Something New - A Lawsuit Against Our Campus

This month I have something heavier on my mind, and I want to ask for your help and support.

Some of you may have caught this in the news, but the FOCUS student organization at UTD (which is led by student officers and is legally separate from FOCUS, Inc. that I work for) has decided to join a group of plaintiffs (including journalistic, religious, musical, and political student groups) in a lawsuit against our campus and the UT System. At issue is the enforcement of a new Texas law that leaves the university very little wiggle room in cracking down on first amendment rights on campus. Many news outlets have covered this, but you can read what the Student Newspaper at UTD (also a plaintiff) has to say here: "We're Suing the UT System. Here's Why."

The Campus Protection Act (also known as SB2972) is a response by our legislature to the disruptive pro-Palestinian protests on campuses in late 2023 and early 2024. I believe this bill is an overreaction that takes away the fundamental rights of conservative and Christian students far more than it would prevent rare protests that may get out of hand. 

While there are some commonsense provisions included, the law ultimately removes First Amendment rights on campus from anyone who isn't a student or employee (even from those auditing classes or working on a contract basis), even though the campuses are publicly funded areas. It takes away First Amendment rights from 10pm to 8am every day from everyone--one of its biggest problems, especially on college campuses where students often finish classes at 9:45pm and then start their extracurricular activities! It further takes those rights away for two full weeks at the end of every semester, six weeks per year total. This includes forbidding student groups and even professors from having guest speakers of any kind on campus during those weeks. The Bill of Rights was not designed in such a way that the government can take our rights away for long, arbitrary lengths of time when they aren't infringing on anyone else's rights in any discernible way.

This law was also rushed through at the end of the legislative session, cancelling all opportunities for public comment, so we didn't even hear about it until it had already passed the Senate and was a day or two away from passing in the House. 

Public universities and colleges are not known for protecting the free speech rights of conservative or Christian students--quite the opposite! And this law, while it may have been well-intended, gives campus administrators many new tools to silence or end Christian communities on campus as well as the power to block all pastors from campus. How far they will go in enforcing it remains to be seen.

Will you join me in praying for the protection of our Christian students' rights on campus as this lawsuit proceeds?

Additionally, if this concerns you as much as it does me and you live in Texas, will you consider contacting your state senator and representative about how this law could be used to hinder the Christian message on campuses? You can find out who they are here.

In The Thick Of It...

Today finds us basically in the middle of 14 days of daily events at UTD as thousands of new students show up on campus last week and this week. It's going so well! This group of student leaders is FANTASTIC so far. They are passionate and excited. So many of them didn't really grow up in serious Christian homes, so they aren't burdened by the sense that Christian leadership is something they ought to do. Instead, they are excited about what others did for them in years past and want to be that kind of blessing to a new class! It reminds me so much of John saying "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). 

The scripture we reflected on as a team right before our first freshman outreach event was 2 Corinthians 3:12 - "Since we have such a hope, we are very bold!" And bold they have been! I've already had a number of new students, even multiple non-Christians, thank me for what FOCUS did their first week in welcoming them and giving them the opportunity to make friends and have fun. One student told me last night that he has just looked forward everyday to the next FOCUS event. 

Peter, who co-directs this ministry with Mandy and me, sent out this encouragement in Slack to our core leaders after the second day, and I think it paints the picture well!

Yall are killing it at these events! @Brooklin Moore is just meeting girls left and right, she said she was scared yesterday. But you’d think she had been doing this for years and years. I heard yesterday that @Janice mun said “it’s time to pounce” and got some girls that already said no to joining a game. You can’t say no to Janice. @Felipe Cardozo taking the initiative and bringing his own soccer goals to bring in the soccer boys. @Gavin Cox , @Ava Golisano , and @Claire Mullen I see y’all pushing yourselves to meet more and more people and have good conversations with them. I mean, there’s so many of you to name. But I saw a team that has the vision and worked together. We were vastly outnumbered today and yet when I was walking around you all spread yourselves out so that somebody was in every group. None of this huddling together because it’s comfortable. Nah, y’all are kicking butt and getting numbers. We may have been spread a little thin, but we were spread evenly. With all that, keep coming out! I’d estimate that between yesterday and today we’ve met about 700 students and I bet over 1,000 have been invited to join. Less than 2,000 students have even moved into these dorms. Literally half the dorm population has had their first day shaped by us. That can change not only an entire individual’s experience of UTD, but it changes the very fabric of UTD itself. That this is what FOCUS is about, this can be what UTD is about, and hopefully people see that this is what God is about. He’s working on this campus through you and me, and we’re so excited to have them join him. Y’all are awesome, can’t wait for more nights spent on mission together!

Classes started today, so be praying for these students to keep that same spirit of love and boldness as they encounter their classmates and professors this week!

Some Pics So Far

This is our FOCUS staff of pastors for this year. They are spread out over 14+ campuses loving and students and sharing the good news of Jesus!

Freshmen move in over 4 days, and each evening we had a large outdoor hangout with lots of games and activities. Hundreds came each night to make new friends!

Every day of move-in week we had a table with cold waters, campus maps, and Christians waiting to walk new students around campus to help them find their classes! I've made a number of friends over the years through this simple event, students and alumni who got connected through that simple act of kindness.

All of the freshmen eat in the dining hall, but it's expensive for people without a meal plan! One of my donors gave $800 for our pastors and key students to be able to eat in the dining hall over and over, typically sitting with a student who is by themselves and then inviting more and more who come in to join. It's a culture changer and one of our most successful outreaches! Of the girls in this picture, only one is a FOCUS student (Ella, giving the peace sign, is one of our women corefas this year. I got to mentor her in leadership during her freshman year last year. She's great!)

One of my personal projects this year for Welcome Week was planning a new event called UTD Olympics because UTD let us reserve all three Galaxy Rooms during this week for the first time in over a decade! For those of you who remember Valentathlon, I took a lot of inspiration from that. It was...chaotic lol. But the students had a blast! We had 200 students come and participate. One of the freshmen girls came up to Mandy at the end and said, "Now THIS is the college experience!" Haha!

Another one of my key roles is teaching a Bible class along with Andrea, one of my fellow pastors. The event was called "A College Level Look at the Bible: Unpacking the Book of Jonah." 80 students came to a 2-hour class in the middle of the afternoon Saturday! They were SO ENGAGED. Asking and answering questions both during and after. And a lot of those students have been talking to me at every event since.

Student Testimony

Kathryn is a great young lady, and I'm getting to study the Bible one on one with her boyfriend now, who recently became a believer. Thank you for praying (and paying) for this all to be possible!

Leveling Up Questions

I'm in that part of the year where I'm getting excited about a new group of students and a new team of student leaders. We want to see them grow and change, and to that end it's important that we are always setting an example of growing and changing. This summer I've been going through Proverbs. It's been a few years, and some of them hit differently as I get older and wiser! I'm loving reading them in the NLT (New Living Translation) because it really captures the bluntness at times. I've found myself laughing at statements like:

Punishment is made for mockers,
and the backs of fools are made to be beaten. (19:29)

And:

People ruin their lives by their own foolishness
and then are angry at the Lord. (19:3)

I've found myself reflecting on statements like:

Each heart knows its own bitterness,
and no one else can fully share its joy. (14:10)

And:

Without oxen a stable stays clean,
but you need a strong ox for a large harvest. (14:4)

There is a consistent theme about the pain that comes from not embracing wisdom and understanding. I've been reflecting on how valuable these messages about money and relationships and honesty and hard work are for the young men I get to pastor, and how best to communicate them.

If you haven't read the Proverbs in a while, I highly recommend listening to a chapter or two a day and reflecting on them. I've loved the Streetlights audio version.

There's a huge emphasis on listening and learning in the Proverbs, and learning to ask questions and listen is a large emphasis in our training of young leaders. There's obviously a character component here: Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions (18:2). But there is also a skill component--we need to learn better questions and question-asking skills. 

To that end, my wife recently shared with me a podcast episode that I plan on watching/listening to with all of our student leaders at the beginning of the school year. I picked up some great tips and ideas for a wide variety of relationships and situations. I think it would be well worth 42 minutes of your time as well!

Student Testimony

Our ministry at SMU is so exciting to me. We are seeing huge opportunities in the sororities and in a number of their D1 sports teams, in addition to the ministry we've been doing for the past few years. Thank you for making stories like this possible!

The Next Frontier

We've been starting ministries on new campuses since the beginning of FOCUS, but it has only been in the last 10 years or so that we started using the language of "pioneering" that we adopted from Chi Alpha campus ministries. A pioneer is someone who is among the first to explore or settle a new area. It can also mean someone who develops or uses new ideas and methods in their field. I love both of these meanings for our context. While we are certainly not the first to try to reach some of these campuses, colleges and universities turn over more quickly that virtually any other place in our society. If you aren't present for 2+ years, you are basically starting over with a new group that's never even heard of you! (Which many ministries learned the hard way after the pandemic.)

We are careful about where we pioneer because, when we go somewhere new, it is our intention to stay, to continue to send people and resources until a healthy, self-replicating community takes root. We have ministries at most of the key universities in DFW, but the next frontier is the many community college campuses that still have no Christian workers or communities. Unlike the larger universities where there are often at least a few Christian groups (albeit representing a tiny portion of the total population), the community colleges often have none. Sometimes they have only a couple of active student groups of any kind. In those cases, we find ourselves in the position of needing to help build a broader culture of on-campus involvement where a ministry could grow.

We already operate on six community college campuses across DFW, but there are many more! It's our intention as missionaries to go out two by two this summer to engage with students, Student Life administrators, and various program heads to assess the needs and opportunities for ministry across to the Metroplex. My hope is that we will learn a lot, and that the Lord will give us a clear sense of where to go next. The harvest is plentiful, but this next phase of work is much harder work. Even as I talk to friends in all of the national campus ministries, I don't know of anyone anywhere who has had more success in reaching community colleges than FOCUS. So we are truly pioneering, and it's our hope that our hard-won lessons can benefit many in other places as well.

Will you be praying for us over the next month as we go out to have these conversations, that God will open specific doors and make our path forward clearer? Our vision is to plant vibrant, intellectual, outreaching, Jesus-loving communities on every college campus in the DFW area. And these community colleges are the next frontier!

Support Raising Season

One of the things we do over the summer is raise financial support so we don't have to worry about that the other 10 months of the year. I am working on not only my own salary, but also the UTD ministry budget and helping some of our younger pastors get in a good place. If you'd like to start giving to one of those needs or are in a place to increase your current donation, reply to this email and we can have a conversation!

SICM Was Amazing, As Usual

I got to go hiking the first day up there with some students. Here I am with Omar and Jaiden, two great young guys from UTD who just finished their freshman year.

Sarah and I have become good friends with Geoff and Jessica Mumley, who lead the ministry that hosts SICM. We got to spend a day with them talking about ministry and life. We always learn so much from being with them!

This was the crew of promising young future leaders that we took this year!

As a special blessing, I got a visit from Josh Mello while I was up there. Josh lives in Washington now but went to school at UTD. He was in my core (small group) his freshman year and then a leader in FOCUS for a few years after that. It's great to see him walking faithfully with the Lord. He married a woman who loves God deeply, and they have adopted three boys in addition to their own biological kids. 

Student Testimony & Prayer Requests

A Month In Pictures

The end of the school year has flown by, and I'm headed to Washington state for SICM with about 145 young leaders in just a couple of days! I didn't get pictures from all the events, but here are a few highlights!

Thank you for supporting this important work. I look forward to sharing with you some things I'm thinking about for the coming year over the summer.

Rez Fair

In the lead up to Easter, we had a big event on campus with all the other campus ministries to celebrate the resurrection. A few different bands performed live music and students shared their testimonies.

Each group could set up their own booth with activities and prizes to engage with students walking by.

I love this chance to celebrate Easter with such a diverse group! We want to show the campus that we are united by our love for Jesus and for them.

Some of the games are silly, like seeing who can hang the longest to get a prize.

Traveling

In April, I got to take a trip to Lake Havasu with three women from my staff team, my apprentice Paul, and one of the student leaders I mentor. It was a blast! And a much needed rest. I came back refreshed and ready for the end of the school year. Sarah didn't join because it was camping, and that's not really her thing! Ha!

I always love traveling with "Vacation Mandy."

This is the view from Hoover Dam. I loved the extra time with these two young leaders that I get to mentor this year. They are a blast!

Other Things

Back in November, we introduced the Scripture Smackdown, a challenge to our students to read more scripture, men versus women. Every week, except for the last three weeks, we announced an update of who was in the lead and the top readers that week. And EVERY WEEK the men were in the lead. So it was quite the surprise when the women won at the last minute in a surprise upset! Here they are posing with the belt, which was the prize for the contest.

Only the winners got to pose with the belt or even touch it. We did make an exception for a couple of guys who read the ENTIRE Bible since November! In all, 5 students read the whole Bible in 6 months as a part of the challenge.

We had our annual Parking Lot Graduation ceremony. It was my year to pose with the graduates. Here I am with my sweet friend Jasmine. You can see the rows of students they walked between in the background.

I've shared about them before, but Jacob, Kole, Felipe, and Paul are the four core leaders I met with weekly this year. They insisted on holding me for a picture.

Obligatory photo of me with my little buddy William, Peter's son.

Student Testimony & Prayer Requests

God continues to bring us people from all over the world to be a part of what he is doing here and to let us be a part of what he is doing in their lives!

New Leadership Axiom

You are probably aware that one of our main methods for developing leaders is through teaching leadership axioms, giving the students (and pastors) a toolbox of principles that can help them in situations throughout life. Some, like "one on one is how it's done" and "seek first to understand and then to be understood", we have been teaching for many years. But we are always listening for new and better ways to teach Christian leadership principles. 

Recently Lailah, one of my co-pastors at UTD, was praying for her family, some of whom do not know Jesus. She shared with me how eager she has been to see them all love Jesus and to see Him transform her family individually and collectively. While wrestling with God in prayer over this, He spoke clearly to her: "Lailah, you've got to love them more than you want to change them." When she shared that story, I knew we had just been given a new axiom to teach our leaders.

When change becomes the goal, we are willing to take all sorts of short cuts to make things happen. When change becomes the goal, we are more willing to walk away to find greener pastures. When change is the goal, my ego gets tied up in how other people act and the choices they make. But I think the Bible makes clear that God doesn't call us to change people, but to love people. When love is the goal, we practice being like God, because "God is love" (1 John 4:8). 

We've already started teaching this new axiom to our student leaders, and I am excited to see the fruit of this simple reminder from the Spirit in the years to come. He continues to protect us from ourselves and guide us into the self-sacrificing love of Jesus.

Thank you for your love for young people on college campuses, even when you don't get to experience any of the changes in their lives firsthand. Your love is indeed bearing much good fruit, but it's so apparent to me that your love trumps your desire for "results." We are blessed indeed.

Traveling to Arizona!

People are often worried about whether I get enough rest. :) Let me assure you that I know how to take a break! This month I got to go camping in Arizona with three other FOCUS pastors, one of the students I mentor, and some other pastors from our family of churches. I've been on this trip before, and it is always a good reset for me--slowing my pace, reflecting, connecting with God through his creation. It has me ready to finish this school year strong! We have a month of big events and our annual SICM trip to Washington state just ahead.

The view from our campsite.

Sunset from the top of a sand dune.

Mandy and I got some good downtime but also some good time to talk about the ministry.

I got to tour the Hoover Dam with Kole (one of the students I mentor this year) and Paul (my apprentice).

Student Testimony

I love this story of one of our students literally chasing someone because of the Spirit's prompting!

Prepping for Pizza Theology!

One of my roles on staff is overseeing our larger teaching times, including our two Pizza Theology events each year. This spring we looked at what the Bible has to say about money and possessions. I've noticed that most Christians, including students in our ministry as well as the pastors on my staff, have some general idea of what the Bible says about giving/generosity but a very limited sense about money in general--the entire gamut of spending, saving, giving, hospitality, contentment, enjoyment, etc. We wanted to speak into that looking at the whole of Scripture (as best we could in less than 4 hours!), so different teachers from my team took different sections of the Bible--the narratives, the wisdom literature, the Old Testament law, Jesus' life and teachings, and the New Testament letters--to try to unpack what they might say to Christians today about money and possessions in light of knowing God.

We had well over 400 students come to learn!

First Baptist Plano graciously hosted us again this spring. Their deacons even jumped in to help serve all the pizza--unasked! They are incredible hosts and so generous with their building. It's obvious they love college students!

Our culture is very hush hush around money, and this privacy has had some unintended consequences. I talk to many young people who have no idea about their own parents' finances and have never discussed money with them. Even many Christian parents don't talk to their kids about money at all. Churches are so afraid of being seen as only talking about money in order to get money, that they fail to show how the Bible speaks to one of the most anxiety-producing, but also opportunity-producing, parts of our lives. The scriptures have SO MUCH WISDOM for us if we are willing to do the work of not oversimplifying their messages to find rules and easy answers. If this isn't something you've studied recently, I highly recommend you take the time to listen through some of these talks. I know you'll be blessed as I was! Also, I gave the first one. :) 

Thank you for your prayers and supporting me to spend time investing like this in the lives of young people--this kind of work will pay dividends for God's kingdom in the decades to come!

Student Testimony

Finishing Well

It's been a heavy season in some ways. Many have been asking for an update on my mom: she is in a rough spot after whole-brain radiation a couple of weeks ago. The treatment she was on was not stopping the cancer in her brain, so my parents decided on this course. It's really affected her short-term memory and caused a lot of confusion and fatigue. It's our hope that within a couple more weeks some of those side effects will recede significantly, but there's no guarantee of that. Despite all of that, she is so sweet and kind and mostly seems to feel good. My dad has been an amazing servant, taking care of her all hours of the day and night with us trying to relieve him a bit each day. He is a superstar, and his example is inspiring.

I also got an update from Brady Bobbink a few weeks ago that he is officially retiring from campus ministry. While he will no doubt continue to minister to many people as opportunities arise, he will no longer be on staff with UCM. In his update he was saying "thank you" to the many men and women who prayed for and funded his ministry at WWU for over 50 years--I know their faithfulness has left a rich legacy that will continue in thousands of families for generations. I know that partly because I and our ministry here in Dallas are just a small part of that legacy!

All of this has me thinking about one of the leadership axioms we teach our student leaders and try to live by as pastors--Finish Well. This axiom is about realizing that we are often most remembered for how well we finish our time in a relationship or organization rather than for how things go in the middle, or even for our greatest accomplishments. I'm sure we could all tell stories of people who did some great things, but finished poorly and left a trail of broken hearts or a mess to clean up. We could also all tell stories of people who had some rough patches along the way but got it together and finished well. We tend to remember those people much more fondly, even if their overall contributions may have been less!

Every one of us will at some point finish our current job or assignment. Every one of us will at some point wrap up every relationship we are in. Sometimes those endings are a surprise and totally out of our control, which reminds us to live with a sense of urgency. But often, we get choices around how to finish. Will turn in my 2 weeks notice at a time that leaves my team in a lurch? Will I cut off a friendship abruptly just to make a point? Or will I be committed to finishing as best I can in every situation?

It's a decision we make now. For the student leaders, their commitment to lead a small group on campus ends with the school year. For some that simply means it comes at the same time as final exams, while for others it's finals plus transitioning out of college to a new phase of life. So it's an easy time to justify slacking off. But year after year these students amaze us with the way they step up to the challenge of loving and serving their peers well right to the end of the year (and beyond). I think a part of that is because we get them to think and pray about what finishing well would look like, and then ask them to commit to it.

Maybe you sense a change coming in some area of life. Or maybe you feel settled and happy right where you are! Either way, I encourage you to decide now to finish well to honor our Lord who finished his own assignment on earth, even though the hardest part came at the end. And I pray that, Lord willing, I can someday (many years in the future!) write my own announcement of retiring from paid ministry knowing I've run my race well to the very end. 

Thank you for joining me in this exciting work. I think we are still just working on the first floor of this great project we are building together, and Lord willing, we will finish well!

A Celebration of all that God is Doing

I was thinking about how to describe our recent Winter Retreat, and the above phrase came to mind. Being out there with over 700 people had me reflecting on the state of our mission. Growth can be exciting but also brings its own pitfalls--have we compromised the message to grow? Are we losing what makes this community what it is? We're more diverse than ever before, but that too can be fraught with hidden challenges.

The day I got back, I got an email from an alum who had come out for a day to speak at the retreat. His observations have stuck with me all week:

"This generation of students blew me away. They were so kind and sweet. I saw so many taking notes, engaged with the talk. I was looking at pictures from winter camp 2012 as I was getting photos for my slides and I scrolled through just laughing at all the board games, and Kuub, and volleyball and honestly just a whole bunch of nerdy white people things we were doing. Then I showed up to winter retreat this year and there is an entire building of people doing arts/crafts, a dozen people doing a hardcore workout, two dozen doing an Afro-dance class. I texted my wife and said “how is this winter camp.” I told her I wanted to write you an email but before I did I wanted to find the write adjective to describe the students. I couldn’t come up with a single word or two, instead it’s more of a title. These students are 'the ones that frustrate the cynic.' Maybe it’s just me, but in every interaction with the students I couldn’t find an ounce of cynicism in myself. I was so hopeful after each interaction, so eager to know how the rest of their journey goes but content with just the slice I got. The cynic in me had a frustrating weekend as he came home without a thought to sleep on. I know getting a group like that takes years of culture setting, praying, hard work and support. So thankful we got to interact with them."

I think he said it beautifully. This is all just a work of the Spirit, and it's one that we all, you included get to take part in. God is good to us! Please be in prayer for these students as we get back into the semester. Just this first week back, we've dealt with hidden sin being confessed, deep conflicts between students, students making new commitments to God, addiction, purposefully divisive behavior, theological questions, and new false teachings on campus. That's just a little bit of it! But we don't panic because God's got us. I hope you'll take a moment to celebrate how God is working in and through you to bless young people with the good news of Jesus!

Student Testimony