Simon Cox Blog: One-on-One with Randy Frazee about Pastoring and a New Initiative Focused on City Reaching

Monday, 31 July 2017

One-on-One with Randy Frazee about Pastoring and a New Initiative Focused on City Reaching

Become an advocate for people in your city who don't have hope.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Randy Frazee. Randy is the founder of a new work based out of San Antonio, Texas called Hope4RCity.

Ed: You grew a church from 4,000 people to over 10,000. But you've left to focus on city reaching movements. Why did you make this transition?

Randy Frazee: I've been a pastor now for 28 years. My biggest vision when I was 15 years old was to pastor a church of 500 and then die. At the age of 28, I became pastor of a church of 500. Rozanne and I made a deal with God: I'd already checked off my vision, so we’d live out His vision for the rest of our lives.

That's taken us on a 28-year journey. I’ve been pastor of three churches, and the past nine years I’ve been at Oak Hills, where we've experienced that tremendous growth. I started waking up every day with a stirring that I should give more of my life to the big social issues in our city. I tried to become involved as a senior minister, but I found that to be very difficult because of a lack of margin and focus.

This change is causing a lot of people to shake their heads; but at the same time, I’ve talked to many pastors who are inspired by the idea of focusing less on the levels of sound in worship and instead becoming an advocate for people in the city who don't have hope.

Ed: What is the project you’re now developing?

Randy: The non-profit is called Hope for Our City. Our goal is not to create anything new, but to bring a robust network together, focused on the needs of families and children, bringing the love of Christ. We have a partnership of churches, Christian CEOs, more than 400 non-profits and foundations, and even the government, coalescing to see if we can all point in the ...