Gilbert Thurston

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

Alcohol is More Popular than Sex

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Alcohol greater than sex copy

I said last week in this blog that I felt the message on alcohol would quickly surpass the total number of downloads we had gotten of the previous week’s message on whether Christians can enjoy movies and music that are not “Christian” in nature.

By Wednesday that had happened.  What I didn’t expect was that last night the message would become the number 2 most downloaded message ever, surpassing the message on sex that I had done in May of 2008.  Now only the controversial 2009 vision message is keeping it from the top spot.

All that to say I am really enjoying this series and apparently so are you.  This week we’ll look at how to deal with temptation (plus take more live text message questions) and then the following week I’ll do an abbreviated message on the last question you asked for…How Do I Handle Doubts About My Faith…then I’ll take the remainder of that day to take as many text message questions as we can squeeze in.

Don’t forget to invite someone to join you.  Once again here is the link to our 2009 Promo Video if you’d like to use it help explain what United is all about.

Random Thoughts on a Thursday

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  • Not the first time I’ve said this…but I’m an idiot.
  • Was ready to post to the blog and hit the refresh button on the page for some unknown reason, thus causing me to lose everything.
  • So here we go again…3/26/09 blog post version 2.0 this time less sucky.
  • Been a pretty good week!
  • Really excited about Easter coming up.
  • I’m done the message and I’m believing God for 50+ first time professions of faith!
  • Another prayer that I pray on occasion is for God to show favor to Lisa and I in unexpected ways.
  • On Monday we got a check in the mail as a part of settlement for a class action lawsuit.
  • I vaguely remember getting info about this a few years back, filled out my paperwork and then forgot about it.
  • Now I’ve got a check to cash!
  • Funniest thing of the week so far was on Tuesday when Aaron went to clean off the whiteboard in my office with the special fluid.
  • It’s in a spray bottle and when he hit the button he didn’t realize he was holding it backwards and it sprayed him in the eye.
  • Now your saying…”Gilbert I thought you said this was the funniest thing?  Spraying harsh chemicals in your eyes is dangerous”.
  • Mmmmm….you’re right.  (Insert fake sympathy bullet point here)
  • Seriously after taking about .5 seconds to make sure he was ok…he was crying like a little girl…I laughed my head off!
  • The bottle said if sprayed into eyes to flush with water for 15 minutes…uhh yeah right…a good minute later we were back to work…albeit he was still whining.
  • I’m working on some other stuff right now for the church that has the potential to be huge…very excited about it.
  • What I’m not excited about is that the NHL regular season is dragging on and on…come on already…let’s get the playoffs started.
  • Speaking of my sports teams…Gilbert Arenas is planning on coming back for the last 9 games for the Wizards.
  • WHHHHHYYYYYY??????  At this point the best thing that could happen is to lose the rest of the games and get the #1 draft pick.  Why risk that and your health at the same time?
  • Ok realize that was a few sports references back-to-back.  For you ladies who don’t like sports or for any weird guys (you know who you are) that don’t like sports….
  • …who do you like on American Idol?
  • Personally I like Danny and Adam.
  • BTW…Danny and Michael are worship leaders in their churches, while Chris and Lil participate on the worship teams at their churches.
  • For those of you who don’t like sports or American Idol, I’ve got 4 letters for you…
  • LOST
  • Love that show!
  • Alright…gotta get back to work…see you Sunday…let’s pack the place out…I’m talking about temptation…should be powerful!

    • Other Weekend Thoughts

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  • I’m still pretty pumped up about yesterday’s Experience where we discussed Is It Alright For Christians to Drink Alcohol?
  • Aaron, the worship team and creative team have done a great job of making this a very memorable series.
  • One unexpected side benefit from yesterday’s message has been the number of people who have told me or e-mailed me about giving something else up for the 30 day challenge.
  • In other words, they don’t drink alochol, but they are giving up chocolate, coffee, caffine, fast food, Mt. Dew, TV, for 30 days to make sure nothing has higher precedence in their lives than Jesus.
  • I realized yesterday after I sent out Inside Today’s Experience’s that Easter was one year ago yesterday.  This means for the second year in a row we broke our attendance record on the 4th Sunday of March.
  • Friday and Saturday Lisa and I travelled to Cove Valley Camp for a 2-day leadership retreat with about 40 others from the church to pray and discuss about what the next 6, 12 and 24 months may look like in the life of CFCOG.
  • Let me just say…buckle up tight, the adventure is just now beginning.
  • God has such incredible things in store for us to do…the key is staying faithful to Him and trusting in Him more than our own wisdom, the economy, the President or anything or anyone else that may tempt us to stray from the vision He has given us.
  • Was really disappointed to get home and watch my Terps get crushed by Memphis in the tournament.  I at least thought they’d keep it close but Memphis shot the ball incredibly well.
  • This week should be a good one.
  • Sometimes when we get done on Sunday’s I think…”Oh no only 165 hours until we have to do all this again”, but right now I can’t wait for Sunday to get here…
  • We’ll be talking about temptation and I believe God is going to set a lot of you free in amazing ways.
  • As always do whatever it takes short of sin to get someone to the Experience with you.

    • Inside Today’s Experiences

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  • Wow I’m loving this series!
  • Another great day!
  • Had tons of people say how powerful today’s Experiences were.
  • Really got people thinking about the role alcohol plays in their lives.
  • Tough message to preach though…no matter what some people weren’t going to be happy…and just in case someone was happy, you throw gluttony into the mix and everyone leaves challenged.
  • We set another attendance record today largely in part to the 9:15 setting thier own personal attendance record for the 3rd consecutive week.
  • Way to go everyone…keep inviting people…lives are truly being changed.
  • Can you believe our band?  They killed it today with their version of Carrie Underwood’s song “Last Name”. 
  • Gayle did a phenominal job not just singing but playing the part…and how about Aaron’s guitar solo and Brian on the banjo!
  • Pretty funny when you think about it…last week Brian was mixing at the turntable and this week he plays the banjo…incredible versatility!
  • Yes we’ve got something planned next week that your not going to want to miss…make sure you invite someone to come along.
  • Someone asked me after the 9:15 what is the point in which someone is considered biblically speaking drunk.
  • My thought is once it affects your motor skills you are drunk.  Which means that if you’re getting a buzz your close to the line if not already over it.
  • So please if your going to drink, do it responsibly…really no reason to have more than two drinks.
  • However, remember that all of us are taking the 30 day challenge…No alcohol at all for 30 days.
  • Again just to reiterate for those who may be reading this and you haven’t listened to the message.  I don’t drink…haven’t had anything in over 16 years so this message has nothing to do with me and everything to do with teaching what the Bible truly says about alcohol.
  • The live questions today were once again fun but still a bit nerve wracking.
  • Answering questions in front of hundreds of people when you have no idea what’s going to come in is full of pressure but I think has been worth it.
  • The questions today were…
    • 9:15- “Are ghosts real?”
    • 10:45- ” Can Christians get tattoo’s?”
  • You can listen to both of my answers at the end of the message podcast.
  • Also on the podcast is the band performing “Last Name”.
  • Someday’s when we finish I pinch myself because I can’t believe I get to be a part of something this special and do it with a bunch of awesome people.
  • Today was one of those days!
  • The only negative thing that happened today was totally my fault and is sort of funny.
  • They were using my laptop to run lights and at 9:15 my computer crashed during the Exerience becuase it was completely out of memory.
  • Seriously it was out…no more.
  • So Andy had to switch to another computer…which put me in the dark for a few minutes.
  • He told me after the 9:15 what had happened and that he was workign to clean off my hard drive.
  • Turns out I had over 30GB being used just in my temporary files…ooops.
  • Guess I’ll know better for next time.
  • Had lunch with Aaron…a Burn’in Love Burger from Red Robin.  Wow that’s spicy!
  • Time for a nap and then off to visit with friends…have a great week!

    • Week in Review

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  • Been a good week!
  • Worst part has been getting up real early almost everyday…like 7am early…I know for some of you that’s rountine, but for me going to bed normally between 12-1am that’s early.
  • Had some really interesting meetings this week. 
  • I know interesting and meetings should never be used in the same sentence but I just did.
  • My sister made it through her shoulder surgery on Monday with flying colors which was a big relief…thanks for the prayers.
  • Got to do quite a bit of hanging out with people this week which was cool.
  • Wednesday Aaron, Adam and I shot a video that will be used for the message on temptation.
  • Got to see a rough cut of it last night and it’s going to be hilarious.
  • At one point we were afraid we might get arrested while shooting…which made it even more…hmmm…how shall I say this…FUN!
  • Last week’s message is “burning up the charts”.  One of our most downloaded ever.
  • I have a feeling that this week’s message on alcohol though will quickly surpass it.
  • I love being able to talk with and help out other churches, so we were honored last night to have a team from Smithsburg Valley Baptist Church come in to check out our equipment and rehearsal.
  • Got home a little after 11 last night and after having sheltered myself all day long from the basketball scores, I sat down to watch Maryland’s game against Cal that I had DVR’d.
  • Yes…go TERPS!
  • In all I had 13 of the 16 games correct on day 1 in my bracket.
  • Today we prepare to head out, with the rest of our churches staff and leaders to our Strategic Planning weekend.
  • Going to be long and exhuasting but well worth the time to pray, think, dream and plan where God would have us go in the next few years.
  • As always, do whatever it takes to get people to church with you on Sunday…I promise you won’t regret it!