The movie Courageous opened in theaters in the No. 4 spot last weekend, building on the successful momentum of the Albany, Ga., church that also produced Fireproof and Facing the Giants.

Courageous, the fourth movie from Sherwood Baptist Church, has already surpassed box office collections from Facing the Giants, taking in $10.1 million in its opening weekend, according to boxofficemojo.com.

The message Sherwood’s senior pastor brought Wednesday to Warren Baptist Church in Augusta was one of humility. The Rev. Michael Catt emphasized that his church was only following God’s direction, albeit one that didn’t initially make sense.

Catt recounted the blank stares when he proposed to his parishioners that they were going to raise $20,000 to produce their first movie, Flywheel, in 2003.

The response was something like, “I think the pastor’s off his medication,” Catt said.

Flywheel, a story about the redemption of an unscrupulous car salesman, was a marginal success. The 2006 follow up, Facing the Giants, was filmed with a larger budget of $500,000 and immediately generated a buzz for the next feature, Fireproof, featuring Kirk Cameron in 2008.

Now there’s Courageous, the story of four law enforcement officers struggling with their roles as fathers at home. Each rebuilds his relationship with his children while tackling crime on the streets of Albany.

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