The college ministry has 22 spots left for our trip to Memphis, TN to work at a urban home repair camp run by Service Over Self. We will get to help repair homes in some of the most under resourced neighborhoods in Memphis and proclaim the hope of the gospel in the process. This will be a great opportunity to take part in urban ministry and get connected to other college students in our ministry. We are really excited about this trip and hope you will join us.
The trip will be from March 14th-20th and cost $430 which pays for all your meals in Memphis, a tour of the civil rights museum, lodging and transportation. Click the link below to sign up and email any questions to tyler.david@austinstone.org
It's that time of year again! We are excited to announce that The Austin Stone on Campus will be happening on Thursday February 11th at 7 p.m. in Hogg Auditorium. Come join us as one of our teaching pastors, Jeff Mangum, provides some perspective on how the gospel propels us into mission, and Aaron Ivey leads us in worship. It's a night you won't want to miss!
We will give you the opportunity to connect with local, short term and long term serving and mission opportunities. You can ask plenty of questions and get information on how you can join other Christians blessing people around Austin and the world.
As our students break from school and return home for the Holidays we greatly desire that this time would be refreshing and rejuvenating for them. But I know for so many, like myself during college, going home puts students back into the same old surroundings, around the same old people, and often the same old sin. Instead of a month of rest, students endure a month of boredom, frustration, and sometimes sorrow. In an effort to combat this, we gave our missional community leaders a simple handout to guide them through a time of reflection over the break. The handout was crafted after Psalm 136 and David's reflection on the works of God in the life of Israel. We typed out the entire chapter with David's events removed and space left for us to insert what he has done in each of our lives over the past semester.
This reflection is a time to remember that God did all these things because his steadfast love endures forever-not because we are good or smart or strong-willed, but because He loves us through the person and work of his Son. After a busy semester, this has been a refreshing exercise both for our leaders and students. We hope that God continues to use it to energize our students for the next semester.
Summer 2009 - Renovate UT Trains Together
This past summer for six weeks all the current and future leaders of the churches and organizations got together on Tuesday and Wednesday for worship, preaching, and training in the gospel leading to the formation of communities that would actively seek the non-believers at the University of Texas.
It was an amazing time to unify first around the gospel of Jesus Christ and then unify around the mission of advancing the gospel on campus.
Fall 2009 - Launching with a Focused Mission
The Austin Stone on Campus has continued to serve as the launching point for the college ministry at the Austin Stone and this fall we launched around 40 missional communities with the goal of identifying where they have been sent by God on this campus to advance the gospel as missionaries.
New missional communities have been launched where nothing existed before in the Pom Squad, in the UT Band, in the law school and graduate programs. God continues to provide faithfully new leaders willing to use their time while at the University of Texas to advance the gospel while they pursue the degree and calling God has placed on their lives.
Freshman @theAustinStone
In an effort to provide community and catch the incoming freshman up to speed on the mission and vision of the Austin Stone Community Church, Freshman @the Austin Stone was launched, a six-week program to assist freshman in wrestling with their faith as they transition from high school into [KEEP READING]
Here is part 2 of the brief story of our ministry through the eyes of one of our college directors, Logan Gentry, who has been here from the beginning.
Summer of 2008-Transition to Current and Future Vision
The Summer of 2008 gave the College Ministry an opportunity to reflect on the vision of the Church and how it applied directly to the context of the local universities, primarily the University of Texas. Through this evaluation, we began to understand that we weren't fully accomplishing the vision of the Austin Stone in the college context and needed to transition our leadership team and future leaders around the idea of Missional Communities.
This summer served as a dramatic shift in vision and philosophy, moving away from community groups, which often became small groups bible studies, to the vehicle of missional communities. The idea was that a missional community would be a group of believers who together were outwardly focused on reaching the world around them with the gospel through word and deed.
Fall 2008
Structurally, the college ministry shifted to primarily student-led groups with adults serving primarily as the role of coaches, mentoring student leaders. To assist the adults in the college ministry, a bi-weekly training was developed and we went through "Church Planting Movements" and discussed how the work of God throughout the nations might be accomplished on campus.
This discussion allowed us to grasp the ideas of abundant prayer and abundantly sowing [KEEP READING]
Here is the brief story of our ministry through the eyes of one of our college directors, Logan Gentry, who has been here from the beginning.
2006
In the fall of 2006, the staff at the Austin Stone asked me and a few others to work as a team to expand the college ministry as it currently existed. We had 3 weeks to find leaders, develop training, cast vision, and launch new groups for the approximately 1000 students who were attending the Stone on a Sunday.
We launched 9 co-ed small groups, 3 freshman guy groups, and about 6 freshman girl groups. Looking back, the leaders of these groups and the students who participated in them have become the foundation for our college ministry going forward. We had about 300-400 sign-ups which ultimately became about 200 consistently involved college students.
It was a difficult year for us as a leadership team, growing and learning how to operate as leader trainers instead of simply leading college students, as well as learning how to lead a ministry as a team. Some groups found success, some didn't last and at the end of the year, all but a handful of leaders had decided to stop leading their group because they needed a break. College Ministry can be quite taxing if you are not being invested in and we were still growing in our understanding of what it looked like to provide ongoing coaching and training for our leaders.
Fall of 2007 -Worship Christ, Get Trained, Live in Community, Make Disciples...Together
The bolded caption above was [KEEP READING]
As God continues to stun us with His gospel's powerful movement in our ministry, we wanted to start a series of blog posts covering the note worthy aspects of our ministry. There will be about two posts a week from various people on our leadership team and others who have played influential roles in its development. We hope that this gives our students a better understanding of what they are apart of and food for thought for others who work with college students throughout the nation. We by no means, nor does anyone have the secret formula on how to see God transform a campus with His good news but we want to share the vehicles we have used to facilitate the Spirit's movement. Please feel free to comment, dialogue and push back on our ideas because we have one Father, one King, one Spirit, one Gospel and one mission; so we are in this together and your perspective is vital.
We are going to Passion 2010 and we want you to go with us! It will be a great time to hang out with each other, meet other college students from all over the country and sit under the leadership of some of the most influential Christian leaders in the nation! We only have 4 spots left, so sign up as soon as possible before it fills up. Just click on the sign up link below and then check out the Passion 2010 promo video.
The College Ministry will be making the trek to Atlanta, GA for Passion 2010 January 2-5. We will leave from the Stone offices at 11:30pm on the night of January 1st and drive through the night to Atlanta. The trip cost will be $410, which covers your transporation, hotel room and ticket to the conference. The only money you will need to bring with you will be for your food. We are only going to have 46 spots and they are going to fill up fast, so when we post the sign up link in the next couple of days on this blog make sure to sign up before all the spots are taken. We are excited to see all that God is going to do through this conference in our lives and on our campuses!
Hey everyone,
The College Team is excited to announce a new addition to our team. Tyler David is taking the role of Pastoral College Resident and will be heading up the day to day operations for our College Ministry. If you see Tyler on Sunday or on campus make sure to welcome him to the team. We are excited about what he brings to the table and where God will lead our ministry for the years to come with his leadership.