August Update, Part 2

Our staff retreat earlier this week was very good. It's an important time for us to deepen our unity in Christ and think through our goals for the coming year. We shared about our lives with each other to deepen our staff relationships. We spent time in prayer and song to deepen our corporate relationship with the Lord. We talked about the values we want to emphasize in our ministry, how we want to articulate them, and the practical ways of implementation. I'm excited about getting this year started!

2014 - 2015 FOCUS Interns

Our Entire FOCUS Staff!

I'd like to give you a snapshot of the next few weeks so you can have a sense of what our ministry will be up to and how you can better pray over it. Before I get into that I'll define a few terms so you can actually understand what I'm talking about!

Core - Our smaller, same-gender communities which involve studying scripture, worshiping the Lord in various ways, and serving others together. It's also a place to challenge and instill courage in one another to boldly do our part in advancing the Kingdom. We consider these groups to be the "core" of our ministry because it's typically where the most growth occurs.
Corefa - Core facilitator. These are the students who have committed to our student leader team for the year. They co-facilitate their core group with a partner and spiritually mentor the members in the group. The staff devotes time each week to these students to support them in their ministry. We view and equip them to be pastors of the community.
FOJ - Focus on Jesus. This is our primary Bible study that each new member is invited to do with their corefa or other experienced member of their core group. It's not a requirement, but we have designed it specifically for our ministry model. With so many meanings attached to the word "Christian" and "disciple" it is helpful to go through FOJ to get a sense of where someone is spiritually and for non-Christians it gives a great foundational starting point to helping them see what Jesus is all about.
FNF - Friday Night Fellowship. This is our large group meeting at UNT, which the TWU ministry attends also.
UNT - University of North Texas. FOCUS has been at UNT for just over 4 years now.
TWU - Texas Woman's University. FOCUS was established at TWU last year and will still be strongly connected to the UNT ministry as it matures.


Here's that snapshot I was talking about...

Corefa Prep

For roughly 11 hours we will have all of the UNT and TWU corefas (44, possibly 46 total) and staff together to prepare for the beginning of the year, specifically for welcome week. This is also our first opportunity to get this team together and help them feel comfortable working with each other. We will have a few different discussions and times of sharing to develop vulnerability and openness. The three focal points will be:
1) Discussing our theme (Words of Life) so the student leaders have a sufficient understanding of the direction we will be going with our teaching.
2) Talking over the welcome week schedule and letting more experienced students share advice about how to best reach out during this time.
3) Sharing our visions of how we see God using us individually and collectively this year to do His work in the lives of others.

Welcome Week

Starting the next morning after our corefa prep is a week of activities planned by the school. UNT requires all new students to participate in several of these events so it's an easy way for our students to meet incoming freshmen and transfer students. We do however plan a couple of extra events like capture the flag and board game nights. TWU has a different schedule with less events, but our goals are similar and methods easily adaptable.

First FNF

This is usually our biggest large group meeting of the year since many new students show up to check out what we are all about. With so many new faces there it is imperative that our regular members take advantage of the opportunity to welcome and befriend them. We don't have a structured system for this - we merely train the corefas to keep a keen eye out for visitors each week so they can initiate conversation. The most important part is the follow through: inviting the new person to sit with them and/or exchanging contact information to continue developing the new friendship. The most common reason people consistently come to a Christian gathering is because of the human relationships they find there. We don't want that to ever be lacking in our community.

Corefa Retreat

This is similar in a sense to our corefa prep because it's designed to prepare the corefas even more for the year of ministry ahead of them. It's different because we have all of the corefas from our larger ministry (well over 100 total) and we prepare them more for facilitating core, leading FOJ studies, mentoring, etc. Also while the corefa prep is geared toward predominantly practical things, the corefa retreat is focused more at the heart level - us challenging and pouring a lot into the corefas to help develop a passion and excitement.



My biggest request at this time is that you would take some time over the next week to pray over the beginning of the school year and specifically the events listed above. Our organization can't do anything without God's power and guidance. Thank you so much for your support! It goes a lot further than you probably realize. I appreciate everything you do!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

August Update, Part 1

Today is the first of our organizational calendar which means we are entering the busiest part of the year. August is when everything starts up for the school year. Our new interns started orientation today. Our new staff team will be going on retreat Sun-Tues to finalize plans for the year, prepare ourselves (spiritually, mentally, and emotionally), and spend time together as brothers and sisters. In a couple of weeks the UNT/TWU small group leaders will be meeting to prepare for the craziness of engaging new students during welcome week (Aug 17-24) - there's no other opportunity all year like this where our students can meet and befriend so many people at once. Our first FOCUS big group meeting is on August 22nd and school starts on the 25th. Also as a side note the Denton church we planted roughly a year ago will begin weekly meetings this month!

Please be in prayer over our student leader team, staff, the Denton church, and the beginning of our year. I'll write a longer post after our staff retreat. Thank you so much!

Matt

July Update

Wow, July came faster than expected. I wish there was more time over the summer! Things seem more chaotic, I guess, because there is less structure in my schedule and it's a time of transition. The primary transition is selecting student leaders for next school year. Our goal is to finalize the leader team by the end of this week. Spending time talking to and meeting with many of these students over the past few weeks has been very encouraging as we look toward the approaching school year. Please be praying for the Spirit to guide Sarah and me in that process (as well as planning important dates, events, meetings, sermons, etc. for the year).

Our summer activities have been going really well. They include:

Thursday Night Fellowship

These are our combined large group meetings with all 6 campuses. The students get a sense of the larger FOCUS community and can develop cross-campus relationships with people who they know later know at future events during the school year. It's actually my favorite part of the summer because I also get to develop relationships with students on the other campuses - some of whom will transfer to UNT eventually so forming those connections early on can make their transition much smoother.

Summer School of Ministry: Genesis

This is our more academic Biblical class to challenge our students intellectually in their knowledge and understanding of scripture since they aren't naturally exposed to this at a secular university. We have been reading through the Genesis NIV Application Commentary which attempts to explain the intended cultural meaning and the contemporary significance. To grossly oversimplify, one main point of the author is that we have to remember that the characters chosen in the scripture are typically over emphasized in our culture. We can't make them into the main characters, because God is the main character of scripture. The stories recorded in the Bible are written to tell who God is so that the reader can know Him. We have had some very cool discussions in this class!

Experiencing God

This is a class centered around a popular workbook called Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, and Claude King. I'm typically not too keen on the devotional book type approach because they seem to be very transactional instead of relational. This book however has a strong emphasis on our relating to God in a very real way by learning to listen to His voice. Going through this study is somewhat the "yin" to the "yang" of our Genesis class.


Next month (in August) our Denton church plant will start meeting weekly which is incredibly exciting. Please be praying for us in this endeavor as we build and grow a spiritual community in Denton that can be a support to the college ministry as well as a light to the city, and eventually a church who plants other churches.


Thank you so much for your continual support of the work God is doing here. Many people benefit and will benefit from the gifts of a few. God is good!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

SICM Testimonials!

I wanted to share a few of the SICM experiences with you in hopes that it blesses and encourages you. God is going to use these students to make a noticeable impact on the world!

Autumn

SICM was such an incredible experience all around. The relationships I built there are so deep and it is encouraging to see how much God is doing in each of our lives. One thing that stuck out to me was the fact that the Kingdom movement is so much bigger than I can possibly comprehend. God has graciously invited us into this grand plan and it is so easy to get caught up in the "it's between me and God" mindset. God wants a relationship with us all, but he also calls us to spread His glory everywhere we go. SICM was a great reminder that our lives are about so much more than ourselves and that we are part of the biggest movement to ever sweep across this earth. God's plans are pretty wonderful.

Troy

Going to SICM taught me that asking the right questions can be very beneficial to making disciples. Asking good questions in a small group setting or in contact evangelism can help you to guide others to a significant truth. This is important to the disciple-making process because you are not actually telling people what to believe, instead you are challenging them to think, and leading them to find spiritual truths.

Takisia

SICM has changed my life! It was truly a gift from above to be able to attend SICM and it was fantastic to get to worship and learn about the Lord with some of my brothers and sisters in Christ! I finally learned how to accept the Lord's  unconditional love and how to pour out that same type of love into small group members. I truly realized we are called to a much higher purpose than blindly walking through life immersed in Earthly things. Through SICM God equipped me to be a light everywhere I go and by His grace we can all be Christ's disciples by living to lead others to Him. I thank God I was able to go to SICM!

Nathan

From my experience at SICM, I learned of the power of our actions as Christians through God's will. Through the tools we have been given, we can minister and develop closely knit bonds with those who have not yet become a part of this glorious Kingdom. These opportunities are present in class, small groups, or really any given period. We do not have to set a time for discipleship. In my mind, that unfolds a future full of heartfelt joy and life changing scenarios, and I wouldn't want a future any other way than that.

Kristen

Historically, I've been a person who values solitude over fellowship. The Lord had graciously poured so much love into me, and my response was to keep that love locked inside. I couldn't build God's kingdom the way that I've been called to because I didn't know how to love people well. When the week of SICM had come to an end, I found myself wishing that I was always around people who love Jesus. God used that week to teach me the importance of community, of loving the people that He created, of pouring myself out for His children. He showed me what Acts 2:42-47 looks like. He doesn't love simply so that we can feel loved, although that's a part of it. He loves us so that we can love others.

Josh

One of the most influential lessons I took from SICM is the importance of not focusing too much on the church. While the church is important, it seems like congregations tend to focus too much on their members and how to keep up attendance, and lose sight of the fact that people outside of the church are just as important if not more. It's also my understanding that his can pertain to more than just evangelizing, it can include community service programs that could benefit our society as a whole, and often this goes hand-in-hand with spreading the word about God. This idea reminds me that Christians are expected to lead Christ-like lives, showing Gods love through actions as well as faith, which ideally would be evenly balanced.

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