- 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)
- 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!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- That was weird.
- I was just telling someone yesterday that we do a good job of covering everything that we know to do, but occasionally the unexpected happens.
- Today the unexpected happened multiple times.
- It started this morning with breakers blowing in the gym.
- Guessing as cold as it we were using extra juice.
- Speaking of cold, I was making the long walk in from the furthest parts of the parking lot this morning and my hand froze to my water bottle…wish I was kidding.
- More to come on the water bottle later.
- At the end of the 1st Experience the band was singing and then all the sudden you could hear Brian singing another song…What?!
- Our sound board has a USB port to plug a thumb drive into. We record everything directly to it, but it filled up and apparently the default is to automatically start playing the files on it.
- So you we hearing not only Brian live but also from a few weeks back.
- Memo to self: Check the space on the thumb drive each week.
- The next weird thing happened after I came off the stage from doing the announcements in the 2nd Experience.
- I grabbed my water bottle from backstage and was walking down the hallway so I could watch the rest of the music from the back of the gym before then heading back to the stage to preach the message.
- As I was walking I took a big swig and swallow of water….one problem…it wasn’t my water bottle…in fact it wasn’t anybody’s water bottle from today.
- Very rancid water that burned all the way down.
- Immediately my throat was burning which made it hard to preach then…also as the sermon kept going on I felt my stomach getting more and more upset.
- Needless to say I’ve spent some quality time this afternoon catching up on some reading. :)
- Oh but we’re not done…one more weird thing happened.
- After the bumper video in the 2nd Experience I walked out on stage and…nothing…no lights…waiting…waiting….I think it was probably no more than 20 seconds but it seemed like forever.
- Our light operator accidentally hit a quick launch key that starts a DVD player on the laptop.
- Apparently it’s not so quick and froze our lighting program until it opened.
- In the words of the great theologian Bart Simpson….”Aye Carumba”.
- Some weeks I don’t have much to report from behind the scenes…today…too much.
- Other than those blips though, I was happy with both of the Experiences.
- I think the chairs on stage were a cool visual.
- Brian brought in a lawn chair from home that was hilarious…it was about 2 inches off the ground.
- I asked him if was custom built for Vern Troyer.
- Andrea kept saying she was going to sit on one for the whole Experience and I’d never know, but she chickened out.
- Looking forward to next week…get to do the same message again 3 more times in the sanctuary.
- Have a great week and don’t forget to invite someone to come with you!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Now that was fun!
- For those of you not with us, we recapped every series from 2009.
- That’s 52 hours worth of content that we condensed into an hour’s worth of highlights.
- I figured this was going to be one of those hit or miss type of things.
- Luckily it was a hit…I’m not sure I’ve ever had this much feedback so soon after an Experience.
- One of my big fears was whether it would translate to people who were guests.
- I had one lady come up afterwards who was from North Carolina and she said the format helped it all to make sense and she was wishing she lived close so she could attend all the time.
- The other cool part was the number of people who shared with me how it brought back memories to the week/series which they got saved or for some it was a reminder of when they first started attending.
- I was so excited for today that I was wide awake at 5am and ready to go.
- Set-up and the warm-up time were super easy today!
- That’s a good thing because the tech for today was crazy.
- Great job by Chris, Andy and Crissy making things happen behind the scenes exactly when they should have!
- Also I’ve got to give a big thank you to the band.
- In the midst of Christmas and everything else, they have spent 20+ hours at the church in the last week getting ready for and playing in Experiences.
- If you haven’t thanked them in awhile for what they do, please be sure to do so soon.
- In fact, I thought the standing ovation you gave them Christmas Eve after the Trans Siberian song was cool and I know they appreciated it.
- Back to today…it was strange for both me and the band because we were basically doing something the entire Experience…usually it’s one or the other at a time so you get a bit of a break. Not complaining, just different.
- It would be hard to post the audio online for today, but I am going to try to put together a video at some point in my “free” time.
- So in the meantime take the outline from today and go through each of the application questions so you see your growth from 2009 and evaluate in what ways you need to grow in 2010.
- The funniest/most painful moment of the day occurred backstage during the 2nd Experience during the 1970’s medley. Andrew wasn’t playing but was watching from the side wing. He got excited and went to do an “Elvis like” windmill with his arm, but didn’t realize I had come up and was standing behind him. When his arm came (rather hard and fast I might add) it grazed me in the face then hit me squarely in the upper chest. I t hurt but we had a quick laugh about it.
- He wasn’t laughing though when he then went back on stage and dropped his guitar, breaking a part of it.
- I guess that’s what God does to people who punch the pastor. :)
- All in all a very good day and hopefully an inspiring look back at all that God has done in 2009.
- Enjoy the pics below.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Well that was interesting.
- Figures that on Christmas weekend we get a huge snow storm that kept all but the die-hards from coming out.
- 2 or 3 times per year the message is purely evangleistic in anticipation that many unsaved people will be in attendance.
- We you have 50 feet of snow (give or take a few feet) it means basically only Christians are going ot be there.
- Surprisingly though we still had 2 people commit to Jesus for the first time.
- That’s awesome!
- The team had fun with today’s Experience.
- Did you ever in your life think that you would go to church and get to hit beach balls around?
- The Party series has been both fun and impactful.
- 18 people have now become Christians during this series.
- I loved the music today…a great mix of hard and fun to soft and thought provoking.
- As Lisa said, “It was amazing to see the same people who were having fun with beach balls at the beginning, crying at the end as they reflected on the condition of their souls”.
- Cressa, Jenny, Andrea and Gayle did awesome on both O Holy Night and It Is Well.
- I laughed in both Experiences during the Awareness Test videos when people realized they had been tricked.. In case you weren’t with us, check them out. Awareness Test 1. Awareness Test 2.
- When I walked off stage during the 1st Experience I was carrying my chair off as well so I forgot to turn my mic pack off. Apparently you could hear me briefly talking backstage…oops.
- All in all not a bad considering all that was happening.
- I’m currently typing this and observing the team as they practice for Christmas Eve.
- Be sure to join us at 5:30 for what should be a memorable Experience.