Summer Update

It has been just over a year since we moved to Austin and seven months since Providence Church launched. We have learned so much in the last year about God and his transforming Gospel, Christ and his transforming Church, and the Spirit and his transforming nature. We couldn’t be more content than where we are now, in a place of community and growth that is daily life-giving and refreshing. While at the same time, we couldn’t be more challenged in this season of learning and preparation for whatever it is that will come next for us.

So here’s a quick recap of what’s been going since our last update. First of all, the church is growing. Both in numbers and maturity. We were expecting to lose a good deal of momentum and feel quite small this summer with most of our students and Campus Crusade staffers gone for the summer, but we seemingly haven’t missed a beat. There have been new people every week at our Sunday gathering—either by way of side-door relationships just by people in Austin who are starting to hear about us. In the Spring, we spent 13 weeks teaching through the book of Luke, looking at characteristics of a disciple of Jesus. This was an important series for us because we want to be a people and a church who have first-hand knowledge of Jesus—not just some facts about him. After that, we spent five weeks looking at the nature and role of the oft-ignored third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. I preached the concluding sermon in this series on May 29 (The Cosmic Spirit), if you would like to hear that audio. And now we are two weeks into the book of Deuteronomy, or How does the covenant people of God live in a fallen world?

One of the answers to that theme question for Deuteronomy is one that our family is learning here in Austin. And that is that the covenant people of God should pursue justice for the oppressed while loving the unloved. Marcie is volunteering once, and sometimes twice, a week at the South Austin Pregnancy Center, where she is performing sonograms, providing physical needs for expecting and current mothers (clothes, diapers, cribs, etc.), and then widely loving these often isolated and scared women through the Gospel of Christ. These times are often the highlight of her , and she has already ministered to countless women.

A small group of us from Providence has also adopted a family of refugees from Burma through the Refugee Services of Texas. This family of six belongs to the Karen ethnic people group which are persecuted in Burma, and has been living in a refugee camp in Thailand for the past 12 years. They are Christians (the spiritual heritage of Adoniram Judson, whom they still celebrate), and couldn’t be more joyful and excited to be in America—the first country that has ever welcomed and wanted them. We furnished their apartment, picked them up at the airport, and then have just been hanging out with them while helping them shop for groceries and learn bus routes. There has never been a clearer reminder to us that, as Christians, we are all sojourners—exiles longing for a better country (Hebrews 11).

On top of all of this we are still pursuing Gospel Content, Gospel Community, and Gospel Cause (explained here) by living life together in encouragement toward each other and mission toward the city. I am leading a small group of men this summer through the Sermon on the Mount, including a UT student who is Buddhist and before three weeks ago had never read a word in the Bible. An exciting time. And Marcie has been meeting with and learning from the other pastor’s wives as they talk about the excitement and hardships of life in ministry.

Lastly, a quick family update: Caleb just celebrated his first birthday (May 21), which is really hard to believe. And Owen (now two and half) has started going to pre-school twice a week for a couple of hours, which he and his mother both very much enjoy. They’re just growing up so fast! I need a moment…I’m all verklempt…..OK, I’m back. There are so many young families at Providence and in our neighborhood that we appreciate and enjoy so much as both boys have made a bunch of friends.


Thank you all for your prayer and support for our family and Providence Church. We would definitely appreciate you to continue to pray for We hope that you will be in continual prayer for Providence as a whole, that is:

1. The lives and families of the church leadership.
2. Growth in numbers so that our staff may be internally and self-funded.
3. That the hearts and minds of our people may be daily transformed by the Gospel moved outward in mission.

But also for our family personally:

1. That as Marcie and I approach our fifth anniversary, we might be more in love and united as one flesh by our sixth anniversary.
2. That Owen and Caleb might come to faith in Christ Jesus as their reconciliation and substitute because of their great rebellion against the High King.
3. That God would move toward people through the relationships that we are making with both Christians and non-Christians alike.