Gilbert Thurston

Thanksgiving 2011

November 24, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Hard to believe but this is now my 5th year doing these posts ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). As always here are the things I’m thankful for in this past year.

Jesus- Well who else did you expect at #1? As every year passes, I realize more and more how ugly, sinful and broken I am inside. Yet Jesus loved me enough not to just be my friend, but to die for me so that my relationship to Him could be even greater. I don’t deserve a love like that and so my only acceptable response is to offer a life of sacrifice back to Him.
Lisa- Again who were you expecting? Before each of my bi-monthly calls with my church planting coach (thankful for Vince’s friendship as well), I have to fill out a form reporting on various areas of my life and ministry. One of the questions is, “How is your marriage”? Recently during a time when I was feeling a bit down and depressed, I wrote for this question, “No matter what else is going on, this is the one area that I can count on to be great”. Trust me, Lisa has far more to do with that than I do. Every year I can’t imagine our marriage getting any better but yet it does…wow I’m such a lucky man that God gave me such a Godly wife. Her passion, hunger for growth and servant spirit are truly an inspiration to me.
My immediate family- I’ve seen my mom, dad, sister and niece as much in the past year as I probably did in the 10 years prior to that. The irony is I had to move further away from them for it to happen. Regardless, one of the highlights of my week is knowing that I’ll get to see them on Sunday mornings. I’ll see them again today and tomorrow and I’m sure there will be times that we pick-on each other but underneath it all is a love and a bond with and for one another that can not be broken no matter how many miles the highway may now separate us.
My cousins- This year has also given me a few times to reconnect with my cousins that I grew up with. Life and circumstances have kept us a part for many years but I’m looking forward to hopefully more opportunities to hang-out and reconnect.
My long-term friends- Andy, Gayle, Bill and Nicole. It’s been an interesting year and not at all how I had envisioned it but yet these 4 at multiple times and in many ways continue to be there for and with me. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for the 10+ years they’ve put up with me.
My new friends I’m developing- Some of these are at church but many of them are from the community. As I mentioned in our current series, one of the problems many pastors have is waking up one day and realizing you don’t have any significant relationships with people who are far from God. So this year I have been intentionally going out and building new friendships. Not only have I been having fun meeting new people and hanging out, but a few I can see as becoming close friends. Most significantly I can already see the difference I’ve been able to make in people’s lives.
My staff- Chad, Bill and Chelsea. To be quite honest, I’m in way over my head with this whole church planting thing, but these 3 make me look a lot better than I am. I’m so grateful God has brought us together as a team and can’t wait to see how God will use us to further His Kingdom. It’s an honor to be able to lead them and I pray I do it well.
That ExponentialChurch.tv survived it’s first year- I wish this were hyperbole but it’s not. Most church plants die within their first 3 years. We’ve got one of those under our belts but we’re not out of the woods quite yet. However, as I already mentioned we have a great staff that’s sold out to seeing God’s Kingdom advance. More importantly we have many others who serve week end and week out because they realize that life is not about them but in helping people far from God come back into a relationship with Him and then grow to become more like Him. Thanks to all for an incredible year where we’ve now seen over 120 people come into a relationship with Jesus…but remember…the best is yet to come!
Lisa’s business/God’s blessing- In order to start ExponentialChurch.tv, we had to sacrifice a lot to move here to Harrisburg. One such sacrifice was I voluntarily took a 23% reduction in salary. This meant the possibility that Lisa might have had to get a job (which would have been a huge sacrifice on her part because of health issues). However, despite it all we continued to tithe and trust that you can’t out give God. Sure enough He began to bless her business ,which for years had pretty much always made the same amount of money. All of the sudden…through no real effort of her own, she has been swamped with work which has allowed her to stay at home!
Chuck Frank- Chuck is a long-time friend and more recently became the Director of Church Planting for the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God General Conference (catchy isn’t it). It was Chuck’s email that spurred on the vision I had for Exponential originally. Over the past year he and his team have been incredibly helpful and generous in numerous ways in helping us launch. Chuck is a great cheerleader for planting and evangelism and his support this past year has been invaluable.
Technology- It can be both a blessing and a curse but for the most part I am very thankful for all that technology allows us to do. Especially this past year I am grateful for two tools that make my life so much easier. The first is www.audible.com. Audio books have been around along time, but now with the ability to download them to my smart phone and then play back through blue-tooth on my car stereo, life is so much easier. Literally I turn my car into a mobile classroom and can usually get through 3-4 books per month just during my normal driving time. The second tool I’m thankful for is the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In Tool. One of the audio books I listened to this past year was Getting Things Done by David Allen. His system is tremendous and when I found out there was an add-in for Outlook, it was an easy decision to spend the $70+. My life, tasks and schedule have never been more organized and de-cluttered and for that I am very thankful!

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!

Inside Today’s Experience

November 13, 2011 by Gilbert 1 Comment

Wow what an awesome day.
We have such a great team that sacrifices each week to make sure people have a meaningful Experience with God.
Today was one of those days where everything fell right into place, despite some out of the ordinary things we were doing.
Set-up went smooth and I know the band was having fun covering the Proclaimers, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”.
Bill was pulling off a pretty good Scottish accent…and having fun figuring out what “havering” means.
Turns out it is nonsensical babbling.
Guess that explains the one chorus.
As a reminder, we do current secular songs and classic pop songs like this one in the hopes that a new association will be made in your mind.
Instead of it just being a catchy tune my hope is that from now on you will think of the principles we’re learning in the “Just Walk Across the Room” series.
Today’s main point was that the single greatest gift you can give someone else is the gift of Jesus.
We talked about getting out of our Circles of Comfort and into the Zone of the Unknown….but only as the Spirit prompts us.
I even shared a humorous example of how TV evangelists do their jobs so well sometimes that it intimidates us into thinking we could never do what they do.
You can listen to all of today’s message here.
I also showed a video of this summer’s baptisms, which pretty much sums up why we do what we do.
The biggest highlight though was everyone getting an opportunity to write 5 names on the “Just Walk Across the Room” stage props of the people they are trying to lead to Jesus.
The logistics of getting each 6X4 foot prop from the stage to the upper walkways and then getting everyone through the line in a timely manner was a massive undertaking but so worth it.
Last week we talked about the 425000 people in our area who don’t currently know Jesus.
Now we know about 1000 of their names.
I will be personally praying for each one and there’s just something powerful about having those names written down and now visible throughout the rest of the series.
If nothing else it will be a great visual reminder that our work is far from done and each of us has a personal stake in all of this.
It was great to have Gayle’s parents and other friends from Chambersburg with us today.
We had lunch with all of them down at Duke’s and caught up.
Best line of the day came from Gayle’s dad who leads the Traditional service at Chambersburg. “I kept hearing my daughter singing and thinking, ‘A beautiful voice and all that talent wasted on music like this'”.
Haha…just a reminder of one of our core values…”It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”.
Next week we’ll talk about 3 things to do once you walk across the room.
Can’t wait to share with you how easy and non-threatening sharing your faith can be.

Inside Today’s Experience

November 6, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Had another great day!
First it never hurts when you get an extra hour of sleep…although as I type this at 5pm it’s already pretty dark outside so I’d rather have stayed on daylight savings time.
Is it spring yet?
Actually the weather today wasn’t bad.
We started a new series today called, Just Walk Across the Room”…which meant the morning started with getting a new stage set up and running.
Bill did a tremendous job and put tons of time into creating the 2 huge signs you see in this post.
It’s hard to tell from the pics but the letters light up and then of course we can light the boards any color we want.
The letters are also raised so it creates a cool drop shadow effect.
Again the pics don’t do this justice…really cool all the effects that can be created.
Next week we’ll be using the boards for something special that will make them very personal to every single person in attendance.
So it’s about to get a lot cooler.
Despite figuring out how to set up the new set, set-up itself went smoothly…in fact the band had enough time after the warm-up and run through to work on some stuff for next week since they will be out performing this Thursday night and won’t be able to do their normal rehearsal.
I always love getting to briefly talk with the entire serving team at 9:20 and then having everyone pray for each other and for the day.
It was great to see another big crowd today.
It’s been weird over this past year to have really wild swings in attendance from week to week.
So a pretty steady day was a welcome sight…especially since both days were some of the highest ever.
Today as the kick-off to the series, I shared the vision of ExponentialChurch.tv.
IMPORTANT: If you’re a regular attender of Exponential and didn’t hear today’s message, it’s very important that you take the time to listen either online or download it for an MP3 player.
In the message you’ll learn how to make sure you are “in the right business” and I give a very impactful iillustration to demonstrate how much work we have left to do to reach the 425000 people in the metro area that don’t yet know Jesus.
God has allowed us to do some pretty awesome things this past year but much more is still expected…Jesus said that when much has been given, much will be required.
Again it’s important that you listen so you know how together we can partner to make an eternal difference.
One way as I mentioned is to “Automate the Important”.
Vision doesn’t come cheap and to be honest the church is really struggling financially right now to survive.
I don’t for one minute think that it’s God’s will for us to fail.
So if you are a regular attender of Exponential then I encourage you to begin tithing online and set it up so that your tithe automatically gets debited either monthly, bi-monthly (that’s what I do) or weekly.
If you’re someone from outside our church yet you believe in what we’re doing I encourage you to give as well whether it be a one-time gift or some sort of ongoing automated contribution.
Again to be honest, I’m tired of talking about money but the mission and vision are too important.
I honestly believe that the best is yet to come and as I prayed at the end…I’m not so sure God wasn’t laughing at me today because I dream too small.
God is a great God, He has given us a great mission and with Him all things are possible…let’s keep thinking exponentially and trust Him to “do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever hope or imagine”.
After the message and during the announcement time, I was surprised to see Larry Evans and Lorraine Weaver make their way down to the stage and interrupt.
I normally hate any surprises like that but in this case I’ll forgive them since they wanted to honor myself and the rest of the staff with a gift in honor of Pastor Appreciation Month.
Thanks to all for the cards and gifts.
As I said…we’re all a team and while God has given me a unique role to play, I/we can’t do it without you…We are the church and again the best is yet to come!

Inside Today’s Experience

October 30, 2011 by Gilbert 2 Comments

Well we’ll call today unexpected.
First was the unexpected snow storm this weekend.
Man am I sore today…that was a heavy snow.
This morning, even though I had cleaned my car off yesterday, it took me 10 minutes to “break” into my car because all the doors were frozen shut.
Other than that the rest of the mornings set-up was about as normal.
The last 2 weeks I’ve had my niece Taylor hang with me all morning as my “personal assistant”.
It’s awesome being able to hang with her and have her pray for me right before the Experience starts.
Today she told me she thinks people like me because I’m funny.
Had someone else tell me today that I remind them of a cool Catholic priest they once knew.
Hmmm…now I know my Halloween costume for tomorrow night…a Catholic priest that does stand-up comedy. :)
Another unexpected thing was how good our attendance was today considering how yucky the weather was.
Oh well we’ll take it.
Great energy from the crowd today…perhaps it had to do with so many people sitting as close to possible to the stage…never seen the first few rows that full…it really helped.
The band did a great job with “Secrets”…I hope when you hear it on the radio it reminds you of today’s message.
Speaking of the band, huge thanks to Tim Arthun! Today was Tim’s last day as a part of the band (other than being a potential fill-in for the future). Tim has been with us from the beginning and has a bright future ahead of him. Thanks again Tim…couldn’t have done the first year without you!
Wrapped-up the “Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them” series.
To be honest all week long I was ok with the message but not extremely excited.
Last night though something clicked…and I couldn’t wait.
You can listen to it here.
I talked about the need for getting real with others.
Seriously take a listen.
Best of all…6 more people came into a relationship with Jesus today!
That never gets old!
Excited that 30+ more people have decided to get involved in a Life Group as a result of this series.
That’s in addition to the 40-50 that were already involved…great to see so many becoming a part of the “Be With” plan.
I love meeting in a movie theater but one disadvantage is having to clean-up so quickly which means not a lot of time to hang-out afterward getting to know people.
So today we invited anyone who wanted to out to Infinito’s.
The third unexpected thing of the day was how many showed up.
We had reserved their backroom and not only filled it up but also another whole section towards the back.
We had 60+, which not only is good for their business but also good for us as I heard many say they got to meet some people that they normally don’t get to talk with.
This Saturday at 9am at the “Pot of Love” restaurant we’ll be doing it again for anyone that’s interested.
Got a couple of nice cards and gifts today as a part of Pastor Appreciation Month…certainly appreciate the encouragement!
Also one final reminder that anyone interested in the FREE Church Planting Dinner here in Harrisburg on November 10th needs to RSVP immediately.
Next week we begin a new series called, “Just Walk Across the Room”. What if you impacting someone’s eternity was only 20 feet away…come next week to find out what that means and what you can do!