AUGUST LET’S GO!! (August Update)

 

A beautiful sunset on campus playing games on the lawn <3 

AUGUST!!

Arguably the busiest month of the year.

The students come back and we start to gain momentum to propel us through the rest of the year! Freshman are new to campus and are much more open to new friends and new beginnings… maybe even more open to exploring or deepen their faith.

We basically have 2 crazy weeks that we call our, “Weeks of Welcome”. The Monday before school starts (so one week before classes), we have a training for our small group leaders, who we call, “Corefas”. “Cores” are our small groups, because we believe they are the core of our ministry! Our corefas are “core facilitators”. There are two corefas who co-lead their core for the whole year. So we start our “Weeks of Welcome” by training our corefas and equipping them to meet people, get phone numbers, invite people to their core, and stay close to Jesus through it all! 

Then we have nightly events for freshmen moving in. Every evening we host games on the lawn and invite anyone walking past to play! 

By Saturday, all the freshmen are moved in and upperclassmen are cleared to move back onto campus. So we keep hosting events! 

School starts, and we have some more events! We have a table in the center of campus every day with information about FOCUS. We also have some events for specific ethnic backgrounds for them to feel seen on our campus… like a “Black People Meet & Greet” and a “Latino/Latina Meet & Greet”. It all leads up to the first official Friday of the year, where we have our first large group meeting of the school year… The Grove! The Grove has 3 values that differentiate it from our cores… 1) Rooting deep in Scripture 2) Branching out to others and 3) Bearing fruit of a transformed life. We talk about Scripture in our cores, but we can go even deeper through a teaching by one of our pastors. There’s an opportunity to branch out to the greater community at the grove that is limited when just attending core. And lastly, it’s a place to bear the fruit of all that they’re learning and how they’re transforming to look more like Jesus. We had an awesome kickoff for the grove and it was so special! 

Leader training! 

Funny games to bond :)

At our Latinx Meet and Greet! 

Polaroids from the grove opening night… this is my sweet friend Hannah who I led core with last year! 

One special thing is that my youngest brother, Kole, is now at UTD! He is a junior and a corefa this year, so I get to see him SO MUCH! I love it. 

Video of one of the silly games at our corefa training. We have about 50 student leaders at UTD! 

An event I helped coordinate during Weeks of Welcome… THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE

A video at Latinx Meet and Greet! 

A video from the grove opening night worship. I love Jesus and college students! 

Keep praying for our ministry, that God would keep nudging at the hearts of the people who He wants to stay connected. That people would have a desire to know God, and to know him better through our community. That we would love and shepherd his people well on this campus, and be a safe place where we can grow together. I am so excited for this year! And it’s all thanks in large part to your support prayers. 

Love, Kylie