Growing in passion, senior Jess Dudok recently went to a conference where she learned to expand her spirituality. 

     On January 2, Dudok flew to Atlanta, Georgia to attend a Christan conference called Passion, a large 2-day event with guest speakers and live music held at the Mercedes- Benz stadium. 

     The conference website says the event is an attempt to call “ this generation, with different voices, but one song, different backgrounds, but one Father, different nationalities, but one eternal home.”  The hosts of this event says, “there is a place for you.”

     Dudok added this was a “huge gathering with over 55,000 people that attended,” and the  main concept was to teach all these people things related to the new generation of faith.  

         The people speaking varied throughout the two days but there were two people that stood out to Dudok including Sadie Robertson. Public speaker Robertson has a podcast and participates in a lot of Christian conferences. The senior commented the speaker talked about “identity, how we seek others before our Creator, and lastly what God says about us.”  

    Along with Robertson, another speaker who stood out to Dudok was Ben Stewart, who focused on anxiety and how to face today’s culture. She said this part really “spoke to a lot of people.” Stewart has written a couple books all about different relationships. 

      Dudok said it was “amazing being in the same room with thousands of people wanting to be there for the same reason.” As for the experience, “everyone’s hands were raised, it was like a big concert, and we were all there supporting each other.” 

     She said the first night was a worship night but then “everyone got into smaller groups to have little discussions.” This was a time when people got to be more “intentional with making deeper connections.”  

     Dudok attends Freedom Church in Bel Air, which is how she found out about the conference. She went with her friends from church, but also met a lot of different people from other churches. Dudok also said she had the chance to meet “some people that were famous from Christan Tik Tok, which was really cool.” 

    Dudok attended the event because she “needed spiritual fulfillment.” Her favorite part was “the long discussions [the] had at some points.” 

    The senior said she took away that “everyone has a purpose. Those that don’t know about God need to get that out to people so that they know they’re created by something bigger than us.” 

     This event is held yearly and the next one is in Atlanta on January 3-5, 2023.