The lid popped off Calvary Assembly of God in Dover, Delaware. With just over 1,300 people in attendance on January 3, 2010, the following Sunday it sky rocketed to 1,621 people! “We had a record high attendance,” Angela Coon, the wife of the senior pastor, celebrates. This was the largest non-holiday attendance in over 30 years for Roland Coon and his staff. In a week’s time, Calvary raised the bar of discipleship not only in their church but also in their community.
Calvary’s growth was not in a vacuum but the culmination of much prayer and preparation. The capstone was “Kalos Books” author, Jess Bousa. His recently released book, The Discipleship Dare: Living Dangerously for God, was the jumper cables that started a discipleship movement at Calvary. After four weeks of church wide promotions in various settings, Jess stepped onto Calvary’s platform with a single purpose: to dare the congregation to raise the bar of discipleship by making following Jesus not only a community but daily priority for the next 40 days.
After the dust settled, over half of The Discipleship Dare’s first printing was in the hands of Calvary’s people. Roughly 25% of people dared friends and family to take the 40-day discipleship challenge. The book stands alone, but works best when it’s injected into a church’s discipleship process. Calvary not only showcased it on Sunday morning, but the Youth Group led by Ryan Coon is preaching a 6-week sermon series. They launched two Sunday School classes, weekly small groups, and a variety of other venues. Anyone can weekly discuss the book with pastors over a cup of coffee at the local café not to mention every one of Pastor Coon’s counselee’s have to read it.
The Discipleship Dare is more than a devotional. It takes the reader on a 40-day journey unlike anything else on the market. Like the marriage devotional, The Love Dare, from the best selling movie “Fireproof,” each day builds on the previous day. Every day is action packed with a relevant quote, passage of scripture, illustrated explanation, daily dare to prayerfully consider and S.O.A.P study (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer) to complete. It takes no more than 15 minutes a day.
The Discipleship Dare is more than a book. It’s a movement. Hundreds have already accepted the 40-day discipleship challenge. Many churches are challenging their congregations to make discipleship a priority. When a churches priorities shift to discipleship, they become contagious, infecting not only their congregation but their community with the virus that causes the common church to grow—disciples daring outsiders of the Christian faith to discipleship.
The Discipleship Dare was published by Kalos Books—a New Jersey based partnership-publishing company that partners with new authors in the publishing process and in the promotions of their books. For more information and free resources visit The Discipleship Dare book site @ http://thediscipleshipdare
Kalos Books, LLC
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