Why Austin doesn’t believe

Church strategy is interesting. Churches understand that Easter is a big Sunday for the church, but the series that follows Easter is crucial. The plan is to draw people back after Easter. The series we started last week is called “Why Austin doesn’t believe.”

Yes, technically we’re in the Bible belt and Texas is know for old fashion and conservative ideals. However, Austin is the exception to that rule. The rest of Texas like Austin for the music and the food, but think we can “have our liberal weirdos.” Ha! Yes, Austin is way different from any other place I’ve ever lived. So many people are FAR from God and many of them are open and searching. Gateway has created an incredible experience for people who are open and searching. About 1/3 of our weekend attendance classify themselves as non-Christians. They’re here becasue Gateway is a safe place to explore what faith means and wrestle with it until a person is ready to believe.

So, for the past few months we’ve had people send in reasons why they didn’t believe. We encouraged our church to ask their unbelieving neighbors, family and co-workers why they didn’t believe. From all of this information, this series was constructed – an opportunity to look at the evidence and see what happens. Every Sunday we’re holding an open forum for more questions. We also have a forum on our website where people can continue to ask questions and seek answers to the toughest questions. God’s not afriad of tough questions and we shouldn’t worry when people ask them. So, it will be exciting to see how people respond over the coming weeks. Here is the line-up of services.