Art, Race and Pizza

Denton Worship Team

Me, David, Cody, Josh, Troy, Kristen and Mia

I haven't talked much about this team, but I meet with this group of students once a week. As students they lead our community in worship. They plan worship sets and activities for our services and help pastor our community in worshiping God. They have worked so hard this year and have been encouraging to work with. They have been obedient to the call of a worship leader this year and have let the Spirit lead them in their decision making and planning. You guys rock!

FOCUS Art Show

We had an outreach reception and met and talked with so many students on campus!

Art has been a big avenue for connecting and relating with God for me. I often hear his voice in working on and creating a piece of artwork. Our UNT campus has a large art program. Artwork can be powerful in what it communicates and expresses to others.  I think the arts have a great way of reaching our culture and connecting them to God. UNT has a gallery open to the student body, you just have to apply and get approved to show your work. There are several artists in FOCUS who write, paint, draw, and sculpt to worship God so I turned in an application to the UNT art gallery to see if some of our artists could put a show together. We got approved last semester and the art show is now taking place! We were also approved for the gallery and didn't have to pay for anything! The show is up for two weeks and is in the main Union building of the UNT campus. I've had great conversations with students on our campus and it has cultivated such deep conversations about our faith. If you are in the area I encourage you to come and see the show!

The Denton FOCUS community together made around 300 paper cranes. This allowed almost everyone in our community to have a hand in the show.  The show is about community and relationships, and this piece captures the diversity in community and yet our commonality in Christ. 

Pizza Theology

Every semester we gather the students from all 9 of our campuses to learn about a deeper subject. This semester we talked about race. In our society right now race is a huge topic and it's important as children of God, that we understand what God thinks about the subject. We call these talks "Pizza Theology" because we have a deeper theological talk and break to eat pizza in between. The conversation was a growing and stretching topic for me. We had several students share from different backgrounds about their experience. It offered great perspective.

Student Testimony

"I grew up in Vietnam with Buddhist parents. My aunt shared the gospel with me and my brother, and I became a Christian when I was around six. Looking back, I can see how God was pursuing me and leading me to grow in my relationship with Him by giving me a desire to go to church.

        When I came to America, my host families helped me grow in my faith. My parents came to visit me and my brother after a couple years. My parents thought that because we were thankful to God, we were not thankful to them, and they were really angry. They were in Vietnam working hard to provide for me and my brother to go to school in the States. They made us choose: we could stop following God and they would continue to support us financially, or we could follow God and He would support us. My brother and I chose God. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to transfer to UTA, but God provided a way. My parents, after my aunt spoke with them, decided to continue supporting me until I graduate. My relationship with my parents has changed a lot since that conversation. In some ways, I feel like they disowned me and my brother. My parents aren’t really my family anymore. But FOCUS has since filled that role, and the people in this community have become my family. FOCUS has challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone and invest in people. It has been a safe place for me to have hard conversations. Because of FOCUS I have deep friendships. I was accepted to a nursing school in Florida, and seriously considered going, but decided to stay at UTA because I saw what God was doing on this campus. I have so much to be thankful for and can see the great things that God is doing in my life and in those around me."

Hallie Tran (Junior, University of Texas at Arlington, Nursing)

Prayer

I've had several students really wrestle with some self worth questions. All the way from low self-esteem to having suicidal thoughts. Please be praying for our students and that the enemy would not have any control over their perceptions of themselves. Pray that they would find healing in seeing themselves the way that God sees them, as his child, as temples of his spirit and his disciples. Especially be praying for this as our students go on spring break next week.

In two weeks we will have a group of 12 students come from the University of Washington to learn from us on how to evangelize and outreach to college campuses. Pray for safe travels, for many college students to be witnessed to and that our Washington visitors be welcomed and loved. 

I don't do the best job of informing you of baptisms, but they do happen in our community! Here are two of recent. 

Garvin is one of our UNT students and has been involved in our ministry for the last year. He is such a friendly and warm hearted person

 Pedro is one of our NCTC students. He has been such a help in building our ministry there. I am thankful to God for his servant heart.