Holding down the laughter.

Yes, I know...I have been on hiatus for a few days. So I'll try to highlight the past few days.

Wednesday- I had volunteered to work as the graphics operator for the youth...which basically means I just click the text for the lyrics to come up on the screen. I wasn't sure where I was supposed to go, so I just had to explore and feel my way around till I came to a closet looking room with a narrow hallway tht lead to a crawl space directly under the stadium style seats. I have realized that if you throw on a black shirt and walk around here like you know what you are doing, no one will question you.

It turned out that they had scheduled three other operators that night, so I got to spend a lot of time being taught on how to use the equipment by the second semesters. 

Thursday-I had Sisterhood in the morning, I think they have permanently placed me in the home-schooled area. However, some of the other TV/media students said I wouldn't be working in there for very much longer because I would be needed to work the cameras and such. 

   Later,  I had a video editing class at 1:15pm. I have been placed in the "advanced" class, but  I have realized that I am probably the most inexperienced student there. A chunk of the class was spent practicing putting text to image. Our teacher gave us about thirty pictures and told us to overlay text on them with background music. I didn't know how to use all of the effects, so I wrote something witty for a few of the pictures and put them in some different fonts for practice. He seemed to like it.

Friday- Went to the city to run some errands. Bearden and I had to buy some external hard drives for our computers. I had a hard time spending the money seeing as my computer is relatively new and I haven't used much of the disk space up on it, but our teacher strongly recommended it because he would be giving us a ton of video to dice up over the year and I was going to have to buy one eventually.

Saturday (today)- It's Bearden's birthday so we had some folks over. We made some tacos, cut up some pineapple and the girls brought some cake and ice cream. After hanging out a little bit, we put on his favorite movie (Into the Wild) and watched it. Some people didn't appreciate it because it was so long and had a sad ending, others loved it.

They played this song in chapel this week...it was magical.

Cold-shower Tuesdays.

Class started at 8:30 this morning in the main main auditorium. Lee Burns spoke to us about our core beliefs, basically what key values we is most important to us personally. My big one was integrity (obviously). These are some quotes from him taken from my notes:

 

“Your accent won’t make you a foreigner here, but your attitude might.”

“You can’t determine what confronts you in life, but you can determine what follows.”

“When you have purpose in your heart, you’ll have purpose in your mouth.”

  

"Lift your experience to the level or your belief, instead of lowering your belief to the level of your experience.” 

                           -Lee Burns

  After Burn's class, we had chapel, then Old Testament, in which we "unpacked" (it's a term they use here for "analyzing") the first two chapters in Genesis. Before today I thought I knew the story of Creation backwards and forwards, but after today I feel like all I had ever known was the watered down Sunday-school version, which is sad because I know I have read those chapters more than once.

Tonight,  I had volunteered to work in Hillsong kids, which was a little difficult because Tuesdays are our busiest days, and I was already worn out by the time the kids came in. When I came home, Bearden told me some people down the road had thrown out some stuff out of their house onto the side of the street. Being  expert scavengers by now, we looted the pile for anything that could be useful to a couple of thrifty Bible students like ourselves. We found several paintings done by some aspiring artist somewhere, a beat-up book shelf (now used for clothes), a miniature pool table and massive bean-bag chair. 

                                                      Every bachelor pad needs one...

 Yes, that is a bean-bag chair.  The covering for it is some kind of stretchy felt. I have reasons to believe it was once a cloak used by a magician or wizard of sorts...

     Those are inspirational/team unity company posters, hard hats, and amateur paintings (artist unknown).                          

                                     Can anyone spot the Sydney Opera house in this video?

 

 

Dumpster-Diving and other good ideas.

Yesterday we went to the morning service like normal. I had told everyone about getting together to watch Into the Wild and grill out after the night service. BUT certain members just decided they weren't going to contribute anything to the party, so we called off the burgers. There must have been a change in heart later (or stomachs) when people started showing up, so we sent some people to pick up some things and threw together a massive impromptu chicken Alfredo meal for our 15 or so guests (there was about twenty people here before the night was over). After chilling out  for a few hours, a few of us decided to go hit up some dumpsters near one of the business buildings down the road. We scavenged some carpet for the floor, a few posters and hard hats to mount on our barren walls, plastic trash cans, toilet paper (unused), plastic bins, envelopes, a trolley for Josh to tote his amp to school, along with several other odds and end that will be utilized in one way or another.

Today, I didn't have class till 4:15pm,  so the first half of the day was spent just catching up on what has been happening back home and chatting with some friends. In class, we learned how to take multiple camera's footage from different angles and tie them all together into one streamlined video. We practiced on one of pastor Brian's sermons. One of our assessments will be to edit two minutes of it with transitions and text...Chump change.

Warmer.

Our cool pleasant weather seemed to have evaporated over night, and now we are back to the constant sensation of damp skin and sweat soaked tee shirts. Today was a slow and wonderfully lazy day. This morning we had a house meeting and sorted out bills. Afterward, I decided to head out and explore my way on foot to the market a few miles away. The sun felt like it was murdering my skin, but apparently after a few weekends at Bondi, my skin is impervious to burning (I know, I know, it still does damage and Australia is the leading nation in skin cancer victims). The walk there was about as long as I expected, but the market has little to offer beside so sales on fruit ($2.99 per kg versus $5.46 per kg at Coles) so I don't think my little pilgrimage through town will be a reoccurring theme. However, I glad I went cause now I have improved my geography a little bit of my surroundings. It was also good to be alone for a little bit. I'm and introverted personality, so being with people all the time can be tiring.  I thought that would be my main struggle here, but it really hasn't been that bad at all.

Tomorrow we are having some people over for burgers and watching Into the Wild (one of my FAVORITE movies) after the night service.

End of class week one.

Yesterday our first class was another Personal Leadership tutorial class in the morning, which as far as I can tell is basically to help us with our assessments (projects we have to do for grades). It is normally supposed to start at 8:30, but our teacher came in, introduced himself and told us he had just ripped the fly of his pants wide open and told us to go take a 30 minute breakfast break to give him time to run home and change.
After P.L., we had chapel, then we had lunch. When I came back, the schedule said my class was in the main auditorium. After realizing all the doors on to the auditorium were locked, I rechecked the schedule, it read the same. Panicking a little bit, I went asking around and pulling on all the doors on the second level till I came across Terry Scott, one of the pastors. Desperate, I asked him if he knew how I could get in or if the class had been moved.  With a confused look, he tossed me his keys with the tiny plastic wand used to wave in front of the entry pads on all the main doors. He told me just to just bring them back when I was done with them. I flew down two flights of stairs and ran into on of the head tv/media students he told me where to go (which was NOT in the auditorium.).

Today, I served in the children area for Sisterhood. Coincidentally, I was put in the homeschooling area. I hadn't told anyone how I had been educated until one of the leaders asked where I went to school. When I told her I was home-schooled, she looked completely shocked and said "But you look so....". She didn't have to finish her sentence, I already knew what she was going to say....normal.

After Sisterhood, I started to head home around noon, but decided to check the schedule again at the school office. Turns out they had changed the time of my editing class from 4:30 by pulling it back to 11:50. I ran to the Mac lab (where we have editing class) and found it was locked and no one was there.
It there was another fluke in the time table.

I guess that would be my main complaint about this place (if I had to have one). It's always in a little bit of a logistic fiasco. No one knows anything for certain about times or places.  They promote the Who's and What's to death, but leave out the When's and Where's.  The more seasoned American students say that was a big issue for them too when they first started out.  We are used to having everything written out plain as day on paper in big bold letters that tell us everything we need to know nice and simple, nothing more nothing less. Although I think that's a more professional way of doing things, there is a strange order to the madness here. The atmosphere feels more family like and not arbitrary and white-collard.  For example, I know for certain a key pastor or school bored member would EVER let a random lost student take off with their keys. The most I could have hoped for back home was a  quick point in another direction to be put off on someone else.

Classes.

Well, we are two days into our real classes now. I have to say, they are MUCH easier than the Intensive period. Yesterday, Bearden and I had a  three hour video editing class, which was great cause I have been dying to sink my teeth into Final Cut (an industry standard video editing program). I had taken some classes on how to use it before, but the teacher here explained it more articulately and laid it out more clearly.
After the editing class, we had a Lecture Host class. which was more or less a tutorial showing us how to put together a class room for the lecturer.

Today, we had a Personal Leadership class with our principle Lee Burns. Today he talked about vision and how to utilize it for the Kingdom.  Then we had chapel followed by an Old Testament class. In the Old Testament class we were introduced to the importance of studying the OT and it's relevancy to us Christian living under New Covenant Grace. We also briefly went over the 20 major events that happened during the OT.
Later,  we had another class that more or less recapped what we had learned earlier in OT lecture.

When I got home I took a nap and when I woke up some people had come over and were chilling down stairs. What I like about this place is that once you get plugged, you'll always have something going on every night. Things are so much different now, from the two weeks we spent sweating around in the house all day sitting on our hands.
I feel more and more like I'm embracing this new life style. At first, I just felt like I was at summer camp for a week or two making quick makeshift friends to keep me company for awhile and soon enough I would be home again in my old rituals and habits of day to day life. I guess a sense of permanence is finally starting to sink in. This house I live in, is my home now. My roommates have in a way, taken the position as my family. The people around me are not just instruments for makeshift companionship, but are more like friends. The church isn't just a place I'm visiting while I'm here, but it's MY church now. It's a very strange sensation for someone who has lived in the same house for 20 years and never even moved away before.



This is off the soundtrack of on of my favorite documentaries, "180 degrees South". It seemed fitting to me somehow. 

For those of you curious, here's the trailer for the movie.

Weekend: Bondi Revisted

It's been a good weekend of rest to follow up such a grueling two weeks of Intensives. Yesterday we got a posy together to spend the afternoon at Bondi with us. After spending an hour or two at the beach, we spent some time exploring the local shops. I bought some board-shorts on sale at one of the surf shops, it's the first swim suit I have purchased in fours years seeing as my work at the county Aquatic Center had been supplying me with some (thanks tax payers!).  Plus, I think it would be cool if I could somehow learn to surf, I feel like I would be cheating myself not to while I am here.

On our way back home, we discovered that the train station also doubles as a massive and quite extensive shopping mall. We found a place called the Reject Shop, which is more or less like a Big Lots. It was their I found a desk on clearance and decided to buy it at the last minute seeing as is was something I felt we need in our somewhat sterile quarters (we have a set of twin beds, one folding chair, a night stand and a rug to our name. Our clothes are folded in stacks on the closet shelf.) The desk was in a narrow 4 1/2 ft box so I figured it would be easy enough to carry home. However, it must have gain a little bit of weight somewhere during walk through the train station, on the bus ride, or  hike from the bus stop to back to our house.

After stopping by the house to lather up some aloe vera, we headed out for a Mexican food party. Feeling adventurous, we decided to take a "short-cut" to the girls' house after some persuasion from our dear Swedish friend. The difference between American roads and Australian roads is that our roads are set up in a grid system, cookie-cutting areas into blocks that makes alleged "short-cuts" possible. Long story short, an easy 20 minute walk took us almost two hours and involved far too many hills. To be honest, there were some moments of raised voices edged with intense frustration.

BUT, being Bible students, practitioners of grace and forgiveness, in the end we did find the way and are all still friends to this day.

Today was a much needed day of rest.  I watched a movie called 127 Hours that is now one of my favorites. The story is about Arron Rolston, an adventurer who had to amputate his arm with a cheap pocket knife after getting it trapped by a boulder.  What is kind of scary is how much of myself I saw in the main character.

The rest of the day was spent putting my desk together, relaxing and talking to some people back home.
Monday I start my real classes with video editing at noon. The school has picked me at random to be a lecture host...basically a teacher's assistant. I'm  really not quite sure what it means but I guess I'll find out Monday.

They played this song while warming up in church the other day. It just so happens to be one of my favorite songs.

Thus passes the age of Intensives...

Well,  today we capped off the two week stint of Intensives.  During those 8 hour days, we were fed heaps of info, a smorgasbord of knowledge of Hillsong culture, philosophy, wisdom and a little bit of good old fashion theology.  I feel like a sponge dropped in a sea of learning and am now bloated with insight.


As part of being a male Hillsong student, we are expected to serve in a program called Sisterhood. It's basically where woman in the area come together for fellowship and the men are there to serve them. We signed up and our positions were given to us randomly. I was surprised when I was assigned to work in the children's ministry. Which isn't a problem at all, I have been working for years with over a hundred of kids in just swim lessons alone, not to mention various church nurseries. I guess I was expecting God to toss me in the fray of some place out of my comfort zone so I would have to adapt and expand myself. I feel partially relieved that I'm involved in an area I'm used to and enjoy, but a little disappointed I won't be doing anything new and broadening my horizons.

I have to say, the best part of Intensives was when Brian Houston (head pastor) mentioned that over 300 Americans were attending the college this year, at which point he started quietly humming the Star Spangled Banner. He didn't get three seconds into the song before every American was on their feet singing out the anthem with such zeal that the auditorium reverberated with the flood of U.S. patriotic pride. Even Pastor Brian later said in another sermon that he was proud to see so many young Americans stand up so quickly. It was by far the highlight of my week.


Tomorrow, we are going back to Bondi with some friends and then going over for Mexican (food) night.

I leave you with this song....

Superbowl

Today,  Hillsong held a superbowl party in the youth auditorium (called the Hub. It's really just a down sized replica of the larger auditorium).  I found it amusing to see all the international getting all riled up with yelling and chanting over a game most of them were unfamiliar with. All the ad's and movie trailers were not shown because Australia aired their own commercials, but thanks to the powers of the glorious world wide web, I was able to watch them later on my own time.

A lot of people back home have been asking what I miss or wish I had over here. So here's a few things.

1.) American Prices.  Every purchase we make over here is carefully estimated with he simple question "Is it worth it?" or "Can we go without it?". Back home, we could have bought something without even thinking, and probably bought in excess.

2.)Jiff peanut butter. The stuff they have over is called "NUTS" and that's exactly what it is, all peanut, no butter.

3.)My workout equipment: My punching bag, speed bag, dumbbells, iron gym with ab straps. I have had to make due without these things cause i didn't think I would miss them. I use the corner of our balcony to do dips( up to 55 now), while the rest of the time just doing reps of push ups and squats and spending a few minutes jump roping every morning. I'll probably start running again sometime this week. I want to get in the best physical/spiritual shape of my life this year.

4.) My bed. I'm on a twin bed here, which isn't really a problem seeing as I had slept on one my entire life till I came home from Africa when I was 18. But, I had gotten spoiled with full size and got used to sprawling out and occupying as much room as humanly possible over that wonderful memory foam padded mattress. However here, I have already knocked my elbows on the walls and brought my fist crashing down on the night stand on numerous occasions.

5.) My camping equipment. I  didn't think my gear would be something I would need seeing as I'm living in the city. However, turns out I'm very close to the Blue Mountains. Also, we met a local guy last night who said he know a lot of secret places in the outback to go ad said he would take us there.  I'm glad I brought what little camping equipment as i did (camelbak, backpack, and favorite knife), but I still wish I had brought my entire gear arsenal.

Malk and Biscuits.

It finally cooled down! It was around 70 degrees today with some welcomed rain. The forecast says the weather is supposed to stay in the mid seventies through out the week and warm up again for the weekend, which works for us because we plan on taking another beach trip up to Bondi.

Today, at Vision Sunday, they announced that they have officially planted a Hillsong church in Germany.  The Hillsong United band also performed their new song "Aftermath" as kind of a sneak preview from their up coming album. However, the main event was a short film they had put together showing how the body of the church is like a tapestry, and we are the separate threads that come together to form it. If they put it online, I'll post it.

After the evening service, some of us went to a party "Cookies and Milk" party (they call them biscuits over here). It turned out it was quite a hike getting there. It made me grateful for being blessed with a house that is so close to the school. I'm continuing to enjoy getting to know new people from all over the world. I think it's cool concept that all these people my age, gathering from the furthest reaches of the Earth, to come together for something so much greater than themselves.

House Party.

Our original grand plan for our weekend was going to the flea market down the road and coming back home to sweat out the rest of the 110 degree afternoon in our hammocks. However, someone asked us if we knew anyone throwing cookout, and we decided to throw an impromptu get together with our newly made circle of international friends.
We all met up at Cole's (it's a grocery store down the road from us beside the church)  and buy the necessary groceries.  We all came back to the house, which had a/c turned on for the first time since we've moved in, and tossed the burgers and some lamb (for one of our Swed. friends) on our old faithful George Foreman. After eating, we played a few hands of texas hold 'em then spent the rest of the day/night talking.  It's interesting to think that no matter how advanced our gets, people will still always seek the ancient ritual of being huddled around in a circle talking and exchanging stories.  The curfew for is at ten here, so the girls weren't able to stay too late.
 It's good to finally be gelling with a group of people here instead of the quick small talks exchanged between classes. In a small way,  it feels like we have gained more of a place in the Hillsong/Australia culture. Defiantly a good night.

Tomorrow is Vision Sunday. They have been talking it up all week  and everyone has been so seems extremly stoked.  I'm 100% positive no one will be disappointed in the least with what ever pastor Brian shares tomorrow. Apparently, there will be some awesome videos of what they will be working on in the in the coming year, so that's reason enough for me to be excited. After church we will be heading over to the local flee market to pick up some fruit and looking around, then going back that night for the second service.


One of my all time favorite songs. I'm serious, play this at my funeral.

"On bended knee is no way to be free
lifting up an empty cup I ask silently
that all my destinations will accept the one that's me
so I can breath"

A shorty.

This is going to be a short one. It's been a long day of sweat, sun, and Hillsong church philosophy and frankly my eyes are getting heavy and my grammar is getting sloppier by the minute. I'll write more about what I've been learning in the class sessions. A lot of it has to do with how I view the church body as a whole.
Today, the moment came that I have been dreading. The moment when I would have to face a doctrine I disagree with, but the church I reverie embraces and teaches. One of the pastors came (a man of high standing judging by the ovation he was given while making his way to the podium) up and spoke. Towards the end of his message he said the best way to grow closer to God was for EVERYONE  to speak in tongues everyday. Not only have I not been raised in this practice, but in my own studies have found it anything but Biblical for just anyone to be able. The idea originated when flaming tongues descended the upon the disciples, and they were gifted with the ability to speak multiple languages in order to spread the gospel to foreign countries. Not something anyone can pick up on on their own whim.  I know I was warned that I would be faced with new beliefs that would challenge my own, but  I have yet to see any flaming tongues come through my ceiling.
So bottom line, I do not believe that just everyone and anyone has the ability to speak in tongues. I don't view it as a prayer language for all, but  as a God given gift to few. HOWEVER, Hillsong is undoubtedly one of the most influential churches in the world. Whatever they are doing is working, so I'm praying to keep an unbiased opinion and an open mind on how they do things here.

First Day of Class

 I have a hard believing I'm actually here. I wake every morning surprised, and sometimes it takes me a a second or two for my mind to reboot and do a speed of light playback of where I am and how I got here. 

Today was our first day of actual classes. Tis a strange animal, these classes. Part of me feels like I'm in a church service, and the other (more studious) part of me feels like I'm taking notes in a college lecture. The topic we covered today was mostly centered on defining the  Body of Christ in the church. The concepts in themselves are nothing new to me and are relatively simple but there was a few times the teacher (Corby Duncan) went over my head.

We have been told time and time again to expect our views and understanding in certain aspects of faith and worship to be strained or even changed while here. I can already see it happening in the way we worship. During church back home,  a raised hand with closed eyes and maybe a slight back and forth sway, was the most physical expression of worship to be commonly expected. Here, actions such as those are reserved for the shy. Moshing, jumping up and down, and dancing in large crowds is the norm around here.

Prayer is also has a different spin on it here. Today, we were instructed to to each concentrate and pray for the upcoming semester. Back home, if this ever happened you could expect a quite room with bowed heads. However here, everyone started praying with up held heads and wispy voices (some people were even speaking in tongues) that if you closed you eyes, you would be convinced that you were in a cave full of bats.  Now, I not knocking this way of prayer at all. It's just different than what I'm used to, and it's going to take some adjusting on my part to open myself up to these new ideas.

A friend mailed me this earlier this week in a letter (yes, as in paper and pen). So I thought I would share.

''The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.  ² “I will make you into a great nation,
   and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.^[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you.''
-Genesis 12:1-3


Also, it's VERY hot here. Today it was in the high 90's. Wind just stirred the hot air around and was more like more like a hair blow dryer to the face instead of a refreshing breeze. The wood floors in our house is about as hot as the  slowly cooling pavement outside in the stuffy night air.