Joy to the World! The Lord is come! We pray this ministry update finds you rejoicing in the goodness of God. For those of you who are grieving or walking through significant suffering, we love you and pray daily for God to demonstrate His presence to you in the midst of heartache and give you moment-by-moment comfort, strength, and hope.
As we close out our first year on this new adventure in faith, we are so thankful for your faithful prayers and persistent support. Your kindness demonstrates God’s goodness to us everyday. By God’s grace, here’s what we’ve been up to this final quarter of the year:
Rwanda
Our September trip to Rwanda involved a training conference for the 169 highest level leaders of the country’s largest evangelical denomination. These leaders oversee 3,000 church pastors who shepherd over 3,000,000 believers across the nation. Tim’s teaching focused on God's desire to mobilize their people to reach the unreached, to become a sending nation for the gospel. We traveled to villages to see ministries of caring for orphans, educating children, and training and providing work opportunities for adults. Plus, Tim had the privilege of preaching one of the Sundays at a dynamic church in Kigali. God has done and is doing an incredible work in Rwanda since the genocide in 1994, and we were honored to serve and experience some of what He is doing.
Dallas Theological Seminary
Thank you for praying for Tim as he spoke at the Nathan D. Maier Bible Exposition Lecture Series. What an exciting experience to invest in future and current pastors and ministry leaders! If you are interested, you can watch/listen to his talks here: God’s Glorious Plan Revealed, Part 1 and God’s Glorious Plan Revealed, Part 2. We had several conversations during our time in Dallas that God might use to create some future collaboration for gospel saturation.
In our City
- Blessing and Encouraging City Leaders. We helped galvanize pastors in the city to greet and pray over both our new police chief and new city manager. Additionally, our Executive Director of the Public Safety Commission hosted a conversation with faith leaders regarding public safety. God continues to give Christ-followers favor in the city to bless and encourage.
- Reaching and mobilizing Gen Z with the gospel. Christ Together Greater Austin passionately desires to fan Gen Z into flame for the gospel. Listen HERE to Tim outlining 3 key prayer requests toward a next Great Awakening through this rising generation. Tim continues to serve on the leadership team for South by Southwest Sunday Service, a pivotal initiative happening the weekend of March 8-9, bringing both worship and faith panels and discussions to SXSW. Hear our friend pastor Larry Coulter describe the vision HERE. During that weekend, we’ll send out Gen Z evangelism teams to engage in gospel conversations with SXSW participants.
- Church Planting Initiatives. Church Planting is a central aspect of saturating our city with the gospel and a primary focus of Christ Together Greater Austin. We are exploring two new church planting initiatives: 1) evaluating interest in The Church Project, a church-planting paradigm of a church of house churches; and 2) working with a large denomination in Austin to foster church planting. Still in the conversation stage, we are excited to imagine what God might do!
In our Nation
- Envisioning Cities for Gospel Saturation. Tim traveled to Winston-Salem and Chicago with Christ Together to envision city pastors about owning their geography to reach every man, woman, and child with the good news of Jesus.
- Christ Together Traction Immersion. All our Christ Together Cities’ pastors gathered in October in Atlanta for our annual strategic planning, goal-setting, and equipping to keep our gospel saturation movement progressing.
- Chapter in Exponential’s Upcoming Book. In Exponential’s new book Good, Great, Greater, Tim wrote the chapter “Church Planting and City Transformation,” sharing the journey of the city-wide collaboration of churches to saturate greater Austin with the good news of Jesus.
Teaching, Equipping, and Mentoring
God has given both of us a number of opportunities to teach, train, and mentor. For example, we spoke at: South Texas and Louisiana Cru Staff Retreat, teaching and interacting with front-line disciple-makers and evangelists; The 6:4 Fellowship’s Global Symposium of 200 pastors across the world on “The Power to Endure, Why You Don’t Want to Quit Your Ministry”; a Dallas Seminary online class with pastors/leaders in a closed country on mentoring and disciple-making; North Way Bible Church’s Women's Refresh Weekend. We consider it an incredible honor to be a small part of what God is doing in these and other ministries.
On a Personal Note
- A Wedding is Coming! We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Alyssa Gonzales into our family on January 4th as she marries our youngest Sam. She is as beautiful and kind on the inside as you can see she is on the outside.
- Abu Dhabi, we are coming! Some of you know our oldest daughter Dr. Kate, as we like to call her now, works as a research associate at NYU Abu Dhabi in the UAE. We are headed her way in February!
Please pray for what is coming!
The reality is every ministry opportunity for us is a gift of God, every relationship built is a treasure, and every prayer you pray on our behalf brings the empowerment, grace, and goodness of God into each effort and each conversation. We would love for you to pray for:
- Family Events. We invite your prayers for the personal events we mentioned above, a wonderful wedding celebration in January and safe travels to the UAE in February.
- January trips to Atlanta and Florida. Tim travels in January to continue envisioning and training in collaboration and gospel saturation.
- Via Nations Vision dinner on March 2 here in Austin. Tim has loved serving on Via's board, and we are praying God would further His purposes through the giving and prayers of Austin believers.