Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving to each of you! There has been so much to be thankful for this month. I would love to share the good works that God has allowed us to be a part of this month at UTD.

This month was so exciting because we spent time preparing our hearts and minds to hear from Rikk Watts, who came last week to UTD for our semesterly Pizza Theology! We spent 4 hours learning about the book of John together and it was incredible. A couple of weeks prior to Pizza Theology, our students got together in Paul’s living room and read the book of John together, it was so life-giving! One of the students that I came with, Andrea, had never read through the book of John before, so throughout that evening as we read the words of Jesus, she would turn to me and say “Oh my goodness, Jesus really said that?!” It is always so enriching and exciting to see people come face to face with the words of Jesus.

In our time with Rikk Watts at Pizza Theology, students from all across the DFW metroplex came together to dive deep into the book of John. Rikk Watts’ style of teaching always encourages me because he is so devoted to the Truth of Jesus that you can hear and feel his passionate zeal for how real Jesus is and has been to him. He often begins talking about the Scripture and before you know it, you are being ministered to at a profound level. Our students loved him, we were hanging off of every word he said. One of the things that he said that has been ringing in my mind is that “Holiness is not measured by how ‘perfect’ you behave or even how ‘perfect’ you are, but by how much LIFE you bring to people”. He emphasized the point over and over throughout the night that Jesus had come to bring LIFE to people.

Ronnie Worsham, our director’s father and one of the founders of our ministry, came to speak to our FOCUS First Year Leaders a few weeks ago on the topic of ‘How do people change? How can we help?’ and while Rikk Watts was talking, it reminded me of what Ronnie had taught us. He told us that throughout his time in ministry and in working with people, he has developed this model for understanding how people operate. I have drawn it below so you can see it for yourself, but basically he taught us that people’s behavior and lifestyle is a reflection of a deeper set of beliefs and thought processes. He said often we want to address the behavior and lifestyle choices without really asking questions of what people believe at their core which isn’t really going to do anything for them.

I notice this in myself! Sometimes I spend too much time scrolling on social media and I do desire to stop doing that as much, but I can’t just eliminate the behavior without first addressing my deeper desire to be entertained or distracted from something. I have been thinking through this in my time with the students as I try to get at the heart of why they are struggling with certain behaviors or negative thoughts. I have been praying that the Spirit would guide me towards the right questions to ask so that Jesus can really speak into the lies they might be believing. In core this month, we have been reading through the gospel of Mark and it has been really life giving! Last core, I walked into Cathy and Katie’s on campus apartment where we usually do core and only the kitchen light was on. As students came in, they all mentioned how they liked the darker lighting, that it was calming, and so we decided to light a couple of candles and have a candlelit core haha. We read a couple of chapters of Mark, went around and praised God for how good he had been to us this semester, and prayed together. It was really sweet and special! As I’ve been thinking about the early church and the early disciples of Jesus, it seemed fitting to have a candlelit core as I’m sure that is how they spent time hearing the words of Jesus, gathered round with candles.

Lastly, this month we also had our Mi Gente thanksgiving potluck! About 30 of us crammed into Nyellie, Ella, Andrea, and Mckayla’s house and had a great time. We went around and shared what we were thankful for, sang Gratitude together led by Marlon, and then ate and had fellowship. The students loved it. Several of the students from last year came up to me throughout the night and expressed how excited they were to see the growth in our group this year.

I really am so encouraged and am so thankful to all of you for choosing to invest in the lives of these students. Even though they don’t know you, they are being blessed by you! I pray God’s abundant blessings over you in this season. I pray Colossians 1:28 over you, that we can confidently say that “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” Our annual Keep FOCUS Growing campaign is coming to an end at the end of November. If you or anyone you know might be encouraged and excited to invest in the lives of college students, please feel free to share about the good work God is doing here in DFW so that they can be a part of it. Thank you so much! You can point them to anyfocus.org/kfg to give!

Love you each, Andrea