Families worship and serve together at Katy church

Members of Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy perform general maintenance at Saint Matthews Baptist Church in nearby Simonton. (BP PHOTO: Courtesy of Kingsland Baptist Church)

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KATY (BP)—More than 3,000 people of widely varied ages worship each week at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy. Bucking a decades-old national trend, children past nursery age sit with their parents during Sunday morning worship.

Pastor Ryan Rush views family togetherness as a significant aspect of home life, church life and denominational life at Kingsland.

katy childrenwork425Children work alongside adults on “Caring for Katy Sunday,” a community outreach ministry of Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy. (BP PHOTO: Courtesy of Kingsland Baptist Church)“The family has been ordained by God as the foundational place for faith to take root and grow,” Rush said. “The decline in healthy home life, then, is a crisis with far-reaching implications that must not be taken lightly.”

Spiritual revival is key in achieving God’s design for the family, Rush said.

“This cultural decline of healthy home life is a problem too great for political or educational efforts to change. We must turn instead to spiritual revival, and we are convinced that God has prepared Kingsland for this important moment in history,” Rush said. 

“We have a vision of seeing 10,000 homes transformed by the power of the gospel in the next 10 years through our ministry, church planting, missions endeavors and providing resources to other congregations.”

The church invests in a variety of local-to-global ministries entire families can support.

“We have teams out about 40 to 42 Saturdays a year serving the Greater Houston area,” Missions Pastor Omar Garcia said. “We mobilize our small groups to take ownership of local initiatives.”

The church also sees itself as part of the larger Baptist family, as evidenced by its support of the Cooperative Program unified budget. For the last 14 years, Kingsland Baptist has given 10 percent of its undesignated offerings to missions through the Cooperative Program, in addition to its hands-on support of national and international missions causes and its generous support of seasonal missions offerings.


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katy packboxes425On “Caring for Katy Sunday,” members of Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy pack food boxes for families in need. (BP PHOTO: Courtesy of Kingsland Baptist Church)“If we can invest in something for the glory of God and not worry about who gets the credit, that’s really going to help us advance much quicker,” Rush said. “The Cooperative Program allows us to give and trust others in our denomination to make a huge impact. That generates a lot of excitement in our people for missions.”

When parents and their children work together in missions, it builds memories of serving together, helps spread a passion for missions to future generations, and strengthens the small group the family is a part of, Garcia said. He casts a vision to the congregation “to live incarnationally, to see the need and respond accordingly, as Jesus did.”

“You have to live out your faith in a way it makes a difference by loving and caring for people as Jesus did,” he added. “Doing so has made a difference at Kingsland. … We have work in 20 countries and take 12 to 15 trips a year overseas.”

‘Caring for Katy Sunday’

The past eight years, the first Sunday of March has been designated “Caring for Katy Sunday.” Kingsland members—armed with $125,000 and a variety of tools including paint brushes, lawn care items and trash bags—have used Sunday worship time to spread across the community, meeting the needs of city residents at 60 to 100 sites.

Through small groups, the church mobilizes 3,000 volunteers annually to work with an informal “urban alliance” to meet needs its partners in Greater Houston identify.

Five years ago, the church started 10K, 5K and one-mile runs/walks named “Just Run for a Just Cause,” raising money and awareness about human trafficking. The event has become a local favorite with area runners, even as it supports ministry in India.

The church works with international partners and with people who have moved to Houston from other countries. People disillusioned with their traditional religion have made professions of faith in Christ.

Partner churches

The church partners with Southern Baptist churches in Texas, New Orleans, Montana, Idaho and Chicago. It has started four churches locally, and another eight or more across the nation.

A Houston suburb known for having the largest outlet mall in the nation, Katy “is a community of relative affluence,” Rush said. “People come to Katy from all over the world for their children. They define family success the wrong way—college, sports. We’re ministering to a group of people in our Jerusalem who are unfulfilled and broken and don’t realize their own poverty.”

That’s one reason the church emphasizes family ministry.

“We equip moms, dads and grandparents to disciple their children,” Rush said. “We take great care to capitalize on the milestones of each child’s life. We send home every Sunday ‘faith talks’ based on the sermon. We worship together with all generations so children can experience the joy of worship and the example of their parents (and say): ‘Hey, Daddy’s worshipping Jesus!’”

Healthy homes reflect God’s image, where the attributes and character of God are taught so children can come to know who he is and why they should follow his guidance rather than their own thinking, the pastor said. 

“Every problem is a family problem,” Rush said. “The only hope for our nation is to transform the home. The theological undergirding of the family has come to a place where it’s more critical now than ever to know who God is and what he says. … The future of our culture is on getting this right.”


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