- Not preaching or speaking at all today so I’m live blogging the second Experience.
- Just got done baptizing over a dozen people!
- I’m coming in during the first song…”The Time Has Come”.
- 3 of the normal team members are gone, but the band still sounds awesome none the less.
- The 1st Experience was great. Everything went smoothly…Earl’s message was great and Brian did a very nice job with his remarks.
- More of that to come later.
- Just moved to the song, “Yours Forever”.
- So proud of the growth of Brian these past 3 years.
- Crowd is still coming in…the joint baptism service went long so people are late arriving.
- Last I saw Earl he still hadn’t changed clothes…he’s about 1 minute from having to be on stage.
- Maybe he’ll come out soaking wet. :)
- “We are yours forever, our lives won’t be the same…”
- Shouting and clapping…that would have never happened 3 years ago.
- Earl on stage doing announcements.
- Don’t forget that next week we WILL NOT change our clocks until after the Experience is over.
- Done this for 3 years now and everyone likes it…don’t lose an hours sleep.
- Don’t forget to let others know.
- Sign up to help with the Easter Egg Hunt. Last year we had over 1200 kids show up so we need your help. E-mail kristy@chambersburgfirstchurchofgod.com
- Earl asked not to do fist bumps today because he hurt his hand one time. Poor Earl.
- Back to music…”We Will Run”.
- Andrew getting his guitar groove on!
- Crowd’s a little dead.
- One last song…”Kingdom Come”.
- New song…love Brian’s lighting for this one.
- Just looked to my left and Tim, Jerry and Chris are all busy making the tech happen here in the back.
- Cressa giving some awesome harmony while Brett’s bass and Thom’s drumming are building…building…building….
- “Raise your hopeful voices, make a joyful noise and sing to the King of Glory”.
- Brian praying…please hold be right back.
- Earl in jeans and a nice looking shirt…using the table and stool. We’ll make him contemporary yet!
- “It’s ok to be disappointed that Gilbert’s leaving. But that leaves questions. I want to answer those today”.
- “I want to tell you a story”
- July 24th 2004: The first preview of United.
- Mike Schooley leading.
- Earl looked in that day. One person he saw was Adam Swisher who is still with us today.
- Mike’s vision was that United be like a bar where people would feel love and excited.
- “Under Mike’s leadership Chapter One of United had begun”.
- “At the beginning of 2006 Mike came to us and said God had called him to plant a church in his hometown of Horseheads, NY”.
- “In the spring of 2006 Mike left. Chapter One was done”
- “During that same time God brought Andy and Gayle Krull came to lead worship and up-grade our technology.”
- “Andy and Gayle said you need to talk to our friend Gilbert Thurston”.
- “Gilbert came on and things began to really grow”.
- “Gilbert really stressed excellence and evangelism”
- Fall 2007: A second Experience had to be started because of all the growth.
- “Last week you heard that like Mike, Gilbert is leaving to start a church in Harrisburg so chapter 2 will be coming to a close”.
- APPLAUSE for me. Thanks all!
- “The book is not done…chapter 3 is coming up and I can’t wait to see how God is going to work”!
- Ephesians 3:20-21
- “Mike laid the foundation, Gilbert added on, but the best is yet to come”.
- “Tuesday of this week an ad went out…so far over 50 people have applied. We will be seeking the right person to lead us in Chapter 3”.
- “We want to challenge you to pray…for search committee…for the right person…Gilbert…myself, staff and leadership…yourselves”.
- Ephesians 3:14-18
- Earl’s talking about Avatar and 3-D. “God is 4-dimensional”.
- “2nd challenge is to not fall away just because leadership is changing”.
- “Some leadership is not changing…one person is Brian Miller”.
- Brian now on stage.
- “Leading you in worship is amazing”.
- More applause for me…Oh stop. :)
- Brian is talking about praying after finding out I was leaving.
- “God slapped me across the face”.
- God spoke to him that it wasn’t Gilbert or Brian or the team that built this building, saved, hundred, etc. It was all God.
- AMEN Brian, good word!
- “God is not leaving us, nor are the 70,000 people in our community who don’t yet know Christ”.
- Brian is having people yell, “I’m excited”.
- Earl speaking again…”Don’t stop inviting people, Gilbert will still be here for a few months and then the next person will come on to start chapter 3…again the best is yet to come.”
- “We also want you serve so the next person coming on can say ‘wow'”.
- “Gilbert and Mike are two completely different people yet their passion was the same. The new person will be different than Gilbert, but the passion and vision will be the same. Don’t miss Chapter 3”.
- Earl praying.
- Brian and team back on stage finishing out with “The Time Has Come”.
- Well that was fun…have a great week everyone!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Now that was fun!
- For those of you not with us, we recapped every series from 2009.
- That’s 52 hours worth of content that we condensed into an hour’s worth of highlights.
- I figured this was going to be one of those hit or miss type of things.
- Luckily it was a hit…I’m not sure I’ve ever had this much feedback so soon after an Experience.
- One of my big fears was whether it would translate to people who were guests.
- I had one lady come up afterwards who was from North Carolina and she said the format helped it all to make sense and she was wishing she lived close so she could attend all the time.
- The other cool part was the number of people who shared with me how it brought back memories to the week/series which they got saved or for some it was a reminder of when they first started attending.
- I was so excited for today that I was wide awake at 5am and ready to go.
- Set-up and the warm-up time were super easy today!
- That’s a good thing because the tech for today was crazy.
- Great job by Chris, Andy and Crissy making things happen behind the scenes exactly when they should have!
- Also I’ve got to give a big thank you to the band.
- In the midst of Christmas and everything else, they have spent 20+ hours at the church in the last week getting ready for and playing in Experiences.
- If you haven’t thanked them in awhile for what they do, please be sure to do so soon.
- In fact, I thought the standing ovation you gave them Christmas Eve after the Trans Siberian song was cool and I know they appreciated it.
- Back to today…it was strange for both me and the band because we were basically doing something the entire Experience…usually it’s one or the other at a time so you get a bit of a break. Not complaining, just different.
- It would be hard to post the audio online for today, but I am going to try to put together a video at some point in my “free” time.
- So in the meantime take the outline from today and go through each of the application questions so you see your growth from 2009 and evaluate in what ways you need to grow in 2010.
- The funniest/most painful moment of the day occurred backstage during the 2nd Experience during the 1970’s medley. Andrew wasn’t playing but was watching from the side wing. He got excited and went to do an “Elvis like” windmill with his arm, but didn’t realize I had come up and was standing behind him. When his arm came (rather hard and fast I might add) it grazed me in the face then hit me squarely in the upper chest. I t hurt but we had a quick laugh about it.
- He wasn’t laughing though when he then went back on stage and dropped his guitar, breaking a part of it.
- I guess that’s what God does to people who punch the pastor. :)
- All in all a very good day and hopefully an inspiring look back at all that God has done in 2009.
- Enjoy the pics below.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Wow that was too much fun as we kicked off our Party series.
- I love it when things just sort of click and everything comes together.
- Even better two more people became followers of Christ today!
- The morning started out normally but something happened to my right contact during the set-up time. I couldn’t see…so I had to call Lisa to bring me a fresh set.
- Missy Kibbe did a great job of getting the refreshments set up and welcoming the early crowd to the party.
- By the time Brian got the party song started, the energy was already high.
- We’ve been wanting to do that song for a few years now and it finally made sense to do it.
- Loved seeing everyone singing, dancing, shouting, pumping their fists in the air…awesome!
- Brian and his team created an incredible stage design.
- When during the middle of Party all the lights finally came up…you could see the wow look on people’s faces.
- When it came time for the band to cover Trans Siberian Orchestra’s, Carol of the Bells, I was super nervous.
- They worked for hours on Thursday night just on that song.
- In case you couldn’t see it, Adam and Andrew were both getting quite the finger workout.
- Basically if you can pull off something like that you can do anything…both of them stepped up big time and did an awesome job.
- Thanks also to the rest of the team for their parts as well…especially Gayle who played what is meant for 4 keyboards on one by dividing our keyboard into basically two. Her left hand was playing one instrument her right hand the other.
- If you’ve ever been to or seen Trans Siberian, you know the crazy light shows that accompany their music. I thought considering our budget is a good million or two less than theirs, Brian did an awesome job creating a light show to match.
- I told the 11:15 crowd how rowdy the early crowd was and gave them a chance to outshout the early group…man I couldn’t believe the lungs you people have. :)
- I was pleased with both messages and pray that it will have a lasting impact on people.
- I also found out afterwards that over $6000 more dollars came in today to benefit needy families in our area. Thanks for stepping up to the challenge that both Earl and myself gave this past week.
- Again this year we should be able to help approximately40 families who wouldn’t have a Christmas except for our help.
- Already looking forward to next week…going to keep the Party going!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Another fun day!
- Any day where people are giving their lives to Christ though is a good day in my book!
- Both crowds today we’re really energetic…especially the 11:15 crowd.
- I loved the band’s version of the song, “Second Chance”.
- We had Andrea hold out the one note twice as long as it is in the original and in both Experiences I got goose bumps…she and they did awesome!
- It’s been great to add some new band members recently…today we added Steve on drums and Andrew on guitar.
- That’s in addition to recent additions of Brett, Dan and Cressa.
- All the new people are doing great and adding nice depth to the team.
- Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Brian, Adam, Andrea, Alex and Gayle for their years of hard work on the team.
- I really enjoyed this series…I always get as much out of them preaching as you probably do listening to them.
- Remember, “The clearer the vision, the fewer the options, the easier the decision”
- Also don’t forget, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down”.
- Next week we’ll only have the 9:45 Experience so make sure you’re there early to get a good seat and don’t forget to invite someone as we launch a new series called “Reality Check”.