Hillsong Conference: Day 2

Interesting. Today, according to some moments, was a terrible day. But other moments were wonderful.. Basically, it was conference ALL day long - we walked to the conference center at 8 this morning for the morning session. Priscilla Shirer spoke passionately about truly feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit. How Jesus Christ is all that anyone needs at any time. How ministry is simply pointing others to Jesus and nothing more. She consecutively named every book of the Bible in order paired with a phrase describing the identity and role of God in that particular book. Her message was phenomenal, totally and completely from the Lord.

Fact: Everyone who works at Hillsong thinks we're more important than we actually are. Our phrase of the day? "Uhmm, choir." As long as we clarify that we're with the choir, we can do whatever we want. So far, we have been allowed into sessions early to save seats and received VIP passes to the JAM (youth) session at Luna Park this afternoon. We took a bus to Luna Park and wandered around for a little while before setting in the picnic area to read our books. The session itself was in the "Big Top" and was one of the most lively youth rallies I have ever witnessed. The speaker, Jentezen Franklin, used the story of David's army fighting Absalom to tell Christians to stay out of the woods. The passage says that more of Absalom's men died from the woods than the sword; just choosing the wrong environment killed them. Franklin stretched the metaphor to Absalom himself, who found himself swinging from an oak tree caught by his hair, helpless as Joab tortured him before he finally was put to death. Jesus also died hanging on a tree - He did so that we might not have to. 

Remember how I said that everyone working at Hillsong thinks we're more important than we actually are? And remember how I said that some parts of today weren't so great? Well, here's what I mean. We were standing in crowds literally all afternoon. Before the morning session, on the way to Luna Park, at Luna Park, while leaving Luna Park, etc. Our feet were sore, our backs were achy. But in the midst of this, we sang with the Hillsong choir on the stage behind Darlene Zschech and Israel Houghton at the session tonight. Yeah. I know. SO cool. The downside of that was missing most of the session because we were being escorted around (still standing, still in a crowd). On the up side again, we got volunteer t-shirts (even though we're not really volunteers) and VIP badges that pretty much let us go anywhere we want (how and why do we have those? no idea, but we'll take it!). But on the downside, today was such a weird and hectic day that I didn't eat until after the session tonight, making a total of 13 hours with no food for Michelle. Oh well; Allie and Charmaine and I stopped at Subway on the way back from the session (and after watching a bit of rugby on the big screen in the conference center). All in all, it's been a fun day. It hasn't really been an experience I would like to repeat any time soon, but it's cool to say that I sang on stage at the Hillsong conference. They asked us if we wanted to come sing again tomorrow morning... but sound check is at 6:45. That's probably not going to happen. :)