Christmastime is Here

The End of the (Calendar) Year!

 

Our mascot Temoc "Claus"

The holiday season has arrived and that means we're arriving at the halfway point for the school year. What does this mean for ministry? It means that students are beginning to feel the urgency of their growth, their Bible studies, and their friendships with each other. What a school year gets to do for our students is place a deadline to this season of their life. Next school year they may be graduated, they may be in a different small group, they may not have the same schedule as their friends. So, this season of friendship with these other college students has an expiration date. Now that doesn't mean they're no longer friends with each other or that they will no longer talk to their former small groups, but the touch-points they have this year may no longer be there. This creates a sense of urgency, to appreciate each other now, to make the most of their studies together now, to deepen their friendships while they still get to see each other multiple times a week. We get to take advantage of the finite school year and use it for God's purposes. They still have one more semester, but knowing this semester had an end for them, they're more aware that this next semester will come to a close before they know it as well. The students are going into a well-deserved break after their finals. They're looking forward to their families and Christmastime, but they'll also have the first extended period away from each other and we hope that absence will make the heart grow fonder! 

Christmas Party and Service

The students doing the "Whoosh"

Before they leave every year, we always do a Christmas party and a Christmas service together. We believe that we celebrate the holidays together with family. If we didn't celebrate together, what does that mean about how we view our relationships with each other? So we love putting on a party where students can come together and enjoy funny games, traditions, and sing fun Christmas songs together. We always end with a "We Whoosh You a Merry Christmas". (Because the symbol for the UTD Comets is the "Whoosh". We also get to do a Christmas service because it's important for us all to remember Jesus during this time as the main focus. We can get wrapped up in the gifts, lights, and celebrations and miss the baby boy who came to save us all. 

Thank You!

In some ways, Christmas is a time to be more thankful than even Thanksgiving. This is a time to remember and be thankful for the sacrifice that Jesus made for us by coming down to Earth. I also always want to remember your sacrifices in enabling me to do ministry with these students, to get to witness what God is doing here, and to continually pour into new leaders year after year. I am so grateful for your faithfulness and belief in me to do God's will here in Dallas. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, that God continually blesses us with his character of love and mercy through his people and his creation. Love you all!

Come and See What God is Doing

After a crazy season of planting, now it's time for those seeds to be taken care of. If a small group leader hits the ground running for welcome week, when September rolls around they should end up with a group of 10-15 people who barely know each other. The ironic thing is that if they've cast their nets wide, they have a diverse group who knows them well but may never have met each other. So, September and October become the months for those guys or girls to begin to develop bonds. It can feel discouraging at times as people opt out because it isn't what they were looking for, the inclusion of Jesus is too much, other priorities in life get in the way, but when our leaders stick with it eventually they come out the other side with a group that is closer for having invested the time in each other's lives. That's the phase of ministry we're still in! People are getting to know each other, letting down their walls, trying to become good friends to one another.

Fall Camp

One of the ways we help our leaders develop those bonds and build momentum is Fall Camp! It's just a 24-hour overnight retreat for them to bring their small groups to, learn about Jesus and how he has impacted their peers, and have fun together. We're always excited to see how much a simple overnight experience can do for depth of relationship. Just brushing your teeth next to someone and sleeping in the same room together develops a brotherhood/sisterhood and an intimacy that weeks of hanging out can't do. Already we're hearing positive feedback on how students related to the testimonies of their peers, how Jesus saved them or led to a better life out of cancer, drug abuse, unfulfilled lifestyles, and complacent church attendance. Please pray for God to continue impacting lives, and that these guys and girls would learn and grow to love one another as Jesus has shown us to.

Family Night

Coming up on October 15th, we have our annual Family Night from 5:30pm-7:00pm! This is the one week a year we move our fellowship night from Friday to Saturday to enable families, friends, mentors, and any family figure to come visit and see what kind of ministry their child/sibling/friend is a part of. Alumni are also invited! This is an opportunity to share in the vision of God's kingdom and we're always excited to join in unity with others over that!

Thank You!

 Thank you guys so much for supporting me in campus ministry! As this starts the 8th year of doing campus ministry, it has gone through ups and downs and various challenges, but what has been faithful throughout is the support of God's people in his mission here. I appreciate the trust and care you put in me to be a part of God's work with college students, and I hope I always communicate that! I always look forward to the next time I'm able to see y'all and catch up!

Planting Season Starts Now

The Beginning

And the year is fast upon us! Welcome weeks are the busiest and most fast-paced time of year! Students are moving in and we have this two-week window where everyone is open to making new friends, trying new things, finding new communities. The amount of outreach we can do in these two weeks surpasses what we could do for the next 9.5 months. That's why we hit it hard from morning to night, meeting these new students and encouraging our students to be bold and reach out! And I am so proud to say that so many of our students are answering the call. They are talking to other students at the gym, the dining hall, as they walk the campus. They are coming to our events and welcoming all sorts of strangers into friendship with them. There is no other feeling like going to an event with a hundred people and seeing your co-laborers in Christ right there with you, blessing the people and this campus with the love of Christ. 

80 students showed up for a Bible class on Jonah!

Events

We had events every evening and some mornings and afternoons for the first two weeks of school! Please pray for our students and our staff to keep following up with the students we've met. For so many of the students we've met, it's the first time they've made friends at college. They're showing up and coming out of their hidey-holes after years of social isolation. We're happy to be here to be a part of their college journey!

First Friday Night Fellowship!

Our first Friday night was a great success! God is so faithful is consistently bringing people and maturing disciples to be a light on this campus. We had so many people come to Whataburger after one of our events that the entire restaurant was packed with only our students. 

Prayers

Please pray for God to continue touching hearts and for our students to be faithful with whom they've been given. This year is full of unknowns and we're excited to be a part of it. God is always at work and we're always looking to join him in that. 

Summer and Seminary

Seminary Degree

Our SICM students' last day celebration

Some of you know that I've been working on my Masters of Divinity degree for the past four years. But if you haven't, now you do! It's definitely been a challenge to work during the day and night and then study even later at night but I know many of you have gone through that same challenge (and some of you had kids at the same time!) so it's not something I want to complain about! But here I am with only four classes left, and I wanted to thank all of you for supporting me during this time and my parents for funding a lot of this education. The end is in sight!

Some of you have asked me what I'm going to do once I graduate. And the answer is the same thing I've been doing. Campus ministry is where I believe I can do the most good, and I love doing it! This degree has been a blessing by my parents who have pushed and encouraged me to do it, and it provided me an opportunity to bring something to the FOCUS that we didn't yet have. So I've been excited to get to bring the things I've been learning (like Hebrew and Greek) to the table and apply it to my ministry and how I disciple my guys. 

Summer FOCUS

Summer FOCUS!

We've started our summer meetings and they've been off to a great start. We have about 250 students coming from our various campuses to worship and learn together. Many of my guys from my small group this past year who are still in town are coming and catching the vision of a united body of Christ following Jesus together. So please pray that students continue to encourage one another and spur each other on to love and good deeds!

New leaders at UTD next year!

Thank You!

And thank you for all your generosity that keep myself and this ministry going. It's support raising season again, and I always look forward to getting to catch up with so many of you and let you know in more detail what's going on in the ministry. I look forward to getting to talk with y'all, and thank you again so much for being a part of what God is doing here!

I Got Married!

Married!

So it finally happened! After many years of wondering if I should remain single, many years after that dating Emily, and many months of planning a wedding, Emily and I finally got married! Thank you to everyone who sent a letter, a gift, came out, helped prep the wedding, everything was grace. We are so lucky to have friends like y'all. It was a great week with many old friends coming out to celebrate with us and just feeling so blessed by God and everyone that you would love us enough to sacrifice so much for us. Pray for us as we figure out marriage and ministry together now!

SICM

We're off at SICM (The Student Institute of Campus Ministry) for our annual leadership training in Bellingham, WA! Actually, we haven't been able to do one up here for three years! The last time we were up here was 2019! So it has been such a great way to finish this year with bringing nearly 100 students excited about doing ministry and potentially being leaders next year! God has truly answered prayers this year about finding out footing again and building momentum coming out of the pandemic. Wait until you hear the stories that these guys have and what God has been teaching them this week!

Summer

And now we're heading into the summer months! Pray for healthy students, that we can keep meeting throughout the summer, and that we can build a great student leader team with strong relationships going into the school year. 

Thank You!

Thank you so much for all your support. God has been doing big things in the hearts of these students and in mine. And I wouldn't get to do what I do without your support, so thank you so much!

Almost to the Home Stretch!

 Showcase 2022

We're deep in the Spring Semester! We just finished up our 8th annual Showcase fundraiser. It's that time of year where we're raising funds to send our students to the SICM leadership conference in Washington state! It was the 7th year that I've worked on it and the bar just keeps getting higher and higher each year. The performances are crisper, the show is engaging, you'd never expect a small little campus ministry like ours could pull off a show like this. Over 800 people came and we were able to net over $27,000 to help send our students. What a great gift from God that we have such a generous community to be a part of. If you want to see the show, you can go to anyfocus.org/showcase to catch a recording of it, it's totally free just open to donations.

Student Ministry

Obviously, the other big part of ministry is the relationships! While I know the good and the benefit that comes from being able organize and run big events, the bread and butter of our ministry and what I love most is the relationships I get to build with students. I was talking with one of our students, Sion, a few weeks ago and as we were talking he asked if I remembered when we had met. I told him that I didn't, but as he described who was there it sparked the memory in me. And he even had a picture to prove it! It was over 8 years ago that we had met at a winter camp and I had just come back from a semester in Washington DC my senior year. In that picture is my good friend, Sarah, who I had gone to school with and was now in her first year working with FOCUS at Denton. Since then she has gotten married, had a kid, and is still on staff with us here back at UTD! The guy in the beanie in the back is Drew, who was just an itty-bitty freshman in the picture. He had just joined a core because his girlfriend had told him to. It happened to be the core that I was going to help lead that semester and he was one of the students that I would reach out to study the Bible with. After that year, he would go on to lead core for the next three years at UTD, marry that girlfriend who made him go to core, both of them do the apprenticeship at UTD, and move to Denton where they still serve as campus ministers to this day. You never know what God is going to do with the people he puts in your life. But if you remain faithful you may get to see the fruit that some of them produce. Such an amazing privilege to get to do this on the college campuses!

Thank You!

As always, thank you guys so much for supporting me in this. It's because of you guys that I get to be a part of this. These events and relationships all take an enormous amount of effort but the investment is worth it. Just as I hope you realize that your investment is worth it. People's lives are being changed by encountering our living God who takes our small efforts and does big things with them. So thank you guys so much for all that you do for me and for God's kingdom!

Good News and Bad News

 

The Holiday Season

It's been a great time to spend special occasions with people you love. The biggest one on the list was getting engaged! I knew I wanted to propose to Emily at church because she's grown up in that church since birth and it's a special place for us both with a community that we loved. The tricky part was how to include everyone and also keep it a secret. Thankfully, her mom reminded me that the church was having a kids ministry fundraiser and with the right coordination everyone could be there and not raise suspicion. It went off without a hitch! Some of the guys in my small group got to be there as well and they kept joking with me throughout the day, asking if I was nervous. What a great opportunity to get to spend with these guys. Up next is the wedding!

Thanks and Prayer

Other than that, ministry has been trucking along. I've got some really awesome guys in my small group and we've had a lot of fun together. Here's some pics from our thanksgiving celebration and our Christmas party. Please pray for the COVID situation, as that is throwing a wrench in upcoming plans like staff retreat, Winter Camp, and Showcase. After a long time of avoiding contracting it myself despite many close calls, the sickness did catch up to me. It feels like a nasty cold, but I'm confident in the recovery, and hoping to be ready to go soon! Please be praying and thank you for all your support! Have a happy new year!