The Shine conference was incredible! On Monday (2nd we went down to set up all the lights, sound systems, workshop rooms, dorms, all the dance areas, skits, games, and much more. We were able to run through all 3 of the performances that we were going to be doing as well as run through raps, choir, worship songs, skits, test mics, and try costume changes. It was a very busy and full day preparing for the 1,500 kids coming the next day. There was also a camera crew that had to set up for Good TV. This is a Christian television station that is broadcasted to over 5 million people in Asia and they were going to be recording everything: worship, sermon, dance, prayer.....exciting but also nerve wracking!!! That evening we were able to have a worship service for ourselves, staff, and all the leadership. It was a powerful time of worship and thanking Jesus for what he was going to do the coming week as well as praying over the room and students coming. Going to bed Monday night, we were excited and expectant for the week ahead.
Tuesday (3rd) we greeted all the students as they came into the college campus. The place we held the conference was at a local Christian college that had a large gymnasium with a stage at one end. We started the day with a welcome service for all the students with worship, introducing the team captains (all of the kids were divided into 4 teams), performing one of the skits, introducing the visitors and dancers (we did one of our hip hop pieces called 'Church'), and the huge flag theme piece. It was really fun! We gave them a few hours before the evening service to find their dorms, unpack, find their discipleship groups, and get to know each other.
Our hip hop dance
That evening was the worship service. Because there were 7 of us dancers, we would typically have 3 on stage with the worship team, two in the front of the crowd, and two at the back of the crowd all worship dancing and would rotate places each session. Since introducing dance was new this year at Shine, we were unsure whether it would hinder worship by being distracting or not. Both the worship team and the leaders said that they felt a heightened engagement of the room with us helping lead the people in worship through dance. It was powerful! After announcements we would typically do one of our evangelistic performances. That first evening we performed with the Living Water's 222 leaders who were in a choir to the song Break Every Chain. Being able to dance to live music proclaiming that there is power in the name of Jesus was incredible! Even just thinking about that moment, I can feel a heightened surge of the Holy Spirit inside of me. Later after the message, we were able to pray over several of the kids (with the help of translators!) and minister through dance. Though it was late getting to bed that night, the first day of Shine was a huge success in the Spirit!
Wednesday (4th) morning we woke up bright and early for the morning session. As we would later realize in the week, we became physically exhausted because of the amount of strenuous physical exercise we were getting. Each day we would dance in the morning worship, the morning skit or funny promotion, during ministry time, in the afternoon worship, in our 2 hour workshops, in the harp and bowl sessions, in the evening worship, in a evening skit, in our performance, in ministry time, and then in the fun worship afterward. Not only is dancing a physical reality, but it is also an emotional reality as you are being extremely vulnerable, placing all of who you are before man's eyes withholding nothing back. It's a beautiful picture of love, but also very draining! Especially when you are in a hot, tropical, muggy environment. Thankfully this building had air conditioning (first Shine conference to have it!), but they would turn it off at midnight until about 3pm in the afternoon. So we were also loosing a lot of water dancing and sweating so much!
promoting the Shine conference worship CD
I was able to help out with the improv/worship workshop Wenesday and the hip hop workshop on Thursday (5th). We started in the improv workshop by having them do silly things to silly music or try to convey emotions. We then later explained that just as you can convey emotions, you can convey worship to God with your body. It was so moving and powerful to see each of them with their eyes closed, fully engaging their whole bodies worshiping God. For them to be able to grasp the concept of worshiping God with their bodies and then fully engaging without hindrances was incredible! Thursday's hip hop workshop was much the same, but with more of a modern twist to it showing them you can still worship God with many modern cultural things. We were able to teach them the first combination of one of our hip hop pieces we performed on the first day. They worked really hard and grasped it really well! Later during the week, I would see different ones of them showing what they learned to their friends, with a huge grin from ear to ear.
Wednesday night was the evangelistic performance with just the Kawase team. This performance was one that we felt the most spiritual attack against. Though the performance went well technically, the atmosphere didn't fit the themes of the soberness of our pieces of Jesus dying for our sins (worship had been hyped up and exciting and the transition wasn't very smooth). We were feeling discouraged and like we were unable to communicate well with the audience. Praying, we gave it over to God and let him take care of the matter and went out to listen to the sermon. I can't remember who was preaching, but of the 1,500 kids there, about half were Christians and half were not. Of the half that were not, almost 80% gave their lives to Jesus for the first time that night. After all the responses were counted there were 384 kids that gave their lives to Jesus for the first time. Praise the Lord! So even though we didn't feel the impact of our dance, the impact was still there and used by the Holy Spirit. =) It caused many of us to choke up with tears as we saw kids by the hundreds coming up with their friends to give their lives to Jesus. This was one of the many times I had wished I was fluent in Taiwanese or Mandarin!
Thursday's (5th) evening performance was with the Living Waters 222 leaders. It was a lot of fun to be able to perform with them and deliver the message of a God who created us, loves us, chose us, rescued us, redeemed us, and set us in heavenly places. This performance was received as well as we later realized in the ministry time. That evening Jess Shao preached about purity, both phyiscally and emotionally; being set apart for God. Purity is a huge issue in Taiwan as it is one of the countries with the highest rating in immorality and therefore also in abortion. To be set apart and pure is a foreign concept. That night though (after our team even re-dedicated ourselves to God---it was a convicting and very good message!), over 1000 kids came up to receive prayer and be set apart, pure, and holy from that day forth. It was incredible!!!
Creation and God's communion with mankind
Friday (6th) was the last day of the conference. Near the end, we had all the staff, 222 leaders, the IHOPKC leaders, the Shao family, the Maas family, the Kawase team, the Living Waters leaders, and others form a prayer fire tunnel that the kids walked through. It was very sober and impacting to be able to pray God's blessing and protection over each of these kids. By the end of the week, many of the walls they had put up to God were gone and they were receptive to his Spirit and power. We also did one last dance called Through Heaven's Eyes reminding the kids to live their life through the eyes of eternity with God.
Many of the nights of the conference and some morning/afternoon sessions, we would have crazy, loud, happy, fun, worship dancing songs where we basically just went crazy doing funny moves and had a blast worshiping Jesus. If you have ever been to a OneThing conference at IHOP and have stayed til midnight on New Year's Eve, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Who says' worshiping Jesus can't be full of life, happiness, and fun? =) We would do simple movements that the entire room could follow with our arms and upper body.....it was so much fun!!! At one point we had Jimmy (who would do raps with the worship team/choir sometimes), the flag guys, us dancers, Joy Maas and her kids, and more on stage dancing and just going full out. It was great. At the very end of the conference we closed out with worship like this and they even had like fireworks/sparkler things on the front of the stage go off. It was a hot, sweaty, stinky, mess of a lot of fun!
Check back later this week for part 2!
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