June Update

The past month has been primarily focused around our SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) trip - we took 70 students this year (13 from UNT and 4 from TWU)! SICM is a week-long leadership training course we take the following year's potential leaders to in Bellingham, WA. Each day is packed full of lectures, discussions, and hands-on-training for facilitating small groups, 1-on-1 ministry, developing custom Bible studies, evangelism, relating with God, and more. It was exciting to hear the students talk about what they were learning each day and see the passion that is growing in them for reaching their campuses for the Lord. I'm greatly looking forward to working with the UNT and TWU students next year.

One of the best things about this trip is simply the amount of time we all get to spend together. I personally enjoy my time getting to know these students since most of them have only been in the ministry for about a year. More importantly I get the perfect opportunity to learn more about the guys and girls who will soon be on the leader team. At the same time they get to know each other better. A lot of times these newer students have primarily developed friendships within their cores and while they may know of the other SICM attendees, it is usually only at an acquaintance level. This aspect is important too because it lets us start the year stronger with the leader team actually feeling more like a team. I've included a few pictures so you can see some of the students who came with us:

The guys I stayed with and our host family - some of the most amazing people I know!

This is what a typical lunch break looks like during SICM.

SICM graduation ceremony!

College students are weird!

Also this month marks the end of our 2013-2014 internship. Tonight we will be having a dinner to celebrate and encourage them as they transition to their new roles in the ministry or a new career. Please pray for them during this period of time! I have greatly enjoyed the time I had with the UNT interns. They will always be dear friends of mine as we have spent so much time together working hard for the Kingdom. It's often the people who you go through the hardest times with that mean the most to you in life.

UNT FOCUS Staff: Danielle Rodriguez, Grant Trotter, Matt Wills, me, Sarah King

Thank you again for everything you have invested into this ministry. Without your support we wouldn't be able to take students to SICM nor would we be able to train and raise up Christ-centered leaders on college campuses. God uses you to make a difference in this world. May He, who gives so generously, bless you and your family!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

May Update

Today is the last day of classes for UNT students, tomorrow is a "reading" day, and their finals start Saturday. These times are stressful for everyone, but I've been so impressed with our student leaders who have not slacked in their time ministering to their peers. It greatly encourages me. Truly, when I speak of the work these guys and girls have done this year it causes me to tear up (even now I am fighting back watery eyes in a public place!). I'm just so proud of them.

Some of Why I'm Proud

One of our student leaders was captain of the UNT Ultimate Frisbee team. She was good at leading that team and really enjoyed it. Facilitating a small group on top of that and school was overwhelming though. I remember talking to her once about how she was struggling with figuring out how to prioritize each of those things. Then I was dumbfounded when I discovered that she had quit the Ultimate Frisbee team altogether (except for when the team didn't have enough players to qualify for a game, she would still sacrifice her time to help them). Maybe this wasn't the hardest decision for her to make, but can you imagine doing that at 19 or 20 years old?

One of our TWU leaders has invested countless hours in reading books of his own accord (like M. Scott Peck's The Different Drum which is about Christian community) in order to enhance his effectiveness in college ministry. I've even read books per his recommendation and been challenged by his desire to learn.

A few of the student leaders who invest the most into their peers work around 30+ hours a week on top of being students and investing in the ministry. Regardless, these are guys and girls I can ask to do something and know it will get done. I asked one in particular to lead a few worship songs (though he doesn't do this normally) about 9 hours in advance for our end-of-the-year leader party. He not only came well prepared, but had taken a good deal of time to think through some challenging thoughts for us to consider while worshiping God. He framed our time of worshipful singing in such a way that helped the entire group (staff included) focus on praising our Lord with heart, mind, and spirit.

Yet another student leader is possibly the most busy with his music degree and marching band, but instead of being discouraged is all the more encouraged. His busy schedule has required him to develop disciplined time management with hours a day of practicing instruments, a few trips out of state to try out for a couple of drum corps, and more that I don't remember! The first semester of this year he was telling me that he didn't think he could continue being a leader in the ministry next year and I didn't want to press him because I was aware of how time intensive his studies are. After the Christmas break he had changed his mind. To him the opportunity to minister to others (inside of our mentoring support structure for student leaders) for the few years he is in school is rare and short-lived. This is something that I have challenged others to think through in the past, but this particular student realized it on his own and astonished me! He also has invested time into planning for reaching out to others in the Troopers Drum Corps that he has been accepted into over the summer.

The hearts that God has developed in these young disciples are awesome, as is everything that comes from Him. I share these examples with you so that you might be encouraged by the fruits of your investment. I know God moves in the lives of students at UNT and TWU because I see it personally. I'm convinced that they will take that with them into the rest of their lives to impact people for generations - some significantly more than others, possibly even myself. That's what gives me purpose in my role and instills courage in me to keep running the race.

One More Thing I Want to Share About Our Leaders

We celebrated the end of the year with a leader party that I had mentioned above. Our agenda for the night consisted of singing a few songs of praise to God, then lifting up prayers of praise and encouragements to the group. This is a true statement: it was the most encouraging part of the year for me personally. To understand the situation you need to realize that at the end of the year many student leaders are tired and stressed. It is not unusual for several of them to decide against leading again the following year. At the same time there are students who see the purpose in the hard work or who have been doing this for a couple of years already and know they have this propensity to want to quit. The latter group seized the moment and encouraged (instilled courage in) the others to press on and be careful not to give up on this opportunity. It really is an opportunity. It's an opportunity for them to take responsibility for advancing the Kingdom of God, which is huge. It's also an opportunity for them to mature as a person. So many of the skills I had learned that enabled me to excel at my previous job and eventually be promoted to supervise 10 other people (many of which had worked there 3-5 times longer than me and some had also applied for the same position) were developed from leading a small group in FOCUS as a college student. This is because leading a small group was much more than leading a Bible study. Bible study is one important element, but our small groups are about living in and leading community. Our student leaders are experiencing life with their peers. They are there through the thick and thin and all the while trying to lead them toward a life devoted to following Christ. A very complex skill emerges from these experiences: human relations. It's something that we obviously struggle with in the modern world considering we have Human Relations departments in most mid to large-scale businesses. The ability to have deep, healthy relationships with those around us is important and not often taught in our academically focused culture. Most of our schooling on how to build relationships seems to come from our families and television. This is another reason why I believe so much in what we do here on the college campuses. I'm convinced a difference is being made.

Upcoming Events

We will be taking our group of potential leaders to SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) from May 15th - 24th. That is the ministry we have learned a lot of our ministry methods from and we take a group of students to Bellingham, WA each year for an intense, week-long ministry training class/conference. I'll have more to say about this in my next update!

All of our campuses will be meeting together over the summer in a centralized location, which is very exciting. In years past, the Denton campuses (UNT and TWU) have met independently because we are about 45 minutes away from the others. It's exciting that we were able to work out a new meeting place so that we can enjoy our unity. Most of our students have cross-campus relationships so I know they will enjoy getting to see each other regularly as well.

Since we will not have our normal small groups (called core groups, because we consider them the core of our ministry) over the summer, we normally have something called School of Ministry (SOM). SOM is also an attempt to provide our students with a graduate level, class-like small group about Biblical topics because they lack this sort of thing in the secular universities they attend. This year our SOM group will be over roughly the first half of Genesis using the NIV Application Commentary for Genesis.

Another type of small group we are offering will be going through the Experiencing God workbook study by Blackaby. This will be something that is supplemental to the sermons at our summer FOCUS big group meetings.

Thank You!

Thank you again for your support. I know saying this each month can seem less meaningful, but a thank you never goes without saying. I am compelled to express my appreciation at every opportunity. I thank you and hope that you are as encouraged as I am by the good things God is doing here!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

April Update

Please forgive me for the late update. I've been trying to catch up on work and rest/sleep for the past week! I have actually been looking forward to writing this post and I'm excited for you to read it. Specifically, I have included some evangelistic insights at the bottom. These are some ideas that have been collecting in my mind for a while and I'm glad to finally get them out in writing.

A main focus of mine for the past month was getting ready for SSI (Spring Student Initiative) week. The ministry I often refer to in Washington state sends groups of students during their Spring break to various areas in the US for service trips. One group of 20 students came to Texas for a week of evangelism on our six campuses. I am excited to tell you a little about how this week went and hopefully you will be able to experience for yourself some of God's glory in all of it.

What SSI Means to Our Ministry

It would be easy to take for granted that these students came on this trip as a service to the FOCUS ministry. It would be easy for our ministry to think we are doing them a service by hosting them here and setting up opportunities for them to practice evangelism. It's important to understand, though, that our Washingtonian brothers and sisters sacrificed their week of break, but even more than that they came to the campuses that we labor on to help further the Kingdom of God. They exhibited a Kingdom mindset which amazes me - and reminds me so much of the Lord we serve. I wish that you could have seen the concern that our friends had for colleges they would likely never visit again. I was able to pray with some of the Washington students about UNT and TWU - how encouraging it was for me to hear them pour their hearts out for something so dear to my own heart! Along with students from Washington I was able to have spiritual conversations with UNT and TWU students. In those conversations I saw the care our visiting brothers and sisters had for university students halfway across the country. So I want to just express how appreciative I am of the unity they have modeled for our students as well as our staff. What a blessing it is to be a part of God's Kingdom!

UNT and TWU Evangelism Plans

At TWU we did something called, "I'm Sorry" which is an attempt at restoring relationships between Christians and those who have been hurt by Christians. Anyone with a shred of humility will admit they make mistakes and Christians aren't exempt from that. Our goal with this method of outreach is to engage in conversation with people who have been hurt, be sympathetic of their pain, and try to develop real relationships through conversation. The goal is not to convert people in that conversation, but we also weren't going to shy away from sharing the gospel of Jesus. You can see more about this on Sarah's blog or get even more of a sense of what we did by viewing my post from last year's "I'm Sorry" event at UNT.

The title of the left board reads, "Christians: what are you personally sorry for?"
Response on the bottom middle of the right board reads, "Being judged by my brothers and sisters in Christ."

At UNT we had a different approach. Our main goal was to strike an interest with the atheist crowd. Our event was called "Questioning God" which was simply a forum for passersby to ask any question they had about God (and they could write their questions on the marker boards we set up). We knew going into it that we would be faced with some tough questions and likely would be incapable of answering most, if not all, of them. Providing answers wasn't our goal though. Our goals are to have conversations and build relationships.

Some Insights on Evangelistic Outreach

1) Meet people where they are rather than expecting them to go where you want them.

The best conversations I've had started with me asking lots of questions to understand the person I'm talking to. It comes out of the wisdom in the quote: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Who would want to listen to what I have to say until they respect me? Our role may not be to take someone from A-Z, but maybe just from A-B. Some conversations I had last week with non-Christians ended with me being one example of a Christian who didn't attack them for what they believe and was willing to have a reasonable conversation about belief in God. From my experience, a lot of the reasons for hostility toward Christianity come from misunderstandings of who Jesus really is. A lot of that can be addressed when we are willing to listen to what shaped their current view of Jesus. Like I said earlier, the goal is conversation and relationships.

2) When you display humility, others are more likely to reciprocate.

Three people I talked to personally were very neat examples of this. Truly, the Lord touched me in each of these:

• One girl at UNT responded to my question, "Do you have any questions about God?" with, "It's all lies!" and, "It's a man-made book!" without stopping to find out what we were actually doing. I can't blame her considering she has probably been "preached at" in the past by another organization. Really I didn't think much of it, except that it was humorous to me personally that she thought questions could be lies. The neat thing was she came back an hour or two later and apologized to me! After that we had a really cool conversation about each of our differing beliefs on the existence of God. I made sure to thank her for being vulnerable enough to come back and apologize.
• A girl at TWU wrote a two page note (attached with a magnet in the image from TWU above), I guess looking to avoid a debate, and left it on the table we were set up at. She had some similar thoughts on how Christianity is illogical to her, but later she ended up having a long conversation with Sarah. I came in at the tail end of their conversation, but Sarah listened to what this girl had to say and befriended her. They have stayed in contact and will likely spend time together again - it even seems like she might be interested in studying the Bible!
• Yet another girl from TWU was explaining to one of the Washington students and me how she believed in God, but hadn't been a part of a Christian community in a while. Her reason was that she was busy with other things. Through a conversation about what could motivate us to passionately live our lives following Jesus (as the disciples did - even to their deaths) she ended up sharing that she was afraid she was too far gone to return to God. We told her that was absolutely not true! She had been judged by others within the church in the past so much that she feared being close to other Christians (her comment is on the bottom middle of the right marker board in the image from TWU). That breaks my heart. To summarize, we told her she was welcome to be a part of our community and she struggled not to cry in front of us. It was amazing that God used us to bring back this lost sheep of his. I even got to say hi to her this past Friday at our big group meeting!

These were just the three conversations that popped into my mind first, not to mention the conversations I wasn't included in. I wanted to share them to encourage you. There is such humility in each one of these people! God can teach and grow us even as we reach out to others.

3)  Map making and seeking the truth together.

A concept that I learned from a favorite author of mine (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled) is thinking of our worldviews as maps. Each of us has a different worldview just as if we all were mapmakers, our maps would have differences. Some would be more or less complete than others. Some would have parts that were over exaggerated while others might have parts that are understated or even neglected altogether. I think this is a great metaphor for how humans have such differing views of the world. We have to admit there is only one true worldview so it is likely that each of us is wrong at some point(s). In light of this, if we are to be good mapmakers, we should constantly be refining our maps. We need to be open to correction when someone else says, "Hey, there is not a river there!" or, "You drew that mountain in the wrong place." When a conflict in maps arises, the appropriate response should be to travel to this place in question together. Let's see what the true state of things is, not to see who is right, but to see what is right. Perhaps we were looking at the same area from two different perspectives. In that case, we would both need to take a look from the other person's perspective to see if we might have missed something important.

Consider this approach to talking about your belief in God with an atheist, or anyone really. Of course, the metaphor makes this process sound simple and even fun maybe. It likely won't be that simple considering human beings are quite complex, but it does provide some insight into how one might attempt to win a nonbeliever over to Christ. It also provides insight into how a Christian can find deeper spiritual truths when they team up with another person instead of against them. Iron sharpens iron as one man sharpens another, right?

4) Share your relationship with God.

Instead of trying to convince someone that God exists through whatever theological truths or logical arguments, I think it's much more valuable to tell them about my personal convictions and why I have a trust relationship with the Lord. Have you ever had "the facts" given to you, but yet you still felt differently about whatever the subject was? Human beings aren't purely rational creatures! Plus so much of the evidence of Christianity is experiential. Even the reasons people don't believe in God are experiential: they grew up with Christian parents who abused them in some way or their experiences in the world have led them to believe a god could not exist. When believers and nonbelievers try to debate the subject with empirical evidence, they speak on different wavelengths, often voiding the entire conversation.

Let's think about it another way though. Imagine I have a friend named Kyle who I really respect, but you despise. Let's assume he is the same person to both of us (and not just simply mean to you but nice to me). If this is true, we both have different perceptions of him based on experiential evidence. Why? Maybe Kyle made a bad first impression with you somehow. Maybe you misinterpreted something he said because you didn't know his personality yet. Maybe you just assumed something about him because he reminded you of your dad who abused you growing up. Now for whatever reason I have a different perception of Kyle. He has become one of my close friends that I really appreciate. It breaks my heart to know that you see him differently! So I try to find out what exactly it is about Kyle that you are having difficulty with. Then I share with you my own experiences with Kyle and how his relationship with me has benefited my life. Maybe I can't convince you, but I'm going to try anyway. Let's assume that I have been a good friend to you and gained your respect. This will bring you to a conflict: you think Kyle is terrible, but I (someone you respect) is saying the opposite. The respect I've gained from you is the foothold - without it I have no chance! Maybe just me sharing my personal experience isn't enough. That's fine. I'll invite you to spend time with Kyle and me together. Then you can experience for yourself this Kyle that I've been trying to tell you about, hopefully with a more open mind than before. Again this is so much simpler in theory, but it gives us a way of wrapping our minds around what it looks like to bring restoration to other people's relationships with God.


Thank you for reading. These are merely my thoughts and I only share them in hopes of encouraging you. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts of your own in regard to this subject. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

Thank you also for your support and prayers. They are always appreciated and well received. May the Lord continue to bless His faithful servants!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

March Update

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I am thankful for and encouraged by you! My hope is that in reading the following things you will also be encouraged and excited to hear what's going on at UNT.

Student Institute of Campus Ministry (SICM)

For anyone who is unfamiliar, SICM is a campus ministry training conference in Bellingham, WA, that we send our potential leaders to each year during May. The students will be taught on a variety of subjects including how to lead small groups, disciple students one-on-one and study the Bible with them, develop deep spiritual friendships, do evangelistic outreach on campus, etc. One of the days they will even go out on the Western Washington University campus to engage others in spiritual conversation.

This year, from our six campuses, we have 68 students registered to attend the conference (24 from UNT and TWU)! These are all students who have shown leadership potential and have already been leading in the community to varying degrees. On top of that, several of our staff will be going. That is a lot of people to be transporting across the country so please be praying for our safety and logistics! Even more importantly, pray for the Lord to be preparing the students' hearts to learn and grow in their faith as well as their ability to minister to those around them. Pray that God will use each one of them to do amazing things on their respective campuses when they return home. Also pray that these students will all be able to raise the money to cover the trip cost. If you would like to donate money to help send a student to SICM, let me know.

Check out the testimonies from some of last year's UNT students who went to SICM.

Parent Night

I have to say this might be the event I get the most nervous about each year. There is something about having to stand up in front of all of the students' parents and talk about what our ministry is all about that just puts the pressure on! Needless to say, I pray A LOT leading up to that night and the Lord always blesses it. Coming out of parent night last weekend was very encouraging to me. The prominent segment of the night was when we had our "open mic" time, where any parent or student could share what they have seen as valuable in the FOCUS community. The purpose of this is for newer parents to hear testimonies from people who have experienced it and get a better sense of what we are all about - far better than any message I could ever convey to them. Getting to hear parents and students say so many things about how this ministry has impacted their children or even themselves is powerful. Not only do I feel encouraged to know that God is blessing people through our community, but so do the students and their parents. That's something I love about God's design in Christian community: everyone is edified by lifting each other up.

I also wanted to share a note that I received from one of the UNT parents who emailed me a couple days later. This note, to me, is just a powerful example of the value of campus ministry and the impact that it can have on a person's life. I hope that you are just as encouraged as I am.

Spring Student Initiative (SSI)

For the past few years we have had students from Western Washington University (with the ministry that hosts the SICM conference) come to Texas during their spring break and help us with a week long evangelism project on each of our campuses. This year we will have about 20 students again. Please be praying for each of them as they give up this break in order to reach people for God's kingdom. Also pray for our staff to be able to prepare adequately to provide them a great experience. The students will be here from March 23-29th and will be on campus M-F. I'll provide a report on how this goes next month!

One other thing to be praying about is our prospective interns for next school year. We have 11 applicants and will be making final decisions over the next week.

Thank you so much for being involved (even if you are merely reading this post!) in the ministry going on at UNT. I appreciate your support. The Lord works through you to make what I get to do possible.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

February Update

Beginning a new semester is always intense, but I think we've finally settled into a routine now. I'm really excited about this semester coming out of Winter Camp, going into a new sermon series, and thinking about next year's potential leaders.

WINTER CAMP
I really wish you could have been there. To remind you, our topic was "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom." The main focus of the weekend was an understanding of the Holy Spirit. I, along with many others, prayed fervently that God would be there with us and move in us. I believe that He did. Our times singing worship songs were more expressive than I've ever seen in our ministry. Several students walked up on stage sporadically between songs to share something the Lord had put on their hearts and minds. Many there were more open to God's spirit than in the past, I being one of them.

Beyond that, it was encouraging just to have the whole FOCUS community together again. I greatly enjoy intermingling the campuses and watching new friendships come out of Winter Camp. That's actually one of my favorite parts!

This is our group at camp:

SERMON SERIES
The sermon series that we just started at UNT is "Embracing Spiritual Adolescence: Developing an Adult Relationship with the Almighty." At first I thought it should be titled "Coming Out of Spiritual Adolescence." Then I realized adolescence isn't the opposite of maturity, but the process of growing into maturity. I want all of the students in our ministry engaged in that process!

In the next several weeks we will be going deeper into three important aspects of spiritual maturity:

1) Intimacy: seeking relationship

2) Self-control: surrendered obedience

3) Love: doing what's best

Last night, for example, I talked about idolatry with examples from Exodus 32 and 1 Kings 11. In these two places we see how seriously God takes idolatry. There are major consequences. For making the golden calf, most of the Israelites were killed and the remainder received a plague. God couldn't even be with them any longer on their journey as we see in Exodus 33:3. Solomon, who up until chapter 11 in 1 Kings seemed to be impervious to evil, falters. Despite all of the wisdom he had, he chose to marry women the Lord warned about and ended up serving their gods.

In Exodus 20:2-6 the Lord gave His commands in regard to idolatry. We see here that He is a jealous God. The meaning of the word here from what I understand is not that God coveted or envied His people. To covet/envy means to desire something that someone else has so much that you want to take it away from them. Jealousy is about an intolerance to losing something or someone you appreciate to someone else. It's about losing something you already have. Can you imagine the despair of our Lord when we walk away from Him? Or even when we just sneak off for a few moments?

My encouragement to the students was essentially to remove the spiritual infections from their individual lives and our community: to cast down their idols, to rebuke each other - only out of love - as Moses did to Aaron in Exodus 32. We need to take a step back and figure out what we are worshiping instead of the Lord, and then demystify those things by realizing they can't offer any security to us. Only in God can we find security. And the more we pursue Him, the less we will pursue false gods.

Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 when you get a chance. Paul encourages the Corinthians in light of all of this and more.

(I just realized my last post also included a mini sermon on idolatry. Perhaps God has placed this on my heart for you.)

POTENTIAL NEW LEADERS
As you may remember we invite our potential new leaders for the following year to a college ministry leadership conference in Bellingham, WA, each year in May. This week we just finalized our invitations to that conference which came out to 35 invites with an additional 6 maybes for UNT and TWU!
(UNT is the University of North Texas and TWU is the Texas Woman's University)

One last thing I need to mention: TWU FOCUS is now an official organization on campus! It's the beginning of something great that God is going to do on that campus. I say that because there are few Christian organizations there and very little social activity. One of our goals is to change the culture of the TWU campus to be more active, but even more so to be a place where God is known to change hearts and lives.

STAFF RETREAT

I told you that I would let you know how the staff retreat went and so I'm going to tag it on to the bottom here. One of our themes was how we each deal with conflict. I personally enjoyed this because it was a time of vulnerability for most of us that brought our team closer together. We also had some discussions about what our dysfunctions as a team are, the sources of influence for leaders, and various other things geared toward staff development or administration to prepare for the semester. This was a very brief summary, but I will tell you that these retreats are essential to growing our staff team together in the Lord, as a spiritual family, and in effectiveness for the Kingdom.

Please see the prayer requests on the left! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support. I appreciate all of the people who make it possible for me to be ministering to students at UNT and TWU. May God bless you always.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

January Update

The fall semester wrapped up quite nicely despite the ice storm causing us to reschedule/cancel a few events. Since church was canceled that Sunday during the bad weather, some of us walked over to Whataburger to meet together! The Christmas party was so fun. We got together to sing worship songs, do some Christmas devotionals, and enjoy each other's company. It was great to see everyone one more time before they left for the break! Also we sent a small group of students to New Orleans for a service trip, but you can read more about that on Sarah's blog since she actually went on that trip.

The body meeting at Whataburger.

I'm really excited to see what God does this semester with the time and effort our student leaders have invested in the students they have been ministering to. One thing that is often a turning point for newer students each year is Winter Camp. I think this is primarily due to the relational depth they experience in being immersed in Christian community for an extended period of time.

Winter Camp 2014

Winter Camp is quickly approaching (Jan. 17-20th). If you are unfamiliar with what I'm referring to, it's our biggest event of the year. This will be our second year at Sky Ranch in Van, TX.  All six of our campuses will be there. It's a very exciting time to experience our whole ministry at large and I would like to invite you out there for a day, evening, etc. Let me know if you are interested in visiting and I can give you details on the schedule. Winter Camp is also an opportunity for us to do some longer, in-depth teachings to the entire ministry. Our speaker for the weekend, Brady Bobbink, is the director of a campus ministry in Bellingham, WA, that we have had a relationship with for many years now (http://ccfministry.com/). Their ministry has actually taught us a lot of what we know about ministry on the college campus and we have been sending our potential leaders up there just about every year for a campus ministry leadership conference called SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry). Brady's series of talks are titled: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom." I'm excited to hear what he has to say and I'll likely try to relay some of that to you!

I would also like to point out a need in regard to Winter Camp. We, as a staff, always want every student to make it out to camp regardless of money issues so we offer scholarships to those who need them. Due to the size of our ministry this can add up to a large sum of money rather quickly. If you are interested in providing a scholarship for a student, please either let me know or fill out a Winter Camp scholarship form. Even feel free to do this after camp is over as many students sign up at the last minute and we collect most of the payments afterward anyway. The cost for camp is $135.

Recently on My Mind

Something I have been thinking about lately is the issue of idolatry. That's arguably the most common sin in the Old Testament. The main stipulation God puts on His promise to David about his descendants always being on the throne in Israel is that they cannot forsake Him by worshiping other gods. Then we see nearly every king of Israel and Judah forsaking the Lord through idol worship afterward. Growing up I always wondered why they continually messed up, generation after generation. Even when one of the more righteous kings would rise up they would eventually falter near the end of their reign. Of course I eventually realized that I'm following the same pattern with different "gods" and I am left with the same question: Why do I keep doing what is obviously counter to God's ways?

I recently found an insightful comment regarding one of the kings of Judah in an article: "His dependence on God was consistent when the odds were clearly against him. It was in depending on God for the day-to-day plans and actions that Jehoshaphat was weak." Looking at king David we see this daily dependence on God. The book of Kings continually compares later kings to David and they were not as righteous in the Lord's sight. He may not have been perfect, but David seemed to always be conscious of the true Lord. I believe to some degree that's what Paul is getting at when he says to pray without ceasing: practicing the constant presence of the Almighty. Do you practice the presence of God? Are you mindful of His desires in your day-to-day plans? Do you inspire others to think this way? Consider how God sent His prophets when people needed to be reminded of who is Lord. I would suggest the reason we as humans fall into idolatry so easily is our tendency to forget. We need our brothers and sisters to remind us of the truth regularly so we don't forsake our God; so that we can be true men and women of God.

Prayer Needs

Our winter staff retreat is this weekend, where we will spend time together in fellowship and planning. Please pray that the Lord strengthens the bonds of our team during that time in order to maintain the unity of our ministries. Also pray that He guides us in our planning and preparation for this coming semester.

Please pray for our six campuses as the semester starts (UTD, UNT, TWU, Collin, Richland, and Preston Ridge).  Pray that our students will engage with their classmates purposefully creating relationships with them.  Pray that our staff is spirit-led and focused on God's mission.  Pray that God gives me the strength necessary to lead the UNT ministry and please pray that we will see many transformed hearts this semester.


Thank you so much for all you do.  God uses you to help advance the gospel.  May God bless you in 2014 for your commitment to Him and His workers.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

December Update

Things are winding down for the semester already. Due to Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday of the month and finals starting at UNT this week, we will not be able to have a big group meeting on campus before the Christmas break. Fortunately, we do have a few more opportunities to engage with the students before they go home to their families for the break:

- Our leader team will be having a party Monday. The primary purpose of that time is to bring our team together, worship God as a body, share encouragements with each other, and fellowship. These students have worked hard this semester.  

- We are having a Christmas party this Friday off campus. The venue isn't very conducive to having a stage or much sharing, but we will sing some worship songs and prepare some various interactive stations to encourage the students to think deeper about the spirituality of this season. 

- The last Discipleship Class for the semester will be this Friday also. We weren't planning on meeting this week, but the students were very excited at the idea of doing so to catch up for missing a week earlier in the semester.

Please pray for these events as well as any one-on-one times the staff will have with students before the holidays.


One thing to note from this past month was we had an event called Pizza Theology. This is a longer teaching time (4 hours) with a break for dinner in the middle. This year's topic was "Breaking Free from the Chains of Addiction and Compulsive Behavior." Our guest speaker was Eddie Traughber who is a professional Christian counselor in our area (his website is http://faithwalkcounseling.com/). Our ministry has developed a relationship with him over the past year and we have grown to really appreciate him. The lecture was very insightful and I've heard a lot of positive feedback from the students. Feel free to listen to the recording by clicking the topic above!

A word from one of our student leaders at Texas Woman's University:

Albert Rodriguez

"Being part of the TWU plant has been quite an adventure. The semester started out with a lot of prayer and planning, not really knowing what to expect. But God has blessed and is still blessing our efforts. 

The second week of school 3 freshman initiated the idea of a small group and asked me to lead it. So I did! This wasn't expected to happen until spring semester but the hunger for learning was there. So now there's a guys core with 9 guys that meet in the dorms, and they have been very consistent! 

Contact evangelism on campus has also been a blessing. I have met a few students who are curious about God and some that have even wanted to meet up to talk about it more. I think the effort of putting God's presence on campus is slowly growing. 

With men being scarce on campus it really has been a challenge to find some that do care for a friendship, let alone about God, but for the small amount that I have been able to reach, God has blessed them. 

One thing I learned about going into the semester was that 'quality is better than quantity' and that I had to trust God with that. But I didn't know what that looked like in starting a campus ministry until it happened. Had I been focusing on quantity I would be a little discouraged at this point. But as far as quality goes, the guys I meet with regularly have been so responsive and reciprocal to our friendship. We value each other and our words very much and I think that's where the kingdom starts. We share things about life that allow us to grow and I feel that's what true quality is. 

Overall God is doing big things at TWU and I feel that things are only going to get better. It's starting off small, but I know God will make it grow! He is too good."

Prayers needed, especially over the Christmas break:

- That the momentum in students' lives from Friday night fellowship, core, and one-on-one studies is not lost from time spent away from the body.
- That all of our students will go to Winter Camp in January.
- Clarity to the staff for planning events, sermons, etc. next semester.
- Student leaders and staff will find time to rest purposefully.


Thank you, as always, for your support. Your money, prayers, and encouragement all go toward building God's kingdom on the college campuses. May the Lord bless you with true riches for your generous gifts.


Yours for the Campus,

Matt