why austin?

"why austin?" you might ask, and in fact i am often asked that. i say "why not austin?" fact of the matter is that once you spend some time in austin, you will almost invariably want to spend more time there. first of all austin has hills and trees--scraggly spanish oaks and gnarled, towering live oaks. the scenery is actually something to look at unlike dallas' flat and treeless landscape, and you would actually like to be outside unlike houston and it's drinkable air. austin has lakes and swimming holes. it has parks as well as running and biking trails. in all austin is conducive to being outdoors. basically, austin is God's country and i don't know about you but i want to be closer to God, so why not go to his country?!

*i jest*

*but only partially*

austin also has a great culture. i love how business and the arts collide, how government and academia rub shoulders among the hippie holdovers from the sixties. there is a reason that austin adopted the moto "keep austin weird" and some call it the little blue dot on the big red map of texas. it's true that austin is more liberal than the rest of the state, and yet therein lies some of austin's charm. people in austin for better or worse really strive to live according to their beliefs and hold to them passionately. they will not casually adopt a new set of beliefs, rather they will carefully consider the options before deciding. the exciting part of this is that when they do adopt a new set of beliefs they jump into them with great fervor and activism. the down side is that it takes a whole lot more effort in smoothing the way and a whole lot more patience.

did you know that, by conservative estimates 70 percent of austin is unchurched? when you get into the heart of the city where i want to go that number climbs toward 80-85 percent or more. did you know that according to "operation world" that 1/3 of the world's population professes Christ while the other 2/3 are not. when i look at austin, and particularly downtown, i see more than 2/3 of the population that does not profess Christ. that's higher than the what is going on in the world as a whole--right here in the heart of the "bible belt!" you want to talk about a mission field?!

the difference between austin and the world at large is that the people in austin have exposure to christianity and are not simply uninformed. they have been exposed to christianity and have for one reason or another rejected it or are simply indifferent to it. if that were the case i believe my job would be an easier one. i would only have to confront them with the hope of the gospel. as it is, i not only have to confront them with the hope of the gospel but will also have to overcome their previous experiences that have led them to their indifference or rejection.

mark driscoll of mars hill church in seattle and matt chandler of the village church in dallas have the conversation about who has the more difficult job, mark trying to point people in the "godless northwest" to Christ or matt attempting the same in the "culturally christian" south. i would contend that austin combines the worst of each--in a very real sense austin emulates much of the godlessness of the northwest and yet is surrounded by cultural christianity that professes Christ without much life change.

earlier i mentioned people in austin do not tend to hold a belief without allowing it to impact them. as such they do not understand people who profess Christ without allowing his teachings to change them. and so hypocrisy in christianity is a huge stumbling block for austinites. when they see christians acting like the world they say "they don't act any differently from non-christians" or "if that's what it means to be a christian then i don't want to be that." the latter sentiment is particularly true when the christians adopt a "holier than thou" attitude toward others while not holding themselves to the same standard. in short a lack of authenticity and grace are major hinderances to many austinites' reception of the gospel, and is a significant part of my challenge. i want my church to be people's "second chance at church," to find in church and the people there what they have missed until that point. to do that we are going to have to look and act differently than their previous experience of church or christianity.

when you throw all these pieces into the great mixing bowl of my mind and then pour it into my heart the outcome is my reasoning and passion behind going to austin. i cannot boil it down to a single or simple explanation nor do i desire to. i prefer to wrestle in the dirt with all the facets and come out muddy because then i can be sure that i am where God wants me and not just where i, in my own humanness, want to go. about as simply as i can phrase it is to say that austin is my passion and it appears that it is God's as well, so i am in good company.

that's why austin!

first things...

where do i begin? this blogging thing has been on my mind for a while and yet it is a discipline of which i am not entirely sure. will i be consistent? will it be interesting? to these questions and many others i don't honestly know the answers. still, this nagging in my brain won't let me go to sleep, despite the late hour, until i get this experiment under way.

so hang with me. if you find my story compelling then share it and enjoin others on the journey that i have, with God and my family, begun. the crazy part is that many of you will know bits and pieces of my story and yet you might not have the grand scope. i write this as an attempt to consolidate my story and get all of you on board with where i have come from and where i am going.

so where do i begin? well let's jump in media res (in the middle of things). while attending the university of texas at austin, i had my crisis of faith, so to speak. for the first time, i was making my own decisions of who to hang out with, what to do, and whether or not to go to church. i had to choose to make my faith my own. during this time, i attended three churches in the austin area. the first church was too far to continue going regularly when i no longer had a ride. the second went through a hard change of senior and college pastors right around the same time many of my friends left and so did i. the final church was my church home until i left austin, first evangelical free church of austin, with whom i hope to partner in starting my church.

following college i ended up in dallas, where i married my wife reneé and tried to figure out what God had in store for me. i began to feel God’s tug on me toward going into full-time christian ministry, so i enrolled at dallas theological seminary, not knowing what i was going to do when i finished. during my time in seminary and as a result of a public shift toward being outwardly focused at our church, irving bible church, i began to develop a heart for the lost and spreading God’s kingdom.

reneé and i got involved with apartment life, an apartment ministry. i also got involved with the alpha program at our church and eventually interned with the externally focused ministries at irving bible. all the while i began to think about planting a church. at the same time, my heart was again drawn toward austin and particularly the downtown area. so there it is, an extremely short version of how I got here.

well i guess that is as good a place as any to begin and we'll see where this grand adventure takes us. Lord willing, it will take us to austin and through the foundation of a small expression of Christ's church.