Episode Details

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Josh Husmann, lead pastor at Mercy Road Church in Indiana. Mercy Road is one of the top reproducing churches in the country with a passion for multiplying disciples, leaders, churches, and expanding the reach of the gospel throughout the state of Indiana.

If churches want to exponentially expand their reach for Christ, they need to think differently about how they are multiplying. Listen in as Josh shares about church planting, disciple-making movements, and empowering the body of believers to do the work of the ministry.

• Family of Churches. // When Josh and his family moved to Indiana, the goal was not to build a big church but rather to to reach as many people for Christ as they could in their lifetime. They decided that the best way to do that was by planting new churches. Mercy Road wanted to see people live on mission so as the church grew and ran out of space, they sent people out in all four directions around the original location. From there, the Mercy Road Family of Churches came to life, each operating as an individual church but with with the Mercy Road DNA, name, vision, and values.
• Multiply Indiana. // In addition to the Mercy Road Family of Churches, Josh has helped start Multiply Indiana which is a separate church planting nonprofit that partners with national church planting networks to focus on planting churches all across Indiana. To date they’ve seen over 20 churches planted in the state through the nonprofit, not including any in the Mercy Road Family of Churches.
• Work in teams. // One thing that has helped Mercy Road multiply is doing everything in teams. Rather than preach every Sunday of the year, Josh does it once or twice a month while developing other communicators. The same goes for other ministry teams. Mercy Road teaches its people to live on mission with the goal of being sent out. As a result they build a pool of leaders and communicators that continually help plant new churches.
• A common pitfall. // Mercy Road Church has the big goal of reaching a million people for Christ in the state of Indiana. Josh acknowledges that’s a crazy goal that will only happen through discipling and sending. A downside of this model is slower short term growth. If Josh had preached every week, he knows the church would have grown more quickly, but that was not the culture that they were trying to create. By not giving people what they want, it can cause financial challenges, but it’s worth breaking those norms to see people understand and join the mission.
• Empower and align. // Mercy Road is passionate about empowering the priesthood of believers and decentralizing ministry. But this can feel chaotic when things don’t align with what you’ve envisioned. Think about how you can work together to support and empower others to live on mission while not messing up the other work you’re doing.
• Ministry is free. // On the monetary side of ministry, the first thing Josh reminds his staff is that ministry is free and it doesn’t cost you anything to talk to someone about Christ. On the practical side, Mercy Road doesn’t want the vast majority of their money going to buildings and staff, but rather to serving the community. Part of the way they do that is by allowing people to designate their financial gifts in addition to tithing. In this way they are able to give away 50% of t