Koinonia Christian Campus Fellowship – UC Berkeley Club

As most people know, we had our church wide Winter Retreat 2010 only one week ago.  We’re so thankful for the 33 new brothers and sisters who committed their lives to Christ, as well as the opportunity for many of us to make other significant vows and oaths to God.  Since it was such an amazing time, why not take another look back down memory lane?

We heard soul-striking messages on the “almost guys” like Saul, Samson, the Rich Young Ruler, and Pilate. We even took time to write out what we would say to Saul and Samson in the midst of their troubles.  It was a wake-up call, as we were writing to the Samson and Saul in each of us.

We were also blessed by the many testimonies given by the directors/”elders” of our church, as they shared parts of their journey with God and how they came to develop a more personal relationship with Him.  It was also great to hear about the “Samson class” and the many “When I was in college, I…”

In addition to all the spiritual food, we had times of fellowship over some hotel-quality physical food too!

The Frosh Dudes

The Frosh Dudettes

The retreat was a time of serious reflection and uncontrollable laughter, but most importantly it was a time where our entire church came together as one body to grow closer to God.  Until next year!

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to those we haven’t seen in a while! Last week we had our annual churchwide winter retreat. It was a refreshing time of hearing testimonies and messages that really challenged us to fully commit our lives to God and geared us up for all that God has in store for us in 2010! It definitely helped us start this year with the right spiritual focus!

Shall we try to relive that time with some pictures?

Why are these guys laughing at Dan…?

Hm, these pictures don’t do the experience justice. But I hope that for those of us who were there, that we can keep the memories and commitments of this retreat in our hearts for the rest of the year, and for many more years to come! For those you who weren’t able to come…well, just come to the one next year!

If you guys missed out on winter retreat, boy, you really missed out! It was such a powerful time of testimonies, bonding, messages, and good spiritual and non-spiritual food!

Here are some pictures from the retreat!

I’m so excited for this new year and how we will continue to spur each other on to concretely apply all of our commitments made at the retreat.

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!

Last week, the juniors and seniors from Gracepoint Fellowship Church went to the Sierra Retreat (formerly known as Sierra Barn and Sierra Lodge) and had a special time away from the “valley”.  This year’s theme was Holiness and we started off the retreat with a message series from RC Sproul – The Holiness of God.  Through passages like Isaiah 6 and 2 Samuel 6 (the story of Uzzah) we got a chance to clearly see the Holiness of God and just how little we deserve and what rights we – as his creatures – really have.  It was a stirring and challenging time for all of us.  I think this message and point resonated throughout the weekend as we had a chance to go through various readings, articles, panel testimony sharing, sharing on the book of Jeremiah, which we all read, and even through the Truth Project series.  From the DTs to the messages, it seemed like everything was weaved together so perfectly.  The night campfire and kayaking at the lake let us experience the beauty of God’s majestic creation as we sang oldies and gazed into the night sky and as we paddled throughout Silverspur lake and splashed and dunked each other in the water.

The weekend was too short and yet so packed.  I was thankful for this special chance to refocus our hearts and give each one of us proper perspective on who God is and who we are.  As we’ve come down from the mountain I hope and pray we can continue our walk with God with this kind of zeal.

Please keep our sophomores in your prayers as they head to Sierra House this Friday after Bible Study for a weekend retreat.  They’ll be challenged spiritually, enjoy time to grow closer to one another as a class, and of course, enjoy the benefits of our newly added basketball court night lights!