David’s Dialogues

August- Kickoff 2019!

Dear Friend,

The past month has been full of events, excitement, and new friendships!  The first part of August was dedicated to finishing out the summer well.  The small group that I led on Sunday evenings throughout the summer finished up, and we celebrated the end of the season together with a cookout at Ally’s and my new house.  At the last combined summer Sunday gathering, I got the chance to preach about being “sent” into the next season well.  We are thankful for the unity felt between the two congregations over the summer, and I encouraged both of our congregations in how to remain unified in this next season of the school year as well.  Check out this link to listen to my sermon!

Finally, summer was done and Kickoff was upon us!  “Kickoff” is the season at the beginning of the school year, where we host a variety of events to welcome and serve new students, as well as invite them into our church.  This is an exciting time, but also very strategic to our mission here on campus.  Kickoff Week began with a bonfire on Tuesday night to gather all of our existing people together and cast vision for the week ahead.  Then, on Wednesday morning we spent some time with “Hokie Helpers”, serving people all around campus (including the new extended housing at the Holiday Inn and Virginia Tech Inn).  We helped students move into their dorm rooms and invited them to some of our upcoming events.  We found out that 40% of people living on campus moved in that day!

After hand-delivering some welcome bags to interested freshmen during the day on Thursday, we had our annual Pizza Party on the Drillfield!  This was a great chance to begin the work of building relationships and inviting people into community.  The hope for this and many other kickoff events was to build relationships as quickly as possible in order to help them feel connected to a church community, and for others, introduce them for the first time to what a relationship with God is like.

On Friday night and Saturday morning we took some time to gather all of our student leaders together in what we call “Learning Community”.  It is a chance to cast vision, as well as set goals and provide training for those new to leadership.  After this time of rekindling our passion and excitement, we all spread out into the mission field on Saturday evening.  This idea actually came after an obstacle prevented us from our normal Saturday night kickoff activity.  When the usual door closed, God opened the door for us to spread out into several locations across Blacksburg.

First, we knew that many of our students lived in an apartment complex called Foxridge.  We sent one contingent there so our people could invite their building/neighbors out to a cookout. Second, we knew that with the over-crowding on campus, many students were sent to live at the Holiday Inn (not your typical freshman experience).  Since they were likely feeling excluded from many of the typical on-campus “welcome” opportunities, we sent a contingent there to build community and see who we could connect with.  One of them came to church the next day! Thirdly, since we have one of our small-groups centered around the student center on campus (Breakzone), we sent a contingent there to once again meet new people in the heart of our mission field.

Finally on Sunday, August 25 we had our first Sunday gatherings of the year!  This fall we are doing a sermon series on the book of Daniel, looking at how Jesus reins as “King of all the Earth”. It was so exciting to be gathered together again for worship at the larger 11a gathering, as well as the more contemplative 707p gathering. During the first week of classes, we had our “Intro to Engage Group” nights to showcase every Engage Group so new people could find the right one for them.  This was really when the connections from the previous week started bearing fruit; people we met at various activities wanted to get connected to one of our Engage Groups.

September has already been a busy month as well.  I apologize for this August update being so late!  This is definitely the busiest time of year.  While it has been busy, though, it has also been exciting.  One of the things we have noticed this fall is that there seems to be an increased number of non-believers that we are getting connected with.  Thank you for being a part of this ministry, and we are excited to see what the Lord does this fall.

In Christ,
David