One year of serving

Sunday marked one year since I started serving at the Hillsong Church and I want to take some time to reflect on how I got here and how serving has changed my life.

At the end of 2016 I moved to Pretoria, away from my parents, and it was a major change for me. Living on my own whilst I pretended to know what I was doing got to me in the first few weeks.

It still gets me sometimes

Some friends I made suggested that I attend church with them one Sunday. I was totally blown away by the service and I had chills down my spine the entire service. It had this weird but wonderful feeling to it that I could not explain. I knew straight away that this was the church for me. So much so that I decided to get baptised again at this church. But as the weeks went by and university got more demanding I started missing services and that number just grew more and more. I would only attend every now and then. I felt terrible

Some of the people who serve on the creative team

How did I start serving ?

One night I was visiting my friend because he was feeling blue at the time and as the night progressed he kept telling me that he wanted to go to church in hopes that it would make him feel better. I agreed and that Sunday we went to church. We arrived early and the people serving at the church were all gathered outside. We stood there in their circle not knowing what was going on and I guess one of the girls noticed and she came asking if it was our first time serving. We just looked at her with confused look on our face and she started smiling followed by the following words, "Come with me, let us get you signed up". That day my life changed unknowingly and I did not realise it till only just now.

How did it change my life?

I joined as part of the AV team mostly because I thought it would be fun and that is more relevant to what I want to do in life than the creative team( because I study IT). The first two weeks I was in charge of operating the clock and letting the people on stage know when they have gone overtime or when it was time for them to start finishing up. After those two week I went straight into graphics which plays a major part in the praise and worship.

Every person that I met along the way just had this positive and uplifting impact on me. I started counting the days till the Sunday so I could go back again and experience God's presence in these people. They taught me how to put God first in my life and they helped strengthen my relationship with God. These people were always smiling not because everything went their way all the time but because they believed and knew that God will provide and help them. Seeing the faith that they had week in and week out changes your perspective on a lot of things. It made me re-evaluate where I stand with my religion and now I start to notice how big of a role these people played on this journey of self discovery and spiritual growth.

Sunday I got called up to be director of the service for the first time and I can not describe how grateful and blessed I feel. Serving the house of the Lord brings a feeling of fulfilment and adding all the other things like the spiritual growth and the amazing people you meet, I look forward to another year of serving. And who knows, by this time next year I might be Service producer.