August Update (Happenings from July)

Hey all,

August is here so the school year is about to kick back into gear. That means a lot of exciting things will be happening. First things first though! July was a month with its own excitement, and I want to share just a couple things with you guys.

All Staff Retreat

Our all staff retreat was this past week, and we got to spend time planning and talking about this year as a staff across our different campuses, as well as getting to know some of our new staff members. This year, we have 6 new apprentices who will be going through a ten month focused learning and discipling time, just like I got to do last year! I'm so excited for them and their next year, please join me in praying for them this year, that God would work through them and that they would learn so much through this experience that can allow them to go out and bless others.

Focus staff at from all of our campuses

Our new apprentices!

This event, and also a trip that our Collin Staff took to New Orleans this July, both served to refresh me and really encourage me as I look forward to working with these people this next year on the campus.

Minister Ordination

Another really neat thing from this past month was our Staff Ordination Ceremony. This was a time when new staff were ordained as ministers and our whole community and church partners came together to commission these folks to be shepherds of our student body, and to take seriously the commitment of serving this ministry for the Lord. Not only were new Apprentices committing to the next ten months, but also many of our other staff, including myself made commitments for the next year or longer to stay and be pastors to our students. It was a really great time to reflect on the vision of reaching these campuses in DFW for Christ, and to remember what an honor and privilege it really is to get to do that.

Our staff being prayed over at the ordination ceremony

Student Testimony

I wanted to share this testimony from one of our students here to give you a story to see about how your support really makes very personal differences possible. We couldn't do what we do at Collin, or any of our other campuses without you guys being a part of the vision to reach these students, and this story is a very real example of what that often looks like for our students. Because of God's goodness and faithfulness to be near to his children and work powerfully in their lives, we can celebrate and praise him for stories like this.

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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'...

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...

January

Hello all, I hope you had a Happy Christmas and a good New Years. We are back after a break for the holidays and in the midst of planning for winter retreat. We have a speaker, Dr. Lee from Fuller university coming in to speak to our entire student ministry about "Disruptive Grace." I'm excited to hear what he has to share and see the impact and growth from camp this year. It's always a special time! At the local level in Denton, we are ready to start another spring semester. Our sermon series this semester is going to be about fear. Based around the John passage on "perfect love drives out fear" Given the rise every year it seems of anxiety and fear in our student body, we feel it's a timely topic and hopefully will minister the truth of God's word back into those thoughts and feelings. Please pray for our winter retreat! It's looking like a very cold one. BRRRR. Hopefully we can make it excellent still. Love you all, thank you for your suppor...

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