It's that time of year again! A month spent working the fields and casting nets wide! To start the month, FOCUS sponsored me to go to the Global Leadership Summit. The location I met at for the event was in Frisco. I had heard things about this event prior to attending, but even with that, I was not ready for the fire hydrant of information I was expected to drink out of. Over the course of 2 days, speakers ranging from pastors of churches to CEOs of billion dollar companies taught those in attendance about different aspects of leadership. One of my favorite talks was by a woman who had done studies on question asking, in order to find which ones produce the most dopamine. Her study was so cool, and the way she was able to find questions that bring people into different levels of connection was fascinating. Unfortunately because it was a paid event, I was not allowed to take media from it to share, but I definitely recommend looking into the event if you work in a position of leadership.
Only a couple of days following the GLS, our staff departed for our staff retreat. This was the first event where we were joined by our new apprentices. This year at UTD, we have three people apprenticing under our team: Stian, Coral, and Hannah. This retreat was a great opportunity for us to get to know them, let them get to know our team, and get the plugged right into planning events for the upcoming welcome week! Speaking of, as soon as we got back from staff retreat, it was time to get the school year into swing!
Starting on the 15th, every day became a busy day. On the 15th, we had our "corefa training day". Corefas are our student leaders who facilitate cores (our name for our small groups). We taught them about how to evangelize at events, how to run a small group, and how start/lead one on one bible studies. The day was long as this training lasted from 1-10 (with a break for dinner), but given how the next 12 days went, it was clearly well used time! Starting the next day was student move ins, and we made sure we were there to meet them! The evening of the 16th, we had our first of 3 board game nights at the dorms. We set up in the lobbies and invite everyone who walks by, and it is from this event that we get a large number of our new people!
Two of our leaders named David and Jared did an especially good job of being inviting at these events. One of the freshmen they met named Brody mentioned to me that what was so special to him was that those two guys who were seniors came to him and wanted to be his friend. The world doesn't do that, in fact relationships like that are usually thrust on the new person, but Jared and David did a great job of modeling the upside down kingdom that Jesus is king of.
For the next few days it was a lot of the same. Events on campus, near where the freshmen were, and focused on welcoming them to campus. One of the biggest events we did was a find your classes day, where we offered them free help (and water) to find their classes on campus, so that they could be more prepared for the start of school that was just a weekend away at the time. We also had a worship night next door to the campus housing the night before school started. As school started for that first week, we spent a lot of our staff hours on campus tabling in the Plinth (a commons area outdoor in the middle of campus), as well as putting on a few more events. Weather prevented some of our plans, but we were still able to hold 3 ethnic events to serve some underserved parts of the student body at UTD, as well as our first ever academic welcome week event, a Seminary Level class on Jonah. These events were all big hits! They served us so well in the lead up to our first Friday Night Fellowship of the year! We are usually pretty big on our first night of the year, but this year our attendance at the kickoff was around 250 students, which is an awesome turnout for our campus! It is so reflective of the hard work of our students and staff o make the start of this year a success!
(Students at our first worship night, the day before school starts)
(Lindsey teaching our students her seminary content on Jonah)
(Students at our Latin Xplosion evet, the only event tailored to Latin Americans on campus)
(David's birthday! David is one of our student leaders and we through him a birthday since this was the first year he didn't get to celebrate with his family)
(The table we set up at the Plinth every morning to meet new people)
The start of this year has been the most encouraging one for me since I have been on staff! I ask that you all be in prayer for the students who are leading in our ministry, and especially the students they will be ministering to!
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