Outreach With Austen Case

Mike, Ian, and Austen at Stone Willy's, while regular customer Phil looks on. He eventually stayed the whole night. It was a great time of making contact with people.

From left, Mike on cajon, Allie on vocals, Ian and Austen, guitar and vocals. On the street in Twickenham.

I used to play in a ministry band called Robert Case Band. We travelled a lot. That’s how I got out of the United States and became interested in planting Calvary Chapels in other parts of the world.

Robert married Kim and had three children: Allie, Ian, and Austen. And some decades later these three came to Twickenham (with Mike Monjay, drummer) to do a week of outreach July 4-12. I marveled that I could be discussing logistics with them as I used to do with their parents. 

We did outreach on the street in Twickenham, on a street corner I’ve always wanted to try out. I also had the group play at Stone Willy’s Pizza in Hampton. The owner was there and stayed the whole night, even through the Bible study taught by Ian. Reza asked me, are they coming again next week? The group was excited by the openness and enthusiasm of the people who haven’t yet received Jesus.

There were parts that weren’t as successful. Playing a concert at the study in Maidenhead didn’t work out. The Saturday night concert at Twickenham Academy was poorly attended, even by the church. But even then there were a family I didn’t recognize, and a woman brought her aunt (who was not a believer) and she had a great time talking with members of the church. She enjoyed the concert and came Sunday for the bring and share meal after the service.

One thing that came out of this was I felt like I want to keep the music happening at the restaurant. I asked Joanie to lead worship so we could have Mike Ragrag on cajon and me on bass. I’m also working on what to do when Joanie can’t be there.

Austen, Ian, Allie and Mike did a great job. We hope we can do outreach with them again.