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Our season of refreshing soaking in the Holy Spirit continues at Awesome Church. We were certainly well soaked today, both in the Spirit and in the natural…with perspiration from the 42C heat (107F)!! Despite this, the people were keen to soak in the Spirit, so we did – especially at the evening service.

Sunday AM

The Actsian church message series continued today. It’s so good to be studying what the Acts church looked like and assess ourselves against that. Are we being the church as it was birthed, and therefore (I believe) as God meant it to continue? Everyone was left anticipating the 2nd part of the message, but time/heat meant it’s been carried over to next week…!

Music

1. For Your Name (Morgan, Gillies, Houston / Hillsong)
2. Happy Day (Hughes, Cantelon)
3. This Is Our God (Morgan / Hillsong)
4. Come Holy Spirit (Fletcher)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Come Holy Spirit

I was back leading for the morning service, and apart from all going smoothly, we got lots of response from the congregation about God’s presence being “thick” during the worship. We’re all loving mixing up some of the older choruses into our sets of late. This Is Our God was particularly sweet, as we did a slightly different arrangement than usual, with more ebb and flow, and more opportunity for free-worship … which the congregation grabbed on to. It’s beautiful to lead worship and hear the congregation above the worship team. Truly amazing.

Due to the heat, we didn’t extend the service today at the morning service…but we did for the evening service, even though it was quite possibly even hotter by that point. It didn’t matter though; people wanted to worship, so they did.

Sunday PM

Tonight’s message was an insightful look into the story of Simon Peter’s encounter with Simon the Sorcerer. Looking at how people want to buy their way in to the good things of God, not understanding the price to be paid to go deeper in understanding, power, and victoriously living for Him doesn’t involve money.

Music

1. For Your Glory (Pringle, Smith / C3)
2. You’ll Come (Fraser / Hillsong)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
3. Come Holy Spirit
…then to finish the service (Worship+)
4. Come Holy Spirit
5. To Worship You, I Live (Houghton, Houghton / Lakewood)
6. Rain Down (Seeley / Planetshakers)

Julie led tonight, and continued to flow in the spirit of the recent meetings with some prophetic singing. I was actually called up during the Worship+ part of the evening to help lead the free-worship, particularly in Come Holy Spirit and Rain Down, both of which were in male keys, and the male singers had wanted ministry so…kinda just left the girls on stage. I love our youth – so hungry for God! It was a privilege to lead and worship with these guys tonight, and offer some sweet harmonies for To Worship You, I Live, which was debuted this evening and inspired some beautiful, uninhibited free-singing from the congregation.

I love my church!

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Our late spring’s winter continued today, and with our Awesome Youth away at Awesome Youth Camp, we also only had the one service. And just like the camp, it was awesome too.

Sunday AM

One of our pastoral team, Peter Abood, preached a great message on peace – and more specifically living free from spiritual afflictions, the futility of seeking non-spiritual means to be free of conditions brought on by spiritual affliction, and keys to being able to have that peace. Peter is passionate about this subject, and his day-to-day ministry is all about people living free from affliction. It was good to hear him preach it too.

Music

1. Let God Arise (Tomlin, Reeves, Cash / Passion)
2. Happy Day (Hughes, Cantelon / Soul Survivor)
3. Song From Heaven (Chris Falson)
4. How Great Is Our God (Tomlin, Reeves, Cash / Passion)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Say So (Houghton, Gungor / Lakewood)
…and to close the service…
6. Song From Heaven
7. Happy Day

With the youth away, we were about as acoustic as we get. Meaning we had no electric guitars. So it wasn’t really even close to acoustic, just a bit more laid back and relaxed, helped by the lounge-worship lilt in Song From Heaven, but still anthemic for the end of How Great Is Our God.

We had a beautiful time of prayer, Spirit-singing and soaking at the end of the service for close to an hour. It’s been a while since we had a time freely worshipping like that following the morning service, and it was humbling to be part of that move of the Spirit through the congregation. Our pastor talked about the tragedy of people feeling they need to fake their faith, putting on the “it’s all OK” mask when they’re really hurting, and prayed for that affliction of faking it to be lifted. Some people’s countenances changed in that moment. It’s also been a while since we heard a message like today’s; it was refreshing and timely.

I rarely mention when we have salvations either…but we do most Sundays. Not lots, but a steady stream. Today, another 2 were added to the Kingdom, while a few kids at youth camp gave their lives too. We had a mid-service phone link up, which was fun if unintelligible.

Finally, a note…we had no Hillsong songs today. Yes, I believe that might be a first.

What did you do today?

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We had Col Stringer visiting us today for both services. He tells it like it is, and is particularly good for men’s meetings (we had him speak last year for a men’s ministry outreach). He’s had an amazing life, and it continues to be amazing. We’ve really had a lot of guests over the past 4 or 5 months. I’ve not counted them all up, but it would be in double figures. Today Col preached two blindingly good messages, shared testimonies of personal friends (he’s shared most of his own stories on previous visits) and was just generally … awesome. The messages can be summarised as “Don’t just believe in God, believe Him…”

Music

Sunday AM
1. Run (Houston / Hillsong)
2. Happy Day (Hughes, Cantelon)
3. He Is Lord (Fielding / Hillsong)
4. Where You Go, I Go (Johnson, Mohr / Bethel)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. Happy Day (reprise)
…and for the end of service
6. He Is Lord (reprise)

Rachel led, and I somehow managed to still not get my week off as Marg, one of our other leaders who was rostered on backup today, wasn’t well and needed to preserve her voice for this evening’s service. So, I stepped in. Tuesday practice was interesting due to team illnesses, but a good basic preparation for the team nonetheless. With a guest speaker, we always try and have well-known songs (nothing that we’re still learning), so last week’s newbie will be reintroduced next week. Everything went well, and both He Is Lord and Where You Go, I Go continue to be songs our people really, really worship to. I mean, really.

Sunday PM
1. Say So (Houghton, Gungor)
2. Worthy Is The Lamb (Murgida / Awesome Church)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
3. Courageous (Murgida / Awesome Church)
…then for the end of service/Worship+ ministry…
4. You Are Here (The Same Power) (Pankratz, George / Hillsong)
5. Say So (reprise)
6. Shout You Praise (Oroso, Araullo, Reddy / Awesome Church)

Marg led tonight and ripped it up! So the rest this morning paid off. Worthy Is The Lamb is the next song we’re recording later this month, while Courageous is a new pop-rock tune that the Ablaze Band (our youth team, who play for our evening services) debuted tonight and will be playing a Ferragosto in a couple of weeks. It’s a great tune and I wanna hear it on the radio (hint, hint Marg).

Other Stuff

The sounds was a lot better than last week, but overly sibilant … an awesome word I don’t get to use often enough. I was able to play with that a little for the evening service. One of our amps failed during the week, so we had a loaner from my work while that is being repaired. I’m glad that failure didn’t happen during a big meeting like this morning though. We also had some video glitches again tonight, and it feels like we have the full technology spectrum colluding to ensure maximum frustration. So it’s just as well we’re all awesome and can cope with such minor annoyances without getting too grumpy, huh.

We had a couple of people baptised today too.  I’ve realised I hardly ever mention when that happens, even though it happens quite regularly.  And perhaps that’s why I don’t mention it … kinda like mentioning each time we share communion (also today), or when someone responds to an altar call (and yes, that too…like most weeks).  It’s all good, great, awesome – but not my main purpose in these posts.

Also, despite a couple less songs, both services were a lot longer than last week – both were over 2 hours.  Can’t say I noticed at the time though.

How often do you have guest speakers / preachers?

Note for Facebook readers : remember if I post a video or song, you’ll need to actually click through to my blog to see or listen. You know you want to.

Now celebrating 52 weeks of non-stop worship partay, over at the Sunday Setlists blog carnival over at FredMckinnon.com you can read how other churches around the globe have been worshipping this week. And join the big anniversay celebration next week too!

Personally, we’ve had a huge week with moving and other such joys.  I might post about that later, though I probably did enough on Twitter anyway.

Huge is also a good way of describing our services today.  We had Pastor Suliasi Kurulo preach for both our services.  An international evangelist, he is truly one of the most gifted I’ve ever heard.  If you don’t know about him, go and do some research – you know it’s not hard.  Start by clicking on that link I put there for you.

Music

Sunday AM
1. No One Like You (David Crowder*Band)
2. My Future Decided (Houston, Douglass, Sampson / Hillsong)
3. This Is Our God (Fielding, Morgan / Hillsong)
4. How Great Is Our God (Tomlin, Cash, Giglio)
…then following tithes, offerings, news…
5. My Future Decided (reprise)
…and for the end of service
6. This Is Our God (bridge)
7. Say So (Houghton, Gungor)

Dante led this morning, and it was we had a sweet morning. Quite a few little errors from pretty much everyone, but nothing annoying because the whole service was so fun. We had all had a big day in the recording studio yesterday recording a track for our forthcoming album (one of my songs – yay!), so it was a bit weird to be so physically tired yet so pumped for God that He overcame the circumstances so what He wanted for the service would happen.

Sunday PM
1. Run (Houston / Hillsong)
2. Kingdom Come (Fielding / Hillsong)
3. He Is Lord (Fielding / Hillsong)
4. Rain Down (Seeley / Planetshakers)
…then for the end of service…
5. You’ll Come (bridge) (Fraser / Hillsong)
6. Run (reprise)
7. Say So (reprise)

Troy led tonight, and being led into worship of Jesus with him is so cool. His love for Jesus is infectious. Following ministry time with Pastor Suli, we had a moshpit for Jesus going off.

Late update :  can’t believe I forgot to include this.  For the PM service, we had Beat It as the meet and greet music, complete with our pastor attempting the moonwalk on carpet .  I wish I had my phone ready to video that.  And I doubt it would have been getting recorded for the TV editing either.  However, rest assured I will check when Diane’s unpacked the video editing equipment again…

We also had a special treat with a team of Fijian dancers from the Sydney congregation of Christian Mission Fellowship (the church founded by Pastor Suli, and with plants across the globe). I did a post direct from church over on my Posterous blog, which you can click through too. Or, you can just watch the video I’ve embedded here.

Other Stuff

Technically the day was good apart from a muted mic at an inopportune moment this morning, but no biggie. The projector I mentioned last week was taken in for servicing and we had a loaner, which was fun for the techs from my company to mount way up there in the sky (our ceiling is about 12 metres or 40 feet high). Without moving the mounting post, it was never going to be a perfect fit, but the guys did well making the picture fit the screen. It was great to be able to see everything clearly this week, though we seem to have some signal issues I might have to get investigated.

What did you get up to today?

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