A team from City Harvest Church attended the Hillsong Conference this year and came away inspired.
Contributed By Dawn Seow
The CHC worship team at Hillsong Conference 2011.
Now into its 25th year, the Hillsong Conference has grown by leaps and bounds and remains one of the most highly anticipated Christian events in the church world. From a small gathering of believers more than two decades ago, the conference has grown steadily and each year, sees thousands of attendees from around the world, congregating at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Darling Harbour.
The theme for this year’s conference was Scarlet Thread: the thread signifies the three-fold cord of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit; the color scarlet represents the blood of Jesus Christ. This theme was strongly established throughout the conference, from start to finish.
Over four days, every aspect of the meeting had a connection to the Scarlet Thread: praise and worship songs as well as the sermons preached during the conference flowed out of that theme. Throughout the four days, there was no missing the message of making Jesus the center of one’s life.
Among the conference attendees were worship leaders from City Harvest Church, Mark Kwan, Annabel Soh, Alison Yap, musicians Jessel Yam and Teo Poh Heng, and technical team members William Ng and Ho Foong Ling. They were there to watch and learn the media, music and technical aspects of the service.
Yam, the music director of CHC’s worship team, was inspired by the strong theme that held the conference together. One thing he caught from the conference was the importance of having a common goal. He shared, “Once the goal is strongly established, the whole team will be able to work toward it.”
The songwriter forum he attended gave him deep insight. “The panel was made up of songwriters and worship leaders from Hillsong Church, and they discussed topics that were very practical. It made me realize that people all around the world face common problems while writing songs,” he noted.
It was the first time Kwan, creative manager of the church, had attended the conference and he marveled at the technical know-how, musical precision and administrative excellence of the conference.
“All these things were obviously borne out of a love for Christ. They served because they loved. There was a sense of sincere anticipation from both the organizers and the participants to honor and encounter God, and I think everything else—the inspired preaching, creative presentations, anointed worship—was the harvest from that seed of genuine worship.”
