Koinonia Christian Campus Fellowship – UC Berkeley Club

Here’s a recap of our awesome KOINONIASNOWTRIP2012WOOHOOO~!!!!!!

if you want to see some more pics, check out this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracepoint/sets/72157629120544389/

What an amazing year! Although finals mode has officially set in, hopefully everyone can take a chance to pause and really give God thanks for all he’s done this year in Koinonia. If you have down time and want a study break, take a look at our end of the semester slideshow, which we showed at our last Koinonia gathering for the semester.

Life group tough questions… Sierra lodge… Yosemite… Koin Kreme after Koin Kreme… where were some of your favorite memories from this semester?

This past Friday, not only did we have our final life group and discipleship meetings for the freshmen, sophomores and juniors, but we also took to the ice to commemorate the end of the semester! Piling into many cars, we all arrived at the ice rink and skated the night away.

Check out some pictures!

For some people, it was their first or second time ice skating ever – an exciting experience!

Some people attempted to learn new maneuvers such as jumps and spins…

And everyone came together to play group games. Ice relay!

Hope everyone had a fun time ice skating and was rejuvenated for the start of RRR Week and finals! Hang in there everyone and let’s finish the semester strong!

Welcome back everyone from Thanksgiving break!  I hope everyone had a lot of fun relaxing with friends and family and eating a lot!  Can you believe that TC was only two weeks ago??  Laughter, cries and cheers filled Kofman auditorium as different groups took to the stage to perform various songs and dances.  Thanksgiving Celebration was a lot of fun, laughter and fellowship – singing and dancing to express our gratitude for all that we, as a church, experienced this past year.

Here are some pictures of our awesome day:

The Koinonia juniors dancing away their sorrows about saying goodbye to the seniors this past year.

A pose that may indeed make you want to cry-cry-cry.

Koinonia sophomores all wearing scarves to express their feelings of angst and loneliness…

The energetic freshmen all decked out in Cal gear, expressing their gratitude!

The grand finale of the Koinonia act!  T-H-A-N-K God!

And, of course, our annual DT review rap performed by none other than our very own Koinonia staff, featuring the GP rapper Dan!

And who can forget some of the more memorable acts we witnessed?

Praxis definitely had the most creative and exciting costumes!

A2F’s “Thrive: The Musical!”  Guess which week this was?

Klesis’ energetic rendition of a classic song…

Afterwards, we had a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner!

And we got to watch the video of the Koinonia performances as well as see a live rendition of the DT review rap!

All in all, Thanksgiving Celebration was an experience that won’t soon be forgotten. We are thankful for all that we experienced this past year and look forward to this upcoming year!

This last weekend we were blessed by the amazing experience of the Gracepoint-wide Thanksgiving retreat. Old friends reunited and we saw a lot of new faces, too, as we came together as a whole church and welcomed brothers and sisters from Minnesota, Texas, Riverside, San Diego, Davis and even Pastor Andy and Amy from Hsinchu, Taiwan.

We made our way down to Kofman auditorium in Alameda and settled in for three awesome days of sharing, praise, and videos.

One of the most memorable moments of Friday night was a collective sharing of all those that accepted Christ in the last year. After a quartet of beautiful voices sang for us, each new Christian came forward and shared a line to represent their testimony, creating a very powerful and moving presentation.

One major theme from the retreat was learning about the history of our church, and to be thankful for all those that have gone before us and paved the way. We learned about the history of Gracepoint’s Sierra Lodge (and the persevering brothers who built it… multiple times…) and got updates from all the different ministry groups. A lot of the staff shared about their experiences working with their peers or about the generations of leadership coming together at the church plants.

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving Retreat without the Gracepoint Orchestra, too! Their smashing performance was composed and directed by Gracepoint’s resident musical genius, Paul.

There were a lot of other surprises, too. For lunch, we enjoyed a visit from several taco trucks and Curry in a Hurry…

And enjoyed a Saturday night full of strange sights. That’s right. Strange sights. Any guesses what’s going on in these pictures?

The answer is: we played BEST OF THE BEST as classes, complete with a feature of Pastor Ed’s amazing abilities with a nunchucks. Among the categories, dude, were Best Song & Dance, Best Rap & HipHop Dance, Best Cheer, Best Thanksgiving Quilt, and Best One Word (or phrase) Skit. Oh my!

There were a lot of things to be thankful for in this past year all across our church. We had a great time paying tribute to them all, and look forward to another year of God’s work ahead of us.

The thanksgiving festivities aren’t over yet! Join us this Sunday for the Thanksgiving Celebration, for intense dancing and a delicious meal. Happy Thanksgiving!

This past Sunday, we celebrated the baptisms of 13 brothers and sisters in our church, 8 of whom are from Koinonia! Three of the brothers and sisters getting baptized shared their testimonies with us (one shared his testimony the week before), including our very own Charles. It was truly amazing to hear how the basic gospel message played out in each person’s life and how God saved each one.

Although we weren’t able to hear each and everyone one of the baptism candidates’ testimonies, we know that each of their distinct and unique stories is truly a testament to the universally life-transforming power of the gospel. And this past Sunday was a joyous occasion where all of the people in these baptism candidates’ lives could come together to remember and celebrate how God has worked in and changed their lives.

All of us were so blessed and encouraged by this opportunity to celebrate this important spiritual marker with our friends and the chance to shower them with cards, frames, fruit, flowers and many other gifts!

Congratulations again to Carol, Nathan, Rebecca, Elaine, Sam, Charles, Kelly and Joseph! We are so thankful and happy for each of your journeys.