Episode Details

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Andrew Hopper, the founding and lead pastor of Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina. Andrew has also started Breaking Barriers, which provides pastors and churches with biblical strategies to help them grow in order to go.

Are you curious about how to effectively grow your church while maintaining a strong focus on discipleship and outreach? Don’t miss this insightful discussion as Andrew reveals the correlation between invite culture, discipleship and sending members out on mission. Plus discover how the multisite model is the best tool you can use for leadership development at your church.

• Connect crowds to mission. // Andrew observed a clear ratio in his church’s data correlating the number of sent ones, baptisms, and first-time guests, which he believes is consistent in churches focused on both evangelism and sending. Over ten years, his church saw approximately 150 individuals committed to long-term missions, 1,500 baptisms, and 15,000 first-time guests, aligning in a 10:1 ratio at each level. This means that for every one sent one, there were ten baptisms, and for each baptism, there were ten first-time guests.
• Focus on the lead measure. // Effective church growth relies on focusing on the lead measure rather than the lag measure. This approach helps connect the church’s larger attendance numbers to its mission goals, showing how initial engagement leads to disciples being sent out.
• Crowd-based evangelism. // Based on the examples shown throughout the New Testament, Mercy Hill Church believes that most life change happens when there is a preacher in front of a crowd. While both one-on-one encounters and larger gatherings can lead to conversions, the latter is more effective in reaching larger number and so the congregation is encouraged to invite friends. Andrew believes that when congregants see the church service as the most impactful time for both evangelism and discipleship, they are more likely to embrace inviting others, making the process of reaching new people feel natural and significant.
• Multisite and church planting. // Andrew argues that the multisite model complements church planting rather than competing with it. In multisite contexts, there is a continuous need to cultivate new leaders for multiplying groups, services, and campuses, which naturally prepares individuals for the challenge of church planting. At Mercy Hill most leaders who have joined their church plants come from the satellite campuses rather than the main broadcast campus. These members have already shown commitment to the mission by adjusting their lives, and this willingness to adapt primes them to take the larger step of moving to a new area to support a church plant.
• Develop communicators. // The multisite model allows the pastors on your team to grow and do more preaching than they’d get the chance to do at just one location. Mercy Hill has had numerous leaders—27 in the past year alone—preach, demonstrating that multisite structures can facilitate the growth of multiple communicators. To develop other teachers, church leaders should create opportunities for different leaders to preach and lead services, which can be done through multiple services and campuses.
• Breaking growth barriers. // Breaking Barriers helps churches break through barriers that hinder mission success. It celebrates church