The last night of our week of prayer worship meetings. I’m kind of sad that they’re over, but I’m also relieved because basically life has been on hold this week while serving and seeking God took over completely.

It was great to be able to be in the congregation tonight as the team flowed in the bridge from You’ll Come for most of the night, and we ended with a very powerful (there’s that word again time of praise and worship singing With Everything. It was almost as amazing as when I first heard it at Hillsong Conference. These guys are awesome, and how blessed am I to lead them.

But the reason we were there was there to seek, repent, give thanks, call in what God’s promises are for me, and praise and worship my Lord; that’s what I and hundreds of others did. And his blessing was abundant in the prayer. I love how God refreshes even while we’re dancing and sweating and shaking…never fails to amaze me

Then about 12 of us went out for coffee & gelato (though I just had juice as I was completing a week long fast) and before we knew it, it was 12.30am! I am so thankful to God for the fellowship He’s placed my wonderful wife and I with. 2009 – you have great things in store! Bring it on!

The theme for tonight was spiritual warfare, and my goodness, there was a lot of warring going on. It was a power meeting, and everyone was totally spent at end, needing some time to soak in the Holy Spirit…and He came as a physical wind to cool us. Beautiful.

One thing I’ve really loved about these meetings is that I’ve never been really sure who in the team would be able to turn up given they are on every night, and tonight we had a totally different band with the exception of our drummer…and yet the flow was uninterrupted. This is team unity, and I’m extremely thankful for it.

Verses for tonight were from Colossians 4:2-4 and Ephesians 6:10-18, and the spiritual songs flowed from these as well, and at times almost as responses to the prayers which came from the people too. More came to pray using the lead mic than we’ve had at any meeting so far (I think around 15 people), while we had around 150 at the meeting again.

The song for the night was Hillsong’s Shout Unto God, and the two chords provided a foundation upon which declarations were made throughout the meeting.

We closed with a prayer circle and targetted warfare against a stronghold in our local area. It was, as our pastor said, probably the most powerful prayer meeting he’d ever attended in his life – and if you knew him you’d realise that was very significant.

Tomorrow is the last night, and I’m taking a rest while some of the younger worship leaders step up to lead the meeting – I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait (I know, I’m a cracked record

In Australia, when you’re crossing the road you need to look to the right first because (clearly) we designed it based on being seated at the right hand of the Father to ensure you always look right first…or not, but it sounds good, hey!.

When I tried this on my first visit to New York about 15 years ago, I was nearly bowled over by a big yellow taxi. Never mind the fact looking left had the same result

Back on topic though

…if you look to the right of this post, you will see a funky new badge for Our Creative Community. It truly deserves being described as ‘fabulous’.

Click on it and you will be taken to far-away and mysterious land where people who were somehow lacking in stuff to do decided to commit to doing more in areas that really matter to them, and remain accountable to others for that commitment.

And yes, I’m one of them.

AGH!

Since this is what I was referring to in my last post, I thought I’d post to let you know that this is actually serious – we have a badge now!

Update 20 Feb 2009: now that I’ve changed my template and moved to WordPress, the badge is now in my page footer.   This may change again, but for now, looking to the right just won’t work for you…

You know the routine for these meetings now. That’s right, there isn’t one – no-one knows beforehand exactly what to expect. That’s putting your complete trust in God to move how He wants.

I’ve seen a real change in our pastor through these meetings. He’s completely relaxed with allowing the meeting to flow in unexpected directions, whereas once he had a tendency to try to make it go ‘how these kinds of meetings should flow’ (and would freely say so).

Tonight was focussed on the verses that formed the foundation of our church when it was planted in 1996 – Jeremiah 33:6-9. Once again, though I planned a few songs…only one was needed – out of which flowed beautiful prayer, powerful prayer, cries of repentance, cries for mercy, calls for boldness in proclaiming the full Gospel; people on their knees, faces, standing arms outstretched, walking the room, loudly declaring, quietly petitioning.

The song was Healer (Mike Guglielmucci). Many of you will know the story around that song, which made its use in this context more powerful than I could have imagined. Amongst the power, at times the music naturally moved into a place where we just wanted to soak in the beautiful presence of God with us, Emmanuel. So we did. It wasn’t long enough, but it was just right too. I have no idea how to explain that feeling.

We finished by our pastor and some appointed people praying for us all individually in the three areas covered in the passage – healing, forgiveness, prosperity. There were about 150 people there, so it took a fair while but few were concerned about the time. I love this! I know it’s not sustainable, but it’s the right season, and it’s what Worship+ is all about – intimacy with God, spending time with Him, getting to know Him; the One who lives in us.

**UPDATE: since I merged both my blogs when I moved to WordPress, the contents of this post are a little redundant – oh well…**

This week, I’ll probably not be posting here very much.

There is one thing I need to post which should happen on Saturday, and that’s because I signed up to the accountability/goal thingy over at inProgress.

For the rest of the week though, I’m posting daily at my Worship+ blog, which you can get to by clicking on the logo below. You should read it every week in normal circumstances anyway – it’s dead good.

I’m not going to bore you with the intricate details every night, because I know God is going to keep doing amazing things which I am unable to translate into an interesting post.

Suffice to say that tonight was similar but different to last night. The prayers were centred around claiming what is rightfully ours for His Kingdom – souls, abundance, everything.

Once I again, I prepared a few songs, but we went no further than I Exalt Thee. For just on an hour, we worshipped using the original lyric and fresh new songs of praise, worship, declaration, and prayer.

On the way home with my wonderful wife, I said it was a very different feeling to last night – when I felt revitalised, and thus had to stay up for hours (blogging, praying, sharing) to be able to sleep.

Tonight, I feel “refreshed and relaxed” – almost like having just had a really good Swedish massage. I will sleep well tonight…and again, I can’t wait to see what God has in store for tomorrow.

While not being the same, it’s a bit like our version of Independence Day in the US.

But I’m not sure that you’d see this on national TV to endorse the celebrations.

A warning, this has some slightly blue language. Well, I think it’s blue overseas…here, it’s probably not…I’m not really sure, to be honest.

This campaign has been going in Australia for about 5 years now, and it never fails to crack me up. Lamb sales have increased by around a bazillion percent since it was introduced. That might be a slight exaggeration, but not much.

Interesting to note the capitalisation of the “L” in Lamb…it’s because it has been trademarked down here. Though the potential for doing a Christian version of this advert is huge. Probably.

Anyway, you should check here for a much better idea of what Australia Day means to me

Australia Day – when we celebrate the English colonisation of our country – the Great South Land of The Holy Spirit.** What a mighty prophecy that was to be spoken over a land which at that time was unknown to the western world, and which has since been noted in lots of prophecy as being the last place on earth to experience revival.

Tonight PsG opened the meeting with an explanation of these prophecies, reading the Prime Minister’s speech from this morning’s festivities, and dedicating the evening to prayer as found in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 : for those in authority.

He then asked the worship team to come up to the platform. I’d prepared 3 songs (as had become the norm for these meetings) – Breathe (Barnett/Vineyard), Still (Morgan/Hillsong) and Welcome In This Place (Webster/Hillsong), but soon after we started on Breathe I knew the He had something else in mind.

An hour and 10 minutes later, I was speechless in His presence. Through the course of one set of chords, He gave me and the other singers songs for this time and place (“We declare this Great South Land is Yours, Holy Spirit”, “We stand in awe of You, our God, our Lord”, “We repent, we cry out to You for mercy Lord for this nation Lord”. That never looks as impressive as I retype it, but some words are for a time, a place, a moment. The atmosphere in the room was indescribable – a tangible presence of God.

As I sang one of the songs – “Wherever I go, I breathe You in, I breathe You out to change this world” – I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to get the band to stop playing, but without me having to do or say anything, one of the other team members gave the direction. I love how God does that We then sang the song a couple more times accapella, then total silence for a minute or so until people in the congregation began worshipping in tongues, which grew and grew and grew. What a night!

The meeting closed with PsG telling us to get out there and share what we did on Australia Day (in addition to the BBQs, which are law after all

While sharing with one of our elders afterwards, she shared her vision of the prayers being offered as like those in Revelation being presented in the golden bowls, and that the angel hosts were joined with us as we worshipped. What a blessing.

If you come around here a bit, you might remember what I wrote last week about having no idea what to expect of this week. That was confirmed tonight, and again, I come tomorrow free of expectation, but just wanting more and more and more of You Lord. I’m excited by the vision for new ministry being dropped into the hearts of the people in our church, and that as worship leader they share them with me, very often before anyone else. Such a privilege to serve in this way. Praise Jesus!

**note that this links to an ugly ugly site, but it has some great info, ok And just a note, this isn’t the place to go into the debate on whether it should be called Invasion Day for obvious reasons…

Another one of those weeks where one of the other worship leaders in my team lead the worship and I got ministered to – I love these weeks

Which was probably just as well as I have had lots on my mind as planning for 2009 ramps up, and some team dynamics & relationships needed dealing with this past week, including a slight case of overenthusiasm (which I will always take in preference to lethargy!). These teens keep me on my toes.

After the sweetness of Wednesday, we were back in power mode this morning, and PsG made special mention during his message about how vital we are to the whole worship experience to help lift people into God’s throneroom, and that we did a good job of that today. Well chuffed.

Not only did Dante lead a mighty worship set, he also did a great job taking the practice too, which meant I could spend some time with the sound techs getting some aspects a little better in our really tough room…lots of echoechoecho and rrreeevvvveeeerrrrbbbbb due to its original use and a desire (requirement?) to leave it intact. Makes the audio tough, as any professional engineer has noted when they’ve been in using the system.

Gotta say though, I’m REALLY looking forward to being back from summer hiatus mode and getting into learning new songs again. We’ve got a new one for next week’s Vision Sunday (well, new for us) meeting, and I’ve got my plan for the first half of the year mapped out (with slots for new things which are released in the meantime) – bring it on!

The songs (all Hillsong today – again – we do that a lot
My Future Decided
You Deserve
You’ll Come
Mighty To Save

Now go and check out all the other setlists and reviews on the “Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at FredMcKinnon.com.

and see what else is going on round here as I go about Shaping The Space.

I know, I’m a sop – my wife would wholeheartedly agree. Just see my last post for evidence.

What a great way to start a post titled ‘Manhood’ !

I’ve thought about doing a post on something more masculine, but truth be told, I’m not stereotypically masculine.

And I say that in full confidence of my masculinity, because it’s much more about characteristics we find in the Bible than what the world would have us believe. Like duh…

For example, I want to be a Psalm 1 Man. Nowhere in there do I see a requirement for me to get excited about power tools/cars/sports/fishing/wrestling/guns, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just saying that for me it would be totally unnatural. And the last thing I want to be is someone I’m not – I’ve tried that, it’s neither big nor clever.

So if I write about leadership, worship, wisdom – it’s me being me, and not trying to be someone I’m not. In Christ, I have the strength to stop fighting that battle and did so a while back.

All of which means when I get a high score in this (thanks to Fred for getting me there), I’m in no way ashamed – that’s who I am, no pressure. Srsly. It’s all part of a pressure-free life and ministry, as Jesus Culture say.