Praying for 2019 - The Denton Dispatch - Issue #9

I wanted to write a quick note on this last day of 2018 and ask you to begin to pray for us in 2019. Here are a few things that I’d love you to pray for as we enter the new year.

And as always, please reply to this email with ways that I can pray for you! I count it a joy to pray for those who love and support us!

The day before classes in the spring we get some dessert and some coffee and we invite our students to invite others to a social. We spend most of the time just hanging out, but towards the middle of the event, I get up and share about what RUF is and how students can get involved. Then we have 1-2 current students share about their experience with RUF. In the last 3 years, students that have some to this event have become Christians later in the year! Pray that God would continue to welcome in people during this event!

Each January, many of the wives from RUF gather together for training, fellowship, and prayer. This is such a blessing for our families and ministries. It gives our wives an opportunity to learn, grow, and connect with others in the unique calling they have as wives of Campus Ministers.

Every Tuesday at 8pm we gather on campus to sing songs, hear student testimonies of how God is meeting them in their brokenness with the Gospel, and to hear God’s Word taught. This semester we will be teaching a series called, “The Good Life: Studies in Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament.” I’ll be starting on January 15th with Psalm 1 and then over the course of the semester I’ll do an overview of Job, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. We will also be teaching from other Psalms and Proverbs as well. The hope is that we can help our students re-define what it is to live the “good life” by presenting for them what the scriptures say the “good life” really is.

I am currently doing pre-marital counseling for a couple of engaged couples. I love the opportunity to enter into the story of a couple that is learning to love each other and hoping to honor God as they look to marriage.

This year we will be taking students to work with an inner-city ministry in Chattanooga, TN. We will serve with Hope for the Inner City (https://www.hopefortheinnercity.org), a ministry of a PCA church in Chattanooga. The students will learn about what inner city ministry is as well as get to serve in various ways from community gardening to after school programs. A number of RUF chapters from around the country have done this trip and speak very highly of the value of it for students.

Please pray for us as we seek to train our leaders well. We desire our leaders to love Christ, love the campus and love the local church. God has been kind to give us some great students who want to serve with RUF. Pray that we would serve them well!

This is one of the best things that RUF does nationally! Our students get to attend seminars in the mornings on everything from evangelism to various theological and cultural topics. These seminars are taught by RUF Campus Ministers and Campus Staff. In the evenings we all worship together and hear from a speaker who teaches from the Bible. Pray even now that God would be preparing a way for students to go!

WE REACHED OUR FUNDRAISING GOAL FOR 2018!!! This means that all giving (even giving that comes in TODAY - December 31st) will be going to the ADVANCEMENT of RUF at UNCW into 2019. As you pray for the above requests, know that your investment in what God is doing is paying dividends! THANK YOU SO MUCH!