On August 29, 2010, in a conference room in the Hotel Allandale in Austin, TX, thirty-seven men, women and children participated in the very first New Way Church worship gathering.

Music was led by Ethan Daum, who both sang and played guitar. Church planter and pastor, Mac Frazier, read from Psalm 139, the John 14, and from True Christian Religion 43, which begins, "The essence of love is loving others who are outside oneself, wanting to be one with them, and blessing them from oneself." The subject was "Happiness", and was the first of a four part series titled, "Life: What Does That Mean?"

So began the "pre-launch" phase of the founding of New Way Church, the first New Church congregation in the capital of Texas. During this gestation period, participants have been meeting for formal worship once every four weeks. This will continue until their public launch of weekly worship on February 13 - Valentine's Day weekend.

Like the Children of Israel in the Book of Exodus, New Way is a nomadic congregation, trying out different rental facilities in different neighborhoods in the city. Even when they do eventually settle on a long-term (meaning a year or more) location, they will still not be building or buying a permanent building of their own for some time. This is so that they can remain flexible as they grow, and also so that they can be constantly reminded of their intent to be a church that is actively engaged in the world around it. Additionally, they are shooting to be financially self-supporting as soon as possible, and want to avoid taking on both the financial burden and the energy drain of obtaining and maintaining a building.

Also during this pre-launch time, New Way has been meeting during off weeks outside of formal worship. These additional events are opportunities for people to build new personal connections, spend time with friends, and build up a community beyond the setting of Sunday worship.

For instance, their September gathering was a barbecue at the pastor's house, followed by watching the University of Texas Longhorns home opener football game on TV.

On October 16, New Way partnered with a group called Friends of Pease Park to help provide much-needed maintenance to the well-known Pease Park not far from the UT Austin campus. This was following the week they heard about useful service to the neighbor during the Sunday worship they held at Austin Uptown Dance studio.

At that second worship gathering (on September 26), the band had grown from one guitarist to two guitars plus an additional vocalist. For the next worship gathering, on October 24, the band had grown to five: accoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, keyboard, and vocals. With the exception of the music leader (and for one song, the pastor, who sat in on keyboard), all of the musicians are volunteers. Mac hopes to keep it that way, and has tasked Ethan with making recruiting great musicians (and also with writing new music) as his primary responsibility outside of actually leading music on Sundays. Austin is rightfully called "The Live Music Capital of the World", and high-quality music is both expected and achievable, given the disproportionately large population of musicians-of all genres-living in the city.

Each of the worship gatherings so far has included several people for whom it was their very first New Church worship experience. But beyond that, in some sense, every single participant is a "newcomer". Some are long-time independent readers of Swedenborg, and many others have been baptized into the New Church already, but some of them had no idea until recently that there were other Swedenborgians living nearby. So while only a few each week, so far, are totally new to the New Church and the Writings of Swedenborg, many more of them are still new to one another.

So far, very little advertising has been done beyond some experimental forays into Facebook ads. Mostly, things are growing purely by word-of-mouth, and through free email subscriptions to "News from New Way Church".

Once the basic pieces of the church fall into place and are working smoothly, that will change, though. A significant portion of the budget at New Way Church is dedicated to traditional advertising. Most of the dollars will go to a series of direct mail postcard campaigns, with the rest going into online advertising. This will especially be the case during the six weeks leading up to the big public launch of weekly gatherings on February 13.

Even after that point, though, personal invitations and email subscriptions will continue to be the most important tools they use to let the people in Austin know that there's a new kind of Christian community-a New Church-now available for them to participate in.

If you are interested in receiving their free emails, which contain readings from the Word, inspirational quotations, articles on applying doctrine to real life situations, and news about when (and where!) New Way will be meeting next, send an email to Mac@NewWayAustin.org.

[This article was originally written for the denomination's newsletter, Around the New Church. Click here to go to our website, www.NewWayAustin.org, for more information.]

I've got two areas I'd like to talk to you about today: upcoming worship gatherings, and upcoming service opportunities.

First, let's talk about worship. This Sunday we will be celebrating the Lord's Holy Supper together. If you have never participated in a Holy Supper before, I want you to know that it is a very simple, yet very powerful spiritual practice. The Writings for the New Church call it "the most holy thing of worship." But don't let that intimidate you! It's a big deal not because it's only for the holiest of people, but because it is a way that ANYONE can symbolicly approach the Lord. And this time around, we will be celebrating it just as the Lord and his disciples did the very first time: as a community, gathered together at tables. I hope that you can make it to this very special worship gathering.

Next, we have Thanksgiving. Due to a bunch of feedback we've had from you over the past month, we will be gathering for a brief (half hour) time of worship at 10 a.m. at my house on Thanksgiving. This will be an even more casual event than our usual worship gatherings. It will be a simple opportunity to pray and to express gratitude before moving on to our various family meals and football game watching.

Now let's talk about ways to serve others with New Way Church. Ethan Daum has set up an opportunity for us to be the church to some kids who are facing a hard Christmas season. Through a program called "Holiday Wishes", we will be adopting the Christmas wish lists of several children who are currently in the care of Child Protective Services in the Austin area. Some of these kids may never have received a Christmas gift.

What does that mean? Well, there are three ways you can participate. First, you can sponsor a child (or several) with a financial donation. Second, you can shop for gifts, using donated funds or your own funds, from kids' wish lists. Third, you can help wrap gifts by joining us at the Partnerships for Children facility on Saturday, December 11th. Gifts will have to be delievered to Partnerships for Children by December 10th, or to the pastor's house (which may be closer) by December 9th.

Finally, I want you to consider helping out at one of our worship gatherings. We collect a financial offering at every gathering that goes to pay for rent, materials, and two and a half salaries. Everything else, though, is done by volunteers, and will be for some time. And volunteering is fun and easy! Here are some ways you can participate as a volunteer at New Way Church:

• Help with the kids program
• Be a greeter
• Bring refreshments
• Set up the altar
• Help set up chairs
• Help clean up the space afterward
• Play an instrument
• Sing

No long term commitments are needed, here! But I encourage you to try out one or two over the coming months. I think you'll find that doing so will increase your enjoyment from participating in the life of the church.