February Feature

Check out what's going on in the Denton FOCUS ministry!

Winter Camp

This was a such a great experience. We had around 500 students from all of our campuses at Sky Ranch. It's getting to the point where I'm not sure I could name much more than 50% of the people there! It's such a great opportunity to see the larger FOCUS community and develop inter-campus relationships. For that reason, Winter Camp is one of my favorite times of the year. It's essentially our annual family reunion.

This was our first year to invite a speaker (Iain Provan) with whom we did not previously have a personal relationship. However, he is a professor at a theological school in Canada (Regent College) who we have come to have high regard for through listening to some of his recorded class lectures. It was a neat opportunity for us to bless him and be blessed by him.

Iain incorporated our theme "Words of Life" into his topics for the weekend. He shared words on creation, God, being human, evil & suffering, and hope. The main point of his talks was that God gives us His story through the scripture which starkly contrasts the story we are told by the world.

A few more pictures from camp:

University of North Texas

Texas Woman's University

FOCUS Alumni

Student Institute of Campus Ministry

It's that time again to be thinking through our potential student leaders for next year, and a part of that process is sending students to SICM. If you don't recall, SICM is a conference in May we take select students to in order to prepare them for being missionaries on their college campuses the following year. It's also a very exciting time for the staff to start developing deeper relationships with newer students in our ministry. We have already sent out invitations to the students who have exhibited spiritual leadership qualities so please be praying for them in their decisions on whether or not to go on this trip. If you are interested in donating money toward a student's SICM trip, please check out this page.

For more information on SICM:
Official SICM Website
2014 SICM Testimonials (UNT students)
2013 SICM Testimonials (UNT students)

Interns & Staffing for Next Year

We are currently accepting applications for the 2015-2016 FOCUS internship and making other staffing decisions. Please be in prayer for our discernment on these matters.

Parent Night/Open House

This is an annual event we do for the families, friends, mentors, etc. of our students to see what our ministry is all about. I'll share briefly about who we are, what our mission is, and how we try to accomplish it, but the most impactful part of this meeting is hearing from parents and students about how God has used the ministry to cause big changes in students' lives. If you are interested in visiting FOCUS on parent night, please come! You are more than welcome to visit on any Friday night throughout the year as well. Just contact me for more info on that.

Parent Night will be Saturday, February 21st, at 5:30pm in the Eagle Student Services Center (room 255) on the UNT campus.

NCTC Expansion

We are making progress toward registering a student organization at North Central Texas College in Corinth, TX. The campus is just 10 minutes south of UNT and TWU. As far as I can tell, FOCUS will be the first Christian ministry to start an official student organization on that campus. Often the community colleges are overlooked as places to invest in students spiritually. Even the students tend to see that time as a waste or just something to get through quickly. The reality is students are generally at a community college for two years, maybe longer. Then they often feed directly into nearby universities, especially when they have developed close friendships with students at those campuses. In fact, we started the UNT ministry with a small group of student leaders who transferred from Collin College.

I'm meeting with a few of the students who are heading up the NCTC registration process this Thursday to finalize all of the paperwork. Please be in prayer for this to go smoothly! Our plan is to start developing some community there before the summer so that we can start strong in August!



Thanks again for all of your support. God is good! I see that all of the time through the people who invest in and pray for this mission. May the Lord bless you for your participation!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt