- First I love that we don’t change clocks until after the Experiences.
- So nice to get a regular nights sleep.
- Except that I woke up early anyway.
- Because of some unexpected events this past week we weren’t able to do a normal run through on Thursday night so I was bit nervous that everything would be working/look right today.
- Luckily since I’m preaching a series on worry right now, it wasn’t as worried as I might have normally been. 🙂
- Loved all the music today…good blend of high energy stuff and passionate worship.
- Andrea and Gayle also did awesome with Scars by Allison Iraheta.
- Heard her perform it on Idol the other week and knew it would fit well.
- Love the new stage set that Brian came up with.
- Looks completely different than anything we’ve done before.
- Crowds were sparse today…hope the rain didn’t keep people away.
- Had a lot of fun sharing today’s message.
- As I said, The bible is not hard to understand”.
- Just keep reminding yourself that since God loves me more than a bird, I don’t have to worry.
- Fun singing “Don’t Worry Be Happy” with everyone.
- Forgot how bad I really sing, until I listened back to it on the recording.
- We had a breaker keep blowing during the 2nd Experience putting half the stage in the dark.
- ARRGGGGG!!!!
- Hate that stuff.
- Had a group of 6 people from Harrisburg visiting today to get a feel for what’s to come this fall when we move there.
- I have mixed emotions…sad to be leaving but excited as well to be meeting with people who will be a part of the next phase of our lives.
- If you haven’t seen it yet, we started a Facebook page for the new church which I’d love for you to join.
- Wow I’m tired…time for a nap.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- 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!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- I’ve been dreading this day for about a month now, but looking back, it turned out great.
- The biggest reason it was great was that 2 people came into a relationship with Jesus at the 2nd Experience!
- All in all from the Experience standpoint it was a great day.
- Had some minor technical issues in the first Experience, but overall things went well in both.
- I really enjoyed this series on relationships.
- Glad I bought the props, I think they added a very visual and helpful component.
- I think my nerves for making the announcement, helped me have bigger than normal energy at the first Experience.
- The relief of having got the announcement done made the 2nd Experience not quite as lively….sorry guys.
- As for the announcement itself, a couple of thoughts:
- First for those that weren’t there, I announced that I will be leaving United in a few months to start a brand new church in Harrisburg, PA.
- You can listen to it here.
- I was nervous but things came out in much the way I had hoped.
- I was a blubbery mess on Thursday night when I told the worship team so I was concerned about holding it together today and for the most part I did…thank you Jesus for the strength.
- It was so cool to look out and not only see every chair full but also 4-5 rows deep of people standing all around.
- My prayer is that one day each Experience would look like that.
- Your words and support afterwards was greatly appreciated.
- I’ll be posting more thoughts about United’s future and my future in the coming days and weeks…please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Our prayer is that the transition from me to the next guy will be smooth and if I can do anything to help you in that please let me know.
- Again my love to you all…thanks for being so awesome!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- I am loving this series!
- So many awesome stories already from people on how they are seeing changes in their marriages and relationships!
- After having been in San Diego all week, getting to church a little after 8am seemed like 5…ughhh I hate mornings enough as it is.
- The building was drawing a lot of power during the morning run-through and the light fixtures were pulsating. I re-set the breakers and everything seemed fine.
- As we started the 2nd Experience though, we had no lights on the singers at all and I thought for sure that the breakers had tripped.
- I sprinted as hard as I could all around the perimeter of the gym, through the backstage area, climbed the ladder, sprinted to the breakers and…nothing. Everything looked fine.
- I repeated the sprint but now in reverse, got back to rear of United and…everything was working.
- Tim said, “Oops my bad I fixed it right after you left”.
- Oh well at least I got some good exercise. 🙂
- Other than that and some sound issues, we had a pretty routine day.
- It was great to have Cressa lead the worship team today.
- She did a great job!
- It’s amazing how many talented people we have on the worship team and to realize that every one of them have done music professionally in one way or another over the years.
- So awesome to see them use their talents for God instead of just to make a dollar.
- For anyone interested, here is the Wikipedia page for Howard Thurston that I mentioned during the message.
- Andrea did a great job of transporting both the Thurston books off-stage for me. 🙂
- As I mentioned today…there are so many people who need to hear what we’re talking about in this series. Why not send them over to our site (www.UnitedWorshipExperience.org) to hear what’s happened so far and then invite them to come back with you next week.
- Time for a nap and then off to meet with some of our small group peeps for dinner.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Another awesome day!
- 5 more people gave their lives to Christ!
- The day got started a little earlier than normal since we launched Fellowship One officially today.
- I’ve been working on this project since last June so it was good to have another big part of it roll out.
- For a few weeks lines will be long as people get used to checking in their kids, but for the most part everything went smoothly and I didn’t hear any complaints.
- As for the Experience itself, it was a really smooth day.
- Brian and Thom did a great job of re-deploying some of our lighting and it added for some neat new effects.
- Aaron and Adam also did a great job with the graphics and video packages.
- I really like how Aaron put together video backgrounds for each song that were series specific.
- As I said last week, there is an incredible team that works behind the scenes that make each Experience so memorable.
- Thanks to everyone who serves…it was great being back to normal today.
- Nice big crowds in both Experiences and full of energy…especially the 9:45.
- As I said all day…I’m really excited about this series on love.
- Don’t forget this week to keep reading Philippians 2:3-8 and to find practical ways each day to make love a verb.
- Next week we’ll find out how to take these verses and apply them to your marriage.
- Go ahead and invite someone…they’ll be glad you did.
- Time for a nap…see you next week!