We have some exciting new transitions coming up, so I’ve taken the time to record a short video to let you know what’s happening with Intentional Gatherings, and The Snow Family!
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Nov 24
The King St House Church Community is a crazy spiritual family of radical Jesus lovers in their early 20′s. This church was birthed after a group of these young people went through Student CPx in Austin two summers ago, and then helped us host SCPx here in Austin this past summer…
This community is sending an apostolic team to South Asia in December to train 40 university students to plant new house churches in their villages & surrounding towns. Our prayer, and hope is that as these young people go on this trip it will give their generation “permission” to go and do likewise – to realize they don’t need a big organization, church, mission trip, etc. to hear God’s voice and ACT in obedience. (Read the story below of how God miraculously orchestrated this opportunity)
If you are in the Austin area you won’t want to miss the S. Asia info session where the team will share about the trip, and how you/your Spiritual Family can partner with them to go. They truly have the opportunity to partner with the Holy Spirit & equip a few local people to spark a Church Planting Movement in a dominantly Buddhist Nation. The Austin Stone’s 100people network believes in this team & has allowed them to host the session at the Stone’s St. Johns Campus. Details below…
Come hear about something amazing that God is starting amongst the unreached in South Asia using people from Austin and how you can get involved. **Story below.**
When: Tuesday Nov. 30 @ 7:30
Where: Austin Stone St. John Campus
Who Should Come? Anyone who wants to help make a difference in one of most unreached nations in the world.
What do you do about a nation where the majority of the people have never heard of Jesus? A nation that is one of the last remaining Buddhist strongholds on earth? A nation whose doors are closed? What do you do when Jesus tells you to go there with less than two months notice?
Jon, Meghan, Ashwin, and Lauren said “YES” to the call last year and traveled to India to get as close as possible to the border of this unreached nation (we can’t tell you the name of the nation for security reasons). They lacked earthly understanding of how they would reach the people. But they saw the things that were unseen, the promises of God, and they envisioned a people that were far from Jesus becoming his inheritance. So they moved forward in faith.
The closer they traveled toward the border of this nation, the less likely it seemed that they would have the opportunity to minister to the people. They found themselves immersed among the Nepali people who lived there in India. The believers welcomed the team wholeheartedly, adopted their vision as their own, and began to pray for them.
Upon returning to Austin, however, it almost seemed that their vision had failed. Nonetheless, the team continued believing in faith that the word the Holy Spirit spoke would come to pass. Soon they found out about a pastor in Austin who was a refugee from the Buddhist nation. They went to Brother John’s house to meet him, and a door opened! His heart was still beating for the nation he had left behind. Brother John couldn’t go back, but he could empower the team to go and take the gospel to his people.
Brother John and their contacts in India worked together to prepare a special place for a mighty move of the Holy Spirit. They reserved a Bible school in India that sits right on the border of the Buddhist nation. This January, the team will put on a training at this Bible school to equip students in church planting. Their Indian friends traveled into the nation and recruited 35 youth to cross over the border and come to the training. They believe God wants to do something greater than they could ever imagine. They believe they will see 35 youth trained to plant underground house churches, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and equipped with a fresh measure of the glory of God. They believe God will use these young pioneers to flip a nation upside down! Let this Buddhist kingdom become the kingdom of our God and his Christ!
The team this year is Jon, Meghan, Lauren, Caryn, Courtney, Cameron, and Michael. They submit to the Holy Spirit and give themselves fully to his purpose, each of them willing and ready to use their specific gifts for building up of the brothers and sisters on the other side of the world. They have come together hand in hand, committed to Christ’s cause, praying together with joy for what God will do, and excited that they get to experience this together as a family.
Please join us on Tuesday November 30th at 7:30 PM for an info-session about this nation and how you can be involved. Let us all join hands to take the Gospel to this unreached nation!
CLICK HERE to go to the Facebook events page to RSVP!
Nov 17
This is a practical story to follow up on a previous post about how often we slip into the trap of thinking “church” is our personal Lord and Savior instead of Jesus. This new post is the story of our encounter with Amber (Name changed for courtesy). If you haven’t already, CLICK HERE to read previous post “Church, My Personal Lord & Savior”, and then come back to read Amber’s story.
“This story has actually led me to believe that many people may actually need to be saved FROM church in order to know Jesus as Lord as opposed to the other way around.”
We made the drive from Austin to San Marcus where Taylor, one of our awesome sisters in Christ lives & goes to school at Texas State. Our primary purpose was to go love on, and encourage Taylor for the day. We also thought it’d be fun to go out on campus to see where Jesus might lead us by His Spirit. While on campus Taylor saw a girl in a knee brace. She immediately approached her, and began a conversation. Over the course of the next 15-20 minutes we got to know Amber. She is a beautiful girl with a deep, but undeveloped love in her heart for Jesus. Because of a terrible experience with “church” as a child she had not known how to pursue her love for Him outside the context of the lovely religious system that had so deeply wounded her. She had stopped going to church, and reading her Bible years before. From time to time she prayed, and tried talking to Jesus, but there seemed to be some blockades hindering her from intimacy with Him. After walking away from our conversation with Amber I am convinced that her biggest hindrance to intimacy with Jesus is something that has been ingrained in her from a young age. She could not seem to get past the idea that “going back to church” was not what she needed to do, or what her heart longed for. Her soul longed for Jesus…
During our conversation with Amber we never mentioned a word about “church”. One of the first questions she asked us was, “what club or organization are you guys a part of”? We just told her we weren’t, but just loved Jesus and each other. She shared her story with us of being deeply wounded by her church, etc. She kept saying, “I’m just not ready to go back to church yet”. It was funny because we had never even suggested she go back to “church”. We prayed over her, shared some visions and prophetic words we received for her from the Holy Spirit, encouraged her and spoke life into her current situation. Again, she insisted to us that she was not ready to go back to church yet. “Maybe in another year or so, but just not now”. After she had said this several times I looked at her and said something along the lines of, “Amber, I don’t think Jesus is very concerned about you going back to church. I just know He loves you, wants an intimate relationship with you, and it brings Him to tears each day that He is apart from you.”
It was after that statement that I realized how deeply ingrained this thought process is in our culture. Even after clearly sharing the Gospel, and how Jesus had no desire for her to go back to church, but to be with HIM she still had this mindset that “when she was ready” she would “go back to church”.
Our time with Amber was not in vain. She definitely encountered the love of God, and was teary eyed at several points throughout our conversation with her. She got to experience His love through us, and hear that He wanted her to dance again. (She was a ballet performer & instructor until the injury to her knee) She got a small taste of what it could mean to follow Jesus and BE a part of His Body. We got to play a part in chipping away at that mindset that “going to church” was what was going to “save her” or solidify her “standing with God”. She encountered some people who heard the clear call of Jesus to “follow Him”, not the call to “go to church”.
We spent the rest of the day offering up spontaneous prayers for Amber’s heart to let go and love Jesus. I offered up a secret prayer that God would “SAVE HER FROM CHURCH”, and “to Himself”.
As “Christians” here in America we are sometimes the quickest to slip into idolatry. A primary scheme of the enemy is to take things that are “good” and convince us those things are more worthy of our worship than Jesus. (Even “worship” itself! See how sneaky satan is) We get easily distracted, and accidentally start worshiping the created thing instead of the creator of the thing.
For years this mentality that “church” is what will “save us” has tainted our view of Jesus, and what it means to BE a part of the Body of Christ. Of course, nobody comes out and says something like, “salvation is through faith in church”, or “you must go to church to be saved!” But, it is something deeply ingrained into the Christian culture here in America. Because we have lost sight of every believer’s call to make disciples, and settled for a religious system made up of a few select people who do so for us, we have communicated to the lost world that it is in fact “church” that will save them first and foremost, not Jesus. The above story has actually led me to believe that many people may actually need to be saved FROM church in order to know Jesus as Lord as opposed to the other way around. The world needs Jesus. They don’t need church. The beauty is that when the world has Jesus they are automatically a part of THE CHURCH. Relationally they have everything they need, and are being obedient to everything they have been called to as a part of the larger Body of Christ.
Nov 4
About a month or so ago I had the amazing privilege of Baptizing my friend Eric Robinson. Eric is an amazing man of God with an incredible story. God has been, and is continuing to use Eric for His Kingdom. I can’t wait to see what Eric does after graduating from UT!
Back in October we did a little “Spiritual Family” Reunion for those who have become a part of the “King Street House Church Community” (New network or house churches that birthed as a result of Student CPx in Austin). We had a blast…