Caitlin's Ministry Updates

I love these people!! Core has been such a blast with them this semester!  It's crazy how fast this semester has gone by! Last night, we had our last large group Thursday Night Fellowship of the semester and it was so encouraging to see so many people that we had met in August during Mav Stampede continue to come and grow so immensely in just a few short months! God is so good and he continues to be faithful in carrying out his work and allowing FOCUS to be a part of that! Pizza Theology  Twice a year, all the FOCUS campuses come together for a really neat and special event. Pizza Theology is a time where students get the opportunity to dive deep into interesting topics that would be otherwise be hard to cover in the 30-40 minute sermons on Thursday nights. This years topic was exploring the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. The Sermon on the Mount is considered to be the most important sermon ever preached as it came straight from the mouth of Jesus and contains the co

So many neat things happened this month I can't wait to tell you about! The first exciting thing that October brought was Fall Camp! Fall Camp is an annual event that is specific to each college campus. UTA had ours at Camp Copass in Denton, Texas and it was seriously such a fun weekend. There was a couple organized sessions in between the free time that we had to hang out with one another, but the most impactful session to me was the worship night.  Students gathered around for the worship night One of the questions we discussed was "what is something about God that you are just in awe of?" The responses were amazing from all the students. Students reflected on the beauty of all God created, how vast the universe is that we know very little about, how human beings are so intricately and perfectly made by God, and so much more. We probably sat there discussing how awesome God is for about an hour and nobody ever ran out of anything to say. This time was really im

This month has been a whirlwind in the best kind of way. One of the things I am most excited to tell you about is my Core that I get to lead this year with my good friend Taylor. Cores are our same gender smaller communities that most people know as a small group. Students leaders within FOCUS are asked each year to facilitate one of these groups and so far it has been amazing to see how many amazing leaders UTA FOCUS has! Taylor and I have a great group of girls this year who have been really faithful to showing up and are really eager to grow in their relationship with Jesus. God is continually teaching me through these girls that he is so good at watering the seeds that have been planted allowing us the joy of seeing the harvest. Picture from our first Core!  Someone who has been really encouraging to me is my friend Lauren. I met Lauren at the very beginning of the semester at our Board Game Night we had during Mav Stampede. God really laid Lauren on my heart and I just se

First let me start off my saying that THE LORD IS SO GOOD! Mav Stampede (UTA is awesome and does welcome week for 2 weeks instead of one) is officially complete! The vision for Mav Stampede is to cast our nets wide and reach out to as many people as possible, letting them know that there is a ministry on campus that cares about them and there are people that want to love on them and know them. We had events throughout the week like capture the flag, field night, board game night and many others where we got to meet a lot of new students. Many of my conversations were about typical things like their major, where they are from, how they are liking their roommate so far ect. But there have also been many interactions where when the conversation was over I was met with a huge smile and a "thank you, you're the first person who has intentionally tried to talk to me since I came to campus." Those interactions make everything worth it. I can't wait to see how the Lord gr

Happy August everyone! It is officially the start of my FOCUS Apprenticeship for the 2017-2018 school year!  FOCUS Apprentices 2017-2018 I started off my summer heading into fundraising season which I was extremely apprehensive about and had no idea what to expect. I had fears of not being able to get fully fundraised and having to miss out on the opportunity to do what I felt God was calling me to do. But thankfully I can officially say I am fully fundraised! I learned through the fundraising process that the Lord works in miraculous ways to provide everything that we need to carry out his mission. Thank you so much to everyone who is supporting me financially and prayerfully. Without all of you I really would not be able to do this!  The official start of my apprenticeship began at the last summer FOCUS when all the new apprentices and staff members making new commitments were recognized at the ordination ceremony. This was such a special night and a reminder of the respo