passion conference 2013 {atlanta, ga}

This post is about a month late, sorry! I haven't had as much time to blog as I would have liked. At the beginning of January, Steve and I went to Atlanta, GA with about 35 college students for the Passion Conference. Every year, Louie Giglio heads up this conference that brings tens of thousands of college students together to worship and learn from amazing teachers like Beth Moore and John Piper. When I was a freshman, I went to Passion 2010, and there were about 20,000 college students in Atlanta. Neither of us went the next year because we were on a mission trip to Africa, but Steve and I went to Passion 2012 with the church last year right after we got married. There were about 40,000 students. This year we managed to almost fill up the Georgia Dome with over 60,000 students. 

The hotel we stayed in this year was basically connected to the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), which is where the Passion stores and the donations centers were, along with most of the community groups. It was very convenient being so close to all the GWCC and the Dome. 

This post is mostly pictures. My parents got me a new camera for Christmas, so I had a lot of fun taking pictures of all the light shows. 

This year at Passion they promoted something called End It Movement. The goal of this movement is to raise awareness about the continuing existence of human trafficking. Twenty-seven million people in the world are trapped in human trafficking, being exploited for labor and sex. 

Beth Moore gave a in-depth talk about the Last Supper. I love listening to Beth, since she always gets way deeper into scripture than I could on my own. Her talk at Passion 2012 was my favorite. I highly recommend that you watch it if you can find it online. 

Below is one of the "Freedom Centers" where Passion volunteers collected donations to not only raise awareness about human trafficking, but also prevent, rescue, and restore those currently trapped in slavery. 

On the last night they brought in Lecrae, who put on an awesome show with the 116 Clique.

After Lecrae, John Piper preached about preparing ourselves for suffering in this world, and enduring that suffering by looking forward to the reward that we have in heaven. It was a good reminder that you're not always going to be surrounded by Christians like we were at Passion, and that we need to have our hope rooted in Christ if we're going to persevere to the end. 

Overall, the Passion Conference is a little too showy and flashy for my taste, but it does have a few things going for it. They're always good at raising awareness and funds (over 3 million this year) for causes that we as Christians should be very concerned about. I'm glad that they have focused specifically on human trafficking over the past two conferences. It gives a continuity to the conference as a whole that wasn't there in 2010 when they had several different causes for students to support. 

Human trafficking is an issue that Christians cannot be silent about. We need to be the ones at the forefront of the freedom movement, because the millions of people trapped in slavery need to be set free not only from their captors, but also from the sin that enslaves them. Only when they recognize Christ as their savior can they truly be set free. Passion supports organizations like A21 Campaign, International Justice Mission, Not For Sale, and several others that are intent on spreading the gospel as they rescue and restore people from earthly slavery. 

The majority of the speakers that they put in front of us are biblically sound and encourage students to endure in suffering, speak out against injustice, be a part of the local church, and persevere in the knowledge that we are saved by grace through faith alone, it is not our doing but Christ's. 

Over my years at this conference, there have been a few speakers that have fallen short of preaching the gospel faithfully, or have preached a good word at Passion but haven't reflected biblical principles in their ministries. This is certainly a dangerous reality, since many students might assume that if these speakers were chosen for Passion, they are guaranteed to say absolute truth. I am lucky enough to be part of a church that has taught me over and over again to check what I hear from any speaker against the infallible word of scripture. Passion has always been a good exercise for me in this way, and every year it has sparked good conversations among our group. It's a reminder to us all that no speaker or pastor is perfect.

One of the best things about Passion is the community groups. They divide the students up into groups of a few thousand and then from there they get into groups of 8-10. Students meet with their groups about 6 times throughout the conference to talk about the speakers, what Passion is teaching them, how to apply what they're learning to their lives, go through scripture together, and talk about their struggles. This year I heard from almost all of the girls we took that their groups were fantastic. Students opened up to one another about hard issues and often found that they had a lot of struggles in common. Our group definitely gets the most out of the conference through the community groups, and I know of people who are still in contact with friends that they met at their community group years ago. 

I think I've rambled enough now, you get the point. Passion may not be for everyone, and it does have its downfalls, but we must remember that no conference is going to be perfect. Passion does a good job with a lot of things, and every year we bring back students fired up for the Lord, ready to make an impact on the U of A campus for Christ. I think this is probably our last year to go to the conference (me and Steve, I don't know about the church). We're definitely okay with that, but we are glad that we went because God used it to bless us with good teaching and stronger relationships within our college ministry.