Austin's FOCUS Ministry Blog

 Happy March everyone! I hope that you are enjoying the warmer days and brighter weather. Things in FOCUS have been great, and I'm so grateful to each of you for the investment you have made in the lives of these college students. Your gift really is making an impact. Left to Right: Tevon, Oduwa, Ben Left to Right: Jonathan, Logan, Harte, Grayson, Ryan I love getting to watch and play a part in the reproduction of leaders in the church. When one generation pours into and invests their time to share Jesus with the younger generation it is always so exciting to watch those younger leaders step up and decide that they want to teach their peers and those younger than them the same things. Some of our leaders up above are Tevon, Ben, Jonathan, and Grayson. I get to meet with these guys every week and talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus, depend on God, and disciple men. They in turn study the bible with the guys in their core group. And this year, because of God's activity ...

 Spring Showcase is this Saturday and it's not too late for you to get your tickets! Why spring showcase? Every year we send students from across DFW to a ministry training conference called SICM or Student Institute of Campus Ministry. While there the students learn how to answer Jesus call on their life to make and mature disciples of Jesus, while they are on the college campus. Students become equipped to know and communicate the gospel, facilitate spiritual friendships, and lead meaningful bible studies. Every year the students who attend come back to their college campuses excited and ready to share Jesus with their peers. We think this opportunity is so valuable that we want to make sure that every student who wants to go has the opportunity to do so. That's why we do Spring Showcase What is Spring Showcase? Spring Showcase is a performing arts variety show that features top notch talents from across the metroplex. Singers, Musicians, and Comedy groups put on an amazing p...

  Hello friends and family! What you are seeing above is 400 college students gathered together a few weeks ago for our annual winter camp. If you would like to watch a 20 second video clip of this scene and hear our students praise God together, you can do so by clicking here. https://youtu.be/bb4vBCUvDa8 God was so good to provide a space for these students to come and worship him. The weekend was incredibly encouraging as college students from all across DFW came together to make new friends, learn from an oxford professor on the reliability of the gospels, and just gather in praise. And as far as I've heard, there were no large covid outbreaks as a result. I hope that seeing that these young people are growing in their faith and giving their whole lives to Jesus encourages you today Same day, different students. The guy on the left is Saket, an international student who told me recently that for him coming to Focus is like coming to a place of peace. He says he has been a part ...

 Hello Friends, I hope that you had a sweet and restful Christmas season with your family and loved ones, and that reflecting on Jesus and all that he is doing in the world made you hopeful for the year to come. I know it did for me! In case you didn't know, the title of the blog is actually a quote from Frederick Nietzsche. But a pastor who I have enjoyed reading the work of, Eugene Peterson, repurposed that quote to describe his summation of the Christian life and specifically the life of a pastor. And it has really been encouraging to me recently. As I think about all that I would like to be able to do for God, I realize that all he asks of me is simply to pick up my cross daily and follow him, a long obedience in the same direction.  But this task is not nothing. It is often painful and difficult, but it is also the only way to real life. But another thing I find beautiful about a long obedience in the same direction is that as a pastor friend of mine, Ronnie Worsham, alwa...

  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 i...

 Hello friends and loved ones, Thank you for reading this ministry update, I pray that it encourages you today! This year our theme as a ministry has been life to the full and every week we have been getting to talk to a room full of college students on the full life that Jesus has to offer them. Last night we did some open sharing and we had 30 minutes of students standing up and sharing their response to the question "What has Jesus done for you?" and its been so encouraging to hear feedback from our students on the life they feel like they have experienced because of God's activity in their life, often found or experienced through this community. Now we are going to be moving into heating up the value of evangelism and our call to share this life we have found with our peers and neighbors. Will you pray that our students continue to know the life that God has given to them and that they, being so full of his life, will want to bring that life to their families, and the...

 Hello friends and loved ones, Thank you again for taking the time to read this update. I am so grateful for your prayers and your partnership in ministry and I hope that this short update gives you some sense of God's activity at UT Arlington and that it encourages you this morning. For those of you who have been a partner with me from the beginning may recognize the picture up top. That is a picture from our first fall camp with UTA Focus 7 years ago. And the picture below is from our Fall Camp just last week. It is so encouraging to see how many students God is brining into this community every year. This doesn't show the full size of the ministry, but to see over 80 students use their weekend to take a retreat with their peers to worship God, play games, and get to know Jesus better through scripture and through the friendships they are forming here in this community is so encouraging to see! One of our students described the time as "I can't remember the last time...