And As He Stands in Victory

I was challenged by one of my supporters and friends this week to start being more vulnerable in my blogs. He said he wanted to hear the "deep thoughts" that occurred behind the scenes. So here's my attempt to bring you all into my inner world. 

Personal Thoughts

For a long time I've wanted to die young. I know, pretty morbid. Twenty-five to 30 years of age sounded about right to me. And if I could, I wanted to go out a hero: saving a stroller from in front of a bus, taking a shot meant for someone else, something that people would remember me by. But this past weekend I got to go to my church's kids camp: Jesus and Me (JaM) Camp. And as I sat at breakfast on the second day I thought, this is an amazing experience. I never went to summer camp as a kid. I didn't know what really to expect beyond having to take care of a bunch of six- and seven-year-olds, and all the work that entails. But as I warmed up to the kids and they to me, and I participated in this adult culture of unconditional love to all of these kids, I started to thank God for allowing me to live long enough to experience this. And that got me to realizing how selfish wanting to die young is: I wanted to be remembered, I wanted to be significant. But I'm only one person in history. And the vast majority of people in history are not remembered for very long. But God remembers each one. And my insignificant actions become significant only because He does something very powerful with them. And now all I want to do is ask God to allow me to live long enough to experience and take advantage of all he has in store for me: blessings like this past weekend and opportunities to serve others like this past weekend was as well. Blessing and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive to being a servant to others, and oftentimes they overlap. Valuable things are costly. And the children that I got to serve this past weekend were so valuable to me, even when we started off the weekend as complete strangers. And every cost of teaching them how to shower, comforting them as they cried, picking up after them and goading them into eating their food was worth it. I can only thank God for giving me that experience and pray that I get to experience that with my own kids one day. But it also opened my eyes to how much God is taking care of us from day one. These kids are experiencing unconditional love from people other than their parents and because of that, they are going to go through life knowing that there are people out there who will love them because they're worth it. The students that I get to interact with daily have various degrees of experiencing that, but have just as much of a need of it as these littles ones do. While I don't typically show my love for them by giving them piggyback rides or accompanying them to the bathroom, the actions I choose to do hopefully communicate the fact that I love them because they're worth it. 

Seminary 

For those of you that I haven't met with this summer yet, I have an announcement to make. Starting this Fall I'll be attending Fuller Theological Seminary to pursue my Master of Divinity degree! I'll be taking their online classes so that I can continue being a campus minister at UTD, but I'm excited to be a student again. Please pray for the time, motivation, energy, and finances to come together as I apply for scholarships and ask for people to continue or start joining my support team for this coming school year. 

Dogs 

And a second announcement: I have adopted two dogs! The brown one is Penny and the black one is Rachel. I'm very excited to be a homeowner. After being a dad, being a dog-owner has probably been my second biggest dream as a child. So, while all my dreams are surrendered to the Lord to do with as He wishes, I'm glad He has at least allowed me to fulfill this one. Penny is perfect, but Rachel is still very rough around the edges as she came from a rescue organization and most likely has experienced a life of abuse. So it will take a lot of time and effort to get her to trust people, but I have confidence she will one day!

Thank You!

And so thank you to everyone who I have been given the opportunity to be your friend. Thank you for your support, thank you for your love, thank you are everything. I thank God every time I think of you, and the privilege He has given me to serve Him full-time, and that He has placed in my life so manny good friends, mentors, and people who love me. Many of you are those very adults who showed a little boy that people other than his parents unconditionally loved him. And when that boy became a campus minister, you showed up again when he asked you to consider supporting him. Thank you so much for all that you have done for me. I love you all so much. 

Sin's Curse Has Lost Its Grip On Me

Reflection

I wanted to do some reflecting as I finish up my third year as a campus minister. It has been a really wild ride that has had its major surprises. I'm in a place where I didn't expect to be even after I had decided to be a full-time minister. I didn't think I'd be in Dallas long-term, I didn't expect to be a homeowner or a dog owner, and I didn't expect to have my life, personality, and who I am to be so radically transformed by Jesus even after I thought the years of rapid growth and change were behind me. He has made me into a better servant in my relationships and with my roommates especially, a much more open person who is willing to let others in and invest myself in others, and one who is earnestly seeking to learn and grow in Him. I get to watch my boss, Brandon, get married and be his best man, when really it has been him who has pursued deep friendship with me over and over again for the past seven years. One of my friends told me just recently that he still remembers when he was a student and would follow Brandon's blog. When I decided to be an intern with FOCUS, Brandon mentioned how excited he was to have me on staff on his blog. Being here was never part of my plan, I wanted to be a lawyer and make six or seven figures a year, but God knew what He wanted me to do. And now there's no money that you could pay me to make me to go back and pursue that dream again. 

Just this past week we took over 100 students to the Student Institute of Campus Ministry (SICM) as we do every year. But this was the first year that I decided to take a seminary course at Regent College in Vancouver, BC and that I was living in the FOCUS guys house with nine students. I have absolutely loved going to class every morning and learning from Iain Provan, an amazing teacher and disciple of Jesus. But on Wednesday, I finally got some time to hang out and talk to some of the guys at night, just to get to know their stories and how they ended up with us. One of the guys, David, asked me if I had ever been filled with the Holy Spirit, and I was confused and answered the best I could. But after some follow-up questions, I realized that he was really wrestling with understanding the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So I got to have a great conversation about my thoughts and the things I still ask God about regarding His Holy Spirit. We were also able to rope in another guy, James, into the conversation and get to hear his thoughts and background on the topic. After that night I felt so encouraged by the good questions they were asking and earnest seeking after God that I thought, "this is why I do this, this is why I love my job." To be a part of these guys' formative years, and to be able to play a role in it, there's nothing else that compares. I know this is where God wants me to be. I know I'm imperfect, I know there's so much I don't know how to do, but He's still working through all of that. In the end, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than where God wants me to be. 

We also got to witness two baptisms at SICM this year. One of them was Charlie, a guy who was part of our house and someone I recently started studying the Bible with a month before the trip. He's been very inquisitive and a deep thinker, and I'm so proud that he had the humility to rethink his conviction and his preconceptions about baptism to make the decision to be all in. The other was a guy from Arlington that has been studying with my coworker and friend, Austin. The kingdom of God is so much bigger than any one of us and I'm so happy to have been able to witness some of the fruit of another's ministry.

Thank You!

And I would not be able to do any of this if it weren't for your generosity. Because of you and your continual support for this mission, I'm able to be where God wants me to be. I'm able to be in a place of constant harvest and encouragement. I expect that someday we will also experience the dry season, but I will always consider it pure joy to suffer for the Lord. Thank you all so much for your consistent encouragement and support for me. I hope to see many of you soon.

For I am His, and He is Mine

Student Spring Impact

Well, it finally came and went. We had a week-long evangelism outing with student from Washington. It definitely started out a little slow, poor weather meant less traffic and made it harder to initiate conversations. No doubt good things still came out of it, but it didn't match up to previous years in terms of turnout. But as the sun came out in the middle of the week, so did the moods and attitudes of all the students on campus. We unveiled a nine-square-in-the-air game, and one of our students said that he got more numbers through playing that than he had ever gotten during any other event. The Washington students also commented on how much fun and how much resolve they gained from it going back to their own campuses. God does amazing work even as we may get discouraged. He knows what He's doing, and will get done what He wants to get done, all we need to do is surrender to His will.

Spring Showcase

And finally, the project I spend the most time stressing and worrying about every year: Spring Showcase! It was great to see some of you come out for that! With about 1,000 people coming to the show, running it is always a stressful deal. But we had a lot of great acts, lots of great people who helped and volunteered, and as always in the end it was amazingly successful. The event raised over $20,000! It's only because of supporters like you that we could ever pull this off, whether you came or not, your support allows me to work on things like this. We already have talks on how to make next year's even bigger and better. All of the proceeds go to paying for students to attend SICM, the leadership conference we have in the summer. And this much money will go a long way for that. And if you weren't able to make it, I'm sorry that you missed out on my group's amazing country performance.

Thank You!

As always, thank you all for being beside me throughout this time. Whether you've been with me for a couple months, or since the beginning almost three years ago, thank you. Thank you for believing in me, for believing in the work we're doing here, and investing in college students' lives. I have faith that as long as we stick with it, God will multiply our investment in lives around the world.

Bought with the Precious Blood of Christ

Pizza Theology

We had our second semester Pizza Theology on Jesus' Second Coming. And as you can tell by the picture, we had a pretty packed house. Take a second to imagine almost 500 college-aged students willing to drive long distances to attend a four-hour, sit-and-take-notes type of lecture on a spiritual topic. It's not something that happens often, and outside of seminary students, maybe ever. But that's why I love this community. They're people who will go on to lead lives in the workplace, have families, live in the city, the suburbs, the country, and have this strong foundation of thinking critically about, and relating intimately with, God and his people. That's a transforming movement right there.

Spring Showcase

Coming up real soon is our annual Spring Showcase. It's a fundraiser to help send our potential student leaders to our leadership training conference up in Bellingham. The cost of a week-and-a-half up in Washington state with plane tickets ends up being about $700 per student, which is not something every one of them can afford. So we as a staff and community put our time and effort into helping those who need the help. Ministry leadership shouldn't be just for those who can afford it. So if you want to see a show with professional-caliber musicians, dancers, and more, then mark your calendars for April 7th. We have two shows, one at 3pm and one at 7pm with an art sale in between starting at 5:30pm. You don't want to miss this, trust me. 

Prayers and Thanks

Please pray for this next week as we enter our Student Spring Impact Week. We have a crew of students from Western Washington University who are going to be spending their spring break here to help us evangelize to our campus. Pray for good weather, good conversations, and for God's will to be done. 

And thank you all so much for your continual support. As the end of the year fast approaches I'm looking forward to having the time to spend some time with many of you again!

No Guilt in Life, No Fear in Death

Social Justice

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:34-30

One of the topics this generation is particularly passionate about is social justice. And yet the church culture as a whole has started to separate our "personal" walks with Jesus and the practice of justice. We wanted to preach to our students how near to God's heart the poor, oppressed, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner are. Justice is not about doling out due judgment, but about lifting up the low and speaking truth to power, just as Jesus did. The series hit close to my heart as community service and combating racial discrimination have always been passions of mine. And it was so great being able to share with the community a call to bring justice to this world until He returns.

Science and Faith

We've now dove deep into our next series exploring the relationship between science and faith. It has been amazing listening to Sirak preach on the questions that science can and cannot answer and the questions faith can and cannot answer. We are literally overflowing in the room we meet in, not a single chair is empty and people are bringing in chairs from other rooms or sitting on steps listening. This is still such a relevant topic and has divided even the church on whether science and faith are at odds or complements to each other. There is a hunger in believers and seekers alike to know the Creator and how he relates to his creation. I saw at least a dozen new faces at our last meeting, please pray for these new individuals that they may find the life-giving water they may not know they're looking for.

Thank You!

Thank you all so much for your continued support. Without you, not only would it be much more difficult financially to do what I do, but also emotionally and mentally. Knowing that you all have my back is an enormous support. I often tell my students about how much I love fundraising because it gives me the opportunity to build relationships with all of you, and I mean it.

Personal

On a personal note, my grandmother died a few nights ago. Please pray for comfort for my family and particularly my parents as they deal with the necessary things in Taiwan. Thankfully my grandmother was a Christian and we know that she is getting to see Jesus face-to-face before we do. 

This is the Power of Christ in Me

Christmas

Wearing crowns because we're British now

Thank you guys so much for caring about me and praying for my holiday season. It meant a lot to hear from you. Our Christmas ended up going well. We skyped most of our family in the morning, minus the mom and dad who were with our grandma in Taiwan. And then we were welcomed into one of my friend and coworker's house for Christmas lunch. Our first Christmas as a segmented family went off as well as we could have hoped. 

Corefa Class

Taking notes in corefa class

To get ready for the semester we get all our corefas back to prepare for the new year. This time we brought in a psychiatrist from the Meier Clinic to help our students better understand mental illness, the causes, and the different ways to treat it. It was helpful to hear from a professional, one with a Christian perspective, how he views mental illness in its physical and spiritual facets. He also explained the effects of certain medicines and when he chooses to prescribe them and how he chooses to wean people off of them or keep them on indefinitely. As anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts plague this generation, our leaders face these challenges more and more. Whether it's within themselves or in their groups, the problem is pervasive and we want to equip our students to be able to handle those situations with grace and understanding.

Winter Camp

From on-stage

Look at everybody!

And finally, we kicked off our semester with our annual Winter Camp. This is the biggest event we put on all year with all of our campuses joining together for four days of retreat. As with most retreats we have services with worship and guest speakers. This year we had Geoff and Jessica Mumley from Campus Christian Fellowship at Western Washington University come and talk to our students about being sent ones. What makes this conference different is our community, how much they love each other how much they look out for each other, and how anxious they are to build new relationships and build on old ones across these campuses. It's a time for them to get a vision bigger than themselves, bigger than their small groups, and bigger than any individual campus. If our mission is to establish a ministry on every college campus in the DFW Metroplex we're going to need a lot more hands and a lot more laborers in his vineyard. Pray for students to continue catching the vision and considering that God could be calling them to a life of vocational ministry. Pray for students rising to leadership and accepting the opportunity God has given them in their college years. And pray for students who are finally taking the chance to be a part of this community and experiencing the blessings God has poured out to us.

Thank You

Our UTD Staff

Thank you all so much for your constant support. This past summer our FOCUS staff had a CRU minister come and share with us his wisdom on support-raising. He said a curious thing, would you rather have 30 donors giving for your salary or one? While it makes logical sense to not have one donor to whom you would be beholden to, what about one vs. 300 or one vs 3,000? Would I not rather have to keep track of one person than hundreds? Well this year, God has surprised me in this arena, as if to teach me something. So many of you have come out of nowhere to support me. Some without me asking, some with just a few words, and all with such joy when choosing to give. Now, without a doubt I would choose the many over the one because that means there are 3,000 people who are willing to sacrifice some of what they have for me. That is something beyond any amount of money, so thank you all so much for being in my corner and believing in the work God is doing here. 

From Life's First Cry to Final Breath

Christmas Party

Every year we do a Christmas Party to celebrate the season, the end of the year, and to get our community together as a family. This year we did a Christmas movies theme with the church decked out in full movie theater decor. And as always, we had our core skits as the main event. It was a really fun time that bonds people together through 

Christmas Devotional

We had our last fellowship night out in the cold! All bundled up and cuddled close together, it was a great time despite the weather, and maybe because of it. Our students loved having it outside, and it was a great opportunity to have visibility on campus. We had more than a couple students join us after hearing the music. 

SMU Advent Service

We had our first advent service at our SMU campus to celebrate the season. We went through a traditional service led by an episcopal priest. We sang through old hymns and through Bible passages that went from Genesis to the Gospels speaking of the entire gospel story. It was a great night of meaning and tradition. 

Thank You and Merry Christmas!

Thank you to everyone so much for your constant support,  it means so much to me. Because of you I'm able to take part in a career that I love and interact with people that I love every day. I hope this Christmas season is a good one for all of you. Because my brother works in customer service, the two of us will be spending Christmas in Dallas while my parents are in Taiwan visiting my grandmother in the hospital. If you could pray for her continued improvement, I would very much appreciate it, as well as for my family in general as we try to spend some time together this season in three different places.