I am a pastor, but it still requires effort for me to have faith in God day in and day out. I didn't grow up in church and am a natural skeptic of faith and religion altogether. If my experiences with God had not been so vivid and clear, I am not sure I would even be a believer to this day.
Anyways, I confessed all of that to say that every now and then I experience a circumstance that is so strange that I am just completely convinced that it's God at work. The thing is, though, that hindsight is 20/20 because I had no idea what the Lord was doing with this circumstance two months ago.
Let me give you a thumbnail sketch. A person in my life that I trusted began to really flake out in a major way about a month or so ago. I was disappointed and frustrated and didn't understand why this was happening. Today, I learned that it is a very good thing to not be connected to this person.
Sorry for the vagueness, but I'm not trying to be juicy. I'm trying to make a point.
A month ago I was stumped and a bit agitated at why God was allowing a relationship to fall apart. Today I realize that God was saving me from something that would have very likely been problematic for me and for our church down the road.
Here's the moral of the story children: If you don't understand why something strange is happening in your life…just wait. God could be saving you from dangers seen and unseen.
I am slightly agitated by an “Atlanta” based church planting conference that claims to have “the most influential and prolific church leaders from across the country.” I say slightly agitated because we are so busy preparing for the Grand Opening of The Courageous Church in 13 days that I don’t quite have time to be very agitated. However, I figured that I wouldn’t even have time to be slightly agitated in a few weeks so I wanted to speak my peace on this issue now.
If you take a quick look at the church planting link above, you will notice what I think is something very peculiar – it looks like a gathering of a cool white male fraternity. Hear my heart, I’m not saying that those white dudes aren’t “prolific” or “influential” like the site claims – I know several of those guys and respect them a great deal. My beef is that this conference presents itself to be a national conference for all types of church planters, but that just rings hollow in my book. I know 100s of awesome church planters of every nationality and hue imaginable that are doing HUGE things all around the country (and the world).
A church planting conference that suggests it is for everybody should at least make a feeble attempt at diversity. Heck, even one or two non cool white dude speakers would be progress, but this conference is a big, fat 0 for 20.
I’ve raised this beef with other conferences before and got two responses that went something like this,
1. “Well Shaun. I really don’t know any Black or Latino or Asian or (fill in the blank) pastors and I really invited pastors that I know. Also, we don’t support women pastors so that is why we don’t have any female speakers.”
2. “Well Shaun. We only invited speakers that we thought would be a draw and we just don’t know any Black or Latino or Asian or (fill in the blank) pastors that would draw people. Also, we don’t support women pastors so that is why we don’t have any female speakers.”
I’m not even going to take the time to dissect how lazy and disrespectful those comments are. Remember, I’m only slightly agitated.
Would I learn something at this conference? Of course I would. You would too.
However, I won’t be going. I have certain standards for myself, for my family, and for the people I lead. This conference falls below that standard. Maybe next year?
The entire King Team is currently in Versailles, KY for a few days to visit with family. I was born and raised here. It's small and country and folk here love me because they knew me before I knew myself. They're proud of me, but they loved me long before I was doing anything remotely newsworthy.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Tokbox, blogging, Flip cameras, laptops, wireless connections – none of that stuff means anything here. My mom doesn't have the internet. She loves me because she thinks I am a good man. That's what carries weight here in Versailles.
As you can imagine, I am going through addiction fits without the net, but I am starting to think that the Lord wants me to use this time to be unplugged from the world so that I can be plugged in to Him.
Gotta run – typing all of this on the Blackberry is harder than I thought!
WE ARE JUST 21 DAYS AWAY FROM OUR GRAND OPENING!!!
I am still high off of the good we did for the beautiful kidsin this video. Our whole team is still stoked! My favorite part is when the girl screams when she sees her gift.
If it's true that you can tell how much God loves you by the quality of people you are surrounded by then God must really love me :)
I am getting WAY too much credit for stuff that I simply don't deserve credit for. The great toy/uniform giveaway, all of the media attention, and so much more of what we are doing has happened because of so many friends, family, and launch team members that are giving this thing their best shot!
Was very amped to live on 97.5 FM here in Atlanta on Friday night with CoCo Brother! I went in for a 5 minute interview, but ended up being on the air for well over an hour. It got juicy and CoCo and I were able to do some good ministry together. Not sure if we can snag an MP3 of his show, but it was good stuff! He is a good dude and I hope to work with him in the months ahead.
I am getting very excited as I type this.
I can't believe that God allows my sorry tail to do what I do for a living! Thank you Jesus!
We have launched ChurchSucksChallenge.com and have gotten a HUGE response here in Atlanta and around the world. I have a lot to say about it, but will wait until tomorrow to give you some pretty amazing details. Have you been there yet?
Atlanta is a city of transplants. Very few people in the city are from the city.
Because of this, the city really shrinks during the holidays in a major way.
About 20 people from our launch team met today @ Buckhead Church.
We joked that we didn't know if it is crazier that they are cool enough to let another church in the same city gather and meet in their space on Sunday morning or am I the crazy one for taking our team to such an awesome church that does what they do so very, very well.
I am a BIG fan of Buckhead Church and hope to count them as our partners and friends in the city forever.
Most of the team we had with us today had never been to Buckhead Church before.
I guided a tour before the 11am service as if I worked there.
I attempted to show our team what the children's ministry area looked like and a woman that was a total bulldog at the front door refused to let us go into the space…with a staff member!
It was an awesome teachable moment for our entire team on how serious security is! We laughed and were proud to see her hold her ground. She was right and we were wrong and she showed us that some rules are not meant to be broken. Period.
Security is a big deal for me and will be a big deal when we launch – particularly for the kids!
I kid you not – our team thought the Christmas service today was one of the best services (of any season) that we had ever experienced.
The set, the music, the popcorn, the movie, the message, the music, the set, the message…EVERYTHING today was amazing!
From start to finish the worship service was like a passionate, well-orchestrated opera about the need for a Savior. Beautiful!
We had great college student join us today that learned about the church from a Facebook ad as well as man that learned about our church on Friday when I was on the radio.
I hope to blog about our marketing campaign and answer all of your questions this week.
Our team picked up a free computer from John today. Thanks man! We'll put it to good use!
Don't get me wrong, I'm super-amped that our efforts to do good in the hood got picked up here by MSNBC.com, but I want you to know that media attention and links on websites aren't why I'm doing what I'm doing and never will be. I've been through too much in life and am married to a woman that holds my feet to the fire to start enjoying any type of spotlight! We've got work to do baby!
I just got an awesome email from Dr. Marlo Barber – the wonderful principal of Stanton Elementary School here in downtown Atlanta. She said that a huge number of kids wore the uniforms that we donated. In her words, they looked "soooooo good"!
The kindergarten children went on a field trip today and EVERY student wore their uniform. Here's a quick picture they snapped for us! Isn't that so cool????
I think today may have cracked the top ten of best days of my life. The fulfillment and excitement and joy that I received by seeing what I saw today will energize me for a very, very long time. I cannot wait to show you the videos and photos that we shot today.
As I'm typing this, we are on the front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and, while I want you to check it out, what I really want you to know is something beyond headlines and news. God is using our inner city Christmas initiative to bring our launch team closer together, to draw dozens and dozens of people to our church and closer to God, and is helping to restore the image of the church (at large) in a city that has had its share of negative church news in 2008.
I'm going to tell you all about everything very soon, but I rented Iron Man tonight and have convinced my wife that she's going to like it.
The news is always so doggone depressing! Tonight The Courageous Church was able to add a good news story to the mix on our Atlanta NBC station. Thanks to a gazillion people that helped make this happen. Check it out!
Monday and Tuesday are very BIG days in the life of The Courageous Church. After nearly 300 people from over 20 states came together @ 500toys.org to be a blessing to elementary school students here in our city by purchasing school uniforms and toys, now is where the rubber meets the road! Our toys are here. Our uniforms are in. They are organized and ready to be delivered! However – we still need your help in 4 HUGE ways!
1. We want you to pray for every child of Stanton Elementary School. Of course, our event there will not be a religious event, but doggone it, we can pray for those babies. Pray that God protects them and guides them. Pray that those uniforms be a condiut for the grace of our Lord on their lives. Pray that those toys give them a respite from the struggles of inner city life. Pray for their minds. Pray for the success of their education. Pray against attacks of the enemy. Pray against low expectations. Pray against crime and prison.
Let's Pray. As a matter of fact, in addition to your private prayers, you can post your prayers in my comments section here and you can join me online as we pray together live tomorrow night (Monday) @ 10pm EST here.
2. We want you to tell everybody you know to pray for these children. Do you still believe in the power of prayer? I do. It works. And if it works, we should pray for these babies. Times are hard in the hood right now. Two weeks ago Atlanta had 25 recreation centers. Today our city has 3. 22 of them were closed due to budget cuts. Aid organizations are hurting. Unemployment in inner city Atlanta is nearly 20%.
You can ask your family, friends, and contacts to pray for the children privately, have them post prayers here on my blog, or ask them to join our online prayer time tomorrow night (Monday) @ 10pm EST.
3. We need many, many more volunteers to meet us tomorrow afternoon @ Frank L. Stanton Elementary School to wrap and organize the toys and uniforms for the children. We will be there from 2pm-6pm and need all the help we can get!
Here is the address: 1625 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., SW. Atlanta , GA 30314
4. We are hosting our HUGE HOLIDAY CELEBRATION with the children on Tuesday @ 1pm until 2:30pm and you are welcome to come and help us cheer on and celebrate with the kids! It's going to be a blast. We'll be sure to take pictures and video too for all of you that are out of state!
With the Grand Opening of The Courageous Church just 27 days away, we're going full speed ahead on so many levels! I'm having a blast and we're already seeing lives change from the ministry we're doing pre-launch. We hosted a very successful planning meeting with our launch team yesterday and took some of our crew to be with Gary Lamb and Revolution Church.
I was so glad to be able to host our meeting there yesterday.
The staff of CenterStage is great.
I was going to pick up Krispy Kreme donuts for our breakfast, but (I kid you not) I felt very convicted to not go there. It would have been quick, easy, and familiar, but I am not trying to raise up a Krispy Kreme church. I'll blog about that later. I spent a few more bucks and went to Whole Foods instead.
I am shocked that we have local pastors show up at our meetings regularly to check out we're doing at this point in the game.
I know you probably think I'm just saying this, but I really love our launch team. We're getting to know each other day by day, but I really see how God is going to use this team to change our city in a big way!
To say that we are a 2009 church is an understatement. Half of the people present yesterday learned about the church on Facebook. We even had a MySpace person show up! As a techie and former webmaster, you know I love it!
Our team is not afraid to tell me when I have a bad idea. Please…pretty please…never stop doing this. Save this email and show it to me if I ever lose this desire.
I am very pumped to see some people stepping up to the plate to take care of business on our team.
It was soooo helpful to have our team take a tour of CenterStage and give their honest feedback and ideas. I'm telling you…this team is going to do big things. Mark my word!
It was as cold as a snowman's buttcrack (I love saying that) inside of CenterStage. I grossed everyone out when I told them I was thinking about urinating on myself to get a temporary temperature boost.
Management assured us that it was this way b/c the heat had not been turned on yet.
I still can't believe we're going to be having our Sunday morning services there.
We got a lot done, but I can't tell you anything about it. It's top secret.
We left CenterStage @ around 1pm b/c they had a sold out concert to get ready for with Mark Broussard. Know him?
We took over the IKEA cafeteria and had a full fledged lunch meeting in the cafeteria with me standing up and talking and everything.
Of course we didn't get permission, but we had an awesome view of the city and got some more work done on our marketing campaign.
My 2 year old son acted like a complete animal there, but I still love him like crazy.
Good Lord I'm excited to plant this church!
Revolution Church
In the interest of full-discloure, I am a big fan of Gary Lamb. I like his style and see a lot of myself in him. If The Courageous Church can do in the city of Atlanta what Gary and the great people of Revolution Church are doing in North Georgia, I'll be happy. I get the feeling that we'll have each other's back here in Georgia for many years to come.
Today was the first day we met in person, but technology is so amazing because we've typed, talked, seen each other on video, twittered, commented on blogs together, and more so it just didn't seem like two strangers connecting for the first time.
The ride from downtown Atlanta where I live to Canton was easy. With no traffic on Sunday morning it just took about 45 minutes.
I grew up in a small, country factory town in rural Kentucky. Canton is not nearly as country as I expected. I saw signs for 4 mainstream hotels, all of the top restaurant franchises, and Revolution has its services in a very nice movie theater.
Versailles, KY where I grew up (even today) doesn't have any of this stuff.
The outdoor signage for Revolution Church was great.
I'm glad I was able to see Revolution use the movie theater before they move out for good after next Sunday.
I was very encouraged to see Gary out mingling with people before the service (and after the service). I understand why some pastors may not do this, but a touchable pastor has greater influence with people in my opinion.
Even after reading so much about how well Revolution Church makes use of the movie theater, my wife and I were very surprised and impressed with how much of the theater they use and how creatively they transformed the space into an inviting place for worship.
We got a ton of good ideas for our space at CenterStage.
Greeters, children's ministry workers, and others were super friendly to us and worked hard to make us feel welcome.
All three of my children were excited by the Christmas decorations and the free Starburst candy made them feel like they were home @ Buckhead Church.
By the time my wife and I walked into the service, we had forgotten that we were in a movie theater.
The music was banging! Wifey and I both loved it from start to finish. It was a rock style set and the musicians and worship leader were talented, passionate, and sounded like they loved God. They all also looked like they loved doing what they do. I want that.
A young lady did a solo of a song my wife loves. She could really sing and helped prepare the atmosphere for Gary's message.
I loved the interactive call and response going on between the stage and the crowd @ Revolution. People responded by clapping,yelling, hooting, and hollering the entire service. Right up my alley.
I didn't have a major expectation for what to expect with Gary's preaching. He is a very, very good preacher. One of the best I've heard. He has the energy, humor, skills, and biblical exegesis to do well anywhere.
At one point while he was preaching, Gary said he needed a little bit more energy and…
A woman on the front row started to yell, very loudly and clearly, "You look sexy Gary! You look so sexy Gary!" I almost fell out laughing! Who was that woman?
He said he was good to go after that.
I was super-excited to see all of the practical ways the Revolution crew is working to change Canton and change North Georgia.
Met a few of my Twitter buddies from Revolution! Glad to see you all in person.
After experiencing Revolution today, I am completely confident that they are going to blow the roof off of The Cherokee County Convention Center when they move there in a few weeks.
I gotta run! We are hosting our SUPERHUGE giftwrapping party @ Stanton Elementary School tomorrow for hundreds and hundreds of children! I can't wait! Wanna come?
From the title of my blog, you probably assumed that I wanted Brian Nichols to get the death penalty. I didn't. I am actually against the death penalty for about 4 primary reasons for which I feel very strongly and will blog about on another day.
However, I am absolutely stumped how a man that brutally killed a judge, a deputy, and a federal officer in front of scores of people was not punished to the full extent of the law – which, in Georgia, would be the death penalty. The man admitted it. Dozens of people saw him kill these folk. He was found guilty of 1st degree murder (and a whole lot more)…yet he was not given the death penalty? How men could regularly be executed with far less evidence has me baffled. Help me out.
Is something very seriously wrong here or is this the beauty of our system?
Our church plant is about to launch an outreach campaign to the city of Atlanta unlike anything we have ever seen. I can't share a whole lot about what we're doing, but I want your input on one of the most essential aspects of our campaign.
We are going to issue an ultimatum that goes something like this…
If you attend the Courageous Church Grand Opening and still think that church sucks we will do (fill in the blank).
My biggest idea is….get ready…drumroll…gulp….
To close the church. What do you think? Your ideas. Pour 'em all out!
When life is on the line and you have a play called and are ready to go, I am absolutely positive that something is going to happen from time to time to throw you for a major curve. When that happens, you have to quickly change your game plan, but the game must go on.
The Courageous Church was recently taken by such a surprise and I feel good about how our team was able to respond with the clock ticking.
Five weeks ago we initiated a partnership with a great school here in the inner city of Atlanta – Bethune Elementary School. After being advised by the school to consider raising funds for uniforms and toys, we pushed hard and made it happen! We filmed a video there, met with several members of the staff, and had huge hopes for what would happen there.
However (here comes the curve), a key staff member of the school backed out and issued a peculiar ultimatum for us to use the funds to purchase something other than uniforms and toys (a playground) to be assembled sometime in 2009 or nothing at all. I won't even expound on my feelings about this (use your imagination), but our entire team felt very strongly that we had to use the funds we raised for what we set out to use them for. For two weeks we practically begged the staff of Bethune to not fall through for the sake of the children, but they let our deadlines come and go several times.
Thankfully, several other schools had already contacted us in the early stages of our fundraiser to ask us if we would be interested in partnering with them. At the time, we told them that we would have to wait until a later date, but we ended up having to call an audible. With no one willing to budge at Bethune, we opted to partner with another inner city elementary school with identical demographics that has practically rolled out the red carpet for us to provide toys and uniforms for their children.
Frank L. Stanton Elementary School has been overwhelmingly kind to us and has quickly gotten the entire school on board for our HUGE uniform and toy giveaway. Within 24 hours of calling our audible, the school provided us with toy wish lists for every child alongside all of the uniform sizing sheets. We've placed the orders and everything is arriving this week!
We will be hosting our toy wrapping party @ Stanton on next Monday, December 15th @ 3pm and need every helping hand we can get. We are asking all of our volunteers to bring a roll (or two) of wrapping paper, tape, and scissors because we have 100's and 100's of gifts to wrap in about 2 hours time! The staff will be there to help us make it happen!
We'll be hosting our BIG GIVE celebration there at the school on Tuesday, December 16th @ 1pm.
We'll still be looking for ways to bless Bethune Elementary and are saddened that we could not work out an arrangement with them (believe me we tried) this Christmas.
Who knew it would be so hard (and complicated) to do so much good!
If you are not praying for this man, please do so now. Put his name on your list, spread the word, ask your entire family (including your children) to pray for him. Very few people in the world have felt the hurt that he feels at this moment.
So. I have bronchitis. I also have a painful ear infection, throat infection, stuffy nose, the runs, and some other stuff.
This sucks. However, the doctor said I caught everything fairly early. No time to be miserable. I'll take care of myself, get the right rest, and push through.
Hey! It's only 33 days until we launch The Courageous Church in Midtown Atlanta! We are working our butts off to form a community of faith that really loves and impacts our city for the cause of Christ!
One of the things that is enormously important to me is that we not only be great [...]
Testing out the new Facebook video embed feature for tonight's blog post. Pretty cool. It was colder than a snowman's buttcrack as I filmed it. Don't believe the hype. It does get cold in Atlanta.
Hello! I'm Shaun King - a 30 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 five 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!
