Although I had used my minimal Photoshop skills to put my architecture portfolio together, I didn't know what the Adobe Photoshop vocabulary of "layers," "masks," or "sets" even meant. In Spring 2003, I got formally trained in Photoshop in a 3-day workshop called "Multiply Your Talents" with Steve and Conrad, the tech gurus from our church. The first day of class we took an oath saying that we would use what we learned to serve God. Who would have thought that God would take our commitments seriously and really multiply our small talents! I don't remember anything except feeling excited and wired after each of those intense and fast-paced 8-hour training sessions.

During my period of unemployment, I had the opportunity to serve God by designing invitations to various message series and forums, manning the printers, and producing gift frames and magnets for various events. It was during that time that I was able to practice and improve on my graphic techniques.

As it has already been five years since my first "MYT" session, I am simply amazed at how God multiplied the graphic skills, not only in myself, but also in others as I've been teaching workshops to college students and young adult members from our Berkeley, San Francisco and Davis churches. What is most rewarding is to see my students using their skills to design invitations for various events in their individual ministries. In the modern art culture where darkness and the meaninglessness of life are often celebrated, I am very thankful to have the opportunity to use my skills to point people to the hope and to the message of life given through the Bible.

In our International Student Ministry, we recognized the need to offer a presentation about the essence of Christianity, and we called it the Gospel Seminar. There were many different people whom we knew that would benefit from being able to get a big picture understanding of what the gospel is all about. Though we could have invited Pastor Ed to come and give us a series of messages on the topic, Chul challenged us to come up with and present the materials ourselves. We knew that it would not be easy, but did not anticipate just how "not easy" it would be.

My group was tasked with presenting on the topic of "Who is God?" Wow, we had one hour to present the answer to this most important question. My group worked long and hard to research and discuss exactly what we should include. Though much of this was not new to us, it was very rewarding to be able to reflect deeply on what it means that God is the creator, that He is holy, and that He is personal. In trying to communicate these truths clearly, it became clearer in our own minds.

After several weeks of working hard together, the day of the Gospel Seminar had come. As the presenter of this topic, I had a practice run-through the night before. To say that it went poorly would be an understatement. I just froze up there and could not for the life of me remember what I wanted to say. Chul encouraged me that it will be okay, and he had faith enough to trust me with the presentation the next day. Around 20 people came to the event, and filled the room. The presentation ended up going well, and many remarked that it was clear and understandable, and helped them to understand who God is. At the end of it all, I was very thankful to Chul for entrusting me with this responsibility to present. Then I realized that this is what God has done, in choosing to give me the opportunity of showing others who He is. Despite all my limitations and shortcomings, God still chooses to give me this awesome responsibility, so that I can know Him more. Praise God!

It is hard to express the pain and triumph I dually experienced as I worked on the Gospel Seminar workbook. When Chul first brought up the suggestion last month of having all the available members to produce a section of the Gospel Seminar workbook, my lazy instinct tugged at me to tell Chul that I was not available and was “busy.” I just wanted to avoid stretching my mind and challenging my intellect in any way. It also scared me quite a bit to think that I would be participating in the creation of material that would be read by prestigious international graduate students who are more educated and intellectually sharper than me. However, I could not just abandon my ISM brothers and sisters and decided to accept this challenge.

As I was part of one of the three teams, I chose to work on the section, “God as Creator.” On top of reviewing Course 101 material and remembering past Bible Studies, I also turned to books by Francis Schaeffer, A.W. Pink, Kenneth Boa, etc. There were many books and writers I would probably have never come across were it not for the Gospel Seminar. With these resources as a jumping board, I soon built an argument about the characteristics of God that one can draw out by observing creation. First, that God is orderly; second, that God is good; and third, that God is sovereign. I added more “meat” to the contents with verses from Genesis, Psalms, and Job that proclaimed God’s creation and God as Creator. I read up on the complexities of DNA, the abundance of creation (there are 840,000 species of insects!), the probabilities that need to be accounted for creating life on earth, and how the Big Bang could prove the existence of God. Sometimes our work nights would go to 3AM. At times it seemed we were at our wits’ end.

However, as I prepared and refined my section, I was hit again and again by the total claim God has over my life as His Creation, and the fact that I can trust His sovereignty because He is a good God that wants to love us. I was also reminded of the mind-boggling factor that God even cares about me, even though I am but a mere speck on this earth compared to the vastness of the universe. As I look back on all that I learned from my section as well as others, I am glad to have taken on this challenge as I deepened my knowledge and faith of God as Creator. Those late nights of peer reviews, editing, and formatting were indeed worthwhile, as I heard from every Gospel Seminar attendees that the Seminar helped them to understand key elements about Christianity better. Praise the Lord!! Indeed, God is the sovereign Creator of the universe, and He has been very faithful and merciful in giving us all this chance to be His ambassadors and recipients of wisdom through the Gospel Seminar!

Before we had the full-fledged Multiply Your Talents courses, I was able to take a beginning Photoshop class with Steve and Conrad. I remember thinking that I knew some Photoshop, but after walking out of that class, I realized I knew absolutely nothing. In the subsequent summer, I took the advanced class with Conrad. After all this training, I was tasked for various publication work like NSWN flyers, table tents, posters or even the Sather Gate signboard. I was actually very afraid but experienced the training being put to use and the joy of being used by God. I always look back at my Photoshop training with deep appreciation and gratitude. Through their dedication to training me, I not only discovered my passion for design, but developed the skills to be able to execute.

Now, as I am called to train others, I was glad for the opportunity to TA in later Photoshop classes and even teach Photoshop MYT last spring! Currently, as a member of the publications team, I work on multiple projects to enhance our Sunday message series and promote various church activities. I'm often challenged not to just plow through the work myself, but to spend that extra time to train and teach others so that they too can serve God in these ways. It's been about 4 years since that first Photoshop class, and I would never have imagined all the training being put to use in such ways. It's been an amazing journey.

WHEW - it was a pretty stress-filled and nerve-wracking responsibility to oversee lighting for our recent Gracepoint Live performances! When the seniors came on for their finale song at our last Sunday night performance, I felt so relieved that it was all over, and thankful to God that the background work that went into the lighting went smoothly so that the performances could go without a hitch.

I first learned the ins-and-outs of lighting back in 2004 during our last G-Live performances. Since then, Conrad’s given me a lot of great instruction on improving lighting; but, as they say, the best way to learn is to do, and my lighting skills have really honed through experiences when the pressure is on, like at G-Live. Almost all of the work for lighting happens before the performance: mounting the lights, connecting them to a power source, connecting to a data cable so that the board can control them, aiming them; and then, as the various groups rehearsed, we had them pause while we brought up the right lighting and then saved the setting so we could replay it later. Thankfully, the lighting team members, Sarah and Richard, were there to share the workload, and especially the joy (and stress :o) of making all of this possible.

It’s encouraging for me to see how God has used what I’ve learned about lighting, especially through such a large event as G-Live. I’ve heard many stories of people who really enjoyed the performances and were so blessed by them, and I’m thankful that I got to contribute to that experience.