Onward Toward Maturity

Maturity is a hard concept to really get our hands around. We sort of know it when we see it (at least sometimes--I'm always wary when a young people describe themselves with "I'm mature for my age" ha!), but if asked how to measure it, we can struggle to come up with a good metric. Paul wrote that "[Jesus] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ" (Col 1:28). So the point of ministry is bringing people to maturity by preaching Jesus. Still easier said than done! 

At our summer FOCUS meetings, we are exploring the concept of maturity and what it takes to get there. Even at 47, I've found it very challenging! I wanted to share Austin Gage's sermon that kicked the series off with you. It's well worth your time to listen! 

Thank you for your prayers and gifts that invest in maturing these young adults. The world needs more people who look Like Jesus, and together we are a part of bringing that to be!

As for me this June, I'm in the thick of meeting with students to have conversations about being a leader in the coming school year. It's always fun getting to know these young guys and seeing their heart for the Lord and their willingness to make big sacrifices to be a blessing to others. Please pray that God will assemble exactly the team we need for the year ahead.

Update on the Lawsuit

I've had some people asking about the status of the lawsuit over the recent state law limiting students' First Amendment rights on campus. There's not much to tell. The federal court put an injunction in place back in the fall against many parts of the law being enforced at UT System schools. There is an appeal in process against that injunction which is slowly making its way through the US appellate court. Pray that the injunction will not be lifted! And that students' rights to practice their religion freely on campus would ultimately be preserved.

In related news, there is also some movement on an important bill in the US Congress. The Equal Campus Act of 2025, is set to be marked up in the coming week in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Its current language reads “None of the funds made available under [the Higher Education Act] may be provided to any public institution of higher education that denies to a religious student organization any right, benefit, or privilege that is otherwise afforded to other student organizations at the institution (including full access to the facilities of the institution and official recognition of the organization by the institution) because of the religious beliefs, practices, speech, leadership standards, or standards of conduct of the religious student organization.”

This would go a long way toward providing clarity and consistency across the nation, protecting all students' rights to exercise their faith on campus. I'm praying it becomes the law of the land!

Some Pics!

These are the 7 students currently at June SICM. Not pictures are the two campus pastors who took them. Even more potential leaders for our mission to these campuses!

Peder and James are two of the UTD leaders who I don't know very well, but they invited me to going hiking one morning a couple weeks ago. I had a blast getting to know them and especially hear how positively they think about the last year leading core and the impact they were able to have.

I got to have lunch and catch up with these two beautiful UTD alumni, Rohit and Kelsey. I miss having them at UTD, but it was encouraging to hear how their faith and commitment to the Lord is still growing. Plus, their kids are so sweet, well-behaved, and SUPER cute.

I also got to hit up the zoo with friends, including most importantly my little buddy William. When I got in the car on the way there, he said "Now we have the whole family!"

Summer FOCUS on Thursday nights is in full swing! Once again CARE Church is generously letting us use their building. They are amazing to us, and the students are loving it and bringing friends!

Student Testimony

Back from the Pacific Northwest!

We had an amazing time up in Seattle and Bellingham for our yearly trip to the Student Institute of Campus Ministry (SICM). I feel like a broken record saying it was our biggest group ever, but it was--by more than 30 students, even as we get more restrictive in our invitations. This number is one of the biggest metrics that I watch because of what it means for producing leaders for the coming years. As a pastoral staff, we only invite students if we think they can lead a core (one of our small discipleship groups) in the coming year. This year 150 students went in May and another few will be going to June SICM! I use the trip as a chance to build relationships with the next generation of leaders at UTD. You would be so encouraged to watch these students worship God, love on each other, and talk to random people on the campuses up there.

One quick story--while we were still in Seattle, an older man in the hotel we were staying in sought me out. I was worried it might be a noise complaint! But quite the opposite. One of our UTD students had met him, heard about his life, and prayed for him and his sick grandson on the spot. He told me that he wept during the prayer for the first time in years, that God's Spirit gave this student the words to pray. And then he gave a donation for our trip. I was so touched to know that when we showed up, the presence of Jesus showed up and started blessing people! This is the kind of thing the Lord is doing through your prayers and generosity. Here are a few pictures to sum up the trip:

Over 180 of us went, including the pastors!

Some UTD guys who I went hiking with outside of Seattle. I beat them up the mountain, but my knees couldn't keep up with them going down!

Brad Davis came with us again for the first time in many years. He cooked all week for 14 men in our Airbnb. The food was amazing, and it gave me more time to focus on the students. When Brad and I came to SICM for the first time, we got in a fight over him wanting to bring a purple starfish home with him, so here he is threatening to get one just to mess with me.

One great thing about being in Bellingham each year is that we are close to Vancouver, BC, where some of our favorite seminary professors live. A few of us got coffee with Iain Provan. We also got lunch with Rikk Watts but forgot to take a picture!

This was the house of guys Peter and I stayed with this year. Eleven future men leaders at UTD. The future is bright!

On the family front, Sarah got to go whale watching.

While we were in Seattle, a group of over 50 students went to a Mariners game. Pretty cool seeing our name on the jumbotron!

Unrelated to SICM, a dear friend and FOCUS alumnus Brandon Seitzler dropped by the Grove on night at the end of the school year with his sweet kids. They just happened to be walking by on campus!

Another baptism pic from the end of the school year! This young lady was with us at SICM, and I can't wait to see how the Lord works in and through her.

The prayer request seems out of date, but we have more students going to SICM in June!

An Update in Pictures!

It's been a great month! Lots of Focus on Jesus studies finishing up, and that means lots of students making new commitments to the Lord! If fall is planting season, the end of spring can be harvest season. Pray for lots of God deals in the three weeks we have left. :)

A quick update on the lawsuit--it's still making its way (SLOWLY) through the process. The state is appealing the injunction put in place. Our attorneys have received their appeal brief and have until May 20 to respond with their own.

Many of you already know about Rez Fair, our big event at UTD to openly celebrate Jesus' resurrection with a bunch of other ministries and local churches. I love this picture. On the right is Paul, who gave his life to Jesus during his sophomore year of college and now serves as a FOCUS pastor. On the left is Aaron, who was a sophomore in FOCUS my first year as a FOCUS pastor (2002!) and attended Rez Fair as the pastor of a church! 

One of the most popular things at Rez Fair every year is the competition to see who can hang the longest. Students love it! Who knows why?!

There's always live music, and Felipe (one of the guys I get to meet with every week) was drumming. Love that smile.

Our sweet sisters (and brothers) from the Catholic ministry were teaching people to make crosses out of palm leaves, a cool thing to take home with you.

Lailah and some other girls performed a praise dance. The whole day was a blast!

Here's Felipe again with his girlfriend Mykayla. I wanted to include this because lots of students join us at Northeast Church on Easter. There's always a petting zoo. It's "for the kids" but I think the college students like it more than the little ones!

Baptisms!

Hard to get good pics at night, but Kayla baptized Faith, and afterward Faith's father prayed one of the boldest, sweetest prayers over her that I've ever heard. Wish you could have experienced that moment!

Kole baptized Chase, and I'm so pumped to take this guy to SICM!

Ditto with Adam!

Last weekend I got to go to San Jose and spend time with 6 dear friends who are UTD FOCUS alumni. Plus 5 little future alumni. This was us doing family devotional before bed with the Smiths. 

Debra gets her own picture since she was taking the one above!

Thank you for making all this possible!

Save the Date!

 

I'm giving this top billing so you don't miss it! I want to invite you to join us to celebrate what God has been doing through our mission work here in DFW for 3 decades! More details to come, but I want you all to have the date now.

Teaching at Pizza Theology

This spring our pizza theology topic was a classic--How to Think Like a Christian. Helping young people think well is one of our biggest goals in laying the groundwork for lifelong faithfulness to Jesus. To that end, we repeat this topic around every 4 years, hoping to catch every student once. The challenge is packing it into 4 hours! We had what I'm pretty sure was our biggest attendance at a Pizza Theology ever, hosted generously by First Baptist Plano (they asked US if they could host!). Garrett and I taught, and you are welcome to check it out if you are interested! Here's the link to the first part.

Big crowd!

Students kept me busy with Bible questions all through dinner.

I also got to go to San Diego this month with my good buddy Casey Hopper. We met up with donors, alumni, and a really creative InterVarsity campus minister to get some ideas. Casey is going to be leading a new team to pioneer on some community college campuses next year!

Thanks for all you do and give and pray to keep this mission moving forward. I'm saving stories for next time to keep this from being too long!

Student Testimony

Bonus pics! We had a triple baptism last week. Another one tonight. And we have at least 3 guys getting baptized in the next 3 weeks!

Helping at SMU

This time each year I'm thinking heavily and having many conversations about our pastoral staff for the coming school year. Even though freshmen won't show up for another 6 months, we've already been thinking and praying and talking since December about leadership for our campuses. Around 8 of our current pastors will be transitioning off, another group of new apprentices will be coming on, and some of our campus pastors will be making new commitments and/or changing campuses to fill key needs. With 60 pastors on the team, it's a lot to think through!

Arguably the biggest transition coming up this summer Garrett's transition to full-time church leadership. Many of you already know what a key role he has played in our mission. Besides Mandy and me, Garrett is our longest serving campus pastor on the team. He has led many of our campuses--Collin, the Denton campuses, and now SMU. He has mentored many of our key leaders. He is so very talented and passionate for the Lord. He's going to be hard to replace! But his next assignment is an outgrowth of his work with FOCUS, leading a church in Richardson that has SMU and UTD students as members. He also plans to continue some of his work with SMU athletes as the Lord has opened a key door to him on the swim and football teams, as well as with many of the coaches.

In preparation for the transition for the FOCUS ministry there, Mandy and I are investing some time and energy at SMU this semester. I'm starting to work with the men who will be on staff next year as well as coaching their preachers and leading their student leader meeting. What an amazing group! It has been so fun to work with them so far. This week, we studied through 1 Timothy 4, looking at what the Apostle Paul has to say about both legitimate and illegitimate leadership. False leaders try to take control, adding to God's commands by forbidding and forcing. True leaders speak God's truth and lead by example. These students were so eager to participate, ask questions, and learn. It gives me great confidence for the years to come! Please be praying for this transition. Garrett has only been there a few years, so there are still students who remember the last director transition when Garrett replaced Laurence. I'm praying we manage it in a way that cares for these young adults and provides stability and direction.

Asa is an SMU graduate and our apprentice on that campus this year. I've been helping him prepare and deliver a sermon series on Christian community, and it's been so good! He's staying on next year and will be our first SMU alum serving as a pastor there!

Thanks for making my work possible and for being so flexible as my role flexes to the needs of our overall mission! I am still working at UTD, still meeting with student leaders, and still doing a lot of the Bible teaching there, but I will also be investing in SMU for the next year or so while we get new leadership off the ground.

Student Testimony

Winter Retreat and The Start of the Semester

We just got back from Winter Retreat yesterday, and it was such a great weekend! We had our largest group ever (somewhere around 830 people), an amazing experience learning from guest speaker Marty Solomon, and so much time to practice loving one another and worshipping Jesus.

Marty gave five keynote talks taking us all the way through the book of Genesis. As much as I've studied this book in the past, I was not prepared for how much I learned! I told a friend after his third talk, "I don't think I've ever heard a sermon preached about Isaac (the patriarch) much less cried through a sermon about Isaac," and yet that's what happened. Marty brought a Jewish perspective to understanding this very Jewish book, and opened our eyes to see more of God's heart in these stories. It gets me excited to listen to his Bema Podcast where he goes into more depth on these things.

If you'd like to listen to (or watch) these lessons, they are available on Spotify.

Marty really used the space available to him on the stage. The students were so engaged with his teaching!

I wish you could have experienced the energy in the room during worship. This is definitely a new generation rising up!

There's no great way to capture all the people at the retreat, but we packed the place out! I'm wondering if we can get one more year of doing Winter Retreat with all of our campuses together.

I also spent a good amount of time doing outreach to a future generation of FOCUS students as staff and alumni visited with their kids. What a treat!

One new experiment at the retreat was our optional "Ask Unc" session ("unc" is what Gen Z likes to call older people), where students lined up to get one on one time with Ronnie or Garrett or me. I had students wait nearly 3 hours to get 15 minutes asking me questions. It showed me that we need to do more of that! There is truly a hunger for wisdom and God's word in these students.

I also got to do some Bible teaching on dating and marriage at the retreat, something we try to do every other year at least. (You can find those talks on our Spotify as well as Marty's) We had some scheduling challenges that made it feel a bit rushed, but I've already gotten some good feedback and great questions from students.

Thank you for all you do, all your prayers, and your generous gifts that empower me to spend my time investing in young adults. It's bearing good fruit, and what we've done together so far is only the beginning!

Student Testimony