by Pastor Patrick Cho

As we gear up for another school year, it is an exciting time for the church. In just a few days, all the collegians who have been away for the summer will return and the church family will be back to its seam-busting size! All the exciting beginning of the school year events will be taking place once again. One of those activities is our Orientation Night. This year’s Orientation will be on Friday, October 3, on-campus at UCSD. This is the first real opportunity for the incoming collegians to meet the staff and get acclimated to College Life. Especially for the incoming freshmen, we know that the transition to college can be a bumpy one, so we want to help as much as we can with that transition.

At Orientation Night, we not only introduce the staff, but we also give the students a background to College Life and teach the students about the importance of church during their college years. College is a really important time in a person’s life because it may be the first time they no longer live under the roof of their parents. For the first time in their lives, they may be forced to fend for themselves and do everyday tasks on their own initiative. Some students come into college never having cooked a meal, done a load of laundry, or paid the bills! For many, it will be the first time where they wake up on Sunday morning and decide for themselves whether they will get up and go to church. This is why at Orientation Night we make it a point to focus on the topic of a commitment to the local church for the purpose of growing in godliness. We know how disastrous the consequences can be when believers do not make church a priority in their lives.

Another exciting beginning of the school year event is the College Life Luau. The Luau actually will take place the week before Orientation Night on Friday, September 26. Last year, we allowed the College Life student staff to plan and host this event for the first time, and they completely outdid themselves! It was an incredibly enjoyable event with a good handful of new collegians attending. This year, we hope to make the evening together even more enjoyable and will work to spread the word more effectively.

As for the Friday Night Searchlight Bible study, for the fall quarter, we will continue our study in the Book of Mark by examining the lives of the twelve disciples. After a week of review, we’ll pick up in Mark 2:13-19, which gives the account of the choosing of the twelve. It should be a great study as it will be an entire quarter spent on just a few verses! Hopefully we can become more intimately acquainted with the disciples to see where they have proven to be examples for us to follow and also where they made mistakes that we can learn from.

So as we usher in the new school year, the staff of College Life wants to officially welcome all the collegians back (whatever school you attend)! We hope the summer has been a time of rest and refreshing and that you are all ready to give the 2008-09 school year your best effort. Certainly, we want this year to be excellent academically for each of our students, but more importantly, we want this year to be focused and profitable spiritually. We hope to work together to be a bright shining beacon of God’s truth and love on-campus in San Diego as we spread the gospel message to the thousands of students who have yet to know about God’s grace.