Jeff & Azusa Liu
Azusa
I grew up on the island of Guam, where my one goal was to get away for college, reinvent myself, and make a new life where no one knew me. I had no plans to pursue God in college. That all changed in my senior year of high school when my good friend became a Christian and invited me to church months before my departure. To reassure my worried friends and youth group leaders, I promised to find a church, and started to attend Gracepoint when I arrived at UC Berkeley.
Though college was fun and exciting at first, I soon realized that though I had put so much hope into college and becoming that new person, I can’t actually erase the past or change the things I hated about myself. Feeling like I had nothing else to look forward to, I finally started paying attention to the messages at church, and was blown away at how relevant the Bible was. I learned about a God who knows everything about me, and yet loves me, and who even died for the biggest problem of my life, which was my sinful heart. I was putting my hope in the wrong things, but when I learned about Jesus, I finally put my hope in the one who will not disappoint.
After graduating from Cal, I’ve worked in several tech companies while serving in various ministries before becoming a full-time collegiate minister.
Jeff
I was an agnostic until my freshman year in college. My teaching assistant for my computer science class at Berkeley was a Christian and boldly asked me if I wanted to grab pizza and talk about God. At that point I was questioning some of the long-time assumptions I had held about life, purpose and destiny so I agreed.
I found his presentation of the Scriptural view of life intriguing, but far more intriguing was his life - a life free from anxious self-striving that emanated a different peace than anyone else I had ever met. He invited me to Gracepoint where I found people devoted to a life of passionate community and purpose. After a period of spiritual seeking where I learned about the gospel and experienced the love of God’s people through the church, I made my decision to follow Christ on November 7, 1999.
This decision changed every aspect of my life as I experienced the joy and thrill of living on mission with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. After graduation, I decided to stay in Berkeley and minister to lost college students like myself. I became a high school teacher and taught comparative religion at Berkeley High for six years before entering into full-time ministry. I’m currently finishing seminary at Biola University and just moved with my wife Azusa and our two boys to the South Bay to start a church plant at Stanford!