May Update

We are now at the last two weeks of the semester.  I'd like to ask you to be in prayer over the things on our updates page.

When I think back over the year I see that God has taught the guys I've been mentoring quite a bit.  I remember one guy who was involved in the Bible study with David who had eventually asked to stop.  Originally I started the study, but then later it was taken over by James while I sat in for support.  That was his first time to lead a Bible study.  Another one of our student leaders started his first study with a guy and has learned a few lessons about confronting him about certain issues.  Often learning confrontation and being real with people is one of the more powerful lessons for students.  Following Christ requires boldness as we see in the apostles and Christ himself.  Another guy that I've put a good deal of time into this semester has been studying with a kid who seems to be emotionally unstable.  That has been a real growing experience for him especially considering he isn't naturally inclined to be very relational with people.  Lately he has been asking me questions about developing relationships with people especially when it feels unnatural.  It's neat to me to see that he is taking so much initiative in trying to change himself to be more effective for the kingdom.

My Bible studies with Greg and Preston are still going well.  We won't be finished by next week since it takes about 3 hours to get through a lesson with each of them and we generally only meet for half of that each week.  That's not a problem because we can just continue to meet over the summer.  Anyway Greg has been struggling with some things lately and I've been making sure to talk to him nearly every day to check in and help him keep his focus on God.  It's really made our friendship deeper by having that much interaction, even if it isn't much more than a text message asking how his day went.  I have been challenging Preston to continue to go deeper in examining himself while reading the word.  He grew up in church so I don't think he has ever really had to think deeply about his faith.  It's definitely a skill that needs to be developed!

In core we have wrapped up by talking about what we learned this year so that we could see how God has changed each of us and where he is leading us moving forward.  I think it's really important to help these guys see what God has done.  It's easy to miss, but when realized can be a great source of encouragement.  Just as important as that is giving them a vision of how they can continue to grow and the impact they can make on the kingdom.  Last week we had an encouragement time where we shared how we saw Christ in each other and spurred one another on toward increasing that trait.  Tonight will be our last official meeting for the semester as exams are next week.  We will be having a fun event which has commonly been called Core Prom.  The plan is to dress up then go out to eat and bowl.  We always have a lot of fun together so I'm sure tonight will be really enjoyable.

We had an event a couple of weeks ago called Help us Help the Homeless on campus.  Basically we took about one hundred cardboard boxes and built a fort outside the main entrance to the school to raise awareness of homelessness in Collin County.  We collected various donations for the only homeless shelter in the county, The Samaritan Inn (http://thesamaritaninn.org/).  Overnight some of the guys, including myself, slept in the fort!  It was pretty uncomfortable, but I think we made a good statement by doing so.

Recently, we have been going through Paul's letters in our intern Bible class.  It's a continuation of what we have been doing all year long: going through each book of the New Testament.  We just finished talking about 1 Thessalonians yesterday.  Reading each book with the mindset of understanding what Paul was trying to do, especially considering the big picture of his different missionary journeys, has made a huge impact on how I read scripture now.  Not only that, but I have majorly expanded my understanding of all sorts of topics like faith and grace by thinking deeply on what Paul explains.  He really is one of the most amazing writers, but he was undoubtedly inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Ronnie, the pastor at Northeast church and our teacher for this class, has always reminded us that our foundation should always be found in Christ's words rather than Paul's.  It's important to remember that Paul was just a man and Christ is our Lord.  Sometimes when I say that I have to take a few moments to really let what that means sink in.  Christ is our Lord...

Again I would like to ask for you to pray over our body of students as a whole and for the guys I have had the opportunity to spend time with directly.  I will still see most of them over the summer so please continue to pray for us.  Thank you again and again for all of the support you have provided me over the last nine months.  God has really blessed it.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

April Update

The school year is wrapping up!  Cores and Bible studies will be ending soon.  For a lot of students this is a time for making a decision to follow Jesus.  We have had several baptisms already over the last couple of weeks.  I wanted to share one with you here:

Alex's Baptism (sorry this is kind of long and hard to hear at times)

Please pray that other students will be led to make decisions like this, but that they would also count the cost before doing so.  One of our goals is to share with them the whole truth of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus so there are no surprises later.  At the same time we don't want anyone to be a halfway committed Christian so we do lead them to a decision.

Over the next few weeks in core we plan to wrap up a series on purity talking about being whole for God.  An example we got from Brandon to demonstrate how unappealing it is to be even a little impure was offering a water bottle to anyone in the group who was thirsty.  When someone said that they would like one, I opened it up and spit in the bottle.  Of course no one wanted the water anymore even though my saliva was only 1% of the bottle's contents.  If we really want to give God our best we can't be content with spitting in what we offer to him.

After that talk we plan to spend a week taking stock of what each guy has learned this year in regard to God and how to live for Him.  It will be a great time for them to remember what those things were and if they haven't put them into action yet to formulate a plan to do so going forward.  This will help them to get a vision of what their lives can look like as core ends for the summer or as some of them transfer to other schools.  The idea is to get them kingdom focused.  To help facilitate that even more we are planning to have an encouragement time the next few weeks.  In this time each guy will be able to share how they've seen each person grow over the year or the impact they have had on their lives plus challenge them in areas they could grow as well.  This is so often a very meaningful and intimate time.  Please pray that God will use it to move these guys to where he needs them in the future.

My Bible studies with Greg and Preston are going great!  There are a lot of penetrating questions throughout this study as it uses scripture to examine their hearts.  This definitely makes some people feel uncomfortable.  A lot of people these days are afraid of the truth.  Just look at the culture around us.  How do you even know what is real anymore with TV, the movies, video games, the Internet?  Our culture tells us that we have the power to do anything on our own if we are dedicated enough.  God wants us to put our faith in him.  This world is tough to live in and often things are not easy, or even possible, to handle on your own.  Our job as ministers is to teach people to trust in God.  "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."  Greg had trouble with giving up control at first when we met last school year, but God has really changed his heart over time.  It's one of the most encouraging things to me personally because of how sad I was when he quit for the time in between.  What God has done in Greg's life is surely praiseworthy!  Preston isn't having the same difficulty, but I would ask that you pray for him to continue to be open to God's word and strive to challenge himself.

I'm sad to say that my friend David no longer seems to be interested in any sort of relationship as I have not been able to reach him lately.  I can understand that he didn't have an interest in doing the Bible study, but it's painful that he has removed himself from my life completely.  Please pray that God is with him wherever he goes.

Kenneth and I are still able to get together occasionally although it hasn't been to continue our study of the Bible.  I'm still not entirely sure what his reasons are for stopping, but I'm glad that he still comes to me for support and lets me speak into his life.  It may be that it was just too intense for him to have an hour and a half spent on deep discussion of how Biblical principles apply to his life, but perhaps he would be more engaged by smaller chunks or one thought at a time.  I ask that you would pray for me to be led by the Spirit and be able to efficiently minister to Kenneth.

One pretty neat thing that God has done through Kenneth is in regard to an 18 year old kid he has been ministering to for the past few years.  Essentially this kid has become entangled in a bunch of his own lies and now he has started to believe a lot of them.  He is really hurting his relationships with his family who loves him and he decided this weekend to move out of his parents house.  Kenneth convinced him to at least stay at the house I live in with four other guys in our ministry so that he will have some positive influences.  Hopefully God will use this situation to teach him something.  I can't help but think about the story of the prodigal son in relation to this kid.  My prayer is that he will one day realize the mistake he made and return to his parents who desperately want their son back.

On another note we are going to fly over 50 students up to Washington this summer for SICM in May!  And another smaller group in June.  It's so exciting to see how God has moved in our ministry to impact that many people to step up and lead in ministry.  Please keep these students in your prayers that they can take advantage of the opportunity to learn while on the trip and that they can put it into action in their lives next year and beyond.

Thanks again for everything you do!  May God bless you.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

March Update

I have learned so much this year through my internship with FOCUS.  It has provided me with the environment and resources to develop the ability to minister to people and grow closer to God.  Although high-paced and stressful at times it has brought me intense joy.  Right now others are applying for next year's internship program. The staff will be interviewing them and by the end of March we should know who all the interns will be next year.  That's pretty exciting!

Another thing I'm excited about is SICM (Student Institute of Campus Ministry).  It is a one week campus ministry training conference hosted in Bellingham, WA, by a college ministry that we model our ministry after in many ways.  Their ministry is called CCF (Campus Christian Fellowship).  Students who have shown potential to be leaders next year have been invited to attend the conference in order to give them a head start on learning how to disciple other students next year.  I was invited to go to this after my freshman year back in 2006.  It gave me many of the tools necessary to be a spiritual leader.  People will often compare SICM to drinking from a fire hose because there is so much information that they have you process in a short amount of time.  It is essentially a class that meets every day for about 8 hours all week long.  By the end of the trip they have at least one 3-ring binder full of paper, which continues to be a resource years later.  The incredible thing is that even though it is heavily academic they include an element of deep, sincere worship that I have rarely witnessed before, if ever.  Anyway this year we will probably send about 70 students from our four campuses to one of the two sessions in May and June!  Please pray that these students take the decision to go seriously.

Here are some links in case you want to check them out:
CCF: http://www.ccfministry.com/
SICM: http://www.ccfministry.com/sicm/

In core the goal has been to get the guys to engage more with God, His word, and each other.  So Austin and I have tried to create activities and discussion that promotes these things.  This week we asked them to bring a meaningful song, scripture, thought, or just something God has laid on their heart to share, and then we took time to write out our own psalms to or about God.  Some of the guys shared what they had written and it was such a neat thing to hear what was on their hearts as well as how they conveyed it.  Ronnie talks a lot about how he writes psalms on occasion and that in addition to the plethora of psalms that David has written has made me wonder if there is something behind pouring out my heart to God on paper regularly.  Thinking back on when I did so this week it did help me to shift my focus back to God and my perception of myself became more accurate.  I've kind of debated on whether or not I wanted to share what I wrote on here, but I decided that it doesn't matter whether or not I feel comfortable sharing.  Instead, if it somehow inspires one of you then it is worth it.

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Of Matt.  A psalm.

Why am I so disobedient when you are always faithful?  Please rescue me from where I've gone on my own.
How are you faithful even though I'm not?
My trust in you is weak and my faith small, but you have grown it slowly over the years.
Even though I'm far from perfect I can promise you one thing: I'll never leave you; you will always be my God.
With that in mind I will persevere through the troubles of this world knowing that your love for me is unfailing.
Father I ask that you teach me to be like you; help me to love like you have loved me!
Your ways are good and your timing is perfect.  I won't expect an immediate change, because part of growing is learning patience.
God, make me a patient man!  Teach me to be still and wait for you.  Pour out your wisdom on me.
Make me whole and make me yours.

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The Bible study with Greg is going very well!  He has become much more serious about making time for God and community.  He reaches out to me when he needs encouragement or advice.  It's been such a blessing getting to stand next to him and help him stay strong in the Lord.  Please continue to pray for him.

I started another Bible study with a guy named Preston who has started coming to core.  He has a great heart as well.  I met him playing ultimate frisbee over a year ago and he started coming to FOCUS through the relationships he made there I believe.  All last school year he would tell me that he was planning to come to core, but never showed up.  This year he has made it a much higher priority to seek out God's community.  When I asked him to study the Bible he was excited to say yes.  Please pray for his continued desire to grow.

Morgan and my study with Kenneth has continued to be a challenge at times.  Please pray for two things here.  1) that Kenneth will realize how important Morgan and I consider that time and take it more seriously.  2) that Morgan will really learn a lot from this experience of teaching someone else about the Bible and continue to make that a part of his life after this study ends.

James, one of the younger student leaders, and I started a Bible study with that new guy I mentioned last month named David.  It's a similar situation to the Bible study with Morgan and Kenneth.  James has never led a study before and it's more comfortable to have someone with experience there to back you up.  I have every bit of confidence that he could do it on his own though.  This study also needs prayer.  We have been meeting for two weeks now and it really seemed like David was learning a lot and enjoying that time.  Unfortunately he texted me today to say that he didn't want to do the study anymore because he doesn't have the time to commit to it right now.  I was very sad to hear that and just lightly challenged him to rethink the importance of learning how to follow Jesus and let me know next week if he still wants to stop.  Please pray that God guides him in his decision.  I'm willing to accept that maybe this Bible study isn't what he needs right now and if quitting allows him to do what God is wanting, then so be it.


The FOCUS staff is currently reading through a book called "Spiritual Leadership" written by Henry and Richard Blackaby.  One of the topics we discussed last week was practicing unhurried time with God.  The author's main point is that we have to spend time with God if we are going to be led by him and "the key is not whether leaders spend time with God but whether the time they spend is unhurried and allows time for all God wants to say (Isa. 64:4)."  He also says, "If leaders attempt to do things in their own strength and wisdom, they will achieve commiserate [sic] results.  If leaders wait upon the Lord, they will experience what God can accomplish."  He made a pretty bold claim later that caused us to really think about whether or not it was true: "God does not reveal his truth on people's terms.  Spiritual leaders must remain in prayer as long as necessary until they are certain they have heard from God."  Part of me wants to say that I don't think we have the right to expect God to answer us like that and the other part of me wonders if I'm just thinking about it too close-minded.  I can't say that I have ever simply taken the time to wait for God to respond so I don't really have the right to say it's not possible.  Well anyway our director challenged us all to practice unhurried time with God over the next few weeks.  It's really hard!  Somehow as Americans we have developed this habit of always being way too busy.  It's sometimes hard enough just to set aside time for God in the first place so when I get around to it often I'm in too much of a rush or too exhausted to really make that time meaningful.  As I've attempted to spend more unhurried time with God it has made me think more about what I'm going to talk to him about.  What should I be telling or asking him?  I already pretty regularly unload my thoughts and feelings on God so that wasn't really an issue, but I rarely ask him to reveal how he wants me to grow and in what ways I should be actively changing myself.  In addition to that I need to ask for more guidance in leading others to him.  It doesn't stop there though.  I also realized that this time was perfect for actually writing out tangible plans to implement these revelations.  I mean if I'm already spending time with God discovering the "what" I might as well take advantage of having him help me figure out the "how."

I hope that all is going well with you and that you are able to enjoy the amazing weather outside.  Please let me know if you have any thoughts on my blog update or if you'd just like to let me know what's going on in your life.  I love to hear from you.  Thanks again for every way that you support me and my ministry.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

February Update

A lot of good things have been happening!

For one, we have had a lot of new visitors at our events.  I met a new guy named David and stuck with him throughout our Thursday night meeting.  Afterward when everyone went to hang out at the Allen house (one of our ministry houses), I invited him, but he said he had a pretty stressful day and didn't want to be around a bunch of people.  I asked him if he wanted to go get some dinner one-on-one instead and just talk, so that is exactly what we did.  It's really neat getting to follow through with people like that instead of just meeting them and then walking away.  I'm convinced that's the main reason why we have so many people who feel blessed by our ministry and decide to stick around.  I can't even count the number of times I've been in a church and felt uncomfortable because I didn't know anyone.  A quick hello at the door is nice, but it only goes so far.  People crave relationship.

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine, named Greg, who I studied the Bible with last school year before the internship.  He actually backed out halfway through the 10 week study because he had a lot of other things going on in his life taking up his time and I think he struggled with being challenged.  He told me last week that he wanted to continue the study and I found out that he had been attending one of the other cores this past year.  I was thrilled to hear that because he really has a great heart and I know the Lord can use him to impact people's lives.  Pray for him and his pride!

My Focus on Jesus study with Kenneth is pressing on slowly but surely.  This week I am bringing another student into that study as well.  Morgan just finished going through FOJ with me a couple of weeks ago and one of the most important parts of being a disciple is making more disciples.  Therefore I am going to help him transition into a teaching role for that.  My plan for that will be to meet with Morgan weekly outside of our meeting with Kenneth, go over how to teach it, and discuss any questions he has.  First he will just sit in to observe while adding any extra thoughts or questions, and later he will be doing the teaching and I'll be observing.  I am really excited about that!  I know he is going to do a great job, but keep that in your prayers as well.

Austin, my co-small group leader, and I are starting to think of one word goals for each of our guys in core.  The purpose is to be more strategic in mentoring them through the remainder of the year.  If we narrow things down to one aspect that we think they could grow in, it will be more attainable.  For some it is getting deeper in their relationships to other guys while for others it is preparing to transfer to a four year university and keep their trust in God strong.  I may post those up next month so that you can pray over them.  Please pray now that Austin and I will be guided in that process.

In our intern class we have been talking about what salvation by faith means.  It's an idea that Paul talks about pretty heavily in Romans.  I wanted to include some of my thoughts that I had written down in the hopes that it may inspire you to think some.  Try not to analyze it too much.  I wrote it like a journal entry so it's just my pure thoughts on paper...or a screen.


What is salvation by faith exactly?  When I really want to understand something I start with breaking down the words and asking what does each mean individually and how do they affect the whole?


FAITH:
In my mind faith = trust.  It is action driven by belief.  Trust is proven when you believe someone based on no evidence.  Faith is exactly that.  I think this is why people often call it blind faith.  In a sense it is blind, but then again we don't usually trust people without reason.  Someone trustworthy typically gives countless examples of fulfilling a promise.  It's not so much that they did one thing that caused you to put your faith in them, but rather the way they live their life indicates that they will come through for you.  So instead of having empirical evidence that they will do what they say in this specific situation you have evidence of this person coming through over and over again in other situations.  When you think about it that way you realize there is no way to prove that someone will do something they say they will.  All faith (and trust) is essentially blind in that sense.  I only mention faith in a promise for the future because anything else would be outside the scope of this discussion; salvation by faith.  If we are saved by our faith, which is from first to last, then it seems salvation would come at the end meaning salvation will be obtained in the future.  That being said I think God has given us plenty of reasons to trust him.  I would be crazy not to put my faith in him and his son.

http://xkcd.com/943/

SALVATION:
According to the Vine's expository dictionary Paul uses the Greek word "soteria" in Romans 1:16 to denote "deliverance, preservation, salvation" which is used in English as the word "salvation" to mean of the spiritual and eternal deliverance granted immediately by God to those who accept His conditions of repentence and faith in the Lord Jesus, in whom alone it is to be obtained and for this purpose the gospel is the saving instrument.


The gospel is the good news that Jesus, being God's son, gave his life in place of ours since the wages of sin is death.  Jesus says that God gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.  Paul writes in Romans 3:25 that God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.  I think back to the Passover to help me understand this last statement better.  When the Isrealites put the lambs blood on their doorposts they believed this act would save them.  In a similar way it is our belief that Christ's blood will save us that actually saves us.  People have a hard time believing that a good God would refuse to save a good person just because they didn't believe in him.  I bet there were some "good" people who didn't put the blood on their doorposts and their firstborn son was killed that night.  God lays out his stipulations pretty clearly and the root issue isn't that God is mean, but that we have disobedient hearts.  We think we know how to get around it.  Other times our insecurities take over and we are afraid that maybe God isn't going to make things work out the best way.  Both of these are the opposite of faith.


I often remember the analogy that Brandon presented to me of two men meeting in a restaurant.  One says they have a bomb on them and it's about to explode.  So the other runs out of the building.  The question is, "Was it that second man's belief that saved him or the action to run out?"  The answer is both.  Well this analogy is generally used to show that faith and works go hand in hand, but it also points out that faith is the foundational element to salvation.  The man wouldn't have run out of the building if he didn't believe what the other man said.  There are a lot of ways that you could look at that story, but ultimately the man simply proved his faith in the other man by running out of the building.  Had he not run out there would have been no faith.  I can just imagine Jesus standing there after the building explodes saying to the man who ran out, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."


Last, but not least, we had our Winter camp just a few weeks ago!  Excitement always surrounds this event and most of the time people don't even know why.  One of my friends from when I was a student at UTD used to start counting down the days to the next Winter camp the day after we got back from the most recent one.  I started to consider this year why it is that we all enjoy camp so much.  I think the main thing goes back to how purposeful we are as leaders to look for and be aware of people, especially new people.  It's just like the follow through I was talking about at our large group meetings.  We gear all of our activities around building new relationships while strengthening current relationships.  Since we had all four campuses there and around 270 people total it wasn't hard to find someone you didn't know.  Some of the different ways we facilitated this relationship building is by instilling in our student leaders an importance of making their time purposeful with their small group members.  Often the biggest thing is just thinking of some goals for them.  We also had the well known "walk and talks" where students get in gender specific pairs to walk around the camp and learn about each other.  This is a favorite among most people.  During our evangelism session we had the students pair up with someone they didn't know at all to do role playing exercises.  This was to prepare them for the new semester to meet new people in their classes, but it also provided the opportunity to make yet another new connection.   There was a lot of free time during camp to play sports, board games, read/write/reflect, or just visit with other people.  It may sound odd that I think this is probably the most important part, but it is where students connect with others.  When you consider the strategic way we spend time with each other I think it's easy to see how free time can become a powerful tool in building God's community.

The Collin Group

Everyone!

Let me know if you have any thoughts, reflections, questions, concerns, requests, etc.  Thank you for ALL of your support!  God has truly blessed me with you.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

January Update

Hello again!

Winter Camp is this weekend from Friday evening through Monday at noon.  It is our biggest event all year long and one of the most interesting opportunities as you get to see our entire FOCUS family for almost three straight days.  That's over 200 people.

At our staff retreat this past weekend we took some time to finalize a few plans for Winter Camp, some events during the semester, and our summer ministry.  We also looked at the rest of the school year and the next five years in a broader sense.  We started out by journaling and discussing how much God wants us to plan and strategize and how that fits in with the idea of being purposeful.  Paul writes in 1 Cor. 9:24-27 about figuratively running in such a way to get the prize and how he beats his body to make it his slave.  It's undoubtedly difficult, but our goal should always be to work hard to further God's kingdom.  These thoughts were coupled with the question of how can we "wait on God" without just sitting around being lazy?  This is obviously a balance because there are some things we need to wait patiently for, but many times when we don't feel like we have any direction from God we just need to be doing what we know Jesus would tell us to do: make disciples, serve people, etc.  If you know God, you know his will.  Consider Matthew 25:14-30 when Jesus tells a parable about a master leaving some money with his servants while he is gone.  There is no indication that he tells them what to do with it, but the one servant who is called a "wicked, lazy servant!" in the NIV was the guy who did nothing with it.  I kind of get the feeling that the master would have been happier if the servant had even lost the money but at least tried to gain a profit.  That's just my speculation though.

We also talked about our core strategic goals for the ministry keeping in mind the bigger picture of the next five years.  Here are most of what we came up with:

- Making and maturing disciples of Jesus
- Developing leaders who lead other leaders
- Reaching the lost
- Changing lives
- Planting more ministries on other college campuses around us
- Equipping leaders now to be able to lead campus ministries later
- Keeping diversity so we aren't an exclusive group
- Maintaining a close knit community even as we grow

Although I was looking forward to the retreat because it meant getting to spend quality time with the people I love, I was honestly dreading the talks a little.  We dig deep and that can get exhausting after several hours.  Regardless I really enjoyed it despite my feelings in the beginning.  It's like how I have mentioned before that I wouldn't be looking forward to studying the Bible with a student after working behind a desk dealing with crazy people for 8 or 9 hours, but I did it anyway and was energized through teaching God's truths.  It's odd that we can be so resistant to things that are truly good.

The idea of planning and creating strategies for our ministry got me thinking about how much I lack in doing that in my personal life.  I definitely plan things out and live by a calendar, but I don't necessarily put a lot of energy into seeing the big picture or trying to flesh out the details of how to handle certain areas of life better.  There are all sorts of things that can be done better like creating a timeline including what you want to accomplish by certain times, budgeting money or time/finding ways to reduce spending and increase savings, or keeping notes about people you're mentoring so that you can more effectively teach them.  Even just taking five minutes each morning and an hour at the beginning of the week to plan out what you need to get done and when is highly effective.  These are all things I intend to improve on.

Anyway, please pray for our camp, the rest of the school year, and the guys I'm reaching out to.  I really appreciate all of your support.  Thank you so much!

Yours for the Campus,

Matt

Welcome to 2012

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all doing well.

Not a whole lot has gone on since my last update so as a staff we are not going to be posting our monthly updates until after our staff retreat this weekend, where we will plan for the rest of the year.  At that time I will be able to share what we will be doing this semester and talk about what we did at the retreat.

I would like to leave you with some thoughts for now.  With another New Year comes New Year's resolutions.  I think we, as a whole, often take these resolutions pretty lightly.  Why else is there an increased number of people on the treadmills at the gym in January and by February or March it's back to normal?  It is often hard to change a lot of things all at the same time instead of focusing on just one or two aspects of your life.  I think it helps to space your resolutions out across the year.  Also it's important to make sure that your goals are SMART (Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) to help in accomplishing them.  This year one thing I want to be more disciplined in is journaling at least 2 or 3 times every week.  Writing helps me to draw deeper thought out of my mind and organize it in a way that is more tangible.  This is a great way to take scripture and other life experiences and write out my questions and thoughts on it.  If I don't take the time to get my thoughts on paper they generally dissolve into nothing instead of being applied to my life.

Matt

December Update

The year is nearly half over.  It's sad to think that the time has gone so quickly, but I'm glad to have seen that God used it for a lot of good.

I wanted to start out my update this month with a picture of my core group:

These are some of the people that you are impacting through your support.  They are such neat guys!  Some of them I have known for a few years and others only a few months.  There are so many different interests and personalities, but despite all of that we are unified in Christ.  That is one of the coolest things about the body of Christ.  Our relationships don't rely on surface level activities, but on our mutual interest in learning about and following God.  Sure we can talk about those things, but ultimately our reason for being together has a higher purpose.

We have made it halfway through the beatitudes in core now.  There is so much depth in what Jesus says in Matthew 5:3-10!  This week we discussed dating as an extension of the conversation in our last large group meeting.  The discussion involved comparing the following Biblical principles to the normal pattern of dating seen in the world and even in many Christian communities:

1. Consider others better than yourself.  Philippians 2:3-4; John 13:14-15
2. We should not have even a hint of sexual immorality. Ephesians 5:3; 1 Timothy 5:1-2
3. Attraction (created within ourselves and what we look for) should be based on Godly characteristics instead of outward appearances. 1 Peter3:3-4; 1 Timothy 2:8-9, 4:8-9
4. Be wise and seek advice! Ephesians 5:15-17; Proverbs 12:1, 15

Discussing these principles was not an extensive conversation about dating, but our purpose was to create some thought and conversation within our community about healthy dating that glorifies God.

Last month I talked about how Kenneth had some personal issues going on in his life and he had decided to take a step back from being involved in our community.  He did say that he wanted to continue studying the Bible together, but we were not able to schedule a time to do so until last week.  The good news is that we actually met last week!  And we have a weekly time scheduled again.  On top of that he decided to start coming to the large group meeting again after we talked about his reasoning for not coming.  Overall, he is really striving to challenge himself amidst the current stresses that he is dealing with.  Please pray for his work situation, relationship with his parents, and perseverance in following Jesus.

I am still meeting up with Thibault occasionally to maintain that friendship and he continues to struggle with his belief in God.  He says that he thinks there probably is a God, but he doesn't see any evidence.  I think it's important to invest time with him so maybe he will see God through our friendship.  There is another guy that I have been meeting with named Kalub who is non-religious.  I met him on campus during the first week of the semester.  We have some very good discussions about life and meaning regardless of our conflicting beliefs.  Please pray for both of these guys that God will reveal himself to them in his own way at the right time.  Also pray that I will be willing to do what God wants in those relationships.

We are starting to prepare for our winter camp, which is one of the most important events for starting off next semester effectively.  We plan it on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend every year for the extra day of no class/work.  Our goal is to focus on spending time with each other in order to build community and be saturated in the Word together.  We really strive to have every student come and be involved.  Please pray that each student sees the importance of that time and will join us.

One last thing to pray about is the winter break from classes.  During the break students generally have a significant amount of free time and are around their families more often.  It's a really important time to take advantage of because the stress of classes is temporarily relieved allowing them to invest more time in their families and friends.  We always encourage our students to be purposeful in serving their parents and siblings at home and fostering meaningful conversation during that time rather than merely entertaining themselves.  Before Thanksgiving I decided my main goal when spending time with my parents is to make sure that I open up about meaningful things in my life and ask thought provoking questions in order to learn more about them.  Over Thanksgiving I asked my parents some deeper questions and discovered a few things that I never knew about them.  I want to encourage all of you to invest your time in loving God and the people around you during the holidays because it produces a tremendous return on investment.  May we all learn to apply the following to our lives more and more:

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:36-40)

Thank you again for all of your continued support and prayers.  I hope you each have a wonderful time with family and friends this Christmas!  I will keep you in my prayers and ask that you do the same for me.

Yours for the Campus,

Matt