Cornerstone Fall Kickoff
By: Samson Tang, Associate College Pastor
Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I would say it’s top 4. Honestly, there’s so much to like about fall. There’s the change of tree colors, pumpkin spice lattes, beautiful weather, the start of the football season, and watching the Cowboys win. Okay, maybe the last one doesn’t happen much, but there’s still a lot to like about fall. But the one reason I love fall so much is that it is always the beginning of the school year.
Here at the Cornerstone we celebrated and ramped up to the beginning of the school season. We began in the summer with meeting students at New Student Orientation, and we continued as we hosted community-building activities such as whirlyball, putt-putt golf, and food outings!
Whirlyball! Community building is not all work and service! Sometimes you also need to have some fun and a chance to crash a bumper car into your students.
Putt-putt golf. Of course some students would prefer to play golf...and ride on elephants.
Getting ready for the school year begins here, at New Student Orientations. Here Zane and Arron are getting ready to welcome incoming freshmen or transfer students to UTA.
There was excitement on Thursdays as we prepared for students to return and for the beginning of the school year. For many of the students, it was the start of a new semester. For some students, it was the start of their next steps after high school. A lot of these students grew up at Grace and were ready to start their next steps of serving the Lord!
And there were lots of opportunities! These students joined me at New Student Orientation throughout the summer handing out Cornerstone cards and water bottles, and welcoming them to our building. They helped Hayley with the UTA Activities fair where we had more than 400 students come by our table to hear about the Cornerstone and get a free snow cone from Pastor Jonathan Scheffrahn. We even had students come from other ministries as we had international students come through the Big Howdy or International Student Inc. Overall, we saw Cornerstone become a place students felt comfortable coming in and making new friends.
Then, as we started our Thursday night meetings, there was a palpable excitement. The build-up of all those events culminated in our first Thursday night of the school year. We had our largest meeting of the year, and as a group, we felt the Spirit move. Of course, after a night of Spirit-filled worship and community-building small groups, we had to end with an ice cream party! God is still working, of course, and we aren’t done yet, but I’m excited to see what more He has for us all at the Cornerstone this year. Stay tuned!
UTA Activity Fair is the first week of school. Thousands of students will go by these tables. Here’s a couple of our special students who want to reach the UTA campus.
Enjoying the atmosphere and coffee! This is the fruit of being at those orientations and host training.
With so many students to reach, the Activity Fair is a Grace team effort. Special shout out to Hayley Andrews for coordinating, Jonathan Scheffrahn for running the snow-cone machine, and Jeff Joens for bringing curb-appeal and welcoming people to our table.
The UTA Activity Fair runs from 10:00 am–1:30 pm. With such a long day outside, you never know who you will run into.
Giving out free coffee to bless students is a big part of Cornerstone outreach and ministry. But for it to be effective we need a lot of baristas and hosts! So excited for our host training and seeing these excited young people who want to serve!
