:: AIP#38 - Roadtrip Stop 7: Austin ::

The final stop on this leg of this training roadtrip took me to the great state capital, which was really three stops in one: Student CPX, Austin City Life, and The Austin Stone.

Student CPX
My first stop in Austin was with Aaron Snow (Intentional Gatherings, Inc.) and Brian Orme (planting a "simple church" on campus in San Diego). They were part of Student CPX, a training for college students on how to grow faith communities on their campuses, and as I arrived they were praying over the students and sending them out to lunch. Aaron, Brian, and I dined at Trudy's Tex-Mex (which I recommend), where we got to share experiences from three different campus ministries, contrast differing views on the miraculous/healing gifts of the Spirit, encourage each other in ideas of raising qualified leaders in college-aged faith communities. It was a great time, with healthy conversation and good debate, and while I don't line up with some of their stuff 100%, I'm excited for the students and campuses they're impacting, and pray that God works in huge ways through the communities they help start.

Austin City Life
Austin City Life is a couple-year-old church who operates in nearly the exact model as The City Church. Jonathan and Robie Dodson opened their comfortable couch for me to crash on, and I got to spend a couple days invested in both the Dodson family (including family breakfasts, a 3-year-old wake-up call "Good morning Ben, how did you sleep?," and a trip to their sweet gym!) and the life of their church. Sifting through a TON of great information and experience, here are some of the high points:

• City Group leaders' meeting: their version of our Villages, it was so encouraging to hear awesome things that are happening as folks reach out in simple ways to their neighbors and invest in community. A community of leaders, they ate together, shared stories of what God is doing in their church family, and prayed for each other, before a few simple announcements. I don't even know any of the folks they were talking about, and I left encouraged! [Sidenote from the meeting: Austin's 512 "One" is a tasty brew!]
• The need to ask questions: "what are obstacles to the gospel in Fort Worth? Where is Fort Worth broken? What does mission look like here?" etc.
• The necessity of focusing on "building from nothing," growing the church through conversion rather than "transfers" from existing churches.
• The importance of caring for leaders: dividing responsibilities, even in Villages, so one leader or couple doesn't get the entire load.
  
• Jonathan's encouragement to keep things simple: the "do more by doing less" principle
  
• The "family nature" of the core group - don't make it too formal.
• The goal isn't church growth; it's discipleship: to point folks more toward Jesus. [Jonathan's booklet on this, "Fight Clubs," is available here (still for free I think), and is well worth checking out]
• Incredible encouragement from Robie, on the pastor's wife's role in the new church, and on my need to protect Jess and our marriage over the coming months [Robie blogs about her experiences here - and I got a shout out too (Thanks Robie!)], and from Jonathan: "chase Jess's heart."
  
• ACL staff meeting: great breakfast at Kerby Lane (the original), and great to see three guys unified around the same vision, philosophy, and mission, with a focus on strategic aspects of Austin: the music scene, UT, downtown, their church community, and more.

I'm very appreciative of Jonathan, for his deep, well-thought leadership in this model of planting, to folks in the ACL family for letting me crash a couple gatherings, and to the Dodson family for allowing me to invade their lives for a couple days.

The Austin Stone
Finally, whenever I'm in Austin, I try to get some time with friends at The Austin Stone. I attended a service on Sunday (where Matt announced their new vision for going multi-site in Austin). I spent time on Monday with Todd and Olivia Engstrom and their home group. Todd, a longtime friend who has held ever job at the Stone except worship pastor (ha!), has some incredible thoughts on campus ministry and leadership development, and time with them is always refreshing. And in a quick stop by the Stone's offices and a few "hello's" I got to sit down for a few minutes with Michael "Stew" Stewart and Sean Eppers, Missional Community pastor and church planting resident, respectively. Their greatest encouragements:

• When you shoot for community, you get neither mission nor community; when you shoot for mission, you get both.
• Keep the gospel saturating everything you do.
• Your goal is to raise up disciples, then leaders, then leaders of leaders.
• Everything you need is in the harvest; don't focus pulling "already-Christians" away from their places of service.
• And they were generous in giving me some great resources as well.

All in all, time in Austin was refreshing, encouraging, and information-filled! And a preview, we'll probably try to take our leaders down there for an Austin Stone conference in February... they've got some top-notch leaders coming in! But most of all, it's exciting to see a community who does "church life" like we will. It works. And it's producing fruit for the gospel in the city of Austin. I pray we get to be part of the same in Fort Worth!