Preposterousness

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com. Make sure you check out the other setlists too! Look, it's another vlog...this time with the real star of my blog, my wonderful wife. And since there's two of us, you get two more vloggy minutes than last week. Diane apologises for her 'lack of focus'. She claims she would have been better after a nap. I fail to see how :) NB: if you came here during the first 12 hours of this post's life, you would have seen my frustration with Vimeo's completely use-free service for free accounts (ie: the vlog wasn't here until we YouTubed it instead).  I've since removed the lines of  frustration.  They were totally warranted, but not necessary, imo. Music AM 1. I'm Not Ashamed (Douglass/Hillsong) 2. Can I Have More Of You? (Byrne) 3. Worthy Is The Lamb (Murgida/Harbourside) 4. Hallelujah (Myrin, Sampson/Hillsong) 5. Shout You Praise (Araullo, Reddy, Orlos/Harbourside) Our main keyboardist was off stage this week, and she came up to me afterwards saying how beautiful worship was this morning...and it was. In particular, there was a sweet time of free-worship between songs 3 & 4 - short, but powerful... The guys from the recording session yesterday played "Shout You Praise" after church news/communion/tithes, and the discipline of a day in the studio was very obvious. This experience is really gonna help the team grow in ways they didn't even realise they needed to. PM 1. What The World Will Never Take (Houston, etc/Hillsong) 2. This Is Our God (Morgan, Fielding/Hillsong) Worship+ 1. With Everything (Houston/Hillsong) 2. Still (Morgan/Hillsong) 3. With All I Am (Morgan/Hillsong) 4. Run (Houston/Hillsong) The all-Hillsong night was led by Mher, and following my subtle "hold the mic here" instructions and him getting a passion boost in the pre-service prayer, he did a great great job. I led Worship+ which was very powerful, very soothing, very big, very intimate. All those things. God is good good good. Other Stuff I can't begin to tell you how exciting it is to pray for people and seeing them healed...for real. This happened twice tonight. God is totally awesome.

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com.  Make sure you check out the other setlists too! A few of you have noted my tweets on the Bill Johnson conference I attended with Diane and a few others from our church who've come to know and love Bill through his books, podcasts, etc.  I did a post on Friday night after the first session, but haven't quite got around to the Saturday sessions.  It's coming... I also tweeted that the last 24/48 hours have been the most amazing of my life.  In retrospect, though it's all still very fresh, I do think that statement is true.  For what started at the conference on Friday and Saturday continued today in our own services with God continuing to speak to PsG powerfully as he has done these past few weeks. JUST TO CLARIFY: this recap is for my home church services on Sunday, not the Bill Johnson conference which was Friday/Saturday.  However, I think it is significant that the content of everything was very similar...and PsG wasn't at Bill's conference.  We have been finding this "same word, same timing" thing happening a lot lately with other churches and ministries. Music AM Run (Houston/Hillsong) Happy Day (Hughes/Cantelon/Soul Survivor) To Meet You Here (Goodwin/Scarpato/Harbourside) - I'm particularly fond of this, done for the first time and some great response in both the team and the congregation.  Looking forward to doing this again next week. This Is Our God (Morgan/Fielding/Hillsong) PM For Your Glory (Pringle/Christian City Church C3) - from the first C3 album to contain really top quality pop-rock uptempo songs as well as downtempo (in my opinion, anyway :) You'll Come (Fraser/Hillsong) Worship+ Stronger (Morgan/Fielding/Hillsong) Fire Fall Down (Sampson/Hillsong) Jesus' Blood (Delirious?) Message The AM message was "Where Are You : the faith zone or the safe zone ?", which continued on from last week's unplanned message from fresh visions God is giving PsG.  These messages have shown a side of our pastor that I've only ever seen glimpses of before, and it's been beautiful to see him show more of his whole self in his preaching.  The PM message was a continuation of the morning, titled "Obeying the Voice of God".  In a weekend full of meat to chew on, I didn't feel ready for more messages where there is so much to absorb.  Of course, God knows much better than I do... Service Summary While not as long as last week, there was a still plenty of desire to stay and soak in the goodness of God after the AM meeting (which is usually fairly time-driven), and nearly everyone was still there worshipping when it finished an hour over time (This Is Our God formed the basis for this).  There was a time when lots of people would have had something to say about this sort of thing; I'm really glad we've had a fresh wind blow in and the church is being given back to God for Him to move.  The PM meeting was great, and I'll say again how much I love being able to be in the congregation for these meetings.  The sound was great, and special shout out to the tech guys for learning from last week :).  This young team did a great job of both the service and the free-worship for Worship+; seeing youth flow freely in the Spirit is beautiful. Favourite Moments The AM service video intro thing was really good this week (not particularly funny, but good) which was great after the extremes of the last couple of weeks. PsG was talking about dinner parties at one point, and came out with "I'm not interested in chin-chin with cinzano", which cracked us up anyway :) Annoying Moments Nothing except that the MacBook still wasn't on connected up as the adapter to get the video into the MacBook Pro for ProPresenter, etc wasn't available anywhere.  Should be next week.  Yeah, I know I've said that before...

This post is part of the weekly Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com.  Make sure you check out the other setlists too! I'm still actually lost for words to describe what happened in our church services yesterday, so I'm not going to try too hard.  I've also not got a lot of time, but if I don't do this now, it won't get done. Music All the music was great today - band was tight, AM harmonies & feel were great, the Ablaze guys in the PM (singers) are getting better musically while their enthusiasm still makes for a powerful time - it's all about the heart. The music set the atmosphere for what followed today, and I don't think anyone saw it coming... AM 1. Let God Arise (Tomlin) 2. The Freedom We Know (Houston/Hillsong) 3. Lead Me To The Cross (Fraser/Hillsong) 4. Redeemer (Murgida/Harbourside - ours again, this is the first song we're recording next month) 5. Now Is The Time (Delirious?) PM Walk-in (which is something we never do, but today we did) : Fire Fall Down (Sampson/Hillsong) 1. Run (Houston/Hillsong) 2. This Is Our God (Morgan/Fielding/Hillsong) Worship+ 1. Fire Fall Down 2. Mighty To Save (Morgan/Fielding/Hillsong) 3. Let It Rain (Farren) Message Both AM & PM planned messages were scrapped. Our pastor had a vision early Sun AM and re-wrote his messages. This never happens. They were based on the four horns outlined in Zechariah 1; the things which hinder God's people from seeing/hearing/walking in the vision He's planted in our hearts...that doesn't even begin to explain the message really. People were getting convicted and dealt with right there and then during the preaching. It will be on TV (as all our msgs are) in a few months, but that doesn't help non-'Oz'ers. We might get a decent website with podcasts, etc someday. Service Summary I know I'm not doing a good job of this today. There is too much to explain and too much going on in my head. The total time we were at church yesterday was 8 hours...yes, eight. Sure, that includes pre- & post-service, but that's still about 3 hours more than usual. Why? Because the Holy Spirit moved, there were prophecies, baptisms (which almost got forgotten because of the move of the spirit), people dancing, people weeping...it was...wow! During these times (which basically took up most of the AM service), we free-worshipped over the bridge of Redeemer - for, um, 80 minutes, I think. I really don't know, no one was clockwatching, hardly anyone left. Our pastor had to tell people to go home eventually. No-one wanted too. We came back for the PM service a couple of hours later, with probably double the number who are usually at that service. The ministry / Worship+ time was ... um ... wow. That's all I can say, truly. Funny Moments More pastors linguistic anointing: 1. Apparently, you can cut down on words by combining metaphoric and methodical into metathodical.  Who knew? 2. From Zechariah 1:21, the logical conclusion is that we should be Holy Ghost Terrorists (cue raised eyebrows, laughter and "did he really say that?" whispers).  This brought to mind Manic Street Preachers' debut album Generation Terrorists...that's how my brain works, everything is linked back to music in some way.  Also, the 2nd week of the video intro was hilarious.  We practised it really well, but for the service, the tech guys started playing it before we gave the signal, so the band had to RUN to get setup so there wouldn't be an uncomfortable gap after the end of the video intro. It was actually great for the energy of the opening praise songs, and no-one tripped on a cord or anything! Amazing  :) Next week, we should have our new MacBookPro running the visuals - hallelujah - which will mean Diane will be stepping back from the music team to lead that for a while uintil everyone is trained up...so she might be permanently stepping back, in other words ;) Annoying Moments 1. We had two new Sennheiser Evolution G2 mics (and one more is still on order). Lovely. I set the levels perfectly (no really, I did) and practice was great. Then, we get out on stage for the service and the gains had been taken OTT. Why??? 2. I spent the evening service down at the sound desk making sure everything was a little less earbleedingly shrill. I'm convinced our willing sound tech volunteers are deaf as well as well as having even less knowledge than my inconsiderable knowledge (?!).  I do love'em though :)