Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Woodruff.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I am nearing a decade of vocational ministry, married for 3 years, just launched a new ministry, self-publishing a series of Bible study resources called Red Letter Basics, joyfully engaged with our local church… oh ya, and free from 15-year addiction to drugs and pornography.
I grew up in the church. My parents were actually missionaries all around the world. By the time I hit my teen years, I had seen more of the world than most adults. After returning from a mission trip to Russia at age seven, I asked my dad what all this Jesus stuff was about. He explained the Gospel message to me, and as best a little boy could understand, I believed I was sinful and that Jesus’ death and resurrection was the only solution for this problem.
By the time I was 13, I had become thoroughly addicted to pornography and started drinking and using drugs. Yet, I was also involved in church and going on mission trips sharing the gospel. Through middle and high school, I learned the art of living a double life. In college, I was on a full-ride scholarship from the school and maintained great academics. I also went deeper into my addictions. On one hand, I had it all together while the other was spinning out of control.
My breaking point drove me to a decision, a life-changing decision. Either I go hard with my partying and success-driven life and pull myself together, or I sacrifice it all and surrender my life to this whole Jesus thing.
In my worst moments, the people that came around me were not those driven for success and a good time, but the “small” and “weak” people who loved Jesus. I remember this one night, late at night, my Bible (I had recently dusted it off) fell on the ground and landed open to John 17. This is known as the “High Priestly Prayer” which is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus. In this prayer, Jesus says, “…I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them…”
Whoah… I saw in a moment how fake my “joy” really was. All of the sudden, this whole Jesus thing came alive deep within me in a way I had not experienced for years since I was a little boy. I became curious about the Bible and truth like a starving man longs for nourishment. This joy that Jesus spoke of took what was broken deep inside me and began to rebuild it.
The people in my life saw this. The people I used to party with and strategize success with seemed to further distance themselves from this newfound joy I was so amped up about. But the people who knew Jesus began to guide me and helped me understand this joy. The Bible began to give me words to explain the deepest parts of myself. I found life and freedom in the words of Jesus and the truth of the Bible.
After nearly a decade of following Jesus every day, I have found something so much more precious than any amount of success the whole world could ever offer. In following Jesus, I have found a deep, authentic, meaningful relationship with other people and my Creator. Where I am now, leading in Christian ministry, is only a result of pursuing what Jesus is asking me to do and looking for more ways to bring praise to the name and person of Jesus.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road I have walked in following Jesus is not unusual. It is as Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” When Jesus said this, the cross was not a religious symbol, it was a very public form of torture. Another way to phrase what Jesus is getting at here would be to say, “Following me will be a personally tortuous journey.”
I have had to make many of sacrifices in following Jesus. I know people who have had to make much greater sacrifices while others less. I have had many of moments not knowing how I would afford basic necessities. I was actually homeless for nearly six months when I first started following Jesus. I was headed into a career path that Jesus asked me to give up, a lucrative career path too. This ended with me living out of my car and slowly building a new career. As soon as I got that going (residential remodeling), Jesus asked me to give that up and become a fundraised missionary. Point is, for me, the main area Jesus has asked me to sacrifice is the normal path to financial stability.
But the loss accompanied by sacrifice for Jesus is surpassed with something much greater. Jesus also said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Amidst all of the sacrifice, hardship, and sometimes instability, I have always known exactly who I am and been able to experience the hardship in the context of joy. As a follower of Jesus, my joy is not determined by what I accomplish or in what others see me as. My joy comes from Jesus.
The same joy I found in Jesus almost a decade ago has not loosed itself from my deepest self. The joy I experience in the midst of life’s chaos and confusion is not my own joy, but the very joy of Jesus. Cheesy? Yes. But true.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My current area of expertise is in helping others know Jesus and listen to him. I have worked in many different types of Chrisitan ministry over the years. Evangelism, church planting in rural areas around the world, teaching the Bible, leading and starting addiction recovery groups, leading college/young adult ministries, and writing Christian material. Most recently, my wife, Sarah, and I have launched a new ministry called Red Letter Basics. It is based on a book I am writing (called Red Letter Basics) that outlines over 130 topics and answers the question, “What does Jesus say?”
We live in a world with a hundred answers to the same questions. If you’re like me, I find myself stumbling through a response or asking so many follow-up questions that the conversation gets derailed.
The book takes basic topics and simplifies the conversation by starting with the words of Jesus (often found in red letters). The ministry we are building follows this thread. Our mission is to provide resources and opportunities helping people ask and answer the question “What does Jesus say?” In the context of community and relationships, we use print and digital materials to help people know Jesus and listen to him.
It is really exciting to be starting a ministry like this. All the impact we see, we see directly. All the growth the ministry experiences, we experience personally. Right now, we are so small that we have our hands in everything. At times it is a burden, but other times a great blessing. Being such a small ministry, we get to know all of the donors personally, and all the people serving and being served we know personally. Jesus is showing us completely new facets of his joy through the ministry of Red-Letter Basics, through the hardships and the victories.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Being in vocational ministry, much of what we do as Christians functions around gathering. The global pandemic put a stop to all of my global travel, uprooted small groups, shut down Sunday mornings, and altogether changed the way we went about the practical nature of doing Christian things. The lessons learned in this journey we have all taken together is quite a long list of really big lessons. But there is one that stands out to me. The importance of family.
Growing up my family was all about family, extended family, and their extended family. My cousins are like my brothers and sisters, and my brothers and sisters are… well… close. Our family has a great and deep relationship with each other. The COVID shutdown really exposed this for us. Oh ya, I got married in 2019 and lived next door to my parents! She got thrown into this family in a way she never expected. What I learned in the lesson of family is not just that family is important, but what makes my family important. When the whole world shut down, I was blessed with a family that showed up for each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.redletterbasics.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RedLetterBasics
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@awoodruff145
- Other: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/5bNFz1N/WoodruffNewsletter
