A LOT happens in August!

On August 20, we had our first "Corefa Class" of the school year with about 94 people in attendance.  That's 94 people who are either leading small groups or mentoring small group leaders.  You would have been so encouraged to be there.

I couldn't quite get everyone in the frame, but this will give you an idea of what that leader training looked like.

We started teaching the leaders some basic axioms that we find useful in our ministry.  If you get to be around FOCUS you'll hear these pop up.  Here's a sampling of what you would have learned that night:

1. The dullest pencil is sharper than the sharpest mind when it comes to remembering things. (So write things down!)
2. Two-on-one is how it's done. (We usually say 1-on-1, but we are stressing bringing someone along with you this year.)
3. Think pastorally.  (What's really best for the people you minister to?)
4. A disciple too lazy to plant in the fall has nothing to harvest in the spring. (Ministry is a process and the sooner you plant, the sooner you harvest.)
5. People won't always live up to your expectations, but they will usually live down to them. (Jesus has high expectations of us and so should we, tempered by grace.)
6. If you love enough people, enough people will love you.
7. Use your problem solving skills. (One my dad had to say to me a "handful" of times growing up!)
8. Be a fool for God, not cool for God. (Very few of our heroes of the faith were "cool" by the world's standards.)

Thank you for believing in me and this community I get to serve,
Brandon

PS  You should virtually attend these 3 on-campus baptisms by student (or alumni) leaders!

It begins...time to PRAY!

In 3 weeks freshmen will be walking on to all four of our campuses ready to start a new phase of their life.  On one hand, they are adults--legally accountable for themselves and, for many, living on their own for the first time.  On the other hand (as I once heard Brady Bobbink say) freshmen are just high school seniors with a summer vacation.

It is our goal to be there to welcome them, invite them into meaningful community, and help them encounter the Living God.  

Please Pray for the class of 2016, that many will encounter the life-transforming grace of Jesus while at Richland, Collin, UTD, and UNT.  Pray that authentic disciples will form influential relationships with them.

Pray for FOCUS's student leaders, that they will be bold in their love and generous in their hospitality.  As they welcome new students on campus, pray that God will give them the courage and gifts to influence many!

Pray that the missionary staff and alumni volunteers of FOCUS will have big vision and supernatural creativity.  Pray that God will provide the resources, energy, and grace for us to bear much fruit.

Here are some key dates.  Could you mark them on your calendar or enter them in your phone so you'll be reminded to pray?

August 24 - Freshmen move in at UTD & UNT

August 27 - Fall Semester starts at UTD, Collin, & Richland (We'll be reaching out all week)

August 29 - Fall Semester starts at UNT

August 30 & 31 - Our kickoff nights for FOCUS

This is what our t-shirts for the year will look like.  I'm excited about our new theme--Everything New--celebrating God's promise to redeem all things, including us!

Frantic Summer

June has been crazy with another trip to SICM while trying to get our entire summer program rolling.  A couple of highlights on what I'm working on now:

1.  Staff transitions.  Brad is shifting off staff to finish his PhD and pursue his career teaching (he may end up as our advisor at one of our campuses).  Casey is moving to UTD to work with Mandy.  Garrett Davis (Brad's brother and a past intern) will be coming back on staff to lead Collin in Casey's place along with Tyler and Brianna Marble.  Matt Clark is moving up to Denton to take Brad's place at UNT along with Amy Knoles (another past intern).  My role, at least for this year, will be shifting slightly away from UTD to work with all the staff and interns.  I'll be mentoring those who are mentoring student leaders, supervising two interns, and driving the overall mission and vision of our ministry.  This is a lot of change to bite off for one school year!  But after praying and talking and thinking about it, we decided that these moves will get us in a better position for the next few years of ministry and mission and that we'd rather get it all done at once rather than a little at a time.  Please say a prayer for my changing role.  It's tough to let go of some of the things I love, but I'm confident this is the path the Lord wants me to take.

2.  Support raising.  Our entire staff is spending some time raising financial support and getting prayer commitments for the new school year.  Our goal is $30,000/month.  Sounds like a lot until I remember that supports 14 staff members at two universities and two community colleges.  It also allows us to scholarship students who can't pay for events and do creative outreach to all four campuses.  My staff works cheap! Seriously though, I hope over the next couple of years to increase our support raising to the point that some of these young men and women can reasonably support a family before I start losing my best and most experienced people to economic necessities! $1500 a month for someone with an MBA is a great deal for FOCUS--in the short run.  Please pray that God will hook us up with the right people and groups who share our vision and can partner with us moving forward.  God has always provided and I know He will in the future.  Our support team includes individuals, families, churches, and private foundations.  If you have a contact you think might be a good fit, drop me a line!

3.  My vacation/second SICM trip.  I got to travel through 12 states (plus a little Canada) in two weeks with a few great FOCUS people.  Most of the June group flew up, but 5 of us rented a van and drove, visiting lots of great people and places along the way.  I get such a bigger chance to influence and minister to key people when I travel with them.  A few pictures I took:

Kelsea at the Grand Canyon.  Breathtaking!

We got to stay with Eileen in Phoenix.  We took this right before we locked her out of her house.  Thank goodness Kelsea can fit through a dog door!

The beach at Coronado in San Diego.  By the time this was over, Maria had both Matt and Paulo completely buried.  We had dinner with Julie and Laura Schimpf, but I forgot to get a picture.

Eric gave us a tour of the Google campus.

And later in the day we went to Muir Woods.  The Giant Redwoods were huge!  I wish Charlie could have joined us.

Some of you may remember Jim and Patty Roberts who were on staff at Northeast Church back in the late 90's.  We had breakfast at their coffee shop in Portland, OR, and it was awesome!

Once we picked up the other 6 students at the airport in Seattle, a couple of the CCF staff joined us for a Mariners baseball game.  

Met up with my old friend Robby (from UTD) who is working in Vancouver.  We visited the University of British Columbia.  Regent College, where this summer's school of ministry originates, is on that campus.  If you want to grow and be challenged in your love of scripture, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Old and New Testament Foundations on regentaudio.com.

Our last day in Washington, Matt and Kelsea and I kayaked out to an island in the bay with Matt's host family and had a picnic.  A great ending before we started the long drive back.

When I report in again, it will be with new interns and we'll be ramping up for the arrival of thousands of freshmen!  Until then, thanks for your love and support.  Let me know if there is something I can be praying for you about.

Equipping Student Leaders

There's probably not anything more important that I do than training and equipping student leaders.  And SICM is probably the most important thing we do in a given year toward that end.

I've been going to this conference at Western Washington University since 2002 when I finished graduate school.  That year I took three others with me and the things we learned and the vision God gave us there has grown into so much!  This year I (along with 4 other staff) took 49 students in May (and we send another 8 in June).  This isn't a conference that we take the same students to year after year; it's an intensive week-long training that they go to once.  That means that this year we are taking 57 students who we have decided can be new student leaders in the fall if they make that commitment.

This is how our ministry grows, by making disciples who can make disciples.  The group in May was amazing.  They made us proud.  The staff up there who teach the conference said our group was one of the best they've ever seen--serious about learning, loving one another, and being excited about the Lord.  I look forward of many more years of taking serious young disciples to Bellingham, Washington, to allow Spirit-filled men and women to invest in them and help equip them to make a huge impact on DFW and beyond!

These are just the UTD students from the May SICM.  They are "whooshing" in Canada.  The US border is in the background.

Wrapping up

Cores are having their last meetings, we only have a party left for the student leaders, and we're in the middle of banquet season--one for each campus.  It's been a great year and now we're celebrating what God has done.  I've spent extra time this last month up in Denton with our UNT ministry, and I'm so encouraged by the faith of the students up there.  So many of them have a heart for their peers and their campus.  I even talked to two who have a heart to be campus ministers after college!  Over the summer and fall, I'll be spending even more time up there raising up leaders for the harvest.  God has done great things--and He has so much more planned in the lives of these young disciples!

Me and Ana, one of the UNT student leaders at their banquet.  Note that after 2 years, I got my braces off this week!  Now maybe I'll look closer to my age. :-)

This month I'll be traveling with a group of 4 other staff and 49 students to the Student Institute of Campus Ministry in Bellingham, Washington.  The Lord has trained and encouraged us through this special trip each year.  Please say a prayer that He'll do mighty things in this group of students too!  You might mark down the dates May 17-26 to be praying for the Spirit to move and work powerfully in all of our hearts.  You can check it out at www.ccfministry.com/sicm.

I'll have lots more to share in the months to come as we prep for another awesome school year!  Thanks for your love, prayers, and support.  I couldn't do what I do without them.

It's been a busy month!

A few updates on some of the things we did in March:

1.  We have mostly wrapped up our invitations to SICM and purchased plane tickets.  5 of our staff (Mandy, Debbie, Casey, Matt, and I) will be taking 47 students to Bellingham, WA in May.  And in June, Travis and I will be taking another 8-10 students for the second session.  These are all first time attenders who have the potential to be leaders in the fall!

2.  We interviewed applicants for our internship program for the 2012-2013 school year and have selected 4 great disciples to join us on staff next year!  Sirak Asfaw, Katy Jordan, Melissa Kenfield, and Courtney Atherton are all awesome students who have been a part of our student leadership for years.  Katy and Courtney are both pursuing masters degrees and Sirak and Melissa will both complete their graduate degrees this summer before their internship starts.  We continue to pull in some of the brightest and best to take the gospel to university students.  We aren't sure about campus placements yet, but you will hear a lot more about these four from me in the months to come.

Sirak

Katy

Melissa

Courtney

3.  We had a 3-day campaign on campus at UTD (along with 4 other campus ministries) to raise awareness about Human Trafficking and share the good news about God's heart for justice and His mission to make things right.  Did you know that there are over 27 million slaves in the world today?  That's more than all the centuries of the African slave trade combined.  Even here in the United States, the Department of Justice estimates 100,000-150,000 people being trafficked, most of them children.  And 25% of them are in Texas!  God cares deeply about these people, about the captives and the oppressed.  Jesus announced his ministry with these words from Isaiah, which we would do well to not over-spiritualize:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free" (Luke 4:18).

In these days when so much of our comforts and luxuries are made by people in terrible conditions overseas, when children are forced to be soldiers in terrible civil wars, and when girls and young women are forced into prostitution all over the world (so that men from Western countries can fly in and rape them), we need to make sure our voices are heard.  Will God be pleased with us for choosing ignorance about these things he cares so much about?  We worked with International Justice Mission (IJM.org) and they have a great website full of resources to learn and to help.

Students painted the "Spirit Rocks" on campus to raise awareness.

We had three of these 2-sided displays.  Students were on hand to start discussions with people who stopped to read.  A group of our students planned and built these displays all on their own!

The "sex mattress" drew plenty of attention all by itself!

4.  I started studying the Bible with a young guy back in November of 2010.  He was referred to me by his sister who had been a student leader at UTD during her time there, though he lived on the other side of the metroplex.  Since then, he's made a serious commitment to God, moved up to our area for school, and become a consistent part of one of our campus communities.  But he's also had a lot of forgiveness issues within his family, particularly with his dad.  They haven't really been speaking for years and this young man was really struggling with having a hard heart toward his father.  It's one of the topics we've come back to again and again as I saw (and got to be a part of) God working on his heart.  Well, a few weeks ago I got a text message at 1:10 am saying that he had called his dad and apologized and told him he wants them to have a relationship.  That woke me up for sure!  He said he was laying in bed and couldn't sleep but kept thinking about his dad and what God wanted him to do.  And he did it!  I know his dad was so thankful to get that call in the middle of the night.  Isn't God good?!  He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

5.  Last one!  Sorry to be so long-winded, but one of the baptisms I attended this month really touched me.  Matt is a young man (now a grad student) at UTD who happens to be in a wheelchair.  He's grown up in church and has loved the Lord for a long time.  Well some of the guys were talking to him and found out that while he's wanted to be baptized in water for over 10 years, it just never worked out because of logistics!  How sad is that.  And so these young student leaders made it happen, and quickly.  I'm not sure I've ever seen someone literally beaming until that day.  I'll post the video so you can share in that moment.

Matt's mom got to be there.  You can hear her share in the video.

Thanks for your prayers and support.  Together, we are making a difference for the Kingdom.

Thinking about next year

It sounds a little crazy, but I'm already doing a lot of thinking and planning for next school year.  Our main event for student leader development is the SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) conference that we take students to in Washington State each May.  Between our four campuses we have invited over 60 students to attend!  These are all students who have not been before and in whom we see the qualities necessary to lead in our ministry.  Actually appointing student leaders may still be months away, but the ball is rolling!  I'll have a lot more to say about SICM in the future.

February 29 was the deadline for graduates to apply for the FOCUS internship for the 2012-2013 school year.  We've had a number of graduating seniors interested in the internship and have had a lot of conversations about whether being on staff with us for a year is a good fit.  After all the applications are in, we'll start interviewing them this weekend.  We've also been having conversations with our five interns from this year about what next year looks like for them.  One of my main roles now is leading the staff, so thinking through who will be on our senior staff and who we will accept into the internship (and also which campuses each person will work on) is one of my primary strategic decisions for the year.  I'd love for you to join me in praying that God will give me clear direction on this.

A couple cool things from February--First off, I had the opportunity to attend a couple of baptisms.  My intern Andrew had the chance to study with and baptize one of the guys in his group last week.  Taylor is a great example of how ministry can work.  He was invited last year as a freshman by one of the girls in our group.  He came around some but more than anything began forming friendships with some committed Christians.  This year he came around more, but it was at Winter Camp that he decided he needed to be a disciple and asked Andrew to baptize him.  So they've been doing some intense Bible study these past few weeks about what it looks like to be a disciple and about the meaning of faith, repentance, and baptism.  He's counted the cost and decided make Jesus his Lord!  He is serving on our tech team and planning to live in my house next year so he can be surrounded by strong Christian influences.  Ministry is a process and can take a long time, but the good news is we have lots of people in that process!

Andrew got to baptize him.  He did a great job!

Taylor's family got to be there for his baptism.  It was great having them join us on campus.

We also had a joint worship night with some of the other campus ministries at UTD.  It was awesome to join together and share what the Lord is doing.  Every year, more people are catching the vision of reaching these university students with the good news.  I got to meet a young man who just moved here after college for work.  He has a heart for campus ministry from his years as a student and has hooked up with a local Korean church who wants to reach Asian-American students on campus with the gospel.  He emailed me some thoughts about seeing our fellowship that were encouraging and I want to  share them with you:

First off, I want to say it was truly a blessing to meet you and attend the praise night last night. I was encouraged to see God moving through your fellowship and I really felt like God was doing something great at UTD.

I also wanted to relay that your members were awesome. I was so blessed by Jonathan, Kendall, and the young man that introduced me to you (I forgot his name!). They made me feel welcomed and really showed the love of Christ to me.

Last night, gave me a nice burst of energy to continue to serve ... with a fervent heart.

This was our combined praise team from three ministries that night.  They enjoyed working together and I was pumped about the diversity (Only 2 white people! :-) as we work to reach a diverse campus.  

Thank you for all your prayers and support.  The Lord is doing great things!