Stress Relief 1: Kairos 2 Awards!!

Alright all you stressed out students out there! I know how you’re feeling; I was there for 5 long years!! So, to help you get a good study break from time to time, for the next 2 weeks we’ll be posting things to help relieve your stress!

So to launch things off, we want to commemorate the completion of yet another year here at Kairos 2 by having a pseudo awards ceremony! What does this mean you ask? Well, I’m not really sure… But it’s something like this: 

 

Nacho Nacho Men

 

• Nomination for the most faithful blog commentor: Robert Kim (I think he would win this not just for Kairos, but for all of Gracepoint Berkeley!)
• Nomination for the most grammatical errors on the blog: Johnny Yang (this doesn’t have to apply just to our blog, he makes errors in almost  every email he sends me. haha!)
• Nomination for the most incredible nachos: Ryan Theimer and Richard Ma (that tray during our potluck could have fed all-kairos and then some)

Alright, I think you get the point! If you want to make some nominations just put them in the comments section. Be nice though After a week, we’ll compile the best and have an “unofficial” awards ceremony (on our blog that is).

In other news, here’s the slideshow that was shown during the Kairos year end celebration. Thanks Dora (of Kairos 3) and Ernie (of Kairos 1) for working on it!!

Winter Retreat: Early-Bird Deadline

Hope you are all having a great vacation and getting good rest at home! Amy, Timmy and I have been in Taiwan with our WMT and we’re getting ready to head back to Berkeley tonight. Thank you for praying for our whole team!

As 2009 is coming to a close, I wanted to remind everyone about the winter retreat. This is the highlight of the year and will allow all of us to start the year off on the same page and refocus on God’s word.

Please sign up and pay if they have not done so already. Reminder: the deadline for the early-bird discount is 12/31.

Signup Page:
http://www.gracepointonline.org/gp/signups/2009_winter_retreat

Payments Options:
1. Mail check to “GFC” to 2000 North Loop Road, Alameda, CA 94502. Postmarked by 12/31.
2. Paypal one of the staff and we can submit the check for you.

From Gracepoint Berkeley to Gracepoint Austin!!

Bryan Song setting up our Koinonia picture board

You ask, what’s the difference between Gracepoint Berkeley and Gracepoint Austin? Answer: The weather; 70 degrees and 0% humidity versus 102 degrees and 60% humidity. Everything else felt the same, from the family atmosphere, awesome fellowship, great food, trash talking on the basketball court, and the anticipation that God is going to do something great there!!

Hanging out after dinner at Pastor Manny and Sunny's House

This past week, me and 7 of my college buddies had the opportunity of going to Austin TX, to help out our church plant in any way we could. I personally felt an incredible sense of privilege as Pastor Manny and Sunny were the first ones to reach out to me and some of my friends when we first got to Berkeley. Fast forward just a couple of years (haha), and now we had the chance to help them out, and boy did we feel such a sense of joy doing so!

Tony Kim finishing up the sign board

We went to the dc’s, designed flyers, hosted our own basketball tournament, went on campus tours and prayer walks, built sign boards, shelves, dressers, designed websites, ate incredible southern bbq, tex-mex, and Sunny’s cooking, visited museums, presidential libraries, attended Koinonia bible study where we had our first UT students join us, went bowling where I lost my voice yelling, and so much more. As I worked and hung out with my friends, I was amazed at the fact that we’ve known each other for the past 12 years, since we were freshmen at Cal. And now we were serving together.

Working in 90 degree weather, at night, with Isaac and Tony (Kairos 1) on an A-Frame

More than all this, I am so excited to think that Pastor Manny, Sunny, and our entire Austin church planting team are there to share the gospel and recreate the community we have here in Berkeley. My heart was broken as I heard that multiple churches in the Austin area have pulled out of college ministry simply because it is too difficult. I believe that God brought us out to Austin for a reason, because his heart longs for people to come to know his love and saving grace.

Please join all of us as our entire church continues to pray for GFC Austin and the UT campus!! As our Austin team would say, “Hook ‘em Horns.”

Bonus Shot: Pastor Manny succumbing to the request of an UT Austin student for him to change allegiences. In the end, he held on to the bears (but for how long is the question)!!

Gracepoint DT Journals

NOTE: Deadline to order is Wednesday Night (July 23).

Due to popular demand, we will continue to provide DT (Devotional Time) journals with all of the text, commentaries, and questions, in two month segments, for the rest of the year. There will be two versions from which you can choose:

1. a 5.5″ x 8.5″ bound journal with text, commentaries, questions, AND writing space (much like what is already available online)
2. a 5.5″ x 8.5″ bound journal with text, commentaries, questions, and NO writing space (this is for those who are keeping their own separate journal)

We are going to provide higher-quality covers and binding, so please note that the cost will be greater than what the summer journal was. The price is TBD.

Please note: Before we actually print the journals, we will need for you to pre-pay for your reserved copy.

To reserve your copy, please fill out the following form.

30 Hour Famine

At the end of last month, as a whole Kairos group, we did 30 hour famine together. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a program to raise money for the children who are dying of hunger everyday, as well as to raise awareness to those around us about the people who are in need. And on our part, we fast for 30 hours.

Most of us sent emails to friends and asked for support. Some of us went to Alameda where Andy and Amy lives and went from door to door to ask for money. Out of everyone, Andy seemed to have the most success. What’s his secret? It was Timmy! Andy would carry Timmy on his back while going door to door. How could anyone resist the charm of a 17-month-old? According to Andy, this one man was going to donate 20 dollars, but decided to donate 40 dollars because his wife thought Timmy was too cute. Way to go!

While we were fasting, we also went to an exhibit in Fremont. The exhibit told us the stories of 4 African children. The child that I heard about was diagnosed with HIV infection. Both of his parents died of AIDS. Life couldn’t have gotten much worse. It’s so heartbreaking to see that there are so many people who are in need everyday.

On Sunday, we all woke up at around 6 to break fast. 6 am that is. I have to say that was the best chicken soup and porridge I had in my life. This whole experience just made me appreciate life and all the blessings that much more. There are children who don’t know when their next meal will be, and there are also children who don’t have clean water, and would constantly have stomach problems. If there is any sort of hardships in my life next time, I will be sure to remember those who are in need, and that will put me in the right perspective.

Gracepoint Fellowship Church Austin Farewell & Yosemite Trip

Hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend — I know we sure did! From one packed week to another… here’s what’s coming up:

Austin Farewell

As most of you must have heard, our church in Berkeley and Davis is sending 11 members to plant Gracepoint Fellowship Church, Austin, with Pastor Manny and Sunny leading the team. Most of the team members will be leaving this Thursday, so we’ll be having a farewell program this Wednesday at First Pres in Berkeley (starting at 6pm with tapioca drinks in the courtyard). So please come, as this will give you better and bigger picture of what our church is really about (much more so than even G-Live).

For some of you older ones, Sarah Oh Song is among the few and the proud who will be leaving.

Sarah in the middle, next to Lin

Yosemite Trip

We’re planning to have our Yosemite trip next week, from Thursday (7/17) to Saturday (7/19)! Please let us know the earliest day/time you can take off by filling out this form by 3pm this Thursday (7/10):

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pwc0QJtU4DF_N6em5zyvocQ

More details to come, but let me assure you — it will be a lot of fun!

The Usual Suspects

• Friday @ 6:30pm: We’re back with our Summer IMs (in Alameda), followed by dinner and Bible sharing at Andy/Amy’s
• Sunday @ 1pm: Our regular worship service at Willard.

Let The Games Begin!!

Hey guys, summer intramurals for Gracepoint Fellowship Church is starting up this week and we’re playing 4 different sports: Volleyball, Soccer, Basketball and Ultimate Frisbee!! This will be throughout the summer on Friday nights from 6:30-8pm in Alameda and will include our entire church so it is sure to be a lot of fun. Afterwards, we’ll head back to Andy and Amy’s house for dinner, DT sharing, and some good ol’ fellowship.

If you haven’t signed up, don’t worry, you can fill out the signup sheets and get plugged into a team Friday night. Alright, see you guys there!

For rules, teams, matchup schedules, and records, check out our Summer IM’s website!

Summer Evangelism Training (S.E.T.)

All the departments at Gracepoint in Berkeley are going to be engaging in this great summer training course. If you are here for even a few weeks over the summer, please be sure to sign up to join a group!!

Description: Get trained in your heart, head and hands to be ready to evangelize to those around you!

When: Tuesday nights, 6/10-7/29, 8pm @ Northloop (for the month of June)

Lecture: This portion engages your heart as we go through Bill Hybelsʼ Just Walk Across the Room DVD curriculum and cover topics such as how to present your story in an engaging way and see how Pastor Hybels himself engages in personal relational evangelism.

Lab: Your intellect will be challenged as you get trained to address questions people have about God. We will be reading through Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and covering one topic per week. We want to become equipped to answer the tough questions seekers ask such as:

·         There can’t be just one true religion

·         How could a good God allow suffering?

·         How to approach questions on homosexuality, abortion, etc.

·         Christianity is a straightjacket

·         The church is responsible for so much injustice

·         Science has disproved Christianity

·         You can’t take the Bible literally

·         How can a loving God send people to hell

 

 

 

Discussion: Bring things down to your hands as we discuss next steps in ministering to those you are reaching out to, and spend time with your small group in prayer for one another.

Please sign up for Summer Evangelism Training by this weekend! We need to know who is participating so that we can form discussion groups.

**Even if you will not be attending for the entire duration of SET (due to mission trips, etc), please sign up still. Please come to the first meeting on 6/10 having read the 1st chapter of The Reason for God by Tim Keller.  For those of you away for the summer, we encourage you to read on your own and get trained along with us!

IMPACT!

Hi! I’m Lin and I’m a proud California Golden Bear! Rawr!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m a team lead for IMPACT, a non-profit organization our church started to reach out to inner city Oakland elementary school students to motivate them about higher education and invite them to come to Joyland, our K-6 ministry. For three weekends in April, we had IMPACT Springfest, where fire balls were ignited, super heroes rapped, and cow eye balls were dissected.

This past Sunday, we had our IMPACT picnic in preparation for the transition to Sunday’s Joyland program, and out of 82 kids who were at Springfest, 45 came back! For my group, the California Golden Bears (all the teams are college names), all of our kids came back! They were immediately clinging onto our arms and starting tickling fights. All the kids remembered our team cheer: “Who are we? We are the Golden Bears, Go Bears, RAWR!!!” We were totally louder and more in sync than the boys’ teams… ahem.

Then we played games like Giants, Wizards and Elves (wizards, not lizards as some kids called it), and water balloon toss. For a water relay game, some of the kids really got a kick out of spilling water all over us team leads’ heads! And when we were dumping water out of the large bottles, the kids remembered to use physics to create a vortex so the water came out faster! At the end, when Andy was reminding them next week IMPACT is on Sunday, one girl misheard and asked, “Everyday?!” excitedly. When I asked some of them if they wanted to be a Golden Bear and come to Berkeley one day, they were all really excited! It’s amazing how much they take to heart the things we teach them, and they all said they were coming back next week.

So if you see some really happy kids and kid-like team leads on Sunday, then you know it’s the IMPACT program! Come say hi to us and we’ll do our team cheer for you… if you can handle it. RAWR!