March: An Unexpected Journey

Obviously, this month's blog is going to be mostly about how Covid-19 has effected my ministry. I will get into that, but I want to take this chance to remind us to be praying for people who are really being negatively affected by this plague. I know a lot of people, including many of my ministry partners and donors have lost their jobs because of this outbreak. I hope that if you need prayer or help, that you reach out so that the darkness of this time doesn't go unnoticed.

Okay so March, what a month. It started very normally. We had our small groups and Friday Night Services as normal for the first bit, but by March 9th, we knew that things may get crazy. I remember submitting my weekly report and in the section about what do you want to pray about, I put "Let's pray that the school stays open because I don't know how we would adapt. Approximately 10 hours after going over that review, the school announced that it would be shutting down for the semester, and I can tell you now that I know what we would do. Before I get into that, here are a few of the last pictures I took on campus with students before we closed down. Have fun comparing these to the end.

 (Me and one of our Student leaders, Alex)

 (The male student leaders in their leader meeting)

(A guy in my small group named Joe performing at UTD's Comet Sing competition. He won the Audience choice award)

So how did Focus at UTD respond to the campus closing? We moved online. Since this happened right before our spring break, we took a short bit of time off, but as soon as we were back on, you could tell that adapting had been on everyone's mind. Our first meeting back ideas were flowing out on how we could adapt and keep presence with our students, and continue to put on services for them. One of our student leaders named Austin had made a server on the computer app Discord, where a lot of our students have been hanging out, and so as a staff we decided to buy into what they were doing, and make the most of this service. Back at UTD, our students had what they called the "Focus Table" where they would go in our Student Union and hang out together, and this discord app has become that place for them. Large groups of our students are getting on their computers to spend time together and continue to encourage each other through this crazy time. There has been a lot of accountability, academic help, spiritual encouragement, and just sharing of lives going on in this app and it has been a real light to them in this dark time. As for services, we have moved onto Twitch. Twitch is a streaming website typically for games and podcast, that we have slotted into and made our Friday Night Focus come back to life. Our students have also latched onto this as well, like discord. According to our twitch stats, so far we have been averaging around 150 viewers per stream, which is not a huge drop off from our on campus service, and that is really good news. As the resident Arts & Technology major, I have been taking on a large part of the responsibility in putting these streams on, as I am the one trained in all of these programs we are now using ahead of time. It has been really fun to get to apply my degree so much in this strange time. I honestly never thought God would use me in this way, but I guess I am seeing now more than ever that he works all things to his glory. April will see the bulk of my streaming work, so I will talk more about it in the next blog, but be praying for us. Relying on technology can be stressful, as it isn't always as predictable as we would wish it was. 

As I said before I have more pictures for the end of this blog. It is interesting to see how ministry has changed moving to our computers. 

 (Me showing off my webcam and ring-light to the apprentices, from my time as a game streamer)

 (Me and Rhett working on setting up our first online FNF)

 (Me and our sound guy Stephen waiting to put on the first FNF stream) 

 (Me leading my small group online through Discord's video chat service)

 (Me and the other Apprentices in Class with Ronnie Worsham, the Pastor of North East Church)

(This is the Discord server that our students have been using, with it's various voice and text chats for them to have differing topics of conversation. The chats are on the left and members are on the right) 

This has been quite the unexpected journey, but thankfully God has been with us every step of the way. I am so grateful for the generosity of our ministry partners, still giving to us through this time. I pray that the world rights itself quickly so that this giving doesn't become a strain to anyone. Thank you all again, and God bless!I am praying for you all.