The city of Austin is pretty incredible. It offers so much for every kind of person, especially in terms of spiritual fulfillment. Enter the Austin Stone, a church For The City. It’s always been fun to attend the Stone. The music is truly exceptional (it helps being in the Live Music Capital of the World… draws a lot of great talent!) The messages are equally exceptional. The lead pastor, Matt Carter, is a fairly young guy and offers irrefutably valuable insight at each service (given to him by Christ, that is). After months of attending and telling myself I need to ‘get plugged in’ I finally did so by means of the Austin Stone Connect Class. This is a class organized by the church that’s designed to get attendees more involved with a sense of community. And that’s exactly what I found! I couldn’t have imagined being partnered with a greater group of people. After the class, several of us stuck together and branched off into a Missional Community, which is the primary tool used by the Austin Stone for reaching out to local communities & neighborhoods and bringing the Gospel to the City. We join up on Sundays for church and lunch afterwards. We developed small LTG groups (Living The Gospel); mine is made up of 3 men that meet every Monday evening for dinner, prayer, Bible study & discussion. We meet every Wednesday evening simply to hang out and learn God’s Word as a group. We discuss how we can benefit the community and the Austin Stone, and, primarily & ultimately, God’s purpose for us.
So how does that happen? What kinds of things do we do? How are we called? Well, it’s funny sometimes how God intervenes and provides plans and opportunities for us. Just a few days ago, a matter of pressing importance was brought to us. College Students make up a very large portion of attendees and volunteers at the Stone, and with graduation having taken place, most of those servants left Austin for the summer. That leaves vacancies in the Stone. Lots and lots of volunteer vacancies. Central Austin Missional Community, time for action! Adam, indisputably our MC’s leader, answered the call for help and got our team to do the same. So today was my first day helping out with KidStuff, the Stone’s program for teaching children. Adam, Beaux, and I were blessed with the opportunity to serve by teaching the 4th & 5th grade boys. At first I was intimidated and fearful of this opportunity, in spite of taking on a teacher role numerous times before at Vacation Bible Schools and various youth summer camps. However, in a matter of minutes God revealed to me that this is what I need to be doing with the rest of my time in Austin until I leave for the World Race. So this message comes to you today saturated with humble excitement. Serving with the boys in KidStuff is going to be an incredibly rich blessing! Thank you Austin Stone, my Missional Community, Adam, and most importantly, thanks & glory to God for so much awesomeness surrounding and permeating the City of Austin!
