The Time Has Come!!!

As you all would have known by now, the Youth Rally was held and our EY worship team (shall I say EY Rockers) did their job. Not only did they do a great job, it was indeed a great night to remember and boy, what a way to start off the year 2009. Enough of the superlatives and praises, let me give you my perspective of the event from the training to the event proper.

The History...(don't yawn yet...it's quite interesting...)

I got a call from William in the month of October or thereabouts. He told me that the Scripture Union called him up and asked whether can the Elim Youth handle a worship session during the Youth Rally. I thought to myself, 'Wow! They asked for us!' That took a moment before it registered and I wondered 'What? They asked for us? Do they know who or what they are asking EY to do?' I knew the EY could sing and play the instruments but seriously as a band to handle an International Youth Rally worship session is entirely a different ball game. Then again, this is indeed a chance for the EY and on the spot, I would have agreed to handle it but I needed to cleared it with the EYs first.

I spoke to Shireen and asked her to consider to take up the challenge. Why her? Not too sure, but the Fifth Formers were preparing for their SPM exams and I wanted the EYs to run with this not the older ones. She was asking me for something; heck, she called me, so I asked her. Told her to pray about it.

Before she told me her answer, two days later I told William that we (the EYs) will take up the challenge. (Yeah, this is called in Chinese 'chop first...errr...talk later?'

The Preparation ... (No, I am not getting long winded, but the story had to be told...)

Told Shireen to pray for this and gather her troops and start praying as well as the song selection. I knew that we have not done this before, at least not in this scale and with the crowd of people who has done this the day they joined church, so we pretty much start from scratch. Doing this the 'brethren' style and way. Then I got a call from William saying that he had reserved the finale spot for us. Again, was quite shocked but then again, if we want to do this, might as well do this in a big way.

The troops gathered and somehow (Though I think the Lord had a lot,.. everything to do with this), the older youths, okay, for the vain ones, the more experience youths joined the troop. Ricky and Clarence came back for their holidays and contributed much.

The team had their first practice, I wasn't there so could not really comment. The second practice, I was around. Boy, oh boy, what a practice that was. The first song was the Body of Christ and there wasn't much body there. The tension was high and feelings were frayed. Somehow, I still had the confidence (again quite sure from above) that this is an issue that we, the worship team needed to settle before they can work together. God need to break us before the molding starts. We had our first test there and how we faced it would determine the course of the worship team.

After the painful (yeah, painful for me, I don't quite like confrontations and frayed emotions) incidents, the troop bonded. Praise God, not only they bonded, they grew and matured as well. For me, even if the worship session is called off, I am glad, for the team had grown, had depended on God and matured as individuals and as a body. They never looked back after that.

The Event ...(Phewww...again, not long winded but had to be told...)

The day started off quite gloomy. The sky was overcast and it slowly began to rain. We were supposed to be in Ipoh Wesley by 12 pm for the final sound check and we were on time but the equipments were still being set up. We went for lunch (Clarence ate like there is no tomorrow and complained of indigestion later during the rally....haiz...) Came back for the practice. The rain did not let up. Frankly as far back as I can remember, I never remember a day that rained for such a long time. It began in the morning and by the time we were back for the practice, it was still raining.

The EY worship team doing their final practice

The whole rally was then postponed 30 minutes and the crowd was not coming in when the clock hit 6:30pm. The rain was letting up but it was still drizzling. The Youth Rally began with the marching in of the various youths from the different countries. It then proceeded with the presentations from 4 different countries youths. That lasted about an hour before the first worship team from Ipoh Wesley went on stage.

At that time I was praying to the Lord that as He has led us thus far; provided the youths with the occasion like this; enabled them to experience His guidance and strength, that HE would not deprive them of this experience. And...I saw the moon and some stars; I thought to myself, indeed, how great is our God!!!

It was time for the Elim to get on stage. Saw them praying at the corner and was greatly encouraged. I picked a good spot and promised to tape the whole 'performance' on my 'inadequate' camera (Haiz...where's the designated camera?!!!)

Some of the youths at the rally

Some of the youths worshipping during the various churches 'performance'

They went on stage and started to sing. The first two songs may not be that familiar to the crowd but as I was taping the whole thing, I saw people began to warm up and started to worship God. They began to response to the EY worship team and by the time we sang our third song 'How Great is Our God', they were fully into the worship, as were our EY worship team. I saw the team members worshipping together, not so much as performing but actual worship! Praise God...

In the end, as you all would know by now, the team did a great job. I prayed and hoped that this would be an event they never forget and will be an event that will changed them. An event that they will looked back and remembered God. Remember who God is and what He can do.

(The whole worship took about 30 minutes, could not really post that up. If I did, we need to tranfer to a new blogspot. I have however edited it and am posting the final song up)

Katan

PS: One last thing...good, no,.. great job!!!