Atlanta’s Passion City Church was started in 2008 by conference speaker and Passion founder Louie Giglio along with worship leaders Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman.
If you’d like to visit make sure you get there early – I ended up in a far flung parking garage and it took me 15 minutes to park and walk to the campus.
As you approach the renovated Home Depot Expo Design Center you’ll see a packed parking lot and no sign on the building – you’d never know it was a church.
One person anecdotally told me that when the church first started people would drive over 2 hours to attend and the whole experience felt much like a conference. Since then the church has settled into a more normal, community feel. They’re running 3 services at 11, 4 and 6:45 with about 5,000-6,000 each week.
You do see the expected 20 & 30 somethings but also a surprising number of middle aged and older adults. One older volunteer told me he and his family drive an hour one way each week, arrive at 9 to volunteer and prepare for the 11 o’clock service, eat lunch, take the kids to the early afternoon youth group then attend the 4 o’clock service as a family and head home.
He mentioned he really appreciates Passion City Church’s commitment to high standards – he feels they strive to do everything in a top notch way and yet be as frugal as possible. He pointed out how the building, while nice, is nothing fancy.
The building is spacious to handle the crowds. I enjoyed the art wall recently created by Atlanta artists to commemorate freedom fighters. When Chris Tomlin is out of town other worship leaders like Kristian Stanfill lead. This past week worship was led by Brett Younker and the songs were:
Our God
Cornerstone
I Surrender
How I Love You
Here’s My Heart
Whom Shall I Fear
Music and announcements lasted about 50 minutes and Louie began preaching.
Passion City Church clearly follows the contemporary format modeled by so many of today’s megachurches – and this model is drawing throngs of hungry souls looking for something they’re evidently not finding in the traditional church.
Take a virtual tour:
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