I think the most striking thing about this month was actually getting to start ministry, and the students who God has already led us to. Welcome week came in full force, where we spent two days at Eastfield and two days at Mountain View, and God is definitely working on both these campuses. We have met many hungry and excited students! Both of these campuses don’t have much Christian (or honestly any club) presence on them, and so the fields do feel ripe for harvest in some ways. In some ways, we are the only people doing things on campus, which still blows my mind.
It has been such an exciting and rewarding week, with some challenges.
But, after our first fellowship night on Wednesday night at Richland, my heart was very moved. God gave me such a look into how precious each person there was. Each person who came is so loved and Jesus wants to have a very deeper personal relationship with them. There was such a wide array of types of people and backgrounds but we all we there together to worship Jesus and love each other. It is amazing how Jesus unites people.
We had about a dozen of our new students come, all of which we had only known for 2 days! Here are some of the texts we got afterwards:
“thank you so much I really did it was a great experience I haven’t gone to a church in a couple months so it was really nice to connect with people around my age that have a good relationship with God or have similar goals as me”
“I appreciate u listening and not judging I've never had an experience like I did tn”
“I didn’t think I would have this much fun my first week of college. I thought I was just gonna go to class and go home, I really had so much fun, I’m gonna bring my sister”
It stood out so much because it just showed the gratitude in their hearts, and the way God is creating hunger in their hearts. And the lack of entitlement was marked too! That’s the kind of person I want to be.
What happened this month?
Outreach/Welcome Week
This was the big beginning, the busiest time in a college pastor’s year! Each day was 12-14 hours of work between driving, outreach, worship nights, etc. It was exhausting, but it is also so rewarding if you put the time in. Students are more open, naturally excited, and willing to try new things that later in the year they may not willing to. Here are a lot of snapshots of it!
This was some of our group at our worship service Wednesday night! We had 9 students from Eastfield come and 2 from Mountain View (which is very far!) so that was so cool. We had lots of time of worship, prayer in groups, heard a sermon, and then had pizza afterwards. I can’t wait for next week :)
Our sermon series right now is all about the Gospel and what it truly means, unpacking the false Gospels that we are taught and experience, replacing it with the true Gospel. It was a great first sermon by Sirak to kick things off, and I know many people were already experiencing more freedom.
Our free waffle station on the first day to meet students as they walked by. It was a great way to meet students as they walk to or from class, get to talk with them for some time, and raise awareness for our ministry. It sounds weird, but advertising in ministry is still a real thing! Many students are looking to worship and learn more about Jesus but just don’t know that an opportunity is there on campus.
We went to some Eastfield volleyball games to support the women’s volleyball team. Lailah and Jess already have a time scheduled to come speak to the volleyball team, and there are several Christians on the team we know of already. I can’t wait to see what happens with that!
This is the main hangout spot at Eastfield. It is called the Hive (because Eastfield is the bees). Please pray over it as this is a primary place to meet students.
This is a primary place which we want to host events at some point. It would be great to have prayer over it too.
We got to setup and introduce ourselves at a student orientation fair at Mountain View! We met a lot of students, some of which we still talk to today.
We also did an outreach with minute-to-win-it games. These were simple, fun, and a big hit. Community college can tend be a place of quiet and lack of depth in relationships, and we got to bring life and fun, which really opened so many people up. Our goal is to be the group of people most full of joy, life, and love on campus.
The roommates going out to do outreach: Me, Nahom, and Alex :) I have been blown away by these two men as they are so motivated to love people, reach people, and work hard! Our team is the seriously the best.
Meeting new students during outreach! I love getting to just talk to different people and give them attention and care.
Starbucks is very generous and donates a lot of free coffee to non-profits, and they donated twice to us this week! So we got to do an event giving away free coffee and then drawing bad tattoos on people using stencils or freehand. Students love the temporary tattoos so we are going to keep doing it.
This is a photo from our Denton ministry. They had their first worship gathering, and had over 350 students come. They are struggling to find a room large enough. Mindblowing…..only God could do that! The Holy Spirit is moving mightily in the hearts of the students, especially the student leaders, as they have been on fire to reach people.
Staff Retreats
We also had some staff time this month. We took our bi-annual staff retreat, which is our time to re-center on God, our mission, and our role as pastors going into the school year. It was so special for me to get to see all the new staff this year (the new class of apprentices) and worship with everyone.
Our full FOCUS staff this year. It is a very qualified, experienced, and amazing group of people. So many people have so many talents that they could be using in so many other ways, but choose to use it to serve God and students.
This is our Dallas College team again. Left to right is Sirak, Becca, Alex, Jess, Me, Lailah, and Nahom. Again, an extremely dedicated and talented team. God is good.Support-Raising
Testimony from the Ministry
Prayer Requests
As I write this, I am quite exhausted. It has been a very exciting, rewarding, and yet stressful week. We have faced numerous obstacles at Eastfield regarding hosting events on campus, which is hard for me to deal with, honestly. Some of the others on our team are more experienced and so have faced these things before, but it is new to me. Pioneering something is not easy, which I knew, but it is another thing to experience it.
I would love lots of prayer for our team, myself, wisdom, and favor. I think we are feeling various levels of discouragement and fatigue. It was hard to not know where we stood at Eastfield in terms of what we would be allowed to do. We are needing to accelerate the process of becoming a registered student organization to be able to have the freedoms we want, and so in the meantime we have to be more organic in how we meet people (sitting down to have lunch with people, inviting people to play games, etc.). Thankfully our mission is to make and mature disciples of Jesus, not be a student club!
Thank God for Mountain View, as they continue to lay down the red carpet for us. It is the most welcoming and warm college campus I have ever been at. We have a meeting with the president of the entire school this week because he wants to help us!
So, to put them in a list, my big prayer requests are:
Favor with Eastfield’s administration, as behind the scenes it seems our presence has been quite polarizing. That we could secure an advisor and be on the fast-track to a full-fledged student club.
The students we met would continue to have momentum in their lives to have a hunger to know Jesus more, and momentum wouldn’t be lost due to what’s been happening at Eastfield.
Students would be excited to bring their friends to things we do!
For energy, health, peace, courage, and connectedness for our team. And hearts like Jesus!
Thank You
Especially in times like this, I am so grateful for you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this and praying. I lean on your prayers greatly, and so I want to ask for continued support! Feel free to send me any encouragements or prayers you have.
30 Year Anniversary Celebration
We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone in October for Focus’ 30 year Celebration. Our big celebration will take place at CityBridge Community Church in Plano. All of you are invited! And please help us spread the word by inviting any of your friends who are alumni of Focus or with anyone who might like to join.
Also, if you’re an alum, please take a moment to complete our contact update form to ensure you don’t miss any updates.
Anyone is welcome by the way! It is not just for alumni or people at our churches.
Signal Group
I am trying to lean into my Signal group more as it is easier to give smaller updates more frequently than one large blog each month, so I would love if people joined! You will get more realtime updates like videos, photos from our events as well as more frequent prayer requests. Here are some instructions on how to do this!
Download the Signal app on your computer (Windows link: https://signal.org/download/windows/ and Mac link:https://signal.org/download/) or phone(find on App Store), and then join my group using this link: https://signal.group/#CjQKIIujklEZvNmG_EOmTctAzpNzojYf52Hv05-Cgv2Gd7VmEhCyxnKnaP0J84IBhccEcGXO
With love,
Casey