Chapters 4 and 5; April and May

Greetings from Brisbane!!

Time is flying by here at YWAM Brisbane. In my last update I shared about my new role as the leader of our worship department and joining a ministry called Creative Development Ministry Team. I am excited to share that through the challenge of transition, I am enjoying this new position of leadership and I continue to be hopeful that God is taking this community in a new direction and I get to be a part of that.

I heard a sermon recently where the speaker shared his perspective on worship leaders. For a long time I have seen worship leading as an opportunity to help people encounter God so that then they can go out and live lives with Him. This is true, but something the speaker shared in the sermon was how leading worship is a beautiful fulfilment of God’s commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself. This resonated with me so deeply because it reminded me that even though in this season I am not going into the nations and preaching the gospel like I have in the past, I am a pillar of this missions movement who is living out God’s commandment of loving Him and people well, right where I am at. As a worship leader, I give people permission to worship the Father in a deeper way than they ever have before. From there I can get out of the way and see a beautiful encounter unfold between heaven and earth. I can’t just love God and neglect where my people are at. I can’t just love my people by giving them what they want but miss what the Father is saying. We must marry these two things and celebrate Loving God and having compassion for His people and where they are at.

So I continue to lead worship here is Brisbane and disciple the ones God has given me in this league of the journey. YWAM Brisbane hosted an Easter Festival for the greater community on Easter weekend. We created a fantastic atmosphere of free family fun and a safe and positive place for people could spend time together and hear more about why we celebrate Easter.

I have also been busy running open events on base, helping prepare our outreach teams for overseas mission trips, building relationships with our campus students and staff, helping in our communication and promotion department and drinking enough coffee to make it all happen!!

Bless,

Lindsey Burton