Northwest Travis

Executive Summary

Northwest Travis occupies the northwestern corner of Travis County, a 209.9-square-mile region of 126,830 residents that runs from the Anderson Mill and Lakeline corridor along the Williamson County line, down through the Great Hills and Mesa Drive corridor of north Austin, and out across the southern shore of Lake Travis through River Place and Steiner Ranch. It is older, wealthier, and more educated than the broader metro, with a median age of 43, a median household income of $143,429, and a bachelor's degree attainment rate of 66.4 percent. It is also the most globally connected corner of the region, carrying the highest Non-Hispanic Asian share of any CCD in the Greater Austin MSA at 13.0 percent and a foreign-born share of 17.1 percent.

For all its abundance, Northwest Travis carries a per-capita church ratio closer to the urban core than to its suburban neighbors, with 38 active churches serving roughly one in every 3,338 residents. None of those congregations is primarily Asian-American, and only one carries a non-English language ministry, even as the gospel is sent from this CCD to 64 countries through the evangelism and faith-and-work nonprofits gathered here. This is a region where comfort is a quiet rival to conviction and where the global household next door remains largely unreached by the church across the street. What follows is a demographic and spiritual portrait of Northwest Travis, paired with prayer prompts to help the church here pray with discernment for the place God has set it.

Northwest Travis at a Glance

Measure	Northwest Travis CCD	Greater Austin MSA
Population	126,830	2,426,592
Median age	43	36.0
Median household income	$143,429	$100,431
Non-Hispanic White	63.4%	48.7%
Hispanic or Latino	14.5%	32.2%
Active churches	38	1,123 (metro total)
Residents per church	~3,338	~2,161

Demographic figures are drawn from the 2024 five-year ACS release, and church figures from the Greater Austin Mission Society church database, refreshed in July 2026. The MSA church figure is the metro-wide total across all fifteen CCDs. A fuller picture follows below.

The snapshot above is a starting point, not the whole picture, and two tools open it up further. This site's own map and church list for Northwest Travis plots the known congregations of this division, so you can see for yourself where the church is already present and where she is thin. The official Census Bureau profile for Northwest Travis CCD holds the full demographic detail behind the figures above, for anyone who wants to look more closely at the people who live here. Both are worth opening before you pray.

The local church sits at the center of everything God is doing in Northwest Travis. She is not one ministry among many but the community Jesus promised to build and the one he sends into the world, the gathered people through whom the gospel is preached, disciples are formed, the weak are carried, and the good news becomes visible to a watching region. No parachurch ministry, nonprofit, or network can replace her or reproduce what she is. Whatever else happens in this CCD, the health of its congregations is the first thing to pray for, because everything else depends on it.

So prayer for Northwest Travis should hold three things together. Pray first for the church in her many forms to be strong and faithful at the center. Pray for the fuller ecosystem of ministries around her, the planting and renewal and the specialized callings, to grow where it is thin. And pray for the relationships of trust among leaders across this region, because it is through a united and interdependent church that the prayer of Jesus, in Northwest Travis as it is in heaven, comes to Northwest Travis.

An Anchor from God's Word

"As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life."

1 Timothy 6:17-19 (ESV)

Few scriptures could be more precisely fitted to Northwest Travis than Paul's charge to the rich in his first letter to Timothy. This is a CCD whose households are wealthy by any measurable standard, with a median household income of $143,429, a median home value of $709,400, and a poverty rate half that of the broader metro. It is the wealthiest corner of the Greater Austin MSA, and Scripture does not flinch from naming that condition or from speaking directly to it. Paul does not tell the rich to feel guilty for their abundance, nor does he pretend the abundance is not real. He addresses it plainly. The temptation of wealth is twofold, to grow haughty and to set one's hope on riches that promise a security they cannot give, and both temptations run deepest where the income is highest and the security feels most settled. The charge is not to divest but to reorient, to fix hope on the God who richly provides everything to enjoy rather than on the portfolio that provides it, and then to let that reoriented hope overflow into a particular kind of life, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. The paradox Paul presses is that generosity is not a loss but an investment, the storing up of a good foundation for the future and the taking hold of that which is truly life. Pray that the households of Northwest Travis, in the homes around Lake Travis and Anderson Mill, the offices in the Domain and along the FM 620 corridor, and the cul-de-sacs of Northwest Hills and Steiner Ranch, would hold their real and uncommon affluence before God with open hands, refusing both the pride and the false security that wealth breeds, and would become rich in good works so that the abundance of this region is poured out in generosity across the city and to the nations.

Prayer Prompts for Northwest Travis

For the Presence of God Among His People in This Region

"If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here."

Exodus 33:15 (ESV)

Before praying for anything the churches of Northwest Travis might accomplish, pray first that God himself would be manifestly present among his people in this CCD. This was Moses' refusal at Sinai, not another step forward without the Lord himself going with them, and it was the early church's first corporate cry after persecution, not strategy or escape but boldness and the stretching out of God's hand (Acts 4:29-30). A region this professional, this educated, and this orderly is uniquely susceptible to settling for competent worship that has lost the weight of God's actual presence. Ask the Spirit to pour himself out afresh on the 38 active churches of this CCD in every form the Church takes here, from the long-rooted congregations above Lake Austin to the newest plants begun in 2024. Northwest Travis does not need better Sunday productions. Northwest Travis needs God.

For Households That Have Built and Are Settled

"Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth."

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (ESV)

The defining condition of this CCD is settled abundance. Median household income is $143,429, the median home value is $709,400, and 66.4 percent of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Moses warned Israel that the danger of plenty is not scarcity but forgetting, the quiet drift toward saying in the heart that one's own power and hand have produced all this wealth. Pray that the households of Northwest Travis would not mistake settling-in for arriving. Pray for hearts that hold a Lake Travis address with open hands, for marriages that disciple children inside the rare gift of stability, and for parents catechizing sons and daughters who will inherit homes most of the world cannot imagine. Pray for families in River Place, Steiner Ranch, Northwest Hills, and Anderson Mill to remember the Lord as the giver of every good thing they hold, rather than crediting their own hand or granting their first allegiance to the value of their primary asset. Pray against the quiet self-sufficiency that runs deepest where the income is highest, and for repentance to remain easy in households that rarely lack anything.

For the Schools Across This Multi-District CCD

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

Northwest Travis is one of the few CCDs in the Greater Austin MSA where four school districts meet. Round Rock ISD anchors the Anderson Mill, Lakeline, and Jollyville corridor. Leander ISD covers Steiner Ranch and the western Lakeline communities. Austin ISD reaches into the Northwest Hills and Mesa Drive neighborhoods. Lake Travis ISD draws families to the southern shore of Lake Travis. Pray for Christian teachers, coaches, counselors, and administrators across all four districts to hold their classrooms before the Lord. Pray for the catechesis of a generation whose schedules are full and whose hearts are still ready, that the children of Northwest Travis would not inherit only test scores, college acceptances, and tournament trophies but also a living faith. Pray for Concordia University Texas as it forms students inside an explicitly Christian frame at the eastern edge of this CCD. Pray against the academic and athletic pressure that can replace the worship of God with the worship of the next achievement.

For Church Planting Across the Whole Northwest Corridor

"And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Acts 2:47 (NIV)

Only three congregations on record have been planted in this CCD since 2014, with Resurrection Presbyterian Church (PCA) and Austin Global Methodist Church both begun in 2024 and Central City Austin planted in 2014. That is thin planting momentum for a region of nearly 127,000 residents, and the new gospel presence has not reached every corner, with the Mesa Drive corridor, the Northwest Hills neighborhoods, the River Place and Steiner Ranch lakeside communities, and the Concordia University Texas area especially in need of fresh works. Pray for church planters and renewal leaders called to the corners of this CCD where the planting energy of the past decade has not yet reached. Pray for sending churches in Anderson Mill and Lakeline to release leaders and finances toward Mesa Drive, Northwest Hills, and the Lake Travis side. Pray especially for new gospel work that can take root among Asian-American families, in Mandarin, in Korean, in Hindi, and in the languages of the foreign-born 17.1 percent who already live here. The Church in Northwest Travis cannot meet the gospel opportunity of this region with its present footprint. Pray also that this CCD would look past its own borders even so. With a median household income of $143,429, the highest of any division in the metro, Northwest Travis holds resources that thinner and poorer regions do not, and pray for its congregations to send leaders and money south into Austin's underserved corridors and east into Northeast Travis while they are still praying for planters to come here.

For the Asian and Foreign-Born Households We Live Beside

"From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth... God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us."

Acts 17:26-27 (NIV)

Non-Hispanic Asian residents are 13.0 percent of this CCD, the highest Asian share of any CCD in the Greater Austin MSA. Many of these households trace their families to India, China, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Pakistan, and many work in the technology, healthcare, and engineering professions that anchor Northwest Austin. The number of congregations in this CCD primarily serving Asian-American or Asian-immigrant families, however, is zero on file in the Greater Austin Mission Society research. Pray for the Lord to raise up Asian-American pastors and church planters with a heart for Anderson Mill, Great Hills, Jollyville, Mesa Drive, and the Concordia University Texas corridor. Pray for established English-speaking congregations to make room rather than only outreach, and for shared meals, shared Bible studies, and shared sanctuaries to become ordinary across the cultural and linguistic lines of this CCD. Pray also for the foreign-born 17.1 percent who have made Northwest Travis their American home, that the gospel would reach them in their languages and their kitchens, and that the Spanish-speaking households we already live beside would find more than the single congregation now carrying ministry in their tongue.

For Faith and Work Across the Tech Corridor

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward."

Colossians 3:23-24 (NIV)

The average worker in Northwest Travis commutes 27.4 minutes each way, with the bulk of those drives heading east and south toward downtown Austin, the central business district, and the North Austin tech corridor. Believers in this CCD spend their working hours among the software engineers, executives, consultants, professors, doctors, lawyers, finance professionals, and entrepreneurs who shape the economic and cultural life of Greater Austin and, increasingly, the global technology industry. Pray for faithful Monday-through-Friday witness in those workplaces. Pray for believers in tech, finance, healthcare, law, education, and the trades to see their labor as kingdom work rather than as a means to an Anderson Mill address. Pray for the faith-and-work ministries of this corridor to multiply, gathering professionals for weekly career and faith-at-work discipleship. Pray for the professional generosity of this region to be channeled into kingdom giving, and for donors to grow more like the Lord they fund. Pray against the idols of identity, status, and success that ride the commute home with them, and for a generation of Christian professionals to be shaped less by their LinkedIn profile and more by their baptism.

For the Renewal of the Mainline and Established Congregations

"Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first."

Revelation 2:5 (ESV)

The longest-running congregations of this CCD, Pond Springs Church since 1890, Marshall Ford Fellowship since 1937, Christ Episcopal Church since 1940, St. Luke's on the Lake Episcopal Church since 1960, The Church on the Hill since 1962, and the cluster of Catholic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian congregations founded in the 1970s, hold much of the spiritual memory of the region. Pray for the Spirit to renew the historic anchor congregations of this CCD, that their decades of continuous witness would deepen into fresh faithfulness. Pray for the Episcopal congregations at Christ Episcopal and St. Luke's on the Lake, for St. Thomas More Catholic Church and St Mary Our Lady of the Lake, and for every mainline body in this CCD, that the gospel would be preached plainly and the Scriptures held high. Pray for every congregation in this CCD, that the Lord would keep awakening individuals, families, and whole churches to the faith once delivered to the saints, and that none would be content with a Christianity that has lost its center in Christ.

For Pastors and Ministry Leaders Across the Northwest Corridor

"I pray also... that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

John 17:20-21 (NIV)

The 38 active churches of this CCD span Baptist, Catholic, Methodist (GMC), non-denominational, Presbyterian (PCA and PCUSA), Lutheran (ELCA), Episcopal, Anglican, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Spanish-language and Nigerian-heritage expressions. Their leaders are well-resourced compared to pastors elsewhere in the metro, yet they are not exempt from the loneliness of leadership and the temptation to build separately. Christ Together Greater Austin already counts a handful of Northwest Travis congregations among its members. Pray for those networks to deepen rather than thin. Pray for honest friendships to form between the PCA pastor at Resurrection Presbyterian and the non-denominational leaders across the corridor, between the Catholic priest at St. Thomas More and the Baptist pastor at The Church on the Hill, between the Episcopal rectors at Christ Episcopal and St. Luke's on the Lake and the LCMS faculty at Concordia University Texas, between the Nigerian-heritage pastor at RCCG Graceway Church and the Spanish-speaking leaders at Centro de Adoracion Adonai. Pray for Spanish-speaking and Asian-American leaders to be drawn into the wider fellowship of the CCD as full peers rather than guests. Unity in Northwest Travis will not be forged in a conference. It will be forged over Sunday lunches, school carpools, neighborhood block parties, and shared funerals.

For a Generosity That Sends, Plants, and Stays

"The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work."

2 Corinthians 9:6-8 (ESV)

Northwest Travis already sends. Davar Partners has reached 64 countries with audio Bibles from offices in River Place. The Apologist Project equips ministries across the country with apologetics tools. The professional and philanthropic capacity gathered in this CCD funds kingdom work far beyond its borders. Pray that this CCD would know itself not as a place where the gospel finally arrives but as a place from which the gospel goes out and where the abundance of the region is sown bountifully back into mission across the metro and to the ends of the earth. Pray for households whose stock-option windfalls have funded second homes to become cheerful givers who decide in their hearts to give freely rather than reluctantly, trusting the God who makes all grace abound so that his people abound in every good work. Pray for new ministries of pregnancy support, addiction recovery, refugee welcome, foster care, and youth development to be planted in this CCD by households who have run out of better uses for their abundance. Pray for the schools, lake homes, professional networks, and family foundations of Northwest Travis to be drafted into the mission of God across the metro and to the ends of the earth. Ask the Lord to make this CCD a place where comfort is no longer a barrier to faith but a furnace for it, and where the prayer of Jesus, in Northwest Travis as it is in heaven, is answered in the conference rooms of the Domain, the cul-de-sacs of Steiner Ranch, and the Concordia University Texas chapel as surely as on the southern shore of Lake Travis.

Additional Ways You Can Pray

The prompts above are a starting point, not a ceiling. Here are four practical ways to take this prayer further into the life of Northwest Travis.

Walk the CCD. Pick a corridor or neighborhood in Northwest Travis and walk it slowly. Walk Anderson Mill Road at sunset. Walk the Bull Creek Greenbelt or the trails around the Arboretum after the stores close. Walk the Mesa Drive corridor and the Anderson Mill and Pond Springs area near Pond Springs Church, which traces its roots to 1890. Walk a Steiner Ranch cul-de-sac, the Quinlan Park stretch toward Marshall Ford Fellowship, where worshipers have gathered on the bluffs above Lake Austin since 1937, or the Northwest Hills streets along Mesa Drive and Far West. Stop in front of schools, city halls, retail centers, lakeside parks, churches, the Concordia University Texas campus, and gathering places. Pray over what you see. Ask God to move in the specific people and institutions that shape daily life along that stretch of ground. Prayer walking turns abstract petitions into embodied ones and tends to change the one who walks as much as the region being prayed for.

Map the CCD. Use the demographic picture in this guide as a starting point and sketch a simple map of your own neighborhood or area of Northwest Travis. Mark the Round Rock ISD, Leander ISD, Austin ISD, and Lake Travis ISD attendance zones, the Anderson Mill and Lakeline communities, the Mesa Drive and Great Hills corridor, the Northwest Hills neighborhoods, the River Place and Steiner Ranch lakeside subdivisions, the FM 620 commercial spine, the Concordia University Texas campus, and the places your family already lives, works, and gathers. Let the map expose where the gospel is already at work, where it is absent, and where the church might be invited in next. A rough hand-drawn map is worth more than a polished one, because the act of drawing forces attention.

Pray for the CCD like you would pray for a person. Write down two lists. First, what you love about this region, the gifts and beauty and strengths that are worth naming in thanksgiving, the limestone bluffs above Lake Austin and Lake Travis, the established neighborhoods of Northwest Hills and Great Hills, the international texture of the schools and tech corridors, the historic congregations whose doors have never closed, and the ministries whose reach already runs from this CCD to 64 countries. Second, what you lament in this region, the quiet self-sufficiency that comes with comfort, the loneliness that hides inside large homes, the schools whose pressure can replace the gospel with achievement, the Asian-American and immigrant neighbors who do not yet have a church home in their own language, the thinness of locally rooted mercy ministries inside one of the wealthiest regions of the metro. Bring both lists before the Lord. Loves become the material of worship, and laments become the material of intercession.

Pray Together. The prompts in this guide are written to be prayed out loud by a gathered group, not only read privately. Invite two or three other pastors, ministry leaders, or intercessors from across traditions in Northwest Travis to pray through this guide together on a rhythm, whether weekly, monthly, or in a standing prayer gathering. Corporate prayer has formed every lasting gospel movement, and it tends to form the relational trust among leaders that the Kingdom Ecosystem section describes as connective tissue.

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If this guide served your prayers, there is more coming. The Greater Austin Mission Society is building a prayer guide for every Census County Division in the metro, alongside ongoing research on the church across the region. Follow us on Substack at notes.missionatx.org to receive new guides as they are released, regional research, and invitations to pray with leaders across the city. The full Northwest Travis CCD Prayer Guide is also available as a PDF to download, print, and pray through with your team.

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This prayer guide was prepared by the Greater Austin Mission Society. For questions or to contribute data, contact info@missionatx.org.