Grand Vision
Jan 26, 2010
Welcome back everyone! We’ve missed all of you and can’t wait to see everybody again! This past weekend many of us joined the rest of Gracepoint Berkeley on our annual Winter Retreat. After classes, we drove down to Santa Cruz to Mount Hermon Retreat Center.
It was a packed weekend! Packed as in we packed the auditorium to its maximum capacity with our whole church. It was awesome worshiping God all together as we heard timely messages, sang songs of praise, and listened to honest testimonies. What a great chance to get away from the craziness of Berkeley and spend a weekend in beautiful nature to hear from God.
We studied different Old Testament and New Testament characters such as Saul, Samson, the Rich Young Ruler, and Pilate, all of whom tragically missed God’s vision for their lives. A study of these character challenged us to carefully examine our hearts for so we can embrace the grand vision that God has for each of us.
We also heard many testimonies detailing the amazing way that God has worked in people’s lives. We saw how God dealt with different peopleregarding their struggles with ambition, insecurities, materialism, pride, and fears to shape them into people who can be a blessing to others.
We learned about faith through Abraham’s journey, and how faith means to trust in God and remain faithful through thick and thin. On the last day, Pastor Ed gave a message about God’s vision for the church and each of our lives. We then jotted down the world’s vision for our lives versus God’s vision for us, and reflecting on what steps we can take now to move towards God’s much grander vision. Towards the end of the retreat, several members of our very homegroup made significant decisions to follow Christ, praise God!
I was personally really blessed through this time, as it gave us a chance to recalibrate our hearts towards God and start the semester off on the right foot! For those of you who weren’t able to make it, don’t miss it next year!
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I’m glad I got to go and spend the weekend with you all, studying God’s word in beautiful nature.
It was such a powerful time! I love getting out of the busy-ness of life to be able to spend time in God’s word.