David’s Dialogues

August- Back to School!

Dear Friend,

August is always the start of our busiest season in campus ministry.  Before Kickoff began, however, I had the chance to attend the Global Leadership Summit!  GLS is a leadership conference that is live-streamed to sites all across the world, including in Roanoke, where I had the chance to watch.  It was very insightful and I’m excited to put into practice some of the leadership concepts we learned!

Kickoff really began with Cadet Sunday, a worship service that we help coordinate with several other campus ministries.  It is focused around serving the new cadets who just began their training the week before classes.  This year, we had the chance to love and bless 108 cadets!  On Wednesday, Ally and I served the members of our Hokie Family by cooking breakfast for those in town early to participate in the rest of the day’s activities, including a session of prayer & vision casting, as well as Hokie Helpers dorm move-in.  We had 8 of our Hokie Family students join us for breakfast!  After breakfast, we joined up with the rest of NLCF for a few hours of prayer, worship, and vision casting in order to set the tone for engaging in the outward Kingdom-focused work.  That afternoon, we all went to serve the campus community by participating in Hokie Helpers, where we got to serve new students by helping them move into their dorm rooms.

On Thursday we hosted the annual Pizza Party Extravaganza.  This year, we sought to go bigger than ever, including a new partnership with Domino’s Pizza and invited the crowd favorite, Hokie Bird to come join in the fun.  A lot of prayers were answered that night with amazing weather and a fantastic turn out!  We fed over 575 people!!

Before our Engage Groups really got going for the year, we gathered everyone together for a Learning Community.  LC’s are our regular times throughout the year of goal setting, leadership development, and vision casting.  As we gathered Friday night and Saturday of Kickoff week, we realized that God was doing something pretty incredible.  Out of the 37 student leaders we have, 27 of them are stepping up into a new role.  So that means almost ¾ of our student leaders have not led in this capacity before!  After Learning Community wrapped up on Saturday afternoon, we got ready for the annual Quad Cookout where we handed out 100 hotdogs and 100 hamburgers in just the first hour.  We used this cookout as yet another chance to meet new students, invite them into community, and build relationships that we pray will direct people towards a relationship with God.

Our first regular Sunday gatherings were held on August 27^th, with our 11a service in Squires Colonial Hall, and a re-launch of the 7:07p evening service in 130 Jackson.  I’m excited to say we had 271 in attendance between the two services!  We closed out the month of August with our Intro to Engage Group nights during the first week of classes.  It was during these nights that we showcased each Engage Group that we have, giving new students the chance to see which one is the best fit.  Please be praying that new students commit to an Engage Group quickly!

God is moving on this campus, and I pray we are able to keep moving at the pace He wants to go!  Thank you for all your prayers during this busy time.

In Christ,
David

PS- Interested in staying up to date on NLCF’s events and activities?  Check us out on Facebook, Instagram (nlcfnet), or Snapchat (nlcfvt)!