Hi everyone! I hope you are staying cool and enjoying the summer. I am excited to share what we have been up to at Collin and beyond!
Summer FOCUS
Over the summer we pause our campus-specific large group events (since so may university students move back home during that time, students have internships elsewhere, people are on vacation, etc.) and instead all meet together Thursday nights at a local church in Richardson at 7:30 for one big service - all of the FOCUS ministries across DFW. It has been so sweet to see hundreds of students gather to worship Jesus together each week and has led to some cool connections with students from other campuses. Our sermon series for the summer has been going over various promises from God in Scripture such as "Seek and you will find," "He who began a good work in us will finish it," and "life to the full." It has been an encouragement and a blessing to be a part of putting it together! Please be praying that students would continue to prioritize that time to spend with God and that He would use the stuff we have been talking about this summer to shape student's hearts for the coming school year! Here are a couple pictures from Summer FOCUS!
VBS
I also got to spend the last week of June back in Cypress to volunteer for a vacation Bible school at Cypress Bible Church. To those of you who were also there serving, thank you so much! My role for the week was teaching the large group sessions for the 1st and 2nd graders, and I had an absolute blast. Our theme was going through the "I am" statements that Christ makes, such as "I am the Bread of Life," "I am the Good Shepherd," and "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." The kids were so fun to work with for the week and it was so encouraging to be home serving alongside family and friends. Here are some pictures - and thank you again to many of you who helped make VBS a success!
One-on-ones and Community Building!
Over the summer our small group Bible studies take a hiatus as students transfer and fewer people are on campus, but there is still a ton of ministry to be done! A lot of our time is spent continuing to meet with students and encouraging them to build relationships with one another. I have started a handful of one-on-one Bible studies with some new students in our ministry I would love to have prayer for - their names are Jaden, Colton, and Amaan (we started the study during the tail end of the school year). Please also be praying for some new students I am hoping to get to meet with more consistently named Bryson, Manny, Jaxton, and Vivi. It is cool to see that God doesn't stop moving just because campuses are a little less busy and I am confident that God will use the momentum from the summer as we transition into another school year. Here are some pictures from time with students, including a waterpark hangout event we hosted and a group of us after playing Cougarball: Collin's version of Ultimate Frisbee but with a football instead.
Thank you!
As always thank you so much for making campus ministry possible! It is such a blessing getting to work with these students and see them grow into fired-up disciples of Jesus at a time in their lives where many others walk away from faith. I am so grateful for the sacrifices each of you have made to partner with me in what God is doing.
Please be praying for our Collin staff team as we plan out what our ministry is going to look like this coming year - that the Spirit would guide us as we select students to serve as corefas next year, make tweaks and changes based on how this year has gone, and as we lay groundwork for what other campuses in the Collin system He may be calling us to minister to. I am so excited for what this next year will look like. I know He has big plans!
One of the passages we read through with the kids at VBS was Psalm 23, and I found it really resonated with me as I looked back on this last year of campus ministry:
"The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Psalm 23
It is such a blessing that even in the craziness and change of this past year, God has been faithful and has brought joy and peace to the chaos. Passages like these get me excited to get back on campus and introduce people to the Good Shepherd who has changed my life!
I am excited to share more of what we will be up to as the summer progresses and I love getting to hear from you all! Please feel free to reach out for more pictures, more stories, more information, or just to say hey. Thank you again for your support, and if any friends or family come to mind that you think would be interested in partnering with me or hearing more about what God is doing at Collin, please let me know! I would love to reach out to them with more information on how they can be a part of this!
As always, a browser version of this blog email and the rest of the blog posts I have made this year are available at http://mick.mcafoose.anyfocus.org/ and attached is Jordan's testimony, a student from our UTA ministry!
Blessings,
Mick
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