The Countdown to Freshman Move-in

The beginning of August has been a blur. We've already had orientation for a new year of the internship (our sixth class!), gone away for a staff retreat, and put on a 2-day prep for the UTD/Richland/TWU Dallas student leaders. After just the few times I've been with our new UTD staff, I'm already so impressed by them. They are talented and eager and passionate for the Lord.

We have five great interns who will be leading small groups and mentoring student leaders this year. And as I've mentioned before, our leader team will also be driving outreach at Richland and TWU Dallas, two smaller campuses. This will allow their student leaders to be a part of a bigger leader team. They'll also be coming to our Friday Night large group meetings.

Our overall staff this year is huge! But that's fitting considering the 9 (maybe 10) campuses we will be reaching out on this year. It's crazy to me to think that we have nearly 30 campus pastors now. I remember so many years early on when I was excited to see 30 people at one of our events! But God is faithful. He put a mission and a vision on my heart--one that I know many of you share--to plant vibrant, outreaching, Jesus-loving communities on every campus in the DFW area, communities who would make and mature disciples to His glory.

Sending six amazing ministers to Arlington this fall to begin building at UTA is a huge step forward in that vision. Would you set a reminder to pray for that mission work daily over the next month as it begins? Pray for God to guard the hearts and minds of our amazing team of students and pastors who have moved away from all their friends to build the kingdom elsewhere. Pray that they would be bold to share and live the message of God's love, that the Spirit would work in the hearts of those they encounter, and that the devil's plans there would be frustrated. I've watched your intercession to our good God make a difference repeatedly in the past, and I know it will again!

The 2015-2016 FOCUS Pastoral Staff
(We're missing some part-time admin and pastoral support staff in this picture.)

Lastly, at UTD this year, we have a great student leadership team. We have 38 UTD student small group leaders, 2 at Richland and 2 at TWU Dallas. And we have a lot of other leaders who serve in various other ways. With the Spirit's help, they will make a huge difference this year. After our prep weekend with them, I'm so excited to see what they do!

Thank you for your prayers and thank you to those of you who partner financially with us. FOCUS is not a rich ministry, but I feel like the widow visited by Elijah in 1 Kings 17--the jar is never full but never goes empty. I think it's through depending on you and so many like you that the Lord teaches this community to depend on Him.

Saying Goodbye and Prepping for the Year

Summer is always a major transition time for us in campus ministry. Some years, in addition to saying "goodbye" to graduating students and interns, we also have key staff people transition to other things. This year is particularly sad for me (though I'm very glad for this in the Lord!) because my sister and brother-in-law are transitioning off staff to lead the youth ministry at Wylie Northeast Church. Tyler and Brianna have been a major part of our mission for years.

Tyler and Brianna with their daughter Reese at the Collin End of Year Banquet a couple months back.

Tyler is our longest serving staff member except for me. He has worked at 3 of our campuses, including as one of our founding members at Collin College. All of his years on staff, he has worked full-time as a firefighter/paramedic and has never taken a salary from FOCUS! He is the consummate servant and a man of deep character and wisdom. Brianna has led the women at Collin these past few years, and I've loved every second of working with her. She has so much "ministry sense," as Mandy and I like to say. She loves deeply and has a passion for the kingdom transforming the lives of young people.

I'm so excited about this next chapter of their life and ministry. They are already developing an exciting vision for that youth ministry--one with a consistent record of feeding leaders into FOCUS, I might add. We have great people coming on board to fill their shoes at Collin next year, but they definitely have big shoes to fill!

We are also saying goodbye to Glenn, who has worked with our admin team for the past year. He was the mastermind behind the #FOCUS140 fundraiser that made it possible for us to launch new ministries on new campuses this year. And he drove the new website project (as well as lots of other behind the scenes work too). He has a great job at the Richards Group now, but plans to continue to volunteer some of his time with FOCUS as needed. We are so thankful for his year of service.

My buddy, Glenn

A few other things of note:

1. We have 3 young women who are going to be starting a small group at the TWU Dallas Nursing Campus this fall! Amber, who has been going to school there this past year, said "There's nothing down there at all," when asked about Christian outreach to that campus. Well, there will be soon! Please pray for this exciting new outreach.

2. Two of the students from UTD who we took to SICM this year were exchange students from Brazil, here for a special one-year program. They head back to their home country soon with a new vision for ministry and new skills to serve and bless their peers. Lucas wrote this letter, and I wanted to share it with you. Your influence is crossing borders!

3. Lastly, we are starting to plan for a big 20-year FOCUS Reunion in Fall 2016! The exact beginnings of FOCUS are a little murky, so the 1996 date is a little arbitrary, but we think it will capture every generation of FOCUS alumni. So if you are one of many past or present FOCUS members or advisors, stay tuned for more information!

Thank you for your prayer support, your emotional support, your financial support, and your friendship. I'm truly one of the most blessed men on earth.

Interpreting Matthew

"Interpreting Matthew" was the title of the class I took at Regent College in Vancouver for two weeks after SICM.  I wish I could say it was a mini-sabbatical, but I actually spent a lot of time working remotely, especially on launching our new website! If you haven't been to anyfocus.org in the past couple days, you should take a look at the new layout (though we're still plugging in some remaining details and working out the kinks). That was a much bigger project than I anticipated, and I'm very thankful to Glenn Lanier for starting it while he was still on staff and to Laurence for taking over and finishing it. If you give by recurring credit card donation, someone will be in contact with you about setting up a new donation on the new site. It has some better features, and we'll be canceling all the transactions from the old site soon.

But back to Regent College--I had the opportunity to take a class from Rikk Watts. I've listened to a few of his classes over the past few years, so he kind of seems like a celebrity to me and my staff. He certainly doesn't think of himself that way though! I remember the weird look on his face when we asked if we could take a picture with him... But he did it anyway!

I can't begin to capture here all that I learned in 25 hours of lecture and at least that many hours of reading (so far). But a few main thoughts stick out:

1.  Jesus is Yahweh among us! I think I started out thinking that the gospel writers just told the story and the letters in the New Testament unpacked them and explained more fully who Jesus really is. (I'm not sure how that made sense to me considering that I knew the letters were probably written first!) The more I study the Gospels, the more I realize they have profound and purposeful agendas in what they want to teach about Jesus. Just as it took the disciples years with Jesus as the gospel story unfolds to figure out who Jesus is and what He came to do, it takes us paying careful attention and asking purposeful questions to figure out what men like Matthew and Mark were really saying.

I've seen and heard about Jesus being like a new Moses in the Gospels, but Rikk kept showing us how we only get that (as the primary message) when we start with that assumption. For example, many people have compared the Sermon on the Mount to Moses giving the Law to the people at Mount Sinai. But at Sinai, the people didn't go up on the mountain to hear Moses give the law. Moses and his close disciples went up the mountain to hear Yahweh, the Great I Am, give the law. And then Matthew says, "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them" (Mt 5:1-2). In Matthew's mind, Jesus isn't acting like Moses; Jesus is acting like God. And when I started looking for that, I found it on almost every page of Matthew's Gospel.

2. We need to know Israel's narrative a lot better than we do. Matthew is really concerned with the idea of "fulfillment." He loves the phrase "and thus was fulfilled" along with some Old Testament passage. And yet, so often when I go read those Old Testament passages in context, I'm puzzled. They don't seem to be prophecies about Israel's Messiah. Rikk took us through each of those references and my mind was blown by how sophisticated Matthew was in his thinking! Where did we get the idea that just because we live 2000 years later, we must be smarter and more sophisticated than them?! Matthew knows that God's character doesn't change, and thus He can be expected to act the same way again when similar things happen. So Matthew can look to a current event that echoes a historical one and see the current one fulfilling the old one. He knows not just the verses before and after the ones he quotes but the entire context. So when he quotes a verse, he expects it to call to mind for us a whole host of ideas and impressions. Just like if I said "Four score and seven years ago," you don't immediately subtract 87 from 2015--you think of the civil war, of the struggle to end slavery, of how the founding documents of our country couldn't stand if we didn't honor their conviction that all men are created equal. Because we know our story.

If we are Christians, then we need to know Israel's story because it has become our story too. Then when Matthew quotes, "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel," we will think of how in Isaiah 7, King Ahaz has just refused to ask God for a sign in the heavens because he doesn't want to obey God, and see, as Matthew did, that God gave a sign in the heavens about Jesus that the Jewish King refused to acknowledge. In fact, only pagan magi noticed it! We won't think the prophecy of calling him Immanuel makes no sense when they actually named him Jesus. Instead, we'll realize that in Isaiah, Immanuel wasn't good news--it was a warning that God is coming and you'd better be ready...or else. Matthew bringing that up gives a different tone to his "Christmas story." I could go on and on with details like this, but more than anything I was struck by my pride at thinking I could understand the New Testament while being lazy about understanding the Old Testament.

3. God wants mercy, not sacrifice. Rikk called it "living in the grammar of forgiveness." The fundamental concern of Israel's scriptures is the character of God. He reveals Himself as I Am Who I Am. The fundamental problem of the Israelites is idolatry--worshiping the wrong god. And Jesus reveals a God who is gentle and humble in heart (Mt 11:29). In Matthew 18, the disciples were very concerned over who would be "greatest" in the kingdom of heaven. And in response, Jesus talked about forgiveness (among other things). For Jesus, greatness and forgiveness are connected. If I think I'm a Great One, I'm going to be more offended when others wrong me and want to punish them more for hurting me. When I understand real greatness, I'll be full of mercy toward others. It's what makes Jesus, Yahweh among us, greater than all of us when He hangs on a tree to forgive the sins of the world. Do I look more like Him or more like the Pharisees and disciples who were so concerned with doing things right and being recognized for it? A challenging question. When I really understand mercy, I'll be willing to admit my faults and repent. When I really understand mercy, I'll realize I'm like a little child who brings nothing to the table--I didn't bring home the bacon; I just came home to eat, so I don't demand my own way or claim special privileges.

I could say a LOT more, but I wanted you to have a glimpse at what the Spirit is teaching me. I'm sure it will take years for me to really absorb all this and figure out what it means for my life and doctrine. I pray these things spur you on to further learning as well.

3 things for you to do

SICM was last week, and I think the experience was summed up in a question one of the UTD freshmen asked me the last evening of the trip: "Is SICM always this amazing?" My answer: "Yep. That's why we keep coming back every year." SICM isn't just a great experience--it produces great fruit. Consistently. Thank you for praying for these students and to so many of you for financial support that makes these experiences possible. I'd love to tell you more about the conference in person or on the phone. Just ask!

These are just the UTD people we took to SICM. I love training this many new leaders for our campus!

In addition, when we sent the students back home, some of the staff guys and I drove on up to Vancouver, BC, to take a summer course at Regent College. I'm halfway through a class called "Interpreting Matthew," and it has been a great experience so far. I'm not quite ready to condense down what I'm learning because I have so many things going on in my head. But I'm recognizing again how much our faith and our scriptures are ultimately about God's character--being a Christian is about getting to know God and becoming like Him. Intimacy with God is both the goal and the means to that goal, both the end and the means.

I have 3 quick things you can do to help our ministry:

1. Pray for some key job searches at UTD

Some key positions have opened up at UTD that have the potential to deeply affect the ability of Christian missionaries to work effectively on campus. Our president, Dr. Daniel, is taking a higher job at the UT System level (read about it here) and a committee will be formed soon to conduct a nationwide search for a new president. In addition, the Dean of Students position and Assistant Dean of Students position are both open right now as well. Please pray for the women and men involved in filling these three important positions. Those decisions have the potential to radically shape campus ministry at UTD in the decade to come.

2. Amazon Smiles

If you shop on Amazon, you can start your shopping at Amazon Smiles (each time) and a portion of every purchase will go to support FOCUS. You can click on the link below to connect your account and then change any bookmarks to Amazon Smiles instead of Amazon. Everything costs the same and works the same, with the exception that on your phone it doesn't work through the app, only through the browser. I've been using this for a few weeks now and it works exactly the same as before! You can also click here if the image above doesn't show up.

3. Change out your internship prayer sheet ... because we added Albert!

I have some great news--we have accepted one more intern for the 2015-2016 school year. We knew that Albert Rodriguez was interested, but a number of things had to fall in place with his education to make it work this year, so we waited until May to have him apply and interview. He's an amazing young man, and I've been praying for him to try out ministry for the last couple years. I know many of you have started praying regularly for our incoming interns and their support raising. If that is you, please switch out this new prayer sheet for your old one.

If you'd like a larger version of this image, I can share it with you.

Your prayers are important. I'm convinced God works powerfully when his image bearers ask Him to in Jesus' name. My prayer for you is that you would have a blessed summer, and that your intimacy with God would grow in this season.

New Interns!

Our 2015-2016 class of interns has been selected and it's an outstanding group of young people. Some are graduating and joining our staff immediately, while others are leaving the marketplace to return to campus and further their impact. All of them have at least an undergraduate degree. I hope that you will save the image below and use it to pray for them over the coming months as they prepare for their internship to start on August 1. Here they are!

More and more young people are being drawn to the FOCUS internship experience each year, helping us reach more and more students with the good news about Jesus. And the need is huge! I was reminded of that again today when a student coming by wrote this on one of our evangelistic discussion boards at Richland College:

The apostle Peter wrote, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). The enemy is at work, but Jesus is at work too, and in Him students and staff and professors can find life to the full. Pray for this young man and others like him. It's probably only a matter of time before one of our campuses experiences a tragedy of some sort, but let's pray for God's deliverance and for hurting young people to have powerful encounters with Jesus' people both on and off campus. Thank you for sending missionaries to the campus through prayers, encouragement, and financial support. God is moving and you are a part of it!

My prayer for you is that you will find a tangible way to love a young person this week. Let the Spirit guide you in that--stretch yourself and take a risk. If there are things I can be praying for you specifically, please let me know.

The Tail End of 2014-2015

March was a busy month, but a better one. This time of year is always packed full of exciting stuff. Students are making commitments to the Lord and deciding to get serious about secret sins and issues. Student leaders are having meaningful conversations and preparing the final challenges and words of encouragement that they want to deliver as they disband their cores and send people off to summer or to graduation and beyond. Students see the end of the year approaching, and that sense of urgency creates all sorts of opportunities for meaningful ministry.

I've reflected over the years how these arbitrary finish lines can help people change and grow so much. Please take a moment to pray that every one of our students who is contemplating a change for the better this April wouldn't let the opportunity pass them by.

I had the opportunity to attend Alphonse's baptism a couple weeks back. He didn't grow up knowing about Jesus, and UTD was the perfect place to get to know him! Some of the guys were reaching out to him and inviting him to lots of stuff and trying to get him to study the Bible with them. At the same time, he noticed that one of the girls living in his hall, Tiffany, always wore a cross necklace. When he asked her about it one day, she didn't say "It's a Christian thing" or "My mom gave it to me." Instead, she took the opportunity to share with him the story of Jesus and His sacrifice and what it meant to her. Alphonse shared about how pivotal that moment was at his baptism, and I got to meet Tiffany because she came to celebrate with us! God is good, and he is working through His people all the time.

I thought you'd find this brief video of that baptism encouraging. The guy baptizing him, Grant, is one of the seniors I'm mentoring this year, and he will be a part of our team to pioneer FOCUS at UT Arlington this fall as he moves over there to work as an engineer for Bell Helicopter.

We also had an amazing Spring Showcase fundraiser for SICM this month. We raised nearly $9000 to train new leaders this summer, and had a great time with some incredible performances. One of the students who went to SICM last year took a couple minutes to explain the value of that trip. If you weren't at the Showcase, I encourage you to listen to him explain it and catch (or re-catch) the vision for the Student Institute of Campus Ministry.

Lastly, we are having our spring Pizza Theology for the students tomorrow. The title is "The End of the World as We Know It: Heaven, Hell, and Everything In Between." I have the task of teaching on the Biblical doctrine of hell, and preparing has been very challenging. But I'm excited to share what I've learned. I've been pondering the idea that in the scripture, doctrines are for something; they serve specific purposes. And just like using a tool for the wrong job risks damage to both the tool and whatever you are working on, I think using doctrines for different purposes than the scripture does risks both theological and pastoral damage.

In the scripture, the doctrine of eschatology (the study of last things) is used both to warn and to encourage. It is a warning to those who benefit from injustice. It is an encouragement to hold on for those who suffer because they follow God. And yet I wonder if this is what we always use this doctrine for. I think we are tempted to use it to figure out exactly when these things are going to happen and exactly what they will be like, perhaps to be ready but perhaps to simply satisfy our own curiosity. I think we are tempted to use the doctrine of hell to guilt people into mission work. Maybe we can safely extrapolate these ideas from what the scripture says, but I think we get into dangerous territory when we use these teachings and ideas in different ways than the biblical authors who originally penned them for us. I encourage you in your own study of scripture to reflect on the question of what teachings are for, and how we might best use them to God's glory.

I'm so thankful for each of you who pray for me, for students, and for all who live and work and learn on these campuses. I'm thankful for those of you who faithfully support this mission financially. Thank you for partnering with me!

Quick update

I asked for prayers concerning ticket prices to SICM the other day. The group rates we were getting were well over $500 per person, and I told the students to be ready to pay $500. But we were able to get them for an average of $355, less than last year. That means we saved each student $145 and around $13,000 for our entire group of 91! Thanks for your prayers.

I also wanted to include the official advertisement for the Spring Showcase: