Acts2Network — Attraction in Austin

This church is very demanding in terms of time and mental effort and so it is a great way to consume your college experience at UT without realizing it. Gracepoint makes you always feel like you're not doing enough, as there's always another prayer meeting or devotional time you feel obliged to attend due to messages and leaders that (whether intentionally or not) pressure you to attend.

After a while, I found myself both guilty when I didn't attend something and desensitized to the messages because the content is essentially the same in theme every time -- "You're a sinner so repent! But it's all cool because Jesus." I literally just heard this yesterday. I have not forgotten. I have learned and I can actually process it if you give me time. Something else, please? Perhaps on how to be a real friend to people instead of treating them as a unit to evangelize to ahem?

Personally, I have experienced many inauthentic relationships that feel real for a long time in this church, as well as a very small few real ones. Between the devotion you are pressured to have and the amount of time you are pressured to spend inside the church, the culture is pretty exclusive so it's hard to make many friends outside of it, so this was very hard for me.

Still, there's a lot of good fun to be had and you might be drawn in by the sense of mission the church has, just be warned that you are asked to sacrifice a lot of stuff that you may think aren't relevant, such as the infamous "dating policy" which very strongly "encourages" you to not date in college. The church is very conservative if you are wondering, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I can imagine many people feeling much guilt and internal conflict about things that they might not originally feel are wrong. It is important to note that it has been common experience that for many people it is very hard to leave the church after a while because of how much devotion it wants in time and...

I first visited the church about a year after it was planted, and even back then I was pleasantly surprised at the sense of warm and close community that had already formed. That day was a special service where some freshmen brothers were baptized, each sharing their own story about how they came from places far from God to wanting to surrendering their lives through how God revealed himself through this church.

Fast forward to today, years later, I myself have joined the church with my family. Those same guys are still here, now having matured much in faith and actively loving people and sharing the Gospel. To me, their personal spiritual journeys are a glimpse into the kind of life-transformation that I'm continuing to witness, through all the times in the Word together, the fun fellowship, and the sharing of lives that goes on day after day.

The church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners. No church is perfect, but for many like myself, this has been the place of our broken lives being transformed by God. And these former strangers are now the people with whom I get to serve and follow Jesus, and have a lot of fun doing...

They offer a free meal to homless under 30 but highly segregate who they feed.

I have hypoglycemia and have a federally registrated service dog for such.

I was denied food four days before Christmas even though I qualify and was turned away because of my dog.

I offered proper identification for me and my dog and was met with "We don't even know if a federal service dog registration even exists :)"

These people are a corporation to make money and have nothing to...