A Summer of Opportunities

He who gathers during summer and takes advantage of his opportunities is a son who acts wisely, But he who sleeps during harvest and ignores the moment of opportunity is a son who acts shamefully.

Proverbs 10:5 AMP
Every season comes with opportunities, and the summer is no exception! As we’re halfway through July, we want to make sure we take advantage of the great opportunities that summer provides.

Shoreline: A Time to Love
One of these great summer opportunities is our annual Shoreline service, titled “A Time to Love.” This service is only two weeks away on July 30th at 11am!

At Shoreline, we’ll enjoy a day of good food, excellent performances, a powerful lesson, and much-needed time with both old and new friends. Stick around to watch (or participate in!) our competitive and fun 3-on-3 basketball tournament at 1 pm. There will also be an “E-Life Experience Fair” this year after service with information and demonstrations of programs such as E-Gardening, E-Soccer, and E-Hoops.

We are putting all the information you need about Shoreline at bacc.cc/shoreline. This is a great page to send to family and friends you’d like to invite. You can find customized digital flyers there that have different features of the service on them. For example, if you’d like to invite a single friend who would be interested in the Singles VIP picnic tent after service, you can send them an invite with that on it.

We are so excited for the opportunities that will come out of this time together! Remember to start inviting your family and friends so they don’t miss out on the faith and fun!

E-Life is an opportunity to do good in difficulty
I mean that you should use every opportunity you have for doing good, because these are evil times.

Ephesians 5:14-19 ERV
The Bible tells us that every opportunity we have is an opportunity for doing good. The hardest opportunities to see are the ones that occur in the midst of difficulties or challenges. But like one of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes says, our faith allows us to see opportunity in every difficulty:

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston S. Churchill
This summer, let’s look for the opportunities to do good in the communities around us. One way to do this is through E-Life, a collection of Bay Area inclusive programs that we at the BACC have the privilege of supporting. In each of these programs, kids with and without special needs get the chance to learn new skills and build new friendships together.

One of these programs that has had some exciting things happen recently is E-Football. Vondell Pilcher had a vision to create a space where he could use his experiences as a junior college quarterback to benefit the surrounding community. Working with other E-Sports programs, he helped to launch E-Football programs last fall in Sunnyvale and this spring in West Oakland.

A couple of Cal Berkeley football players came to the Oakland E-Football kick off at McClymonds High School. They were inspired by how the E-Sports volunteers ran and adapted the drills for the kids, so the Cal Football team asked E-Football for help at one of their upcoming events. This Saturday, July 15th, at 11am, the E-Football crew will be helping the Cal football team and Special Olympics with this event, the Cal Golden Buddies Football Clinic. More than 75 kids have signed up for the Cal Golden Buddies day, and more are expected to sign up on site tomorrow.

We’re excited to see how much the community will benefit from this new and growing connection between E-Sports and UC Berkeley athletics!

If you have any further questions or would like to learn more about E-Football, visit https://e-life.org/e-football/

We can’t wait to see what God does with the opportunities we take to do good this summer!

Till next time,

Sam and Tenea Manuel

East Bay Lead Minister and East Bay Women’s Ministry Leader