Inside Today's Experience - Gilbert Thurston

First things first…Happy Mother’s Day!
Especially to my mom…I love you!
Mom is actually in Jamaica on vacation so this is the first time I’ve not been able to talk to her on a Mother’s Day.
So thankful that her, dad, my sister and niece have been traveling each week to be a part of ExponentialChurch.tv.
They were all away today though along with quite a few others so we were a bit short-staffed.
In addition, I didn’t want to have any of the moms have to miss the Experience so that meant Chad, my wife Lisa, Tania and a couple of teens were in charge of nursery and toddlers.
When Chad’s wife, Tammie, found out she decided maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to be there as well.
Thanks Tammie for all you do!
Set-up was a bit weird today…for whatever reason, we made a couple of silly mistakes.
One took quite awhile to figure out…we had to re-route some cables and then…
…we realized we didn’t have the power turned on.
Another one involved some things not getting plugged in…
In any case, that’s why we build in plenty of margin to our morning so that we can catch these things, resolve them and still have plenty of time to relax before the actual Experience starts.
As for the Experience itself, it was cool to be able to do some child dedications on Mother’s Day.
Congrats to Lorraine Weaver and her twins, Shawn and Annette.
The worship time was certainly emotional.
The Krull family (parents, kids and grandkids) who all made the move with us to get the church started, unexpectedly lost Jan’s dad (Andy’s grandad) yesterday.
Andy’s wife Gayle who is on the worship team did her best to hold it together as she lead “How He Loves”, but understandably was not able to.
Thought it was a very authentic moment…as good as the team is, it’s just a good for people to see that the band is real people as well.
Truthfully, I didn’t feel comfortable with this week’s message.
I was gone for most of the week at our denomination’s annual regional conference, which meant my normal routine was disrupted.
I went over the message twice as many times as usual trying to make up for it, but felt really unprepared.
Oh me of little faith! Like always God was able to give me just the right words.
Was it the best message ever…no…but it was what God wanted to people to hear.
I love how even now we’re already hearing how much of a difference this series is making!
Good news is we’ve still got 4 more weeks left in it so that means plenty more life-change!
Don’t forget that everyone as a church this week will be reading through the book of James.
Loved Chad’s idea of how to make our Mother’s Day gift a missional opportunity.
Basically we gave all the ladies baby bottles filled with candy.
Next week we’re asking them to bring the bottles back filled with coins or even cash.
All the money will then be given to the local crisis pregnancy center to help a mom or mom’s who are at risk.
Overall, a really good day…the momentum we tried to create from Easter and last week’s iPad give-away was sustained, mom’s were honored, babies were dedicated and most importantly God’s Word was proclaimed and transforming!
After 3 consecutive weird weeks and lots of travel, I’m looking forward to something a bit more normal.
Monday afternoon and night the staff will be doing some strategic planning for the remainder of 2011. Please keep us in prayer.
Next Sunday we’ll continue the iLife series by looking at God’s app for handling money.
If you have financial stress or know someone who does, you’re going to want to make sure you and they are with us.

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