Austin Bailey's Ministry Blog

First Thursday Night Fellowship (TNF)! Let The School Year Begin! Okay! A lot has happened over this past month, and to me, it felt like riding a fast roller coaster. Our staff met together for an all-staff retreat to rejuvenate, grow and rest with God, and fellowship with cross-campus staff. SICM happened just two days after staff retreat, and let me tell you; this campsite was beautiful ( see the picture below )!!  At SICM, we went to Camp Eagle down in Rocksprings, TX, where we spent a reasonable amount of time learning from our campus directors about evangelism, leading a Bible study, and building Jesus center friendships. We had activities to choose from during our free time, like swimming or jumping on the blob (water trampoline) in the river, kayaking, hiking around the camp, and zip lining across the campsite. Our students left SICM feeling challenged, encouraged, and excited to be back on their campuses to do ministry. Tom Grant, a student at Collin this year, shared his t...

 Coming Back to PRC!! I have exciting news to share with you this coming school year. This year as our staff team is growing and more new Collin College campuses are opening this fall, our staff will be splitting up into pairs to oversee their campus for outreach and forming small groups. This year I will be at Preston Ridge Campus (PRC) in Frisco and the Wylie Campus! I'm very excited to be back at PRC because this campus is where I first started my ministry as a student at Collin FOCUS. Going back to this campus brings back memories of the courtyard where all the students hang out and walk to classes. I will be leading a small group at PRC with a student name Tom Grant. My first year leading core at PRC circa 2015-2016. It's so crazy 6 years has gone by!! I was walking around PRC and praying with God for the campus, and I noticed this garden patch dried up. I took a picture and reflected on this image. This dry patch of soil shows me how are students on campus are in a dry se...

Hey everybody, so Summer FOCUS is going smoothly, it's so nice to see people in-person again! Ministry is trucking along, and fundraising has been going. Here's some life updates that I want to share about! Summer FOCUS is finally back! We meet at CARE Church in Richardson to have a building to worship and hear our staff give a sermon to our students. This photo is super encouraging to see everyone back together and worshipping God. Our sermon series we've been going through is "seeking a deeper intimacy with Jesus". Our staff who have been selected to give a sermon share their vulnerable stories how amazing Jesus is, and continues to grow them in their journey of struggles. Pray our students will be impacted by their stories to seek a deeper intimacy with God through Jesus. My friend Austin got married to one of our staff members Taylor this past month. This was a sweet moment to see one of my close friends taking a next step in life. Austin and I met back in Col...

Collin FOCUS staff 2020-2021 (+ little Jack Davis) Let's Reflect:  The pandemic school year has come to a closed, and things are starting to go back to normal. It was crazy to think back that COVID began and changed the way we interacted with people just a year ago. Time has flown by when you are adapting to change, whether you like it or not. This school year has been different and weird because we all had been doing ministry at Collin. We were meeting outdoors, wearing masks every day, and staying six feet apart. The cool thing I've seen come out from this year that was encouraging to me was seeing our ministry face opposition and trusting in God's provision to protect us through this pandemic year. That is good news! Back in December, I wrote a blog post about my reflections as a minister on how campus ministry has been through a COVID year. In this post, I asked some people to share their thoughts and reflect on how campus ministry has taught them about God. You will he...

 As this school year is coming to an end, I can sense the students and myself feeling tempted to go into cruise control and to let the school year end without extra effort. It's easy to give in to laziness and the same old routine until the work is completed. I had experienced this when I was a student, and today the same temptation of laziness still affects me in ministry. When April hits, you're counting the days till summer begins, and that's what every student thinks and hopes for.  I am reminded of an axiom we teach our students to "finish well." "Finish Well" is an axiom we use to teach our students to finish well. This speaks about a valuable lesson to finish with a purpose, not just good enough. How you finish is probably how you'll be remembered. I first participated in a track meet in 7th grade. I ran the one-mile run, and if you never ran track in school or don't know how long one-mile is, it's four laps around. When they called th...

MARRIED! Wow! It finally came and I get to call Caitlin, MY WIFE. At first, it didn't hit us, and we were processing that at the wedding. Now when I look at my wedding band on my finger, I am reminded of the covenant promise I made to Caitlin before God and His people. Being Caitlin's husband for almost a month has taught me a lot about her, marriage, and the goodness of God's character. Of course, there are blessings and challenges that I have witnessed firsthand with her, but what is so important is that God remains loyal to his perfect covenant with his valuable broken people. Covenant If you are married and reading this, I pray the words I share from the Spirit of God will encourage you and maybe challenge you if He's stirring your heart in a particular way. To anyone single and reading this, I pray these words will enable you to know the majesty of God's covenant we are all made for. The word covenant is used over 300 times in different translations. In the...