This fall’s Amplify, a one-day conference designed to boost your faith and experience of God, is happening at Hoboken Grace on Saturday, Oct. 22nd! As you look through the eight tracks offered, consider taking Empower, a class that will help you discover the gifts you were given to impact the world around you — and give you that extra jolt to do so.

Kara took Empower in the spring to find opportunities that fit her interests and erratic schedule. She also wanted to get inspired about service.

“I’d been friends with Rachel Norris, who teaches Empower,” Kara says, “and she’s such a passionate, inspiring person. I thought, if I could do anything to help bring more of that out in me, I’d like that.”

Kara had already been serving Hoboken Grace and the community in various ways. She helped launch the Hoboken Christmas Exchange and was serving on the Events Team. But Kara had been looking for another way to serve that fit her to a T. Empower helped her get there.

“You go through different categories of service to find what excites you,” she explains. “And then there are the other people in the class, pointing out that you would be great at this.”

What she learned at Empower also excited her. “God made us to serve,” Kara says. “God made us with specific gifts, and when you match up that gift with opportunities to serve your community, you’re happy, you’re enjoying yourself.”

Like Kara, James had also been serving Hoboken Grace and the community before he took Empower, including as a board member for TRUE Mentors. While he hadn’t been looking for a better fit in terms of service, the leadership roles he’d taken on could generate pressure, he says. Taking Empower helped him put in perspective what it means to serve.

“Empower was a way to get back to the core of who God is,” says James.

As an introvert, he admits that his first choice of service was to help with set-up on Sunday mornings at Hoboken Grace — “because it was the least interactive team.” But “when you start serving, and when you step through classes like Empower and take on opportunities that you may not have chosen for yourself, you find God and His strength,” he says.

Now, James helps other people find their gifts as a member of the Engagement Team. He says he’s excited every Sunday to meet with people and hear their stories. “I’m super interested in just getting to know people, and that’s a huge gift that God has given me,” he says.

Register for Amplify’s Empower class here. You can also sign up for Foundations, Story, Marriage, Luke, 1 Samuel, 1 Corinthians or Ecclesiastes. (The $20 early-bird registration rate expires on Saturday, Oct. 8. After that, registration is $30.) Lunch is included, and childcare is available.