December Update

Things are winding down for the semester already. Due to Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday of the month and finals starting at UNT this week, we will not be able to have a big group meeting on campus before the Christmas break. Fortunately, we do have a few more opportunities to engage with the students before they go home to their families for the break:

- Our leader team will be having a party Monday. The primary purpose of that time is to bring our team together, worship God as a body, share encouragements with each other, and fellowship. These students have worked hard this semester.  

- We are having a Christmas party this Friday off campus. The venue isn't very conducive to having a stage or much sharing, but we will sing some worship songs and prepare some various interactive stations to encourage the students to think deeper about the spirituality of this season. 

- The last Discipleship Class for the semester will be this Friday also. We weren't planning on meeting this week, but the students were very excited at the idea of doing so to catch up for missing a week earlier in the semester.

Please pray for these events as well as any one-on-one times the staff will have with students before the holidays.


One thing to note from this past month was we had an event called Pizza Theology. This is a longer teaching time (4 hours) with a break for dinner in the middle. This year's topic was "Breaking Free from the Chains of Addiction and Compulsive Behavior." Our guest speaker was Eddie Traughber who is a professional Christian counselor in our area (his website is http://faithwalkcounseling.com/). Our ministry has developed a relationship with him over the past year and we have grown to really appreciate him. The lecture was very insightful and I've heard a lot of positive feedback from the students. Feel free to listen to the recording by clicking the topic above!

A word from one of our student leaders at Texas Woman's University:

Albert Rodriguez

"Being part of the TWU plant has been quite an adventure. The semester started out with a lot of prayer and planning, not really knowing what to expect. But God has blessed and is still blessing our efforts. 

The second week of school 3 freshman initiated the idea of a small group and asked me to lead it. So I did! This wasn't expected to happen until spring semester but the hunger for learning was there. So now there's a guys core with 9 guys that meet in the dorms, and they have been very consistent! 

Contact evangelism on campus has also been a blessing. I have met a few students who are curious about God and some that have even wanted to meet up to talk about it more. I think the effort of putting God's presence on campus is slowly growing. 

With men being scarce on campus it really has been a challenge to find some that do care for a friendship, let alone about God, but for the small amount that I have been able to reach, God has blessed them. 

One thing I learned about going into the semester was that 'quality is better than quantity' and that I had to trust God with that. But I didn't know what that looked like in starting a campus ministry until it happened. Had I been focusing on quantity I would be a little discouraged at this point. But as far as quality goes, the guys I meet with regularly have been so responsive and reciprocal to our friendship. We value each other and our words very much and I think that's where the kingdom starts. We share things about life that allow us to grow and I feel that's what true quality is. 

Overall God is doing big things at TWU and I feel that things are only going to get better. It's starting off small, but I know God will make it grow! He is too good."

Prayers needed, especially over the Christmas break:

- That the momentum in students' lives from Friday night fellowship, core, and one-on-one studies is not lost from time spent away from the body.
- That all of our students will go to Winter Camp in January.
- Clarity to the staff for planning events, sermons, etc. next semester.
- Student leaders and staff will find time to rest purposefully.


Thank you, as always, for your support. Your money, prayers, and encouragement all go toward building God's kingdom on the college campuses. May the Lord bless you with true riches for your generous gifts.


Yours for the Campus,

Matt