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Transform your preaching with SermonCraft! We interview some of today's best communicators to learn their secrets to captivating talks. Say goodbye to endless prep. Find your voice. Master your message.
Every episode is like a masterclass. Are you ready to revolutionize your sermons? Tune in to SermonCraft – where the art of preaching is made practical and tactical.
This is a podcast for communicators who teach regularly and want to become better and more confident in the art and craft of preaching.
We interview some of today's best communicators about their unique processes, habits, and secrets of turning a blank page into a captivating talk so that you can stop wasting valuable time in sermon prep, find your unique voice, and use the gift that God has given you with excellence and joy.
Join us as we unpack the concepts that helped us the most. Are you ready to change your approach to teaching?
Andrew: [00:00:00] this is the lever that moves the needle the most. Your people grow the most because they hear you preach. And more people get saved because they hear you preach than anybody else in your church.
That doesn't mean it's the only way people grow and the only way people get saved, but by percentage it's the biggest, it is the most important lever we have.Well, welcome to this episode of the Sermon Craft Podcast. Uh, this is a podcast for communicators who wanna become better and more confident in the art and craft of preaching. And so we interview some of today's best communicators about their secrets of turning a blank page into a captivating talk so that you can stop wasting.
Chase: Valuable time in sermon prep finds your unique voice and use the gift that God has given you with excellence and joy. My name's Chase Gardner. I'm a professional speaker with 10 years of preaching under my belt. Uh, this week we have the one and only Andrew Hopper. Uh, he's the founding pastor of Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro, North Carolina.
And we've been friends for a few years. Uh, Andrew is super unique in that pastors tend to either be [00:01:00] leaders who can preach if needed, or preachers who can lead if needed, and Andrew just happens to be both. Uh, he's got a really clear weekly system for sermon prep that you're gonna wanna steal, and I love how confident he still is.
And the preaching of God's word during Sunday as being the primary catalyst for church growth and health. So we're gonna get to know him and see what his views on the art of preaching are. Uh, this is gonna be one that you're gonna wanna bookmark and share, and I can't wait for you to meet him. So thanks for joining us on the Sermon Craft Podcast.
When I thought about starting this podcast, you were one of the guys that I, I wanted to have on first. Because now we met years and years ago, back in 2014. First time we met, I was thinking about planting a church and we had lunch at Chipotle, and you're like,
are you gonna do it It was mos.
That's right. [00:02:00] And I was, I had been listening to your sermons and man, they're just, they're refreshing. So you have a way, it's, it's, it's you probably do some topical, but mainly you're in a book and you're able to connect the book with the culture. In ways that a lot of guys aren't. And I mean, this is just you, the unique voice that God's given you.
But you just say it like it is. Like you're not, some pastors spend 15 minutes pre apologizing for what they're gonna have to say in the rest of the sermon. There's none of that with you. And because of the authenticity, because of the, the passion that you believe that truth with, man, it just lands. And you would have some guy say, Hey, don't do that style of preaching to a younger generation.
And yet. You do it every single weekend and your church has gone from, you know, a few hundred to way bigger than that, six campuses over the past 10 years. Has
Andrew: mm-Hmm. Yep.
Chase: a little bit longer than that? So, yeah. So I'm excited to, to get into the weeds with you. We've never had a talk about actual sermon prep and how [00:03:00] you approach it.
So when, when did you know that you were called, not necessarily to be a pastor, but to actually get up in front of people and preach the word.
Andrew: You know, man, I I, I did have kind of, you know, a calling experience, you know, like, I think it's very, common in my tradition that I grew up in when I was 16 years old on a mission trip. I really felt like the Lord was kind of. Calling me to, to serve him in some, in some type of way that was more, you know, maybe more vocationally or something like that.
But I, you know, it wasn't necessarily a call to preach. It was, but it, it quickly turned into that. So I almost think like the fact that in my mind, I kind of immediately gravitated toward the preaching of the word. At 16 years old or even a little bit younger than that, I mean, I grew, I grew up in a real small Baptist church, so I mean, they had like Youth Sunday and I remember preaching as like a probably a 13-year-old one
time, and I do.
I, I do remember that, and it didn't go [00:04:00] well.
Chase: you remember what it was about?
Andrew: I actually don't remember what it was about. It was me and another, another guy. They had do, his was way better than mine. Um, but it, it was fine. But then, man, by the time I was 16 or 17 years old, the great thing about that tradition is that you start preaching really early.
And so I started leading FCA stuff at high school and I started doing some stuff with our student ministry at our little church, and. And I mean, by the time I was 18 or 19 years old, I had, I had already been, I had already preached a good bit and then was licensed and all that stuff. Just like the traditional Southern Baptist churches do it.
Small churches do it.
Chase: Mm-Hmm. That's crazy. Who were some of your biggest preaching mentors growing up and even before you started the church plant?
Andrew: Yeah, man. So, one, one of the cool things about my story is. You know, one of my favorite preachers to this day is a guy named Juan Sanchez, who a lot of us know. But Juan was my camp [00:05:00] preacher growing up. So before Juan was gospel coalition and, you know, all that kind of stuff. He was doing a lot of student ministry in Florida.
And so I was exposed at a very young age. Now my, my pastors growing up were, were great too, but I remember those student camp times where. You know, he was, he was very much a John Piper disciple you know, southern PhD from Southern, but like, he could connect at a student camp of 150 dirt road kids, really?
And and he just did it through straight exposition, man. He just, you know, it was, it wasn't, he was the best camp preacher we had and it was the opposite of, man, let's have, you know, a ton of fun and one application at the end. I mean, he really went for it. And so. To this day, Juan is one of those guys I love to listen to.
Obviously, you know, we, we planted a church out of the Summit Church in Raleigh, Durham, over there near you guys. And so, my biggest mentor just in ministry and preaching is, is [00:06:00] JD Greer. I can't, I actually listen to him. I don't, I don't listen to him. If I'm gonna preach a sermon, I have somebody else on my staff listen to him and gimme all the notes, but if I listen to him, I'll end up sounding too much like him because.
But I've heard, I've, you know, I've heard people demonize that. I'm like, man, I think that's kinda the point of discipleship, you know, that somebody starts to, starts to look a little bit like you as you are following Christ. So, and then I would say man, just like this is really mundane answers 'cause they're kinda like everybody else.
But I have was, I have been greatly influenced by Keller. Mm-Hmm Just greatly so, but I, you know, a lot of the preaching that I grew up with, with was revivalist. And I, I've sort of retained some of that, I think. So a lot of those guys are in my mind, but a lot of the style sometimes can come out a little bit like what my roots were growing up.
Chase: How long did it take? Did you, did you find, you talked about this with jd, you sound like him. How long did it take for you to find your unique voice? Do you find that you, that you started off preaching, [00:07:00] sounding like someone else, and you had to kind of find your own voice? Or did you just naturally have it.
Andrew: yeah, I mean, I, I think that, I think that growing up, you know, I just, I just heard so much preaching that was in a very similar vein of, of, you know, just, just kind of somewhat rural Southern Baptist or independent leaning churches that I, I sounded a lot like that. And content wise was a lot like that.
You know, it was I mean we, we, I share the gospel every sermon, but a lot of times the rest of the sermon was sort of workspace and, yeah, when I got to the summit, I feel like some of my voice really kind of molded into what I was hearing with the, you know, with, with jd. But it's finding your voice, I think really just comes from a lot of time.
I mean, it, you know, I've hit my 10,000 hours, but it took years and years now. We're privileged at Mercy Hill. I mean, we've, you know, we have three or four, we have four services every weekend. I don't preach all of those anymore, but. [00:08:00] In the warrior phase of my life in my early thirties. I mean, I would preach either four or five times a weekend.
So, you know, when you do that enough, you just start kind of building. So I, you know, man, I would say somewhere halfway along the ride at Mercy Hill, so it wasn't right away, you know, if I listened to myself when I first started versus now I feel way more comfortable in, in the voice that I have now some of the ways we think about big idea pre, you know, preaching and stuff like that.
Chase: Yeah, there's something about confidence that kind of helps you, now that you're talking about that. It does come. It's not, I've talked to a bunch of guys about this on the podcast so far, and everyone says Reps, reps, reps. And I agree with that, but it just struck me. It might not necessarily just be the practice, but the confidence that comes from.
Hey, that was an okay sermon. Hey, God used that. Hey, God can use that. God can use something that sounds like me as opposed to a Matt Chandler or a jd
Andrew: Right. No, I, I think that's, I think that's totally right, especially if you see some success from it. You know, if you see, if you see the [00:09:00] Lord using it, you're kind of settling into who you are and your gifts.
Chase: Yeah. Has your preaching changed? One, one question I wanna ask you. 'cause there's lots of church planners that are gonna be listening. How did you. Balance all the work that went into church planning. I mean, your fundraising, I've done it not to your extent, but where you're, you're raising leaders.
I mean, you're continually fundraising probably hasn't stopped in 10 years. You're raising up leaders. You have to be real estate like commercial real estate agents, all that sort of stuff. How'd you find time to squeeze that in? Do you have more time now? Has that affected the way that you preach?
Andrew: Yeah, I think I, that's a great question, chase, because I think that, I think that the assumption is that when your church gets larger, you have more time, which, when you just say that out loud. It's kinda like you know I think that it's, it. That's, that's certainly not true. What is true is you have a few more resources maybe to multiply some of your time and leverage some of your time, and that's true.
But the reality is I [00:10:00] think that when it comes to the preaching of the word, you know, you form disciplines when the church is small that carry you when the church grows. And you know, for us, I was very fortunate to have come out of a system that valued the preach word. In a way that taught us whether you're planting a church or whether you're a pastor for Church of a thousand, if you're the one communicating, that is the bulk of your time.
And you know, pastor JD would say, Hey man, I, I've never take meetings in the morning. I don't really care when people get upset about that because I need four or five hours in the morning. You know, and that everybody doesn't have to do that. But I, it stands as a good, anecdote of why, of what matters the most.
I, I firmly believe. That preaching is one of, if not the most important lever that we have to pull to see life change, people discipled in evangelism. You know, we have no problem at Mercy Hills saying the gathering is where the most evangelism and the most discipleship takes place in the space of one hour and 15 minutes in the whole [00:11:00] week.
And most of that is because there's a 35 to 40 minute didactic teaching time. That's not a discussion.
And so, for me very early on because I believed that it was like, I'm gonna spend 20 hours a week on one sermon. And, you know, that that means there's other things that aren't gonna happen, but those other things can happen after this one.
It's the concept of putting the big rocks in first. You know, you put the small rocks in that they crowd out the big rock. You put that big rock in first. And so I've just had a discipline of that for 11 years almost. Yeah, just over 11 years. It, it hasn't changed a lot other than I've got a little bit of help now to multiply my time.
But man, the things that I do now, I used to just totally do. I used to just do 'em by myself. When I had quote less time, I would do more.
Chase: Now, when you talk about multiplying that, do you have a team that helps you prepare? Let's just talk about, let's, let's talk about the team element first and then get to how you actually approach a blank page.
Andrew: yeah. So the way that I have a [00:12:00] team that helps me now is that. Used to, I would listen to other people's sermons as part of the regimen and we'll talk, we could talk about what that, you know, what that is probably not different than some of the other guys, but now I don't do that. Now I have someone on our staff that does that.
They listen to it and then they brief it
for me. approached the text, seeing how they stated the truth that kind of came out of it.
Actually I, I can, let's talk about that. So I've seen a lot of different breakdowns of way people do sermon recaps and stuff like that. I do it this way, I. I wanna know three things, and it can only be a page and a half single spaced. It can't be two pages. It better not be one page. It's a page and a half single space with three headings.
One heading is major ideas, not main points. I've try, you know, I've really trained our guys to understand I do not need an outline of someone else's sermon. Right. What I need is the things that are sticky from somebody else's
sermon and the things that I feel like will hit and [00:13:00] land. They're bullets from their gun.
They're bullet different bullets, but they're hopefully gonna work in my gun for our people. I need to know what that was. So if man, the sermon's on, you know, forgiveness, but somebody spent seven minutes on fatherhood and it was incredible, I need to know how they got there from the text. So one heading is major ideas, not main points.
The second one is, what's the stuff that needs to be on, what's the stuff from this sermon that ought to be on Twitter, man? What? What is the. The quotes that come out of it. And if they quote anybody else, so if they quote Spurgeon, if they quote, every single one of those is captured.
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: And then the last thing is I want to, I want them to write down every single illustration that was in the sermon, good, bad, ugly, whatever.
If they say, Hey, it's kind of like this. I wanna see it.
And so we do that. We do that with two sermons a week, and then someone will also prep about five articles. That go along with the sermon theme. So that's what I mean [00:14:00] by leveraging
my time. Yep. Both, both. the, regimen you were talking about? This is the weekly regimen that they do.
That's what they, that's what they do. I mean, I used to do that myself every single week. Now that's what I have someone else do. The only other thing that that really is, is done for me in terms of the sermon prep is, you know, somebody will, I mean, will. You know, we will have, I'll have a nice package of, hey, this is, you know, we landed on this months ago, but this is the big idea.
This is the, you know, I Yeah. all that, but I did the work, you know, four months
Chase: Yeah.
It's funny when I find, when I find a quote that someone used and they attribute it to like a, a, like a more recent pastor, I'll go back and find that quote and none of that pastor's quoting someone else, and then you'll find, and they just all go back to Keller or they all go back to this version, but who knows what they said?
Andrew: a lot of it goes back to Keller.
Chase: Yeah,
Andrew: I mean, I, you'll hear, you'll hear a Keller thing and it'll have five iterations, Yeah. know, by the time you heard it on, you know, whatever gospel coalition or whatever,
Chase: I know, I mean, I know JD used to do this back in the day. [00:15:00] I did it for a week or two. But you can use, like, there's actual research companies out there that you can pay by the hour to actually do it. And a lot of 'em are, are seminary students or people connected with seminaries that can do that.
Alright, so let's, so once you have that in hand, when do you get that? Do you, is it Mm-Hmm. sermons month in advance? Nope, Nope, just weekly.
Andrew: We do a big idea document that will come out about 10 weeks before the sermon series starts. And that big idea document is I mean, I, I I Labor to do that. I, I do that all by myself. But I. It basically is the, the titling, the theme, the, the ver you know, the key verses we're gonna use or book, you know, like you said.
And then there'll be a, a brief, you know, one paragraph write up of the whole series. I'll have the series and a sentence, so the thesis of the whole series, and then we'll have three sections. Man, why am I excited about this for our church? Why am I excited about [00:16:00] this personally and why am I, and if I was talking to an unbeliever, why would I, how would I talk to them about this?
And so I write that up and then we basically just go, if there's eight weeks in it, we just go one through eight with, you know, titles, scripture, big idea notes. That's done 10 weeks ahead of time. So by the time I get to week of. We are, you know, that's already handed back to me and, and we go through big idea meetings and there's a bunch of stuff like that that happens in between.
But by the time I get the week of, you know, I'm kind of handed back to me what I had, and it is already got the big idea and the scripture in it for that week. Chase, I don't know about you, man. I don't, I mean, I know you guys do a Thursday service too. I don't, we do a Thursday service and a Sunday, you know, three service on Sunday.
I have learned for myself, this is not for anybody else, man. I don't. My creative bucket is drained on Monday,
so I literally don't even look at it. I don't think about it. I don't look at it zero sermon, anything on Monday, which is funny because when I wake [00:17:00] up on Tuesday, I have less than 48 hours before we gotta turn it around.
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: So then for me, Tuesday is sermon, all that. Basically my schedule is Tuesday, sermon all day, Wednesday or Thursday, sermon all day. So I don't do anything else on Tuesday and Thursday other than sermon. And so man, Tuesday I get that big idea Doc handed to me. I get those sermon briefs handed to me, plus one other sermon that I will listen to.
So if
Keller has it, or someone else?
nope. My, the research assistants are picking that stuff out, but they have a list of all the preachers that I, that we go to. So they got a list of 20 guys that we try to go to first. You know, so. The only rule they have is if J D's preached on it. I want them to brief it if, but I don't ever wanna listen to it.
And if Keller's preached on it, I wanna listen to that. So then other than that, hey man, it's awesome. They do a good job of like going, you know, going wide on that stuff. And so then, man, I just do normal commentary work. So [00:18:00] three commentaries and three sermons. That's my rule for sermons. So I look at three commentaries and I try to brief three other sermons on the same topic or, or the same scripture.
And by man by two o'clock on a, on a Tuesday. I just have a word vomited, you know? I've kind of done the whole prayer yourself, full, write yourself empty. I've been looking at commentaries. I've written now, I, I do a full manuscript every week.
Chase: Yeah, me too.
Andrew: So you know, at this point it's six pages, single space with barely any divisions or it is just blah.
And so I'll spend a lot, I'll spend like an hour maybe before sermon planning. We do a sermon planning meeting at three 30. On Tuesdays I'll spend about an hour organizing things and then we'll come in and there's a group of about eight people, that do sermon planning. You know, for us, sermon planning is half make the sermon better because everything gets better in community.
Your sermon sounds like who you've been talking to that week, so if I got more people in the room, it's gonna sound like more people we've been
talking to [00:19:00] Your sermon sounds like the people you've been talking to in the week. That's
for sure. So. But the other half of the room is, you know, the other half of the, of it is I'm teaching those guys how to preach. Yep. So that's good, man.
We do an hour of that and it's just, I try to, I try to go, you know, Hey man, this is where I'm going. This is all illustrate, blah, blah, blah. One thing I tell those sermon planning team is, Hey, you know, sermons are about getting it right and making it stick, right? Sermon planning is not about getting it right.
Chase: Right. If I listen to three other sermons. Or have people brief three, you know, listen to one brief, two, three commentaries. Think about a text for six hours. Have thought about it 10 weeks ago. At this point we're, we're kind of rolling with where we're, with the direction we're going. Okay? So what we're here to do is to make it stick.
Andrew: How can we make people help, help people remember this and make it memorable for them? So we come outta that and I'm done on Tuesday. And then on Thursday, man, I just probably like you at some point. I mean, I just seven 30 in the morning, man. I'm just writing a 12 [00:20:00] page document. So, and we get done with that around two.
I do a final run through around three 30 of
just kind of, go ahead. What's that final that's man, I'll, I, I'll probably get you know, I'll probably send my first script at like noon, maybe one, and that's, that's for them to start getting slides prepped and blah, blah, blah. I'll take a break, go work out, do something to get my mind off of it, and then around three I'll do a run through.
But I, man, I was doing a run through, fully on stage, like I would preach the whole thing, but I'm, I'm, I'm getting very. Cognizant of energy level and, and you know, adrenaline spikes and, and that kind of stuff. As I'm, as I'm getting older when it comes to preaching, so I don't do that now. I do it by myself just with a computer and I kinda do final walkthrough and then by four
Chase: Do people watch that with you on the computer when you do the mm-Hmm. When I was, when I was doing it before we did, and we had kind of final edits, but I felt like it was too much like a preaching event, which was making me. I'm like, guys, this [00:21:00] now, I'm, now I'm preaching
Yeah.
Andrew: six times or five times on a weekend. It's just, it's not
sustainable, you know. Yeah. And there's something to be said because we do a run through. But we record on Thursday and I only have two on Sunday, so I'm really only preaching three times four if you count the run through. But there, there are some times where I know I want to tell a story and I want it to be raw and I want it to be real and I want to feel what I feel on the stage so I don't write it out in my outline.
Chase: And I'll actually tell the guys, I'm not gonna say this right Yeah. Right. through it 'cause it's not gonna hit. I'm not like. I, really want to cry on stage, nothing like that, but I just wanna see how it comes out, you know? And if it's rehearsed, it's gonna come off bad,
Andrew: I totally understand that,
and humor too, man. If you got, if you got too big of a crowd in the room, I mean, you know, on that Thur, do you guys, do you guys do a Thursday night service or just a Thursday night
recording? night service.
Yeah, so I've, I've learned too with humor, like I don't wanna give a bunch of humor away before that Thursday night service, because a lot of them will be in the room.
And they kind of, you know, your, your staff and stuff are setting [00:22:00] the temperature of everything going on, Yeah. so I do understand that too. Yeah.
Chase: That's
Andrew: Yeah. So that's it, man. Then I go play basketball and come up here and preach.
Chase: Yeah.
That's That's it.
And then you get Friday, Saturday, you don't do, do, do you think about it at Nope, I don't think, I don't think about it at
Andrew: all. do I, man. Do you run through it Sunday morning just to get your brain Yep. No, I go, I listen to it, so I go back and listen to it. When I'm driving up to church, I listen to it. From Thursday and then we do, we do a, so on Thursday night I have two, my assistant and then one other young guy that's learning to preach or a campus pastor. They listen to the sermon with their head in the notes and they, they mark every time I'd start deviating from the script, anything that I say is funny that was not in the script or anything that I circle stammer, they mark all that.
And so I'll, I'll on Sunday morning after I listen to it. The last thing I do before I preach on Sunday morning [00:23:00] is I give a document where they've gone back through the script and they've noted, and they'll, they'll put, like, they'll put like 40 notes in there and it's every, every time I said something that was funny that wasn't in the script or, or messed up, or, Hey, you, this didn't land, or they'll just do all that.
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: And so I'll read that whole thing and by then I feel like I don't really need to go through it
Chase: Mm-Hmm.
Andrew: of already have
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: so
Chase: Yeah. I think too, I, we interviewed someone that just uses like two page outline to preach, and then my, I just, my, the way my brain works, I have a full, like every single word on stage is scripted, but I'm not reading it. Right, right. I used to have to go over it four or five times now, once or twice before, and I can hit Yeah. but yeah, I'm, I get down to the same level of detail.
Andrew: I, I just have a hard, I have a hard time with, like, to, to me, the script really helps when you're doing more than two services. 'cause I'm like you now. I, this year I switched, I only do three. So I do one. [00:24:00] I'm doing the same thing. You do one Thursday night, two on Sunday yeah, don't come back up on Sunday night.
We just do video. But, man, when you're doing three or four or five, it's like, I, I'm like, man, I feel like I've said this four times
Chase: you would think it's the earlier ones that you need the notes for. No, it's the That's funny. fourth sermon because you don't know if you've said this before, you'll just completely blank out. I'm more tied to my notes second service Sunday than I am on Thursday, which is
crazy. interesting. But you're right, man. That's interesting. Yeah,
So when you type this up, let's look at your outline real quick.
Andrew: Yeah.
Chase: So when you type it up, you have the vision already there, right? So this was one from one Thessalonians four. Chapter one, so this is Okay.
Andrew: off. I can't really see the left That's all right. So yeah, you got some vision there. You got some
Right.
Chase: those labels
Andrew: Yeah. Mm-Hmm
Chase: when you color code it, so you have
Andrew: mm-Hmm.
Chase: color coded for the scripture.
And also, are these yellow, these other yellows, the ones that, that are
Andrew: Any, anything [00:25:00] on the screen is yellow and there's only, I only have two distinctions. it's lowercase and underlined, then it's kind of just like a quote. If it's bold, then it's a bi. It's like the, it's like big on the screen and it's made to be like, Hey, this is the application of the sermon.
Chase: Yeah, I do the same thing. Everything on the screen goes yellow. Mm-Hmm. you go landscape. I, I think there's like a coaching tree in preaching, man. So I Yeah, yeah, if it's in landscape and you cut it down the middle, do you use a folder on stage or no?
Andrew: yeah. Dude, man, I wish I should have brought it because there's a trick to that. You actually don't. Can I show you? You don't. On that. You don't cut it here, you fold it
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: and then you, and then you do the holes here. So every page is a folded
Chase: Oh dude, this is gonna be so funny. But I use the, I use the JD leather half folder. I use it for Christmas Eve and I use it for Easter sometimes, and I use it for weddings and funerals. My,
Andrew: got it too. Randall Crell,
Mississippi, And my poor assistant could not figure out. [00:26:00] How to print that sermon to say, and neither could I. Like, how do you even print this?
Chase: Because it's not a booklet form.
Andrew: Yep. That's how you do it.
Chase: That's awesome. Well, you talked a little bit about this. That was super helpful. Thank you. Just the fact that you manuscript the fact every single person, I've never heard this until I started doing this podcast, but everyone has a team, so everyone does some part of the process as a team.
And if you're not doing it with a team for feedback for. Did it take you a while to get used to hearing honest feedback about your sermons?
Andrew: It didn't, because I came out of a, a, I just, man, I was just, I hit the lottery coming out of, you know, God was just on it. Like where I came out of. I mean, JD will ask legit an intern, Hey, what'd you think? And he'll have his pen in his hand. So, and you're talking about one of the premier communicators in the whole country.
So, I mean, we just come out of, I just learned, I just watched him do that. And we do that. You know, and I, one, one of the things Chase, [00:27:00] I don't know this, you didn't ask me this, but, but I do think it's important. Like I think a lot of guys really feel like, well when a church, you know, you guys have a bigger church, and of course you can.
And it's like, man, that really is not true. Like this. Like I had zero, we had zero staff, then I had one staff member and we did a sermon planning every single week whenever we moved here. And we did it at nine 30 at night because all of us had young kids. And we did it on nine 30 on Thursday night, and, and we would do man, future community group leaders, anybody who was interested in ministry, they would be the sermon planning team.
We did that for, you know, years. Yeah. you can alway, I guess I'm just affirming what you're saying. There's always a way to bring team and to make it a team game.
Chase: And it's so important too, just in the past few years. I know when we got to Asheville, I was preaching it was a different context than Raleigh was for sure. And some of the stuff that I could say in Raleigh, I couldn't say in Asheville, and it took me a while to learn. And it's better to learn that [00:28:00] stuff off the stage than on the stage.
So, you know, I accidentally said one time, I was like, you know, if you guys are struggling with, you know, getting junk or pornography, and then I said, and anxiety, but you know, it's not a sin. I shouldn't have put it in that list. But I had three or four people from the congregation come up to me and very concerned, did you call anxiety a sin?
That sort of stuff. So from that point forward, I had. One or two other people off the staff actually sit in for my run through, we would actually do a volunteer service at like 9:00 AM instead of 10. And it just helps you not, you know, put your foot in your mouth on stage.
Yeah. Right.
It's, you're the only one to point this out but you go and exercise before Thursday.
Is Mm-Hmm. is there, do you do that on Sunday too? Is there a way that you prepare, you've, you said you're noticing your inner energy levels flag and stuff.
Andrew: Yeah, so I just turned 40. And I really do believe kind of the Warrior King, sage, [00:29:00] sort of divisions of life a little bit. I mean, I know it's not Bible, but you know, I think that earlier, you know, I, I plan a Mercy Hill at 28 and I think a 28-year-old preaching three or four times a weekend and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is.
It's probably right. You know, it's like, man, you're on the battlefield. It's kind of, you're starting something. It's barbarian phase. But I think if you just never, if you never start moving in the king phase and trying to empower the warriors a little more and, and realizing like, man, you're not, you're not as young as you used to be.
I think that's foolish. You know, I think that the was, you know, the glory of an older man is their gray hair. Like there's something about strength to wisdom. You know, from Strength to Strength is a good book for guys in my lifeboat that are turning 40, it's, it's the concept of, of kinda learning how to lean into how your body's changing, how your brain's changing.
You can be better when you're older, but you're not gonna be as, you're not gonna be as sharp. You're not gonna have, you're not gonna have the same level of innovation when you get older. Now [00:30:00] you can synthesize things better, probably you can pull things off the library shelf that you've created. mm-Hmm. But you're not gonna have the same innovations.
And so trying to stay young forever is, is, is unwise. So, man, for me, yeah, that's, that's turned into less weekends in the year.
Chase: Mm-Hmm. Less, now?
Andrew: this, so I've been at 40 or a little more forever. And this year I did, I'm probably gonna do 35. I haven't gone back and counted that. But, but, and then next year we're planning for 35.
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: So just less, you know which I love what Larry Osborne says about that. It's like, man, counting weekends is kind of meaningless. It's like you need to count minutes on the floor, not games played. Right. 'cause if you preach three times a weekend, 40, but you preach once a weekend for 45, you know what I mean?
So, so let you know, just less. And then yeah, I've, I've had to kind of move some routines a little bit in terms of, [00:31:00] man, I, I've, as I've get, as I get older, it's weird, but I can't, I, I feel like I, I need to be in a, a little more of a calmer state before I preach. And so I don't, haven't struggled with it on Sundays as much.
Thinking about it like this, like, man, is there anything I can do because I'm not as wound up, but on Thursdays, like, man, you've been writing all day, you've been working, you've been. And so, yeah. For about, I don't know, six or eight months now, I've kind of put a, i, I work, I actually work out twice on Thursdays.
I try to be as dog tired as I can be before I preach on Thursday to try to just give myself a little bit of calmness in my mind.
So, that for nerves or is it to yeah. all the work of the whole week or both?
I think, I mean it's definitely for nerve, it's definitely for like nerves and anxiety, but it's also, it's also because if I don't do that, I can, I can come out Thursday night, I'm so wound up, I can just end up being shot out of a [00:32:00] cannon and nobody has a chance to catch up and it's over,
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: you know? And I'm trying very hard chase to like, I'm trying very hard to learn how to let people catch me and not just stay.
Ahead of them so much. I mean, you know, I, I feel like I'm, I'm working on that majorly right now of just trying to, trying to slow down, man. You need less words. And if I, so I'm, so I'm trying to use my physical exercise to, to try to help my brain get in the right, you know, posture for that a little bit on Thursdays.
So I haven't bruised that to Sundays. I mean, I've thought about it. I don't know if maybe I should go for a long run or something before, but. On Sunday, but I, I don't know, Sundays that you're kind of waking up, you're kind Yeah. I don't feel as, as wound up so Mm-Hmm. Sunday as I do on a
Chase: I went for one wrong run, one long run, one time before a Sunday. That was a mistake. I think I ran
Andrew: What hap what happened?
Chase: I just had this, I didn't realize how tired my legs would be on stage, and I'm like, 'cause you're stand, you lock your knees a lot when you're talking Yeah, So second [00:33:00] service, they're like shaking.
I'm like, okay, I'm not, maybe I'll do I know. body but not lower body.
Andrew: Yeah. That's funny, man. I'll do, I'll do, man. I'll go lift and then. Come do my run through and then go back and play basketball. And I'll, by the time I get up there on Thursdays, I'm like, I'm dead. Yeah. But it, I think it's helpful. I think it helps my mind relax a little bit.
Chase: I'm, I, every time I get backstage I have to jump up and down and do some jumping jacks to like get the
Andrew: You're trying to get up?
I'm trying to go, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to go down big time.
Chase: Now you talked about, is it real anxiety or state's right, that you deal with sometimes on Thursday or no, more
like
Andrew: So it's yeah, I mean there's, there's some, I mean, the short answer to that is, is yeah,
Chase: yeah.
Andrew: which is weird. I mean,
Chase: No, I, I still get nervous.
Andrew: it's like, man, it's, you know, you would think that you would never, you would think that that would be so far gone. But,
Chase: Yeah,
Andrew: you know, I mean,
there's, a friend that
Chase: does. Yeah. like a huge service, but,
But you know, you're being recorded, which is one thing. And then I have a friend that that works in, he's like a inspirational speaker. [00:34:00] He's a Christ follower, but he has a company that helps out public speakers that aren't Christ followers. And he pulls me aside and he's like, I, I asked him one time, 'cause he's a public speaker.
I'm like, how many talks do you have to write a year? And he's like, oh, no, no, no, no. I write one or two or three and I use those for two or three years. And I was like, what? You can do that? He's like, I don't understand how pastors do it. But every single week you get in front of a group of people and it's untested material.
Like Sunday morning, first service. I love it. 'cause I know. worked it out in my mind. God's used this on Thursday and I, I've prayed with people afterwards, but I Right. nervous every single time I get up there. 'cause you don't know how it's gonna go. Even though I do a full run through in front of people.
I haven't done it to a camera or an audience. That's wild.
Andrew: I mean, it's true. I mean, I'm, I'm sure there are guys that that's not an issue. Yeah. But I'm not, I'm not one of them.
Chase: Yeah. Well that's interesting man. We're gonna move to some quick fire real Cool. Have you ever bombed during a [00:35:00] sermon besides Yes, yes, yes. We can, we can just say yes and move on. Now. I've
time?
Andrew: I've, had some crazy moments, man. I've had, I mean, just, just where you either totally blanked or something with your, you know, something with your. Script. That's the one bad thing about scripting. Dude. If something's screwed up on your script, you are
Chase: yeah. You use a physical paper or you use an iPad?
Andrew: No, I use, I used the, I used the, the book you were referencing
that you do at Christmas. I, mean, I, I do it every single week, man.
So services, like page six will go missing and I always yeah. go, 'cause that's the one bad thing.
I had, man, I had, I've done this too. I know you've probably done this. I mean, this, this actually wasn't that long ago. And we have a green room and I wasn't paying attention and boom, I was up.
And I didn't quite, and so I go run, I go like running. Well, by the time I get to the stage, I'm like having like a freaking asthma attack and I'm like having to do like a prayer time to try to Yeah, you know, and it was, that happened about a year and a half ago, but I mean, it was okay, but, [00:36:00] dude, I, get, had some issues, man.
Chase: I used to get stress dreams. They would only happen on Saturday night. And it was a recurring dream. I used to be a worship leader, so it was me getting on stage and not having my cheap music, and I'd have it like 20 times a year. And then when I started preaching more, it's, I don't know where this one page is or I don't know where my, my sermon notes are.
And I have a recurring stress. I had a recurring stress stream one time. We have first impressions, like the folks that open the door and stuff. And then we also have the tech team. First impressions does way more than that, sorry. They do all sorts of stuff, greet the guests, you know. But there's also the tech team.
And that puts the slides on. I had a recurring dream, probably six or seven times where the tech team and the first impressions team were having a Nerf war during my sermon, and the elders were off the side of the stage judging how well I handled stress. And there was a lady on first impressions. Joe, you probably know her penny Beeler, I actually said this in a sermon a while ago.
She holds the middle door [00:37:00] during first impressions and in my dream. She had a jazzer size class. She was gonna teach later that afternoon and had to practice right in the front row. So like, I don't know, 15 times in one year I had the same dream. It's Oh man. Dude, you jacked up, man. You got some issues man. No, I was
Andrew: just kidding. I need to play basketball or something. What's the most distracting thing to happen in the audience while you're preaching?
Man, I this is a no brainer. I, one time right before I went on stage, our team kind of hustled over to me and they were like, Hey, I don't, dude, I don't know if this happened at y'all's church, but like therapy dogs are like a thing. Okay. Which is fine, you know, I mean, we've had the whole thing, like we've had the dog on the front row just howling when the base hits real deep, and we've had a lot of that kinda stuff, but.
But they said, Hey, there's a dog on the front row. We just wanted you to know. And I'm like, that's okay. That's no problem. Like, you know, I've, I mean, it's happened a dozen times. So man, I get out there and this dog is sitting in the chair like a human. He's sitting up [00:38:00] like this, like panting, like with his, hung out like a human.
Chase: Front
row. yeah. And sat there. It was a front left row, and he sat there. I mean, just like, you know, like if you were behind him, it looked like a head of a human just sitting. And I was like, what am I gonna do? So anyway, that was one of the more distracting
Andrew: things stay like that? The whole sermon?
Now he got down, but he stayed like that for a little while.
It was pretty awesome. What, what are some of the good ones you've heard? What's, what was yours?
Chase: I've had, so we've had therapy cats, and then there's a therapy reptile that comes sometimes. And the therapy reptile was fine for the first year, but it's grown so big, it makes very obvious reptile noises now. So that happened not to me, but to someone else just a few weeks ago. That's a little hard to deal with.
I've had one guy. Stand up in the middle and say that's, that's lies. That's lies. Why are you preaching Lies like that actually happened in a smaller kind of, not a class, but pretty large class. When I was in [00:39:00] Asheville though. We had there's a difference between homeless people or unhoused and travelers.
Travelers are homeless on purpose and you can tell the travelers, 'cause they wear their jeans are always ripped up. They have different vests and they always have dogs always had pit bulls and so we'd invite 'em in 'cause they're homeless and wanted something to eat. And so most Sundays in the summer, we would have probably four or five homeless folks with four or five pit bulls in the back row.
And our first impressions team was trained to pet those dogs so they wouldn't Oh my gosh. Yeah, and stuff like that. So, but yeah. that's, that's that. That's. an emergency like pass out or?
Andrew: Man. We had, dude, we had a, we had a really scary, it ended up being okay, but we had one of our camera operators pass out and they fell out of a chair that was elevated, like as with a camera. She just kind of had low blood sugar and, and like passed out and that was terrible.
I didn't know what had happened. Everybody's cra you know, boom, the Yeah, It [00:40:00] was. But, you know, moments like that are not, they're not, you know, they're so serious that they're not funny or distracting you, you just, you know, in everybody's, but there's been some other things that are just, you know, funny.
But
Chase: What are some up and coming preachers you're excited about? I know you got a list of guys that you normally listen to, but are there some new guys you're excited about?
Andrew: yeah, man, I,
Chase: hard, what'd you say? but I said news a little bit hard 'cause they're kind of unproven, but
Andrew: Yeah, so I've yeah, I mean, I've got, I don't know if you know Kyle Mercer at two cities in Winston-Salem. I, I'm, I think Kyle is, I think Kyle is, is an incredible communicator. I get really excited about him. There's some guys in North Carolina that are, that are pretty awesome that I'm, you know, you know, and I, I, I don't wanna just say the guys I'm friends with, but I think Spence Shelton is another one that he, he came out of the summit and was under JD for a long
time. Mercy Church in
Yeah, mercy. There's another guy, there's another guy in Georgia. Their, their church has [00:41:00] been, their church has been a top 10 or 15 baptism church in Georgia for the last couple years. They're doing a revitalization down there at Shirley Hills Baptist Mm-Hmm. His name is Jacob Green. And Jacob Jacob's a good preacher too.
But I mean, there's a man, there's a bunch of guys Yeah. young, you know, younger.
Chase: Well, what do you think's in the future for you at like Mercy Hill? You talk about the, the warrior, the, the king, and then the sage. Yeah. like you've thought about this a lot. This Mm-Hmm. that I sent to you, but I'm, Right. what do you, what do you see in the future as you hit 50, as you hit 60
Andrew: You know, I, I planted the church with a goal of, of sitting in the lead seat for 30 years and then, and then handing it off. So that puts me at 58. So about 19 years left, you know, 18, 19 years left in this seat. I don't know if that'll, you know, I don't know what God's gonna do with all that, but, I think that the, I think that the movement to King, [00:42:00] and this isn't preaching specific, but it's more leadership specific.
Is, has, has been a little bit of like an elevated thought process when it comes to what my job description is. I'm, I'm, I'm really trying to zero in on like, man, your, your job is to preach, is to teach people to be generous and to have a compelling vision that you cast in very tangible ways. You know, with a trellis, you know that you have ways that you're getting the vision out and.
You know, that's a lot different than management break fix, fixing staff issues, you know, even counseling. I mean, there, there's, you know, if I'm gonna try to bring what I can bring at this stage in my life stage, this stage of our church and our life stage, I think I need to do three things. And so as I move into king, that means I've gotta, I've gotta really move into empowering other people to do the, because that's not the only things that the church needs.
It's just those are the things that I need, that it needs from me. So. I feel like [00:43:00] continue to empower others to, to take up, you know, the mantle in terms of other things that the church needs. We moved, we moved to a full executive team model in the last couple years and I think that's really helpful man.
These guys have to own their bucket of ministry and they gotta own, the directors and the direct reports that they have. And, you know, I'm trying very hard to get out of problem break fix stuff. And, and move higher, higher, higher in division and, and just empower them to run. I think that's what a king needs to do.
You know, look after the Warriors and then one day, you know, my hope is man, I have 58. Go to the mission field for two terms, come back and be an elder and pour into some guys that are younger and that kind of stuff. You know, hopefully advise some kings if they'll listen to me. That's sage.
Chase: Yeah. awesome man. Well, as pretend you're sage, what sort of advice do you have to close out for young preachers that might just be starting or, yeah, for those who just want to get better, especially in the current cultural climate that we kind of find [00:44:00] ourselves in.
Andrew: Yeah, I think that I, you know, I thought about you could go a lot of different ways with the, with the answer, but Chase, I feel like one thing right now in our culture is I think that the, the discipleship and evangelistic component of preaching is being a little bit devalued. That, you know, we are, you know, some kind of way we've gotten in our mind that a lay person who shares the gospel over coffee, you know and someone gets saved, is a bigger win for the kingdom than someone who raises their hand in a service.
And I just think it's super detrimental to the effectiveness of the movement because if you look in the scripture, 99.9% feels like at least 99%. Of the people who got saved in the New Testament did. So when there, when there was an anointed man proclaiming the word in a crowd. Now we do that in our church services, and I know that's not exactly the same thing as what you see in the book of Acts, but the preaching element is in terms of a proclaiming, you know, a call.
So I [00:45:00] think if I, if, you know, talking to younger guys, I feel like one of the things, I don't know if you have felt this with younger men right now, I feel like you have to just straight up look at 'em in the eye and be like, Hey man, do you love to preach?
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: And a lot of times they're squirmy about that.
Chase: Mm-Hmm. They, they, they kind of wanna be like, well, I like to teach, or, you know, I don't have to, but I mean, so I'm looking for the guys and trying to instill in our young guys like, no man, we, you know, this is the lever that moves the needle the most. Your people grow the most because they hear you preach. And more people get saved because they hear you preach than anybody else in your church.
Andrew: That doesn't mean it's the only way people grow and the only way people get saved, but by percentage it's the biggest, it is the most important lever we have. So trying to get younger guys to just value that moment. You know, I think that for whatever reason people don't put, they act like preaching is not discipleship.
It's like, man, disciples are made in rows and circles, you know? And so I think there's trying, if I was talking to younger guys, I [00:46:00] would try to get them to elevate the way that they're thinking about that moment in terms of its importance. And especially among church planners. Like when I hear a church planner say, well, that's great for you.
You know, to spend 15 hours on a sermon, but I can never do that 'cause I got all this other stuff going on. You know, you, I mean, not to be snarky, but you wanna say like, man, why do you think the church grew?
Chase: Yeah.
Andrew: You know, it's like, man, you don't, you, you're saying you can't afford to spend 15 hours on a brother.
You can't afford not to spend 15 hours on it. You know, you're, you're giving all your time away to all these other things that move the needle about that much. When there's one lever that moves it a whole lot, every week. And so I would just tell them, you know, I would really press on the importance of it and kind of get away from these limiting beliefs that we have around it and try to elevate our, our mindset around it.
Chase: So good man. Well, thanks for hanging out with me, man. We'll
Andrew: Dude, this is awesome. Thanks for inviting me, man.
Chase: I'll go hang out at MO'S one more time now. I know it's [00:47:00] not Chipotle.
Andrew: Dude, you, if you're ever here in Greensboro, I know the best MOS in Greensboro. Okay. So.
Chase: All right, man.
Andrew: All right, cool. Chase. Thank you, man.