The venue that usually serves as home to the Houston Rockets instead housed thousands of young adults for an annual Passion Conference – their expectant voices echoing in unison throughout the Toyota Center.
More than 17,000 young adults and college students ranging in age from 18 to 25 flocked to Houston on Friday and Saturday for one of the Christian conferences. The conference this year was hosted in two cities: Atlanta, Ga., and Houston.
Founded in 1997 by Atlanta-based pastor Louie Giglio, Passion aims to engage and empower young Christians through worship music and messages given by well-known speakers. Prominent figures in the Christian community, such as Beth Moore, Francis Chan and Judah Smith, spoke at this year’s conference, and worship was led by Grammy winners Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman, along with other leading names like Hillsong United, Crowder and Kristian Stanfill.
While universities from all across the state were represented, Giglio said Texas A&M had the largest representation at the conference.
“Everybody started whooping and stuff,” said Maggie Moetteli, junior recreation parks and tourism major, while describing the moment when participants were made aware of the attendance statistics.
Moetteli said this year was her fourth year to attend the conference. She said seeing A&M students at the center brought her a feeling of community.
“I think it was an awesome representation of what our generation in general can ac