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Our Mission
 

Christ Jesus, and St. John, His Forerunner, both began their ministries with the same message: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" This was, and still is, a call for the world to awaken and realize that the Kingdom has come to this earth in the Person of our Lord and Master.  As the mission statement from the strategic plan of St. John church says,

It is the will of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to join heaven and earth. In our worship, we praise the Most Holy Trinity. In our disciplined lives, we follow in the footsteps of the martyrs and all the saints made perfect. In our fellowship, we seek to love one another as Christ loves us, that all men may know that we are His disciples. In our evangelistic and other outreach work, we share the love of the Most Holy Trinity with the people of Central Texas. Through all these things, heaven and earth are united.

Like our Patron and Protector, our mission is to prepare the way of the Lord: first in our hearts, then in the world around us. Because the Church is the Kingdom of God in this world, we encourage attendance at the divine services and at other activities so that we may draw closer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the Holy Mysteries and through fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the kingdom.

Our History
 

With the blessing of Metropolitan PHILIP of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, and with the encouragement of Father James Kenna, the pastor of St Elias Orthodox Church in downtown Austin, we began meeting together in the fall of 1993. Soon, Father Stephen Rhudy was appointed as our priest, and we started serving Great Vespers on Saturday evenings in a classroom graciously donated by St. Matthew Episcopal Church. In January 1994 we began serving Great Vespers and the Divine Liturgy in a rented meeting room at a local Holiday Inn. In April of 1995, we moved to our third location, a 2,000-square-foot storefront. The "Northwest Mission" officially became "The Mission of St. John the Forerunner" when Metropolitan PHILIP granted our request to name St. John as our Patron in December of 1996. In June of 1998, we moved to our final rented facility, a former Baptist church building at 3605 Adelphi Lane.

In July of 2002, Father Stephen Rhudy was transferred to South Glen Falls, New York, and Father Aidan Wilcoxson was assigned to our mission. In February of 2003, our community purchased 4.2 acres with a house at 800 W. Park St. in Cedar Park, a suburb of Austin. From June through September of that year, we served Divine Liturgies at a La Quinta Inn and rotated Great Vespers through members' homes while the house was remodeled. We began having services at our Cedar Park location in October 2003, and, early in 2004, Metropolitan PHILIP notified us that we were no longer a mission, but a full-fledged parish (scroll down for more).

It wasn’t long before we filled up the house in which we were meeting, so, in the fall of 2004, we formed a building committee. In 2006, we began a three year capital campaign, and, in 2009, we started construction on our new multi-use facility. We held our first services in this building (which will eventually become our fellowship hall) in January of 2010. Of course, that’s just the bare bones outline of our history, and it focuses primarily on geography and real estate. What it doesn’t address are the many wonderful stories of faith and courage and piety. But even in this brief format, the providential care and great mercy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are clearly evident because despite meeting in various temporary settings for the past sixteen years, our community has grown in a way that is steady and healthy. We currently have 170 members, over a third of whom are children, and we are looking forward to a bright future in the Kingdom.

Our People

St. John the Forerunner has over 170 members, a third of which are children, and is growing rapidly.  All of our services are in English, and our church family includes both "converts" and "cradle Orthodox" believers. We are blessed with a Deacon, Subdeacon and four tonsured readers, several chanters, and a choir. To see more pictures of our church and members, click here!