Archive | January, 2010
Posted in Church on 31. Jan, 2010
I was at the Powerhouse summer retreat this weekend from Thursday night through Saturday night up on the central coast in Gosford. Powerhouse is the 18-25 ministry at Hillsong. The retreat was an amazing way to start the year here in Sydney as it provided a great opportunity to get connected more with people who are not just at College but who are simply part of this church.
A huge blessing this weekend was getting free transportation and accommodation while in Gosford. The house that a large group (18 to be exact) of people stayed at was a beautiful house right on the water.
The retreat was so good. It was also way different than retreats I’ve been to before. Mostly just because of the size of this ministry, it had more of a conference feel to it. Hills, City, Southwest, and Brisbane campuses were all there, there was a different worship team each session, and a different speaker each session. All of it was wonderful.
I was particularly challenged and convicted by the message Thursday night delivered by Thomas Hansen, the Powerhouse pastor at Hills. He talked about “getting out of bed” or getting out of our comfort, our complacency, our sin. And how sometimes when our passion and zeal fades, we slide back and pull away from God and from our convictions a little bit. This hit me because I’ve been in this mindset where at times I’ve thought that just being here is “enough”. That being at Hillsong is “enough”. I can just do stuff here for a couple years, ride the Hillsong wave and not focus on growing my relationship with Christ in my own time, and then leave and be in a great place with life, God, etc.
But that’s not what God wants.
Simply being here isn’t enough. If I don’t show up everyday ready for what God has in store, I will have missed why I came here in the first place: to be completely engulfed by Jesus. That’s what I want to be. I’m glad that God showed me this early on rather than at the end of the year I look back and see that I didn’t grow at all.
So yeah. Retreat was good 
. I also had orientation on Wednesday and Thursday and classes really kick off on Tuesday. I’m excited that things are getting underway here and I can’t wait to see what happens this year.
Yesterday, several of us headed into the city to go to Bondi Beach for fun in the sun. Seeing as how we live in the hills, it took us a while to get there. A bus ride, train ride, and another bus ride took around an hour and a half. The day was absolutely gorgeous and the water was perfect. Yesterday confirmed that I’m going to learn how to surf while I’m here.
One thing we did learn, however, is that when a group of people is going to the beach, or city, it’s much easier and cheaper to pile into a car that it is to do the whole public transportation thing. The costs yesterday of just traveling by bus and train down and back were $17.60 per person.
Since it was the first time for most of us going to Bondi, it was totally worth it. We just know now that next time, we’ll pile in a car and go down.
I feel like I’m starting to settle into living here. The last five days or so have been pretty packed with walking, setting stuff up, walking, trying to get a cell phone, more walking, awesome church services, and did I mention walking? My house is about two miles away from the church. So a trip to the church or the stores right by it is four miles round trip on foot. Yesterday, we all went to two services, the 10:45 and the 6:00 which made for over eight miles total and left everyone pretty exhausted by the end of it.
Today, I pretty much chilled at the house. Let the blisters on my feet heal up. Let the sunburn cool down a bit. It felt nice to just relax.
I did get my debit card from my new bank in the mail today, so I’ll be able to go shopping for a few new things that I need. (Having to have cash on you to buy stuff is a pain!) While I’m on the subject of shopping, here’s an interesting thing about living here. Shops and stores and such are only open until 5:00 most nights. Thursday nights are special and things are open until 9:00 but that’s it. So if you don’t have what you need by 5:00, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get it. That may become a tad frustrating when school starts and classes run until 4:30-5:00. But we’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Church over the weekend was amazing. I went to three services over the weekend, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and then Sunday night. My housemates who have been here for a semester or two say that Church is the highlight of their week. I can see why.
In Australia, when people move or don’t want something anymore, they’ll set it on the curb to be picked up on rubbish day (garbage day) or to be taken by people passing by who decide they want it. As college students living on a budget, one man’s junk literally is another man’s treasure.
On his way home, Adam, one of the housemates, found this stash of deliciousness just down the street from our house.
All this stuff was being given away by this old guy who was moving to the bush and didn’t need or want it anymore. He said that we could have anything that we wanted.
It looked (and felt) like we were looting the place. We were walking down the street with stuff on trolleys and even pushing stuff we had set on a skateboard (which Adam found earlier today).
In two of the boxes, we found a ton of old records and EP’s from forever ago. Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Michael Jackson, Les Paul, and more. We’re thinking of finding a way to hang them in our music room as kind of a wallpaper type of thing. It’s going to be awesome!
Now the score of the day was an organ that this man had in his house. A Hammond organ that he’s owned for 50+ years. Paul bought it off of him for a mere one hundred dollars.
The funny thing about this whole thing was that earlier in the day as Paul, Christian, and I were out shopping and getting stuff for ourselves and the house, we were talking about the stuff that we needed for the kitchen, bathroom, and whatnot. And then this guy is giving away all these household goods and totally filled several needs that we had for the house saving us a ton of money.
God totally blessed our socks off through this guy.
It’s Wednesday evening where I am. Tuesday night back home. January 12 did not exist for me.
Fiji was gorgeous.
I’d love to actually get to spend some time there.
Bondi Beach says, “Welcome to Sydney”.
The harbor and the opera house.
I’m here.
Recent Comments