Gilbert Thurston

• What an exciting day!
• Another big crowd and an even bigger announcement!
• To get the full context, listen to the message from today, but here’s the gist of it.
• Starting August 10th because of our continued growth, we will be now offering a second United Worship Experience every Sunday.
• Here’s the new schedule for the entire church…
  • 8:00am-9:00am    Traditional Service in Sanctuary.
  • 9:15am-10:15am     First United and Sunday School Classes.
  • 10:45am-11:45am   Second United, Blended Service in Sanctuary and additional Sunday School Classes.
• This will allow us to continue to grow, will give us the room we need to begin  more Sunday School classes and will allow an extra 15 minutes for classes to meet.
• The announcement was met with cheers, but we need more people than what signed up today to switch to the earlier time.
• I guess everyone thinks…oh someone else will do it.
• On a positive note, almost everyone signed up to serve in a ministry between now and the end of the year!
• As for the rest of the day, everything went really smooth…I wish they were all like this.
• It was great having Brian out front today leading worship.  I especially liked the new song Revolution that they did.
• Gayle did an awesome job as well on the special song while everyone was filling out their cards…hope you caught at least a bit of it.
• It was great to be back preaching again…that’s the longest break I’ve had in awhile and I was itching to get back.
• I’m really excited about the God at the Box Office series that will start on August 10th to kick off the move to 2 Experiences.
• Lisa and I usually like to rent movies and watch them at home so going out to see the new releases has been a nice break from the norm.
• Looks like a ton of invites were taken…I’d love to have to order more, so invite, invite, invite.
• I overheard that someone thought that since the invites look like tickets that people had to buy them…uh no, think we’ll still let people in for free!  : )
• Met two great couples afterwards at the Guest Reception who have moved to the area recently and who have awesome church backgrounds that would make them valuable team members…I’m praying God would lead them to stay with us and get on board with the exciting vision we have.
• After that it was over to Falling Spring for the baptism.  How awesome to see so many people publicly identify themselves with Christ before their family and friends.
• We had one of our video cameras and a still camera go dead battery wise…hopefully we got enough good stuff to put together a video.
• Time for my nap before CAYA this evening.

• Whew yesterday was an 18 hour work day…I slept like a rock.
• Still though it was a great day…I got to do some vision casting late last night and by the time we were done I was ready to take on hell with a water gun.
• It was good preparation for this Sunday’s message…can’t wait!
• Speaking of vision, my friend Chuck Frank who just got hired by our denomination has a huge vision for church planting…read here the numerous ways you can support this awesome endeavor.
• My digital camera died a few months back and I just recently bought a new one…click here to check out some pics I took from last nights worship team practice and to learn more about the team members who were present.
• I talked this morning for about 30 minutes with a guy who is serving in Iraq right now.  It’s amazing that he was half a world a way yet the reception on our phones was crystal clear.
• I’m reading a great book right now called The Starbucks Experience.  I hate coffee, but yet the story of how Starbucks has turned a cup of coffee into an experience is certainly motivating me to continue to not offer a Sunday morning service but a true Experience with God.
• There continues to be great spiriutal warfare going on not only in my own life but in the lives of those close to me…please keep praying that all of us would persevere and that God would be glorifed even in the midst of pain, confusion, heartache, sickness and doubt.
• Today is my day off, so I’m looking forward to spending time with my bride just hanging out!

Baby Karson’s funeral was yesterday and it was tough.  One of the unfortunate things about being a pastor is that you’re around sickness and death more times than the average person so in some ways you get desensitized to it.  As I’ve had more and more family members die in the last few years, I realize that many times I have to be the strong one for other family members so it’s hard for me to express my own grief in ways that I probably should. 

Yesterday though was unlike anything I’ve been a part of.  To see that tiny coffin that I could have easily picked up with one hand and to see the emotion of my cousins who are like brothers to me, was very hard.

Now today I’ve got a very important meeting that has been weighing on my mind for weeks.   Also today Lisa’s grandmother, who we are very close to, is having major surgery.  It’s something she has been putting off for awhile because some of the doctors have been doubtful she’ll survive it.  However, it needs to be done in order for some other life-threatening issues to possibly be resolved.

Add on top of all that, that I’m giving a vision message this weekend that I’ve been working on for months now…which will include a huge announcement…and I’m spent.  Please continue praying.