Retreat 2010.

Greetings everyone! Just last week, Gloria Chapel held a retreat for 2 days and 1 night. February 19th-20th. "How can you guys have a retreat for 2 days and 1 night!?" you might ask. Well we did and it was an awesome time! I wish it was longer and I'm pretty sure a lot of people agree with me on that. It was very different from other retreats. We didn't have time to get adjusted to the retreat center. We didn't have time to wait until the last night to get really "emotional" or "spiritually high". We had 1 night and 2 days to get a lot done! Personally the results were great. Hearing from everyone's stories and experiences during those 2 days, it seems everyone had a great time. But, then again, "Are retreats for a great time?"

I'm going to jump straight into it and give you guys some of the stuff that went down during those 2 days.

Our guest speaker (which is not a guest to many of us) was great. He is a friend of Pastor Joe's and he has been to our previous retreat as well. Pastor Ken. You will see in the pictures further below. He's a great guy (he's the skinny one with glasses). Very awesome man of God and he spoke on behalf of many things. Here we go (according to my "great" notes). I will give you guys a simple outline. You had to be there to hear the good news my people! Haha.

Friday Evening Worship (February 19th, 2010).

Text: Jeremiah 6:13-19.

-Is peace the absence of stress?

-False peace vs. True peace.

-Christ is the "Prince of Peace".

-Follow the "ancient paths".

-Listen to Him, Look to Him, Ask, Come to Him.

-What is your false peace?

Saturday Morning Worship (February 19th, 2010).

Text: Matthew 4:23-5:16.

-Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

-These blessed people are the epileptics, the paralytics, the blind, etc.

-We must shine as the "Light of the World".

-We must be the "salt of the earth".

-The Gospel must be a living part of us.

-Bringing Christ to those that are lost is a commission to us from God Himself.

-Bless those that are not blessed as we get blessed.

Saturday Evening Worship (February 19th, 2010).

Text: 2Corinthians 1:3-10.

-Know God's peace within the storms of your life.

-"You are not a burden, you have burdens."

-God is not God who will get rid of the storm, but He will walk through it with you.

-If you want to share in the eternal life with Christ, then you must share His sufferings as well.

-The mystery of God's love is: Christ suffers because He has made ours as His. He unites Himself to us. He shares with us.

-If you love Jesus, then you love one another. (Matthew 25:31-40).

We also had an intimate time within our small groups which were led by Namyi (women) and Phil (men). Phil is the guy that also wears glasses, but he is not as skinny as Pastor Ken (no offense to Phil at all). We shared and opened up our hearts as we tried to hear each other's life. Building a community is not easy. We must let our brothers and sisters know of our troubles and this was one of our small groups. Our issues, our storms, our problems, and our sin. How does the Gospel change us and how did the messages affect us. What do we do from here?

And of course we had fun games and activities.

Here are just some of the pictures that were caught on camera. All the pictures can be found on our Gloria Chapel Facebook group (<-- click there). But then again, you had to be there to experience the full fun of growing and getting closer to each other. Enjoy anyways!

With peace and love,

Charles Chung