ARLINGTON, Texas – A campus ministry group stresses the importance of community at the University of Texas at Arlington.
FOCUS, which stands for Fellowship of Christian University Students, started at The University of Texas at Dallas in 1998. Since then, it has expanded to nine college campuses across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In 2015, the organization found its way to UT Arlington campus.
Graham Spencer has been a campus pastor with FOCUS since 2021. He said the group’s mission statement is simple—to make and mature disciples on DFW college campuses.
Spencer said a big part of how he tries to invite people into ministry is just by being intentional. One way he tries to make an impact on people is by getting to know them one-on-one and showing them that it’s possible to make meaningful friendships at college.
“Our ministry definitely is a process-oriented ministry,” Spencer said. “We don’t expect people to come to faith immediately but to get plugged in and stay involved.”
Spencer leads a weekly small group that FOCUS calls “core.” This is a group that gets together to read and discuss scripture and form long-lasting friendships. This is where he met Vincent Ajala.
Ajala moved to Texas from Nigeria before the start of his freshman year in 2022, leaving behind his family and friends. Growing up in Nigeria, he was taught that living in the United States was the best thing for him.
“Where I come from, living in the U.S. is the pinnacle of life,” Ajala said. “If you’re in the U.S. you’re living the best life. This means we consumed a lot of American media because we only wanted to know what it was like.”
He said this made the move from Nigeria much easier for him. He was more familiar with a lot of the trends than others might have thought, Ajala said. But no amount of media portrays life in America alone.
“Life was difficult in the sense that I had much less of a support system here,” Ajala said.
His first week on campus he was looking in the University Center for a ministry that was supposed to be having a meeting, Ajala said. He got the time wrong and instead found FOCUS.
“That night I met a lot of people,” Ajala said. “The most impactful person in my life that I met at that meeting was Graham.”
Through that first encounter with Spencer and FOCUS, Ajala found the support community that he was missing from home. Outside of core, he started doing a weekly one-on-one Bible study called Focus on Jesus with Spencer, going to church with friends, and meeting new people within FOCUS.
“FOCUS helped me spread my wings,” Ajala said. “It’s never not beneficial to be in a community of Christians.”
He said FOCUS taught him how important it is to maintain relationships and support one another as Christians, Ajala said. Through this community, he has seen a different level of growth within himself as both a Christian and a person.
“I grew much more as a person doing FOJ with Graham,” Ajala said. “With asking every single question I had about America to him.”
Spencer said he hopes to see FOCUS grow more, not by popularity but by forming intentional relationships and showing people care and concern. He said he puts a much deeper meaning to it than just striking up a conversation with a stranger.
“It’s so cool that we get to meet people from all around the world here in Arlington,” Spencer said.
Since 2023, UTA has been the fifth university in the United States for ethnic diversity, according to the U.S. News & World Report.
When it comes to international students, Spencer said he uses a careful strategy.
“We are talking about people who are alone, in a new space, and a new environment and it makes me so sad to think about them being afraid or lonely and not having a good experience in my home,” Spencer said.
