We Survived Welcome Week!

And it went great! You prayed for our students to be bold, Spirit-filled missionaries, and God answered in a huge way!

Weather caused us to cancel or reschedule basically every single event we had planned to reach out to freshmen at UTD, but it also led to one of our best Welcome Weeks ever! So many more students were out and about in the cooler weather (highs in the mid-80s in August!?), and they were ready to make friends and hang out. And this group of student leaders and returning students were amazing! They drew in tons of new people for our impromptu events like Zombie Tag and Games on the Mall.

Here students are listening to the rules for Zombie Tag. There was no way to capture the whole crowd in one picture. Freshmen LOVE this game and keep asking when we're going to play it again.

Just a sampling of different groups playing games on the mall--games like Spikeball, Four Square, and Giant Jenga. This wouldn't have worked in normal August weather!

All of this led up to our FNF Kickoff last Friday night. I didn't count, but around 250 students showed up! 130 signed up for our brown bag hangout, and the Corefas have hundreds of students who have signed up for cores to contact and invite from the last couple weeks. If we didn't have 50 strong student leaders, that many new students would scare me, but I know we have the workers to provide authentic love and care to each of them. 

Back in Davidson Auditorium for our first FNF with Abbie Malone giving our "Invest in the Vision" talk. (She's quite a preacher!) Again, there was no where to stand and get the entire room in the shot, but we came close to filling the back section as well.

I want to say thank you to each of you that has invested in this ministry financially and to each of you who has prayed for it. Your participation is essential! And I want to say a special thanks to those of you who have started giving or increased your giving over the past couple of months. God really answered my prayers through you!

As a final encouragement, read this testimony from one of our recent graduates who has moved into the mission field. She's awesome:

Michelle Nelson (University of Texas at Dallas, Graduated 2014)

"I came to college knowing about God but not knowing God. I didn’t grow up as a Christian but went to youth group with friends in high school. As an overachieving perfectionist I saw church as a place to prove myself. Religion was a set of rules explaining how to be “good”. As is all too common, I had completely missed the point of Jesus.

FOCUS quickly turned my attitude about God upside down. Seeing so many people who were willing to say “these are my flaws. I’m not good, but God is” was life changing for me. These people clearly knew God and had a relationship with Him. Yet they weren’t perfect and weren’t pretending to be. It’s still difficult for me to remember that I can simply accept God’s grace; He wants me to have it. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m not responsible for earning grace on my own. God has a sense of humor. Shortly after leaving UTD, God called me to Thailand. I now live in a country that is 95% Buddhist. I am immersed in a culture that is obsessed with earning merit. I see the Thai people worship idols and give offerings, and it breaks my heart. Then I look at my own life and see that, in my own way, I am trying just as hard to earn merit. God is so strategic. He puts you exactly where you need to be. He knew I needed to be in FOCUS. And now he’s brought me to Thailand to minister to people who share the same heart struggle as me. FOCUS changes students’ lives and then sends them out to minister to others. And because of that, I truly believe FOCUS will reach the world."

Answered Prayers and a New Prayer Request for Welcome Week

I just wanted to give an update on the things you've been praying for. God provided in huge ways! No surprise there! After what seemed like slow start to our support-raising season, I think we're in an even better place than we've been in years past. We have enough to send every staff missionary out full-time to our campuses. As we ramped up our praying, God ramped up His working. We started having people calling and asking to give with some consistency and people sending in significantly more than they said they would. God keeps using this support raising season to teach us to trust Him and also to build and deepen significant relationships.

Thanks to all of you for interceding for college students. The need now is to pray for our students to be bold, Spirit-filled missionaries during these first two weeks (freshmen started moving in at UTD today!). There will be events for them to attend every day, so they'll need a special measure of energy and stamina, especially once they are also attending classes next week. And they'll need courage and the words to say to initiate and deepen new relationships. Please be praying that we will have eyes to see where God is working and join in. Thousands of new students are coming to campus and every single one of them needs an encounter with Jesus through His people.

Here's a list of all the events coming up in the next few days at UTD. The blue ones are events we are putting on and the pink ones are big campus events that all of our students will attend to meet people.

We deeply appreciate every prayer you pray; I know God will do amazing things in response!

Ramping Back Up for 2016-17!

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so blessed to have such an amazing group of partners who pray faithfully and give generously so that this mission to the campus can continue to grow and flourish. I wish I could convey to you even a tenth of all the cool stories I get to experience and hear. Hearts are being changed; lives are being blessed; people are being adopted into God's great family. And you are part of it!

Beyond UTD

This year, our UTD, Richland, and TWU Dallas leadership will again be working closely together to reach these three campuses. Richland and TWUD will again be bringing their groups to our Friday Night FOCUS meetings at UTD, and we'll have one combined student leadership team. This was SO GREAT last year! Each group of students brings something unique to the table, and God is actively teaching us about unity in the midst of diversity.

I'm so excited in particular about Sirak's work at Richland. As far as I know, there are no other full-time Christian workers on that campus of around 14000 students. The opportunities are huge! Check out this story from one of the Richland students we encountered last year:

Miles Morris, Richland College, Mass Communications

"I recently went through a period of situational depression. There wasn’t an entire day that went by where I was happy with my place in life. Some days, I seemed jovial and was up for a good laugh. Other days, however, were full of sadness and discontent. I remember I broke down and cried three times back in 2014. I even almost committed suicide. I had been born and raised in a Christian family, but my faith often felt lacking quite a bit. Something I’ve often heard from my mother was that you’ve got to do your part in order for God to do His. I think God was telling me to do my part by joining FOCUS. FOCUS has given me a sense of community that I don’t think I could find anywhere else. I think it has helped me enhance my faith in God and see that with Him, all things are possible. It’s helped me to expand my circle of friends and, more importantly, renewed and restored my faith. I think there’s still some work for me to do to get closer to God, but being a part of FOCUS has helped me to gain some traction on that front. As I move forward with life, I pray that my faith becomes more solid than it was in the past."

Please join me in praying for Richland College, and that Miles will go deeper in his faith and have an impact on others this coming year.

The Richland ministry faces many unique challenges with so many students from low income families. There's no on-campus housing, and many of the students either have to take the bus (a very slow process) or get rides everywhere. But in response to our prayers, God has provided cars (for free!) for two of our key student leaders! They'll not only be able to get where they need to go more efficiently; they are both true servants who will be making sure their peers get where they need to go. Praise God!

Summer's Over (for FOCUS Campus Missionaries at least!)

It's crazy to me that our brief summer season is coming to a close. Starting on Aug 1, our new group of apprentices comes on board, and we'll begin in earnest preparing our student missionaries for the massive influx of freshmen and transfer students coming at the end of the month. Please start praying now for 2 things:

1. That God would cause us to love these new students before we even meet them. We want our mission on campus to be a labor of love, not just of duty. We want His love for them in our hearts so they get to experience Him through us.
2. That we would Be Brave to initiate with those new students during Move-in, Welcome Week, and beyond. "Be Brave" is our theme for the year, and I'm excited to see how God uses it to empower young adults to love and serve.

20 Year Celebration!

Lastly, we're going to be celebrating all that God has done in the first 20 years of FOCUS on October 8, and you're invited!
You can RSVP at this link: anyfocus.org/celebrate20

An Important Prayer Request and Good News!

Today is July 1, which means our staff and new apprentices have one month to finish raising our support for the next year of campus missions. Will you stop and pray right now that God would provide richly for every person He has called to this mission? 

I mentioned last month that I need to raise at least an additional $500/mo this summer toward our total budget. I haven't even really started on this yet since I've been focused in June on selecting a new student leader team for UTD, but you guys have already offered an additional $210/mo! Thank you!

As a reminder, here's how you can help:

1)  If you are currently a monthly partner, help me reach this goal in one of two ways:

• Will you recruit one friend or family member to join our mission by matching your monthly gift?
• Can you increase your monthly support by 5-10%? 

2)  If you are not currently a financial partner, consider joining my support team with a monthly or special gift. Signing on is easy! Go to anyfocus.org and click on “Donate”. Or you can touch base with me directly to see what this might look like for you.

Brooklyn's Story (from UT Arlington!)

Brooklynn Turner
Social Work Major

"I grew up with a single mom and was privileged to grow up in a Christian household. Leaving for school was a big step for me, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Coming into college I felt I had two options: I could go off, explore the party scene, and be rebellious in way that I never really have, or I could pursue my faith. During welcome week I met some of the student leaders in FOCUS; they really seemed to be interested in my life and pursued my friendship in a way that I wasn’t used to. I took that as my sign. Since then, my corefas and the other leaders in FOCUS have taught me, and displayed what living life with Jesus as a disciple looks like. Prior to college I was a Christian, but I wouldn’t say I was a disciple. Studying FOJ challenged me in that aspect. I have come to know how freeing it is to give my life completely over to God and let him set my priorities. Most of my favorite memories from my freshman year have centered around, or at least involved, the friends I have made in FOCUS. I have made deep, meaningful, Christ‐centered relationships that I wouldn’t have found, or known how to find without community. FOCUS has loved me in a way that I haven’t experienced outside of my family, and as an orientation leader, I want all of my freshman orientees to have that as well."

Good News for UT Dallas

Many of you have connections with UTD, and I see God's wisdom in starting our mission at such an exciting, growing, ambitious university. UTD has shaped FOCUS in profound ways. This article was an encouraging look at how far UTD has come and where it's going. It's well worth the quick read if you are interested.

How UT-Dallas Transformed Itself into a Top Texas College

• by Matthew Watkins

Thank you for your prayers and financial support and for loving college students!

It's Summer!

 

The Lord answered our prayers for SICM! 

We took 112 committed young men and women for a week of training, and it's already paying off. I asked one young man from UTD halfway through the week how his SICM experience had been so far. He answered in one word: "Transformational." 

Those students came back fired up and ready to serve. I've already had a handful of conversations with young men who want to step up and serve their peers as corefas at UTD this coming year. I know they will grow so much by making and keeping this commitment to consider not only their own interests, but also the interests of others (Phil 2:3-4). I'll spend a significant portion of my summer selecting and equipping our men's leadership team for the coming year. Please pray for wisdom for me as I make these pivotal decisions with my team.

Thank you for giving and praying to make this possible. 

Our 2016 SICM crew!

We wrapped up our 2015-16 internship program the week we got back from SICM. 

Each of the 14 interns preached a sermon to a group of pastors about the biggest 3 lessons God has been teaching them through their internship. You would have been so encouraged to hear the diverse ways God moved in each of them! For each one, He did something unique in their heart, mind, and life even as He used them to do something unique in the hearts, minds, and lives of college students. As the years pass, I've become more and more convinced that investing in young people is one of the best investments we can ever make! 

4 of those young ministers are joining our pastoral staff as campus missionaries moving forward. The others are going as missionaries into other careers and graduate school programs. I'm so excited to see how God uses each of them!

Richardson East Church of Christ has generously offered to host our Thursday night summer meetings for the students who are still in town. You are very welcome to join us any Thursday in June or July at 7:30pm.

Expansion!

Over the past 6 years, FOCUS has expanded from 2 campuses to 9 campuses, and from a staff of 4 to a staff of nearly 30. I've had to change my schedule, my prayer life, my skill-set, and my character in order to effectively equip and train and disciple this many young ministers. But it has increased our impact tenfold!

Along with this expansion of mission, opportunity, and responsibility comes expansion in our budget. I raise not only my own personal support, but I also help raise money to help put younger staff on campus full-time. I'd like to raise $500 in additional monthly support this summer. Here are a few ways you can help:

1)  If you are currently a monthly partner, help me reach this goal in one of two ways:

• Can you “phone a friend”? You partner financially in this mission because you believe in the incredible potential of reaching university students in DFW with the Gospel. Will you recruit one friend or family member to join our mission by matching your monthly gift?
• Can you increase your monthly support by 5-10%? Perhaps you haven't reevaluated your support in a few years, and even a small increase by a few of you could get me close to my goal!

2)  If you are not currently a financial partner, consider joining my support team with a monthly or special gift. Signing on is easy! Go to anyfocus.org and click on “Donate”. Or you can email or call me to discuss what this might look like for you.

DFW has lots of churches, but very few people or churches are actively reaching out to the hundreds of thousands of college students who are right down the street from us. Through your prayers and giving, we've launched vibrant campus missions on 9 campuses so far, and together, we will do much more in the years to come! I'm excited to see how Jesus will use FOCUS to raise up a generation of committed disciples and leaders to His glory.

Turning 37

It's crazy to think that I'm turning 37 today. I've been a committed Christian for 22 years and involved in campus ministry for nearly 19 of them! I finished my degrees and started as a campus pastor 14 years ago this month, and I can't tell you how blessed I feel that the Lord has set me on this path.

I work with amazing, passionate, loving people every day. I spend time with young people who are making important decisions and haven't had time to become cynical yet. :) I have a team of financial partners and prayer warriors backing me up who encourage me and inspire me to be my best and to make an impact for Christ. I'm nearly 20 years in, and I'm so excited about the next 20. My prayer is that the Lord will keep me here and let me see this work through, as long as I'm still what this mission needs. Thank you to all of you who love me and spur me on to love others.

With next year in mind, I'd love to introduce our new class of apprentices and ask you to be in prayer for them this summer as they raise support and do their preparatory studies. It's an outstanding group this year! I know I'll have exciting stories to report from them next year.

You could print this picture and use it as a reminder to pray for these 7 young people.

Something cool we've been doing at UTD is having Christian professors come to share their testimonies at our main weekly meeting. Students have been powerfully motivated by seeing professors from various academic disciplines openly profess their faith in Christ and share how that impacts the way they teach and do research. One of the recurring themes this year has been professors challenging our students about the impact they, as students, can have on their professors! If you have a few minutes, I know you would be very encouraged by the last prof to share this school year. You can listen to her talk by clicking on the link below:

Friday Night Professor's Sharing Link

I'm so thankful for all that the Lord does in you and through you. He will take every good work, whether public or hidden, and work it into His glorious redemptive plan. And He will take every tragedy, every mistake, every heartache and do the same with those. What a good and wise God we serve!

Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people,this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. (Eph 3:8-12)

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Tim 1:17)

Values

Our Final All-Campus Event

The school year is coming to a close in the next few weeks, and we've all been working hard to finish well. We had our second Pizza Theology of the school year this past Sunday, this time wrestling with issues of gender, marriage, and sexuality. We had well over 400 students show up to spend four hours diving deep into this topic! The recording should be up on our site in the coming days for those of you who may be interested. As always with Pizza Theology, our goal is not to tell the students what to think but to get them thinking and give them building blocks for thinking like a Christian on an important topic. Our three alumni speakers did an awesome job at that.

Getting ready to start teaching. It takes a lot to get that many people quiet when they're with their friends! 

Brad Davis teaching on sexuality. I wish you could have seen his tribal dance when he talked about sexuality across cultures.

Laying a Firm Foundation

I had the opportunity to preach to our UT Arlington community last week, and it got me thinking about how we lay a foundation for healthy Christian community. Paul wrote "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care" (1 Cor 3:10). The reality in planting a ministry is that it's hard to re-lay a foundation once it's been laid; it's hard to change a community's values once they've adopted them. I gave this challenge to our UTA community and wanted to share it with you because it gives some insight into what FOCUS is really about. But more than that, I think these values are needed in all of our churches today.

Here is a summary of my message to the UTA students:
You are laying the foundation of a community here that, Lord willing, will last for many years to come. Just like the people who built the original buildings here at UTA will probably never meet you, you may never meet many or most of the people who you are building this community for. But what you do now affects them! Paul knew that. He “laid a foundation as an expert builder” and said, “no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ”

We need to lay those values carefully, starting with the core of the gospel. When I think about our core values, about the things God has taught us that are important to everything we do, 3 things rise to the top.

Value #1 - Jesus is Lord (This is the good news!)

This is where we unify. It's the thing we have to agree on. It's at the heart of the gospel. We joke that it's our entire doctrinal statement. Paul said, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3) Even as we come from diverse backgrounds and have so many different practices and convictions, we come together as one because we we all agree on this one central thing. 

But it's not enough to give lip service to this--it has to be about the real Jesus, the real good news. Paul was frustrated with the Corinthian church when he wrote these words: "For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough" (2 Cor 11:4). And in Galatians: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!" (1:6-8)

As a community, we have to be committed to the good news as revealed in Jesus, passed on to us by the apostles in the New Testament writings. We have to take seriously God's name--I AM WHO I AM. He reveals who He is through the scripture and we have to start there to get to know Him.

Value #2 - Real friendships (This is where we are good news to others.)

In the New Testament, church is all about the "one another" passages!

• Love one another
• Wash one another’s feet
• Be devoted to one another in brotherly love
• Honor one another above yourselves
• Live in harmony with one another
• Stop passing judgment on one another
• Accept one another as Christ accepted you
• Forgive one another
• Bear with one another
• Spur one another on toward love and good deeds
• Confess your sins to one another
• Use your gifts to serve one another
• Teach one another
• Pray for one another

There are 50-60 of these! And most modern churches actively obey only a handful of them.

This stuff happens in the context of real friendships. It’s much messier than putting on a show once a week. But it’s also more real and more godly and more faithful to our calling from God.

Value #3 - Raising up leaders (This is where we leave good news for a new generation.)

The church is too good at raising up generations of followers. But we haven’t done a good job imitating Jesus, whose ministry was ALL ABOUT raising up and empowering leaders!

Paul captures it in 2 Timothy 2:2 “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

This is more than a sound bite! It’s Paul explaining what Jesus’ ministry was all about. It’s the apprentice imitating his master.

You guys have a cool opportunity to build something awesome at UTA. I remember those challenging early days as a student at UTD, trying to lay a foundation and protect it against the various dangers that came up. It cost a lot, but in hindsight, it was so worth it! And it’s still building and bearing fruit. Skyscrapers need deep foundations, so don’t get in a hurry. Lay carefully. So many people are rooting and praying for you.

I hope you can be encouraged by that message to a new community on a new campus. I am deeply thankful that you are purposefully and carefully, through prayer and generosity and friendship, helping us to lay a deep and lasting foundation of Jesus on these campuses. To God be the glory!