January 2026

How is it already February? I feel like I’m in a constant state of awe at how time is moving. We wrapped up the calendar year and started the new year strong with our biggest Winter Retreat yet (more about that later)! Lily had her first Christmas and her first snowfall and had a lot of admirers. Our family came down with a coughing illness (and I had the flu) during the big freeze this past week, which was not fun, but we made it through! Hopefully you and your loved ones made it without major hiccups.

Every year, twice a year, I love getting away with the pastors and recentering. We get to learn and also play (board games, mostly, for me). As our pastoral team grows, it gets harder and harder to stay in relationship with everyone, much less just know everyone (about 60 pastors are currently on our team). But it’s times like these that we get to be together that are some of the most impactful for me. We listened to Ronnie talk about seeing people as God sees them, with perfect agape love, as image-bearers, in a world that is increasingly being divided and distorting the Truth.

Winter Retreat! This is just a small snapshot into the 4-day retreat that we invite our students to participate in. This year, we had Marty Solomon from The BEMA Podcast come and speak over Genesis. He walked through the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. I would highly recommend listening to his talks if you get the chance! Find them on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

My parents came back for a couple weeks to help with the transition of Steph going back to work and we got to go to Dallas Zoo Lights. (Lily is behind my mom just out of the photo lol.) Super thankful for their support and willingness to do whatever we needed them to!

Here is our entire pastoral team at our end-of-year dinner! I’m thankful to be a part of such a great group of people who all work tirelessly to be God’s hands and feet at the campuses we are on.

I got to see Avatar 3! Going to the movies used to be a more common occurrence, but as you can imagine, I’ve only gone to 2 movies since Lily was born. But Avatar was definitely one that I couldn’t miss! Are there any movies that you can’t wait to see?

I wanted to showcase how Winter Retreat has grown in the last few years. Above is the group photo from this past month, where over 800 people came to participate in this ah-mazing weekend. Below is the group photo from 2022, where a little less than 500 people came out. I know it’s hard for a lot of us to visualize how different 300 people look in a large group photo—and for some the amount of people look the same in both photos. But God has been faithful to us and I wanted to encourage you to see that your giving and impact is not ending here. Most, if not all, of the students in this 2022 photo have now graduated. And they take with them the knowledge and understanding of how to be a disciple that makes disciples. Thank you for your support in ministry! As you’re planning your 2026, would you consider increasing your giving, whether to my ministry, to your church, or a different cause that you hold dear to your heart?