I asked the church's worship pastor, Aaron Ivey, about the church, about Austin, and about the special and weighty calling placed on creatives.

Congratulations on the new release. This is obviously not your first time releasing an album as a church. Does this one feel a little different, a little bigger? How are you feeling?

We feel really good. We feel totally humbled and honored that God would let us keep making stuff honestly. We met this morning just as a team and I think the overall feeling that everybody was having was being floored that God keeps letting us do this because He definitely doesn't have to let us have any songs or make anymore music for our church, but we just feel really honored and floored that He keeps letting us do it.

Tell us a little bit about your church there in Austin, The Austin Stone. 

We love our church. Personally it's my dream job. It's the most healthy and vibrant church that I've ever been to. My wife and I have been here for seven years. We moved to Austin seven years ago and I've been the worship pastor here that entire time. God is just doing some really incredible stuff in the city of Austin and in our church.

The church is primarily made up of college students and young professionals. Austin is a very young city. It's a transient city, so people are usually here for three to five years at a time. We've got a ton of universities here and a lot of creative stuff going on here in the city of Austin. 

The church kind of looks like that. It reflects the city of Austin. Over the last couple of years God just continues to bring more people to our church. We have five locations that meet all around the city. It's a dream sort of setup.

You've got to tell us about the unique name of this church.

The church was started about 12 years ago by two guys: Our founding pastor, Matt Carter--who is still our lead pastor--and then a guy named Chris Tomlin, who's a really good worship leader that you've probably heard of.

Those two guys started the church 12 years ago and Chris was the worship pastor here for six years. The church's name actually came from Chris. Chris was like, "Jesus is the cornerstone. What if we just craved God to be the cornerstone of the city of Austin and why don't we call it The Austin Stone?"

I wasn't a part of that original planting team, but everybody on that team was like, "Yep, that's the name. That's it." That's where it came from. I love the name. It's very Jesus centric and it's really our heart's plea for what our church would be that it'd be a church that's built on Jesus and Jesus alone and be a church that's for the city of Austin.
 
With this new project, really the themes that kind of come forward is the love and trustworthiness of God. That's really at the center of it. What was this birthed out of? Is there something happening in your church, in the midst of your church that sort of fueled this?

I think one of the most important aspects of being a follower of Christ is to admit that you're broken and to admit that you are a messed up person that is desperately in need of Christ, whether you're a believer or nonbeliever. It's to have that heart that says, "I'm a messed up person and I need somebody to repair me."

Just a huge conversation and culture in our church is basically it's OK to say you're not OK and healing and freedom comes from confession and repentance. It's OK for you to look across the table from me and say, "I'm falling apart right now. I need help."

I think the songs came from that, which is very real in our church and our city, of realizing how much we need God. Personally, for me, realizing how much I need the grace and mercy of Jesus to endure and for our city of Austin where there's just a lot of brokenness. It's a fun city. It's a creative city, but there's a lot of hurt. There are a lot of wounds and brokenness and I think just the general feeling in our church is we've got to understand that Christ alone is trustworthy and we are people that are busted and broken and need Him.

That's where that theme came from, just living life here and sensing what God's doing in our city and our people, if that makes sense.

It sounds like it really just pours out of your value as a church as well. This album was a live recording; who came? What was the setup? What was the vibe like? 

A year ago we started a thing called the Worship Collective here at the Austin Stone, which was a monthly gathering for all of the artists that go to our church. It doesn't matter what your art form is. Once a month we get together and we eat a really good meal. We pray together. We receive communion and we worship and then I'll teach something about art and creativity and serving the kingdom with art, that sort of thing.

A year went by and the night that we recorded that, that recording is our worship collective. That's who was there. It's our community of artists all in that circle, in that room, worshipping together.

What's cool -- this is what I love about it the most -- that most people will never ever know, but the films that you're talking about and the photos, that wasn't a thing or an event or something that we did to record an album. That was one of our worship collectives. That's just what we do every month together.

You talked about you want to be in a place where creatives come and feel free to create. Really your staff is stacked with talented people who have their own albums and projects in their own right, and you do as well. Talk about the importance of that aspect of your team and the ability to do things individually.

God's always used artists for really incredible things, always. I don't know why He came up with that idea, but God is always using artists to help adorn the temple and adorn gathering places for people and even to share the gospel, and present it in a very different way than even speech or written words could accomplish. He's always chosen them to do that.

For me, I always want to see artists in the church thriving and being healthy and I think one of the things that helps an artist be healthy is to constantly be creative and to have people in a community that's affirming that. 

All of our worship leaders, all of our staff, they're all individually creative people and when they come be a part of our team or staff, we don't want to ask them to stop doing that so they can just work at church. 
 
You're in such a music city, a creative city. Does the environment affect what you're trying to do creatively?

It definitely does. I think one of the most ironic examples, to answer your question, is our church, our main campus meets downtown. There's a river that runs downtown. It's beautiful. That's where SXSW kind of hangs out. That's where Austin City Limits happens, and big music festivals that come through town are all downtown right on that river. It's beautiful.

So our church meets right there as the best bands in the world come to Austin, Texas, drawing 80,000, 90,000 people to not just enjoy music, but be a part of something that's really big.

So ACL is going on and then the same day our church is going on on the other side of the river and I think what's so beautiful about that is it's kind of caused our entire team to say, "The best art should really come from those that have Christ and are dreaming and thinking about heaven all the time. That's where the best art should come from." I think I'm kind of over the Church saying, "If it's good enough for Jesus, then it's OK." I'd be like, "No man. You have the Holy Spirit of God in you. You have the risen Christ that is your Savior and your King and the Author of creativity designed your life and your story. If you're an artist, you should be the absolute greatest and best artist that you could possibly be." 

Don't be a sub-par alternative to what's around you, but be right in the mix. That's great. How has the community responded?

One of the most honoring things that's ever happened ever, the most honoring thing, was not some award or something that was on some chart or whatever. The most honoring thing that our team has ever experienced is when Austin City Limits festival invited Austin Stone worship to play at the festival.

We were just completely blown away, totally blown away because it was a bunch of worship leaders on stage playing at ACL. It was fun. It was amazing.
 
That's incredible. What is next for you guys? Are you sensing a draw as a worship movement to bring what you do to a larger audience with this album coming out and just reaching more of the Church? What are you guys sensing now that this album is out what's next?

That's a great question. It never started out with we want to release music so other people will listen to it. It started out with what are the songs that our church is singing, the songs that are coming from our team for our church, and how do we get that in the hands of our church so that they can have these songs Monday through Saturday?

Always next step for us is thinking about our own people here. We write songs with that in mind. So twice a year we have a songwriting retreat where we're looking at what all the sermons are for the next year, what all the themes are, and we're writing songs around those themes. Basically saying, "God, what are the words, what are the themes that You want your people to be singing right here in Austin?" So really, this is just the overflow of what's going on here. It's this outward expression of little Austin Stone in Austin, Texas.

How can people be praying for you guys?

I appreciate that. We have almost 150 people moving to the city of Austin every single day. It's unbelievable. This city is exponentially growing and is very, very unchurched. There's just a lot of brokenness in the city of Austin and the thing we're constantly praying for is we want the 150 people a day that move to Austin, we want them to hear the Gospel and we want them to know Christ. 

Personally, I just want to continue to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit wants the people of God to be singing here in Austin.