Over the past couple of days, I’ve been processing my thoughts from Passion 2020. I gave a general introduction, and then a bit of backstory that explains how I think conferences, retreats, and camps fit into a continual pattern of Christian growth. You don’t need to read either to make sense of what follows as I’m now getting into what I thought about this year’s conference. I’ll do two posts on the messages from the sessions, and then a post on the songs, which in my analysis includes the whole spectacle of the event.
In what follows, I’m giving my general highlights, not necessarily a blow by blow account. I don’t take notes at things like this, or really anywhere for that matter. I have a good memory, and I think it’s more important that I actually remember what you say rather than that I write it down. Active listening though is a lost art, but I digress
Session 1: Levi Lusko
I know Levi Lusko by reputation from previous conferences. I’ve never heard him speak or read anything of his books. He started his message with Matthew 7:24-27. You may know this text, but if not, it’s the one about building your house on the rock lest it be washed away when the floods come.
The bulk of his message though was schooling us on the history of the Dust Bowl, which incidentally, is not a college football game between the last place team in the SEC and the last place team in the Big 10. Rather, it is the quite possibly the worst man-made natural disaster in American history.
I’ll spare you the details, but although it is not exegesis of Matthew 7:24-27, he told a very compelling story that had a clear and important point. This disaster unfolded in the 1930’s, because of things that took place during the 1920’s. In a similar way, as we enter a new decade, we need to think about what we are doing in the 20’s that will unfold in the 30’s.
Now, this works on two levels. First, the actual years ahead of us are the 20’s. Second, most everyone in the room was either in or about to enter their actual 20’s. I was listening to everything as someone already firmly in their 30’s and could think about how things I did (or didn’t do) in my 20’s, have led to where I am now.
On the whole, I think this was a great frame for the beginning of the conference since it led us to think of the long game, rather than simply a New Year’s resolution. It reminded me of something James Clear advises, which I’ll adapt to this context. Aim to be spiritually mature in 10 years. Build spiritual disciplines today that will to great growth in 10 years. Leverage your 20’s for growth in your 30’s.
Session 2: John Piper
One of the students with us may or may not have thought this was Bernie Sanders at first. I took opportunity to joke on Twitter that Larry David was speaking because I’m trying to be relevant with a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm on the horizon. But, no it was just the grandaddy of them all, John Piper.
Now, I had the advantage of not only having read Don’t Waste Your Life, but also Desiring God, Piper’s general manifesto for the Christian life (although don’t sleep on Future Grace). There, he presents his understanding of Christian hedonism which is confusing for people who know what hedonism is, as well as for people who don’t. It’s quite a feat actually.
In case you’re not up to speed on hedonism, it is a philosophy of life that makes pleasure the highest pursuit. It comes it two main varieties, qualitative (“I will pursue the best pleasures in life”) and quantitative (“I want to pursue the most pleasure possible for the most people in life”). If you like fancy terms, the former is most closely associated with Epicureanism, and the latter with Utilitarianism. You nerds that want more info can go read this article and see where I’ve probably oversimplified things.
Now, as it concerns Piper, he argues in many places and at many times that pursuing joy in God actually hits both of these marks. Joy in God is obviously the highest pleasure, and as you pursue it in your own life, you can’t help but pass that joy on to other people. Missions for instance exists because worship does not.
With all this in mind, having him speak first thing on Wednesday morning after everyone had been up past 2am was probably the best case scenario. I say that because Piper made two fairly straightforward points in perhaps the most complicated way possible and I had to do a fair bit of translation work on the drive home so that the students actually understood what he was getting at.
His point, in essence, is that we should serve and follow God because we want to and it brings us joy. Committing to serve God doesn’t require drudgery. In saying this, we are neither making our desires our functional god, nor are we tainting our love and service by doing it for supposedly self serving reasons. Rather, we are following the example of Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the suffering of the cross. Christ loved us because he was motivated by pursuit of joy we might say, and so we should follow that example.
Session 2: Sadie Robertson
After a brief song break, we had our second speaker of Session 2. Rather than me explain Sadie’s back story, you can just Google Duck Dynasty if you don’t know who she is.
If you’ll indulge me a drinking analogy, Sadie was the chaser to Piper’s shot. I say that because she more or less picked up where Piper left off and using the life of Peter, made a compelling case for following Christ. However, unlike Piper, she did it in a way that was much more relatable and well illustrated.
She talked of how most relationships start with a “follow” meaning usually Instagram. However, from there, we hope to gain “likes” from other people, which are basically performance based. Eventually they may or may not come to love us, in either a platonic or romantic sense (her example was her own personal romance #relatable).
However, with Jesus, we don’t have to earn his “likes” to get to his love. We actually follow him because he first loved us. And somehow, Sadie Robertson was underscoring Piper previous statements about unconditional election and limited atonement using Instagram as an analogy.
She also made a plea with students to not be held captive by social media. There’s probably a whole separate blog post about the effect of social media on teens and 20 something’s mental health. But, I hope they took to heart the advice she gave as a kind of side note on her overall message about following Jesus.
Session 3: Christine Caine
Like Levi Lusko, I knew Christine Caine by reputation. Students who had gone to previous Passion Conferences spoke highly of her messages and she definitely brought the type of energy the room needed at 3pm.
I missed the first part of the message because I was on a quest to find an available bathroom stall. Apparently many other gentlemen decided this was a good time for this particular side quest. While the Mercedes-Benz Stadium is an excellent facility with exceptional prices on food and beverage, the men’s bathrooms are a little light on stalls, but I digress.
When I tuned back into the message, it seemed like Christine had been using the story from Genesis where Jacob digs out some wells. The implication, as it was applied to the crowd is that digging isn’t glamorous, but necessary, and you should dig out the wells you’ve got in front of you so that people can experience living water.
She also had a section of the message where she broke down basically every false dichotomy that has been a discussion in practical theology and ministry (e.g. is evangelism or discipleship more important? Christine would say “Both!”). I knew what she was getting at with the litany, but I think many of the students were lost. I think the takeaway is really that many things are both/and rather than either/or and so we had a good discussion of that on the way home.
We also dug into (pun intended) the point she made about working with the opportunities you have in front of you. It tied into a later message that I’ll tell you about in the next post. But, as I’ve grown fond of saying, a lot of people overlook opportunities because they come dressed in overalls and look like hard work. This is true whether it’s a career in the business world or ministry opportunities. A foot in the door is worth more than your dream job when you’re 22 and still trying to figure things out.
At this point in the day (around 3), there was a short break before the 4th session, which seems like a good time to take a short break from writing and pick back up with the last three sessions and some overall thoughts about the message of Passion 2020.