June 2024: Summer FOCUS

June 

Hi my friends! If you’re here reading this blog, thank you. If you are on my financial support team, thank you. If you come to this blog and don’t finish thank you. Thank you for caring about what we do in campus ministry. Thank you for being generous to include me in your finances. And thank you for saying yes to partnering with me for as many years as you have. As June is a slower month I have had much time to chew on and savor just how abundantly gracious our Lord is through his people. In case you haven’t heard me say it in a while, please know that I could not be where I am, experiencing all that I get to without you. 

Since things are slower this month I don’t have as many “highlights” from the goings on of campus ministry, but I would love to share with y’all some things that we have been reflecting on as a community. 

During the school year each respective campus has a weekly fellowship gathering with the students called Friday Night Fellowship aka FNF  (or TNF or WNF), so during the summer we host a Thursday Night Fellowship (TNF) for all of the students who are in town from all the campuses. This summer’s sermon series has been incredibly relevant and helpful for both our staff and our students. 

God laid this sermon series theme on one of my friend’s and fellow pastor’s, Rhett’s, heart and I’m so glad that he was obedient to the spirit to bring it up because it strikes such resonance with what I’ve observed in Gen Z. The theme for the sermon series is “embracing life.” 

He described it as this: 

“The spirit of our age for young people is often one of disillusionment and distrust, which leads to a reluctance to engage with the outside world.

People are reluctant to engage with God through prayer, with strangers through evangelism, with the future through maturing and making commitments, etc.. With the availability of a constant stream of personally curated entertainment, it is more tempting than ever to avoid engaging with the world. While our students are bucking these trends in some ways, then other ways they have the same struggles with anxiety and with arrested development. 

God, however, is not reluctant or self-protective. He  embraces life. Jesus embraced difficulty. Embracing life is about moving from self-centeredness to an other-oriented mindset, from despondency to hope, from anxiety to confidence, and from comfort / risk-aversion to growth. “ 

- Rhett 

“Embracing life is about moving from self-centeredness to an other-oriented mindset” is what stands out to me as I think of college students. We are always beating the drum that just the same way babies/adolescents grow and transition into adulthood, is the same way that maturity looks like going from always being self focused and putting our own needs first (like infants/adolescents) and moving over to taking care of and looking out for the well being of others (adulthood). Now of course all adults in the world don’t necessarily see their lives as a location to care for the needs of others, but in the Kingdom of God that is what the mark of maturity is! Someone who is willing to do and go the distance for others in the name of love for God and people. 

In FOCUS we seek to cultivate Jesus loving leaders who are mature, who are willing to take initiative, and who are ready to experience life to the full by not looking at themselves so much. And in an individualistic society like ours, it is praiseworthy when a young person takes the brave step to say, “I’m gonna make more room in my life to look of for others,” or “I’m gonna choose to pack my schedule a little tighter this year and add in FOCUS leader things so that I can learn and grow in what it means to be on mission for Jesus.” 

And this brings me to celebrate my friend, Ro!

I mentioned her in my February blog (feel free to go back and get the full story), but for your memory, Ro was very skeptical and doubtful that she could be Christian with such skepticism and doubt. Lots of our Bible study together consisted of frenzied spiraling conversations about her hangups with Christianity and her confusion about the legalism that she had experienced growing up and confusion on how that was supposed to be reflective of God. Ro and I continue to study the Bible, and it was a mixed bag. As she learned new things they would make sense to her but she would somehow find a way to end her new understanding with a different aspect that she was doubtful of. As this kept happening, one of her doubt spirals caused her to ask us to pause on studying the Bible so that she could figure out faith for herself. We remained friends and she continued to come to small group. Even though she was doubtful she still remained opened to being challenged. She eventually kept coming around kept opening up, decided to follow Jesus and keep learning, went to our student leadership conference back in May, and after MORE DOUBT AND FEAR HAS DECIDED TO BECOME A STUDENT LEADER AND LEAD A SMALL GROUP IN THE FALL!!!!

Ro is what I will call the CHAMPION of the saying “do it afraid!” 

Ro has been constantly open to feedback in the midst of her doubt and has taken on challenges like a boss! Even through hard/direct/exposing conversations she has maintained a humility and a willingness that I think points to a greater work of the Spirit in her heart. All that to say I am so excited for how God is gonna grow her. He feeds 5,000 with 2 fish and 5 loaves like it’s nothing 😎. 

Feel free to tune into our Summer FOCUS TNF sermon series at 730p every Thursday at

http://twitch.tv/utdfocus

Thank Yall SO much for partnering with me in advancing the Kingdom!  

Summer FOCUS snippet 😊

May 2024: The End of Another Full Year

MAY

Hey Folks! Just like that we have come up on the end of another school year! It amazes me how quickly these weeks fly by. But you know they weren’t lying when they said “time flies when you’re having fun” 😊

Highlights from the month of May include FOCUS inaugurating our ministry at TCU, the last Friday Night Fellowship of the year (my personal favorite one), and SICM! 

Pioneering at TCU: 

As you may or may not know, it is our mission in FOCUS to plant vibrant, intellectual, Jesus-loving communities on every college campus in the DFW, so we, as a ministry are over the moon about finally completing all of the requirements needed in order for FOCUS to start at TCU! Our pastors Lindsey Royal and Rhett Hayes have taken up the charge to complete respective seminary degrees (in addition to their daily campus minister workload), maintain a consistent presence on TCU’s campus over the past several years, as well as follow the protocols required by the university in order to become a registered campus org and as of (approximately) May 1 they became an official campus org at TCU! Which is Lindsey’s Alma mater 😆. We are so excited and expectant of all that God will grow and change down in good ol Fort Worth! Enjoy some photos of the night they made the announcement 

Last FNF:

Every year at our very last Friday Night Fellowship we use the entire service to give an opportunity for open sharing about how our students have seen God working in themselves and in each other this year in our community. We do open sharing because we know that Gods activity is not limited to just our pastoral staff or the main pillars/events of our ministry (core, FOJ, FNF, camps,etc) but that the kingdom breaks in in the small, unseen day to day things that happen between the students in our ministries. Anything from someone consistently sending a “hey you coming to core tonight?” text message to a pretty inconsistent core member, all the way to someone inviting a fellow student over for the holidays: the last FNF is where we get to hear about those things. 

Here’s a snippet of one our beloved students named Kenny!

SICM

SICM stands for the Student Institute of Campus Ministry and it is a leadership conference that we take our students to each year to cast vision for what it can look like to be leaders for Jesus on our campuses. This year we took our largest group of students to SICM numbering at 150! And what’s even better news is that we took THE MOST BLACK STUDENTS TO SICM EVER IN HISTORY!!!!! 🤯🤯🤯 AND WHATS EVEN MORE SWEET IS THAT 5 OF THOSE GIRLS ARE FROM MY CORE!!!!! 😩😩 (well one of them is an Indian girl named Renae, but we agreed on our core that she is an honorary black person because she is one of the only 2 non black people in our core lol). 

We prayed for revival over the summer and it has been and is happening on our campuses! The kingdom of God is breaking into so many hearts and minds and SICM is a prime time where we can concentratedly see that happening! While I didn’t get to stay at SICM the entire time, I got to hear so many stories of people who made big decisions to make leading small groups on campus their goal and mission for the next school year. Small choice big implications! These are the students that partner with us as we partner with God to bring the kingdom to our campuses and without them a large portion of our ministry’s function is nonexistent. So we are so thankful for the students that say yes to being leaders. 

Like I said I didn’t get to stay for the whole week but here are some pictures of the fun stuff we got to do before the seminars began! 

Snoqualmie Falls which was EVEN more beautiful in person. 

Mt. Rainer with my carpool group! We had a 2 hour drive to the mountain, so you already know we each shared our testimonies 😊. Bonds were made and tears were shed 😌. 

WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT I THOUGHT ID BE ABLE TO SEE THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ANYWHERE ELSE OTHER THAN NORWAY?! THIS WAS FOR SURE A HIGHLIGHT! It was breathtaking! 

One of our students praying over a stranger at breakfast at the hotel 🥹.

Here are my seeet core girls! From left to right we have Jasmine, Morolake (aka Ro), Inny, and Temi. 

Quick story about Temi: She is a baby genius because she came to college at 16 and just turned 17 back in October; she is usually quiet and not the most talkative…until she is! lol. And any time that i brought up the idea of her leading core next year, she would immediately shut me out and run as far away from that idea as she could. But on Monday, the very first day of the seminars at SICM, she sent me a text around 1 PM saying that she wants to lead Core next year and that she was just texting me that so that if she tried to bail once the school year started that she would not be able to! 

That's the kind of energy that happens at SICM!! Stories like hers happen in the dozens in Washington! 

There’s Renae, who is the Indian girl in my core that we decided is “honorary black” lol. We love Renae. 

Group shenanigans 😊

As you can see the school year has wrapped up beautifully once again, and God has shown himself fully capable and fully interested in bringing the kingdom to our campuses this year. When I get chances to look back and reflect each month on what God has been up to, I can’t help but remember all of the mini people who give to this mission. None of these experience would I have been able to have were it not for your support. Thank you a million times for your generosity and belief in college students! God is good! 

April 2024: What a Whirlwind!

 

April was packed! In random order: I finished FOJ with  3 girls from my small group! Baptized 2 girls from my small group! Attended 3 baptisms from other peoples small groups! Preached 2 sermons 🫠! The students led an awesome outdoor worship night! Watched people graduate in our annual Parking Lot Graduation (a tradition birthed out of the pandemic)! My small group has managed to cry and shed tears multiple times as we shared about how thankful we were to each other! My small group also prayed together and for each other after we talked about our experiences with our dads! I held a panel discussion for BLISS called “Jesus Through the Generations” that was SO good and well attended! My coworker had a baby and the baby peed on me! My small group actually showed up to make our “core poster” and we also got together for a last dinner at Texas Roadhouse! We had a rockin End of the Year party where we had a recess/picnic themed party! They danced the night away! I taught people how to double Dutch at that party! I also got pied in the face at that party! 

CAN YOU SAY JAM PACKED?! 

April was brilliant! 

See if you can match the photos and videos with the paragraph above for funsies! 🤪

This year has been a FULL one. Every single inch of it is only made possible by people like YOU. Thank you a bagillion catrillion times for the sacrifices you make in order for me to do such meaningful work. To God be the glory for the wonderful and life giving things he has done and continues to do in our broken world. 

March 2024: A Wedding, Some Baptisms, and A Connecting Core

 MARCH 

A Wedding 

SoOoo, Renee, my roomate (and best friend/sister/discipler) got married! 😍 What a joyous and momentous occasion! For those of you who have been with me on this journey from the beginning, you know that Renee is the reason that I am following Jesus as an adult and is the reason why I am working for FOCUS in the first place! My friendship and roommate-hood with her has been one of the greatest gifts to my life to date. By working with her since 2018 and then living with her since 2020, I have been able to watch her up close and learn SO much about what it looks like to  live a life surrendered to Jesus. While this is the end of an era, its also the start of a very beautiful new chapter for the both of us! And wanna know something even cooler? Her husband is gonna be my co worker at UTD on our FOCUS staff this coming Fall! What are the odds?! 

Anywho, enjoy some photos of the ceremony down below! 

A Baptism

A beautiful thing about this semester is that people have been getting baptized left and right! How beautiful is the amount of random sporadic baptisms where people are making a vow to Jesus and to living a life dedicated to him. Praise God! If I had to guess I think there have been at least 6 already this semester and I wanna say half of those have been since coming back from spring break! I will never cease to be stunned at seeing college students take Jesus seriously because that was just so far from anything valuable to me back in my day. 

Here are some photos 

A Connecting Core 

My core has hit a breakthrough! After a long time coming, they are finally connecting with each other and not just me (praise God). After talking with some of them, I realized that this class of freshmen are the ones who missed 2 years of high school because of COVID, so they really do experience the effects of isolation and lack some of the social skills that are just learned by being around people. I had the idea to ask the discussion questions and then remove myself from the circle so that they had no choice but to make eye contact with someone else other than me and so that they had to learn to facilitate conversation without me there! Sometimes you just gotta push them out of the nest so they can fly! We went from a room of strangers with awkward pauses and silences to a group of girls who were relating, laughing, applauding each other after each person shared, and who were "piggybacking" off of what the other person said. Let's just say that after this night some of the girls who come to core, but normally leave quickly, were lingering and wanting to hang around and connect! God did what he does best!

Here’s a sneak peak snippet of what it was like 🤫🫣

Here are some of their faces again so that you can be praying for them! Please pray that they would each come

to know God and choose him! Please pray that they would begin to see their need for him and their need for life beyond themselves!

I am so thankful that I get to be a small piece in their journeys. It’s all because of y’all, my supporters, that I’m able to be a part of their lives. Thank you all so much for what you do for our ministry and for The Kingdom! 

February 2024: A Night of Black Church & Student Praise

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH! 

This past Tuesday Feb 27, the black students of UTD FOCUS and I did a thing for our community called "A Night of Black Church" in celebration of Black History Month! We got together a band of stellar musicians, found ourselves a student preacher, sang new songs, and watched a praise dance (by me and a student). Let’s just say the people had a crazy good time!

We filled up an auditorium of about 300 people dressed in their Sunday Best with church fans in hand. We had people come from our FOCUS ministries and Family of Churches from all over the DFW metroplex and we lifted up a culturally specific praise to God. 

The goal of this event was to expose and educate people in our communities, and on our campuses to a different style of church tradition. In honor of Black History Month we went along with the more traditional/foundational church style that most closely identifies with the civil rights movement. This church tradition is near and dear to me because it was the kind of church style that I grew up experiencing and is always what made church feel fun to me. 

I was so excited and honored to give our community the experience of a version of what Black church is like. As we make and mature disciples on our campuses, I see more and more how important it is that we continue to expose our community to people and traditions that are different from their norm in order that we each may walk away with a greater understanding and appreciation for each others differences within the body of Christ. 

In 1 Corinthians 12 it says:

”The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.”

In the Body of Christ we need each other! We cannot properly function as the body of Christ unless we expand our capacity to understand and love and care for one another. 

The feedback we got for this event was SO complimentary from SO many different people, so I would say it was an event well done 😊. Please enjoy some of the clips from A Night of Black Church below!  

Feedback from an anonymous source: 

“My husband went to BLISS last night with his small group and came home with just the highest praises about the whole night. My stoic, nonexpressive, white as white can be husband came away blessed. He showed me some videos and I was moved to tears!

Just wanted to encourage you that God has blessed so. many. people through you and your faithfulness. Thank you for sticking around and for having grace and a vision for our community. 

I love you!”

What gift of a response that is! God is good!! 

Student Highlight

This is Morolake, aka Ro. I wanted to share the good news with y’all about her and the work I’ve been able to witness God do in her heart.  I met Ro 2 years ago after church. She was crying and I went up to her and asked her what was wrong and she communicated to me about feeling skeptical of her validity as a believer, since she had so much doubt about whether or not she was sure she believed. I proceeded to talk to her for a little bit to get to know her more, and by the end of the conversation we agreed to study the Bible together. Lots of our Bible study together consist of frenzied spiraling conversations about her hangups with Christianity and her confusion about the legalism that she had experienced growing up and confusion on how that was supposed to be reflective of God. Ro and I continue to study the Bible, and it was a mixed bag. As she learned new things they would make sense to her but she would somehow find a way to end her new understanding with a different aspect that she was doubtful of. As this kept happening, one of her doubt spirals caused her to ask us to pause on studying the Bible so that she could figure out faith for herself. We remained friends and she continued to come to small group. Even though she was doubtful she still remained opened to being challenged. One of those challenges were for her to try coming to FNF. She came but refused to sing because she thought it was corny (lol) and uncomfortable. Fast forward to Christmas break of 2022: 3 months before that she says “I’m gonna decide if Jesus is for me in 3 months” and it turned out that Christmas Day was the 3 month mark.  See our conversation below 😊

So many things have changed in her since this day! Where she was resistant to things she is way more open and receptive, where she was skeptical about things she is calmer and more trusting that she has time to investigate/that she can follow Jesus and still have questions, and now she stands up and sings all the time! SHE EVEN CAME TO WINTER RETREAT! 

AND NOW SHES GOING TO SICM!!!!!!!!!!! (Our student leadership conference called the Student Institute of Campus Ministry) 

GOD IS GOOD!!!! 

Were it not for all of y’all’s financial support and prayers, I would not be able to be a part of and witness things like this! Your gift to these students is impactful beyond what’s even tangible. Thank you so so much for your partnership in this ministry! 

Please pray for my core that they would all choose Jesus/ level up in their faith if they already have chosen Jesus! 

January 2024: Winter Retreat

January   

If you’re new here, you probably don’t understand January for FOCUS, but if you’re not so new here, you know that January is THEE month for FOCUS, because of our annual winter retreat! Winter retreat is a time that all of the campuses across the DFW come together for a weekend of spiritual reset and rejuvenation as we head into the spring semester. 

Each year we alternate between a guest speaker and between our FOCUS staff that will curate the content of our learning portions for retreat. This year we had the honor of hearing from Fuller Seminary’s very Dr. Daniel Lee! 

If I could choose from my lifetime one speaker who painted the most helpful picture of God’s loving heart for us, it would be Dr. Lee! What a helpful foundation he laid for our winter retreat attendees! I am still chewing on the many nuggets of wisdom, insight, and challenge that he shared. 

He talked about the concept of distrustful obedience vs distrustful disobedience in the story of the prodigal son and how both sons were actually lost! Not just “the bad son” like people can tend to think. He also talked about how God wants us to wrestle with him and wants us to bring our anger and frustration to him and tell him about it directly so that he can address it directly; and how because God is personal, if we don’t address him directly he cant respond to us directly because he will only touch what we allow/invite him to. He also talked about how God made the whole of us and doesn’t want us to hide who we are. He wants to love us as we are and make us into who he has always intended us to be. 

Let’s just say Dr. Lee left many people having a paradigm shift of their fundamental understanding of who God is. 

If you’re interested to listen to some of those talks by Dr. Lee, you can find them here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YwxnDXCHo50UgRCyKOj6a?si=dX7G69KjT-GmpoH0D2Umvg

Another standout part about which retreat was our gospel choir! Ive done 2 FOCUS gospel choir initiatives now, so stay tuned for more because the students absolutely love it! Thanks to one of my coworkers Becca, pushing for us to do another one! You can see a snippets of the rehearsal in the video, but believe you me, the video doesn’t even capture the half of it! We are still  waiting on the official footage of it, but I will share once I get it! In the meantime time

Enjoy this TikTok recap below of what winter retreat was like! 

I am so thankful for every day that I get to do such meaningful work. I could not do this if it weren’t for your generosity. Thank you all so much for your unwavering support! 

December 2023: UTD Christmas Party

 

DECEMBER

December is a short month in the school calendar because people are busy with finals, so we make it a point every year to help our students decompress with a fun, themed Christmas Party. This year it was Polar Express themed and our students LOVED IT. We were so committed we even had our staff re-enact the hot chocolate dance scene from the movie!!! You can find a short snippet below 😊 IYKYK (which I’m a hypocrite for saying that because I still haven’t seen this movie lol) 

Enjoy!

The UTD FOCUS staff in our PJs minus 1. If you can spot the odd ball out, your prize will be that I will pray harder for you 😊 

Some of the students in their respective “train cars” as they drank hot chocolate, played Christmas trivia, and watched The Polar Express. 

Somehow one of our students had played Santa 2 other times prior to this night so it came in handy that he had the costume! 

Here’s a little video to show a bit more! 

While there’s not much to report about December, we are so thankful that we get to celebrate our Savior and the gifts and joy that he brings with our students! 

Speaking of joy……I got to preach a sermon on that at Northeast Garland Church! Here’s a link to it if you want to listen. Tell me what you think! 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xjQXhZj7KM1LNNF5gmJVJ?si=kmuIJUjyTQy5tETX8yGvAw

May the lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you! Thank yall so much for your investment in these students. We are able to serve them wholeheartedly because of your generosity 😊.