Gospel, Community & Life-Change In Austin

The Story of Christmas: An Animation

2011-12-11T11:50:00.001-08:00

Temptation and Doubt

2011-12-02T15:07:00.001-08:00

Are you struggling with temptation?
Is doubt a nagging companion tagging along wherever you go these days?

As we are wrapping up Paul’s letter to his Corinthian friends we will tackle two final areas of struggle. We titled the letter of 2 Corinthians “The Gospel: Power in weakness!” Reading Paul’s emotional, sometimes seemingly disconnected rants in his letter to the church in Corinth gives us unique perspective on his life and his very real struggles to live in the Power of the Gospel. He speaks openly about his pain, sorrow, suffering, and frustrations. Each chapter shows our weakness overcome by the power of the Gospel. Suffering is overcome by the God of all comfort; sin and disunity are overcome by repentance and restoration; our sin and inability to live according to God’s purposes are overcome by the power of Grace; Alienation is overcome by the ministry of reconciliation and death is overcome by the power of the resurrection. Even extreme poverty overflows with generosity because of the Gospel: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9

During these last two weeks in the book of 2 Corinthians we will finish with a look at two challenging topics, Temptation and Doubt starting this week with the former.
Since Eve encountered the serpent in the Garden temptation is a common experience for all human beings, Jesus was no exception. The Bible tells us that He “was tempted in every way, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Examining Jesus’ temptation 2000 years later will help us overcome our own temptations and live in the power and truth of the Gospel!

Refugee Ministry

2011-11-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

About 18 months ago the elders of The City Community Church spent a week praying and a day fasting about how to focus our mercy ministry efforts. As we were praying through the various opportunities in the city of Austin we became increasingly convinced that we should be working with the Refugee community. A number of our members have been actively working with CARITAS and Refugee Services of Texas. Ministry ranges in scope from setting up apartments, taking refugees shopping, helping them get a library card, ride the bus or get a drivers license. One of our members a former special operations soldier who speaks the language has been serving as a translator among Iraqi refugees. A couple of months ago Brennon Bloemendaal came on staff at The City as Pastoral Intern for Missional Living - here is his report on serving with the Refugees in Austin:

"I have recently begun working with the refugee population here in Austin. These are people from countries like Bhutan, Iraq, D.R. Congo, and India who have been forced to leave their lives behind and start anew. Some have left to due to war, some to religious persecution, and others to financial instability. Upon arrival, most have no idea what life is like in the United States, and most only have the apartment provided to them by the government. A local pastor and refugee himself, John Monger, has taken it upon himself to reach out to these people and help ease into this new phase of life.

I met John for the first time this week while delivering some rice cookers that our church had raised funds to purchase for the refugees. I got to sit down with John and hear a little bit about the work that he does and some of the amazing stories of life change he has witnessed and been a part of. John also told about his story and his journey that brought him to Austin. John grew up in a small town in the country of Bhutan, which borders India and Nepal. When he was 16 years old, John decided to give his life to follow Jesus Christ. Bhutan very strictly enforces the Hindu religion on their citizens and gave John two choices: deny Christ or leave the country. He decided that he could not possibly deny the Savior that he had just come to know, so he fled. He arrived in a refugee camp in the country of Nepal. In the camp, there was a population of about 150,000 Bhutanese refugees, and John soon discovered that he was pretty much the only Christian. He began sharing the story of life change that he had recently experienced and began preaching the gospel to people all around the camp. After several months many began to accept the good news that John was sharing, and hundreds were converted to Christianity. But the government of Nepal was no more lenient on religion than Bhutan, and once they caught wind of what was going on in the camp, they found John and threw him in prison. Prison in Nepal is nothing like the American prison system, with all its allowances and luxuries. John was beaten and starved and told that if he did not stop sharing his faith he would die in prison. But he did not give in, and after two years he was released. He then fled to India and continued to preach and share what God had done in his life. Over the course of four years, John helped plant several churches and lead hundreds of people into relationship with Christ. Eventually, it was not safe for John to stay there either, so he had to come to the United State as a political refugee. But he did not let this move deter his calling to share the gospel with the world. He connected with many other of the refugees here in Austin and started the International Reconciliation Church, which now encompasses over 100 refugee families. Through his ministry, John takes in all new refugee families as they arrive in Austin, and provides for them all basic needs to begin their new lives. He helps them to find jobs and housing and even gets them training to learn English. He has volunteers come and teach them how to do basic things such as driving and shopping, and through donations he provides them with daily needs like food, appliances, and transportation. He also uses this time to share the story of God’s love for each and every one of these people, and the story of his own salvation and how it has changed his life! I got to attend John’s church this weekend and witnessed the baptism of over 30 people who had recently been converted from Hinduism, all of which are refugees from India, Nepal, and Bhutan. It is evident that God is at work in this community and there is much opportunity for His love and truth to be proclaimed!

We as a church will be working with John to help provide some of these basic needs for families as they first begin their new lives here in Austin. We have spent the last month raising funds and we were able to provide 12 rice cookers to give to these families. We will have the opportunity to continue to help as we will look to provide a large amount of rice, some microwaves and other necessary appliances, and cell phones to aid in their first few months of looking for a job. We will also send out several volunteers to help in driver training and job location. It will be exciting to see how God is going to use us as instruments of His love in the lives of these families who just want to know that someone cares! "

The Story

2011-10-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

THE CITY 3rd birthday

2011-09-21T19:39:00.001-07:00

Church Planting In Austin: Reflecting on our Call to plant a Church

2011-09-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

Church Planting In Austin: Reflecting on our Call to plant a Church

Reflecting on our Call to plant a Church

2011-09-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

As we are celebrating our third birthday as a church I am compelled to reflect on our calling to plant The City Community Church. During the last couple of years many people have asked me 'why did you plant a church, wouldn't it be easier to work in an existing ministry?' To be honest during some of the hard and frustrating times during these last couple of years I have asked myself the same question.

I believe without a shadow of a doubt that God called us to plant The City Community Church in Central Austin, and it is this certainty of calling that has sustained us during some of the tough times during these last 2 years.

Allow me to reflect about the journey: While we were serving at Central Christian Church, an established church in CA (2200 average attendance), the elders approached me with the proposition to enter into a succession plan to become the next senior pastor of that church. At the same time I received a couple of other unsolicited inquiries to become senior pastor at other churches. The opportunities for new ministry caused us to rethink our ministry and where we felt God was leading us. It quickly became clear that I not only would love to be a lead pastor, but that I felt God's specific calling in that direction. In response we began pursuing conversations with our current church about a possible succession plan.

The prospect of being responsible for a church rather than just one of its ministries was both compelling as well as frightening. I began researching churches that seemed to be growing and having a significant impact in their cities only to find out that most of them had been somewhat recent church-plants. I began reading about church planting and talking with my friends about church planting. The more I read and researched the more I felt compelled to move toward church planting. The statistics are staggering. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 churches close every year, some statistics have the numbers as high as 7500. While roughly 4000 churches are started each year, just to keep up with population growth we would need to see 3200 new churches started per year. I am no math-wiz but even to me the discrepancy is painfully obvious.

Simultaneously to researching how to start a church and praying about church planting, we started hearing and reading about the city of Austin. The city, or various bits of information about the city, seemed to pop up nearly everywhere, the news, the paper, people we met on vacation, you name it. During that time I received a package from a church in Austin that was designed to attract a new student ministries pastor. The packet included a video message by the senior pastor talking about the city of Austin, the church’s vision to reach every man woman and child and the strategic positioning of Austin as far as Education, High Tech, Entertainment, Politics, Legislature, and Business were concerned. While I was not interested in the advertised position I was gripped by the vision outlined for the city. Andrea and I did some research and found out that as a part of their vision to reach every man woman and child in Greater Austin with the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ, Hill Country Bible Church had an extensive and ambitious church-planting strategy.

After over a year of being in touch with Hill Country Bible Church we accepted the invitation to come to Austin for a church planters assessment. The three day assessment was intense and only showed me more clearly that I did not know how to plant a church. At the end of the time the assessment leader told me that they were about to invite us to come to Austin to plant a church and I told him flat out that I would refuse that invitation. When we returned home we continued to pray about our potential future as church planters, and while the task seemed daunting and some of the uncertainties about finances, kid’s schooling, leaving friends and a secure future at our current church continued to trouble us, the vision we felt God had given to us for Austin caused me to call Hill Country Bible Church and ask if I could still join their Church plant Residency program.

Without a doubt these last couple of years have been some of the toughest times Andrea and I have ever experienced. Finances, health issues, spiritual attack, uncertainty, depression, and anxiety about our fledgling church-plant have been intense at times, but I am so glad that God has chosen to bring us to Austin to plant The City Community Church. His grace has been so evident and the grace-stories of salvations, radical life-change, financial provision and the ongoing generosity of our people have been nothing short of miraculous and so fun to experience first hand! I remember talking with Robby Forsythe, my friend, fellow elder at The City and Worship Pastor at Central Christian Church, before moving to Austin and saying I longed to experience God's work in people's lives more. I remember saying something like this "I am tired of telling stories from months or even years ago, I want to tell stories from right now!" I am thrilled that by God's grace I can...

(I am making a video of some of our story and will post it here soon.)

The Christ of Christmas

2010-12-13T07:12:00.000-08:00

During this Christmas time we turn our hearts and minds toward Jesus Christ. During these weeks of Advent we have been studying the Nature of Christ in our CITY-U. As John led us through the Theological material, I asked my friend Nate Cline to write down some of the class content as succinctly as possible for the rest of us who couldn't attend the class. Please read his article below:

The Doctrine of Christ: Who Do We Say That He Is?

We are beginning a short series on the Doctrine of Christ. Who we understand Jesus to be will affect our understanding of salvation, justification, and ultimately God. In 1John 4:2-3, the Apostle John says “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” The distinction between those coming from God and those coming from the Devil is about Jesus. In Matthew 16, Jesus tells Peter that the foundation of the Church is the right confession of who He is. Therefore, we must learn about who Jesus is, and what we confess about him. This first week, we will discuss the two natures in Christ. Jesus was fully God, and fully man. More importantly, we are going to demonstrate why these two natures are necessary to our understanding of who Jesus is.

You may wonder why the virgin birth is important to the doctrine of Christ. The primary reason is that it is the way that Jesus comes to us. The Bible records for us that Jesus was born to Mary at a particular time in a particular place. The next obvious question is the one which Mary herself asks; “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). The angel gives us the only response that we can give in verse 35. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, that Jesus could be called holy, the Son of God.

The virgin birth is also key to our own understanding of the two natures in Christ. We see these two natures in Luke 1 :32-33. Jesus is both the Son of God and a descendent of David, who will rule the house of Jacob forever. It is vital that we understand there are two natures, but only one Jesus. He is fully God and fully man.

Why did Jesus have to be fully man? Paul gives us the most crucial reason in Romans 5:12-21. A man (Adam) sinned, and brought more sin and death with his action. Therefore, another man (Jesus) had to obey where the first hadn't. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was human that he might identify with us; yet, he was without sin (Hebrew 4:15).

Why do we teach that Jesus was fully God? John tells us in the first chapter of his gospel that Jesus was with God in the beginning, and calls him God. Also, salvation is from God alone (Jonah 2:9, Isaiah 43:11, and Psalm 3:8).

Paul calls Jesus a mediator (I Timothy 2:5). Perhaps, this office is the one where the two natures are most clearly defined. As mediator, Christ goes before the Father for us, and declares the words of the Father to us. This office was held by two separate persons in the Old Testament; the prophets and the priests. When God thunders from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, the people cry out for Moses to tell them the words of the Lord, because God scared them to death (Deuteronomy 5: 25-28).

Jesus tells his disciples in the upper room that everything he has spoken is from the Father (John 12:49-50). The writer of Hebrews says that God had spoken through the prophets in the past, but has now spoken to us through His Son (Hebrews 1:1-12). The prophets being mere men suffered two problems. First they died, and were unable to be a continual voice. Second, they had no authority of their own. When Jesus finished the sermon on the mount, the people marveled at his authority with the law (Mathew 7:28-29).

The second office aspect of mediator is that of priest. The priest would go before God to make sacrifices for the people (Leviticus 16:15,34 and Exodus 30:10). Christ, however, goes before God with the sacrifice of himself (Hebrew 9:11-14). Because Christ is fully man, he could bleed and die. Because Christ is fully God, his sacrifice covers the sins of all humanity.

This is a very brief discussion of who Christ is according to scriptures. Much like the people of the first century, we may be tempted to make Jesus into a savior of our own making who looks and talks like we want him to, but Christ is not one of many, he is the only Savior, and he is to be had only as the Father has revealed him in the word. As Peter says in Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Suffering / Trials

2009-10-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

This has been a helpful reminder to me. Hope it can be of help to you, wherever you are...

A note by Andrew Murray 1895 ~

In time of trouble, say, "First, He brought me here. It is by His will I am in this strait place; in that I will rest." Next, "He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child." Then say, "He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow." And last, say, "In His good time He can bring me out again. How, and when, He knows." Therefore say, "I am here (1 ) by God's appointment, (2) in His keeping, (3) under His training, (4) for His time."

CALLED

2009-10-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Week 1 ~ Called to Follow

One thing we all wonder about is does God have an individual, unique and exciting calling for my life?

Last week I actually posited the same question on Face Book with some interesting replies. While some people answered the question with an enthusiastic yes, others seemed disenchanted by the mere notion of an individual calling, let alone an exciting one. As one author states, “we have glamorized the idea of calling…”; however, as he rightly continues, there is nothing glamorous about calling, and receiving a calling from God by no means assures happiness. Take Paul for example. He received a supernatural calling from God, a calling that included seeing a bright heavenly light that blinded him, hearing a thunderous heavenly voice that confronted his persecution of the early church, encountered the risen Christ and received confirmation that this was not his overactive imagination playing tricks on him through the witness of Ananias and having his eyesight restored miraculously by the prayer of this man. Pretty cool if you ask me. However, this supernatural calling, while it led to innumerable disciples and a score of new churches as well as ¼ of our New Testament, led Paul to be rejected by his own friends and countrymen, beaten, stoned, arrested, plotted against, shipwrecked, imprisoned and ultimately beheaded. Exciting? I am guessing this depends on your understanding of exciting!

However you turn it, Calling, especially the individual, unique and exciting calling of God is intimately connected with the will of God. What is God up to in the world and could it be that he has a purpose for my life and wants me to play a part in the amazing and glorious story he is writing? There is a lot of talk about the will of God, but if it’s so important for me to know the will of God, why can I not figure it out?

To understand what we mean by finding our calling or discovering the will of God for our lives, we have to understand what we even mean by the terminology “the will of God”. There are three different things people mean when using the terminology “the will of God”.

1. God’s Providential Will – this is God’s sovereign will, which Pastor John Piper calls ‘his will of decree’. This is what God intends to do anyways.

2. God’s Moral Will – these are God’s commandments, including the 10 commandments and NT moral teaching. Piper calls it ‘God’s will of command’.

3. God’s Personal Will – what God wants me to do in any given situation. Should I marry her or not; should I move to Austin or stay in LA should I take the job, start my own business, buy or rent, etc.

God is sovereign over the affairs of man and his providential will sometimes seems to include things that are contrary to his moral will. God decreed for Jesus to be betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, mocked, beaten and flogged, falsely convicted and crucified. Each of these actions were against the moral will of God, they were sinful actions by sinful men. His betrayal by Judas was sin, his trial was sin and the false testimony against him was a direct violation of one of the 10 Commandments. At his crucifixion Jesus asks the Father to forgive his tormentors who were sinning against him; yet in Acts 2 we read that God, who had determined that Christ must come and die to rescue sinful man before the foundation of the world, preordained all this.

Some of us may think, I am confused as it is, I am not even sure I can spell ‘providential’. I just need to make a decision, and I need to make it now! So how on earth do I know what God’s will is?

We often feel that God’s will is mysterious, secretive and maybe even mystical, almost as though God wants to hide his will from us. However, as we study the bible, it appears clear that God’s will is discoverable, in fact it seems that God delights to make his will known to those who delight in him and seek him with an obedient heart.

Could it be that God want us to know his will even more than we want to know his will?

Now there is a question to ponder…

The bible is called the Word of God. Theologians call it God’s self-revelation. So a study of his Word should yield at least some revelation of his will. Even a cursory search of scripture reveals some clues allowing us to discover at least 6 facets of God’s will for us. Some of these are probably not what you expected, but don't just dismiss them...

· It is the will of God that you be saved

o 2 Peter 3:9 - … not willing that any should perish but that all should reach salvation.

o 1 Timothy 2:3-4 - This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,

who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

· It is the will of God that you be filled with the Spirit

o Ephesians 5:17-18 – Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of God is. And do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.

· It is the will of God that you be sanctified

o 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 – For this is the will of God, your sanctification: abstain from sexual immorality…For God has not called us for impurity but in holiness.

· It is the will of God that you be submissive (ugh, not sure I like this one...)

o 1 Peter 2:13-15 – Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution… For it is the will of God, that by doing good you should silence ignorant and foolish people.

· It is the will of God that you be grateful (not easy, but important!)

o 1 Thessalonians 5:18 – Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for that is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

· It is the will of God that you suffer (ouch! does it really say that?!)

o Philippians 1:29 – For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake not only to believe but also to suffer…

o 2 Timothy 3:12 – Indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Besides these six noteworthy facets revealed about God’s will in the bible, there are also many things we know about how God would have us live morally. The 10 Commandments, and New Testament teaching in the beatitudes (Matthew 5) are a good place to start. Are we obedient in the areas scripture has clearly revealed as God’s will for our lives? If not it seems doubtful that we are going to receive or obey God’s special guidance or revelation. We do not need to pray about certain things because God has already revealed to us how we should live. It seems to be an apparent truth that where God has already revealed his will in scripture we need not ask for a repeal. Let me illustrate this with two examples.

***When it is tax time, we need not pray about whether we declare all our income or not.

*** When we are contemplating housing arrangements, we need not pray whether we should move in with our girl-friend.

God’s providential will and his moral will provide the dual guardrails for every other decision we are facing in life. (Andy Stanley)

A couple of reminders:

--> The more familiar we are with the Providential Will of God and the more surrendered we become to his Moral Will the easier it becomes for us to discern the personal will of God for our lives! (Andy Stanley)

--> God has an individual, unique and exciting calling for your life!

--> When God reveals his will it is not for our consideration but for our obedience!

--> Could it be that God is more interested in us finding him than finding his will?

--> Could it be that God wants us to know His will more than we want to know his will?

--> Could it be that we cannot discern the will of God in a particular situation because we have refused to obey what he has already revealed to us about his will in another situation?

Song of Solomon Conference

2009-08-05T19:39:00.001-07:00

You might be a practical atheist if...

2009-07-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

1. You crave acceptance from people more than from God.
2. You rarely share your faith in Christ.
3. You do whatever it takes to alleviate your felt guilt.
4. You think more about life on earth than eternity with God. (jobs, houses, cars, 401k’s, standard of living)
5. You gauge your morality based on comparison with others not on the biblical standard.
6. You want to be saved from the penalty of your sin without changing your life.
7. You only turn to God when you are in a bind.
8. You give whenever it does not hinder your standard of living.
9. You really are no different than anybody else in your neighborhood, company, family, etc.
10. You want the benefit of who Christ is without having to become like him.

Adapted from Craig Groeshel & Francis Chan's Crazy Love (Chapter 5)

YouTube

2009-07-07T09:24:00.001-07:00

Fox News

2009-07-05T18:07:00.001-07:00

NBC News

2009-07-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

The Dog Rev.

2009-07-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

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.

1 minute hello from The City

2009-07-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

It has only just begun...

2008-09-22T05:29:00.001-07:00

On September 21st at 11am The City community church had its first public service. It was amazing!
Our team small as it might be (17 people) did a phenomenal job getting everything just perfect. The signs outside, the welcome table, the setup and tear down, the ambiance and communion setup, the sound, video, band, children's ministry, and the reception afterwards, everything was not only well planned but well executed. I love working with these people, they are fun to be with, are extremely hard workers, and they love Jesus!
The coolest thing was how many of our friends from work, neighborhoods and service projects joined us for the service, it is really for them that we have started this church in and for Central Austin.
We are exhausted after weeks of intensive preparations, but we are thrilled!

Charter Service

2008-09-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

On October 23rd 1985 Hill Country Bible Church Northwest was started by 17 people who committed themselves to see every man, woman and child in Greater Austin reached by the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. Twenty-three years later this commitment has led to 13 churches in the Greater Austin area who long to see God glorified in Austin by seeing men and women gripped by the grace and crazy love of Jesus Christ!
On September 7th 2008 once again 17 people stepped out in faith to see God glorified and people in Central / Downtown Austin gripped by the love of God, as we chartered THE CITY community church.
It was an incredible time as we worshipped together with elders, pastors, and members of various Hill Country Association churches. We even had 3 of the original 17 in attendance as we committed ourselves to God, one another, and the people of Austin.
God has done an incredible miracle in bringing us together from 7 nations, every socio-economic background, and various generations to start this community of faith in the city and for the city!

Commissioning Service 2

2008-09-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Our commissioning service was a really special time for us as a team. Now you can take a part of this experience by watching our commissioning service here!

Commissioning Service

2008-08-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today marked a major milestone in our journey to start a new church in Austin. Our team of 19 adults and 10 kids was commissioned this morning by our mother church Hill Country Bible Church Northwest. It was a moving moment to stand together with our team in front of several thousand people at HCBC Northwest being prayed for by the current and former elders of the church and send out to continue the vision to reach every man woman and child in Greater Austin with the life changing reality of Jesus Christ.
This closes a chapter of our lives, namely the Residency phase at HCBC. We are being lovingly kicked out of the nest to see more people impacted by the grace and love of God. For our church-plant, the City community church, that means in particular the people of Central Austin. We are now gearing up for our public launch on September 21st 2008, excited to see what God has in store for us!
www.thecityaustin.com

Soft Launch

2008-08-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday August 3rd marked the first service in our soft-launch series that will lead us to our public launch on September 21st 2008. We will be having services on August 3rd, 10th, 24th and September 7th and 14th before we publicly launch THE CITY community church!
We wanted to gain an idea for how the room would feel, how long our setup might take and some of the other logistics involved in transforming a school cafeteria into a cool space for a church. And mind you this is not your average school cafeteria!
Baker School has a theatrical stage in their cafeteria, and high 50ft. ceilings which will make the space incredible once our team gets done with it.
Over 30 people showed up to our first installment of THE CITY's soft-launch and we had a great time celebrating communion, worship and the first message in a series on Prayer: HOW NOT TO PRAY... Part two will be Prayer: How Jesus taught us, Part three is Prayer: Persistent Prayer.
We are so excited to finally be meeting in our space and can't wait to invite our neighbors, co-workers and friends to join us for church.

THE CITY's NEW HOME Part 2

2008-07-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

With our new home at Baker school in place we are now able to order equipment to run our services. Audio, Video, Hospitality, Children's ministry, and nursery items all need to be selected, ordered, organized and prepared for setup on a weekly basis.
One of the things that is such a God-thing is that the school allowed us to use 200 of their chairs which saves us roughly $10,000. The administration team also provided us with space to store our gear on a weekly basis which means that we are able to do without the customary trailer many church-plants have to deal with. Our church-plant in Round Rock had to spend $17,000 on their two trailers and that was after receiving a $6,000 credit for giving an old trailer to Church On Wheels. A normal and necessary expense for a mobile church, but thanks to God not one we will have to incur.
We are so blessed to be located right in the heart of the city and are excited to see what God will do through this new church. Tomorrow, July 27th we will be in the building for the first time to pray in the different rooms and to strategize setup, signage and traffic flow for our services.
Next Sunday, August 3rd we will be soft-launching our services. I am excited to see what it will be like to run our first actual service in Downtown Austin. Pray for us please!

THE CITY's NEW HOME Part 1

2008-07-21T09:37:00.001-07:00

Thank you so much to all of you who have been praying for our church. We just confirmed a location for our new church.
We will be meeting on Sunday mornings at Baker School, which is located at 39th and Guadalupe in Central Austin. The location could not be any better and the facilities are wonderful.The school was built in 1911 and is a great historical building. It no longer houses a school but instead is home to the District Offices of Austin ISD.

Connecting at Central Christian Church

2008-07-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of you guys at Central. It was great to see your smiling faces and to reconnect with so many of you. Many of you came up to tell me that you are praying for us - I so appreciate it! I believe more than ever that we are in desperate need for the prayers of God's people so He can be glorified through our work in Austin.
Thank you so much to Chris and Dennis for hosting us the whole time - your house and family felt like home and we love you! Garrett - when are you coming out to check out UT?
Please keep on praying for us as we are entering the launch phase of church-planting!

We are coming to Central tonight and tomorrow!

2008-07-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

Matthias, Andrea, Robby & Crystal will all be at the services this weekend!! Matthias will share an update in the Gallery. We would love to see you all there.

Austin, We have Permission to Launch!

2008-05-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

As of this morning at 8am THE CITY community church has officially been green-lighted for launch!

After extensive presentations with the church-plant team of Hill Country Bible Church during the last several weeks and 8 months of prayer, evangelism, building a Core team and connecting within the community, I met with the elder board this morning for a final presentation.

The elders of HCBC Northwest had just a few more questions today and have joyfully given us the green light to launch THE CITY. Having officially welcomed us as launching a new daughter church these men laid hands on us to pray for us trusting that Jesus will indeed build his church in Austin.

I am so excited right now and I am honored to serve Jesus in the great city of Austin!

LET THE NATIONS BE GLAD!

2008-05-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I have updated you guys on the progress of our CORE team. And some of you are wondering if it is still just Robby and Crystal and Andrea and I. Well I told you about Todd joining our team and moving to Austin but I really need to update you on all the new individuals making this new community of Christ followers in Central/Downtown Austin a reality.
Last night we had a CORE team meeting and we had people from 7 nations sitting at the table. It is crazy but in a very real way we are seeing a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-generational team take shape to reach the city of Austin.
Just last night we had people from Canada, El Salvador, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, USA, and Germany. And that is just our CORE team. In addition to this we had a law-professor from Israel attend our small group and a young man of Chinese ancestry.
I love it!

Jesus Alone

2008-05-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I had the privilege to be sent by HCBC to a conference in NYC. Thank you to the team that deemed it appropriate to invest in me through this conference and thank you to the people of Hill Country Bible Church for their gracious support of the ministry I am a part of!
The theme of the conference was DWELL based on the passage in Jeremiah that speaks about the remnant of the Jewish people in exile to dwell in the city and seek it's welfare. But in my opinion the title could have just as well been Jesus alone.
Each speaker in his own way brought church planting in our urban centers back to this one theme: JESUS ALONE!
CJ Mahaney spoke about humility (he has a great book out on this topic: click here) which really speaks about laying aside my pride and self-will and the need for me to let Jesus have preeminence in everything. Mark Driscoll spoke of "dwelling in the text" the idea of loving Jesus passionately and loving him through being in His word. He spoke of the dangers of being in the word for the sake of a sermon or a good marriage or good parenting or even a good church. But the bottom line is that we must read the Bible because we love Jesus passionately and we encounter Him in scripture. To put it succinctly: You have to know and love Jesus and in order to do that you have to in scripture often and intentionally. JESUS ALONE!
Darrin Patrick asked the question, "do I have non-christian friends" but we might as well phrase his question am I being like Jesus to the people around me? Do I love them and care for them individually just as Jesus loved and cared tax collectors and prostitutes? Living missionally or living like Jesus: JESUS ALONE!
Tim Keller spoke several times in typical intellectual Keller fashion (I loved it...), but his key message was about the elements of the Gospel. Tim distilled the Gospel to it's core message naming three core elements: Manger - Cross - Crown. Jesus' Incarnation, His Death and His Exaltation! JESUS ALONE!
I want to keep that mindset always before me, planting a church is hard work, and it it exhilarating and it is fun and stressful, but ultimately it is about JESUS ALONE! He is worthy of all my efforts, and making the church all about Him and His glory is naturally create a church concerned for people's welfare, the poor, social justice, civil rights, environmental issues, etc. but not as ends in themselves but as natural byproducts of people making it their primary aim to love and exalt JESUS ALONE in everything they do!

New York City

2008-05-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

I spent the last three days in New York City, and I must say that I fell in love with this behemoth of a city. I have been in major cities all over the world, Berlin, Moscow, Taipei, Calcutta, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong and Mexico City to name a few. I grew up in Frankfurt Germany, no small town by any stretch of the imagination, and I live downtown Austin, but this city is on an entirely different level. New York defines metropolitan, it is jam packed with people from every nation on earth and it captures the imagination of people the world over. While I've travelled the world I had never been in this amazing city and I must say until you've seen NYC you haven't lived (alright that is a gross overstatement, but hey I'm trying to make a point).

Four of us from Austin were in NY for a conference on urban church-planting put on in collaboration between Acts 29, a church-planting network out of Seattle started by Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill Seattle), and Redeemer Presbyterian, a church in Manhattan led by Tim Keller. The conference was called Dwell and had an incredible lineup of speakers, including Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, CJ Mahaney and Darrin Patrick. More on the conference in another post...

The sessions ran from 9am to 9pm and we did our best to see the entire city between 9:30pm and 2am. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Central Park in person for the first time was an incredible experience. We walked for miles taking in as much as possible. Ground Zero was eerie and impacting even 7 years after September 11th, while the view from the top of the Empire State building is still edged in my mind.

Website

2008-04-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hey Friends -
thank you for all your prayers.
We just went live with our website and would love for all of you to check out what we are doing.
The website can be found at http://www.thecityaustin.com/

Alamo

2008-04-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well, we live in Texas and around here THE ALAMO has tremendous significance. Now it has a double meaning since we have just gotten a brand new puppy. He is a silver Labrador named Alamo and he is just about the cutest thing you have ever seen.

Raising a puppy is a little like when our kids were little - a lot of work, but boy can you meet a lot of people and effortlessly get into a lot of conversations in the neighborhood, or at our kids games, so I guess he is our "missional" puppy!

Home Sweet Home

2008-03-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your prayers over the past couple of weeks and months in regards to our home search.

I am very excited to be able to say we just got keys to a little home in Austin this afternoon. We will be leasing a little 3 bedroom house for the next 12 to 15 months. The kids are excited to finally have a place they will be able to call home for a while. It is small but very cozy, old but in a classy sort of way, and it even includes a good sized back yard for the kids long awaited dog (more on that later).

The best part is its location. The house is located in the very heart of Austin in the Rosedale neighborhood only a half a mile from our target point at Lamar and West 45th street in Central Austin. It is within walking distance to a great bakery, several cool coffee shops and an amazing brew house called the Drought Horse (oops - I guess my Germanness just came out...)!

Andrea, the kids and I have been praying for a long time about being in the city. Until now we just couldn't find a place that we either could afford or that could accommodate our large family. So we were looking in the suburbs, locating huge, brand new, wonderful homes. Did I mention they were cheap? Well every time we looked at these amazing houses we came back to the same conclusion: "We have got to be in the city!" God has called us to the city and in order to start a church in the heart of Austin we have got to be a part of the city's life; live in it, breathe it's air, rub shoulders with the people that live there, play at the same parks, eat at the same places, shop in the same stores, and develop a love for the place like one can only have for his home.

SO, here it goes...

OPEN LETTER

2008-03-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends of THE CITY community church –

We live in an era that has been described by sociologists as a Creative Revolution. Much like the industrial revolution, of the early 1900’s the late 1990’s and the early part of the 21st Century, can be described as an era of revolution. The industrial revolution marked a move to the cities as technology and factory labor drew masses to the urban centers of the world, resulting in overcrowding, poverty, crime, and other so called urban problems. Those who could afford it fled the cities and created the modern phenomenon of suburban life along with soccer moms and mini-vans.
We are currently encountering a return to the city and what sociologist Richard Florida calls the “Rise of the Creative Class”. More and more people are active in the creative occupations, and we are not only speaking of artists, musicians and entertainers, but also doctors, lawyers, software engineers, etc. Those creative people tend to gather in large urban areas that are conducive to creativity and change, bringing along with their creativity, innovation that impacts society and ultimately creates culture. These creative centers of innovators and culture shapers include cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC/Baltimore, Raleigh North Carolina with its Triangle Research Park, Portland and Austin.
As a matter of fact, Austin, which was recently ranked by Forbes as the fastest growing metro area in the United States, has overtaken San Francisco as the most creative city in America. Here centers of government (Austin is the Capital of Texas), entertainment (Austin is nicknamed the live-music capital of the world and is second only to LA/Hollywood in movie making), High Tech (Dell Computers, Samsung, and various software companies are located in Austin as well as major gaming companies such as EA games etc.), and education (the University of Texas at Austin has nearly 60,000 students) dominate the sociological landscape and give rise to tremendous creativity and innovation.
We are dreaming of impacting our culture by reaching the culture shapers of Austin with the Life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. This next generation of leaders and influencers are our primary target group.
In order to accomplish this with the very limited funds of a startup venture we are coming to you to ask you to partner with us for the sake of the kingdom of God here in Austin.
Robby Forsythe a talented musician and seasoned pastor has given up his secure well-paid pastoral position with full benefits and the security and prestige of a multi-thousand person congregation in Southern California in order to help us accomplish this mission in Austin, Texas. He is working various positions in the marketplace here in the city, but to make the most of his abilities and time for the sake of this church-startup we would like to raise his salary and insurance through tax-deductible donations from individuals like you.
Would you pray about partnering with us, please? You can pledge a monthly amount, or send a one-time gift. No amount is too small (or too large ;-)) Send your tax-deductible gift to HCBC c/o Matthias Haeusel at 12124 RR 620 N, Austin, TX 78750. Please make checks out to THE CITY community church, with the words ROBBY FORSYTHE in the tag-line.

Thank you for partnering with us for the Gospel of Christ!

Matthias P. Haeusel
Senior Pastor
THE CITY community church

Financial Support

2008-03-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

WOW!
There are a number of you who have been financially supporting us anonymously - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
This is huge to us and helps us do what we need to accomplish in Austin.
I am deeply appreciative for your partnership in the Gospel!

THANK YOU

2008-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody -
thank you so much to everybody who is praying for us. This is quite an adventure we are on here in Austin and we are quite aware that we need your prayers to make it through.
We have been preoccupied with gathering a CORE team, meeting new people who are far from Jesus, planning strategically how this church is going to operate and function, where to meet and not least importantly where to put down our heads at night.
In all this I am more and more aware that what we are trying to do is going to need as much prayer support as possible, because what we are trying to do is invade the territory of the enemy of God! I am comforted that Jesus says "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not be able to stand against it..." But I realize more than ever that we are in the middle of a spiritual battle. I am not trying to be mystical here or see a demon in every bush but there is very much a spiritual reality to what we are trying to accomplish, and for that I would love your prayer support!

Austin-Fastest growing city in America!

2008-02-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

This is so exciting! Forbes magazine just ranked Austin as the fastest growing metro in the country! How great to be in the midst of amazing growth. Pray God will use this church to impact thousands in Austin and beyond! The link to the article:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/30/economy-cities-alabama-biz-cx_bw_0130econcities_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=25000

Latest Message

2008-02-11T04:54:00.001-08:00

Matthias had an opportuinity to speak at HCBC Pfluegerville -
God Keeps His Promises: An overview of Exodus

I love this guy!

2008-02-09T22:58:00.001-08:00

What a city!

2008-02-09T22:39:00.001-08:00

Hey everybody, this is Robby.
Right now i'm sitting on the patio of a place called Spider House. It is a funky coffee shop/bar/hang out spot. Its about 1am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. There is a dj spinning really cool atmospheric music. I am surrounded by a few hundred people who remind me of Daniel Schaaff or Randy Baranosky, and they don't look like they're thinking of going home anytime soon. I live about four blocks away. Right now I'm working on revisions for our church web site on my laptop. It's going to be awesome! The website will be at thecityaustin.com. It should be up in a week or two. I love this city!

Is anything too difficult for the Lord?

2008-01-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

As I was reading through Genesis 18 today, I was struck by Sarah laughing at the Word of the Lord. She thought it impossible, and almost silly, for God to give her something so amazing. An heir which He had promised long ago. To her, the renewed promise of a child seemed to come too late. She had longed for a child in her early years. She had no doubt wrestled with God on why, if Abraham was promised heirs, did she not have one? She had even tried to speed up the process, and made Hagar have a son with Abraham. She thought she could hurry the process and get on with the promise. To her, the promise of the heir and blessing was more important than the process. So her response to this long awaited promise, was nervous laughter. God waited to answer her personal prayers in a completely different way, and at an unexpected time.

How often do I laugh at the provision of the Lord? How often do I completely miss the provision of the Lord because it isn't in the form I prayed for? How often do I try and "hurry up" the Lord and fix the situation on my own? So far, church planting is really challenging . However, I believe that the prayers Matthias and I have prayed are being answered. Honestly, where we are in the process of church planting is extemely trying. We don't see how in the world we will find a house in Central Austin, in the next 6 weeks. We have no idea how we will meet hundreds of people to start the church. Over the last week, I started to question our circumstances and found myself "laughing" as Sarah did. My flesh wants to hurry up the process to get on to the promise of a new church plant in Austin. God accomplished everything in Sarah that He desired in His perfect time, for His perfect glory. I long to not question the circumstances, but always believe God for who He is, not what He does or how He does it.
Thanks for all of your prayers!!! Andrea

Milestones

2008-01-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

Well, we are now in January of 2008 which means that we have about 8 months until we are to launch our new church.
In order for that to become a reality we will have to see God's miracles over these next weeks and months.
Some of the critical milestones we need to see happen in the next 4 or so months are the following:

Prelimiinary Launch Plan and Budget by January 15th
Missional Core at 10 people by February 29th
100 Prospects by March 31st
200 Prospects by April 30th
50 Gatherables by May 31st

This means that our small team of core members will essentially immerse itself in the community in every possible way. Meeting neighbors and mechanics and waiters, and hair-dressers and teachers and people at the gym and people we do service projects with and... Well, I think you get the idea. We believe that God has prepared people's hearts in Austin to receive his love, our job is simply to find those he has prepared and be a conduit of that love to them. Sounds easy enough, huh? Well it is not and it includes finding a lot of people who are rather hostile to that love! So pray for our team to be faithful in sharing Christ's love with the people we come in contact with and to be connected with the right people to see this city reached with the good news of God's love and mercy.

Another New Message

2008-01-10T11:27:00.000-08:00

Hey guys -
I told some of you how I had to speak at one of our Hill Country Churches down at the University of Texas with 3 hours notice a couple of weeks ago. Some of you have asked about that sermon.
You can find it at http://www.hcbcut.com/sermon_podcasts.php if you are an itunes user you can go to itunes and look up HCBC UT.
It is the message from Dec. 16th titled "Advent: LOVE"

Matthias speaks to HCBC

2007-12-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

Check out http://www.hcbc.com/sermons and click on the sermon which says "God's Faithfulness" to listen to the message Matthias preached to the HCBC congregation Sunday December 30th.

Love is a promise

2007-12-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

"Judge not Christ's love by providences, but by His promises."
Thomas Wilcox
How comforting this is! The crazy circumstances we find ourselves in have nothing to do with the love God has for us. His promise of love must be our firm foundation when everything looks unfamiliar and scary.

We got an email this morning telling us that the wonderful house we are renting just went into escrow. It had been on the market for months before we got here so they agreed to rent it. No offers had been made in many months. We have been here three weeks and have nearly unpacked everything. Our kids love the house and the neighborhood. But, God in his providence is moving us to a different home. If you look at the circumstance it looks unloving. Our kids have just adjusted to a new state, we love this house, we are in the middle of planting a church. It doesn't make earthly sense for God to move us. And yet, His promise is sure: "He who calls you is FAITHFUL; he will surely do it!" 1 Thes. 5:24
I desire to love God for his promises, not his providences. Pray with us as we look for another house that will allow us to minister to the city of Austin and house all of us!! Andrea

Merry Christmas from Robby & Crystal

2007-12-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!
We've had such a fun couple of weeks. It started with Todd, Robert, and Rolly coming to visit us in Austin. We hit the town and did too many things to list. One of our favorites is the Alamo Draft House (google it!). It is hands down the coolest theater I've ever been to. We really enjoyed the conversations and laughs that come from cramming so many people into a Hyundai Tiburon (and a 500 sq. ft. studio). On top of that, we are so excited that Todd and Rolly landed jobs during the visit and will be here to stay in Jan. Right now we're enjoying time with family and friends in Lancaster (and Vegas) for the Holidays. On the Dec. 30th, Crystal and I will be making the wonderful drive to Texas one more time. We're looking forward to moving into our new apartment downtown on Jan. 5th. A big part of what we are doing in Austin right now is simply making friends with people, spending time with them, and talking to them about Jesus. John Herrington recently told me that church planting is more of an art than a science, and we're finding that to be true. We'll write more later, but for now... Merry Christmas and our love... Robby and Crystal.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody!
It's the morning of Christmas Eve and I am sitting in the living room of our rental house in front of a roaring fire enjoying my third or fourth cup of coffee and listening to the bustle of our kids as they are making Christmas crafts in the next room - doors are closed and the mood is conspiratory - I guess these crafts are about to become Christmas presents for mom and dad.
This year has been a whirlwind of change and even though I lived through it only now in a slower more reflective pace of the holidays am I realizing the extent of change... or am I?
I am thrilled and terrified with our new assignment all at the same time and I know that without your love and prayers it would simply not have been possible for us to come this far.

Andrea and I are deeply appreciative for the many of you who have given of your love to us and have shared our lives.

To all who read this a very merry and blessed Christmas - we love you guys!

Matthias, Andrea & Kids

News

2007-12-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

We had our first Core Team meeting where we spent time discussing what it means to be starting a church. We talked about the DNA of our church, the desire to live as missionaries in our community, the hope to be a blessing to Austin, how to share the unbelievable news of God's love and grace poured out to us in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we set certain milestone goals for the next few months leading up to our launch date in September of 2008. It was great to get going and see God form a team for His glory.
The last couple of days have been great as we had several of our friends from CA come out to spend some time with us in Austin. Todd was here to try to find a job and after only two interviews he found a great job getting hired at the Four Seasons in Austin. He will be moving here by the 14th of January.
We also have great news as Rolly is joining our team. He came out to visit George, loved Austin, and got a job. Now he went home to wrap things up in California, oh the season of unentangled youth.
Robby and Crystal are home with Crystal's family in CA to celebrate Christmas and bring the rest of their stuff here on their way back - pray for another safe trip driving across the country.
As a result of John Herrington falling of the ladder I had to do an emergency fill in sermon at HCBC UT, but God was gracious and last I heard at least on person received the love of God personally that day! I will be speaking again on the 30th of Dec. Pray that I could bring glory and honor to God as I speak about His faithfulness.

Thank you for your Prayers

2007-12-20T15:22:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys -

thank you so much for all your prayers. John Herrington had reconstructive surgery on his face and hand yesterday. The surgery lasted over three hours and they inserted plates in his face and pins in his finger. The surgery went well and John feels like he is more himself again and now can begin the healing and recovery process. His face is very swollen and he will require physical therapy for his hand but he is good spirits. Bob King and I went to see him in the hospital this morning and we were very pleased with how sharp he was. Keep praying that he would recover quickly and completely.

Thank you to the Elders of Central Christian

2007-12-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

Serving at Central Christian Church during these last 3 1/2 years has been a great privilege and joy. Now they are partnering with us to see the city of Austin reached with the love and mercy of Jesus Christ! Robby and I are profoundly grateful to these men and how they have been a blessing to us and our families!

This is part of a letter I sent to them this past week.

Dear Elders of Central Christian Church -
Karl, Dave, Danny, Dave, Ryan, Mike, Jim & Allen

As Andrea and I reflect over these past couple of months, our hearts are so grateful for the support you have given to us. We were blessed to be a part of Central for 3 ½ years. Our lives were changed by the opportunities for outreach and ministry, and we grew in our love for Christ and our dependence on Him. Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to teach, preach and lead, and permitting me to mature my gifts in service.

We saw God move in our ministry as we prayed for growth and for men and women to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and fill our services for the Glory of God. I will never forget the first Sunday in the Gallery. It was an amazing process to pray for a deeper ministry and see God move in ways only He could! Soli Deo Gloria!

These past months have stretched us and have been full of God’s intervention, even in minute details. Most of my time through the end of November has been spent studying church-planting in general, researching demographic and psychographic information, praying, walking the various parts of the city, doing surveys with people in different parts of the city and asking God to give us a heart for the city.

I remember a couple of months ago when I was here on my own, I was talking to Andrea on the phone about the people of Austin and how much I desired them to be gripped by God’s love and be reconciled to Him. As I was talking to her on the phone all of a sudden I completely choked up and started weeping for the people of Austin who do not know the love of God. It was a powerful experience, as I am not normally a crying kind of guy!

We have now completed our training phase with Glenn Smith a church-planting expert and consultant from New Church Initiatives in Houston and have been given the green light from the church-planting team and the elders here at Hill Country Bible Church as to where we will be planting the new church. We were given the downtown area of Austin. If you look at a map of the city we have everything north of Lady Bird Lake, east of the river, west of I 35 and south of Koenig. The area includes the area around the Capitol, downtown, 6th Street, the Campus of the University of Texas, and a number of family neighborhoods. We are thrilled to be allowed to focus on this area, even though we anticipate this area to be a challenging location.
We are dreaming of reaching the next generation of influencers not only of Austin, but men and women, future leaders and creative minds that will shape the culture and future of our nation and possibly the world. The slogan of the University of Texas at Austin is this: “We are Texas, what starts here changes the world!” That is exactly what we believe as well. We are profoundly grateful for your love, prayers, and financial support. We are so blessed with our partnership for the Gospel and the glory of God. We are amazed at the outpouring of love and support given to us by the people of Higher Ground, the Gallery and Central as a whole. Your partnership in the Gospel during this time is so precious to us. We pray that God will enrich your ministry greatly as you seek His glory and fame.
May God richly bless you during this Christmas season!
Matthias & Andrea

Would you join me in praying that God would greatly bless the ministry of Central Christian and the leadership of these elders.

Pray

2007-12-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! Hope your Christmas season is going well.
I want to ask you guys to pray for our church-planting director John Herrington. John fell of a ladder this weekend. Fortunately he did not sustain life-threatening injuries. However he does have several significant injuries. John has a compound fracture in his hand, and he broke his eye socket in three places.
His leg and shoulder are pretty bruised and he has some swelling. The injuries to his face and his hand require surgery and John and Angela found a specialist (an ocular plastic surgeon) who will be able to do reconstructive surgery on his eye-socket. This surgery will most likely be Wednesday. Pray for John and Angela and for the upcoming surgery.

Amazing Father

2007-12-08T07:44:00.001-08:00

I wrote this a couple of months ago, but it was referenced by Ed in his comment on my post "Mishaps and Messiah", so i thought I post it here for your convenience. Plus it is a good reminder for me personally!

This morning in my bible reading a familiar verse sort of leaped off the page in a new way. I was reading through the minor prophet Zephaniah and chapter 3 verse 17 became real to me in a new way.

"The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing."

While meditating on these truths the following became newly real to me:

1. God is not only eternal, He is the ever-present I AM. He is in the midst of his people - He is not far off, but He is right here with us.
2. God is mighty - His power is limitless and His strength beyond measure.
3. God will save - He will take up our cause and will use His limitless might on our behalf.
4. The Father rejoices over us, His children - we aren't simply a nuisance or annoyance to God - He loves us deeply!
5. The Father comforts His children and quiets our unrest, fear and angst.
6. The Father sings over His children, because he has genuine delight in them.

WOW! What an amazing Father we have, immeasurably big and yet personal and approachable, intimately concerned and involved in the very details of our lives while at the same time holding the measurless universe in the palm of his hand...

Mishaps and Messiah

2007-12-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

It has been a whirlwind over these last several days of finally having Andrea and the kids join me here in Austin. Receiving our stuff from the moving company was a pretty big job, starting to find everything we've packed in various boxes an even bigger one. Now comes the fun part of actually setting up the house.
The house we are renting is very homey and we feel so grateful to John and Jacy Donovan who are letting us rent their place at this time.
In the midst of moving in we've had a pretty big mishap. As the washer was draining we had raw sewage back into our house and flood the place. The drain pipe was apparently blocked by a bunch of roots that had to be cut out and the sudden flood of water was too much for the partially clogged pipes. The problem resolved, we set to scrubbing the bathtub, shower and bathroom floors, only to discover that the episode had flooded the two adjoining bedrooms... What a disaster and what a mess!!! As I write this, workers have just removed the carpet padding and three large fans and dehumidifiers are working hard to dry out our house.
Andrea and I made beds for the kids in the living room on the couch. The kids think the whole sleepover in front of the fire-place is a really cool thing, Andrea and I are yet to be convinced.
It is frustrating, but at the same time we are trying to learn how to rest in God. On Tuesday Andrea and I went on a date wings as an appetizer and Handel's Messiah as the main course. Over dinner I shared with Andrea how I was feeling pretty stressed out with everything that is involved in starting a new church, trying to make things happen by simply working harder. Andrea was encouraging me to relax a little and trust God to build His church. Psalm 46:10 says "Be still and know that I am God"; the NASB translation says it a little different, "Cease striving...", which is exactly what I have been doing.
Anyways back to Handel's Messiah. We arrived at the concert venue only to find that all the tickets were sold except the obstructed view ones, and we could not get two seats together. My suggestion was to just go hang out at the Domain, but Andrea kept saying, "let's just wait a while longer." (My question was - for what?!?)
After a few minutes a white-haired gentleman approached us and asked if we needed tickets for the concert and that he was there with a church from San Marcos who had bought a bundle of tickets of which two were extra. He ended up giving us the tickets and walked us to perfect center auditorium seats just in time before the lights dimmed and the Austin Symphony began their crescendo into the opening of the Messiah.
As we sat there Andrea said, "I just knew someone would give us tickets, I just had that feeling all night." I just leaned over and whispered back - "I guess that is the difference between striving and resting."

Learning...

2007-11-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

These last couple of weeks have been pretty incredible. It has been a learning experience for sure, sometimes really frustrating sometimes elating.
I love it and hate it all at the same time, and the reason for it both is that I am not in control. I love being in charge, love controlling my own destiny - or at least thinking that I am...
Following Jesus to Austin has been one step of faith after another, and the journey has been intense. I have always worked in established environments, other than starting my own window-washing business several years ago. Things were nicely mapped out for me, the infrastructure was in place and I could control my fate by how hard I worked, how much I studied, how well I organized, or how inspiring and persuasive I talked to people. Well, not any more (to be fair - this has never been true, and God must receive all the glory for anything we did, but I certainly like to believe it is my effort, hard work, cleverness, etc. Oh, the sin of the human heart...).
We are here in Austin to start a church, but Jesus said 'I will build MY church'. We are here to reach people with the life-changing reality of Jesus' love and grace, but we cannot reach anyone, only God can and does draw sinners to Himself in love, saving them from their moral bankruptcy and giving them new and abundant life. Sure we can and should work hard, put ourselves out there, connect with people, love them, serve them in Jesus' name and for His sake, but God has got to do the life-transforming work.
It is true that anyone can make himself a Buddhist, make himself a Hindu, or a Muslim, but nobody can make himself a Christian. Conversion is passive, one is converted (passive) by the grace and power of God.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

After getting everything packed up, Andrea and the kids and I get a chance to spend some time in a vacation house in Big Bear Lake, CA. I cannot believe how good God is in providing us with this beautiful log cabin in the mountains. Theresa - thank you so much for blessing us with this time. A couple of days of family time and rest and relaxation over the Thanksgiving Holiday is just what the doctor ordered. I am really looking forward to some time playing with the kids, going on walks, playing games, doing puzzles, and just hanging out after being away from the kids since October.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

All Packed

2007-11-21T08:25:00.000-08:00

Alright, we spent the last several days in our house in CA packing everything onto a moving truck. Washing windows, cleaning bathrooms, packing the final miscellaneous knick-knacks, getting the yard and the pool ready for our renters, etc. In the middle of packing our car broke down - hey and why not... But I got it fixed, glad it happened when I still had access to my tools and a couple of friends to give me a ride to the AutoZone.
The whole process has been exhausting and just a little frustrating, as the estimator way under-estimated our load, which cost our truck-driver and his crew some trouble and a good bit of frustration and us a bit more money. Moving is never fun!
However now everything we own is on its way to Austin. I am pretty stoked to have Andrea and the kids on their way!

Faith for the impossible

2007-11-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

Why do we so often think we know better than God? I thought the only way we were going to get to Austin was to sell our house. I saw no other way. I was blinded by my circumstances. Unfortunately, many times we try and figure out our "perfect" future and then pray for God to act in that direction.

In the book of John, after Lazarus died, Martha came to Jesus and wanted to know why He hadn't been there when he died? She was mad because she knew that if he had been there he would have saved Lazarus. She had faith for that. We know she had told Jesus she believed he was the Savior of the world! Yet, later in the story, Jesus is moved to tears and goes to see Lazarus at the tomb. Martha follows close behind and when they arrive she warns him, "don't open that tomb, he's gonna stink!!" Are you kidding me? The messiah, whom she believes and adores, is at the tomb of her brother and this is her response? Her eyes have strayed to the physical elements surrounding her. She is stuck . Her "perfect" future didn't happen. She wanted Jesus to save Lazarus before death. She could not conceive in that moment that Jesus would do something far beyond her idea of "perfect". She was so focused on the fact that Jesus had not met her on her terms that she almost ruins the moment! In the end Jesus did something far more amazing and God-glorifying than only saving Lazarus from possible death. He rescued him from death itself...Oh for faith to see the impossible happen in Austin! People to be rescued from death itself. Andrea

24

2007-11-16T14:41:00.001-08:00

Wow! In terms of sheer adrenaline the last 24 hours of my life have somewhat seemed like an episode of 24.
The last 24 hours were an absolute crazy ride of excitement and witnessing God's goodness and providence in amazing ways.
It all started with a phone call from dear friends of ours telling us that they decided to give us a large sum of money. The timing of this gift is unbelievable and lets just say anytime you see a comma on a check it is good news indeed! The crazy thing is that we are dreaming to start a church in the city not in the suburbs and that rent downtown is significantly higher there than in the outskirts. This gift enables us to actually pursue renting in the city. You know who you are - thank you so much, you guys are so dear to Andrea and I!
The second event was that we heard back about a house we were trying to rent (it is right in the city and they are allowing us to rent it for a short period of time/3 months for now maybe longer), which will allow me to get Andrea and the kids out here to Austin. I am so excited about having my family here!
Thirdly, Robby and Crystal arrived safely in Austin and we got all their stuff stored and them moved into an apartment (free!). It is so good to see familiar faces. Not only that, it helps so much to no longer go at it alone! Thank you Robby and Crystal for what you sacrifice, I love you guys.
Finally, we just heard back from the elders at Hill Country Bible Church and our team has been given the area in downtown Austin to start our brand new church! Our map-point will be Lamar & 45th right in Central Austin. I am absolutely thrilled!

Perspective

2007-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about perspective. How do I view my world and my circumstances? There is a sense in which I can be so easily stuck in the moment, stuck with fears and frustrations of the present. Part of learning how to love the city of Austin and its people has been spending time with Tim Hawks, senior pastor of Hill Country Bible Church in Austin. Tim has been here for the past 19 years and knows and loves Austin like few people I know. He has been challenging us to view life in light of eternity.
Life on earth is as good as it is ever going to get if you do not know Jesus Christ as your savior. This is as close to heaven as you are ever going to get. Likewise, if you are a Christ-follower life on earth is as bad as it is ever going to get, as near to hell as you will ever experience.
So where I am at right now I am trying to live my life like that is true, pursuing an eternal perspective that takes the claims of Jesus Christ serious. He claims that there is a future judgment and juxtaposed a future of incredible joy.
Jesus promises persecution for those who follow him, he demands sacrifice on a scale that is mind-boggling, and he requires dedication that is absolute in order to follow him (If you are wondering what I am talking about look up these verses of scripture - Luke 9:23-24, Luke 9:62, Luke 14:26). However, he also promises reward that is unprecedented, reconcilliation with God and a perfect life in heaven with ever increasing joy for all eternity (a concept I can't even fully grasp).
Coming to Austin has been quite a journey, and Andrea and I have had to consistently lay down our desires in order to follow what God called us to - Jesus is worthy of us living our lives for Him!
In my journey of learning to have an eternal perspective the concept of trusting God and of faith in God's love and goodness has been a constant. I am learning to trust God more and more, and surprisingly, despite some of our circumstances, we are calm and at peace. A passage that has been occupying my mind is this:
'Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.' [Hebrews 10:35-39]

You've gotta be kidding me!!!

2007-11-13T00:27:00.000-08:00

To say that I'm blown away by God's grace in this moment doesn't even begin to express what Crystal and I are feeling. We're getting ready to leave for Austin in our moving truck tomorrow morning and we've already lived through so many miracles in this new adventure that God is leading us on. I've got to tell you about the newest one! As a lot of you know, Central surprised us last weekend by collecting a loose change offering for us at the end of each of the services. We're still reeling from the generosity that so many of you extended to us. Take a stab at it... how much do you think was given? We seriously could not believe it when Gerry called today to tell us that over $5,200.00 was collected. What!?!? I don't know what to say! This is such an incredible blessing to us! As we move to Austin to look for jobs, there is a lot of uncertainty for us, but there isn't a doubt in our minds that God will provide for us as we follow Him. -Robby

Spent for Jesus

2007-11-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

"When the heart sees what God wants, the body must be willing to spend and be spent for that cause alone."

These words from Oswald Chambors have so challenged my thoughts and behavior leading up to this new phase of ministry in Austin. When my heart saw what God was planning for our next phase of life, I realized I must spend my life on Jesus' vision for Austin. Not in a false humility, or wanting to be congratualted for such a "sacrifice" of giving up all things dear to move across the country. But because He is worthy, I must give everything I have to the cause Jesus has put before me. It is easy in theory, hard in the day to day grind. I have been stretched beyond what I thought I was capable of and endured thus far by God's grace alone. May we all be willing to be spent for Jesus in the mundane everyday moments and in the major callings that shake our worlds upside down. Andrea

Leadership Community Mtg.

2007-11-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

This Sunday we had our annual Leadership meeting at HCBC. Every year these meetings are incredible opportunities to connect with the leadership family at Hill Country Bible Church and allow the vision God has given us to sink in even deeper. The church planters are interviewed by John Herrington, the church plant director, at 14:00. Myself and the 4 other church planters are interviewed.
Listen to the audio
(Leadership Community Audio)

Or watch the meeting in Windows media player
(Leadership Community Audio)

or I-Tunes
(Leadership Community Video)

Party

2007-11-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, just a quick invitation in case you haven't heard. Tonight (Friday, Nov. 9) at my house (43950 Bobby Jones Dr. #19 Lancaster, Ca) we're having a giant goodbye party. You are invited. It is going to be super fun. You need to come. It starts at 6ish and goes all night. See you there... Robby

COUNTER - INTUITIVE (Part2)

2007-11-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

I really resonate with the idea that faith sometimes needs to just be faith. It is not about what will come out of it in the end. It's not about how it might turn out in my favor in the end. It is about trusting God and loving him enough to say - He is worthy! I will go and obey, and I will do everything possible to bring honor and renown to Jesus Christ. Whatever brings God the greatest amount of glory may not be the most comfortable for me. And it is hard to remind myself regularly that it is not about me, but about God.
As we look throughout history, we see men and women who loved God and were concerned about his glory, not just by giving lipservice to him but enough to suffer being eaten by lions and lit up as live torches for Caesar's garden parties to confess their love and allegiance to him.
Faith is about trusting in God's sovereignty. I trust him. I believe that my purpose is to bring glory to God. It is to leverage evey fiber of my being for the purposes and the glory of God - that's it, nothing more, nothing in it for me...

COUNTER - INTUITIVE (Part1)

2007-11-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

I just received an e-mail that greatly encouraged me. A dear friend and mentor, Rowland Forman, is the author of The Leadership Baton, and a founding partner of the Center for Church Based Training. He is one of those guys that just oozes wisdom and grace. For several years now Rowland and his wife Elaine have been coming to California to serve as a consultant at Central Christian Church where he has been spending significant time investing into my life and serving as a sounding board and mentor. "My guys" (the 4 pastors I have had the privilege to mentor over the past couple of years) and I have lovingly nicknamed him 'The Oracle' because of his wise and seemingly never-failing wisdom and advice.
Anyways, Rowland send me an email about faith. Let me quote him directly:

"I’ve been living in Hebrews 11 in the last three weeks and have been blessed by all the examples of authentic faith. It’s as if God has been branding my brain with the words, by faith. Yesterday I was meditating on verse 13: all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
Everything in me wants by faith to result in great outcomes. What I am learning is that God is just looking for faith—period! It’s not even faith that things will turn out the amazing way I want them to be (though humanly that’s what I want for the launch of Living Stones Church-Based School of Leadership). It’s faith that according to verse 11 is locked into the promises of the faithful One. I don’t know if I’m making sense, but to me this is profound and countercultural. Let’s keep placing our faith in the Faithful One! Our eyes need to be on our ever faithful God. The outcomes are his. The thing he most desires is quiet confidence in him, no matter what."
Also check out a blog Rowland recommended: Counter Intuitive Faith.

Plans Formed of Old

2007-11-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

How often in our zealous approach to serving God do we remember that all of the "plans" we make will be molded, and sometimes altered, by the very hands of God to fit His plans? I have been studying the book of Isiah and came across a passage that gave me such comfort, "O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, FOR YOU HAVE DONE WONDERFUL THINGS, PLANS FORMED OF OLD, FAITHFUL AND SURE" (Isiah 25:1). We can rest in this move to Austin knowing that God has "formed plans of old" in Austin, for Austin, with Matthias and I playing a part in it. He is calling people in the city to himself. (They are just not aware of it yet!) We can be sure that if we remain faithful to His call on our lives, we get to be a part of these "plans formed of old". I am not "faithful and sure" but God is. How awesome to rest in His faith, not my own. We covet all your prayers! Andrea

Of houses and homes

2007-11-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

So, it looks as though we finally have come to a solution in regards to our house in California. Our good friends Joe and Krista Kelly are going to rent it for some time. They have had their house on the market for a little while and they have just gone into escrow.
This is a huge answer to my prayers because I am growing pretty tired of being without my family.
We are looking at Rentals in Austin now. If everything goes smoothly I will have Andrea and the kids with me in Austin right after Thanksgiving.

Humility & Compassion

2007-11-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

I just had an interesting conversation with a guy named Trivett who is the drummer of a band called The Sword. They are a heavy metal touring band and their website is swordofdoom.com
I was doing some informal surveys downtown Austin to get an idea about what some of the primary issues in the city are. The day as a whole was an interesting experience - I think as Christians in general we often don't listen enough and are stuck answering questions nobody is asking.
Trivett made a crucial point - it's about Humility and Compassion. Wow! That is pretty much what Jesus was all about! He - God - stepped into human history and humbly served and loved and sacrificially laid down His life to save us from our sins and make us alive again. His life was characterized by compassion. Loving those who were despised by society, tax-collectors, prostitutes, etc.
How can we become more like Jesus Christ? Following His example and very practically and authentically live out humility and compassion is going to be a must to be a relevant representation of Christ!

John Piper is BAD...

2007-11-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

A recent YouTube video is mixing Piper's preaching with Michael Jackson's BAD. You can check it out on this blog page. I like it because it brings home a deep theological truth. We aren't just in the habit of doing bad stuff we actually are bad to our very core.
We aren't just bad and need to become better; we are dead in our sin and need to be made alive with Christ!
Enjoy the video...

Encouraging...

2007-10-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I had a rough day. I believe I did. So a couple of things cheered me up. I got to spend some time with my direct supervisor, John Herrington and his wife. John and Angela have started several churches from scratch successfully and therefore they have more of an idea what is going on in my life than just about anybody. They were a real encouragement to me, just being able to say "this stinks right now" was good for me.

Secondly I found a message from Jocelyn Young on my Facebook page. We served in missions together and somehow it just reminded me of why I do what I do - because God really loves people and more importantly because Jesus is worthy!!!

And finally, I saw this verse as the "verse of the day" on Facebook:
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. [2 Corinthians 12:9]

Bummer Day

2007-10-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

So today was a bit of a rough day. Maybe because it is Halloween and I wish I was out with my kids trick or treating (albeit they are still in California hanging out at the Kelly's house where we spent every Halloween for the past 4 years); maybe because I am feeling kinda lonely in a brand new city without Andrea and the kiddos; maybe it's the let down after our presentations to the church-planting committee at HCBC yesterday; or maybe because I was trying to talk to people about Jesus without much success. Who knows but in my short career as a church-planter this day has really been a bummer.
I think one thing that is great in all this is that I really am beginning to long for being able to share the story of Jesus with people here and I am getting frustrated by not getting it done right now. Pray for that. I am excited to be in the various communities around town and talk to people, but I need God to give me an in...

No Way...!

2007-10-29T20:39:00.001-07:00

Alright, this is incredible!
We just secured a free - that's right FREE - apartment for Robby and Crystal. They had found a fantastic apartment downtown starting January 5th but needed to find a place to stay until then if they were to come out to Austin.
We just confirmed that we got a free apartment for them from November 10th through January 10th, the exact time-frame they needed a place to live!
Did I mention it is FREE?!?
God is so good!!!

Relevant Church

2007-10-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

So here is a question that needs some consideration: Is the church relevant?
Maybe we can interact about this a little but let me throw out my ramblings...

What I am asking is not is The Church relevant, but is a particular church relevant.
I believe that The Church, the one that Jesus established to be hope and life and grace and goodness and love is always relevant because it addresses the very core longings of humanity. We all long to belong somewhere, long to be loved, understood, connected. We want to know that we make a difference and that it matters whether we show up for something or not.
We want to know that we can mess up and be forgiven, that we can hurt and be held, that we can be on top of the world and have someone to celebrate with. (not much of a party if your on your own...)
We want to believe that things can be better, that this is not as good as it gets or all that there is.
As creative and as smart and ingenious as we humans are we long for a superior being, all our literature and movies point to this hero where ingenuity, creativity, power and courage is taken to the extreme.
Jesus Christ, the Messiah answers these longings. He offers acceptance, and belonging, hope and forgiveness, meaning and purpose, incredible love and kindness, grace and mercy! The Church he started is to mirror that - love and inclusion, care for the poor and forgiveness for those who messed up, belonging and purpose.

So what happened? Why is church seen as so irrelevant???
To answer that question we need to consider the indictment that is brought against churches everywhere. Let's consider some of the most popular ones:

The most popular is probably this on "Christians are all a bunch of ___________________!"
Yeah you guessed it HYPOCRITES! We claim to believe on thing but act contrary to it. Hmm... Or how about these:

"It's always all about the money..."
"Christians are so judgmental"
"Rules, Rules, Rules..."

SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS!

Alright!

2007-10-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! This is Robby. I thought it was about time that I finally start putting some posts up on this thing. Thanks for checking in from time to time and for praying for us! We really appreciate it more than you know. Crystal and I have been hit with the reality lately that we are really leaving Lancaster! And even though the details of the plan seem to change a little from day to day, it looks like its going to be really soon. Have you ever seen one of those game shows where the contestant is standing in the plexi-glass cube, and there is a tornado of dollars spinning around them and they have a really short amount of time to grab as many as they can? That kind of feels like our life right now. We have dozens of pretty important details kind of flying around us, and we probably sometimes look ridiculous as we work frantically every day to nail a few more things down. But at the end of the day we know that God has called us beyond a doubt to this adventure with Him. We know that we are living in this space where without His miracles we have no chance. We are seeing our faith in Jesus grow... a lot. And we're just trying to get there so we can start! I love it. Bye

Pray for us...

2007-10-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

" Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I (Paul) am in prison - that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak."
[Colossians 4:2-4]
It is exciting to be here in Austin and to start meeting people that live here and are so far from the community of faith and a life-giving knowledge of Christ. The reason we are here in Austin is to share the hope of the Gospel with the people of this great city.
Just as the apostle Paul was asking the believers in Colossae to pray that he would clearly and boldly share the Gospel-message with people he encountered, so I would like to ask you guys to pray for us that we could clearly and graciously communicate the life-changing reality of Jesus with the people of Austin.
I am looking forward to sharing some of the God-moments we'll experience as time goes on...

Boots on the Ground

2007-10-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

These last couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion. Monday at 5am Robby and I left California to drive my truck out to Austin. We drove for two days and had a great time driving through CA, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. We spent the night at El Paso and then drove all day from there to Austin. It is crazy to think it took us almost as long from L.A. to Texas as it took us to drive through this enormous state - Oh well, everything is bigger in Texas.

We arrived late Tuesday and then had Andrea and Crystal join us via plane on Wednesday. We spent these last three days walking and driving through the city getting as much of a feel for Austin as at all possible in such a short time. It felt great to finally be able to get our feet on the ground. Doing demographic research on the Internet is great but it does not substitute for actually getting yourself into the city.

We hit 7 of the possible map-points for church-plant locations and we feel that God is stirring our hearts for the city. It is great to have Andrea, Robby and Crystal here to see and experience what these locations are like rather than trying to explain it to them on the phone.
Please pray for us as we explore where God is leading us to plant the church.

Robby and Crystal spent a good bit of time working on housing and God blessed them with a great apartment in an amazing location. Andrea and I are still praying and looking. Please pray with us as housing is significantly more expensive in Austin than where we came from.

All in all a great week - but an exhausting one...

Catalyst Conference

2007-10-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Catalyst is a yearly event where church leaders gather to grow in their leadership skills and be refreshed and revitalized for effective service. A great place to start my new work and as all conferences a great time to bond with the members of your team.
In terms of team building I couldn't have asked for a better intro to the team at HCBC. There was a large group and I loved getting to know these men and women - what a great staff!
The conference had an impressive line-up of speakers and leaders: Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Craig Groeschel, Erwin McManus, Rick Warren, John Maxwell and others. These are proven leaders in the kingdom of God and always have great insights into ministry and leadership. It was a tremendous blessing to be able to take time out and learn from these men.
However, this year the obvious bend of a number of the speakers was an obvious political agenda. It was disconcerting to me to hear several people say that theology did not matter. Half-quoted scripture verses and an obvious bend toward the social gospel (which of course is no gospel at all) as well as anti-war, anti-gun, and anti-everything sentiments were bothersome and somewhat surprising for a conference hosted by Northpoint Community Church.
I am for loving the poor, caring for the sick, supporting the needy, loving the down-trodden and being a provider for the widows and the orphans! As a matter of fact I preached about God's heart for the poor less than a month ago. However, our love for the poor needs to be thoroughly founded in our theology and based in the truths of scripture. There are more than enough verses to support a need to love the poor and care for the sick and needy, as a matter of fact James boldly proclaims that pure and faultless religion is this, to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep yourself from being polluted by the world. As ambassadors for our heavenly Father who is the King of compassion and the God of mercy we have to represent him well and be people of mercy and compassion as well, but this social activism must never replace the true Gospel of Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross through which we can be forgiven for our sins, made alive in Christ, adopted into the family of the Heavenly Father and commissioned as ambassadors for the kingdom!

Moving to Austin via Atlanta!?!

2007-10-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

Alright - I finally made it to Austin. I actually moved here via Atlanta, Georgia. I know that seems like somewhat of a detour but there is a perfectly good reason for that.
Most of you know that Robby was going to help me drive my car out to Austin from CA and that we were supposed to leave Tuesday. Well, plans change. Crystal's Grandpa died last week and the funeral was scheduled for Wednesday night. This is obviously not a time for Crystal to be alone, so we decided for me to drive myself. Then I found out that all the church-planters were going to be a part of the Catalyst conference in Atlanta, GA and I called the Executive Pastor at HCBC and the Church Plant Director to see if I could be a part of that - the answer was YES!
Alright! I Love Andy Stanley...
Friday night I finally arrived in Austin where I am staying with the Executive Pastor Bob King. I cannot wait to get started!!!

Joining the Team

2007-09-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

We have great news today!
Todd Inman just joined our team for church-planting in Austin.
Todd has faithfully been a part of the High School and Higher Ground ministries at Central Christian Church for many years and now feels a pulling to be a part of the ministry we are beginning in Texas. However, what I am most excited about is the fact that he is really good at befriending people of various backgrounds. This skill in making relationships with just about anyone will be a great assett as we endeavor to create a relationship network in the city.
Please pray for Todd as he is making the necessary preparations to relocate to Texas.

Prayer Needs

2007-09-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

At this point we are in need of some significant prayer support not only now but in the months and even years to come. Planting a church is really not about our skill in music, preaching or managing but all about God doing a miracle. We want to see Him do great things in these coming months for His glory's sake. PLEASE pray with us.

Right now we have a couple very practical prayer needs you could pray for. In the future we will post prayer requests on the side-panel of this blog.

--> Please pray for Andrea and Matthias' house to sell.
--> Please pray for a place for them to live in Austin.
--> Please pray for the transition process for all of them but especially for the kids.
--> Please pray for Crystal as she is leaving her family for the first time.
--> Please pray for a job for Robby as he is leaving his secure ministry job in order to help with this church plant.

Austin: An Acts 13 Moment

2007-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

This past week has truly been amazing. Robby and I went to talk to the elders at Central Christian Church again and outlined our desire to not only leave our current ministry positions well but to actually have them send us out.
The elders spent significant time with us asking about how we got to this point and also about the process of church-planting.
In the end they all agreed that God was doing a great new work in us and prayed for us and for God to be glorified as we went out. That night they also decided to partner with us financially.
Their prayers and encouragement as well as their financial partnership has been such a blessing and encouragement to us.
It very much felt like an Acts 13 moment. In Acts 13:1-3 we read that the elders of the church in Antioch were praying and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work which He was calling them to. The elders then laid hands on them and send them out.

Austin: Purpose of this Blog

2007-09-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this Blog is to be a tool to communicate with as broad a number of people as possible the vision we have of planting a spiritually vibrant and strategically located new church in the amazing city of Austin.
We want to see the name of Jesus made great in the city and for the renown of God to spread throughout the greater Austin area.
We want to reach people with the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ and allow people to be gripped with the love and grace of God through Jesus Christ.

Austin: Who we are

2007-09-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

This little section is going to tell a little about who we are.
We are the beginning of a core team that will launch a brand new church plant in the city in the Fall of 2008.

So far we have two families that are committed to this cause.
Robby and Crystal Forsythe have been married for a little over two years. Robby has been the Youth and young Adult worship pastor at Central Christian Church for the last 8 years. He is a talented musician with a passion for worship and a love for people. He has not only done some recordings but has regularly played for large events and in coffee shops and the like.
Matthias and Andrea Haeusel and their 4 kids Bella (11), Emma (10), Hudson and Moselle (6) have worked in a number of missions settings and Matthias has served as Lead Pastor for Real Life in Los Gatos CA, and for the last 3 1/2 years as Lead Pastor for Higher Ground and The Gallery in Lancaster, CA as well as serving as the pastor for student ministries at Central Christian Church, Lancaster.
Matthias was born and raised in Germany and therefore despises light beer and bad food.

We love the people of Austin and want to see them gripped by the love and grace of an amazing and good God!

Austin: How we got here

2007-09-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is Matthias. Andrea and I are in a real time of transition right now. We actually just gave notice here at our current place of ministry at Central Christian Church in order to pursue what we believe God is calling us to right now: CHURCH PLANTING in AUSTIN, TX.

About two years ago we received a packet from a church in Austin, called Hill Country Bible Church or HCBC, that advertised a student ministry pastor position. We weren't interested in that because I felt like I was doing more ministry here (in terms of what I feel God has called me to and gifted me for) and that ultimately I wanted to be a teaching or senior pastor, but the packet was amazingly well done and included a DVD by the senior pastor about the city of Austin and their vision for it. He described the city and what was going on in terms of growth and development and gave his vision for how they could reach every man woman and child in the greater Austin area with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.

While we were not interested in the church and the position they offered, the city and the vision to reach it somehow struck a cord with us and Andrea and I started thinking about Austin. It kept coming up...
Austin is an amazing city of 1.4 million people. Some researchers suggest that this city will be growing by 1 million people over the next 10 years. The vibe is young, creative, and somewhat unconventional. The city is only 17 percent churched, and most of the people there are really turned off to religion. Sociologists are saying that this city just overtook San Francisco as the most creative city in the nation. There is a new trend out that describes how society and culture will be shaped over the next couple of decades. They are calling it the creative revolution (think industrial revolution) or the rise of the creative class. The theory goes something like this, there are certain creative centers in the world were creative and innovative people gather (the top five are Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Raleigh, Washington/Baltimore) these people bounce ideas of each other and innovate which affects the way we live and view the world. Sociologists suggest that our world will be shaped by these urban creative centers. Anyways, there is a lot more to this, suffice it to say that I want to be a part of reaching these places…

A little while later we started looking at churches we were attracted to because they seemed amazingly effective at reaching the lost and advancing the kingdom. Northpoint or Mars Hill Seattle for example. Every church I was attracted to and did research on had started as a church-plant. So I started looking into church-planting. The more we looked into church-planting the more it seemed that in terms of evangelism and life-change church-planting was the most effective method of furthering the kingdom of God. I started reading about it, listening to people talk about it and praying about it. I even talked with our elders and our senior and executive pastors about this growing desire to be involved in church-planting.

We kept in touch with that church in Austin ( www.hcbc.com )through internet, listening to sermons, vision, business meetings, etc. They have an amazing vision for church planting and actually have a 12 months residency program that helps potential church planters train for planting a church in Austin and help with the launch. This church has actually strategically mapped dozens of locations throughout the greater Austin area and has an aggressive God-sized vision of reaching every man woman and child in the greater Austin area with the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ. If you're reading this you have to listen to the vision for this (well - you don't have to but you could...) you can find it at http://sermons.myhcbc.com/index.html "Leadership Community Meeting" from fall 2006. We talked with them, went through a series of interviews and prayed a lot.
In June we were contacted by a ministry out of Houston called New Church Initiatives(they were hired by the church in Austin to assess potential church-planters and make recommendations as to who should come to Austin to plant)who invited us to be assessed as potential church-planters. Since we didn't know if we "had what it takes" we agreed to fly to Austin to be assessed. The process was grueling, but I really enjoyed it. It took place at the same church and the executive pastor, senior pastor and his wife took part as assessors.

Since then Andrea and I have been praying hard as to what God is doing in our lives and He has little by little given us direction and peace to give up everything we hold so dear here(our thriving ministry – we are out of room in our morning service at over 200 people every week and still run a large night service as well, our many close friends, salary, influence, position, house, yard, pool, etc.); all very unspiritual things but we were counting the cost and the sacrifice. It will be a costly move, and we will have to raise some support, but we are willing to make that sacrifice in order to be missionaries to the city of Austin!