New Creation
Gymea/Miranda Uniting Church Young Adults Group

BLACK STUMP REPORT
Date: When: Location: Event Home
Oct 1st - 4th anytime / all the time Cataract Park Christian Music Festival 1 2 3 4

Sunday, October 3rd - Day 3

    
There were some bleary eyes at camp in the morning. Everyone had a great night, though not necessarily a sleep-filled one. A feast of pancakes and cereal were served for breakfast and not even crumbs remained for the ants.

It wasn't until there was an attack of the killer spider in the girl's tent, that people began to wake up. (see photo on the right).

     

Sunday morning worship: 

Some of us chose to worship with the Melanesian Brothers in the Palladium at 9am. This was a wonderfully prayer-filled worship that moved many of us. It wasn't loud or showy. The presence of the Lord could really be felt. Here is one of their songs - provided by Robert Levee:
Freedom
Freedom, Freedom is coming x3
Oh yes I know
 
Oh yes I know, yes I know, yes I know, Oh yes I know
 
Jesus, Jesus is coming x3
Oh yes I know
 
Jesus, Was born to save us x3
Oh yes I know
 
Freedom, Hummmm x3
Freedom is coming Oh yes I know
 
Freedom, Freedom is coming x3
Oh yes I know
Andrew Donaldson's perspective on Sunday morning worship:

It was a dicey call between the prayer based worship of the Melanesian brothers or the exuberant emotional worship of Soul Survivor. In the end I decided on Soul Survivor after being impacted by Mike and Tim of SS last year. The session was more familiar than I first would have expected with the guitarist/worship leader being the same guy as was at my MYC earlier this year and many of the songs being ones I learnt and sung at MYC - majority of Tim Hughes songs. I don't know exactly what it is, but Tim's songs seems to just ooze of the passion he has and you can really tell that through these songs he aims to get people to connect with our Creator. That was something I did that morning - driving me to my knees in tears (not a regular occurrence I'll admit).

Then it was time for the morning Bible Study sessions:

One Bible Study session was led by Andrew Palmer in the Supper Club. For Tim and myself, this was the best session of all of Stump 2004. He spoke of the Power of Passion. 

He explained that while the word "passion" conjures in the mind things of action, it actually comes from the root word, "passive", that is, "doing nothing". Jesus does nothing and yet accomplishes everything.

Jesus is full of action in his ministry, going wherever he wanted, teaching to whom he wished. The first passive moment was Jesus' betrayal when Judas kissed Jesus. The kiss itself had no effect on the course of the events, yet all four gospel writers recorded the kiss. Andrew then carried us through why the writers made this so important:

Reading John 6:66-70, John 13:2-11, John 18:1-6, Matthew 26:14-16, Matthew 26:22-25, Matthew 26:47-50 and Luke 6:12-16, we found that the Greek word paradidomi was used in all instances, and yet were translated as "betray", "traitor", and "handed him over". Paradidomi literally means, "to hand over". The term is entirely neutral.
 
John 19:30 - When Jesus "handed over"/"gave up" his spirit, the Greek word was also used. Matthew 27:11-18 - The chief priests hands Jesus over to Pilate, Pilate hands him to Herod, Herod hands him back. Everyone was involved, including the Jews and the Gentiles, and everyone was guilty. The word betrayal implies surprise and broken trust. It was not a surprise. God knew this would all happen. And only God could end it: Jesus last act was to hand over his spirit.

God's Will was the most important thing. At Gethsemane, Jesus prays, "Father, your will not mine." Jesus does nothing more after that point. The struggle is over because Jesus doesn't resist. The Passion of the Christ is about Jesus doing nothing, being passive, being handed over - all for the love of us. Jesus doesn't attempt to fix anything, and yet he fixes everything.

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Lunch time back at camp:

Lunch consisted of yummy sandwiches full of ham, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, beetroot, pineapple and other yum stuff that we could put together ourselves.

There was some sitting around in the sun...yes, sun... and it was all good. Then it was time to go off to the afternoon workshops.

A small number of us returned to the Palladium and listened to Matt Gelding's talk on the Holy Spirit in our Lives. After the buzz from Andrew Palmer's Bible Study, many of us did not respond as well to this session. 

Andrew Donaldson's afternoon:
Sunday afternoon provided the scene for one of the best live sets I've seen, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The Garage was the place, Crying Out Loud the band. I've always had a particular liking for ska and I think ska bands have a great atmosphere, and combined with the size of the Garage and the fact it was the trumpet player's last gig ever added to the intensity (just on an aside, that trumpet player was a guy by the name of Will Erickson, brother of a young girl by the name of Ellie who came to Stump with us last year). They really fed of the energy of the crowd and performed very well. I spoke to them after the set and they seemed really pleased with how it went (and were also quite astonished that I knew the lyrics to all their songs, when their new cd had only been released for a week). The title of best live set didn't stay with them long however with Blind performing the best set I've seen them play since I first saw them at Stump 02. It was the final Stump gig and they have only a handful of gigs left before they call it a day. Their show was filled with emotion, clearly evident to the crowd.

They finished off their set with Sounds, and a whole bunch of huge balloons being thrown into the crowd. However, they hadn't played Long Walk Home yet and obviously the crowd wouldn't have a bar of it and they were called back on stage. They played Come Together, followed by the crowd favourite - Long Walk Home. Gradually each member of the band left the stage, leaving only Andrew (singer) left on stage singing with the crowd, until he too left with the crowd left singing! A more amazing sound I haven't heard.

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An afternoon in the Village:

Many games of Stomp could be played if you could work out the rules...and didn't mind getting stomped on ;) You could build your courage and dive off the platform to the cheers of everyone below.
Or, there was some more down-to-earth games... Jo Donaldson wasn't keen...I'm not sure why :)

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After a relaxing afternoon, we enjoyed our last dinner at Black Stump:

  

Gathering 2 in the Big Top:

Great music was had from some very talented artists, the worship was wonderful as usual, and the offering was taken. 

Tony Campolo came out and yelled at us from the stage. Even when you are pre-warned how loud he can be, you still can't be fully prepared for it :) He had some great points to make though and he stirred a lot of people spiritually. I think about a quarter of the people gathered there in the Big Top that night came forward to proclaim their faith and to have prayers said over them. That's got to be good.

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