Skip to main content

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

 



Hello Friends and Ministry Partners, It's a joy to get to write to you all again! 

While I'm sad we are moving into the Christmas break when a lot of our students go home. I'm so encouraged with the momentum we have going into January and how much I see God's goodness being revealed in the lives of each one of these students.

Pictured above is most of our student leader team (3 unfortunately got cut off on the left side) for our last leader team meeting of the semester. Every week this group of students get together to encourage one another, share how God is working in the ministry, read the bible together, and learn leadership principles that will help them in their ministry and every other stage of their life as well. Beyond this each one of these students get mentored by one of our campus pastors in a more personal 2 on 1 context. So each week I get to meet with multiple pairs of these core facilitators to discuss how their core is going but also what is going on in their lives and guide them towards Jesus as they continue to discover who they are and how they want to live. Recently I've gotten to have conversations with students about creating a culture of friendship and discipleship that long outlives their time on the campus. I also got to discuss the profound impact one on one friendship can have on the life of an individual. And helped another young man process how to meet the healthy need of feeling lonely in healthy ways, as opposed to pursuing the meeting of that need through casual, non commitive, romantic relationships. These students are just a snapshot of the larger ministry, but as I see God working in their lives I'm so encouraged knowing that these students are reaching their peers and reading his word with so many other students here on this campus.
While I'm primarily at UT Arlington, I also got to help plant this ministry at a new campus called Tarrant County College Southeast. This has been an absolute joy! This is only our first semester but already we have a group of 8 students who get together every week to read the bible, share lives, and hang out as friends. This group is so eager for friends, and they love Jesus, and they are excitedly telling their friends in their classes about this new community they have found. We will start advertising in the spring and I'm so excited to see who else God brings in!


Some of our alumni brought donuts for our students to enjoy. This is two of our corefa's Jonathan and Richmond who I get to meet with every week, enjoying some fine quality donuts from Krispy Kreme. It's so encouraging to see adults who have already graduated from this ministry keeping in mind the students who come after them and doing what they can to enrich their experience. But so many of you provide more than donuts! Thank you for investing in college ministry. Below is an exciting announcement about our Keep Focus Growing annual fundraising campaign as well as this months student testimony. Thank you for all that you do to support campus missions and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.




In Christ,
Austin Gage








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning From the Wise

Dear Friends, Thank you for taking the time to read this ministry update. This winter season has been particularly encouraging and I am excited to tell you about what is coming up soon! The month of December began with a celebration. The school semester was coming to a close quickly so we threw our annual Focus Christmas party in the first week of the month. Talk about Christmas come early. The event was filled with sweet memories, worship, and funny skits put on by the various weekly core groups. Watching those skits is always a highlight of the year as everyone in the core often participates and everyone gets to see each others silly sides. A couple of guys at the UTA Focus Christmas Party. In the bottom picture, one of the roommates couldn't make the event so the rest of the guys thoughtfully chose to find a way to include him in the picture, no matter what.  Once the semester was over and the students went home for the holidays, I had a lot of time to read. Over the ...
2 comments
Read more

The Laborers In The Harvest Field, A Baptism, and an Update to my Career Change in Ministry

 There are 40,000 college students at UT Arlington. Historically, since I've been on this campus, each one of the 6 or so college ministries have maintained an average of around 100 members. That's at any given point, only 600 out of 40,000 college students on this campus consistently encountering the good news of Jesus. Obviously that doesn't account for the students who may not be involved in a college ministry but are rooted in a church, but it remains true, the percentage of students on this campus potentially not hearing about Jesus is undeniably sizable. And honestly, sometimes that really breaks my heart. I'm so grateful for the opportunity each of you have given me over the last 10 years to personally impact and share Jesus with as many of those students as I can, but I always have been and remain, only one person, with the same 24 hours a day that you have. Now God has continued to work in and through all that time and faithfulness, and I imagine that our gospe...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Miracles Are Common and Pizza Theology

  A student shared this at our most recent Thursday Night Fellowship and I thought it was so beautiful that I wanted to share it with you. "In Focus, Miracles are happening all the time. People are becoming saved, like I was a year ago, through this community, and equally miraculously people are becoming more like Jesus, like I'm still learning to do. But God is using this community to bring about those miracles. And I know that this all can feel common to us, especially those of us who have been around for a while, but if we are in a community where the miraculous is common , we should thank God for that community." That was shared by a student named Josh Krause who I have the pleasure of studying the bible with over the duration of this school year. I have been so encouraged by his willingness to keep learning about the grace of God and respond by living out of that reality. And I was doubly encouraged when he shared such a beautiful and praise filled sentiment with th...
Post a Comment
Read more