- What a day!
- I was just thanking God the other day for how smoothly things have been going.
- Oops spoke too soon.
- Set-up went really well…even have a couple new people helping out which is a huge asset to a team that was already functioning on all cylinders.
- When it came time for the band to do their morning warm-up, we noticed that Bill’s mic was distorting badly.
- I won’t go into all the details, but it spread to Gayle’s mic as well.
- We tried all kinds of things…switching their mics, trying corded mics, switching locations for the wireless receivers, changing channels on the front of house board, changing channels on the back of house board…
- We never did get it completely resolved but finally went with what was the best of the worst.
- I’m not discounting some spiritual warfare going on. I know Satan was not happy that we were going to get serious about some usually not talked about topics so he was doing whatever he could to discourage us.
- Haha jokes on you Satan…goin have to try harder than that.
- Other than that it was a good day…a few minor things here and there but nothing major.
- Of course the big topic of the day was how will Gilbert handle all these questions about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
- To be honest, I was not nervous at all because I intentionally was keeping it as biblical as possible with very little personal opinion.
- Still…talking about things like porn, masturbation and oral sex is not easy…especially with a bunch of people staring at you…and your wife sitting in the crowd…and the director of church planting and executive director of our region of the denomination in the crowd.
- Still I’m pleased with how it all went.
- Especially proud of the Wordle Picture that is the picture for this post. It shows the amount of times a word was used in the message by size. Notice that even in a message that was pretty edgy, the 4 biggest words are God, Jesus, bible and marriage!
- I knew it was going to be a long message but I wanted to get as many questions answered as possible.
- Unfortunately, the live questions via text never made it to me until after the Experience…luckily the broken crock pot question that came in yesterday was still fresh in my mind.
- So many things I could say about today’s message but you’ll just need to listen for yourself.
- All in all I was pleased with the response afterward.
- Had some guys asking for help and the overall response was thank you for being so open and honest about topics like this and keeping it biblical.
- Honestly I can’t think of any other way to be.
- Why would you want to go to church only to hear something watered down that makes you simply feel good.
- Oh wait I remember.
- Great to have our good friends Bill and Nicole up from WV today to visit and then hang out.
- Next week we begin a new series called ME*TRADE where we’ll look at what to do when life just seems to be in a rut.
- Going to be powerful…make sure you invite a lot of people to come along with you!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Stressing but good day.
- Any time you talk about a subject like sex it takes a lot out of you.
- However, everyone I talked to was very appreciative that we tackled it directly.
- Was so nice to wake up this morning to go put out signs and it was light outside and not below freezing!
- Set-up went pretty smooth.
- In total today we had 51 people serving which is awesome…love our team and their hard work!
- Especially needed the help with the nursery and toddlers area…we had 16 of them crawling and running around!
- In this series we’ve had a lot of guests, including many who are right smack dab in the demographic of who we’re trying to reach…people that have little to no church background or experience.
- I love talking to them because their questions constantly remind me of how much churches just assume that people understand. If you could hear some of the questions and comments I get, you’d be amazed how much the Church in America assumes people know about church and Christianity. That’s why at ExponentialChurch.tv we go out of our way to remove barriers that might be confusing to new people coming in.
- We opened today by covering Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”. Sort of edgy but it went well with the message and as I mentioned during the greeting time, here is a young girl who is influencing what today’s young adults think about sex, but yet she herself just a few months into her marriage is already in counseling because it’s not working out.
- Will give them credit though…at least they’re trying counseling. Many in Hollywood immediately go the divorce route. Praying that Katy and Russell “Find the One“.
- In any case, Gayle did a great job covering the song even though it was a bit uncomfortable for her.
- Really liked today’s worship set…pretty decent energy from the crowd.
- I’ve preached on sex before but never really thought I got into a groove today, so not sure it was as good as it could have been.
- However, I did have quite a few people comment positively afterward and saw what appeared to be a handful of people that seemed genuinely convicted.
- Best of all, 3 more people today prayed to begin a relationship with Jesus!
- You can listen to the message here.
- The gist though was this.
- God does not hate sex…in fact He invented it.
- Like any invention to best know how to use it, you’ve got to ask the inventor and/or consult the owner’s manual (in this case…God/Bible).
- Many churches preach no, no, no, when in fact we should be teaching wait, wait, wait.
- So if you’re not married wait for sex until you are. Not because God is a big kill joy in the sky, but because He has something far better in mind for you.
- And singles, don’t see how close to the line you can get and still be a Christian, instead see how close to God you can get.
- As for married couples, I believe my exact words were, “Do it early,do it often, and do it in a lot of positions”. :)
- In other words enjoy this amazing gift God has given you.
- I talked about a lot of other things but you’ll have to listen to the message.
- Don’t forget that next week I’ll be answering the questions that you’ve been submitting throughout the series.
- You guys have been asking some great questions, including more in depth stuff about sex so we’ll cover as many questions as we can in our time together to see what the bible has to say.
- See you then…have a great week and don’t forget to invite some people to come along with you!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Fun day…fun series!
- Day started out a little different than normal. I drove south and picked up a young guy who wanted to help with set-up today…love his heart to serve!
- For the first time since we launched I had moment once we were at the theater were I realized I had left something at home…so I turned back around and got it.
- Love that I only live 1.7 miles away…I was home and back for the second time before most of the crew even arrived.
- Easy set-up today…love my team…they do such an awesome job.
- For various reasons we again had many of our normal people gone (think I counted 8) so it was interesting having people in roles they normally don’t fill.
- Everyone did great though!
- Please pray for our Children’s Director, Chelsea Miller who went to the ER on Thursday for pain and is still not doing well. She tried to come in but left to rest because it hit her again. Tests are supposed to come back early this week.
- Big thanks to Larry Evans for stepping up and leading today!
- Great to see many of our guests from last week return again this week.
- We also found out that many of our mailers never hit mailboxes until this past Monday so we had a second wave of new people come in which led to a pretty good attendance day.
- The Top 10 things never to say on a Valentine’s Date went over much better than I thought…might have to do some more of those sometime.
- Band as always did a great job and it was awesome to hear the crowd still singing loud when the instruments drop out in “How He Loves”.
- Today we talked about “Finding the Two“.
- Let’s just say I didn’t hold anything back…I laid out a pretty clear plan for singles based on God’s Word that in the moment doesn’t seem popular, yet I had many people (both singles and married) thank me for having the boldness to tell the truth.
- Andy and Mike were joking afterward whether our attendance will break 10 people next week since I about offended everyone. My response…”I’m an equal opportunity offender”.
- Seriously though…to me the worst thing a pastor can hear after a message is “Great message pastor”…the reason being is it means you agreed with everything I said and weren’t challenged by God’s Word.
- I know a lot of people were squirming today, but that’s because the Spirit was convicting people of sin. My prayer is that they’ll do something about it.
- Had a lot of interesting conversations afterward…most were very positive, but one lady was upset about the housekeeper joke. I thought it was funny, she didn’t…guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
- At least she had the guts though to say something to me about it…I hate when people talk behind your back…so I respect that she said something. She did say she thought the rest of the message was what people needed to hear so I don’t think my attempt at humor will keep her away.
- Next week we’ll talk about sex.
- Again as a warning…this will not be a message for elementary aged kids so make sure they are over in the kids theater.
- As for those of you with middle school aged kids…I’d rather your kids hear about sex from their pastor than kids at school, so I’d encourage you to be there and then use the message to have an honest conversation.
- Listen…they’re hearing it all any way so don’t delay or there will be a new word to describe you in a couple of years…Grandparent.
- Ok see you next week…in the meantime if you haven’t seen our new promo video, you can view it here.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Before getting to today let me quickly thank Chad, Bill, Chelsea and our entire team for doing an awesome job last week while I was away.
- Someone asked me if I was nervous not being at Exponential, considering we’re only a couple of months old. My answer was no because of the incredible team we’ve assembled. While I may have a more visible role than others, I’m just one small component of the team and life goes on without me.
- Was really excited about today…we sent out 60000 mailers advertising the new series called “One” which is about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
- The phone was blowing up all week long as people called to get more info.
- One thing we learned for the future is to be even clearer that we’re a church. I’m not saying this to brag since I designed it, but many were so impressed with the mailer that they thought it was a seminar or conference on marriage instead of a church service.
- Many called to ask how much it cost to get in. I kept saying nothing and even on the phone had a hard time convincing people that we are a church.
- The other thing that confuses people is meeting in a movie theater…I quite a few conversations about yes you can have church in a movie theater.
- Even with all that, we had tons of first time guests today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
- Wish so many of our regulars wouldn’t have been absent because it would have been interesting to see how full the theater could have gotten.
- In any case, we had a good sized crowd.
- The day started out early this morning with ice covering everything and I almost took a spill or two getting into my car.
- Set-up went well today even with adding more lighting.
- Slowly but surely we’re starting to get the staging looking better and more like what I’d like.
- Great job by Bill in creating shadow boxes to make the LED strips look even better than they are naturally.
- The band as always did a great job leading worship and I thought they did a really good job covering “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.
- Because of going away, I didn’t have time to create the bumper for the “One” series so I had Brad Miller from my old church in Chambersburg do it for me. He did a great job…if you need video work done, he does a great job and at a reasonable price. Check out his web-site for more info.
- Man I was pumped up for today’s message called, “Finding the One“.
- Had lots of fun presenting it, including an interview with Satan on whether or not single people are losers.
- Big thanks to my former worship pastor Brian Miller (brother of Brad from above) for playing the role. Does it a little too well if you ask me. :)
- Best part of the day was that 5 more people made decisions to become followers of Jesus!
- Man that never…ever…gets old!
- If you know someone who is struggling with their love relationships, whether married or not, download today’s message for them to listen to and then do whatever you need to do to have them attend with you next week.
- Next week we’ll take a look at how God says you can improve your love relationship…if you thought this week is good…
- Now getting ready for “The Ultimate Tailgate Party”. For those that don’t know, we’re partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of Harrisburg to throw a Super Bowl Party for an estimated 200-300 kids and their families.
- We’ve got 46 people volunteering to serve! Thanks Exponential for BEING the Church in the community. That’s what it’s all about!
Inside Today’s Experience (vacation edition)
Last night while in vacation here in Orlando we went to Northland: A Church Distributed for their Saturday night worship service. Here are my thoughts:
- Forgot how much I love going to Saturday night worship services…we used to do that at Saddleback…always a great way to end a day.
- I wanted to visit this church when I worked for Purpose Driven but never got the chance. The Senior Pastor is Joel Hunter, the brother-in-law of Mark Beeson from Granger Community Church which I spoke at before and visited again this past summer.
- Interesting that 2 people from the same family pastor 2 of the top 20 largest churches in the US…wanted to see what they did or did not have in common.
- One of our core values at ExponentialChurch.tv is that it takes all types of churches to reach all types of people…that was very evident seeing Northland’s campus and style of ministry.
- Whereas Granger and Exponential go for the more cutting edge contemporary side of things, Northland is a bit more traditional in their look, sound and style.
- Now you may look at the picture on this post and go…that looks pretty contemporary to me, but as our staff was recently discussing, the word contemporary has lost it’s meaning because it now covers such a wide perspective.
- In other words a lot of churches that pull out a guitar and sing a few “praise choruses” advertise that they have a contemporary service. On the other end of the spectrum would be churches where it sounds, looks and feels like your at a rock concert.
- Nothing wrong with any of those or the myriad of styles in-between. All that to say that even with the cool tech stuff, Northland probably falls at about a 5-6 on the contemporary scale.
- Ok…let’s back up and take this from the beginning…
- Driving in, it was one of the more confusing parking lots to navigate that I’ve ever seen. Every time I thought I figured it out, I didn’t and so we ended up parking in the back in a grassy area. Now leaving was a different story. Because of all the circles, it made it easy for the huge crowd to be able to leave.
- We walked around to the front…have I mentioned the mid 70’s weather yet on this trip? Haha…for those of you who keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter you know what I’m talking about.
- We explored what used to be their old building which is now used for youth, offices, etc. Neat to see where they were as compared to where they are today.
- Inside the main building the first thing that jumped out was how nice it looked…think lobby of an upscale hotel or museum. Dark woods, tile floors, huge paintings on the walls. Very formal feeling…also noticed that lots of people were dressed up or at least in business casual…guess who stuck out like a sore thumb in their jeans and t-shirts?
- Before I go any further…let me be clear that we really enjoyed our time at Northland. Everything was done with excellence although as I’ll note, a few things did make me cringe.
- Ok back to the lobby…had a very nice Cafe and Bookstore that many people were taking advantage of before the 5PM worship service began.
- Walked into the main auditorium and WOW! One of the largest I’ve seen and trust me that’s saying something since I’ve been to most of the largest churches in the US.
- Love that like at Granger the rear screen is edge blended for the entire width of the stage…so many cool things they can and did do with it.
- Weird though that the two side screens are literally perpendicular to the stage. Couldn’t see any other way though without taking away from what they had.
- Alright now to two cringe things…the service started with 15 minutes of announcements. I hate announcements and I try to keep them as short as possible, but that was ridiculous and especially as the first thing…after all you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
- To make it worse they then had any one that was a first time guest stand up. Wow that’s an old-school move and even as a pastor I was embarrassed…imagine what an unbeliever who reluctantly agreed to try out church would feel like.
- Of course I say that as someone who is passionate about using worship experiences as an outreach tool. For a church like Northland, it was obvious by many things that worship services are more for the already convinced…again nothing wrong with that…just giving you my perspective which is neither right nor wrong.
- Once the music started …FYI the worship pastor looked like Danny Gokey…it was done with excellence and as I mentioned before, they were able to do some cool stuff with the projection screen.
- The songs were essentially modernized versions of hymns and some older praise songs but again with fresh arrangements.
- Joel Hunter’s message was about abiding in Christ.
- Even though I look at the worship experience with a critical eye when visiting elsewhere, my main mission is still to worship and grow in my relationship with Christ…the message spoke to me in a variety of ways and I’m thankful to Joel for using his gift so God could speak to me.
- His style of speaking is like that of a wise grandfather just telling stories to make his point.
- As I mentioned earlier the focus seems to be on those already who are following Jesus because at multiple times he said, “Oh well you all know the story of so and so in the bible”. Helped to save time, but again an unbeliever would have been very confused.
- The best part was the response song after the message. The female vocalist did a tremendous job and Northland’s use of lighting for dramatic effect was perhaps the best I’ve ever seen in a church. Great job…very moving.
- That was it…I for fun decided to take the Visitor Card which they handed us when we were standing up to the Welcome Center to see what they did or gave to first-timers. The answer…nothing. Just a “thanks for coming”. Hmmmm…the embarrassment without a “pay-off”…weird.
- All in all, I can see why this church is popular…excellent worship service and from what I could gather very active missionally in their community and the world.
- Final verdict…completely different than Granger…bet the Thanksgiving conversations are interesting between Mark and Joel. Personally I lean more the Granger way, but again, it takes all types of churches to reach all types of people.