Friday, August 01, 2014

What to Expect from the Fresh Encounter?

How on earth did I decide to go? That would be the power of persuasion from Ps. Paul Ang himself. I was thinking of sitting at home and rot during the Raya holiday. But I do not know how he managed to persuade all of us to go and I'm the Finance Minister in the house, usually I wouldn't agree to such sudden movement. Oh, well.... I asked the hubby to pass the money over when I wasn't around so I wouldn't have second thoughts about going. Ps Paul said go with an expectation and he guaranteed that we would not be disappointed. I went with no expectation at all. Don't even know which part we were going to stay in since the place that we Googled up wasn't the one we arrived at. I just roughly know where we were as I have read through the maps around the place. Thus, it wasn't difficult to find the place. 
What caught my attention first was the logo of the place. A cross on the crown within the crown. Is this a place where conference and Christian concerts are held? I don't know. It's my first time there and prior to this trip, I have never heard of Megastar Arena and it's not even listed in Google map. It was just a drawn up rectangle on the virtual map. The second object that caught my attention was that fan with blades I wonder were the blades half a metre long or a metre in length? Those were really huge fans.
And again... what to expect. When I look at the schedule, I was thinking... Oh, my... Are there gonna be long boring sermons? I couldn't survive an hour-long sermon plus if it's gonna be boring sermons that sing lullaby to your ears and eventually led your eyes to end up a single-file line I need to get out of the place but we are having the second row seats and it's just impossible to run away. I always like to sit in front, don't ask me why. I guess I do not like to be distracted in seeing too many movements. And yawning is a contagious gesture, when a person yawns then that's it. I'll be floating in the air. Now... now... I went without expectation but my first expectation was let the speakers be anointed. Just don't let me fall asleep during sermon or teaching or whichever term you will want to put it.... sharing of the Word of God would be a better phrase.
The stage for the worship team with all the equipment were ready. At the first glance, it would look like we're going to have those worship concert like what we've been watching through YouTube where other churches from other countries, usually Western countries held their worship concert. The start of worship blew me off my feet. This was better than Hillsong! And we have the Don Moen of Malaysia, Raymond Tan. He taught me for a year many many moons back. 
The blow of shofar that brought down the wall of Jericho~! Awesome worship on the first night and the next and the next! So, what's my expectation from the Fresh Encounter? I think the name says it all... to have a fresh encounter with God. Will share with you some of the things that I've learned at the conference. I don't have a habit of taking notes during sermon but I jot down everything for this conference and yes, I'm so good at writing down, now when I open my notebook, I don't even know what I've written. The brain better not fail me on this one memory... 

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