Today we’d like to introduce you to Gavin Papit.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story is nothing special, and yet is also part of the greatest story ever told. That great story is one that many of us long to be true, and few today seem to still believe in.
It is the story of the God who created everything, reclaiming his wayward children by exercising his justice and victory over the consequences of everything we’ve done wrong in life on his son, Jesus, instead of us.
I grew up in a pastor’s home, to a dad who sort of felt forced into the profession by his dad who was also a pastor. My mom was also the director of music at the church, so to say my brother and I basically lived there is an understatement. We were at every event, sure, but we also got the perks of random sleepovers in the church building with a few friends playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the projector screen. In the early 90s, this was cutting edge!
When I was 11, my world came crashing down one Christmas when my parents (who had begun sleeping in different rooms) sat my brother and I down and told us next Christmas was going to be different… we would celebrate with each parent separately because they were getting divorced. As a naive boy who would rather play roller-hockey outside than key in on the distress in the home, I was shocked. And, truthfully, my faith was rocked.
There was so much pain I had to navigate in the years that would follow, especially as my dad (who I loved and had a great relationship with) moved away for work leaving me primarily with my mom except a handful of times a year when I’d get to go visit.
I mentioned earlier that my story is not all that special, and the truth is we have all felt brokenness on some level in our lives before. And often, when we navigate the sting of our fallen world, we have to sort through what is real and what isn’t. As I’ve walked with many other families through the brokenness of their own, I have discovered that these moments test the strength of our foundation as we navigate the big questions of life. How could this happen? Can a good God exist when there is so much pain in the world? Am I loved, known, and accepted by anyone fully?
In my brokenness, my mom did something incredible, she sat with me. Each night before bed, through my tears and anger, she would talk with me, process the pain with me, answer tough questions with me… and she would consistently point me to the only place she knew to find answers, the Bible. In the years that would follow, I heard God call me into the same profession which my dad once served, and in a great big faith step full of insecurity and fear I simply said yes. Since that time, I have pursued dedicating my life to help other people find and follow Jesus.
That is what Tribes Church, where I serve as Lead Pastor, is all about. We want to help people find and follow Jesus. Nearly two years ago, I heard God call me again into another challenging step of faith to leave my comfortable job as a Campus Pastor at a large, multi-site church in Frisco and go start a new church which eventually led my wife, three kids and I to Argyle (just north of Texas Motor Speedway). Along this journey, one thing I’ve learned is that God is real, and in the midst of this broken world he is actually inviting us into a relationship with him and a mission to help bring healing, hope, and purpose to a world that so desperately needs something other than the politics, envy and frustration that fill our social media feeds.
I believe that Jesus was God’s son, went to the cross outside of Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago, rose from the dead on the third day, and in so doing paid the penalty of all the brokenness we experience in this life… including the pain I navigated as my seemingly perfect family broke apart when I was 11. And while my story isn’t that special, the good news Jesus offers really is the greatest story ever told.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a church is incredibly difficult, in part because it is so counter-cultural to the process of everything else around us. There isn’t a tangible product to sell, you can’t promise returns to investors (at least not monetary) or get lenders to take on the risk, and the most significant thing that needs to be developed is relationships.
The whole journey of Tribes began nearly two years ago with an event we called “Vision Night” at a home in Argyle where we invited everyone we knew to come and hear the purpose behind this new church. From that, we had several fun events in the community where we ate, laughed, played and introduced ourselves to the community. By October last year, we started a weekly Bible study in an outdoor seating area in the neighborhood where we live, and by November we began renting a school to meet in weekly for services.
Today we are about to add a second service time to accommodate the growth at the school, we have celebrated 13 baptisms as people have gone public with their faith in Jesus, and we have people connecting into an authentic community by gathering in a Tribe (what we call a small group Bible study) weekly. We have made it our mission to regularly scatter into our community to make a tangible impact by doing things like feeding our homeless brothers and sister in Denton, doing litter removal on the highway here in Argyle, and will soon do a project packaging 20,000 meals for malnourished children around the globe. We have seen lives transformed by the power of Jesus, and we know this is just the start.
Like most of the metroplex, our community is booming with new home development and as more people move to our area we can’t wait to invest in their lives and invite them to find and follow Jesus with us at Tribes.
Please tell us about Tribes Church.
Tribes Church is all about helping people find and follow Jesus by doing three things: Gather, Scatter, Multiply.
We gather into Gospel-centered community by encouraging people to find their Tribe. In a Tribe, we find a place where we can be fully known and fully loved. It’s a place where we can celebrate and mourn together as we journey through life, and where we can encourage one another to grow more and more like Jesus each new day.
We scatter to serve, making an impact in our church, our community, and our world. We believe serving others was at the core of who Jesus was, and we strive to be a people who desire not to be served but to serve those all around us.
We multiply by making disciples who become disciple-makers. A disciple is simply a person who follows Jesus, and we believe we exist to help other people become disciples of Jesus. We want to be a church that equips our people to multiply the mission of Jesus in our community.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
It’s hard to choose just one… the story I shared earlier about playing Sonic the Hedgehog at my parent’s church was a real highlight. That evening ended with us ordering a pizza only to discover when the pizza guy arrived that our parents had wisely locked us into the building (why they left me and my teenage brother in charge of the place is beyond me) so we couldn’t get our pizza. We asked the guy to meet us on the side of the building by the a/c unit where we knew there was an air duct that we may be able to reach through. Unfortunately, the pizza box was too big to fit through that air duct, but the delivery guy was willing to hand us the pizza, slice by slice, through the duct for us to enjoy. He got a good tip.
Contact Info:
- Address: We meet at Hilltop Elementary (1050 Harrison Ln, Argyle, Tx 76226) on Sundays at 10 AM.
- Website: https://www.tribes.church
- Phone: 940-458-2558
- Email: info@tribes.church
- Instagram: @thetribeschurch
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetribeschurch/
- Twitter: @thetribeschurch
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