AgōnSomeone you love is joining the Agōn
He sent you this because he wants you to know what he's signing up for before he commits, including what it costs. Here's the whole picture.
What it is
A 12-week season with a few other Christian men (most cohorts are three to six men). He picks a handful of daily commitments: one for his heart and the people he loves, one for his life with God, one for his mind, one for his body, and one for serving someone outside your home. We call it his 12:30+1, after Mark 12:30–31.
Each evening he takes about a minute to give an honest account of whether he kept them. Once a week he's on a 30 to 40 minute video call with the same men, early in the morning, over lunch, or late in the evening. Each man gives his account out loud, and they pray for each other by name. A cohort captain leads it; Mark Sentell, a pastor and the author of Giving Account, leads the first cohorts.
Why men join
Most men don't fail all at once. They fade: tired, stretched thin, quietly letting go of things they meant to keep. Agōn puts a few partners around him who will notice when he goes quiet, ask him honest questions, and help him finish. It isn't meant to replace church or your marriage. It's meant to make him better at both.
What it costs
- Membership: $12.30 every two weeks, which is $73.80 for the season, billed as three payments of $24.60, four weeks apart. Nothing is charged until the day after his cohort's second call. (Full-time students 24 and under pay $12.30 a month instead.)
- Fines: he sets them himself, at least $1.23 for a missed commitment and $12.30 for a missed call. He gets one free missed commitment each week and one free missed call each month. If he's mostly keeping his word, that's a few dollars a month.
- Where the fines go: every dollar goes to a charity or ministry his cohort chooses together, not to us. They're billed monthly with his membership. (They aren't tax-deductible.)
- The app: the Agōn app is free on Agōn Standard. His membership includes Agōn Premium, the app's paid upgrade, for the season and two weeks after, so there's no separate app subscription to pay for. See pricing.
Why charge anything? Because when it's free, it's easy to drift. A real cost, and a miss that costs something, is what makes a man take it seriously.
If it isn't working out
He can walk away with nothing owed any time through the day of his cohort's second call. After that he's committed to the 12 weeks: if he leaves, the remaining payments are still billed on their usual dates, fines from weeks before he left stay due, and nothing new is added. If a genuine hardship hits mid-season, such as a lost job or a medical or family emergency, Mark can release him from the remaining payments. The details are in the terms.
What stays private
What's shared in a cohort stays in the cohort. The one exception is when someone's safety is at risk. How hard each day was for him (his effort ratings) stays between him, his captain, and Mark.
How you can help
- Ask him how it's going. Not to check up on him, just because you care.
- Pray for him, and for the men in his cohort.
- If you see him slipping, you're free to say so. That's the point.
Questions? Email support@agon1230.com, or ask him to show you the Agōn app, where his progress lives. More about the Agōn →