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