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 2010: Day 2

Today was a first full day of the conference and finally we've got to experience what Passion is really all about. By that I mean being at the main sessions with such great speakers as Beth Moore and Francis Chan, at breakout sessions and, most importantly at community groups. At community groups it was a great time to process everything we would learn at the main sessions and also to share some personal stories and pray for each other. Later on it has also proved to be a great way to meet new friends and establish good contacts with other youth leaders.

Ok, so, here's briefly what the main sessions were all about. Beth Moore spoke on the passage from Hebrews 13:20-21 on how God equips us (makes us complete) through different circumstances to do His will in every good work.

Francis Chan taught on the importance of God's word and how important it is for us to value it, every time we open the Bible, and how we need to almost TREMBLE every time we read it. Some of the passages he used were Isaiah 66:2, 2 Peter 1:16-19, etc. What really hit home for me was when he spoke about how we need to be changed by God (and His Word) from the inside. Only this way we will not come back to the sin and our old nature like pig comes back to the mud - no matter how much you're trying to clean them.

Then at the end of the day we had a late night concert with David Crowder Band - and it was an absolutely awesome and rocketing time of worship and unique music from DCB!! Exhausted, tired, but happy and overwhelmed we came back to our hotel literally falling asleep on our way...

Oh, forgot one more thing, today we also had a meeting for international students and we've met all other guys from Ukraine. All together there were 10 of us there coming from Ukraine. Praise God for those who could have come!!

Ukrainians at PASSION 2010
(sorry for the bad picture quality, but that's the only one I've got)