Well are winter break is coming to a close. This weekend we go to our annual winter camp and the students will start school on Tuesday. I think the break has been good for our ministry. I know for me, getting to spend more time with friends and family was very refreshing and rejuvenating. Having had that time, and just getting back from our FOCUS staff retreat, I am geared up and super excited to start another semester.
Fall semester is always a neat time in ministry: lots of new people come in, it's exciting to see people start to change their lives and begin to live for Jesus, and we get to watch our cores go from strangers to a close knit group of people encouraging each other in their walk and close, deep relationships. Those things don't only happen in Fall semester but those, to me, characterize the first half of our year.
Spring semester, I think, is even more exciting. This is where a lot of people turn a corner in their lives. You see people on the fringe become core members, you see people who have been in our ministry start to think as leaders rather than members, they begin to look for ways to serve others rather than look out for themselves, those who have been so heavily invested in begin to invest in others. People start to step up, people make big decisions, and people get more focused on the Kingdom. I think this probably happens for a number of reasons but the two that stand out to me are, one, winter camp, and two, we begin to challenge people on some of these things.
Winter camp is truly a turning point for a lot of people. It was turning point for myself. My first semester at Collin in 2007 was kinda difficult for me. It was hard leaving high school and everything I knew there and start over basically. But at winter camp that year I deepened so many friendships, and began a friendship with the girl who was my maid of honor. Winter camp is designed to facilitate relationships, and to encourage and create a spring board for people in their walk, and God comes through every year. I hear all the time people saying things like, winter camp is why they stuck around, winter camp changed their life, etc.
And spring semester is a time of challenging. People have usually been around awhile and have become comfortable, and that means it's time to become uncomfortable :). We don't ever want to be a group of comfortable people. Comfortable people don't grow. We have a vision for the future, for having a campus ministry on every campus in the metroplex, of having a church near every campus in the metroplex, and ultimately of making and maturing as many disciples as possible. That's disciples, not mediocre, comfortable "Christians." Maybe that sounds harsh, but we've been put here for a mission, and we owe it to our awesome Lord to give it all we got. If we are going to do these things, then we have to raise up leaders. And spring semester is time to look for and develop the people who will lead our ministry next year and the people who will be able to step up and take on the vision as their own.
So those are our thoughts going into this weekend and into the Spring semester. Gosh, God has been so good to us, over and over again. We have had such a smooth and fruitful first semester, now it's time for the rubber to meet the road. This is the time for some big decisions in these students' lives. So please be in prayer for them. Pray for winter camp, that God would do big things in people's lives, that He would work through our leaders, and that His Spirit would be with us. Pray for the semester, that students will step up and rise to the challenge of really living for God and doing His work.
Thank you for your support in this work. I pray that you will be encouraged in your own faith, that this year will be a time of growth in your commitment and love for our great God, and that you will be blessed richly by Him and the great gifts that only He can give.
Much love,
Bri
