2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- 2 Timothy 3:16
The Word of the Lord
When you think of the Bible, what is the main purpose as Christians to use the Bible for? Here is a follow-up question, Why do you read the Bible? I find the word of God is so much more extraordinary than many other books I've read growing up. In high school, I was required to read literature books to gain wisdom about authors use of language, storytelling, and giving feedback. The books I read were very beneficial for my education, but they were not compelling compared to God's word. At three quarters into my apprenticeship, I believe the Bible has so much power to speak into people's lives (including myself), and importantly, it’s the story of God and his relationship with humanity, for the most part specifically with the people of Israel.
Through the prophet letters (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Micah, etc.), I discovered Isreal struggled to remain faithful with God. He raised up these prophets to serve as God's mouthpiece to His people, reminding Israel what God actually cares about while pointing them to a future where God fixes humanity's sinful brokenness once and for all. Even though Israel was driven out of their land, God still gave them hope. Their hope was in this future King who God will raise up and reclaim his people. A King who would be praised by every tribe and every people. Read Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 to get an understanding of this suffering King whom the prophets were talking about. If you don't know.....SPOILER ALERT! It's JESUS! This whole time, the Bible is about God redeeming His people to be a holy nation since "the Fall". What's truly powerful about the Word of God is He is transforming people to be more like Him for those who come to know Jesus and "listen" to his words. When the disciples saw Jesus again at the resurrection they were amazed and stirred up ready to go proclaim the good news, and the Christian movement began to grow! How amazing is that?! This book that was written years ago is still affecting our time and culture TODAY! So I want to ask you that first question again, why do you read the Bible?
"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart"
- Hebrews 4:12
Focus On Jesus (FOJ)
I've never discussed with you how our ministry equips other student disciples until now. Focus On Jesus (FOJ) is a one on one devotional study. It's a 10-week study for our students to learn and live a life shaped by the biblical story as it leads to Jesus Christ. We encouraged them to download the "Read Scripture app" made by the Bible Project and watch videos to help them get a grasp of the biblical story. I went through the older FOJ study and I found that the biggest impact was in how the person who studied with me modeled how to live like Jesus, not just in getting through the whole story. Pray for our students will continue to grow and spread the gospel whoever they meet.
This is Collin. Collin was pursuing a baseball career and went to two different colleges to play baseball, but God called him back home and he decided to give up his dream and get his associates at Collin College. As we were first met and started to build our friendship together, he shared he'd been wanting to grow closer in his relationship with God and read the Bible more. For the last three weeks we’ve been doing just that through FOJ. I asked Collin to share his goals and he said, "My goal is to grow in my understanding of the biblical story that is God’s word, and learn where I fit in in that story. What I hope to get out of it is that I would grow closer to God and that my love for Him would grow even more". God is a provider!
This handsome guy is Xavier. If you've been following with me in my past blogs, he and I go back to the summer of 2018 when I was interning for the Garland church's teen ministry. I'm so blessed to continue our friendship and see his heart for the Lord grow. He will start the teen ministry internship this summer, and I'm super stoked for him! He is going to do a great job. Xavier's goals for FOJ; "My goals of FOJ have been to grow even closer to God and build in my relationship with him. And to learn more about the Old Testament prophecies and how Jesus fulfilled them. As well as learning more in-depth about what Jesus’ character was like and how he interacted with people. My final goal is to be at a point where I know the content well enough to do my own study with people in time to come". Be praying for Xavier. God is faithful!
Noah Williams: He attends school at Collin Spring Creek campus. We get time to go over his family and relationship life, and go over FOJ together every other week. He lives and commutes from Dallas and takes the dart transportation to Collin. He hopes to be a Godly figure to his one-year-old son, and raise him to be like Jesus. God is a good father!
Vince Alex: Vince and I go back five years ago when I was a student leader at the Preston Ridge campus. He and I studied FOJ together, and after the school year, we lost contact with each other. Seeing him and where God is moving him in life brought a lot of hope and joy. Praise God He's growing Vince to be more like Jesus! God is patient!
TNF: Family Night!
We ask our students every spring semester to invite their family to see what goes on at Thursday Night Fellowship. We casted our vision and mission statement to the families: that we are making and maturing disciples on DFW campuses, building them up to be adult disciples that serve their church and work field wherever they go. My family came to this event a couple years ago and my mother spoke in front of the community. She shared how inspiring this ministry was to her and how her hopes for all of her children to have a community to grow in their faith was an answered prayer in her life.
Community Outreach Service
The apprentices and I planned to outreach and see how we could get our community involved and serving our city. I researched on the City of Plano website volunteer opportunities to clean up local parks and creeks. We had a handful of our students give up their Saturday afternoon to help clean and serve our city. "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do". - Ephesians 2:10
Family and Relationships
BIG NEWS!!
I wanted to let everyone know that after my apprenticeship is over in May, I committed to 3 years on FOCUS staff, and I will be staying at Collin College!! I am very excited and feel great about this decision! I love Collin FOCUS they have a very special place in my heart!
Working for FOCUS has richly blessed my life! I have gotten to experience God at a whole new level and have grown as a disciple in ways that will stick with me for the rest of my life. I am humbled and so thankful that I get to be a missionary on the campus for more years! I want to ask you guys to pray about continuing to partner with me in ministry! Your generosity has made this possible for me and many students and I have been immensely blessed by it! I will be reaching out to you guys soon to see if this would be something you are interested in continuing and to catch up and share specifics of how I have seen God work through my time as a campus minister!
What's coming up?!
- SSI: SSI is Student Spring Impact. An outreach program sponsored by our friends up in Washington state (Campus Christian Fellowship and University Christian Ministries). For decades, they sent students all around the country and the world to experience and participate in God's work over Spring Break. March 22 - 28th, we have a group coming to our Collin campus that we’ll be hosting them. Pray for the mission team's good health and that the coronavirus won't affect their trip.
- Pizza Theology: March 29th we are having a guest speaker, Dr. Jennifer Konzen, a certified sex therapist and chemical dependency counselor. She will be speaking to our church family over Great Sex: God's design and intention for sexual intimacy. We're excited for her and ready for what God has prepared for us.
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