For those of you who don't know what Passion 2010 is all about (or even what it is), then check out 268 Generation and read up on what God is doing in this generation of college students and young adults. Kellie and I love going to Passion conferences (we last went in 2007) simply because the energy is real and there is nothing candy coated. It's 20+ thousand college students coming together for intense worship, Bible study, community, and action.
Our way down went pretty smooth except for when I locked the keys in the church van at the Chick Fil A in Commerce, GA, which by the way has to be the busiest Chick Fil A on the busiest road in all of northern Georgia. Rick "McGyver" Trivette found a way to jimmie the side door open with an old pair of reading glasses that he twisted and turned just so. Our group of 31 arrived at our hotel in downtown Atlanta shortly after lunch, registered for the conference, and tried to stay warm in the blustery cold weather.
Our first night was spent with 6 thousand other attendees in the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) which serves as the overflow hall for Philips Arena. Everyone rotates there on at last two sessions but we didn't mind doing so last night because Charlie Hall was there leading us in worship while the Passion band was leading worship in the main arena. The atmosphere was loud and sincere and genuine and selfless.
Next Louie Giglio, the "architect" of Passion and 268 Generation, spoke in Philips Arena and they piped it in to us in the GWCC. His text was John 11 and he exposited the chapter verse by verse. From that we grasped the incredible glory of God through death, for Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that God could be glorified when Jesus went to "wake him up." The whole point was to get us to recognize that there is deadness within us, areas that need to be woken up spiritually in our lives. And when we do wake up, it's not so that we can read more books are debate theology or sing more songs or go to more conferences. When we wake up it's so that we can live lives that bring more glory to God.
This session lasted well over 2 hours but it didn't seem that long. We finished the night by meeting in community groups and you were assigned a group by a color coordinated bracelet that you were given at registration (yes, it was chaos). All of the adults had gold bracelets and almost 4,000 of us met in a huge room upstairs (the GWCC is one of the largest buildings I have ever seen in my life). Once there we met our group leader/facilitator Ben Stuart who is a Campus minister at Texas A&M and lead speaker at Breakway, a huge campus Bible study there. He has us break up into smaller groups of 7-8 people and in those groups we discussed what we heard in large group tonight and talked about each other.
This was all over at around 11:00 p.m. and the night wasn't even over yet. The David Crowder Band was hosting a late night concert in the arena at 11:15 but us old folks opted out of that one. It was time for a good night's rest so that we could get on with a full day of Passion 2010 Day 2.
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