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
Thank Yall SO much for partnering with me in advancing the Kingdom!
Summer FOCUS snippet 😊
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