The Passion Movement — it started in 1997 by Louie Giglio on a college campus with 2,000 students in Austin, Texas. They had the mission to ignite a spiritual awakening for Jesus, and it then grew into a global movement focused on worship, prayer, and justice, now hosting tens of thousands of young people annually and raising millions for global causes, all based on Isaiah 26:8, “Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.”
Passion has been one of those events that I always dreamed of going to, but the timing never worked out with my schooling and sports commitments. But this year, 2026, the Lord flung open the doors for me to be able to go with one of my close friends. Our tickets were fully paid for by generous friends and family, and we drove all the way from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Arlington, Texas to experience this great awakening for ourselves. And let me put it simply: We did. Both of us came home in tears of joy and gratitude, with changed hearts, and wanting to turn the car back around to keep dancing and singing to Jesus with 45,000 other believers.
Often times, we “think up” and imagine what events like this will be like. We try to picture in our minds how it’ll go, what will happen, how we’ll feel, what we’ll witness, if we’ll be changed, and we think we have an idea. And what I’ve learned is this: You don’t. Nothing I thought of in my mind or the things I tried to picture were even close to the glory of God that was in that arena and that I experienced. Because the reality is this: When Jesus is in the room, He shatters expectations. He does things that we could have never imagined, speaks in ways that we’d never see coming, heals areas that we didn’t know needed healing, convicts us of things that we’ve been running from or hiding from. When Jesus is in the room, everything changes. He withholds nothing good from us!
There were a few themes that have continued to be fresh on my mind after experiencing Passion 2026. The first one being this — THERE IS JOY IN THE LORD’S PRESENCE! (1 Chronicles 16:27) That’s literally it. But wow! I’m talking about singing, dancing, laughing, crying, lifting hands up, all of it! I came home and even after being back for a little bit, I started asking myself, “Why aren’t Christians happier then what we oftentimes seem?” If we truly know God, that He has good plans for us, that He loves us, has plans to prosper us and not harm us, that He is with us in every season, every trial, every circumstance, and YET we still don’t have any joy, I believe we may need to truly wrestle with ourselves and be honest. Do we know God and that all good things come from Him? Do we truly trust that He is the giver of life and will provide everything we need? Do we understand our state before Him as purely sinners, in need of a Savior and that He freely paid for the cost of our sins? Now I understand the weight of this world can feel overwhelmingly heavy; we all have and will walk through very difficult circumstances and trials. I am most certainly not discrediting people’s hardships and pain. But Jesus IS greater. In His presence there is fullness of joy (Psalm 16) and you have a right to that joy as His child. Let’s strive to experience that joy everyday by just simply being in His presence! You don’t need an arena of 45,000 believers to have it. What a gift.
Secondly, seek and find. Again, it seems like we’ve overcomplicated things, doesn’t it? But Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” What a promise! We can know the true, living God when we simply know that His presence is the only thing that will fill up our heart’s deepest desires. Christine Caine spoke on Joseph’s story at the Passion Conference and she shared that while Joseph experienced intense moments of injustice, pain, and trauma from his family, despite his obedience to God, he never ceased to seek God’s presence. Whether in the jail cell, or a servant in Potiphar’s house, it didn’t matter — his location, position, and brokenness was irrelevant; he still knew that the presence of God was upon him and that was enough. God’s presence is how we flourish.
I just recently listened to another sermon that spoke on this very thing. The BEST thing you can do, is to love and cherish God. But so often, our schedules get overwhelmingly full (among other things). We are consumed with our work, running around to sports events, family functions, trying to get some exercise in, barely making it to church on time, and soon our priorities begin to shift. We look back on our week(s) and realize we hardly prayed or offered anything to God. We spent maybe one distracted day in His Word and the rest worrying about how we were going to get everything done. If God is not big enough to us, not beautiful enough to us, or not the greatest treasure to us, then we won’t seek His presence in everything. We won’t obey his commands. We won’t tell others the good news. Our priority should be this and only this: “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.” So seek and find (Matthew 6:33).
Lastly, God uses broken arrows in his Kingdom. He can deliver us from our past and take us into His future. Hallelujah. I was overwhelmed at Passion when Louie Giglio, the founder of this historic movement, spoke on the power of the cross of Christ. The world so often defines people by their wounds, by their choices. Even in Christian circles, this happens way too often. But Jesus? He wants to define you by HIS wounds. Healing isn’t looking deeper into your wounds, but it’s by looking deeper into His. God heals, He is healing right now, and He will make you whole again. But there’s still scars. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t healed, it just shows what you’ve experienced, but more importantly, the power of Jesus’ healing in your life.
I love the picture of Jesus seeing his disciples for the first time after his death and resurrection. Thomas was skeptical, saying, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Thomas wanted to see his scars! Why? Because they were physical proof of what Jesus had been through and what He was healed from — death on a Roman cross. His scars showed that He truly had victory and power, even over death! Jesus didn’t hide his scars, but He let Thomas feel them, touch them, see them. Jesus’ scars were proof of His healing power, and so are the scars that we have. God will use his broken arrows (us) because archery isn’t about the arrows and how perfect they are. No, it’s about the archer.
On the first day of the conference, at the first session, it began by these typed messages appearing across the screens. The first typed message told us to take our phone flashlights out and if you answer the question on the screen “yes,” to raise your light. Imagine, 45,000 lights lighting up a huge stadium! They started with some basic demographic questions, some funny questions, etc. But soon they shifted into more important issues. It asked questions like, “Is there anyone struggling with depression and anxiety?” Thousands and thousands of lights went up. “Who here has regrets over their past decisions?” More thousands of lights, everywhere. “Is there anyone walking with someone closely through cancer?” And the list went on and on and on. We could all see the hurt that people were carrying into that stadium, all the brokenness. While to the world it may seem like that would be discouraging, it rather was very encouraging — a young generation that could physically see that we were not alone in our battles. It actively destroyed the enemies lies and tactics of isolation. And eventually the typed messages shifted again. And it simply said this, “But” …“Jesus Is Greater.” And every light went up as praise erupted. There is a generation rising up that loves Jesus and knows His greatness. Praise be to God.
What a beautiful way to start the new year.