Breaking Church Growth Barriers | Andrew Hopper

#churchgrowth #barrierstogrowth #churchoutreach
Breaking Church Growth Barriers | Andrew Hopper
This Missional Marketing Podcast episode features Pastor Andrew Hopper of Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. Host Bart Blair discusses Andrew's church planting journey, Mercy Hill's growth, and Andrew's passion for helping other churches grow and make a kingdom impact.
Andrew shares his background growing up in a small Southern Baptist church and feeling called to ministry at 16. After college, he joined The Summit Church staff in Raleigh-Durham. Initially resistant to church planting, Andrew's perspective changed over time.
In 2012, at 28, Andrew planted Mercy Hill with a team of 30. Starting in his house, they moved to a park clubhouse before their official launch. After an initial attendance drop, the church has seen steady growth over 11 years. Key milestones include breaking 1,000 attendance on their 2nd birthday, going multi-site, and now having 6 campuses with about 3,000 weekend attendees.
Mercy Hill emphasizes being a sending church, having planted 5 churches since 2019 and commissioning over 50 international missionaries. Their goal is sending 500 people on church plants or missions by 2032. Andrew stresses the connection between growth and sending, stating, "churches can grow without going, but you cannot go without growing."
In their Bible Belt context, Mercy Hill focuses on reaching the "de-churched" - those with religious backgrounds but no true gospel encounter. Their effectiveness stems from consistently gospel-centered preaching, emphasizing Sunday gatherings, and seeing weekend services as catalysts for weeklong discipleship.
Andrew shares leadership lessons from Mercy Hill's growth stages, including managing communication as the team expands, clarifying church culture, refining ecclesiology during COVID, and avoiding reactivity to news cycles.
Recognizing a disconnect between church growth desires and missional sending focus in many churches, Andrew launched Breaking Barriers. This ministry aims to help churches pursue numerical growth while maintaining a strong sending culture. It includes an annual conference, podcast, Facebook group, quarterly events, and an 18-month cohort.
The Breaking Barriers Conference, held September 17-18, 2024, in Greensboro, features main stage sessions and workshops delivered by the Mercy Hill team. Topics include positive church growth framing, visitor assimilation, and cultivating generosity.
Andrew illustrates the growth-sending connection with Mercy Hill's 10-year stats: for every missionary sent, they baptized 10 people; for every baptism, they had 10 first-time guests. This 100:1 ratio of guests to missionaries underscores the importance of front-end growth strategies.
The interview touches on church marketing, with Andrew advocating for open embrace of effective outreach strategies "to the glory of God." He challenges the guilt some feel about marketing, noting that most churches use pragmatic methods to some degree.
Key takeaways include the value of diverse ministry experience, understanding cultural context, balancing growth and depth, intentional culture-building, connecting growth to mission, and the long-term nature of church planting.
The episode concludes with encouragement to explore Breaking Barriers resources and attend the conference. It provides a thought-provoking look at pursuing both numerical growth and missional sending, while raising important questions about church marketing's role in growth strategies.
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