Gateway Church meets in a beautiful southwestern looking campus in North Austin, made up of a few buildings and a courtyard/coffee shop atmosphere appropriate to the outdoor lifestyle of the city. Sunday always feature top-notch music and meaningful, but I learned quickly that they are more concerned about the people than the show.
Before visiting Gateway, I read planter/lead pastor John Burke’s book No Perfect People Allowed where he unpacks many of the unique questions asked by post-christian/postmodern cultures. I loved how Burke backed up every point with stories of people who have been impacted by the work at Gateway.
I was most curious about how the Church would live up to it’s radical focus on the unreached in Austin. I quickly found that what was true about the book was also true about the church. I asked everyone I met how they ended up at Gateway, and many of them had the same story: they had never gone to church before, heard a cool advertisement on the radio, or were invited by a friend, and decided to give a try. They came back because of the cool music, and stayed because they were challenged by the teaching and embraced by the community. I even met two or three of the people I had read about.
Near the front door was a table where two volunteers- both of them new to faith, explaining the wide variety of ministries, including many focused on young adults and singles, so it’s an easy place for a guy like me to get plugged in. Gateway’s missional focus can be seen by the resource they devote to Emerging Leaders Inititative, which plants churches radically focused on reaching non-Christians.
Gateway seems committed to excellence and to gathering non-believers, engaging them in Christian community.
I struggled to see the big deal is with Halter and Smay’s The Tangible Kingdom. But by the time I got to the end of their memoir/ecclesiological manifesto, I found myself anxious to get back to church as they describe it. Tangible describes an unpretensious church, where the unchurched and dechurched can belong before they believe. It shows the messiness of doing life with those who are far from God. It also paints the church as a simple, organic body that is more like a gathering of friends than a rock concert. Halter and Smay are more interested in telling stories than laying out structure, which may be the books only downfall. It shows you what your posture should be, but leaves the questions about how to organize.
With the hype about The Shack it’s hard to narrow what to say about it. I will say this: it is an incredibly important book. Young’s allegory of a man overcoming tragedy and coming to know God gives us a deep understanding of our brokenness and the wholeness of the trinitarian relationship God invites us into. Those who focus on the short comings of Young’s picture of God don’t get what he’s trying to do. For one thing, the Trinity is the deepest mystery of the Christian faith, so it’s naive to think any one parable would capture it all. Despite it’s shortcomings, The Shack has given us an image of a divine relationship, and something to work towards in our walk with God and others.
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