This week has been a flurry of emotions and I need to get it out of my system!!
Song presentation for sisters’ fellowship at BLC
When Steff asked us to prepare a performance for this event a few months back, we were quite ok with it, being so regular in band/music that it just seemed quite... doable? I don’t know how time passed so fast but the event came so quickly and we only started to plan 1.5 weeks before the event hahaha. By this time, most of us were freaking out.
We settled on a song that we played before (and sounded relatively good), “we long to meet”. I thought I was obviously going to play keys haha, I guess it’s become my comfort zone? But the guys said that the girls should be doing the singing since it’s a “sisters” event, while they take the instrumental. As much as I love singing, it was still so intimidating...! And what more, Jocelyn and I were tasked with lower harmony role. (Funny shifu said rehearsals will take 5 mins. Lol.) We were so stressed that we were singing this song non stop, we even had to figure out the lower harmony on piano, recorded it, and played it back multiple times lol.
When the event happened and we reached BLC, we realized that there were 300plus people at the event and it suddenly felt so real and scary... Thinking that people were going to judge and hate the performance (lol irrational fears strike again). The moment when it really happened, we got into the realm of worshipping God, and when we stopped looking at how people looked at us, but how we are looking at God, the fears faded, it became such a wonderful worship moment! I usually find it hard to worship when I’m in front. After the end of the performance, many people said they enjoyed the singing! But then again, these bros and sisters are usually super duper nice and gracious and non-critical hahaha. Pastor recorded us and while watching, I was just so touched that God would use a sinner like me to minister. Even though it was a group effort and I was heavily relying on the rest, I honestly never imagined being able to finish something like this. Really, praise the Lord.
Revival discontinued
This week the church’s revival prayer core team made the decision to discontinue revival prayers. My attendance has became really bad these weeks because I’m unable to manage work. It’s been hard to manage life in general... having so much work, family commitments, social gatherings, ministry commitments, that things have started to fall off my very overflowing plate. Yet when the news came out that revival was discontinued, I was really saddened. It is such a pity. Because here was the place that I got revived. I felt the presence and power of God, I felt I was loved by God, I started to explore contemporary keys, and improved in it such that I can actually play much better today. We can only trust God that there is a time and season for everything, and that he has good and perfect plans for us.
Worship retreat
This was really wonderful. I actually started the day feeling grumpy about having to report at 8am (1hr earlier than the attendees) for band rehearsals. Also I had to work late the day before, knowing that I won’t have any time on labor day, and having to practice the songs after chionging work... but having a dream team made it a lot better though, they are so proficient that it is really quite enjoyable to play with them! The theme of the retreat was quite apt - the heart of worship. Pastor‘s exhortation was simple yet extremely impactful. He reminded us of the 2 ways we lead worship, 1. Playing to achieve perfection, concerned abt how well we did 2. Playing to help worshippers to encounter Christ. The first is a performance and the second is worship leading. The heart of worship is indeed, as the song says, all about Jesus. While excellence is important, we should seek nothing above pointing to Jesus. Uncle KP also reminded us abt the excitement of worship. When asked to served we can react in 2 ways as well 1. “Me again?” 2. “I’m so excited for a chance to serve God!”. I catch myself taking a first option many these days. I need to make an effort to connect back to God and realize the reason I’m doing all these. The afternoon sessions were technical sessions and I really benefitted, I realized I forgot a lot of music theory! There was also jamming sessions where random people were chosen to jam impromptu-ly, and realized the younger kids are so talented. Really had an old people moment when we were just admiring the young ones jamming. The retreat was a full day till 5 but I ended the day watching endgame with Em, it was relaxing and chill and had been so long since Dynamic Duo reunited. :)
Other things I forgot to update
Good Friday Chorale
So thankful for the opportunity to sing in the chorale. Always looked forward to wed nights because singing/listening to harmonies is so therapeutic. And it’s with BFF too. :) Although quite stressful because I had to take over piano role every other week when conductor was not around. I had no time to practice and the songs are super hard lol. To an extent where when I’m playing right, it still sounds wrong Lol, so I spent most of the time feeling quite confused and also unable to sing because, can’t multitask haha. But it was really a blessed time preparing for it, and the song presentation went really well too. This is surely going into a regular activity that Joce and I will continue with haha.
God has been so good so I really needed to type down all these moments. :)
x
