i remember the first day of passion 2011. i was sitting at home on my butt, unable to attend because of school pre-planning. i was bummed, to say the least. sad i couldn't go and was unsure if this would be my last opportunity to go (they cap the age limit at 25 and you only have so many days off in a big girl job). to make up for not going, i bought the digital pass to get all the talks and music online. and, i was decided i was going next year. i was determined. a year seemed a really long time away though. fast forward to september or so. meeting with stephen (supervisor) and he said we were probably gonna go to passion 2012 with camp - as a recruiting event of some sort. wahoo!! but, you never just can tell with camp until the ticket is bought. (that happened in december. ha.)
fast forward to december. we had off off from christmas to new year's. yes!! back in school again! so, crazy me decided i was gonna see a lot of people (everybody's home for break, right?), go home for a few days, visit a friend's house, attend a handful of reunions, paint my room, go to my second nugget drop (truett's new year's eve celebration) and who knows what else. i had so much time over break. or so i thought. well, in all the craziness, and with new year's falling on a weekend, i kinda forgot about passion. namely, the excitement of last year had now faded into "i kinda wish i didn't have to go to passion so i could rest and relax from break." point in case, the first night in community groups, we were asked to tell everyone what we hoped to get out of passion 2012. i literally had no idea. i haven't even stopped for a minute to even think about passion. to even pray for the few days. wow...with all that said, the lord was good. i must confess that until the last night, my mind was always too preoccupied with who i was trying to find or sit with, instead of preparing my heart for worship and the talks. (you think with a ton of your friends in one place it would be a great idea to meet up, but throw 40,000 other people in the mix and it becomes a whole lot more difficult.) dangit samchok. but, once again, he is still good. and, even if my "heart wasn't prepared" for passion, i can still learn a lot. even if it is afterwards. in fact, i think it is going to be a conference where i keep digesting bits and pieces of it for months.
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| a view of the dome for a night session |
here are some of my takeaways thus far:
- 40,000+ 18-24 year olds meeting in the name of Jesus. $3 million raised for freedom. wow. 27 million modern day slaves. ouch.
- really read the bible. know the one who wrote it. don’t believe something just because some famous speaker or theologian said it.
- in the story of the good samaritan, the first two who passed by viewed the man on the side of the road as an interruption, not an object of the ministry…much of jesus’ life was spent ministering to interruptions (luke 8:40-56, for example)…where am i missing opportunities to “minister” because of so called “interruptions”?
- “compassion is nothing unless you get up and do something.” where am i "doing something"?
- “is the goal to arrive at death safely?”
- “is my life worth reproducing?”
i'll take it for now...
