Apart from good theology, this one thing will make your sermons better. Pastor Andrew and Pastor Jonathan dive into this critical meeting called "Sermon Planning," which we have each week at Mercy Hill. Consider adding this meeting to your sermon-prep arsenal each week.

*We typically release our podcasts as video podcasts, but due to some technical failures, Episodes 26 and 27 will be audio-only. We look forward to releasing video episodes again starting with Episode 28.

We did a Zoom seminar a while back where we discussed first-time guests and how to turn them into second-time guests and, eventually, disciples. People often get confused around the lead and lag measures when it comes to first-time guests because they feel like it is 'icky'. We want to see baptisms, people sent out, people hearing the gospel for the first time, and lives being changed. The problem is that the lead measures that lead to those outcomes hinge on people coming to the church for the first time! In this podcast, Pastor Andrew and Pastor Bobby dive into what that looks like at Mercy Hill and how people move through our flywheel of growth.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 (Are "Spontaneous" Baptisms Biblical?), give that a listen, where Andrew lays out the Biblical lineage of people getting saved in the book of Acts. This episode is all about the practical side. The nuts and bolts on how to pull off same-day baptisms.

Join us at the Breaking Barriers Conference on September 17+18, where we'll be diving into the practical nuts and bolts of ministry, sending, and church growth. Find out more and register today: ⁠https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com/conference

Should you require a 6 month waiting period for someone to get Baptized? A Baptism class? Is Baptism a proof of commitment or a promise of commitment? Well, what does the Biblical record say? What does the book of Acts look like in terms of people getting baptized? In this episode, Pastor Andrew looks at all of the accounts of baptism in the book of Acts for what the Scriptural record looks like.

Join us at the Breaking Barriers Conference on September 17+18 where we'll be diving in to the practical nuts an bolts of ministry, sending, and church growth. Find out more and register today: https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com/conference

Some churches may be great at execution but not so great at vision, while others are super visionary, but they struggle with the day-to-day execution of that vision. We will all probably lean one way or the other, but we should always be striving to be both!

People might not be getting connected to your church because they might be confused. Making this one shift could help you see more people that come to your church... stick.

Join us for our 2024 Breaking Barriers Conference:

https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com/conference/

Most people think that generosity in the life of a Christian is a product of discipleship. This is not necessarily untrue, but we believe that generosity is not just a product of discipleship, but it is also a pathway to discipleship. Just look at the life and ministry of Jesus! Why is it that Jesus talked more about money than any other spiritual discipline in his parables, and in his general discourse? Because money is one of the things that gets our heart stirred up the most. In this episode, we dive into shifting our mindset to discipleship as both a pathway to and a product of discipleship.

Sometimes it feels weird to talk about money... we get it. The problem is that Jesus talked about money—a lot. Generosity is such an important topic for the discipleship of the people in our churches. In 1 Timothy, it says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, so for the Christian discipleship journey–how can we just not talk about such an important topic in the Bible? In this episode, Pastor Bobby and Pastor Andrew talk about 5 reasons pastors struggle to talk about money and the pathways to discipleship through generosity.

Are short-term mission trips still effective? Are short-term trips even helpful to the people on the field? Where do you find short-term mission trips in the Bible? There are a lot of opinions swirling around about short-term trips and whether or not they are helpful. In this episode, we want to peel back the layers of short-term trip effectiveness and give some perspective to their value.

- Website: https://breakinggrowthbarriers.com

- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/breakinggrowthbarriers

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakinggrowthbarriers

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakinggrowthbarriers