Passion: A Generation United For His Renown

It's been almost a week since I returned from the Passion Conference KL....but the excitement, impact and memory of that event is still fresh in my heart and mind. :) I hardly know where to start describing the magnitude of it. 4000 people packed (it was a crush!) into the Sunway Convention Center....young people from all over the world, Asia, Africa, Arabic nations, the U.S etc gathered for one purpose- to worship the Almighty King.

It was a glorious night indeed.....the worship was breathtaking. It's been a long time since I've witnessed and been part of such full on, passionate worship. It really stirred something deep in my heart, and I think a lot of us were worshipping with tears streaming down our faces. The atmosphere was very very special.....I've gotta give it to those Malaysian Christians, their hearts are really aflame for Jesus, and they're not afraid to show it. :) And so for a surreal 4 hours on Sun evening, we made music with the heavens, sang at the top of our lungs (and we lost our voices at the end of the night), danced with all our might, heard awesome, life-transforming preaching, and united in fervent prayer for nations around the world, and above all, for His renown.

I really felt like I was part of something bigger that night....the move of God that's undeniably sweeping over the world. If I was blinded before by my own needs and circumstances...that night opened my heart and eyes to the powerful work of God's hand. And I really earnestly caught the passion that night....from the lavish worshippers that are part of the Passion team (Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, Louie Giglio), and the beautiful collision of believers all over the world. It reminded me once again of what Tim Hughes said when he was here for the Worship Central conference....."Passion is not just taught, it's caught."


My heart is aching for this desperation and passion for God to sweep over my church, and over S'pore as well. I think prosperity has dulled our desire for God. We need to get acquainted with carpet again, we need to let God break our hearts, and let God arise in this nation. At this point, I need to reiterate that it's really not about getting addicted to an emotional high that these worship events often create....but catching the fire, and going out there to change the world, to burn for our amazing God.

"Yes, LORD, walking in the way of Your laws, we wait for You; Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts." Isaiah 26:8 [The theme verse for Passion]

Read the Passion Team's official blog post on the event here:
http://268generation.com/blog/

Photo-memories from our unbelievable Passion KL journey :)
[Photos taken by Abi. You can view the rest of our photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35386&l=0a9bb&id=712113073
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35387&l=5ce5b&id=712113073 ]
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Arrival at our hotel room, The Hilton, Petaling Jaya after a 5 hour coach ride. Ooh..the funny thing was after we got off our coach, we headed to Giant supermkt for groceries. And the first thing we saw was Chris Botti and Lee Ritenour on this giant TV screen. You can imagine the state Abi and I were in! haha! Chris welcomed us to KL leh!

Abi taking a shot of herself

Our shampoo, conditioner and body lotion were from Crabtree & Evelyn!! We kept asking room service for more. haha! And throughout the weekend, we kept gushing to each other, "Touch my hair!! Oh so soft!!" haha!

Lunch at an Italian restaurant in Sunway, before we collected our passes.

Priceless lah this pic. Someone's hair super long hor? haha! And Theo's expression perfectly matches his t-shirt. The poor boy wasn't used to the random ways of Abi & I. He asked "What are you going to order for lunch?"...and I excitedly spurted out "Bm7 - A- G2!!!" cos I had the intro of "God of this City" playing in my head. He was totally lost, and said "huh?? I asked what you want for lunch!". hahah! Only Abi understood what I was referring to.

Daniel at a loss at what to order.

A quick spot of shopping at Sunway before the event. I bought that embroidered jacket in the end from East India Company. But u know what? The guys bought way more than us girls!! *faintz*

Check out my lovely purple Passion pass!! :) Here we are lining up outside the doors at 4pm.
We accidentally got pushed to the front of the line, and at the strategic centrestage entrance. WOOHOO!

Passion pass, Passion postcard, Passion cd+dvd. We.are.groupies. :)

It was a gigantic crowd...absolutely insane. You can't see it here, but we after they made us stand up, we were squashed like sardines for 1 hr or so. But there was such a great sense of community even as we tolerated the suffocating heat and torturous wait. Complete strangers chatted to each other, passed around fans, randomly started counting down ("10, 9, 8, 7 etc") and cheering for no good reason except for sheer fun.....and the best part was the bunch of ang mohs who chanted "Open LAH, Open LAH!!" hahaha! Absolutely hilarious.

Beaming, cos we finally got in!!! Seated 4th row from centre-stage too!!
Interestingly, we bumped into some of our BMI students sitting next to us. haha! They travelled down too. When the Passion crew started to take videos n photos of us, one the guys exclaimed excitedly, "We're going to be in the DVD!!" And then, some other dude nearby went calmly, "Er...no lah. Maybe just the website." And the guy went "Oh." HAHA! So cute!

Group pic!

Lights dimmed, music started playing....people starting cheering. This was the spectacular opening that consisted of a video montage ("Bittersweet symphony" as the bkground music), and live music from the band on stage. Very slick, very cool! :) And yes, very Hillong conference 07 too. I know. haha!

Daniel rocking hard on guits, Matt grooving behind on keys.

And Chris Tomlin takes the stage with his red hot guitar!!

The energetic opening praise song, "Let God Arise"!! The band was fantastic! So tight.

Beautiful, dramatic lighting. It really enhanced the atmosphere. I never thought I'd say that of a worship event. :)

Chris Tomlin is so cute in real life....very chiselled, very adorable. haha! And we had a great view from our seats.

Phenomenal lighting once again

Chris rallying the 4000 strong crowd to praise God.

Charlie Hall whom we saw in the morning, seated on one of the benches at the Sunway mall. He was working on his Macbook Pro. We didn't recognise him though...and we made some comment about him looking like he belonged to Daughtry's band. Oops! Anyway, Charlie Hall's band was actually tighter and groovier than Chris's band. There were quite a few moments when Abi and I would stop in mid-song, turn and face each other with dropped jaws and go "SO KENA!!" (meaning the band was very tight, very shiok lah)

I love this dramatic shot of Charlie Hall's keyboardist (he played a red hot Nord!). The lyrics behind say "who renovates the human heart."

Louie Giglio, one of the founders of the Passion movement. He's such a fantastic, charismatic, inspiring speaker. He moved us to tears with a testimony he shared. And he made us laugh so hard as he taught us how to pray the "Passion way"- gather in threes...one person leads in prayer, the rest agree by saying "totally!", "right on!" etc. haha! Gotta love that. :)

Louie, inspiring us to go out and change the world. :)

A powerful moment as we sang "God of this City", prayed for our own nations, and Jakarta, the next site for the Passion World Tour.

We're all in this together.

Chris taking the stage again...and man, how we sang and danced with ALL OUR MIGHT!!! :)
The final set consisted of "Mighty to save" (by hillsong), Chris' amazing new songs '"Jesus Messiah" and "Sing, sing, sing", and of course, Chris classics like "How Great is our God", "Amazing Grace (my chains are gone)".

There were many times Chris just stopped singing...cos the crowd was just singing so heartily and enthusiastically on their own. God was worshipped that night. It was incredible.

A generation united for His renown

The perfect shot to sum up Passion '08- "You are amazing God."

Tired out physically but our hearts were recharged and refueled. :) When we returned to our little hotel room...we were greeted with this cute scene of our pillows stacked up altogether by the chamber maid. haha! We called room service for A LOT of pillows the previous nite.

Passion World Tour, KL...you have left an indelible impression upon our hearts. :)