Cultural Identity vs Christ centered identity

Summer for a campus minister means a lot of prep work. Some of that is continuing to fundraise so that we can be on campus full time come fall, and a lot of it is getting ready for the school year and planning out our content we will cover with our students over the next couple months. Something that seems to be a recurring theme as we dive into prepping content for sermon series, 1x1 studies with people, and mentoring our leaders is the theme of identity. Identity has become a huge topic in our cultural moment, and for incoming freshman it has been and continues to be a huge part of their college experience. For many their time in university has often been a time of solidifying their identity. That has only increased in the last couple of years, as the surrounding culture continues to push more and more for young people to “find who they are.” 

Our Denton staff this year

It’s amazing how easy it us for us who follow Christ to buy into that mentality wholesale. Certainly, there are aspects of our personality, our strengths, weaknesses, hobbies and interests, or particular mental struggles that we as humans are constantly learning. No doubt that we are all unique and have parts of ourselves that we will overtime learn more about. But as Christians a phrase like “find yourself” should give us pause. I don’t need to find myself, because I’ve already been found in Christ. The core of who I am has been established by the Lord. As Paul says in Romans 8 “the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.” We are the sons and daughters of the most high. That is at the core of our identity, we don’t need to search that out in the world. One of my prayers for this year is that we can help our students find their identity in Christ and how He is expressed through their unique qualities. My hope is that by connecting our students with a solid foundation of identity we can provide them the peace and stability that can only come through Christ. That they can be emboldened by their identity as adopted sons and daughters of God to go and tell others of the freedom we have through that.

Our whole FOCUS staff. I can't believe we're at 50 people

On another note, we recently came back from our fall staff retreat. It was filled with time to build connections amongst our staff team, time to recharge before welcome week hits, and time to reflect and refocus on the Lord. We had multiple breakout sessions with our Denton team, and one of the things we reflected on was just how tough a mission field Denton can be. We’ve felt like for years Denton has had a metaphorical cloud hanging over it. There is so much fear, anxiety and depression in this city and especially on the college campuses here. I’d like to ask you to join us in praying for Denton and the students here. We need all the help we can get in battling this stuff and keeping ourselves from being pulled into it as well. So, your prayers are greatly appreciated. We were reminded of 1 John 4:18 which says that perfect love drives out fear. Part of our hope this year is that our students and staff can provide a community that really does reflect Christ’s love to the surrounding city and is a place for people to connect with the only one who can actually drive out their fear, anxiety and depression.