Mission Houston History

A Brief Story of God’s Activity in greater Houston

How do you tell the story of God’s activity in a metropolitan area the size of greater Houston? It has as many perspectives as there are people involved. The gift of hindsight allows us to reflect on our experiences and recognize some of God’s hand at work. For more than a decade we have seen evidence of God accelerating the uniting and mobilizing of His church in prayer, compassionate outreach, and proclamation of the life and hope found in Jesus Christ. Motivated by passages of scripture like Psalm 133, John 17, Jeremiah 29:4-11 and Isaiah 58, increasingly in these past dozen years God has used a variety of mouthpieces to call the Body of Christ to a level of relational and functional unity that has not been experienced in Houston in our lifetime. With apologies for leaving out the names of people and ministries that have made significant contributions along the way, for the sake of brevity here are some highlights of our history that provide a snapshot and serve as grateful reminders of what God has been doing..

A Chronology of Significant Events

1995: Discover Your City seminar told stories of communities experiencing fulfillment of God’s promise to bless wherever the church is united; and 40 days of prayer and fasting at “Prayer Mountain” was a transdenominational experience that led many to repent of divisions and cry out to God for unity in the church and in our city.

1997: the 1st greater Houston Pastor’s Prayer Summit: 180 leaders spent 4 days in prayer, building relationships, and envisioning a city experiencing spiritual and social revitalization; the concept that greater Houston is our mission field gave birth to the name: “Mission Houston”

1999: establishment of Mission Houston as a 501 (c) 3 ministry, with Jim Herrington as the founding director with a staff team of leaders who left pastorates and careers, to teach the principles of community transformation that were emerging in the global church and to mobilize the Body of Christ in the greater Houston area to pray and to work in unity to show and share the gospel.

2001: after helping establish 70 community-based pastor prayer and relationship gatherings, the MH staff recruited and began training 22 community Catalysts (now called community Facilitators); Tropical Storm Allison produced over five billion dollars in damage, but Lakewood Church and Second Baptist Church became unifying points in mobilizing the whole Body of Christ to serve the most devastated members of our communities

2002: the Union Baptist Association and Mission Houston agree to jointly share responsibility for LeadersEdge, a leadership development process; initiation of the Houston Profile Project to research the spiritual and social needs and characteristics of 45 distinct communities (Community Study Areas became Community Serving Areas – i.e., CSAs)

2002: the launch of community pilot projects in several CSAs, and a number of them achieving measurable “progress” in connecting the Body of Christ to each other and in connecting leaders of the church to community leaders.

2003: Steve Capper succeeds founder Jim Herrington as the Executive Director, and Jim Herrington becomes Chairman of the Board of Directors

2004: Mission Houston convened leaders to prayerfully consider a proposal, and then built consensus, to bring a prayer-driven compassion and evangelism festival to Houston - eventually known as CityFest Houston

2005: the Houston Profile Project research is finalized and is distributed for use via the Internet; a planned “day of serving the city” is preempted by a season of serving the city as the Body of Christ produced thousands of volunteers and hundreds of relief programs to help in the aftermaths of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

2006: a web-based database is launched and aims to be the single-source directory of “the church” for faith-based organizations in Houston; 30 Community Service Area teams are developed and mobilized to promote and support CityFest Houston with Luis Palau, resulting in “makeovers” in 26 elementary schools and a two-day festival attended by over 230,000

2007: Over 1000 volunteers answer the call from Mission Houston to serve the city and improve the safety & security of Houston's children by cleaning overgrown lots that posed neighborhood hazards; on behalf of the Body of Christ in Houston, Mission Houston received the Mayor's Proud Partners Award from Mayor Bill White for its leadership in the 2007 Citywide Compassion Project called 'Love You Lots!': a successful partnership between the City of Houston and the Christian communies.