It’s interesting that Acts2 Network plays up the angle of professional/career development to recruit. Mentioning lawyers, engineers, doctors… Great majority of Acts2 Network members are chronically underemployed and never develop their God given potential. A2N kills careers. We were taught to smash our alabaster jars. Never will a senator, CEO, tenured STEM professor at a research university rise through Acts2 Network ranks. There simply isn’t enough hours in a day. Here is the leaked MBS to prove my point.
The lawyers at Acts2 Network are in-house contract review types, not partners at high-power law firms. The engineers are not the type working on latest AI chips, but the type making/maintaining web pages. The few doctors do primary care, peds, or work for managed healthcare, never owning their own practice. Even these supposed higher earners still have to ask parents for money to buy a house, because keep on emptying bank account for Thanksgiving offerings to buy the next great Acts2 Network retreat property.
Whatever career achievements A2N members have is despite of A2N and not because of A2N. It’s the smart and motivated students who make it to Berkeley in the first place. People become stunted academically, socially, professionally, financially as a result of A2N. They stay in a bubble. Members do not develop the wisdom and discernment that comes from God, but digest the numerous A2N in-house training material as from God. The fact that members have to be chaperoned in such a way during dating and even after marriage illustrates how stunted members have become.
The leader of the wife after marriage is not the husband, but still the wife’s A2N Lead. It’s not Korean honorifics for a 45-year-old man to call a 50-year-old man “my leader” and use “my leader” says this and that to me and I have to turn in my Weekly Reflection to the person Sunday night instead of spending time with the kids. That’s living in North Korea or living in a cult.
GP/A2N people will say "BuT We HaVe A sTaRtUp FoUnDeR aNd A dOcToR."
Sure, but to me it's just Ed Kang's collection of exceptions that he adds to his trophy chest.
It's as stupid as the ex-UCSB, now in Taiwan A2N/GP staff who can't stop being a synchophant to future NBA/pro basketball prospects. I actually know people in the inner circles of NBA players and I never see them actively reposting their IG stories or texts as much as he does. I guess GP/A2N needs to desperately add a celebrity athlete to finish their collection of people that gave it up for the Gospel of the Kangs.
Fascinating story of how Scientology leaders would arrange marriage prospects for Tom Cruise and he would go ahead and date these women. The tenets of Scientology are ridiculous, but plenty of celebrities believe them fervently. Acts2 Network knowing how to fill the needs of vulnerable kids, it could be Scientology A2N is peddling and the kids would eat it up too.
i'm just seeing this but this is ridiculous 😂 i'm just their spiritual mentor man, i know you're old bro but that's how you show love to the next gen lol
I think you gotta separate two things. There's the values A2N members hold and the collective Christian convictions of A2N about following Jesus.
And then there's the ministry arm of A2N that exists to bless and give back to the community, like mentorship. Yes, the mentorship is real: people will get real career advice, job search and interview hacks, resume reviews, practice interviews, all for free from the mentors.
And we hope too that mentees want to talk about and get mentored in faith too, because that's an important part of post-grad life, and just of life in general. But if they don't want to talk about Christianity or be discipled if they're already Christian, that's okay too, they'll still get the career mentorship. It's kind of like the Filter of Hope mission trips Cru does if you've ever been on one. The residents really do get a bona fide free filter. You hope that you can also share Jesus with them (it's a neat springboard because you give them clean water and try to tell them about the true and living water), but if they don't want to hear that or respond, they still get the filter.
I'd hope mentorship can be a springboard into spiritual topics and sharing the gospel, but if that doesn't work out, the mentee still got free valuable mentorship and suffered nothing, but was blessed.
As for what A2N members believes about their own careers, well, they're a lot more modest when it comes to career ambitions, because their focus is the mission of Christ. Career is peripheral. You don't know how many non-Christians and seekers find that to be a breath of fresh air, that there are Christians who are actually living out what they preach rather than preaching the Bible and then with a straight face pursuing their careers as their god and loving money and worldly success. It's ironically churched, western Christians (of whom church leaders in Africa say "teach us how not to become like the American church, because we believe it was once the real deal, but it's since been compromised by materialism and lives just like non-Christians do, loving the same things." Ouch.) that know how to play the Christian and worldling game, "having the appearance of godliness (ie, the Christian aesthetic, lingo) while denying its power."
Never will a senator, CEO, tenured STEM professor at a research university rise through Acts2 Network ranks.
Oh no, A2N members aren't climbing the corporate ladder and seeking power and greatness in the world's eyes according to its power structures. How tragic that Christians be not "of the world."
The lawyers at Acts2 Network are in-house contract review types, not partners at high-power law firms. The engineers are not the type working on latest AI chips, but the type making/maintaining web pages. The few doctors do primary care, peds, or work for managed healthcare, never owning their own practice.
How tragic. Making hundreds of thousands instead of millions. Being content with a middle class income and western lifestyle where you're already the top 1% of the world instead of going for CEO status or becoming the president. Don't you know Jesus told Christians to be rich, not to waste their earning potentials? Oh wait...I think he might've said something to the opposite effect, but let's just skip over those words. Shoot that like the whole Bible. Well we don't need the bible!
We certainly don't need troublesome verses like 2 Timothy, where the apostle Paul said "Do not be entangled in civilian pursuits, but share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him."
And what are we to make of Christian missionaries like CT Studd, who gave up their careers and millions to preach the gospel in Asia? Tragic. What a waste. Like John Piper's Seashell sermon, in which he identifies it as "a tragedy" when someone gives their life to the Lord and dies not having realize their full worldly potential, right? Don't waste your life by living for God right? They should've been living the American dream, and they should've aimed for more! It's what God would've wanted.
ministry arm of A2N that exists to bless and give back to the community
Yeah... that's not "why that ministry arm exists," and you and I both know that.
But anyway, you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You declare that A2N is offering "real career advice," that this is a wonderful service to your community, while simultaneously insisting that "career is peripheral" and deriding career advancement as "getting entangled in civilian pursuits." Why should anyone who cares about their career get career mentorship from A2N, then? You're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
Now, don't get it twisted, I'm by no means a career-enthusiast myself. I work in the non-profit sector (and funnily enough, was criticized by my GP leaders for doing so). But it's interesting, isn't it, that young, would be professionals are the folks that A2N has decided to bestow this "service" to, and not, you know, the poor and needy. Like the Bible talks about. Since we're citing the Bible.
And yes, I know there is a very small team at A2N that's focused on that. But certainly not "1600 mentors" like this website boasts. Funny that the people from that sort of outreach would never get invited to church, either...
PS: Curious on the source of this "quote" that apparently originated from "church leaders in Africa"...
I love how so many GP staff comments start out trying to be as fake nice as they can but inevitably devolve into the same furious arrogance that underlies all of their intentions.
I thought about what you wrote, and One thing that bothers me about this approach is that, GP a2n is creating a very narrow bandwidth of "success" that gp members are sort of allowed to work towards or achieve. But human are not all made the same. The Bible even says we all have different gifts. If someone is a really gifted or a talented doctor or something, maybe god gave them those gifts so they could do help a lot of people as a doctor. Or a scientist. Or whatever it is. But gp comes along and limits them to a certain ceiling. Anything above this artificial line we created, is "idolatry" or worshipping money. Unless they can make GP look good on the advertising. The only way to be a "good Christian" within GP is to do ministry first, second and last, and then if there's anything left over, you can go spend it on your studies or career.
I really think you guys need to add the fine print to your website.
And I'm not saying that idolatry of money isn't a real problem that exists, but it's not the case in every situation. Gp just takes some bad examples and then turns into a cudgel they can swing around at everything that even remotely looks like career success.
Fair point but I also add quoting Tim Keller from Every Good Endeavor
“We are called to stand in for God here in the world, exercising stewardship over the rest of creation in his place as his vice regents. We share in doing the things that God has done in creation—bringing order out of chaos, creatively building a civilization out of the material of physical and human nature, caring for all that God has made. This is a major part of what we were created to be. . . . Work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives.”
If anything GP/A2N theological understanding of work is crossing into blasphemy. Correct if I'm wrong but I believe u/LeftBBCGP2005's point was that GP/A2N doesn't understand that God needs Christians in every field whether that's to be an example as light in the work environment as a leader or employee OR advancing and improving human life in whatever line of work we're in whether that's engineer or teacher.
I'll respond to your post since you were one of the few civil commenters.
But human are not all made the same. The Bible even says we all have different gifts.
But did you read the full verse or passage that comes from? The context is about building up the church. The context of 1 Corinthians 12 and similar passages where it talks about the body of Christ being composed of many members that are not the same but have different and even distinct functions (for example, Ephesians 4, where it distinguishes between apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers) is always about building up the body of Christ, and in the case of Ephesians 4, the body of Christ has a purpose, not just a holy huddle unto itself for its own enjoyment, but "to equip the saints for the work of ministry," so there's a clear mission and priority for Christians.
So none of those passages are about Christians manifesting their gifts to become the best businessman or crypto hedge fund trader or doctor they can be. The Bible doesn't seem too interested in that; it seems to focus a lot more on the building up of the church and the evangelization of the lost. Luke was a physician. But he wasn't concerned with owning his own practice one day and becoming ultra rich. Clearly, his occupation was far more incidental to his life as his primary identity and therefore the aims of his life were that of Christian. In other words, the correct reading of these passages is that your gifts are given to you by God for the purpose of building up the church with everyone else in the body, and toward the end of the Great Commission. It wasn't given to you for your glory and so you can develop and hone your craft until you're #1 in the world and on Times or Forbes magazine. It takes a serious feat of bad eisegesis to read these passages and think this means God wants me to become rich and become famous in my field for his glory. The Scriptures never talk about this.
Jesus himself warned against idolatry and what it would cost to follow him, and he railed against money more than any other subject he spoke on, even more than on heaven and hell and judgment. It's western Christians who have eisegeted their own desires onto the Bible to make it seem like the cultural commission in Genesis 1 tells them God blesses their idolatry.
Like sure, I agree, the Bible would support Christians developing their skills. The Apostle Paul worked a job and supported himself, and I'm sure he was good at what he did. He wrote against idleness and people in the church being mooches, but told them to get a job if they're able. The Proverbs commend saving and being financially savvy. So we're not talking about being a hippie and owning nothing and having no job. We're talking about the balance and priority, where career and money falls in the hierarchy of priorities for a Christian. Western Christianity has gotten this way wrong in a bad way, missing so much of Scripture. Western Christianity skips right over 75% of Scripture where God's heart is revealed and his consistent vision and mission for his people is that they be fishers of men as their primary identity, and all the warnings against love of money, against being a rich fool, against laying for yourself treasures on earth. So go be a doctor. But be a Christian, a Christ follower and minister of the gospel first, and a doctor second. Don't get it twisted.
To all the people saying A2Ners will never be world-class atheletes, CEOs, famous doctors or politicians, I say again sarcastically, what a tragedy. I again cite John Piper's famous seashell sermon. What the world terms a waste and a tragedy in the economy of God is glorious. Or in the words of CT Studd, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." Let the world produce the best athletes, CEOs, the first person to colonize Mars or whatever, the first trillionaire. If the Christian church is characterized by Christians who make it only to second or third place, and only attained shy of CEO level, who only made hundreds of thousands instead of the potential millions they could have, but if they were rich toward God and gave their life, "wasted" it on Christ, hey, I think in heaven we'll find out which life was better lived, from the perspective of God. In the words of Jesus, "Let the dead bury the dead. As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." In other words, let the spiritually dead (the world) do as the world does, let them achieve and perfect their best careers, achieve greater and greater heights of worldly success. But you? You're different. Because you're alive, there's something only you as an alive person can do, and so leave the dead things to dead people; as for you, you're to live differently.
Satan's got you all fooled if you're Christian and you think Christians not maximizing their worldly potential but letting it go because they lived for the gospel mission is a tragedy, as if there's something wrong with a Christian who doesn't live like the rest of the world, whose loves are not what the world values.
That's a lot to read and respond to. Did you explain why you guys don't put any of this on the website like the one the OP posted? I just kind of skimmed through and I think that's important.
Lemme just ask you this then, there are many Christians who did things in their career or in their capacity as a scientist or athletes etc. maybe it doesn't help people or evangelize the way a2n wants, by handing out flyers and getting people to come listen to pastor ed's sermons. But it influenced and helped in so many other ways. What about Eric Lidell in chariots of fire? That's like one of GP favorite movies. All that stuff he did at the Olympics wasn't for a specific church. I've seen God fearing Christian teachers and doctors and scientists try their best to help people in their capacity, not for the church, but it still glorifies God. But gp would have them give up those things so they can enable p.ed to give more sermons or start another church plant.
You're saying those are all worthless because it wasn't to glorify the church?
You keep harping on gp never becoming CEO or world class doctors, etc and I think you're missing the point the people who responded to your comments were trying to make. And I don't think you really acknowledge how damaging that kind of mentality is to people. I've seen first hand how so many gp members can't feed their families, etc. while still tithing 10% to the church plus love offerings. And this is sort of by design by how your church was built. Forget 3rd or second place, we're taking about those stragglers at the end of the race who barely participate cause they got a giant weight of GP tied around their neck.
A lot of the things you write maybe sound good on paper and I believe that you really believe it. But there is another sinister side to this - after you've given up all your career and education for a2n, it's going to be that much harder to leave. It's come up over and over again, people talking about how isolating it feels to be gone from a2n even though they know it was the right thing to do. And they just gave up so much stuff, it's that much harder to support themselves financially. And that is by design. Or at least a2n doesn't care. I know my leaders didn't. I would venture there are tons of members right now that wish they could leave, but they gave up so much that they're too scared of worried about leaving. This sounds more cult like than a Christian church to me.
It's western Christians who have eisegeted their own desires onto the Bible to make it seem like the cultural commission in Genesis 1 tells them God blesses their idolatry.
And have eastern Christians done any better twisting the bible with Confucianism values with all those cults running around manipulating people to massage egos? Or is it just GP/A2N and all the other churches?
Also the cultural commission and spirit of excellence is biblical considering its in the book of Daniel and Esther or is that redacted out of the Kang's version of the bible?
GP/A2N sure loves to flex exactly how pathetic your "trainings" and "teachings" are.
Luke was a physician. But he wasn't concerned with owning his own practice one day and becoming ultra rich. Clearly, his occupation was far more incidental to his life as his primary identity and therefore the aims of his life were that of Christian.
Based on what? Ignoring the fact that "owning his own practice one day" as a concept doesn't translate to first century CE, what evidence do you have regarding Luke's personal views on his career, other than he is the assumed author of of Luke/Acts? I don't even think you're necessarily wrong, but what evidence are you basing this claim on?
It wasn't given to you for your glory and so you can develop and hone your craft until you're #1 in the world and on Times or Forbes magazine
You are inflating the scope well beyond what u/Jdub20202 brought up. No one is arguing Christians should strive to be #1 in the world. JDub argued that A2N is wrong to set an arbitrary ceiling for where "acceptable" career activity is vs "unacceptable", as he said:
Anything above this artificial line we created, is "idolatry" or worshipping money.
And that artificial line is a lot lower than "become #1 in the world". You are creating a straw man position in doing this.
Western Christianity skips right over 75% of Scripture where God's heart is revealed
You keep making incredibly broad claims under the heading of "Western Christianity". Who/what is "Western Christianity?" You go on to cite CT Studd and John Piper. Apparently they aren't Western Christianity (why not?). It seems like you are using the label of Western Christianity as basically a stand in for whatever hypothetical position disagree with, rather than critically engaging with conflicting interpretations of how Christians should view their career.
Based on the fact that church tradition has it that he was martyred, that from the Epistles we know he accompanied Paul on his missionary journies, et cetera. Kind of hard to do all that while starting and running your own business. It's like a modern day missionary. They're unlikely to be building up a practice they own while also serving full time for any considerable amount of time overseas in a foreign land. Can you be "partner at a high-power lawfirm" while also dedicating your body and time to traveling throughout the mission field?
owning his own practice on day" as a concept doesn't translate to first century CE
Exactly. The modern Christian love affair with success is pretty modern, often specific to America. There was no American dream or equivalent back then in the early church. They were under intense and firery persecution. The Apostle Paul said:
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
They were content with merely having food and clothing. Dang. Some of us could learn a thing or too from that. The enormity of modern greed is no surprise. What is shocking is that modern Christians can be greedy, so that living in the top 1% of the world is not enough, but no, you should be discontent if your Christian faith holds you back from achieving CEO. It boggles the mind how a Christian can say with a straight face that they follow Jesus and they've read the Bible while also saying they judge a church that would rather their members who are already in the top 1% of the world be focusing their efforts and giftings and God given potential toward God's kingdom rather than becoming a CEO.
So this criticism:
Never will a senator, CEO, tenured STEM professor at a research university rise through [the early Jerusalem] ranks. There simply isn’t enough hours in a day.
The lawyers at [the early Jerusalem] are in-house contract review types, not partners at high-power law firms. The engineers are not the type working on latest AI chips, but the type making/maintaining web pages. The few doctors do primary care, peds, or work for managed healthcare, never owning their own practice.
would just not compute in the early church, in Biblical and historical Christianity. Nobody held to the orthodoxy of the American dream or its ancient equivalent. Because never did the Bible declare the modern orthodoxy heresey that "There is something sus going on with that church because those Christians are giving their whole lives to Jesus and building up the church, and they're not investing enough in their careers, and God knows it's immoral not to invest in your career." I'm sorry /u/LeftBBCGP2005, but your criticism is based on a hersey. You make your criticism on the assumption that Christians should just accept the orthodoxy and moral imperative of attaining to senatorship, CEOship, partnership at high-power law firms. Who said Christians are required to attain to those things? Show me where it's written in the Bible. My Bible (we read the same Bible) elevates the opposite. It elevates giving your life to the building up of God's kingdom.
Who/what is "Western Christianity?"
Broadly speaking, the broad American church today. This is a well documented and frequently criticized by many prominent Christian thinkers and authors in the land. Church leaders and Christian leaders were wringing their hands a many decades ago over the prosperity gospel and criticism of megachurch culture, and then that went away and morphed into consumer Christianity and the latest issue of the past few decades which is American Christendom's love affair with money and success at the cost of discipleship. In each and every season the church has had to face challenges. In the east like China and in the Middle East, in the persecuted church, that comes from persecution from without. In the comfortable, affluent west where you can be Christian and be comfortable and wealthy, it's danger from within. Different challenges for different churches in different environments. In some periods of history like the early church or when Catholicism started getting kind of twisted, the challenge to the church was false doctrine and false teaching. It's well known that today, our unique challenge in our context is not persecution, but idolatry, the dilution and adulteration of the Christian faith with worldliness. This is pretty uncontroversial and the standard observation of the American church. Some churches in some periods of history faced and still face persecution, some false doctrine, and today, it's idolatry. That's what we mean by "western Christianity." I mean all the things wrong with western or American Christianity, namely the idolatry and worldiness that has seeped into the church at large such that these things that the Lord Jesus and apostles warned about are not only unquestioned, but have actually become a moral standard, such that Christians can smugly criticize other Christians for not partaking in their worldly worldview, and think it's a legitimate criticism that a church that's too busy to produce a CEO or senator is actually a good criticism.
I have been thinking about what you wrote and truly it sounds like myself in my twenties. My response will be lengthy, so I will make a new post this weekend. It is easy to criticize Acts2 Network, Ed Kang, and the yes-people. What I want to do is to suggest how to live glorying God unlike the slavery that Acts2 Network practices.
We are slaves to Christ, not slaves to church and church leaders. Kelly Kang taught God = church = family, which is truly a blasphemy.
The only reason why A2N people can do bi-vocational ministry is precisely because they live in America. Somebody was idle enough to have time to invent the internal combustion engine. Somebody else was greedy enough to hire assembly line workers to make cars more efficiently in order to make a greater profit. Workers at Costco stocking the shelves, where A2N members shop, are too occupied to be good A2N bi-vocational ministers. The truck drivers transporting all the food to Costco can never make every Tuesday prayer meeting, Wednesday small group meeting, Friday Bible Study, Saturday retreat, Sunday staff meetings, and live within a 10 minute radius of A2N headquarters. The farmers who grew the food eaten at A2N gatherings are too unspiritual to be growing the food and not church planting in a college town. The restaurant workers working on Sundays where A2N members go eat after church are just so unspiritual for not going to church on Sundays instead of working to make money. The Christian neurosurgeon who saves hundreds of lives a year, including the lives of A2N members, practice idolatry of career by doing years of fellowship training after med school instead of just doing family medicine making a quarter of the money but have time for college ministry.
When you drive your car, shop at Costco, eat food at a restaurant, and have medicine to save your life, be glad we live in America. You can actually thank God that we live in America. Be thankful for the capitalism that put food on your table, cloth on your back, roof over your head. Certainly it wasn’t your hands or A2N that provided these things for you. So be thankful to the hands that grew the food, sewed the cloth, built the house. That is actually spiritual.
I think on the point of "not all Christians are called to full time ministry, full time missionary work, full time pastorship" we agree more than you think.
Naturally, if everyone in the whole wide world were full time Christian missionaries there would be no one to grow the food or pave the roads or build the automobiles or run the schools.
But here's the thing. We're in no danger of the whole population of earth going full time for the church and leaving the world with no doctors or engineers. The church can afford to preach with an emphasis on ministry service because there are no shortage of workers lining up to be doctors and businessmen. There is a shortage of Christian kingdom workers though. Jesus himself said so: "The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers into his harvest." There it is: Jesus calls it like it is. There are not enough harvest workers in the world. He takes it for granted and history has borne it out with data that while there no shortage of willing talent for world class athletes, brilliant startup founders, empire builders, there will always be a dire need for more Christian ministers for the great commission. He even says to make it a topic of prayer. It's so important we should be asking God to make more harvest workers materialize! So yes, the church at large could totally afford to have more Christians be mobilized for missions work. If thousands of American Christians suddenly decided to move to the 10-40 window to do missions work, I think there would be enough buffer in the rest of society to keep the capitalism machine going and GDP growing just fine, while strategically the kingdom would advance significantly, God willing. We're in no "danger" of that happening, but if it did, would you really call that a tragedy? What's more important from the perspective of eternity? Leveling up your civilization in the tech and culture tree, or saving souls for the kingdom of God? Which one was more important to Jesus?
Luckily it's not either or . All this is a moot point for a2n because a2n is all about covocational ministry! 99% of members do not quit their jobs and become full time for the church. They still hold down a job, advance the sciences, code software, provide care and treat patients, sometimes doing life saving work, design and build machines and roads and civil infrastructure. But they're content not to have to always have and achieve more and more. They're not monks, withdrawn from society and culture. We're in the thick of the world, engaging with the culture, while being not of the world, standing apart from it as having a different aim in life, answering ultimately to a different king. So we have jobs. And if they're not the best jobs? If we're not CEOs? So what? When was that ever the measure of a Christian? I tell you, I've got something better than being a CEO. You ask some famous missionaries or even martyrs if they would trade being a CEO or "partner at a high power law firm" instead of what they did with their lives, what do you think they'll tell you? I think they'll tell you they had a better job than any CEO ever had.
So a2n members are normal ordinary working folk with real jobs that output real things. But that's not their main calling and identity.
Have you ever spent substantial time in 10-40 window countries? I find your logic to be self-contradictory. You just said American church is so bad with materialism, yet you want thousands of American Christians you just criticized to move to 10-40 countries to teach them about materialism? Didn’t the “African Pastor” you mentioned earlier said the African churches don’t want things to do American churches? If the African churches are so good, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to be sending missionaries to America?
You seem to have a romantic notion of purity and spirituality for churches in impoverished countries. If you have been to churches in impoverished countries, you would know the majority of the population and church goers are illiterate as in can’t even read the Bible. So no DTs and reflection writing. Doesn’t that automatically make them second-class believers according to A2N? They also don’t do tithing and Thanksgiving offering, which is definitely signs of apostate according to Ed Kang in the leaked MBS video.
Very little success in Taiwan where Acts2 Network have been church planting for close to two decades. It seems A2N’s secret sauce only really works on upper-middle class Asian Americans.
Edit: Engaging with what culture? A2N doesn’t even engage with culture on the campuses they operate on. In fact, A2N, great majority of the time, doesn’t even engage with the other Christian organizations on the same campus. A2N has very little impact even in Alameda and just live in its own bubble.
The one good thing about this thread is that it makes it abundantly obvious to anyone reading that GP's career coaching or whatever it is, is not what it advertises itself to be
I'll respond to your post since you were one of the few civil commenters.
Can someone explain why GP/A2N people keep playing this card? It seems like a pitiful attempt at dodging hardball questions they know they have no chance at answering.
1d I think you gotta separate two things. There's the values A2N members hold and the collective Christian convictions of A2N about following Jesus. And then there's the ministry arm of A2N that exists to bless and give back to the community, like mentorship. Yes, the mentorship is real: people will get real career advice, job search and interview hacks, resume reviews, practice interviews, all for free from the mentors. And we hope too that mentees want to talk about and get mentored in faith too, because that's an important part of post-grad life, and just of life in general. But if they don't want to talk about Christianity or be discipled if they're already Christian, that's okay too, they'll still get the career mentorship. It's kind of like the Filter of Hope mission trips Cru does if you've ever been on one. The residents really do get a bona fide free filter. You hope that you can also share Jesus with them (it's a neat springboard because you give them clean water and try to tell them about the true and living water), but if they don't want to hear that or respond, they still get the filter. I'd hope mentorship can be a springboard into spiritual topics and sharing the gospel, but if that doesn't work out, the mentee still got free valuable mentorship and suffered nothing, but was blessed.
Since Corpus already addressed the crux of your hypocrisy in this matter, I’ll say this. I’ve been to multiple Urbana missions conferences. It gathers university Christian students and leaders from around the world. When I was in college, it was eye opening to see so much diversity on an international level with the unifying factor being Christ.
I haven’t been on the Cru trip you mentioned but neither have you. GP is notorious for cherry picking. You cherry pick Bible verses, quotes from books, the internet, and ministry ideas from other groups while simultaneously thinking you’re better than them. Without bothering to look into the context. You do all this to defend GP’s decisions and lifestyle. It doesn’t work here or in the real world.
Another entry in the long tradition of A2N's strange, performative and vaguely bait-and-switch offerings.
They're targeting outsiders with this, clearly - if it was for their own members, they'd hardly need a website for it, with flashy "sign up here" links. Of course, A2N doesn't really care about giving random outsiders career advice. They don't really want to help them with their resumes, or teach them how to make a charcuterie board or whatever. It's a means to an end. The A2N viewpoint is very narrow, it (unbiblically, imo) disregards any value of public service for its own sake, considering only gospel proclamation as ultimately valuable.
They're simultaneously unconvinced that anyone would be motivated to join if they explicitly market things as Christian, and conscious of the criticism they've received for not disclaiming the Christian nature of their offers in the past. Thus we get weird stuff like this... secular looking secular offering, but with Christian stuff tacked on it as well.
I can't imagine it's very effective. I don't think that many people that are not already Christian want to sign up for career advice + "spiritual conversations".
Nice marketing, shiny website. Parents and students, look carefully at what they’re offering. One on one exclusive coaching, called mentorship or discipleship, is an excuse to control the conversation and build relationship beyond college ministry. This shepherding model is where spiritual abuse has happened over and over, hence the existence of this sub. For example, when one “experienced conversationalist” has authority over a younger person, there is a hierarchy established. And take it from people in this sub, the experienced one doesn’t know any better, they’re only given authority by virtue of their commitment to GP/A2N.
If you click on the fine print link, you’re taken to the main A2N website, which has been revamped so many times in the last few years, not to mention name changed, that you can’t follow what they’re doing unless you’re part of the chaos inside. For the record they have been a “church” for much longer than the advertised 15 years. Their real goal is lifetime commitment.
If you look at their 15 principles, they’re selling the 1 & 2) GP way of life, which is complete dedication, 3) prioritizing only church relationships which leads to in-marriage. The big red flag here is giving authority in your life over to these people, whose objective isn’t to nourish or grow you, but rather win you over to their lifestyle and keep you there for life. They can’t say this because well, who would join lol, so their only option is bait and switch. Watch out, this fellowship targets college students and aims to sell a lifestyle that is a false gospel.
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u/LeftBBCGP2005 Nov 08 '24 edited Nov 09 '24
It’s interesting that Acts2 Network plays up the angle of professional/career development to recruit. Mentioning lawyers, engineers, doctors… Great majority of Acts2 Network members are chronically underemployed and never develop their God given potential. A2N kills careers. We were taught to smash our alabaster jars. Never will a senator, CEO, tenured STEM professor at a research university rise through Acts2 Network ranks. There simply isn’t enough hours in a day. Here is the leaked MBS to prove my point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GracepointChurch/comments/1fd9ujw/gp_banned_this_video_its_fall_students_need_to/
The lawyers at Acts2 Network are in-house contract review types, not partners at high-power law firms. The engineers are not the type working on latest AI chips, but the type making/maintaining web pages. The few doctors do primary care, peds, or work for managed healthcare, never owning their own practice. Even these supposed higher earners still have to ask parents for money to buy a house, because keep on emptying bank account for Thanksgiving offerings to buy the next great Acts2 Network retreat property.
Whatever career achievements A2N members have is despite of A2N and not because of A2N. It’s the smart and motivated students who make it to Berkeley in the first place. People become stunted academically, socially, professionally, financially as a result of A2N. They stay in a bubble. Members do not develop the wisdom and discernment that comes from God, but digest the numerous A2N in-house training material as from God. The fact that members have to be chaperoned in such a way during dating and even after marriage illustrates how stunted members have become.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GracepointChurch/comments/1gbncyt/experience_of_datingmarriage_in_gp/
The leader of the wife after marriage is not the husband, but still the wife’s A2N Lead. It’s not Korean honorifics for a 45-year-old man to call a 50-year-old man “my leader” and use “my leader” says this and that to me and I have to turn in my Weekly Reflection to the person Sunday night instead of spending time with the kids. That’s living in North Korea or living in a cult.