The Future Is Now: Above + Beyond 2025 - Louie Giglio

0:26 has a title over it or a banner over it, and the banner is The Future Is Now. Above and beyond is the season, and I know it's been mentioned at every location, but a lot of you just came to church today. You're not maybe in the flow with Passion City Church, and that's great. I'm so glad you're here. We're so glad that you're here today, and no pressure for you around the our generosity movement today at all. We're just glad that you're in the house of God today. But to recap briefly, Above and Beyond is a season every year where we give above what we normally give so that we can go beyond where we normally go. If we're praying for a move of God, we want to have enough resource in the cupboard that if God answers our prayer and a thousand people get saved this week, we'll be ready to activate instantaneously and we won't have to go, wow, We didn't plan on a thousand people getting saved. We need to do this and add that and have this in place.

1:20 No, we're giving above what we normally give so that our house can go beyond where we normally go. And so today we're not just putting our financial gifts in the envelope. We're putting our faith in the envelope saying, God, we're praying for a move of God. We're giving for a move of God because we believe the future is now. The text today is familiar to you if you've been in church, and I want us to encourage each other with this today. Paul wrote this to the church in Ephesus coming down to the end of the third chapter, beginning in verse 20. He makes this benediction. He's already prayed this incredible prayer for them that they would be able all together to comprehend how high and how wide and how deep and how long is the love of God so that they could be filled up to the full measure of Christ. And then he comes with this big, beautiful benediction, and he says, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.

2:42 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more. This is above and beyond language. This is above and beyond thinking. This is an above and beyond benediction. This is above and beyond praise. Now to him who is able. Can we just pause right there for a minute today? And celebrate once again that God, our God, the God we're worshiping today is able. I might not be able, but God is still able. I might not have the ability to change this circumstance, but God is able. I might have run out of my strength, my energy, my resource, my ideas, but God is able. He's still able. He's able for your family. He is able for your children today. I know somebody in this gathering has got so much pressure on you right now for the state of your child.

3:36 And I'm telling you, God is able. he's able for your family he's able for your mind he's able for whatever you're battling he's able today and he's able for us at passion city church as we're coming today to really trust him for honestly a miracle giving in our house the thing i love the most maybe about the 30 hours of prayer we just shared together is that i don't remember a prayer in any of the hours that i was in the midst of the prayer where there was a prayer for a financial giving for Above and Beyond Sunday. The prayers were, God, we want you. God, we want you. We want a move of God. We want salvation to break out in this city. We want churches to come alive in this city. We want you to do miracles in this city. The prayers were not, oh, we need a certain amount of money. The prayers were, God, we want you.

4:29 We are here for you, God. But in the midst of being here for him, we do have an incredible opportunity together, And that's this above and beyond giving that begins today. For some of you, it's already begun. And our financial oversight team has put a target, if you will, in front of our house of $10 million in this above and beyond giving. And you might think, man, that's a big, big number. But it's something that I believe we can do. Last year, the financial oversight team led us to this target of $7 million in above and Beyond Giving, more than we had ever experienced at Passion City Church before. And not only did you give $7 million, but over the course of that year in Above and Beyond Giving, you gave $8.5 million to Above and Beyond last year, $1.5 million more than the target. So I think it's not unrealistic to think that we can give $1.5 million more than the target from last year at the 8.5 million that came, and we can see God provide $10 million for our house. I believe that God is able. And I want to say that again to you today, God, we know that you are able.

5:44 So what is that money going to do? Well, we talked about this last week, but a lot of you maybe missed out on that. Some of the things that the money is going to do is going to help us, keep doing what we're doing. We're still in a season as Passion City, where we got two locations that popped up over the last few years. And we've got a lot of new people in our house, a whole lot of new people in our house who aren't yet fully on the generosity journey. And so a lot of the giving into Above and Beyond is gonna help us continue to serve your family, create environments where your family and where you can encounter Jesus and have transformation happen in your life. A big part of our Above and Beyond giving, praise God, is gonna get us across the street from Town Stage right now where folks are worshiping at Trillith and into this thing right here. Do you want to check this out? This is Trillith Live, and it is coming online right now. And Lord willing, we will be moving into it at the end of this year, beginning of next year.

6:42 And this will be the last Above and Beyond Sunday where we're talking about moving into Trillith Live. I hope there's a big applause going on down at Trillith right now. People are fired up up here at 515 also. This thing is phenomenal. wish I had 30 minutes to tell you all about it, but this is the auditorium we're going to be meeting in. It's probably the state of the art concert performance venue in Georgia, maybe in the Southeast, possibly in America. It is unbelievable. And there will be concerts of all manner happening there. But on Sundays, the people of God will be gathered in there, lifting up the songs of praise and bringing down heaven into this space. These escalators and stairs are going down. Here's the auditorium entrance over here on this side, movie theaters over here. So if you don't like to talk, you can just jump out and go see a show.

7:37 There are TV studios down in the bottom, but these escalators and stairs take you down to Passion City Church's level where Bloom is happening and where Passion Kids is happening and where students is happening and where people are working during the week and where door holders are rallying and where small events can happen. All that space underneath dedicated to Passion City Church. There's one of the student spaces there. You can see the stage up here. Really cool area for people sitting up these risers, all these up here. And just phenomenal. Everything is getting ready for us to move into this space. going to be beautiful, but we've got to kit out all the rest of it. We didn't pay $1 to build that building. Praise God. But we have to pay the millions of dollars to get the carpeting and the desks and the cribs and the tents and the sound systems and students and impassioned kids and all the kitchenware and all the stuff that you have to have when you move into a new house.

8:44 and we're paying for all that actually right now. We've already paid a couple of hundred thousand for stuff. We got Bill waiting for the next wave and the next wave and all that can happen if Above and Beyond happens at Passion City Church and we're excited about moving in. Trillas, we are so fired up to see this big step that you're gonna take and know that the community in South Atlanta is gonna see an amazing change because of what God's gonna do. With Above and Beyond, we're going to support partners. 10% of everything you give to Above and Beyond is leaving our house because that's kingdom thinking. That's the way the kingdom economy works. And our global partners are Illuminations. They're translating scripture all around the world. Great partnership we have. A21, these are friends of ours that are the leading edge of anti-trafficking work around the world. And Convoy of Hope just allows us to know that we're the first in on every disaster.

9:41 So when the hurricanes hit and when flooding happens, Convoy of Hope rolls in. They are so ready and prepared to meet needs immediately in situations like that, that you or I maybe can't meet. But our Above and Beyond is going to resource Convoy of Hope so that we'll know that not only are our prayers going into these circumstances, but our giving is going as well. Our local partners this year, Atlanta is City of Refuge and Crisis Transitioning for Men, Women, and Children. 515, we are supporting Atlanta Mission. Cumberland, supporting Table on Delk and Trillith Healing Bridge. Our giving is not just for what's happening inside our walls. Our giving is to impact what people are doing outside of the walls of Passion City Church, and we're pumped about it. Passion Equip is doing phenomenal. This is a resource that we have created to carry the theological DNA of our movement to people around the world. And it's not just a website where you come and see stuff. This is where content is being curated every single day.

10:50 So a message is preached here, or Ben preaches a message in DC, and all of a sudden a devotional plan is created that thousands of people can take advantage of the next week or a month later, anywhere on planet earth. A talk from conference two years ago can be written into a study guide, and it's for us to take the heartbeat of gospel-centered, God-glorifying theology and take it to people around the world. You can see just this last year, site visits last year, or so far this year, 933,000 up 18%. Total users so far this year, 210,000 people up 15%. percent. Total countries, 206 countries checking in. Average time is up 106 percent. And Equip is closing in on two million minutes of teaching, read, content watched, and listened to. And that is just a powerful way for Passion and Passion City Church to touch people around the world.

11:50 But here's the interesting thing about Passion Equip. It has no funding. It's totally free, and it has no funding. And so for right now, in these early seed sowing stages, we are the funders of Passion Equip. And through our above and beyond giving, we really are going to be in the above and the beyond as Passion Equip continues to touch and impact people's lives. We're putting money aside for Passion Global gatherings. We, just as most of you know, were in South Africa and had amazing gatherings in two rugby stadiums there. This is what that looked and felt like. This is Cape Town, South Africa. And we have an incredible stewardship in various corners of the world. But to go to these places, you can't charge enough in South Africa to make two stadium events work. And Passion Conference is a conference serving college-age young people.

12:44 It doesn't have surplus either. So how do we say yes when the doorway is open? And we say yes because we had above so that we could go beyond. We had above so that we could step into a moment like this and impact people around the world. And then also, we talked about this last week, Passion 2026 is on the horizon. Amen. And if you want to see something inspiring, this is where we're going to be this year. The Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas, home of the Texas Rangers. It's our first time in a baseball stadium, by the way. We've done Mercedes. We did the Georgia Dome. We've done State Farm tons of times, arenas and stadiums around the world. We've never been in a baseball stadium before. Can you imagine this field's going to be covered? 10,000 18 to 25-year-olds on the field and all in these stands. It is going to reverberate for the glory of God. And we want high school seniors and YA people from Passion City Church, young adults in Arlington.

13:43 And so we want to help them get there. It's a $500-something investment on their part. And we want to say, if you want to go and you're willing to pitch in and your family can't foot a bill for that, then we are your family and we want to help make that possible. So we're taking a big chunk out of Above and Beyond to help resource the next generation to be in Globe Life Field for Passion 2026. we believe, I believe, I think our church believes that God is able.

14:18 He's able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. And I'm telling you, I don't want to harp on the 30 hours of prayer, but there was a lot of asking going on in this room and a lot of imagining going on in this room. And the God who's in the midst of it is saying, I'm able to do immeasurably more than all that you're asking and all that you're imagining. In other words, I'm thinking about things bigger than what you're thinking about. I'm seeing things wider than what you're seeing. I've got plans that exceed your wildest dreams, and I'm able to do it. Why? For the glory of God, for his glory. So there's all these things that we're trusting God for, but you know, they're things that weren't on the list today because we don't know what they are.

15:13 We don't know what God is about to do. We don't know what door God is about to open. We don't know what opportunity God has right before us. So we're just positioning ourselves in faith, wanting him to get glory. That's the outcome of all this above and beyond is that he gets glory. And where does he get glory? He gets it in the church. And he gets it in Christ Jesus. We know from 2 Corinthians 4 that we've all seen the glory of God in the face of Christ. So that's where the glory of God is visibly seen the most, is looking into the person of Christ. But he also wants glory in the church. And I want to say it again, the church is the hope of Atlanta.

15:55 Not a whacked out church. a Bible preaching, Holy Spirit filled, prayerful, Jesus focused, gospel driven, serving community church that's healthy, where people are being changed by the power of God. That church is the hope of Atlanta, Georgia.

16:18 And we need hundreds of them to be born in this city because that's where God's going to get glory is through a church that is moving in the power of the Spirit, focused on giving glory to Jesus. And he does it throughout all generations. I love that this is where this benediction ends, throughout all generations. In other words, Paul's not just saying to the church in Ephesus, this is what God wants to do in Ephesus right now. This is what he wants to do with you right now. No, he's saying God is a generational God. He always has been, and he always will be. In fact, the fathers of our faith used to pray to the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Their whole thinking was generational. Their whole thinking was rooted in the faithfulness of God, not just to their generation, but to the generation they heard about, and the generation that they heard about, and the generation that they heard about, and to the generation that's going to come, he's going to be just as able. And the generation that comes after them, he's going to be just as able. And the generation that comes after them, he's going to be just as able. He's going to be able for your kids. And he's going to be able for your grandkids because he's given a benediction that says, and this is going to happen throughout all generations, forever and ever.

17:40 Amen. You say, man, you're getting fired up. I know because there is a big fat exclamation point right at the end of this benediction. you cannot not be energized by having that spoken into your heart and over your life. And God is gonna do it through all generations. The future is now because God is always thinking about the generations. I love it.

18:17 Above and Beyond is about the future. If you're in my demographic, I'm a boomer. happy about it, didn't have a choice. don't know who gave us that name, don't know who names these generations, I don't know who has that job and how they got that job that they got to name all the generations and decide what age is or what, but I'm a boomer, and there are a lot of boomers here today, I'm looking around, and I'm seeing a lot of, not a head's nodding right now, people got their hearing aids dialed up good, can hear me. I'm one of the oldest people in this room. And you need to hear me keep saying this. This church is for me. And if you're a boomer, it's for you. Even so much so that a couple Sundays a year, we're going to turn the volume down just a little bit on the music and get in that acoustic flow. This church is for you. But above and beyond primarily, it's about the future.

19:24 It is our faith for the future. There are babies in cribs and bloom all across our house today. This above and beyond is for them. They don't know it. They can't comprehend that. Most likely, they're not giving much into it. They don't understand the whole program. Maybe can't explain it today. But this giving today is for them. It is a generational preparation because God is speaking today for something to happen throughout all generations. Forever and ever. Amen. And this above and beyond season is about the future. And that is because passion and our DNA have always been about the future. passion started with a desire to see an awakening come to 18 to 25 year olds and to their generation that's where we took our first breath was saying god we want you to stir an awakening among 18 to 25 year olds across the world and we started in 1997 planting seeds for a spiritual awakening in this generation.

20:50 and it's happening it's happening right now. The Bible uses two main Greek words to talk about time. One of them is chronos, and that is sequential time, time that can be measured like a minute or an hour, a day, a week, a year, chronos time. But the Bible also talks about time with a different word called kairos. And kairos represents a specific, opportune, or decisive moment in God's plan. A divinely appointed moment. And I believe we're living in a Kairos moment. People have been sensing this for the last handful of years. You travel around the world and talk to other people who are leading churches or leading movements or just tuned into the Holy Spirit.

21:46 And everybody's been saying for the last few years, it feels like something's shifting. It feels like something's changing. It feels like something's breaking open. Do you feel it? People are like, yeah, we feel it also. God's moving. God is stirring on earth. Some kind of a kairos moment, some kind of a divinely appointed moment. And we've been saying that. Are we in a kairos moment right now? But now the data's catching up with the hunch that people have had and the stirring they've had in their hearts. Barna Research is telling us that there are 30 million more U.S. adults who claim to be following Jesus today than in 2021. think about that 30 million more people and the language was very specific not i'm a christian no i am following jesus 30 million more people that's why you've been feeling something and maybe it wasn't explained in every you know media outlet that we've been linked up with it but they're catching up as well that same barna research told us that among gen z men commitment to Jesus jumped 15% between 2019 and 2025.

23:08 We're in a Kairos moment and it looks like a lot of it is being stirred by Gen Z. You're like, I've heard about Gen Z. Who is that exactly? Gen Z are people born between 1997 and 2012. They're 13 to 28 year olds. And there is something happening. Just a few of the headlines, you could go onto your browser and just type in Gen Z Christian movement and headlines pop up everywhere. This past Easter, a piece appeared in the USA Today, and it said, not just at Easter, Gen Z is returning to Christianity, and the data proves it. In Axios, a headline said young men are leading a religious resurgence. The Wall Street Journal headline, sale of Bibles are booming, fueled by first-time buyers. The Guardian, a revival is happening. Church hails resurgence among young in the United Kingdom. God is moving in this generation in a mighty way. I'm not an expert on them, and I always want to tread lightly on describing generations, whether it's the boomers or Gen X or Gen Y that got combined together to be the millennials or to the Gen Alpha that's coming. We've gathered a ton of them in our lifetime, but I don't really think I'm an expert on describing them all. I just want to serve them more than I want to describe them.

24:35 But people say about Gen Z that they're seeking a Christianity that not only explains its tenets, but demonstrates its practical, transformative power in everyday life. They want to see how faith works, not just hear about how it works. This generation is looking for authentic, relatable experiences of faith rather than abstract theological concepts or superficial practices. And they are on the move. And they're turning the tide. For the last few decades, all the news was decline, decline, decline, decline. And the media loved to tell that story. But guess what? The decline has stopped. and primarily Gen Z stopped it and now it's all about increase because God is still able to do immeasurably more than all that we ask or imagine according to the power that is at work in us so to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all the generations forever and ever.

25:56 Forever and ever. Amen. When I think about Gen Z, I think about Shelly and I and some of those very first steps with passion. We didn't set out, and I've told this so many different times, but sometimes you just have to go back to the beginning. Again, we never set out to be college-age, university-age leaders, ministers. servants. We just always assumed that I would graduate from seminary, she would graduate from Baylor, God would call us to a church somewhere, and we'd start down that road. But something changed the last summer that I was a summer college intern in Houston, Texas. All of my seminary years, summer came Houston, Texas. Summer college intern, handful of students, They went to places like University of Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, TCU, Baylor, University of Arkansas, places like that.

26:59 A lot of places I didn't really know that much about. But man, they were on fire. The first group, the first summer I was there, I met this unbelievable, passionate, gorgeous, beautiful, Jesus-filled woman named Shelly Graves. and her and a handful of her friends came to the house of the family I was living with like the second third day I was there knocked on the door lady at the house Mrs. Hammer went to the door and they said is Louie here and they're is this where he's staying yes is he here yes can we talk to him sure Louie there's people here eight ten of them pile in sit on the stairway in the Hammers foyer and they said, hey, we just want to come by and meet you and see kind of what you're about. Because we're having our lives wrecked by Jesus this past year at school. And we're having a spiritual awakening in our lives like we've never experienced before. And we want to know if you know about how Jesus can keep changing our lives. We're learning about our new identity in Christ.

28:02 Do you know anything about our identity in Christ? Because we want to keep diving into our identity in Christ. And it's fine if we go to the lake. It's fine if we have ski things. It's fine if we have hot dogs. Finally, we're here. We really just want to go with Jesus. Can you take us with Jesus? I was like, hallelujah. I'm having a revival with Jesus in my life. We're going to have a revival with Jesus in this summer. And we did. And the summers added up. And at the last summer, so I'm now, you know, catching all the, connecting all the dots. I'm now finished seminary. I'm, you know, interestingly enough, going to grad school at Baylor. I don't know why. Shelly has one more year there. That's probably the main reason. But I'm doing a master's degree in church state studies, and I'm going to be starting in just a couple of weeks. And we're at a river house of these people in the church at the end of the summer college retreat in the hill country of Texas, not too far from where the floods just were. And we're sitting on the porch of this house, and this girl that Shelly and I were very close to, Jesus-filled tridelt at Baylor University.

29:08 Kay Dorsey. This is Kay. she looked across this table at me and she said a sentence that changed the trajectory of Shelly's life in my life. She said, Louie, you know that God is bringing you to Baylor for a reason. and I was like, yeah, I know, Shelly's senior year, first time in our dating relationship, we're gonna live in the same city for a year. That seems like a good idea before you get married, and that's probably the road we're on. I got a full scholarship to this program that I couldn't afford otherwise. It seemed like an open door. God is bringing you to Baylor for a reason.

30:04 When she said it, I was like... I'd spent the last two years, every weekend that I was now preaching at some youth event somewhere, I was at Baylor. I was sleeping on some dude's floor, sleeping on some guy's couch, hanging out with my girlfriend, doing things that Baylor students do,

30:28 getting up and going to church where Baylor students go to church, hanging out, seeing Baylor students, seeing what God was doing on campus and seeing what God still needed to do there. Largest Baptist university in the world. Almost everybody knew who Jesus was, but there wasn't a revival happening. and right in that moment Shelly and I started down a road to serve 18 to 25 year olds all because of Kay speaking that out over our lives.

31:10 Kay got to see an amazing stirring at Baylor. On some Monday nights, there'd be 1,500 of the 10,000 students at Baylor in worship. Bibles open, hands raised, aisles packed, people standing room only in every direction. a line of people waiting when the doors open to get in, hungry for God. and Kay got to see a good bit of that. She eventually graduated, got married, became Kay Dossie Fielder, and in time, that chapter ended for Shelly and me, and we were on the brink of the vision of passion. coming into our lives. And just before that happened in 1993, at 27 years of age, Kay died of cancer.

32:10 she never got to see passion When she died, we didn't even know what passion would it be. We were still serving students at Baylor. And Kay never saw... these 29 years of passion, but she planted the seed. and she changed the world she changed the generations. She was Gen Z oh she'd be a boomer now a few years after she died we walked through the doors of the austin convention center for the very first passion conference where 2 000 college students gathered to hear that they could live their lives for the glory of god It was January 1st, 1997.

33:39 the very first day the first Gen Z person was born. Passion took its first breath on the same day the first Gen Z person was born. God is stirring and he's moving and he has a place for all of us in it. We've clung to Psalm 145. It says in verse four, one generation commends your works to another and they tell of your mighty acts. The generation. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They, this other generation, they tell of your power.

34:36 and your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. One generation commends your work to another. They speak of your glorious majesty. So we are leaning forward today, but we're also aware that the supernatural move of God is an intergenerational move, that we need the boomers to be telling Gen Z about the faithfulness of God, about the majesty of God, about the goodness of God, about the power of God. And we need Gen Z to be receiving it and embracing it and absorbing it. They need signposts to help them navigate their newfound enthusiasm and awakening with Jesus. But Gen Z already got a clue into the fact that Gen Alpha is right there and they're going to be the ones who pass on the mighty acts of God and the glorious majesty of God and the splendor of God and the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God to the next generation.

35:40 it's a move of God and it takes all of us but I just want us to remember today that passion is a forward leaning movement and I want to invite each boomer here today to join us and not only creating, but in resourcing the above and beyond for the future generations. I wanna invite every Gen X person to join us. and leaning to the above and beyond for the future generations. We need places to gather, but we're not about buildings. We are building kingdom culture. We are organized, but we are not an organization.

36:34 We are a living organism. We are not a corporation. We are a cause. We are not about monuments. We are a movement. We're not static, but we are spirit-led. We are not business as usual, but we are hungry for an outpouring. We are not hands folded. We are sales up. Will you not seek to promote people? We preach Jesus. We're very past aware and grateful, but we are future-leaning. We are not looking back. Because God is doing something new.

37:22 And that's why we're saying goodbye yesterday. It's an anthem that Gen Z loves. If you're anywhere a mile near Instagram right now, you have probably seen the Gen Z crowd out in the streets of some city, town in Italy just cranking up goodbye yesterday. Anybody seen that in your feed? You will now. Thank you very much for putting that in everyone's feed today. it's just a real anthem for this generation. The lyrics say, if you don't know it, goodbye yesterday. I'm living in the light of a new day. I won't waste another minute in my old ways. Praise the Lord. I've been born again. Goodbye yesterday. I'm living in the light of a new day. I won't waste another minute in my old ways. Praise the Lord. I've been born again and again and again and again and again. You rescued me out of the mess I was in. You traded my sorrow for something to sing. Now I'm dancing on the grave that I once lived in. I'm dancing on the grave that I once lived in.

38:34 so goodbye yesterday I'm living in the light of a new day I won't waste another minute in my old ways praise the Lord I've been born again and then they just declare I have decided to follow Jesus the world behind the cross before and I won't turn back I have decided to follow Jesus, the world behind the cross before.