Living on Mission

In March, and April we have several large and exciting events. Which means I’ve had plenty of opportunities to work on my event planning skills. Through planning a week long outreach initiative with 12 students from Washington state to planning a live showcase with over 800 attendees, I have become the world’s greatest event planner!(haha) So I’ll be telling you about one of these events and a few other updates from this month.

Spring Student Impact

FOCUS Denton Staff and Western Washington Students

In mid march we had a group of 12 students come down from Washington state to learn how to do different types of outreach on college campuses. We call this week Student Spring Impact, SSI. These students are a part of a college ministry that we partner with called Campus Christian Fellowship. We send our students to them in the summer to learn about disciple making. (I will be attending this conference with our students as a staff member this summer!) So while the students were here we practiced two types of outreach. One is ‘Questions on Display’. With Questions On Display we display a challenging or deep question to probe deeper and more spiritual conversations with students. The other type of outreach we call, Campus Conversations. With Campus Conversations we have two of our students pair up and initiate conversation with students sitting on campus (yes, people they don’t know) and ask them if they are interested in talking about spiritual things. You would be surprised how many students are interested. With both of these forms of outreach our goal is building a relationship. We may be able to challenge spiritual ideas and move them into a direction of wanting to learn more about Jesus, but we most likely won’t move them into becoming a radically in love follower of Jesus in a 5-30 min conversation. By building a relationship (being willing to listen to what they believe) first we can have the opportunity to get their number and talk more later and just help in demonstrating that Christians can be relational and not just transactional when talking about their beliefs. Here are some pictures of our students putting this in action during SSI week!

Before we started the week I led them in an outreach training to help equip them before they were sent out. 

Pausing for a picture after doing outreach at NCTC

Questions On Display at NCTC

On this day the students could share their personal opinion on the question, "What is a Christian and What should a Christian be?"

Questions On Display at UNT

Questions On Display at UNT

Questions On Display at TWU

Focus On Jesus

This is Jon and Lucas. Jon is studying the bible with Lucas. They are doing a bible study together each week called Focus On Jesus. Lucas is a dual-credit student at NCTC. He is currently a sophomore in high school but also taking college classes. He have been involved in our NCTC ministry this year and is on fire for God.

A Birthday for a Very Special Woman 

This past month I also had the treat of spending time with my Grandmother and her brothers for her 80th birthday. I have a great family and it’s rare that we all get to be together like that, but it’s worth it for a woman like my Granny.

Granny and her brother Jimmy 

Creative Worship Night

Lastly some of our students put together a creative worship night at my house. My house is just on the edge of Denton. So we have a couple acres of land on our lot. These students certainly took up our back lot in a very creative way. They had people playing the piano, drums, guitar, and violin while others painted, read scripture, danced, and wrote. It was really neat to see such a large group of students worshiping God. The best part for me was watching the sun set during it all.

Monthly Testimony 

Don't forget to read the student Monthly Testimony! This months testimony is by Quincy who is an engineering major at Collin College. At the link you can also read more prayer requests for our entire ministry. 

Prayer Requests for April

The spring semester is very busy. Be praying for our students as they finish up classes and final exams. Pray that our staff can help equip them to transition into the summer.

In June I will be going on staff with FOCUS! I will move into a permanent staff position here at the Denton campuses. Be praying as I start fundraising again this month.