Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Paring will have conversations with church planting pastors and leaders from around the country. You can learn more about how to connect with Excel at the end of this podcast. Let's join JD now and listen in on this leading conversation. Welcome to another edition of the Leading Conversations Podcast with Excel Leadership Network. And today we are thrilled to have with us the incredible Eric Bryant from uh Gateway via Mosaic in Austin, Texas. Thanks for being here, Eric.

Speaker 1: 0:45

And thanks for having me, JD. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Yeah. So what do you do in Austin these days?

Speaker 1: 0:53

So I've been here 15 years. I'm the South Austin campus pastor. Uh worked for many years with John Burke. He's the author of Imagine Heaven, uh Soul Revolution, among others. And now our senior pastor teaming up with Carlos Ortiz Jr. But we're in a very um unique mission field. Uh we it's kind of anti-Christian, post-Christian here in South Austin. And uh and yet we're seeing God do some really beautiful things.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Great, wonderful. Well, thanks for being here. Hey, tell us your story growing up, how you came to Christ, all of that.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Yeah, I was really fortunate. I was raised in a home where mom and dad took me and my brother to church, even when we didn't want to go. And uh I remember going in through the front door, saying goodbye to my parents. This was in middle school and going out the back door to jump on a trampoline with my buddies that lived in the neighborhood. Uh, but at 17, I was at camp and I actually had an encounter with Jesus. You know, at age 10, um, my grandfather had died. And so I remember there at Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, going to the front. Uh, but it was more of a fire insurance. I did not want to die and go to hell. I wanted to know I was going to heaven. But really, from 10 to 17, I wasn't really walking with Jesus. And so at 17, I was in the bus uh trying to do what we called back then our quiet time there at camp. And I just remember praying um and and surrendering my life to him and finding a level of peace, a level of um forgiveness that I didn't know was possible. And it was after that I really wanted to try to actually follow Jesus and live for him. And so it changed how I treated people, it changed the words I said, uh, the things I watched, things I did. Um, but it was the beginning of a real walk with him that I point to back uh a long time ago when I was 17 years old.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Well, you know, Eric, was we do these podcasts and listen to people's stories. There is a large number of people who came to Christ through some sort of camp experience. And we've kind of battered around the idea, you know, people don't really do that as much. It's expensive, you know, the week-long camp or the weekend camp. Um, but it's just amazing the number of people. I mean, that's my story too, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:32

So it's it's a big investment, but you know, uh, especially nowadays, I think even more important, you know, we we have a no-phone rule, you know, for camp. Uh, and it's amazing how these young adults and teenagers just really connect with God and with each other in ways they don't normally do.

Speaker 2: 3:52

So you're still doing them there in Texas?

Speaker 1: 3:54

We do them still here in Texas. We've tried different seasons, you know, we've done kind of over the Dr. King junior weekend, uh, so kind of a winter camp, but but we keep coming back to the summers and really spending a lot of time with our teenagers in hopes that you know that that what is that uh statistic? 80% of people who come to faith do so between the age of five and 15. And so if we can reach them when they're young enough, disciple them in our homes, uh send them off to college with a firm foundation. That's kind of the goal.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Yeah, well, well, keep it up. I'm glad that you guys are still doing that. Hey, uh you you came to Christ, you want to follow Jesus. So, was there a call to ministry in there somewhere?

Speaker 1: 4:43

There was another camp. It was uh Falls Creek in Oklahoma. Uh, I grew up in the Dallas area, so we we went all the way up to Oklahoma and they had a rule, uh, no mixed bathing, which basically meant we couldn't swim with the girls, and so all of a sudden, that's all we wanted to do. You know, and uh so I remember me and some of the buddies sneaking around to watch the girls swim. And then I remember thinking, this is ridiculous. We could, you know, we just saw these same girls a week ago at Wet n Wild. You know, what are we doing, you know, doing this? And and I remember during one of the uh services, the sermon, uh Dawson McAllister was the speaker, and he started talking about Luke chapter 10, verse 2 uh the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And I remember hearing that verse and thinking, Is it is God calling me to be a worker? You know, is I I wasn't sure if I want to be a doctor or a pilot. I didn't know what I was gonna do, but all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, becoming a pastor seemed like a possibility. And I remember talking to our senior pastor who was on the trip with us, his name was John Bobo. I said to him, Dr. John is what we called him. Um You know, I I wonder, do you think I might be called to be a pastor? During that message, I really felt like maybe he was talking to me. And he said, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what he's calling you to do. You know, there was something really uh affirming about the way he handled it. In fact, he ended up saying, you know what, why don't you actually preach this Sunday night? And I thought, well, wait, I'm still trying to figure it out if this is for me or not. And because Sunday night after camp was testimonies, he just kind of canceled the testimonies and wanted me to preach, gave me 30 minutes, and didn't really show me how to prepare a message or anything. And I I wrote up what I thought God wanted me to share and got up, and about seven minutes later, I was done. I I had run through all my material and he jumped up and and you know, he'd been pastoring so long he could improvise another 20 minutes and kind of infuse some testimonies from telling stories about what happened during the week. But that was the beginning of a realization that I wasn't just called to follow Jesus, I was called to become an equipper of the saints. I I came to realize later, you know, my parents were unwilling to pay for a religion degree as a bachelor's degree. They thought it was just a phase I was going through. And this is when I was still in high school, about to go off to college. And so I got a business degree, and they figured if he still wants to do this, he can go and pay for seminary on his own. But eventually I realized, you know, the importance of uh a calling to be an equipper of the saints and not the doer of the ministry. You know, we're all called as followers of Jesus to be actively a part of the body of Christ on mission with him. And, you know, I've been working at a church uh for 35 years in one way or another. My first job at that same church was a janitor, and then I became a youth pastor through college, then went and helped plant a church as a youth and college pastor in Seattle, then part of the team at Mosaic uh for 12 and a half years, and now here for almost 15 years. So it absolutely was my calling, is my calling. In fact, ended up marrying a girl who before we ever met had sensed a calling to be a pastor's wife. And so that was another affirmation along the way. But yeah, there was definitely for me a moment and a verse that God used to really get my attention. Harvest is plentiful.

Speaker 2: 8:40

That's all right. So it all started with mixed bathing. That's I remember when I first heard that term. I mean, I grew up in Southern California. We had a pool in our backyard, we had the neighborhood kids over. My mom was just very hospitable. The whole neighborhood was over every day during the summer. And then uh I came to Christ and I I I moved uh out of California and I heard about this term mixed bathing.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And I think it sounds terrible, of course. It it sounds scandalous, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yes, it does. But um, hey, talk about the church planting experience in Seattle and also your time at Mosaic.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yeah, I mean, church planning, this was the mid-90s. It was um at the time uh a strategic focus city. So there's the giant denomination, the Baptists, Southern Baptists really targeted Seattle. And so I joined two others from Dallas and we moved up there. We joined up with a guy who had moved to Seattle from Oregon, from Portland. He'd already planted a church before. And to be honest with you, it was a it was a difficult experience. We ended up inheriting uh 13 senior adults that were kind of meeting in this building without a pastor. And the denomination said to the the church planner, if you'll take care of these senior adults, you can use this building to plant. And that was probably the worst idea possible. Uh these sweet older folks had uh really no intention of being a part of something new. They just really wanted someone to visit them in the hospital and and take care of them. And uh they had sadly kind of a uh sanctuary mentality, you know, that the church was uh a respite, a rescue from the world. And we were trying to start a church to reach into Seattle, at the time, the most unchurched city in the U.S. Uh we tried a kind of a unique style, I guess, similar to Willow Creek. We had uh a Thursday night service we called Seen It, Done It, Been There, and it was kind of our seeker service, but unfortunately no one was seeing it, doing it, or showing up there. And uh and uh we had in the end kind of two congregations, uh, the people we were trying to reach through what was called the anchor, and then we also had this Brookhaven Baptist Church, and eventually we fused the two together and discovered just how uh little this older group wanted to change. Uh, but I do remember one woman in particular, her name was Ann Vine, and she started coming every Sunday. She would just turn off her hearing aid because it was, you know, electric guitars and drums a little louder than the hymns and piano, you know, that they would use to hearing. But she came every week because her grandson was there. And she was the first to really buy in to this whole idea of trying to reach our city. And she uh was such a great uh encouragement and contributor all the way until she passed away. And that church went on for about 14 years. Uh, eventually sold the building to another church called Mars Hill, and uh it became one of their campuses. But in those four years that I was there, we saw some really beautiful, remarkable things happen. People finding faith that would have never gone to another church. Um, just working with Gary Irby and Dave Bruskus and Norm Finch, these men that were really leading it, uh, they just had uh such a heart. And and we saw some really neat things happen. Uh Dave Bruskus went on uh to continue in ministry. Norm's now an attorney, and uh Gary's the strategic uh church planting strategist for the Northwest Baptist Convention.

Speaker 2: 12:43

Yeah, I know Gary. Do you? Yeah, we need to get him on the podcast here. That's a good reminder. Hey, I want to thank you for um for you know plowing the field. The when when I was planting in the 80s and 90s, 2000s, and all that. Um the the older churches were very reluctant to let the the new yes and whippers snappers in or whatever. And uh part of that has changed, and a lot of it is because guys like you and your team, you went in there, you you took the hits for the people today. There's so much more of that happening now. That's beautiful, it's so good. It's becoming more common and uh a valid option. And I would say in the mid-90s, it would probably like pulling teeth, and then you deal with some older people that don't have any teeth to be pulled anymore.

Speaker 1: 13:38

That's right, that's right. Well, that's really encouraging to hear. It's it's I mean, in many ways, it's it makes so much sense. You know, how beautiful is it to be a good steward of the resources God has given you in a building, for example, to then pass it on to a younger church, a newer church. It just makes so much sense. It's just sometimes really hard. I remember after going to Seattle, I was at Mosaic with Irwin McManus for many years, and I remember hearing him say that too often we care more for our traditions than we do our children. And I remember really thinking that sadly summarized my experience in Seattle with that older group, other than, like I said, you know, one or two. But it it really is so important that we have an eye towards kind of the long term, you know, and in the next generation.

unknown: 14:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:32

Now, how did you get to Mosaic?

Speaker 1: 14:34

So I was up in Seattle, and because it was a difficult time, um, I was ready to go uh a couple years into it. And uh uh I ended up becoming the co-pastor with Gary Irby for the third and fourth year that I was there. And so I was ready uh for a new challenge. And I I had been to a a conference that at the time, the Church on Brady hosted, and in it, I mean, I was meeting people who had come to faith three years prior and were now serving in Afghanistan. Like it was just remarkable seeing these uh brand new believers going all around the world as missionaries, and I just wanted to be part of something uh healthy and vibrant. And so I moved there. Well, I wanted to move there in '96, but my wife had just gotten into occupational therapy school at the University of Washington. So that meant two more years of serving in Seattle. And what was really beautiful about that is there was a lot of uh character development God did in me over those two years. And then we moved just to volunteer at Mosaic. Uh, the idea was to be there for six months and then go overseas to be missionaries, but the mission board said no, you need to stay there at least two years. And so in those two years, I went from being a volunteer to uh becoming our student pastor. And then our son was born, had a lot of medical problems that slowed down any possibility of moving. And we lived in Alhambra, California. And ironically, we had originally thought we'd go to Spain as missionaries. We wanted to be a link between the Latino world and the Muslim world. My wife had a Spanish degree. I wanted to tell people about Jesus who had never heard. And we looked at uh Granada, Spain is where we were headed. And one day it dawned on me, oh my goodness, we live in Alhambra, California, which is named after the palace in Granada, Spain. And our kids would end up at Alhambra High School had we stayed there the whole time, which their mascot is the Moors, which is Muslims, you know. So I had the right idea, wrong continent. Uh, but in the 12 and a half years we were there, whether I was a student pastor or starting campuses uh or an executive pastor, we they they called me a navigator. I saw so many remarkable uh people uh serving faithfully, coming to faith from different backgrounds and ethnicities. It was uh a time where creativity and dance and paint, you know, was kind of being reintroduced. Uh we were meeting in a nightclub on Sunday nights. Uh, we were in multiple campuses, multiple locations before any other church I knew was doing that. So it ended up being a really uh amazing time, a beautiful season. Still really uh grateful for that time and for that ministry, even as they came to the.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Were you um part of helping the Beverly Hills campus get going? I was, that's right. Oh, okay. My when my son was at UCLA, one of my sons uh he was going there when I'm there.

unknown: 17:47

Right.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Yeah, that is amazing. Yeah, it was funny. I at one point I was the the junior high or the high school pastor, and Irwin asked me if I would also consider helping with junior high, and I said, yes, uh, but could I also take on college? And he said, sure. So I ended up starting a college group um and teaming up with uh six of our small groups that were on the west side, and we started a campus. Originally we were meeting at UCLA, then at Beverly Hills High School, and then we were over at uh Culver City Senior Center. So yeah, there were many inter iterations of the West Side. And eventually, after I moved to Austin, uh, even the West Side group moved into Hollywood where they were for several years. But yeah, I was part of that small world.

Speaker 2: 18:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was there at Beverly Hills High, and uh family who went there. Hey, uh uh, so how did you get to Gateway in Austin?

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, it's it's uh it's kind of an amazing story, really. My wife and I had aspirations for overseas, but once we had our two kids, and I sadly became a workaholic. And there was a time in about 2005 and 2006 where I was writing a book, I was working on my dissertation, I was the navigator uh overseeing seven campuses. I would travel with Irwin around the world. So I just was really too busy for being a dad of two little kids and a husband to one very devoted wife. And so at one point she said to me, Eric, I don't know if I want to be married to a pastor anymore. I thought, well, that's not good because that's what I am. And and and obviously that's you were called to be married to a pastor. Like, so I must not be living up to what God has really called me to be. And I said, Well, if you'd give me one more year, I would love to uh try to regain your trust. And so, in the midst of that, uh, we went to counseling and I got the help I needed to be more uh faithful. And it was really kind of this remarkable season where um, you know, I I wasn't exactly sure how we were gonna make our way through it. But her solution, she had thought, if we move to Texas, maybe then at least I'll be close to family, even if he's gonna be so busy. But then um all of a sudden, uh moving to Texas was something that I brought up to Irwin. I said to him, after we were getting counseling and things were getting better, she was okay being a pastor's wife, but wasn't sure about Los Angeles. I said to him, What do you, you know, what do you think I should do? Deborah keeps talking about uh moving to Texas. And he said, Well, I would never want your ministry to get in the way of your wife's happiness. I thought, Well, I've I've never worried about that. Should I have been worried about that? And uh he said, You know what? I think you need to go plant a campus in Austin. And you could continue to lead kind of our campuses uh from there. And so for about a week, that was the plan. Then my wife and I met with this couple who was planting a church in Las Vegas, and after that conversation, she said, you know what? I don't want to plant a church in Austin. Can we just stay here? And I said, Yes, we can. And so I went back to Irwin and said, Hey, instead of moving to Austin, can we stay? And he said, Absolutely. And uh, so that was the plan. A year goes by, and suddenly uh instead of it being something my wife was talking about, I started sensing from God um a desire, uh, even a calling to move back to Texas. I have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins here who aren't necessarily connected to God or church. And it was kind of all these really remarkable supernatural ways. I remember reading Ezekiel chapter two and three, and it said, Go back to your countrymen, those stubborn and obstinate people. And I thought, well, that sounds a lot like Texas. You know, sounds like I got this uh fortune cookie that says, When you move to the east, your creativity will blossom.

Speaker 2: 22:18

And what about you're getting your guidance from fortune cookies? Okay, we got it.

Speaker 1: 22:22

Not normally, but at this moment, and then I I remember praying one morning and just kind of walking to LA Fitness to work out, and uh on the way, I'm just praying, God, you know, is this from you or is this me? Like, are you wanting us back in Texas or are you wanting us to stay here? And I remember walking into the gym and immediately hearing this song I had never heard before, never heard since, on a loudspeaker. And the chorus is come back to Texas. It's by the guys who sing the theme song for Phineas and Ferb. And they talk about, you know, it's not been the same since you went away. Come back before you lose your accent. So I just uh went to my wife and said to her, I know you said we could stay here. I know I've never wanted to move, but I I think God might be calling us to move back to Texas. And she said, Well, I'm so glad you said that because I just had a dream last night that we sold our house, but we did not buy a new house in LA. And uh, so this time it was uh out of an actual calling uh rather than out of retreat. Reached out to some friends that lived in in Dallas and Houston and in Austin, and eventually started having conversations with John Burke and Charles Dissinger here at Gateway in Austin. It just seemed like a really great fit. Uh, they also have a real heart for those who are not yet part of the church. In LA, we would say you can belong before you believe. In Austin, we say come as you are. And so there was a real heart for being a church for people who um aren't necessarily welcome in other places. And so, yeah, it's hard to believe. I've been here 15 years coming up in a few months, but it's been a really great fit. It feels a lot like the West Coast, uh, but it's a couple hours away from family and where we grew up.

Speaker 2: 24:21

Wow. Well, that's that's an amazing story. Come back to Texas, huh? Yeah, I gotta check out that. I gotta check out that song. Yeah, it's amazing. So, what are you doing now?

Speaker 1: 24:32

Yeah, so I've been able to be part of you know this campus uh for a while before the pandemic. We were a campus planting campus. We sent out 60 people to start uh campus in central Austin and another 70 to start a campus in Butah, um, about 30 minutes south of here. We sent three families up to Pflugerville. We had another group ready to go in dripping springs, and then the pandemic hit. And so we would have been navigating. I was a part of the executive team uh during the midst of that, and we went through a succession from John Burke to Carlos Ortiz, and and so it's been a really busy season of, but also a really I think beautiful season. We really have a sense of calling to become not only a place where people can check things out and explore God, but a place where people can really become who God created them to be, making disciples who make disciples. And there's just a real heart towards simplifying, getting back to the basics of what it means to be a church. And so I've really loved this whole process. You know, it meant scaling down campuses, it meant uh a smaller staff team, and those can always be challenging changes to go through. But our campus uh has just been a real extended family, really, to me and my wife and to our kids who really grew up here. And it's been really beautiful. And I have some friends together. We're doing something called the Innovative Church Leaders. You can go to our website, innovativechurchleaders.org. So we have a podcast and resources. We're really just trying to help pastors experience and bring renewal to their mission field. We talk a lot about spirit-led innovation and reaching new people that you aren't necessarily already reaching and making disciples. So that's become a real passion of mine. Some people, when they have kids move out of the house, you know, grow up and have that emptiness, they play golf. I prefer to invest in pastors. And so that's kind of what we do on the side. What's the website again? Innovativechurchleaders.org. And you could also see some of what I'm doing at ericbryant.org.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Okay, good. We will we will check that out. I'm gonna ask you about a leadership tip, but I have another question for your wife. Sure.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:56

When I was in college, I met my wife with the back of the bus coming back from camp. And I mean, I knew her and I had a big crush on her, and uh, we kind of connected at the camp and on the way back. There's a snowstorm and we were stuck, and we went for a walk, and she said, What are you gonna do? I said, I think that's called me to be a pastor. What about you? And she said, I want to be a pastor's wife.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Oh wow.

Speaker 2: 27:17

So 30 years later, after we'd started three churches and we handed off the last one, she said, Um, hey, I'd really like for us to take a break here from this. So we did, and she said, You know, I never really wanted to be a pastor's wife. I said, What? She said, That was just some line. So you might want to check that with your wife. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:40

That's a great, I'll have to follow up later to make sure.

Speaker 2: 27:43

I was stunned.

Speaker 1: 27:45

That is that would be shocking.

Speaker 2: 27:47

She has some just incredible leadership, and she has way more pastoral gifts than I do.

Speaker 1: 27:54

But uh that that was like, okay, so the last 30 years has just been a well, it sounds like she's been far more effective than most. And you know, I I found in my ministry settings, you know, Seattle, LA, and Austin, there weren't a lot of expectations on pastors' wives. And I think my wife has kind of her own ministry as an occupational therapist working with autistic kids. You know, she does ministry or her work in Spanish. And so it's it's a lot of what she wanted to do even before I met her. But she, similar to your wife, she has so many empathetic, you know, pastoral skills. She helps me with every message, she helps me go into difficult conversations. She'll sit there with me and and be a part of guiding couples going through a crisis. So I think for her, at least, the the version of but of being a pastor's wife for her has worked. She doesn't lead our kids' ministry, she doesn't lead our women's ministry.

Speaker 2: 28:55

She doesn't play the piano.

Speaker 1: 28:56

No, no, that's right. So it's a little bit different than others.

Speaker 2: 29:00

Well, hey, give us a leadership tip, Eric.

Speaker 1: 29:02

You know, I think one of the things that I've always held on to, and in fact, I wrote about it in my second book. Uh, the first book I wrote came out of my time in Seattle and LA called Not Like Me. It's about reaching people who look differently, vote differently, make different moral choices than we do. But the second book was about uh becoming who God created us to be. It's uh it's called fruitful, and it's really based on the parable of the sower and just this idea if we can avoid being the first three types of soils, and we'll naturally become the fruitful soil, the good soil, you know. So learning how to hear God's voice instead of having a hard heart, learning how to overcome trials, not giving up when things get difficult, and overcoming temptations, you know, putting off or taking off the old to put on the new. I've I've honestly allowed that passage to be what God guides me. It's Almost like I don't have to strive, I don't have to work hard. I have to simply yield and surrender and and uh carry that yoke that Jesus wants to carry with me. And in doing that, just trusting him with what's right in front of me, there will be fruit. You know, I will see fruit, I'll experience fruit. You know, the fruit in the scriptures is both uh fruit of the spirit, you know, transformation in my character, but also fruitfulness in terms of seeing people follow faith, you know, following Jesus and and finding faith. Paul talked about the harvest that he had among us. And so for me, just uh learning to lean on Jesus and letting him guide me, uh surrendering throughout the day, that has helped me learn to lead faithfully and even sometimes effectively when I let him uh really guide me.

Speaker 2: 30:56

Wonderful. I'm I'm looking at your books here on Amazon right now. Yeah. Fruitful and not like me. Did you have another one?

Speaker 1: 31:05

I'm working on a third. I mean, I helped Erwin with another one called the Uprising Experience. It was part of Promise Keepers back in the day.

Speaker 2: 31:13

Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Um, and but yeah, I'd be happy to send you a couple copies, JD, if you'd like. And uh yeah, just thanks for the opportunity to share this conversation.

Speaker 2: 31:22

Yeah, well, thank you so much for what you're doing. Thanks for being in the game for so long. And yeah, you've been in not your typical Bible belt cities of Seattle, LA, and Austin. And I just appreciate your willingness to go in and uh uh be the fourth type of soil there, the fruitful soil. So thanks so much for being here today.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Thank you, JD. God bless, keep up your great work.

Speaker 2: 31:48

Thanks for joining the Leading Conversations Podcast. We hope that you found it both helpful and encouraging. At Excel Leadership Network, our focus is on the church planter rather than the church. If you'd like to find out more about us, visit our webpage at Excelnetwork.org. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. See you next time with another leading conversation.