Teaching about Christ's Return

We had 475 students show up for 4 hours of teaching past Sunday!

Pizza Theology - Ready or Not... Here He Comes!

We had a great night of teaching this past Sunday looking at what the scriptures teach about Christ's return and what it means to live in light of that. Sarah King took us through the entire story of the Bible, showing how it all anticipates an ending where God shows up to make things right again. Then I had the privilege of talking through Matthew 24 & 25, Jesus' last great sermon in Matthew's gospel and his most sustained teaching on his coming back. Miriam Freeman from our Denton team then spent an hour helping us understand how to approach and think about the book of Revelation. And, of course, we had lots of pizza and fellowship in the middle!

If you'd like to listen to it, you can find it here.

The students were eager and engaged the entire time; they took lots of notes! They also had lots of questions afterward, and we are looking forward to addressing some of them in a future episode of our podcast. I'm consistently amazed that so many students consistently attend these 4-hour lectures. It shows that they have a deep desire to understand the Bible and the implications of their faith! Please pray for us as we are already thinking through what to cover in the two Pizza Theology events next school year.

Student Testimony

Devin Rardin, Junior, Journalism, UNT

"When I was growing up, I was too afraid, timid and shy to make many friends. My parents encouraged me to join the swim team in high school, and I finally found a group of consistent friends there. That time brought a lot of confusion about my own sexuality. My attempts to figure out my own sexuality caused me to have a selfish outlook on those friendships. I had a group of friends that I was grateful for, but I still never experienced deep and true relationships. My main goal as I began college was to make new friends. During my first week at UNT, Pedro Paz befriended me and started to build a relationship with me while introducing me to the FOCUS community. My desire to find friends kept me coming back to different FOCUS events, and I began to see God work in my life. Even though I didn’t know Him at the time, God was chasing after me. I saw myself start to change as I obtained a new understanding of friendship and sexuality. I saw God use people like Matt Clark, who was shy like me, to impact hundreds of people. God taught me how to be expressive while still using my quiet nature as a tool for discipleship. I have friends that have sacrificed so much to help me through my struggles. God’s love shone through these people and I was able to see that my own desires, deriving from my sexuality, would not bring the joy I searched for. I realized that I was searching for love, but God was always with me. He offers the most intimate and greatest love."

Final Note

We are also putting together what might be our biggest group yet for SICM, certainly our biggest yet from UTD. I'll have more on that in future months. Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement and support. It means so much to me and this ministry!

Some Big News!

Winter Camp Updates

The UTD Students at camp Whooshing. We had an amazing group from UTD this year and our biggest overall group ever!

Me with the 4 corefas I get to mentor this year (Austin, Jesse, Casey & Luke). I have fallen in love with these gifted young ministers. 

I got engaged in front of 600 screaming students! You can probably find the video on facebook if you haven't seen it yet. Sarah and I are planning to get married this summer.

A couple of my wonderful donors came to camp this year. Eileen has been a friend of my family since I was a very little boy, and she has been a big encouragement to me as a minister. Eric Anderson also came out, but I failed to get a picture with him!

I don't think Winter Camp could have gone any better. Geoff and Jessica Mumley came down from Washington State to share with our community about what it means to be "Sent." All the talks are online, but so many were especially touched by Jessica's first talk. I highly recommend you take the time to listen to it here.

Geoff and Jessica in front of the main building at Sky Ranch.

A Winter Camp Success Story - UNT Dallas

One of our students from Richland recently transferred to UNT Dallas (a newer campus in south Dallas). After hearing the messages at camp about living as a "sent one," she started reaching out to other people in her dorm. She realized that there is not a single Christian ministry on that campus, so she found a faculty advisor and some students and signed us up for an organization fair on campus. So I guess FOCUS is on 12 campuses now! Please be in prayer with us as we pray about which staff person can reallocate some time to support this excited young lady. I love when the Lord does our strategic planning for us.

An Update on Our Friday Night Teaching Times at UTD

Last semester we gave the students a pretty extensive survey about theological beliefs. As we looked through and prayed over the results, a few key areas of confusion and uncertainty stood out. So we have designed our sermons this semester to address these. Here's what we have planned:

• We're almost done with a 4-week series from Laurence on God's heart for Justice. We've been studying how justice in the scripture is most often about God's expectation for his people to defend the rights of vulnerable people--in the Old Testament, these are most often orphans, widows, foreigners, and the poor. We've been focusing on certain vulnerable groups in our own society and reflecting on how God would have us treat them--the mentally ill, the poor, the incarcerated, and the elderly.
• Next, Sirak will be talking about how to think about the relationship between faith and science. At the end of the series, he'll be interviewing some Christian professors from the natural sciences about how they have navigated that cultural schism.
• Later in the semester, Sarah will be teaching a series on the Holy Spirit, perhaps the least understood member of the Trinity.
• And for our Pizza Theology this semester, we'll be diving into the topic of the second coming of Christ. I'll have more about that next month!

Please be praying for those preparing to teach and for the students preparing to hear, that we would listen carefully to what God wants to say to us on these topics. Thank you for your prayers and support. Lives are being changed, and hearts are being turned toward God!

Student Testimony (from SMU!)

Candice Fudzie, Southern Methodist University, Freshman

Math, Environmental Engineering, and Sociology 

"This past semester, I was a 17-year-old girl who felt very overwhelmed with all that college had to offer. I deal with depression and anxiety. Throughout high school, these disorders tore me apart and made it extremely easy to block out my friends, my family, and God. I was going down a destructive path and, frankly, it’s by the grace and love of God that I am even alive. FOCUS has given me a community where I’m allowed to be vulnerable and transparent. FOCUS has helped me emphasize my personal relationship with God; now I’m sure to let him know how I’m feeling (something I couldn’t accomplish in high school). Due to my growing relationship with God, I’ve been able to see a clear and healthy path towards dealing with my depression and anxiety where He is a part of my journey. PRAISE God! Whether it's lying on the floor listening to “Build My Life” by Housefires, writing out my negative thoughts and turning them into positive ones, or calling my mom to tell her how I’m feeling, I remember the Spirit is with me to give me strength."

It's 2018 Already!

Updates

We're gearing up to leave for Winter Camp on Friday, so please be praying for that event. I'm sure I'll have more to report on that after the fact.

Our Keep FOCUS Growing Fundraiser was a huge success! Thank you to all of you who participated and spread the word. We have such generous and passionate donors!

We're already remodeling our classroom space for the apprentices, and we started offering health insurance and a 403b retirement plan to our staff on January 1! I'm excited to be able to look out for the needs of these young men and women as they look out for college students.

New Testament Foundations

This past semester we conducted a ministry-wide survey on the students' theological beliefs. We asked about 60 questions on a huge range of topics. It was encouraging to see where our community is united around historical Christian beliefs, but it also exposed considerable confusion around a number of key doctrines.

After 20 years on campus, I have seen that in some areas, the church has really improved in the way we train and equip our high school students. They are so much more open and vulnerable, willing to talk about tough topics like sexuality. But I've also seen a marked decline in biblical literacy. So many of the students who grew up in church haven't read even a few books of the Bible. They know what they know from sermons and lessons, but don't have a larger framework to connect those lessons to. And that doesn't even address the many students who have little to no church background in our community.

I say all that to emphasize how incredibly important it is that our staff ministers have a solid foundation in the scripture, able to read and use it effectively in our ministry and in our own lives, and to be able to answer the questions that students are constantly asking. This spring I'll be leading our apprentices and young staff members through a New Testament Foundations course. We'll be reading the entire New Testament (of course!), listening to lectures by Rikk Watts, reading a graduate-level textbook titled The Writings of the New Testament, and meeting to discuss the material each week. Please pray for these young ministers to make the most of this time, and that the Holy Spirit would empower them to hear God's word so they can share it effectively.

I look forward to continuing to actively address the needs that we identified through the survey. These classes for our apprentices are just one small part of that!

Student Testimony

Graham Spencer, Collin College, Illustration, Sophomore

"FOCUS showed me what a real relationship with God is. Coming from a Christian private school, I thought I understood God pretty well but I didn't have a relationship with him at all. Through the example of my Corefas, staff members, and just so many other students, I saw what it means to earnestly seek God. One of my favorite moments from freshman year was a talk with my friend, Pedro. We were good friends at this point in the year, and I had become pretty vulnerable with him. We got into a serious conversation about our current walks with God, what that looks like, and why. After poorly answering how my relationship with God was "pretty good", Pedro really pushed my ideas of why I was Christian. I ended up realizing most of my faith was blindly following the laws God had given us, and not really seeking him out. Pedro then opened up to me that he had struggled with the same problem early on in his faith. I'm beyond thankful for Pedro and so many other friends like him who have spurred me on in love. Before FOCUS, this community, I was living half the life I am now. Now, I am living life with God, not just for him."

I look forward to sharing about Winter Camp and how the Spring semester kicks off. We've got some busy weeks ahead! Thanks for your prayers and your support. I couldn't do it without you!

3 November Highlights + an Alumna Testimony

#1 Pizza Theology

On November 12, we had possibly our best Pizza Theology yet! Bill Watson, a professor of Greek and New Testament from Criswell College came to teach about 500 students about the Sermon on the Mount for 4 hours. You would have been so encouraged to see how engaged the students were, paying attention, taking careful notes, and asking great questions. Bill even encouraged us about how unusual that is.

His lecture was incredibly challenging and encouraging. I'd encourage you to listen if you'd like to go deeper in understanding the greatest sermon ever preached. "Pizza on The Mount" (there's a powerpoint to follow along with and a handout to read on the same page.)

Fall 2017 Pizza Theology

#2 Compliment to the FOCUS Apprenticeship

There's a department at UTD that has employed two of our past apprentices (Katy Jordan and Ana Fineout) over the past few years. Ana has transferred to a new job within the university, and another past apprentice, Rachel Beckham, is applying for her job. I got this text from Katy a couple weeks ago:

Great compliment to the FOCUS internship today. We are working on picking people to interview for our new position and Bonnie said "We have had such amazing experiences with our FOCUS people so I know Rachel would be good." Kevin said "Yep, they seem to prepare y'all well."

We've worked hard to make sure our apprenticeship prepares our young people for whatever vocation they find themselves in, and it's paying off--people are noticing a difference. On top of that, these particular young women have placed themselves in the university context and not only make FOCUS look good, but bring honor to Jesus by being effective, being hard workers, loving others, and having a great attitude in their workplace.

#3 Keep FOCUS Growing Fund Update

Giving Tuesday was an amazing success! In 1 day, we raised $30,000 of our $50,000 goal!

Right now we have about $16,000 left to go, and we have great momentum. Please pray for God to give us exactly what we need to we will continue to rely on Him every step of the way.

If you'd like to join in, you can go to anyfocus.org/newchapter right now!

I'd like to say a special thank you to all of you who give financially to me, to another staff member, to support one of our campuses or the general fund, and/or to our special Keep FOCUS Growing Fund. We are so blessed by your support.

Alumna Testimony

This sweet young lady is working with orphans in the mission field. I know you'll be encouraged by her story.

Danyelle Graves de Morón

University of North Texas, Social Work, Graduated 2013 

"I always dreamed of being a missionary. My plan was to go to college to please my parents, graduate as quickly as possible, and then leave the country. As I got more involved in FOCUS, I began to see how purposefully the people around me shared their lives and faith. The Lord began to show me that ‘missions’ is not what happens in other countries but in our everyday lives. Through the example of dear friends, I learned how to love like Jesus even when it is not fun or easy. After graduation, the Lord opened doors for me to move to Bolivia as a missionary. Looking back on my time in college, I believe that the Lord prepared me through the friendships, community, and study in FOCUS far more than through my degree program. I am so thankful that the Lord, in His mercy, did not let me rush through college to please my parents, but used the ministry of FOCUS to lay a foundation for years to come."

6 Great Guys

I wanted to comment briefly about the UTD students that I get to spend weekly time with this year. Four of them are the corefas in my peer team and one has stepped up to lead a peer team himself for his last year in school. (And then as a bonus, a testimony from a great Richland student I got to room with at SICM.)

Every staff person gets to spend time with amazing, servant-hearted student leaders. I'm so blessed to spend my time with these:

My Peer Team

Casey

Casey is a sophomore this year. He comes from a really strong Christian family. His parents are involved in ministry at the Village Church - Plano and his older brothers were a part of different campus ministries during their college years. He's a young man who is serious about being his best for God. I got to know him some at SICM this year, and I've loved getting to spend time with him weekly. He's committed, kind, gentle, and others-oriented. He pursues the guys in his group and also pursues me in friendship. I've already had guys share with me stories of how Casey has had a positive impact on them personally.

Austin

Austin transferred from Collin's Preston Ridge Campus, where he already led a core last year. He's also living at the same house that I am this year so I get to watch his life pretty closely. He got serious about Jesus as a high school student because of YouTube videos that had an impact on him. He has a very understated, dry sense of humor that I find hilarious.  He told me when I first met him that he's shy, but I haven't seen much evidence of that. I think he has guys coming to his core from every one of his classes. From one class, 3 different guys are coming! He's a bold young man that people really like to be around.

Jesse

Jesse is the artist of the bunch. He's a senior this year and is leading core for the third year in a row. He cares deeply about people and builds relationships both through deep conversation and by creating unique experiences to share. He's incredibly genuine and is very earnest about developing authentic friendships. While he's the most spontaneous of this bunch, it doesn't keep him from following through on his commitments.

Luke

Luke is a great young man from sunny San Diego. He's a serious student in the engineering school and he thought long and hard about whether he would have time to lead a core. But once he made the commitment, he has taken it very seriously. He has chosen to love the guys in his group, and he thinks deeply about God's word and about God's people. 

At the beginning of the year, I assigned Luke and Jesse to write some questions to lead a core discussion on Ephesians 4:29. I planned to spend about 15 minutes helping them rework those questions into something workable, but I couldn't come up with a single suggestion! These two are very inquisitive, taking advantage of our times together to learn about me as a person as well as what I can teach them about the scripture and leadership. I enjoy every time I get to be with them.

Sean

I got to study "FOCUS on Jesus" with Sean the summer after his freshman year at UTD. He has an incredibly unique and vibrant personality, but is also a pastoral thinker who leads his guys with care and conviction. He has already led core for a few years as he worked and pursued his degree, so we asked him if he would spend his last year as a student mentoring corefas instead of leading a core himself. He is very much up to the task. He thinks like a staff minister, and I find our times together each week personally encouraging and challenging. Sean is intense, wise, good-natured, purposeful, and very serious about Jesus. He's also fun and really fun to be around. It's been very special to get to spend weekly time with him again a few years after we concluded our one-on-one Bible study.

Student Testimony

Joshua Erdmann (Richland College, Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering)

"In high school, I was the type of person that went out of my way to avoid people that I considered to be different than me. I was always looking for people that either talked the way I did or took part in the same things I liked. This led to superficial relationships and friendships. When I joined FOCUS, I really think God taught me that meeting people who were different than me - in every way - was a good thing. Through FOCUS, I have come to realize what it's like to have real relationships with people. In real relationships, you can talk to your friends about how you feel that day and not have to hide anything. When I first walked on campus at Richland, I was unsure about who I was or where I belonged. I thank God that I found a group that I feel like I actually belong to. Through FOCUS, God has been showing me that I belong wherever He has called me, and that it’s up to me to show others that they belong, too."

Please pray for these guys. Between them, they're investing in 40-50 other guys on these campuses! Thanks for helping make it possible for me to spend time training and equipping them. It's a joy and a privilege.

Our Biggest UTD Fall Camp Yet!

We've been back from Fall Camp for about a week, so I'm finally caught up on sleep. :)

Some students made cookies for everyone!

Last weekend, 208 of us from UTD, Richland, SMU, and TWU-Dallas took a day out of life to be together, worship together, share in God's word, and build deeper friendships. We had our biggest ever group from UTD! (Even though many of the students involved in FOCUS at SMU were busy with their parents for Family Weekend on that campus, we still had 8 come. We have around 25 students involved in core or one-on-ones there!) I think these higher numbers

The craft table was a big hit.

10 Students shared a part of their own story. 5 shared about how God has changed their view of what it means to be a Christian, and the other 5 shared about how the Lord brought them to the point where they were willing to say "Send me" to Him. ("Send me" is our theme for the year.)

I think most encouraging to me was watching how the students pursued one another in relationships and no one was being left out. During an open sharing time, student after student shared about how they have experienced the love of Christ in this community in a way they haven't experienced it before. We had a lot of international students and other non-Christians there, and I know they were impacted by the stories that were told.

We busted out the parachute we all remember from elementary school.

Spikeball is always popular, along with ultimate frisbee, flag football, giant kickball, speedball, and gaga ball.

Let's be praying that these new students will look beyond their experience of Christian community to see and experience Jesus, the one who made it possible and taught us how to love one another. I'm praying for many to call Him "Lord" for the first time this year.

We almost packed out this room for worship. But we've still got room to grow in the coming years!

Student Testimony

Jocelyn Payan (UT Arlington, Nursing, Sophomore)

"I grew up Catholic but never consistently went to church. I always admired the concept of community and was really saddened by the idea of not experiencing that within my faith because of my lack of involvement. When I came to UTA this desire to be involved in a Christian community only grew. After being greeted kindly at the FOCUS information table at orientation, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow. God is really working here and I want to be a part of it.” As classes started in the Fall, I was contacted by a girl named Kaylee who consistently invited me to events and had a deep-rooted desire to get to know me. Through people like Kaylee, I was really able to see how those in FOCUS loved the Lord which directly translated into how they interacted with and loved people. As the semester began I was asked to go deeper in my faith and study scripture in a one-on-one study, Focus on Jesus (FOJ) with Alexis. Alexis really encouraged me and wanted to walk with me in my journey of building a relationship with God. Through this community, I was challenged to give love like I had received it. Although I didn’t know it, God had been working and was faithful to answer a prayer I hadn’t even thought to ask for. He blessed me with this community and an opportunity to share that with others. "
Thanks for actively loving students and other young people. I'm excited to see how God uses our investments in the years to come!

Off To A Great Start

First Friday Night

We made it through move-in and Welcome Week! These are the two most important weeks of our calendar year, and the student leaders and staff pastors have done an incredible job of reaching new students. We had our first FNF at UTD last Friday night, and we had well over 250 students come. Most of the new students come because someone meets and invites them. I sat in the back and looked around trying to find a visitor no one was talking to--impossible! It's so encouraging to know that our core value of welcoming new people hasn't been lost as our group has grown. I'm hearing the stories already of freshmen, both Christians and non-Christians, who are excited to be a part of Friday nights and cores this year. Please be praying for the student leaders as they start setting up one-on-ones in the coming days and weeks.

The most exciting thing to me is seeing that this isn't a community led by a minister or two; it's a community of ministers. The Lord is answering our prayers to send out workers into the harvest field.

The room we met in is very hard to capture in a photo, but this will give you a sense of how packed it was.

Student Testimony

I've had the privilege of spending some time with Michael this summer, and it's so cool to see what the Lord is doing in his life. He didn't grow up knowing the Lord but started going to church because a friend invited him near the end of high school. Coming to college while his faith was still in its infancy, he was especially vulnerable. He went to SICM in May and stepped up to lead a core this fall! He has a sweet heart, and I treasure the time I get with him. I can't wait to see him love others the way he has been loved.

Michael Murphey (Sophomore, UT Dallas, Computer Science)

"When I came to UTD, I felt really lost. I didn't have many friends, and it seemed as if my life had no direction at the time. I had known for years that I wanted to study computer science, but in the fall of 2016 I was doing little else, and it felt painfully meaningless at times. I decided to come to Friday Night Fellowship one night and met Mark Merola. Even though we were complete strangers, Mark took a particular interest in me. After sitting with me during the service, he invited me to come to more FOCUS events and to join his Core. I started coming to Core regularly and became friends with everyone there. With Mark and the rest of my Core, I gained a group of supportive peers that I could live life with and learn from. I grew significantly in my faith and also as a person. Through studying the Bible and discussing it with members of my Core, I learned more about who Jesus is and my relationship with him deepened. My relationship with Jesus also led me to examine who I was as a person and make changes to how I act. FOCUS added a lot of meaning into my life and helped me see who I want to be. I have become a Core facilitator for the 2017-2018 school year, and I now know that the path toward God is the path that I want to take my entire life."

Thanks for making stories like this possible through your prayers and financial investments and hours spent with young people!