Apply now for the one-year residency at Gateway Church in Austin, Texas! This is designed to prepare leaders to plant or lead AsUR churches or campuses. An AsUR church creates a safe place where people can “Come as they are…” no matter where they may be in their spiritual journey. This approach is the most effective way to reach and disciple in a post-Christian environment.
From John Burke’s website:
“We’re starting an AsUR residency at Gateway Church in Austin. Why? “The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center.” We may be planting churches, but we’re losing the hearts of our generation. If you’re a leader whose heart beats fast when you think of starting an AsUR church or being an AsUR Campus Pastor to actually change this trend, or if you know someone like that—read on and pass this on!
What’s an AsUR Residency?
A one-year residency at Gateway Church in beautiful Austin, Texas will prepare leaders to plant or lead AsUR churches or campuses. Austin has been voted best city to live in on many counts, but significant for the future church are the number of twenty-somethings and people from all over the world who flock to Austin for high-tech jobs and a creative, fun-loving atmosphere. Learn hands-on what it takes to engage people of all backgrounds from across America and around the world!
Here’s why you should consider an AsUR residency:
- More is caught than taught. We’ve assessed over 15,000 church planters through GLI’s Church Planter Profile website. What we found is that most church planters are not prepared to reach the culture around them. On Gateway Church’s annual survey, 60% of our people indicate that they started actively following Christ after engaging our community. Experience how leadership, culture creation, and systems must work together to allow people to Discover, Develop, and Deepen in faith.
- Cultivate experiential learning. Cultivate is GLI’s 9-month curriculum built around 60 experiences to help you actually develop an AsUR community by learning and doing what entrepreneurial leaders must do. This is not theory-based, but real-time, practical development. Cultivate offers 9 hours of seminary credit through Bethel Seminary, and can be done in conjunction with other seminary classes.
- Interact with people in process. It’s one thing to theorize how people might go from lost to leading, it’s another to interact with them. The AsUR residency will give you real-time interaction with people still exploring faith, those new to faith, and people who came to faith and are now leading others. You will pick up far more than we can teach about how our 4 Core Values get lived out to create a loving, dynamic community with people in process across the faith spectrum.
- Gain mentors, friends, and community. Interact weekly with me and our staff, along with other church planters and network leaders. We want you to have mentors who have gone before you, but also a community of friends to support you in your leadership.
If you want to read more about Gateway Church and God’s amazing work of changing lives, No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You are Culture in the Church is a great place to start. Learn more about the AsUR residency and get more information about Cultivate.
