I love being a part of Passion around the college students of today. It’s this window of time where you’re figuring out what your life will be about. To see Jesus meet people and see their path take a different turn is incredible. It’s not even about students going into ministry. We get to see someone say, “I’m going to be a doctor and I’m going to do so in such a way that I reflect the glory of God.” I just love being in that space to see people’s eyes open up.

CCM: With so many leaders and songwriters, how do you cull together the songs for a yearly release?
BY: We believe in music and the power of it. It becomes this expression, a reflection of a much bigger thing that God is doing. So because of that, it’s way bigger than just one person or one artist or one songwriter. It’s a community of the King here in Atlanta. A lot of us are just here throughout the year seeking God and what God is doing and saying. Then we’ve also got great leadership, particularly with our pastor Louie and Shelley [Giglio] here, as they’ve been leading Passion for its entirety.

Everybody is weighing in and as songwriters, we’re bringing things to the table as much as we can while saying, “Hey I hope this is helpful. I hope this can be used.” Then there’s a great team of leaders who will help sift through those ideas and listen to God and figure out what God wants to do over the course of the conference or what are the things we can say. Kristian Stanfill really helps lead the charge. Coming down to the moment, we’ll have worked on a lot of songs and we’ll enter the conference with a lot of things, but Kristian will be our leader in the moment to give us the right thing at the right thing. Between Louie and Shelly and Kristian and others, they help us get the right songs for the moment.

CCM: How did you arrive at this year’s theme of Whole Heart?
BY: When I look across the span of songs, they’re weighty this year. I mean, they are every year, but this year, we have a lot of songs talking about the greatness of God and pulling your heart up to look at Him. That’s what I see in these songs.

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