At Mercy Hill, we talk a lot about growth. Growth matters—it means more seats, more services, more people reached with the gospel. But we’ve never pursued growth just for growth’s sake. We grow so that we can go.

That’s why one of our most recent Breaking Barriers podcasts may be one of the most important conversations we’ve shared. I sat down with our missions pastor, Landon, to talk about what it takes to move people from being a part of our church to being sent to the nations.

Here’s the big idea: we don’t drift into sending. We must build pathways. If we’re not as intentional about equipping and sending as we are about reaching and growing, we’ll miss our calling to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Episode Recap: Key Insights from Part 1

This podcast is broken up into two parts. Here are the major takeaways from part one of our conversation:

1. Growth and Sending Go Hand in Hand

  • Churches can grow without going, but they cannot go without growing.
  • Seating capacity fuels sending capacity. If we’re not reaching people locally, we won’t raise up and send people globally.

2. Sending Doesn’t Happen by Accident

  • Many pastors assume sending will “just happen” once growth happens—but it doesn’t.
  • We need just as much intentionality around equipping people to go as we do around growing our churches.

3. Building a Pipeline

  • At Mercy Hill, we’ve sent more than 200 people, including 71 internationally, through the International Mission Board and other sending organizations.
  • That happened through a pipeline—a funnel that consistently equips people, step by step, for the challenges of the field.
  • We’ve adapted and refined this process constantly because the work is too important to leave to chance.

4. Preparing for the Realities of the Field

  • Missionaries don’t just need passion. They need resilience, flexibility, and what we call gospel grit.
  • The pipeline helps prepare them for new languages, cultures, hardships, and team dynamics that often derail people who weren’t ready.
  • We want to send people who don’t just survive two years overseas, but who thrive long enough to make disciples, plant churches, and multiply.

5. The Fruit of Sending

  • The results of sending are often invisible to the sending church, but they’re real.
  • One Mercy Hill unit in South Asia saw 250 baptisms this past Easter. That’s kingdom growth we’d never see without sending.
  • Every step in the pipeline, every act of equipping, every “yes” that stacks on top of another—all of it adds up to lives changed around the world.

Listen & Watch

Listen to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Watch the full conversation on YouTube or at the end of this post.

Closing: Pastoral Call

As pastors and church leaders, we’re called to shepherd our people not just to attend but to be sent. Growth is vital, but growth without going misses the point.

My prayer is that these conversations will help you think intentionally about your own missions pipeline. This post covers Part 1 of our conversation. Be on the lookout—I’ll be sharing a blog soon on Part 2, where we dig even deeper into the strategy of sending. What next step can you create for someone in your church this month? What “yes” can they take today that may lead them to the nations tomorrow? Brothers and sisters, let’s grow so that we can go.

Andrew