Kevin Pike Ministry Blog #35

May Blog 

Hello everyone!

Summer is here—get ready for the heat! I hope you enjoyed the rain while it lasted. As May wraps up, I’m excited to share how God has been working in our ministry this month. It’s been an incredible time for both our staff and students!

SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry)

    Every year, we take students with leadership potential to a week-long conference in Bellingham, Washington called SICM. There, they receive training in ministry and evangelism so they can return to their campuses in the fall equipped to be ambassadors for Christ. We partner with a ministry called CCF—essentially the FOCUS of Bellingham—whose staff generously shares their 40+ years of ministry wisdom throughout the week.

    Each day includes three sessions designed to grow students as spiritual leaders. Topics this year included evangelism and campus outreach, intimacy with the Lord, critical Bible reading, Kingdom diversity, how to write a Bible study, and more. Outside of sessions, students got to spend time with host families and enjoy sports during lunch breaks.

    This year, we brought 140 students to SICM—such a huge blessing! We had about 15 students from Collin, and it was awesome to see their hunger to know God more deeply and live out their faith boldly. I’m especially proud of the young men we brought from Collin. They’re mature, eager to learn, and passionate about sharing the Gospel. I can’t wait to see how God uses them on their campuses in the fall. I had a blast spending the week with them and couldn’t be more thankful for what God is doing through this next generation of leaders.

    Here are some of the pictures from the trip:


End of the Year Party

It’s hard to believe, but the end of the school year has already come and gone. We wrapped up our last Thursday Night Fellowship with an Italian-themed formal—and the students loved it! They got to dress up, take pictures, and enjoy some great food. One of our staff, Mackenzie, made homemade ziti and fettuccine alfredo, and it was phenomenal.

We took time to honor our amazing student leaders by thanking them and gifting each of them a Gospel of Mark journal study guide. We also recognized the students who are transferring to other colleges this semester with small gift baskets and note cards where friends could write messages of encouragement and say goodbye.

It was a beautiful and meaningful way to close the year, and we’re so thankful for every student who was part of our ministry. The good news is that most of them will be returning next year! 

Fundraising

During the summer, the FOCUS staff shifts some of our focus from campus ministry to fundraising for our salaries for the upcoming school year. We all meet at Northeast Church in Garland for fundraising “sprints,” spending full days working to build up our support teams.

My wife and I still have some support left to raise for the next school year. If you know anyone who might be interested in hearing about my mission at Collin College, I’d love to connect with them! Expanding my network is a big part of how I’m able to continue doing this important work.

Thank you to all who currently support and pray for my mission—it is truly a huge blessing!

Prayer Requests

    Please pray for our students as they enter the summer. It’s easy during this time to lose momentum in their spiritual disciplines. Pray that they stay committed to reading their Bibles, spending time with God, and staying connected in community instead of isolating themselves and playing video games all day.

    Pray for all of our staff as we fundraise over the summer. Ask that we would trust God to provide for us as He has faithfully done in the past.

Thank You

Thank you for your generous support of my ministry at Collin Community College. Your giving helps students grow in their relationship with Jesus, find strong, Christ-centered community, and develop as leaders. Your support also enables students to attend SICM, where they are trained to be lights on their campuses and equipped to build God’s Kingdom wherever they go.

I’m deeply grateful for the eternal impact you’re making through your partnership.

P.S. Here's a testimony from one of our students at the UTD campus—your generosity helps students like him find deep friendships and community centered on Jesus.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kevin Pike Ministry Blog #26

Image
 WELCOME WEEK     Hey everyone! The new school year has started and wow it has been a lot of fun! God has been doing some great things on campus just after one week at school! For the first week of school, our entire staff at Collin spent everyday on one of the campuses to talk to students and invite them to come check out FOCUS. I can't wait to share with y'all about Welcome Week and how it went, here we go! Welcome Week: Monday     On Monday, I was at the Plano campus and we had our "First Day of School Photos!". For this event we made a large photo-booth that looked like a notebook piece of paper and had students take their photo in front of it like most kids used to do when they were younger. It was a great way to welcome students and get them excited for the first day. We also handed them book markers that had all of our info from FOCUS on it so they could keep it and check it out when they had the time too. Here are some photos from the event that day! Tue...
Read more

Kevin Pike Ministry Blog #27

Image
 September Blog     The dust has settled from Welcome Week and now things at Collin are starting to get into a grove! There has been a lot of exciting things this month so let's jump into it!  Core (Small Groups):      I am leading two Cores this year with my co-leader Stian. It has been a blast! One of our goals at Collin College is to reach as many as possible this year and so everyone of our staff members are leading two Cores. We have around 6-8 guys at each of our Cores and it has been so fun getting to know them all. All of the guys in our small group are committed Christians so Stian and I are looking to create Bible study plans that really dive deep into our faith so that we can challenge our guys to really live a life of devotion to Jesus for not only themselves, but to the classmates around them so their lives can be changed as well. We plan on exploring the call of devotion that the gospel brings using Ephesians and Romans passages. Here's a...
Read more

Kevin Pike Ministry Blog #29

Image
 November Blog      Hey everyone! Hope y'all are heading into Thanksgiving with high spirits! This is a great time to meet up with family and to stop worrying about our day to day routines. As I am about to head into the break for Thanksgiving, I want to invite y'all in on what has been going on in our ministry this past month!     Pizza Theology:     Pizza theology is an once a semester event where we allow students to take a college level deep dive into a specific theology topic while also eating Cici's pizza. This year we invited a renowned, professor from Regent School of Theology, Dr. Rikk Watts, to come and teach us about the book of 1 & 2 Samuel. It is an honor to have this man come and expound all of his learnings and research unto us. He is a scholar of the Bible and we could not have been any more blessed to have him teach us a book from the Old Testament.      I was enamored with how Dr. Watts talked about prayer. He ...
Read more