Gilbert Thurston

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

Inside Today’s Experiences

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  • Today was a lot of fun!
  • I really enjoyed this series and apparently so did you.
  • This series was our highest attended one ever.
  • I felt like a Methodist pastor today preaching for only 15 minutes 🙂
  • I enjoyed being able to take more than one text question at each Experience.
  • Altogether I was able to answer 12 text questions. 
  • For a list of what the questions were and to hear my answers, click here for the Podcast.
  • We had a few tech problems during set-up today, but all-around things ran pretty smoothly.
  • Aaron and the creative team are doing a great job of stage designs and they already tore down the stage after today’s Experiences and began the work for Easter.
  • It’s going to be awesome!
  • Again I can’t reiterate enough…please invite as many people as you can to come with you next week.
  • I truly believe that God wants to do something huge, but it will take everyone doing their part.
  • Alright have a great week…see you next Sunday if not before!

    • Inside Today’s Experiences

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  • Ugghhhh…I was sick to my stomach today which didn’t make the Experience much fun.
  • Didn’t help this morning to walk through the parking lot and have to step over literally thousands of worms…the smell didn’t help my stomach feel any better.
  • Lots of small technical mistakes behind the scenes that drive me crazy.
  • All that to say that my head just wasn’t in it today…
  • …amazingly God even uses crappy messages like I gave today to reach people.
  • 3 more people became followers of Christ!
  • And I had quite a few people stop me to share how encouraged they are that they can overcome their temptations.
  • I also had a few people ask me why all the text questions aren’t getting answered…or even put on the screens for that matter.
  • 2 things…#1 we are doing a series on marriage, relationships, dating and sex right after Easter so I told the team to not ask those types of questions.  We’ll take 4 weeks on just those alone starting April 19th.
  • The second reason is they only put up questions that they feel I’ll be able to answer on the fly and within only 5 minutes.
  • Speaking of questions, the two live questions today were, “Is it wrong to ask for a sign when I need to make a decision” and at 10:45, “Why pray if God already knows what is going to happen in the future”?
  • Both answers can be heard at the end of the podcast of the temptation message.
  • Again being sick I didn’t feel I gave my best on these so sorry if you really wanted to know.
  • Next week we’ll have an abbreviated message followed by multiple text questions so bring your phone and get your questions in!
  • Aaron, Adam and I had a great time making the “Easy Button” video.  You can watch it here.
  • Ok I’m about done…need a nap…see you next week.

    • 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.

    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!