August/September 2022

Hello all!

It's been an exciting beginning to our fall semester here at the UNT and TWU campuses.

Our theme for this year is Come and See, based out of the story of the woman at the well in John 4. She's so struck by her encounter with Jesus that she immediately feels a need to tell people about it!

Likewise out focus this year is around realizing what Jesus has done in our lives so that we have a similar passion to share that experience with those around us. Our sermons at TNF have focused on this idea for a these first few weeks of the semester, and it was a point of inspiration for our welcome week efforts to reach out to new students.

We have a lot of new leaders on the men's side in particular, which is due to so many graduating last year! Bittersweet, but it's been fun to get to know these new leaders and work with them every week in our mentorship meetings and leadership development time.

Our men's leader team this year.

One of the things you guys can be praying for is our leader team. They are helping so much with the mission on a week to week out basis. We have more people involved in our small groups than involved in our large group gatherings, which means a lot of what we do starts with those small groups and the 1-1 Bible studies that come from it. Pray for these leaders and us as we lead them, as well as the people involved in the small groups. We have 200+ students across the two Denton campuses this year, and we want to do our best to serve them well.

Another thing on our radar right now is fall camp. It is happening this weekend, October 8-9th! This is a big deal for us every year, it is often an event that solidifies people being involved for the long run and is a major catalyst for new people finding friendships in the community. Pray that new students would come and start building meaningful friendships that point them to Jesus!

I appreciate all of you praying and giving and being a part of the campus mission. Jude and Nicole and I would be nowhere without your support.

We took a bunch of new students to the opening UNT football game. It was an embarrassing display.

Jude is trying to read some hefty books now

Sugar high at the snow cone place

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'...

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...

Denton TX College Missions

Search This Blog