December 2025 Update: Family and Friends

Christmas Service

Each semester, it feels as though time has flown and we cannot believe that the end is already here. In a few shorts months, students that we had no idea existed have become an integral part of our lives and our ministry. As we finish the semester, we try to celebrate the holidays together. To a family, celebrating Christmas without one another is not an option unless all other options have been exhausted. Even if Christmas needs to be moved off December 25th, we flex to our families. Here, we move Christmas to early December so that we can be together and celebrate the birth of Jesus together before we all leave to our respective homes. 

Friendship

One of the greatest challenges in our society is the absence of friendship. Loneliness and lack of friendship is even more widespread in the male population. There are a few culprits that share the blame for this: lack of vulnerability, lack of openness, and fear of judgment. Men don't share their feelings with one another, we don't communicate much with one another, and when we do we're often judged as weak or effeminate and lacking masculinity. Unfortunately, that results in a population that isolates themselves, insists on self-protection, and lacks anyone who truly knows them except maybe their wife if they have one. But Jesus says, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). While it absolutely applies to all of his disciples men and women, we should be careful to observe that when he says this he says it in a context of exclusively men. Not only that, he says it right after he has washed his disciples' feet. So love is not a feeling that we just feel, but an action we do for one another. Men, more than any other, need to heed this advice. To help our students grow in this, we regularly heat up the value of vulnerability and openness, to invite others into their lives and to grow in trust that their affection will be returned. At the end of the first semester, I suggest to all of my small group leaders to have an encouragement time, where the group takes time to encourage each person on how they've seen them grow and how they have become more like Jesus. It often goes well enough, though with a bit of discomfort and the encouragements may not be as deep as they could be. It is surprisingly vulnerable to tell someone else how you feel about them. And it's in those moments that friendships shift from just a fun experience this year to having the potential to last a lifetime. Vulnerability and openness is not just about confession or about sin, they are also about opening up our lives to including someone else, to overlap our lives so that we might know and be known. In that way, our love becomes deeper and more genuine as we are loving each other as we are and not as we wish we were. And in turn, that invites us to experience God's love even deeper, that we might understand how deeply he knows us and how deeply he loves us. 

Thank You!

Thank you so much for your investment in students here, that they might get to experience love like this. God is saving a generation from emptiness to fullness, and I thank you all for participating in that mission. It's because of you I get to be a part of it too! I pray that this holiday season is full of rest, rejuvenation, and healing for you and your families.