Our 2022-2023 Texas XA Church & Marketplace Impact
God continues calling XA grads who give a year to internships (CMIT) as they consider vocational ministry. BUT... what about the vast majority of XA grads that He calls as nurses, architects, teachers, engineers, weathermen & more??
The vision of our new 'XA Church & Marketplace Call' in Texas has become clear in its first year to Love The Church & Transform the Marketplace. Much of my first year's effort has been to to cast vision & create relational bridges for this initiative between healthy churches and the staff & students of our dozen North Texas XA Chapters.
I offered hours of encouragement to XA staff & pastoral advice to XA grads in phone calls and text threads and in-person meetings in their cities. In two weeks of March, I traveled 1200 miles to 5 different XA communities (4 pics below).
Though the process of building this dream is slow, Texas XA grads are catching the vision AND taking faith steps to be connected & mobilized by taking intentional steps to Love the Church & Transform the Marketplace like never before! Some of the most exciting conversations are taking place with sophomores and juniors who are excited to be part of this initiative when they graduate! Ironically, many XA alumni from the past have told me, "I am excited for this initiative & wish there was something like this available when I graduated. I felt that my call to the marketplace was not celebrated like those called into ministry."
Our 2022 highlighted XA Church & Marketplace teams continue to bear fruit in "featured churches" in Dallas & Austin as young adult leaders, small group leaders, children's ministry leaders & more! While XA grads are catching vision to find jobs near our featured churches, many are asking for help to find a healthy church in other cities where they sense God calling them to live.
Before graduation, Jen attended a featured church last summer as an intern for TxDOT who offered her a job in December... Now she's the youngest civil engineer on her team and an emerging leader in this church!
Josue felt family pressure to find work near them after graduation, but turned down a good job because he felt God's call to transform a community... and was rewarded with a better job in THAT community!
'Santiago' was deeply committed to his XA group for years through grad school, but passionately transitioned to the marketplace with his new bride, who felt drawn to a Texas city... God honored their faith as a major company created a job position in his field of expertise... So, Santiago & his wife now serve as key young adult leaders in their home church.
"Tre" took steps of faith to commit to stay in Denton to serve a newly featured church & God showered him miraculously with provision & encouragement!
Will just graduated in May and has felt drawn to join the featured church in Austin for months... He applied this week to Austin's police academy!
Britton (pic above) just graduated with a meteorology degree and had job offers on the table this month from two TV stations... One in Medford, OR and the other in San Angelo, TX... Why did he choose the dusty west Texas over beautiful Oregon?? Like those names above and others unnamed, Britton is a young man who is eager to Love the Church & Transform the Marketplace with like-minded friends in his generation!Click this LINK to learn about the new XA campus ministry assignment that Kelly is pioneering: the XA Church & Marketplace Mandate. Also, watch our short video testimonial of this initiative.
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