- Big thanks to Chad for finishing up the Thrive series as Lisa and I wrapped up vacation.
- One thing we like to do at the end of vacation is get back in town and visit a local church.
- Today we chose Christian Life Assembly across the river in Camp Hill.
- I know a couple of people who attend there including the lady who does the processing for all of our mailers.
- I had been there previously during my Purpose Driven days for a technology conference and was very impressed by their team and facility.
- Again today I was really impressed…as I’ve said before and is one of our core values, “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”.
- With that said, I was slightly disappointed that their contemporary service wasn’t more contemporary than what it was.
- That’s not their fault…I just sort of assumed it would be and also we can blame the broad range that now falls within the terminology of “contemporary worship services”.
- Their web-site says that the 11am service is contemporary music and casual dress.
- When we got out of the car with jeans and t-shirts on, I immediately knew we were way under-dressed.
- Many were still in suits and dresses and those that came “casual” were in khakis and button down shirts.
- The worship team was in suits and skirts and most of the “contemporary songs” were from the late 90’s and early 2000’s down in multiple part harmony.
- Again nothing wrong with any of these things, I just wish there was better terminology.
- Ok with all that said, the service itself was awesome.
- It had a July 4th theme throughout and from the music, to special music to message, it was done with excellence.
- I especially enjoyed the worship pastors leading style and a cover their lead guitarist did of Jimi Hendrix’s version of the National Anthem.
- Ironically that was the most contemporary feeling thing they did even though it was the oldest song, other than “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”.
- There was sort of an awkward moment when a lady came up on stage out of the crowd, grabbed the Christian flag and walked it all the way across the stage and put it in front of the American flag. She could be heard telling the pastor, she wasn’t happy seeing the American flag get honored while the cross took a back seat.
- The Lead Pastor handled it well and was able to tie it into the intro of his message to affirm that yes if it weren’t for the cross and the power of God and the faith of our founding fathers, then our country wouldn’t be nearly as great as it is.
- I really enjoyed his message and it was a good reminder that Israel, not the USA is God’s nation. If God upon the disobedience of Israel removed His blessing and allowed them to become enslaved to others, what makes us think the same won’t happen to the US if we continue down the path we’re on.
- Overall we both really enjoyed our time there and I’d recommend them as your church home if you don’t have one or if ExponentialChurch.tv is not quite your style.
- Excited to get back to work tomorrow…yeah I know it’s a holiday, but Sunday will still come regardless so I’ve got to get stuff done.
- Next Sunday we start a brand new series looking at the life of and book of Jonah.
- Should be a great series and will include some special surprises and events including our very first baptism service on July 31st.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Really appreciative to have Chad on staff.
- We’re still in the midst of trying to get our old house in Chambersburg fixed up after our old tenants left it in bad shape.
- Lisa and I are worn out but it made it easier working so hard this weekend knowing Chad was preaching.
- It also didn’t help that I woke up at 3am this morning and had trouble falling back asleep.
- All that to say when the alarm clock went off this morning I wasn’t really motivated to get up.
- We had some new equipment arrive today to replace some stuff that had gone bad so set-up took a bit longer than normal.
- What was funny was when the band went to do their warm-up and run-through, we were not getting any sound out in the house.
- Checking…checking…checking…ummm wait nobody ever ran the cables.
- Not sure exactly how after 8 months something like that happens but it did.
- I joked with the team, “Good thing we’re working all these issues out in our preview services so that when we officially launch the church we won’t have any issues”.
- The Experience started today with our first original song called, “On the Edge”.
- Jeff wrote it in response to the iLife series.
- Awesome job by Jeff, Bill and the band working on it the last few weeks.
- It was cool watching and listening each Thursday as it took shape.
- I was excited to be able to announce our first baptism service will take place on July 31st immediately following the Experience.
- I’m hoping many will take the plunge both literally and figuratively and be obedient to Jesus command to be baptized.
- Surprised by how few father’s we have that attend.
- We still honor you anyway! :)
- Especially good to have my dad with us…guessing that’s the first time in 18 years that we’ve been able to worship together on Father’s Day.
- After last week’s weirdness in having the recording stop unexpectedly, it was a relief to get home today and see that everything worked well today.
- You can listen to Chad message here.
- He joked about not being good with kids, but he does an incredible job with his own 3…glad he can model that for others.
- Lots of good interaction afterward…love seeing how people are coming earlier and staying later to hang with one another.
- Speaking of, we’d love to be able to hang with as many of you as possible on July 15th at the Harrisburg Senator’s game.
- We bought a block of tickets…you can purchase them for only $7.50 each on our web-site. Hope you can make it!
- This is a great event to invite someone to that isn’t quite ready to come with you on a Sunday morning.
- It will help them see that followers of Jesus are normal people not some weirdo’s.
- Insert your own joke here ___________________.
- Came home and took not just 1 but 2 naps.
- Finishing up some stuff this afternoon and then start 2 weeks of vacation tomorrow!
- Please pray for us that it will be a relaxing time and that we get the housing situation wrapped up between now and then.
- I’ll be back preaching on Jul 10th with a new series on Jonah.
- Was able to get the majority of it written in the last few weeks…should be exciting and in week 3 we’ll have a very special surprise.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Weird day today for a number of reasons.
- Everything started as normal and we even got set-up quicker than normal despite a brand new stage set being put up for the first time.
- Great job by Bill who puts these together on a very limited budget.
- Part of the weirdness today was that I wasn’t preaching.
- I have my normal Sunday routine and quite a few times I found my self just wandering around going, “mmmm ok what should I do now?”
- Because I wasn’t preaching and because of a last minute cancellation, I… instead… served…in…the……………………….nursery!
- Pretty ironic since just two weeks ago in my message I stated that you wouldn’t want me serving in there.
- In any case, there is a great crew working in there so I never felt overwhelmed and I only got thrown up on 3 times.
- Chad started the new Thrive series today which is all about the Church.
- Pretty cool to start it on Pentecost Sunday which is also our denominations “Plant a Church Sunday”.
- They take one Sunday to concentrate on raising funds to help new church plants...their generosity helped us immensely 8 months ago.
- We decided though from day 1 of Exponential to give back not just 1 day per year but all year long.
- To date in just 7 months we’ve been able to give nearly $11000!
- One of our core values at Exponential is that “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”. So giving back to church planting is just one way to put our money where our mouth is at.
- Now to be honest being a new church and struggling financially it’s tempting to not give but I personally feel that it wouldn’t be right to ask for people to support us financially and trust God that He’ll meet their needs and then not do the same thing ourselves.
- Ok back to Chad’s message…I hear it went well and I’d love to be able to listen to it…but the next weird thing that happened was every channel on our multi-track recorder stopped about 18 minutes into today’s Experience which means we’ve lost it forever.
- I called Chad this afternoon to see if he wanted to re-record it but he felt he could do better just doing a brief re-cap next week before week 2’s message.
- For those of you used to listening or were especially excited to hear Chad’s message, I greatly apologize that we don’t have it and we’ll work hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
- It was great that we could give everyone a copy of Guerrilla Lovers today.
- It was written by my good friend Vince Antonucci who is super funny, super creative, as passionate about reaching the lost as I am and as passionate about “being the Church” as Chad is.
- I hope everyone enjoys it…if you didn’t get a copy (I understand we ran out), we’ll get more copies and have them ready for you next week.
- Last weird thing that happened was Chad left everyone out early and our tear down crews must have been super hungry because we left the theater a full 1/2 hour earlier than normal.
- Heck we even beat the main-line denominations to the buffet line…and that’s saying something! :)
- Got a busy week this week as we prepare for vacation coming up…hope to get it all done but yet still have time to enjoy these beautiful days God has been giving us.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Another great day!
- Weird not starting the day by meeting Mike to put out signs.
- He missed his first day today which now only leave Chad from the original group that has not yet missed a day.
- Thanks to John and Sara Fox for taking care of the signs today.
- Not sure how we did it but everything got set-up about 1 1/2 feet off center on the stage today.
- Weird since we used the same marks as usual as a guide…looked funny.
- During our team meeting Lisa and I were surprised with a cake for our birthdays & anniversary.
- Great to have the Bricker’s and Deihl’s pay a visit today from Chambersburg.
- Loved the new song the band did today called Manifesto.
- Poor Bill…the bridge part is essentially the Lord’s Prayer except you’ve got to sing it all in 1 breath…he’s been struggling with it but during warm-ups this morning he was nailing it.
- Mmm not so much during the Experience but he pulled it together and it still was a powerful moment.
- Great to also bring back the song Beautiful Things which was a major part of our Easter Experience.
- I wrapped up the iLife series today by talking about how to get moral margin in your life regardless of whether you’re a teen, single or married.
- I had no idea the impact the message was going to have.
- Person after person came up afterward saying it was one of the best messages they had heard.
- That’s a very humbling thing to hear but I’m glad it immediately resonated with people…now I hope they apply it.
- This will be hard to describe but I hear all the time, “Gilbert I love how real you are”.
- Honestly I can’t imagine preaching any other way.
- We also had 2 more people make a decision to become a follower of Jesus today!
- That’s now 93 since we launched 7 months ago!
- Can’t wait for the Thrive series to start next week…it’s going to be awesome and everyone attending will be given a special gift that will help you apply what Chad’s going to be talking about.
- Big thanks to my niece, Taylor Duda and to Kiara Pornel for all their help serving each Sunday. These two young ladies will be going off for the summer and today was their last day for awhile. Thanks again ladies…serve Jesus as you travel!
- Folks God is doing some amazing stuff in and through us…keep it up and I promise you one thing…The Best is Yet to Come!