Hey Everyone,
Here is a letter I wrote to my church back in Canada recently. I thought it summed up my life at the moment pretty good so I thought I'd post it.
AD
Dear FWC,
It's been a while since my last update, so I thought I'd fill you in.
Last December I finished my 2nd year of the Diploma of Ministry program at Hillsong International Leadership College (HILC). It has been an awesome experience so far, filled with amazing opportunities and impartation for world impact ministry in my life.
Some of these experiences have included playing for Hillsong Women and oversighting Hillsong Men Worship (gender specific services held at city every Friday), playing for 2 combined Hillsong women services at Hills (one with Darlene Zschech), leading worship and playing for college chapel almost every week, leading worship as the City representative in a combined Hills/City chapel, leading worship for the 2 main Sunday day service at Hillsong City (as a representative of college on college promotion weekend), etc, as well receiving classes from key Hillsong pastors/team members. They have been truly humbling experiences that I credit to God's orchestration (it's certainly not because my abilities… ha ha).
Around July last year God confronted me through a very powerful word to re-think and re-check plans for next year. On the current course, I was planning to finish out my 2nd year, receive my diploma and live in Wollongong (with my mom) until I knew my next move. A great church (South Coast City Church:
http://thirroul.sccc.com.au) is located there and I had planned to continue ministering there until I felt God's prompting for something new. Of course, as it turned out, He wanted something a bit different.
God presented me with the option of not finishing at Hillsong, but rather taking another year in the diploma course (taking the Advanced Diploma of Ministry). This 3rd year would be quite different from the previous 2, as it would involve me moving to inner Sydney, making Hillsong my home church, and becoming an intern at the church. The 3rd year is heavily made up of an internship component with only 1 day of classes a week.
In seeking God on the matter of 2008, the opportunity presented itself to intern with the Worship & Creative Arts department at Hillsong City Campus (there are 2 campuses at Hillsong in Sydney: Hills and City). Through a long a thoughtful process I was accepted into the 3rd year program on December 5th, 2008, and assigned to intern with Gabriel Kelly (the worship pastor over musicians at Hillsong City and the drummer for Hillsong United when they go on tour). He is an amazing man of God who understands big vision, world, impact, and is simply a cool guy.
Of course coming with this new adventure is also cost! The necessity of moving out of my mother's place on my own has put some financial strain on me and I am carefully pooling my resources so that I can pay for tuition, rent, etc. God has been helping me with small blessings here and there, and I know this year will be a huge lesson of relying on him. Please pray God will supply the right jobs and/or provision during this 3rd year of college.
I am very excited for this year as I can only imagine what God has in store for not only me, but for the whole world. There is a lot of shifting going on in the world at the moment and I believe God is preparing his church for something fresh in 2008.
Thank you for all of your love and support,
Aaron