Having celebrated 41 years of marriage this June, we are so grateful for God’s grace and mercy through the highs and lows of our life together, and we are thankful for you being part of this journey. The joy of this milestone is particularly tender as we think of the families here in Texas who are experiencing great loss. From several dear friends who have gone home to Jesus over the past months to the beautiful families suffering deeply in the wake of the recent floods, we grieve with them and pray for God’s comfort. We are so, so sorry if you are one of those who are enduring profound loss. We pray for you nightly, by name if we are aware personally.
With that in mind, here's what God has been doing in our lives since our last update:
In our City
- Christ Together Greater Austin. Christ Together Greater Austin hosted a day-long training on biblical leadership for city pastors with Dale Burke of Leverage Leadership. We pray that the topic How to Lead and Still Have a Life enabled pastors to wrestle together with prioritizing the essentials of their calling while navigating the huge demands of ministry. Interested? Watch Session 1.
- National Disciple Making Forum and Church Project Podcast. Five leaders from One Mission Bible Church, coming this fall in Leander, joined Tim for this conference in Houston. The forum focused on best practices for making disciples who make disciples, the heartbeat of One Mission. We are excited about what God will do through this new church. While there, Tim was a guest on Church Project’s (another church movement coming soon to Austin!) podcast discussing Evangelism and Discipleship. Listen here.
- Coaching, Encouraging, and Advising. God continues to give us both opportunities to encourage and speak into ministry, church planting, gospel saturation, disciple-making, and Gen Z initiatives in Greater Austin. We love seeing God use His people to move His mission forward and are honored to support kingdom movements through friendship and perspective from failures as well as blessings.
In our Nation
- Christ Together National Envisioning and Training. Tim and Will Plitt, CT National’s Executive Director, traveled to Cincinnati for an gospel saturation envisioning gathering of city pastors. They also traveled to Northwest Arkansas to strategize with Fellowship Bible Church Training Center, the Ozark Collective, and Dallas Theological Seminary as they evaluate the formation of a partnership to develop and deploy leaders to reach the Ozark region.
- Staff Retreat Speaker for Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida. Tim spoke remotely to the staff about church collaboration, multi-site challenges, and building a staff culture that models disciple-making.
- PerMissional Leadership Podcast with Ed Bellaire and Stephen Bellaire of North Carolina. Tim discussed The Power of Micro: Unleashing Gospel Saturation with these North Carolina movement leaders.
In our World
Lima, Peru. In May, Tim traveled with a Via team to help train pastors in leadership. Via has translated Dale’s leadership resources, mentioned above, into several languages which has proven to be invaluable across cultures. What a great privilege to serve ministry leaders across the world and equip them to make space to prioritize reaching the nations with the good news of Jesus!
Teaching, Equipping, and Mentoring
We love being available to teach and encourage churches and groups of believers as they follow Jesus. God has given us these opportunities over the past few months:
- First Baptist Church Dripping Springs and First Baptist Church Giddings. Tim spoke on God’s Passion and Plan at both of these wonderful churches in our region, calling each of us to live to reach every man, woman, and child with the gospel. Watch Here.
- Northlake Church in Lago Vista. Preaching here twice over this past quarter, Tim launched their new series on the 23rd Psalm with this sermon on The Lord is My Shepherd.
- North Way Bible Church Women. Cindy had the opportunity to teach one of her favorite lessons to the awesome women at North Way in their Rethinking Womanhood series: Seasons of a Woman’s Life (scroll down to week 11).
On a Personal Note
A perk of awesome family and friends is invitations to join them at their vacation locations. A perk of ministry travel is lots of miles to be able to say yes! In April, we had a fun and restful week with Tim’s brother Steve and his wife Annie in Green Valley, Arizona. So great when family people are also favorite people! And we leave next week to join our lifelong friends Danny and Kate from Louisiana at their villa in Tuscany. Yep, that’s Villa. We are being spoiled beyond measure, and we are relishing it!
Please pray for what is coming!
We would love for you to pray for:
- Via Trip to Jordan. Tim heads out in September to help teach leadership principles to pastors and leaders in Jordan.
- Via Board meeting. August brings an in-person board meeting in Dallas with Via. Pray for wisdom and vision for the board and staff leadership.
- Kate’s visit in August. Kate will be home from the U.A.E. for a couple of weeks in August. We look forward to tons of time with her and our whole big family as everyone gathers to spend as much as time as possible together while she is here.