iTunes Celebrates Popular Worship Music from Passion

|PIC1|iTunes is celebrating the popular worship music of the 'Passion experience' at a new centralised page on the site known as "The iTunes Guide to the Passion Movement".

In addition, new "celebrity playlists" from Passion artists Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Matt Redman, and Charlie Hall as well as Passion founder and speaker Louie Giglio are available on the site.

Currently, four of the top eight downloaded Christian albums at iTunes are Passion-related. For complete details about the Passion worship movement and its related conferences, visit 268generation.com.

Having concluded a global outreach in Atlanta in January with more than 23,000 students, the Passion team will literally reach out to the world next year in a 15-nation tour.

For the first time, the US Passion conference is making a global tour in 2008 after years of drawing tens of thousands of students to one national venue. Next year's plan is to visit 20 cities across 15 nations in an estimated $4 million (£2 million) tour.

At Passion 07, students converged from 33 countries to encounter God and hear such speakers as Passion founder Louie Giglio, John Piper and worship artists Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman. And a new global initiative - the Do Something Now campaign - opened the window to eight different opportunities to aid people around the world.

"Through a window in the Georgia World Congress Center, I could see that they stopped letting people go into the Global Awakening area until others came out," said Louie Giglio. "How many places do you see a thousand people waiting in such a line?"

The Global Awakening: The World Mobilisation Area served as a hub for the campaign, giving students the chance to explore different outreaches including the purchase of water wells in Africa and pledges for New Testament translation for the Dela people of Indonesia.

Donors at Passion 07 exceeded the goal of 11 wells, which cost a total of $33,000 (£17,000), by purchasing 38 water wells, each of which provide clean water for life and help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Additionally, 100 sponsors committed to fund surgeries for children in South/Central America. All 100 sponsorships were also matched by a donor, thus doubling the number of life-changing surgeries.

Students were encouraged to extend their reach to people groups across the globe and now Passion in 2008 will take the Gospel to the people directly.

"There is a massive worldwide after-party. It's called heaven," said Giglio at a Passion 07 session. "The invitations are going out in every single language, and those who have the story need to take the story to the nations, to the 6,800 people groups that don't yet have the Gospel. God is asking many of us to pack up the 'American Dream' and is extending the invitation to go to the unreached people groups of the world."