Hope for the Future

The school year has officially begun! We're past those first couple crucial weeks of school and have started to get a glimpse of what our ministry will look like this year. As much as these weeks are exhausting, I am reminded of how thankful I am to have the opportunity to be on campus, meeting students and inviting them to know Jesus and get involved in Christian community in college. Thank you so much for being part of that! I literally could not be on campus doing ministry without you!

Board game night with some students at our house

In the campus ministry world the first 2-3 weeks tend to be some of the most strategic and important weeks of the whole year. Students tend to be more open to friendship and getting involved in something than they are the rest of the year. For that reason we have an axiom "The disciple to lazy to plant in the fall will have nothing to harvest in the spring." While being opposite of actual farming practices, it's rather accurate for the college campus. This year we really hit the ground running with putting on more events and having more outreach opportunities than ever before in Denton. Thankfully, and unsurprisingly, God showed up! Instead of going into detail about each event, I'm just going to bombard you with photos of the last couple of weeks. 

Pic of our corefa retreat to train our small group leaders for the year.

We have almost 50 student leaders!

One of our students got baptized at that retreat! 

We requested a bigger meeting room than last year for our Thursday Night Fellowship gatherings, and we didn't know if we would be able to fill it. At our first TNF we had people sitting on the floor because we had run out of seats! We had around 180 students show up on Thursday to join us in worship and a message. We expect even more this next week since TWU has barely even started up. I normally try to not make a big deal of numbers, but I've just been so happy and excited to see how many new students we've met that are excited to plug into discipleship during college!

TNF

Students hanging out afterwards!

On that note, this year more than in years past, I've met so many freshman that are coming into college completely sold out and on fire for Jesus. Multiple new students have already been seeking opportunities to serve and be a disciple on the college campus. It fills me with so much hope for this year, and just for the future in general. God is good, and He is powerfully working in young people still. 

Pic from an event we put on called everything is bigger in Texas

(Featuring giant versions of classic games)

Giant uno game!

One of my favorite stories from this week so far was about a group of girls that one of our student leaders met this last week (It starts off rough, but is so sweet in the end!) They had all come from church backgrounds but had stepped away from the church and God because of past hurt with the Church. Multiple of them coming from abusive church backgrounds with leadership that was questionable at best. Our student leader asked them if they wanted to come to TNF, and I think by an act of the Spirit, they decided to try it out, even though they were all anxious. Afterwards the student leader asked how TNF was for them and they said that they immediately felt safe and welcomed, loved being able to worship with people, and couldn't wait to come next week. I love seeing God restore these girls to His church and community. 

Trivia night

The Chosen watch party night 

Just the president of UNT chatting with one of our students when we were handing out coffee to meet people. 

Welcome week involved a lot of board games. A lot.

Join me in praying for more of these kinds of stories to keep happening this year, and that all of these new students can start this year off well and that our community can do a good job of loving them and pointing them towards Jesus.

The whole FOCUS pastoral team for this year at our staff retreat

The pastors for the Denton campuses (minus Reagann who just had a baby)