The Slawters are Moving to Austin Texas

What we want to do

It is our desire to start a church, which continues to multiply itself, for people who don’t go to church. A church that consists of people in process; a place where the curious, the unconvinced, the used-to-believe and the broken, as well as the committed come together to discover how to live life with God.

How does Austin, Texas fit into the plan?

Like so many other things that God does in our lives, Austin appears to be an unexpected answer to prayer. An answer to prayer because we have known for the past couple of months that God was asking us to church plant again. During this time, as we have been praying for him to lead us to the location where he would have us to plant, we have had several possibilities knocked off the potential locations list. It felt like every week, we were saying, “we’ll know more next week”. And every week we did know more, but not much. Mostly, where we would not be going. It felt like there was a little bit shaved off a brick of clay every week. We could tell there was an identifiable sculpture somewhere under there, but the shavings that had come off still hadn’t revealed anything definite. We were pretty close to saying that we were going to plant in North King County and we were ok with that, but didn’t feel settled on that as a reality. Now comes the unexpected part…out of the blue, we received a call from our Northwest District Supervisor and subsequently, a call from the MidSouth District Supervisor, asking us if we would consider planting a church in Austin Texas. We had never considered planting in Texas, lots of other places, but never Texas. Long story short, we took a trip to check out Austin and pray about it, and we have our answer to prayer. Austin is the place where we feel God is asking us to plant. It is a great fit for our family, the kind of church we want to plant fits there, and to reach the area, the multiplication of many churches is necessary. It all lines up, so here we go, cowboy boots and all.

Actually the Austin area is a lot less cowboy boots and more a thriving metropolitan city. It is known for being nothing like the rest of Texas. Here are some stats on Austin.

·       Austin at/near top of fastest growing cities for 4 decades
·       Austin is 14th largest city in US
·       1/2 million have moved into the Austin area in the past decade
·       Austin’s projected economic growth rate from 2011-2016 is 6.1  percent, more than double the  nation as a whole
·       Its projected population growth rate of 2.8 percent, 40,000 per   
year, was triple the national rate  
·       Austin’s University of Texas has over 50,000 student.
·       Austin was selected as the No. 2 Best Big City in "Best Places to Live" by Money magazine in 2006, and No. 3 in 2009

·       Austin’s unemployment rate is 4.3% with high-tech companies providing a large amount of employment opportunities, these include 3M, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Google, AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, Cisco Systems, eBay/PayPal, Intel, Samsung Group,  Silicon Laboratories, Xerox, and Oracle 
·       Austin's official slogan is “The Live Music Capital of the World”, the city has a vibrant live music scene with more music venues per capita than any other U.S. city
·       Austin hosts the annual Austin Film Festival, which draws films of many different types from all over the world In 2004 the city was first in MovieMaker Magazine's annual top ten cities to live and make movies
·       Approx. 50% of people living in Austin note that they are affiliated with a religious organization 

Stories from our recent trip to Austin

While we were at a Starbucks in Austin, a young woman overheard us talking about church planting with another couple and she made a point to ask us to tell her more about what we were talking about. She said she had recently moved into the area and really wanted to connect to a church but hadn’t found one.

Another night we were at Baker St. Grill in Austin watching a playoff game, where because of the atmosphere, we were able to have great conversations and make connections with 3 different groups of people. One of these was a table with some recent imports to Austin, a young Country band, The Bad Intentions, who moved there to try to make it in the music scene. We connected on Facebook afterwards; we’ll look them up when we get to town and go catch one of their shows.

We had a conversation with a waitress, Michelle, at Gordough’s Public House (where everything is served on or in between two donuts, burgers and all…crazy, I know, but so good). Michelle was telling us that she had just moved to Austin in the last year and she loves it. She said she has never lived anywhere else where people are so accepting and open to friendships; she has made a ton of friends since she moved to Austin.

The Plan

We are currently raising 18 months of personal support as well as upstart funds for the church. We are also giving people the opportunity to go on the adventure to Austin with us. We are gathering prayer support and praying constantly as we are continually reminded of how much we are dependent on Jesus in this venture.

In July we will move our family, and anyone else who said they wanted to join us, to Austin. At that point, because this is a “zero based” church plant, we will begin to immerse ourselves into the city. In order to do this we will move into our new neighborhood and get to know our neighbors, we will both work part time, we will get involved in our kid’s schools and sports teams, we will get out in the city – the restaurants and events, we will place ads on craigslist, we will facebook, we will twitter, we will explore and put into effect other promotion and marketing ideas, we will make contact with leaders in other churches in the area, we will continue to brainstorm and make course adjustments in our plan as needed, we will tell everyone, why we have moved to Austin and ask them if they would interested in joining us. And we will pray, because this is crazy if he is not with us. 

All the while, we will work on all the necessary items that we need to have in place before can launch public services. We will begin to meet regularly with those who have said “yes” to joining the team to give them the time to marinate in the concepts and culture and plan for the church. When we have gathered a core team of approximately 100 people and have all the necessary things in place we will launch – we estimate this to be 12-18 months after we arrive in Austin.

Culture

The church will have a decidedly “unchurchy” feel. It will be communicated in everything we do that this church is here to give people who aren’t churchgoers an opportunity to be in process; a place where they can come if they are curious or unconvinced, we will welcome the used-to-believe and the broken, as well as the committed and we will all come together to discover how to live life with God. Austin doesn’t need another church for Christians, there are plenty of those. It needs a church, no, many churches, whose entire reason for existence is to remove any barriers to the gospel for those who don’t yet know Jesus.

Mother's Daughter - My Real Self Is Being Created Anew

Little girl - you really didn’t know who you were.

This is not what you really wore on your wedding day.

But it is what you wore on a wedding day.

Did you really know what you wanted on your wedding day? Did you know how to ask for it? But of course you didn’t, because  you really didn’t know who you were.

Who knows what you wore on your real wedding day? That day was a notion come to fruition. Run away and get married, be rescued from what is now. Start a new life, not a care given to what it will be, just what it will not be.

But full escape did not ensue. Hence the second wedding day, and this dress.

You wore it because it is what “she” wanted. Did you even get a say in what it would look like? She sewed you in, she had always been this way, controlling. 

So appropriate - the collar chokes, the layers of ruffles look pretty but hide the true beauty that’s underneath, and it is awfully difficult to get out of.

Now it has been altered. You tried to reuse what your mother had given you. You tried to make it your own, make it more useful. Though it looks good on the outside, on the underneath side it shows your lack of skill.

You can’t fix it, you can’t reuse it, you can’t discover who you are in that dress. 

That dress is you, and that is the problem, it is the old you. 

The old you - the little girl who doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know what she wants, doesn’t know how to be new.

Come away from not knowing. Come away from not being. 

Shed and be naked. Although you don’t know who you are when you’re naked. Just stand there. Just be. 

You are a woman beautiful and fragile.

That is where it begins.

People will often say, “you are definitely your mother’s daughter”, referring to some other mother and some other daughter.

But when your mother is dead, and has been since before you got a chance to fully grow up, you don’t ever hear that. Who knows if you are your mother’s daughter? 

Well today I discovered I am my mother’s daughter. 

At the age of 18, I was the same girl that she was when she was 18. But when I reached the age of 18, she was dead, and I was alone as a woman. I didn’t even know how to discover who I was, I wasn’t even asking that question. I didn’t care. 

Just take me away from here, let me start over with something new. I will jump on this train and see where it takes me. This train took 20 years to arrive at a destination that I am ready to get off at. The destination is the discovery of who I really am, what I really want, and how to be. The only thing is... I have to step off this train naked. 

And this is where I stand, naked with the dress that my mother wore, puddled at my feet. 

Sweet Mother, I don’t think you got the chance that I am now getting - the chance to discover who I really am.  I am not standing here with your dress puddled at my feet for me alone. Today I am taking this dress off for both of us. 

So appropriate - I begin this journey at the exact same age that your journey on this earth ended. 

Rest in peace sweet mother, your daughter lives!

Back-Breaking Creativity

Creativity can be very difficult work some days. While my husband was away on business for a week, I decided to do something useful. The previous year we had purchased a new construction home. As many new construction homes go it had a lovely front yard, but the back yard was left completely undone. Since we had already lived through one summer with an eyesore of a backyard, I was anxious to get the yard whipped into shape for the coming summer. I had the creative vision of what I wanted it to look like, but to make that vision into reality I was going to have to roll up my sleeves and get dirty. And boy did I get dirty. I spent about 20 hours out there over three and a half days. I dug up weeds and large clumps of grass, I picked out hundreds and hundreds of rocks, I hauled dirt, I raked, I leveled, I put in edging and landscape fabric and finally I planted grass seed. The result was something to behold. Now, every time I look out the window I smile. The back-breaking labor was worth it. Now I can't wait for summer to arrive!
Creativity, in some cases, may only be realized through the sweat of your brow. All the planning and dreaming in the world won't reap you a creative masterpiece. So, get out there and make it into reality.

Creative Docent Mom

This year I volunteered to be an Art Docent for my twin 5th grade girls' class. School budgets are not what they used to be. When the money is short, the (considered) non-essentials get the boot. Art is apparently one of the non-essentials. However someone at the school considered it essential enough to start a volunteer Art Docent program. The goal of an Art Docent is to teach students a bit about art, the masters, the styles, and so on, and to also give the students hands-on experience creating different genres of art. I volunteer once a month for about an hour. We have learned about Matisse, Renior, Picasso, Seurat, O'Keefe, Monet and more, but mostly we have created. We started off with Modern Art which is very unintimidating. We dove into our feelings about Thanksgiving and tried to create a picture that represented them. We had a lot of fun with Pointellism. They were all amazed that they could create a stunning large image with hundreds of little dots. We did some great collage work with bright vivid colors. We drew apples and oranges, which helped us practice our shading. And this last time we drew flowers, in celebration of Spring and Mother's day. I love how surprised they are at what they can create with just a little instruction. I am also enjoying the fact that because I have to prepare a lesson, I am forced to create something myself. Creativity tends to get the back burner with all the other important things to do in life, just like the Art program was put on the back burner when the budget got tight. I'm glad I get the opportunity to put creativity back in front.

My Contribution to Earth Day

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This is my story.
So a few days ago I made a batch of potato salad. A batch - seriously. When you are using giant Russet potatoes from Cash & Carry it is hard to tell exactly how many you need. It turned out great, but a few days later, no matter how good something is, you get tired of eating it. I had a brilliant idea. My kids love scalloped potatoes. What a bonus that I already had precut, precooked potatoes; never mind the pickles and the mayonnaise. I reasoned...a lot of those down-home southern recipes use mayonnaise in them. And the pickles, I could just pick them out.  Did I mention that I really like pickles in my potato salad, the more the better, and a little dried dill to amplify the flavor. So the pickle picking took some time, but after that a little grated cheese stirred in and some garlic salt and we were good to go.
There wasn't enough time to partake of the cheesy goodness before the kids' baseball games and practices. So, needless to say, by the time we got home everyone was hungry and excited to indulge in Mom's scalloped potatoes. I gave them a little taste as I was dishing up the kids' helpings. "Hmm, quite good," I thought, "I think I'm going to be able to pull this off, they are not going to have a clue that they are eating left over potato salad".
Sam was the first one to dig in. A few bites into it he asked confusedly, "did you put pickles in this?" (I'm laughing right now as I retell this) I admitted how I had made the scalloped potatoes and that he must have eaten the one pickle that I missed. Soon the girls were commenting on how it tasted like pickle scalloped potatoes. I was so amused, it was very hard not to laugh, all the while I continued to try to convince them that it was quite good and a brilliant idea to boot. I watched as the girls tried adding garlic salt and pepper to augment the flavor, but apparently to no avail. Sam piped in, "I'm only eating this because I have to". (I'm still laughing, the whole thing cracks me up) Levi, on the other hand, although sitting right there, completely missed the whole pickle thing. He loved it and asked for seconds. That-a-boy, way to make your mama proud.

I did not set out today, Earth Day 2010, to make a difference in the world, but apparently I did make a lasting impact on those around me. And I must say, I am quite proud of how I creatively Reduced, Reused, and Recycled my unwanted leftovers! :)

Birthday Cake - Failure To Create Something Wonderful

I was anticipating just the perfect dessert for my birthday. I knew I wanted something chocolate - but what exactly I hadn't yet decided. I browsed Allrecipes for quite some time. I decided it would either be Banana Cake with Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting or Chocolate Cheesecake. I could not decide, all day I went back and forth, but finally I decided it would be the Banana Cake. The problem arose when I didn't have over ripe bananas - they were ripe but not turning brown yet. I added to the problem by adding some berry jam to the recipe to help give it more flavor. I don't know what else went wrong but it was the worst cake I have ever made or eaten. It was basically hardened dough wrapped in Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting.

Unfortunately, failure is inevitable when we step out to create something new. In fact during some seasons it may seem like we fail more than we succeed but all those failures create great building blocks (the layers of my Banana Cake would actually make great building blocks) for the creation of something wonderful.

I couldn't get the thought of a great tasting Banana Cake out of my head, so the next day I tried again. This time I had better ingredients and the result was most definitely a better cake. Happy Birthday to me!

Create - Bread

Today I had 4 friends over, 3 of which had never made bread before - real bread - mixing, kneading, rising, watching, waiting, smelling, eating, loving. The result was a creation of collaboration and yumification.

Why hadn't they ever made bread? A variety of reasons were expressed - lack of knowledge, no experience, fear of failure. These are the things that hold us back everyday from taking the initiative to create something new. But they don't have to, like my friends, we can just decide to step out and do something new - to create. The result is a work of art - and I must say, this one was quite a tasty one too.