Contentment in Being a Branch, and WELCOME WEEK!

 

Hello, everyone! For those of you who are new here, welcome to my ministry blog! This is where I post updates on what’s going on in my ministry. I am so excited that a new school year is finally HERE!

I have been reflecting on John 15:1-8: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory,that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

I don’t like being a branch. It’s just the truth. I would much rather be in control and be able to sustain myself, despite knowing that God is a much better vine than I. But it is so hard to give up that control! I often think of God like a charger rather than a vine: I can fill up and get to 100%, disconnect, go about my life until I get to 1% (or die) and then just reconnect when I’m at empty. But this scripture says “apart from Me you can do nothing.” If you cut off a branch from the vine, it dies immediately. We can try all our might to tape or superglue the branch back on, but it’s dying and there is no reconnecting. Thankfully God gives us a lot of grace, but the image is powerful. I operate under the charger mindset more than the vine mindset. 

But in the end, I am so thankful to be a branch. God knows every intimate part of me, and what is best for me. He WANTS what is best for me. He is the life source that I get to be connected to and draw from. My way leads to death, but His way leads to life. I have been contemplating what it means to go about every day aware of my NEED for God. I need Him and need to remain in Him to do anything of use and value. Every breath I breathe, step I take, activity I do, and bit of Creation I take in is a gift from Him!! 

So I would encourage you to think about this passage and think about some questions:

- What does it mean to you to “remain” in God? What could that look like practically in your life?

- What may God need to “prune” in your heart in order to produce fruit in you? What gets in the way of bearing the fruit of His Spirit in your life? 

I hope that this passage can be an encouragement to you!

Terminology

Before I jump into Welcome Week, I thought I would start with some terminology that I will use throughout my updates. FOCUS has “lingo”, and it’s easy for me to just throw it around in my updates without explaining it! So, hopefully this helps :)

Core: We call our small groups, “cores” because we believe they are the core of our ministry! They are gender-specific and meet weekly to build friendships are grow in faith together. 

Corefa: This is our language combining the words, “core facilitator”. These are student volunteers who lead core throughout the year. There are two corefas for each core, so they co-facilitate discussion and plan topics to discuss every week. It’s about a 8-10 hour commitment PER WEEK for our corefas.. and we have 44 of them this year!! So incredible. 

This is Cathryn and Gracie experiencing one of my favorite tea places, HTeaO. Cathryn and Gracie are corefas, leading a core together! They are in my peer team :)

Peer Team: A peer team is a group of corefas. Every Monday, we alternate between meeting with all of the student leaders together, and meeting in peer teams. I have a peer team that consists of 5 corefa pairings, so 10 girls total. It’s essentially a “core” or small group of corefas that get to be poured into by a campus pastor at UTD every other week!

Peer Team Coach: There are 9 people on our team of campus pastors at UTD that are Peer Team Coaches. The corefa pairs are assigned to a campus pastor to meet with them weekly and mentor them. We talk about their cores and people within their cores, how they are really doing with life, and incorporate devotionals or leadership practicals to “coach” them throughout the year. We are a support for them as they do a majority of the outreach to their peers on campus! 

FNF: FNF is our “Friday Night Fellowship”. It is our weekly service that looks a lot like a church service: worship, a sermon, some ways to get involved/announcements, and a benediction to close. We have FNF every week!

WELCOME WEEK(S) AH!

So now that you know the terminology, let me tell you about our weeks of welcome!! Every year, we have two weeks of welcome… the week before school starts, and the week of school starting. We have an event pretty much every night to welcome students to campus and give them something to be part of. Oftentimes freshman move onto campus and experience a lot of loneliness. It’s hard to just go out and find friends and events to go to to connect. We play board games in the residence halls three nights in a row, going to the dorms that have move-in that day to give them something to go to their first night at college. We have field nights, a worship night, some ethnic events, a Bigger in Texas event, and cap it all off with our first Friday Night Fellowship of the school year! It’s a crazy-busy two weeks, but the fruit that comes from it is so sweet. We’ve already met so many incredible students who are eager for friendships, and hungry for God. Here are some pictures from some of our welcome week events!

This is Ally, one of the corefas in my peer team this year!

This is from a Worship Night event we advertised on a Sunday Night. We met so many new students!

We hosted a LatinX event with Mexican drinks/snack/candy, and Get to Know You Bingo. It was a blast! 

My friend Lindsey leading a class we did on Jonah for an event. We had about 40 students there!

From our first FNF. We had 197 people!! It was awesome. 

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for our corefas and the people in their cores. That people would feel loved and included, and that we would keep our eyes open to people God wants to be part of our community. 

- Pray for boldness for our student leaders to continue to get to know people in their classes

- Pray for our team of campus pastors.. that we would have wisdom in leading our students well.

Thank you guys so much for the prayers! Can’t wait for the next update. Love you all! 

Kylie