Have sermon, will travel

Courtesy of Aubrey Robertson

His first church met in a YMCA for four years, then a strip mall in a rough neighborhood, and not just one movie theater, but two.

“The goal has never been to have a ‘church’ building, but to reach people that aren’t being reached by traditional churches,” he said.

Both vision and hardship have allowed the 59-year-old Robertson to pastor in a variety of settings. These also include community buildings, city parks, house churches, backyard baptisms and barbecue, coffee shops, and even a truck stop restaurant.

“What I’ve discovered is that the good news isn’t about a location or a traditional setting,” he said. “In Acts, the early church met daily house-to-house and in the temple. The temple courts in those days were more like a public gathering place than a private ‘church’ meeting.

“Our experience is that those who are ‘un-churched’ or who have been hurt by some church experience are more likely to show up to a non-church environment.”

However, Robertson said he will never be “seeker sensitive” and water down the gospel just to entertain people.

“We’ve never compromised on the words of Jesus and the truth of scripture,” he said.

Robertson said the truck stop, with people eating around tables, enjoying songs, reading the bible, praying, and sharing communion was the closest thing to a New Testament church that he’s ever experienced.

“Unfortunately, after a few successful months, corporate kicked us out,” he said.

Hippie Preacher podcast

And now, wherever you are in the world, you can hear Robertson on his podcast, “The Hippie Preacher.”

“That nickname came from a retired minister who told me that, when I was about five years old, I used to say that I was going to be a hippie preacher. It kind of stuck and I bought hippiepreacher.com about a dozen years ago,” Robertson said. “I published some blog posts, but it wasn’t really a priority once we started the church.

“A couple of years ago, I felt like there were some things I needed to say beyond the pulpit. I already had the domain, and so I published a Substack blog and podcast there.”

Robertson, a long-time Weatherford resident who recently moved east of Dallas, said response to the podcast has been encouraging.

“It’s not like I have thousands of followers or downloads — just a few hundred, but it’s not about being popular,” he said. “You can’t make disciples if you aren’t reaching those who don’t follow Jesus. The most encouraging thing is the conversations with those far from God that have transpired from the content.”

He said the goals for the podcast are the same goals he has in life and ministry in general: love God, love people, and make disciples.

“Success isn’t the number of views or downloads, but the number of new disciples who become disciple-makers,” he said. “Substack also makes it easy to offer paid subscriptions. Right now the subscriptions almost cover the annual hosting and software expenses.

“It’s never been about making income, but I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be able to produce content full-time.”

Robertson recently started a Basic Jesus Skills series where he talks about practically applying every command of Jesus to daily life. He’s also working on a How To Make Disciples series for later this year.

Pastor’s kid

A child of a pastor, Robertson moved quite a bit with his family growing up. He was born in Sulphur Springs, though his family lived in Pittsburg. They moved to Big Spring when he was three, Weatherford at age 12 and Paris, Texas at 16.

“As a pastor’s kid, church was life. I was the kind of kid that was studying the Bible with a big blue Strong’s Concordance at the age of nine,” he recalled.

He also learned to be a ventriloquist that same year, and the next thing you know, he was doing Bible lessons with a dummy in church for children. Then, occasionally in “big” church.

His dad was a powerful Pentecostal preacher. There was an unspoken and sometimes spoken expectation of following in his footsteps, Robertson said.

“I didn’t mind. But I also wanted to be a nuclear physicist — or a magician,” he said with a chuckle.

“A fairly famous evangelist prophesied over me that I would preach to thousands. That’s a lot of pressure in elementary school,” he continued. “But preaching didn’t really interest me. I liked drawing cartoons, writing songs, learning magic, and monster makeup. Not preacher stuff.

“But I also studied the Bible and prayed. We all did.”

In a summer camp church service at the age of 12, Robertson said he felt like God was calling him to preach.

“I remember the moment. Even where I was standing. Later that year, I preached my first sermon.” he said. “There wasn’t much of a transformation. It just seemed natural. Like family dinner. It’s just what we did and who we were.”

Falling away

After that initial preaching experience, Robertson began to fall away from faith. Then, at age 17, he was introduced to vodka by another church youth.

“It was love at first sip. That was the beginning of a more than a decade’s cycle of addiction with a few brief rollercoaster ‘conversion’ moments that never lasted,” he said. “I wanted to be a rock star, but was better at the lifestyle than anything else.

“At almost 30, even though I was married, had great kids, good jobs, I was a mess. At the end of my rope, I cried out, ‘Okay God, if I can know You, really know You, I will give you everything!’

“It wasn’t much of a threat, as it felt like I had nothing left of any worth to give. But Jesus rescued me. In just a few months, I went from playing music in bars and a radio morning show to full-time minister.”

Time in radio

Robertson’s very first job in high school was as a radio announcer.

“I never flipped burgers or worked retail. My junior year, I walked into this AM radio station lobby and said, ‘I can do this and would like a job,’” he reminisced. “The receptionist kind of chuckled and called in the program manager and his assistant.” They took him into the production room with a microphone, gave him a news story off the printer, and told him to read it. Afterward, they looked at each other and asked him, “When can you start?”

“There’s something about talking behind a microphone live, knowing anyone can tune in and listen, that over time gives you confidence in speaking,” Robertson said. “Nothing much intimidated me.

“I’m also thankful that my first boss helped me with grammar, pronunciation, and weeded out some of my Texas accent. You kind of develop a radio voice switch in your head. You speak differently when the mic is on. That switch still triggers when I answer the phone.”

Robertson loved his time in radio, but equated it to being in a band and having a license to party and get high regularly.

“I was a frequent flyer,” he said.

Using that experience for good

Robertson said one thing about addiction, it sometimes levels the playing field.

“I hung out with meth heads and successful businessmen. From the bottom of society’s barrel to those who appeared to have it all, I noticed people dealt with the same kind of hurt, fears, and doubts,” he said. “God used my stupidity and mistakes to give me the ability to relate to all kinds of people, no matter their circumstances.”

Still, because of his upbringing, he had a lot of background and biblical knowledge. He said he earnestly prayed to start over.

“Jesus, teach me Your Word, not my preconceptions,” he said. “I started over. Not accepting things at face value or based on what I had been taught. I dug into Hebrew, Greek, Judaism, and First Century culture.

“My wife, Tangi, was a big help too. She didn’t have all the denominational baggage and language that was native to me. We would study together, and her perspective helped me realize how much ‘reading between the lines’ I had taken for granted.”

He and Tangi have six “amazing, talented” kids and seven “incredible” grandkids. He calls Tangi “the glue that holds it all together. She’s not just a mom, she’s a rock star.”

Robertson believes the whole process, and his struggles with faith in general, have helped him to relate to more people. For example, he said he purposely tries to limit his “Christianeze” language when speaking.

“We Christians speak in secret code with big theological words that the un-churched don’t understand,” he said, adding with a smile, “Actually, many church people don’t understand them either but simply repeat what they frequently hear.”

Returning to Weatherford

After his family moved from Weatherford following his sophomore year, Robertson said he never expected to live there again. However, in 2014 he and his family moved back to help his mother care for his father, who was battling Parkinson’s Disease. His dad passed in 2017, the year Today Church was launched.

He and his family remained in Weatherford to grow the new church. Then came the struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There were other factors too. We stepped away from focus on the Sunday morning experience and made disciple-making and house churches a priority,” Robertson said.

The lingering impact of the pandemic also hit his family hard economically. In 2024 he started driving for Uber to just survive.

“We had leased a house near the truck stop before that door closed. By the end of that year, it became clear that something had to change,” he said. “With the lack of income, and on the advice of those who keep me accountable, in January 2025 we took a three-month sabbatical and moved to a fixer-up house in East Tawakoni, a couple of hours away.

“The house wasn’t livable, so we borrowed an RV with the plan to renovate as we could. That’s still where we are.”

Robertson said he’s not certain yet what the after sabbatical looks like. Currently, they are connected to a multi-campus church nearby and he’s doing what he does, endeavoring to make disciple-makers.

“We will be commuting back to Weatherford as logistics allow. There’s still a core of people connected to the vision there, and we are thankful for the church elders who have stepped up to lead in our absence,” he said.

Courtesy of Aubrey Robertson

Robertson said it may sound trite, but he doesn’t really have goals as a pastor, but he does have goals as a disciple-maker.

“We are praying for and actively pursuing a disciple-making movement wherever we are,” he said. “There are thousands of movements like that around the world.

“Missionaries don’t even call it a movement until they’ve seen Ekklesia (church) multiply to the fourth generation, at least a hundred times.”

Whatever lies ahead, Robertson said he will adhere to his core beliefs, with two standing above all others — love God and love each other.

“We’ve faced some opposition and struggle for focusing on the words and example of Jesus, and not what’s popular. I won’t trade popular for compromise,” he said. “I believe we will all stand before Jesus one day and have to answer not for our doctrinal fidelity or politics, but how we treated the hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, incarcerated, and the foreigner.

“No matter the consequences or results, I would give up everything before bowing to anything less than what Jesus said.”