Earlier this week I created a list of 10 things about starting and growing a church that have been much harder than I expected. Today I want to take a few minutes out to talk with you the item on the list that the most people requested we discuss…DIVERSITY!
Diversity is beautiful. Diversity is honorable. Diversity is….DIFFICULT.
(Clarification: For me, REAL diversity includes race, gender, nationality, socio-economic status, and more.)
My family is diverse. My neighborhood is diverse. The part of downtown Atlanta I live in is very diverse. The area of the city where our church facility is located is extremely diverse. Heaven is (and will be) diverse. Because of these things, I sought out over a year ago when we were planning to launch Courageous Church for our church to be a genuinely diverse community of faith.
Let me make an honest stipulation here:
Diversity is not our primary goal, but it is one of our most important secondary goals. I want to say this because while I feel like diversity honors God and improves the beauty of the church, our first and exclusive primary goal is to show people how to follow Jesus. No matter how much I value any other issue (and I value a lot of issues), nothing trumps our primary calling in the earth. Period.
With that said, I just wanted you to hear from me that our church still values diversity in a major way, but I have found it a bit challenging. First off, let me tell you a few ways we demonstrate diversity:
We have a diverse set of key, visible leaders on Sunday morning and during the week.
We use all types of music before and during our Sunday services.
I (try to) use a preaching style that is not overtly ethnic (like the Jasper Williams hoop) and will appeal to a broad section of people.
With that said, we still have a lot of room to grow in terms of diversity. On some Sunday mornings our attendance is way more diverse than others, but I am still very proud of what we’re accomplishing.
I am wide open to what our church can do to continue to be more diverse and would love to hear what you see out there that’s working. Do you have any questions about what we’re doing or want to discuss any challenges you’re having?
I’m a little funny about selling a lot of stuff @ Courageous Church. In fact, we don’t sell anything at all. Well…until now! My friend Xavier designed us a really cool shirt and all of our profits are going to go to our Global PlumpyNut Initiative. The shirts are an awesome quality and we’re just running a short run of about 100 of them for our staff, volunteers, supporters, and friends to purchase! Big shout out to Nick @ Storenvy for the great work on the shirts and printing!
The shirts are just $15. If you want one (or more), let us know in the comments section and we’re going to make them available to purchase online in the next day or so!
Starting (and growing) a brand new church isn’t easy. I’ve made a ton of mistakes since we launched 6 months ago and aired some of my dirty laundry for you by sharing a big ‘ol list of mistakes here. However hard you expected it to be, plan on it being much harder. Some people say it like this, “If you could (or want to) do anything else, do that.”
Sounds harsh, but church planting, while fulfilling to the core, is just hard. I can’t say it any simpler than that.
Here is a quick list of 10 things about starting Courageous Church that have been much harder than I expected. They are not in any special order.
Over the course of this week, I’ll be breaking down a few of these areas in more detail. Let me know in the comments section if you want me to expound on one in particular.
In addition to telling the world that I have a crushon Keyshia Cole, my wife gives her up front and personal perspective on some of my strategies to avoid moral failure. A must read in my opinion.
At least now I have a legitimate excuse to put a picture of Keyshia Cole on my blog
A few months ago I wrote what has been the most popular, discussed, debated post on this blog entitled Drastic Measures to Avoid Moral Failure. The comments there are even better than the post and the discussion is pretty raw and revealing as people obviously feel very passionate about all sides of this issue.
Although many of the women that commented applauded and understood my stance, I was a bit stung (but informed) by some the comments from women that felt like my drastic measures reduced them to second class citizens. As a father of four daughters and husband to an outspoken Spelman woman, I think of myself as pretty doggone refined on women’s issues and concerns.
Anyways, I want to revisit this post because I have been leading Courageous Church for about 4 more months since I posted it and have found one particular strategy I suggested to be very difficult to actually live out. Here is that strategy as quoted directly from my original post:
I go to great lengths to never be alone with another woman and have done this for the past 10+ years. It’s not that I think women are falling all over me (they aren’t), but I don’t even want the appearance or possibility of failure to be out there. Some people actually see this as some type of admission of weakness on my part. Maybe so, but I don’t care. The proof that it works is my marriage.
While I still believe in this principle, I have found it to be much more difficult to live out in our young church than I expected. Here’s why:
When I was on the staff of a megachurch, taught at a public school, or worked at large non-profits, this principle was pretty easy to live out because other people were almost always around. Now that I work for a new startup with a tiny staff with weird hours, this is amazingly difficult. I don’t have an assistant to serve as a present safeguard and we don’t yet have regular volunteers (but will soon).
While we have a lot of men working hard, we have way more women volunteering (particularly from 9 to 5) in our office. They bust their butts and get stuff done. Sometimes you know they’re showing up. Sometimes you don’t. They’ve demolished and painted walls, assembled furniture, taken out trash, and done pretty much everything that we’ve needed done to remodel our new office and ministry space.
I have found it particularly tricky to live this out in the real world. For instance, if I am alone in the office assembling furniture and a female volunteer comes in to assemble furniture, what do I do? Quit putting furniture together and leave? Ask her to leave? Call for backup? You see…it’s a bit messy and weird.
In spite of the difficulty of living out this principle, I still understand it and value it, but am going to have to take some additional steps if it’s going to be a reality.
It has been amazingly painful and a bit shocking for me to watch my friend Gary Lamb over the past few weeks since he resigned as Pastor of Revolution Church. His Twitter updates and his blog posts have been so stinking sad and hard to read. I love the guy and it hurts me to see him in such a bind, eating Chic-Fil-A for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Could you imagine the sting and shame of everyone knowing so much of your dirty laundry?
Could you imagine resigning as the leader of the awesome church that you started and poured your heart and soul into because you had an affair?
Could you imagine how difficult it would be to stare your friends and family and wife and kids in the face and just hold small-talk conversations?
Could you imagine not really being able to show up and pastor the church (or lead the business or whatever) that you started and poured your blood, sweat, and tears into?
Well, I can hardly imagine those things myself, but I have been imagining them a lot more lately because the consequences of our mistakes can be HUGE! ENORMOUS! LIFE-ALTERING! When most people make mistakes, they aren’t thinking about the consequences, because they don’t think they’ll be caught or they just aren’t thinking in the first place.
When faced with a temptation, I have about 10 different things that cross my mind, but from now on, one thing that I will be thinking about is throwing it all away. Is this mistake worth throwing it all away for? Is getting some booty worth throwing it all away? Is stealing a bit of money worth throwing it all away? Is telling a lie worth throwing it all away? Is (you fill in the blank) worth throwing it all away?
I am going to be rehearsing that question and potential scenarios in my mind as practice so that when I face temptation I will have already counted the costs and decided the answer in advance.
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I want to make a point publicly that is only loosely connected to my blog post. I could rattle off the names of 10 different (prominent) pastors that had affairs with other women, had kids with other women, and even worse (yes worse). All ten of those pastors still pastor the same church and all ten of them divorced their wives and moved on.
Heck – maybe some people think that that is a better solution than what Gary has done by stepping down and focusing on picking up the broken pieces of his life, but I don’t. I have more to say, but I’ll stop while I’m ahead.
For a decent part of my youth, the idea of me one day dying was alien at best. After suriving a few near-death experiences as a teenager, I felt even more like death would escape me. When I nearly died in this car accident a few years ago, it was the closest thing to death I had ever felt, but I am pretty sure something in me started to feel like I was never going to die. Probably sounds silly, I know.
However, nothing has caused me to believe in my own mortality than all of the aches and pains I feel all over my body. Caused in large part to all of the surgeries and trauma that I’ve experienced, my age is making them worse day by day.
Barring something pretty stinking miraculous, I will die one day and you will too.
To most people (including Christians), the words Adventurous & Christianity just don’t go together – like Meatball Sundaes.
This is absolutely bananas though, because Jesus was a bold, courageous, adventurous, risk taker and the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, is FULL of men and women who lived life beyond the edge of reason as they regularly put everything on the line to do the work of God. Not only that, but the clear call of God from the Bible is not just for us to believe that THEY took great risks, but the call of God in the Bible is for US to take those same risks and even greater ones!
I am so absolutely concerned that the religion we are practicing today as “Christians” in America is so unlike what is prescribed (and displayed) in the Bible that we’re not really Christians at all.
Fans? Maybe. Occasional dibble dabblers? Sure. Purveyors of Christian goods and services? OK.
I’m interrupting my regularly scheduled Sunday evening recap blog post for 3 reasons.
Immediately after our Sunday morning service @ Courageous Church my entire family is taking a road trip to Panama Beach so that I can speak tonight for BIG STUF. Can’t wait! (I’ll tell you all about it and you can follow my thoughts live on Twitter.com/ShaunKing)
It may seem crazy to some people, but my wife and I decided we were ready to take on a 5th child into our home this past week. Sakiah is a beautiful 6 year old girl and fits right into our family. We thank God for her and feel like God will provide for us as we do His work. Needless to say, one more child means less internet time
Finally, I’d love your prayers for my message this morning, for my growing family, for our quick roadtrip to Florida, and for the message I’ll be giving tonight to1,500 students that are hungry for God!
(Not sure who is looking for these words, but I feel very prompted to say them this morning.)
Just go for it.
God has called you to do it. You want to do it. You’re as ready as you ever will be for it. Tomorrow is not promised.
Just go for it.
You’ve waited and delayed and put off the plans of God long enough. Now is the time for you to move out of your holding pattern and into the next gear of this journey.
Just go for it.
God is going to provide what you need when you need it and you’ll never look more like Jesus than when you’re risking it all for the plans of God.
In large part due to technological advances and the literal tearing down of walls that divide people groups into little segments that basically hate each other, the playing field in any particular area of the world (including church) is more level (or flat) than ever, but most churches have not yet caught on to this.
Hear me – the “old strategies” of leading church may work.
Some churches still swear that mass mailers are wildly successful. I believe them.
Some churches still say that 9am-5pm are the best office hours. I believe them.
Some churches still proclaim that the sermon is the most important thing a church can offer. I believe them.
The problem isn’t whether I believe them or not, it’s that MILLIONS & MILLIONS of people don’t and while an equal number of people may really love mass mailers, traditional office hours, and have lives that revolve around the sermon, new strategies will reach people that old strategies won’t. I’m not even saying one strategy is better than the other here, but that new strategies are needed to reach unreached people. Period.
Here a few numbers behind how Courageous Church has used new(er) strategies to reach new people.
Of the 700 people in attendance @ our church grand opening on January 11th, over 65% of them learned of us online.
Over 50% of our weekly 1st time visitors learn about our church from Facebook or Twitter.
About 50% of our financial giving takes place online.
Our Facebook ads have been shown a total of 26 million times. Yes. I’m serious and we rounded down
A very low ball estimate for the cost of a mass mailer to 26 million people would be $400,000.
Our ads (which are numerous, targeted, current, etc.) cost us $8,000
Is your church having success with old strategies? Tell me what. How?
Are you using new strategies that are working?
Are you doing anything that you thought would work, but hasn’t produced the results you expected?
PS: I will be speaking more about all of these things @ Bug Conference on July 13th and will be blogging and consulting about these topics really soon.
WARNING – IF PG 13 language or scenarios disturb you, here is a link to Nick Jr. Go there now.
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I have heard and read about a lot of men (and women) in ministry that have made major moral mistakes, but I never knew any of them very well. I found it much easier to be judgmental and dismissive of their future when they were relative strangers.
So, when I learned on Sunday that my good friend and one of the biggest (and earliest) supporters/cheerleaders of Courageous Church, Gary Lamb, resigned abruptly as Pastor of Revolution Church after confessing to an affair with another woman on the church staff, I was a bit surprised at just how heavy a ton of bricks really feels. Because Gary is my friend and I love Revolution Church so much, I mainly found myself sad and hurt for him, his family, and the church. I also wallowed in self-pity for just a few seconds because it has given me great confidence since launching our church to know that I had a pastor-friend right up the road that was pushing the envelope to reach and grow people that had given up on the church or never gave it a chance in the first place.
Two pastors that I admire a great deal have written awesome posts this week to give us all some perspective and insight on moral failure that I suggest we all read:
I only have one thought that I want to add that has been on my heart this morning.
Gary got caught. You didn’t. Does this dismiss Gary? Of course not. What it means is that the grace of God has sustained your sorry tail all these years, but this very public embarrassment should be a lesson to all of us that private behaviors and secrets tend to become public fodder eventually.
You might not have had an affair with your assistant, but you’ve looked at pornography and masturbated. You’ve looked at people other than your spouse and imagined having hot sex with them. You’ve lied and convinced yourself that it was a necessary lie or didn’t really matter much. You’ve fueled the flames of rumors about other people by running your mouth way more than is respectable. You’ve stolen something before and creatively justified it. You’ve considered evil or even violent schemes. The primary difference is that everyone doesn’t know your dirty, nasty business.
You, too, are a sinner saved by the grace of God. Jesus didn’t just die for Gary Lamb.
Yesterday was a really big day for us on a lot of fronts and I feel like we nailed it.
Our weekly FREE BREAKFAST is a very big hit and we keep running out of food (which is a good problem in my book).
The food is delicious (and healthy) and we’re really using this time to build relationships & community.
We relaunched Courageous Kids today and our staffers say it was a huge success.
Next week we will be moving Courageous Kids into our new office and ministry space on the 5th floor of our building and this should help take the quality up to a whole nutha level
Our new band (with DJ Dust) was the bomb and added so much flexibility and quality to our Sunday morning sound. Loved having them there.
I started laying the foundation for a very tough, challenging message series today that really challenges a prevalent lukewarm sense of complacency in American Christianity.
Here’s what I’m learning…when I preach tough messages that are intense, but centered in God’s word, people get with it.
After our service a team of us busted our butts to clean our offices and paint another wall. About 20 people got done in 3 hours what it would have take 4 of us 8-10 hours to do.
THANK YOU ALL!
We’re laying down carpet and doing electrical work today and should be opening up our space on next Sunday.
We’re going to do a big, fat Grand Opening of our new space in August or September once we really get it up and rolling!
I was shocked and hurt for so many people immediately after service when I learned that my good friend Gary Lamb was stepping down immediately as Pastor of Revolution Church after a major moral failure.
They have been so good to Courageous Church and have supported us in so many ways since before we launched.
I’m going to write my thoughts about this situation very soon.
In a few hours I will begin what I think may be the most important series in the life our young church entitled, “Choose Your Own Adventure.”
A thought that has been really frustrating my mind lately is that I hate I even have to say things like “Adventurous Christianity” or “Courageous Christianity” because these things should be redundant like “Tall Giant” or “Short Little Person” or “Intelligent Genius”.
Gotta run…time to go preach. I’ll let you know later if I scared the entire church away. Pray for me!
Earlier tonight the rapper (he’s a lot more than a rapper) Jay-Z set Twitter ablaze with the release of a very raw & perfectly imperfect track called “Death of Autotune“. Taking up 4 of the top 10 Twitter trends and making folk across the world scurry to wonder if Jay-Z had been shot or something, the track was such big news not because it was slick, not because it was Jay’s best lyrical performance ever, and not because it featured any surprise guest vocalists, but it was (and is) so HUGE for the exact opposite reasons.
Released Friday night on Hot 97 in New York by Funkmaster Flex, the track criticizes the complete overuse of the widely available vocal altering by the tool Autotune. Made particularly famous by T-Pain (as well as Lil Wayne & Kanye), it’s hard to hear a rap track today without someone Autotuning a voice. While the track is going to be perceived as a diss to all three of those guys (and it may very well be a diss to them…but I doubt it), I am squeezing some other value out of the track for myself. Let me squeeze some pastoral lemonade out of Jay-Z’s lemons.
Fads, gimmicks, and cheap tricks may give you a momentary boost when you are in a crunch, but if you (and virtually everyone else in your profession) begin to build your career on a fad, you are not only setting yourself up for failure, but you are lowering the standards of what it means to be a success in your area of expertise.
T-Pain, the King of Autotune, is actually a very gifted singer without the vocal aid of computer software. He is an amazing producer and works long days and nights to perfect his craft. The curse of being T-Pain is that you make hard stuff look easy and when other people saw the success he was having, folk started copying him in droves. Flattering? Yes. The problem is, though, that most of them aren’t that talented, aren’t putting in the long hours that T-Pain is, and they ultimately cheapen hip hop in the process of riding on someone elses coattails!
Pastoral Application: Don’t rely on gimmicks and fads in your preaching. Use a prop here and there. Show a video every now and then. Buy a cool shirt and wear it (I have a few). But you can’t beat LifeChurch.tv at being LifeChurch.tv or Steven Furtick at being Steven Furtick. God has shaped them and called them to a unique ministry and you are going to have to find your own voice and burn the midnight oil preparing and doing the work God has called you to.
In the Death of Autotune, Jay-Z expresses that he feels like hip-hop has gone soft and glitzy and forgotten the fundamentals…let’s not let that be the case in what God has called us to do!
I am very excited to announce 4 Big, Fun Changes coming to Courageous Church and can’t wait for you to experience them for YOURSELF!
For the past 4 months, we’ve had a 1 Man Band on Sunday mornings with DJ Dust, but we are about to add 5 more pieces to the mix this Sunday with an amazing band! DJ Dust will still be spinning on the 1’s & 2’s, but we’re adding a drummer, a special percussionist, a keyboard player, a bassist, and a guitarist and they are the bomb!
Starting on this Sunday we are relaunching Courageous Kids – our Sunday morning ministry for children from 6 weeks old-5th grade. Our crew has been working hard for weeks and we can’t wait to begin building Courageous Kids that change our world! Courageous Kids will meet weekly on Sunday morning during our service from 10:30am-12pm. All kids are welcome!
On this Sunday I will begin preaching what I think may be the most important series in the life of our young church entitled “Choose Your Own Adventure” and will be leading us up to an initiative of the same name in which you get to choose a real-life courageous adventure to participate in every week. Can’t wait to tell you more about this!
Last, but not least, we are just days away from opening up our brand new office and ministry space and can’t wait for you to see it! We think we will be close to complete in about a week or so and we’re still working hard to complete it. We still need financial donations and donations of all types of skills and items and hope you’ll support us today @ http://SupportTheMovement.org
Please pray for us and spread the word about our exciting work here in Atlanta!
Wow! The comments on Part 1 of this post were really even better than my article. As promised, I want to take a little bit of time out to make some observations, suggestions and propose some real solutions to what is a very real challenge for people, particularly single women, here in Atlanta and beyond. If you get a chance to look @ Part 1, it’s a quick and easy read.
While I don’t agree with everything in Steve Harvey’s book (Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man), the fundamental message of his book is essential! WOMEN HAVE A TON OF POWER ARE SETTING THE BAR WAY TOO LOW FOR MEN. Let me explain what I mean – I AM NOT saying that women should wait for tall, dark, and handsome doctors and lawyers. I am saying that when women find any type of man, they make it so easy for men to live with them, have sex with them, get money from them, etc. that it creates a very vicious cycle not just for them, but for the future women that that man is going to move on to and for all of his friends that he teaches how to treat women. Men will step up, clean up, shape up, come up, etc. IF they know it’s required. And get this, most men will actually enjoy stepping up.
Married men (like myself) need to do way more to be evangelists and promoters for all of the benefits of marriage. Rappers (even the many married ones) aren’t rapping about how good marriage is. Movies aren’t really displaying the benefits of marriage. Yet, millions of men are happily and succesfully married and have no plans on ever getting divorced. These men could do a whole heckuva lot to change the way single (and loving it) men view the benefits and virtures of marriage.
In a society that increasingly acts like morals, values, ethics, rules, guidelines, or ways of living have no worth, it is not a surprise that folk think it’s acceptable to live any kind of way. Somewhere along the lines, the church has gotten the wrong idea that people don’t want to hear this stuff. Wrong. If anything, people are clamoring to know how to succeed and excel in life. The church has to be a primary voice that shows people real strategies and solutions on how to live a life that is both exciting AND pleasing to God. Both can be done!
Disclaimer: People are regularly shocked when I reveal something personal online. Generally, people think that I should be close to perfect and very presentable online and leave anything resembling messiness or edginess alone. Trust me, I don’t tell all of my busines online, but I couldn’t disagree more with the above sentiments and will probably blog about this issue soon.
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I absolutely love my life, but it’s not perfect and I’ve been a bit stressed lately.
Money is very tight. My time is very thin. My wife has been having some health challenges. The kids are wrapping up a busy semester at a new school. Our church is wrapping up the first phase of a major renovation project. My family will be adopting a beautiful new child in the next week or so. I have a lot going on.
So anyways, a few days ago, my wife and I got into an argument. Like most arguments between couples, it was not really about anything major. They never are. Don’t get your panties tied into a knot, I’ve been with my wife since I was 17 years old and we are two intense (hard-headed) people and we argue from time to time. I know you are sweet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but we’re not
We haven’t really argued big for months. Maybe a year or more and I think that’s a record for us. In that time, I think I gained some perspective. Not enough perspective to keep me from the argument, but enough to probably keep me (and hopefully you) from another one in a very long time. Here’s what I know…
Arguments are inherently selfish.
The nature of arguments prohibit good listening.
What seems like a crafty thing to say in an argument is probably not so crafty and will be regretted later.
The original point of contention for an argument, which may have been very valid, is usually forgotten once the argument gets rolling.
The stress of arguing clouds your judgment about issues beyond the original point of contention
Someone that you really love begins to look like an enemy in an argument and that is never a good thing
Arguments morph into a competition to win the argument
I can think of a lot more reasons why arguments generally suck and I’m sure you can add your own. Try hard to avoid them. Period.
FYI – My wife and I are making up…which is always a good thing
I’m going to be starting a regular feature on my blog where I tell the story of a person that is really taking some courageous steps in life. While some people may be folk you’ve already heard of, I really want to make sure that I also profile and interview some people that are complete [...]
Courageous Church is growing in so many different ways and we need YOUR help!
People are growing into mature Christians.
Folk are growing by growing relationships with one another.
Our Sunday attendance is growing every single week.
We have just been using a DJ for the past 4 months and will be adding a full band for our Sunday [...]
Hello! I'm Shaun King - a 29 year old husband, father, pastor, and grad student (in that order) in downtown Atlanta.
I am the Lead Pastor of The Courageous Church- a brand new, diverse, exciting church in the heart of downtown Atlanta! Before I put on my SuperSuit and go live out my call in the city, I fix my four kids a bowl of cereal, change diapers, pack lunches, and give my wife a kiss.
This blog is all about the tight rope that I walk between Courage & Corn Pops!
In addition to telling the world that I have a crush on Keyshia Cole, my wife gives 
In large part due to technological advances and the literal tearing down of walls that divide people groups into little segments that basically hate each other, the playing field in any particular area of the world (including church) 
