Admin 'Appenings

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 ...

ANOTHER school year has begun! And y'all are still here with me. Praise God for His faithfulness and for your willingness to partner with what he is doing here in the DFW area. Little did I know when I first accepted the job to be an administrator for FOCUS that I would still be here going into my fourth year. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We have ten new apprentices this year spread out through our different campuses. The apprentices commit to ten months (mirroring the school year) of being campus ministers with the goal of learning what it is like to live out this vocation full time and seeing if God is calling them to this profession over a longer period of time. As you can see from the photo, we have nine girls and one guy ! If you remember from my blog posts in my first year, the apprentice classes take a lot of time on top of your ministry work—to re-lay a good foundation over topics like the Old Testament, New Testament, Holy Spirit, and more! What a blessed (but also gr...

Summer FOCUS has come to an end! This past Thursday was our last meeting of the season before the school year begins. It was great getting to see some of y’all come out and hearing from y’all of your experience when I was not able to attend! I pray that God honors your faithfulness in partnering with Him in what he is doing through FOCUS. And I hope that you were blessed and witnessed His presence among our students. As August 1st approaches (probably tomorrow when I send this out to you), a lot of change will take effect. Both Casey and Leah, our most tenured administrators, will not be on staff to help transition us into the new school year. Our team is now down to me, April, and Debbie. Which is not a bad thing… just different. Please be praying for us as we try to not drop any (major) balls and try to ride out this wave of work in the beginning of the year. Feel free to let me know how you calm yourself when you have a busy work schedule! Lately I’ve been listening to more relaxing...

Summer FOCUS is still going strong! Each week, around 300 students come from the four corners of DFW (like Denton and Arlington) to praise and worship God and learn to be more like Jesus in community. If you haven't had a chance to visit yet, there's still time! We meet on Thursdays at 7:30 in Richardson. Let me know if you want to visit! Our sermon series is about how knowing and following God compels us to not live in weakness, but to boldly proclaim how God's power is made perfect in our weakness. Give this sermon by Adriana, one of our pastors at Collin College, a listen! It's titled, Fear to Boldness. Click here to listen to Adriana's sermon. Something that we encourage over the summer, because we do not organize formal small groups, is for students to get together in groups of 3-4 and grow in their faith together in a more intimate setting. These were formally called PACCS, which stood for Prayer, Adoration.. something or other. This year, we're naming it ...

Hello all! As we finally put a close to the last school year with the end of May, I want to thank you all again for taking the time to read my updates, praying over our ministry, and for partnering with me financially! God has been faithful this past year and I'm excited for the next one! This month, we took around 100 students up to Bellingham, Washington to attend SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry)! Thank you for praying for our students that attended! If you're new or missed my previous updates, SICM is a week-long conference for students to learn more about spiritual friendship, how to lead a bible study, and sooo much more. It's often described as drinking from a fire hydrant; there's just so much to learn and you can only absorb so much in the moment. But that's what note taking is for! The students on the trip go from being names on a spreadsheet, into a person with a name and a face, and then they turn into real people when I finally get to meet the...