John 14:6

April 07, 2022

"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

John 14:6

We have been going through a sermon series since the spring semester started called, "Live No Lies". This theme started during one of our staff meetings last semester when my director pointed out a book he read called Live No Lies by John Mark Comer. The main point of his book shares that our society is at war. He’s not talking about a war with foreign assailants or domestic terrorists. Instead, the war we are fighting takes place deep in our minds and body. Our lies. The problem isn’t just that we’ve been told lies; it’s that we end up living them. Our students hear and believe in lies that come from three categories; 1.) The devil, 2.) The flesh, 3.) The world. Lies can be very deceiving if we're not paying attention to them. They can plant false ideas about who God is, who we are as human beings, and how the world operates. I probably know what you're thinking, "Of course, we know lies exist. So we just tell them the truth." I do agree we need to tell students the truth about God and the world, but it's important to ask the why question. Why do they live and believe in these lies? Where did they get that idea? For a follower of Jesus, we should be asking them, is this idea rooted in scripture? In scripture, Jesus was called the "Light" meaning he is the truth. Lots of our students were encouraged and moved from our sermons each week what lies they hear that also affect us as pastors. I had the honor to preach on this topic, "What people think about me is more important than what God thinks about me" (it's a mouthful, I know lol).

We also had friends from Washington state from a sister/partner ministry come down for a week for their spring break to do mission work with us at Collin and see what Texas is like. We had a blast and so many students that week came to our ministry by our Washington friends reached out to them. So cool!!

What's coming soon this month is Family Night where we tell our students to invite their family or close friends they consider family to check out Thursday Night Fellowship where we share who we are and cast our mission goal and vision spreading the gospel across DFW. Plus, May is not too far away and the semester will be coming to an end. It's so crazy! By the second week of May, some of our students and staff will be heading to SICM at Bellingham, WA.

Please be praying for us to end the semester strong and keep reaching out to new students before the year ends. Thank you my partners for supporting me, I will be in touch with you soon.

By God's grace,

Austin Bailey

This was a humbling experience to preach the word of God to the students God has entrusted me with to lead them to Jesus. Though this was the last sermon I gave at Collin FOCUS, I'm full of joy to brag about how good God is and announce my baby to the students ;). Priceless.

Before I gave my sermon, I had a vision from God of this imagery of so many people sitting and overcrowding a throne, and next to me was God and he told me, "There's no room for me". What the Spirit was showing me was the people who are sitting on the throne of my heart are the people I fear and care what they think about me. God is looking at me and telling me that He should be the King of my heart and deserves to sit on that throne. My friend Graham drew this for me and did an excellent job.

SSI!

Our friends from Bellingham, WA!

Outreach at Wylie Campus

Stevie finally did our Collin College sign right. Lol!

This is Stevie. He is one of the campus pastors at a Western Washington University in Bellingham called CCF. Stevie is a sweet and very energetic guy. I was blessed I got to know him over that week