A singular vitality tool is working its absolutely intoxicating magic on a pair of poles-apart enterprises: Austin, Texas and the ROC (Richmond Outreach Center). The vitality tool is music: toe-tapping, head-swaying, hand-clapping, face-lifting, jaw-grinning, don’t-want-it-to-stop, first-quality music. I saw it for myself on 4/6-4/8/11 in Austin and then on 4/9/11 at the ROC.

Both places have put in place a strategy and culture that relies on bold, high-amp, unabashed, come-hither music as a no-fail siren: in Austin to entertain the populous and energize the economy; at the ROC to breathe vitality and joy into a Christian religious conviction that focuses on social outreach. That strategy has lifted Austin from a deserted-urban-core university town to an electric-urban-core national phenom. And it’s lifted the ROC – in only 10 years – from a dozen and a half congregants in an at-risk house to thousands of congregants at a new bells-and-whistles facility (what they call “the big house”).

Folks whom I talked with in Austin and at the ROC said the same thing: once you experience this place, you don’t want to leave. Of course Austin would affirm that its real value is its people, and the ROC would affirm that its real value is the Christian message; but boy oh boy are both of those enduring values being ever energized by music!