Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Passion Conference 2014 HOU


I've been waiting for this day for months. At 8:30 am, my parents, my friend Cici, and I loaded up the car to head to Houston. In Houston was Passion Conference. It's a big Christian college conference put on by Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin. It's usually in Atlanta, but this year there was one in Houston too.

Love this place 
This is inside the store. I've never noticed it before.
We stopped at Buc-cees on the way there and back, because it's a great place.

We then drove the rest of the way to Houston. When we got there, we decided to go ahead and quickly head out to the Toyota Center. We walked to look for food on the way.

Our hotel used to be a bank. I didn't get a picture of the vault door.
I liked the sink.
It had a cool vintage-y-retro-y feel to it.
It was about a mile walk to the center.
I found the Houston newspaper office! 
The center was downtown in the business district, so it was hard to find food. Everything closed mid afternoon. This place was open though! 
Potato soup <3
We ended up stopping at some Mexican place. It was pretty much like a Mexican Parkway Grill. It was good. I had potato soup. 

Then, we continued the walk to the center. We got there and saw a huge clump of people.

#enditmovement
We joined the clump for a bit, but then decided we had an hour to wait. We walked around the building. On the other side, there was an organized system with two forming lines. 

We waited in line for a while, and then they finally let us inside. We rushed inside and tried to figure out the best seats. Did we want to sit on the floor? Did we want to sit in the center? We pretty much had first pick, so we settled for some seats about five rows from the ground, diagonal to the stage. We could see everything!
Our view for every session
There was a group that was starting the youth group classics: the wave and the roller coaster. The wave was going good for a few minutes, but the roller coaster never really caught on. 

We wore our badges the entire time we were there.
Then it was time. We had speculated all day about who would be the first speaker and singer. It ended up being a huge group that included Crowder, Chris Tomlin, and Kristian Stanfill on worship and Louie Giglio on the message.

Over 17,000 students were here. They sold out.
You have to kick off with confetti, right?
Chris Tomlin
Louie faced away from us during the message, so I didn't get a picture of him. 

His main message was "How do I know if I've seen Jesus?"
  • It's not the cross, but your cross.
  • You know God was not a passive bystander at the cross; he was the instigator of the wrath.
  • You know God's wrath poured out on Christ obliterated our curse.
  • You know your past is gone.
  • We see we are crushed by God's grace.
When he was done speaking, Hillsong United came out and did a worship set. I love Hillsong. After that, we got a taxi and headed back to the hotel at around 1 am.

The next morning came sooner than I wanted. We were back at the center by 8 to get seats for the 9:30 session. It started with Crowder and he was amazing. Then Shelley Giglio came out and introduced some special guests.

Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, the creators of "The Bible" series.
Jesus was there too.
After they spoke to us and encouraged us to see their new movie Son of God, it was Francis Chan's turn.
I love Francis Chan.
Chan is one of my favorite speakers. I heard him at a DNOW I went to several years back. We went to a conference and he and Kristian Stanfill were both there.

He spoke on the fact that no one is more godly than anyone else. Everyone is at the exact same level.

Beth Moore
Beth Moore talked about time. She spoke on living the dash between birth and death. She spoke on how time is getting anxious for the coming of Christ.

The curator of the American Bible Society
I don't know how to spell her name, but it sounds like Dr. Leona Lupus. She's a little, old western European lady. She brought the first Bible printed in America. It's in an extinct Native American language. They wouldn't tell us how she got it to Houston.

Genesis in the Native American language
I bought every book except for Beth Moore's. It was hardback and I didn't want to carry it. So far, I've read the blue one and am working on the colorful one.
I'm definitely going back next year. 




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