Alas! The Spring Reading Challenge

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Even though no one took me up on guessing what our next reading challenge at Gracepoint Berkeley church would be, I’ll tell you!

So many of us were challenged and inspired by the many Christian heroes of faith we learned about at our respective winter retreats, and I’ve noticed biographies flying off the bookstore shelves! To keep up the momentum, our spring reading challenge is going to be the Heroes of Faith Reading Challenge.

If you click on the link above, you can find the details on what you need to do in order to complete the challenge. In short, you only need to read 5 new books on any Christian heroes of faith. They don’t have to be about 5 different people. If you want to get super deep into one hero’s life, that’s totally fine.

My hope is that you’ll be inspired to greater faith as you read about these real people living out their commitments to love and serve God…and grow as a reader, too! 🙂

If you don’t know where to start, here is a short list of books you definitely can’t go wrong with!:

john-wesley-web

Our key quote for the reading challenge. (You can find it on your bookmark!)

 

Excited for all of us to continue being inspired through this challenge.

Oh, and yes, for those of you who are highly motivated by the prize, you can win multiple times. The more biographies you read the better for your soul, so it’s a win-win for you. 🙂

If you remember, I’m working on my goal to read all of the Christian Heroes series this year. I’m starting with all the women’s biographies, and I’m currently reading about Isobel Kuhn.

Which hero of faith are *you* going to read about first?

 

1st Anniversary of Bibliopolis U

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Last year, after the college winter retreat at Gracepoint Berkeley church, we launched Bibliopolis U for the college students and post-grads. Since then we’ve had a few book fairs and three reading challenges — remember our Free 5th Book Challenge? How about the Summer Bingo Challenge? And of course, our most recent Winter Reading Challenge.

Bibliopolis U took the reading revolution churchwide, and many people have shared that they have read more books this past year than in a long while (or ever)!

To commemorate an awesome year of reading, and to jump start an even more awesome one to come, I invite you all to share about the best Christian book you read in 2016. It’s ok if you can’t decide your absolute favorite — just pick one you liked a lot!

You can fill out the form to submit your review/recommendation, and some of these will featured in our bookstore and on the blog. This is *YOUR CHANCE* to be on the wall, even if you haven’t been able to complete any of the reading challenges! Even if you read just one book, it’s technically the best book you read in 2016. 🙂

This is not limited to the people at Gracepoint Berkeley church, but open to everyone across our Gracepoint Ministries.

Looking forward to all of your responses! Don’t be shy, ok? 🙂

Did you have an awesome reading year? Share your reading wins below in the comments!

Goodbye to the Winter Reading Challenge!

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Over at Gracepoint Berkeley church, the first ever Winter Reading Challenge ended last Friday. Thanks to everyone who participated! I was personally blessed and encouraged by people’s comments. Many went well above & beyond the 2-3 sentence comments, and I feel like I got to know some of the people who were posting. 🙂

It was the most challenging challenge we’ve had thus far — reading 5 books in 5 weeks — and we had 37 people complete it. We even had several people complete the challenge two or three times!

They’ve won their very official looking gift certificates to the GP Bookstore:

bu_giftcertSince we don’t have those nifty polaroid looking pictures like we have for past challenges, I will list them here on the official winner board.

  • Amanda Gee
  • Angel Lam
  • Anna Liu
  • Brandon Fong
  • Carol Yang (Homegroup RED-HD, woot!)
  • Chris Le
  • Chris Liu
  • David Lee
  • Elaine Escalona
  • Emily Huang (making us Emilys proud!)
  • Emily Rah (another Emily!)
  • Grace Choi
  • Hallie Honma
  • Hannah Ling
  • Hernan Kim
  • Jana Guan
  • Jenn Chen
  • Jenny Young (most senior winner – TOTC Sisters represent!)
  • Jessica Gao
  • Josephine Gao
  • Joshua de la Paz
  • Kaylin Le
  • Kevin Lin
  • Krystal Han
  • Laura Kim
  • Lillian Ji
  • Louis Chen
  • Marty Krakora
  • Michael Kramer (most # of books logged)
  • Mike Park
  • Percival Chen
  • Roanna Lin
  • Sally Cho (twin winners!)
  • Sarah Cho (twin winners!)
  • Stephen Cheng
  • Victoria Chan
  • William Shen

For those of you who are into stats, here is a breakdown:

  • Total winners: 37
  • By gender:
    • Sisters: 24
    • Brothers: 13
  • By class:
    • Freshmen: 2
    • Sophomores: 4
    • Juniors: 8
    • Seniors: 12
    • Beyond!: 11
  • By ministry group (includes ministry staff):

There were a total of 298 books officially logged for this challenge! There were also 35 books people submitted on the form but did not post comments for, and countless other people told me they had been reading but hadn’t logged. I actually didn’t log any of my reading either! 🙂 All of this to say that we read a whole lot as a church this winter break, and I’m looking forward to reading even more this spring.

Can you guess what our Spring Reading Challenge will be? Post your guesses and/or suggestions in the comments below. 🙂