42,000 young people (18 to 25 years old) showed up from January 2-5 in Atlanta for a conference at the Georgia Dome and parts of all three buildings of the Georgia Dome. Here’s some local coverage from channel 11 and here’s a report from CNN (their building is right next to all the activity).
Passion 2012 was the conference. I volunteered and worked as an usher on the floor of the Georgia Dome. The students donated money to support organizations battling slavery around the world, and here in Atlanta. $100,000 was donated to the city of Atlanta to help start a special victims unit of the police department.
Total amount raised during the four days? $3,066,670. Awesome. And more coming with online giving.
Next year the plan is to take down the curtain they use for concert seating at the Georgia Dome. That will make room for a lot more attendees. I can’t wait.
Not statistics that act in a Christian way, but rather trying to use statistics to understand the state of Christianity. Is it growing? Shrinking? Healthy? Dying? Turns out that describing statistics collected and making inferences is tricky, and the link describes some nice examples of where things can go wrong. Thanks to Brad for the link.
Most of the posts here are about what I do in the classroom, mostly geek stuff. But I am also a Christian who believes God plays an active role in my life. I have experienced too much to doubt this.
But it is also true that as a professor, there is a dynamic that I have to be careful about with students. Since I have the rights to assign grades, I try to be careful not to make students feel that their beliefs might impact their grades. I work with students from too many different backgrounds and I never want them to worry that their faith will be an issue with me.
On the other hand, I also try not to hide my Christian beliefs, and the way that affects how I live my life and treat others.
The dust-up over Brit Hume’s comments about Tiger Woods at first seemed to be the kind of thing I sometimes worry about: how can a Christian tell a Buddhist what to do?
This article from Michael Gerson in the Washington Post is a great way of thinking about this (I think). In the absence of coercive power, why wouldn’t someone offer a life preserver that worked for them to another person in pain?