Are you PASSION-ate?

The last month has been a bit of a whirl of experiences: the holidays, family, ministry, travel. So I'm finally getting back to the blog after a hiatus. One of the most stirring experiences was traveling with my wife and merry bunch of college students (Gabe, Matt, Tim, Ray plus Allie) to the Passion Conference in Nashville, TN. Here they are











































We joined 18,000 college students and ministry leaders from around the country for 3 days of teaching, worship, praying and discussion. The music was loud, inspiring and just plain fun. We were led in worship by David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall and Matt Redman. I'm not much of a concert guy, so I really enjoyed the engaging production. Could this be church? I'm not sure I'm ready for light shows and smoke machines, but a stadium full of people singing at the top of their lunch, hands raised singing songs of devotion to Christ. The word that I have found myself using to describe the worship is FREE. It may sound a bit charismatic, but the environment invited response and with the use of silence I sensed that I had time to allow the Spirit to work through the areas of my life that needed repentance or confession. I was not just singing songs or showing off, I had been invited to respond to God, whether singing or silent. And in the end I felt a spiritual rejuvenation. Like a small dry sponge that just been washed over by a bucket of fresh water and now was drippingly saturated.














There was a lot of excitement and knee-slapping, but to balance that out the conference hosted a top-notch line of speakers. Louie Giglio, Beth Moore and John Piper. The teaching has had my mind spinning. I've regained an appetite for the Scriptures, for memorization and to wrestle with the goodness of the Gospel.

The sessions from John Piper have gripped my attention.

In his first session his theme was: the glory of the Grace of God was maximally displayed in the suffering of the Son. Before the foundations of the world, God determined that his Son would be humiliated and slaughtered so that those who far-off could be brought near and become His children. That is Grace. According to Piper this Grace, the giving of what was not deserved (righteousness) to those who do not deserve it (wicked man), is most abundant in the undeserved yet willing suffering of the Son (the innocent one). Wow!

Then in session two Piper turned the conference on its head by inviting us into join in making God great. He said: Since the glory of the Grace of God is maximally displayed by the suffering of the Son, will you join the Son in maximally glorifying the Grace of God by willingly suffering on behalf of this gospel of grace. The invitation was to walk away from valuing prestige, position, comfort even coolness to be poured out even to the point of suffering for the glorification of the grace of God through Christ.

"but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation." 1 Peter 4:13

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." Colossians 1:24

After three busy days, all we had the energy for was....














It was a blast and one h%$? of a way to start off the new year. For more pictures go to the Passion'06 on the PICS tab at www.seven27.org. And consider joining us for Passion'07 in Atlanta, Jan 1-4.