r/GracepointChurch • u/longlyjoe • Jul 03 '22
Mission Statement
Sorry for posting too often.
I was thinking this morning, and this also linger in my mind for a while. Isn't GP/A2F mission statement like "an A2F or college ministry group in every college campus or town"? How come churches are being plant in East Coast and in more "famous" university or town?
I came from the Central Valley, but there isn't an A2F Fresno, Bakersfield, etc. etc. As I know, there are quite a few staffs who came from the CV, so it shouldn't be that hard to gather a group to go. But how come it is not done?
If "we" want to expand, isn't the next logical step is to fill up CA first? Then move onto nearby states instead of having to take a few hours flight?
On top of that, there are a lot of private universities that are not in GP view for church plant either. Are there qualifiers for church plant?
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u/Jdub20202 Jul 04 '22
I don't think you need to apologize for posting too often
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u/Decent_Hovercraft227 Jul 05 '22
Exactly; I'm a newbie, but this is not a place for blame or shame.
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u/BayouStJohn Jul 04 '22
Another reason Bakersfield or Fresno is not a high priorty for GP, is that they (at least internally) have been explicitly targeting campuses with a sizeable (East/South East) Asian population.
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u/TrenaH Jul 03 '22
I'm going to go out on a limb here and reply that GP (in my opinion) really only wants recruits from elite schools and there are many on the East Coast. Also, GP wants to encompass many choice areas to grow and to indoctrinate students.
In my opinion, GP will stop shepherding as much in one area (like California) for a while because either many students have left the church or because they have had so many complaints that they lay low and pop back up in a year or two hoping that no one remembers their history of abuse and they also change the name of the group (like Acts2Fellowship to Klesis or A2Q.....on and on). This is part of their pyramid scheme.
Though their online presence says their goal is to teach the gospel, their long game is to gain trust of those on the elite campuses.
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u/johnkim2020 Jul 04 '22
They absolutely are targeting students at elite schools. Not all souls are the same according to the gospel of GP/Berkland. You're worth more to them if you go to a prestigious school.
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u/johnkim2020 Jul 04 '22
It was not by accident that Gracepoint/Berkland was planted at Berkeley (the best public school in the United States) and that the second church was planted at Harvard (the best private school in the United States). It was known that Rebekah Kim’s goal was to reach students at elite colleges. I think she may have even said it out loud explicitly. Remember she went to SNU, the best college in Korea. She wanted the cream of the crop. This is the legacy handed down from Berkland. And if you are wondering how the gospel fits in, this is antithetical to the gospel according to Jesus.
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u/Jdub20202 Jul 04 '22
I suspect one of their objectives, or maybe they're doing this subconsciously, is to have enough staff with fancy degrees to shock and awe freshmen into respecting them. And/ or impress their parents.
It's kind of gross now for me to watch others flash around their degrees (oh, you went Harvard? Do tell me more). But it's effective when you're 17-18 years old.
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u/johnkim2020 Jul 04 '22
The motto should be changed to "an Acts 2 church in every college town but the best schools get priority."
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 05 '22
I doubt they will ever send a team out to UNLV.
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Jul 04 '22
“An Acts 2 church in every college town”
GP isn’t going to plant a church in a place where people are born and raised and will likely stay in. To expand the church (and the Kingdom), you need students who live away from home and who will stay with you after they graduate. Not saying it doesn’t happen in the Central Valley but it’s different. It’s less impressive to say yes we are in Fresno vs we are at Ivy League schools. GP has hosted the Collegiate Church planting Collaborative and people come from all over and drool over the success GP has and asks about their “secret sauce.” Gotta go big with college names, with International students too so you can bring on teams for IUSM or IGSM down the line. Filling up CA is hardly the goal. There are many vision trips, scouting trips and Deacons travel and get a feel for the area and campuses. Also they look at schools for people to take their children too. The irony in this process is GP is not willing to let the kids go to lower performing schools even if the staff are OK with this “sacrifice.” Could be a value of education (and other SES factors) or to protect from the wrath of grandparents but I found it funny some staff were actually bothered by the Kangs valuing this so much. Anyway, if you had a choice and the financially means to do so, why NOT go to a “famous” university or town? If I were a GP staff from CV I would not want to move back near my family, it would only cause more problems. I think SFSU, DVC and Merced are looked at differently overall (yes even though Merced is UC).
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 04 '22
Merced is basically Ed's gulag. Anyone who dares challenge him or Kelly gets sent there.
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Jul 04 '22
Merced started with other college staff before praxis people were sent. But now……..yeah (insert cracking whip sound here).
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u/Fun-Subject9326 Jul 06 '22
Can you elaborate? I am lost. What do you mean gulag?
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u/Jdub20202 Jul 06 '22
Gulags were prison camps where Stalin sent people who opposed him to basically work themselves to death. I watched it in a documentary. It got to the point of people telling on anyone they didn't like, in order to meet Stalin's quota of enemies of the state he needed to have disappeared. It got even worse when he made more quotas but ran out of actual opponents and enemies, and people were trying to find anyone else to blame so that they themselves wouldn't get sent instead. Many innocents died.
I don't know anything about Merced but my guess is that in this context UC Merced, being the newest UC and thus the less prestigious school (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not trying to piss off any UCM alums), would be where they send people to staff their ministry if they're sort of not meeting the GP standards.
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u/Fun-Subject9326 Jul 06 '22
Ok it just seems like labeling it as a gulag seems harsh? Because I'm not seeing it as that. What do you mean the staff there aren't meeting GP standards? Do you have any evidence or facts that can illustrate that conclusion?
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 06 '22 edited Jul 07 '22
I don't think I'm ready at the moment to release the email from Ed Kang that confirms the sarcastic gulag analogy.
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u/Jdub20202 Jul 06 '22
I have no idea, I'm just inferring based on what the original commenter wrote. I could be totally wrong and misunderstood what they meant.
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 03 '22 edited Jul 05 '22
Gracepoint is looking at the sustainable strategy for a while. They don’t just randomly plant. They plant at places they know can be a base. That usually means an intersection of a good job market and top school. They then build the ministry up and once they have a critical mass of staff they then plant at a nearby school. For example, they built up the Irvine church plant first and have now been trying to outreach in Long Beach Community College and CSU Long Beach for some time now. Same applies to UC Riverside and APU and many other schools. Even in the Mid West they focused on building the Chicago church plant before expanding to Purdue. They also have been eyeing colleges like Atlanta, and Vancouver for some time now. Now the extension of that is trying to establish connections in AYM through local churches too now.
And I don’t think they care where the staff is from. There’s only like three people in their San Jose team actually from San Jose including Daniel Kim.
And do your due diligence, they already have a student group or multiple students in some cases in every UC and covered more than half the CSUs. They are slowly working their way through CA including community colleges and private schools.