Trying to find a good church in AUSTIN TX

Any recommendations?

Good question. I think it may depend on what you’re looking for. Have you defined a “good church”? When we left the LC and started meeting with another congregation, it was helpful to have both the sense of the Spirit’s leading AND a list of essentials we were looking for (including “they can’t claim or imply that they’re the only legitimate church!”).

I moved to Austin in January 2019 and have been meeting the Church in Austin since then. I have been with the Lords recovery since August 2011, shortly after I left the Army. My favorite thing about the recovery is sharing my enjoyment of the week's reading from the morning revival and listening to others prophesy. That builds each other up more than listening to one person preach for an hour.

https://churchinaustin.org/

[UntoHim]

So now we have three different posts from from at least two different unregistered posters in Austin. Great! However, it can become somewhat confusing when trying to identify who is posting what. Could you please consider registering for the forum by sending a request along with your desired UserName to Reg4LCD@Gmail.Com This will allow you access to our private PM system as well as having your posts appear right away without having to go through the moderation que.
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[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I moved to Austin in January 2019 and have been meeting the Church in Austin since then. I have been with the Lords recovery since August 2011, shortly after I left the Army. My favorite thing about the recovery is sharing my enjoyment of the week's reading from the morning revival and listening to others prophesy. That builds each other up more than listening to one person preach for an hour.

https://churchinaustin.org/

Unregistered poster #3,

Can I suggest that you still are listening to one person for an hour? You are simply listening to everyone draw from Witness Lee repeatedly, over and over for the hour, weekend after weekend after weekend. Literally every meeting you go to in the local church has it's foundation in Witness Lee. All the teaching, all the phrases, all the viewpoints, all the reading - it's Witness Lee's, whether it's stated on the page or not. You may not like one man speaking in other churches, but the local church contains only the speaking of one man - Witness Lee - and no one else. There is a letter written to Witness Lee signed by many leading brothers in 1986, stating that Witness Lee's leading is "indispensable to our oneness". I don't know about you, but I don't recall reading anything about Witness Lee being indispensable to oneness in the Bible when Jesus prayed that we all would be one even as He and the Father are one.....

Your comparison to the level of building up that occurs on Sundays within other churches in which the congregations "listen to one person preach for an hour" presumes that that is the only time during the week that they have to be built up. I can attest there are numerous other times that members of non-LC churches have to speak, speak of, and speak forth their faith in Jesus Christ, all of which builds up the church. God is not so small or restricted that the only genuine building up would occur within the local church. In fact, as a church kid, I question how much genuine building up does occur within the local church.

I know there is a feeling of family and kinship and connectedness. I know there are countless shared experiences that make you feel like fast friends with all the saints. I know there are many saints who "waste themselves" on others. There can still be love and care within an unhealthy group. But there are too many teachings and practices in the local church that are known to be unhealthy and detrimental. You have to test the teachings and hold them up to Scripture.

Can I ask how you found your way to this website? It's rare that a current LC member posts, so please post more if you'd like. The discussions are always enjoyed.

Trapped

I first found this website in 2018. Out of curiosity, I browse through these postings to understand why many LC members leave, including many church kids, like yourself. I understand what you are saying about Witness Lee teachings, but I honestly like it when everyone shares their enjoyments.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I first found this website in 2018. Out of curiosity, I browse through these postings to understand why many LC members leave, including many church kids, like yourself. I understand what you are saying about Witness Lee teachings, but I honestly like it when everyone shares their enjoyments.

Unreg #3, I appreciate that you put value in understanding why people leave. I think it's immensely valuable too. I've spoken to many church kids about it, and there are always some painful feelings and experiences and realizations that go along with their unhappiness in the church. They are usually unhappy for quite some time but feel trapped because of the teachings that make them afraid and fearful of leaving to attend another church or to take a break.

What have you discovered in your browsing about why people leave, and do you think there is any validity to those reasons, or any reason to be concerned about them?

UntoHim, if Unreg #3 is okay with it, can you peel the post and responses by Unregistered poster #3 off into another thread? This is a different line of discussion and I don't want to derail the original question from Unreg #1 about finding a church.

Trapped

Originally Posted by Trapped

Unregistered poster #3,

Can I suggest that you still are listening to one person for an hour? You are simply listening to everyone draw from Witness Lee repeatedly, over and over for the hour, weekend after weekend after weekend. Literally every meeting you go to in the local church has it's foundation in Witness Lee. All the teaching, all the phrases, all the viewpoints, all the reading - it's Witness Lee's, whether it's stated on the page or not. You may not like one man speaking in other churches, but the local church contains only the speaking of one man - Witness Lee - and no one else. There is a letter written to Witness Lee signed by many leading brothers in 1986, stating that Witness Lee's leading is "indispensable to our oneness". I don't know about you, but I don't recall reading anything about Witness Lee being indispensable to oneness in the Bible when Jesus prayed that we all would be one even as He and the Father are one.....

Your comparison to the level of building up that occurs on Sundays within other churches in which the congregations "listen to one person preach for an hour" presumes that that is the only time during the week that they have to be built up. I can attest there are numerous other times that members of non-LC churches have to speak, speak of, and speak forth their faith in Jesus Christ, all of which builds up the church. God is not so small or restricted that the only genuine building up would occur within the local church. In fact, as a church kid, I question how much genuine building up does occur within the local church.

I know there is a feeling of family and kinship and connectedness. I know there are countless shared experiences that make you feel like fast friends with all the saints. I know there are many saints who "waste themselves" on others. There can still be love and care within an unhealthy group. But there are too many teachings and practices in the local church that are known to be unhealthy and detrimental. You have to test the teachings and hold them up to Scripture.

Can I ask how you found your way to this website? It's rare that a current LC member posts, so please post more if you'd like. The discussions are always enjoyed.

Trapped

I am not saying that Sundays was the only time to be built up, but to me it's like a buffet, listening to some saints speak for up to 2 minutes or more in some cases. In my locality, we've had numerous new ones joining through the Church Website. Most of these new ones were contacted by church members in various ways. They joined some zoom meetings before we resumed in person meetings in early May, but we still provide the zoom option still available for those that prefer it. Also, there are some non-local church members, who go the home meetings, but go to other churches. Yet, we welcome them. In my Friday night home meeting, there is one brother, who goes to a Episcopalian church, but he comes to our meeting about once a month. Before the pandemic, he has hosted some home meetings.

I keep a healthy and balanced practical life. I work fulltime, exercise 4-5 times a week (swimming, running, and weight lifting). In fact, I have ran 8 half marathons (4 in College Station when I was a Texas A&M student, 2 in Houston, and 2 in Austin). Also, I go to about 4 meetings per week (including Wednesday night prayer and Sunday morning prophesying). Even with all of that, I still have some time left for watching some NFL, NBA, and MLB games, some TV shows, and movies.

[OBW]

The idea of having all the regular folks do virtually all the speaking has an appeal. But beware that the variety of ways that people speak is hiding the reality of a singular, extra-biblical source that is of questionable value at best, and serious error and possibly heresy at worst.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any recommendations?

Unregistered poster #1,

I can't help with Austin, TX specifically, but if you are looking to find a church, I think the process is a combination of what you want and what the Lord wants. I don't know your situation at all, but I'm making a basic assumption that you were in the local church for some period of time, and have left it, and are now trying to figure out where to go.

Visit around. Pick a church near you and go visit. Then pick another church and visit that one. Then do it again with another church. Just sit in the back and observe, if it all feels new or makes you anxious. There will be things you like or don't like, or things that may be what you need or don't need, depending on where you are right now - the style of Christian songs they sing (classic or contemporary or both), the volume of the music, how much they dim the lights, the size of the congregation, whether there are smaller group gatherings during the week, whether there are outreach opportunities in your city through the church, whether other people in the church initiate greeting you or leave you alone, etc. I visited one church whose teachings I was blown away by, but the decibel level of the music about rattled my heart in my ribs, so I couldn't stay there. All those type of things are all specific to you that you have to decide about.

I agree with Unregistered poster #2 about defining some, essentially, deal-breakers.....things to look out for and avoid. Things like:

-the implication that they are the only genuine church
-the implication that they have truth other churches don't have
-calling other churches spiritual fornicators
-having a heavy-handed pastoral hierarchy (where you can't make a move in your own life without the pastor's input)
-a lack of emphasis on both the righteousness AND love of God
-straight up false or spiritually abusive teachings like deputy authority or "right and wrong don't matter" or "good is also bad" or "if you leave you are considered poisonous"
-etc

Stay away from churches like that!

As you visit around, keep praying, keep putting your visiting in the Lord's hands. Ask for Him to show you. You might realize that the local church has left a lot of lingering judgment within you about the so-called "worldly" music they sing. Or how "shallow" the teaching is because they haven't mentioned God's economy even once. But just be open. Try to set aside your judgments and just take it in. There will be some churches where it's obvious you don't want to return to. Look for solid Biblical teaching, and make sure yourself that what they teach is true according to scripture.

It's a real journey, sometimes through some rough terrain. But the Lord is journeying with you.

Let us know how it goes, if you'd like.

Trapped

[UtahGiant]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any recommendations?

Some good friends in Austin, they meet at “Stone” and another at “Grace Covenant”

[UntoHim]

By "Stone" presumably you mean The Austin Stone Community Church?
https://austinstone.org/
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[UtahGiant]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

By "Stone" presumably you mean The Austin Stone Community Church?
https://austinstone.org/
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I believe so yes. Don’t know much about either but I know folks who attend those two. Any input on the stone church?

[GraceAlone]

I was Unregistered #2, but I've now registered as requested. :-)

Re: Austin Stone. I've visited there a couple of times. In my personal opinion, it matched what @Trapped said: "I visited one church whose teachings I was blown away by, but the decibel level of the music about rattled my heart in my ribs, so I couldn't stay there." In other words, the teaching was excellent and very Bible-based, but it felt too much like attending a performance (loud music, flashy visuals, etc.). But that's probably a matter of personal taste. I do have several friends who attend there and love it. They seem very serious about missions, etc. (And in fact, one of our friends who's an elder there has confirmed that the "immersive-ness" of the experience is very intentional.)

Also in response to Trapped responding to my earlier post: You made some great points about the "deal-breakers." I'd like to clarify that as we started to visit various churches, most of the things on our "essentials" and even our "would be nice!" list were positive rather than negative. Here were a few:

1. They need to uphold the authority of the Bible and the purity of the gospel.
2. There needs to be the presence of the Holy Spirit in their worship.
3. They need to affirm the essential items of the Christian faith and not add anything else as essential.
4. There should be transparency and accountability in the leadership.
5. We'd like to see opportunities for the members to serve the church (and the city!) in various ways where we can plug in.
6. There needs to be a practice, not just a claim, of humility and oneness with other believers in the city.

So actually, we didn't have a long list of essentials, and we were careful to avoid a consumer mentality, but these things were what seemed important to us through prayer and reading the Word. We wanted to be sensitive to the Lord's leading, but we also didn't want to trust our subjective feelings without checking for certain external factors.

Unregistered #1, I hope the discussion has been helpful to you. Feel free to private-message me if you'd like to know more.

[bearbear]

I like Hill Country Bible Church. It's a large church but the head pastor Tim Hawks is a deep thinker and genuinely wants to help his congregation grow in Christ.

[Recovering]

For what it's worth, one of the biggest "dissonances" to me in LC culture was the idea that The Recovery is the only place with a vision for building up the body of Christ. As I said in my previous post, I have found this to be wrong on multiple occasions. For example, this snippet from a recent weekly newsletter from our new congregation (emphasis mine), and I wanted to share it:

Dear Christ Church,
What do we do with the agency and resources God has given us? This is both a leadership and a stewardship question.
<snip>
2] We have opened our doors to a central Austin campus of Gateway Church, who lost their meeting place during the shutdown of facilities during the pandemic. With nowhere else to go, we invited them to use our facilities for Saturday evening worship, and just extended their stay for another six months. Christ Church, we want to see the whole bride of Christ thrive in the city of Austin.
...

That really touched me, and I think it represents the kind of attitude congregations should have for one another. This is a denominational congregation hosting a non-denominational one with no sense of judgement or disapproval.

(For the record, here's a link to the Gateway Church he's referring to. I've not attended, but from the website it seems like a solid Bible-believing congregation.)

LSM teachings promised us divisiveness, degradation, tribalism, spiritual death, vain repetition, and lack of any vision for the building of the body of Christ in "Christianity". I have not made a comprehensive survey of congregations denominational and otherwise in Austin, and I'm sure those things can surely be found if you look widely enough. Yet I have found enough counterexamples to show that kind of generalization about Christianity to be outright wrong. We are enjoying Spirit-filled services where the Word is preached and (literally and figuratively) held high and where the congregation functions by praying, reading, and responding. We are enjoying small groups where people function through Bible study, prayer, service, coordination, and yes, speaking for the Lord by sharing our experience of Him.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Recovering

For what it's worth, one of the biggest "dissonances" to me in LC culture was the idea that The Recovery is the only place with a vision for building up the body of Christ. As I said in my previous post, I have found this to be wrong on multiple occasions. For example, this snippet from a recent weekly newsletter from our new congregation (emphasis mine), and I wanted to share it:That really touched me, and I think it represents the kind of attitude congregations should have for one another. This is a denominational congregation hosting a non-denominational one with no sense of judgement or disapproval.

(For the record, here's a link to the Gateway Church he's referring to. I've not attended, but from the website it seems like a solid Bible-believing congregation.)

LSM teachings promised us divisiveness, degradation, tribalism, spiritual death, vain repetition, and lack of any vision for the building of the body of Christ in "Christianity". I have not made a comprehensive survey of congregations denominational and otherwise in Austin, and I'm sure those things can surely be found if you look widely enough. Yet I have found enough counterexamples to show that kind of generalization about Christianity to be outright wrong. We are enjoying Spirit-filled services where the Word is preached and (literally and figuratively) held high and where the congregation functions by praying, reading, and responding. We are enjoying small groups where people function through Bible study, prayer, service, coordination, and yes, speaking for the Lord by sharing our experience of Him.

I had a similar experience after leaving. At the end of a service, the pastor came back to the microphone and announced "hey everyone, as usual, ABC Church is graciously allowing us the use of their church for our monthly prayer meeting this Tuesday night....etc....."

I was in the back of the room picking my jaw up off the floor, I was so taken aback. ABC Church was not some branch of the church I was at that day. It was another church completely. And yet they were happily sharing church facilities like real loving members of the same family in Christ. In an instant all the years of teachings about how divided Christianity is and how all we care for is oneness blew out of the water. I knew that we, who ostensibly hated divisions, would never do such a thing like opening our doors to another 'unrelated' group of Christians.

The local church's greatest tool is fear. If they make you afraid of having your vision dimmed by those "poor, shallow" Christians over there, then you will never go spend time with those Christians and won't have the chance to find out that the local church's representation of them is dead wrong!

Trapped

[Zezima]

Originally Posted by Trapped

I had a similar experience after leaving. At the end of a service, the pastor came back to the microphone and announced "hey everyone, as usual, ABC Church is graciously allowing us the use of their church for our monthly prayer meeting this Tuesday night....etc....."

I was in the back of the room picking my jaw up off the floor, I was so taken aback. ABC Church was not some branch of the church I was at that day. It was another church completely. And yet they were happily sharing church facilities like real loving members of the same family in Christ. In an instant all the years of teachings about how divided Christianity is and how all we care for is oneness blew out of the water. I knew that we, who ostensibly hated divisions, would never do such a thing like opening our doors to another 'unrelated' group of Christians.

The local church's greatest tool is fear. If they make you afraid of having your vision dimmed by those "poor, shallow" Christians over there, then you will never go spend time with those Christians and won't have the chance to find out that the local church's representation of them is dead wrong!

Trapped

I can’t help but wonder if when witness Lee showed up on the scene, Christianity was what he said it was and it has since changed? Does the LR still preach how fallen Christianity is / how divisive it is?

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Zezima

I can’t help but wonder if when witness Lee showed up on the scene, Christianity was what he said it was and it has since changed? Does the LR still preach how fallen Christianity is / how divisive it is?

We could also ask, regarding the Local Church of Witness Lee, was it what we, and others who wrote the books, was it what we said it was? Has it since changed?

I don't know if they still preach "poor degraded Christianity."

Nell

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Zezima

I can’t help but wonder if when witness Lee showed up on the scene, Christianity was what he said it was and it has since changed? Does the LR still preach how fallen Christianity is / how divisive it is?

The Recovery has become more degraded, fallen, and divisive than any of the Christian churches I have ever met. “With what judgment they judged, they have been judged.”

Just happened upon this ... if you're still checking out solid churches in Austin, another you may want to visit is Church of the Cross, a church planted four-ish years ago by Christ Church (mentioned above). Gatherings are filled with the Word, you can sense the presence of the Spirit, hymns are sung and it is made up of believers who've come together from many different Christian backgrounds. It's heart and core is similar to Christ Church but it's a slightly smaller community made up primarily of young families.

[Recovering]

Originally Posted by InAustin

Just happened upon this ... if you're still checking out solid churches in Austin, another you may want to visit is Church of the Cross, a church planted four-ish years ago by Christ Church (mentioned above). Gatherings are filled with the Word, you can sense the presence of the Spirit, hymns are sung and it is made up of believers who've come together from many different Christian backgrounds. It's heart and core is similar to Christ Church but it's a slightly smaller community made up primarily of young families.

@InAustin if you happen to see this, please sign up, and feel free to DM me. I'd love to chat, as we know a few people at Church of the Cross. There is a quite a bit of relatedness between Church of the Cross and Christ Church of Austin, as you mentioned.


I might also add that we have had guest speakers from various backgrounds/traditions/denominations deliver sermons, worship, and take communion with us in a way that is refreshingly not divisive and sectarian but rather exhibits a healthy spirit of fellowship (blending, if you will) in the Body of Christ.

Austin Bible Church.