Hi everyone! I hope the first round of holidays were joyous for you and your families, and that you're looking forward to the second round throughout December! I have to confess that Erin and I have already had our Christmas tree up for a month. Commons Outreach I have an exciting strategic move to share with you all! SMU has 11 residential commons (dorms) that nearly all underclassmen live in across campus. The SMU FOCUS team got together and we decided to heat up outreach efforts in those commons, specifically, rather than trying as hard to pull students out from their dorm to a conventional meeting space. SMU has revealed itself (from our observations as well as other seasoned ministers across campus) to be a very unique beast to do ministry at. Chiefly, campus is highly segmented and besides classes, students tend to either be out at parties, or holed up in their dorms all the time. I'm excited to get to be at the cutting edge of experimentation, figuring out how to best me