PASSION

in photos...

That's Lecrae! :D

in words...

Well, there are no words really. To describe the true Passion experience is impossible. You just have to go and see for yourself.

For now, I will do my best. :)

Passion consisted of 8 main sessions (one on Monday night, three each on Tuesday and Wednesday, then the last one on Thursday morning). Each session included worship sessions led by AMAZING artists like Chris Tomlin, Kristian Stanfill, Matt Redman, and Christy Nockels (some of which are pictured above). All of them were fantastic at leading worship and so excited about praising God!! You could just see it in their movements and the expressions on their faces....they were so passionate about the God they were lifting their voices to.

In each session, there was a speaker (or speakers). The evening sessions were all sermons, and the morning and afternoon sessions were usually about Do Something Now (the movement for freedom for 27 million slaves in the world). They showed a Freedom film in parts that had former slaves telling their stories from different parts of the world. There were also speakers who told us about organizations they worked with that helped free people who were being trafficked. Each one of them had an amazing story and had such passion in their hearts for these 27 million slaves.

All of the 45,000 students in attendance could go to the Freedom stations that were set up around the dome and the Georgia World Congress Center to donate money for the cause of freedom. As I mentioned in my last post, we raised over 2 and a half million dollars. One couple who was at the conference gave $500,000 on their own, pushing our total over the $3 million mark. Our God can do amazing things through one group of young people.

The messages in the evening sessions were all convicting, inspiring, and worth pages and pages of notes. My favorites were Francis Chan, John Piper, and Louie Giglio. Especially Piper. One of my goals in life was to see John Piper preach before I died....or before he died, whichever came first.

Piper's message was spot on. It was all about our freedom in Christ and what that means. It was PERFECT. Absolutely brilliant. In short, he explained how we are born in sin, and when we are saved, God takes our sinful nature and brings us out of that bondage (our slavery to sin) and makes us free. Now since we are still sinful, we can't be perfect. But when we are doing the will of God and have the desire to please Him, God has given us the ability to obey Him and please Him (made us free from sin) and we will experience joy because we are doing what we want to do (freedom) and we are doing the will of God. Now the part that just made me over-the-top excited was how Piper talked about heaven. When we get to heaven, we will be completely, 100% SINLESS. There will be NO taint of sin in our praise to God and there will be no HINT of sin left in our lives. We will be made NEW and our desire will be to please God and to give glory to Him forever. There will be no more sinful world to distract us, and since there is no sin, we will WANT to give glory to Him and we will be FREE to do that forever and ever. This will be perfect freedom in Christ and we will have perfect joy as a result. How COOL is that???

So anyways....back to the conference....

Probably my favorite part of the whole thing was not even part of the conference itself. On Wednesday night, my whole group gathered at our hotel and I asked them to give their testimonies of their salvation. Some of those stories were the most beautiful things I had ever heard. I could pinpoint ways that God had worked in each of their lives before they came to Christ, and I couldn't help but be amazed.

I could keep going, but I think this is long enough already. :) I'll leave you with the charge that Louie Giglio gave us on Thursday morning before we all left.

Wherever you are (high school, college, work, looking for work), don't be constantly asking yourself "What am I gonna do?" if you are in a place where you're not sure about your future. WHEREVER YOU ARE, God has placed you there for a reason and right now it is GOOD for you to be there. And most importantly, be FEARLESS in spreading the gospel in whichever situation you are in. I know that there is at least one person in your life who needs Christ, and they could be 7 days or 7 years from becoming saved....but all they need is ONE person who is fearless who can give them gospel. Just keep that in mind...

One last thing: Please, PLEASE register for Passion 2013 if you are 18-25 years old!!!  It will be at the GA dome again, and this time they are opening more seats. So be sure you check the website for the dates for next year!! (the link is up there under "Stuff you should see")

P.S. Happy February!!