Dinner at Dwight: Trays of Meat

The Dwight sophomores (plus Andy) invited us over for dinner last week. It was trays of meat, one after the other, grilled on a hot plate and served sizzling hot.

Daniel S. even made yukaejang, courtesy Mangchee, who blogs about how to cook Korean food. It was a touching (successful) attempt!

After all that food, it made having LIFEgroup together really difficult. That's why for the first 20 minutes of LIFEgroup that week, all we did was sing really fast songs. Anyway, just wanted to thank and give a shout out to the sophomore brothers!

The H.1 & H.8 "WAIT" Weekly

Special LIFEgroup this week. Brothers and sisters going together to Lake Chabot, where we'll hike in carrying our firewood (and marshmallows), get a roaring fire going, sing some worship songs, pray for one another, and close out the semester thanking God together. We're meeting Wednesday (4/29) at 8:25 PM on the corner of Parker and Hillegass. It'll take up pretty much the whole night, so get your studying done! If you have questions, ask your smallgroup leader.

(Updated 4/28) Thursday night, 4/30, Kevan & Jenny will be at Cafe Med on Telegraph from 7:00 - 9:00 PM. If you come by, we'll buy you a cup of coffee, and you can ask your questions, receive prayer, or just talk and hang out. Please sign up online. Of course, if you just want to drop by, come on by: Bring your books, study, and sit around with us!

Worldview Camp 2009 signups are available online. There's more info about what to expect on a previous post. Also, found the Worldview 2008 pictures so you can take a look at what we did last year.

Last Friday, we had a blast. After GTS, everyone crammed into the First Pres Gym to watch the SICK music video the freshmen made for their freshman staff following the smashingly successful GLive.

Then Homegroups 1 & 8 went to Westminster House, where we took personality tests, and then laughed at each other because of how accurate some of the descriptions were. Ice cream sundaes, line charades, hot wings, and acting out movies, it was a nice way to decompress on a Friday night. Some more pictures below, which, as always, are online at Flickr.

Joyland Video Released: The Gospel Time

This is so good I have to share it with you. It's the start of the new message series in Joyland: The Gospel Time. Joyland is the children's ministry of Berkeley's Gracepoint Fellowship Church. What're you're seeing below is the intro video. Each week, the intro video is followed by one of the vignettes from the sophomore GLive skit, performed LIVE and onstage for the kids. Needless to say, the kids were thrilled at the first week and can't wait for more.

And if you're interested in volunteering for Joyland, you can start by checking out the beautiful Joyland website. Note that signups are online now for assistant teachers. There's other Joyland volunteer opportunities as well. Go take a look, and enjoy the video:


Joyland - The Gospel Time Intro from Nelson Wong on Vimeo.

This is the intro video for our new message series: Gospel Time.

Fun Fever Friday, and other news

The march to finals is on. Study hard! Here's the news for the week:

LIFEgroups on Wednesday night (4/22). Homegroups 1 & 8 sisters are meeting at 8:15 pm at 2515 Channing, next to Thai House. Homegroups 1 & 8 brothers are meeting at 8:30 pm at K.Ding's apartment. Let's hope it's not too hot. We'll be praying... for one another. And eating ice cream.

Thursday night is Home Time again at Kevan & Jenny's at Central. You're welcome to come over to eat dinner, hang out, and (if you're diligent enough to move to the next apartment for study hall) get some studying done.

Friday (4/24) is GTS, beginning at 7:00 pm at First Pres. Afterwards, Homegroup Wait (on the Lord... as in Homegroup ONE and EIGHT = WAIT) is hanging out at Westminster House. We're calling it Fun Fever since I had a fever earlier in the week... and also because it's so hot these days and it's going to be FUN. (Guys have setup... be at Dana House at 5:30 pm)

Homegroups 1, 2, 6, and 8 have NorthLoop cleaning this Saturday (4/25). We're meeting at 11 am at NL, and then grabbing lunch together afterwards and studying.

And don't forget to sign up for SummerFest and Worldview Camp. If you have no idea what these are, check out the previous blog post, which has good descriptions and info, plus links to the online signups.

Baptism Sunday
Originally uploaded by david y park

So that's just the news for the upcoming week. I haven't even started on the stuff that happened the last week or two... I guess I won't get into it. But let me at least celebrate the 22 people who were baptized this past Sunday at Gracepoint Berkeley (that's Gracepoint Fellowship Church, where many of us go on Sundays!). A lot of Koinonia people got baptized, among them was Kathy S. from Homegroup 8! Hooray! To relive the moment, there's a lot more pictures on David P.'s Flickr from a2f.

Juniors Host!

Last Friday the Jr. Brothers hosted the homegroup freshmen and sophomores for a night of fellowship. Starting off with some heart-warming cheezy-sticks, the atmosphere quickly warmed up as Cranium became the chosen game. Early on the freshmen team was dusting the junior and sophomore teams. As any junior would attest, it was largely because of miserable rolling (Rolling a 1 four times in a row isn't easy-) and because of the sophomores' stanfordium luck. (Red data cards simply aren't suited to Berkeley students)

As it turns out, the Sophomores "won" the game. For punishment, they had to do a model walkoff. Due to sanitary reasons (we don't want any acid-refluxes) the video recording is not posted (Many would argue that the punishment was thrown back on the audience). Instead, here's a kosher video of our night: Enjoy!

Gracepoint Berkeley's Worldview Camp & SummerFest

For you guys thinking about what to do with your summer, check out Worldview Camp, an annual tradition for college students to take a couple days to train and equip their minds with some of the most relevant current topics:

• Abortion
• Euthanasia
• Intelligent Design, Evolution, Science and Faith
• Sexual Ethics, and more...

Special Guest Speaker is Sean McDowell, son of famous Christian apologist, Josh McDowell. Sean joined us about a month ago and gave a riveting 15-minute presentation on having a reason to believe. I'm looking forward to him leading this year's Worldview Camp! Signups are online. If you've never gone to one, I encourage you to do this! We spend 4 years getting smart at Cal. Take a couple days and get smart about Christ and our culture.

This summer, we're putting on SummerFest for ImpACT (Impaction Asian Communities for Tomorrow), a non-profit organization aimed at academically and personally enriching underprivileged kids from Oakland elementary schools. SummerFest is going to be awesome, but we're going to need plenty of help from volunteers, everything from drivers to lunch prep to team leads to teachers, and much more. If you're interested, check out SummerFest Info and Signups page online.

If anyone in H.1 or H.8 have participated in either, comment away!

Easter Sunday and this week's News

Good Friday and Easter Service are over. We had a wonderful weekend celebrating the cornerstone of our Christian faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross. I hope it was a meaningful weekend for everyone, a chance to personally connect with the God who loves us. Afterwards, we had a great potluck with all of Koinonia, played sports, and enjoyed the sun. More pictures to come, but a couple are up on our Flickr site.

Some quick announcements:

LIFEgroups this Wednesday, 4/15. Check with your smallgroup leader for more info.

Home Time (that means dinner) at Kevan & Jenny's on Thursday night, 4/16. You're welcome to come over, eat, and hang out. If you need to study, bring your books. We'll lock you up in the apartment next door! If you need a ride, let me know (at kevanhoATgmailDOTcom).

GTS this Friday, 4/17, back at First Pres, beginning at 7:00 PM. If you have homework, make sure to do it!

Baptism Service this Sunday, 4/19, we have 23 people getting baptized at Gracepoint Berkeley's worship service. You're invited to come and hear their stories. We won't be able to hear all their stories, but we can celebrate all together. Worship Service starts at 11:30 am, following the 10:00 am prayer meeting. (Note: Koinonia is in the overflow for the month of April)

If you want a Summer DT Journal (spans all 3 months!), order them online. Order form will be closed May 6.

GLive Is Over...

Gracepoint Live is really over... As we all decompress, breathe a collective sigh of relief, and wistfully recount all the fun, laughs, and hard work with our friends, it's time to start sharing pictures and stories.

But got a couple announcements:

• Tues, 4/7, 7:00 pm at First Pres: Prayer Meeting. This is Passion Week, a time when Christians traditionally observe the last week of Jesus' life, reflecting on his Passion (from dictionary.com: a) the sufferings of Christ on the cross or His sufferings subsequent to the Last Supper. b) the narrative of Christ's sufferings as recorded in the Gospels) leading up to the cross and resurrection. Basically, it's an important week in the Christian calendar. If you have time, see you at the prayer meeting. It'll be a good time to think and prepare our hearts for the week


• Good Friday begins at 7:30 pm (4/10), Kofman Auditorium at Alameda High Auditorium. If you need a map or directions or a ride, let one of the H.1 staff know.


• Easter Sunday Service begins at 11:30 am (4/12), also at Kofman Auditorium! It'll be a festive day for us to celebrate the risen Christ!

If you need a Passion Week reader, a collection of excerpts and articles from fine Christian writers (John Stott, A.W. Tozer, Chuck Colson, Soren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Karl Barth, Leo Tolstoy and more!), you can let one of the H.1 staff know if you still need one. These articles together with the Gospel Passion account narrative can help prepare your heart and mind to reflect on this very pivotal (central!) event. Recommended reading.

To wrap up this post, we can start reliving GLive (before the DVD comes out) because Conrad (a2f Gold) and Abe (Kairos 2) put up the GLive Intro video for our viewing enjoyment (and so you can show all your friends who didn't make it a little bit of what they missed):


Gracepoint Live 2009 Intro Video from Conrad Chu on Vimeo.

Shown April 4, 2009 at Willard Auditorium at Gracepoint Live (http://www.gracepointlive.org), to a packed crowd. This year's theme was "UNDO".

Gracepoint Fellowship Church (http://www.gracepointonline.org) is a church located 6 blocks from the UC Berkeley Campus. We have various ministries & small groups for working professionals, singles, couples, college students, youth and children. We have a diverse congregation and various opportunities to get involved both in church and in the Berkeley & Oakland community. Whether you are new to this whole Christianity business or looking to grow in your faith with a tight knit community come on by.

from Berkeley, Gracepoint Live!

Live from Berkeley, Gracepoint Live! It's here and it begins tonight! This is it!

For all performers, we're meeting at Willard tonight (Friday) by 6 pm, and Saturday morning by 8 am. Please get plenty of rest and stay hydrated. After Saturday's final performance, we'll head out together and celebrate! And then Sunday after service, we'll celebrate some more with the rest of Gracepoint Fellowship Church: Praxis, ISM, everyone who chipped in and helped!

There's plenty of information about when guests of the performance should come, whether or not you have a ticket over at our Gracepoint Live website!

GLive Info for Guests

With all the people who're coming this Saturday, here's some quick information. You can pass it on to your friends who are coming to the performance:

• Reserve their seats @ gracepointlive.org
• Print and bring their confirmation email
• Come together with all the members of their party

When will the doors open?

• 30 minutes before showtime, doors open for those who have printed confirmations.
• 15 minutes before showtime, everyone in line will be allowed to enter on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you're driving, please park on Telegraph or in the neighborhoods west of Telegraph. Thank you and see you there!

Actors: we have a full runthrough tonight. Dinner at 6 at Willard.