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Overview
What exactly is it that instills passion in a person’s soul? What brings the fire to make a difference, the desire for significance, the power to live a life that matters? And who will lead us in this quest toward the future of the Church? In this remarkable book, some of today’s most gifted communicators highlight the dedicated generation that is rising up to show us how to lean toward the centrality of Jesus Christ and His bright light of glory that brings purpose to our own lives and proper glory to God the Father.
Since it first began in 1995, Passion has had the privilege of encountering millions of believers under the age of 25, a sea of men and women whose lives have been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Their voice is getting louder as they rise, united as a generation, bringing hope and light to the world.
Author and general editor Louie Giglio has brought together these incredible authors to share their thoughts on what it means to burn with a passion for Christ. As delivered to Passion Conferences, the book includes contributions from Giglio himself as well as multiple chapters from:
- Francis Chan
- John Piper
- Beth Moore
- Judah Smith
- Christine Caine
The wave is growing into a global awakening. Join the movement.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780529107404 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nelson, Thomas, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 03/04/2014 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 809 KB |
About the Author
Louie Giglio is pastor of Passion City Church and the original visionary of the Passion movement, which exists to call a generation to leverage their lives for the fame of Jesus. Since 1997, Passion Conferences has gathered college-aged young people in events across the United States and around the world. In 2022, Passion hosted over 50,000 students in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium with another one million people joining online. Louie is the national-bestselling author of over a dozen books, including Don't Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table, At the Table with Jesus, Goliath Must Fall, Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science, The Comeback, The Air I Breathe, I Am Not but I Know I Am, and others. As a communicator, Louie is widely known for messages such as "Indescribable" and "How Great Is Our God." An Atlanta native and graduate of Georgia State University, Louie has done postgraduate work at Baylor University and holds a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Louie and his wife, Shelley, make their home in Atlanta.
Read an Excerpt
passion
THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF GLORY
By Louie Giglio
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2014 Louie GiglioAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-529-11011-4
CHAPTER 1
The Story of Passion
LOUIE GIGLIO
Early Seeds Planted
"You know God is bringing you to Baylor for a reason," she said calmly. Have you ever been in one of those conversations where something was said and suddenly you knew God was in the equation? That's what happened by a lazy Texas river at an end-of-summer retreat with a group of college students I was working with in Houston. After lunch I ended up across the table from an amazing rising sophomore at Baylor, a Jesus-loving Tri Delta (that's a sorority) named Kay Dossey. Kay had recently had her own personal awakening to a real and personal relationship with Jesus. She was a leader on campus and had huge faith in God and a vision of what He could do in the lives of those around her.
For me, I had finished seminary in Fort Worth that spring and was entering another grad program at Baylor in a few days' time. (It might also be added that I was dating a Texan by the name of Shelley Graves who also attended Baylor and was at this same retreat.) During the past few summers, I had been leading as an intern to college students at two different churches in Houston. Kay had been a part of what had been happening in the summers as a growing band of collegians would return home each year for a few short months. We were seeking God with everything we had, packing out any available living room to dig into Scripture and worship together. Kay wanted to see what we were experiencing in Houston happen back at Baylor. And somehow she was convinced I was a part of God's plan.
Without telling the whole story, Kay's statement to me across the table that day in 1985 sparked a movement among the students of Baylor. On any given Monday night, it wasn't unusual to see 1,000 to 1,500 students who were on a new journey of worship and walking in the truth of God's Word. What I thought would be a two-year grad stint turned into a ten-year season of sharing life daily with college students, years that Shelley and I consider some of the most special of our lives.
Maybe something similar has happened to you. You weren't sure what path you were going to be on, but while looking at several options, God landed you in a place you didn't even see coming. That's what happened to Shelley and me. While we were wondering what was next in life after that graduate program, God was planting us at a critical intersection in the lives of college students—a place we have come to call the "university moment."
What became so clear to us in those years as we were pouring into and leading the students of Baylor, and as I was speaking to other campus groups across the nation, was that the university window of time is one of the most, if not the most, critical season in life. For most college students, the first semester at school is the first time they've been away from home—distant from the influences and people that have shaped their lives, with less accountability than ever and a wide array of choices regarding morality, beliefs, and values. Statistics show that for a vast number of Christians this terrain is difficult to navigate, something I can attest to from years of firsthand experience.
Why is it so difficult for young Christians to make the jump from the youth group back home to the campus environment? Why is it that a faith that seemed so sure in our adolescent years can quickly erode and sometimes even vanish? For one, in the campus climate students are faced with temptations that at times well-meaning people have attempted to shield them from in the past. They are assaulted by intellectual challenges to their worldview and beliefs that they may not be thoroughly prepared for. In the end, the question that starts to crack the foundation is this: is what I am carrying my faith or my parents' faith? Another way of asking it might be, is this what I believe or just what everybody at the church back home believed? Is Jesus real to me, or did I just have a mild dose of religion because that's what everyone else was doing?
Having been there year in and year out, we saw a lot of kids that were all fired up in the youth group implode within six weeks of moving into the dorm. Fortunately, we also watched as a lot of students who had walked away from what they had thought was faith truly find Jesus in a meaningful personal way before they graduated. But the reality is that most do not. And this is critical because the relationships and experiences forged while on campus shape so much of the trajectory of our lives. Like never before, a desire was stirring in us to stand at the crossroads of the "university moment" and do whatever we could to introduce people to the real and living Jesus.
From a Campus to the Nation
You should never count God out. What He has planned and dreamed for your life far exceeds the circumstances of your day. He is always at work, painting on a canvas bigger than we can see or imagine. Not only is this true today; it's been true of our entire story to this point.
While we thought we were going to be leading students at Baylor for a very short season, God had another plan. At the end of each school year, we would sit with our Board and ask God if He was going to renew our assignment for another year. Nine times He said yes. We never set out to be at Baylor for a decade; we just found ourselves being available to Him again—nine times in a row.
But all that changed in 1994. That fall we sensed God saying it was time to go to Atlanta and help my mom take care of my dad who had been disabled by a brain disease seven years before. We were happy to go. Not happy about leaving what we loved, but relieved because we so desperately wanted to help my family in an intensely difficult time.
We did what we thought best. We put in place a transition for our staff and stayed through the end of the spring semester. But then something happened we could not have seen coming. On April 28, my father died suddenly of heart failure, unrelated to all the battles he had faced as part of the brain disease. On the day that our ministry at Baylor hosted our ten-year going-away celebration, Shelley and I were in Atlanta burying my dad.
Talk about being confused. Our hearts were shattered by the loss of my dad—crushed in a way I could never have fathomed before. Though we could have and should have lost him several times along the way, I was in no way prepared for the excruciating pain. And more, we thought somehow we had completely missed God's timing and plan by staying in Texas when we should have come straight away to be with my family in the fall.
Shelley and I were unsure, unemployed, uprooted, and now plopped down in a new city without a clear mission or purpose. But God had a plan all along. Within a few months a vision flashed in my heart that took our breath away. It wasn't a picture of one campus seeking God—it was the vision of a sea of young people on their faces before God, crying out for revival in the land.
I told Shelley what happened, but the experience was so unusual that I waited a few weeks to share it with anyone else. After a while we convened with our Board and a few others who had offered counsel in our lives. Everyone was nodding along, somehow all sensing the same urging and timing of God. Was all the heartache for this? Were we uprooted from what we had poured so much into at Baylor so God could more easily pluck us for a new assignment?
Have you ever felt like that, or are you are in a place like that right now? While I don't know your circumstances, I do know that God always has something in mind. I firmly believe that the following chapters from these incredible communicators are going to speak directly to your heart in unforeseen ways. Most often, the trials we are walking through today are preparing us for a greater role in God's unfolding story.
Why Passion?
Over the course of the next few months, we talked with a few friends and campus leaders and eventually set out on a course to pursue the picture from the vision—because at this point, the image didn't come with a detailed how-to plan. Along with Cheryl Bell and Jeff Lewis, we rallied around a name that we felt best embodied this emerging gathering. We called it Passion.
All these years later, the name fits so well. But on day one it was a risk. Passion wasn't anywhere on the landscape of branding or cultural currency in 1995, except in an area of web domains we didn't want anyone to explore. But our team quickly rallied around a definition of Passion that spoke to the heart of what we wanted to be about:
Passion—the degree of difficulty we are willing to endure to accomplish the goal.
That's it! For us, passion does not simply denote enthusiasm, zeal, or emotion. Passion conveys the gritty determination to finish the task at hand. That's why the final days of Jesus' life on earth are known as Passion Week. Passion is about doing whatever it takes to get what's most important to you. And what we wanted most was for Jesus' name to be echoed throughout the land.
Our name was set, yet the framework of our vision was still coming together. How would we get there? How would our message be refined? And then it happened. God literally dropped His Word in our laps. After speaking to a group of college students at a statewide event in Arkansas, I returned to my seat as the responsive worship was happening. I had given everything I had in that talk, calling us to live for the glory of God. I sat down next to the director of the event, and as I did, he plopped his Bible in my lap, a rather large, worn edition, opened to a passage in Isaiah.
I was slightly annoyed because I really wanted to fully lean into the song we were singing, but he insisted I see what he was showing me, firmly landing his finger on a highlighted verse. Slowly my eyes crossed the words ...
"Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts."
His finger was resting on Isaiah 26:8, but it might as well have been the finger of God. In those words we found our banner. We now knew what God was calling us to be about. He was inviting us to inspire a generation to live for His renown.
Those words leapt off the page—His renown. At the time I wasn't really sure what renown was all about, but a quick glance at the dictionary explains: renown is fame or memory that will never fade away.
We later morphed two translations into the phrase: Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your truth we eagerly wait for you, for your name and renown are the desire of our souls. To this day, this confession is our core, an unchanging beacon we seek to live out and proclaim to the world.
Back to Memphis
So on the day students started arriving at Shelby Farms for OneDay2000, we could sense that God was going to meet us on that field in a powerful way. The main area was cordoned off from everyone, empty except for a tower built in the middle from which students read the Word of God nonstop for over twenty-four hours before the main gathering began. Then, on Saturday, we asked students to come prayerfully, reverently, soberly onto the field. And they did.
The clouds hung low that morning as 40,000 students and leaders settled on the hillside. Waiting. Believing. Expecting.
The day was unusual in so many ways. For one, according to one of the local TV weather reporters, an approaching thundercloud arriving on the edge of Shelby Farms suddenly split in two, traveling on each side of the field without dumping its fury on us all. On another occasion, a huge wooden cross was brought out before the people as Scriptures of mercy and grace were read over the people. At one point a young girl started running—sprinting—toward the stage and for the cross. I'd seen people "come forward" in all my years of church life, but I had never seen anyone sprint forward to reach out for the symbol of the cleansing flow of Jesus. After a while, students took hold of the cross and began to pass it overhead across the field, not as a way of worshipping an icon, but as a way of exalting what Christ had done for us.
But possibly the most stunning moment of all came after a pre-gathering prayer involving many of the speakers and leaders. Kneeling and standing in a tent beside the massive stage, after the final amen, no one wanted to move, and no one was eager to walk on the stage. It truly did feel holy, and though a huge crowd was waiting, we were all reluctant to walk on the stage. I recall someone saying, "Why don't you go up and lead first." And the reply, "No, you go." I knew when humans were acting like that that we really were on holy ground.
Something happened that day that changed us all. I believe that this movement, and even this book, got much of its start on that day, on those grounds, in the brightest light of His glory that we'd ever seen.
Almost twenty years later, many of the venues and faces have changed since our first gathering in Austin and the assembly at Shelby Farms. Our team has had the privilege of hosting worship events in locations ranging from an athletic field in Kampala to the finest performing arts center in Tokyo, from a velodrome in Cape Town to a football stadium in Atlanta. We've gathered students in fields, arenas, churches, conferences centers, and campus auditoriums on six continents. But while the places we have gathered have varied over the years, the message has remained the same. In fact, there has been a lot of consistency to this story, especially from the standpoint of those who have led with us on the Passion Team and those who have been on this journey with us from the beginning. When we arrived at that field in Memphis (and were praying in that tent that morning), Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, Nathan and Christy Nockels, and Matt Redman were already on board, leading alongside Sam Perry, Shelley Nirider, and a host of others, and helping forge the path with their songs of worship. John Piper spoke that day, giving an unforgettable message that has become a pillar of his ministry, called "Don't Waste Your Life." At the time, John was one of the few people I knew who was casting a vision for what it meant to desire God more than life itself and to glorify Him by our satisfaction in Him above all things.
Beth Moore spoke as well at OneDay2000 and has been a part of nearly every national gathering since she arrived with us in Austin in 1997. She has not just opened the Word of God in powerful ways, but she has been an avid supporter of our gatherings and mission.
Francis Chan, Christine Caine, and Judah Smith have also freely lent their voices to our movement in recent years, for which I am deeply grateful. They are dear friends and amazing instruments in the hands of God.
In the pages that follow, you will read some of the most impactful messages ever delivered to Passion-goers over the years. These chapters have never before been published in this format, and we believe you are going to be encouraged and challenged by these friends and leaders who were so excited to contribute both to Passion and this book.
Regardless of whether you had heard of Passion before opening this book, and regardless of your age and background, I believe that God has something to say to all of us about the beauty that comes from desiring his renown.
CHAPTER 2Boasting only in the Cross
JOHN PIPER
The opposite of wasting your life is living life by a single God-exalting, soul-satisfying passion. The well-lived life must be God-exalting and soul-satisfying because that is why God created us (Isaiah 43:7; Psalm 90:14). And "passion" is the right word (or, if you prefer, zeal, fervor, ardor, blood-earnestness) because God commands us to love him with all our heart (Matthew 22:37), and Jesus reminds us that he spits lukewarm people out of his mouth (Revelation 3:16). The opposite of wasting your life is to live by a single, soul-satisfying passion for the supremacy of God in all things.
How serious is this word "single"? Can life really have that much "singleness" of purpose? Can work and leisure and relationships and eating and lovemaking and ministry all really flow from a single passion? Is there something deep enough and big enough and strong enough to hold all that together? Can sex and cars and work and war and changing diapers and doing taxes really have a God-exalting, soul-satisfying unity?
This question drives us to the death of Jesus on the cross. Living for the glory of God must mean living for the glory of Christ crucified. Christ is the image of God. He is the sum of God's glory in human form. And his beauty shines most brightly at his darkest hour.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from passion by Louie Giglio. Copyright © 2014 Louie Giglio. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Introduction ix
1 The Story of Passion Louie Giglio 1
2 Boasting Only in the Cross John Piper 11
3 Can These Bones Live? Louie Giglio 31
4 The Captivated Mind Beth Moore 49
5 Trembling at the Word of God Francis Chan 61
6 No Funeral Today Louie Giglio 79
7 Passion for the Supremacy of God John Piper 93
8 Divine Interruptions Christine Caine 121
9 Passion, Purpose, and Designer Jeans Louie Giglio 131
10 Sowing the Seeds Beth Moore 147
11 Getting to the Bottom of Your Joy John Piper 159
12 Ready, Get Set, Go Judah Smith 181
13 Fearless Louie Giglio 197
14 Living a Life That Makes Sense Francis Chan 209
15 We Will Carry the Name Louie Giglio 225
16 Let's Work It Out Louie Giglio 239
Notes 253
About the Author 255