Monday, April 5
Jonathan Walton, Columbia grad and modern-day abolitionist, spoke about debt bondage, sexual exploitation and labor slavery to open this year’s Agape Week event. As students and consumers, attendees were counseled to leave a mark on the system that supports the 32-billion dollar and 27-million victim industry of human trafficking. Things we can do to help:

Investigate the labor practices of the manufacturers and business we patronize
Support Restore NYC (the only rehabilitation center for sexually exploited women in NYC)
Push our favorite companies to go slave-free
Visit slaverymap.org to learn more about …

By Janice Chua

A poem by James Kim
I am under a dark complexion.
Day by day, my heart turns farther from perfection.
Darker and darker my perception seems to be,
Of these streets that my eyes see.
The 21st century “real” world seems so unreal to me.
Like the Matrix, an illusioned reality,
To the black suits and ties,
Our knees bend and the soul dies.
Towering skyscrapers, the new tower of Babel,
Overly pompous we become, of what we can now able.
A new metropolitan, a new Babylon,
Overshadows us from the Son.
The Light now perverted by the towers,
Just look at the internally …

“The Baptism of the Holy Spirit” is an intimidating theme for a spring retreat—for those who don’t know the Spirit is a mighty but gentle person who is ever eager to show up in our everyday lives.

And that’s exactly what the group of Seedlings who went on the weekend trip to Pennsylvania quickly found out, so the daunting task of decoding the Spirit’s operations soon became an opportunity to learn just how to cooperate with this Wonderful Counselor.

By Molly Brennan
Several years ago, I wrote a paper on the historicity of the Biblical Exodus. It was one of the best papers I had ever written; I put a lot of effort into my research and genuinely enjoyed the work because it was a subject I had long been interested in. Biblical archeology is a field that was first developed in the nineteenth century to use scientific procedures to prove the Bible’s historical accuracy. Today the field is much more secular …

To express the boundary-breaking nature of God and his explosive grace, the theme of Agape Week 2010 is “Love Without Borders.” April 5th-12th will be a time for all who want to experience the joy and knowledge of the King of glory, without judgment. After all, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world”—no borders attached.

SEE FULL EVENT SCHEDULE

What if you spent an entire year living as Jesus did? Chances are you would like a lot like the person on your left. He is Dr. Ed Dobson, retired pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and author of the new book, The Year of Living like Jesus (Zondervan).

The self-confessed lover of bacon describes in vivid detail the agony of keeping kosher, a feat especially troublesome when eating out. Dobson encountered circumstances that were not only challenging but also surprising. A non-drinker, Dobson sometimes found himself in a bar consuming alcohol, discussing spiritual matters. “When you’re sipping a beer, it’s disarming,” he muses. After all, Jesus did consume alcohol. (read more)