Writing
Essays and working ideas from more than fifteen years of writing about faith, leadership, discipleship, the church, family, and life in Austin.
Start here
New here? These four pieces offer a way into the writing: what shapes the church, how we lead, and how faith takes form in community. Begin with the recent essays, then explore the earlier work that helped shape those questions.
The church and the Spirit · 2026
The Organizing Principle of the Church
Start with a recent reflection on how spiritual gifts shape the church, and why I’m revisiting an old conviction about mission.
Leadership in practice · 2026
Leadership and Administration
Why leading people and bringing order to the work are gifts to recognize and steward, and what gets lost when we treat them only as skills.
Community and mission · 2013
What is a Missional Community? – Definition
A short introduction to the definition we used at The Austin Stone, and why a community of Christians is essential to a faithful witness.
Leading through change · 2013
Transitioning Your Church to Missional Communities
The opening of a practical series on our transition at The Austin Stone, with lessons about patience, learning, and the time real change takes.
For sustained explorations of a topic, browse the Selected Series.
Browse by subject
Missional community · Leadership · Christianity · Church · Personal · Austin Stone · Discipleship · Theology
Search the archive
All writing
-
Missional Community Practices – Fitting Them All Together
The most common objection to these practices is having to do all of them every week. One of our leaders, a surgeon with three kids in a community with twenty-five children, stopped gathering everyone weekly and…
-
Soccer and the Kingdom of God
I played soccer up until high school, and always enjoyed the game, so when it came time to put Micah into sports, soccer was a natural choice. After a few stints at the YMCA, we joined…
-
Missional Community Practices – Third Place
A third place is where a missional community becomes intentionally missional: neutral ground, natural to the rhythms of your friends who do not know Jesus, and regular enough that they can belong before they believe. Mission…
-
Individualism and Community
I think, therefore I am. One simple phrase that Descartes penned helped define a worldview for a future generation. No longer would humanity be fettered with group-think, old wives tales, and crude explanation. No, we would…
-
Missional Community Practices – Life Transformation Groups
A Life Transformation Group is two or three believers of the same gender meeting outside the community gathering to hear and obey, repent and believe, and consider and pray. Neil Cole got this right, and it…
-
Top 5 Posts for March
For the month of March, these are the most visited posts here: A Philosophical Reason for Missional Communities A Theological Reason for Missional Communities What is a Missional Community? – Other Definitions What is a Missional…
-
Missional Community Practices – The Family Meal
If obedience means acting like a family, the question is what families actually do, and families share life around a meal. So we asked leaders to host a meal rather than prepare a lesson, which frees…
-
Missional Community Practices – Different Kinds of Gatherings
We build different kinds of gatherings because the aim is obedience rather than information transfer. Practices without the gospel underneath them produce self-righteousness or self-loathing, so this post answers how rather than why.
-
Missional Community Practices
Missional communities at The Austin Stone gather three ways: as a family over a meal, as disciples in a Life Transformation Group, and as missionaries in a third place. Here is the overview, with a story…
-
It’s a…
BOY!!! It’s my great joy to introduce to you Owen Ryan Engstrom! He is 7 lbs, 1 oz, and 19.75 inches long, and completely healthy! We are praising God and rejoicing in His goodness to us!…
-
What is a Missional Community? – More Than a Bible Study
A missional community is not just a bible study, a fellowship group, a social action club, a support group, or a weekly meeting. Over time it includes all of those things, but underneath it is a…
-
Four Kids – Jim Gaffigan
As we prepare for the arrival for baby #4 tomorrow, we’ve been doing plenty of work. We’ve also been asking friends with four kids about what to expect, and we received a ton of wisdom. I’m…