Unite in Worship, Day 3

I think if I got anything out of this conference, it would be that I finally "let go". Let go of my burdens, my inhibitions, my fears.

I have had about a day of downtime today, to reflect on the conference.

Yesterday morning was led by Brian Doerksen. Brian Doerksen has written a lot of songs. YL attended his songwriting workshop and found out he's only 39, has 6 kids, and has been in the worship songwriting business for 20 years. Its unbelievable the number of songs he has written, notable ones like "Refiner's Fire", "Come and Fill Me Up", "Come, Now is the Time to Worship", "Faithful One", "Humble King", and on and on. I could go on for hours.

I was really tired in the morning but after his worship time I was totally refreshed.

I went to the Vicky Beeching "Intimate Worship" workshop. Throughout the conference there were several of these intimate worship settings where the worship leader just sat and worshipped with the attendees. I think it was at this point, that I developed a boyish crush on Vicky. I guess there's just something about a girl and her guitar, who can sing. She's awesome... <3 <3

The worship time was 1 hour, and it featured an acoustic guitar (Vicky) and some dude on a bongo drum. And we just worshipped God, in our own way. Some people stood, others sat. Some even knelt on the floor. All in all it was the best time of worship I experienced in this conference. It was as if no one was there with me, just me and God.

At lunch time I was determined to get a good seat for the evening Hillsong United concert, so I decided to eat a massive (double leg dinner from Swiss Chalet) lunch. Then proceeded to buy a box of granola bars and a Mello Yello. YL thought I was crazy.

After lunch, worship time was led by a group called LMT. They are part of the Empty Heart Series, and new ministry that consists of new (christian) music that is in cd, that also contains an evangelistic tract. There are 5 of such cd's, one of each of the following genres: Jazz, Rhythm N' Blues, Rock, Pop, Classic. I got one of each, it was $5 for 6 cds. LMT was really good. For the afternoon they sang 3 classic songs (classic gospel), and 3 RnB ones. I fell asleep during the RnB, but the classic ones I really really enjoyed. There was one called Fly Away, it was fantastic. I picked up an extra one of these so I can keep on for myself :)

In the afternoon, we had two workshops to go to. The first one I attended was another Intimate Worship, this time with Something Like Silas. They're a fairly new band from San Diego, CA. The lead singer is asian!! The drummer too, I think. The lead Eric Owyoung is so talented, he can do it all - sing, guitar, piano. And he was really deep, the words he spoke during the presentation were very inspiring. YL can also attest, as she attended a workshop led by him called "The Beauty of Non-Religious Encounters". SLS were good, but I felt like their instruments were too loud and I couldn't really hear what they were singing.

The second workshop. I was tempted to go attend Vicky's songwriting workshop. But I stopped myself realizing that I was taking this "crush" thing too seriously. Instead I attended Noel Richard's seminar on "Worship In The Real World". His talk had nothing to do with the topic though. He talked for about 45 minutes and then realized he hadn't covered a single one of his points.

He spoke of churches that truly worship. Over his career he had been invited to many churches to lead worship for various EMs, fundraisers, Sundays, etc. So he described some of the churches he went to, ones that didn't *worship* God, meaning, they were rigid and overlooked God's commandments, such as love your neighbors, helping people to belong on Christ's home.

Noel Richards has a dream, to fill up the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, on Saturday July 15, 2006. He wants all Christians who are able, to travel there from North America, Australia, and all of Europe, for one massive global gathering. Here's the website. In 1996, Noel organized a "Champion of the World" even with 11,500 people worshipping at London's Wembley Arena. Then in 1997, he had another one at Wembley Stadium, with 45,000 people.