Ministry in the Summer!

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 Happy July!! 

I am in awe of what God has done this past year of doing ministry. I am so thankful for all of you and how you supported, prayed for, and encouraged me during my apprenticeship. God used this past year to teach me about His sustaining grace and kindness, how to love people like He does, and what it really means to be a pastor. 

Final Thoughts from the Apprenticeship 

At the end of May, all of the apprentices got to give End of Year sermons. In my sermon, I shared three takeaways that I am leaving the apprenticeship with. My first takeaway was that it is a big deal to be made in the image of God. Here I talked about how as image bearers, we are given the responsibility to exude the characteristics of God. It is also of utmost importance to treat the people around us as if they are made in God's image, because they are! My second takeaway was I am allowed to be in process. To be a vocational minister is not synonymous with having it all figured out. Ministry can be messy because people can be messy! God has grace for us and uses us despite our weaknesses. In fact, it is powerful to minister THROUGH our weaknesses! My last takeaway was I serve a crucified God. If I am ever worried about something being unfair, I must remember that my God was crucified. If I am concerned about standing out too much or coming across as odd, I must remember that my God was crucified. This gives me hope and spurs me on to take up my cross daily. I pray that these takeaways minister to you and I would love to talk about this some more if you are interested! 


This is my good friend Emilyann streaming my sermon! She has been such a great support system and friend this year. I'm so thankful! 

Senior Retreat

Transitioning into life post-grad was more difficult than I had anticipated. God was so good to me and gave me so many things to look forward to this year, but He had also given me a lot of good things in college that I had to leave. About mid-January, I started processing all of the change that I had in my life this year and God opened up doors to use it as a ministry opportunity! I partnered with my friend and fellow FOCUS pastor, Victoria, and put on something called "Senior Retreat." This initiative was designed to help our FOCUS seniors prepare for transitioning out of college life and into the workforce! We talked about taking stock of the good things God has given us in college, what ministry post grad could look like, the importance of plugging into a local church, and much more! We had a lot of seniors from all of our campuses come in to learn with us. It was a great weekend and I am eager to see how God continues to use the Senior Retreat in years to come! 

This picture is from the opening session that I got to lead. We talked about the 5 stages of transitioning well. 

Summer FOCUS

My favorite part of ministry this summer has been Summer FOCUS. Here we get to gather together with all of our campuses for fellowship, worship, and a message! This has been the place where most of our students have gotten to worship together for the first time in over a year. Getting to actually hear the voices of our students praising God was so sweet. This summer, our sermon series has been very impactful. Each week, someone preaches on a story about Jesus and how it ministers to them personally. That has been so sweet because it helps me think through how I am personally impacted by the different stories about Jesus in scripture. I encourage you to check out these sermons!  You can do that at twitch.tv/utdfocus.

These are students at Summer FOCUS raising their hand to say God has changed their life through FOCUS. 

Prayer Requests
  • Please be praying for our staff as we prepare for SICM (a weeklong conference where we train our student leaders.)
  • Pray for the hearts of the students going to SICM. Please be praying they will be excited to do ministry when they return to campus in the fall. 
  • UTD's campus is open again! Join me in praising God for allowing us to have a normal year of ministry next year!!
  • Pray that the Lord will go before us in the fall as we are reaching out to new students. Pray that we will be good friends to them and can show them the love of Jesus! 
As always, I am praying for all of you as well! I am honored to be partnering with you in ministry. 








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