Gracepoint Fellowship Church :: Koinonia HG Grrrrrrrr8 - a ministry group in Berkeley

Gracepoint Training School and G-Live!

2009-02-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

Next Friday, 2/13, we will be starting our GTS and G-Live practices! Remember to sign up for the course you plan on taking. If you have any questions as to which class you should take, you can read the descriptions on the signup page, or you can ask your staff.

Where: First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley (Gym)
Time: 7:00PM
Dates: 2/13 - 5/1
Fee: $5 for Course 101, Course 101x
$10 for Sk1, SK2, Church 101
Deadline is 2/8/09 so don't forget to sign up soon!

Guest Speaker: Dr. Craig Hazen

2009-02-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
We'll be having a special talk this Friday with Dr. Craig Hazen who's a professor at Biola University. He'll be talking about Christianity in a World of Religions. Join us this Friday in 155/145 Dwinelle at 7PM! Also, if you want to come to the all-day training event with Dr. Hazen, make sure you sign up online on the signups page here. Also, note the new times for the Sunday service, which will start at 11:15AM right after the prayer meeting starting at 10:00AM.

Welcome back!

2009-01-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome back everybody. I know it's been a very very long time since the blog has been last updated and I apologize for that. I think most people are back by now and I hope everybody had a restful break. Well, this posting will be the very first posting of year 2009. Coincidentally, today is actually a very special day. Not only is it Inauguration day of the very first African-American President of USA, and not only is it the very first day of the Spring semester, but also it is the Tuesday before the annual Winter Retreat which will be happening this weekend. Hope to see many of you guys there.

Good luck on Finals!

2008-12-17T02:16:00.001-08:00

Study hard and good luck on your finals.

Events to come in January...

2008-12-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

Please sign up for the following events ASAP:

Winter Retreat 2009
Fri-Sun, 1/23-1/25 (first weekend after school starts). This is the spiritual highlight of our whole year so please do sign up now and get the early bird discount if you sign up and pay before 12/31/08.

Koinonia Snow Trip 2009
Sat, 1/17 (right before school starts). This is a one day snow trip. It's a really fun time to sled, tube, build a snowman, tackle (mainly for brothers), just bury your leader in the snow (everybody). There's no sign up link for this, but if you are interested let us know.

GLive Tech and Arts Camp
Mon-Fri, 1/12-1/16. This is an incredible opportunity to get trained in video work, Photoshop, scriptwriting, and much more by the best at our church, in preparation for this spring's GracepointLive, our huge multimedia and theatrical production! Don't worry, you will still get to act on stage.

January 2009 is going to be an exciting month.

Gift Exchange!

2008-12-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!
This Friday we'll be having our Christmas Gift Exchange!!! Remember to bring a gift somewhere in the range of $5-10. We'll be combining with HG 3 (Ben and Helen) to have a fun time of giving and receiving gifts, with challenges and other fun twists. We'll be at the YWCA after Bible Study! Study hard for your finals and see you this Friday!

Update

2008-12-04T15:18:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
It's been a while since our last post and a lot has happened since then. We've had our Thanksgiving Celebration which was a blast where we got to see all the different groups perform and eat great food afterwards. This Friday is our RSF night before finals begin which are just around the corner. Hopefully you guys are studying hard and will be able to make it. Also, make sure to mark your calendars for the Snow Trip on January 17 and the Winter Retreat on January 23-25 of 2009. There's a lot going on in January so make sure you keep that blue calendar handy! If you want to look at the videos of the various performances, they're posted on other home group's blogs as well as Dis-gracepoint. HG RED and 8 will be in charge of setup/takedown tomorrow for our Friday Night Bible Study so the guys should head over to Dana house by 5:45PM. We'll be grabbing dinner together between setup and Bible Study.

If you head over to HG 4's blog, they have links to a few of the highlights from TC.

Turkey recipes

2008-11-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

Tom Kim, who is currently serving as a staff intern for A2F, is the maintainer for this awesome blog called dishgracepoint. He posts some of his secret recipes to some amazingly tasty dishes. As Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I think this post would come in handy.

More Than a Face + Thanksgiving Retreat

2008-11-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

More Than A Face

In case you didn't know, our very own Vivian and Kathy will be giving the "More Than a Face" talk this Wednesday 11/12/08 at 8pm at the Norton Hall Main Lounge in Unit 3. It's a talk that was developed a while ago which exposes how media affects women, in aspects such as self-image, etc. If you're free and want to hear this talk, be there to support them!

Thanksgiving Retreat

This Saturday is Thanksgiving Retreat so if you haven't signed up already, do so now!! There's a link on the sidebar. We'll be spending the day hearing encouraging sharing from various members of our church about all the things God has been doing and just all that we have to be thankful for.

Koinonia Berkeley Zip-up Hoodies

2008-11-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

We will be taking pre-orders. Do it NOW before it's too late. Deadline is this Friday (11.7.08)Front

Sleeve (the koinonia might not be there)

Koinonia Berkeley Freshmen at the Suhs

2008-10-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

This past Friday after our Bible study, Stephen and Suzanne Suh (the directors of Koinonia, Berkeley), invited the Freshmen over to their place. It was a great time of getting to know each other and sharing in laughter and fun with shaved ice. We played the blanket name game (I don't know the official game), where you have two teams and a blanket raised up in between them. Then from each team, you send one person to sit in front of of the blanket. As soon as the blanket falls you the person who says the other person's name first wins. Just click on the image below to see some of the pictures we took.
Here's also a short clip of that blanket game.

It would be very difficult to tell from the video, but Brian and Brandon (they are twins) exchanged jackets to confuse the other team. I must say, that is genius.

We also played the electricity game. You can see Chris Gilling is very proud that his team won that round.

Special Event :: Gone!

2008-10-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

Special Event: GONE
Thursday, Nov 6 @ 7PM - First Pres (Dana & Channing)

Join us for a special joint event hosted by a2f, Kairos, and Koinonia! There will be live music, sharing from different members of our group, and more! Invite your friends!

Koinonia HG 6 and HG 8 BBQ...and Christine's birthday

2008-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday we joined Koinonia HG 6 for some awesome BBQ. It was a great time to meet some new people and also see some old familiar faces as well. The food was definitely an upgrade from the DC food. After the BBQ there was a short but sweet surprise party for Christine.

I have no idea what they are doing there. But if you're wondering who Christine is, she's the only one not doing that weird hand gesture.

Ghirardelli Pictures!

2008-10-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

Two Fridays ago, we teamed up with homegroup 4 to take a trip to the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory. We had some really good ice cream! Our mouths watered as we looked at all the beautiful chocolate arrangements too!

Isaiah Kang . . . no matter how many times we tell him not to be greedy . . .

Home group 8 trying to pose that we're number one. Not sure if its clear at all what we're doing!

Ha ha, why is Brian in the front by himself?

Did I mention we had a lot of ice cream?

Ewwww . . . Jin Kim . . .

October Birthdays

2008-10-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

Somehow, October seems to be a month dedicated to endless Birthday celebrations! Not that I'm complaining, but there sure has been a lot of Birthday surprises. I think the October babies included: Cyndi, Jackie, Elizabeth, Megan, Alex's which is today & then Christine's tomorrow & Vivian's at the end of the month! Happy Birthday to each of you. The pictures above are some ummm . . . errr . . . "interesting" pictures we took at Jackie & Elizabeth's birthday.

Girls' Sleepover 10/3/08

2008-10-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at our girls' sleepover a couple weeks ago. We teamed up with HG 4 (Hannah's group) & HG 6 (Joanna's group). We told some hilarious stories, ate a lot of food & watched our past performances from G-Live (a performance we put on every 2 years at Gracepoint Fellowship Church). Our favorite was watching our very own John Chung sing & dance acting as a lawyer & Irene Youm acting as good old Sally, the secretary who gets John to turn back to his old dreams as a young Christian. We'll be having G-Live again this upcoming spring - looking forward to it! Here's some more fun pictures:

Guest Speakers

2008-10-09T13:44:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone!
There are going to be two guest speakers on campus tonight to discuss some philosophical questions as well as some apologetics. They'll be meeting in Wheeler tonight at 7PM but knowing most of these campus wide talks, it's best to come early for good seats (or just seats for that matter). For more information on Michael Ramsden you can visit here and for Os Guinness visit this page.

Topics: Mike Ramsden – Is Faith Delusional?; Os Guinness – A Thinker’s Quest for Meaning
Location: Wheeler Auditorium, Berkeley
Date: 10/9/08, Thursday
Time: 7pm, followed by 30 min of Q&A

Pictures!

2008-10-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,
As most of you have probably noticed, we try to take a lot of pictures during our meetings/events/gatherings/activities/etc. And if your wondering where they're all going, we try to post them on our Gracepoint flickr site. You can access the photostream here. You'll be able to see pictures from all our different groups by clicking on the "Collections" button right under the "gracepoint's photostream" at the top of the page. They're organized so that the Collections are usually the different groups and the Sets are the events or places where the pictures were taken. Have a look around at all that's been going on in the past few years!

Tilden Park!

2008-10-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we had a chance to get all the freshmen and seniors together for a nice BBQ and sports time at Tilden Park! All in all, I think we had around 80 people show up to head up the hill to Tilden (with some really nice views on the way up). After arriving, people piled out to play a variety of sports ranging from soccer to volleyball to ultimate frisbee. This was all followed by an awesome feast of burgers and hot dogs and then a few more games afterwards. Then we all piled into the cars again to head down the mountain which was an adventure in and of itself due to closed roads and non-existant detours. Regardless we made it all down safely and enjoyed the Cal vs. Colorado State game at Kip's/Sun Hong Kong. Hope to see you next time!

Left: Christine and Myra BBQ'ing some delicious food, Right: Grabbing the grub

Top: Isaiah leading his group cheer, Bottom: Another group cheer

Top: Irene/Yumi/Christine (Clockwise from top), Bottom: Mini-water fight after the game

If you want to know what's going on here, it requires that you know AMERICAN TAI-CHI!!! This is where Sang lifted John Ko using his straightened arms and lifting up. Ask us for a demonstration!

Frosh/Senior BBQ/Sports Day at Tilden Park!

2008-09-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!
We're going to be having a Koinonia-wide all freshmen/senior sports and barbeque day this Saturday, 10AM until 2PM. Don't miss out - it'll be a chance for you to meet fellow freshmen as well as the seniors in Koinonia while enjoying some delicious BBQ. Also, come dressed for sports! (And if you'd rather just hang out, you certainly don't have to play any sports.)

We'll meet at 10AM at Anna Head West Parking Lot (across the street from Crossroads and next to Papamingo's) and head over to the park together. This is open to all freshmen and seniors and you can sign up here.

Sierra Barn

2008-09-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go up on Thursday night and work on the "barn," for lack of a better name, next to Sierra Lodge. For those of you who don't know what Sierra Lodge is, about a year ago, Gracepoint finished building a lodge/cabin/house up near Truckee/Lake Tahoe. We've been using it for various retreats such as our class retreats as well as Koinonia home group outings. Hopefully, we'll be able to go there sometime during this semester to hang out and depending on time of year, it'll either be an awesome time in warm weather (which is quickly passing) or in the snow. Recently, we began building another building next to it to help accommodate larger groups, hence the barn. After arriving on Thursday, the guys (around 15 or so including Davis Waypoint) began working on the walls. Needless to say, Andy Tung (Kairos 2) was driving the forklift which lifted the heavy 10-20 foot walls and set them into place. A few times several people were, shall we say concerned?, as the huge walls swung back and forth due to Andy adjusting to driving a forklift. By the end of the day however, we finished the outer walls and the flooring for the upper floor area. Working up there was quite an experience since I wasn't able to work on the Sierra Lodge due to random things coming up at the last minute. The roofing is supposed to come in this week! I can't wait to see what it'll look like! Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Top: Brothers working on flooring; Bottom: Guiding the final wallpiece into place

Top: Joe Hwang working on top plating (straightening walls) Bottom: Finished outer walls

Top: Andy Tung Driving forklift; Bottom: Picking up wall piece (notice angle of wall in mid-swing)

Tool area where everything from tape measures to power tools were kept

Koinonia Bible Study

2008-09-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!
Tomorrow will be our first Friday Night Bible Study with all of Koinonia at 2050 VLSB starting at 7:30 pm! Afterwards, we'll be breaking up into groups by class and having a time of fun activities. We'll be meeting at the Durant Food Court at 6:00 pm and heading over to Memorial Glade to hang out, eat, and play frisbee from 6:30 - 7:20 pm.

Small Groups! A way to get plugged in at Gracepoint, Berkeley

2008-09-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! We'll be starting small groups this week on Thursday at 7 pm! Guys will be meeting at Dwinelle Room 251 and the girls at Dwinelle Room 258!

For those of you wondering what a small group is, its just a safe place for a small group of us to come together weekly to share, get to know each other & have meaningful conversations, whether or not you are a Christian. Watch this video to find out more:

If you want to join & you haven't signed up yet, contact Yumi Kim and she'll get you plugged into home group 8's small groups!

Hope to see you there!

NSWN Prep

2008-08-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Being unemployed, I spend a good deal of time sitting around NorthLoop looking for a job and applying to medical schools. As NSWN time draws closer and closer though, NL is becoming more and more packed with people getting everything and anything ready for this coming week. What's normally a fairly calm and quiet building is transformed into a factory-like machine pumping out flyers, coupons, skits, and so much more. Some students stay here staring at their screen with Photoshop open for hours even though they just learned how to use it to create the little flyers we'll all be seeing and passing out. Others, with the help of the kids folded napkins with forks and knives for the barbeque (numbering in the thousands!). There's so much to be done, but I'm amazed at all the people mobilized to help making this happen from those with full-time jobs to students who've recently joined our church. It's pretty awesome how much work actually goes into NSWN. In the eyes of the world, it's a waste of precious resources, but for us, its a chance to give our best as a token of our gratitude to God.

Welcome Week Activities

2008-08-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone - We have some really fun Welcome Week activities planned for the coming week. If you're bored, join us as we play Ultimate Frisbee, basketball, take an exciting tour of the Berkeley eateries, and even take a trip to the city for some yummy Ghirardelli ice cream!

It's Almost Here!

2008-08-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

We're only one week away from NSWN! There are several events that Koinonia will be hosting next week and you can see them on the Koinonia website or on the official welcome week calendar!

This Friday, we'll be having a Koinonia-wide barbeque and sports time at Leydecker Park in Alameda! It'll start at 5pm and we'll break up into our home groups for Bible study afterwards. Contact one of the staff to arrange a ride.

New name

2008-08-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Seeing how home group 7 is known as Home Group R.E.D., it's time for us to be known as more than just a number. Introducing our new name:
Home Group Grrrrrrrr-8!

8 R's in honor of our home group, growl sound effect for school spirit- put it together and you have a word that says it all.

More Than A Face Talk

2008-08-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, some of our college senior sisters, Kathy & Vivian, gave a talk to our Element girls (Gracepoint Fellowship Church's high school department) about the negative effects of our media on women. They prepared for this talk this entire summer & it was exciting to see it come together. As we looked at these precious 7th-9th graders, we really hoped that they would be protected from the lies of the media that a women's worth depends on her appearance. We are all really excited & are hoping to give this talk this semester in the college dorms to raise awareness about these issues. Looking forward to what's ahead !

New Student Welcome Night

2008-08-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Its that time of the year again! All of the fellowships associated with Gracepoint Fellowship Church, a2f, Koinonia, Kairos, will come together to put on two unforgettable nights of skits, music, heart-stirring messages & of course great food! I'm really excited to see all of the new faces who will soon become our friends. Our entire church is in hyper-mode right now, trying to prepare, organize all of the different aspects of the night. Its amazing to see how much we can do - kind of like the students in finals right now for the summer session. =) I'm looking forward to it with much anticipation!

(p.s. Just an FYI - our very own Irene Youm is directing the first skit, Jin Kim the second skit, John Chung is the assistant director & Grace is a main character! Let's cheer them on!)

FYI

2008-08-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know that we added Yumi and Jin's normal versus video to our very first post, so don't be lazy...scroll all the way to the bottom and I guarantee laughs!

The first in Gracepoint Berkeley to run a marathon

2008-08-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

Actually there might have been someone else who ran a marathon but that doesn't make this any less impressive. Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Suh, who has been my leader for all of my undergrad, has done it. He ran the marathon. Not only did he run it, but he finished it with a very impressive time of 4 hours and 37 minutes, which is on average about 10 min/mile. Amazing. It all started from running half a mile a day starting from January this year. I must say, I am inspired...almost to run a marathon myself. But before I do that, I should probably start off with half a mile as well. Just half a mile every day consistently until I get in the habit of doing it and increase from there. If I start training now I might actually be able to run one myself by next year. We'll see.

Anyways, I actually had the privilege of being there right before and right after the marathon and here's a little clip of it.

I put up a survey for you guys to vote on this. Who do you think will be next?

P.S. Thank you. Sieun and Chris Gilling for making the video...a lot of the captions were Sieun's idea. I would like to make a special shoutout to Jason Tarn...I'm sure a lot of you guys are scratching your heads in confusion, but honestly if it weren't for Jason I don't think Steve would have made it out alive. At around 11:45pm the night before the race, Jason entered the Suhs residence listing off all the pre-marathon recommendations he read online.

"Did he do this, did he do that? Make sure he does this, and that...otherwise he might DIE."

Obviously, Steve didn't die but if it weren't for Jason, he might have...well anyways here's a picture of Steve and TEAM STEVE (Jason, John, Andrew, Jin) right before the great race.

Our Gracepoint Austin Team

2008-08-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

I just received calls from Sunny Kim and Sarah Song, some of the founding members of GFC Austin, yesterday. We just sent them off about 3 weeks ago with our blessing to start a church in Austin, Texas, with much tears. I was really happy to hear their voices, and I found myself tearing up thinking about them there. Sarah called to ask about Welcome Team name badges, and Sunny in order to ask me to relay a message to Kelly Kang, our Pastor's wife at Gracepoint Berkeley. They were about to start their very first Sunday service at Austin, and there were a number of kinks and details to work out. I felt so grateful and stirred to think about them, out there in that hot city working tirelessly to spread the good news of the Gospel. I also teared up as I thought about my dear friend and peer, Margaret Chen, whom I knew since our freshmen year (back in 1999! I know, we're old!). They have each become so precious to me and as I see them risking and giving up so much in order to serve God, I want to be faithful here at Berkeley as well! Let's pray for them together!

Johnson's Beach & Bodega Bay! 7/26/08

2008-08-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, we had a fun time kayaking at Johnson's Beach and playing soccer at Bodega Bay. Although we never actually swam in the water, you would have never known because we were all soaked from the water fighting. I'd like to claim that I got John Chung pretty badly (p.s. this is Yumi writing), but I'm sure he'd dispute that.

And I must say, soccer was awesome. I think my favorite play was Joanna Kang, leader of HG 6 & my best friend, tackling her husband, Michael Kang. =) Afterwards, we went to a food stand to eat some yummy clam chowder & crab sandwiches!

(p.s. in case you're wondering about the picture, we're trying to act like crab)

A typical staff meeting of Koinonia, Berkeley

2008-07-31T18:21:00.000-07:00

As many of you know already, we have staff meetings at the Suhs after church on Sundays. Well, there was one particular Sunday last month that was a little different -- it was Jin's second staff meeting with us, and Irene brought some very tasty Korean meat, cha dol bea gi (차돌배기), from L.A., so we were all excited!! To complement the meat, Yumi asked Jin to buy some red leaf lettuce . . . Well, as you can see from the video below, the leafy part of the lettuce Jin got was not exactly red . . . in fact, everywhere but the leaf was red.

If you're wondering what Jin was doing at the end of the video, he was posing. Jin is awesome.

(p.s. What Jin ended up getting was actually red chard. You may be asking what is that, or what is it used for? That's something that still remains as a mystery.)

(p.p.s. BTW...we had a wonderful dinner...but we ended up tossing out the red chard. )

I was once a senior in Gracepoint, Berkeley...

2008-07-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

As I was thinking about the senior discipleship retreat that is coming up this weekend, I began to think about my senior year. Man...a lot happened that year. Starting from moving back into the dorms, to joining FCS, to taking a yongmudo class, to leading c101 with a student, to taking the GREs, to working on grad school apps, to GLIVE! Indeed, a lot went on. On top of that, just the fact that I was a senior automatically made me feel like I was the experienced, seasoned, mature guy on campus...it made me feel somewhat powerful. But in a sense, I guess this is somewhat true. My words my actions had a lot more weight to it than before. The lower classmen probably will take my advice a little more seriously, or my actions a little more seriously. I had the potential of creating ripples in people's lives more than before...this realization it was a bit scary. Now if many of you don't know how I was in college, throughout college I often tried to be a goofball and just mess around, cracking jokes, and just live a jolly life. But after this realization I guess I started to really take myself a little more seriously and it made me take my future, my life, God more seriously. Knowing that my actions can have a strong influence on people it is important as a Christian that I really do strive to be blameless so that people can see me and glorify God through my deeds. In Romans 14:19-21 it states

19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

Anyways, it was a great year where I can really learn to take ownership over my words and actions and ultimately grow in my relationship with God. I am really grateful for that year and I am excited for all the seniors as they embark on their last year and experience what God has in store for them.

Jin and Yumi's wedding...from youth, to college, to law school, to marriage...a special wedding at Gracepoint

2008-07-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, was a special day. Jin and Yumi, leaders of this home group, officially got married. But this was no ordinary wedding at Gracepoint Fellowship Church, this was a special one. As Pastor Ed Kang mentioned in his message during the ceremony, this is the first time two people who've been attending Gracepoint Fellowship Church for youth, college, and post college to get married to each other. But I would like to add one more reason why the wedding was so different from other weddings we have at Gracepoint. Typically, the ratio between family and Gracepoint members is about 50-50. But this wedding, it was like 80-20 or 90-10 or something like that. From what I heard, Yumi's mom invited about 120 family members which included all the aunts, uncles, first counsins, second cousins, etc...It was such a wonderful sight to see just the family get together to celebrate this joyous day. I must say though...my favorite part was the wedding reception. Just watching different groups come up on stage to sing and dance for the newlyweds, nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes.

And of course you can't leave out the Gracepoint classic normalvs video. Here's Jin and Yumi's normal vs video. You can actually check out a couple more on dis-gracepoint.

I don't know Jin or Yumi's past that well, but from what I hear God has truly transformed their lives. I really do thank God for them, their presence in my life, and am really looking forward to colaboring with them to proclaim the good news...the good news of the gospel. With that said, I will now conclude my very first post.