- What a day!
- I was just thanking God the other day for how smoothly things have been going.
- Oops spoke too soon.
- Set-up went really well…even have a couple new people helping out which is a huge asset to a team that was already functioning on all cylinders.
- When it came time for the band to do their morning warm-up, we noticed that Bill’s mic was distorting badly.
- I won’t go into all the details, but it spread to Gayle’s mic as well.
- We tried all kinds of things…switching their mics, trying corded mics, switching locations for the wireless receivers, changing channels on the front of house board, changing channels on the back of house board…
- We never did get it completely resolved but finally went with what was the best of the worst.
- I’m not discounting some spiritual warfare going on. I know Satan was not happy that we were going to get serious about some usually not talked about topics so he was doing whatever he could to discourage us.
- Haha jokes on you Satan…goin have to try harder than that.
- Other than that it was a good day…a few minor things here and there but nothing major.
- Of course the big topic of the day was how will Gilbert handle all these questions about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
- To be honest, I was not nervous at all because I intentionally was keeping it as biblical as possible with very little personal opinion.
- Still…talking about things like porn, masturbation and oral sex is not easy…especially with a bunch of people staring at you…and your wife sitting in the crowd…and the director of church planting and executive director of our region of the denomination in the crowd.
- Still I’m pleased with how it all went.
- Especially proud of the Wordle Picture that is the picture for this post. It shows the amount of times a word was used in the message by size. Notice that even in a message that was pretty edgy, the 4 biggest words are God, Jesus, bible and marriage!
- I knew it was going to be a long message but I wanted to get as many questions answered as possible.
- Unfortunately, the live questions via text never made it to me until after the Experience…luckily the broken crock pot question that came in yesterday was still fresh in my mind.
- So many things I could say about today’s message but you’ll just need to listen for yourself.
- All in all I was pleased with the response afterward.
- Had some guys asking for help and the overall response was thank you for being so open and honest about topics like this and keeping it biblical.
- Honestly I can’t think of any other way to be.
- Why would you want to go to church only to hear something watered down that makes you simply feel good.
- Oh wait I remember.
- Great to have our good friends Bill and Nicole up from WV today to visit and then hang out.
- Next week we begin a new series called ME*TRADE where we’ll look at what to do when life just seems to be in a rut.
- Going to be powerful…make sure you invite a lot of people to come along with you!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Stressing but good day.
- Any time you talk about a subject like sex it takes a lot out of you.
- However, everyone I talked to was very appreciative that we tackled it directly.
- Was so nice to wake up this morning to go put out signs and it was light outside and not below freezing!
- Set-up went pretty smooth.
- In total today we had 51 people serving which is awesome…love our team and their hard work!
- Especially needed the help with the nursery and toddlers area…we had 16 of them crawling and running around!
- In this series we’ve had a lot of guests, including many who are right smack dab in the demographic of who we’re trying to reach…people that have little to no church background or experience.
- I love talking to them because their questions constantly remind me of how much churches just assume that people understand. If you could hear some of the questions and comments I get, you’d be amazed how much the Church in America assumes people know about church and Christianity. That’s why at ExponentialChurch.tv we go out of our way to remove barriers that might be confusing to new people coming in.
- We opened today by covering Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”. Sort of edgy but it went well with the message and as I mentioned during the greeting time, here is a young girl who is influencing what today’s young adults think about sex, but yet she herself just a few months into her marriage is already in counseling because it’s not working out.
- Will give them credit though…at least they’re trying counseling. Many in Hollywood immediately go the divorce route. Praying that Katy and Russell “Find the One“.
- In any case, Gayle did a great job covering the song even though it was a bit uncomfortable for her.
- Really liked today’s worship set…pretty decent energy from the crowd.
- I’ve preached on sex before but never really thought I got into a groove today, so not sure it was as good as it could have been.
- However, I did have quite a few people comment positively afterward and saw what appeared to be a handful of people that seemed genuinely convicted.
- Best of all, 3 more people today prayed to begin a relationship with Jesus!
- You can listen to the message here.
- The gist though was this.
- God does not hate sex…in fact He invented it.
- Like any invention to best know how to use it, you’ve got to ask the inventor and/or consult the owner’s manual (in this case…God/Bible).
- Many churches preach no, no, no, when in fact we should be teaching wait, wait, wait.
- So if you’re not married wait for sex until you are. Not because God is a big kill joy in the sky, but because He has something far better in mind for you.
- And singles, don’t see how close to the line you can get and still be a Christian, instead see how close to God you can get.
- As for married couples, I believe my exact words were, “Do it early,do it often, and do it in a lot of positions”. :)
- In other words enjoy this amazing gift God has given you.
- I talked about a lot of other things but you’ll have to listen to the message.
- Don’t forget that next week I’ll be answering the questions that you’ve been submitting throughout the series.
- You guys have been asking some great questions, including more in depth stuff about sex so we’ll cover as many questions as we can in our time together to see what the bible has to say.
- See you then…have a great week and don’t forget to invite some people to come along with you!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Before getting to today let me quickly thank Chad, Bill, Chelsea and our entire team for doing an awesome job last week while I was away.
- Someone asked me if I was nervous not being at Exponential, considering we’re only a couple of months old. My answer was no because of the incredible team we’ve assembled. While I may have a more visible role than others, I’m just one small component of the team and life goes on without me.
- Was really excited about today…we sent out 60000 mailers advertising the new series called “One” which is about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
- The phone was blowing up all week long as people called to get more info.
- One thing we learned for the future is to be even clearer that we’re a church. I’m not saying this to brag since I designed it, but many were so impressed with the mailer that they thought it was a seminar or conference on marriage instead of a church service.
- Many called to ask how much it cost to get in. I kept saying nothing and even on the phone had a hard time convincing people that we are a church.
- The other thing that confuses people is meeting in a movie theater…I quite a few conversations about yes you can have church in a movie theater.
- Even with all that, we had tons of first time guests today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
- Wish so many of our regulars wouldn’t have been absent because it would have been interesting to see how full the theater could have gotten.
- In any case, we had a good sized crowd.
- The day started out early this morning with ice covering everything and I almost took a spill or two getting into my car.
- Set-up went well today even with adding more lighting.
- Slowly but surely we’re starting to get the staging looking better and more like what I’d like.
- Great job by Bill in creating shadow boxes to make the LED strips look even better than they are naturally.
- The band as always did a great job leading worship and I thought they did a really good job covering “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.
- Because of going away, I didn’t have time to create the bumper for the “One” series so I had Brad Miller from my old church in Chambersburg do it for me. He did a great job…if you need video work done, he does a great job and at a reasonable price. Check out his web-site for more info.
- Man I was pumped up for today’s message called, “Finding the One“.
- Had lots of fun presenting it, including an interview with Satan on whether or not single people are losers.
- Big thanks to my former worship pastor Brian Miller (brother of Brad from above) for playing the role. Does it a little too well if you ask me. :)
- Best part of the day was that 5 more people made decisions to become followers of Jesus!
- Man that never…ever…gets old!
- If you know someone who is struggling with their love relationships, whether married or not, download today’s message for them to listen to and then do whatever you need to do to have them attend with you next week.
- Next week we’ll take a look at how God says you can improve your love relationship…if you thought this week is good…
- Now getting ready for “The Ultimate Tailgate Party”. For those that don’t know, we’re partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of Harrisburg to throw a Super Bowl Party for an estimated 200-300 kids and their families.
- We’ve got 46 people volunteering to serve! Thanks Exponential for BEING the Church in the community. That’s what it’s all about!
Inside Today’s Experiences
Sex, Sex, Sex
Mmmm…got your attention didn’t it? Just even seeing the word sex so intrigues us. In fact, I’m guessing that some of you are reading this that don’t normally read my stuff…why is that? Well it’s simple, God put a desire in each of us to not only love and be loved, but to also express that love to another through the gift of sex. This weekend at the United Worship Experience that is going to be our topic. Now let me give a couple of disclaimers:
- If you’re are highly offendable, don’t show up.
- We are going to take a humorous, thought provoking, biblical look at what God says about intimacy.
- I’ve given PG-13 warnings before, but this will be about as close to an R-rated message and Experience that you can get, so if you have children, make sure they are in children’s church, or make sure you are ready to process this information with them afterwards.
- Let’s face it, your 10 year olds and up are hearing about sex from their friends and Hollywood already, so hearing about it from their pastor can only be a good thing if you’re prepared to talk to them about it afterwards.
- Alright with those warnings out of the way, let me encourage you to not only be there but to invite your friends with you as well.
- In fact, you probably don’t even have to ask them to come, you could probably just say, “I can’t wait for this Sunday, my pastor is going to be preaching about sex and he’s promised that they are going to some wild and crazy stuff”.
- At this point you can shut up and they will probably beg you to tell them where there is a church where the pastor isn’t afraid to talk about sex.
- In case your reading this and wondering will this really live up to the hype, here is a sneak peek at words that I guarantee will show up in the Experience through either the spoken word, video or song.
- Sex. Masturbation. Adultery. Lust. Pornography. Ecstasy. Oral sex. Cleavage. Homosexuality. Condom. Lap Dance. Aborton. Foreplay.
I truly believe that God is going to use this message to challenge your thinking in some areas and to ensure that going forward you have the red hot sex life that not only you want, but that He desires for you as well.
See you Sunday!