Passion Recap: Atlanta Memories

It seems as though Sundays and snow days have turned into my blogging days… They are the few moments when I have time to sit and think and actually write. I've been wanting to write about my experience in Atlanta for Passion 2014 ever since I got home last week, but I haven't gotten around to it until now. So here we go :)

It's pretty cool when you expect God to do great things, and then He goes and blows your mind by doing even greater things than you anticipated. Going into the weekend, I expected to see God go to work in some pretty awesome ways at the Passion Conference. He did… He definitely did.

First off, let me just say whenever you get a huge group of people in one place to worship our great God, it's an awesome time. There is nothing like having 20,000 people singing at the top of their lungs in praise to their Creator. That being said, we should get that excited and passionate (no pun intended… honestly) about worship whether we are in an arena packed with people or alone in our cars. But still, there's something refreshing about corporately worshipping with thousands of others. 

Throw in some great worship bands, and it gets even better :) Over the weekend we were blessed with the opportunity to worship with Chris Tomlin (who is AMAZING live), Kristian Stanfill, Crowder (who just sounds super cool… and is one of the few people I've seen who can rock a beard of that volume… haha), Kari Jobe, and Hillsong United. The worship times were absolutely incredible, and the final worship session on Saturday was my personal favorite, with everyone who led worship throughout the weekend back on stage to lead the whole place in a crazy awesome time of praise to our God.

It would take much too long to go into detail about everything that happened throughout the course of the weekend, but I will do my best to highlight some of the standout Passion moments for me.

Saturday morning, we had the pleasure of listening to Francis Chan lead a session. I absolutely love listening to that guy. He has such a great sense of humor, yet he is so wise. And I really loved what he had to say. He spoke from 2 Peter 1, emphasizing verses 5-10. He pinpointed the phrase "make every effort" (vs. 5), challenging us to make each day, each new opportunity, our best yet. He went through the list of Christ-like characteristics listed in the chapter, explaining practical ways to grow in these ways, building the character we as Christians are called to obtain. 

While talking about these characteristics (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love), he kept going back to the phrase "make every effort." Make every effort to gain knowledge. Make every effort to stand strong and have self-control. Make every effort to love.

This challenged me personally, as recently I've felt God reminding me to not just pray, but to pray and then act. To make every effort. Hearing that again reenforced the realizations I've been making about my need to take action and not just expect things to happen. So props to God and Francis Chan on bringing a solid message. 

Another favorite session of mine from the conference came from Christine Caine, who was an excellent speaker! She used the great analogy of a photographic darkroom, comparing God preparing and equipping us for all He has planned for our lives to developing film —time spent in the "darkroom" allows God to fix our eyes on Him, to impress His image into us, and develop us into the people He has called us to be. 

She consistently reminded us that this being molded into His likeness isn't a quick snapshot, it is a long process (pronounced pro-cess from the mouth of the Aussie woman). I'm big on analogies, and I really enjoyed this session.

~

Our wonderful group of twenty young people made quite the memories in the speedy weekend road trip… Including waiting in line for over an hour in the freezing cold (do not be mistaken, Georgia in the winter time is NOT warm!!) to get floor seats, then stuffing our faces with nearly forty tacos only minutes before the arena doors opened, only to smuggle the leftover tacos (successfully!) into the arena… Telling riddles on the way home to pass the time (and laughing hysterically when someone desperately rode the struggle bus trying to explain a riddle… Haha!)… Midnight pizza and hang out nights in the hotel lobby… and crazy three a.m. room adventures that are best kept in our memories. 

'Twas a great, Spirit-filled weekend with some wonderful people. It's been a blessed opportunity to go, and I'm already looking forward to Passion 2015! 

~MM