This past weekend, I attended Gracepoint Fellowship Church's New Student Welcome Night for the 15th time since i graduated college! And it never gets old. We do the same skit every year, but it's still hilarious. It's the same people grilling more and more meat. This year, we marinated and grilled 1200 pounds, led by our very own Jenny Shin and Mark Lee. I was very proud of our Praxis Department (both SF and Berkeley) and our Element students, who were the hands and feet for both NSWNs. The youth and a few px members were out there for 6 hours grilling the meat in 90 degree weather! Without complaints. We had about 150 people helping, but with the 1000+ people who came flooding into Pauley Ballroom that first night, we needed most everyone at Pauley to register, usher, make bentos, run the video cameras, be security, etc, that we were very limited in people back at Dana House to grill and clean. People were shuttling back and forth in between duties to help out to grill, if even for an hour or 30 minutes. My personal heroes were the 4 trash guys, who basically spent all night long manning the trash cans to make sure that we had new trash bags to line the cans, that people were stacking their bentos and disposing of their leftover food properly and without mess, and recycling the water bottles. Even though I tried to give them a glorious title, like "trash manager" or "trash lead," I mean, it's like the guy (who actually was a ruler by the way) who built up the Dung Gate in Nehemiah 3, not very glorious, but done to honor God.
For me personally, it was a picture of the church in action, the church that I grew up in and have grown to love. It's times like these that show the values we cherish so much and work so hard to preserve. The value of giving it all for kingdom work regardless of MY personal discomfort or my role. The value of living it out together, each man doing his part, but contending as one man for the sake of the Gospel - I saw freshman (graduates from Element) laying down video cables for the overflow, even our Joyland kids helping to make utensil packets and serve ice cream sundaes, the oldest of our leaders grilling and marinating meat late into the night the day before the bbq, members from different departments (ISM, CSUEB, SF) all taking time out to help even though their own NSWN's were coming up. The value of getting close as we got stressed and overwhelmed, as we were more irritable and needed to work things out with one another, as we cooked together, poked fun of one another (especially John Ko, who still needs his gummi bears to get him through). The values of growing up and training up as we made mistakes trying to use new lights, new software, new video-cameramen and women. And of course, the value of reaching out, as we saw over 1000 new students come to hear this precious Gospel message which has been entrusted to us to share with others. Personally, it was a time to connect with God once again, and to reaffirm why I do the things I do, it's because I have a great and awesome God. I felt so privileged and thankful to witness and to be a part of what He is doing through our church and what He can do through a group of people surrendered and available and willing to do whatever to honor our great God.