The Ops Team: Who We Are and Who to Call

Who We Are

The Ministry Operations Division supports the ministries of The Austin Stone as an organization and as a church. Our primary aim is to support and enable ministry effectiveness in pursuit of the church’s mission to love God, love the church, love the city, and love the nations. We hope to empower, enable, and build up the church for an increasing capacity for ministry for the supremacy of the name and purpose of Jesus Christ.

The Ministry Operations Division is made up of four departments:

1. Facilities Maintenance and Operations: Maintaining and operating our buildings.
2. Facilities Development: Constructing and remodeling our buildings, and managing leases for buildings.
3. Information Technology: Planning, implementing, and managing our central technology infrastructure.
4. Finance/HR: Planning, managing, and stewarding our people and capital resources.

Our teams are incredibly grateful to be on this journey with The Austin Stone, and we love being a part of all that the Lord is doing here. Please see the resources linked for more information about our departments and how the Ministry Operations Division can help support you in our church’s mission.

What We Do

Facilities Maintenance and Operations Department

Our Facilities Maintenance team helps to keep our facilities running well. Some examples include: fixing broken items, maintaining items well to prevent future damage, managing the systems that serve our buildings (plumbing, HVAC, electrical, access controls, etc.), and creating policies and procedures around building use (who, what, when, where, why). For any maintenance issues in our facilities that need to be addressed or fixed, please fill out this Maintenance Request Form. 

Our Facilities Operations team helps support the ongoing operations of our facilities, which includes scheduling janitorial and security needs, managing all tenant relationships and obligations, serving as the central point of contact for all external events, supporting the maintenance team with systems, signage, and key distribution, and providing overall guidance on how to use our facilities. 

In striving to be both wise stewards of our resources and excellent in service over all of our facilities for our congregations, tenants, partners, and guests, our facility operations and maintenance team has moved to a model that centers all our efforts on physical locations. Now, one person from each team will serve as location experts to best support all the activities and needs for any given facility. See below for the point person for each facility:

Specific Facility Support

All Facilities Support

Please see below for any additional questions related to all facilities:

Facilities Development Department

The Facilities Development Department is responsible for building the church’s facilities, which includes constructing new buildings, remodeling existing buildings, and negotiating and executing lease agreements for the church, as both landlord and tenant.

Constructing new buildings

The South congregation campus, and the staff offices are some examples of new construction. New construction projects are typically part of a broad church wide plan, initiated by strategic leadership, funded by central resources, and fully overseen and executed by the  Facilities Development Department. 

Remodeling existing buildings

Remodeling projects come in many shapes and sizes, and not every project is approached in the same way. While the Facilities Development Department should be engaged and consulted for every remodeling project, the actual execution of the project might play out in a variety of ways depending on scope, complexity, department priorities, and available budget. For a general overview of different types of remodeling projects, please refer to this article. Damon Andrews, the Facilities Development Department Director, is the point person for any remodeling questions, so please reach out if you would like to discuss.

Negotiating and executing lease agreements

There are many external organizations that have access to space in our facilities through a lease agreement. Some examples are the Canyon Creek Preschool at the Northwest campus and World Relief at the For the City Center. 

The church also leases space from a few external organizations. An example of this is how our Downtown congregation leases space from AISD and Austin High School. All of these agreements, in which we are either the landlord or the tenant, are negotiated and executed by the Facilities Development Department. The Facilities Operations Team manages the ongoing, day-to-day tenant relationship, as described under the Facilities Maintenance and Operations Department section above. 

For all questions and referrals about leasing opportunities, reach out to Phillip Drake - Real Estate Manager.

Information Technology Department

The Technology Department is responsible for the planning, implementation, and management of our central technology infrastructure. Some examples of infrastructure include CCB, Google, Asana, Slack, internal networks, other technology, etc. 

Finance Department

The Finance Department tracks the stewardship of financial resources given from our body, provides financial clarity though tools, training, and infrastructure to our staff, and assures compliance with governing authorities. 

See below for a topical list of who to best contact:

Human Resources Department

Human Resources (HR) supports, equips, and protects our organization by providing the tools and resources for managers to steward the most important resource God has entrusted us with: our people. HR is responsible for compliance, payroll, compensation, benefits, hiring, onboarding, offboarding, and development.