An unbelievably large crowd of more than 50,000 young adults gathered in the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Passion 2024 conference over January 3-5. The event, hosted by Atlanta’s Passion City Church, was meant to draw many young Christians together and be a massive outpouring of worship of God.
The lead pastor of the Passion City Church is Louie Giglio, who started the church and movement. After seeing the massive crowd this year, Giglio posted a video about the Passion 2024 conference on YouTube in which he referenced the massive number of young people who showed up and said that overwhelming response indicates that a revival could be afoot.
In the video, he used the massive turnout to show why he thinks a reawakening is happening amongst America’s youth, saying, “If 50,000 students are going to come so that they can worship God and offer their lives to Him, there’s an awakening happening in our generation.”
Continuing, he described what happens at Passion, saying, “Every year at Passion, we have seen the gospel displayed and on the move and what does that look like? Well, that does look like chains breaking it does look like people being humbled to the point of ‘no I need a Savior.’ It looks like a live chain, it looks like the dead coming to life. It looks like the blind seeing. It looks like the Bible, right?”
Also in the video, Giglio explained the background to the conference and said, “Passion was born up because we thought there needs to be a conference. But it was born out of the burden that we had for at the time, close to 20 million college students in America. And so what we’ve been praying for from day one is a spiritual awakening in this generation.”
Continuing on that point, Giglio said, “In fact, after four years, we made it to one day 2000, 40,000 University aged young people literally put their faces on a field, and Memphis, Tennessee and cried out for awakening and their generation.”
Then, further explaining that success and how Passion has continued to build, along with how he sees God as having called him and his church, saying, “And we thought, ‘This is what God called us to.’ But here we are, you know, a few decades later, still hosting Passion gatherings, but not because it’s a thing, it’s on the schedule, we’re gonna do it. We’re just following the wind of God’s Spirit.”
Watch Giglio here:
Giglio wasn’t the only one to predict a youth revival. Michael Maiden, the lead pastor of Church for the Nations in Phoenix, Arizona, did so as well when speaking to the Western Journal. Comparing it to popcorn, he said, “Whenever you start popcorn or start heating it, nothing happens. Then, all of a sudden, a kernel pops, then another one, then a bunch. It’s like a multiplying factor takes over, and before you know it, the whole bag is ready to be eaten.”
He added. “I see the first kernels of revival happening — the popping.” Then, giving examples, he said, “There are measurable signs in the culture. Not of a broad, complete revival, but the beginning kernels popping or … the first waves of something good happening. So I’ve 1,000 percent confidence that the greatest spiritual awakening in our country’s history is in its beginning stage, and these next years, we’re going to see it.”
Check out this incredible video of the Passion 2024 conference:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the above video, shared by Josh Engen
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