Life Changing..

That's what I would say if you would to ask me to describe Hillsong Conference 06.Indeed, the past week in conference has changed my life.. and I'm pretty sure that this would apply to all of the delegates who were there as well.. I've received so much input till it's like overflowing man..

Man, conference just gets better and better each year..
I shall now attempt to give a very, very short summary of the entire week.. I did not get many pics though, because I was in the choir. We sat behind the stage, so we don't really get to see the real deal, haha.. so yea, most of my pics are taken from behind the stage.

This year's opening was more focussed on a video presentation which was excellently done. First, there were clips of different people from different walks of life and parts of Australia singing "How Great Is Our God" by Chris Tomlin. Then the following scenes were filmed in other parts of the world (not exactly sure where they are) with crazy drum beats and rapping at the end. The two main singers were Martin Smith from Delirious? and our very own Darlene. Darlene's clip was beautiful as it was filmed somewhere high up with the opera house and the harbour bridge in the background.

These are pics of stadium before and after it was filled..

Before

After

The sessions from morning till afternoon were amazing, though I fell asleep for a tiny bit for some of them.. haha.. Night rallies were indescribable.. Amazing praise and worship (from Delirious?, Cindy Cruise Ratcliff, Israel Houghton and New Breed, and the Hillsong team) crazy preaching from the world's best (just to name a few of them; Jentezen Franklin, Bill Hybels, Reinhart Bonke, etc.) and a huge amount of decisions were made to follow Christ.

This is the huge LCD screen which we(choir) do not get to see at all during services.. I think it has like over 1500 LCD's in it.. not sure what the exact number is, don't know much about LCD screens, and I think Pastor Brian mentioned that it was 1500 LCDs.. hmm.. don't know.. They even showed the two last goals of the Italy vs Germany match on these screens while we were rehersing. Pity we were in rehersals and I didnt get to see it.. oh well, I have better things to do, haha.. Yup, we were at rehersals that early in the morning!

Okay, now moving on to the closing/worship and praise party on Friday night. Like Ashley said, it was the bestest party ever! There was a super good dance presentation with pyros (pics are below).There was also a video clip of the clips from the oldest Hillsong conference to the latest one. It was funny seeing our pastors and leaders when they were young, with their 80's hairstyles and clothes.. but really inspiring to see the journey of this conference..

We sang the medley of the top ten songs which came from Hillsong, which was so so good.. The team sang all the old songs (my Redeemer lives, Everyday, Eagle's wings, Lord I give you my heart, Shout to the Lord.. etc) with of course Shout of the Lord being the number one. Those songs brought back fond memories!

At the end, everyone went crazy with the fast praise songs. The team on stage were going crazy and I think Marty broke a string on his guitar or maybe the guitar itself and he just threw it into the crowd which went crazy over it. Raymond Badham and Jad Gillies took over the choir conductor and started conducting funny moves to the choir, the other drummers running all over the stage with those percussion thingys (it goes konk konk, dont know wut its called) I can't put into words to describe the atmosphere.. it was just filled with great celebration and joy!

The dance presentation

Some of the pyrotechnics

See the big white and yellow bubbles(balloons) falling down from above? They are filled with gold confetti. They look pretty when they burst..Hopefully you can see the golden specks in the resized pics above..

They pulled up Brian Houston, Phil Dooley, Joel Abell, Paul De Jong, and Matthew Barnett up to the stage at the end to sing "Take it All" which was hilarious. Everyone was so high after the party.. we blasted out praise music in my car and my whole car was bouncing because they were all trying to jump in my car.. haha

Phew, this is a long post.. congrats if you've read everything till here! Now the real holidays begin for me! I still need to catch up with my sleep.. so I better go now..it's getting late, and I'm writing this entry half asleep.. goodnight peeps!! zzZZzz