Jerry Snyder Archives - Gilbert Thurston

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!

Another one of those mixed emotions days.

The morning started earlier than normal for me when I was awoken by the sound of a snow plow…wait a second, what? A snow plow…are you kidding me?!

I get into church ok, but I’m wondering about the parking lot…Earl is normally in charge of snow decisions.

It was a bit slippery walking in from the parking lot and I’m worried about the older folks at the 8:00 sanctuary service slipping and falling so I call to have at least the senior parking area and guest parking area plowed.

Uhhh yeah…when I come out then at noon time everything is melted…snow, no snow…are you kidding me?!

So I get into the multi-purpose room to discover that the gym floor is a mess from a wedding the night before and that all of our tables for the tech area need to be carried out.

Now I’m running behind but not bad…everything is ready for the band to do their morning warm-up except the batteries for the mouse died. No problem more batteries in the back…ooops all batteries gone…send Brian out for batteries.

Ok, back on track…great band warm-up although Aaron asks for a bit of extra time. I told him no it’s 8:30 and we still have to check videos and other stuff.

Hit the video button…it plays on the screen…uhhh were’s the sound?

Check eveything we know to check…nothing. Starting to worry because we had 5 different video clips to play of which 2 were very important to my message.

Why do these things always happen on weeks that Andy is away?

Trying desperately to call him and wake him up on his “vacation”. Nothing, try Gayle’s number, Andy’s sister’s number, his parent’s number to see if they know which room they are staying in at the hotel. Nothing…nothing…nothing.

Mmmm…starting to get nervous…time is ticking.

Finally get a hold of Andy. “Oh no problem…do this.” “Mmmmm…already tried that”. “How about this?” “Nope did that to”.

Ok, time for plan “B”. Have Andy talk to Chris on the phone and walk him through repatching our entire video system.

7 minutes left until the 9:15 is supposed to start.

5 minutes…3 minutes…2 minutes…”Ok guys go ahead and start the countdown just without any sound”.

1 minute and 15 seconds left and the sound kicks on…whew just in the nick of time…everything will be good from here right…wrong.

Because we took so much time getting all that fixed nothing else got checked so we were having problems in other areas and then I come out on stage and don’t have a functioning microphone because I had forgotten to switch it back to the right channel after being in the sanctuary last week.

Luckily Aaron figured that out and was able to get me back on track during the first video.

All in all the 9:15 couldn’t have been much more of a trainwreck behind the scenes and then somewhat on stage.

How embarrasing since I was talking about making a great first impression in the message.

In any case, I had quite a few people tell me afterwards that despite the obvious glitches, the message was really convicitng and motivating so hopefully the whole thing was just Satan trying to keep us from accomplishing what we’re called to do in Franklin County and beyond.

A big thanks to Chris, Jerry, Jason and Aaron for keeping their cool under pressure and making the most of a bad experience. And oh yeah…thanks to Andy for being “on call”.

The 10:45 then went off without a hitch and was a reminder of why I was so excited about today.

The band did a great job in both Experiences and the new stage design Aaron did for this series is incredible.

I think the big light heart was a hit. Although I had a few people tell me they thought it was unintentional.

Guess that tells you what they think of Aaron’s ability to think creatively! 🙂

I had told Aaron earlier in the week that this was going to be one of my longer messages and wow I didn’t disappoint. 🙂 Nearly 45 minutes when you include the prayer at the end.

Guess I had a lot to share 🙂

In the hectic pace of the morning I lost my water bottle somewhere, so what the team doesn’t know is that backstage I was grabbing anyone’s bottle I could find and drinking from it.

I’d pay to see their reactions right after having read that!

So basically today was at both ends of the spectrum…but I’m still proud of the team for pulling through.

Today though was further proof of why we need more of you to serve. I am in no frame of mind to preach when all those other things are happening and I need to be there to help.

I look forward to the day when the only thing I have to do on a Sunday morning is preach and then be told afterwards about how things just barely came together in time.

When we were done today I went to lunch with Don Dennison, his wife Phyliss and Kim Mills. I hear Don did a great job filling in for Earl today in sanctuary.

I’ll check-in tomorrow with some other weekend thoughts. In the meantime, keep asking yourself “What if…”

Inside Today’s Experiences

Inside Today’s Experiences