Chambersburg First Church of God Archives

FAQ’s about Chad’s departure from our staff

December 15, 2013 by Gilbert 1 Comment

Today I announced that Chad will be leaving staff at ExponentialChurch.tv at the end of January. If you’d like to hear my announcement of this news in today’s message, fast forward to the 26:20 mark. For Chad’s response fast forward to the 38:34 mark. Here are a couple of FAQ’s to help you process through the news of this…

Q. Where is he going?
A. Ironically enough to the same church that I left to come to Harrisburg. The Chambersburg First Church of God is continuing to see God move in amazing ways and as a result of that growth they have created a new position which Chad will be fulfilling.

Q. What will he be doing there?
A. Chad’s role will be to oversee all the Discipleship ministries of the church including, Sunday School, Wednesday night programs and Life Groups. There will be other roles in that area that he will also be covering so pray for him that he can handle it all.

Q. Why is he leaving?
A. Ultimately because it’s God’s will. Chad let me know last month that they had asked him if he would be willing to interview for the position. With my blessing, prayer and support, Chad did the interview and not surprisingly they offered him the position. From there it was a matter of he, Tammie and the kids praying and discussing what God might want from and for them. In the end, the decision was to accept the position.

Q. If he was willing to leave does that mean you wanted him to or that there is something going on between the two of you that caused him to want to leave?
A. No. My job as his boss and spiritual leader during a time like this is to pray with and for him and give my input. In our discussions I shared with him what I thought was a balanced slate of reasons to stay and reasons to go. We talked about what was best for Exponential, Chambersburg First, him personally, and his family. We also discussed the negatives to all those. The biggest issue though is what is best for the Kingdom of God overall? At the end of the day the answer was to move on to a new season of life.

As for our personal relationship, I can honestly say that I couldn’t have asked for a better pastoral partner these past 3 years. Getting Exponential up and running has been harder than either one of us thought. There have been times where we’ve wanted to quit but together we’ve kept each other sane. Oh sure, like in any relationship there have been days where we’d get frustrated with something the other did, but those issues would resolve in a day or 2 and honestly were few and far between. Chad and I became friends through all this, will remain friends and will continue working on projects together to advance the Kingdom in any way we can.

Q. Who at Exponential will handle Chad’s responsibilities?
A. Great question and one I’m still processing through. The initial answer is that this will be a great opportunity for many of you to step up and begin serving in new ways. No one person may be able to do all that Chad was doing but if everyone pitches in, we can do it together. Also, this transition is a natural time to re-evaluate how we’re doing all of our ministries. As a result over the coming month(s), I’ll be getting together with many of our key leaders to see what types of shifts we need to make at this time. I value your input, so please email me at gilbert@exponentialchurch.tv with thoughts or suggestions. If you’d prefer to speak in person, we can arrange that as well.

Q. When will Chad officially be leaving?
A. The last Sunday of January which is the 26th. In the meantime, make sure you get together with he and his family to let them know how much we appreciate all that they’ve done these past 3 years. And of course plan on being with us on the 26th as we corporately celebrate their life and ministry!

Thanks for being such an awesome group of people! I hope this blog post has answered some of your questions. If you have any others, please let me know. Remember the best is still yet to come!

Inside Today’s Experience (vacation edition)

June 27, 2011 by Gilbert 4 Comments

First, I know this is a day late, but I’m on vacation, give me a break!
Second, I wasn’t at ExponentialChurch.tv on Sunday so I don’t have much to comment on other than from what I hear you had a good day.
Missed everyone in Harrisburg…but with an off Sunday Lisa and I decided to visit our former church in Chambersburg.
The day actually started out in WV after having spent the night at our friends, Bill and Nicole’s, house. Had a great time catching up with them.
Still holding out hope that they will one day join Lisa, Andy, Gayle and myself here in Harrisburg.
Any way, back to CFCOG…it was great seeing so many people and of course getting the “What are you doing here” questions.
It’s funny how many people think that pastors never get to get away or are nervous to get away.
First, Lisa and I make it a priority to vacation ever year and second, we have such a great staff and team that I wasn’t worried at all.
I was actually surprised how many people got emotional seeing me there. It is nice to be missed, but I know that God has us right where He wants us and I know that things have continued well since I’ve been gone and God has even bigger things in store for CFCOG.
Many years ago I realized that no one person is bigger than a church if it’s on mission.
We decided to go to the early United Worship Experience (the two Experiences I led when I was there) but was disappointed that my replacement Kevin was also on vacation.
Instead it was a recap of the VBS like activities that had happened over the previous week.
Sounds like Kristy and her team had a tremendous week and 22 kids prayed to receive Jesus!
I really liked this alternate way of doing VBS and if and when we’re ready to do something at ECTV, this style is something I’ll definitely recommend to Chelsea.
As for the music and tech for the day, lots has changed.
Some things I liked, others not so much but I’m glad they are still as passionate as ever to lead people in worship of Jesus!
To file under Murphy’s Law, all 3 projection screens went dead for 3 of the 4 songs they did.
However, Brian did a great job of reminding people that we didn’t come to worship technology but Jesus.
The crowd seemed to know most of the songs because I could hear people singing…so that was cool that people still could sing along.
I can hear an older person now going, “We never lost the lyrics in a hymnal”. 🙂
The other surprise was getting to hear Chrissy Miller speak as a part of the sermon.
For someone who doesn’t get an opportunity to do much public speaking, she did a phenomenal job…very poised and articulate.
After a quick 15 minute break, we ended up going over to the sanctuary for the Encounter service.
Other than music it was basically the same presentation as in United.
Considering they were using the same people to do all 5 services, they did a great job of shuttling people back and forth and the appropriate times.
I also got to thinking this means that Earl preached the same sermon (albeit abbreviated) 5 times in the span of about 2 1/2 hours.
That’s hardcore…just one sermon is a taxing thing physically and emotionally but to do 5 that close together earns him an iron man award for the day.
It was interesting as well seeing the same thing but in two different venues (multi-purpose room & sanctuary).
Never realized how much more color “pops” in the sanctuary than it does in the MPR.
Also, I’m going to have to get on Earl about starting to wear some make-up to cut down on the glisten when they have close-ups of him on IMAG.
Bet that conversation is going to go over well. 🙂 Earl + make-up= sign of the End of Times.
The highlight of Encounter for me was seeing Karl lead worship.
He is one of the coolest young guys you’d want to meet and has such a heart for Jesus. Add on top of that the incredible talent he has and it made for a very cool moment seeing him shine as Jesus shone through him.
Afterward Kris and Jenny Shifler were kind enough to host a picnic for the old United team.
It was great catching up with everyone, eating, joking, reminiscing and playing corn hole.
After that we stopped by my sister and brother-in-laws house for yet another picnic.
By the time we got there we were stuffed and wore out but we had a good time eating crabs, hanging out and again playing corn-hole.
Sunday was a great way to wrap-up the first week of vacation…looking forward to 1 more week of relaxing and then it’s back to an all out assault on depopulating hell.

Inside Today’s Experience

May 29, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

I give up!
What I mean by that is…I give up trying to figure out attendance patterns.
Today being Memorial Day weekend, most churches see a dip in attendance.
This week I personally knew of 18 people that said they wouldn’t be with us…who knows how many I didn’t know about.
So my expectation was a really low attendance day…
So of course we end up with our 2nd highest attendance ever…God amazes me.
Best of all we had 5 more people pray today for Jesus forgiveness and leadership!
Funny thing is I didn’t plan on offering a call for commitment today, but I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me at the end to do it any way.
Glad I listened!
As for the rest of the day, we couldn’t have asked for it to be much smoother.
In fact, the band got set-up, had their warm-up and run through and still had so much time that they were actually able to do some Thursday night practice kind of stuff.
Big thanks to Kristie Frownfelter for stepping up and leading the Children’s Ministry today while Chelsea was away on vacation.
I peeked in and it looked like you were doing an awesome job.
Speaking of an awesome job, the pic for this post (sorry it’s so dark) is of our tech team. Andy, Mike, and Cris have 3 computers to run with the assorted programs we use plus then the sound board.
They consistently accomplish the best thing a tech team can do…not be noticed.
If the technology itself or the operators through error draw attention, that means the attention is off of Jesus. So thankful to have a team that knows what they are doing and do it with excellence.
Mike though did do a funny thing this morning when he and I went out to set up signs. We got to an intersection that we put a sign out at. The plan is for me to jump out, reach in the back to get the sign, then Mike takes off and turns around while I’m putting the sign in the appropriate place. This is all done at a busy intersection and it’s best if the light is red when we get there. Today though it was green and so imagine my surprise when I jump out and Mike starts to take off before I’ve been able to get the sign out of the back. Not sure if this is making sense, but it was funny.
This was the 5th part to our iLife series and I’m not sure why but on Thursday I started to get really excited about today’s topic which was gaining professional margin.
Was also nervous a bit though because the one visual illustration I wanted to do involved me juggling. Now I have juggled for years but in order for the illustration to really work it was vital that I not drop any. You’ll have to listen to the message to understand why. Whew…was able to do it!
Always great to be able to look out and seeing a visiting pastor. Today we were excited to have Charlie Hostetter and his wife Linda with us from the Mechanicsburg First Church of God.
Charlie said they wanted to come check us out because they’ve heard so much.
Never really sure how to take that since as much negative is said about us as positive.
They seemed to like it though and we were able to provide Linda with a pair of complimentary ear plugs in case the music got too loud for her.
I know it seems silly but it’s the little things like this (and the mints and hand lotion we provide in the restrooms) that really help create wow experiences for people.
Noticed afterward a lot more people hanging out in the lobby. That’s great that people are getting connected with one another. Technically we need to get out of the theater ASAP, but as long as were not in the way, then I’d love to see these interactions continuing.
Had lunch with my mom and dad today and then Lisa and I went swimming. Our pool is already at a very comfy 82 degrees…tomorrow should help even more.
On a personal note, today marked the one year anniversary since my last day on staff at the Chambersburg First Church of God.
Wow do I miss them tremendously. At the same time though I’m so grateful for the new relationships we’ve made here in Harrisburg as we’re getting ExponentialChurch.tv launched.
I have no doubt we’re exactly where God wants us but it still doesn’t make it easy to be away from so many great friends. Thanks United and CFCOG for 3 awesome years together.
Next week at Exponential we’ll wrap-up the iLife series by discovering how to get moral margin in your life.
I want to talk to 3 groups of people…teens, singles and married couples about how to make sure when it comes to purity (especially sexual purity) you have the margin that God desires.

Inside Today’s Experience (Launch Edition)

October 17, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

For those of you who may not know…each Sunday afternoon/evening I give some behind the scenes thoughts on that day’s worship Experience. It’s a chance to look back on the highs and lows of the day from my perspective and hopefully gives people some insight into what it takes to pull off a typical Sunday morning. With that said…here’s the first official one for ExponentialChurch.tv

What a great day!
8 people during today’s Experience stepped across the line of faith and asked Jesus for His forgiveness and leadership in their lives!
The moment people started responding to the Gospel I remembered clearly why we worked so hard this summer getting ready for this day.
Ok, now that you know the end of the story…let’s start back at the beginning of the day.
I’m not a morning person so a 6am start is not much fun…after a quick shower I was out the door into what was still a cold, dark night.
Mike Sellers and I met at the trailer to get our directional signage and headed out to start setting it up all along Valley Road. I said to Mike, “Could you have imagined just a few months ago when we met for the first time at lunch that you’d be a part of something like this”? We both said it’s been quite a summer and couldn’t wait to see what God was about to do. Mike is just one of many people I didn’t know until the last few months, who have stepped up in major ways to help make today a reality. It’s these types of people that are the real hero’s of the Christian faith. Ordinary people, who volunteer countless hours at churches all over the world to make an extraordinary difference.
As we were pulling back in, I heard a van full of people beeping at us. As I looked I realized it was a group of people from my old church. But who could it be? Imagine my surprise when I found out it was the entire band and tech team from the United Worship Experience which is the group I used to lead. 11 of them drove an hour up the road to pray with us, only to then turn right around and drive an hour back to lead 2 worship Experiences of their own this morning. I was crying then and I’m crying again now just thinking about it. I love that team and it was so hard to leave them, but I know we’re all doing what God has called us to do. Great to know how much they still love and support me. Special thanks to Brian for your leadership…God has great plans for you my friend…keep serving and leading!
Ok now it was on to the hard work of set-up…but here’s the thing…I already have a great team here as well! By the time I was done with the group from United and walked around…much was already set-up.
As compared with yesterday morning when we went into the theaters for another run-through, everything today with the exception of one thing set-up smoothly.
At 9 I pulled everyone together in the Cafe for a final team meeting to remind everyone of our vision for the day. So cool to see everyone sitting there and realizing how God can use us to make a difference for Him.
One of the first guests to walk through the door was an older lady who spotted me and came up excitedly to introduce herself. She said she had read about us in the newspaper and that although she is 70 years old she was there to “rock like a young person”.
Obviously one of the fears you have in starting a new endeavor like this is, “Is anybody actually going to show up?” So it felt great to see people coming streaming through the doors. Some were there as well wishers but many were there because they had heard about us through one of the many ways we got the word out.
Our “Exponential”, God-sized goal was to see 400 people on launch day. We didn’t meet that…only had about half that number but it was a great start and again the most important number to me is the 8 people who woke up this morning hell-bound but now have begun a relationship with Jesus!
CBS21 came and did a feature about us which I just watched in the 6PM edition. I’ll try to get a link or post it sometime soon. The funniest part is my wife Lisa in the background walking through, not realizing she’s on camera…then realizing she is…and having a look on her face of “OOOOOOOO”. UPDATE: Here’s the transcript…video to come later. UPDATE: Here’s the video.
Once the actual Experience started, we had some minor glitches that are very fixable, but for the most part things went smoothly considering everything that can go wrong when you’re as technology dependent as we are.
Could tell the worship team was a bit nervous but that will ease as they get used to the environment and all the emotions of launch day are behind.
With that said though, they still did an amazing job…and from my vantage point, many people were really into the music. Great job by Bill and the team.
One thing that I know caught people by surprise was that we covered Maroon 5’s new hit song, “Misery” right before the message. The reason we do things like this is simple. Studies have shown that music is one of the top influencers on how people think, act and feel. Our goal is to take popular music which people are listening to anyway and put a new association in people’s minds. In the case of Misery, instead of people just listening to it and thinking, “Oh this is a good song”, we want them to associate the lyrics which are about unforgiveness back to today’s message which was about forgiveness. In other words, we want people to now when they hear that song think about what they heard today and hopefully apply it to their lives. This is no different than what the Apostle Paul did in Acts 17 when he quoted two different popular poets of his day. Instead of ignoring pop culture or trying to fight the people involved in it, he instead chooses to redeem it. That’s what we attempt to do. Now to be honest I forgot a small portion of the message that would have tied the song in stronger to the message so that’s why I included a bit of it later in the call for commitment…hopefully though this helps further clarify one of our core values which is, “To be culturally relevant while remaining doctrinally pure”.
For the most part I was pleased with the message and felt like God’s Word was clearly presented. Afterward I had a few conversations with people that were pleased that in such a contemporary Experience, God’s Word wasn’t watered down and a clear explanation of our sinfulness and need for forgiveness was presented without downplaying not just our need for forgiveness but also the necessity of repentance.
Again I heard that what Chelsea is doing in children’s ministry is awesome…wish I were a kid!
Awesome to see and hear so many people pumped up afterward and can’t wait to do it all again next week!

God’s Plans Are Not Our Own

June 18, 2010 by Gilbert 5 Comments

The last few months have been crazy as I knew I was leaving a great church in Chambersburg to begin ExponentialChurch.tv in Harrisburg. I was determined to finish well in Chambersburg before I left at the end of May despite the million and one things I had to do for the new church like find a meeting location, hire staff, raise funds, etc. One way I was helping at Chambersburg was by trying to find my replacement. I wasn’t in the decision making process but I was able to spend time with each candidate that came in and offer my opinion.

One such candidate was a pastor from Ohio named Chad Chute. I met privately with he and his wife Tammie for about an hour and then throughout the weekend we had other chances to talk as he was evaluating United and the church was evaluating him. I was really hoping he’d be my replacement, but for a number of legitimate reasons on both ends, it didn’t work out.

When I discovered this, I asked Earl if it was alright for me to approach him about coming on staff with me. Earl said yes and thus began a month long process of hours of phone calls, capped by spending a week together with he and Tammie in Harrisburg doing testing, assessments, interviewing, team meetings, all along with attending a 3 day church planter’s boot camp. What I’m trying to say is we grilled and tested them pretty hard. The result…

Chad, Tammie, Christopher, Michael and Caitlyn are packing up and moving to PA to be a part of the exciting things that God has planned for ExponentialChurch.tv. Chad will be heading up our Community Outreach and Life Skills portion of the vision. He has awesome experience in these things and it’s a huge relief to me to have a partner in ministry that is strong in the areas where I am weak. Please pray for Chad and his family as they transition into the area over the next few weeks and for the work he will be doing.

The lesson for us all out of this story is that God will sometimes take us to places that aren’t really the final destination He has for us in order to introduce us to people that will help us get to where He really wants us to be. So don’t be discouraged when you hear no, you may have needed to hear that no in order to get the yes He has for you.