IntroductionI was in the states over the Christmas holidays, visiting my dearly beloved friends, and while I was there, we attended Passion Conferences, and I just wanted to let you all know about it. This is quite long, but I think and pray you will enjoy it and grow from it, as you are awed by the greatness and glory of our God.
For those of you that don't know, just a little introduction regarding what Passion Conferences is. The movement was started in 1985 when Louie Giglio headed the bible studies at Baylor University in the States with just a handful attendees. By God's mighty power, the bible study grew until eventually 10% of the student population there regularly attended the bible studies. A vision to reach other universities was born, and Passion Conferences began, meeting once a year since 1997, the first being attended by 2,000 students. Its vision is, "to glorify God [by] uniting students in worship and prayer for spiritual awakening in this generation". Since then, more and more students have been gathering at Passion Conferences every year, this year (Passion 07) seeing over 22,000 students united for the glory and renown of God, representing over 1,200 campuses from all the states in the U.S. and 33 other countries around the world! Now to Passion 07, Jan 1 - 4.
ReviewWhere to start? God did so many wonderful and awesome things there is no way I can tell you all of them. But my prayer is that throughout this review I can give you a glimpse of Christ's power to redeem and empower His people, as a witness to the kingdom He is reigning here on earth. I know that a lot of you reading this are comprehensive about large gatherings, thinking that emotions often take over, and that it easily becomes too focused on the
people as opposed to God. Although Passion 07 was certainly not perfect, I hope to convince you by the end of this review that Christ was at the centre of this amazing time, and that God's glory was the ultimate and heartfelt aim. In the words of Louie Giglio during the first meeting, "We didn't come here for a conference. We didn't come here for the music. We didn't come here for the speakers. We came here to glorify God and to seek Him first above all else."
The conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Monday the 1st of January, 7pm, the first main meeting occurred. When we finally were admitted into the Phillips Arena (seating 20,000 people, a smaller arena housed the rest, linked by video conference), all I could think of was Hebrews 12:1 - "since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses". And that's what it was! A GREAT cloud of witnesses! Here in Ireland we can't even imagine that many Saints gathering to glorify God. I am a witness that, no, it did NOT take my eyes off God (although it was a temptation at times); instead, it drew me closer to Him and opened my eyes even more to His greatness and unsearchable riches! Words cannot describe the scene as Charlie Hall and his band began singing:
God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
And I don't care what the world throws at me now
Hear the sounds of the generations
Making loud our freedom song
All in all that the world would know Your name
Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation that died just to set me free
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Cause You are alive and You live in me.
And 24,000 saints were worshipping God, lifting up His Name, ascribing Him glory! I cannot wait to be in heaven, where we will worship and praise God with BILLIONS of people! This was just such a tiny foretaste of that glorious dwelling place, but yet, I could barely contain it and take it in. God is so great, no words can suffice to express my delight at having been saved from my wretched sin and being granted the
privilege of bringing Him glory with such a great cloud of witnesses and of "making loud our freedom song" with the roar of 23,000 saved sinners, singing their praise to the Almighty!!
The speaker that night was Louie Giglio, who retold the story that will be retold for all eternity: How God, the creator of the universe, became man and humbled Himself to death, so that we, sinners condemned for an eternity in hell, might have LIFE! How God, out of His free will, even though He was not forced to do so, decided, for
His glory, to make a way for us sinners to be blameless and free from guilt in His sight, that we might spend an eternity worshipping Him and adoring Him. Even more, we are made
righteous by Christ's death, so that God no longer sees our sin when He looks at us, but He sees Christ's righteousness in us, because
Christ is alive in us!!! And thousands of people clapped and cheered the mighty truths that God has revealed to us, as the stadium celebrated God's grace and mercy. Louie shone with love and humility, as he inspired us to fall in love with God and be amazed at His greatness and in awe of His glory.
The main session ended ca. 10pm, and we then went on to Community Groups, in which we were divided into groups of 1,000 and met in smaller rooms (they were still HUGE). There, we were further subdivided into Family Groups, 8 people each, preferably people that have never met before. We were told that this would be where things would happen, although we all thought, "yeah right, I think the main session will be where things'll happen". Well, we were wrong! Even though I only spent six or seven hours with my family group, I grew to love them and trust them implicitly. All of us grew close together so quickly, because what we had in common and what we talked about is the most powerful connection any human can have - JESUS CHRIST! Throughout the conference, we met twice a day to do bible studies together and discuss how God was changing our lives and how He was challenging us. We prayed for each other and praised God together. Unfortunately, and this makes my heart break, I might never see them again here on earth:( But I look forward to the day I will be reunited with them before the throne of God in heaven! If you are reading this, I don't care who you are, what situation you are in, what friends you currently have,
gather around you a group of Christians who love Jesus and with whom you can walk the walk and talk the walk together! Encourage each other, admonish each other, pray for each other, praise God together! The strongest bonds you will have to other humans will be those based on Christ! James 5:16: "confess your sins to each other and pray for each other."
When the Community Group ended around 11.30pm, I met up again with my dear friends from Virginia Beach with whom we (Caoimhin, Mira and I) had come to Passion: Eric, Jessica and Beverly (I love you guys and I miss you so much!). There were several late-night concerts on, and we went to see a brand-new heavy-rock Christian band called Leeland. Now, I wasn't looking forward to it that much 'cos I thought the concert would be like so many rock concerts - focused on the band, the crowd cheering for the hot guitarist, etc. God forgive me, I was so wrong! The whole concert was focused on God, it was basically a praise and worship session! The group leader, Leeland, prayed many times, read from the Word, and the songs they sang were focused on Jesus, our mission here on earth, His great love, etc.! I was moved to tears as I saw the passion and love for Jesus the band had, and I was humbled as I realised this concert wasn't meant to be about the band, but about God our Father. At times all I could do was cry and lift my hands to God, I was so humbled and sorry that I had thought the band was about its own glory, as they sang, "God You are great, God You are great, God You are great, God You are great!" Let me share with you one of their songs,
Sound of Melodies:
We who were called to be Your people
Struggling sinners and thieves
We're lifted up from the ashes
And out came the song of the redeemed
The song of the redeemed.
We have caught a revelation
That nothing can separate us from
The love we received through salvation
It fills your daughters and your sons
Your daughters and your sons
Can you hear the sound of melodies
Oh, the sound of melodies
Rising up to You
Rising up to You, God
The sound of melodies
Oh, the sound of melodies
Rising up to You
Rising up to You, God.
The sound of Your love
The sound of Your love
Is what You're hearing
The sound of Your sons
The sound of Your sons
You've won Your children
The sound of Your love
The sound of Your love
Is what You're hearing
Your daughters in love
Your daughters in love
You've won your children
The sound of melodies
Oh, the sound of melodies
Rising up to You
Rising up to You, God
We have been redeemed for a purpose! And that purpose is that our lives would be an offering to God, a sound pleasing to Him! Come, join the melody of His song that is being sung by thousands of saints all over the globe, the sound of all melodies, the music of the redeemed, the lives of "sinners and thieves lifted up from the ashes". PRAISE GOD!!!
The topic of the second-last talk; the Great Commission: "Go and make disciples of all nations." The facts Louie recounted made me want to cry out of shame and sadness, and I hope they will shock you also: 2.5 billion people out of the 6.5 billion sharing this planet with us
do not have the Word of God in their own language!!! Even worse, less than 2% of all missionaries are directed toward these 2.5 billion people! We often hear the statistic that 95% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the world's population. Well, it seems to me terribly similar to only 2% of the world's missionaries working with the 40% of the world's population, those being the ones who do not have the Word of God in their own language! Let that sink in!! And we think missions abroad aren't a priority?? How selfish we are! And so Louie called us to not forget the true meaning of the Great Commission, which is so simple that it has been largely forgotten today: "Go and make disciples of all nations." How much clearer could Jesus have made it? Where are the tears of the saints for the lost and unreached?
The last talk was simply wrap-up; but God wasn't done yet. Throughout the conference, a campaign called
Do Something Now had been occurring.
Do Something Now consisted of several ways we students could contribute financially and otherwise to the work of the kingdom throughout the world. Two of those were by donating toward the translation of the New Testament for an unreached language group, the second, writing letters and signing petitions against the evergrowing industry of sex trade, in which mostly young women are snatched from the streets of third world cities and enslaved to satisfy the sexual cravings of people in "civilised" countries, Europe, America, and so on (click
here to find out more). All in all,
Do Something Now had a target of collecting $500,000 from 23,000 students over the course of the conference. Now for us poor students, that seemed an impossible, laughable goal! But God is so much bigger than our expectations - Louie informed us that over $750,000 had been raised! Praise God!!
Then Louie revealed the plans of Passion for the coming years: There would not be another huge single Passion Conference; instead, in 2007, several smaller conferences would be held all over the United States in order to reach even more students and inspire them to live for God's glory! Even further, in 2008, conferences will be held in 20 major cities all over the world! I pray that one of those would be Dublin. This world tour will cost an estimated $4 million, and so an offering was taken up. Now, I thought, "people have already given so much, this is gonna be a meagre offering." Boy, was I wrong once again! There were several collection baskets held by volunteers around the stadium, and when Louie asked for the offering, it was like the whole stadium got up and flocked toward the collection baskets! Just today, the figure for that single offering from 23,000 students has been released (click
here for full results of
Do Something Now). The figure from that single offerring is ........... $256,000!!!!! Praise God!
In a questions and answers sessions, John Piper was asked, "Considering you are practically a celebrity, how do you manage to stay humble all the time?" To which he answered, without hesitation, "you presume I
do stay humble all the time!" And that complete honesty really was one of the marks of all the speakers and, in fact, the whole conference. This, coupled with an unwavering passion to see God glorified in and above all things are two major components, I believe, to God having chosen to work so powerfully through this conference. And I am witness that He worked powerfully to change many lives, including mine! Oh what joy it is to stand, walk and live always in the presence of the almighty God and have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe. So often we forget that we really do not deserve His grace and mercy; and that His grace is
enough to satisfy
all our needs ! My prayer is that this review has awoken in you a stronger and more powerful passionate for Jesus Christ and His renown here on earth. So often, we put God inside boundaries, but His might and power have no limits! God has
not stopped performing miracles, whatever some may say or believe! He still heals, physically and spiritually! And He wants you to be a part of His great work! He has called us by name and wants to change the world - using us! So don't refuse His call. Give Him everything, because He alone is worthy of all praise.
If you read this far, well done! Because the review had gotten so long, I moved the summaries of the other main session talks to the bottom, so if you wanna read more, scroll further down! Feel free to respond to this e-mail if you have any questions:)
Summaries of other main sessionsThe next main session a lady called Beth Moore came to speak to us. When she was about to open with prayer, she asked us all to stand. Once we were standing, she went down on her knees and prayed to our heavenly Father. Her talk was about humility; before God, and before humans. The main point was that, as Christians, we have two options: (a) humble ourselves, or, if we don't do it ourselves, (b) have God do it for us. And it is much less painful when we humble ourselves! God will only use people who are humbly acknowledging Him as God and others as better than themselves (Phi 2:3). And yet, that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak up for ourselves or God. But notice, speaking
up - to speak
up, you have to be looking
up, up to others and up to God! It was so challenging, I came out terribly convicted of my own pride, my selfishness, my swollen ego, when, in fact, all I deserve is eternal separation from God. Because everything we have is a gift of God, given freely by Him! Salvation is a
gift, and we can neither add anything nor take anything away! So join with me in dedicating ourselves to a life of
humility, a life that proclaims how small we are and how great God is! God, we are so small, but yet we puff ourselves up to be these great men and women. Help us to fight our flesh through
your power, help us to stay humble and rely solely upon You for strength, and to give You ALL THE GLORY! We are nothing, useless, sinners and lost apart from You. Amen.
That was Tuesday morning; Tuesday evening, a guy called Frances Chan was speaking. God works so differently than we expect or often predict, and Passion was no exception. Not many had heard of Frances, so people weren't as enthusiastic about hearing him as they had been for the previous two speakers. But God did a powerful work that evening. God's Spirit broke my heart that night as I fell in love with Jesus all over again and realised that everything is about loving Jesus with all our heart. And that was Chan's message: The Christian life is not about doing this or that, going to this conference, leading that bible study, giving x amount of money to an offering, etc. NO!! The Christian life is about
being in love with Jesus!!!!! He gave His life for us!! And what do we do? So often we become selfish, and we indulge ourselves, satisfy our sinful nature. Often, we are just
luke-warm Christians! Jesus says that He will "spit" luke-warm Christians out of His mouth (Rev 3:16)! He was challenging us not to become half-hearted Christians who end up living a comfortable life with a nice income, having (nearly) every material thing we need. Those are not victorious Christians!! In the words of Jesus, "You say, "I am rich. I have everything I want. I don't need a thing!" And you don't realise that you are
wretched and
miserable and
poor and
blind and
naked." (Rev 3:17). The challenge was this: are we living lives to satisfy our sinful nature, indulging in materialism and other worldly things, or are living lives that glorify God, which are the lives that truly satisfy us? In the words of Jesus, "For whoever wants to save his life will loose it, but whoever looses his life for me will gain it". (Luk 9:24)
That evening during family groups, God's work was being made visible as we shared some things that were deeply troubling us in our lives and that God had challenged us in. We spend time praying for each other, that we would love Jesus more and more, and that, in the words of the old hymn, the things of earth would "grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace".
The next morning, the speaker was John Piper. I'm sure some of you have heard about him; he is quite famous among Christian circles, especially over America. He has written many, many books, probably his most famous being "Desiring God". When he walked on stage, a huge cheer erupted, which made me slightly sad that the poor guy had achieved something like celebrity status in Christian circles. But then I remembered that the heroes of old in the bible were probably not very different. Just think of Moses or king David. What surprised me was how unimposing he appeared. He went straight into prayer, asking God to guide him as he spoke, and to prepare our hearts to listen to what God had to say to us. He then informed us that the closest he had ever come to being fired from his position as a pastor at his church was when he published a paper entitled "Missions and Masturbation". I can imagine why! He then told us that countless people who are passionate Christians in their teen and college years become luke-warm Christians later in life, content with a nice income, large house and Mercedes, comfortable in their middle-class life, wasting their lives when they should be living passionately for the cause of Christ! And he said that the root of this problem is, for many,
failure to deal with sexual failure. He talked not about how to prevent sexual failure, but how to deal with it once it has happened. Piper recounted to us Christ's sacrifice, which paid our sins
once for all, and that once we have been saved by the grace of God, we can do
nothing to loose that salvation - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Rom 8:35). Christ's blood is sufficient to cover
all our sins! He encouraged us to draw close to God for comfort and forgiveness after failure, especially after sexual failure! So many people today live in shame at their failings in this area, and never tell others! So they end up living half-hearted Christian lives, never able to fully commit because they fail to deal with the shame and guilt. But Jesus not only takes our sin, He also takes our guilt - if we let Him.
"But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me. Israel Will Rise. Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen,
I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath,
until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness." Micah 7:7-9
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