Saturday, March 01, 2008

“Yes, LORD, walking in your truth we eagerly wait for you because your name and your renown are the desire of our souls.”

Isaiah 26:8

About two weeks ago I was on the phone with my good friend Tamara Stringer and she was telling me all about the Passion conference in Dallas she had gone to the weekend before. I listened jealously as she recounted points that Louie Giglio had made and as she tried in vain to express the amazingness of worshipping with David Crowder and Chris Tomlin. At one point I mumbled, “Man, I wish they would come to DC.” Her response was, “Calyn, they’re going to be in DC next weekend.”

Fast forward one week. I am on my way to the conference. The conference in Washington DC, right? Well, sort of. Although it was advertised as being in Washington DC, the Passion Conference was actually at George Mason University, a school in the town of Fairfax, Virginia. Now, had I owned a car, this would have not been a problem. It might have taken me about 45 minutes to get there from my house. However, it was three hours before I finally darkened the door of the Patriots’ basketball arena. This is like telling someone, “Oh, yeah, it’s in Tallahassee,” and it actually being in PENSACOLA. Fortunately I ran into two girls who were also using public transportation (there were a total of five of us) and we became fast friends with so much time to get to know one another. I probably would have died without Marlene and Kay. I mean that literally. Being at metro stations that connect with the green line at one in the morning by yourself is never a good idea. But the three hour commute was totally worth it.

For those of you who have never heard Louie, I would encourage you to listen to one of his podcasts. Louie has a way of making Christianity so simple and profound. The theme of the conference centered around the idea of “making God famous with your life.” When I told my roommate this she said, “What do you mean, ‘making God famous?’ Everyone knows who He is.” This is a good point and fortunately there was some clarification. :0) Louie and Francis Chan really pounded into us that life is short and we only get one shot. We should be using our lives to bring God as much glory as possible. There are some important things in life. Careers are important. Friendships are important. Health is important. Family is important. But if we’ve decided to follow Jesus then He is the thing that is most important. And to chase after anything else is not only second best, but it’s missing out on what God has really called us to – to know Him and make to Him known.

Passion is doing conferences in 17 world cities starting in May. They include Jakarta, KYIV :0), Kampala, Sydney, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Sao Paulo, and some other places that I can’t remember but are equally cool. We raised about 30,000 dollars for the conference in Kampala (that 30,000 people are coming to! They have a soccer stadium rented out!). We also got to hear the story of a girl named Sam Lu from mainland China. She shared her testimony with us and is so excited that Passion is coming to Hong Kong. They made it very clear not to put any pictures or videos up of Sam because she could get into a whole lot of trouble with the government.

Something kind of small but important that I was convicted about this past weekend was how I represent myself to other people. Interning in DC, the question you probably get asked the most is, “So…what do you want to do?” So as not to have a bunch of awkward turtles in the room, I generally just say, “Oh, I want to do international relief work,” and avoid the parts about wanting to work with a Christian organization or talking about how I want to work somewhere that I can meet spiritual needs as well as physical ones. The truth is that I want to fulfill Paul’s words to the Colossians, “Whatever you do…do it all in the name of the Lord... as if working for the Lord and not for men.” I want to take the love of God to the ends of earth where people need it most. And I should just say that when people ask.

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