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