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From the Heart

Blog

Passion 2017

By: Bryan Peters with Marty Sloan,  January 13, 2017

Where else will you see Carrie Underwood perform on stage with David Crowder? Where else will college students get up at 7am and go to bed at 1am? Where else will you see college age students from all over the world gather together? Where else we you see middle age adults from all over the country gather together just to hold the door for all those college students? The answer to all the above is the Passion Conference!

Every January for the last 20 years college age adults (18-25) have been meeting together to worship God. For 20 years the purpose of this conference has been Isaiah 26:8 “Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.” (NIV) This year the Passion Conference was one of the last events to be held in the Georgia Dome. Make sure you imagine that right, the Georgia Dome, where the Falcons play football. And not just half of the Dome or a section of the Dome. The whole Dome! Imagine 55,000 young adults worshiping and praising the name of Jesus!! Awesome!

To get an idea of how big it is, the cross in the picture is the stage and it is bigger than a football field!

This year Thomasville Road Baptist Church took 33 college students to Passion. We arrived Monday afternoon and left Wednesday afternoon. Every waking moment in between was either worship, hearing the word of God, or spending time in small groups of people from around the world! It is one of the most exhausting weeks of the year.

Here is a perspective from one of our young adults, Bryan Peters:

Passion 2017 – I wish it was not special.

The yearly Passion Conference is a special opportunity of worship and learning for students age 18-25 and I wish it was not. I have no problem with the target age or even the frequency of the gathering. 50,000+ people attended this year and that number makes for a truly massive worship service and spiritual atmosphere, not to mention long lines getting in, getting out, and getting food. I still wish it was not…special.

What made it special to me and what made it special to the next person may be different things, but it would be difficult to attend and walk away from it unaffected. It carries a different feel from most of my experiences in this world. For me, what is most special is the worship. On the face of it, the worship is of the highest quality when it comes to production value and leadership. But beyond that there is just true worship. Worship stripped of all that often holds some, myself included, in reserve. As a vocally untalented individual who worships alongside talented others, I’m often concerned that my voice sounds embarrassingly bad to some or worse, musically distracting for those with a better ear for notes. Next I worry if it’s okay to raise my hand or hands. “Do I look weird?” “This feels weird.” “How do I put my arms down when I feel like I’m done?” None of that matters. I repeat: None of that matters. In such a place, surrounded by so many co-worshippers, surrounded by angels I’m sure, all of that falls away. I sing at the top of my voice, not because no one can pick my voice out of the crowd, but to add to the chorus of praise to our God who is so worthy of praise. “Ow, my arms hurt! How long have they been up?! Can we sing this song again?!” We worship in spirit and in truth, and that feels special. I wish it wasn’t.

In between the glorious worship of our Father we heard from some great speakers, over the two-and-a-half-day span.  All of them were inspired by God in bringing the Gospel freshly to us and they faithfully followed the Spirits leading. They echoed thoughts I have in my own meditation on the Word and pointed out things I’d overlooked or hadn’t quite figured out yet. This was still special and I truly wish it was not.

This wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention a couple other things. Jay and Katherine Wolf shared with us their testimony of faith through the enormous physical and emotional pain they’ve endured. They gave us a story to remind us of the hope we have in Christ and the security we have in knowing that God has plan for each and all of us even when it doesn’t make sense to our tiny minds. We were also given the opportunity to “Make history together” as many of us committed to giving to Compassion International to sponsor children around the world to provide them with education and care. Together we cleared the children from the waiting lists in El Salvador, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Indonesia, which was over 7,000 kids altogether. That was special and I wish it was not.

So, why don’t I wish these things were special? Because God wants these things for us, and from us, every day of our short lives. He commands us to “be holy, for I am holy” and he is going to push us and pull us and drive us and hold us and mold us and shape us and crush us to be as close to holy as we possibly can be on this side of eternity. Until we leave this world we should be striving and struggling within ourselves and along with Him to be as holy as possible. Worshipping in spirit and in truth should be our daily reality, not special. Right now it’s confined to my car and places where no one can hear me but God because I’m not there yet, but I’m trying. Feeling the spirit move through a sermon, meditating on the Word, and being overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s love being revealed to us should be what we seek after in our quiet times and looked forward to when we go to church. Hearing the pain and struggles of fellow believers and servants of God should be as welcomed as the stories of triumph and praises to God we report in our Bible study groups. I wish we were passed the era of unspoken prayer requests or spoken requests for travel, safety, health, and the other surface level concerns we feel comfortable sharing with strangers. Making a sacrifice of money or time and to bear the burdens of others in hopes that they will come to the knowledge of the love of Christ should be something for which we pray. This country is stupidly blessed with so much and yet there are people within our borders that are homeless and impoverished because we don’t see that as part of our calling. We are often blinded by our mistrust, not always misplaced, of the status or motives of those who are without and we forget that we’re called to share the love that Christ has given to us with them, even if they’re lying to our faces, because we have something they need far more than whatever their sign says they want.

I thoroughly enjoyed Passion and I love to think that in 20 years it will still be going strong. I hope that my future children have the opportunity to experience it. I hope that massive gathering still feels special. But then again I don’t!

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