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(Monday, June 4, 2007-)
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# Emerge!
Basically this is the reason why I haven't been blogging the past few days. I've been occupied with the totally awesome Emerge Youth Conference by City Harvest Church! And its so worth it!
What's worth it? Well, for one thing, the queueing (no idea how that's spelt) for about an hour on the first night was good. The crazy 8am till 10am wait was ok but the killer was the 5 till 6 wait in the sun with Heri's cell and some of my youth. Then the last night (that I attended) was brilliant cuz it was after Habitudes and Emmanuel got us a bus down to Expo (that's where it was) and we jz queued and jz moved smoothly all the way in and got ourselves a seat in the main Hall 8 which was most liekly the last of the seats in there! So cool!
Ok, i'll jz start with an overview of the conference
Things I found completely awesome
-->Ps Kong! Like what e405 members had for Gideon, I have for Ps Kong - He can REALLY preach. Not jz the charisma and style and stage presence that he has, but rather the message. He preaches with such power and authority on the Word! Not to mention he (and the rest of city harvest) has a good dress sense!
-->The culture! Hat's off to CHC Youth! They are the most supportive, enthu and well discipled bunch of people around. From the sharpness they have in them, the willingness to stand up and cheer, the endurance (which CFC has too!) for long services, the good attitude while in queue (cuz close to none of them complained or made a lot of noise like us (we made noise lar k?))
-->The songs! Ok, not all, but some. The Malay one which i think is titled Mengenal-Mu which can be sung in Jap and Chinese! And Breathe in Jap is cool too! But overall, their praise and worship is really annointed. Even in the overflow room, you can feel it! And u can follow their songs quite easily even though they are totallly new!
Things i found quite cool!
-->The Emerge! Silver dude on the booklet
-->I CAN DO ALL THINGS as the theme
-->The wristband/bangle for entrance
-->Parade of Schools.. okay, maybe this can go into the awesome category
-->Who Wants To Be A Missionary + Preaching Challenge + Maths Olympiad
Things that were a bit er... yeah.. er.
-->The winning design for the costume/make-up competition
-->Dota competition
-->Swimsuit category for Pageant?
Okay, enough with the basics, time for a breakdown of the event! But I don't quite have the mood to blog so i'll jz have the highlights ya?
Day 1 Night 1
I arrived. That's it. What? I mean, I, I, arrived. Not CFC or even YA. Nobody was there at 5.15... come on ppl, this is City Harvest, You don't turn up half an hour before an event, you simply WON'T GET IN. So I waited and eventually 5 ppl (including me turned up) and we queued. For a long time.... Shall skip the details of how we got crammed ard and then finally the breakthrough came, we were told that we were going into the overflow section.
So yeah, arrived alone, queued late, had to go to overflow, things were looking bad ryte?
No, im not gonna say I felt God and everything was alright. It was kind of crappy. Felt so wasted, shortchanged. Then after that, once i settled in my seat, the worship was nearing its end and Ps Kong came out.
It was jz us in the overflow, (which was jz a section in the main hall which was cordoned off), a screen and one speaker/amplifier in case of ambiguity(which wasn't too good at first but some guy adjusted it halfway and it got better)
Then Ps Kong started introducing the celebrity guests and visiting pastors that were around. Then he said that tonight's service was gonna be broadcasted live across the world! And that they were gonna start the actual service at 7.30! Haha! Then my mood changed!! I hadn't mised much after all! Yup, it was cool! Then there was a countdown to the service going live on air with a cool countdown timer! The cheerleaders with us at the overflow were going nuts and finally, it started!
They had a cool opening video, and then there was fireworks and an opening drum performance, complete with cool lights and water bouncing off the drums! Then we started off in praise and worship! It was really really good! My first time being in an overflow room, but i could feel the presense of God in there! I mean, it really can't be emotions or hype, cuz come on, let's face it, u're looking at a flat tv screen and one speaker... there's no way its the cool swinging overhead cameras, rotating lights or superb music blasting from the speakers. They're services are really annointed man. I didn't know e songs, or the ppl or whatever, but u could jz feel God in that place!! So cool!
Then after that, they had some performances, but the highlight was the parade of schools, in the form of a cheerleading contest, with teams from each cluster! The best in my books were the SMU/SIM team. Saw some cool moves, some not too interesting ones, and some that were jz plain WOW. The best has to be the 3-tier leg split. Haha!
Then came the performances by some popular taiwan pop star Tank, which i had no idea who he was but some girls were going crazy over him. Ok lar, i guess its cuz i dun undz a word he was saying. Fast forward all of that, to the preaching.
It was on spiritual hunger. It was how God could say in Romans 9v13 Jacob (who was a deceiver, cheater) I have loved but Esau I have hated. It was all because of Jacob's hunger for God. How he didn't let go of God although he wasn't perfect. God can only move in your life if you hunger after Him.
There was also this subpoint about how you turn out to be like your mentor. Isaac was a man without vision. He loved food and showed favouritism. So thats how Esau turned out. Had no vision when he sold his birthright, loved food so much that he gave up his birthright and hated his brother.
Similarly for Jacob, his mother taught him how to be tricky and crafty, and that's how he turned out. Of course God didn't jz love Jacob and say it's alright, hunger after me and whatever wron u do, i'll jz overlook. Jacob got his fair share later in life when he got tricked by a man more evil than himself to work for low waes for 10 years, to get tricked into marrying the wrong woman and work another 10 years and how his favourite wife died, and his favourite son was later held captive. But through it all, God saw Jacob, the man who wrestled with God, through the perils in his life and blessed him.
So that was the ending of night one and Ps Kong gave an altar call for uni students, too bad i wasn't there or i would have went! Yup, and it inspired me to go for the next day of emerge! Oh yeah!!
Day 2 Morning
It started with me reaching expo at 8 while Heri said he was reaching there at 7.25, but he actually only reached there at 8.45... Okay, but i queued and got myself a nice seat but eventually moved over to Heri's cell place.
[to be continued if i feel like it]Labels: City Harvest Church, Emerge 07, Heri
the story ends like this;
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