- Nothing out the ordinary today…oh unless you consider our special guest!
- That’s right…I had the opportunity for an exclusive sit down interview with Charlie Sheen.
- You can watch my interview with him here.
- We did this to help us kick off our “Winning” series.
- The series is looking at how God speaks to us through pop culture.
- Today I talked about whether or not followers of Jesus should be involved with pop music, movies and tv shows.
- The number one response I heard afterward was people thanking me for sharing my personal journey with this topic and then showing scripturally why I’m where I’m at today.
- You can listen to today’s message here.
- Here’s a link to the book I referenced…Pop Goes the Church.
- From a technical standpoint, everything went very smooth today.
- Love the attitude and hard work that our team puts in every week!
- Especially grateful today for Jeff Case and Aaron Hoke for playing through pain.
- Jeff tore rib cartilage and Aaron has a bad cold…both soldiered on though…thanks guys!
- Attendance has been down the last few weeks which quite honestly is discouraging.
- But no one said that church planting would be easy so we’re just continuing to do the things we know God is calling us to and allowing Him to determine our fruitfulness.
- Lots of other great ministry and outreach is being done throughout the week so we’re keeping our heads up and kicking the devils butt anyway!
- It was awesome having our friends Chris and Amanda Short visiting today from out of town.
- We did the Japanese buffet with them afterward along with the Krull’s…mmmm sushi!!!
- Tonight I’m traveling down to Chambersburg to my old church for a special worship concert they’re doing. It’ll be great to catch up with even more friends.
- Next week we’ll continue the “Winning” series by looking at how to overcome temptation. The cultural jumping off point will be the movie “Hall Pass”.
- Have a great week…don’t forget to invite someone to come along with you…Easter is coming soon and it would be great to get our momentum back before then.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Thank you all so much!
- We couldn’t have asked for a better send off.
- The Experiences, party, cards, gifts, plaque, poster, etc all meant so much to Lisa and I.
- We are emotionally exhausted but praising God for the 3 1/2 years we spent together and the awesome send-off you gave us.
- Thanks to Thom Lambert for driving me to church this morning.
- Thanks to Brian, Earl and Aaron for putting together a very moving Experience.
- Loved all the testimonies and the video’s.
- Thanks as well to visiting family members and denominational leaders who came in to be a part of the day!
- Thanks to Chris and Amanda for heading up the party…I’m stuffed!
- Wow, I’m so tired and my mind is swimming so I’m sure I’m forgetting tons of things and people to thank.
- In any case, thanks again for a great day and all the support we’ve received.
- Again we’d appreciate your prayer support. If you’re interested on being on our prayer team, please e-mail to prayerteam@exponentialchurch.tv
- Also other ways you can help us financially and thru short term missions trips can be found at the links.
- I’ll hopefully post some video’s and pics soon, but for now it’s time for a nap and then Lisa and I will be off for a vacation before we start the real work of getting the new church up and running.
- Thanks again and much love to you all!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- 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 Experience
- Interesting day.
- Had all kinds of little problems getting ready for today.
- I hate the little fixable ones more than when the big unexpected ones hit.
- In the midst of all that I grabbed the wrong mic pack for me.
- Imagine my surprise when I wasn’t getting sound.
- Even more imagine my surprise when I feel Chris lifting up my shirt to check the pack in the midst of trying to speak.
- Once we got that all worked out, the rest of the first Experience and all of the second went really well.
- Fun having Aaron with us today!
- Andrea absolutely crushed it with the new song, “It’s Your Love”…awesome!
- I haven’t been feeling good all week, so the message today drained me big time.
- Especially since I was dropping the hammer hard.
- Again let me reiterate a few points:
- You don’t own anything, it all belongs to God.
- God wants you to prove to Him that you believe that by giving back 10% of your income to Him in what is called a tithe.
- If you don’t tithe, God says your stealing, robbing and embezzling money from Him.
- He says in fact that there is a curse on your money.
- So 90% of your income with God’s blessing on it is greater than 100% of your income with God’s curse on it.
- If you don’t tithe it’s not that you can’t afford it, but rather you choose to be disobedient to God. (listen to this section of the message for some thought provoking challenges).
- Last but not least…
- God doesn’t need your money…He owns it all anyway.
- We don’t need your money…giving has been up the last few years…we’re seeing a surplus each month…we’ve added staff in the midst of a terrible economic downturn in our country…
- This is all about vision…we want to reach as many people for Jesus as possible and that takes money…the more we have the more we’ll be able to reach.
- So Jesus said, “Where your money is at is where your heart (passion, attention) will be as well.
- So take the 90 day tithe challenge.
- This is the only thing in all of scripture that God said you can test Him in.
- He said to tithe and see if He doesn’t throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing on you that you don’t have enough room to contain it all.
- Sorry to re-preach this, but I’m sick and tired of seeing Christians devote their time and money to things that just don’t matter.
- Alright time for a nap…not feeling good at all…please pray.