May
23
RECAP: Baptism
By Jenny Cha
Last Sunday, we were able to celebrate eight of our brothers & sisters baptism at Harper Jr. High. We had baptism candidates from all four classes! Our sisters: Angelica (Soph), Mindy (Jr), and Anna (Jr) shared their testimony with us on how God has been pursuing them all along in their lives.Here are some pics from this joyous day!Praise God for his faithfulness!
May
10
RECAP: Sophomore Discipleship Retreat
By Kenny Lam | 1 comment
This past weekend the sophomores went up to the Sierra’s for the Sophomore Discipleship Retreat. We had a really good time not only talking about real community, but experiencing it as we centered ourselves around God’s word.The time together this past weekend was short, but it was powerful reminder that God is at work and has amazingly chosen the church, and through ordinary people, wants to do extraordinary things.We came down from the mountain refreshed and encouraged as we were able to see just a little more clearly what a great blessing it is to be part of such a rich community.
Apr
24
RECAP: Picnic Day
By Esther Park
We were off to an early start this past Saturday to explore all that Picnic Day to offer. We were feeling pretty hungry and wanted breakfast, so we decided to give cow milking a try. Bring your own cereal ;) Haha just kidding. We all got just a few squirts at most. Probably not the ideal form of milk to eat your cereal with anyway..Some us learned (or, tried to learn) how to throw a lasso to catch things. It looks relatively easy, but really, it’s a lot more tough than it looks. Some people caught bulls..While others caught people…Since our originally planned breakfast plan didn’t really follow through, we had our fill at the DC where there was an abundance of cereal and milk among other delicious foods. We also got to watch our very own Isabella perform with her Gospel Choir! Afterwards, we craved dessert and so we made our way over to grab free samples of liquid nitrogen ice cream. Mmm, delicious :)We roamed around for a bit and made our way to the Arboretum to sit, relax, and watch Battle of the Bands.What was your favorite part about Picnic Day? :)
Apr
20
RECAP: Upperclassmen Retreat
By Koinonia
Last weekend, the Upperclassmen (Juniors & Seniors) went on a retreat to Dutch Flat and had the opportunity not only to relax, throw some laughs around but also, view our lives as what its called to be, ministers.Here is a glimpse of the monument we built as a reminder of the many commitments, reflections we made during this blessed time. Everyone went out to search for the flattest rock after minutes of scouring, each upperclassmen and class-lead were able to place a stone gradually and eventually as each cornerstone was combined, our monument was complete.After a long day of hiking and eating, the senior brothers relaxed around the campfire.As the retreat was coming to an end, the sisters recounted their favorite moments they experienced during retreat, like hearing a duet of “Peter, Peter” by Kevin & Gina Han.The three days went by so quickly and although we went back to our lives filled with commitments, academics we will always hold onto the image of building our lives within a community. It truly was such a joyous time.
Apr
18
RECAP: HG1 Sophomore Hosted Bible Study!
By Garrett Sheng
This Friday, we (the sophomore class) had the wonderful opportunity to host Bible Study!Kenny training Greg and Marvin on how to use the awesome new soundboard!Our very own sophomore band, woohoo!And here's Lem giving us a message on Abram and Lot, reminding us that our choices really do matter.Afterwards, we headed to the deathstar. There we split into 3 teams and had some epic laser tag battles. Here are two brave soldiers in a possibly staged photo....... while another group played king kong shower, bamboo (below), and pterodactyl!And what would a weekend be without a beautiful trip to Sac by the river:You can vote for what was more awesome... late night laser tag at the deathstar OR spending a beautiful Saturday morning by the Sac river!Hope to see you next week!
Apr
12
RECAP: Frosh Getaway
By Esther Park | 2 comments
Before the busyness of the new quarter began to settle in, the frosh went to Sierra Lodge for a short and sweet getaway! It was a bit too cold for kayaking (sorry, false advertising), but it's okay because we had plenty of fun regardless :)We warmed up to each other with a unique icebreaker that involved a lot of acting, laughing, dancing, dancing, and..did I mention dancing?And then we called it a night....Just kidding. The night was still young! We migrated over to the gazebo to toast up some marshmallows and sing some songs. There's nothing quite like fillin your belly with banana boats, cup ramen, and s'mores at 1 AM in the morning..We did called it a night (eventually), and woke up to go on an incredibly strenuous hike...probably equivalent to the distance between Tercero and the ARC. Yes, obviously, very strenuous :p That eventually turned into climbing up rocks and doing whatever we could to avoid falling into the water. Most of us succeeded, with the exception of a few unfortunate brothers :p.Ah, what a fun way to start off the quarter! If you weren't able to come, hope you can join us next time :)
Apr
04
RECAP: Easter Service
By Esther Park
What a joyous day it was as we celebrated Easter together!It was a precious time to commemorate Jesus' resurrection and power over sin and death. We had a special service where we were able to personally experience that indeed, God reigns victorious over the sin in our very own lives.Throughout the entire service—the praise, the video, the skit, the special song, and the message—one question was proposed and answered. “When was God at His best?” He wasn't at His best when He spoke creation into being, as amazing as that was. God is at His best as our Savior..when He saves us from our lives of sin to transform! It was a powerful experience to hear from our very own brothers and sisters about how God found them in their lives of sin and rescued them. I'm sure for many of us, as we heard their stories, we were reminded of our own stories and how God faithfully pursued us and redeemed us.Although it can become difficult to deal with the whispers of our past, we were exhorted to remember that God's Word has the final say over all of Satan's accusations. Jesus' resurrection covers all of our sins and failures and gives the promise of forgiveness of hope of a new, transformed life in Him. Knowing all of this, of course we're drawn to rejoice and celebrate! And what better way to continue to celebrate then with some good food and fellowship?Desserts brought to you by our very own brothers and sisters! (and Safeway and Trader Joes..)
Mar
14
Recap: Men's Night
By Martin Loekito
This past Friday, Men of Gracepoint -from young, still-undeclared college freshmen to not-so-young, Advil-touting Praxis brothers- assembled together for what appears to be the beginning of an exciting tradition - Gracepoint Davis Men's night! We’ve heard that Brothers’ fellowship + Burger Dinner + Bible Study + Basketball tournament = Awesomeness to the fourth power, so we set out to prove the truthfulness of this theory.We met at Davis Senior High gym for an awesome time of bonding and fellowship with one another. The night began with awesome dinner, which for lack of better words shall be called "pulled pork hamburger." Imagine if in the future, when mankind's biotechnology prowess has advanced to such level that we manage to crossbreed cows and pigs and sweet, tangy bbq sauce. And hamburger buns. That's pretty much what we had for our dinner. Moo-oink- licious!Then we went inside for a time of challenging Bible study by Pastor Will. We learned how today's culture of adult-escence has caused such a demise of men and we learned what it means to be a man from Bible's perspective. It's pretty eye opening as we learned all these statistics and observations that should really wake us up and cause us to take action. Pastor Will challenged us with 1 Corinthians 16:13-14. Act like men!Afterwards, ushered by our own Brian "Oh No You Din'" Din and John "J-Lin" Lin, we kicked off our basketball tournament! We broke off into groups by class to see who will emerge victorious among the classes. Everyone from all skill level participated and fought for the glory and honor of their class.Alas, there can only be one winner of the night's tournament. After an intense and hard-fought battle, the Freshmen class reps defeated the post-grad representative in the final round and emerged victorious! The victory was handsomely rewarded, not only with some shiny trophy, but also with a dinner at a local all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant! Congratulations to the winners!Finally, to end the night we had some super sweet dessert, aptly named "upside down cake" because it turned upside down whatever calorie deficit we might have accomplished during the basketball tournament into a guaranteed surplus of calorie. What a way to wrap up the night!I'm looking forward to more of these times of brothers’ fellowship... Huge thanks to Praxis brothers who put in a lot of work to make the first Gracepoint Men's Night happen!
Mar
08
Recap: HG1 TFN + Soph Bros Hike + ECM
By Kenny Lam
This week we had a special guest speaker--Pastor Will! Who gave a message about faith and obedience, reminding us that our relationship with God is based on trust.Afterwards the soph bros went to Sierra Lodge and had "healthy snacks" made of meat. While the sisters had "healthy snacks" made of fondue!And on Sunday, since Praxis was at the Praxis Retreat, some sophomores had the chance to go to help out with Elderly Care Ministry at the ACC Nursing Home normally served by Praxis. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers, and thanks to those who had the courage to be on stage and share in the skit, praise, or message.Please join us tomorrow (3/8) for bros night and Sister's night. You definitely don't want to miss it!
Mar
07
Recap: Sr Bros Pacifica Crabbing
By Martin Loekito
There comes a time in life when men must take action. There comes a time when enough is enough.A wise man once said: "All that is necessary for crabs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."For years, Koinonia Men of Class of 2013™ have heard terrible tales of crustacean infestation in the city of Pacifica. These crabs have long terrorized the innocent citizens of Pacifica, lurking beneath the foamy frigid waters of Pacific Ocean, hiding under the crashing waves and mercilessly attacking any unfortunate detritus that reaches the sea floor.Enough is enough. This past Saturday, armed with nets, zip ties, and fish sauce-marinated-chicken drumsticks, we decided to put an end to the reign of terror of these eight-legged (and a pair of pincers-ed) critters.Alas, we fear that these crabs have done a fine job of reconnaissance since it was apparent that words leaked out of our coming. Stricken by dread and fear of the Koinonia Men of Class of 2013™, these crabs expertly hid themselves. We managed to catch one, but before we were able to extract any information of the whereabouts of his cronies, the critter died and brought the information to the grave. An honorable death, but that did not deter us.Two hours and 3 bags of chips later, we decided that it was best to regroup and restrategize.By the end of the day we were only able to find another youngling crab, obviously still green in the arts of hiding. Out of mercy we released the vermin, but not before charging him to carry this message to his brethren: You may have won this battle, but not the war. The war between Crustacean and Men will carry on until we achieve victory.On our side, we suffered casualty as well. We had to decommission one net; you will not be forgotten.We shook our collective fists to the general direction of the ocean, ignoring the taunting grin of the sea lions and the pelicans, and we packed our gears and headed back to Davis.On our way home, we stopped by this restaurant called Porridge King. I am sad to report that although the place is called Porridge King, only one out of nine of us actually ordered porridge. But no matter, because turned out the rest of the dishes were pretty darn tasty. Tasted just like home cooking, according to Jay Zheng, our resident Chinese food expert.So all is well. We made some great memories. The fight will continue. We will not give up. Carry this message to the future generation of crab fighters.
Mar
06
RECAP: Saturday Frosh Dimsum Outing
By Esther Park | 2 comments
To celebrate after a long week of papers and midterms, we thought it’d be a nice treat to head on over to Sac and indulge in some delicious Dim Sum! Oh yes, we had an abundance of bbq pork buns, shrimp dumplings, and other things that I don’t really know what to call because I’m not Chinese and don't know Chinese. But what I do know is that we had some “normal” things, and some “not-so-normal” things, like durian cake and chicken feet. We had some bold students who braved it and took up the challenge to eat such foods :pWe stuffed ourselves quite happily to the brim!Afterwards, we head on over to Discovery Park to just hang out and take our Pontoon Boat for a ride! Since Davis’ only source of running (well, sometimes) water is the Arboretum, we thought it’d be much more exciting to go for a boat ride in the Sacramento River. We witnessed a seal devouring a humungo fish, and spent some portion of the boat ride in fear for our lives as certain unnamed individuals steered the boat. Haha, I kid. But all in all, ‘twas a fun and relaxing way to spend a warm Saturday. Hope you can join us next time if you weren’t able to this time around.
Feb
27
RECAP: Frosh TFN
By Gene Huh
Hey guys! Last Friday, we had a Freshmen bible study at our church building off campus, 607. Pastor Will gave a powerful message as a follow up from the messages/testimonies we heard from the past Winter Retreat.Afterwards, we played a game called 1000 words. It’s a really fun game! If you never played this before, you should really try it! This game brought a lot of laughter and joy!And after that, it was free play. A lot of people played board games like Bang, Saboteur, and King of Tokyo. Some people played basketball, ping pong, and foosball. Here are some of the pictures we took!
Feb
25
RECAP: HG1 TFN
By Susan Wang
This past Friday we packed into Lem and Karen's for HG1 Bible Study. We started out with a yummy Japanese Curry Dinner. Then Lem gave a bible study on the biblical view of Dating and Relationships, where we read a thought provoking excerpt from "The Hole in our Holiness" by Kevin DeYoung. We then had a Q &A session where we got many of our questions about Biblical Dating answered. Afterwards, we tested our beat and reaction skills with a King Kong Shower Competition with a Championship round! We ended the night with Celebrating all the February Birthdays over some cake and Ice Cream.Hope you can join us next time!
Feb
21
Recap: Winter College Retreat
By Yang Piao | 6 comments
This past weekend, Koinonia had our 2013 Winter College Retreat. Westminster Woods was a beautiful retreat site and it was the perfect location for us to focus on God’s word. It was a chance for many of us to get away from the rush of school and work life to have a time of spiritual reflection.We are all very grateful for Pastor Jonathan who drove down from Berkeley to be our invited speaker for the weekend. He presented a series of challenging messages to us, which were full of colorful stories, punny jokes, moving videos, and a few chemistry lessons as well. Through these messages, Pastor Jonathan painted a clear picture of God’s love for us and how we are to properly follow Christ as our Savior and Lord rather than just an admirer.Along with these messages, the retreat was filled with testimonies from our church members from various Gracepoint locations, praise, prayer time, and fun sports fellowship. We also had a chance to attend some interesting workshops on the recent culture of narcissism, the worldview of media, spiritual reflection, science and Christianity, and the process of getting to know an invisible God.Finally we saw evidence of God moving hearts and working in people’s lives as we witnessed several significant decisions for Christ – praise God!!!What was your most memorable part of the retreat?
Feb
12
RECAP: HG3 TFN
By Esther Park | 2 comments
We were in the Chinese New Year Spirit last Friday, so it only seemed suiting to fill our bellies with a special menu--Mapo tofu and potstickers! Yum. Afterwards, we were challenged during Bible Study to think of ways in which we could identify with the three characters in Mark 5:21-42—Jairus, the crowd, and the bleeding woman. We learned that we ought not allow our fears to get in the way of personally encountering and connecting with Jesus to experience “a meaningful touch.” Up next was The Oscars—HG3 Style! The Friday before, our HG had decided to take a break from Davis and drove down to Berkeley. After having our Bible Study there, we split into groups to explore the Berkeley campus through a photo scavenger hunt. This was no ordinary scavenger hunt, as each group was required to film a video as well. There were a plethora of genres to choose from, but for some reason, apart from Kyson’s group’s dance music video, we all chose horror. We had nominations for the following categories: most scary, most funny (a.k.a. biggest fail which included, but was not limited to: Joann, the zombie with the tote bag and Daryl, the zombie with a broken ankle), best victim, best director, and best photo. Winners were awarded not with gold trophies, but with generous portions of candy. Below is one of my (along with the vast majority of our HG) favorites:Secret revealed: Ling’s screaming really wasn’t acting :P.Want to see more? Of course you do. Check out our flickr for more pictures and videos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koinoniadavis/sets/72157632676111036/ The rest of the night was filled with playing board games, chilling by the fire pit, chomping on s’mores and mochi cake, and preparing for our upcoming Valentine’s Day of Compassion visit!
Feb
12
Recap: HG2 Bible Study
By Gene Huh
Hey guys! Last Friday, we had our bible study at Phil and Bo’s house. The theme was Chinese New Year, and so we had mapo tofu and potstickers for dinner! Afterwards we played a game called pterodactyl. It was a fun and interesting game. If you want to know what it looked like, you can check out the link right here!http://www.flickr.com/photos/koinoniadavis/8464452138/in/photostreamAnd then afterwards, we had our bible study. Bo talked about Jesus healing the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter. We learned that these people were in desperate situations but they did the right thing by turning to Jesus. This left us with a challenge. Are we approaching Jesus with our problems or avoiding him? Jesus wants a relationship with us and He is willing to be with us if we trust in Him.After the challenging message, we had some sago in light of Chinese New Year and worked on some projects for our Valentine’s Day of Compassion!
Feb
11
Recap: HG 1 TFN & VDOC PREP
By Garrett Sheng
After a week of midterms, we gather at Lem and Karen's place for a night of fellowship and bible study. We kicked it off with some delicious MaPo Tofu (Happy Chinese New Year!) and Lem gave bible study on Nadab and Abihu and how we shouldn't take God's grace for granted.Afterwards, we prepared for Valentines Day of Compassion (coming to you this coming thursday!). Here's our head-honcho Yooujin running the show. Along with our praise team (in the back), beaded cross making team (Hi Justin), and our frame making team (up in the front).Afterwards, of course, was our epic game of Yoot (sorry, no pictures!) All in all, we're looking forward Valentines Day of Compassion this coming Thursday, and of course Winter Retreat this next weekend!
Feb
08
RECAP: HG2 TFN & SF TRIP
By Gene Huh | 3 comments
Hey guys! Last Friday, Bliss gave an awesome bible study on Mark 2 about Jesus healing the paralytic. This is the story where the paralytic’s friends did whatever it took to bring him to Jesus even to the point of opening up someone’s roof and interrupting Jesus’ teaching in front of a whole crowd! What friends the paralytic had! How many of us have such friends who would bend over backwards to help us in our needs. Well, Jesus truly knew this paralytic’s need. It was more than just his physical ailment. The biggest problem Jesus saw in him was his sin. Jesus looked at the heart of this paralytic. And the thing is that this is the problem that He sees in all of us sadly. Sin is not just committing crimes. It’s this idea where we see ourselves as the center of our lives and in turn we push God out of the picture. But we see through the story of the paralytic that his sins were forgiven. Jesus is the one who has the authority to forgive sins. The response to our sins is not doing a whole bunch of good things. Rather, it is to repent and turn to Jesus. It is to bring Jesus back to the center of our lives. We see that not only was the paralytic physically healed, but his relationship with Jesus was also restored. Jesus is someone who doesn’t want to condemn us, but rather He is someone who wants to forgive and save us from our sins so that we can have a restored relationship with Him. The question is, what is our response? Here is a picture of where we had our bible study! And then afterwards, we went to SF! Our first stop was in Moraga Hills. It was really dark, but we had our dinky flashlights to help guide the way! Here is a picture we took!And then after that, we went to eat some sweet ice cream at Ghirdelli! If you haven’t heard of the Earthquake, you gotta try it out yourself! Here are some pics we took!We hope you can join us next time! ^^
Feb
08
RECAP: Super Sunday
By Robert Shih | 3 comments
After our church service on campus, we all gathered to watch the big game together at 607 (our church building). Thanks to futuristic projection technology, we watched the game in style, hi-fives, chest-bumps, and chanting at a large wall all included.Aaron and the guys grilled up some meat in the parking lot using cinderblock as stands. Sometimes grill legs aren't manly enough.During halftime, we shrugged off a slow (and disappointing first half), and we took to the parking lot to practice our throwing accuracy and taking handoffs.Others, already seem to be experts at throwing.In the end, the game was close, the food in our bellies, the people were content, and the midterms still remained in a few days or less. Well, it was fun while it lasted. What was your favorite moment of the day?
Feb
06
RECAP: HG4 TFN & Battery Park Outing
By Yang Piao | 8 comments
This past Friday, HG4 decided to move our TFN to campus at the Plant and Science Building. It was a nice change in scenery. As always, we started the night with dinner. Nothing fancy, just a dozen boxes of ULTIMATE SUPREME PIZZA courtesy of Little Caesars. :)For bible study, Martin gave a message on Mark 2:1-12, titled “Jesus Heals a Paralytic”. Through the interaction between Jesus and the paralytic, we can see that Jesus prioritizes meeting our spiritual needs more than our physical needs. And his need, more than being healed of his physical paralysis, was to have his sins forgiven. Even though the paralytic couldn't do much, Jesus still saw that there was sin in his heart. In his message, Martin challenged us to expand our definition of sin, to see that it's beyond the actions that we can do but what the attitude of our hearts are. He also talked about how Jesus' claim to forgive sins implied to His claim to be God. People from different religious backgrounds view Jesus as a prophet or a good moral teacher. However, Jesus never claimed to be anyone else but God Incarnate. So, the question that remains is: "Who is Jesus to you?"Afterwards, we decided to go to SF to play "Hide and Seek" at Battery Park. Okay, okay... I know what you're thinking: "I thought this was a college group! Why are you playing a kiddy game?!" And I have to admit, I kinda thought the same thing. But playing "Hide and Seek" in the dark, at an abandoned military base, next to the Golden Gate Bridge at 9 in the evening is no child's play!After a few intense rounds of H&S, we went for some chill time at "My Favorite Cafe". Good food! Good company! ^_^ What a way to end the night!!If you missed out, don't worry! Join us this week at our Home Group Bible Study. Hope to see you all there!!! ^_^v