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 the title and structure of our vision series that year. It also began a shift regarding community groups from passive consumerism (come to a bible study and discuss) to getting all the individuals of a group to actively engage in the core values of the church together.
"Welcome to Austin Stone on Campus!"
In September 2007, we planned and launched our small groups at Austin Stone on Campus, our first worship service gathering on UT's campus. Chris Tomlin and Andy Melvin led us in worship, Matt Carter preached, and we opened it up to small group sign-ups at the end of the event. We completely filled the 550 seat auditorium and even had to turn away about 15 people. Following the event, we had sign-up for freshmen and co-ed groups in the foyer area. About 300 students signed up that evening to join a group and from that 300 about 175 students made up our 30 small groups. At this point n our ministry these groups were mostly bible studies.
Spring 2008
We launched the spring with Austin Stone on Campus again but this time with a focus towards local and global missions. We cast the vision of taking the gospel to people overseas on one of our various trips that went to the Dominican Republic, North Africa and the Middle East. We also had a trip to Memphis to work with SOS and activities in St. Johns, a neighborhood in Austin, for them to also serve and proclaim the gospel here in the States.
