Advent and Updates

This is the time of year that throughout a big chunk of church history, Christians celebrate the season of Advent. I'm working through a book right now called Advent that asserts that we would do well to remember this time of our calendar each year, and use it as a time to reflect and take stock of the reasons the world needs the incarnation, both the one that happened at Jesus' birth and the return to come where all will be set right.

It's continually been hitting the right notes for me in this year where much is happening and much of it is challenging. I'm remembering through this season that what we need now as the church is a deep seated expectation for that second coming, where as Revelation says, heaven will come down to earth, and we know the kingdom of God that started with Jesus will be brought to bear fully in a renewed creation. I hope you will joining me in reflecting on our hope and our expectation for that future in the midst of all the things that we are confronted with in the time we're in. I believe it's through that hope and expectation that we are emboldened to go out and be at work for God's desires in our world.

Ministry updates:

We just are coming to the close of our fall semester, and we've had a really great last couple of months! We have our small groups listen to a sermon together every week, and our series we've been doing has been just on the gospel. It's the basics of what we believe and why we believe in Jesus. It's been refreshing and good for our community.

This week I get the privilege to sit and listen to the sermons done by our FOCUS Apprentices. These are people who've committed to ten months of learning firsthand what being a minister on a college campus consists of, and this sermon they give always has a lot of encouraging and inspiring stories of God's work in their ministry. I'm looking forward to it!

Uniquely this year, since we've been utilizing zoom and phone calls much more, we're seeing the opportunities for our core groups and 1-1s to still be much more involved over the school break. This can be a really good blessing, so be praying for the students to make time for each other and staying plugged into the community of God as they spend time resting and with their families.

Life Updates:

Nicole and I are expecting! She is currently a little over a third of the way to term, and we are both so excited to welcome a baby boy in June! Please prayer for health and safety for her and the baby in these last remaining months.

Thank you guys so much for your support, prayers, and all that you do for God that I don't get to hear about. (I'd love to hear about it though!) Let me know if there is any way I can be praying for you in the coming weeks.

Ryan

Comments

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

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