- Wow can’t believe that I just preached my final messages for United.
- I’m sitting in a hotel room up in Harrisburg typing this…I’m drained and could use a nap but we’ve got meetings tonight and tomorrow so I’m pushing on.
- What a hectic day.
- It started out earlier than normal because we wanted to practice the magic trick a few times.
- YES…after 3 1/2 years I finally did a magic trick on stage.
- Keeping with the theme of the day being Iron Man, we made him magically appear.
- In case you missed it, I could see a couple of people were using their phones to record, so hopefully they’ll post it on Facebook or Youtube and then I’ll link to it.
- Thanks for Thom and Brian for their hard work in helping me make this a reality.
- Essentially I took an idea that is usually done for making small things like rabbit’s appear and made it human size.
- Was lots of fun to perform and while I’ve heard some crazy theories on how it worked, no one has come even close.
- Of course the band did awesome as usual covering the Iron Man theme song.
- Also, this morning, our children’s check-in system went haywire and so I was running around checking on things and trying to get hold of our reps down in TX.
- Turns out it was a nation-wide glitch so I wasn’t the only one feeling the pressure.
- Of course when it came time to preach, I was emotional but felt really pleased with my final message.
- I’ve had quite a few people say how much they needed to hear what I shared and would keep me posted in the future as they do whatever God asks them to do.
- I’m always amazed in the differences between the early and late Experience crowds. The early one loved my LOST finale joke. The 2nd Experience just sat there.
- Can’t believe how many parallels there are to Paul’s story as he left the church of Ephesus and my story leaving Chambersburg.
- I’m praying that some of the things like never seeing each other again, my having to undergo persecution and you guys facing spiritual attack do not come true.
- All in all it was a really good day, but I’m glad it’s behind me now.
- Looking forward to celebrating with you next week what each of our collective futures look like and looking back at the past 3 1/2 years. Don’t forget there is a meal immediately afterwards and there will be an opportunity to help support our new church financially.
- Have a great week…still got a couple of minutes that I can catch a quick nap before heading off to my meeting.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Wow I just woke up from my nap…what an exhausting day.
- But another great one!
- Two more people prayed to receive Christ today!
- Pretty smooth day.
- Great to add John Nozzi to the band today and welcome back Karl Hartman on bass for a special appearance.
- Things went well behind the scenes and from what I’m hearing the out front Experience was deeply meaningful.
- It was a lot of fun adding the Pittsburgh Penguins jersey into the What’s NOT Hot Now category.
- Thankfully we had a Pens fan willing to play along although Andy and Gayle had to drive to York yesterday to pick it up…thanks!
- After trying to figure out for so long what national headline to play off of today, I’m glad I settled on the oil spill and where God is at in the midst of tragedy.
- There were some things I said that I know I’ve said before but I had quite a few people today come up afterward and say how impacted they were.
- Guess that just goes to show how the Holy Spirit will speak to different people and different times in just the right way.
- I think the balloons will be an awesome reminder to people of God’s faithfulness for quite awhile.
- Speaking of balloons…I was disappointed that some people chose to snap and squeal them throughout especially the 2nd Experience. Quite distracting but I think the message still got through.
- Adam after the first Experience said to me, “I decided to go to the bathroom before having to go back on stage and when I came back everyone was crying…I was like…what in the world is going on”.
- If you weren’t there and want to know why, listen to the message for the full context or just watch this video. 99 balloons.
- For the full letter I referenced from Eliot’s dad from his blog last week, click here.
- Had some relatives in again today to check out United.
- I told Lisa that it feels like I’m dying and everyone is visiting for the last time.
- One of the relatives was my aunt, Lisa Thurston. Kind of weird having a wife and an aunt with the same name.
- Ask my Lisa sometime about the embarrassing Facebook mistake recently where the two were confused.
- Getting ready to head to friends for dinner…another busy week up-coming…my last sermon at United is now only a week away…hope to see you there.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Fun day!
- We used a live Twitter feed throughout on the middle screen and it was interesting.
- Thanks to all for you awesome comments and for keeping it all clean. :)
- As for me, I felt like a zombie all day…not sure why…had a great night’s sleep…but I couldn’t talk or think right to save my life.
- It got so bad that backstage I tried to tweet about it but sent it to the Mother’s Day tribute instead of the generic one. So when the Mother’s Day part came up in the 2nd Experience, there was one there from me that said, “I feel like a zombie today”.
- Bet a lot of people were wondering exactly what that had to do with Mother’s Day.
- Funniest moment of the day was during the child dedication when the little girl would not let me hug her or her doll…DENIED!
- I was really looking forward to today’s message...wish I could have delivered it better.
- Talked about an important subject that you don’t often hear about…followership.
- If you’re listening and want to see the video we showed at the beginning about the rise of social media, click here.
- We had another potential candidate in this weekend to interview as my potential replacement. Please pray for everyone involved that God’s will be done.
- Very thankful to the leadership of our church for supporting me and ExponentialChurch.tv.
- As Galen announced today, there will be two special Experiences on my final day (May 30th) with a meal then following. Would love to have you attend.
- As well they announced that an offering will be taken to help us get started. You can make a check out to either Chambersburg First Church of God or ExponentialChurch.tv , place it in the special Exponential envelopes then turn it in anytime over the next 3 weeks.
- If you’re interested in giving by credit card instead, click the link and follow the simple instructions.
- As I told the potential candidate this morning…”The best is yet to come for United and CFCOG”…so excited for you guys as well for us as we walk into the next part of this awesome journey He has us on called life.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Sorry I haven’t gotten to these the last two weeks.
- Great day today as we started my final series as the pastor of the United Worship Experience.
- Had 7 more people make 1st time professions of faith…as I said at the end of the message…”Don’t ever let that get old”.
- We started the “What’s Hot Now” series by taking a look at what spiritual meaning can be taken out of One Republic’s hit song, All the Right Moves.
- As usual the band did and awesome job with not just the worship stuff but doing a cover of this as well.
- Brian was excited because in addition to the drums we also used a drum machine to get some other cool effects.
- Great energy in both crowds today…think the 2nd Experience crowed actually was a bit rowdier than the 1st Experience crowd which is unusual…great job everyone…love that excitement.
- I had fun preaching today’s message..already getting lots of positive feedback…or maybe it’s just that I told everyone to tell me it was a great message.
- If that doesn’t make sense, you’ll have to listen for the context.
- Funniest thing that many might not have been able to see was the band dancing off stage to Imma Be which is the song in the bumper video Aaron created.
- Fun that is until Thom knocked over a light getting his groove on during the 2nd Experience. :)
- Can’t wait until next week as we do some cool things as we look at Twitter.
- Don’t forget to sign-up this week.
- Remember as long as you have an account and can text from you phone you’ll be easily able to participate.
- Just go to the Twitter account settings page and add your cell to turn on this feature.
- Ok time for a nap…have a great week.
Momentum
As I was driving to the office this morning, I was still lamenting last night’s Washington Capitals playoff game in which they lost 4-1. For those of you who are not sports or hockey fans, my Caps dominated the regular season. They are the #1 seed in the playoffs and were expected to dominate the Montreal Canadians. The Caps won 3 of the first 4 games as expected and where only 1 win away from advancing to the next round….they had all the momentum. However, that’s when things began to change…
Montreal goal-tender, Jaroslav Halak began playing out of his mind. He had been so bad earlier in the series that he actually got replaced by the back-up goalie, but in Game 5, he held the high scoring Caps team to just one goal. Then last night, in the first few minutes he made 3 spectacular saves that gave he and his team the confidence they needed to sustain the momentum they had started in the previous game. By the time the game was over, Halak has stopped an incredible 53 of 54 shots taken at him. To put that in context…if a team gets off 35 shots in a game it’s considered a lot…or another way to think about it is…a Hall of Fame goalie over his career will stop 50 out of every 54 shots taken at him.
Ok, so here are some random thoughts of what to make of the above….
- People, businesses, teams, churches and organizations need to get and then sustain momentum.
- Sometimes momentum comes from just 1 person. By the fact the Caps got off 54 shots tells us that the rest of the Canadians were not playing well. Halak though was a difference maker.
- There will always be a key moment or decision that will determine whether you will gain or lose momentum. Halak’s first few saves gave him confidence that he sustained throughout the rest of the game. Had he even let in one of those shots the rest of the game would have likely been very different.
- When you have momentum don’t do anything drastic that might change it. The Canadians kept the same strategy and line-up throughout.
- In your life, family, organization, etc, what can you do to help build momentum?
- Have you realized that YOU, even though you are just one person, can be a difference maker that will inspire those around you?
- One final thought, the reality is this post was just a way for me to vent my frustrations with the Caps, so I came up with a lame blog post, trying to turn what Satan meant for evil into good. :)
So let’s hear from you…what lessons have you learned about momentum? And oh yeah…Let’s Go Caps in game 7 tomorrow night!