Glory

Hello friends! I am continuing to flourish over here in Australia, and I thank you all greatly for your prayers and encouragement.

For the past week, God has continued to train me and has placed in me a strong desire for more of Him and more of his gifts. I've been talking to a lot of teachers and praying with my bandmates for the spiritual gifts that God has for us and asking Him to enable us to love people more and more. I am incredibly thankful that God has placed me in the band that I am with here at Hillsong for my classes. They are ridiculously encouraging and are completely following after God with all of their hearts. Every Wednesday, we have an hour long prayer meeting where we grab a guitar and sing our hearts out and then blanket one another in prayer. It is incredible.

I've been talking to a lot of my friends about employment and different places I could work. Yesterday, I talked with my friend Michael about where he works and what they do. He said that he works in a production company warehouse and that they need more people to take on a lot of casual labor and help out in the warehouse. He said that I would be great for the job, except that involves a lot of heavy lifting. Thus, last night  I started P90X. I know that I've only got about 40 days until the beginning of Summer, but if I do as much as I can in the natural, I know that God will do the supernatural and strengthen me for whatever job that he has for me.

My favorite teacher at Hillsong so far is a man named Duncan Corby. He's my teacher for New Testament Introduction. His classes are always the most interesting classes that I've ever had and have completely changed my way of reading the bible. I used to read the bible to just find quotes that applied to my life and different verses to help me while I was struggling. While this is helpful, it isn't really that interesting. Duncan has helped me realize that each of the books of the bible was written for a specific purpose and that the writer was attempting to address an issue with their book. This is incredibly cool, because now I can go back and try to figure out the purpose of the book through the context, audience, and information that the author chose to include.

Duncan also encourages us to be really grounded in our words. Which is incredibly helpful to me, because it helps me to create really solid definitions of words that I usually only refer to in "church language" and define in a really ethereal way. For example, Glory. I've always thought of glory as one of those things that you really have to "feel" and can't really put a definition to, kind of like a feeling of warmth, or a feeling of affection. However, If I'm going to write songs that are really powerful in the church, I need to have a real idea of what I'm saying. So, through a word study, I started redefining Glory. Instead of some sort of undefinable thing, I've realized that glory is more along the lines of deserved, obvious, greatness. God is infinitely glorious, and for us to "glorify God" is to make his deserved, obvious, greatness more visible on the earth. That's an easy definition, but it really adds a lot more meaning when I sing or think about glory.

Rest

Hey gang! It's the end of spring break already and I've been resting pretty much the whole time. Hanging out with Will and Matt is quite a bit of fun, but I'm ready to get back into working all the time.

If there's one thing I've decided over this break, it would be that I MUST get a job during Summer. I definitely can not handle sitting around for 2 months watching movies and sitting around. Even if I'm just volunteering for church every day changing light bulbs and vacuuming floors, it's better than just sitting around. I've also learned that I'm really bad at resting. God has really been showing me how to relax with the guys and stay Christ centered with my hang out time.

Tonight at team night, I got connected with Matt Sharpe, one of the lighting assistants for the Hillsong main campus. We started talking, and he wants me to start doing lighting for Sisterhood services every Sunday to get training on the main board that they are using there. He also said that I could come into the main sanctuary and start programming light shows whenever there isn't anyone using it. This is going to be really, really cool.

I started looking for jobs with Hillsong maintenance and production, but with no luck. Please keep praying that God provides for me to be effective wherever he wants me.

Break

Hello everyone! Yesterday was the beginning of spring break!

So far, I have still been incredibly busy and loving it. 2 weeks ago, I started praying that God would increase the discipline and self-control in my life. Ever since then, I've been completely booked with events, practices, and rehearsals. I have been learning everything from how to take care of blind children to setting up and programming light shows from start to finish. Along with these skills comes the frustration of not knowing exactly what they are for. Back home, I don't foresee any access to moving lights or working with special needs children. However, I know that God has moved me into these situations and is training me for specific purposes in my future. I am excited to see what God has in mind.

Sadly, I will no longer be attending Merrylands Youth service on Friday nights. Instead, I'll be playing bass guitar for the Macquarie Youth service which is having its grand opening in a high school tonight! Whoo! I'm excited to see what God is going to do in the youth at Macquarie and to be part of a brand new endeavor.

I think that the main thing God has been teaching me since I've been here is how to be an effective person all the time in every situation. The love of Christ should compel me into action to love others. I am definitely convicted every time I remember my testimony to want to share that love to others. With this mindset, God has encouraged me to be volunteer in whatever place that I can to do the labor that nobody else wants to do. Whether at home, at church, or in friendships, it should always be on me to love because I am loved.

As soon as I get to the place of helping others for no benefit to myself, I have always ended up getting selfish and expecting to be rewarded for my work. God has changed my mindset here by putting me into places of service where there is absolutely no recognition given to the most time-consuming and menial jobs. However, it always comes back to who I am doing it for, rather than what I am getting out of it. If you put the Kingdom first, God will give you whatever you need, but never serve the Kingdom for the purpose of getting whatever you need.

Alrighty! Thank you all so much for praying me into this place. I am exactly where I need to be to mature and live out day by day God's call in my life.