A few months ago I was blessed with winning a free admission to Passion 2011 in Ft. Worth, Texas from this very blog! I was thankful, and excited. But I didn’t have a clue what was in store for me at Passion! A friend asked me on my way back from the airport, “Can you describe it in five words?” I laughed, and said I couldn’t. But here’s what I did tell my friend. “Incredibly awesome beyond all hope!”
This is my first post of three about my experience at Passion 2011. In this first post I hope to give you at least a vague description as to what it was like, and hint at what God did there... And then of course in my two following posts I’ll go into detail as to how God worked at Passion 2011 in my life.
Passion is an event orchestrated to engage young adults with God and tangible means of showing Him to the world. The focus is on the Word, Worship, Community, and Ministry.
Each attendee was asked to bring towels and socks for the homeless shelters of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. It was great to drive through downtown Ft. Worth and know who was going to the conference just because they were carrying towels and socks! Beyond that, we had opportunity to give monies toward a project to bring the Bible into a language that has never had it before! As well as many other ‘micro’ projects around the world! It was awe-inspiring to see what 10,000+ college age individuals can do when given an obstacle to overcome!
The conference was broken into three types of settings. The main sessions, community groups, and an area to support various ministries through prayer or finances.
The main sessions were an incredible time of glorifying God through worship in song and hearing from His Word. There’s much to be said about over 10,000 people joining in corporate worship, but I’m going to save that for another post! It was also great to hear from individuals who clearly spend abundant time in God’s Word sharing with us what God had laid on their hearts.
The main speakers were; Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, and John Piper. Also we were lead in worship by Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Charlie Hall, Christy Nockels, and Kristian Stanfil. What was great about these main sessions is that it was exceedingly clear that the focus was to be entirely on God! And noot on those who were helping to point us to Him through music or message.
Community groups were a time to break up into ‘smaller’ groups in order to more deeply interact with each other. Smaller, meaning that each community group had a couple thousand individuals! And to allow true interaction to actually happen we broke down further into family groups, with about 6 people per group. These family groups were a great time to interact about what God was doing in each of us throughout the weekend! We also took time to pray for each other, and help one another in grappling with what God was doing in each of our lives.
To some it all up: Passion 2011 was AWESOME, and I would strongly encourage anyone to go! God used it as a major catalyst in my life to refocus me towards His plans for me! If you’d like to read more about that, look for my two follow up posts!
Written by Micah Horneman
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