Written by Ben Cox – Founded in 1876, First Baptist Church at Austin and Fisk is celebrating a new pastor and a newly remodeled sanctuary this weekend.
Mark Towns will be preaching his first sermon in the sanctuary on Sunday, despite having been the head pastor at FBC for two months now. Moving to the area from Missouri, Towns felt a call to ministry in an unusual place. “When I was in college, I was throwing boxes in the bailer in a Sears stockroom when I felt God call me to the ministry.”
The son of a deacon, and grandson of a man with perfect Sunday school attendance for over 25 years, to say Towns was raised in the church is an understatement. “It’s no wonder I had it on my heart to do that because of my upbringing.”
As a staffer for a student conference in 1994, Towns says he surrendered to ministry after “the preacher asked if the crowd thought that God needed their help deciding what His will is for your life. All I could say was no, so I went down and spoke to their counsellors and said I’m a wreck!”
Entering the Christian Ministry program at East Texas Baptist University, Towns was called as a pastor only three months after preaching his second sermon. From there, he has preached in four other churches before being called to FBC.
The sanctuary is in the last stages of preparations for Sunday Service. All new paint, and refurbished hardwood floors are but a few of the updates.
While preaching at the church his parents had been married in 40 years earlier, a visit from his father clarified his vision for the church with a single statement.“My dad said ‘it looks like you want to relax the structure of the church and empower the people’ and I was like, WOW, yeah, that’s exactly what I want to do.”
Towns wants to motivate his church into action, to have the people be the church, not the building. “We put so much stock in the structure of the church being where the all ministry is, but the Spirit is in the people. If you put all the stock of ministry in the structure of the church then the people sit around and ask what are they supposed to do?”
A conversational preacher, Towns says he likes to use a style popularized by Andy Stanley that revolves around the phrase ‘Me, We, God, You, We.’ This means Towns has to feel moved or impacted by a topic or message, before the congregation can. After that, he turns to the Bible “to see what God says about it.” Towns will then look at how it impacts you personally, and then what the church can do about it.
Towns is excited to begin a new chapter in his ministry, and looks forward to getting to know the town and its residents. He, his wife Amanda, and their four children are looking forward to learning what “Feels Like Home” really means.
Sunday school is at 9:30, Morning worship starts at 10:50, and evening worship is at 6. The church can be reached through their website, their Facebook page, by calling 325-646-8505, or by stopping by for church on Sunday.
