This is How we Praise the Lord - and it ain't like your grandma does!

                45,000ish college students
            +  4 days
            +  the power of Jesus
            =  over  3 million dollars raised!?!

Why?

Because we believe that:

However, people are sold. 27million people, in fact.

There are more slaves today than in any other time in ALL of human history.

We focused on this at Passion 2012 in Atlanta which leads me to....

The first way that we worship differently: 

We discuss tough topics.

We are not in denial that bad things happen. We learned about slavery, sex trafficking, bonded labor, children being raped, people being starved/beaten/devalued, etc.

And then we decided to

Plenty of Christians are criticized for not putting their money where their mouth is. Not us.

The next way we worship differently is... 

We do give to the poor and needy.

Between the hours of 7pm on January 2nd and noon on January 5th, we raised $3,066,000.

That means that us - poor college kids - gave almost 50 grand every hour.

Why?

Because we believe that:

And we believe that we should be because we are called to...

"Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows."             

                                                           - Isaiah 1:17

Oh, and did I mention we were in the Dome???

Yes, third way we worship differently: 

We were not in a church. We were in the Georgia Dome!?!

So many, MANY people.

It was amazing.

My boss asked the neatest question: "Just look at all of them. Can you imagine what heaven will be like?"

Psalm 89:5 says

All heaven will praise your great wonders, LORD; myriads of angels will praise you for your faithfulness.

And, last but definitely NOT least, the final way we worshiped differently was:

We sang songs like this... 

Not quite the typical hymn (although those are also beautiful!).

We also praised Jesus with rap. 

Not my favorite BUT all rap is not crap and this guy's lyrics are solid:

You can't help but get pumped up listening to LeCrae; watch for the back-flip around minute 2.

And, what was one of the most beautiful moments in the whole conference, we sang "How Great is Our God" in many languages:

And this was the final song of the conference :)

This is the Jesus generation:

Join us to end this:

Worship differently.

Care.
Give.
Do Something Now.

Jesus and Women - more thoughts on John 20

Back to that scripture from the previous post, I would like to point out a couple other things:

1) Mary was the first one at the tomb very early ("while it was still dark") the next morning; (verse 1).

2) After seeing the empty tomb, the disciples went home (verse 10) but she stayed (verse 11).

Clearly Mary Magdalene was devoted to Jesus. So were several other women.

Ann Spangler and Jean E. Syswerda's book Women of the Bible has a chapter on Mary Magdalene. In that chapter, p. 399 details "Women in Jesus' Life and Ministry."

This opened my eyes to something I, even as a feminist, had overlooked: women were invaluable in Jesus' ministry.

I have always heard of the 12 disciples and hoped I could be like them, dropping everything I had to go and follow Jesus, to help him. Well, they could not have done that without women.

As "Women in Jesus' Life and Ministry" pointed out:

"[S]everal women stepped outside the cultural expectations of their time to play a significant role in the ministry of Jesus. Only the twelve disciples are mentioned more often than certain women, Mary Magdalene being one of them. Mark tells us that a number of women 'followed him [Jesus] and cared for his needs ' (Mark 15:41).

"During the years of Jesus' ministry, when he and his disciples weren't earning an income, several women stepped in to care for them. They used their own financial resources to support Jesus and the disciples (Luke 8:3). While Jesus was teaching and healing, these women probably spent their time purchasing food, preparing it, and serving it. Perhaps they also found homes for Jesus and his disciples to stay in while on their travels...

"Two women in Bethany, Mary and Martha always generously opened their home to Jesus when he was in their town, providing meals and a place to rest (Luke 10:38). Jesus was close enough to these women... that he called them his friends (John 11:11)...

"Women watched Jesus suffer on the cross, remaining there until he had breathed his last and was buried. Women were the first to go to the tomb on Sunday morning and the first to witness the Resurrection. Luke's gospel in particular portrays Jesus as someone who both understood and respected women, conferring on them a stature that most of them had not previously enjoyed."

These women facilitated the works of Jesus and his disciples by caring for them. They did not even do anything radical to do it; they simply fulfilled their roles as women as fully and selflessly as possible. I have never seen or heard credit given to them for this service to Jesus and the early spread of Christianity but I think they deserve it.

So I point this out to you in hopes that it has opened your eyes and that you will share it with others. Open their eyes as well to the way women helped Jesus and how Jesus respected them.