Skip to main content

Meeting on Their Turf

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 meet these students, and make and mature disciples on SMU's campus!




I've met with a few directors of these commons and have received a lot of excitement and positive feedback about our ideas! Our first move will be giving out free coffee and encouraging notes in the lobbies as students make their way to their final exams next week. Be praying that God will make big moves in these dorms and that ultimately students will come to know him and learn to better love their peers. My hope is that there will be a boom of bible studies and discipleship spreading through the halls over the next couple years, starting this spring!

Celebrations!

I hope you all had a restful Thanksgiving! Erin and I had a wonderful time with both sides of our family day-of, and stayed the night with Erin's side so we could celebrate her birthday with them the next day! (If you know her, you should definitely wish her a belated happy birthday)

Thank you for taking the time to read how God's been at work on campus and in Erin and my lives! I'm grateful for your support and with Thanksgiving and Christmas on the mind, it's left me feeling especially thankful for all of you. I'll see you all in 2024!

Comments

  1. AustinDecember 1, 2023 at 2:56 PM

    Proud of you, Taylor. Jesus sees all you're doing for his kingdom and he will remember it all. Happy birthday, Ern Derd!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer FOCUS

It's been a slower month on the ministry front. We've got a few new students transferring into SMU this fall who have already gotten connected. Besides that, most of my time has been spent raising support, meeting our local SMU students, and getting acclimated to being a father. Summer FOCUS We've still been having a weekly fellowship night, and it's been great! This is the ad we put up around SMU for Summer term students to see We've had a great turnout from our campuses around DFW! Probably around 200 students who drive out to Richardson on a weekly basis Students I've talked to have been feeling impacted by the messages, and touched by the worship. Baby Audrey's now been here for a month! Here are some recent highlights. First big smile! Honk shoo 🤨 Loves affection 🍵 Not too much to report this month, but once August and especially September rolls in, things will get crazy and I'll have lots of stories to share! I hope you enjoyed some pics of baby ...
Post a Comment
Read more

She's here!

Hi everyone, As expected, May was a very eventful month. We wrapped our final programming at SMU for the semester, sent off 100+ students from Dallas/Fort-Worth to SICM, and most importantly, Audrey was born! (Not biased at all) Get ready for the biggest photo dump of my career. Baby Last pic before becoming parents! Fresh out the oven Meeting dad Meeting grandparents Meeting grandparents Ready for the world Leaving the hospital Leaving the hospital (fit check) Dog approved Happy mode Angry mode Silly goofy mode Comfy cozy Camera shy First photo shoot First photo shoot First photo shoot Being a baby is exhausting My favorite SICM You've seen me write about SICM the last few months, and it's finally come! Tons of students from our ministries in Dallas / Fort Worth flew up to Washington for a campus ministry leadership conference. Here are a few pics of the whole group! SMU's team of students being prayed over Back to Dallas Thank you all very much for your support. If you w...
Post a Comment
Read more

That's a wrap!

This month has been so fun (and also stressful). Fun because the semester is wrapping up, which means we've been having lots of special events! Stressful because our baby tried to come early, a week into April, so Erin has been stuck on bedrest. Praise the Lord, we just reached full-term on Saturday so now Erin is free to walk, squat, lunge, or whatever. (All of which she has been doing incessantly to try and get the baby out.) We still have 2-3 weeks until our due-date so for Erin's sake, I hope she comes sooner than later! Spring Formal Our last formal FOCUS event of the year, appropriately, is a formal. We had a great turnout with around 40-50 students A handful of guys from my and Luke's small group Wholesome Fire alarm works! Some extroversion is finally working its way into our community 🙌 Lots of lasts As I mentioned earlier, one of the fun things about this time of year is finishing everything with a bang.  We finished up our weekly fellowship nights by inviting a ...
Post a Comment
Read more