Skip to main content

Most SICM Students in History!

Hi everyone!

I hope you all stayed safe during the storms this last week. A bunch of trees got knocked down near us but luckily we didn't suffer any damage. Erin's summer did start a week early due to power-outages so I guess that's a silver lining!

SICM

If you've been following FOCUS's ministry for several years, the name SICM may ring a bell. SICM is an annual campus ministry leadership conference up in Bellingham WA. Each spring, we'll invite a handful of students who show a lot of promise and have demonstrated a love for God and for people to a week-long conference where they learn how to lead their classmates and make disciples on the college campus. This year, we had the largest group to date (in 25 years)! We brought about 150 college students across DFW! SMU's ministry also had our largest group we've ever sent, with 8 students!

From left to right, we have Zaria, Toby, Luke, Benji, Joy, Sharon-Sue, Sierra, and Sofia. This was a REALLY solid group. They had a ton of fun and got way closer during the trip. I'm personally so excited to see how several of them work together as a leader team next year.

You may remember Toby from past updates. He just came to know Jesus this year, and said that SICM was "probably the best experience [he's] ever had." Benji, on the right, has been involved with FOCUS for several years, having done his Associate's at Dallas College. When he transferred to SMU though, he had some trouble in his faith and became distanced from the community. 2 years later though, he's gotten back involved and is as passionate about Jesus as ever, and was excited to learn how to disciple his peers before starting his senior year!

Even more baptisms!

Joy was one of the students who just got back from SICM! Right before she left, she said she wanted to get baptized.

Siena has been discipling and studying the Bible with her all year. I don't know Joy very well yet, but I'm excited to hear more of her story this coming school year!

Noelle has been a part of our community for 2 years and when hearing that Joy was being baptized, she mustered up the courage to do it, herself! She's been following Jesus for several years but had waited to take this step. Siena has also mentored her over those years!

We had a couple dozen focus students and family members come take part in the dual-baptism, and we got to pray over them as a community. Special times!

Lastly, another of our students who went to SICM, Luke, just got baptized last week once he got home to Corpus Christi for the summer. He told me that he had been waiting to get baptized until he felt that he owned his faith for himself, rather than it just being a part of his family's culture. After this year of being involved in FOCUS and Cru (another great campus ministry at SMU), and having gone to SICM, he said he was ready to take that step for himself!

SMU is a very dark place where the enemy is at work. They want to sow hatred and division between college students, and teach them to place their trust in wealth and social prowess. These students shown above are joining with our Lord to push back against these forces of darkness and to create a light on campus! A spring of living water where SMU students can drink and finally be satisfied. 

I'm so grateful to get to watch God work in their lives first-hand. Thank you all so much for your support. You are having a deep and profound impact on college students, and they would not be the same without you. May the very same God who's saving these college students and redeeming the college campus work through you and your workplace, your neighborhood, and your family. I love each of you.

Your brother,
Taylor

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baby Bass!

Hi everyone, I hope you and your families had a fun Halloween and are looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas! As you could see in the title, Erin and I have huge news!! We're expecting our first baby this May, 2025! We will hopefully find out the gender later this month, so there's a good chance I'll get to share that by the next ministry update. We've been thinking and praying about having a child since getting married in 2022, and are overjoyed to have one on the way. Please pray for Erin's safety as pregnancy progresses, and that our baby grows strong and finds a life waiting for them filled abundantly with love, and a passion for the Lord. Shoutout to our old friends from UTA FOCUS, Nathan and Parker, who did a FREE photo shoot for us! Check out some of our favorite reactions from family and friends Update with Jaden! Our baby isn't the only encouraging thing to share this month! October has also been really exciting with regard to SMU and ministry! Y...
Post a Comment
Read more

Over 600 students!!

Wow, the first month of 2025 has already wrapped up! I hope the new year has been going well for each of you so far. It's yet to be seen how this year with treat our ministry at SMU, but so far it's been very encouraging! Winter Retreat We just finished up our biggest event of the year! At Winter Retreat, over 600 students (possibly even 700) from across Dallas / Fort Worth drove out to spend the weekend in Glen Rose to praise God and grow in their faith. This was the most lively group we've ever brought. There were several occasions where we finished our worship session, but the students just kept singing and forced the band to pick the song back up! lol unfortunate for them, but what an incredible problem to have. We also had our largest group from SMU attend!  A total of 22 came out. That's about half our ministry! Now that more SMU students are experiencing winter retreat, they will get to share how great of an experience it was to their peers when it rolls back aro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Boulevard Debut

Hi everyone, happy October! I can't wait for the temperatures to drop, and for all the holidays to start rolling around. Ministry on campus has been so encouraging this month! I'll share more throughout this update but in summary, lots of guys are getting involved and diving deep into faith and community. Tim Meet Tim! He's from NJ and started his freshman year this semester. He's in the process of joining a Christian fraternity called BYX, and has been coming around FOCUS as well. We started a weekly 1-on-1 bible study a couple weeks ago called Focus on Jesus, and it's already been a blast. He has a hunger to grow in his faith, and is inquisitive and driven. I'm so excited to watch how God uses him to impact BYX, Focus, and the rest of SMU over the next several years. Since there are so many guys getting involved, I'm thinking I'll share about 1 or 2 specific students each week and share a little about them. I have a feeling you'll be hearing more a...
Post a Comment
Read more