Courageous Church

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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What Do You Hope For?

August 18, 2009

This past Sunday we launched into what I think is the most life-changing message series we have experienced as a community faith entitled, 100 Life Goals: Creating a Vision for Victory.  Beyond record attendance, we had record participation and buy-in and it was overwhelmingly obvious to me that people are hungry and ready to live [...]

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10 Steps to Setting 100 Life Goals

August 15, 2009

This short article from Mark Batterson about 10 Steps to Setting 100 Life Goals is a life-changer. I am pretty much basing the 100 Life Goals series that I am starting tomorrow on the ideas I read here.

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100 Life Goals: Creating a Vision for Victory

August 11, 2009

RSVP Today! If faith is “the substance of things HOPED FOR and the evidence of things unseen,” the question is…. What are YOU hoping for? If you don’t choose what you HOPE for, here’s the thing…life will choose for you! Ever find yourself just hoping you have enough money to make it through the month? [...]

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Summer Slump is a Self Fulfilling Prophecy

August 8, 2009

Churches (so I have been taught for years to believe) go through a major slump in the summer. Attendance goes down. The offering plummets. Interest in the church dissipates. If you can just survive the summer, everything will be fine. While this is just my first summer as pastor of Courageous Church, we haven’t experienced [...]

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10 Thoughts about Building Community Online

July 13, 2009

Social media and online tools have been central to much of the success Courageous Church has had in our first months.  We get a ton of questions about what tools we use and how we do what we do and I got a chance to speak @ the BUG Conference @ Church of the Highlands [...]

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The Power of Knowing Who You Are(n’t)

July 11, 2009

Yesterday I received emails from two total strangers about our church. The first email was pretty harsh and proclaimed that I was “shortchanging the Gospel” by making church and Christianity “sound fun.”  The author ended her email by stating, “I am obviously not your target audience.” The second email was the polar opposite.  Here’s an [...]

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Saying No! One More Thing Hard Thing.

July 3, 2009

Just a few days ago I posted 10 things that are a whole bunch harder than I expected about starting and growing a church.  I forgot something big, that if not done (very) often, can undermine your leadership and overall effectiveness in a major way. Saying NO.  Whether you say it in Spanish or English (a [...]

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Fostering (Real) Diversity is Harder than I Thought

July 2, 2009

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.  [...]

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10 Things that are Harder than I Expected

June 28, 2009

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 [...]

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Revisiting “Drastic Measures to Avoid Moral Failure”

June 25, 2009

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 [...]

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Buncha Stuff Sunday (Early Morning Edition)

June 14, 2009

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 [...]

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Leading Church in a Flat World

June 11, 2009

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. [...]

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Buncha Stuff Sunday

June 8, 2009

It’s hard work, but I have a ton of fun leading Courageous Church 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 [...]

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“Adventurous Christianity” should be Redundant

June 7, 2009

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 [...]

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A Pastor’s View on the Death of Autotune by Jay-Z

June 5, 2009

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, [...]

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4 Fun Changes @ Courageous Church!

June 5, 2009

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 [...]

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Why Arguments Generally Suck

June 4, 2009

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 [...]

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Buncha Stuff Sunday

June 1, 2009

Quick Recap of NYC Trip Thank you for praying and thinking about my trip. Preaching @ Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem this past Thursday & Friday was easily one of the top 3 highlights of my 12 years preaching the Gospel. To even step feet on the marble stage of Abyssinian was an awestruck moment [...]

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One Prayer 2010

May 26, 2009

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 [...]

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