First 1,000 views at our blog

Today we've had 1,000th view of our blog. Cool. I am happy that this is a place where people stop by time after time to read news about our life. Keep coming by, we will always have some updates or interesting stories for you!:-) God bless.

Passion Ft.Worth: Day 2

Francis Chan at Passion 2011 Ft. Worth Yellow Community Group

This day at Passion Ft. Worth was the ONLY full day of the conference. I sort of expected the speakers to continue to talk on Philippians, but this second day of the conference continued exactly the same trend as the first day did and both Fracis Chan and John Piper continued to speak more directly from their hearts rather then researching the book of Philippians verse by verse together with us, and it was GREAT!

Francis spoke about the importance for everyone of us to EXPERIENCE God in a personal and real way. That no one can make us or force us to experience the Lord intimately and personally!! Therefore, we all should seek the Lord wholeheartedly – and He will reveal Himself to us. This was a great reminder of another sermon I’ve heard long time ago… my favorite phrase from that sermon was: “If each generation does not experience God first hand, all we’re going to be as Christians is just another social club, where we’re interested in Jesus instead of football, knitting or model cars!”

We’ve also started getting to know each other more in community groups. Funny, but this year, as another proof that this world is a small place, in our community group we’ve met a girl, Lauren, who happens to be in the same church with a Ukrainian girl, Anya, whom we know through Passion… It was great to talk with her and other group members about different things in our lives.

And then in the evening we had John Piper. His sermon topic was “What Is The Bottom of Your Joy?”. It was an AMAZING sermon, probably one of the most influential sermons I’ve heard in past 3-5 years. I will write about it in a separate post.

John Piper preaching on "What Is The Bottom Of Your Joy?"

Not only we had a chance to hear him preach, but Passion guys have invited us to pray with their whole team before the evening sessions started. It was quite an amazing experience to be there together with all those guys, who organize and lead Passion movement and to see how important prayer is for them. Here were those big man and women of faith leading such a large movement, yet completely aware of the fact that without His power NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN!! We were there with other guys, who were at Passion from other countries (Canada, Brazil, Ireland) and Louie introduced us to the whole crowd there, as people, who work with students in other countries of the world… It was really special!! Me and Katya have got a felling that being at Passion we are indeed a part of ONE BIG FAMILY – carrying the name of Jesus to the students around the world.

Anyway, that was Day 2 of Passion Ft. Worth 2011 – full of impressions, full of transformational truth, full of encouragement, new friends and fellowship with God’s family.

Passion 2011 Ft.Worth: Day 1

First day of Passion 2011 at Ft. Worth just passed by and WOW - what a start! The main verse that Louie spoke on this evening was from Philipians 1: " For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain!" Powerful, powerful words!!

The conference has started out kind of slowly (most people started getting registered around 18:00), but sure enough by the start of the first session we had a room full with over 10,000 students in it. The worshp time was great, as always, even though sound was not the same as usual. But when we opened the word of God the Lord has really started opening up what the conference will be about.

"Has the TRAJECTORY for your life been set?"

Louie was reading from Philipians 1 and then from Acts 9:1-5, 9 and talking about how it is important for us as Christiains to first and forewmost to be the "servants of Jesus Christ" (that's how Paul introduces himself and Timothy in the beginning of the book). It is important that people know us in that role first of all. Then he contiued talking about why Paul always introduced himself like that - at some point in his life he went through a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ. and he just could not be the same (Acts 9:1-9).

That meeting on the road to Damascus for Saul (whom Paul used to be) has set a TRAJECTORY for the rest of his life. A change that he went trough was enormous and inreversable. "Can we all confidently say that in each of our lives we went trough that change?" If we didn't and just pretend being a Christian, the we will not be living out the words of Paul, where death would be gain for us, but to continue living in this world is Christ.

"We often turn Paul's word upside down! "We live to gain, and when we die then we will be with Christ (even though truth be told, we really do not want to die)"

It was interesting, that even though the book of Philippians is mostly about joy, from the very first session of the conference the keynote was seeming to be on transformational change that takes place in our hearts, when we experience God face to face for the FIRST TIME. The question, which Louie was getting at that first evening was: "Have you ever really experiened that transformational change, that only God can bring in your life?"

Then in the evening before we went to the David Crowder live concert we went to the prayer area, which is called "Kneel" to pray for around an hour: for the conference, for our nation, campuses and the world. It was an incredible experience, even though I'm usually not the most endurant person when it comes to prayer:-( However, this time it was such a blessing both for me and Katya to go through...

Well, I think this is enough information for this post, even though that first day of Passion was that and much more (as it usually is at Passion conferences). Good night, will update more later!!