The Dog Rev.

I know I haven't been blogging in almost a year, simply because a. I have been pretty busy with getting our little community of faith in Central Austin off the ground and b. because I have felt like who really cares about my blog in the first place... Just a little too honest? Oh well!

OK - this has been a funny day. What started several months ago as a way to love our community of dog lovers and road bikers has suddenly developed into a big deal.

Months ago when our church startup (think software startup) moved to La Zona Rosa , a music venue and bar downtown Austin and somewhat of a landmark for our wonderfully eclectic and creative city, we looked for a way to love our community. La Zona is located across from the Austin 360 condos and next door to Mellow Johnny's bike shop on 4th and Rio Grande. As a result we are weekly encountering a great number of dog walkers and those who are beginning or ending their Sunday morning ride at Mellow Johnny's. As we contemplated how to be a blessing to these folks we decided to put our welcome table into the street and supplement our usual fare of coffee and pastries with water, gatorade and cliff bars for our bike riding neighbors, and with breakfast tacos and dog treats for the dog walkers.

Our first attempt at handing these out was so successful that we had a number of people interested in joining us for church, and people just brought their dogs into the service. We have seen people bring their dogs on occasion and have made dog Sunday a monthly part of our church services.

So how has this turned into a bigger story than we'd ever anticipated? Sunday we had a reporter for the Austin American Statesman join us to do a story about the church that meets in a bar and allows dogs... (Read the article here) This story ran on the front page of the Metro Section, which was really cool. It is funny to open a website and have your 8 year old twins staring at you... What happend next is still somewhat surreal. After the story ran in the Statesman, it was picked up by a paper in Abilene TX, ran as a news-crawl on NBC during the Today Show, got some Radio time on a local radio station and has drawn the attention of 2 TV stations! Crazy...

We weren't shooting for this but are praying that our love for Jesus, Austin and for the people who live here would be the real story!

While this might strike some as gimmicky our real intention is to love people and tell them about how great Jesus is. We are definitely all about Jesus, his love, his grace, his forgiveness and his fame, and if telling you about Him includes you bringing your dog we welcome that as well.