Gilbert Thurston

Super Bowl Thoughts

February 2, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Here are a couple of thoughts on the game and a few spiritual insights gleaned as well:

What a great game…maybe one of the best ever.
I was surprised the Cardinals did as well as they did.
In fact they really dominated the game in many aspects and deserved to win just as much as the Steelers did.
However, the final score said Steelers 27- Cardinals 23 and that’s what matters most, so congratulations to them and all you Steelers fans.
Which brings me to my first point…it’s all about the final score. No matter the methods you use or how much the other team may have seemed to dominate it’s what shows up on the scoreboard in the end that matters most. It’s the same with churches…in the end it won’t be about how we did it, or how much more “spiritual” others may seem to have been, but rather how many people did we help come into a true, life transforming relationship with Jesus.
Second lesson learned is that it’s all or nothing…because time is going to run out. At the end of the first half James Harrison picked off a pass from Kurt Warner and started rumbling towards the end zone. Time expired and so if he got tackled the half was over. Instead he determinedly kept going, breaking tackles, giving it his all until he finally just barely fell into the end zone for a touchdown…which as it turned out was greatly needed. Our lives are the same way…time is running out…we need to give it our all if we want to “score” or as the bible says “produce fruit” with our lives.
Last lesson is that the games outcome was determined by a matter of inches. Both Harrison’s touchdown and Santonio Holmes touchdown with less than a minute to go in the game had to be verified by instant replay because they were that were so close to being ruled the other way. In both cases instant replay confirmed that they had just barely scored. In other words, the difference between winning the Super Bowl and losing it was literally a combined 2 or 3 inches. Two months of training camp, 16 regular season games and 4 play-off games later…a champion was crowned because of…inches. Life is the same way…all of our hard work will come down to just the little things that we do or don’t do…the difference between ordinary and extraordinary someone once said is that little word “extra”. So how about it for you? What’s the little extra you need to do to go from a runner-up whom history will forget, to being a champion?

Inside Today’s Experiences

February 1, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Interesting day.
Attendance was a bit light…guess a lot of people really needed the 8+ hours of pre-game. :)
Great to have Pastor Doug Coldsmith with us today from The Gathering Place church here in Chambersburg. Doug is a great guy and a good friend.
I was surprised at the amount of cheers for the Cardinals.
Little different sounding worship set this morning…thanks to Troy Shatzer for helping give a more acoustic feel on the congos.
Things went very smoothly at 9:15…10:45 not so much.
Biggest problem was Aaron’s amp died and so that’s why we had to start again.
I think that threw everyone off because for the 1st time that I can remember in a long time the team got lost in a song…not once but twice.
Luckily they are all so talented that they were able to cover without things falling completely apart…trust me I’ve seen teams fall apart…so next time you see someone on the team thank them not only for their talents, but also for all the hard work they put in to minimize mistakes like they did today.
To be fair…I mess up every week. :) In fact I forget at the 9:15 to cover the key point…oops.
However, I was very pleased with the response to today’s message…even if it did cost me $160.
What a fun illustration…I had tons of people come up and admit that they were too afraid to come up but then were slapping themselves when they saw they could have left with $100.
At 10:45…I thought Dirk was a bit quick to volunteer…sure enough some one had tipped him off…luckily he self disqualified himself.
Even Earl tried to get in on the action. After the 10:45 he came up and tried to offer me $20…said he heard something good would happen.
Met a woman at the guest reception from England…love the accent but not as much as she enjoyed United…see was so excited.
Did a little bit of work this afternoon at the church and then watched a little bit of the flag football game. We’ve got some pretty good athlete’s…the games were fast and exciting.
Ok speaking of football…tonight we’re going to some friend’s house for a Superbowl party…so my prediction is…
What I hope…Cardinals 34-31. What I think will happen…Steelers 24-10.

25 More Things

January 30, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

A popular thing happening on Facebook right now is something called 25 Things. Basically if someone tags you, you have to write 25 random things about yourself and then tag 25 others to do the same thing. Here’s a link to the first time I did it and I said that if I were tagged by enough other people I’d do it again so here we go…

Looking out my office window here at home I can see Whitetail Ski Resort.
When I was 17 (and travelling as a professional magician, when school wasn’t getting in the way), the famous magician Harry Blackstone Jr. and I had lunch together and he recommended that in a few years I marry his daughter. The reason is one of the most respected magicians ever (and even bigger than Houdini in his day) was a man named Howard Thurston. Blackstone thought that a Thurston-Blackstone wedding would create quite a buzz.
The largest and best dessert I ever ate was with Lisa, Andy and Gayle when we were in Vegas at the Rainforest Cafe. It’s called the Volcano and between the 4 of us we couldn’t finish it all.
My biggest pet peeve is when you’re getting on the interstate and there is only one other car and they refuse to move over to the left lane to allow you to get on. Why?! Why?!
A few years ago I switched over to basically only drinking water. About once every other month or so I will have a soda or sweet tea or something else, but usually it’s just water…and it’s one of the best decisions I ever made! Feel much healthier and hardly ever get headaches like I used to.
If I had been born a girl, my parents would have named me Denise.
Lisa and I went to the same high school but never met each other until afterwards even though we were only 2 years apart.
My favorite food to order off the menu is ribs. If it’s my first time at a restaurant that is what I always try first. The best ribs I’ve had is a tie between Dinosaurs (a biker bar in Syracuse, NY) and The Rib Crib (in Oklahoma City, OK).
The largest crowd I ever spoke in front of was 17,000 at Liberty University when I worked for Purpose Driven.
One of the smallest crowds I ever spoke in front of was also the very first funeral I ever performed. I didn’t know the guy which is always hard. What made it harder was his sons and daughters hated him…had him cremated (because it was cheapest) and figured they needed someone there to “bless” his ashes before they buried them. So it was me and a handful of people who hate him. At the end, the one son took off his baseball hat and took up and offering…guess he figured that’s what you do in a church service.
Before becoming a Christian I was a huge gambler. I once lost over $1000 in a single hand of poker…for the night I was down over $2000.
My grandfather Thurston owned both a do-nut and pretzel shop in Hagerstown, MD. Even though the pretzel shop closed well before I was born, I still get asked to this day when people find out my last name if I know anything about pretzels…man they must have been good!
Lisa and I’s wedding ceremony lasted only 7 minutes because Lisa had stage fright and wanted the shortest ceremony possible.
My top 3 spiritual gifts are teaching, leadership and evangelism. To find out yours, click here.
My all-time favorite sports star was Cal Ripken.
One of my scariest yet most rewarding memories is of a group of us from the church where I was pastoring at the time, going up to New York City about a month after 9-11 to minister to people on the streets. Sadly even though it has been a month, there was still smoke rising from the ashes and the smell was terrible.
One of the greatest things I miss about working for Purpose Driven is getting to spend so much time in Southern California where it is always sunny and the temperature is usually in the high 70’s to low 80’s. I loved it there as well as Seattle, Washington; Autsin, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona…I could totally live in any of those places.
I believe that your car should be a “University on Wheels”. All of us spend so much downtime in the car that if we used it to learn instead of just listen to music, we’d be so much better off. Not that music is bad sometimes, but with the amount of free podcasts and other teaching tools out there, there is no reason not to spend at least part of your time learning.
My right shoulder after so many years of baseball and then softball is basically shot. I really should have surgery on it, since it’s painful to throw or to lift any amount of significant weight, but I want surgery like I want another hole in my head.
Today I did one of my favorite things…shop for and buy books. I picked up six altogether. A Whack on the Side of the Head (creativity), The Big Idea (church leadership), Purple Cow (marketing), Free Prize Inside (marketing), Tribes (leadership) and Refuel (idea for potential future sermon series).
I have two brother-in-laws both named Brian. My wife and my aunt are both named Lisa Thurston and our church secretary and the young woman at church who is going to help me with adminstrative tasks are both named Jenny….ahhh this is too confusing!
Between just Lisa and I we currently have 5 computers running right now in the house. Mmmmm can you say geeks!
I usually start formulating ideas for a sermons at least 3 months in advance of when it will actually be delivered. The message itself is ideally written 3-4 weeks before I actually give it (meaning I’m always working on multiple messages at a time) with revisions coming the week of. Between gathering ideas, studying, writing, revising and rehearsing, the typical message has anywhere from 40-60 hours invested in what will typically last 25-30 minutes.
I would love to someday climb a mountain. The highest I’ve ever climbed was to the summer snow line on Mt. Rainer in Washington state.
This blog post on our site www.unitedworshipexperience.org automatically generates itself on Facebook as well. I’d love to know where you read this…here is the link back to the post on our site. Click it and leave a comment about whether you read it originally directly on the site or on Facebook. You can also leave any other comments about numbers 1-24 if you’d like. Look forward to hearing from you.

Thursday Thoughts

January 29, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

My back is sore from shoveling.

Yes, I’m whining…get over it.

Found out today that a friend of mine by the name of Rick is being laid off from his pastoral position at the church where he serves.

No…it’s not that Rick…it’s another one…besides RW no longer takes a salary from Saddleback.

In any case, please pray for Rick and his family as they transition to hopefully another church.

Found out yesterday that another church I greatly admire had to lay-off seven of their staff members.

It’s amazing but with all of our growth, we are still seeing higher amounts of money come in!

Thank you to all of you who faithfully tithe and trust God even despite the tough economy.

One good thing about the snow was I was able to work from home….and without all the distractions (re: Aaron J) I was able to get a lot of work done.

Basically I have a pretty good idea where we’re going with every series through the end of June!

I read this morning that President Obama is going with a more relaxed dress code in the Oval Office…YES WE CAN!!!

Anybody watch LOST last night? Although it didn’t dramatically advance the plot, there were still some cool things that happened.

Can’t wait for this weekend. I have a feeling a lot of the 9:15 crowd is going to want to come back for 10:45…you’ll have to be there to see why.

Found out we had a guest on Sunday who was checking out what United does so they can incorporate some of it into their church soon.

I love that…the more we can help other churches the more the Kingdom will grow which is what it’s all about.

Or as we said at PD…”If my bullet fits your gun then shoot it!”

Sitting here at practice and there almost done…extra early! Red Robin here we come!

The Christian Writer’s Market Guide 2009

January 28, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Lisa and I would both like to someday write a book. Since I think she’ll beat me to it, I asked her to review the Christian Writer’s Market Guide 2009 Edition. Here’s what she wrote…

The “Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009” is the essential reference tool for the Christian writer. I love it because it’s not a few hundred pages full of opinions and projections. There’s a simple getting started guide that is important for you to read to get the most from the book, and the rest is up to date research. It’s a one stop shop for all the current information on the Christian publishing industry. Whether you are just getting started or a seasoned writer this book is an extremely valuable tool. If you are just getting started in the writing industry it gives you a starting point. It gives instruction on how to choose a publisher, and realistic expectations on breaking into the business. For seasoned writers you have a well organized book as well as a CD to get you up to date in this drastically changing market. The listing of publishers also includes how to contact them, the name of the editor, a statement of purpose, publishing statistics and so much more. Along with everything you wanted to know about book publishers, you will also find listings and market analysis for periodicals, greeting cards and specialty markets, and a list of helps for writers such as conferences, workshops, agents, contests and so much more. Thanks to this book the overwhelming task of getting published has become a feasible step by step process. If you are looking for resources as a writer I would recommend this book to you.start here.