As I sat on the grass in the beautiful weather this Monday with one dozen UT Dallas students – praising Him for all He has done for us, asking for His kingdom to come and His will to be done at UTD through us, asking for our daily bread and forgiveness, and praying for deliverance from the evil one – I knew that God was with us and was filled with His joy at seeing His people gathered before Him.
I felt His eagerness to answer our prayers for more of Him, as if He were saying, “Oh, I’m SO glad you asked! Yes, you can have more!” I’m so eager to see all the things He is ready to do here this semester.
A Movement Toward Evangelism
As we wrapped up our one-hour Monday student prayer meeting, some of the students felt led to immediately go share the Gospel on campus! They went out and shared the Good News that God’s kingdom has come near through the reconciling blood of Christ, planting seeds in the hearts of UTD students and praying that the Holy Spirit will water them and raise harvesters to gather the fruit.
The very next evening (Tuesday/yesterday!), more students and local church members gathered on campus to pair up in two’s and three’s to share the Gospel again. Even more incredibly, I had just met with a campus minister whose group was having a contact-style outreach event that very night! So I introduced him to the group; he then indicated that going forward he wants to bring out his students (about 30-35 more students) to join with these folks on their outreach nights.
In addition to all this, just yesterday afternoon I met up with a campus missionary intern who told me that the small groups in their ministry are structured just like Spark Groups and that they have these missional communities in each of the five residence halls and among the intramural sports teams. Never in my four years have I seen or heard of such a growing movement toward community and contact-style evangelism on campus.
As we continue to gather in fellowship, prayer, and devotion to the Word, God will not fail to add to our numbers this year! We pray for daily addition!
Charlie is a new addition to the Campus Renewal team, coordinating ministry work at The University of Texas at Dallas, where he graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering last May. He is newly married to his high school sweetheart and enjoys reading and practicing speaking German in his spare time.
