This week, most of you know Diane and I are at Hillsong conference.

I’m therefore making good use of my “other blog” over at http://dg4G.posterous.com and posting pics (v.average ones), videos (better than I thought they would be) and words (of varying quality and importance).

However, in all these things, lift praise to Jesus!

And to answer the question none of you have asked : “why the hashtags in this blog post title?”

Well, my post titles are sent out on Twitter, and whenever Hillsong or Jesus are hashtagged, they can be trend-tracked more easily (of course). This is good, as Hillsong was in the top 5 global trends 36 hours ago. Let’s get Jesus there too, tweeps, permanently!

So, until the next time I post here, go and read my other stuff over there.

You never know, it might become my permanent blog home as the multimedia stuff is SO COOL and, more people read my blog there than read this one… this post in particular …hmmmm.

Some of you may know that I went to boarding school for my secondary school education.

In the vast majority of cases, kids seem to dislike this immensely. But as I’m a freak, I loved it.

Sure, I missed home every now and then…but in general…I cherished the opportunities that were being presented to me.

I grew up in a small country town, and by going to boarding school, I was living in the big city at the age of 12. And by city I mean Brisbane, which was always known as a big country town anyway…though with a million or so people, it was still huge to me. I moved into an old army barracks which was the Schilling Boarding House at St Peters Lutheran College in 1986, along with 36 other guys aged from 11 through 17.

Fun times for the fat kid with a poncy voice, a dislike of rugby, soccer football, cricket and all the other national sports of Australia, a love of the arts and a propensity to sing all. the. time.

So right about about now, you’re possibly wondering how on earth I loved this experience…

It’s because boarding school showed me what life was like for Jesus. Kinda.

Now before you all think I’ve gone completely loopy (don’t. say. a word.), let me explain.

This is not some kinda holier than thou post, nor a woe is me post.  Just a Jesus-as-the-ultimate-role-model-human post. A lot of my personal experience at boarding school reflected Jesus’ personal experience in his life too. But I’m not going to list Scriptures to back this up; I’ve gotta leave some of the work for you after all.

For everything I’ve listed here, my name could easily be put in the place of Jesus.

1. Jesus was ostracized
2. Jesus was respected
3. Jesus was tortured
4. Jesus was loved
5. Jesus was talked about
6. Jesus had girls sit at his feet
7. Jesus spent a lot of time alone

‘Course, Jesus was also without sin, and I wasn’t then and I’m not now. But I am redeemed, blameless, and carry no guilt.

Thing is, if we’re serious about Jesus being Lord of our lives, we should be able to see reflections of His life in our daily lives too. It’s just gonna happen.

So…do you?

…at least, I think this is the third transition post…

Time gets away – I’d intended to do these a bit more often.  But then again, that would be terribly boring, and we’ve managed to get in much more ‘us’ time than we’d expected, so I’ve been posting about that.  As always, God is good good good.

All is going smoothly on the practical front of selling our little corner of the world, while emotions ride varying size rollercoasters at various times…

The apartment/unit/flat/home is generating a lot of interest which is great for the auction coming up on the 6th of June…not long !  Take a look and make us an offer we can’t refuse

And we don’t yet know where we’ll be living after that.  In reality, since we’ll be renting for a period of time, we’ll have a month to find somewhere after the auction before the sale settles – and that’s the time we’ll be finding out where we’re going to live (along with the packing…ugh)

It’s this not knowing malarkey that’s a little bit uncomfortable, but keeping all things in perspective, it’s a doddle really.   And we are constantly reminded (in hindsight) that God really does make all things work together for our good.  And while this isn’t about comparisons, if anyone has a right to complain at all about how hard transition can be, it’s this guy.  He’s a great example, and friend.

…but nothing that needs to be said.

And yet, I go on talking…often failing to stop and listen.

This is not a me that I know very well, and I need to get to know him better because I know it’s part of who I need to be as I move forward.

The talking guy that is, not the non-listening guy.  I always was a listener, never a talker. I don’t want to go back to where I was, but equally, I don’t want to go to a new place that isn’t where it should be.

That age-old conundrum raises its head…

Balance.

Communication is just one aspect of life that I’m finding is changing rapidly, and where I need to be more conscious of keeping myself in check.  Not just me, but others helping me – I’m certainly no island.

Diane tells me of a great analogy from her Bible College where they were taught to always keep the Holy Spirit and the written Word of God “in tension with each other”. In other words, in balance.  ‘Cause no-one should be in the position of either of the poor vegetables in that see-saw pic down there…which is what we call a teeter-totter guys.

Do you struggle with balance?  If so (and really, if you’re honest, who doesn’t) what do you do to combat that struggle?

Just gotta say, a week goes really REALLY quickly…

I’m having trouble putting the week’s events into stages…but suffice to say it’s all moving along quickly, with emotions riding the gamut of possibilities.

God is the great stabiliser in all of this, and we thank Him ALL the time.

I do want to let you all know that I’m not ignoring you, and haven’t suddenly stopped reading your blogs, but I am not likely to be commenting as much as I was as the qty of leisure time decreases over the next few weeks.

I am still reading though via my reader, just not clicking on through to express my appreciation for all the amazingness your blogs hold. From big huge revelation to simple thanks, from frivolous to serious…I love being part of this bloggy twittering community.

And regarding Twitter…yeah, I’m not on there quite as much either…miss you guys :/

…or my version of it anyway

I will be posting some updates as I hinted yesterday. But I’ll also be doing some posts on ‘things’ which have helped and influenced me at various points in my life, and not always overtly Christian things.

So, here we go :
1. Our Connect Group last night was beautiful. It was exactly what Diane and I needed, but importantly, it was what we all needed – God’s tangible, abiding presence.
2. Depeche Mode are indubitably one of my favourite groups ever. This might be a little bit obvious if you’re also familiar with my music.
3. Martin Gore has a Catholic upbringing, and while I’m not sure of where he stands now, it’s clear he’s fascinated with God and often writes about his perceived relationship with Him and vice-versa. (Feel free to fill me in if you know more…I can’t be bothered researching it
4. My favourite song of theirs is hard for me to pin down, but it’s #prorably Enjoy The Silence…a classic from 1990 and one of their biggest hits. It’s one of the many songs that I often have going ’round in my head for no apparent reason.

And here it is for you. Enjoy The Silence.

“…all I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms. Words are very unnecessary…”

I’m not going to say much, but just to let you know that this space might be a teeny bit quieter than it has been since it burst forth like a supernova in January.

Maybe.  I’m undecided.

It might get noisier as I suddenly start sharing even more.  But it’s way more likely to get quieter.

Or stay the same.

Anyway…

Diane and I have been in a weird part of life for the past year or so, and we’re about to enter a transitional phase with considerable change afoot in the Goodwin household.

There’ll be :

tears
laughter
excited nervousness
nervous excitement
sadness
happiness
grief
joy

and a whole host of other emotions and stuff surrounding the changes that are coming.

Tonight our Connect Group will be praying with us. Accountability partners are great.

We’re sure this is right (and I say we like this is a joint blog I know, but…it kinda is…at least until Diane’s actually starts), but are equally sure that some of what we have to do isn’t the way we want it to be. The end result will be the same, but the path is not our preference. God has made this clear, even though I (we) didn’t (don’t) want to listen. But it’s not about me.

Could I be any more cryptic? #Prorably – I’m known for my crypticosity (ha! take that!)

So while we’re dealing with “stuff”, I want to hear from you something that is the exact opposite – light, fluffy, celebratory, joyous. Preferably something that will help with the laughter bit I noted above.

Fire away, make me laugh

Hint: I’m an easy laugher.  Even if I end up rolling my eyes, I’ll still laugh.

I’ve been writing this post for a week.

But I’ve scrapped all of it and decided I’d let you guys do it for me.

What does it mean to you to be the church as portrayed in the book of Acts?

And, as you probably know, I’ll get involved in the comments anyway.

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.

Um, actually, there’s nothing in here at all about hills.

Except to point out, if you didn’t know, that Hillsong is so named because it’s in the Hills District of Sydney.  It used to be called Hills Christian Life Centre.  The Hills district is also a little bit hilly.

Anyway, back on track…

A number of weeks ago I mentioned in a post that at some point I may talk about why we do so much Hillsong music at Harbourside.  I have also alluded to some of the reasons in the past as well, but today I’m going to lay them out for you…just to clear up any possible confusion…

5 Reasons why Harbourside Christian Life Centre use of a LOT of Hillsong music.

1. First and foremost, our Pastor loves them.  So do our people, though I’m generalising of course.  I love them too, though I can be even more specific and say that in general (?!), I love Reuben Morgan’s and Brooke Fraser’s songs the most.

2. We are part of the Australian Christian Churches, which is the ‘new’ name for the Assemblies of God in Australia.  Hillsong is the largest church in our denomination, and produces the most music (though Planetshakers aren’t far behind).

3. While we are not Hillsong, or part of the Hillsong Network, we are (or have been*) open in ‘marketing’ our church as ‘like Hillsong’ when talking to people about what they can expect.  It therefore makes sense to include music by the only worship team to regularly have Top 5 albums in this country.  Come to think of it, unlike the US, they are just about the only Christian artist to have Top 100 albums period.  Excluding bands such as The Fray, of course.

4. Despite a lot of things I read about their music being difficult for congregations, our congregation love the weird timings and the lack of predictability (though being unpredictable can become predictable).  For instance, I am a fan of Chris Tomlin, but often I find his stuff quite safe (read: commercial).  There’s nothing wrong with that.  I am Mr Commercial Pop.  But I’m also a little bit twisted and have very diverse tastes.  I prefer what a lot of other people do – like Jesus Culture, but even more than that, I prefer Kim Walker. Period.**

5. Finally, and probably most importantly, we are encouraged to bring our own music.  Music borne from the encounters we have with Christ on a daily basis.  That’s why we’re recording a worship album this year.  I’m producing it.  Our first studio session is this Saturday.  Yay!

Who is your favourite worship artist?  Do you find it resonates with others too?

* The reason I qualified that statement : we are moving away from where we have been, and becoming less programmed.  Hillsong may well be doing this too – the reasons given for some changes to the July conference are to allow more freedom for the Holy Spirit to move.  This excites me, so I’m even more keen than usual to be there.

** You may not be aware that the expression “period” doesn’t get used in Australia.  We call that dot at the end of sentences a full stop.  It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.