NSWN was Awesome!

Wow, our first New Student Welcome Night was incredible! We had over 1,000 new students join us, and I heard we had to turn away a few hundred more due to lack of space. I'm so thankful for all the hard work each person at our church put in to make this event possible. I've been hearing such a buzz from many students around campus who were impacted/impressed/awed/intrigued by the program.

Don't forget, part 2 is tonight! A new video, skit, more music (with alot more singers), another great message, ice cream, sports/games @ Maxwell Field. Sure, it's packed, but hey, you have Monday off to rest. :)

We're meeting @ Crossroads at 5:15pm for dinner and then heading to the program together. If you were there for the first one, you know that seats are gonna go fast. See you tonight!

Welcome Week Events!

Hi guys, Welcome Week is upon us and that means LOTS of activities. A Berkeley tour, In-N-Out & Ghiradelli, a Kakigori (Japanese for shaved ice) party, and more Ultimate Frisbee that you can handle! Invite your friends and join us. Or, if you're just bored and by yourself, come anyway!

Miscellany

• For a fitting end to an exciting summer, we're having an all-Koinonia BBQ this Friday @ 5pm in Alameda. Join us for food, sports, and fun all together! Afterwards we'll head over to my place for Bible study.


• Our praise leader, James, is taking a new poll on the Gracepoint Fellowship Church Berkeley Worship site: What's your favorite worship song?
  
  http://gracepointworship.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/favorites-gracepoint-fellowship-church/
  


• And while we're in the polling mood, vote on Pastor Ed Kang's poll to indicate what you'd like to see more of on his blog. Vote before it closes!
  
  http://edkang.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/gracepoint-fellowship-church-pol
  


• For those of you who use Twitter, there's a new Gracepoint Twitter feed. Check it out and follow Gracepoint!

My friend is going to Gracepoint Austin...

I can't believe that in less than a week, Joyce, Del and Maurice will be leaving to join Gracepoint Fellowship Church - Austin! Joyce's departure is especially sad for me since I've worked with Joyce for the past 3 years at my current job. I've known her since she was in high school through her older sister, Grace Kim, who's my peer and rather famous (or infamous) on Dis-gracepoint. It doesn't seem that long ago when, during the winter break of my sophomore year, my peers, Joyce and I went to Disneyland. Joyce was only a sophomore in high school back then and we had so much fun together as we rode on amazing rides, ate yummy snacks and took pictures with my favorite Disney characters like Alice, Ariel, Woody and Buzz. Before I knew it, she was an excited yet clueless freshman at UC Berkeley! Boy, time flies. But over time she grew into a person who loves God and cares about others deeply. As I saw her reaching out to her Joyland kids, serving faithfully in acts2fellowship and loving the co-workers at our work, I just thanked God for changing and shaping her over the years. I can't believe that she's now married and will be moving this week to Austin with Del to help out our church there. I'm inspired by her courage to leave her home of seven years to go to a place that she hasn't even visited yet. As I pass by her empty cubicle, I already miss her. But I am very thankful for all the years I got to know her and excited about what God will do through her life in Austin.

Baby Ryan is Born!

Ryan Park was born to Helen and Ben of Homegroup 3 this past Tuesday! What's he doing in this pic? Is he singing like Ben, or welcoming us like Helen? Or just trying to be funny?

Regardless, we're thankful that Ryan is healthy and that he (and his parents) is doing well.

Announcements for Week of 8/11/08

Hi everyone, here's what's coming up this week and beyond:

Friday (8/15) – Dinner, All-College Bible Study and Fellowship
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Northloop
Please join us for some fun and fellowship after your finals. After dinner and Bible study, we'll play games and watch the Olympics!

Sunday (8/17) - New Time and Location for Service
Time: 1:15pm
Location: Pauley Ballroom
Our service is permanently moving to 1:15pm. But for the next 2 weeks only, we'll be having service on campus at Pauley Ballroom.

Wednesday (8/27) & Friday (8/29) - New Student Welcome Night!!
There's so much excitement in the air as we prepare for these 2 nights! Be sure to invite your friends, especially those who are new students to Cal.

Saturday (8/30) - Extended Gracepoint Monthly
Time: Saturday, 9am-6pm
Location: Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary
Cost: $10; Sign up
It's been such a packed summer, with mission trips, the start of our Austin church, new homegroups, discipleship retreats. Whew! Join us for this special time to recount and share all that's happened at our church. Please sign up here so we can plan for the right amount of food. I really hope all of you can make it.

Another Normal Vs., a Gracepoint Berkeley Classic

I've been waiting to get this. The Normal Vs. video about Jin and Yumi, my friends from Homegroup 8, has been posted on their site. I think this is one of the funniest Normal Vs. in recent memory. And when you see Jin and Yumi, say hi and get to know them. They're great people!

New Student Welcome Night for the last 10 Years...

By now you guys have probably seen our awesome trailer for the New Student Welcome Night (NSWN). Every Fall, the NSWN is our biggest event and it's all hands on deck as all of Gracepoint mobilizes to make it happen! As our praise leader, James Kim, reminisced in his latest post on the Gracepoint Berkeley Worship blog about how this year's NSWN will be the 10th one for which he's led the traditionally rocking praise time, I also realized that 10 years ago, the NSWN of my sophomore year was the first time I played the drums for our church. That was at 2050 VLSB, a room that has become for so many of us a place of many indelible memories. It was the first time I'd ever used one of those electronic drumpad thingys you've seen around church, that just don't quite compare to the sound of a real live drum set.

It's been 10 years, 10 New Student Welcome Nights. We've moved on from VLSB; last year we packed Wheeler Auditorium and this year we'll pack Pauley Ballroom. But NSWN never gets old. Each is just as much the exciting adventure the last one was as we get to see how God uniquely works among a new group of eager, wide-eyed students, many who hear the Gospel for the first time at NSWN. Since I'm always on stage or sitting in the front of the room, over the years I've always had a great view of their varied reactions--awe, surprise, amusement, deep thought. I can't wait to see who finds their way to this year's event, can't wait to hear many new stories about how people were impacted by something in the program.

I bang the drums extra hard every NSWN. It's just the right thing to do. And I'll keep playing as long as my arms don’t fall off and I don’t go deaf, although after playing for this past Saturday’s awesome Centrifuge event held by our Element Youth Group, I think my hearing’s life-span got shortened by about 20 years, which means 20 fewer NSWN's I can play for, I guess.

Marathon Man

The talk of the town has been Steve Suh, who ran the SF marathon this past Sunday! He's the man, and the only over-30-year-old at our church who has ever done this. He finished with an official time of 4 hrs, 37 min too, the time it probably takes most of us to run half the distance. :)

Watch as John Chung salutes Steve in this tribute video. Be sure to vote in his poll too, so that we can see future tribute videos to Kenton, John Ko, or John Chung. I think if all 3 of them ran together, that would defy the boundaries of awesomeness.

BTT (Bible Teacher's Training) @ Gracepoint Berkeley

I can't believe its been 3 weeks since I went up to Sierra Lodge for BTT. Time sure flies. It seemed like only last week when we were huddled together late at night as we waited to take off from Northloop. That was a fun drive, getting to know a lot of Abe's class, people like Jon and Allen who just recently got back from Taiwan, and Mark from SF. They are a fun class to hang out with. Each of them are very interesting characters... you'll know what I mean if you spend some time with them. This BTT trip was mostly made up of the younger staff, around 26 of us, so from our home group that included Sheri and myself.

Man our days were so packed, we spent our days preparing bible studies, working on different projects around the house, and of course having a lot of fun! You read that right, we were learning how to prepare bible studies, not just listening to bible studies. That was definitely very different. I've always been the receipient of a message, so to be on the other side and trying to give a bible study was a new feeling. After preparing 3 messages, I'm just much more appreciative of Pastor Ed Kang and Pastor Manny when they give the message on Sundays or during Friday bible study. They spend a lot of time working on the message and a lot is taken into consideration, which we only began to scratch the surface. We gave bible studies to each other, and Pastor Ed will critique us, helping us with our message and showing areas where we need to improve or areas that we did well. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the bible studies were actually. None of us spoke anything heretical, which is good. Who knows, maybe sometime in the near future, one of us will be giving a bible study in our homegroups, applying what we've learned ^_^

We also spent some of the time working on different things that needed done at the house, from building a landing underneath the deck so we can use it to store bins and coolers, building a spiral staircase up to the loft, putting up blinds, etc. I worked on the staircase, along with my other Mech E friend Richard Leung, and some of the other engineers. How many people does it take to put together a spiral staircase? Apparently it takes at least 4-5 Berkeley engineers. Haha. Next time you go up you can see the beautiful work that we did, just don't look too closely. There's something about using machine tools, and working with your hands that makes you feel really awake and alive. We cut wood, used nail guns, etc. It felt good. Maybe its just me... Anyways, we got a lot of work done around the house, everything just keeps getting nicer. I can't wait until we get to build the barn in the coming months, that should be a lot of fun.

And of course, being the Sierras, how can we not go out and enjoy the nature?! We spent some time at Lake Spalding, which is literally 5 minutes away from the house. Its super close, and we brought with us a bunch of kayaks and a paddle boat. Kayaking in the beautiful lake, enjoying the nature...wait, thats not exactly what we did. We actually spent most of the time splashing each other with our paddles and trying to flip people who were too dry over as they got close to shore. Needless to say we all got pretty wet. I don't think anyone got away dry...except maybe Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang, but we'll let them go this time around. Everyone else, from Isaiah and Stephan to the rest of us, we were all pretty drenched afterwards. We also tried out archery back at the house. Shooting a bow accurately is much harder than I thought. For some reason I expected it to be like Legalos or something...but it was definitely not like that. Although some of us at least hit the target, which is pretty good. On our last day, how can we not spend some time playing basketball and volleyball on the new court? We got some bball action going with a bunch of the guys, and then played volleyball when everyone else joined us. We got some good rallies going, and just seeing people do weird things is always fun.

I'm really thankful for the time up at Sierra Lodge, not only did I get to know the rest of the staff more, but I feel like I got to know Pastor Ed and Kelly a lot more. Sometimes we only see them on Sundays, giving a message or leading prayer time, but to just eat with them and learn from them around a table, is quite different and very special. I learned a lot, not only about how to give a bible study, but all that is involved, just the things that are taken into consideration. And being together, working on the house, having fun together, it was just awesome. I can't wait for the next time we get to go up, BTT 2.0! ^_^

Pictures from Gracepoint Austin!

Kevan Ho recently went to Austin for a business trip and got to spend some precious time with Pastor Manny, Sunny, and the others who just moved out there for our Gracepoint-Austin church plant. He took some really heart-warming pictures during his trip. It's so exciting to see what God's doing there—through these images you get to see the first Bible study, first prayer meeting, alot of firsts!

Seeing these made me miss them that much more, but encouraged me to pray hard for them as they strive to be a light to many UT Austin students. Let's pray, partnering with them in the Gospel, and expect great things from God over there!

Taiwan Team is Off!

If you didn't hear, our last mission team for the summer left last night for Taiwan. The team will be holding an English Camp at National Tsinghua Univ. According to Emily of Homegroup 7, who is part of the team, 13 brothers and sisters from Gracepoint Berkeley will be joining 30+ other TAs and teachers from across the States to teach classes on Western Culture & Leadership and build friendships with 200+ incoming freshmen. 10 more helpers will leave Friday to join our Gracepoint Hsinchu team to help out with tons of team-building activities, sports, and games during the camp.

Remember, our own Steve Choi is over there helping out with the camp. And no, for those of you wondering, he has not gained weight despite all the cheap, wonderful Taiwanese delicacies, unless Skype video makes you look smaller. Let's pray for our team!

I'll post a pic of the team later.