Gilbert Thurston

Random Thoughts About Life, Ministry and Whatever Else Happens to be on my Mind

FAQ’s about Chad’s departure from our staff

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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!

FAQ’s About Chelsea Leaving Our Staff

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In Sunday’s message and then again in this week’s “Inside Today’s Experience” I made the announcement that Chelsea Miller will be leaving our staff.  If you missed Chelsea’s letter from yesterday, you can read it here.

Any time something like this happens, there are bound to be a lot of questions so I wanted to answer them here for you.    Then tomorrow check back into this blog for more info on the plan going forward.

Q.  Why is she leaving?
A.  Because it is how God is directing her.  As I mentioned Sunday, many times God will ask us to do things that aren’t comfortable and require sacrifice.  Having worked with Chelsea for the past 18 months I know how much she loves your kids and how much it pains her to be called away but doing what Jesus asks us to do must always be our first priority.  Again you can read her thoughts here.

Q. But you said she’s still going to attend ECTV right?  Why would she do that?
A.  Because she still believes in the vision of ECTV and has made many good friends here.  In other words, she’s feeling called away from her staff responsibilities but not the church.

Q.  OK Gilbert what did you do to upset her and make her want to quit?
A.  Nothing.  I may not be the world’s greatest boss but Chelsea and I have a great relationship.  Over the months she became not just an employee but a close friend and someone I protect like a little sister.  She would tell you that I’m not perfect but that I tried to support and encourage her each and every step of the way.

Q. Ok was she fired then?
A.  No Chelsea was doing a great job.  Nothing made me happier than seeing kids each week come running out excited about what they had just experienced in the kids theater. When I hire and then evaluate people for job performance, it’s based on 3 things…Character (are they growing to become more like Jesus), Competency (can they do the job) and Chemistry (can they get along with other staff and those they are called to lead and minister to)…by each of these measures Chelsea was doing very well.

Q. You’ve mentioned the tight finances at the church a number of times, was she laid-off for financial reasons?
A.  No.  While yes, like any church plant, we’re struggling to get a financial base, things are not so bad that Chelsea had to be laid off.  In fact, I’ve told the staff that if we were ever to get to that point that I’ll be the first to sacrifice salary before I’d ask them to or have to get rid of one of them.

Q. Will you be hiring someone to take her place then?
A.  Short-term the answer is no.  Again I’ll be posting tomorrow what the plan looks like going forward. 

Q. Seriously this would be so much more fun if there was some big controversy or scandal…are you sure you’re telling the whole story?
A. YES!!!  It’s sort of a shame that as a pastor I need to do posts like this in the first place.  Unfortunately though because of the mistakes of church staff in other churches over the last couple of decades, it’s almost become a necessity to keep the rumor mill from churning.  The most unfortunate part of that is, that as Christians, we’re to always look for the good in others first off but many times we are the meanest, gossipy bunch around.  For that, shame on us.  Again the truth is, Chelsea was called here by God and now she is being called away.  I applaud her for following what God is asking her to do when it would have been very easy to just keep collecting a pay check.  My prayer is that all of us would be as obedient.

Q. What specifically can I be praying about?
A. First, be praying for Chelsea.  While she was only part-time with us, this is going to put a bit of financial pressure on her.  Again though I so admire her faith to do what God wants even at the risk of personal discomfort.  So pray that God will provide to make up the difference.  Also, be praying for her as she seeks God for what her next step is in her own service to God.  Again the plan is she wants to stay with us at ECTV, but who knows what God might have in store so pray that His perfect will be done in and through her.

Second, be praying for the children of ECTV.  While all of this might make sense to us, for them this can be a confusing time.  Why is she leaving?  Did I do something wrong?  Does she not like us?  etc…    I want to encourage you to begin preparing your children now.  Over the next few weeks the kids will begin noticing some changes so hopefully we can make the transition as smooth as possible…then on March 18th we’ll have a big going away party for Chelsea where not only will we celebrate but also encourage them to always follow God’s will.  One thing that will help is that the kids will still get to see her in the hallways before and after church so were praying that will take away a bit of the sting of losing her in the actual theater.

Third pray for the rest of our staff, especially Chad, as we work to build on the awesome foundation of Children’s Ministry that Chelsea has already laid.

Finally, pray about your part.  Again more details will come tomorrow but we need 25 of you to step up in various roles in Children’s Ministry to make sure that it not just survives but thrives.  If you’re interested in taking the next step, click here to get more info and begin the application process.

Q. Final question.  Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?
A.  OK now you’re just being weird, talk to you tomorrow.  :)

Inside Today’s Experience (Thursday edition)

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  • Wanted to wait this week to post this until I was done speaking Sunday – Wednesday nights at the Greenvillage Church of God.
  • I’ll start though with our Sunday morning at ExponentialChurch.tv.
  • The morning went pretty smoothly however I was probably as discouraged afterwards as I have at any point in our almost 1 year of existence.
  • We did a big mailer for our new series on how to discover God’s will for your life, plus I figured everyone would be done with vacations, etc.
  • Guess not…we had 12 alone from our serving team gone and by the time the day was done we had even less people than we had the weekend before.
  • It’s frustrating putting all the time, energy and resources into something and then not seeing the results you had hoped for.
  • Oh well, God knows what He’s doing and our job is to continue to be faithful and plant seeds and He’ll bring the results.
  • Speaking of…we had 2 more people pray to ask Jesus for His forgiveness and leadership on Sunday!
  • Amazing how that puts everything into perspective.
  • That makes 107 salvation’s now in 11 months!
  • Even though I don’t understand it all and get frustrated, God continues to do amazing things so my I’m just trying not to hinder His work.
  • Speaking of good work, it was great to have Greg Hench and George Jensen with us on Sunday.
  • They are both pastors in our denomination doing a great job.
  • The band as always did an amazing job on Sunday and it was cool having my niece Taylor help out in the tech area.
  • She was so nervous that she was going to mess up but she, Mike and Cris did a great job in Andy’s absence.
  • For those of you who might have missed the message, you can listen to it hear.
  • As I mentioned earlier Sunday-Wednesday night I spoke at Greenvillage on relationships.
  • It was a great 4 nights getting to know people and share God’s Word about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
  • I essentially used a lot of the content from the ONE series I did in February here at Exponential if you’re interested in hearing what I shared.
  • The only exception was last night I did a message on communication instead of doing the Q&A like I did at ECTV.
  • For those of you who were there, you can probably figure out why.
  • I was surprised they wanted me to do the content for the 1st 3 nights much less what gets discussed in the Q&A.
  • Monday night I left the house at 5:10pm for the 45-50 minute drive.  This would still put me there with an hour to spare.
  • By 6pm I had gone all of 11 miles.  I knew right then and there I was in big trouble.
  • Turns out they had closed I-81 because of a bad accident.
  • I contacted the church and told them I’d get there ASAP.
  • It was 7:35pm until I arrived but they were very gracious.
  • In now 22 years of doing various types of public speaking, this is the first time I’ve ever been late.
  • The only thing I kept thinking though was…”At least now I can use a joke I’ve always wanted to use in a situation like this”.
  • I’m not sharing what it was in case you are ever at a place I’m late for, but let’s just say it got a roaring laugh!
  • It was great seeing the crowd get younger and younger each night…young people definitely need to hear what I shared.
  • Last night I guy shared a funny story with me that you’ll will get if you’ve ever heard me talk about sex (which I did on Tuesday night).  He said he went home and started folding laundry.  His wife looked at him funny and said, “What are you doing”?  His response, “Starting the crock pot”!  :)
  • All in all it was a great 4 nights and many said how much they enjoyed it so hopefully I’ll be invited back someday.
  • I also challenged them to be more evangelistic as a church so pray that those seeds I planted take root as well.
  • Pray for their church as they are between pastors right now and seeking who and what God has for them next.
  • I’m pretty exhausted but yet excited at the same time for what God has in store for us at ECTV this week as we continue the Unveil series.
  • See you then…don’t forget to invite a friend.