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Our Mission Jesus Christ, 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 God has become man, in order for man to be deified—this fact demands a change of direction, a repentance, for each of us! 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, our mission is to prepare the way of the Lord: first in our hearts, then in our families and the world around us. Because the Church is an "outpost" of the Kingdom of God in this world, we encourage attendance at the divine services and other activities so that we may receive grace from our Heavenly Father through His sacraments, and through fellowship with "fellow citizens" of His kingdom.
Our History With the blessing of Metropolitan PHILIP of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, we began Byzantine Rite services in the fall of 1993 as a church-planting effort of St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church in downtown Austin. Our first services were 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 which was finished out to our specifications. The "Northwest Mission" officially became "St. John the Forerunner Orthodox Church" when Metropolitan PHILIP granted our request to name St. John the Forerunner as our Patron Saint in December of 1996. On June 27, 1998 we moved to our final rented facility, a former Baptist church building at 3605 Adelphi Lane, only a block from our old storefront.
Our first priest was Fr. Stephen Rhudy, who
relocated to Austin with his family from Ben Lomond, CA in the fall of 1993. In
July of 2002, Fr. Stephen moved to South
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Our People
St. John the Forerunner has about 150 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!
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home
The
most joyful of our location events, however, came In February, 2003 when St.
John purchased a 4.2-acre property at 800 W. Park St. in Cedar Park, TX, as our
permanent home. From June to September, we held Divine Liturgies at the La
Quinta Inn in Georgetown and rotated Great Vespers through members' homes while
Glens Falls,
NY to pastor St. George Orthodox Church, and Fr.
Aidan Wilcoxson was assigned as our new priest. Fr. Aidan received his Masters degree from
Indiana University in 1982, his M. Div. from Perkins School of Theology in 1987,
and is a graduate of the Antiochian Archdiocese's three-year St. Stephen's
Course in Orthodox Theology. He was ordained into the Orthodox Diaconate in
1998, and to the Priesthood in August 1999. Fr. Aidan served at Holy Cross
Orthodox Church in Wichita Falls, TX prior to moving to the Austin area in
August 2002 with his wife, Cynthia. Fr. Aidan and Khouria Cynthia have two
adult children, Katie and Brendan.
