Kevin Pike's Apprenticeship Blog
The Genesis of My Apprenticeship
Hello! Thank you all so much for wanting to support me and my ministry this year!
This is the first blog post of my apprenticeship and I am very thankful to have y’all with me as I start
my journey in ministry. You all have truly been a blessing to me and I will definitely need all the
prayers that I can get!
When the apprenticeship started, we hit the ground running. Since our schools have not started yet,
we have been focusing on classwork regarding our Old Testament (OT) class.
The first week we have read the first five books of the OT, listened to graduate level lectures,
and read a textbook to further increase our knowledge about the God we serve.
We have been studying for 7-8 hours each day, learning as much as possible.
Being able to read entire books of the Bible in one sitting, compared to normally reading a couple
chapters at a time, has truly illuminated certain aspects of the Bible that I have not seen or thought
about before. One of the biggest aspects is the love and mercy that God gives to his people.
I have usually focused only on the wrath of God, especially when reading the OT, and forget to see
the abundant mercy that He gives to the Israelites over and over again, even when they completely
disobey God and lose trust in him. One example of God’s love is at the very beginning of the Bible,
Genesis. I have read through Genesis before, but this time I read the book in a completely
different light. This time, seeing God create every part of the Earth made me feel deeply loved.
Everything He made, He deemed that it was good which makes it perfect in every way. It made me
realize that everything I see around me was made specifically for our pleasure. The creator of the
universe took his time to delicately craft our home for each and everyone of us. What an awesome God!
I realize that I have a loving God watching over me and that gives me so much comfort and
confidence for this next year.
One of the greatest joys so far has been being able to study with my fellow apprentices. There are five of us in total and I can already tell that we are going to be great friends.
Studying the Bible and having deep, theological discussion with them has been so rewarding.
Here are a few pictures of us studying the good word and hanging out together.
I was also blessed to have gone to the FOCUS staff retreat this past week. I got to meet all the members of the FOCUS family and connect with them on a deeper level. Each day we had worship and a sermon during the mornings and afternoons. I learned a lot about understanding that God is in control and I need to let him work through me as a pastor. One specific lesson that stood out to me was the need to let my weaknesses show. I have been trying too hard to cover them up by sounding “smart” or trying to be someone I am not. That will never help me grow closer to God or be open with others.
We also had our first Collin campus staff meetings too. This team is the great group of people that I will work with on a day-to day basis compared to the other staff at the other campuses. At these meetings we were able to plan for welcome week and what events we would have for the students. Welcome week is the first week of school and the best opportunity to outreach to the incoming freshmen and sophomores at Collin. I am super excited for this next year and I know it is going to be impactful not only on my life, but the students as well. Here is a picture of the whole staff team and a shot of us playing night volleyball, which was super fun.
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