Hey y'all!
We started the school year off right with our fall staff retreat! Just like our winter staff retreat, this is a time for all of our staff to come together, celebrate community, and be poured into before everything gets busy again. It gives us a chance to refocus, make sure our hearts are in the right place, and prepare ourselves to serve our students to the best of our ability. It’s always such a fun time, and I love getting to see staff from all of our campuses together.
Of course, the biggest thing happening this month is that school is finally back!
The week before classes begin at UNT is called First Flight Week. This is when a lot of the freshmen are moving into their dorms, finding their way around campus, learning where their classes are, and starting to meet people for the first time. Because so many students are looking for community during that week, it gives us an amazing opportunity to send our student leaders out onto campus to meet people and do outreach.
This year, we had more than 60 student leaders join our team, which is such a blessing! During welcome week, they spend a ton of time on campus meeting new students, starting conversations, and inviting people into community. It’s definitely not about trying to hit some kind of number. We simply want to meet as many people as we can because every new person we meet is another person we have the opportunity to invite into Christian community and, hopefully, introduce to Jesus.
We also host multiple events throughout the week so our student leaders have easy places to invite the people they meet. These events are mostly just opportunities for students to hang out, have fun, make friends, and feel like they have somewhere they belong on campus. All of that eventually leads up to our first Thursday Night Fellowship of the semester, where everyone gets to come together for our first big on-campus service.
One of the most exciting things this year, though, actually happened outside of our normal Denton campuses. We decided to start doing outreach at North Central Texas College in Flower Mound, which is about 30 minutes away from Denton. We really felt called to spend some time there and see if God might open a door for ministry on that campus.
And He absolutely did!
More than 30 students signed up saying they were interested in being part of a small group. We had around eight students come to our very first Core there, and since then people have continued to show up, build friendships, and enjoy being part of the community.
Going into it, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. We were simply trying to be faithful and see what God would do. He has been so gracious in continuing to provide students who are excited about the gospel, excited about community, and excited to be part of something new at NCTC.
It has been such an encouraging way to start the school year, and I’m really excited to see where God takes it from here!
Prayer Requests for August:
- To keep the energy we had on the first few weeks of school
- To not let anyone slip through the cracks
- To reach as many people as possible and show them Jesus!
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