Work-Life Balance
Hey everyone, I hope the holiday season was a blessing for you. It was William's first Christmas, and he definitely got spoiled by his friends and family. Ministry is not a career for anyone who wants what the world considers "work-life balance". As much as we dream of a steady even amounts of work and play each day, our lives rarely resemble that. And the more we dream and pursue it, the more we are disappointed when our expectations are not met. Instead, there are seasons of hard work that can only be done in that certain season. Long days and long nights. The first month of the school year is like that. Students are more open than any other time, it's a time to set the pace and the culture for the rest of the year. We can't just spread out the work evenly to later months, because the whole atmosphere of the university has changed by then. So, we go hard for weeks, sacrificing many things in our lives in order to pave the way for the rest of the year. And then we get to winter break, when most of our students have gone home to their families. There's still ministry to be done, many students do stay in the area. But even they are caught up with family functions, spending more time with their friends, out of their normal school routine. So we too, as ministers, get to spend more time with family and friends and enjoy the slower pace for a bit before things get hectic again.
Winter Retreat and The Grove!
The first hectic thing of the semester is Winter Retreat! It's out biggest event of the year and it was our largest ever this year, almost 700 students attended. The previous largest group was just over 600 and that was pre-COVID. So, God has been blessing us with more momentum as we reach more and more students. This year our theme was Following Jesus. A basic one, but always a necessary one no matter how old we are! As always, the students were eager to learn and to grow and to grow closer to one another. We've already seen some momentum from Winter Retreat as we got back into our first Grove meeting of the year on the first Friday night of the semester. We had 226 students in attendance, our second-highest number this year, only following 240 from the first week of school (back to the long days and long nights)! While the beginning of Spring Semester is not the same as the beginning of the school year, it still does have a bit of a similar feel of new beginnings. New resolutions to be more committed, to pursuing God more deeply, to joining a community and we want to capitalize on that. It's not about the numbers, but it is about being faithful to the students whom God is working in. And on a campus of over 30,000 students, we're only just scratching the surface!
Thank You!
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