When I look back on my life I couldn't have imagined while coming out of high school that I would end up where I am now. My dream back then was to become an electrical engineer and live a life of comfort and materialism. It has been interesting to see how God changed that during my time in college. I never would have chosen this for myself and I think that truly validates it, at least in my mind. It gives me courage despite my insecurity. Please pray that God uses this opportunity for me to lead a college ministry to do His will.
This Thursday we will be continuing our "Fired Up" sermon series. Last week Amy Knoles, the other new campus pastor at UNT, talked on being "fired up" about spiritual growth. This week I will be sharing my thoughts on "fired up" prayer. I'm really excited about this subject! Over the past few years I've struggled a lot with trying to figure out what prayer is and how to use it. That's mainly why I chose the topic. Ultimately, I believe prayer to be much simpler than we make it out to be. It's all about finding ourselves in the presence of God and relating to him as Father, Creator, Healer, etc. We use that time to center ourselves on Him. It's no wonder Paul taught to pray without ceasing. Now I ask you to pray that God uses me to speak His words with fervor to the students that night. I think it's important that they be engaged by this topic so they explore it more on their own after they leave.
We successfully took the second group of 8 students to SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) a couple of weeks ago. The June conference was quite a bit different as there were the same number of students total, but we were the minority (if you don't remember my post from last month, we took 49 students). This year I was reunited with a couple of friends who I had originally met and developed friendships with when we had attended the conference as students in 2008. They were there as campus pastors as well! How cool is that? Here is a picture of us:
Me, Liz, and Kristin
Like I've said before SICM is where we take our potential student leaders. Now that the conference is over we are working hard to develop our leader teams for the coming school year. The leader team at UNT alone could very well be close to 40 students total. Just imagine the impact that many young people can have on their campus, especially considering these guys and girls are committed to making disciples of Jesus.
We want to be a light to the campuses and through them change the world as Jesus did in his time. Pray that God uses us in whatever way necessary to make that happen this year and every year after. Thanks again for all of your support!
Yours for the Campus,
Matt
It is wonderful to hear that you were able to meet up with friends who have also followed God's leading into ministry. It is refreshing to the soul when others serve in ministry along side you. There are some students from Ash Creek who will be attending UNT and another family friend is headed there as well. I will try to pass on your information so that they might benefit from the ministry of FOCUS. You are always in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteExciting stuff! It's good to reflect back on the things we were thinking and feeling before something like this got started so we can see how far we've come. And you should make sure and get in touch with these UNT students that Philippe knows.
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