tithe Archives - Gilbert Thurston

Thanksgiving 2011

November 24, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Hard to believe but this is now my 5th year doing these posts ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). As always here are the things I’m thankful for in this past year.

Jesus- Well who else did you expect at #1? As every year passes, I realize more and more how ugly, sinful and broken I am inside. Yet Jesus loved me enough not to just be my friend, but to die for me so that my relationship to Him could be even greater. I don’t deserve a love like that and so my only acceptable response is to offer a life of sacrifice back to Him.
Lisa- Again who were you expecting? Before each of my bi-monthly calls with my church planting coach (thankful for Vince’s friendship as well), I have to fill out a form reporting on various areas of my life and ministry. One of the questions is, “How is your marriage”? Recently during a time when I was feeling a bit down and depressed, I wrote for this question, “No matter what else is going on, this is the one area that I can count on to be great”. Trust me, Lisa has far more to do with that than I do. Every year I can’t imagine our marriage getting any better but yet it does…wow I’m such a lucky man that God gave me such a Godly wife. Her passion, hunger for growth and servant spirit are truly an inspiration to me.
My immediate family- I’ve seen my mom, dad, sister and niece as much in the past year as I probably did in the 10 years prior to that. The irony is I had to move further away from them for it to happen. Regardless, one of the highlights of my week is knowing that I’ll get to see them on Sunday mornings. I’ll see them again today and tomorrow and I’m sure there will be times that we pick-on each other but underneath it all is a love and a bond with and for one another that can not be broken no matter how many miles the highway may now separate us.
My cousins- This year has also given me a few times to reconnect with my cousins that I grew up with. Life and circumstances have kept us a part for many years but I’m looking forward to hopefully more opportunities to hang-out and reconnect.
My long-term friends- Andy, Gayle, Bill and Nicole. It’s been an interesting year and not at all how I had envisioned it but yet these 4 at multiple times and in many ways continue to be there for and with me. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for the 10+ years they’ve put up with me.
My new friends I’m developing- Some of these are at church but many of them are from the community. As I mentioned in our current series, one of the problems many pastors have is waking up one day and realizing you don’t have any significant relationships with people who are far from God. So this year I have been intentionally going out and building new friendships. Not only have I been having fun meeting new people and hanging out, but a few I can see as becoming close friends. Most significantly I can already see the difference I’ve been able to make in people’s lives.
My staff- Chad, Bill and Chelsea. To be quite honest, I’m in way over my head with this whole church planting thing, but these 3 make me look a lot better than I am. I’m so grateful God has brought us together as a team and can’t wait to see how God will use us to further His Kingdom. It’s an honor to be able to lead them and I pray I do it well.
That ExponentialChurch.tv survived it’s first year- I wish this were hyperbole but it’s not. Most church plants die within their first 3 years. We’ve got one of those under our belts but we’re not out of the woods quite yet. However, as I already mentioned we have a great staff that’s sold out to seeing God’s Kingdom advance. More importantly we have many others who serve week end and week out because they realize that life is not about them but in helping people far from God come back into a relationship with Him and then grow to become more like Him. Thanks to all for an incredible year where we’ve now seen over 120 people come into a relationship with Jesus…but remember…the best is yet to come!
Lisa’s business/God’s blessing- In order to start ExponentialChurch.tv, we had to sacrifice a lot to move here to Harrisburg. One such sacrifice was I voluntarily took a 23% reduction in salary. This meant the possibility that Lisa might have had to get a job (which would have been a huge sacrifice on her part because of health issues). However, despite it all we continued to tithe and trust that you can’t out give God. Sure enough He began to bless her business ,which for years had pretty much always made the same amount of money. All of the sudden…through no real effort of her own, she has been swamped with work which has allowed her to stay at home!
Chuck Frank- Chuck is a long-time friend and more recently became the Director of Church Planting for the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God General Conference (catchy isn’t it). It was Chuck’s email that spurred on the vision I had for Exponential originally. Over the past year he and his team have been incredibly helpful and generous in numerous ways in helping us launch. Chuck is a great cheerleader for planting and evangelism and his support this past year has been invaluable.
Technology- It can be both a blessing and a curse but for the most part I am very thankful for all that technology allows us to do. Especially this past year I am grateful for two tools that make my life so much easier. The first is www.audible.com. Audio books have been around along time, but now with the ability to download them to my smart phone and then play back through blue-tooth on my car stereo, life is so much easier. Literally I turn my car into a mobile classroom and can usually get through 3-4 books per month just during my normal driving time. The second tool I’m thankful for is the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In Tool. One of the audio books I listened to this past year was Getting Things Done by David Allen. His system is tremendous and when I found out there was an add-in for Outlook, it was an easy decision to spend the $70+. My life, tasks and schedule have never been more organized and de-cluttered and for that I am very thankful!

Inside Today’s Experience

November 6, 2011 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Had another great day!
First it never hurts when you get an extra hour of sleep…although as I type this at 5pm it’s already pretty dark outside so I’d rather have stayed on daylight savings time.
Is it spring yet?
Actually the weather today wasn’t bad.
We started a new series today called, Just Walk Across the Room”…which meant the morning started with getting a new stage set up and running.
Bill did a tremendous job and put tons of time into creating the 2 huge signs you see in this post.
It’s hard to tell from the pics but the letters light up and then of course we can light the boards any color we want.
The letters are also raised so it creates a cool drop shadow effect.
Again the pics don’t do this justice…really cool all the effects that can be created.
Next week we’ll be using the boards for something special that will make them very personal to every single person in attendance.
So it’s about to get a lot cooler.
Despite figuring out how to set up the new set, set-up itself went smoothly…in fact the band had enough time after the warm-up and run through to work on some stuff for next week since they will be out performing this Thursday night and won’t be able to do their normal rehearsal.
I always love getting to briefly talk with the entire serving team at 9:20 and then having everyone pray for each other and for the day.
It was great to see another big crowd today.
It’s been weird over this past year to have really wild swings in attendance from week to week.
So a pretty steady day was a welcome sight…especially since both days were some of the highest ever.
Today as the kick-off to the series, I shared the vision of ExponentialChurch.tv.
IMPORTANT: If you’re a regular attender of Exponential and didn’t hear today’s message, it’s very important that you take the time to listen either online or download it for an MP3 player.
In the message you’ll learn how to make sure you are “in the right business” and I give a very impactful iillustration to demonstrate how much work we have left to do to reach the 425000 people in the metro area that don’t yet know Jesus.
God has allowed us to do some pretty awesome things this past year but much more is still expected…Jesus said that when much has been given, much will be required.
Again it’s important that you listen so you know how together we can partner to make an eternal difference.
One way as I mentioned is to “Automate the Important”.
Vision doesn’t come cheap and to be honest the church is really struggling financially right now to survive.
I don’t for one minute think that it’s God’s will for us to fail.
So if you are a regular attender of Exponential then I encourage you to begin tithing online and set it up so that your tithe automatically gets debited either monthly, bi-monthly (that’s what I do) or weekly.
If you’re someone from outside our church yet you believe in what we’re doing I encourage you to give as well whether it be a one-time gift or some sort of ongoing automated contribution.
Again to be honest, I’m tired of talking about money but the mission and vision are too important.
I honestly believe that the best is yet to come and as I prayed at the end…I’m not so sure God wasn’t laughing at me today because I dream too small.
God is a great God, He has given us a great mission and with Him all things are possible…let’s keep thinking exponentially and trust Him to “do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever hope or imagine”.
After the message and during the announcement time, I was surprised to see Larry Evans and Lorraine Weaver make their way down to the stage and interrupt.
I normally hate any surprises like that but in this case I’ll forgive them since they wanted to honor myself and the rest of the staff with a gift in honor of Pastor Appreciation Month.
Thanks to all for the cards and gifts.
As I said…we’re all a team and while God has given me a unique role to play, I/we can’t do it without you…We are the church and again the best is yet to come!

Mind Your Own Business Bonus Questions

November 29, 2010 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Yesterday we wrapped up the Mind Your Own Business series where we looked at God’s plan for your finances. Many of you have reported how impactful this series has already been and I look forward to more stories in the coming months. Please email me as God blesses you so we can know what’s happening. The purpose of this post though is to answer some questions that this series has sparked in some of you. Most of them have to do with week 3’s message about tithes and giving. So let’s get right to it…

Should I tithe on the net or gross of my paycheck? A friend of mine once joked, “Well which one do you want God to bless you on?” In all seriousness, God wants His part first. In other words, before Uncle Sam gets his cut, God wants the 10% that belongs to Him. So the answer is you tithe on the gross.
“Gilbert you said to tithe weekly but I only get paid monthly. What should I do?” Great question and I misspoke when I said Lisa and I have never missed a week of tithing. What I should have said was we’ve never missed a paycheck. So you should tithe anytime you get paid whether that’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
Should I tithe on every source of income or just on my paycheck? The answer is everything. Again the premise behind this series was that you are to be a manager of all the stuff God has entrusted to you. That includes more than just money you get from your job. So if you get a bonus, inheritance, cash gift, etc, you should tithe on that as well because it’s all a part of the resources God is entrusting to you.
“I’m self-employed and don’t really take a paycheck. How much should I tithe”? That’s a tricky one that I dealt with when I was self-employed as well. My first suggestion would be to start paying yourself a paycheck. This will help in not only the tithe portion but also in applying all the other principles we looked at in the series for getting out of debt, staying out of debt and saving for the future. However, sometimes that can’t work so you need to just be as honest with God as possible about what is truly 10% of your income. Remember the tithe is more about where your heart is at than it is about money. There are a lot of legitimate, legal things you can do as a self-employed person to lower your tax burden and show very little income. However, just like the gross or net question above, God wants His portion before you factor in taxes. Let me try to give an example. Let’s say you have a product that you sell for $1000 and it costs you $600. When you sell it, you don’t tithe on $1000, but instead the $400 profit you made. Again the mistake many make is that when you add in business expenses, it’s possible to show on your taxes that you only made $200 profit. Now this example was very simplistic and I’m already seeing exceptions in it myself but again you’ve just got to be honest with God and come up with a true number not one your fudging.
“I have been giving to charities. Should I stop giving to them in order to tithe to the church?” Well that depends on your financial situation. However if you can only do one, then God says first you tithe. Anything beyond the tithe is called an offering and can be given in any way that you want….charities, another ministry, your churches building fund or mission fund, etc. My prayer is that all of us will apply the principles from this series so we can give both tithes and offerings.
“Gilbert you said that when people tithe God promises to bless you. Is that just financially or in other ways as well?” Again this was an area that I should have clarified in the message. In fact, I had it in my notes but forgot to say it. God does promise to bless but it’s not strictly you give $1 and He’ll give you $5 back. Many of the greatest blessings you can’t put a price tag on. Many blessings are also things we may not even sense or appreciate in the moment. Now that’s not to say God can’t or won’t bless you financially, but it goes far beyond just money.
“I’m in debt up to my eyeballs and can just barely afford to pay my bills each month. Should I tithe?” This is another tricky question because by saying yes it would appear that I’m condoning you getting into further debt or getting behind on your bills. However, this is where faith comes in. Do you really believe that God is who He says He is?Do you really believe God when He says you can trust Him with the tithe and that if you do He will open up the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessing on you that you will not have enough room to contain it? You see why I kept saying throughout the series that how you handle money says more about your faith in God and who or what you really trust in than anything else? So if you really believe and trust in God then yes go ahead and tithe. Remember as I said in the week 3 message, “90% of your income with God’s blessing is greater than 100% of it with God’s curse on it”.

Hope these additional answers we’re beneficial. Let me know what other questions you might have. Be blessed and trust in the Almighty God more than you do the almighty dollar!

Inside Today’s Experience

October 18, 2009 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

Interesting day.
Had all kinds of little problems getting ready for today.
I hate the little fixable ones more than when the big unexpected ones hit.
In the midst of all that I grabbed the wrong mic pack for me.
Imagine my surprise when I wasn’t getting sound.
Even more imagine my surprise when I feel Chris lifting up my shirt to check the pack in the midst of trying to speak.
Once we got that all worked out, the rest of the first Experience and all of the second went really well.
Fun having Aaron with us today!
Andrea absolutely crushed it with the new song, “It’s Your Love”…awesome!
I haven’t been feeling good all week, so the message today drained me big time.
Especially since I was dropping the hammer hard.
Again let me reiterate a few points:
- You don’t own anything, it all belongs to God.
- God wants you to prove to Him that you believe that by giving back 10% of your income to Him in what is called a tithe.
- If you don’t tithe, God says your stealing, robbing and embezzling money from Him.
- He says in fact that there is a curse on your money.
- So 90% of your income with God’s blessing on it is greater than 100% of your income with God’s curse on it.
- If you don’t tithe it’s not that you can’t afford it, but rather you choose to be disobedient to God. (listen to this section of the message for some thought provoking challenges).
- Last but not least…
  - God doesn’t need your money…He owns it all anyway.
  - We don’t need your money…giving has been up the last few years…we’re seeing a surplus each month…we’ve added staff in the midst of a terrible economic downturn in our country…
  - This is all about vision…we want to reach as many people for Jesus as possible and that takes money…the more we have the more we’ll be able to reach.
  - So Jesus said, “Where your money is at is where your heart (passion, attention) will be as well.
- So take the 90 day tithe challenge.
- This is the only thing in all of scripture that God said you can test Him in.
- He said to tithe and see if He doesn’t throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing on you that you don’t have enough room to contain it all.
Sorry to re-preach this, but I’m sick and tired of seeing Christians devote their time and money to things that just don’t matter.
Alright time for a nap…not feeling good at all…please pray.