I had the opportunity to travel to Atlanta on January 1-5 for Passion2010 with three of our college students here at the church. This was my first time to Passion and I was pretty excited as I have been listening to the Passion CD's since they first started coming out. Much of the music that has come from that conference has been influential in my life and the life of the Church. I was looking forward to also hearing the message that goes along with the music.
Our little group drove down to Atlanta to spare some of the cost and spent and night in North Carolina at the halfway point to make the 12 hour drive a little more manageable. We stayed with our friends Jason and Krystal Goss. Their hospitality was amazing! We arrived in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon and it was freezing! We knew it would be cold, but not this cold! The high was never above 36. I'm glad I packed a lot of long sleeve shirts because I only brought a windbreaker with me!
The music at Passion was amazing- which was to be expected. My group began the conference in the Georgia World Congress Center where we were led by Charlie Hall and his band. It doesn't seem to me that Charlie Hall gets the same publicity that David Crowder, Matt Redman, or Chris Tomlin get- but he may be my favorite out of the three (with Matt Redman coming in a close second). I really like Charlie's approach to worship leading- and he has an amazing gotee!
The David Crowder Band was the late night concert in the Phillips Arena on Saturday night. From all apearances, it seemed like a great concert- but we were stuck high above the speakers and could not hear clearly. Every time Crowder spoke, it sounded like an adult speaking from a Peanuts movie. Needless to say, it was my least enjoyable part of the weekend-even though it had nothing to do with Crowder! We just had terrible seats.
On Monday, we were back in the Georgia World Congress Center and led by the Passion Supergroup featuring Chris Tomlin, Kristian Stainfill, Christy Nockels, and Matt Redman. It was pretty cool to see them on stage together. Tomlin and Stainfill are pretty demonstrative on-stage while Redman stands there strums his guitar, and sings. It was an interesting dichotemy of worship leading styles.
Sunday night, we went to the late night concert featuring Hillsong United. I thought about telling how we had floor seats, lost our floor seats because of a Passion communication glich, and then snuck into the concert because we couldn't attend the following night because we were heading home. I won't tell you about that. I'll just say that Hillsong United was great! It was high energy, passionate worship. I was pretty pumped that Brooke Fraser was there to sing "Hosanna." That really made my night.
The new Passion CD with music from the conference comes out in March. As someone who was not impressed with the last Passion CD, I think this one will be really good.
Tomorrow- I'll be recapping some of the messages from Passion2010
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