March 22, 2013

It's been so long since my last post! Ah! I don't even know where to begin. 

School has officially started, and the very busy days and weekends have also started! My school schedule is as follows:

Monday: Chapel, Introduction to Old Testament, Personal Leadership

Tuesday: Personal Leadership, Chapel, Introduction to Old Testament

Wednesday: Prayer Chapel, Vocals Workshop, Chapel, Worship Team Workshop, Music Theory and Application

Thursday: Communication in Ministry, Worship Band Workshop

Friday: DAY OFF FROM SCHOOL

Serving

I also have "Hillsong Men" on Thursday mornings, which is where all the guys (obviously) meet and worship together, hear a message, and pray for each other. Thursday morning is also when the women of Hillsong have "Sisterhood", which is led by Bobbie Houston. To serve the women, the Hillsong men take part in making Sisterhood possible by doing various jobs to make sure everything is set up and runs smoothly. Last thursday I was on "Black Team", which is the group of guys that cover the last couple of rows with black sheet material to block them so that the women will sit and fill in the bottom seats that are closer to the stage first, then as more people come, the seats that are covered slowly are uncovered as needed for people to sit. After helping Black Team set up, I helped out with "Carpark"! Carpark is awesome, and basically we just direct traffic in the parking lot and help women that either have babies with them or are disabled to find appropriate parking easily. Plus I got to wear an awesome high visibility vest and wave at everyone. WINNING. Besides thursday mornings, I am a part of "Embrace" on Saturday mornings, which is where about ten people go to various nursing homes at approximately 10:15 and visit with the residents there and show them God's love. At our debrief after our first day we decided that some of us will bring instruments and we will start singing songs to the residents of the nursing homes that we visit! So pumped!! So after that, for my church ministry I have been allocated to serve in the Greater West Extension Service (G-DUBS!!!) At the moment, the church does not own a building for the service to call home, so we are renting out one of the buildings of a local college that has auditorium seating, and every Sunday morning we leave Baulkham Hills (my suburb) at about 4:30am, then we drive for about 30-40 minutes to the Greater West location and start setting up everything for the service. My role in the service is to help set up all of the lighting equipment and eventually operate the lights during services! Party! 

Classes 

Classes are above and beyond everything that I expected, and I could not be more excited for this year. The teachers are full of wisdom, cheer, and most of all, encouragement. I seriously think that every teacher and leader in this church believes in the students of Hillsong College more than we even believe in ourselves. It is so awesome to be in an environment like this one, and I hope that I do not take it for granted. 

Housemates

I just realized that I haven't even introduced my housemates on here yet! Anyways, my housemates are awesome, and we have the most awesome house. HOUSE 17!!!!!!! My housemates are:

Matty: Matthias (Matty) is from Switzerland and is also my roommate! Matty is hilarious, and recently received a package from home packed with Swiss chocolate. Very awesome. 

Josh: Josh is a Canadian eh, and this is his 4th semester at Hillsong College, so he is the veteran of the house. Also, Josh is the reason we have wifi at our house. Excellent.

Brandon: Brandon is from Colorado, and he and Josh are the only 2 Pastoral students in the house while everyone else is in the worship stream. Brandon also hardly ever wears shoes, and carries a ukelele everywhere. Nice.

James: James is from California, and is in the Songwriting worship stream along with Paul. James has a manly man beard, is crazy about coffee, and is probably the sickest guitar player ever. No big deal.

Shannon: Shannon is the Australian of the house that helps all of us become more Australian, and he also brought heaps of stuff from his home to totally pimp out our house. He is the cooking champion of the world, BBQ master, and has a car. Crickey.

Paul: Paul is from Singapore and is in the Songwriting stream along with James. Paul is famous and has an EP recorded that I bought for $5, and always makes delicious looking food for every meal. So good.

Colour Conference

Over 4,000 women joined in one room! So good!

The last two weeks Hillsong Church hosted the annual Colour Conference event, and it took place a different location each week. For Colour 1 (the first week) it took place at the Sydney Entertainment Center, and something like 18,000 women came together to hear from amazing speakers, be empowered, and worship the Almighty. Colour 2 (second week) was hosted at our very own Hillsong Convention Centre, and it was packed the entire time. For Colour 1, all of the first year males stayed at the Hills campus and prepared for the second week of Colour by cleaning everything you can think of, and then some more things that you didn't even think of. I was on the team of amazing fellows that took place in making over 21,000 snack bags for the lovely ladies attending the conference. It took us a long time, but I can assure you that EVERY snack bag had a perfectly folded napkin placed precisely behind the water bottle on the right hand side of the bag! On the second day when we finished making all of the snack bags, we began to help all of the other manly men replace all of the wood chips in the parking lot and then sweep up the rubbish and excess wood chips. For Colour 2 I was on the Choir Logistics team, which means that for the first morning session I got to dress up and be a part of the choir! It was so cool getting to watch Hillsong United practice songs before the session and then be able to look out at over 4,000 women singing to God with one beautiful voice. After the morning session of being in the choir, I was on a team of legends in the logistics side of things, which is basically a fancy word for "people that carry stuff around to the people that need it". It was very rewarding to be a part of all of the teams that I was on, and it was very cool seeing all of the guys working together knowing that no one would know what we did, and we would get no recognition, but it would be worth it because all of the hard work that we were doing would make the experience for the women even greater.

The closer for Colour Conference!

Hillsong United Zion Acoustic Album Recording

The stage for the Hillsong Zion acoustic recording!

Every week when there is not a Conference or something special happening, thursday nights are Creative Team nights, where all of the students and staff of Hillsong Church meet together on a Thursday night and worship, followed by an awesome message. Last night was very special because Hillsong United were all there, and they recorded acoustic versions of the songs from the "Zion" album. It was a very intimate worship setting and even the students from the city campus came, so it was pretty packed. In between songs, Joel Houston would address the crowd and tell us the inspiration and meaning behind each song, and the story behind the song "Mercy Mercy" was extremely moving and hopefully I can find it somewhere online and post it on here for you. 

Today is friday, and all of us first semesters have the day off, so it is a very relaxed day for sure. Over breakfast me and my housemates decided that tonight is going to be a barbie night, and today is the first day of the Australian Football League (not soccer) and Shannon's team from Adelaide is playing so we are definitely going to watch it! It is a beautiful picturesque Australian day, and having a barbie and watching some Australian footy will only add to the awesomeness of the day! Also, I am very excited because I subscribed to Praise Church's podcast, so now on my morning bike rides to school that take about 20 minutes or so, I can listen to Pastor Reg speak wisdom and truth and encouragement, and every once in a while I can hear Tammy and hear Tosh's distinct laugh and it reminds me of home! Loving it!

An Australian sunset after one of our long work days at Colour Conference

I am currently on day 33 of my 180 day plan to read the entire Bible from start to finish, and I am reading Deuteronomy 14-18 and Luke 4-5 today. I would strongly recommend reading the Bible through for anyone that has never done it, because I am highly enjoying it. I am developing a new love for the Old Testament, and realizing how faithful God truly is through how much grace He is showing His people who keep turning away from Him so quickly. So humbling to know that I am so similar to them and yet God continues to pour out His goodness and blessings upon me.

Also, I have started writing a few songs of worship. I have about 3 floating around, but there is one that I am fairly close to finishing, and I am very excited about it. It is about God being our anchor. "We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…" Hebrews 6:19 

Arrival and first week!

Flight/Arrival

The trip to the airport where I would board a plane from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles, California was one of the weirdest trips of my life. Not weird in a bad way, though. It was odd to me because I knew I was about to leave on a life-changing trip, but for some reason it seemed like we were on our way to drop someone else off. Anyways, once we got to the airport and Ethan thankfully helped me figure out where and how to check in my bags (Thank you!!) it was time to go through security and say goodbyes. After I found my gate I sat and waited for my slightly delayed first flight that would take me to Los Angeles, and then once there I had a short layover before my flight to Sydney. Once in Sydney I waited for my parents to arrive and it took about an hour and a half to find them after I had landed. Once we met up, it was time to catch a taxi to our hotel in Sydney harbor! After a few days of touristing it up and souvenir shopping, we finally went to Hillsong Church! The church is really beautiful, but it is definitely not as big as I had imagined. There are 3 buildings to the main Hills campus where I will be attending. The HUB, which is mainly office buildings and Administration offices, but there is also an auditorium. The next building is the Convention Center, or "CC" as it is known here, which is the main building where church is held. The building is really beautiful and at night they shine light green and purple and blue lights on the white building and it is really awesome to see! The third building is the Chapel building, which is where there are small services on Sunday mornings that are more intimate, acoustic sets. My first time in the church we were looking for the Hillsong College registration, and we eventually wandered downstairs and found it! New Hillsong College kids were everywhere, music blaring, and videos of the Hillsong Live team playing all around. I got my paperwork for where I will be living which is in Glenwood Gated housing, and the house was already furnished! WOO! The whole time I was there getting registered, students were just coming up to me all the time wanting to find out where i'm from and what stream of study i'm going into, and if there was any way to help. Seriously like the most helpful people ever! Then I got registered for POWERHOUSE SUMMERFEST.

Powerhouse SummerFest

Powerhouse is the name of the 18-25 year old group in Hillsong Church, and January 24-26th was the SummerFest camp and took place on Cockatoo Island which is pretty centrally located in Sydney Harbor. There were about 1,000 18-25 year olds that went, and we all camped on the water's edge (if you buy a 3 man tent it actually means it's for 2) and during the day had multiple sessions in "The Revival Shed". Also, the last day of the camp was, in fact, AUSTRALIA DAY. Australians are very proud of their country, (even though it's not 'merica) so the air was filled with national spirit which was very cool. Cockatoo Island used to be a jail and then was turned into a shipyard later, so "The Revival Shed" was one of the old shipbuilding sheds. The first night the Hillsong United team did the worship (excellent) and they played two brand new songs (very excellent) that are going to be on the new United album! The worship and speakers were above outstanding, and the main thing I took away from the camp is what Harrison, the main Powerhouse pastor said the last day. He was talking about how Jesus has a huge puzzle put together of all of our lives that are the little bitty pieces. I am honestly just so excited to get going in classes and figure out where in the church I will be serving, and what puzzle piece I will be that makes up the puzzle that brings God glory and makes Him famous. After SummerFest was over, I met up with my Dad and Kim and we walked around downtown Sydney. The next morning, we got up early and drove back to my house in Baulkham Hills, where I said my goodbyes to them until Christmas or whenever it is that I come home! Also, I ate Kangaroo in a restaurant. 

Waiting for school to start

Today is Tuesday January 29, 2013, and tomorrow morning school starts! All the students are going to be meeting in the Chapel building at 9:00am and we will begin Orientation and Enrollment in specific classes for our stream of study. Overall I am nothing short of amazingly anxious to start in these classes and learn from these amazing leaders. The culture in this church is ridiculously awesome. I went to my first Sunday morning and night service, and the atmosphere is amazing. There is no denying it, Hillsong Church has it's heart set on glorifying Jesus. All the leaders and worship team sit right in the front of the service and don't act like they are better than anyone else, they just worship. Last sunday Nigel Hendroff, Dave Ware, and Marty Sampson were part of the worship team, and they are just so normal and after service will talk to anyone for however long they want and are just total nice guys. LOVE IT! The student atmosphere is outstanding, and I am so happy to be a part of it. So until next time! Hopefully I will do this again this weekend after classes have started and I will know more of my permanent schedule. Love to all my family and friends from TEXAS! YEAH! 

Give the glory.

-Aaron