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'...

What Will be Happening this Fall?

Hello all, We're two weeks out from what is typically our craziest week of the school year: fall semester welcome week. This is when campuses usually throw big events to welcome the incoming freshman, and welcome back students who have gone away for the summer. Obviously, this is prime time for a ministry to be on campus to be visible and engaging with the new students. So many of the people we have throughout the year come from us meeting them during welcome week. This year, things are going to look different. So as you support campus ministry faithfully, let me tell you what we're going to be doing this year to still be faithful on our end to minister to college students. Outreach: Reaching out and meeting new students is a vital part of our ministry, and because of COVID, the way in which we do that is going to have to look different. Not all of the students that normally attend classes are going to be in person on campus, so we can't expect to rely on holding in person ...

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

Denton TX College Missions

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