September 2023

It's already October? It seems like the weeks just fly by nowadays.

If you are an alumni from FOCUS at UTD or affiliate yourself in any way with FOCUS at UTD, I encourage you to come out to alumni night on November 17th and invite people that fit this description as well! It should be a fun night.

I also want to tell you about Pizza Theology that's coming up! I've told y'all once, but I'll say it again. Pizza Theology is a night to deep-dive into something specific, with 4 hours of lecture total broken up by an hour of pizza dinner in the middle. In the recent past, we've done a night over Revelation, wisdom literature, what God thinks about our bodies, and how to think like a Christian. This Fall, we're inviting Iain Provan, a former professor with Regent College, to talk about his latest book, Cuckoos in Our Nest. This book goes over how to think through different topics of life in a Biblically-grounded way and what ideas may have snuck their way into 'Christian thinking' that are not actually grounded in the Bible. The metaphor is that the cuckoo bird lays its eggs in the nest of other bird species who will then take care of the egg and baby cuckoo, sometimes at the expense of their own chicks—what ideas have been laid in our nest that we are unaware of? Pizza Theology is on November 5th from 4-9 pm at UTD and this will not be recorded or streamed, so you have to be there if you want to learn!

We're currently in the middle of Fall Camp season! Fall Camp is a campus-specific 2-day camp that we do at the beginning of the school year (sometimes it feels too early) that helps students quickly buy-in to core (small group) and deepen their new friendships. We often point out that this one camp gives them more time with their core than if they just attended core every week for the rest of the school year. Like the prayer requests at the end of the student testimony say, please be praying for our students and our camps!

This is my good friend Sandra, who is one of the pastors on our Richland/Dallas College campus. She was actually one of the first people I met when I first visited Texas in 2016! She is silly and funny, thoughtful and wise, and she celebrated her birthday with me and Steph by coming over for lunch. Every week, I'm constantly reminded that we have so many vocational pastors in our community (whether by title or not), that are like Sandra, who reflect Jesus wherever they go. If you are looking for a community like that, let me know and I can help you get plugged in!

OKAY. Calling all bakers. I've tried making bread pudding many times and it has never turned out right... and I feel like I'm following the recipe. Or maybe it is turning out right and I just don't like bread pudding. If anyone wants to help teach me, PLEASE. Thanks.

This is Temi, a new student with FOCUS at UTD. At the beginning of the school year, FOCUS organizes 'brown bag hangouts' where you put your name and number on a little slip of paper and put it in a brown lunch bag at large group and you are paired up with someone and tasked to meet up with them sometime in the next week. This helps students build bridges at the beginning of the year when they may feel a little lost. It just so happened that the day that Temi and I met up, it was his birthday! He didn't really know anyone in the area, so I took him out to get a Bundt cake to celebrate! (Did you know Bundt is supposed to be capitalized?)

This is Sirak, another one of our pastors at Richland/Dallas College. If you remember my picture from July about Bible Bootcamp, he was the one that actually took the picture! It just so happened that I was in the same spot on the second floor meeting with someone and spotted him shopping downstairs. Well well well, how the turn tables...

I had the opportunity to go to Canada with Steph and her family, to Montreal, where she and her sister were born. Her parents were stationed in Montreal for 3 years to learn French before being sent to Cameroon—a French speaking country in Africa. This was the first time her family had returned since their time there some 25 odd years ago. I don't think I realized that everything (street signs, menus, etc.) would be written in French (and only sometimes in English). I brushed off my knowledge of French (having taken 2 years of it in high school) and surprised myself with how much I could sort of understand.

My cousin is visiting the U.S. for the first time in about half a decade. For the most part, he is visiting California, where his parents live, but he and his wife came to Texas for a week. It just so happened that the week he came to visit was when I was in Canada... but we did overlap for a day. We took him out to see the Mariners face the Rangers in what turned out to be a heartbreaking loss (go Mariners). Baseball is kind of exciting now (with the new pitch clock). Does anyone want to teach me what all the acronyms in the stats stand for and how the game really works? It seems I just need a lot of help with everything in life. 🤣

Back in March, I informed you of a change that the Department of Education was proposing—to remove language that explicitly protects religious student organizations on campus. If you left a comment on their proposal, thank you! Here is an update on the situation that we received from Cru:

First, in relation to the Equal Campus Access Act of 2023, we wanted to share that members of the House and Senate continue to give attention to these needs. This summer, more House and Senate members became co-signers for the Bicameral bill—there are now 21 cosponsors for the House bill, and 25 cosponsors for the Senate bill.  In addition, a number of other member offices are aware of and supportive of the language in more behind-the-scenes ways.  Many members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce are also supportive.  

Second, if you are curious about the status of the ED rule proposing to rescind the protections for religious student organizations, it has not yet been finalized. As you know, ED published the NPRM on February 22, 2023, expressing the intent to rescind the regulatory language finalized in 2020 that protects religious student organizations’ by preventing public colleges and universities from treating them differently and denying them benefits given to other student organizations because of their speech and practices, including membership and leadership standards, that are grounded in sincerely-held religious beliefs. The Department received many thousands of comments from individuals and religious organizations like ours, expressing concern about this rescission. The Department is required to take the time to respond to such concerns before it can finalize its rule. We do not know when it will do so, but we will let you know when we hear more.

Finally, we wanted to highlight a very encouraging decision out of the Ninth Circuit, FCA v. San Jose School District (9th Cir. 2023), decided on September 13, 2023. It is a great example of the kinds of challenges our religious organizations with student chapters continue to face. It displays the level of animosity that can be involved against unpopular religious beliefs. The Ninth Circuit did a very good thing, clarifying the importance of First Amendment protections for religious beliefs under the Free Exercise clause. The court also specifically limited the application of the CLS v. Martinez 2010 decision, making it clear just how rare all comers’ policies are. This is very good news, especially to have in the Ninth Circuit, where we have had so much trouble over the years.

Nevertheless, we believe this decision just underscores the value of a national legislative solution, because a lot of the country still lacks these protections. In addition, we of course don’t want to have to see students go through what these students went through, as the lawsuit had been pending for over four years when the Ninth Circuit ruled.  Consequently, although the students won, most of them spent their entire high school experience under the cloud of litigation and controversy, and most will not get to enjoy the fruits of their victory because they have graduated.

The case does also show, however, that the Equal Campus Access Act bill is consistent with how the Courts are saying the First Amendment should be applied. Colleges and High Schools just continue to need the encouragement to uphold the Constitution, even if it means allowing expression that doesn’t align with their own views.  We are hopeful that this resounding en banc decision will give confidence to those seeking a legislative solution and will also help to persuade many more schools to treat religious student organizations more fairly.

Thank you again for partnering with us in advocating for the needs of religious students, who are just looking to participate in authentic faith communities on their campuses. Feel free to reach out with any questions or to share your thoughts.