David's Ministry Blog

Hello, everyone! Let me start things off with a quick announcement / life update: after much prayer and reflection over this past school year, I will be transitioning off of FOCUS staff at the end of May. I have learned so much this year, and God has grown and matured me in many unexpected ways. I hope that I am able to take everything that I’ve learned and continue to apply it through life.  All that being said, I am giving my second sermon on Friday, May 31st. All 10 pastoral apprentices will be giving a sermon on our three biggest takeaways from this year. Look out for a text from me in the days leading up to the sermon, with more information so that you can tune in online or come listen in person. It's sure to be a day full of joy and tears — you don't want to miss it!  Several UTD students put on a worship night on campus, which was a ton of fun. Seeing our students take the initiative to host and give back to our community shows the love and care our students have for ea...

Hello, everyone. It’s time for another blog! This time it’s Marvelous in March.  An interesting thing that happened is I shaved my beard! I have decided to shave once a year and this is my second year doing it. (Every tradition starts somewhere right?) Some people loved the clean shave and others didn’t. I liked it but it’s not something I would like to keep for months. A marvelous thing that happened is that I had another Mi Gente event! This time Andrea and I decided to try and make Gorditas. We were nervous about getting the mass right but overall we did a good job. The only problem was we didn’t have a proper way of heating up the Gorditas since we didn’t have a comal, a comal is a flat round cast iron skillet. People loved all of the different toppings and the fillings were amazing, especially the eggs with chile rojo.  Another marvelous experience I had this month was our spiritual retreat day, which is a day the campus pastors set apart to connect with God in unique way...

Hello everyone!! February is now over, which means it's time for another ministry update! This month has been full of events on top of events, through which God has been moving in impactful ways. Firstly, Jessica and I developed and launched an outreach event for the month of February called Lunch Buddies. What if your first interaction with someone was over a meal? Where would that interaction lead to? These are the questions we based our outreach event on, which involved eating lunch with a random stranger and seeing where that took the both of you. Our main goal for this outreach event was displaying John 13:35 (“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”) to students all around campus. On any given day, you can walk into the Student Union (SU) at UTD and you will see a lot of people sitting by themselves, eating alone. Instead of ignoring these people and opting to only hang out with their friends, we wanted our students to see this ...

January is over! What a cold and chilly month. Despite the weather, it was also a month packed full of fun. The two biggest things that happened this month were staff retreat and winter retreat. Our FOCUS staff retreat was at Log Country Cove in Burnet (near Austin). It took place during the first week of the new year, from January 2nd to 5th. We all carpool to staff retreat and use that time in our cars as an opportunity to bond and talk with other staff members that we may not connect with all that often due to them being on a different campus, etc. Thus, our carpool groups are assigned with purpose, and we do our best to mix staff from different campuses together while still making it convenient for the driver, of course. Everyone actually is in two different carpools for the drive down: Your first carpool group is the one that you depart from the DFW area and stop in Waco for lunch with, and your second is the one that you head from Waco to the retreat center with. I enjoyed bo...

We are now at the halfway point of the apprenticeship. Five months down, five more to go! There were a lot of wonderful things that happened this past semester. One of the highlights was our end-of-semester Christmas party. Every year, there's a theme, and this year it was the Polar Express. All of the decorations and activities were Polar Express-themed. There was a train track made out of tape and cardboard that was laid out across the church and that people used to take a tour in some train carts that were also constructed from cardboard and tape. There were board games, arts and crafts, lots of food, and hot chocolate as well. We played the movie, but we also brought the movie to life with the staff performing the hot chocolate dance for all of our students. Everyone wore their pajamas and had a golden ticket. Overall, it was a really fun and exciting night — probably the best FOCUS Christmas party that I've had the privilege of attending so far! Our students also really ...

Another Month, Another Blog! Thank you all very much for the support so far. It has been great and I really appreciate it. This month's blog will focus on FOJ and classes. FOJ (Focus on Jesus) is our one on one Bible study. It’s a 10 session-long study that focuses on what Jesus teaches and does in the New Testament. The topics covered in FOJ include sin, grace, baptism, and more. I first studied and completed FOJ my junior year with one of my then-corefas, Luke. Luke pushed me to be more like Jesus and invest more deeply in community. I started taking my faith more seriously and becoming more active in the community. FOJ was one of the primary reasons I ended up becoming a corefa (small group leader) my senior year. This year, I am leading three FOJ studies. I meet with two freshman, Joshua and Prajit, and one junior, Chris — all of whom are also a part of my core (small group). I go over the same content with each of them, but each study is unique and different to best serv...