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Courageous Church

3 Birds – 1 Blog Post :-) (Small Groups, Financial Peace, Volunteer in the Office)

by Shaun on February 24, 2010 · 1 comment

Hey!

I hope that you are doing amazingly well!  We wanna knock out 3 birds with this 1 blog post and are excited to see YOU follow up right away!

1. REGISTER NOW FOR OUR VERY FIRST SMALL GROUPS!!!

We are wanting you to sign up now to be a part of one of our very first small groups!!! You DO NOT have to a member of Courageous Church (or even a Christian) and we encourage you to invite as many of your friends and family as you want to join a group.  Anyone can be a part of a group, but you MUST register.

Each group is free and will provide a place for you to build relationships, learn timeless truths to help guide you through life, and ultimately complete a courageous project together!  Can you tell I am excited??? :-)

We are having a special kick-off service this Sunday and some groups will begin meeting as early as Monday.

NEW UPDATE: The teen small group is now meeting @ 1pm instead of 5pm here in the Courageous Church offices.  This way you can come to the 11am service, then go to Financial Peace University @ 1pm, and then have your teens meet with their small group. Encourage your teen to register and encourage their friends to register too. It’s going to be the bomb (is that still cool to say?)!

2. Sign up NOW for Financial Peace University! It will change your life!

NEW UPDATE: FPU begins on Sunday, March 7th and is offered @ 11am & 1pm every Sunday for 13 weeks.

A few VERY IMPORTANT details:

  • You do not have to be making money to take FPU -it’s for everybody!
  • Although we have invested a good deal of resources to become an official Financial Peace University site, we are offering the class for free.
  • Like any university setting, some books and materials are required and cost $93 per family unit.  Order them from a link on the registration form.
  • We have a limited # of partial scholarships available from the church to help you if you absolutely cannot make this investment.  You can let us know on the registration form if this is needed.

3. We need more volunteers in the office every day of the week to help with our efforts in Haiti, manage our daily operations, and so much more.  We’re growing and need you to help carry the load, OK? Sign up now! Thanks!

BE COURAGEOUS!

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Launching Large in Big Cities -Notes from my Breakouts @ #cp10

by Shaun on February 22, 2010 · 3 comments

Launching Courageous Church has been the most exciting, challenging, rewarding endeavor of my life.   I am not an expert though. I regularly guess and experiment. Sometimes I guess correctly.

Here are my 10 favorite correct guesses :-)

I have made a gazillion mistakes since we launched though (I list 10 here).

In the spirit of keeping it real, I laid out some brutally honest facts about our church here.

Church planting has been way harder than I expected. A few months ago I wrote about 10 of those difficulties.

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All of that said, I think we’ve learned a few transferable strategies on how a church can have a big launch (or grand opening) in large cities.   Understand this, everything that we’ve done is not transferable.  You must find your own voice/expression/strengths in your own context.  Too often, church planters, with a genuine heart to grow a church, end up wrongly mimicking every detail of something they saw at their favorite church -and were SHOCKED when it didn’t work for them.

God does not desire that you simply be a carbon copy of what He is doing all around the world! Some programs or principles may transfer, but I urge you to first listen to the voice of God and get His heart for the people you are serving before trying any of what I am about to share.

Here are 3 practical strategies we used to launch Courageous Church that helped us have over 700 people at our first service (and have helped us throughout our first 13 months).  I will be posting more details about these 3 strategies on Wednesday after I teach both of my sessions @ #cp10.

1. Pray Hard – PUSH HARD.

Breaking through the SKEPTICISM and noise and clutter and bright lights of the city is not easy.  I regularly worked 24 hour days leading up to launching Courageous Church and we pushed hard. I mean like our lives depended on it.  Strategies that work in the suburbs can easily cause church planters in the city to fall flat on their face and ultimately wonder cause a great deal of self-doubt.  People in the city, more than the suburbs, don’t simply accept that churches are needed and it is going to take hard work to secure your place in the city.

2. Do so much good that it makes the news…a lot.

Leading up to the grand opening of Courageous Church, our 500toys initiative was covered extensively by several local news stations, the radio, The Today Show, Wall-Street Journal, was picked up by the AP, and ultimately covered in dozens of newspapers in countries all around the world.  This was HUGE for us.  It branded us as the church that loved kids and showed it in tangible ways.

Since this, including yesterday and today, our church has been covered by the local news media for GOOD news for six different initiatives and we have been featured on the official Facebook blog, WIRED magazine, in many church publications, and much more.

3. Make real connections via Twitter & Facebook (including effective Facebook ad campaigns).

Over half of the people (80 % if you include 2nd generation) that attend Courageous Church learned about us on Facebook and Twitter.  However, our Facebook and Twitter campaigns DO NOT STAND ALONE.  They are CLOSELY CONNECTED to #1 & #2 above. More details soon!

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MAJOR Announcement about Our Service Tomorrow! MAJOR!

by Shaun on January 9, 2010 · 16 comments

Tomorrow Only! A Snuggie Contest @ Courageous Church!

#1: Yep.  I’m serious.  We have a SPECIAL PRIZE for any person that wears a SNUGGIE to either our 9am or 11am service this Sunday!  It’s cold out and so many of you joked last Sunday that you wish you wore yours so now I’m giving pastoral permission and a prize :-) Think about it, the design is perfect for you to lift your hands and praise the Lord. Reply now if you think you might be bold enough to wear your Snuggie so I have an idea of how many prizes to bring!

For all of you that are not fortunate enough to have a Snuggie, we purchased three additional space heaters this week to make sure we stay toasty.

#2: Tomorrow (Sunday) we will begin our Next Steps class again for 2010.  We have a new conference room available directly across from the auditorium and it will be offered immediately after the 9am service is over. Grab your breakfast and come on to this casual reception to learn what the NEXT STEPS are for you as you commit yourself to God through Courageous Church.  If you are interested in becoming a member of Courageous Church, this reception is required.

#3: Our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY service is being hosted @ Morehouse College on Sunday, January 17th @ 11am!  During this service we will be celebrating what God has done in our first year, looking forward to year two, and helping the college celebrate MLK Day!  I find it to be very powerful that our church was invited by the college to host our service on King Day!

We’ll have several awesome guests and cannot wait to SEE YOU THERE!  More details coming from us soon!

#4: So many of you have asked how you join or become a member of Courageous Church.  Wanting to make sure that we take membership seriously, we have waited until now to introduce Courageous U - an engaging, surprising, interactive 4 step process to becoming a member of our church.  It’s coming this February and will only be offered 3 times a year!  Are you ready?

#5: SMALL GROUPS are coming!!! Starting the last week of February we will be launching our very first small groups for kids, men, women, and married couples! We will also be offering Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University twice every Sunday!  Are you excited??? I am!

We hope you’ll continue doing a great job spreading the word about all that God is doing through our young church!

Be Courageous…wear a Snuggie :-)

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News Video of Our Gift Wrapping Party & BIG GIVE!

by Shaun on December 16, 2009 · 23 comments

Our friends @ 11Alive News (NBC) came through to film our gift wrapping & BIG GIVE for 500toys.org! Check it out! (My favorite part is the boy @ 1:03 that has a grin from ear to ear and starts flapping his arms like a butterfly :-)

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The Naked Truth

by Shaun on November 10, 2009 · 0 comments

On this past Sunday @ Courageous Church we launched a new series dealing with the intersection of faith, finances, and the church called “iGwt?”.  It is the first time we have really dealt with this topic head-on since we launched this past January.  People REALLY received it well and I am praying it helps us (and you).

We have a simple microsite up for the series where you can download my sermon notes and the podcast.

Check it out @ www.iGwt.me My first message was entitled “The Naked Truth”

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A Day in the Life of Courageous Church

by Shaun on November 3, 2009 · 0 comments

On Sunday, November 1st we gave every volunteer the day off @ Courageous Church!  We filmed this video the previous Sunday to really show all of the attendees what it takes to pull one “simple” Sunday off!  Shout out to DJDust for the great video!

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Subscribe

by Shaun on November 3, 2009 · 3 comments

Judging from the stats, hundreds (maybe thousands) of you visit here regularly, but you don’t subscribe.  Maybe you don’t know how to subscribe to blogs or don’t know how to subscribe to mine.  I read dozens of blogs daily through subscriptions and they keep me sharp and encouraged!  Here are two ways you can subscribe today:

USE A READER. Most if not all blogs use RSS (Real Simple Syndication) “feeds” which can be aggregated and displayed by what’s known as an RSS or Feed Reader. Some examples of free readers are Bloglines, Google Reader, Yahoo, or most of the newer web browsers have readers built in. I personally use Google Reader which helps me sift through the blogs I subscribe to.

You can subscribe via different RSS options HERE.

EMAIL. If you’d rather have the new posts delivered to your inbox as an email, that’s pretty simple too. Click here first, click on “Get Shaun in the City by Email” then type in your address and verification to receive posts via email.

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Volunteer Revenge @ Courageous Church

by Shaun on November 2, 2009 · 6 comments

Yesterday we gave every volunteer @ Courageous Church the day off…without telling anyone else.  No set up.  No breakfast.  No music.  No parking crew.  No Courageous Kids.  No signage.  No sound system.  Nothing!  It was a mess…just like we wanted it :-)

Our goal was to show everyone what a Sunday without volunteers looks like!  It pretty much sucks.

We got this idea from our friends @ Elevation Church and it really worked! We had a ton of people commit to being a part of our Sunday team and we can’t wait to see how next Sunday goes!

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We Need You to Serve vs. You Need to Serve

by Shaun on November 1, 2009 · 3 comments

For the first six months after we launched Courageous Church, I often felt like a car salesman when it came to volunteers.  Regularly I would basically beg people to serve and tell them how much we needed them in the clearest way possible.  In the end, a few great people would sign up, but it would never be as much as we needed.  I’ve changed my tune. Let me tell you why.

Church plants require a ton of volunteers. Without them, you burn people out and the quality of what you are doing really suffers.

So one Sunday a few months ago I was doing my whole sad begging routine and Reggie Joiner, a mentor to me and one of the best leaders in the world, was there to hear it.  Our leadership team met with him later that day and he told me point blank…

Stop telling people how badly you need them to serve and begin telling them how badly they need to serve.  Tell them how serving changes their life.  Tell them how much you grow and change and get connected when you serve and how not serving basically freezes them in time as far as their growth in the church (and in the faith) goes.

It’s 7am on Sunday morning and I am going to be preaching that message twice this morning.  I’ll let you know how it goes on Twitter later.

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Some Brutal Honesty for Church Planters: Less Bling. More Truth.

by Shaun on October 21, 2009 · 23 comments

bling_blingI love leading Courageous Church! 9+ months into this adventure and I am still excited, passionate, still optimistic, and still courageous!  However, I feel like I have done some of my fellow church planters a bit of a disservice by telling you about all of the success and all of the accolades without really giving you a glimpse into how hard this is.  I haven’t told you about much pain.  I haven’t told you about much drama.  I haven’t told you about a crisis or two that we have dealt with.  I have pretty much just told you about the BLING, but I need to tell you some more truth so that you know what to expect!  So many pastors and leaders tell me regularly that they want to launch large and do things like Courageous Church and that’s cool, but I want to keep it real with you for a few minutes, OK?

  • Did you read about the 10 Mistakes I’ve Made?  I’ve made about 20 30 40 50 more.   I want you to know that I have made a ton of mistakes so you don’t feel like an idiot when you make so many too.  Church planting is like parenting…you can read every book out, but some lessons you have to learn on your own.
  • We have had to fire some people. We had to let other people go because of budget cuts.  We will likely do both again.  This part of leading is harder than I ever expected.
  • Our weekly offering is about 80% less than I projected before we launched the church.  Yeah – I said EIGHT ZERO. 80.  We hardly raise enough money to pay our basic bills and this is very stressful.  Church planters that are a few steps ahead of me say this is normal.  However, it still sucks.
  • Our attendance plummeted 85% in the weeks after our grand opening and hit a low of just about 50 people.  Yes. For real.  See what that does to your ego.  Since then we have steadily grown nearly every week to about 200 people in Sunday attendance and we have between 350-400 people that attend fairly regularly.
  • I work very long hours. I am regularly up at the crack of dawn every day of the week and burn the midnight oil.  I am nowhere near burnout and God has really graced me with the energy to do this, but it’s hard.
  • Broken people love me and love our church.  I love them.  Tom Q. Perfect has never attended our church.  Our church is full of skeptics, gay guys, addicts, adulterers, liars, hot heads, homeless people, and shopaholics.  I prayed that this would be the case and this was one of the prayers that God decided to answer right away :-)
  • My family still needs me. My kids still get sick.  Dishes still need done.  Wifey still needs me to be present. As a matter of fact, since launching the church, my family demands have increased (my baby daughter is crying now after waking up from a nap while my sick wife takes one of our sick daughters to the doctor).

I have a few more that I don’t have nerve enough to tell you, but I think you get the picture.  Would I choose a different profession if I had the choice?  No stinking way. I just want you to know that this requires you to be called, have thick skin, and some people to hold you up along the way!

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Atlanta Flood…Relief

by Shaun on September 22, 2009 · 7 comments

UPDATE: We are accepting all of the donations we describe in this video and below it RIGHT NOW (Wednesday) until 9pm in our offices @ 1330 West Peachtree Street, Suite 560, Atlanta, GA 30309.  Call 404.461.9850 if you have questions.

Stuff is a whole lot worse for people than I thought it would be.  Hundreds…maybe thousands of families have lost everything they own.  Everything.  Here is a quick video talking about some ways we can help.  We will be putting a website up soon for Atlanta Flood Relief and our church wants to be a catalyst that brings people together to provide immediate assistance for people.

People need toiletries, clothes, underwear, socks, food, diapers, baby food, wipes, cars, gift cards, cash, pre-paid cell phones, and everything in between.

Buy them and plan on bringing them directly to our church.  We are working out volunteers for shifts now, but need a ton of volunteers in our offices to sort, manage, and immediately distribute stuff as soon as we get it.

You can also make a cash/debit donation online directly to our church and we pledge that a 100% of your donation will go directly to this cause.

If you want to volunteer or donate goods/services, contact me directly @ shaunking@courageous.tv or by phone @ 404.461.9850

If you need assistance because you were impacted by the flood, email or call me right away as well.

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Ten FREE Resources for Church Planters

by Shaun on September 21, 2009 · 9 comments

Starting a church is not cheap.

Doing it effectively in a way that reaches large numbers of people is actually quite costly, but I think it’s more than worth the investment of time and money.  However, I have compiled a list of 10 TOTALLY FREE RESOURCES that have made all the difference for me during the first 9 months since we launched Courageous Church!

I’m not going to pretend…I love FREE stuff.  I am a pretty frugal dude and a notorious cheapskate.  I bought my laptop @ Wal-Mart, my shoes @ Costco, and my eyeglasses that you see in the pictures on this blog for $9 @ Zenni Optical (that’s lenses and the frame).  Nothing beats free though :-)  These 10 free resources have been as valuable more valuable for me as a church planter than any MacBook Pro or amp or software that we’ve purchased.

10. Hard Work – Building a launch team, creating momentum, training people, having a Grand Opening, and then actually leading a growing community of faith takes a lot of elbow grease.  If you’re not prepared to work hard – don’t do this.  I work hard.  I work late.  I work early.  Yeah – we spent some money along the way, but the hard work that I put in alongside the long hours of faithful volunteers has been a huge key to our success.

9. Studying & Reading God’s Word – Don’t believe the hype.  People really want to know what the Bible says.  I lead a young, diverse, highly unchurched, skeptical congregation and preach messages week in and week out that are bible heavy.  I study it and read it for myself and then go share this with people on Sunday morning.  It works.  The more I read it and the more I share what it says with people – the more I see lives changed.

8. Reading Blogs from Pastors & Leaders that Have Already Been Where You’re Going – I have a collection of books that have shaped me in a major way, but the blogs I read daily from pastors & leaders keep sharp and encouraged more than anything else out there.  I follow what they say, learn what’s working (and not working for them), discover some best practices, and even hear God confirm some things for me when I see how God is moving in other churches around the world.  Mark Batterson, Eugene Cho, LifeChurch.tv, and Perry Noble are some that I look forward to every day.  I read about 20 blogs regularly and subscribe to them through BlogLines.

7. Twitter – Twitter has been central to the success of Courageous Church and it never cost us one single penny!  Our church uses to Twitter to stay connected to people and keep them informed of all that’s going on and I use Twitter to learn from leaders, stay in the loop, and keep people connected to who I am in some very fresh ways.  I have made close friends on Twitter, communicated with leaders and mentors that I otherwise would not know, we have raised funds and awareness there, and so much more.

6. Email – Our church uses Google Apps to host our email services and I push email hard and heavy.  I send and receive hundreds of emails a day. I try to respond regularly, quickly, and shortly to almost every email I receive.  I also send out informative and inspirational mass messages to our church.  I heard that email was going out of style, but we don’t act like it.

5. Making the Big Ask -My friends giggle at how much I ask people to do and give, but it works.  I regularly challenge people to step up and serve God in our city and they almost always say yes or have a very good reason why they can’t do what I’m asking them to do.  Do I get nervous when I ask people? Sometimes.  But having nobody serving God makes me even more nervous.

4. Be Motivational – I try hard to be an encouraging force for people by speaking words of love, kindness, warmth, and hope.  Even if I have to deliver bad news, I try to shape it in a way that shows the glass as being at least half full.  Politicians, the news media, and doggone near everybody else has the ANGER & DEPRESSION market down just fine.  If you choose to be a motivational voice, you will probably be in league of your own.  To me, a depressed pastor is a living, breathing oxymoron.  God has called us to lift people up with the GOOD NEWS!

3. Facebook – While our church uses paid Facebook ads pretty often, one of the main reasons they work so well for us is that all of the effective free stuff we do on Facebook has already created goodwill and friendships in our city.  I have over 7,000 Facebook friends (on two accounts) that I communicate with regularly.  We joke. We pray.  We debate.  We live life.  I counsel people through real challenges on Facebook.  Our church has nearly 2,000 people that are a part of our Facebook group.  Every single Sunday we have a ton of new visitors that learned about our church on Facebook.  Some saw ads, but just as many say they are friends with me or friends with my friends that told them about the church.

2. Prayer – I still don’t pray as much as I would like to, but I pray today more than I ever have.  I am completely convinced that if I’m not going where God says to go and doing what God says to do that I am wasting my time and yours.  I so badly want to be in tune with the heart of God for the church and not just promote my own goofy ideas that I find myself just asking God for his guidance and strength.  Try it.

1. A Great Family Life – I love my big family.  My wife is my best friend.  My kids are my biggest fans.  Home base is a safe place for me and gives me the confidence to go out into the world and be bold because I know my family will always love me.  I invest my love and energy and time into leading this family the best way I know how.  I made a value decision many years ago that I would be known as a good husband and father and that this reputation would be a major part of my ministry.  I am not the best leadership guru (I’m learning), or the best preacher (I’m growing), or the best dressed dude around (this will never happen), but when it comes to being a husband and father, I’m one proud dude.

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The White Male Church Planters Conference (Part III)

by Shaun on September 14, 2009 · 6 comments

About a year ago I expressed my agitation concerning a national church planting conference that I thought had a glaring lack of diversity.  The lineup they had was awesome!  Every speaker was qualified and anybody that went to that conference was sure to learn a ton…from the best, white male church planters in the country.

In retrospect, I wish that I had reached out to the leaders of that conference before writing the blog post above.  I meant what I said, but connecting with them would have been more mature on my end.

A few months after I wrote “White Male Church Planters Conference -Part I”, I rather humorously wrote Part II after learning that my own organizational conference pretty much looked the same.  Again, I made the same mistake and should have reached out to my leaders and expressed my thoughts privately before going public.

It obviously takes me too long to learn lessons, but I finally learned that lesson :-)

So…guess what…I am now speaking at the White Male Church Planters Conference alongside a female pastor and several female leaders, an awesome Asian-American pastor/author/church planter, a Latino leader that I admire, and more.  To say that I’m proud is an understatement.   Here’s the lineup.  It’s one of the best I’ve seen for a church planting conference.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to exaggerate my influence in this, but I am elated that leaders are getting the point that a diverse conference is a better conference.  It will not only reach more people (I will bet you anything that this is the best attended conference they’ve ever had), but it will provide everyone that attends with a richness of perspectives that will enhance the quality of the time.

I can’t wait actually.  Registration is deeply discounted right now and I would love for YOU to join me there.  I am clearing off my schedule to be there from start to finish and would love to help you out in any way I can.

So -plenty of other White Male Church Planters Conferences still exist…but this isn’t one of them! Pretty cool in my book.

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Courageous Church: Love God! Love People! Prove It! (Video)

by Shaun on September 14, 2009 · 12 comments

Just a few months ago, Courageous Church was a dream in the heart of just a few people.  Now we are serving and impacting hundreds of people throughout Atlanta.  Our hope is that this video captures just a bit of who we are and what we’re all about! You can also check this out in Full HD on Facebook here!

Thanks to our own DJ Dust for filming this!  You’re the bomb man!

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When Drama Breaks Out…

by Shaun on September 12, 2009 · 3 comments

I’m in North Carolina right now speaking and learning at a great conference.  With a big, young family like mine (5 kids under the age of 10) and a brand new church, I don’t leave town much and when I do, I almost always bring the entire King Team (or cute family name…you need one too) with me.

Tomorrow our church is adding a second service and beginning a life changing series.

So – have I set the scene. I’m out of state. My wife is holding down the fort.  Our church is growing and…

DRAMA BREAKS OUT!

I got a text from my wife that something had gone wrong with the church.  Of course I was alarmed so I wrote her back and asked her what it was.

She said the doors to our Sunday morning location were CHAINED SHUT – with a sweet note from a stranger named Pam stating that they would be shut all weekend.  Uhhhh -no.  We share that building with a ton of other tenants and all of us were shut out.

That’s not going to work.  But here’s the thing.  When you are pushing and doing the work of God – drama will ALWAYS break out. The unexpected is bound to happen.

Here’s what we did.

We prayed.  We asked you to pray.

We also started planning on cutting the chains if we had to as a last resort.  We thought this might be slightly illegal, but we’d deal with that later.  But before we had to cut the chains, something that smells like Divine Intervention happened and someone came and unlocked them without us even prompting them.

Who in the world knows what happened and why?  I don’t even care.  I just wanted to tell you to pray and plan on acting when drama breaks out!

I can’t wait to preach tomorrow!

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All of the Podcasts for 100 Life Goals

by Shaun on September 8, 2009 · 5 comments

Check out all of the podcasts, including the concluding message from this past Sunday, from our 100 Life Goals series here:

Part 4 (Physical & Influence Goals)

Part 3 (Travel & Experience Goals)

Part 2 (Family & Friends Goals)

Stream them, download them, or get ‘em on iTunes!

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Two Important Requests!

by Shaun on September 6, 2009 · 0 comments

Hey!

I hope that you are doing very, very well.  I have two very important things to share with you.

  • We need to raise about $6,000 before this coming Sunday to purchase equipment and supplies for Courageous Kids, Free Breakfast, and to make sure we can fully support adding our second service. If you can give $5 or $5,000 we need you to push yourself as we continue to connect people to our God throughout the city!  Please give here as soon as you can. Every single dollar you give will go to this cause.
  • We need at least 40 additional volunteers (more like 60) to be prepared to step up and serve God through Courageous Church this coming Sunday.  We have created a quick and easy form for you to view and select two potential areas.  Please click here and complete the form as soon as you can so a team captain or group leader can connect with you.

Be Courageous!

Shaun & Crew
Courageous Church

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We Need You @ Our Grand Opening This Sunday!

by Shaun on September 6, 2009 · 0 comments

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Courageous Church Podcast

August 26, 2009

Search “Courageous Church” on iTunes or get our latest podcast from 100 Life Goals: Creating a Vision for Victory here.

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Scripture for Family/Friends Goals

August 26, 2009

The Courageous Church is currently going through a series entitled 100 Life Goals: Creating a Vision for Victory.  It has been a powerful experience as we guide our community through a very real process of creating a real, working, God-inspired plan for their lives.  Here are the scriptures that we used this past Sunday to [...]

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