Come Away with Me...

If your heart needs mending, come away
When a soul needs tending, come away.
Come away with me, to a place where you can be
in a quiet, sacred time, in a simple state of mind.
Come away with me and rest now, come away.

Our Story

DaySpring Baptist Church was begun in October of 1993 by seven families who were seeking and needing a new church experience to be borne out of pain and difficulty in their lives. While their decision to worship together and ultimately to start a church is certainly not unusual, what became of it seems to be.

What might we do differently if it were just up to us?

The first families of DaySpring made choices early on and also happened into some ways of being together as a community that have become central to our mission as a church. Perhaps most significant was the decision to not even consider calling a pastor in the first year. They wanted to rely on one another to carry out the traditional pastoral functions of worship leadership, teaching, planning, and care giving. They wanted to learn, but they also saw this as a kind of experiment; “What might we do differently if it were just up to us?” These first months of being together and shaping church without pastoral leadership proved to be very important. They felt challenged and unencumbered. They listened.

Infancy 

This New Testament kind of experience of being together and experiencing God in worship became their primary reason for being. They did not move to create traditional programming and church structures. Although some of this was a natural result of being a new and smaller congregation, it also, in their infancy, was a kind of philosophical premise. They began to sense that, in their past church experiences, other things had become too important. Their collective suspicion was that too much “church busyness” would impact the quality of their worship.

"The Sunrise" 

Immediately they began to experience the community they were building as a healing and renewing one. This soon became an identity and eventually an articulated mission. The name “DaySpring,” the Sunrise, had been chosen from Luke’s birth narratives and this name was naming their experience. This was fresh. Church was the place to experience hope, the place to be filled up and sent out, not the place to be consumed. DaySpring wasn’t an end in itself. This was the thrust of their ongoing conversation about who they were and who they would become. They were convicted that institutional maintenance was not spiritually transforming.

A Place of Rest

In their embryonic stage, this small group was living this philosophy more than they were articulating it. They were deliberately saying “no” to some things. They would not worship on Sunday nights (a break from Baptist tradition). The church would not be driven by numbers and by the craving for church growth. Worship would be designed primarily to nurture disciples rather than to be “appealing” to the non-churched. The organization would not be stagnated by committee processes and structures that would drain the vitality of the church.

They put their emphasis on creating worship and tending to the relational, intergenerational fabric of the community. They were choosy with programming, sensing that the community, not the programming, was the instrument of spiritual formation. They were saying “no” to things in order to keep the “Sabbath” holy and keep it as a day of rest for people, trusting that to be together in worship and fellowship was enough and that God would use that. They were saying no to being dependent on clergy.

Sacred, Simple

This is the ecclesiology that they discovered together and which was articulated informally and eventually formally as the church's life developed. Now the philosophy is appropriately reflected in the slogan and mission statement, “DaySpring... Sacred, Simple.” We have become for many in the Central Texas area, a place of rest and renewal. While DaySpring has continued to evolve and grow and change, the identity and values that developed during these early days is still central to all we do and believe.

Liturgical Seasons

The spiritual rhythm of the year traces the life of Christ and the life of the church through the liturgical seasons. Each has its own gifts to offer us.

 

Advent

Our story commences with four weeks looking forward with anticipation toward the celebration of Jesus' birth, the fulfillment of Israel's hope and the fulcrum for all of God's promises for the world. In Advent, we look backward at the fact that Jesus has come for us once and watch forward, eager for Jesus to come for us again.

 

Christmastide

Christmastide, another name for the Christmas season, lasts for the 12 days after Christmas until Epiphany. This is a time to reflect on Jesus' Incarnation. White is the color for Christmas.

 

Epiphany

The Epiphany celebrates the visit of the Wise Men to the Christ Child and the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles -- marking Jesus' mission of moving into the world and making himself known. Epiphany enters us into Ordinary Time, where we remember all Jesus' works and words.

 

Lent

Lent is a time of preparation and repentance, as we look toward the hope Jesus won through his cross and resurrection. Lent is 40 days (the number of days Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness and one day for each year Israel wandered in the desert). However, every Sunday during Lent is a feast day, a day for celebrating Resurrection. 

 

Holy Week

Holy Week begins with the sixth Sunday in Lent, which is Palm Sunday, and runs through Holy Saturday. It also includes Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The days of Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) serve as the climax of Lent and preparation for Easter.

 

Easter and the Great 50 Days

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ from the dead. Easter lies at the center of the liturgical year and has been observed at least since the fourth century. Easter is a 50-day season of feasting and joy.

 

Pentecost

The word "Pentecost" means "fiftieth day".  Pentecost reflects on the time the apostles and early followers of Jesus were gathered in the upper room for the empowerment from God to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world. And now, the Church lives in God's mission for the world.

 

Ordinary Time

After Pentecost, beginning with Trinity Sunday, this longest season of the church year invites us to live out both the ordinariness and the power of Christian faith. Ordinary time celebrates "the mystery of Christ in all its aspects," and the parts of Jesus' life that were ordinary, much like our own lives.

 

Christ the King

Christ the King Sunday celebrates the all-embracing authority of Christ as King and Lord. The church year ends with a celebration of our hope of Christ's just and merciful reign over all creation.