Monday, March 12, 2018

Seek His Face!

From left to right: Alex, Nathan, David, and Bekwele. I've gotten to know these guys this year, and it's been nothing but a blessing. Alex (far left) and Bekwele (far right) are in my peer team!

"My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, LORD, I will seek."
- Psalm 27:8 

I've been thinking about eye contact a lot lately. Few things signal intimacy, focus, and intention like prolonged eye contact. Few things signal distance, busyness, and shame like being deprived of eye contact. A couple looks into one another's eyes, a parent tells their child: "look at me when I'm talking to you!" Lately, God has been pushing me to remove these things (distance, busyness, and shame) that keep me and the guys I minister to from- metaphorically speaking- looking Him in the eyes.

In my own life, I've been challenged by mentors in how directly I seek God. Do I approach Him in prayer with the intention of seeking Him, or with the intention, merely of praying? Am I so busy and off-kilter that I can't slow down enough to let Jesus in on my thought processes? Am I monitoring my success as a child of God so closely that I put words of disapproval in His mouth before I can even talk to Him? More than any time before, I'm begun to push this envelope with the guys in my life as well. As Jesus says: "few things are needed- or indeed only one." The "one thing" we need is to be with and follow Christ. 

Being in classes for the Apprenticeship has given me more "bricks" to build with than I've ever had in my life, but I'm also realizing more than ever before that it's dangerously easy to start putting new bricks on a foundation of sand. 

Pizza Theology
I'm consistently amazed at how intently our students learn about God. Also, do you see that empty chair on the right there? That's where you were supposed to be sitting :(
Every semester, all of the FOCUS campuses get together for four hours of teaching on a particular theological, Biblical, or situational topic, with an hour in the middle for some food which, you may have guessed, happens to be pizza. The topic this semester was The Second Coming. What I was afraid would be a dicey, difficult, and terrifying lecture turned into a deep message of hope and a poignant call to alertness. Sooooo good!

Meeting New People!

Bad Tattoo outreach at TWU! I really hope this is a candid photo, but maybe they posed like that.

Campus ministry frequently moves with the seasons. August will have you meeting countless new students (occasionally forgetting names after adding 50 phone contacts in a week); March is often more of a time of continuing to pour into the students who have stuck around- a little more to the "maturing" side of "making and maturing disciples." On the surface, there's nothing really wrong with that. 

That being said, I've been blown away by how our students have taken the idea of "being sent" to heart, and have continued to meet new people and invite them to come to FOCUS and to study the Bible one on one. God works year round! 

From left to right: Mateo, Orion (coolest name ever), Reagann, and Chris about to go meet students at UNT. You can't really tell in this picture, but Chris is 6'6". I feel like a child when I stand next to him.


Prayer
  • Pray for us to be faithful to minister to and love the new students coming into our ministry! Pray for them to encounter Jesus here.
  • Pray for our students and staff to seek God intensely. 
  • Pray for our students to work well and rest well during the second half of this semester. It's easy to love motivation when the finish line is in sight!