Our Story
The Seed
In 2014, Sydney Symes, the founder of Habit of the Heart Ministries (HHM), was entering her Senior year of high school and spending a lot of time praying about what the Lord was calling her to pursue after graduation. Mentors encouraged her to consider her skills and passions as well as what problems she would most like to see solved in the world. Thinking on that, she kept coming back to the high school choir trips her church took every summer. On those trips, the choir would do service projects around the city in the mornings and put on street concerts in the afternoons. Sydney loved every part of the process, before, during, and after the trips, and she thought it would be a dream to do something like that full-time one day. It was always a particular joy to see the delight it brought to those watching or passing by the street concerts, and that often led to conversations with those in the audience afterwards that fostered genuine dialogue about people's lives and the Gospel. However, several of those conversations were with people who simply did not think it was possible or worthwhile to actually "get" to Jesus. She wanted everyone to come to know that the hope of the Gospel is, in fact, for them and that His Grace alone provides a true opportunity to participate in His Kingdom. It sparked a thought that these concerts could be a springboard for so much more than just a one-time conversation.
The Roots
In the Fall of 2015, Sydney started her degree at Baylor University studying both business (accounting & entrepreneurship) and music. During her time at Baylor, she worked on growing this Gospel-sized dream and sharing it with as many people as she could. From class to church to student organizations to summer camp, there were a variety of experiences that not only gave her opportunities to practice the things the Lord was calling her to but also to form a network of mentors, friends, and other cheerleaders for this project, each of whom have served a unique purpose in the dream eventually coming to fruition. It was in this season that, through her classes, relationships, and conversations, God started working together a bigger dream for not only a street concert ministry but also a music school, and, "if it got as big as I could ever dream," as she would say, a full-scale production discipleship school.
The Firstfruits
After graduating in 2019, Sydney moved to the Dallas area to start her full-time job in the accounting field and find an outlet for serving in the communities she wanted to minister to with HHM. She got involved at Dallas Bible Church and soon became a part of the community there, both among the church body and the surrounding neighborhoods. Similar to her time in Waco, the Lord formed a network around her that strongly supported this dream and volunteered their time, thoughts, and talents to help push it forward. She started serving as the Program Director for the church's after-school apartment ministry, and as she grew deeper in this community, the concept for the non-profit grew traction too. From that ministry, Sydney met HHM's first two music students, who signed up for lessons in the Summer of 2022. This then led to a grant opportunity that Fall, which enabled the official incorporation of Habit of the Heart Ministries on November 20, 2022. From there, HHM had its first official event in partnership with Dallas Bible Church to put on a community Christmas concert in their parking lot to share the story of the Nativity in English and in Spanish through music on December 11, 2022.
The Growth
HHM has continued our annual summer music lessons and Christmas concerts, and our team is using these early stages of our business cycle to set a strong foundation for the years of ministry to come. In addition to setting up the operational and administrative logistics to support our mission, we invest a lot of time in building relationships with our partners and their communities and developing music-based discipleship curriculum. We are trusting the Lord to lead us step by step in our future ventures and are eagerly anticipating all He has yet to do. We have seen Him be faithful and know He will be faithful time and again!