to normal today.
Nice big crowds in both Experiences and full of energy…especially the 9:45.
As I said all day…I’m really excited about this series on love.
Don’t forget this week to keep reading Philippians 2:3-8 and to find practical ways each day to make love a verb.
Next week we’ll find out how to take these verses and apply them to your marriage.
Go ahead and invite someone…they’ll be glad you did.
Time for a nap…see you next week!

Inside Today’s Experiences

January 17, 2010 by Gilbert 1 Comment

Two words….Brilliantly Atrocious.
For those who weren’t able to be with us, the whole day was called No Show Sunday. (pics below to help you get a feel)
Basically we allowed people to experience what it would be like if no volunteers showed up and everything was just dependent on Brian and I.
So we had no greeters, ushers, band, lighting, projection, etc.
We set up a tiny stage on the gym floor, Brian played a few songs on acoustic guitar, while I ran back and forth between putting the lyrics up on an old overhead projector and handing out “bulletins” in the back.
It was nice being able to sleep in this morning because there wasn’t anything to do.
The look on people’s faces when they came to the door and Brian and I were greeting and they noticed no chairs were set-up was awesome!
All week long we had wondered where people would put chairs. The 9:15 was just a blob of chairs everywhere…it was incredibly hard for me to take the offering. The 10:45 was a bit more organized.
We have no real idea of how many were in attendance today because it’s hard to count when people are all over the place and there is no rhyme nor reason for it.
The funniest thing might have been me doing the countdown with my fingers as shadows on the overhead projector.
Brian and I were obviously exaggerating some things to make them worse than they needed to be but it was funny during the 2nd Experience when my mic did start to feedback and he was no where to be found. I had to go into the back room and fix it myself. I’m guessing people thought it was part of the plan but it wasn’t.
I talked to quite a few first time guests who were impressed by the creativity of doing something like this and understood that what they saw is not how things usually are.
As I had hoped, the Experience was so bad that it actually turned out to be good because it so beautifully made the point of how important our volunteers are.
If you get a chance to listen to the message on the web-site, I left in me taking the offering by myself…funny stuff.
The best part of the day was the dozens of new volunteers that signed up at the end of each Experience to serve in some way.
Guess all that hard work making things bad was worth it!
Getting ready to leave with the rest of the staff for a couple day get-away where we’ll brainstorm ideas for 2010. Should be fun!

Inside Today’s Experiences (Sanctuary Edition)

January 10, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Earl and I swapped places today so I’ll be reporting on my day in the sanctuary.
First though I hear things went well in United.
As for me…wow…getting up earlier to do the Traditions service at 8:30 is something i’m glad is on Earl’s job description not mine.
My mind just doesn’t function well that early in the morning.
However I had a great time…Galen did an excellent job of leading the hymns and the music selection for that hour was probably most spot on with the message I preached.
As usual there were a lot of comments about me being in a suit.
The I’m Gilbert’s twin brother Greg joke never grows old.
Not used to doing “costume” changes on Sunday’s but yes I did wear a different outfit for each service.
I loved the Celebration service today…the music took me back to my early years of being a Christian.
Not sure what happened to my mic as I was getting ready to preach that one, but we got it figured out.
Lucky…since I carry my bible the whole time I’m not sure what I’d have done if I had to hold the hand held mic.
Got to experience Encounter then for the first time.
Lots of fun and high energy!
By the time I preached the message to Encounter…(5th time in 2 weeks), I was ready to add in some extra stuff.
Should have done that before…I liked that delivery the best of the 5.
Of course by the 5th time I’d better have gotten it right.
All in all a different but yet fun day!