Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Beat of a Different Drum

Hello all! Another school year has come to a close here, and this one marks the end of working at the Collin Campuses and moving over to work at UNT TWU and NCTC in Denton. More on that to come in the next few months, but first let me update you guys on some of what's been going on here the last couple months. The three pictures above are from an outreach time at our Spring Creek Collin College campus. Our outreach time there has been particularly strong the past few weeks, as the students have really taken that on and have been showing up. This was a day where we were outside talking to students and inviting them to come hang out with us and have conversation. This has been a successful way over and over of getting past people's initial hesitancy to engage in something more serious right off the bat, and has led to a lot of people coming into community where they can start studying the bible and joining a small group led by our student leaders. God has been se...
Post a Comment
Read more
Hey all, I'm thankful you're taking the time to read this. I want to give you guys some more peeks into what we've been doing at Collin, and there's a lot that's been happening this month! First, I want to again thank you guys for all your support and prayers. I can't thank you enough for continuing to be a part of God's work on these campuses. I am truly convinced that God is working in the lives of these college students, and that for many of them, this will reshape their life as they go out and live in our society. We still want to bring people to the realization that Jesus is Lord and make fired up disciples who will go out into the world and spread that good news over and over. So thank you again for being a part of that. March was a great month for a lot of reasons. Early on in March, during Collin's spring break, me and a few of the other guys from our FOCUS ministry at Preston Ridge got to drive down to Big Bend National Park. We camped for ...
1 comment
Read more

Checking In

 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...
Post a Comment
Read more