Made For Worship: Worship Camp 2013
Pine trees, lush gardens, and one of San Pablo City's seven lakes served as backdrop and home to dancers, musicians, and songleaders from 20 different regions and provincial churches of the Metro Manila Christian Church and Philippine Family of Churches.
The three-day event started off with a very warm welcome (literally) as the airconditioning unit broke down, leaving the disciples soaked in more than fellowship and camaraderie. But no amount of physical discomfort can tamper the excitement and zeal of around 200 worship leaders in showing their love for God and in serving His people through the ministry of music. The night ended on a light note with a video from last year's worship camp entitled "One Voice, One Heart".
Day Two of the camp saw us bright and early for devotional. It seemed that nature has given us its favor that morning as the air filled not only with praise and worship songs and scripture readings but with melodic hymns from birds singing all over the place (Cinderella popping out from one of the trees wouldn't have been surprising). It was such an amazing experience that singing the song "Our God Is An Awesome God" truly felt awesome as cliché as that may sound.
After breakfast, we settled for our first session on Made for Worship—The Tale of the Musical Bottles. Tyrone Ty asked three volunteers to arrange, in "Minute To Win It" fashion, several bottles containing varying amounts of water to produce the correct sound of a musical scale. Their determined efforts to accomplish the task resulted in hilarious moments that had all of us in stitches.
As the night fell, it was time for us to put ourselves, our talents, and our shame on the line for the much-anticipated Talent Night! Choral groups, bands, and dancers filled the night with one awe-inspiring number, one after another. No, the performances weren't all technically perfect but that is exactly what made everything so special. It was in the moments of imperfection that the heart of a disciple truly shone—the heart to praise God with all the talent He has given us and the heart to encourage and build up one another.
Day 3 started with an emotional Sunday Service. Brothers opened with prayers spoken in the three languages most representative of our heritage: Tagalog, Ilokano, and Bisaya. There was hardly a dry eye in the room by the time the chords of the final song was sung as the disciples' hearts burst with love and praise for the Father, as well as with one another, prepared for the end of this mountaintop experience.
A brief recognition and awarding ceremony followed lunch to acknowledge everyone's hardwork and dedication to making this event truly memorable.
A wacky, insane, and generally chaotic photo op would have been the perfect way to close out this moment, but we wouldn't be disciples if we didn't try to make the corner of the world where we stand a little brighter by imparting the joy that has so filled our hearts starting from Day One. And so, in true Worship Ministry fashion, we sang our thanks to our hosts, the Alcantara family.