ATLANTA – On the last Saturday of winter break for most college students, Philips Arena was pulsating.
Inside, more than 21,000 college students were rocking out. As they sang aloud, they danced in the aisles of the home of Atlanta’s professional basketball and hockey teams.
They were not at a rock concert.
They were in church.
A meteoric rise
Louie Giglio never seems to walk. He bounces.
For a 51-year-old man, Giglio is a ball of energy. A man closer to retirement than his college days, Giglio created Passion in 1997. The initial conference in Austin, Texas, drew 2,000 students.
“We never dreamed of having Passion albums. We really just brought students together to think about what it means to live for the glory of God,” Giglio recalled.
The Austin conference started a movement. It stirred an emotional following, one that came to life in Atlanta as soon as he appeared.
Sporting a black shirt, the top two buttons undone, and blue jeans, he bounced onto the stage on opening night to an affectionate roar.
Looking around the arena at his flock with what appeared to be wide-eyed wonder, Giglio flashed a small, but toothy smile. He was confident.
The conference, he said, was “going to change the destiny of our lives and potentially the destiny of nations.”
It was bold talk, indeed, for a guy who is, bottom line, a youth minister.
Giglio’s argument is built on a combination of raw numbers and the stamps that fill his passport.
For 13 years, Passion conferences, presented by the Giglio-led, non-profit Choice Ministries, have reached nearly 400,000 students in the flesh. (“When your target is university students, you always have a new audience,” he said.) Bolstered by album sales of more than 1.5 million, Passion says it has have reached millions.
A chunk of the attendees who have heard from Giglio and his “bunch of friends” heard them on the group’s tour of six continents in 2008. From major world capitals including London, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo to lesser-known cities like Kampala, Uganda, the organization says more than 100,000 came out to seek out God.
Sixteen countries later, Giglio wasn’t fulfilled. He wanted more.
Actually, Giglio felt his God wanted more.
‘A louder anthem’
For Giglio, Christianity is not a mere thought to be celebrated solely within the self. For him, faith is a hybrid experience of the internal and the external. The latter, which Giglio said he thinks breathes further life into the former, comes full circle at Giglio’s youthful services.
But capturing the minds of college students to trigger “a louder anthem of God’s renown” is easier said than done. So, Giglio literally triggers a loud anthem. A really loud anthem.
On an altar that looks more like a stage for a rock band than a place of sacrifice, Christian music artists, most of whom got their start when they sang at the church Giglio founded in an Atlanta suburb, pour out their hearts through song.
On the first night of the 2010 incarnation of Passion, an evening of strong winds with temperatures dipping below freezing, Christy Nockels, a relative newcomer to the conference scene, pleaded for an encounter with God. “No sickness, no secret, no chain is strong enough to keep us from your love,” she sang, stomping her right foot occasionally as she lifted her arms to the sky.
As bright lights spanning the color spectrum flashed and Nockels’ likeness appeared on the multi-story video screens that dotted the arena, the crowd of students cheered.
If Nockels made the students scream, Chris Tomlin, a staple of the Christian recording industry, made them dance.
A diminutive man with a pleasant accent, Tomlin jumped around the stage, bouncing backwards and forwards with little thought. And then he said it.
“We need to dance together in this place, right from the start,” Tomlin shouted.
On cue, the arena was illuminated, and more than 21,000 people started dancing. As reporters sitting in a media area looked up startled, a conference representative flashed a knowing smile.
On the floor of the arena, near what is normally midcourt for NBA basketball, a girl in a coral shirt, a black jacket, and jeans danced. Her arms flailed. She smiled as she looked up, not toward the Philips Arena scoreboard, but to the heavens.
“This is the way God wired us,” Tomlin later said with a smile. “We want to pour out everything. We’re trying to help people to connect with God.”
‘A window of time’
Even though they had 21,000-plus students hanging on to every word in January, Giglio’s team recognizes that faith is a hard sell.
In an October interview, Kristian Stanfill, one of Passion’s musical stars who visited Tuscaloosa last fall in an effort to drum up attendance at the event in Atlanta, said that the movement seeks to pull people away from the secular, if only for a little while.
“What we’re trying to do is say, ‘Hey look, we believe there’s something better. Something more worthy to give our lives to than pop culture or popularity,’” Stanfill said.
In an interview in a dimly lit, serene room a few yards from the entrance to the arena floor, Giglio, a small black and brown Bible by his side, said the undergraduate years are the most challenging years for people while simultaneously holding the most faith potential.
“We’ve got a window of time where a person has left home, their family, and their familiarity, and they are on a campus where everything is challenged,” he said. “What matters to us is that people understand that there is a decision to be made about who to live their life for.”
Youth savvy
Even with a packed arena and a simulcast feed to the nearby (and also packed) Georgia World Congress Center, Giglio seemed to recognize he had to do more than simply get students to buy a ticket and show up for them to further develop spiritually.
First, they would have to hear about God in plain English and from people without fancy titles and a half-dozen letters trailing their names. The presentations would have to be captivating and thought-provoking. They might even challenge and unsettle. Key points had to be boiled down to simple soundbites. (“We pray to impress each other and not to impress the heart of God,” Giglio admonished one day.)
Second, the students would have to have the immediate opportunity to put their faith into action. The longer the audience members had to let the fire of faith fade, the less likely they would be to act on faith. The rapid conversion from sermon speak to action might fuel a movement that would last far longer than four days.
The idea of a movement, it seems, is what gets Giglio up in the mornings. “I see the church awakening,” he said. “It’s not being informed by culture. It’s being informed by the gospel.”
He sought an outlet at Passion for students to put their new – some 75 percent of attendees were at a Giglio conference for the first time – or renewed faiths into action. Inside a massive convention hall, about 150,000 feet square, organizers created “Do Something Now,” which resembled a festival of service opportunities.
The conference showcased 12 established organizations working on causes ranging from sex trafficking to hunger to Bible translations and offered interactive opportunities for students to learn more and, if they chose, to give of time and money.
“The idea behind ‘Do Something Now’ is everyone does something little and something big happens,” Giglio said.
One singer, Matt Redman, took a more dire tone. “Only you can save a generation,” he said.
Giglio set a goal of raising $500,000 for the 12 organizations over the four-day period. The students gave nearly $670,000. When combined with a matching gift, the conference donated more than $1.3 million.
‘God has used him’
Giglio will again take to an Atlanta stage Friday to lead a Good Friday – the Christian holiday memorializing the crucifixion of Christ – service with his musicians. Before what is expected to be a capacity crowd of 12,000, Giglio will deliver his message to college students and adults alike.
Even as Giglio appeals to a broader audience Friday, his core constituency remains undergraduates. He’s taking his show on the road again beginning in May on a seven-city world tour. His first stop will be Kiev, Ukraine, a city formerly behind the Iron Curtain.
Students said they see Giglio’s efforts paying dividends already and that they have little doubt his message will resonate across continents.
Barry Benton, a senior at Furman University from Jacksonville, said Giglio and his conferences, with their youthful flair, had an effect on his spiritual development.
“God has used him to speak to me,” Benton said. “He’s entertaining, and he knows what college students are going through.”
Ryan Guadagnolo, a Baylor University student, described his experience in the Passion movement in Giglio-like terms.
“It’s not about a group of people. It’s about God.”
