January Ministry Update!

Welcome Back!

    It's been a while since I've posted a ministry update. I hope you all had a great Christmas, New Year, and that 2021 is off to an awesome start! As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I'm so thankful for your partnership in this work that I get to do, and I feel truly blessed to have such an amazing support team. You guys are the best! Let me fill you in on what all I've been up to in the last couple months.

Apprentice Sermons

    For our last assignment of last semester, myself and the FOCUS apprentices (the campus ministry that our church partners with) got to write and preach a sermon. The topic of our sermons was "What is My Gospel?". In our classes with Ronnie last semester we spent a lot of time discussing the magnitude of the Gospel and what it really teaches us about who God is. For this sermon we were asked to preach about what the Gospel really means to us personally. 
    This assignment was actually pretty difficult for me. As someone who has grown up in the church, and followed Jesus for all of my youth and adult life it can be much too easy for me to forget the specific things that Jesus has saved me from, the ways that He has changed my heart, and just how good living life in relationship with Him is. Preparing this sermon forced me to dig deep and really think about what the Gospel actually means to me. I'd encourage you all to do the same! What does the Gospel really mean to you? How has encountering Jesus changed your life?
    The other really cool thing about this assignment was getting to hear all the other apprentices sermons. I've loved getting to be in the ministry classes with the FOCUS apprentices this year and get to know them better. Getting to hear each of them preach about what the Gospel means to them and what Jesus has done in their lives was truly one of my favorite things about this whole year! 

Our Garland church pastor, Ronnie, giving me some feedback on my sermon.


Alumni Night

    For our first CTF night of the new year we decided to take advantage of some of our alumni being home for the break and have our first annual CTF Alumni Night! It was so much fun. Our worship that night was led by two alum, and instead of having a sermon we asked four graduates to give some of their advice to our current students. It was really encouraging to have so many of our alumni come back, and so valuable for them to share some wisdom with our students. It was a great night!
One of our alumni, Keanna, sharing at Alumni night!




CTF Night

    I'm really excited for our CTF Nights this semester. We started this semester with alumni night, and then we did a two week mini-series on the Holy Spirit. For the rest of the semester we're going to be in a sermon series walking through the life and ministry of Jesus, and keying in on the character of Jesus. I think it's just what our students need right now. We've also brought back a portion of our Wednesday nights that we call Community Sharing. This is essentially a time that we ask our students to share with the rest of the community how they've seen God working in their lives, Scriptures that they've been reading and thinking through, encouragements for each other, and other various prompts. It's such a neat thing to see young people stand up in front of their peers and praise God for who He is and how they've seen Him in their lives. I'm super excited for our community sharing time this semester. 
My little CTF worship team!

Class Update

    As you all know, a major part of my apprenticeship has been taking different ministry classes. So far, we've completed Old Testament Foundations, Evangelism, Financial Stewardship, a class on the Holy Spirit, a Teams Workshop, and two Preaching Workshops. We finished up our class on the Holy Spirit right before Christmas, and it was definitely one of my favorites!
    This semester we're continuing on in our Ministry Essentials class, our Spiritual Maturity class, a Spiritual Leadership class, and we started our New Testament Foundations class! I'm really looking forward to reading through the New Testament and learning more about it now that I've studied the Old Testament in more detail. 

Prayer Requests 

-Please continue to pray that God would keep us safe from Covid and that we would be able to continue to meet in person on Wednesday nights. 
-Pray for the guys that I get to meet up with and study the Bible with: Hudson, Tyler, Logan, Aiden, Jacob, Kole, Connor W, Connor C, Cole, and Tucker. 
-Pray for our staff and youth leader volunteers: that God would give us wisdom and discernment, vision for this semester and summer, and that He would keep us healthy.
-For CTF camp this summer: that we would have a lot of teens sign up, that God would use it to change lives, and that it would help launch us into a great school year next year.
-For all of our students: that they would know and love Jesus, be lights to their friends, classmates, and teammates, and that God would keep them safe and healthy.

    As always, reach out to me for anything! If you have a question, idea, comment, or you just wanna catch up and hear more about what I'm doing, text, call, or email me! I love you guys and I'm really thankful for each of you. 

Love,

William Royal
972-979-6722
william@ctfwylie.org


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Years Ministry Update!

Image
  "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." -Job 1:21     Happy New Year! Whether 2024 was a great year for you, or one filled with challenges and difficulty, let us remember as we head into 2025 that only God has the power, goodness, and perspective to run the world. He gives and He takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Let me catch you up on all that we've been doing at CTF, and some things we're looking forward to this year. Camp     God answered our prayers again this summer and we had one of our best camps ever. Our theme was "Wholehearted", and we spent the week talking about what it means to be a person who is all-in for Jesus. It was an awesome week full of worship, fellowship, fun, growth, and long lasting change.  CTF Camp 2024 After camp I got to baptize Trent and Huntyr, two guy that I met with and studied the Bible with for a couple of years. One of the highlights of my whole year! CTF Nights ...
Read more

Spring Recap and Summer Plans!

Image
  " Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,   who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,   to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." -Galatians 1: 4-5     Hello again! I hope all of you who are reading this are having a great Summer so far. Thank you all for your continued generosity towards me and our ministry here in Wylie. I could never express how much I appreciate each one of you, and I literally could not do the work that I get to do without your prayers and financial support. God has been working amongst our teens, and I'm excited to share some of the things He's been doing with you guys! I hope this encourages you all! CTF Nights      One of the things that I've noticed over my last five years doing youth ministry is that the Spring semester is usually really hard. Kids get excited for the start of school in the fall, and with t...
Read more

Fall Recap & Ministry Update!

Image
     Hello friends and supporters! I hope you are all doing well! I wanted to share a recap of CTF's Fall Semester, and some of the things we have going on right now. God has been so faithful and working in so many ways, and I can't wait to tell you more about it.      The longer I do youth ministry, the more I cling to the image that we get in Scripture of planting, watering, and growing seeds. 1 Corinthians 3 talks about how we as servants are  responsible for planting seeds of faith in people, as well as helping to water those seeds. Verses 7-8 say " So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.   The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. " Ministry can really be boiled down to two simple things: planting and watering. As ministers of the Gospel we plant new seeds of faith in people, and we try to water the se...
Read more