Austin's FOCUS Ministry Blog

 In my last update I asked you to pray and ask God that all the efforts our team spent on the college campus, handing out water bottles and hosting daily events, would bear fruit resulting in college students coming to know Jesus. Here is the fruit! We had 200 students come to our first Thursday Night Fellowship and almost all of them have since joined a small group and been invited to study the bible one on one. Enjoy these sweet pictures of college students gathering around to worship and know Jesus more. God is so good. These students and over 1000 others across the metroplex have the opportunity to find God, his goodness, and his kingdom for themselves because of your partnership in college ministry. I can't thank you enough for your partnership! Continue to pray for these students to say yes to studying the bible one on one and for their receptivity to Jesus invitation to become his disciples and grow in their ability to share and represent him to their peers and neighbors. Do...

  Summer has begun, and with it, Summer FOCUS. Around 375 college students from all across DFW are gathering together every Thursday night to worship God and be sharpened and encouraged in their discipleship to Jesus. This summer we are doing a series of teachings on Maturity. I had the honor and opportunity of starting off this series for our students just a few weeks ago. Feel free to listen and watch if you'd like to get a sense of the messages God is allowing me to share with the students here through your partnership.  Summer Focus Sermon on Maturity  The sermon starts around the 32:00 minute mark. Hayli and I had the opportunity to take a couple of our girls from focus and our church our to lunch a few weeks ago. It was great to hear how God has been working in their lives. And I'm so thankful that Lucy gets to grow up participating in church community like this. Our church has started summer book club. Both our older adults and our current college students are part...

  Say hello to our UTA student leader team for 2025-2026. These are the students that have spent all year reaching their peers and making Jesus known at UTA this year. They have done this by practicing evangelism, hosting core groups, and making disciples through one on one scripture reading and mentoring. They also have committed themselves to growing as learners and leaders and each one of them has made a profound impact on this campus and the college experience of their peers. Thank you for investing in them that through them the rest of the campus might be reached. I'm so excited to see the fruit that comes from their time as leaders in our ministry. Both through the disciples that were multiplied through them but also for the work that God was doing in their hearts to help them grow to be more like Jesus themselves. These students will be leaders in their workplaces, churches, and homes, long after they leave college. But I'm grateful that many of them will stick around fo...

This is from our last Thursday Night Fellowship of the Year. Our students are so eager to worship God. And I'm confident they're excitement will continue over the summer. Thank you for investing in them and helping them to find Jesus here. Please watch this video of them worshiping and be encouraged. Your impact is making a difference.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/cC87bJSbPrXZtK6V8

The school year is coming to a close, and that means we have students that have been studying the bible all year, and are being transformed by what they're finding there. Below is Campbell. Campbell is just one of 6 guys I've been meeting with weekly this year to help them learn to read scripture and find God speaking to them through His word. Campbell will be attending SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry) next month where we will learn practical skills of how he can reach his peers with the good news of Jesus and lead them to knowing them more himself! I've been so excited to see the work God has done in this and many other young people's lives this year. Speaking of, here's a few other guys that have been deeply impacted by your gift. Caleb, the guy at the bottom right, made the decision to follow Jesus this year, and got baptized just last Sunday! Praise God. We are ending our tenth year of college ministry at UT Arlington and with that I've been refle...

 God has been moving through FOCUS at UT Arlington for 10 years now. We are taking a moment to celebrate and remember all that God has done, while looking forward to where we think he's leading us from here. You are invited to come and join us, April 18th, on campus at UT Arlington. So little of this would have been possible without your partnership. Come and see the return of your investment. Here's just a taste of what you'll hear. When we started 10 years ago we started FOCUS at UTA with a team of 20 people 1 pastor, 4 pastoral apprentices (I was one of them), and 15 students.  Today we have 180 students involved and 9 pastors. And that doesn't begin to tell the story of the literally hundreds of students over the years that have joined Christian community, worshipped God, and grown in their discipleship to Jesus. Many of you  may have been one of them. And even if you weren't, you helped to make it possible! Please come and join us for the celebration if you...

 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...

This weekend I got to see 830 college students spend their weekend together worshiping God, learning deeply from the scriptures, enjoying fellowship, ministering to one another, and being ministered to by college pastors, and ultimately encountering the presence of Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit. The degree to which a weekend like this can be a catalyst for personal change in these students lives is immeasurable. And I am confident that we will see the impact that that transformation will have on DFW college campuses as the gospel message spreads through each one of them. Many of these students will be our student leaders next year, sharing Jesus with their peers. Real spiritual friendship grew as these students reflected on their lives with God together. During the session these students from UTA would sit right by the stage, not just for worship, but for teachings from the book of genesis, led by biblical scholar Marty Solomon, host of the BEMA podcast. If you would like t...