Gilbert Thurston

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

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Inside Today’s Experience

November 20, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

  • Another great day.
  • Had another person start a relationship with Jesus today.
  • The amazing thing about that is we’re currently doing a series on how to share your faith.
  • Amazing how God can speak to people’s hearts even in messages that aren’t necessarily evangelistic in nature.
  • In fact, a big misconception of churches like ours is that we must only preach seeker friendly, evangelistic messages every week in order to have as many professions of faith as we do.
  • The truth is in now a little over 1 year of existence, I’ve only done 1 message that was strictly the Gospel message and geared for a response at the end.
  • Every other week messages are about growing in your faith.
  • In other words, I assume that everyone will want to be a follower of Jesus so here’s what it means to follow Him more closely.
  • Now of course I present this in such a way that it does make sense to non-followers, but for the most part we tackle some pretty serious discipleship stuff.
  • At the end then I usually say something to the effect of, “Ok now the first step to applying today’s message is starting a relationship with Jesus if you don’t already have one”…then I present how to do that.
  • Ok didn’t mean to start this with my philosophy of  preaching but there it is.
  • In any case, nothing out of the ordinary today with set-up.
  • Had fun at our team meeting today giving a quiz on our core values.
  • During it I said, “We say there are 2 things which we say are not optional, what are they”?
  • One of the teens said, “Clothes”?
  • Haha…gotta love those teens!
  • All in all people did pretty good at least knowing the gist of each value.
  • Huge difference though between intellectually knowing these things and living them out.
  • Making great progress though!
  • Very funny yet potentially embarrassing thing happened to Lisa today in the lobby.
  • I went out and her and Meghan were laughing so hard they were in tears.
  • I’ll let Lisa decide whether to fess up to what happened.
  • Band as always did a great job.
  • So interesting watching Jeff use a bow on his electric guitar for the one song.
  • I continued the “Just Walk Across the Room” series by talking about the 3 D’s we all need to do to help people who are far from God.
  • They are…Develop friendships, Discover their story and Discern appropriate next steps.
  • You can listen to the full message here. 
  • As I mentioned in the message, over 300 names were written on the walls last week.
  • I prayed for each one by name before today’s Experience.
  • As I mentioned in the message, 3 things happened as I did it.
  • First, the reality that these are real people that we know that are bound for hell unless we do something about it.
  • Second, that reaching 90% of them is not enough.
  • As I said, “That’s 30 people…anyone want to volunteer any of your people for hell?”
  • Last thought was actually a feeling of righteous anger that so many people waste their lives on things that don’t really count for eternity while real people, like on these boards, die and enter into a Christ-less eternity.
  • Whether you attend Exponential or not, let me ask you a question…What are you investing your life, time and resources in?  Is that going to last for eternity?
  • If not, then stop wasting this one and only life on things that don’t really matter.
  • Ok shifting gears somewhat…one of the best things about Facebook’s new list feature is I can get pretty instant feedback on the Experience.
  • Came across this earlier from a 1st time guest of ours…”Had a great morning with family and friends at a new church. Cried the first 3 songs. Praise God! Got my love for Christ back this morning”.
  • Awesome…that’s why I love what I do!
  • Next week we’ll look at how to verbally share your faith with 2 simple short stories you can tell.
  • In the meantime…have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Core Values, discipleship, evangelism, ExponentialChurch.tv, gilbert thurston, Jeff Case, Just Walk Across the Room series, Lisa Thurston, Meghan Butler, preaching, salvation, testimonies, Wordle

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