Hey, all you who care about TNF and reaching college students for Christ! It’s Keith here, from TNF, with lots to fill you in on, so here it goes. Some of you know already the changes happening at Grace Church, which supports TNF, but for the rest of you -- um, are you sitting down?!

After more than 10 amazing years of ministry, with so much fruit, so many students reached, so many people served, so much truth taught, so many accepting Christ or going on to full-time ministry, we’re bringing an end to TNF. That’s the short version.

The slightly longer version is that Bob, the head pastor of Grace, is stepping aside to do teaching at the church and Justin is going to become head pastor of Grace beginning Sept. 12. I will continue to do music but will also become the administrative pastor. After much prayer and seeking counsel, we all feel the Lord is leading us to make all these changes. So exciting!

God is clearly doing some big things in our church, and that is the only reason I feel OK about stepping out of my role as a “college minister.” It has been a difficult thing to let go of (mostly because I really do love you all!), and, in fact, everyone here at Grace agrees that we need to continue to reach students with God’s love (and ours!). So we are praying and expecting that much like with the other college ministries we’ve had in our church’s history, God will inspire new leaders and even new approaches to reach out college students. Please commit to praying for this as well, and let us know what you think.

And, of course, in the meantime, we still plan to reach out to students and offer them a loving and challenging church home here at Grace, including great opportunities to go deeper in the faith through discipleship and small group Bible studies.

Join us in saying good-bye to TNF at our last-ever Thursday Night Fellowship -- a huge farewell bash -- next Thursday night, 7 p.m. at Grace Church. It might seem an odd way to start the semester, but we do think of it as the start of something new: letting TNF end gracefully to make room for the next thing God might want to do through us!