Denton TX College Missions

 Hey all, We just got done with a really exciting week for us! We had some friends from the Christian Campus Fellowship ministry in Bellingham WA come visit us for a week of outreach on our campuses. This is something they do every year on their spring break, different groups of their students go serve on some kind of outreach or missions trip and we were lucky enough to have them! We got to do outreach every day this past week, and met a lot of new students who we were able to engage with about Jesus.  Of course we had to give them a little taste of Texas so barbecue and seeing some longhorns in Ft Worth was also on the agenda.  It was Texas Night at TNF We're in the middle of going through the book of Mark in our sermons at TNF, which has been a great way to dive deep into scripture every week when we come together.  I hope you all are doing well. Ministry is flourishing in our little corner of God's kingdom, so praise him for that. If you have any prayer requests ...

Hey all, We're just a couple of weeks out from our Winter Retreat! It was a really encouraging time for us and for our students. We had many people who made decisions to follow Jesus at retreat or from conversations after. We are praising God for that. The talks were focused on Discipleship, how do we follow Jesus in every part of our life, with our identity and career and through hardship and also good seasons. Sounds basic maybe, but it's essential and we always have ways we need to renew our thinking about what that looks like in our lives.  I've been thinking about 2 Timothy 4 which says: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:   Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.   For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine...

 Hey all, Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were wonderful, and that you're enjoying the post Christmas stretch. Nicole and the kids and I had a great time visiting San Antonio to see my family, and spending it with family and friends up here in the DFW area.  The ministry has been doing really well. The semester ended with a big frenzy of Christmas party, listening to our apprentices give their sermons for the ned of the semester, and a bunch of meetings and 1-1s before everyone left for the break. I'm excited to be back at work today, we're looking ahead to winter camp, which is only a couple of weeks away.  Prayer requests: - Our staff keeps getting sick! In some ways this is the theme of this time of year for people, but we would love some time with some healed bodies and protection from those pesky viruses that go around so we can continue to do what we need to do.  - Winter Retreat. Jan 17-20th. If you could, set a reminder to pray for that time. We are doin...

 We are on the North (South?) end of fall retreat! Wooho! This always a big moment in our year, it marks the transition from people being new and still getting to know us to more bought in and excited to call this place home. We do a lot intentionally leading up to camp to make that transition happen but camp is always a huge boost for that for people. We were able have Ronnie Worsham from our Garland church come and give a message and that and the worship and student testimonies we worked into the weekend gave us all the place to go away and encounter God together for a weekend. Great stuff! Over 260 Students this year just from our Denton FOCUS campuses came. Very exciting to see! We have our small groups get together with another small group of the opposite gender the weeks leading up to camp to do a combined small group and that group is their team for the challenges at camp. Its something we started a couple of years ago and we love it! It helps get people who are on the fence...

Hello all If you prayed for the prayer requests last update, THANK YOU. It has gotten a lot smoother working with UNT to accomodate our event needs. We are in a room that holds us much better now and not having to scramble or turn people away.  As we head into October we're hitting some critical points in getting people to go from people who come check out our community to people who who stay committed to small groups and committed to one on one discipleship. We're still having the good problems of growing pains, trying to find enough people to help us lead 1-1 bible studies with students. Pray for that.  We have had an explosion in baptisms lately! This is so exciting and has been such a neat move of God to witness. Every week at our weekly gatherings we have new announcements of baptisms for people in our community and its super encouraging.  This month is fall retreat, so please be praying that students make it to that, we need that time together to solidify new relati...

 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'...