Happy New Year! And a Little About How the Last One Ended

Finishing Seminary!

It will be a few months before I get a diploma, but, assuming I and my advisor didn't make any mistakes, I finished my last seminary class in December! So I should be earning a Master of Arts in Theology. It was a great experience overall and one that I am VERY glad to be done with! I think two master degrees is enough for me, and I have no plans to pursue any more degrees in the future. I love reading and listening to lectures, but unless the Lord specifically tells me to, I am DONE writing papers with footnotes and bibliographies. 

One of my biggest takeaways from the whole experience is that I am so proud of the continuing education experience for the pastors on the FOCUS staff. Our pastors are perpetually learning and processing material together. The things we learn are very much at a graduate school level, and we are learning and applying in community. We also have the luxury of going back through material again every few years, both to bring new staff along and to review and process anew for those who have been around longer. My seminary experience has enriched what we do for our team by expanding my list of topics and resources in a huge way! I'm still working to share the things I've been learning.

I think there will always be a place and need on our staff for a few people to pursue this kind of formal education and use that extra gift of knowledge to bless our students and protect us from inadvertently becoming heretics! Thanks for supporting me through this three and a half year season where I've had a bit less mental space to devote to our students in hopes that I would have more to offer in the future.

In lieu of a real graduation in California, my sweet wife made me a fake diploma and had a small graduation ceremony at our staff Christmas party. I'm told the cap belongs to a high school girl.

The FOCUS staff at our Christmas dinner

The UTD Men Staffers. What a fantastic group! (Peter, Me, Cort, Stian, Rhett)
But I'm asking the question I ask most days: "What is Rhett wearing!?"

The Impact of Our Shared Ministry to Young Leaders

During the semesters, I spend time every week with a few of our core leaders. I wanted to give you some brief insight into how they see the experience of being a leader in FOCUS shaping them.

Michael (left) and Mick (right) are one of the Core Facilitating pairs that I meet with weekly this year. They are such a blessing to me!

Michael writes: "Being a leader in FOCUS has shaped my view of a relationship with our Savior from something that is a part of our life, to the entire purpose of our lives."

Mick writes: "Being a leader in FOCUS has blessed me with a zeal for God like I have never felt before. It has kept me focused on the Cross at a time where so many others walk away from the faith."

I invite you to join me in praying for these two as they step back in for semester #2 in a couple of weeks. I look forward to introducing you to another pair next month!

Student Testimony

Thank you!

After celebrating Thanksgiving this past week, I want to say a big "THANK YOU" to all of you who pray and give to make our work on campus possible. Because of you, this semester we have been able to:

• Offer a weekly service on campus where students can hear about a loving God and the Good News offered through His Son, Jesus.
• Provide weekly Bible studies that meet throughout campus that allow students to explore faith, experience Christian community, and build deep spiritual friendships.
• Mentor student leaders to evangelize and make disciples of fellow students.
• Build intentional friendships with many people who don't yet know Jesus.
• Provide financial support to students who need specialized Christian counseling in addition to pastoral care.
• Purposefully reach out to different ethnic groups on our campus and provide them with a place to be seen, heard, and valued at UTD.
• Teach a 4-hour class on the book of Revelation to over 400 students who showed up ready to take notes and learn!
• Provide safe and substance-free social activities and parties for students on campus.
• Support students as they seek freedom from sexual addictions and substance abuse.

The list could go on and on. I deeply appreciate your investment in these young men and women. May God bless you and your families and deepen your knowledge of His incredible love, grace, and compassion.

TODAY is Giving Tuesday and our Keep FOCUS Growing Campaign!

We have $54,000 in matching funds pledged to help us reach our goal! So much of this campaign is about being able to support our amazing administrative team. Three points come to mind:

1. The work they do in the background frees up our campus pastors to spend more of their time with students and less on administrative tasks. I think of them as laying the tracks that the campus ministry train runs on. We wouldn't get very far without them!
2. By raising this money through this special offering, it frees our campus pastors from having to spend more of their time fundraising to each raise a share of the overall ministry budget. Again, that means more time devoted to the mission.
3. All of our administrative team are past small group leaders in our ministry, and all continue to do some meaningful pastoral ministry to college students. So they both indirectly and directly support our mission to make and mature disciples to God's glory!

Not all of the funds raised today go to pay administrative salaries. We also use these funds for new initiatives, special needs for our new campus plants, and seizing unexpected opportunities that arise. Please pray about giving a gift to be matched today! (We'll definitely be taking money after Giving Tuesday too! :)

You can give here!

This Month's Testimony

If you haven't seen them, check out all the neat student testimonies posted on Facebook for KFG this past week or so! 

2022 KFG (Keep FOCUS Growing) Campaign Coming Up!

Every year, we raise money on Giving Tuesday after Thanksgiving to cover administrative costs (so the pastors don't have to raise those in addition to their own salaries) and have money set aside for growth initiatives. Please keep this on your radar as you prayerfully consider any year-end giving!

Teaching + Preaching

Trying Out A New Format

We've been experimenting with a new format for our sermon time for Friday Night Fellowship at UTD. We have so many goals for that time--growing biblical literacy and knowledge, equipping students to read the Bible well, teaching the basics of the faith, addressing relevant topics, helping students grow in their relationships with God and other people, etc. But when we try to do so many things, the messages can get muddled and hard to remember. So, we've been trying a new format where we have a 10-15 minute teaching time followed by an 18-20 minute preaching time. We are in a series on the book of Philippians, and so far so good!

Teaching Time

The teaching time is designed to equip the students to better study God's word on their own. We are both demonstrating the kind of information that is available and how to use it. As we study Paul's letter to the Philippian church, we've looked at the history of the city of Philippi and how its status as a Roman colony bears on both the story of Paul's work there in Acts 16 and the letter he wrote the church. We've pieced through Acts 16 to understand the background of Paul's relationship with this church. We've talked about letters as a genre and some key insights into the purpose and situation behind this letter that we can glean from reading it. And this week, we'll be outlining the letter and identifying some key themes to keep an eye on. One of my favorite parts of the series was when Cort showed some pictures from Philippi itself. Did you know the actual jail that Paul and Silas were chained up in (and miraculously freed from) in Acts 16 has been uncovered? He also showed us the river where Paul met Lydia and baptized her. These and other insights are helping the scriptures become more real for the students, and we're getting great feedback.

Philippian Jail from 1st Century

Krenides River at Philippi

Preaching Time

As a team of pastors, we've been going through a book on preaching by Andy Stanley called Communicating For A Change. It has been really helpful to process and discuss it together. Stanley believes in one-point sermons. He argues that even the preacher doesn't remember their 3 or 4 points a couple of weeks later! As we've been experimenting with this throughout the semester, I find that I can remember many of the lessons clearly without having to look anything up!

• A "good life" is not a life worthy of the Gospel
• Humble people honor people
• Ask God every day to see as he sees
• Plant sequoias and wait expectantly
• In Christ, your Family is bigger than you think it is and runs deeper than you think it does

It's a process and we don't know where this all leads, so please pray for wisdom for us. But in the meantime, we are having fun and the messages seem to be connecting with the students!

Special Prayer Request

We are down one key staff member, Amy, for the time being as she steps out to take care of aging parents with unexpected health issues. Mandy and others will be stepping in to take up the slack. Please pray that students and apprentices that Amy normally mentors would be blessed by that transition and that the Lord will give Amy extra wisdom and grace through this tough time.

Student Testimony

Thank you for all you do, pray, and give to bless college students! The Lord takes what little we can do and grows it into beautiful things.

The Power of Personal Testimonies

We had a great turnout at our UTD Fall Camp a couple weeks ago! Our community is growing in size, depth, and diversity.

Rather than preaching sermons, our tradition at Fall Camp each year is for our students to share from their own experiences in following Jesus. You would have been so touched to hear these courageous young men and women get up in front of nearly 200 of their peers to share about decisions the Lord has led them to and the obstacles they've had to persevere through. They shared about depression and struggles with other mental health issues like OCD, about fighting through cancer and years of treatments, about tough breakups and major life transitions and moving across the world, about the challenges of keeping commitments and opposition from family members who don't love Jesus. Then we sent all the students out in pairs to walk and talk and share their own experiences. The overwhelming thing I heard on the backside was new students expressing something like "I realized that if they can be leaders and not have it all together, this is a community that I can be a part of and be honest with." It's so sad that people have the impression that they need to have it all together before they come into Christian community, but the good news is that more and more are realizing that Jesus invites them as they are, and this community is one that will love them through the ups and downs of life.

FOJ Story

Last month I asked you to pray for our new FOJ studies. One of our core leaders shared this story with all of our leaders, and I think you'll find it encouraging! (If only I knew how to make all of these the same width so it looked good. ;)

Student Testimony

Another Successful Welcome Week!

Welcome Week

We had the first normal-feeling Welcome Week at UTD in years, and it was a big success! Peter and Andrea led our team of over 60 pastors and student leaders, and they did an amazing job! If you'd like to watch the video commercial we had showing in the Student Union, you can click here! We've got so many new students involved in cores, and many new friendships started up. One day we set up a table near the residence halls and offered to help new students find their classrooms. As I walked one freshman around campus, he shared that he hadn't been in church much and had never read the Bible, but was interested in getting a copy and reading in "cover to cover." I offered to study the Bible with him and he immediately agreed! Scheduling with him has been a challenge so far (I think he's overwhelmed by all the transitions!) but he's been very responsive to keeping in touch. It was a reminder that the harvest is indeed plentiful and there are many students eager to ask their spiritual questions but unclear on where it's safe to do so. 

This was on the back of campus maps we gave out to students at our table and will give you an idea of what we did to create opportunities for students to start new friendships. We actually had 7 more events that were either before these or that were by personal invitation only, so we were busy!
I got to co-teach the class on Jonah with Lindsey Royal, and we had 80 people show up, about half of them brand new!

Focus On Jesus Studies

One of our biggest challenges (and a big thing for you to pray for!) moving forward is getting our Focus On Jesus studies started. On top of the fact that most of our leader team are students who came in during the pandemic and didn't have a normal FOCUS experience to begin with, we have switched back to a revised version of our older FOJ study that none of them have been through! (You can check it out here!) Now that we have people in cores, we have a lot to do to ramp up these one-on-one Bible studies that are so central to our ministry. So please pray for us!

Student Testimony

Developing Our Pastoral Team

We are back in August and ramping up for the school year! We have an amazing pastoral staff, and an outstanding group of student leaders. At UTD, we are planning for 13 men's cores and 13 women's cores! I'm already excited about the four young men that I get to mentor this year, and I'm a little jealous of the ones my team get to meet with. After 25 years at UTD, I love what I get to do and these young men that I get to build friendships with and point toward Jesus. 

One of my primary roles in leading in leadership development at every level of our community. We are planning to innovate this year in the way we develop student leaders, adapting to this younger generation. How can we incorporate more interaction without sacrificing meaningful content and preparation? Students love hearing themselves talk, but often don't have the knowledge-base, context, or wisdom to bring much to the table. On the other hand, we can have the best lectures in the world, but students aren't being shaped by that in the same ways that they used to be. We are using shorter teaching segments punctuated by case studies and stories of personal experiences from students. These exciting experiments are growing out of partnering with our younger staff members--I'm giving specific development and content goals and they are repackaging the material in ways that will speak more effectively to their peers. And then we debrief, of course!

Thank you for investing in and praying for me so that I can invest in and pray for a new generation of leaders for the church!

Please be in prayer for all the new students we will meet this month. Freshmen start moving in at UTD on August 16!

The Global Leadership Summit

My good friend Bob Tiede from Cru offered once again to pay for ten of the young pastors from FOCUS to attend the GLS for the past couple of days. Bob has modeled for me the value of investing early and often in other leaders. The GLS brings in some of the top leadership gurus from the business and non-profit worlds to share their wisdom. It has been a huge help to me and the FOCUS team over the years, and I'm so excited to share it with a bunch of young pastors who have never had an opportunity like this before. They've loved it!

I noticed I was featured in the social media for the GLS site where we attended the conference! Not my most flattering angle, but at least I look like I'm paying attention!

The crew from my staff team at the GLS. We have two more watching from home because they are sick. This is an uber-talented, loving group!

Student Testimony

Reaching University Students

We're in the middle of summer, and I'm spending my time building our student leadership team for the next school year as well as getting materials in place and events planned for when students show back up in August. I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be our first normal Welcome Week since the pandemic began. 

We have big opportunities ahead and it's looking to be a great group of student leaders that we will be equipping and sending out into our mission field this fall!

Thank you for your continued prayers and financial partnership in this mission. You are changing the lives of students!

Sharing a Great Article 

I recently came across a short series of articles on university evangelism by Tim Keller and his son that I found to be precise and on point in regards to our mission to the campus. It is well worth a few minutes to read. Each of the five points they make is something that we have also learned about reaching students in our current culture. Understanding these can give you insight into why we approach some things the way we do as well as give you more specific things to pray for our mission to the campus.

Read it here:

5 Principles for University Evangelism

Student Testimony

Angeloh is such a neat young man. He's going to be one of our core leaders at UTD this fall!

Partnership in the Gospel

 I'm getting close to finishing the seminary degree I've been working on the past few years, and to that end, I've been taking THREE CLASSES this quarter. What was I thinking? Who knows!?

I've actually really enjoyed getting to FOCUS a lot of my time on learning and growing as the students have dispersed for the summer. One of the books I've read is a commentary on Philippians, and the description of Paul's relationship with that church made me think of those who have partnered with me to bring the good news to college students--namely you!

Reflecting on Philippians 4:10-20, Cohick writes, "On a personal level, some people struggle to accept any gift, because they feel it will tie them to the giver. We have all received gifts 'with strings attached' [that place] the recipient in the difficult position of pleasing the giver rather than God... In this passage Paul declares that they alone, the Philippian church, have supported his ministry from the beginning. Yet the church gives no evidence of directing or manipulating Paul's ministry, teaching, or actions. They do not think of him as responsible to meet certain criteria or goals as contingencies for their gifts. Their relationship is such that Paul can level direct warnings and critiques at their disunity without seeming to fear financial reprisal. Probably part of this godly reciprocity rested in their shared conviction that their gift to Paul was really their gift to God, to the gospel, in obedience to Christ."

I got to the end of that and just sat back thinking, "I've gotten to experience that. What an incredible and rare blessing." Some of you have joined with me in this ministry for many years; others have joined more recently; all have shown this same attitude.

Thank you for living out this little piece of the gospel. Just as the Philippians' partnership was bearing good fruit in cities far away (even in Caesar's own household! Phil 4:22), your gifts and prayers are changing the life trajectories of young men and women on these campuses, and especially at UTD. You don't get to see all the fruit you bear but the Lord sees it all. I pray all of our generosity would continue to build and overflow into all the little nooks and crannies of our world until God's kingdom is everywhere and every tongue joyfully acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father! (Phil 2:11)

Student Testimony

Pictures from May

My UTD Men Staff Team for the past year at our End of Year Party

I got to baptize Harrison and Nhala in Mandy's pool. They are both such sweet friends!

We went to SICM again! I got to hang out in Seattle with some UTD and Richland guys.

Sarah and I got a rare moment together at SICM. Even though we are both there, we're very focused on our students, but we happened to be on this ferry at the same time. Doesn't the background look fake!?

Rikk Watts and his wife Katie drove down from Canada one day to have lunch with me and some of my campus directors. Geoff Mumley from CCF joined us!

This was the crew of UTD guys I stayed in a house with all week at SICM. We plan to ask all of them to lead cores this next year!

Heading to Bellingham! First Time Since 2019!

In a little over a week, we will be heading to NW SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) in Bellingham, WA, for the first time in 3 years. We put on our own SICM last year, but it just wasn't the same. Our crew this year is just as big as ever--94 students and 19 pastors! I'm so excited to see the fruit of this intensive training and spiritual development, not to mention the friendships and community that will be built, when we return to our campuses this fall. We're even taking 7 students from Tarrant County College, a new school we started at this year! Please pray for safety, that COVID doesn't disrupt the trip for anyone, and that the Spirit will move powerfully through this trip yet again.

Leadership Pictures

I wanted to share a few pictures of the amazing teams of young leaders that I get to lead and work with each week. God is doing cool things through your gifts and prayers!

This is our UTD pastoral staff for the year (minus Victoria who is out on maternity leave). Through their servant leadership, our community at UTD has come out of the pandemic as strong as ever!

Taylor has been my apprentice this year! Such a blessing to work with him.

Our entire core leadership team doing the UTD "whoosh." These are the students and pastors who led our small groups to reach 300+ students this school year. They are an outstanding bunch!

These are the men in my peer team who I coached in ministry this year. They insisted on sitting in my lap for this picture. They have all truly been a joy to work with. From left to right, it's Jonathan, Jackson, Harrison, Tony, and Taylor. Only Jonathan will be back at UTD in the fall, so I will have a new bunch to invest in!

Student Testimony

Hearing from Our Seniors

Near the end of each year, we invite all of our graduating students to write a letter, an "epistle," to our community and then read it on video. We've been playing these at our Friday night meetings a couple at a time. I wanted to share a couple of them with you so you can directly see the impact that your partnership is making on campus!

Jackson is one of the young men I've had the opportunity to mentor this year. He's been a great leader to his peers as well as to me. He loves God's word, as you can see by how steeped in it his message is.

Sion has been in both our Collin and UTD ministries. He has worked hard to grow in the Lord and is an inspiration to many others. Everyone knows Sion!

Alumni Testimony

Danni actually worked on staff with us for a year a few years back. She came from China not knowing the Lord, and it was through her friendship with a fellow student in FOCUS that she became a disciple of Jesus who in turn discipled others. Thank you for making stories like these possible! I couldn't be on campus working with these students if you weren't praying and paying. :)

A Few Things Coming Up

Student Institute of Campus Ministry

SICM is coming up in May, and our Showcase fundraiser last weekend was a big success! Thank you to all of you who came and were SO GENEROUS!!!

If you didn't get to attend, we have a video you can watch at anyfocus.org/showcase! You can also make a donation toward sending students to SICM there, but you can watch without any sort of donation. It was a great show, and I hope some of you who couldn't be there in person will check it out!

The big challenge we are facing with SICM is that not many students are signing up. With only a couple of days left until our original deadline, we have less than half of the normal number signed up. It's been 3 years since we've taken students to Bellingham, so we only have a few still around who have been and who can tell the others what it's like. Even with our normal momentum, it can be a challenge to ask freshmen to invest that much time and money to travel with a group they don't know well across the country. This is a year for rebuilding that momentum, so please pray that a larger group will decide to attend this training that has been so pivotal for our mission. 

Spring Outreach

Moving in the other direction, we have two teams of students from Washington State coming down the week after our Spring Break to join our community in doing targeted outreach and evangelism at UTD and Collin College. This is another thing that hasn't happened since 2019, and we are excited to get back to it! Pray for many fruitful, kingdom conversations with students on these campuses.

A Significant Schedule Shift

For April, May, and part of June I will be cutting my hours with students and staff back to take three seminary courses. I'll share more about them in future updates, but I'm excited to spend some more targeted time learning, and I'm even more excited about the prospect of being able to finish my MAT (Master of Arts in Theology) by the end of 2022! This has been a good experience, but I'm ready to have it off my plate.

Thank you for your prayers and financial gifts to make this mission to the campus possible. It is truly not something I could do alone!

Student Testimony

Lots Going On!

We got to have Winter Camp! It was stressful with all that was going on with COVID, but we still took about 440 people out to Sky Ranch for our first Winter Camp in 2 years. Rikk Watts, who spoke back in 2016, came back to do a set of follow-on lessons. His goal was to present a compelling apologetic, helping young people see that the modern world and most of what we value in it was made possible by the gospel of Jesus Christ. He argued from an extensive understanding of history that the gospel of Jesus Christ is why things change (including technology), why we value humans and human rights, and why modern science is possible (valuing experiential testing over detached philosophy, among others. These young people are understanding in a new way that they can hold their heads high as Christians rather than being embarrassed or trying to hide it. It's heady stuff, but well worth listening to and pondering. You can listen to or watch all of the talks here!

Showcase is on February 26!

We are getting ready for our annual Showcase fundraiser to raise money to send new student leaders to SICM, the Student Institute of Campus Ministry. You can find all the details and buy tickets at anyfocus.org/showcase. This event is SO fun. It's not a talent show, but rather a carefully curated show featuring many of the most talented performers from among our students and alumni. It also features an artisan market with art and various products made by people in our community. SICM is a great deal, but it's still out of range for many of our students, and this event helps make it possible every year for us to continue raising up the next generation of student leaders.

Student Testimony

Thank you for helping make stories like these possible!

Omicron Challenges

We're coming back from a refreshing Christmas break, but Omicron is bringing a number of changes that we are trying to navigate: 

1. We postponed our winter staff retreat to mid-February. This is an important event for our apprentices, and we had a number of people test positive for COVID in the days leading up to it. Thankfully, the vacation rental we were going to use allowed us to change our reservation with no penalty!
2. Multiple of our campuses, including UTD, have opted to go fully online for the first three weeks of school this semester. (UTD had already pushed back the start of the semester by a week.) We are in the process of figuring out how to get our cores and one-on-one Bible studies going again rather than delaying another month, as well as how and where to have our larger weekly fellowship meetings.
3. Winter Camp is this coming weekend (Jan 14-17)! We had to cancel completely last year, so we are excited and eager to move forward with having camp this year. Rikk Watts, who has spoken at camp before and has had a huge impact on our community, is scheduled to come. However, with the Omicron surge and many of our students remaining out of state because of the delay in getting classes back on campus, we are looking at coming in way under our contracted minimum for the camp. Please join us in praying that we can work that out with the camp and that we can take as many students as possible as safely as possible.

For all of this, we need lots of grace and wisdom! Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support throughout the pandemic as we navigate new challenges. Even with so many new hurdles, our mission continues to grow and expand on DFW college campuses. Students are being introduced to Jesus and getting to know him better. They are being loved into the kingdom, and your love for them is a part of that!

I'll make sure to make Rikk's talks available when we have them! I know you'll be blessed.

Student Testimony