I’m up @ the crack of dawn (3:45am) this morning doing some final sermon prep for my trip to Abyssinian Baptist Church tonight. Quiet time is a luxury in my house and I gotta do what I gotta do.
I’ll be speaking there in Harlem, NY tonight and tomorrow night @ 7pm and would love to see you there if you are anywhere close by. As a student @ Morehouse I dreamed of one day being the pastor of Abyssinian and was inches away to moving my family to Manhattan about 6 years ago for grad school. This isn’t saying much, because I have actually been inches away from a lot of pretty crazy stuff :-) God has saved me from me on more than one occasion and I am so glad that we stayed put here in Atlanta!
Hoping to see a few tourist sites (Statue of Liberty, Times Square, The Today Show) on some of my down time and also eat some classic street vendor food.
I love the One Prayer movement. It really is one of the most unifying initiatives in the church today. I really was shocked to have several churches request a One Prayer message from us and I wanted to do it, but we just aren’t there yet.
Courageous Church is just a 4 month old baby and we are moving full steam ahead on so many fundamentals that we just didn’t have the time to prepare and film a great message. I’m learning more and more that saying no to some good stuff is a fundamental skill to have.
Praying for all of you One Prayer pastors and churches out there and hope to join you in 2010!
Atlanta is a strange place for women and I’m a bit frustrated about it. Full of educational and career opportunities, women from all around the world move here and excel professionally. I’m serious – over half of the women in our church have at least a Masters degree or are working on a Masters or PhD. They are doctors, lawyers, models, teachers, businesswomen, actors, musicians, scientists, tech gurus, and everything in between. I’m serious, they have jobs with benefits :-)
On their own, they are the bomb. However, without fail, they are overwhelmingly single and highly disappointed with the market for men in our city. Men are either:
Married
Heterosexual and permanently single (loving the huge ratio of women to men)
Sorry (permanently unemployed, cheaters, dirty, bad habits, abusive, thuggish, etc.)
Gay (undercover gay, normal gay, flamboyantly gay)
Caught up in the criminal justice system (in jail, on the way to jail, just got out of jail)
Some men fit more than one of the above categories
Ultimately, here’s what happens – the women begin a relationship with one of the above men anyways and get hurt in the process. I’m not kidding when I tell you that we know women currently in dead-end relationships with every one of those categories of men.
I have some ideas of my own that I’ll share in PART 2 of this blog series, but first I’d love to hear from all of you (women and men) on how you think I can best advise women that are up against long odds of finding a good man.
I LOVE our church and the awesome community that we are forming here in the heart of Atlanta.
We are diverse. We are exciting. We work hard. We’re growing. We have fun. We tell the truth. We…
I asked people to pray a lot leading up to our service today because I was going to be starting a 2 week series on baptism.
People prayed, but a ton of stuff went wrong…and none of it got in the way of our goals today.
Here’s what went wrong:
The projector that we use in our conference room was locked away and caused us to lose all of the video/visual stuff that we worked hard on for today. I did everything that was legal and some stuff that was probably illegal to fix this problem. Nothing worked.
Something happened where we had to eliminate one of our song choices at the last minute.
We ran out of forks, spoons, and cups for breakfast because so many people showed up (this means our breakfast is the bomb).
After the service was over, 12 people (most were with us for the 1st time) got stuck in an elevator. We had to call 911 and get the fire department to pry it open. No one panicked and half of them took twitpics and updated Facebook about it :-) Made me proud!
Here’s what went right:
We had record attendance and had to sit out new seats several times.
Our volunteers were awesome worked really hard today as we keep adding a couple of layers of quality over what we started out doing when we launched a few months ago.
A ton of first time visitors showed up out of nowhere.
The FREE breakfast was DELICIOUS and our new caterer is doing a great job! I honestly think more people came out this week because of how good her food was last week.
The music sounded great and our singers are working very hard.
People received the sermon very well and 12 people crossed the line and decided to be baptized next Sunday! I AM SO STINKING AMPED ABOUT THIS!
Our Next Steps class about becoming a partner with Courageous Church was well attended and efficient.
Volunteers with Courageous Kids received their materials as we prepare to get ramped up in 2 weeks.
A lot of people got to see our awesome office space (we call it our movement command center) and the improvements we’ve made so far during the renovation.
Other Stuff:
Wifey is gone to go get more supplies for next weeks breakfast
Looking forward to the NBA game tonight. Go Lebron!
Cooking out tomorrow. Thankful to God for the men and women that have given their lives for this country.
I am starting a very simple 2 week message series on BAPTISM this morning and would love your prayers. We will be baptizing our first crew of people next Sunday afternoon and I really felt the urge to preach these messages exclusively on baptism so that everyone can me unmistakably clear about how unmistakably clear the Bible is on the matter.
The American Church has done a lot of good here in the United States and even abroad by incorporating some of the best principles and practices we’ve learned from corporate America. As a matter of fact, I think the organizational and management strength of the American Church is probably what makes us unique around the world. We often lack real spirit and humility (take a trip to churches around the world to learn this), but are strong in other areas that are particularly capitalistic.
I see at least one problem though. Capitalism, at its very heart, is really about fierce competition and classic Darwinism-eque survival of the fittest. Businesses within a similar market see each other as enemies and competitors.
Employees of Coca-Cola are forbidden and often asked to sign agreements to never publicly use Pepsi products. Corporate execs at Wendy’s hate McDonald’s. Home Depot and Lowe’s are bitter enemies in the home improvement market.
Sadly, churches have taken on this model of intra-market competition and most often see each other as competitors and enemies instead of allies and partners. This is not biblical and misses the boat in a major way.
We are not competitors. We have the same boss. We are a part of the same body. Don’t get me wrong, we have competitors, but they aren’t other churches and pastors.
I have made a personal pledge to never view other pastors and churches as competition – even if they move right next door to where we’re doing ministry. I’ll admit that this takes effort, but, like any thing practiced over time, this becomes much easier the more you do it.
Here are a few signs you’ve let the wrong components of capitalism creep into your church:
You get unnerved or irritated when people decide to start new churches close to your church.
You think of the geographical area where you pastor as “your area” or “your backyard”.
You try to avoid relationships with other pastors in your city/town because you privately view them as your enemy.
Do you wanna see a powerful, well-produced video featuring one of the most eloquent, intelligent orators alive today? Then watch this video…
I kind of agree with John Piper. I don’t like abortion and love life. In spite of the fact that abortion is a political football in this nation, I still think it’s an issue worth fighting for (or against), but the methods are simply counterproductive.
This video, as eloquent as it is in all of its YouTubey (I made that up) splendor, is also counterproductive. Watch it and read why I think so below…
In this video, Dr. Piper focuses his ire and frustration about the tragic number of aborted babies on President Obama. He critiques what he perceives as a lack of value for human life by the President and then performs some oratorical magic by making it sound as if President Obama is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of babies.
Here’s my beef…
1. President George Bush was in office for 8 years and never really made ending abortion a primary goal. The same can be said for his father, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, or any other recent Republican president. However, when a Democrat is in office, they get sermons preached about what they don’t do to end abortions. This is, at the least, a bit disingenuous.
2. The Supreme Court currently has a conservative majority and has had one for many years and they have not overturned Roe v. Wade. Many cases come before them in which they could do so, but they do not. Where are the sermons about the Supreme Court?
3. Abortions can be outlawed in individual states, but all 50 states currently allow abortions. South Dakota, one of the most conservative states in the nation, has attempted 3 different times to outlaw abortion by allowing its (conservative) residents to vote to ban it and it has failed all 3 times. The inconvenient truth is that the majority of American’s do not want to ban abortion.
4. The Vatican (which is about as pro-life as it gets and is lead by a very conservative Pope) has celebrated President Obama’s willingness to seek middle ground on the issue of abortion. I have hopes that President Obama will actually take some practical steps to lessen the number of abortions in our country and that he will find ways to make some progress on this issue.
Ultimately, I think it is important to deliver messages like this on tough issues, but I just don’t think that laying this issue at the feet of our President makes a lot of sense.
I know that busy-ness does not equal success in the world of church planting, but the past few weeks have been some of the busiest of my life…with great stuff.
It’s Wednesday morning and I am cheating something else just to write this post to tell you how awesome Sunday morning was with Courageous Church!
Don’t have long because I am about to head to Stanton Elementary School here in the city for an awards presentation. My kids don’t go there, but we love that school!
Record attendance for us.
I taught a simple workshop on baptism before the service for six people that we will baptize at the end of this month…so stoked about that.
Hoping to add to that number over the next few weeks. More on that another day.
We ran a concentrated burst of Facebook ads on Saturday and were shocked at how many new people saw them and were compelled to show up on Sunday for the first time.
I closed out our message series on how God wants us to build a recession proof life and really feel good about how the series impacted lives!
After our service my wife hosted a training for people to work when we relaunch Courageous Kids in a few weeks. We expected 8 people to show up but about 20 people came and were excited to help impact the children of our city!
I gotta run…I’m late.
Will you pray for us?
We are working really hard on so many different fronts and I’d love to know that people all around the world were praying for our success!
I worked harder this week than any week I can remember. Every single day pushed my body to the limit as we demolished walls and tore out ceilings and rammed away at concrete posts (and cleaned it all up). It took longer than I expected. I injured myself several times and I feel like I just finished a Tae Bo marathon.
In my (very) idealistic mind I imagined that volunteers would come out of the woodwork to share the load in this exciting endeavor. We wouldn’t have enough space and work for the volunteers to do because they would be too numerous. After all, the “amens” were so loud when I announced that we paid the deposit on the space after a miracle donor came out of nowhere!
We announced the need for volunteers on last Sunday. Sent out an email on Sunday night. Put it out on Twitter & Facebook. Delivered mass text messages. Made phone calls…
However, the crowd never came. A few faithful volunteers trickled in here and there and they worked hard. I mean really hard. Dirty, sweaty, nasty hard. Over the course of this week I think a total of about 10 people volunteered…maybe less.
Many times I found myself working in the office alone…a bit discouraged by the daunting workload staring me back in the face. One day I actually fell off of a 10 foot ladder as I was removing ceiling tiles and hilariously caught myself on the dry wall and dangled there for a few seconds while I thanked God that I was alive. I thought to myself, “at least no one was here to laugh.” It was funny…particularly since I didn’t get hurt.
After calling a bunch of friends on Wednesday (and Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) and getting almost no response, I was seconds away from looking at the glass of my life as half-empty by throwing a pity party. I am a notoriously optimistic guy, so this is a very big deal for me and right before I started to get sad, I really felt like the Lord prompted me to not focus on who didn’t show up, but to be thankful for each person that did! They were few in number, but they worked hard and were proud to do so.
We are a bit behind schedule, but I refuse to look at where we are as being half-empty…we’re half-full. And…forever the optimist, I am believing that a new crew of volunteers will show up this week and take our work to a whole nutha level!
Wow! This past Wednesday a team of about 10 people hunkered down in my living room with chicken wings, philly cheese steaks, and fried mushrooms here in downtown Atlanta to select the new soundtrack for The Courageous Church. We had a lot of advice from friends around the country and really created a filter that every song had to pass through in order for it to make the cut.
We probably listened to at least 100 songs that we all prepared in advance. We tossed about 30, shelved about 25 for special songs, and decided we’d work these into heavy rotation…
Bob Marley – Could you be Loved?
Brandon Heath – Give me your Eyes
Bryn Christopher -The Quest
Canton Jones – G.O.D.
Chris Tomlin -Amazing Grace (chains are gone)
David Crowder Band – You Are My Joy
Dilated Peoples ft Kanye West -This Way
Daughtry – Home
Desperation Band – Rescue
Elliot Yamin -Free
Fee – We Shine
Gateway Worship -Revelation Song
Hillsong – Healer
Isley brothers – For the Love of You
Israel – Just Wanna Say
Israel- Everywhere that I Go
Israel – Friend of God & You are Good
Israel – Again I Say Rejoice
Jason Upton – All Things Are Possible
John Mark McMillan -How He Loves Us
Jonny Lang – One Person at a Time
Jonny Lang – Anything’s Possible
Jonny Lang – Turn Around
Jonny Lang – Thankful
Justin Timberlake and T.I. – Dead and Gone
Kirk Franklin- Imagine Me – …into “Mighty to Save”
Kirk Franklin – The Last Jesus
Lauryn Hill – Everything is Everything
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Michael W. Smith – You are Holy
The Monkees – I’m a Believer
Musiq Soulchild – TeachMe
Musiq Soulchild -Settle for my Love
Myron Butler & Levi – Strong
Sarah McLachlan -Prayer of St. Francis
Shane and Shane – Hearts of Servants
Starfield – I Will Go
Tye Tribbett – Victory
Tye Tribbett – I Need You
Tye Tribbett Chasing after you
Youthful Praise – Incredible God, Incredible Praise
This past Sunday was one of the most powerful moments in the history of our young church. I detailed it here on my blog, but this video will really help you see it. Thanks to DJ Dust for the awesome video.
Just a few days ago I wrote an article for a national leadership journal called “How to Make Crack Cocaine, Bombs, and Commit Suicide.” In a nutshell the article was about how rampant, simple, and compelling highly destructive content is on the internet and how those of us that fight for righteousness should ramp up online alternatives to real google searches for things like drugs, cheating, suicide, violence, and more.
Unexpectedly, if you now search google for how to make crack, my article is listed twice on the front page. It’s not first or second, but it’s on the first page doggone it. Happened quicker than I expected!
I love ARC! I have said it before, but it’s worth saying again -you probably would have never heard of The Courageous Church if ARC hadn’t provided us with the level of support and prayer and coaching we’ve received.
That’s one of the reasons I am so amped to be speaking @ an upcoming ARC Conference on how leaders and churches can really use viral marketing to help build communities and connect people to real causes! The conference is the BUG CONFERENCE and it’s being hosted @ Church of the Highlands (the fastest growing church in the country) in Birmingham, Alabama.
The conference has been designed to be highly interactive and hands-on to provide all of the attendees practical answers and solutions. Registration is limited to 300 people so that we can provide personalized attention to your specific situation! I’ll be sharing some of the strategies we’ve used @ Courageous Church, but will be specifically be speaking about how viral marketing strategies are not cut and paste and how leaders have to find local, organic ways to connect with people online. These strategies are not expensive, are not beyond your technical grasp, and can be used quickly!
Go to BugConference.com for all of the information! Hope to see you there and spend some time helping you craft some fresh solutions for your city!
That’s the title of my first article on the Neue Ministry website. Proud to have it featured on the front page and hopeful you’ll go there and check it out now!
It was easily one of the most fulfilling days of my life because I saw real life change happen before my own eyes.
This is why I pastor. Period.
I really loved the feel and vibe of our music today. Our team does an awesome job remaking and rewriting songs to make them fit our environment.
Today we did Robert Randolph’s “It Don’t Matter,” Beyonce’s “Flaws & All” and Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable” -great stuff!
I am surprised and encouraged every week when I see so many doggone new faces. New faces bring great new life and energy to our efforts every week.
I preached the 3rd message in our series entitled “God’s Directions for a Recession Proof Life”
Today was all about Avoiding Distractions and I continued to use Nehemiah as my main illustrative story.
We closed out the message with something that was more powerful that even I expected.
We just signed the contract and paid the deposit on our new ministry and office space on Monday and had a few walls we needed to tear down.
We had everyone come to our office (visitors and all) and write distractions, sins, mistakes, etc. on the wall in invisible ink that are keeping them from fully walking into the promises of God.
We let every single person take about 20-30 seconds alone to write what they wanted to write in privacy.
After every person was finished, we gave everybody one last chance to write some more stuff if they wanted too.
They did.
After it was all over, we turned out the lights and shined black lights onto the wall and it was POWERFUL to see hundreds of distractions spread all over the wall!
I took a moment to look @ and read the wall and it was deep. Very deep…and honest!
I preached a mini-sermon (I can’t help myself) and prayed.
It was as Pentecostal as our church has ever been since we launched :-)
We then proceeded person by person to take a sledge hammer and knock down the wall of distractions.
It was an amazing moment. Folk were crying and going BANANAS on that wall like they had pent up anger and pain that had to be let out.
Pregnant women and folk with disabilities when just as bananas as anyone else! It was crazy!
Getting a ton of moving feedback from folk that were there. HOPING they share their thoughts here too!
We accidentally knocked a hole in the wall of our neighbor and knocked over a file cabinet in their office. Oops!
I love the Book of James in the Bible. It’s tough and hard-hitting through and through. I could imagine if the book really was written by James, the brother of Jesus, that he would be really bothered by people that took the faith lightly.
In James 4:2-3, James basically says that a whole lot of what we ask God for never happens because we’re asking for the wrong stuff with the wrong motives. Basically, a bunch of our prayers are going straight to God’s SPAM folder.
Are you praying for stuff that tugs at the heart of God or are you praying for stuff that will make your life more comfortable? Check out the passage for yourself. Powerful, convicting stuff!
2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. – James 4:2-3 (NLT)
The current economic recession has thrown a lot of people’s lives into a major tailspin. I kid you not…over 50% of the adults @ Courageous Church are currently unemployed – most of them for the very first time in their lives. Because of this, I really prayed and struggled for weeks as I prepared for our very first series that dealt with personal finances because I wanted each message in this series to really connect with the entire audience and not just a sliver each Sunday.
I have primarily been leaning on the words of Jesus and the story of Nehemiah to guide us throughout the series and I want to share one primary principle I’ve learned with you and some of my sermon notes from this past Sunday’s message entitled, “Developing Recession Proof Goals.”
Principle: When our primary concern in life is to do the work of the Lord, God promises to meet our needs day by day. -Matthew 6:32-33
Let me give you the key notes from my message on “Developing Recession Proof Goals” from this past Sunday. All of this comes from Chapters 1 & 2 of the Book of Nehemiah. If you aren’t familiar with his story, it’s a powerful one about having a dream to do good without having the actual means to make it happen. Instead of sulking, Nehemiah established some HUGE goals and got busy moving to make them happen. And…guess what…they did.
1. Pursuing Goals FIRST begins with Pursuing God
When Nehemiah learned that his hometown was in ruins and a sad state of disrepair, the VERY FIRST THING that he did was fall on his face and pray to God. He didn’t just start listing things he wanted God to do like God is a genie in a bottle, but Nehemiah fell on his face and prayed for a renewed relationship with the Lord.
Nehemiah knew what you and I need to know – pursuing goals is a waste of time if you haven’t first pursued God.
2. Do your goals tug at the Heart of God?
Nehemiah had goals that already mattered to God and tugged at His heart! Many of us have goals that the Book of James basically calls SPAM because they don’t really matter to God. When your goals tug @ the heart of God you can operate with a confidence that God will hear you and move on your behalf.
3. Are your goals so big that they require faith and divine intervention?
Nehemiah’s goal of rebuilding the walls around his city was WAY BEYOND his skill set, bank account, experience, etc. Not only did he not even live in that city any more, he had no known construction experience, very little money, and a whole lot of doubters! However, he knew what we need to know – God loves goals that are so big that they require His intervention. This way – when they get done – God gets the glory!
4. Have you enlisted the support of the people around you?
Nehemiah knew literally and figuratively that he could not rebuild the walls around his city alone. Have you ever tried doing something huge on your own? It sucks. Nehemiah needed the help of three types of people. He needed people above him with influence and resources. He needed a few peers to help support, protect, and encourage him. He needed people that he could lead that would bust their butts and get the actual work done. If you can get those three groups of people moving, the odds of your success have greatly improved!
5. Are your goals just dreams or do you have plans with actionable steps?
Nehemiah started out with just a quick, fleeting thought about rebuilding his city that turned into a dream and a prayer for that city. However, between the end of Nehemiah 1 and the start of Nehemiah 2, two things happened. The first thing that happened was some time passed and we learned in Nehemiah 2:1 that the seasons changed. Nehemiah took some time after he had a dream and a prayer to think. The second thing that happened is that Nehemiah made PLANS. He knew that he could not go to the King (or anyone else for that matter) with a dream and a prayer. They needed plans.
Paying people does not make them passionate about church. Period.
While our church is only a little less than 4 months old, I have learned quickly and clearly that giving people a paycheck does not produce one iota of passion for God or for the church. Either they are passionate or they aren’t. Here’s what I know:
If people were not really passionate about God or the church you lead before you started paying them, they won’t grow one single ounce of passion about God or the church you lead because you pay them.
If people were really passionate about God or the church you lead before you started paying them, paying them does not mean that this passion will be magically sustained or revived with each paycheck they receive.
Money just doesn’t produce passion. People that are passionate about God and the church are passionate if they have money or if they are dead broke. I recently listed 10 mistakes I have made so far as a church planter.
Mistake #11 has to be thinking that people that I liked a little bit would become passionate people that I liked a lot once our church started giving them a paycheck. Time after time I have learned that I hired most people far too quickly because we thought we had to do this. I was wrong and 100% of the hires we made of people without passion NEVER really grew in their passion because of any money they received from the church.
The solution to this, in part, is to be far more rigorous in the hiring process and to really search for people that have demonstrated a real passion for God that doesn’t happen to mysteriously surge at the mention of money.
Just a few hours ago we launched a brand new website exclusively on Twitter & Facebook for a huge (for our brand new community) Courageous Church campaign that we are launching to raise $100,000 in financial and in-kind donations of goods and services! Learn all about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it @ [...]
Just learned recently that I was nominated as one of Atlanta’s Power 30 under 30. Good thing I was nominated because I’ll be 30 years old on September 17th! (Think I may have a big ‘ol party somewhere…stay tuned.)
Guess I’ll have to shoot for a Power 40 under 40 award next year :-)
Really though, I’m [...]
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!
I worked harder this week than any week I can remember. Every single day pushed my body to the limit as we demolished walls and tore out ceilings and rammed away at concrete posts (and cleaned it all up). It took longer than I expected. I injured myself several times and I feel like I just finished a Tae Bo marathon.
Paying people does not make them passionate about church. Period.
