Good Morning, Purpose

What gets me up in the morning?
What am I marked for? For what is my heart undivided (Psalm 89)?


It's not something that I've been doing on this blog in the past, but today I'd love to share something that's been stirring in my heart...


Chris Cain, a wise woman and a mighty leader said that "ambition drives you like an addiction, but destiny draws you". Destiny will always find its place, but ambition always seeks a position. Amen for perspective.


So then for me, I am marked. I have been placed.


Purpose has puzzled me for a while. We're all searching for it, are we not? What gets us up in the morning? What is the special thing that overrides the mundane, the everyday, and that sees beyond the horizon line? I had a revelation today about mine.


As a class, we've been encouraged to reflect on our core values and we have been asked to begin to come up with a mission statement & vision for our lives. Beginning with the end in mind and working backward, we've been urged to pray and think about what we were born for. As an exercise in class, we were given just a couple minutes to get the ball rolling and to reflect on the things that we love, the things we are passionate about, and the things that convict us. Beyond just the things we place as core values, we're asked to think about how our core values are shown and why they exist in our mission statements.


Nonchalantly, and not expecting to get very far, I began to examine the things that I know to be true about myself. Things like: I love fellowship and community, I was placed to be an encourager, music is important to me, I'm passionate about people finding and working out their God-given potential, etcetera etcetera etcetera... Before I knew it, our time was up. Some people began to share the things they put in their vision statements, but feeling prompted, I continued to search deeper and deeper into the wirings of my heart. I got to a point where the ideas were flowing and yet the pen was frozen to the paper. Frustrating. Then with a draft not quite right and a little tweak later... there it was. My mission statement. My purpose beyond my position. My lifesong. My God-breathed reason to get up in the morning. Moved to tears, I read aloud;


To love God and to love His Church.
To live a life built on His Word,
after His own heart.


Striving; Gone. Anxiety; Gone. Apprehension; Gone.
Like a ton of bricks falling from my shoulders to the feet of Jesus, I felt so relieved and awakened. Fully aware and fully awake. I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I was in the God's presence where He revealed a little more of His big picture to me.


The memory fresh in my mind is continually revealing more and more truth beneath that mission statement and I thank God for the ways that He continues to grow and affirm me. In Jesus's name, the limiting beliefs that I placed on my purpose are breaking and the truths from His Word in my heart are sharpening me to be bold in my new conviction.


The deepest comfort that I feel regarding this (which in reality regards everything) is the understanding that my purpose doesn't have to do with my position. Instead, wherever I'm placed (whether it's tomorrow, 5 years from now, 50 years from now), that mission statement will still be true. My life will still reflect my love for God and for His Church and a life built on His Word after His own heart.


With this, whatever got me out of bed this morning was definitely less substantial than what gets me out of bed tomorrow and for the rest of my days. I praise the Lord for that.


-Brittany

Life In Full Swing

The ball is officially rolling and I feel like a student again. Learning, yay! It feels amazing to be a part of such a fantastic student body full of world-changers. It's a great thing to not be learning only from the incredible trainers, but also from the passion-filled students.

As part of my Church Life involvement this semester I'm serving at the Burwood Extension service 30 minutes towards the inner-west. I'm rostered as a keys player there and I can't wait to jump in with the band. We're going to have an awesome year at Burwood as we've been so blessed with good leadership and a committed team. The other area of Church Life I'll be serving in is I-Heart (i-heart.org). I haven't been given a specific role yet but I am so eager to get involved with this amazing initiative. Check out the website to get details regarding what they're all about, but to sum it up quickly, the I-Heart Revolution is all about enabling more people to help more people. Social Justice. Awesome stuff.

In our core tutorial class, we have 25 students and together we make up a band of awesome potential. (Side note: If anyone has a clever name for us, please let me know! We're still trying to figure something out.) As a class, we spend tons of time together in lectures, tutorials and of course our workshops, so we thought it appropriate to set up a birthday system. Every homeroom has one, right? Somehow I was designated as the 'birthday organizer' and made up a beautiful colour-coded chart for when we celebrate birthdays. What does every birthday need? Cupcakes! Obviously. So our chart is divided into designated columns of the class bakers who have volunteered to bake cupcakes for each time we have a birthday. This week it was Claire's birthday, so Annika and I had an awesome time baking and icing in Claire's honour. It was sooo much fun and if we do say so ourselves, they tasted great.

Annika and I baking our delicious cake creations :)

So based on what I've been reading on facebook, Ontario has been getting a bunch of snow storms, and though I can't say the same is true here in Australia, we DID have an awesome afternoon thunderstorm yesterday! The weather here continues to be an absolute roller coaster, and just when you think you've got a handle on the heat, it dives or spikes ten degrees either way. It's keeping us on our toes, and I think that's probably a good thing. I've learned to carry a sweater, sunglasses and an umbrella ALLLways.

At the end of the day, Australia is amazing. I'll never become complacent to the fact that I'm here. But being completely real... Uxbridge, I do miss you.

I think about all of my amazing friends and family, the friends that basically ARE family, and I can't help but smile. I know that I'm 100% supposed to be here at Hillsong College for this season of my life, but know that you all are on my mind and held close in my heart.

Plus I crave Tim Hortons ALL THE TIME.

If anyone would like to send me a Tim Horton's care package, here's my address:

2 Cavalry Grove

Glenwood, New South Whales

2768

Australia

All my love!

Brittany

So. Much. To take in.

Guess what?
I'm wearing jeans and a long-sleeve tee shirt! It's 21 degrees today under constant cloud cover.


I've been told that I'll never have a grip on the Australian weather... In less days than I can count on one hand, I was hanging out anywhere with air conditioning to escape the 40 degree heat! This sudden drop in temperature is certainly a surprise, but we all agree here in the house that it's a refreshing break to the heat wave (and even to our air conditioning fund). Thank you, Jesus! We're enjoying it while it lasts, but the temperature is sure to rise at least by next weekend.


Friday was another beach day! Man, I'll never get bored of heading out to the beach. It was a perfect (hot) day to spend on the coast. We applied and reapplied sunscreen often, but still some of us were left with some nice rosy red patches of burnt skin after being out in the sun and waves for just over 2 hours. It's hard to stay protected from the sun; if you're in the water, you wash away all of the sunscreen, or if you're on the shore, you sweat it out in the sun. All in all, it was an awesome day packed tight with great friends and country music. Yes, you read correctly!... On both trips to and from the beach, we blasted out the Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Rascal Flatts, Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney hits singing loudly with the windows rolled down. The sound felt so familiar and reminded me of home. Good times.


This weekend I've spent a very large portion of my time on Skype catching up with family and friends from all across Ontario. I love you guys! I'm still blown away with how great and useful a tool Skype really is. Thanks everyone for taking time to wave and say hello :) I'm sending you all cyber hugs as we speak.


VISION SUNDAY 2011.
The pinnacle of the Hillsong Church movement. It's one of the busiest days of the year here in the Hills district and guess who was on serving on car park? Hahaha, yes... I was decked out in an orange vest and walkie-talkie directing traffic into the overflows of the Hillsong Parking, smiling, squinting and waving. Scary? Yes. But I had so much fun and I was really happy to get a chance to contribute to Vision Sunday in some way. This year, the video of Vision Sunday Video won't be released on DVD, so I was worried that I wouldn't get a chance to see the service at all, but to my relief, the Sunday night service covered everything that I missed that morning. The video presentation was amazing and the film itself was shot in Israel. How cool is that?! It was stunning and so beautiful in capturing the heart and message of the Church. Pastor Brian unpacked some of what we saw, saving the rest for the Leadership Vision night tomorrow night. It's going to be a great year of keeping our hearts stretched up and our hands stretched out.

Lisa and I rocking our car park gear.

Today being SuperBowl Monday (Sunday to the rest of North America), we spent the morning in the house watching the first half of the game quite unenthusiastically... the commercials were all Australian! We hoped to be able to watch the expensive (and usually hilarious) American commercials... I have heard that you can watch them online though. My housemate Kylie is actually the only one who's really into football and the rest of us have no loyalty to either the Packers or the Steelers. We wandered off to the kitchen and started a mad game of baseball with grapes... also good times.


Because there are SO many American students here at HILC, the Church aired the game in the Hub (where we've had most of our college lectures so far) on the big screens. Knowing that they were serving lunch at half-time, we went over to the church for hot dogs and cookies just in time to take some pictures, chat with some other students, and catch the 3rd quarter. We came home just in time to see the Packers to their victory.

Steelers vs. Packers! Hanging out in the Hub.

It's been an awesome weekend, but I'm especially looking forward to diving back into intensives tomorrow through Thursday! It's going to be another amazing 3 days of class. So. Much. To take in.


Much love!
-Brittany

This Love Feels Like Home

My Hillsong college attendance/ID card! Exciting, right?
It's on printed paper until I get the real thing. 

You know it’s hot when you tag along to the supermarket to steal air conditioned air.

Not even joking, I just got back from Woolworths. I would have stayed longer if I could, but I’m home, sitting on the tile floor in the entrance; it’s the coolest place in the house. It’s hot today in Australia, and the heat is currently the only thing on my mind. Not helpful. I know.

But it’s AUSTRALIA! And it’s a beautiful country; I’m so blessed to be here. When I think about the cold weather I’m escaping from home, I’m certainly not complaining. I do, in fact, love it here. Praise Jesus.

No seriously. Praise the Lord, he is so good! All the time.

Today was the first day of school! The fun begins and I am so excited to finally be at school using brain power again. It actually feels amazing, and I’ve been so blessed by my college experiences so far. 

For the next two weeks, all of the college is undergoing sessions called intensives that help us answer the question ‘What is Church’ and we’re unpacking tons of amazing scriptures. Most of what we learned today had to do with being committed to building the church and reaching the world, dovetailing what Jesus is doing. The first day of intensives really blew my mind. So good. We were actually advised to bring our laptops to class assuming that we can type faster than we can write in notebooks and today I wrote 5+ pages of notes. Let’s just say that there’s a lot of amazing information to digest! Also, the college is wonderfully air conditioned; In this heat, air conditioning is reason enough to hang out in church all day.

I’m sure you’re all relieved to hear that I’ve made friends here (YAY)! This place is absolutely filled with amazing people and budding friendships. And still I have so many people to meet. I’ve shaken many hands, forgotten many names, but I know that 3 months from now, life at college for the first-years will really feel like homeroom. So much love.

Speaking of so much love, I really have to thank everyone at home for all of the l.o.v.e., encouragement, and blessings you have all poured on me. It incredible to know that people are covering this year in prayer and coming along for the journey. That love feels like home.

-Brittany