Welcome
Each year, the English ministries of the southern California Evangelical Formosan Churches put on a retreat at Pine Summit Christian Camps for four days and three nights over the Christmas break.
This year, Winter Retreat will focus on Junior High, High School, and College. Please note that there will be no children’s program offered. Adults, should they register, will have no specific small groups assigned to them. Attendance is capped this year at 230 campers, so be sure to sign up early.
Come worship, fellowship, and grow! You’ll meet many people from other EFC churches!
Retreat Theme: Powered by the Son
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Date/Location
Thursday, December 27 – Sunday, December 30, 2011
Pine Summit Christian Camps
700 Wren Drive
Big Bear Lake, CA [map]
Registration
(1) Register here
(2) Print out and sign the Release of Liability Form
Charts
See who else is going! These charts and tables represent registrant data in real time.
Deadlines
Early: $179
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Regular: $194
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Late: $209
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Total Registered
Registration Details
- This year, Winter Retreat will focus on Junior High, High School, and College. Please note that there will be no children’s program offered. Adults, should they register, will have no specific small groups assigned to them. Attendance is capped this year at 230 campers, so be sure to sign up early.
- ALL individuals must fill out the form, regardless of age. Family room requests can be made and will be honored by priority:
- Parents with young children 11 and under (children ages 12+ are not eligible unless for medical or other special reasons)
- Married couples (contingent upon space)
- Why has the cost gone up? The registration fee has stayed at $175 for the past four years. This fee has traditionally been subsidized from various sources, but this year those funds are not available. Thus, the increased price this year reflects the actual cost to run winter retreat with the available housing at Pine Summit.
- Refund policy: Regardless of the date registered, $150 for grades 6 and higher, and $79 for children’s registration. Last day to request a refund is December 9, 2012.
- Absolutely NO SUBSTITUTIONS allowed. :/
- ALL CAMPERS MUST have a signed Pine Summit Consent and Release of Liability Form (205 kb PDF) in order to attend ANY portion of Winter Retreat.
- You will be receiving a charge from “EFC Churches” on your credit card or bank statement. Please do not challenge this charge. We reserve the right to levy any chargeback fees we are incurred as a result of an erroneous challenge. You may contact us if you feel you have been charged inappropriately. Thank you!
Registrars
Your local church registrar has a wealth of information about winter retreat. They will collect two things from you:
- A signed check (payable to your local church) for the appropriate amount based on your registration date. If your church has no registrar, please contact us.
- A signed Pine Summit Christian Camps CONSENT AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY FORM.
EFC Alhambra: Sophia Yang
EFC Arcadia: Paul Lu
EFC Berkeley:
EFC Cerritos: Tommy Wang
EFC East Valley: Joe Lin
Grace Bible Church: Josephine Huang
EFC Hacienda Heights:
EFC Irvine: Herald Lebiga
EFC Los Angeles: Andy Kuo
EFC Orange County: Andrea Chen
EFC Pomona:
EFC Saddleback Valley: Danielle Mailloux
EFC San Diego: Charlie Hsu
EFC San Fernando Valley: Albert Yang
EFC South Bay: Bertram Wang
Speakers
There are two separate tracks for campers based on age.
- Track 1 - High School, College
- Track 2 - Junior High
After a joint time in worship, individuals break into their separate tracks and later into small groups. Small groups for junior high and up (typically anywhere from 4 to 10 campers) are assigned to help facilitate deeper discussions after messages.
Pastor Nick Hsieh
EFC San Diego
Track One: High School, College
Nick Hsieh, English Pastor at EFC San Diego, will be the speaker for our high school and college track.
Nick was born in South Georgia, but mostly grew up in San Diego. After graduating from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in Psychology and working briefly in the car business, he went to Dallas Theological Seminary for his Master of Theology (Th.M.) with a concentration in Historical Theology.
Nick and his wife, Natalie, grew up at the same church in San Diego and they have been married for five years. They have both served in youth ministry at their churches in San Diego and Dallas. Nick served as a youth intern and youth director before joining the staff at EFC San Diego as the English Pastor in January 2011, and he believes strongly in calling youth to worship God with their minds through examining their beliefs, and through learning to think and live biblically.
Pastor Godfrey Hom
FCB Fountain Valley
Track Two: Junior High
Godfrey Hom, English Pastor at First Chinese Baptist, Fountain Valley, will be the speaker for our junior high track.
Pastor Godfrey was born in Oakland to first-generation immigrants from Guangzhou, China, and was born-again at Chinese Independent Baptist Church at age 7. By God’s grace, and through the many (desperate!) prayers of faithful family and mentors, he grew in faith during those early formative years. In 1990, after finishing a B.A. in geography at UC Berkeley, he moved to UCLA, graduated with an M.Ed., and went on to teach secondary mathematics.
In 1997, together with his bride, Stacey, he embarked on a new path towards pastoral ministry by enrolling at Talbot School of Theology, earning an M.Div. in 2000. Pastor Godfrey served at churches in Palos Verdes and Irvine before joining the FCBC-FV family in 2012.
Besides Jesus, Godfrey’s joys in life are Stacey and their daughter Sarah. His interests include (in alphabetical order) athletics, bargain-shopping, Bay Area sports, cars, food, games, history, home/kitchen gadgets, music and people.
Workshops
Mission Impossible: Making this Life Count (Pastor Joe Lin, EFC East Valley)
Have you ever been dissatisfied with your Christian walk? Have you wondered if there was more to your faith than going to church on Fridays and Sundays? Come out to this workshop and learn about God’s historical mission and how we can play a part in it!
The Good News (Pastor Tommy Wang, EFC Cerritos)
Simple, yet powerful. Offensive, but true. If you’ve never heard the gospel before, you don’t want to miss this. It just might change your life!
What To Do While Climbing the Ladder of Success, (Pastor Dwayne Nordstrom, Grace Bible Church)
So you want to be successful someday? Ok. But what are you going to do today? It is a long way from here to there. Thankfully, God’s word offers a lot of wisdom to guide our steps. Join us as we discuss some important biblical principles from the life of King David that you can apply on the way to reaching your goals.
It’s OK for You to ‘FAIL’ Your Spiritual Gifts Test! (Pastor Bertram Wang, EFC South Bay)
It’s always tempting to approach a “Spiritual Gifts Inventory” as THE means by which we determine our spiritual giftedness as followers of Jesus Christ. This workshop directly challenges that notion by exploring the relevant biblical data and by allowing God’s word to encourage us as we seek to serve God faithfully in our local congregations. Indirectly, we will also challenge the notion that we can gain greater significance as children of God through our performance and by imperfect measures of “success”.
The Church as Family (Pastor Jonathan Lee, EFC Arcadia)
Does life seem too difficult to deal with or figure out on your own? That’s because we were not meant to go through life alone! You and I were meant to experience life with a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s explore and recapture what the Church was always meant to look like: a family – and how that can impact our lives right now.
Post-Retreat Media
2012 Winter Retreat Slide Show
Courtesy Will Chen (EFC Orange County)
Post Retreat Survey
We hope you had a wonderful time at Winter Retreat, and we hope you were blessed in your time there. We would really like to know how to make Winter Retreat better! Please fill out our survey and let us know how we did!