Vision
We envision individuals, communities, and cities restored.
Mission
We maximize and catalyze individual, community, and city restoration efforts.
- Physical: Restoring the broken relationships with our surroundings
- Social: Restoring the broken relationships with other people
- Emotional: Restoring the broken understanding of who we are
- Spiritual: Restoring the broken relationships with God
Beliefs and Values
Beliefs (We believe these things to be true):
- The Gospel is the only complete motivation
- All people are impoverished and undeserving
- God designed the church to be the hope of the world
- Incarnational living is essential to meeting all root needs
Values (We value these things as critical):
- Maximize what exists; don’t duplicate
- Catalyze others’ missions
- Development is necessary
- Be humble
- Keep it simple
- Think strategically
History
The initial concept of The For the City Network was birthed in 2008 from a vision cast by the leadership of The Austin Stone Community Church. The heartbeat of The Austin Stone is to be more than just a church in the city–more than just part of the city or a mere observer of the city–but to be a church for the city of Austin, advocating for its renewal and restoration.
To reflect this mission, they considered starting programs that would attempt to accomplish a variety of things–students succeeding in school, homeless moving into stable housing, jobless connecting to regular employment, sick finding healthcare, families restoring brokenness–but after spending time researching best practices across the city and nation, they quickly realized that there were many great organizations, institutions, ministries, and grassroots efforts already doing extensive work in communities.
The leaders at The Austin Stone did not want to reinvent the wheel, duplicate services, and in turn, use resources inefficiently. Instead, they wanted to maximize what already existed and help others do more by mobilizing volunteers and encouraging collaboration and partnership. And if nothing was going on in a particular area of town or around a particular need, starting a new program would then be considered.
It was through this desire that The For the City Network was born in January 2009.
Now a 501c3 nonprofit corporation, our desire to be for the city by maximizing and catalyzing individual, community, and city restoration efforts has become the driving force behind our goal to be a resource for the entire city, not just one church. The For the City Center serves as a physical representation of this desire to connect organizations.
If The Austin Stone invests money and time into creating this, we don’t want others to reinvent what has already been established.
So that’s how this began and has since progressed. We believe we can do immeasurably more together than apart. Let’s partner in being for the city.
