September 1st Ministry Update

 

            Hey guys! Welcome to my ministry blog! Thanks for taking the time to read this and catch up on some of the things I’ve been up to this past month. Let’s start at the beginning!

 

Old Testament Class

    The Apprenticeship officially started on August 1st, and we jumped right in! The first ministry class that we’ve been taking is Old Testament Foundations. For the first two weeks, all the apprentices came up to our Garland church building and spent most of our days reading the Old Testament, reading an Old Testament textbook, listening to lectures from an Old Testament class, and meeting together for our Old Testament class discussions. Lots of Old Testament! I probably did more reading in those two weeks than in my whole undergraduate degree, and I absolutely loved it. I’ve especially enjoyed our class discussions. It’s been super helpful to get to bring our questions and thoughts to class and wrestle with them together. After the first two weeks were done we had read through all the books of the Law and all the books of Israel’s History. We also got to write a paper where we summarized the Old Testament as if we were trying to teach someone who was unfamiliar with the Biblical story. One of my favorite things about this past month was learning how to better understand the Old Testament in a way that helps me articulate it to other people. It’s super cool that God has given us His Word in the form of a story that shows us who He is! 

This is most of our Old Testament class during one of our reading days!

 

 

CTF Kick-Off

    A couple weeks ago we had our official CTF school year kick-off! This was our first Wednesday night fellowship of the new school year, with our new sermon series, and without our graduated seniors. It went really well! We’ve been meeting outside in the parking lot of the church since early June (yes it’s been very hot). We made the decision to continue meeting outside for the foreseeable future. We wanted to make the space where we meet a little more comfortable, so we pulled up a flatbed trailer for a stage, hung some lights and our CTF banner, mounted a TV for song lyrics, and bought some camping chairs and blankets! It’s not much, but it really makes a difference. We also kicked off our fall sermon series about Growing in Faith. This series is rooted in 2 Peter 1:3-11. 

 

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Here's a picture from our CTF Kickoff!

Discipleship

    One of my favorite things about ministry is getting to meet up with students and help them grow in their faith. We have a saying around here that goes “One on one is how it’s done”. The idea is that ministry is personal. God can do a lot of work when two (or more) people sit across from each other consistently with the purpose of learning more about who God is and what that actually means for those of us who follow Him. It’s so cool to me that I get to help high school guys along in their faith journeys! 

    I’ve experienced a lot of transition this month, but one of the biggest transitions has been in my discipling ministry. I’ve been really blessed to be able to study the Bible and help mentor four guys over the last year and a half who all went to college this month. It was definitely bittersweet. I’m confident that all four of those guys are going to do amazing things in college, and use those years as a time to grow in their faith. 

Some of the teens that I get to meet up with! (They think they're super cool)

            

 

Overall, this last month was amazing. I’m learning so much about God, and getting to love and serve some really cool teens. God is really good, and I’m very thankful to get to do this apprenticeship. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

 

 

Prayer Requests

-Please pray for all of our graduated seniors who have started college this month. Pray that God would lead them into friendships, ministries, and churches that would be really good for them.

-Pray for our teens as they’re navigating a really strange school year! 

-Pray for our staff as we’re trying to make the best decisions that we can to be faithful ministers

 

Love you guys,

 

William Royal