so on friday, i went to check out castle towers shopping centre. since i needed to open my bank account (about time.. and im running low on cash. haha)
it was pretty interesting. seeing all the different brands, stores... THERE WAS BBT! lololol
there was a kmart, a really really nice apple store, pizza hut and mcdonalds, found a skate/snowboard/surf store! :D was pretty itneresting! then a bunch of us were gunna meet at the mall and catch a movie or something. but we decided to go to the Jesus Culture conference isntead, cus it was FREE on friday night. bahahaha so why not.!
lets just say... it was an interesting experience. i didnt fully agree with some parts of it (the band and the worship in song part) but the speaker was pretty good. and it was nice to near a north american speaker. haha... the band didnt do "How He Loves" nor "Your Love Never Fails"... so tahts all the songs i knew by them. but they did do 3 other songs (not by them) that i knew so yay! haha...
saturday i just totally bummed around the house. my first day of nothign to do. =) much needed. just sit back, relax, catch up with some ppl from back home, watch a bitta dexter.. haha was good.
sunday! finally sunday! why? cus i get to check out Hillsong Church for the first time! i actually never knew they were a church when i first heard of them. being a teen, and helping out with worship at church/school, of course i knew about Hillsong United. and hooray they came to TO so many times! then after a while, looked up HU on the web, and found out it was a church! not just some christian band from the land of Oz. and wow.. having watched their DVDs (haha.. sleepovers with lorr.... yeup. thats what we did =P), i was pretty excited to actually visit the church!
so here it is! today is the day! and wow... was it different than any sunday ive ever had!
first off, there was no parking in the parking lot. with the 9am service finishing, cars were trying to come out of hte parking lot while the 11am ppl were trying to get in. so we didnt bother, and just parked in a lot on the other side of the road (very nice traffic directing ppl (volunteers from the church) told us to turn into).
as we walked onto the church property, it was just streams of cars AND ppl. it was nuts! the place was flooded with people! total contrast from the first 3 days of arriving at college, when it was quite empty. ppl of all nationalities, ages... it was great! so we walked in thru the front doors, and found our way into the main auditorium.
now... having only seen the auditorium via pics on their official website, this was a first for me (it had been locked the previous days). and WOW. it was like a mini arena built for 3k ppl! it was oval shape like, stage at the front, floor standing/seating area, the sides and back slant/slope up, and there were 2 sections. lower slant, and upper slant. like... WOW.
the place was filled too! all the sections had ppl in them, and were nicely filled. not jam packed, but not like empty patches here and there. maybe a random empty seat near the top rows, but the rest of it was filled!
now.. going back to the standing floor area. y'know how at christian concerts, there usually are seats. but at the front, there will be a section for ppl to go stand up and be in the "praise pit" (aka the mosh pit). this was just a regular sunday morning. and that praise pit was FULL!
the stage set up was also interesting.. as the drums was just in the back corner (also i think this is pretty permanent), and the rest of the stage was empty (other than the watoto presentation's decor and props). but it was empty as in no music stands, cables, monitors, mics + stands, etc. nothing!
as for screens, there were 3 MASSIVE projectors, and 3 screens. 1 giant one in the middle, and 2 smaller ones on the side. lyrics only showed up on the middle one. but all 3 screens would show footage of the worship leader or drummer or whatever the director decided to show.
i counted at least 6 cameras, and the lighting set up was pretty well done. (altho im sure this is standard for every week. if not.. i guess i'll find out soon enough once classes start =P)
so the clock finally struck 11am (okay okay.. no bells, no alarms, no clock.. but y'get the meaning! haha), ppl walked up onto the stage holding their mics/guitars. incredible! the stage was filled! in the back was the drummer, bass, and electric. there might've been a keyboard on the other side. wasnt too sure. we'll say there is. so its a 4 piece band so far. pretty small for hillsong right? im not done yet. hahaha.. then the front of the stage, stood 1 acoustic guitar player (who now put down his mic stand), and like 6 vocalists! it was a really nice arrangement. 6 of them just spread out along hte front, leading all sides of the congregation. apparently, the worship leader was JD (confirmed during dinner time when one of my "fanatic" housemates confessed that she was disappointed taht joel houston wasnt there. haha) so taht was pretty cool. someone that ive seen on dvds, heard on cds, seen live at the queensway cathedral/toronto congress centre/toronto airport church/molson amphitheatre was just leading worship on a regular sunday morning.
they sang 3 songs only. 2 i didnt know (1 was off their most recently album, and 1 hasnt been recorded yet, but not new to the congregation. maybe a few weeks old?), and How Great Is Our God. =) that was pretty powerful. the drummer. oh man.. CRAZY FILLS. take taht travis! (chris tomlin's super simple drummer... well, he was anyways. he's improved a lot now). but it was pretty powerful.
then the watoto group came up and did their presentation (this can be a whole blog entry of its own. but i wont go into it. lets just say i never knew much about child soldiers until now).
the closest i can come to describing this sunday morning.. was like being back at Passion DC 08. ~3-4k of ppl worshipping in a stadium/arena setting. except of it being a 2 day conference event, this will be a weekly event. with a saturday night service, and 3 sunday services.
definitely excited!
why did i move here so early? ive still got a week before enrollment/orientation. i wnat school to start... NOW. haha
maybe this year will breeze by when school starts.
i cant wait!
PS. yes this heat and humidity and lack of ac and australian creatures still sucks.