Louie Giglio - Passion, Glory, And His Renown
You know it's interesting how quickly we can forget who we are and where we came from. Let's just do it this way. Who knows your grandfather's name? Could I just see a show of hands? Okay. Great. And I know in this whole thing some of you don't know your father or maybe your mother. And so, I'm trying to be sensitive to that. But who knows your great grandfather's name? Show of hands. Okay. For me those two are easy. Louie Giglio, Louie Giglio, so, I'm a III. Who knows your great, great, grandfather's name? Hands still up. Okay. Who knows your great, great, great, great grandfather's name?
Okay, not too many people. Think about that. We just went five generations, and we don't know our ancestor's name. If you flip that around the other way, it means that in five generations most of your family won't know who you are. That's just stunning to me how quickly generations move and change. And today, I just wanna sort of grab onto our genealogy if you will and dial back a little bit to who are we as Passion, why are we as Passion, where did we come from. Because that's gonna inform a lot about where we are right now and a lot about where God is gonna take us in the future.
And to do that, I wanna take us on a little journey across the nation and around the world. It's gonna start right here in Atlanta, Georgia. And it's not really all about me but there was this guy living in Atlanta, Georgia that went to grad school in Fort Worth, Texas, which seem like a really long, long, way away. I don't know why I just went over there to Abilene 'cause we were going to Fort Worth. I wanna go back and do that again. He goes to Fort Worth to grad school. While he's in grad school, first summer, a friend of his in grad school says, "I'm going to Houston for the summer. Got a job at this church. You should come. They're looking for a summer college intern". I'm like, "Never thought about college ministry in my life. Never thought about building in anything around college students in my life".
But I don't have plans for the summer, so at the last minute I go to Houston, Texas, and I take a job at that same church as the summer college intern. Well, I'm telling you that paid off pretty good. Because one of the college students in the summer college ministry of which I was the intern happened to be named Shelley Graves. And I found out that the best things in life come from Texas. So, that was pretty incredible. It was a life changing summer. These students had come from Texas Tech and from Texas A&M, from UT, from Baylor and other schools all around but mostly from those schools. We had an incredible summer loving God together. Went back to Fort Worth.
Next summer, came back to Houston. Different church but summer college intern. Went back to Fort Worth for my third year of grad school. The next summer, came back to Houston again. Third summer back in Houston. Three times now I'm with college students and I have started dating one of them in the process of this. And that is making me think, "Wow, she's got on more year in Waco, Texas at Baylor". And so, I don't know, I felt let of the Lord to apply to grad school at Baylor. And I got accepted into this program there and went to do a master's degree at Baylor when I graduated from Fort Worth, from seminary. But here's the crazy part of this.
The summer is coming down on our third summer internship in Houston. We've gone to the end of the summer retreat. We went to Wimberley, Texas. If you know anything about Texas, you'll know where that is. Somewhere right about here. We've gone to these people's river house about 60, 75, 80 of us, I don't know. We're coming down to the last bit of this last retreat. I'm on my way to grad school at Baylor. Shelley's got one more year. I'm gonna do a year then God's gonna lead us somewhere in the world. I'm sitting at the lunch table at the end of lunch and across from me is a sophomore at Baylor named Kay Dawsey.
An amazing young woman who had such a faith about God moving mountains, and such a passion for her generation, for her friends, classmates, sorority sisters at Baylor. And she looked at me and she said one sentence. She said, "Louie, you know God is bringing you to Baylor for a reason". And for me up until that point the reason had been, "I'd like to live in the same city as the girl that I had been dating for a couple of years, and this seems like the best plan to do that". But in a heartbeat, as soon as the words came out of her mouth, I knew God is in this and there is a reason why I'm going to grad school at Baylor. And it turns out that Kay Dawsey was right.
So, I went to grad school. Shelley is there. Kay is there. And Shelley, Kay, myself, and four, five other of these students from the summers in Houston, we started praying together for God to move in power on the campus of Baylor. We started meeting every single week, and Baylor had a ton of religion, but we wanted to see a move of Jesus on that campus. And eventually, we felt like God was nudging us to start a gathering on Monday nights, and we did. We started a Bible study there on Monday night. And for the next ten years of life Shelley and I ministered to, served, encouraged, led students at Baylor. And we saw that little handful of students that started with that one step of a bible study in an apartment clubhouse turn into 1,500 Baylor students coming on a Monday night.
More than 10% of the population of the campus coming to worship God on Monday nights to open this word on Monday nights. And God was just changing things at Baylor and He was also giving us a platform if you will, to go and speak at college campuses all over the country. And I was doing a lot of that in the ten years that we were there. A couple of major things happened towards the end of our ten years at Baylor. One of them was that I went to speak in Tallahassee, Florida and I was speaking to a college group there. And I met a professor from FSU, and the professor said to me in the break with the sessions, "Have you ever heard of the CIRP survey"? And I was like, "Don't know what it is". She said, "This survey is given to a quarter of a million incoming freshman and transfer students every single year".
It's about 70 questions. I don't specifically remember now, but two of the questions on this survey, which is a national survey, junior colleges, major colleges, urban school, Ivy League schools, and everything in between. "Do you consider yourself a born-again Christian"? What a question to have in the middle of a survey about your family, your socioeconomic background, about your potential major. "Do you consider yourself a born-again Christian"? And year after year, this professor said the results come back in the same range and it's somewhere between 68 and 78% of the respondents. A quarter million of them every year say, "No, I do not consider myself a born-again Christian".
And I did the math, there were at that time somewhere around 17 to 20 million college students in America and I thought, "70% of them are gonna wake up again tomorrow and not know why they're on the planet". And my heart which was exploding for our campus, for what God was doing in our city, all of a sudden now was gripped by the reality of what was happening on campuses all across America. Fast forward a little bit, my dad was sick here in Atlanta. Was disabled and had been most of the time we'd been in Waco, but finally God freed us to move to Atlanta. My dad died right as we got to Atlanta, but here we were. A very confusing, crazy time.
I've talked about it a lot. But a few months later, after my dad passed away, Shelley and I don't have a job. We don't have a ministry. We don't have a flag to raise up the flagpole. We're not really sure why we're in Atlanta, Georgia. But I'm going to speak at a youth event and the event is happening in an arena in Dallas, Texas. So, here we go flying back to Dallas Texas on a flight, sitting by the window, I have some crazy vision happen. And I see in my mind a picture of more college students than I can count on their faces on the ground crying out to God for an awakening in their generation. And I know this is what God is calling us to be and what He's calling us to do. Somewhere in the midst of this, I'm not preaching the glory of God the best I can every where I go.
I'm preaching about the supremacy of Christ and a life that is totally enveloped by Him. And I'm in Little Rock, Arkansas. And again, I'm speaking to a couple thousand college students there. And I give this message, and it's all about the centrality of Jesus, the supremacy of Jesus, the glory of Jesus, the name of Jesus. And I finish this talk and I go and sit down a couple of rows back over here next to the man who's running this whole conference. And he has his Bible out. He has this really big Bible, and he puts the Bible over in my lap and points down to a verse in the Bible. And we're now responding in worship after the talk and I'm really not wanting to look at anything in His Bible.
I'm trying to, like, get into the responsive moment that the team's leading us in. And he just shakes my arm and he's like, "No, look at this". And I looked down in his Bible, and his Bible was opened to Isaiah, and highlighted is a verse. And I zero in on the verse and it's this verse right here. Isaiah 26:8, I've never seen this verse that I'm aware of. I'm sure I've read it, but it never really came to life for me until that instant. And the moment I saw it the words just came off the page and just completely brought all of these pieces together. A vision for a generation on their faces before God. A survey that's recounting the lostness of the university generation in America. A little seed from mission '95 of students gathered together.
And now, an anchor that's amplifying what is stirring in our hearts, "Yes, Lord". What an incredible confession. I mean, this is sermon, this is an entire sermon and an entire way of life to say, "Yes, Lord". Interestingly, you can't put any other words before Lord. You can't say, "No, Lord," 'cause then He's not Lord. You can't say, "Maybe, Lord," 'cause then He's not Lord. You can't say, "Later, Lord," 'cause then He's not Lord. "Yes, Lord," is what goes in this phrase. "Yes, Lord".
This is a generation I wanna be the part of. I wanna be a part of the generation that's saying, "I don't even know what the question is, but I know enough about you. The answer is yes. I don't know where you're leading, but I know you, and the answer is yes. I don't know what it's gonna cost me, but I know you, and the answer is Yes, Lord". Don't you wanna be that kind of follower and have that kind of life, that clarity of life? And then two things are happening, "Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your truth, we wait eagerly for you. For your name and your renown are the desire of our souls". This is what the glory of God is all about. "Your name and your renown".
Renown is glory that never fades away. When every other thing that has some earthly renown fades, His renown endures to the end. And that's what, "The desire of our souls". Your translation might say, "Hearts". That the desire of our souls is not my name, it's your name. It's not my renown or a company's renown, or a church's renown, or a denomination's renown, or something in cultures renown. No. It is, "Your renown that is the desire of my soul". Therefore, I'm doing two things. I'm walking and I'm waiting. "I'm walking in the way of your truth".
Don't we need a revival right now of people who are happily walking in the way? They're walking in the way. They found a way. There's not a thousand ways they're walking in, they found the way to walk in, the way, the truth and the life. This is Jesus. We are walking. We're not just singing. We're not just talking. "We're walking in the way of your truth and we are waiting eagerly for you". This is the prize. This is what we're longing for. This is what we're seeking after. This is the payoff if you will. He is the pay off. He is the prize. He is the one that we are eagerly waiting for. Why are we waiting for him? 'Cause we know His name and we know His renown. They've infected us down to the core of who we are, and affected us down to the core of who we are, and we want the goodness of His grace and His glory. And that is the prize of our lives.
So, we got an idea now. God has a vision. He wants us to do something. We've seen this picture of all these students on their faces before God crying out for awakening in their generation. We don't know exactly what it is but eventually it becomes Passion. And passion is born in 1997 at the very first conference in Austin, Texas. You're like, "I thought you were living in Atlanta". I know. But all of our life had been over here. And so, getting in the middle of that was where Passion was to be born. Two thousand people gathered in Austin, Texas for four days to think about Isaiah 26:8 and the glory of God.
We went back to Austin the next year for Passion '98. Five thousand students came to think about Isaiah 26:8 and the glory of God. You can see that our theme hasn't changed much over the years. Because it's a great theme that can't be exhausted by life. The next year we ran out of room in Austin, so we went interestingly to Fort Worth Texas, and we went to the convention center there where 11,000 plus college students packed out Passion '99. And people were like, "This is crazy, 2,000 to 5,000 to 11 and a half thousand? This is amazing and God is moving".
And then I did the math, and I went, "If we just keep doubling every single year, we're not gonna make it. There's 20 million college students who don't know the purpose of life, and their soul's desire is some little renown and some little name. We can't just go 2, 5,11,30,60,120. We won't have time for that. God, we need an explosion. We need an awakening". And so, we set our sights on Memphis, Tennessee. God had led us to a park there that had a big outdoor field that was perfect for a gathering that could contain people from around the nation. And we didn't even call it Passion in 2000, we called it One Day 2000, a solemn assembly.
Our generation crying out for a move of God. And we started inviting people. We did eight regional events. I don't know if I can find these fast enough. We did an event on the way to One Day in Atlanta, in Washington DC, in Minneapolis. Up here, where's Minneapolis? In Minneapolis, in Seattle, in San Jose, in Los Angeles, in Dallas, in Memphis. I might have missed one. We were just inviting. Our team went out to a hundred and twenty campuses around America doing one night praise and worship gatherings to invite people to One Day and to Memphis. We were everywhere, every day, somewhere on a college campus saying, "Come with your generation. Come for your generation. Come to One Day. Come to Memphis. Come seek the face of God".
I remember on the way we were one day out here in Berkeley, California at Cal Berkeley. And we had gone to meet with some college pastors on that campus and invite them, share the vision, try to encourage them to come to One Day. And we got there and there were about seven college ministry leaders at the house, this ministry house. And then randomly these three college students showed up. They were from Sacramento state. They'd gotten an email. They thought it was a thing for students. They didn't understand it was a luncheon for leaders. And so, they just knocked on the door about, you know, 11:45 and they were like, "Hey, we're here for the Passion thing. Are we at the right address? Is this the right thing"?
And we're like, "Ah, this was a luncheon for leaders, but you drove couple hours to get here. Come on in". We had lunch, had the sub sandwiches, whatever. I think we went upstairs. We showed the DVD promo, you know, video for Passion and Passion One Day 2000. kinda made our pitch. And we'd done this, you know, so many times over the months, and months, and months, leading up to Memphis and kind of got to the end of it and said, "So, what do you guys think"? And I'll never forget Blessing, there was a college leader, you know, right across the table from me and he was just giving me the, "You gotta be kidding. A, we're not going to Memphis, Tennessee. B, why would we wanna go all the way across the country? Who could afford to do this? It's not gonna work anyway. Nobody is probably gonna come. We don't know who you are".
All of that. And he deflected and he looked at one of the students who had come, this young lady. And he said, "I don't know. Before we all speak, why don't we let the students speak"? And so, he looked at this one young lady in the middle and he said, "What do you think"? And she said, "Would it be okay if I read something out of my journal"? And the room just kind of froze for a moment. She reaches down into her backpack under the chair. She opens it up. She pulls out her journal. She opens her journal, and she says, "I wrote this in my journal a few days ago".
And I'm paraphrasing now. At the top of it, it just had the word awakening. And then she began to read, "Dear God, I pray for an awakening in my generation. I wanna be a part of a generation that rises up to praise your name". Tears are just streaming down her face. "I wanna be a part of the voices that come from the north, and the south, and the east, and the west, to lift up the mighty name of Jesus. I don't know where, I don't know when, I don't know how, but I wanna be a part of that generation". And she looked at me and she said, "I'll be there". And she was.
From Sacramento State to One Day, and from all 50 states, and from nations around the world, students came. It was the holiest thing I've ever been to. It was so holy that when it started, no one wanted to walk on the platform. No band, no worship leader, no speaker wanted to even walk up on the platform. God was there. And from that moment in One Day what we prayed for happened and arrows went out from that field. And I don't go anywhere in America or anywhere in the world that I don't meet people who met God on that field. And we thought, "Praise God. That's it. That's what we prayed for". He did it.
The next year we didn't do anything. We're like, "We're out". We wanted to be the fuse that was a part of the explosion. And when explosions happen, you never go look for the fuse again. And we thought, "We're good. We're done. Lord, what do you have for us next"? And it wasn't until 2002 that God finally helped us understand that a whole new generation of freshmen are coming to the door this year. They don't know anything about the last four years and the journey that we've been on. Go stand on your corner, lift up the name of Jesus, proclaim Isaiah 26:78, and invite another generation to come.
And so, we did that, and we went back to Dallas, Fort Worth of all places. And just north of there in a little place called Sherman, Texas we did One Day '03. Another solemn assembly outdoor, huge field, massive storm, crazy situation. God showed up and changed the world again. And from that moment on we have been just pursuing God year after year after year. There's no ten-year plan, there's no 20-year plan. It's like, "God, what is the next step"? And that step led us to this gathering and that gathering, to Nashville, and '05 and '06. Then in '08 God knocked on our door again and said, "I wanna do this around the world".
And so, in 2008 we did 17 events in 16 nations. I know we've seen a lot of stuff today, but I just want you to get a little picture of it. Sydney, Australia. I'm not gonna go in order here 'cause I don't really remember the order. Jakarta, Indonesia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Manila, The Philippines. Hong Kong. Seoul, Korea. Tokyo, Japan. Vancouver, where we had done several big events. British Columbia, Canada. Mexico City. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Cape Town. Johannesburg. Kampala, Uganda. Kiev, Ukraine. First world tour event in 2008.
Stockholm, Sweden. Paris, France. London, England. Isaiah 26:8 is the call. His glory is worth it all. Take the 180 that changes things where it's not about me and it's all about you. And what we're sitting in today is a story of the faithfulness of God. And what we're sitting in today is a vision to see a generation rise up and live their lives for the things that matter most. And I believe and I know that God believes, that the thing that matters most is the glory of God.