By Elizabeth Prata
The Passion Conference is a youth-aimed conference founded in 1995-1997 by Louie and Shelley Giglio. It is held in Atlanta and has a huge following online with tis social media, livestreamed conference, and in-person attendance. There is a split-off conference also in South Africa. The demographic Passion aims to reach is age 18-25, and both young men and women are invited. It is held annually in January. This year’s conference, like most of the previous ones, is sold out. The venue this year is the State Farm Arena which has a capacity of about 19000. There are two dates for the conference, January 2-4 and January 6-8 with different musicians and speakers at each. It regularly sells out, and has sold out for 2025. In the past the conference has been held at the Mercedes Benz arena which holds 71,000.
The conference creates an atmosphere that young people enjoy, which includes lots of glitz, music more rock and roll oriented, light shows, and speakers younger people are familiar with- whether the speaker is a true teacher or false.
Here are some bullet points for why the Passion Conference is one to avoid:
1. False Teachers. The conference features false teachers. This year Jackie Hill Perry is speaking, JHP has admitted she receives visions and instructions from the Lord directly. In the past speakers have been IF:Gathering founder Jennie Allen who also admitted she directly hears from God, Beth Moore, same with the visions and voices from God, David Platt, Kim Walker-Smith of Bethel, Priscilla Shirer, Christine Caine, and others equally as false.
2. Women preachers. Passion Conference platforms women preachers. There is a co-ed audience, with men attending. Women are not to preach to men says 1 Timothy 2:12. (Essay here explaining the scripture).
3. False Doctrine. Passion conference introduces false doctrine in the speeches and in the music, to tens of thousands of youths and sends them back to their local churches carrying these evil seeds. For one example, most notably in the Passion 2012 conference, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, and John Piper performed a version of the Catholic practice of Lectio Divina. See link at end for more on this.
One of Passion’s subsidiaries is Passion Equip, a series of study lessons [led by false teachers], a resource from the Passion movement including tracks, devotionals, messages, articles, podcasts, and scripture study that interested youths may engage in. Again, one’s own pastor is supposed to be the cornerstone of teaching these youths.
4. Manipulative. Passion relies on atmosphere to manipulate youths into spending buckets of money in attempts to cure social ills and perform social justice, such as helping the homeless and ending human trafficking. Passion states that “Since 2007, believing worship + justice are two sides of the same coin.” Thus they promote the social justice gospel. More info here on what the social gospel is.
5. Divisive. For all the speakers’ talk of “community” the Passion conferences do much to divide it. They forbid parents, senior pastors, elders, and older siblings from attending with the youth. Only the person bringing the youth are allowed to buy a ticket and accompany them. See screen shots of both the 2013 verbiage and the current conference for proof. Passion Conference has always striven to separate youth from the more solid adults in their life.
Church community is a community of people from all ages. Yet the Passion people go on and on about “this generation.” There is so much emphasis on “this generation” but in fact it looks like Passion strives to separate them from the herd. For example, there is Passion Camp where “Middle and high school students gather together for four days of worship, teaching and community. Not to mention, four fun days on the shores of Daytona Beach!“, [MIDDLE schoolers!] We should be suspicious of any organization that aims to separate people from each other, like Passion, Chrysalis weekends for 15-18 year olds, The Walk to Emmaus/The Great Banquet/Tres Dias AKA Cursillo which separates husbands from wives who must attend over different weekends.
6. It’s an industry, not just a conference. Some have called the Passion Industry a “commercialized money grabber.” Here are the subsidiaries:
–Passion City Church: A church with locations in Atlanta, Cumberland, Trilith, and Washington D.C.
–sixstepsrecords: A music label that represents many prominent contemporary Christian musicians
–Passion Publishing: A publishing company
–Passion Global Institute: An institute founded by Louie Giglio
–Passion Conferences, LLC
–Passion Resources
–Passion Productions, Inc.
7. Lofty mantras that distract from the local church’s teaching. The Passion devotees are told repeatedly they are part of “a global awakening”, “a movement” for “this generation”. (and they ARE devotees, some youths attend year after year.) What about the other generations? Children? Elders? Isn’t Christianity a global movement already? Being brainwashed into thinking ‘this generation’ is special or different reduces the reality for them to be faithful week after week in their local church, where nothing spectacular seems to happen, unless you count the point of it all, conversions and baptisms. But those pale in comparison to the emotional high of being with tens of thousands of adrenaline-fueled like-minded youths in a music drenched arena being told they are part of something global and meaningful. These youths are not being discipled. They are being infected.
This conference does much to divide the church by capitalizing on a natural youthful zeal and diverts their attention from quiet submission in service to a local church. This co-opting of their zeal to solve a cultural or social ill is not biblical. It sets them up for disappointment.
In fact, here is a 21 year old 2022 attendee who was reflecting on the experience:
Hey y’all! I attended Passion a few days ago and I have a lot of mixed feelings. Initially I went with hopes of finding my encounter and connection with God & my faith. Instead I left more confused than ever. I did some research on two speakers and quickly found out they are controversial, for lack of better words. I did research on them because their message was just off putting so I wanted to learn more about them.
The worship music was great. I think during that time was when I felt most in touch and truly felt the Lord. But in a way it all felt so fake? I don’t know how to explain it. It just didn’t sit very well.
In the end I don’t think I was able to find my connection with God. I still feel lost. And I know I shouldn’t hold that against Passion per say but everyone kept telling “you will feel His presence there” and I simply did not. It baffled me that they let these people with heinous backgrounds stand up there and speak to a community when they’re the ones that should be doing some self reflecting as well. It just makes you wonder, how much of this is real and how much of this is all just for show/money?
I will keep holding onto His Word but nowadays it seems as if everyone picks and chooses what they want to preach about.
Am I reading too much into it? Is this just the world blinding me to keep living in sin? I long for that connection with God and I am having so much trouble finding Him. Edit: for context I am still young (21F) and still on my journey regarding my faith. I am so thankful for yalls input and kind words!
Avoid Passion Conferences and all their spokes on their commercialized wheel. Pray, study scriptures with your elder or mentor or parent, attend church faithfully, strive to live out your biblical values in your school or work place, then repeat. For that is the walk of the Christian.
Further Resources:
Exposing the Dangers of Passion 2025 with Dave Jenkins and Michelle Lesley, podcast 1hr and a half
Todd Friel at Wretched Radio discussing the 2012 Lectio Divina incident at Passion, 16 min
Spencer Smith warning about the 2022 Passion Conference in this 12 min video
Chris Tomlin founded Passion Conference with Louie Giglio. Here is a review of Tomlin when he promoted heretic Joyce Meyer
the-end-time.org 