Click here for talks from the main session

To download talks, right click on the download link

Download - Alan Tung – Twu Wuv (True Love)

Download - Cenia Wong – Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents

Download - Glennis Shih - A Discussion On The Barriers and Challenges of Going on Short Term Missions

Download - Jason Chang – Moving In Power

Download - John Mackin - The Objective of Discipleship and Practical Tools to Disciple Others

Download - John Mansfield – A Theology of Calling

Download - Vivian Mabuni – Women’s Time

What if you could do both?

If you’ll be in the LA Basin (LA or Orange County) or New York City this summer we’d like to give you that chance as a part of a pilot project. We are creating a 7 week long summer project experience for people who have to be home for the summer. If you are able to go on either a stateside or International project we encourage you to go! If that’s not a possibility, how about being involved in outreach, service to your community, discipleship and training in your walk with Christ, right in your own world with students in your city?

You will be able to participate while you take summer classes, have a job, and have family obligations with a small financial cost. That’s the idea of this pilot project and we’d love to have you join in. Since God loves LA and New York City, He wants you to be part of reaching your city!

Where: 1) New York City, 2) Greater LA Basin (LA & Orange County)

When:  Approximately June 18 – August 3, 2012

Cost
Participants: $200 (For outreach funding and project costs)
Leadership: $500 (For training and development plus outreach funding and project costs)

What You’ll be Doing: Outreach and Service, Social, Discipleship and Training

Application Deadline
Leadership – March 1st
Participants– March 23rd

To apply to be a part of the Leadership Team or as a Participant on the Project! Ask for an application by e-mail: tom.virtue@gmail.com or joseph.butlig@uscm.org

It was a great discussion on how God uniquely created each one of us, put us in the families and communities we grew up in, and gave us a special story to share for His purposes.

Today we had our first Queens College weekly meeting of the semester…praise the Lord for the 10 students that joined us. I lead a discussion about Jesus as a twelve year old boy at the temple (Luke 2:41-52), when his parents thought they had lost him. It was a door for us to share more about our own experiences with our families, and our desire to learn what it is to be a true child of God while honoring our earthly parents.

So excited for what the Lord is doing in EpicNYC!

Join the Epic Transform facebook group if you haven’t already.  You can find friends, photos, and testimonies/reflections from students and staff.

Listen to Talks from the Conference

Click here for seminars and men’s/women’s time

To download talks, right click on the download link

Download - Jesus and the Helpless

Download - Jesus and the Homeless

Download - Jesus and the Hopeless

Download - Jesus and the Heartless

Download - Vivian Mabuni Testimony

Download - Vivian Mabuni -Transformation

Download - Jim Layman and the Panel

Conference Slideshow:

Steve Hong shares his journey with the Lord regarding in family and his job while pursing a summer project opportunity.

Wondering what to do with your summer?  Summer Projects offer a wide range of opportunities to grow in your walk with God, experience community with others from around the country, and learn ways to share your faith with friends, family, and others around you.

For more information check out: http://www.epicmovement.com/who-we-are/missions-opportunities/

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3, NIV).

The following is a letter written from Gilbert Kingsley, a fellow Cru staff. At the end of his letter there are some resources to help you read about and reflect on.

Good Monday Morning,

I am writing this after having just come back from church. Today is the first day of Advent, that wonderful time in the church calendar for preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth.

Using, Galatians 4:4, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son…”, our pastor talked about the many ways that God prepared the world for Christ’s coming. A common language, Greek, understood throughout the known world. A stable political world, the Pax Romana. An interconnectedness between nations with roads built throughout the Roman Empire. And a Jewish expectation of the Messiah. God orchestrated the events over hundreds of years so that when Christ entered the world, the good news could be carried everywhere.

In the same way that God prepared the world, our pastor exhorted us to prepare our hearts to celebrate. This time of year can be so busy with ending a semester of ministry, preparing for Christmas/Winter conferences and thinking about the spring and summer ministry opportunities. Students are preparing for finals. And we have our own checklist of Christmas preparations, parties, gift buying, decorating, etc.

Taking time everyday for Advent readings and reflections helps to prepare our hearts for celebrating His coming, even in the midst of checking off our to do’s. There are a number of on-line advent devotions that can be helpful in focusing our thoughts and hearts.

• BibleGateway.com has a few Advent newsletters to choose from. One deals with classic hymns. They have a variety of start dates. You must sign up.
• D365 Daily Online Devotions repeats the popular “Following the Star” series. No sign up required. Be sure to click through each section of the devotion in the lower right.
• Many churches offer their own advent guides. Here is one that looked particularly interesting for both individuals and families. And here is another written by former staff, Will Walker.

Beyond what God does in our lives, this is a wonderful time of the year for sharing our faith. Chris and I will host one of the stops for a neighborhood progressive dinner this year. For a brief hour, our home will be a place where we hope to share the role Christ has in our lives with others from very different places.

-Gilbert

"We're a culture, not a costume"

I saw this campaign being featured on angryasianman.com and thought it was so appropriate in light of Halloween. According to AAM: “These posters were created by Students Teaching About Racism in Society, a student organization at Ohio University. The campaign addresses all the ridiculous “ethnic” costumes that idiotic people like to wear on Halloween, something I’ve had to address here for many years every time October rolls around.”

I just cringe looking through the pictures on these posters of people dressed up as geishas and terrorists. I hate it when people mock another culture and say, “what’s the big deal? It’s just a joke!” As the people of God, we need to be especially sensitive when someone is treated as the “other” or “outsider.”
We need to be learners and not mockers of each other. And I say that, knowing that I slip up from time to time and say or do some really insensitive things. May the Lord help us to recognize and speak up when we see something that paints people in a way that is “not okay.”

I was having a conversation with someone about this campaign, and this person brought up a valid point, “Sometimes it’s bad (meaning, dressing up as someone else’s culture), but it’s not always bad.” He was saying that its the Asians that get up-in-arms when we see a majority culture person dressed up as an Asian, or mimicking an Asian language, but no majority culture person would get mad at an Asian dressed up, say, as a cowboy. Hmmm…. I don’t know about this one. What makes something ok? Thoughts?

You can find out more about this campaign  here or here

Watch the following video that featured two teenagers who were kidnapped and forced into sex slavery:

Jesus calls us to pray against injustices and to seek the welfare of the city.  There are many ways that you can get involved. Check out the following organizations:

• Iempathize helps to engage people in the issues of sex trafficking.
• Restore NYC seeks to restore freedom, safety and hope for foreign-born survivors of sex trafficking by providing long-term, holistic aftercare services. We partner with local and federal officials as well as other organizations to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers and empower survivors.

Listen to Bret Ogburn‘s talks from the fall retreat.  To download mp3′s start playing the talk and right click the DOWNLOAD MP3 text and select “save link”.

Campus opening video!