TLANTA – A strong sense of anticipation, energy and
purpose was evident all over downtown Atlanta Tuesday as over 60,000
students and ministry leaders from across the country and around the
world descended on the Georgia Dome and Georgia World Congress Center
for the Passion 2013 conference.
"Is this not incredible?"
Passion founder and visionary architect Louie Giglio said as he surveyed
the energized crowd. "It's no longer a dream, but reality. And I can
tell you that you are much louder tonight than the crowd watching
football here last night!"
Passion staff and volunteer teams had
worked tirelessly to set up the Georgia Dome in a matter of hours
following the Chick-fil-A Bowl football game which ended late Monday
night.
University students from all 50 United States, 55 countries, and
2,200 college campuses are represented at this week's four-day
conference, the largest single Passion gathering in North America in the
18-year history of the Passion movement.
"Back in 1996, we knew
that God was on the move, that God had a heartbeat for 18-25 year olds,
and especially for the 20 million college students, the vast majority of
whom do not have a clue as to why they are on this planet," Giglio
recalled. "We wanted Passion to be solely focused on the person and fame
of Jesus Christ, and for young people to make the focus of their life's
goal to make Jesus known in their generation."
He showed a video
clip from a 1995 Christian gathering in Seoul, South Korea, where some
60,000 people had gathered for worship and teaching. "We saw what was
happening and thought, 'God is building a global movement'" he said. "We
had done some things that we thought were big, but God was saying to
us, 'I want to do something in this generation that is beyond what you
can ask or imagine.' And here we are, so many years later, and I'm
looking at another crowd of 60,000 people."
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