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

November Update

October is gone.  November is here.  I hope this isn't news to you!  We are now a little over a month away from the semester being over...and it seems like it only just started.  Anyway, here are a few things we have been up to lately:

Campus Outreach

One of the initiatives we have assigned to the interns this year is driving evangelistic outreach on our campuses.  The Denton interns have come up with a really neat plan for UNT and TWU campuses that is

 focused on increasing the number of conversations people have about God.  The first week they asked people who they thought God was and had suggestions, like Father, Judge, nothing, etc.  We want to know where others are at!  It confused a lot of people because they didn't understand why Christians would be asking what they thought instead of only preaching what we believed.

For the past couple of weeks the question has been, "Does God care about..." with several signs encircling it with topics like science, the American dream, humor, homosexuals, social justice, women, and politics.  We had several engaging conversations with students and faculty as they walked by!  Here are some photos:

Discipleship Class

We just had our fourth class meeting today, which meets weekly.  The point of this class is to provide a place for anyone in our ministry to grow in their faith and understanding of how to study scripture.  Our ministry puts a lot of effort into developing leaders.  Without them nothing would get done!  Jesus developed the disciples into leaders and left them to continue his work on their own.  Leaders are what we need to bring the Kingdom of God to the world around us.

That being said, we invest most of our time into our student leaders who have committed to serve on the leader team for the year.  These guys and girls are some of the people I am most devoted to.  Outside of that group of 39 students we don't want to neglect to impact the other students in our ministry with a passion for discipleship.  This is where Discipleship Class comes in.  The student leaders are also welcome to be there, but we already ask a lot from them so we don't expect their attendance.  The class is structured around the book of Mark, looking closely at the ministry of Jesus.  Our main goal is to help them see who God is and how to relate with Him.  That starts with understanding what Jesus said.  He said a lot of confusing and difficult things to understand or even grasp.  If we don't understand what Jesus' main points were in what He said, then how can we know what it means to follow Him?

Leadership Conference

Last Saturday our family of churches held a conference for anyone who leads in our ministry in any capacity.  It was an all-day event (8:30am-5:30pm) so I won't go into detail, but I do want to touch on it.  Our family of churches includes fellowships in Garland, Wylie, Denton, and all of the FOCUS campuses.  It's amazing to see how God has allowed us to plant so many separate ministries.  We try to have the best of big and the best of small by having our bodies all function independently, but work together.  One of the ways we maintain a unified sense of values and devotion is through events like this conference.  It's also a fantastic way of getting our student leaders more involved and integrated with the churches.  This is important because oftentimes the students who aren't members of our church (we didn't have a church in Denton for a long time for the UNT and TWU students to attend, so they are already members of other churches in the area) don't understand how much the other churches have invested into them or how much they are currently investing in them.  The FOCUS ministry really is a cutting edge ministry that's reaching young people before they go out into various parts of the world in influential positions.  What a natural way to develop and send out disciples!  In this sense supporting the FOCUS ministry is a mission of the Northeast church.  They aren't a big, rich family, but they are a people devoted to God and other people.  That's powerful.

Break Every Chain

We concluded our Break Every Chain sermon series this month and I wanted to share an activity that we did at our big group meeting.  I talked about how God has broken our chains to sin, setting us free to truly live.  The problem is we often aren't living as He intended.  It's as if our chains were broken and we clung to them instead of leaving them behind.  It's not enough to break the chain; we need to have a vision for where we are going to go now.  After the sermon I invited anyone who wanted to come down and share a chain that God had broken or one that they would like to break free from.  I asked them to write that on one side of a large sheet of paper, then on the other side write what they want to be transformed into or moved toward to replace that chain.  With that sheet of paper they individually showed both sides to the group to read.  It sounds very simple, but I assure you it was a very powerful experience.  I wish you could have seen it.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures!

Please be in prayer over the various things we have going on.  Check out the prayer requests on the left.  Thank you very much for reading this and for your support of this ministry.  I appreciate the fact that you are even interested to know what God is doing here!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

October Update

This  month has been a little rough because I got a sinus infection and was trapped in bed for a couple of days and two weeks later I rolled my ankle bad enough to need crutches (still recovering from this, but off of the crutches!).  Those things in themselves weren't big deals, but they slowed me down from doing what I normally was able to.  There was good that came out of it of course.  Our first official Friday Night Fellowship happened during my sickness so the interns had to take charge and make sure everything ran smoothly during the service.  That was a great experience for them.  Fortunately, one of the other senior staff from Collin College was able to come preach for our group on such short notice.  God is good!

Our biggest event this month was Park Day on September 21st, which if you remember what day that is (and you live in Texas), you'll know that was probably the perfect day for this event.  It had just rained the previous day for the first time in a while so the overall temperature dropped considerably and since the sun was shining bright, all of the rain dried up!  It was beautiful...

Anyway, the goal of this event is to bring our whole UNT/TWU community together and invite all of the new people we've met to welcome them in; it's to help build new friendships so they are well rooted.  We started the day out with some goofy games to help everyone learn each other's names and get more comfortable around the others.  After that we had them split into pairs and do "walk and talks" with someone they didn't know very well.  The prompt during that time was just to share their history and ask each other questions to learn more about the other person.  Then for the next three hours they were free to pretty much do whatever they wanted.  There were several optional games that the staff planned, but the point was that our body was integrating the new people into our fellowship.  We had a delicious dinner of hotdogs and smoked pork and concluded the day with a short service.  Along with singing some worship songs that night we asked four students to share what they valued in the community in order to show new people what they could expect to find if they were a part of it.  Here are some pictures of the event so you can get a small sense of what it looked like:

Rock, Paper, Scissors battle

Bananagrams Tournament!  Very intense.

Our corefas have been very busy lately meeting with their core members and starting one-on-one Bible studies.  Please pray for the student leaders as they lead those studies and for the students they are teaching, that they would truly see Jesus in their study of scripture.

This Friday morning we are starting a discipleship class which will be open to our entire ministry.  It will be a study of Mark, but the primary goal is to help the students grow and be challenged in their faith.  That class will be led by Garrett, who is our campus director at Collin College.  I am really excited about this class, because it allows the students who aren't in leadership for various reasons to be able to step up into a higher level of responsibility.  We like to give our students ample opportunities to not be passive!  Please pray that God uses this to really move in the lives of our students.

The interns have been working on a weekly outreach project that will be on UNT and TWU campuses.  With the help of our student leaders, the aim of that is to get people talking about who God is, regardless of their beliefs, and ultimately make that a much more common conversation in the campus life.  The mission statement is to "Stir up an atmosphere of curiosity and exploration of God's character so that people get personally invested in the question of who God is."  Please pray that our students will be bold as they engage in conversations with a variety of people, that it would be successful in making them think about who God is.

Also our TWU ministry will have its first ever large group meeting this Wednesday!  Sarah, one of the UNT interns, will be leading that meeting.  She would appreciate your prayers in that and you can probably read more about it on her blog.

Please keep in mind that you are welcome to come visit on a Friday night any time you would like.  Just contact me and I will make sure you know all of the details.

Thank you again and again for your partnership and support!  May God continue to bless you.


Yours for the Campus,

Matt

September Update

The past month flew by.  Everything is fast paced at the beginning of school and there is a lot to do.  I'm just going to touch on the highlights:

UNT/TWU Corefa Prep

On August 17th and 18th we gathered the UNT & TWU small group leaders, known as corefas (core facilitators), and prepared for the start of school.  (UNT =University of North Texas; TWU=Texas Woman's University).

We started things off by introducing the theme for the year: Break Every Chain.  Click here to read a little about our theme meaning.  I read all of Psalm 107 to the group because it gives a fuller picture of how over and over God delivered his people out of the suffering that they brought upon themselves.  Still today we make decisions that bind us to ungodly things, preventing us from having a full relationship with God.  To help illustrate this point for the student leaders we tied bricks to their arms for most of our Saturday session (so for about 8 hours).  Then at the end of the day we cut each other's ropes to signify God using us to break each other's chains.  When someone cut another's rope, they looked them in the eyes and said, "The Lord has snapped your chains!  Let's give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love and the wonderful things He has done for you and me!" (Psalm 107:14-15 NLT, adapted).

That weekend was primarily targeted on Welcome Week to equip the leaders to meet and develop friendships with as many other students as possible.  It was so neat to hear the group of student leaders share about their excitement to reach out to their classmates.  I like to have a discussion of strategies and advice sharing so that the upper classmen can share what they've learned with the new leaders.  Plus hearing so many of their fellow leaders share about their willingness to devote their first two weeks to meeting as many people as possible is simply inspirational.  Wouldn't you feel much more encouraged to do something after hearing a room full of your peers say they are on board with it?  That speaks a lot louder than anything I can say to them!

The other major goal of the weekend was to get the leaders thinking about their visions for the year.  I asked them to think through what our mission here at UNT and TWU is.  The mission is to offer our best attempt at making and maturing disciples to the glory of God.  Then I asked them to think through all of the fears they have; what are the things that prevent them from working toward that mission?  After giving them some time to write these down, I asked them to answer another question: "What would it look like if you weren't afraid of any of those things?"  I think this helps them to visualize themselves personally trying to make disciples, with the added thought that they are doing it despite any personal obstacles normally in their way.  What would it look like for them to conquer their personal fears?  During worship that evening, after we broke each other's "chains", we had a time where we shared these visions with each other.  It was very cool.

One more thing that really impacted me that weekend is seen in the following photo.  This was taken 30 minutes after our 10 hour day of meeting, which concluded at 10pm and we were going to meet again the next day.  It amazes me how even after sitting together for that long and being mentally exhausted through discussion and lecture, they still want to spend time with each other.  I wanted to take a picture of it for you to see.

Welcome Week

Welcome Week was INTENSE.  It is the most exhausting week of the year.  It is also arguably the most important.  The universities both put on various events each year for the new freshman and transfer students to integrate into the campus communities.  For the most part our students just attend those events to meet new people each year.  FOCUS plans a couple of events on top of that when there aren't any university events planned.  So the staff, student leaders, and many of the other members in our ministry try to cast our nets wide during this time full of opportunities.  It's all about meeting people, attempting to purposefully develop a friendship with them, and seeing what God does next.  A lot is revealed over the next few weeks and months.  If we aren't diligent in making friends during Welcome Week, the door of opportunity closes quite a bit.  Not that it's impossible, but it is a lot easier to make friends at the beginning of the year when everyone is specifically looking for new friends.  That's when the soil is most fertile!

Anyway it seems like our students did a great job this year.  I can't wait to see what comes out of their hard work.  I look forward to hearing stories of changed lives later in the year!

First FNF

Last Friday was our first official big group meeting for the year.  I'm not exactly sure how many people were there, but I saw a lot of new faces.  Afterward I was able to meet many of them too which was really exciting.

During the sermon time I talked about the history of our ministry and the original vision that Ronnie, a pastor of the church family which supports us, had in 1989 to plant a college ministry at UTD, which led to the ministry plant at UNT.  I shared some of our core values with them like our unity being built on "Jesus is Lord", our mission of making and maturing disciples to the glory of God, some of our major discipleship tools being core groups (titled as such because they are the core of our ministry and a great way of developing Godly community) and one-on-one Bible study.

I also introduced the theme to them, but I think I've already sufficiently explained that to you!

All Corefa Retreat

This past weekend on Sunday and Monday we had a corefa retreat for all of our campuses (UTD, Collin College, Richland College, UNT, and TWU).  It may seem odd to have this two weeks after our previous "Corefa Prep" where we gathered the student leaders together.  While the purpose of the Corefa Prep was to prepare for Welcome Week, the purpose of the All Corefa Retreat was to prepare the hearts of the student leaders for the whole year.  Our philosophy is that if we invest a lot into our student leaders, they will be much more successful at ministering to their peers.  They can do far more ministry than our small staff can do, especially if they are adequately equipped both mentally and emotionally.

We packed a lot into this retreat so I won't go into all of it, because it would easily double what I've already written.  Here is a quick summary though:

• We listened to some TED talks by Brene Brown on vulnerability and shame.  She explains how necessary it is for us to be vulnerable to each other despite how uncomfortable and unnatural it feels, especially as leaders.  Overall I think this resonated with the students the most.  I would encourage you to check out the videos as well if you have a chance!  They may prove beneficial.
• We set up 10 "Heart of  Leader" stations around the room that involved various activities to help them think through different aspects of leadership at the heart level.  The list includes: Humility, Going Deep, Being a Servant, Submission, Genuine, Forgiving, Taking Action, Courage, Compassion, and Loving God.
• We had some other talks focusing on being a disciple-maker, thinking evangelistically toward non-Christians, and the cost of discipleship.  
• A large chunk of time was spent going over core planning, various resources, and other practical advice on being a successful leader.

--------------------------

So going forward things will be starting to settle into a routine.  This week our core groups will be starting so please be in prayer over that.  Specifically pray that God will work through the student leaders to minister to whoever shows up to their group.  Soon many of the corefas will be starting up one-on-one Bible studies with the students they've met.  Also coming up on Sept. 21 will be our Fall Park Day.  The purpose of this event is to invite all of the new people in our ministry and try to better incorporate them into the whole ministry.  Usually they will have only really developed friendships within their core or they may have only been attending our big group meetings on Friday nights (which are not the best place to develop close relationships with others).  The students will be simply spending time together playing games and hanging out for the bulk of the time.  Of course we will ask our corefas to use that time purposefully to connect new people with other people in the ministry.  The day will be concluded with a cookout, worship, a few students sharing about the impact the ministry has had on their lives, and an extended communion service where we share with each other some thoughts about Jesus.  Please be in prayer over that time, because it usually is the time when new students will decide to get serious about their involvement in FOCUS, core, their one-on-one study, etc.

Thank you so much for everything you do to make all of these things possible for the students.  I couldn't make nearly as much of an impact without your support, even if it's just your thoughts and prayers.  I appreciate it when people just take the time to read my blog!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

August Update

I've been slowly working on this post for the past week in the midst of our crazy August schedule.  This month is the busiest part of the year in campus ministry.  So many things to prepare for with school starting on the 28th.  And things only get busier as the end of the month approaches!  Despite all of that, it's the most exciting time of the year as well because of the influx of new students on campus.  I'll come back to that later though.

August 1st marked the end of last year's internship and the beginning of our 2013-2014 internship!  It's sad to see our interns from the past year leave, but the time we have had with them has been awesome.  They have grown so much and brought a lot to our ministry.  UNT FOCUS has been blessed to have Melissa.  Without her we simply could not have been successful.  I personally value the support she gave me in leading the UNT ministry and also the friendship we developed through being on mission together.

Orientation for the new interns started that morning and lasted most of the day.  It's a very exciting time of the year!  We have added a few new parts to our internship this year in order to improve their experience and growth potential.  The main differences are additional classes taught by each of the staff and weekly evangelism projects (we changed the internship to a full-time model rather than part-time).  One thing we have the interns doing this week and next is to read through the entire Old Testament.  Several of them lack exposure to much of it so getting a good overview would be a great foundation for many of their studies for the year as well as the ministry they will do.  Our main focus with the internship is to help them become better ministers so each year we tweak things with that in mind.  Anyway, I'd like to introduce the new UNT interns to you.  I've included a little bio for each of them below.  The quotations are their response to why they decided to do the internship with FOCUS this year.  You can click on their names to visit their blogs.

Sarah King
"I have a heart for college students. I think they are the place where lives are the most changed, and I want to be a part of the kingdom work that's happening there!"

Sarah joined FOCUS at Collin College as a sophomore.  She led a core (what we call our small groups) there and did a summer internship.  She transferred to UNT and helped plant and grow that ministry during its first two years.  She facilitated a core there at UNT and her senior year she mentored other small group leaders.  After graduating in May 2012 with a degree in Developmental and Family Studies, she mentored student leaders at Collin College for a year.  Along with working at UNT this year, she will be spearheading the TWU ministry plant.


Matt Wills
"I really care about people and I've been wanting to challenge myself to allow God to use me, and I really felt him calling me toward this opportunity."

Matt joined FOCUS at UNT in 2010 (right after the ministry was planted) as a freshman.  He facilitated a core and had other leadership roles over the last three years.  This December he will graduate with a degree in Radio, Television, and Film.


Danielle Rodriguez
"I decided to do the internship because I felt a strong call from God to go to Denton...I thought it had to do with the Denton Church at first. Once I was a peer team leader at UNT though, I realized how much I loved campus ministry and wanted to see if it was something I could be involved in long term. Once I had prayed about doing the internship God started opening doors and giving me many opportunities to pursue it. Now I am certain that this is where God wants me to be, at least for now, and I'm so excited to get on campus and minister to students again!"

Danielle joined FOCUS at UTD in 2007 as a junior.  She was on the service and prayer committee one year and facilitated core for two years at UTD while a student.  She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology in 2009 and a master's degree in Communication Disorders in 2011.  Last year she mentored student leaders at UNT as a peer team leader.


Grant Trotter
"I've come to deeply appreciate and value campus missions, so getting another 10 months to invest in that was a big deciding factor. But the main thought that pulled me in was just how well the internship would equip me to go into the rest of my life and minister to the people around me, be that in a ministry or business vocation."

Grant joined FOCUS at UTD in 2009 as a freshman.  He facilitated core for two years before graduating this year with a degree in Arts & Technology.


Friday, August 2nd, we went out to Mineola, TX, for our Fall staff retreat.  This is one of the few times a year our individual campus staffs get to spend quality time together as a full staff (20 people total).  It can be difficult to get a meaningful conversation out of a group that size, but our sessions were quite productive.  Friday night we shared the history of FOCUS from each person's perspective.  It was so neat to see how God has worked in all of our lives individually and collectively, especially to see how the decisions of a small group of people several years ago majorly affected each person in that room.  The next morning we spent time in our new campus staff groups to get to know each other a little more and start planning things for this coming semester.  Saturday night we shared the visions that God has given us for this year.  My vision is that the students on the UNT leader team will deepen their conviction for reaching out to people and discipling them.  I really see this school year as the time for that to take place.  Please be in prayer that God works powerfully in the students' lives in that regard.  Sunday morning we had a communion meal while sharing qualities of Jesus that we admired and wanted to see more of in ourselves.  I think of Jesus' complete submission to God.  We often try to draw from our own power and end up falling into fear or pride.  Jesus gave up his fearfulness by wholly trusting in God and when he was bold it was never prideful, but flowed from his obedience to God.

I just want to say that I'm very thankful for the staff I get to work with.  I can see God working in their lives.  Spending a few days with these people this past weekend and getting to laugh and cry together has been wonderful.  Now we get to go out and change lives on the college campuses!

Coming up on the 17th and 18th of August is our UNT student leader retreat.  Please be in prayer about this.  My goals are for the new student leader team to grow closer as a body of believers, prepare logistically for meeting new students during Welcome Week on campus, and develop a deep sense of conviction to advance the Kingdom.  I spoke with a new student leader today about his time commitments.  I was concerned he may get overwhelmed with work, school, and being a small group leader.  He said if it somehow became a problem he would quit his job and look for another one with less hours so he could keep his commitment to the leader team.  He gets it.  And I'll say that's a God deal, not a FOCUS deal.  Just think of what God can do with a guy like that over the next 50 years of his life...

Please also be in prayer over Welcome Week.  This is really our most important time of the year to sow spiritual seeds.  The school puts on several events all week long and our ministry tries to meet literally as many people as possible and, most importantly, follow through to form real, lasting relationships.  We encourage our students to get phone numbers of people they meet and invite them to everything.  If they can work hard for just two weeks (welcome week and the following week), they will have a great harvest of people to disciple over the coming year.

Also please pray for our room reservations for the year.  UNT's reservation process has been increasingly difficult for us, especially as we grow and while they are doing construction on the Student Union over the next two years.  Please pray that God will work this out for us so we can get the reservations we need.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers and support!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

July Update

The summer time tends to have a more consistent pace than the rest of the year for me.  I guess that's probably the opposite for most people.  The consistency allows me to slow my mind down and reflect more on what I've been learning.  One of the books I'm currently reading is So, You Want to Be Like Christ? by Chuck Swindoll.  I've only read the first two chapters so far, but they have been pretty insightful, talking about intimacy and simplicity.  Chuck quotes Richard Foster from another book: "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."  That is so true and something I struggle with.  Often I feel a need to be impressive to other people.  Sometimes I start thinking too much about how people perceive my LinkedIn account or my Facebook timeline cover.  When preparing a sermon I get stressed because I want to be able to say something original and enlightening.  Or I'm too concerned with sounding deep rather than being deep with God.

This summer I've also been studying 1 and 2 Samuel while listening to the audio recordings of a graduate level theology class at Regent College.  I've learned a lot about how to read Old Testament narrative, the significance of Samuel, Saul, and David's stories, how the Israelites and surrounding nations perceived God, the purpose of several parallels to the Exodus or to Samson, etc.  The professor of this class, Rikk Watts, even pointed out that the original Hebrew manuscripts of these scriptures didn't have vowels.  So we can actually change around the vowels (if you know how to read Hebrew) and sometimes there is a different possible meaning in the text.  There are so many intellectually complex things about the Bible and they can be very helpful to know.  If we allow it, they can also get in the way.  Something the senior pastor at our church in Garland has told me several times is every time you read scripture ask yourself, "What does this teach me about the heart of God?"  If our study of scripture ever becomes about how much we know rather than a way to see the heart of God, we have missed the point.  The point is to come into a deeper relationship with God.  We can't simply study Him like we do the rest of our world.  It's in this simplicity that we can find intimacy.


I'm almost done with building our student leader team for next year at UNT.  For the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time on the phone and meeting with various students to talk through which ministry role they would be most successful in this year.  That process has been such an encouraging time as I get to talk with so many different people (my list has about 65 students on it!).  It looks like we will likely increase our number of core groups from 9 last year to 16 or 17 this coming school year.  God has really blessed us with some solid guys and girls.  I would say though, one of our strengths is that we aren't afraid to be small if necessary.  Whatever number of committed leaders the Lord provides us with is enough.  And our staff is very thankful for the quality of students we get to work with!  It's totally a God deal.


Also, several members from the Garland and Wylie Northeast churches (the churches that support the FOCUS ministries) have been meeting occasionally throughout the summer to plant a church in Denton.  The vision of our churches is to plant churches across the metroplex wherever they are needed, a lot like our vision for FOCUS on the different college campuses.  The Denton church will be a huge support for the UNT and TWU campuses in regard to mentorship.  Currently, the FOCUS staff and students who live in Denton travel an hour to Wylie for church each Sunday morning.  That's not a big deal for once a week, but it's hard to integrate the college students into the larger community with that much distance.  That being said, the Denton church will be very much a college church at first.  There are a few families and older members moving up to Denton to help with the plant, but not enough to compensate for the number of college students who will likely attend.  So one goal for our college students now is to be reaching out into the community to pull in more adults and families.  Please be praying for this as it will make a huge impact on our college students and be a great opportunity for us to reach out to our community.  We plan to kick off our first official meeting at the end of August or early September!


One last thing I would like to share:
Two of the girls involved in our Collin College ministry went through a tragic event that ended up being a tremendous blessing.  Their house caught fire and was destroyed last Thursday (please be praying for their family!).  Both girls have been involved in our ministry as leaders and will be transferring to UNT this coming school year.  The older sister (Sarah) will be an intern.  The father attends a different church in the area.  Their family's response to this devastation has been incredibly encouraging to our family of churches.  If you have some time, I encourage you to listen to what Sarah and her dad shared at our church meeting this past Sunday.  It's pretty inspiring:
The King family sharing at Wylie Northeast