Month: January 2007

A post from History in the Making:

It’s tempting as a pastor to lead people on a comfortable path. Ahh, the love and appreciation you get. No one leaves the church. But it’s ultimately not the route God wants us to take. God doesn’t just lead us to green pastures. He leads us to green pastures through death valley. Take Psalm 23:

I got back from Passion 07 last Thursday, but haven’t blogged about it yet. I came down with a cold Friday night that’s still with me, so I’ve accomplished a lot less than I’d like in the past few days. At Passion this year, there were over 22,000 college students in Atlanta for four days devoted to God’s glory. There were three highlights of this year’s conference:

1. My family group – last year, I didn’t connect well with my family group. I was one of two guys, and every time we saw each other, I think we ended up talking about eating disorders. This time around, I had an excellent family group, where we were open and relevant to each other. I want to keep in touch with these guys! Thanks Daniel (x 3), Hunter, Gennie, and Julie. Oh yeah, I also still have a long way to go on humility.
2. Being personally challenged – I learned that I need to risk more for the cause of Christ. Especially in the areas of my image and my finances. And I thought that I had things in order in those areas. Interestingly enough, the speaker that connected with me and challenged me the most this year was John Piper, especially in his breakout session. I say that’s interesting, since I haven’t previously been a huge Piper fan.
3. Do Something Now – we wanted to impact the world as a result of these four days. When I first saw the partial list of do something now causes, I thought they were impossible goals. But with God all things are possible. We didn’t meet every goal–we exceeded every goal, usually to the largest extent possible. See the official blog post about the results here.

Everything in the conference was top notch, but the specifics are irrelevant. What matters is that God was glorified, and his glory is going to become more prominent shining through the world as a result of these four days. Especially cool was the arrive in silence outdoor candlelight vigil on the last night. Cool to be worshiping God late at night in the heart of the city.

My prayer for myself and everyone who was at Passion is to not let this be a spiritual high, but to let it be a spiritual turning point–a time when God spoke to us both as a generation and as individuals. Let’s get out there and let his lite shine.

You can also check out my Passion 07 pictures in the gallery.