Gilbert Thurston

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

Inside Today’s Experience

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  • Guess we’ll have to call this the Monday edition.
  • We didn’t get home until after 10pm last night from a wonderful day of Easter activities and by then my brain was too fried to do this post…so here it is a day late.
  • Let me start by saying how proud I am of our team.  This was probably the least stressful Easter I’ve had since being a pastor.
  • Everyone knows their roles and does them very well…going the extra mile to make the ordinary, extraordinary.
  • Being the nut for excellence that I am, doesn’t mean I still don’t check and sometimes double check, but 99% of the time things are exactly as they should be and the little extra things to make something even better have already been implemented or thought of.
  • With all that said, we had a great Easter Experience!
  • Had our 3rd largest crowd ever…which made the theater feel nice and full.
  • Most importantly we had 7 people make decisions to become followers of Jesus!
  • As for the day itself, set-up went very smooth with nothing out of the ordinary.
  • Big thanks to Jeff and Alana Case for cutting their vacation a day short to come back to be with us so Jeff could do all his guitar magic.
  • FYI…they also host our practice every Thursday night in Jeff’s basement studio…oh and Alana makes us all dinner as well…awesome couple…couldn’t do what we do without them.
  • Also big thanks to Chuck and Tammy Frank.  Chuck is the director of church planting for our region of the Churches of God General Conference.
  • It was Chuck’s email in October of 2009, that God used to give me the vision for ExponentialChurch.tv.
  • In any case, we had a lot of families out of town this weekend that normally serve and so Chuck and Tammy came to not only celebrate Easter with us but to also serve on our First Impressions Team.  Thanks!
  • We threw a lot of extra elements in the Experience itself but everything went off pretty well…for the things that didn’t we covered them in such a way that nobody even knew.
  • No I’m not telling you!
  • The band as always did a phenomenal job…I could tell they were really feeding off the energy of the crowd.
  • As for my message, I talked about how many things in life “mark” us and how the marks Jesus took have changed history and has the power to change lives as well.  You can listen to it here.
  • Loved the song /music video the band did coming right out of my message called, “Beautiful Things”.  It really brought home the point that God wants to take the old and turn us into something new.
  • Afterward the buzz in the lobby was awesome…met so many new people who were really excited about what’s happening.
  • Wish I could share all their comments but just a few were…”best church service I’ve ever been to”…”I didn’t want it to end”…”I haven’t been to church for years but I’ll be back”…”very moving”…”thank you, that’s exactly what I needed to hear”.
  • Had a nice mix of guests come from personal invites, our Facebook posts and ads, our mailer and even one couple that came because they saw our signs out on Sunday morning and said, “Maybe we should go to a church this morning”.   That’s awesome…huge thanks to Mike Sellers for faithfully coming in earlier than anyone else every Sunday and getting the signs out by the road and intersections.
  • We video taped the entire Experience yesterday (with the exception of a couple minute period near the end when the camera shut off) to see what it looks/sounds like.  Hopefully it came out well and I’ll be able to post it for you to watch online soon.
  • Once we were done we went to MD to visit and have lunch with family and then from there went to WV to visit with friends and have dinner.
  • Also found out I was quoted in yesterday’s Patriot News on my thoughts about using social media in the church.
  • Excited about the kick-off next week to the iLife series.
  • We’re giving away 4 FREE iPads to those in attendance (reminder you have to be present to win).
  • Been hearing some cool stories of how people are getting the tickets out to their friends, neighbors, relatives and co-workers.
  • Remember the more people you invite, the greater your chances of winning so keep getting those tickets out…if you need more let me know we still have a few left.
  • In the meantime, I’ve got a busy day ahead…I leave tomorrow for a conference in Florida…supposed to be in the low 90’s…oh yeah!

Other Weekend Thoughts…and Beyond

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First Baptist Orlando

  • Wow sorry I haven’t been able to blog as much this past week or so…things have been crazy.
  • Many of you were following me on Facebook last week, so you’re at least partially in the loop.
  • If you haven’t yet signed-up for a Facebook account it’s easy to do and an awesome way to keep up with all of your friends at United.
  • Had a great trip to Orlando for the Exponential Conference at the First Baptist Church of Orlando.
  • Got to spend time with a few other guys from our region, including Mike Schooley who started United back in 2005 before heading to New York to start his own church.
  • Mike and I roomed together and every night after we’d turn the lights out we’d talk and dream about church stuff for a long time.
  • I told him the last night I was going to miss our “Walton’s Family” chats.
  • The worst part of the trip was when my good friend Chuck Frank had to fly home early because his wife, Tammy, fell and broke her ankle.
  • Please keep them in prayer…it’s going to be a long recovery process and may still require more surgery.
  • I got a ton of great ideas at the conference and can’t wait to try some of them out.
  • The pic above is of their sanctuary.  To try to give you some perspective, there were 3000 people at the conference and almost everyone sat on the floor level.
  • Perhaps the highlight of week was the very last thing.  Not only did Francis Chan deliever a great talk, but the intro that was given for him left everyone…including Francis saying wow!
  • Got to meet Francis then at the airport that day and he was still talking about it.
  • Was finally able to get the interview with Satan video online from the “Finding the One” message.  To watch it, click here.
  • Satan will be making another appearance this week as a part of the message about sex called, “It’s Business Time”.
  • Seriously the entire Experience is something that is going to be talked about for a long time…
  • …we have things in store for you that you just simply will have to be there to believe.
  • For those that can’t make it, the number of downloads I’m sure is going to not just break but shatter every record we have.
  • Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’m speaking for our denomination on how to reach the 18-35 crowd.
  • Please say a quick prayer for me.
  • Night!