Merry Christmas

O Come O Come Emmanuel ….

Well what a year it has been. As I sit here (Jess) thinking about something poignant and reflective to say about Christmas, I cannot help but be incredibly thankful for this year.

As Insideout, we have had some of the best opportunities to minister that we ever had. We have learnt some of the best lessons we ever have (well me anyways - ask me sometime for the full story :), and we are feeling more and more at home and connected in with our church community than we ever have..

To name a few of the great opportunities:

One2One Ballarat.

Daniel and I gave some input on our first ever music and media retreat weekend for a wonderful Church of Christ in Ballarat. It was a wonderful privilege for us to be able to step into the journey of this church and bring some teaching and lead some worship and also to present 'Abide' again at the evening service. As inadequate as we felt, it was a great stretching time for us. Daniel was able to revisit some of his YWAM training and lead a workshop on how to use multimedia which was a great delight. It was so fun to have some of our regular crew from One Community with us also.

To top things off, we were asked back later in the year to come and lead some services again, so it was all the more special to connect again with some wonderful people and a wonderful worshipping community.

Thanks for the privilege guys!!

National Youth Ministry Convention (NYMC)

On a different scale, we were asked by one of our colleagues at One to lead 4 nights of worship for NYMC in October. This was such a great opportunity to minister to around 500 leaders of Youth and Young Adult ministries in this nation. It was such an amazing time, being able to lead worship and minister with some of the best speakers (in my opinion) such as Danielle Strickland and Tony Campolo.. and most of all to meet one of our heroes - Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor. As always Victoria's great song 'Psalm' (on the Abide CD) was a hit as were some of the other originals we could introduce. The hardest bit of it all was that we had to stay in this really nice hotel in Tweed Heeds and have a bit of a holiday at the same time :).

But seriously.. this conference was a bit of a dream come true for us and really helped enlarge the picture of where we would love to see Insideout go.

As did the:

Global Leadership Summit

The following month help in store another great but very different conference hosted at our home church One Community in Blackburn. Again, Daniel and I and a few other different bods from One were able to provide the music and lead people in worship. This was an enormous privilege as we were leading over 500 leaders from all different churches in Melbourne. Leading leaders in worship is definitely something that spoils you :). Boy could they sing.

We also had the chance to use a lot of our multimedia and play some of our own songs with a beautiful but screen brought in for the event.

This was such a beautiful time of ministering within our own community and seeing our team at One really come to life.

Here are some pics:

So it has been a really awesome year -

And yet we also feel like we on the brink of something new… Who knows at this stage what it is.. but we have the great sense of anticipation that God is stirring and brewing something for us.

I will leave you with a word from Fr Richard Rohr

In the divine economy it is not a matter of if, but only when. There will be a “when” and from an unexpected place! Just wait.... (Richard Rohr)

Imagine what it was for the Israelites to be in this season of waiting and hoping. Waiting for the promised One. Waiting for the one who would deliver them. Imagine what it was like to wait for all those hundreds of years, never knowing when the hand of God would move. It is easy to get impatient, especially in this instantaneous age. I take great comfort in this advent theme of waiting, because we are on the other end of the deal. We now know what it was they were waiting for…. and wasn't it INCREDIBLE - far more than the Israelites could ever have hoped for or dreamed of…

And isn't this our God also. For those of you who are in a season of waiting.. waiting on a promise… waiting in hope - Take heart. He is able to do immeasurably more than you could ever ask or imagine.

Merry Christmas from us! We so value your support, love and care of us.

Heaps of Love

Jess and Daniel Hammond

P.S - Oh yea, if you didn't pick it… Daniel cut his hair!

* For Fr Richards entire reflection click here ; http://conta.cc/t3jLcq

'Abide' Available now!

Hi friends..

Well winter is surely on it's way here in Melbourne. There is a real sense that the last of the warm days are over.

So the Cd has been officially launched! It was a wonderful night with many of our family, church family and friends coming out to celebrate with us. The theme of the night was of course 'Abide' as the CD title suggests, so we tried to take people on a bit of a journey with some readings, input and a creative communion response time to help us consider how we can Abide in the True Vine more and more. We have attached some pics and you can check out our You Tube channel here for a gimpse:

http://www.youtube.com/user/insideoutlife?feature=mhum

So thanx to all who joined us.

The CD is available online on Itunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/abide/id428972043

And CD Baby:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/insideout2

We are still rejigging our shop page, but it will be available through our site in the next few weeks also. For now though, just email us at life@insideoutlife.com.au if you want a copy an we can go from there..

So the next little while we are preparing for the wonderful Holy Easter Season. We are heavily involved at our home church One Community for this, which we always enjoy. We are not really certain of the next steps, but we would love to hit the road again with 'Abide' as a multimedia event, so please don't hesitate to contact us if you would like us to come/come back to your church or event. We would love to see you again, or for this first time.

Blessings on you!

Jess and Daniel

ABIDE

Hi all. Just a quick note to let you know of the upcoming CD Launch and worship event. Our aim is for these nights to be a real worship experience and not just CD Launch. We would love you to join us to celebrate the new music, but most of all to come and encounter God in a new and deep way.

We are really excited about the night. We have special guest and friend Susie Holt joining us and introducing a Debut artist- Victoria Holmes.

Hope you can make it!

Sunday March 20 6pm

One Community Church

184 Surrey Rd

Blackburn VIC

j n d