Three Sunday Services on Ranch Road 620
Lake Travis United Methodist Church sits on the north side of Ranch Road 620 in Lakeway, on a rise that overlooks the lake and the surrounding Hill Country neighborhoods. What started in 1989 as a small startup congregation has grown into a multi-building campus whose three Sunday services each draw their own kind of crowd. At 9am the Sanctuary fills for a traditional service with the adult choir, a classic Methodist liturgy, traditional hymns, scripture readings, prayer, and a Bible-based message. At 11am the same Sanctuary fills again, this time with a praise band leading contemporary music in what the church describes as a blended service that keeps traditional liturgical elements and adds praise songs. On the second Sunday of every month at 6pm, the lights go down and candles come out for a Taizé service of simple repetitive songs, scripture, prayer, acoustic music, and Holy Communion.
Holy Communion is celebrated at every Sunday service - 9am, 11am, and the 6pm Taizé - and the table is open to all, including children. Communion is received by intinction: a server hands each communicant a piece of bread, which is then dipped into a common cup. Both regular and gluten-free bread are offered with grape juice, and pre-packaged communion wafers and cups are available for those with health concerns. The services typically run 60 to 75 minutes.
First-time visitors are handed a Connection Card to fill out if they would like information about groups, have a question, or want to be remembered in prayer. Nobody is asked to stand, introduce themselves, or be singled out. There is no assigned seating. Tables and chairs in the back of the Sanctuary give anyone who wants more room a hard surface for drawing or taking notes.
What to wear is left to the visitor. The church calls itself a casual environment where some dress up - men in coats and ties, women in dresses - and many arrive in blue jeans, shorts, tee shirts, and flip-flops.
Both Sunday services are livestreamed through Vimeo and remain available in a video library for catch-up viewing. Facebook and YouTube stream the services in standard definition as well.
Founding Story and Mission
Lake Travis United Methodist Church was launched in 1989 as a small startup church with a big dream of becoming a church on the hill that would welcome people and offer healing and hope to the families of the Lake Travis area and beyond. The first thirty-five years, the church has said, were an amazing journey with countless people finding greater hope, purpose, and meaning in their lives.
The life of the church is now organized around three sentences. Its purpose is to build a Jesus-centered community where all people are welcome and are moving from wondering about spirituality to becoming fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. Its vision is that of the United Methodist Church: to form disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections. Its journey is to know, love, and serve God.
The senior pastor is Rev. Jason Surdy. The associate pastor, director of music ministries, and pastor of worship, prayer and care is Rev. Patty Highland. Myles McKemie serves as the lay leader. A 12-member Leadership Council, with a chair, three team leads for Facilities, Finance, and Staffing, the lay leader, two clergy, and a council secretary, oversees the direction of the church. Council members serve three-year terms, with four members voted on each year at Charge Conference.
Kids from Nursery through Fifth Grade
The Kids Center, a separate building on the same campus, hosts the children's ministry for infants through fifth grade. The nursery opens at 8:55am and stays open until noon for children age three and under. At 9am and again at 11am, four-year-olds through fifth graders begin in the Sanctuary with their parents, hear the early parts of the service, and then are dismissed after Kids Time to the Kids Center or the Patty Rosemurgy Chapel for Kids Worship. At 10am, the same children gather at the Kids Center for a Sunday morning Bible class.
All ages and classes explore the same Bible story each Sunday morning, using the Hyfi digital curriculum and the Big Faith series. Kids Worship invites children to explore their faith in the context of their everyday lives, with storytelling, video, age-appropriate hands-on activities, and a chance to reflect and share.
For families who prefer to keep their children in the Sanctuary for the whole service, the foyer has Worship Bags with paper, crayons, and fidget busters. The front of the Sanctuary holds a Prayground - small tables and chairs, baby swings and seats, and soft toys - designed for infants, toddlers, and the parents of small children who want to see and hear the service from up close.
The check-in system is KidCheck. Parents create an account ahead of time, check in at a kiosk in the Worship Center foyer or Kids Center, and a printed tag gets the child to the right classroom and back to the right adult. Everyone connected to the children's program is certified through Safe Gatherings, the United Methodist Church's required screening program for those who work with children, youth, and vulnerable adults.
Madeline Daulton is the children's ministry director. A new Club 56 ministry for fifth and sixth graders bridges the gap between Kids Ministry and Student Ministry with its own Sunday school class and a calendar of fellowship events.
Student Ministry in the Loft
Middle school and high school students have their own space: the Student Loft, upstairs in the Activities Center. On Sunday mornings at 10am the Loft hosts Sunday Spark, a Sunday school gathering for sixth through twelfth graders. On Sunday evenings at 5pm during the school year the Loft hosts Sunday Night Vibe, a Sunday evening hang. On Thursday nights the student ministry is in the gym, playing pick-up basketball from 7pm to 9pm.
Brady Granstaff is the student ministry director. Service is built into the student calendar. The Loft has assembled UMCOR Hygiene Kits, helped with the Lake Travis Elementary Fall Festival, and partnered with the wider church's foodshare and outreach ministries. The student ministry has its own Instagram account, @ltumcstudents, and its own email newsletter.
Adult Sunday School and Discipleship Groups
At 10am on Sunday mornings, between the two services, the campus opens for an adult formation hour that runs in parallel with kids' and students' Sunday school. Seven adult Sunday school classes meet in their own rooms:
- Life Search 101 (Room 101, Activities Center) studies contemporary theologians with rotating in-class faculty.
- Lost Then Found (Room 201) is geared toward adults who are growing older and wiser.
- Daily Bread (Room 202) works through the Daily Bread devotional.
- New Horizons (Room 203) takes up new curriculum each session.
- Let's Talk About It (Wesley Room) recently worked through a Bonhoeffer study by James Howell.
- Parenting in Hope (East Annex) explores household habits that help families draw closer to God.
- Encouragers (West Annex) combines Bible study with Thomas à Kempis's The Imitation of Christ.
Beyond Sunday morning, Discipleship Groups are gender-specific groups of four to five people who meet weekly for six to nine months for spiritual transformation. Each gathering follows the four-step CALL process: Celebrate (where did you see God at work this week?), Action (how did you live out what you heard from Jesus?), Learn It (a Discovery Bible Study), and Live It (a journal entry of what you hear and how you will respond). The church provides a leader guide, a group guide, a bookmark, and a Scripture curriculum for anyone who wants to start or lead a group. Jenni Oaks and Brian Oaks lead the ministry.
Other adult groups include MANUP, a men's Bible study with two early-morning chapters (Four Points at 6:30am on Thursdays and Lakeway at 7am on Thursdays); the Women's Bible Study on Tuesdays from 9:15am to 11am in the Wesley Room; Women at the Well on Thursdays from 10am to noon in Room 101 of the Activities Center and on Zoom; the Moms Bible Study on Tuesdays from 9am to 10:30am in the Patty Rosemurgy Chapel, with childcare provided; the Crafting Group on Wednesdays from 1pm to 2:30pm in the Wesley Room; and Young@Heart, a ministry for adults 55 and older with potluck lunches, birding, nature hikes, game nights, museum trips, and outings to Austin-area attractions.
Music Arts Academy and the Music Program
Music is woven through the life of the church. Rev. Patty Highland, who serves as both the associate pastor and the director of music ministries, leads a music program that includes an adult choir, a handbell choir, a praise team, the Worship Team that leads the 11am modern service, a Taizé ensemble, and an instrumental program for adults who play brass, winds, and strings. The adult choir rehearses Wednesdays at 7:15pm in the Wesley Room and sings weekly at the 9am Traditional service, plus special events like the annual Thanksgiving Benefit Concert for Lake Travis Crisis Ministries, a Christmas cantata, and a Good Friday service with another local church accompanied by an orchestra. The handbell choir rehearses Wednesdays at 6pm and is open to adults and high school students in grades 9-12. The Taizé ensemble rehearses at 5pm in the Sanctuary, just before the second-Sunday 6pm Taizé service.
The Music Arts Academy offers private lessons in piano, voice, and drums/percussion for students of all ages, from children to adults. The instruction runs August through May on the Lake Travis ISD calendar. Lessons are $36 per half-hour for drums and $42 per half-hour for piano and voice. Barrett Hughes, the church's Facilities Manager, also teaches drum; Ross David Crutchlow teaches voice; Vakhtang Zaalishvili teaches piano. Ross is a Metropolitan Opera National Council District Winner who has sung on Broadway and now makes his home in Austin. Vakhtang is a pianist and opera coach from Tbilisi, Georgia, who is pursuing his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin.
Care, Prayer, and the Big Life Moments
The Care and Prayer Ministry offers support across the full arc of life. The prayer team accepts requests through a connection card, the prayer request form, or the church office; each week, the team lifts up the previous week's requests. If a prayer request begins with the word CONFIDENTIAL, it stays with the staff and prayer team and is not shared in the Friday Worship Guide email. Jen Smets leads the prayer team.
Patty Highland coordinates hospital visits at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Lakeway and oversees the Mobile Communion ministry, which brings Communion to those who cannot make it to a service - at home, in a hospital, in assisted living, or in a nursing home. The Mobile Communion team will hand-deliver bread and cup wherever a member is.
Baptism is a sacrament the United Methodist Church offers at any age - infants through adults - and the church recognizes baptisms from other traditions. Weddings, funerals, and memorial services are part of the pastoral ministry as well. The Wedding Guide outlines the church's wedding policy, and a Funeral/Memorial Service Planning Guide, plus pre-planning guides for yourself and for a loved one, walk families through the steps.
GriefShare, a 13-week support program for people grieving the death of a family member or friend, runs in the Wesley Room. Each session includes a video seminar with experts, a support-group discussion, and personal study. The fall session begins the Thursday after Labor Day. Marilyn Cobb, Cheri Stringer, Becky Kuykendall, David Highland, and Lawrence Langston facilitate.
Loving the Neighbor: Communities of Hope and Other Outreach
Outreach is one of the three emphases alongside worship and community. Communities of Hope (Comunidades de Esperanza) is the church's English-language learning ministry, offering a free 11-week ESL class each fall with beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. The fall session runs Wednesday evenings for intermediate and advanced students and Thursday evenings for beginners, with an additional advanced class available via Zoom. Classes focus on employability and daily life skills, with experienced teachers, tutor support, and personalized exercises. Greeters and tutors are always needed - no foreign language skill is required for tutoring.
The same ministry also hosts a weekly Zumba class on Tuesday evenings in the Activities Center gym and a LEGO Club for elementary-aged kids on Wednesdays that focuses on growing STEM skills through brick-building challenges, with an onsite book exchange to nurture reading at home.
The Fresh Foodshare ministry distributes boxes of fresh produce through two channels. Once a month, a Trader Joe's drop through Mobile Blessings is unloaded and distributed at the Activities Center from 10am to noon. On alternating Wednesdays, a Lake Travis Fresh Foodshare distributes 15-pound boxes of fresh produce from Common Market Produce, also at the Activities Center, from 5pm to 7pm. Wesley Nurse Marley Anders coordinates.
Lake Travis Crisis Ministries is a recurring partner. Every Discovery Sunday (the fourth Sunday of each month), the church collects canned and non-perishable food for the crisis ministry, and every November the choirs of LTUMC and another local church join for a benefit concert whose proceeds go to LTCM, which provides short-term food and financial assistance and long-term education, support groups, job assistance, and counseling.
Lake Travis Elementary School, the Title I school in the Lake Travis Independent School District, is a school-wide partner. LTUMC sponsors the annual LTE Fall Festival, supports the Education Connection reading program (where volunteers spend 30 minutes a week as Literacy Partners, two 15-minute reading sessions with first through third graders), provides teacher appreciation lunches, and runs a back-to-school shoe drive that has provided 228 pairs of shoes to 82 families in a single year.
Other outreach programs include UMCOR Hygiene Kit drives, the Angel Tree Christmas gift card project, a Summer Lunch Program run with Mobile Loaves & Fishes that distributes bag lunches to area kids and adults in need, the Clothes Closet for Homeless Men coordinated with the Austin District United Methodist Men, and the work of Partners in Hope, a network of area churches that builds and repairs homes for neighbors in need on the third Saturday of each month.
Health, Fitness, and the Meditation Labyrinth
Marley Anders, the Wesley Nurse, frames the church's health and fitness program around the idea that physical health is directly related to mental and spiritual health. The Move Group walks indoors in the climate-controlled gym in the Activities Center on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at 9am, then transitions to a chair-based workout from 9:30am to 10am. Zumba meets Tuesdays at 6pm in the same gym, with a certified instructor and Latin-inspired music; childcare is provided during the school year. Mat Pilates, led by certified yoga and Pilates instructor Katie Berndt, meets Thursdays at 9am during the school year. Pick-up basketball for both students and adults fills the gym on Thursday nights from 7pm to 9pm. Once a month, on the last Saturday (with summer exceptions), Pastor Jason leads a 2- to 3-mile Sacred Steps hike at a different area trail, with a short devotional along the way.
For slower movement, the Meditation Labyrinth sits behind the Sanctuary, accessible between the Worship Center and the Activity Center. The labyrinth is a replica of the one inlaid in the floor of the Chartres Cathedral around 1200 AD, designed to quiet the mind and lead the walker in a winding route to the center, where seating allows for additional meditation and contemplation. The labyrinth was a gift from Dr. Bill Milligan, whose legacy continues to enrich the spiritual lives of those who walk the sacred path. The labyrinth is open year round during daylight hours.
United Women in Faith, United Methodist Men, and Walk to Emmaus
United Women in Faith (UWF), the United Methodist women's organization, has two circles that meet on the third Tuesday of each month from September through May: the Susanna Wesley Circle at 9:45am and the Growing Friendship Circle at 7pm, both in the Wesley Room. Three to five times a year the two circles combine for unit meetings with guest speakers, mission projects, and mission studies. The UWF supports an annual slate of local and global mission recipients, including Mission Border Hope, the Methodist Nomads, the UMCOR Special Fund, Street Youth Ministry, Partners in Hope, LT Crisis Ministries, the Joe Gorman Scholarship, the Methodist Children's Home, Hudson Bend Middle School, the Summer Lunch Program, the Women's Retreat Scholarship, the District Pledge, the Finding Hope Wellness Center, and the Angel Tree Project. UWF also leads the Back-to-School Shoe Drive and a yearly BBQ to-go fundraiser.
United Methodist Men (UMM) meets on the second Saturday of each month from 9am to 10:30am in the Activities Center gym, with coffee at 8:30am, a guest speaker, Holy Communion, discussion of current projects, and breakfast prepared by fellow members. UMM parks cars for weekly services, cooks for churchwide events, participates in cleanup days, partners with Lake Travis Crisis Ministries, builds and repairs homes through Partners in Hope and Habitat for Humanity, collects clothes for the Austin District's Clothes Closet for Homeless Men, co-sponsors events with UWF, supports the pastor and trustees, and administers the Joe Gorman Memorial Scholarship, which provides scholarships to graduating high school seniors for accredited universities, colleges, or trade and technical schools.
Walk to Emmaus is a 72-hour short course in Christianity that begins Thursday evening and concludes Sunday afternoon. The walk features talks by lay and clergy on the themes of God's grace, the disciplines of Christian discipleship, and the life of the church, all wrapped in prayer, meditation, worship, and a daily celebration of Holy Communion. Men and women attend separate weekends. The walk is grounded in the Upper Room ministry of the United Methodist Church but is open to all Christians. The LTUMC Emmaus Coordinator is Joann Robison.
The Campus and Giving
The church's physical plant is built around a Worship Center, an Activities Center, a Kids Center, East and West Annex classrooms, and a Meditation Labyrinth. The Worship Center holds the Sanctuary, the Wesley Room with its own kitchen, the Music Arts Academy, church offices, and restrooms. The Activities Center holds a commercial kitchen, an elevator, a gym with restrooms and a shower, a Student Loft, and offices for the Student Ministry, the Wesley Nurse, the Finding Hope office, and the Partners in Hope office. The Kids Center holds the nursery, classrooms, a kitchen, the Patty Rosemurgy Chapel, the Preschool, and the children's ministry offices. The LTUMC Preschool is housed in the Kids Center and has its own director (Maria Turner) and program at ltumcpreschool.org.
Church members can reserve rooms for church-sponsored events, submit newsletter items, sign up to provide flowers or food baskets, and connect to the church directory through the online Realm Connect system. A mental health resources list compiled by the church provides referrals to area counseling and crisis services, including Integral Care, the Samaritan Center, the Austin Center for Grief and Loss, Blue Moon Senior Counseling, the Finding Hope Wellness Center, the Family Eldercare In-Home Counseling program, the Hill Country Counseling Center, Plumeria Counseling, Waterloo Counseling, the YWCA, and more.
Giving happens through secure online giving, text-to-give at 844-941-0520, the Vanco mobile app, the offering plate on Sunday morning, or by mailing a check to the church's P.O. Box. The mailing address is P.O. Box 341268, Lakeway, Texas 78734. The physical address is 1502 Ranch Road 620 North, Lakeway, Texas 78734. The phone number is 512-266-9877.
Beliefs and the Journey Ahead
LTUMC's purpose statement is to build a Jesus-centered community where all people are welcome and are moving from wondering about spirituality to becoming fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. The church's beliefs align with the United Methodist Church, whose vision, as quoted in the church's own materials, is to form disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.
More than three and a half decades after a small group of families launched a startup church on a hill, the Lake Travis United Methodist Church is writing its next chapter. The leadership describes this season as a time of new opportunities to connect with a changing and growing area. Anyone who walks through the doors on a Sunday morning - traditional at 9am, modern at 11am, or Taizé on the second Sunday evening at 6pm - will find the same purpose statement that has guided the church since 1989: to know, love, and serve God.