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An Amazing Start

 Hey all, Here to update you on the first few weeks of Denton FOCUS. It's been a whirlwind, we had two weeks of doing events on campus, lunches with new students, tabling and giveaways, big night events outside on campus playing capture the flag or lawn games. The 6 foot beach ball made multiple appearances :). It's been a really awesome start to the year, and so far the students have been responding really positively. By and large it feels like the ones we are meeting are interested in engaging, many of them wanting to get involved and even the ones who aren't are less hostile than some of our previous years, so that's something we are praising God for!  Our second TNF, last night. We got a bigger room thank goodness, our first week in a slightly smaller room had people lined up along the walls! Our first two Thursday Night Fellowships have seen a bit under 300 students show up, which is awesome! (Fo context, last year our biggest Thursday night was in the low 200'
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Prayer Requests Going Into the Fall - Hey friends, we're about to start another fall semester of ministry in a couple of weeks, and that means a new leader team, a bunch of new students flooding the campuses and looking for belonging and more importantly looking for Jesus whether they realize it or not. Our goal is to meet as many of them as we can.  - Please pray for us to cross paths with those seeking and lost and that we can bridge the gap between them and their relationship with God and Christ loving community.  - Please pray for our leader team to be inspired to share the gospel boldly and bring people in with openness and love.  - Please pray fro our staff that we would also be sharing the gospel boldly, preaching and praising God well, and taking care of all of the logistics that go into a really busy few weeks.  Thank you for your support, and for being on mission with us.  Ryan   
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Reflections on Mark 4:26-29

“The kingdom of God   is like this,”  he said.  “A man scatters seed on the ground.     He sleeps   and rises   night   and day; the seed sprouts and grows, although he doesn’t know how.  The soil produces a crop   by itself—first the blade, then the head, and then the full grain   on the head.   As soon as the crop is ready, he sends for the sickle,   because the harvest   has come.”
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May

SICM time is here again! If you're not familiar with this event, this is our ten day trip up to Bellingham WA for leadership training and development of our newer students who show potential to be evangelists and disciple makers in their coming years in school. This year we're excited to bring 40 students from the Denton campuses alone, which is a huge growth spurt for us and we're waiting to see what kind of fruit comes from this over the coming years. I am going to be going this year again and it's always such a key time to get to know these future student leaders better.  We had our last TNF until June when we all meet together with all the campuses together. This last one we did something special and rented a big pavillion at Rockledge park next to grapevine lake. We had a great time of worship and honoring the departing seniors, as well as some fun swimming and playing together at the park! It was beautiful. Someone brought a huge ice chest of crawfish and we did a
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April

 Baby #2 is here! Joni is now almost a month old, and she is getting used to life and everyone in her home. This is the first picture we've gotten of her smiling at me! Jude is a great big brother, always excited to give her kisses and hold her with us. It's very sweet. She is doing great! Eating and sleeping well.   Ministry is going well! I took a week off and enjoyed some family time and now I am back into the swing of things. The end of semester is fast approaching and we are finishing up our series on Philippians at Thursday Night Fellowships. Our small groups have had a GREAT year this year. I am so encouraged by the stories of people loving it so much that they invite their dorm mates and classmates.  We're going to have one more TNF this week and our community members are going to have a time to share the ways they have seen God move and work this year. I'm so excited to hear about what they're experienced and see our community encourage each other in this w
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March

 This month has been a very exciting month in ministry! We had our FOCUS open house, where parents and friends come out and go to a TNF to see what they're students. Another Pizza Theology is in the bag, this one covering the way that the Bible was canonized, and translated and passed down from century to century. It was an excellent time of teaching.  Denton FOCUS is in an exciting phase. We're experiencing a lot of fruit and positive momentum in ministry. This is always a blessing and a time to be grateful for what God is doing in our midst. We're in the midst of a series on Philippians and talking about unity in the Spirit the past couple of weeks. As we grow as a ministry, this is a topic that needs heat and attention.  On the personal side, Nicole and I are welcoming another baby, Joni Maeve into the world. We're so excited to introduce her to all of y'all.  There have been a few students in our ministry really struggling with grief and loss. Please be praying
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February

 Hello all! Welcome back. Here to update you on some of the happenings in Denton FOCUS lately. Thank you for investing in this vision, let me express to you some of the exciting things we're seeing. We're experiencing a real growth spurt lately. Not sure why, but we're thanking God. I think part of what's happening is that we have been blessed with a leader team that is full of zeal and energy for this mission. They are continuously pouring into the new students that come in, and we are so thankful for them.  We're also seeing a renewed thirst for spiritual things in this younger generation. For all of the news of the mass exodus from the country at large being associated with any specific religion. (non affiliated is the fastest growing cohort in the US), among gen z we're actually seeing a real thirst for spiritual things. The paths that they seek out for "spiritual things" definitely are not all good, there's renewed interest in the occult and o
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