David’s Dialogues

January- A Semester of Hope

Dear Friend,

I was excited to have some time in January to rest and relax before the busiest season of the year for me!  Ally and I spent New Year’s in Blacksburg before taking a weekend trip up to Northern Virginia to visit with friends and partners up there.  Then it was time for the new semester to begin!

We had our first Sunday gathering at the 707p service on January 14^th.  To kick off the year well, we spent the evening in prayer and worship, as well as setting the stage for our semester focused on hope.  Over the course of the spring, we are planning to talk about the idea of hope through 4 mini-series on Sundays.  Then, our Engage Groups will be discussing the sermons throughout the week.  The first mini-series we’ve been doing is an introduction to hope, and we can already tell the Spirit is moving in power!  Next, we will be looking at “Voices of Hope” and how the Psalms can bring us hope in times of need.  Then, we will examine the “Story of Hope” as we look at Jesus and the road to the cross: the foundation of our hope.  Finally, at the end of the semester, we will take a practical look at how hope transforms various aspects of our everyday life, from finances to dating and more.

Over the past year, I have been coaching a couple who has been building their team of ministry partners, and we are excited for them to be back in Blacksburg now!  Morgan and Enrique moved back to Blacksburg in early January, and they have been excellent additions to our staff team.  The header picture is of our entire staff team from an all-day staff meeting that we had before classes started in order to get prepared for the semester ahead.  When I got to Blacksburg on full-time staff, there were only 5 of us.  Now, we have 12 staff, several of whom will be leaving with the church plant in 2020.  Because we are more equipped with staff members, we are each able to dive deeper into our roles and impact a larger portion of this campus at Virginia Tech.

In order to prepare our student leaders, we host a “Learning Community” three times per year in order to encourage, inspire, set goals, and cast vision.  After the first week of classes, we gathered ~60 leaders together for a Friday evening and Saturday full with teaching, brainstorming, sharing, goal-setting, and more.  We have found these times vital to having a clear path forward on how each Engage Group will engage their faith, engage community, and engage the culture around them.

 

The coming month will be very busy with our homeless ministry, “To Our House”, campus-wide worship event, vtONE, as well as all the necessary preparations for the Honduras Trip.  Please be in prayer for Ally, myself, and our team as we get ready to leave at the beginning of March.  We also have a pancake dinner fundraiser tomorrow for the trip, so please be in prayer that it goes well!  As always, thank you for your prayers and support!

In Christ,
David