Skip to main content

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 panel of Dallas executives & business owners to share about how they've navigated the workplace while prioritizing Jesus and building his kingdom.

The students I heard from were greatly blessed by the discussion, and have already set up coffee/breakfast appointments with several of them. Leave it to the SMU kids to know how to network at 18.

We started a monthly event this year called the All Campus Worship Night. We invite all the other Christian ministries at SMU to take turns hosting it, while we just show up with sound equipment and make it happen. 

It's been an incredibly unifying endeavor, and the student attendance shows for it! So far, 9 communities have displayed interest with 4 stepping up to lead. Everyone up front are students; not staff!

One of the men's small groups mixed with a women's small group for a pickleball social. Even at the end of the year, we try to encourage our leaders to create opportunities for students to meet & connect with each other.

SMU Leaders

Here's the 2024-25 leader team that has been serving all year long! These students have each led small groups, numerous 1-on-1 bible studies, and received weekly mentorship from myself or one of the other ministers. They are the heartbeat of our larger ministry, and have really stepped up this year.

This is the largest team we've had to date, and only a few are seniors so it's looking like we're going to grow even more next year! Stay tuned!


Obligatory staff pic. You have myself, Garrett, Angel, Erika, and Renee. Shoutout to Angel who doesn't even work on FOCUS staff anymore, but still volunteers her extra time to train up leaders and make disciples on campus.

Thank you so much for your support! Without you, I would not be able to spend so much time on campus helping these students mature into the men and women God has made them to be. Pray for them as they enter a stressful last couple weeks of finals. And please pray for Erin and me as we expect baby Audrey to come any time! Lord willing, I'll have some exciting news (and very cute pics) to share next time I write.

Love y'all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Eclipse

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed my very creative and original title to this month's update. I'm excited to share some of the final things we've done this semester before students embark on finals week and start their summer breaks. While they've all been slowing down, God certainly hasn't! The Eclipse I hope you get to enjoy the eclipse last month! Whether you saw it in person or not, enjoy some pictures of SMU Focus watching it together alongside thousands of other students on campus. One of our seniors, David, got some incredible pictures with his professional camera! Note just how many people showed up to watch. Several thousand! Upon seeing it, Garrett voiced the good hope that that's only a fraction of the people who will soon join together in unity from every nation to praise our Lord! EOY Banquet We had our end of year formal last week, which went great! We spent time honoring our student leaders, our graduating seniors, all over a nacho bar donated by C...

Baptisms at SMU!

Hi everyone! I hope the last month has treated you all well and that you've been enjoying all the beautiful weather lately. (At least for my friends in Texas) I've got a lot of exciting news to share this week, as I'm sure you gathered from the title of this month's update. So, let's dive in! Jaden's Baptism Let me introduce you to Jaden! He and I have been meeting up weekly to study the Bible, since August when we met at a FOCUS Welcome Week event. Jaden grew up around church, and both of his parents are committed disciples. However, in High School he lost interest in faith and started having doubts and questions come up with regard to whether it made logical sense to believe in the existence of a God, let alone Jesus. I told him since we first started meeting that no question is ever off-limits, and that God is big enough to handle every one of his doubts! And that I'd do my best to help him process through each one and point him to what scripture has to s...

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 ...