Thanksgiving Service, Celebration, Dinner (Sunday 11/23)

Sunday 11/23 is going to be a packed day. Following our special Thanksgiving service at Gracepoint Berkeley, we're having our annual Thanksgiving Celebration, a song-dance-video-rap-comedy-with-meaningful-elements extravaganza! We top it all off with an all-out Thanksgiving dinner with turkey galore and all the trimmings! Yum.

All our various college groups are brainstorming and preparing our acts right now. Practices will start next Friday. I hope you can all participate in this fun and meaningful event. This is when we discover all sorts of hidden talents, especially among the freshmen.

Here are some more memorable moments from past Thanksgiving Celebrations!

• Manny Kim's 15 seconds of fame
• Mama's Boys Music Video
  
• Disco!
  
• Thanksgiving Carol (with rappin' ghosts and the Phantom)

C'mon now, don't tell me you don't want to be part of this stuff. :)

Berkeley Good Eats & Big C Adventure

Recap of last week from Steve Choi:

Last week was a fun-filled time for Homegroup 4. On Thursday night, we got together with a bunch of new friends and went on what has definitely got to be one of my favorite outings: The Berkeley Good Eats Tour! Berkeley is home to a lot of delightful restaurants which new students probably don't know about. From not-so-well-kept local secrets like Gregoire, to nationally recognized establishments like Chez Panisse, there's a ton of good stuff out there if you know where to look! We hit up some of the best spots in North Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto.

We started the night with some pizza from The Cheeseboard. Of course, there was no room in the pizza shop nor on the sidewalk for a group of 20 or so culinary tourists... Thank goodness for the median! Next we sampled some of Gregoire's signature Potato Puffs. It was my first time having it and I definitely liked it. From watching them prepare it, it seemed like a simple yet tasty dish that anyone can make! Next time you come over to my place, ask me to make you some Choilicious Potato Puffs and you can decide for yourself. The guys also ordered fried appetizers at Barneys. As the last stop on our tour, we stopped by Nation's for some delicious pie. I think Natalie's group ordered 5 slices... Dan and I shared a slice of what looked like an enormous "dan-ta" (Chinese custard). Food always tastes better in the presence of good company, and our group had a great time getting to know one another better.

Friday night was another signature Berkeley experience. At Bible study, Pastor Ed talked about how we can know that the Bible is reliable and accurately transcribed across the centuries. Afterward, we joined up with Mike and Joanna's homegroup to hike up to the Big C. It was many of our freshmen's first time being there, and believe it or not, it was the first time for some Berkeley alumni and long-time Koinonia staff as well, namely Mike, Joanna, Dan and Hannah! The view from the top was beautiful and I'm thankful that we got to go on such a perfectly warm and clear night. Afterward we hung out together at Dana House, where we played foosball, celebrated Mike's birthday, and listened to Dan recount some of Dana House's best stories, including the time when Dan chased a burglar across Berkeley armed with nothing but his bare hands!

Here are more pictures from the events.

Stay tuned, there's more fun to come this week!

Steve Got a Job!

Steve got a job offer today. That makes us happy! He'll be working at an energy consulting firm. If you didn't know, he graduated from Cal last year, spent this past summer in Taiwan, and has been actively job-searching. An email from Steve:

Hi everyone,
Thank you everyone for your prayers. I received an offer from MRW, one of the companies I interviewed with in Oakland! I wanted to thank you all for your encouragement and prayers for me. I am blessed to have so many people who care about me, and I want to become more and more a grateful and hardworking partner in the Gospel with you all. Please continue to pray that I would steward this opportunity properly!

Indebted,
Steven

Now he can buy new glasses!
No, j/k, his glasses are fine.

Gracepoint Austin Inaugural Service

Last Sunday (10/5) was the inaugural worship service for the newest member of the Gracepoint family, GFC-Austin. A team from Berkeley went down to Texas for a week to help our brothers and sisters there plan for the event and just encourage and be with them for this historic occasion. Bryan Song posted a blog entry about the Inaugural week too. I'm so thankful we can share such camaraderie with our Austin team because of our bond in the Gospel. As Pastor Ed shared in his message at Gracepoint Berkeley yesterday, let's claim people to love, and we can start by always remembering GFC-Austin in prayer.

And if you're a student, just imagine some probable counterpart on the UT-Austin campus as you pray for them. I've heard the Austin students are like Cal students in so many ways. Except that for Austin students I bet the word "football" does not similarly conjure up mixed painful feelings and cause them to put their hope all the more in something more sure and secure, like God.

My Fan Club

Ok, I have to make a rather embarrassing admission: I have a fan club. Actually, I didn't know I had one until today, when I read the Gracepoint worship team's latest blog post. Anyway, you can read it for yourself.

Don't worry, I'm not actively soliciting members for this fan club. I'd rather talk about Koinonia and the different events we have. :)

Dis-Gracepoint - Featured Blog

New students, you've heard rumblings about a blog that everyone's been reading... Dis-grace-wha? What in the world is that? Dis-Gracepoint is our church's humor site that's provided us endless laughter and shock, as well as camaraderie for those (un)lucky people who make wonderful faux pas and end up getting immortalized on the site. So if you need a quick jolt to your senses as you're nodding off at your desk, check it out.

And yes, this is not some fancy Photoshop, the man you see here is now one of our beloved pastors at Gracepoint. Awesome.