Maurice Stargell, Lead Pastor

Hello! I’m Maurice Stargell, Lead Pastor of Hope Church. Having grown up in a small town about thirty-five miles south of Atlanta, I never dreamed that I would one day be leading a church. My siblings and I were raised going to church every week, and to be honest, I saw and experienced a whole lot that turned me off to church.

Shortly after graduating high school I became a Christian, and the radical impact of someone sharing Christ with me “outside” the four walls of the church made an indelible impression on my heart. I went on to pursue a business degree at the University of West Georgia where I launched and led a successful campus ministry, and after two years I transferred to Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma and graduated with a concentration in Pastoral Ministries. I later attended and graduated from Beulah Heights University with a B.A. in Biblical Studies.

After Bible school, I accepted a full-time position as youth pastor with a great church in Delaware. It was fulfilling to watch students begin to own their own faith, wrestling with how God had created them to live. This was also a very formative season in my life. The church where I served as youth pastor had a passion to reach people of every race and background, and it taught me a great deal about cross-cultural ministry. It was also during this season that I made several international missions trips and preached the gospel in other countries, including the cities and mountain villages of Guatemala, Central America, and in the Eastern European country of Albania, where we ministered to the nationals as well as refugees from Macedonia and Kosevo. All of these experiences fueled my passion to take the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to people of every race and every tongue.

A year after moving back to Atlanta, GA, I began to dream about launching a brand new church…

A church with the over-arching, God-given vision to see the Gospel transform everything – ourselves as individuals, our church, our city, and the world.
A church with a simple mission of loving God, loving people, and sharing hope.
A church that was Spirit filled, life-giving, and gospel-centered.
A church that “oozed” with unconditional love & grace.
A church for people who had given up on church.
A church where people are “real” and authentic.
And a church that reflected the real cultural diversity of our communities.

In 2002 we launched Hope Church of Newnan. We knew from the very beginning that God had called us to be a “church planting church” with the mission of establishing gospel-centered churches throughout Metropolitan Atlanta, so in early 2009 we began praying about the Clayton County / Henry County area; I started spending more time there, and learning about its culture. It wasn’t long before God confirmed that this was His plan, and we began to build this movement of hope in Clayton County from the ground up!

I couldn’t ask for a better life! I’m happily married to the most beautiful, caring woman in the world, Damita (Ashurst) Stargell, and we have three wonderful children: RJ, Tiara, and Lee Maxwell.

My role as Lead Pastor of Hope Church is to be the spiritual leader of the Hope Church family, the primary Bible teacher, and the communicator of HC’s mission, vision, and values.

I hope you’ll be a part of our story…

Sharing Hope!

Maurice Stargell

Lead Pastor, Hope Church
mstargell@hope-church.tv