Passion Stirs Kristian Stanfill

More than 20,000 university-aged students converged on Atlanta, Ga. January 1-4, 2011. The four-day event centers on worship, teaching and encounters with God that will refresh, restore and inspire the emerging generation to live for Jesus and to be filled with His love.

With a veritable “all-star” line-up of gifted and consecrated worship leaders, the albums made from the times of worship at Passion conferences have given birth to many much-loved songs in the global Church. Passion: Here For You, the much-anticipated of new songs features sixstepsrecords artists Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, Christy Nockels and Kristian Stanfill. The album and new song offerings reflect the desire of a generation to lay down their lives to live for the renown of Christ.

NRT's Bill Lurwick had the chance to talk with Kristian Stanfill about Here For You, and about his journey to the Passion movement.

Here for You, the latest Passion Worship Group release was recorded live back in January in Atlanta. There were over 20,000 there this year for Passion. Is that a new high?

Well, I guess you never really know exactly what to expect, but it was pretty high. We had more than 22,000 college students between two different venues in downtown Atlanta and it was just a sight. Just a beautiful sight. When that many students come and converge on a city like Atlanta, it turns the whole city on its head and people don’t know what’s going on. It’s funny to watch people go, “What are all these droves of college students walking through the streets?” It was definitely a beautiful thing.

Can you talk about the heart behind Passion and what you guys are doing?

I was not around in the very beginning. I was one of those college students at that time. I wasn’t involved with Passion in any way, but I was waiting at the door of the Christian music store to buy the Passion record every time I knew it was coming out. It had such a huge impact on me just in my walk with Jesus and my walk with God.

I think that’s the heart behind everything that Passion does: trying to gather university students from all over the world, pull them together and say collectively, “There is nothing better, nothing greater that we can live for than the name of Jesus.” And we all come together, converge in one place like Atlanta for three or four days and then everybody just explodes back out into the world--into their universities, into their jobs, into their families, their churches, their schools just carrying the name of Jesus. That is what we pray for. That is what we hope for more than anything.

We love songs. We absolutely love songs, but we want people to not just carry the songs back to where they came from. We want people to carry this passion and love for Jesus back to where they came from. That’s the goal, that’s the heart of it. We’re seeing it happen. It really is cool to see this generation of college students all coming together to live for Jesus. It’s pretty cool to be a part of it.

You’ve got two cuts on Passion’s Here for You. Let’s talk about the first one, “Forever Reign.”

You never know what is actually going to be on the Passion records while you’re at Passion. You wait and see what the moments are and how God elevates certain songs.