A New School Year!

The time has come. We have had a great, fired up summer, and now it's time to get back to our campuses to do God's work. I should probably update you all that I am now officially on Focus staff. The internship was such a life-changing experience for me and I feel so blessed that I got that opportunity. More than ever I feel called to do campus ministry, and I am honored to get to do that along side such an incredible team. Thank you for all your love and support!

Anyway, t's coming up quick! We are going full throttle getting prepped for another school year. I am so excited!

We had our staff retreat a couple weekends ago and our Collin leader retreat last weekend. They both were so awesome. My favorite thing at our staff retreat was the last night. All 14 of us sat in a living room together and talked about what Jesus making everything new (Rev. 21:5) means for our ministry (as well as the rest of the last two chapter of Revelation). We named off a lot of things, but to give you a quick overview: it means we have SUCH good news to offer people, it means we have to have our hope set on our future in Christ, not this world, it means there is so much sadness ahead of people who don't know Christ, and we should be eager to reveal him to them, it means there will be no more sadness, no more pain, it means everything EVERYTHING is going to made new. We get to be made new, and I believe God is in the process of doing that already, and that we get to play a small role in bringing that newness to other people. After that we all stood together and sang "Shout Unto God" by Hillsong. We belted it out together, "The enemy has been defeated and death couldn't hold you down, we're gonna lift our voice in victory, we're gonna make your praises loud" over and over, and then, "Shout unto God with a voice of triumph, shout unto God with a voice of praise. Shout unto God with a voice of triumph, we lift your name up, we lift your name up!"

That's the encouragement, hope, and excitement I have going into this school year. The enemy HAS been defeated, we can lift our voice in VICTORY, he deserves that we make his praises LOUD.

We did that same activity with our Collin leader team. And we literally just started shouted during that song. I hope you are so encouraged by this. We are going to claim Christ's victory on our campus this year, we are going to claim Christ's victory in people's lives. We're going to make his praises loud. Christ is making everything new! Be excited, and pray for his work on our campus!

Here's picture from our Collin leader retreat. We've got 12 guys and 12 girls!

Much love!
Brianna