Downtown Depot: Aaron Zimmerman
In this week's episode of Downtown Depot, host Austin Meek talks with Aaron Zimmerman, rector of St. Alban's Episcopal Church (3:18). The two talk about Aaron's beginnings and how he ended up in Waco. Also, we hear about the Deep in the Heart Film Festival (0:32) and take a look at the latest downtown development, the Mary Avenue Market (1:39).
“If there are any people listening who haven’t been to the Cameron Park Zoo, it is one of the best things about Waco. I don’t care whether you have kids or not. It’s a great place to walk, it’s beautiful, it’s incredibly well laid out. The first time we went I was blown away.”
Austin Meek, host of Downtown Depot, with Aaron Zimmerman
“I called up a candy company in North Carolina last week to order my wife a Valentine’s Day present and when she asked where I was from and where to ship the candy, I said Waco and she said, “Ooooh! I would love to go there!” Which is not the kind of conversation I had three-and-a-half years ago when we began telling family members and friends that we were looking at this opportunity in Waco.”
“One of the things we’ve loved about being here is how relatively easy it is to get involved and how you can have, I think, a pretty significant impact. With a community this size it seems like a lot of the players kind of know each other and are able to work together and I think all kind of pull in the same direction.”
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What I loved about [St. Albans’ Theology on Tap series at Barnett’s Pub] is that a lot of times churches are sitting in their church building saying, ‘Come to us. We have something! Come to us! Come to us!’ trying to pull people in. But it turns out that there are a lot of people who will never come to church who are out in the community ‘sinning’ and so we want to reach them where they are.”
“If you think about Waco 50 years ago, [Theology on Tap] probably never would’ve happened. It’s exciting that we’re in a time now where, gosh, Waco is host to one of the premier whisky distilleries in the world, some of whose employees attend St. Alban’s, and yet we’re also this place with this big Baptist university. I love the juxtaposition and the irony of that. ”