Summer Season

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At the beginning of summer, some of our staff took a bunch of our students to Washington for a leadership conference put on by a college ministry we’ve been connected to for over 10 years. This is something we do every year (except the last 2 because of the pandemic), and it’s called SICM (The Student Institute of Campus Ministry). It was amazingly fun and a tremendous growing experience for me when I went as a freshman in the ministry, and I heard the students that got to go this year were also significantly impacted by the trip. The conference does a lot of good for our community: from training our students to lead small groups and bible studies on campus to creating connections and bonds between our consistent, eager members, both with each other and with our staff. Our students worshiping with our Washington brothers and sisters at SICM! One of the important goals of the summer for our staff team is deciding which of our students we want to invite to become small group leaders with us for the coming school year. These students commit to a lot. Beyond leading a small group bible study each week, they meet 1on1 with members of the community throughout the weeks, they help promote and serve at the large group events we put on, they outreach to bring in new students, and they do plenty of other things as well throughout the year. SICM helps us train these students for all of these things, and it gives us an idea of which students are ready and willing to step up and serve their peers as leaders in our community. Session from SICM! Another thing we get to focus more on in summer is community bonding. Since many students go back home for the summer, and most students don’t have summer classes, we get a chance to help the students who are still in town feel like a really tight-knit group through more relational, hangout type events over teachings or outreach and mission focused events that are common during the school year. A bunch of us started going to Little Elm beach or South Lakes park to play volleyball every Friday, and a few students even hosted some cool things like a worship night, board game night, and dinners at their family’s home! Board games and Worship Night at Luke and Andrew’s! Once summer starts, we also switch from having campus specific fellowship nights to one large combined Thursday Night Fellowship (TNF). This gives our students a chance to meet people from other campuses and begin to make connections with our larger community. Because Denton is farther from the location we all meet at, our staff and students will organize carpools and make the whole night like a mini-trip to Richardson! Summer TNF at CARE Church with all the FOCUS Campuses! This month, our student testimony is from Angeloh! I had the pleasure of meeting him and becoming friends when we were both undergraduate students at UT Dallas. He’s a great guy! Please be praying for our staff team as we start planning for the beginning of the school year. We are going through everything that we will be doing during the busy Welcome Weeks at UNT and TWU, and we are also preparing our leader team for the new student leaders coming in and figuring out what we will be doing throughout the year to equip and empower them as ministers and disciples. Also, please pray for the students who are prayerfully considering becoming a small group leader in our community. Let me know if you have anything you’d like me to be praying for as well! Best wishes and have a great July! Steven