G-Live was a snapshot of our church in action for me. What moved me the most was to see every single person from our church coming together to make this event possible. It wasn’t just a one department endeavor. There was the background and invisible work of CSUEB, feeding us 3 meals a day plus non-stop snacks all throughout our practices. Then there were Praxis members ironing all the costumes, SF Campus keeping security watch over the premise and our belongings, the faithful brothers who stood on Telegraph and Stuart just directing foot traffic.
As costumes managers for the freshman skit, Jenn and I gathered from our church members close to 300lbs of clothing. After this experience we knew who had what size jacket blazers, who owns size 10 women's shoes, bright green polos, plaid shirts and overalls. Some people turned in half their own wardrobes. We gathered neckties in every single color, shoes of all sizes, and created spreadsheets upwards of 10 pages long for the costume needs of just one 30-minute skit. All the preparation required a lot of hard work, late nights, and stress but the end-product was two electrifying evenings that made everything well-worth it. When I saw the Willard Jr. Middle School auditorium transformed into a mini-theatre and witnessed the script actually being delivered and unfold, I was shocked that we were together attempting this immense production. As the seniors closed the night with their finale song, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I was thankful beyond words. Yes, I was thankful for all the details coming together and working out, for the great performance, for all the fellowship and hilarious fun we had working together, for the memories that we made. But more than all this, I was thankful that I have a living God who has given me a riveting message of life and joy that we can all sing about, dance about, lose weeks of sleep over, make a great fuss and stand in the burning limelight to tell the world about. At the end, it struck me that if I did all this 100 times over, even still God would be deserving of so much more. G-Live was to me a miniature picture of how our life can be -- that when I give every single thing I have to God, God takes that little piece and somehow works it into his tapestry. God can receive what I offer and do something beautiful with it. The end result will stretch beyond my imagination and reflect His glory to others.