Hills

So...Hillsong...was great.
Tiring, exhausting, draining...but awesome.
I didn't give much thought to the bus trip up, so I was a little annoyed when I realised that buses are not the greatest things to sleep on! We left sunday night after Sale's night service, and arrived in Sydney about 8am Monday morning. Those who are crazy went into the city, and those who are sane and forward thinkers (including moi) slept! Oh I don't know how those guys survived the first DAY let alone the entire week starting off with NO sleep. Sometimes I think I am old, and then I remember I'm still recovering from glandular fever + migraines, so am let off the hook ;)
I was in a room with the beautiful Lisa, and a girl neither of has met before called Charlene, who turned out to be my laughter buddy for the following 5 days. It was good to have the combination of the two ;) Char is HILARIOUS and we didn't stop laughing all week, while Lisa is a little more mellow (though has her crazy moments) and we were constantly looking out for each other and making sure we were both okay, which I discovered is necessary during a week of little sleep and emotional and spiritual upheaval!
I am so glad Lis and I got to know each other better, and am so blessed to have a glimpse into this precious girls heart. Infact it was just good to get to know all of the Sale dude's and dudette's a little better. I have been going up there often for a while, but theres nothing like getting to know someone while living out of each others pockets ;)
During the days I mostly spent with Char and Tony which was so much fun :) Tony and I sort of met up through Jas on the Tuesday, which turned out to be quite good, because we realised we were all in the same stream so had some familiar faces to sit with, and muck around with in between sessions. It was awesome to get to know Tony (I mean Anthony, sorry) better and I am beginning to be able to pick and choose when I feel like letting him into my brain, and when I don't ;) (:P @ you).
So the actual conference itself? That thing is just getting bigger and bigger. Which is a good thing, I have decided. The new Hillsong CD I am not terribly fond of, but the songs they chose to sing at the conference were the best of the bunch :) The teaching was unreal. Highlights would be Matthew Barnett, Christine Caine, Rick Warren (what a speaker!!) and Charlotte Scanlon-Gambill. I am now entirely intending on heading up to the womens conference in March just to hear Charlotte some more :)
Without realising it, most of the main speakers had their sermons based on the church and trying to get it back to what a church should be in order to reach the lost. This basically became the theme of the week...and it has made my heart grow even more desperate for a church to call home. I'm not going to write out all my notes and what I got out of each session, as this is something I want to do in my quiet time! But I will chuck out some things that either
a. caused "wow, so yes!" moments,
2. challenged me, or
c. I found quite smart!

So here we go.

• What are you doing with what you've been given? If you don't use it, you lose it. Where God guides, God provides. (Rick Warren)
• Don't be afraid to go out on a limb; that's where the fruit is. (RW)
• Investing in people who go there, is the only way to store your treasures in heaven. (RW)
• The only way you will know the purpose of an invention is to talk to the creator and read the manual. (RW)
• Life is preperation for eternity. This side is to get ready for that side. We must be practice on earth what we will do in heaven. (RW)
• Turn your mission into a movement and don't let it become a monument. (Christine Caine)
• We've reduced evangelism into a thing "elite troops" do, or something only a selected few do. We have ALL been called to it. (CC)
• Every follower is a fisher of men, not a keeper of the aquarium. (CC)
• Evangelism is an inconvenience to our neat structured lives. (CC)
• The harvest and Christians are plentiful, but labourers are few. (CC)
• Involvement is the key to evangelism. God so loved the worlds that He GOT INVOLVED. Choose to get involved. (CC)
• We would rather DO church, than BE the church. (CC)
• Compassion needs to lead to action, otherwise it is not true compassion. (CC)
• "I've been a christian so long, I thought the TAB is where you went for Tea and Biscuits" (Brian Houston).
• Everyone knows what the church is against, but they should know what we are for. (Matthew Barnett)
• We need to make the church visible in the community. (MB)
• Small and consistant is better than big and a once-off. (MB)
• The church should be the experts on every matter. When there is a problem, people should go to the church for the solution. (MB)
• We need to remember what it's like to be lost so we have a sense of urgency to reach those that are lost now. (CC)
• $20 is still worth $20 no matter where it came from (whether it was used to pay for a drug deal, or prostitution etc). It's value was given by the Australian Mint. Just like our value was given to us by God, and cannot be taken away no matter where we've been. (CC)
• We must not let the responsibility of all of us (evangelism), become the privilege of some of us. (CC)
• We must not have an 'in their face' approach, but in 'in their shoes' approach. (CC)
• Don't think sinners are not having fun. If sin wasn't fun, people wouldn't be doing. We, as Christians, just have a view into what will come of it. (CC)
• We must find a middle ground. Angels didn't see eye to eye, but God said if they looked into the pool of mercy, he would sit inbetween them. We need to be in the middle of the lost and dying world. (Jentezen Franklin)
• God's Word in our mouths is as powerful as God's Word in His mouth. (Reinhard Bonnke)
• Do you desire the fire? Then claim your flame. (RB)
• Our problems have come from our past to our present and they will go in to the future if we do not deal with them in the present. (CC)
• We need to learn to love the Ishmaels of our world. (Charlotte Scanlon-Gambill)
• We need to learn to hear and see what God hears and sees (C S-G)
• If we can't get it right in the House of God, how are we supposed to help the lost in their houses? (C S-G)
• Faith frightens the enemy. He tries to frighten us...so frighten him back! (RB)
  

Ok so going through this I realised there is a whole lot of info I have on all of these different subjects! So if anyone is interested in anything I've quoted, let me know and I'll write up some more.
So a few major things happened in me personally over the course of the week.
1. A year or two ago my mentor and beautiful friend told me that she saw me working with young girls in my future. Now I laughed at it then, because quite frankly...young girls bug me a little bit with their attitudes (:P). But ever since then, my heart has been softening towards them. And then Nancy Alcorn from Mercy Missions spoke in the Transformation elective I took, and spoke a fair bit about her work with MM. I just could not get enough. My heart broke for these girls and a passion ignited for this cause. I walked out of that session knowing God was working in my heart...and really; I'm just excited and open to wherever this leads.
2. I realised God doesn't want me to have anxiety. It was not the way he designed me, and while I may have learnt and become stronger as a result of my problems (as the Lord brings good out of every situation), it was not God's plan for me. I now understand where it comes from, and what the root of it is, and I will not sit down and take it anymore. This is not something I will have for the rest of my life and it is not something I have to prepare to deal with for the rest of my life.
3. I had a shocking migraine one night, and when I got back to the college, realised I didn't have any of my medication with me. So I told Lisa, who in return said "no worries, mate, come sit here", which I did, and she prayed over me. It's the first time i've experienced someone speaking in tongues so close to me, and the first time demons have been ordered out of my body. That girl has the gift of healing, and mate...am I glad :P My migraine was instantly gone. I had a slight headache the rest of the next day, but was able to focus enough in all of the sessions. And then when I walked out of my last session, a migraine just came on full blown. All I could think was "Lisa and Christine", so I got both of these lovely ladies, who prayed over me again, and my migraine was gone. The same thing happened during Friday afternoon's rally, where Reinhard Bonnke asked for a response to anyone who needed healing. Lisa was sitting behind me about 5 seats away, but when I responded to his call, she felt the need to lay hands on me, so did so...and my migraine from that night disappeared.I have not experienced this much before...but I have learnt there is power through prayer for healing. It was an amazing experience, and has taught me that I don't have to *put up* with illness in my body as this is not the way I was designed. A pretty cool revelation, I think.

And I can't believe how much I've written! I really need to go clean my room now ;) But I'm sure I will be back with other little tid-bit's of information from over the course of the week :)
My prayer is that I take what I've learnt and apply it to life. Faith without works is meaningless.
And to remain grateful, of which I am :)