geez... i apologize in advance for terrible grammar, spelling mistakes, and my personal high-reoccurance: missing words.
yes, its only ~12:30am, but i am super sleepy.
trying to stay on a good humanly sleep schedule here, since hillsong college will be operating on a 8:30am - 5pm type of sched. poop.
anyways, after a few days of bumming at home quietly (3 of my housemates went to Powerhouse retreat, and the rest of us didnt wanna go out.. cus that meant spending money. lol), today i left the house... at 5:30pm cus service was at 6pm. =P
this was my first night service since getting here. and its only my 3rd sunday at hillsong church, but i can tell you im already getting sick of the hillsong music. =(
i guess you can say im usually on top of new worship songs, and i familiarize myself with them, even tho i know theres no way my church would ever be musically capable of pulling them off (most of the hillsong songs fall into this category). but ever since entering university, hillsong united just wasnt that big of a deal anymore. so ive been slacking in that department. and today, sunday, was a first. we did 5.5 songs. i knew 1.5 of them. =( the last 1.5 songs. (we did Forever Reign's chorus as a response, then after repeating a new song, we sang You. a song we've been singing every single week since i got here. lol)
and yeah... i mean... im all for new music, and i dont mind the emotional side of things (the praise pit, getting really in to the music). but what i DO have a problem with is the "fluffyness" of the lyrics. they lack that depth. we spent a good 5mins (during the baptism... more on the baptism further down), singing the same 2 lines from the bridge of a song. and i like repetition.. cus it "drills" it into your mind. but i dont like it, when the lyrics were like... something you would hear if you just turned on the radio. and someone would be "singing it to their bf/gf" kinda lyrics. like.. "Your love is all i need" or "You are here with me". ugh... i just couldnt focus. such shallow lyrics. =( (had a massive heated discussion with a housemate on this. argh... that deff didnt end well)
but yeah... the music aside, the baptism and the msg was really great!
baptism: it was a first for me, seeing baptism done like that! how you ask? well.. they had this massive tank near the front of the stage (between the praise pit and the stage. the first step of the stage if you will), and when you removed the covers, voila the tank below it! so after they asked the praise pit ppl to go back to their seats, they asked all the ppl getting baptized to head on down! (now i dont know how this works.. if they interviewed ppl ahead of time or just asked anyone who would like to get dunk'd to just go on down.. or both). but thats plenty of ppl made their way down. including a fellow "streammate" whom i met a few weeks ago (he's been here for 1 semester already).
so in the massive rectangular tank, they had 4 "dunking stations" going on, all at the same time. because there were so many ppl, i guess they couldnt go thru each of them to say their testimony and what not. we the worship band continued to lead the rest of the congregation in song (with the middle screen showing the lyrics), then the 2 side screens would show footage of all the ppl getting baptized! it was pretty cool! best of all, we saw ppl getting dunk'd in pairs (married couples, mother/son, etc) as well as some ppl got dunk'd solo! what a sight! definitely great seeing so many ppl declaring their faith. twas a precious moment. =)
the message.. ahh... what a great message from pst Joel A'Bell! he laid out the "christian walk" really well.
it looks like this.
B.C. is the obvious one. before we know Christ =P
Christ enters. oh. we hear about Jesus!
Saved. we accept Christ as our Saviour! we are saved!
Called. we realize there is more to being a christian than just understanding salvation and grace. we have a greater purpose here on earth.
Surrender. we give ourselves all to God, to do His will.
from "saved" onwards, we tend to spend most of our time in the "saved" category. and we have the most to say about it. its like.. your sunday school answers. salvation, grace, love, faith, hope, God, Jesus... etc. it takes people a really long time to move beyond that. this is the part where ppl start serving in the church. now when you reach the point of "surrender" (and thats if you do), thats when you understand and know that you cant go on unless you give yourself up to God completely. this is where the great commission kicks in! and you literally go out into the world to preach the good news.
it really made me re-evaluate where i am on this scale. where i truly am. i mean.. c'mon.. psssh! im at bible college! i gotta be at the surrender stage. i mean.. i gave up a lot to get here, didnt i? i dont know... been thinking about this all night and i still dont know. i mean... i know im called to something greater. but i guess until i actually get out there with the media industry, and broadcast the good news to all via my talents, i guess maybe then i'll have grasps the concept of what it means to live out the great commission. im at bible college... just starting up to be trained for that.
gotta love msgs where it makes you think. =)
im excited for tuesday! first day of classes, and theres chapel too! yay! =)
okay its 1:16. sleep times! gnite!
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