Hillsong Conference 16 random

::: Erwin
+ "If no one is rebuking your prayers, they are too small."
+ "Every human feels lost and alone in the universe. The Church forgets this feeling. We have created a narrative that people are not desperate for God."
+ To atheists: "If there is no god, we can't damage you. You are an atheist but God is not. You don't have to believe in God for Him to believe in you."
+ "We are afraid to ask big from God because it might prove He doesn't exist. God doesn't need you to protect His reputation."

+ "God called me to a city but I'm going for a continent." - Chris Mendez, Hillsong Buenos Aires

+ Andra Day wrote and recorded a lot of original music for the upcoming remake of Ben Hur.

::: Christine Caine
+ "Difficult is difficult. Impossible is God."
+ "Make what you know about God greater than what you don't know about the future."

+ Hillsong has an an ethos of generosity and being sent. And I don't mean generous like if you pray more, you will be blessed more. I mean that they are authentically generous with what they have and I don't mean money. They have obviously released hundreds of their best leaders for things around the world and outside of Hillsong. Watch who leads worship during each set - it's a different person for each song. Pastors Brian and Bobbie sit in the crowd during almost every session taking notes. It took over 4000 volunteers to run this thing.

+ A recurring segment every day was "Let's Talk Church" when either Pastor Brian or Bobbie would give a talk. Wed - APEST, Thu - generosity, Fri - tears. These were all incredible talks specific to church leadership and each one had Brian in the crowd interviewing friends who embodied the topic.

+ It's obviously a huge operation - 30K attendees. It takes a long time to get anywhere. Getting meals is challenging. Masterclasses [breakouts] always fill up super early. So if you go, bring your own food, get to anything when the doors open if you can including main session seats.

::: Catherine Thambiratnam - International Development - Are Good Intentions Enough?
+ "'It is better than nothing' is a bad paradigm."
+ Hillsong doesn't sponsor orphanages, instead seeks to work with the option of family care.
+ 'Problem trees', root cause analysis is always part of decisions with partners, people they fund, work on the ground. 'Why is this?'
+ "There are a lot of white elephants around the world."
+ It costs $35K to buy a bus. But $60K every year to run it.
+ Know the difference between relief and development. Hillsong doesn't do disaster relief but they have partners that do.
+ It's always sexy to give to trafficking victims but not to give to the prevention of trafficking.

+ Very much an international conference - people from all over the world here. You'll hear lots of languages being spoken - very much like being in downtown DC or NYC or any other global city.

+ I loved loved loved doing this as a family. It was a joy to expose my kids to world class teaching and worship and it's been a great week as we finish our time here in Australia. Our kids know that there are lot of different valid expressions of Church but Hillsong is absolutely great at what they do.