For the first conference, all of the first year guys stayed here at Hills in what was called Be the Change. What we did was we spent three days cleaning and making Hills campus ready for Colour this coming weekend. It was basically three full days of manual labor. I was in charge of a team whose job it was to clean up the car park under the chapel that is currently used for storage. I had a great team and we were able to get the car park cleaned up in a day and a half; after that we looked for jobs to do to help the rest of the teams to finish. It was a great three days of serving and sweating. And that, combined with a full day on Sunday, left me in a mini-coma on Sunday night that is starting to wear off.

All in all, though. It’s such an honour to be serving in these conferences. These conferences are literally changing the world and it’s so cool to be able to sow into something that affects people on a global level. I’m ready for Colour #2 and praying and expecting big things for the women who will be in attendance.

Intensives finished a few weeks ago and we’re into the meat of our semesterly (I think I just made up a word) schedule. I absolutely love the classes and teachers that I have. I have three different music classes a week, two Old Testament classes, two personal leadership, and then chapel four times a week.

A few weeks ago, I went with three incredible people from my tutorial class to Mona Vale and went to the beach there. That was such a fun day and it ended with me getting probably the worst sunburn I’ve gotten in my life.

Then this last Monday, my entire tutorial class took a trip in to the city to do the touristy thing down at the opera house.

I love being here. This college and this church are challenging me constantly to become that man I was born to be. I leave every class feeling more like that man I was born to be.

This wasn’t very many words and only had a few pictures. But I will try to do better at updating this thing.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10

The core message of the night was 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul is talking about Love. “Love is patient, love is kind…” One of the big things that caught my attention was when the Wildlife (Sr High) pastor, Nick Khiroya, got up and briefly talked about love being greater than a feeling. Sound familiar? I smiled to myself and said, “Okay, God. I get it.” During worship, one of the newer songs written in house called Faith in the Unseen contains a line that says “I know your love is far greater than a feeling.” At this I whispered to God, “Seriously. I got it. We’re good. A Okay. Awesome. Superb. Stupendous. Cool? Cool.”

Now, after UNITED was an event held in the chapel called Midnight Massive where young people come together to worship in a more intimate setting and pray. The particular theme of this Midnight Massive was praying for Vision Sunday coming up tomorrow. As the service was starting, a passage from Jeremiah 29 was read, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Again, going back to the night before, all I could do was just smile by this time and love how God will go through so much to make sure that I understand something. Then the worship started.

I can honestly say that this hour and a half long time of worship and prayer was my favorite thing I’ve been a part of so far here at Hillsong. It was a super intimate time of worship with a couple guitars, a keyboard, and voices. The song of the night was a song called Carried to the Table originally by Leeland. It was the first time I had heard this song so I just listened to the words and found myself on my knees crying at the words to the song and what God was showing me at the same time. It was an incredible night of seeking his face and encountering the Love of Christ.

God is good, friends. God is so, so good.

I was walking home from Maccas at about 10:30 and started praying and talking to Jesus about how amazing the night was and how I’m so thankful to be here and be a part of it. Now, I’ve been a fan of Hillsong music for around three years and I came down here with certain expectations of what I would see, hear, and feel during church/worship/whatever. God revealed to me that lately in times I’ve worshiped, I’ve been worshiping to try to get a feeling to come over me. I’ve been seeking an emotional state where I just start weeping during worship because of what’s going on. Then God whispered these words into my ears, “Don’t seek a feeling. Seek me.”

I’ve talked about how worship is more than a feeling before, but this really hit me last night as during the night, Joel Houston talked about freedom in worship and not abiding to the, “raise your hands during the chorus, sway during the verse” model we sometimes get caught up in. As people were really pressing into God and seeking God in that time, as I was pressing into and seeking after God in that time, worship felt different than it has since I’ve been here. It wasn’t about getting this mushy feeling inside. It was about worshiping God because he’s God.

Holy are You, God.
Holy is Your Name.
With everything I’ve got
My heart will sing “How I love You.”

There are flashy gifts in the Kingdom of God. There are the more prominent gifts. There are gifts that are more noticeable because it involves being on a platform singing or speaking. But those gifts don’t say anything about the person who has received it. It’s a testimony of God’s goodness that he would gift us. Like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-5, There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. Ferguson then went on to say that it is our character in which we use the gifts that says something about us.

This was making sense to me, but my spirit hadn’t fully received what he was saying until he illustrated it out for the class. He opened his wallet and took out a fifty dollar bill. He asked who in the class room needed fifty dollars. A few people raised their hands and he walked over to a young woman from New York who raised her hand. He asked her if she needed the money. She said yes. He asked if she had prayed for God to provide. She said yes. He then gave her the fifty dollars from his wallet.

He asked the class, “What does this gift say about her?”

The room was amazed. I may have had to pick my jaw up off of the floor.

“Nothing.”

It spoke of his generosity, but it spoke nothing of the young woman from New York.

In the same way that Robert Ferguson’s gift of fifty dollars to the young woman said nothing about her. God’s giftings he’s given us say nothing about us. But it is a testimony to who He is. It’s what we do with the gifts that says something about us.

A huge blessing this weekend was getting free transportation and accommodation while in Gosford. The house that a large group (18 to be exact) of people stayed at was a beautiful house right on the water.

The retreat was so good. It was also way different than retreats I’ve been to before. Mostly just because of the size of this ministry, it had more of a conference feel to it. Hills, City, Southwest, and Brisbane campuses were all there, there was a different worship team each session, and a different speaker each session. All of it was wonderful.

I was particularly challenged and convicted by the message Thursday night delivered by Thomas Hansen, the Powerhouse pastor at Hills. He talked about “getting out of bed” or getting out of our comfort, our complacency, our sin. And how sometimes when our passion and zeal fades, we slide back and pull away from God and from our convictions a little bit. This hit me because I’ve been in this mindset where at times I’ve thought that just being here is “enough”. That being at Hillsong is “enough”. I can just do stuff here for a couple years, ride the Hillsong wave and not focus on growing my relationship with Christ in my own time, and then leave and be in a great place with life, God, etc.

But that’s not what God wants.

Simply being here isn’t enough. If I don’t show up everyday ready for what God has in store, I will have missed why I came here in the first place: to be completely engulfed by Jesus. That’s what I want to be. I’m glad that God showed me this early on rather than at the end of the year I look back and see that I didn’t grow at all.

So yeah. Retreat was good . I also had orientation on Wednesday and Thursday and classes really kick off on Tuesday. I’m excited that things are getting underway here and I can’t wait to see what happens this year.

Yesterday, several of us headed into the city to go to Bondi Beach for fun in the sun. Seeing as how we live in the hills, it took us a while to get there. A bus ride, train ride, and another bus ride took around an hour and a half. The day was absolutely gorgeous and the water was perfect. Yesterday confirmed that I’m going to learn how to surf while I’m here.

One thing we did learn, however, is that when a group of people is going to the beach, or city, it’s much easier and cheaper to pile into a car that it is to do the whole public transportation thing. The costs yesterday of just traveling by bus and train down and back were $17.60 per person.

Since it was the first time for most of us going to Bondi, it was totally worth it. We just know now that next time, we’ll pile in a car and go down.

Today, I pretty much chilled at the house. Let the blisters on my feet heal up. Let the sunburn cool down a bit. It felt nice to just relax.

I did get my debit card from my new bank in the mail today, so I’ll be able to go shopping for a few new things that I need. (Having to have cash on you to buy stuff is a pain!) While I’m on the subject of shopping, here’s an interesting thing about living here. Shops and stores and such are only open until 5:00 most nights. Thursday nights are special and things are open until 9:00 but that’s it. So if you don’t have what you need by 5:00, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get it. That may become a tad frustrating when school starts and classes run until 4:30-5:00. But we’ll deal with that when the time comes.

Church over the weekend was amazing. I went to three services over the weekend, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and then Sunday night. My housemates who have been here for a semester or two say that Church is the highlight of their week. I can see why.

On his way home, Adam, one of the housemates, found this stash of deliciousness just down the street from our house.

All this stuff was being given away by this old guy who was moving to the bush and didn’t need or want it anymore. He said that we could have anything that we wanted.

It looked (and felt) like we were looting the place. We were walking down the street with stuff on trolleys and even pushing stuff we had set on a skateboard (which Adam found earlier today).

In two of the boxes, we found a ton of old records and EP’s from forever ago. Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Michael Jackson, Les Paul, and more. We’re thinking of finding a way to hang them in our music room as kind of a wallpaper type of thing. It’s going to be awesome!

Now the score of the day was an organ that this man had in his house. A Hammond organ that he’s owned for 50+ years. Paul bought it off of him for a mere one hundred dollars.

The funny thing about this whole thing was that earlier in the day as Paul, Christian, and I were out shopping and getting stuff for ourselves and the house, we were talking about the stuff that we needed for the kitchen, bathroom, and whatnot. And then this guy is giving away all these household goods and totally filled several needs that we had for the house saving us a ton of money.

God totally blessed our socks off through this guy.

Fiji was gorgeous.

I’d love to actually get to spend some time there.

Bondi Beach says, “Welcome to Sydney”.

The harbor and the opera house.

I’m here.