The world and the Triad area can certainly use some extra prayers right now, so it’s a good thing that Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro – one of the fastest growing churches in the country – is opening a new campus.
The church held a ribbon cutting this week to celebrate the opening of the campus at 1317 Pleasant Ridge Road.
The “Ridge Campus” seats 1,500 people and according to church leaders it will “allow Mercy Hill to continue its mission to make disciples and multiply churches throughout the Greensboro area and beyond.”
Mercy Hill Church is highly active in attempting to help battle societal ills such as drug addiction and homelessness – two very bad problems in the Triad area – as well as many other challenges people face in their daily lives. The new Ridge Campus is meant to help the church expand those services.
Lead Pastor Andrew Hopper attributed the church’s success and rapid growth to none other than the Lord Almighty.
“God has blessed our church immensely over the past 12 years!” he said of the opening. “We’re praying that our new home and hub, the Ridge Campus, will be a launching pad for seeing marriages restored, addictions broken, adoptive and foster families raised up, new campuses launched, and missionaries sent out across the world.”
Currently, Mercy Hill Church operates five campuses across the Triad region, including a Spanish-language campus.
According to church officials, the church exists to “make disciples and multiply churches through both community partnerships and church planting.”
Mercy Hill also believes strongly in the importance of restoring divided families and it focuses heavily on raising up adoptive and foster care families in the Triad.
The church is planning a host of special Easter events starting on April 13 and running through Easter.
Mercy Hill was established in 2012 by a group of 30 Christians.
Church leaders say it was through God’s grace that Mercy Hill has seen such rapid growth, which is obviously continuing with the opening of this new campus.
In what he says is in response to God’s blessing, Hopper always remains positive.
“We praise God and pray for more,” Hopper said. “We praise God for changed lives and pray for God to do far more than we can ask or think. Mercy Hill is centered on the Gospel and has a radical commitment to the nations. Our desire is to make disciples and multiply churches.”
The church’s website offers extensive information about the various beliefs of the Christian church.
For instance, on the Scriptures, the site states: “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”
We have ourselves an editor.
The more the church expands the more property taxes everyone else must pay because the church(s) doesn’t. I am exhausted from property taxes that continue to catapult up on the pretense of some need(s.) Now the county manager wants to hire more people to do what? Because of lobbyists in Raleigh whispering sweet nothin’s in the ears of the lawmakers, there is no chance of that changing. However, with demands from ALL North Carolinians we can lobby on our own to eliminate ALL property taxes. Property owners can then enter the ranks of churches; nonprofits; retirement communities; the Woolworth Museum occupying an entire city block; and state, federal, and county properties that are held on to for no discernable purpose. Property taxes discriminate in favor of county governments that spend the money willy-nilly on their personal biases and the biases of the lawmakers in Raleigh. For Skip Alston, his biases are DEI causing the county ranks of employees to expand, the Woolworth Museum (who paid for the property expansion?), failing schools because Deena Hayes is his buddy, and his lust for power and recognition. Raleigh needs to replace property taxes with some other form of taxes that will pay for the county needs, not biases.
Churches don’t pay sales taxes either.
No, they don’t. Neither do retirement communities. Such an unfair tax system.
To be clear, yes, churches and many retirement communities are 501(3)(3) tax exempt organizations. And by law, their net incomes are exempt from income tax. And in NC, they can get any sales tax paid refunded. But, they are also under some strict guidelines in order to maintain this status. The IRS can audit and revoke the tax exempt status. Whether this tax status is “unfair” depends on your point of view. Lawmakers who created this apparently believed these organization performed important services for its citizens. I have to agree with it in general. Food banks, homeless shelters, Habitat for Humanity…..I could go on. Many worthwhile nonprofits should be tax exempt. And there are churches heavily involved in some of these efforts. However, like others, I see cases where I think the tax exemption is abused. Some of the national organizations have offices in DC, highly paid executives, large budgets for fundraising, etc., and some organizations where very little money actually went to the charitable purpose. There is abuse and the IRS doesn’t seem to actually audit a lot of these. – a GSO CPA
Well said.
many religion infrastructures locally are humming with beneficial activities but . . . so is a golf course . . . i don’t think they should get a property tax break because some ‘for profitter’ could make better use of the ‘property’ .
sarcasm ?
Scott,
Thank you for highlighting our church. We thank God for all he is doing.
may i ‘ghost dance’ there with you ?
‘he’ ? moses saw genitalia ? what were they doing !
I have no problem with churches not paying taxes. I DO have a problem with the high level of racism, hate, crime, and extremely high taxes to pay for all the BS Skip Alston and his minions allow to go on in a never-ending pattern of criminal activities in Guilford County. I am unable to change it at my age, so I will soon sell my thirty-nine-year-old home and move to a state immediately to our north, Virginia. I drive for EMPOWER, but do not drive anywhere in Guilford County because it is too dangerous for me. I once owned The Old Hole in the Wall Restaurant on Hwy 68 near Oak Ridge until 1998 and The Shrimp Connection, Inc., until three years ago. This was a wonderful county once upon a time, but now I can’t wait to get the hell outta here.
Churches of today are not the churches of the 1950s. As far as the once sane state of Virginia, it is infected with liberal creep. I assume your moving plans are to southwest Virginia. Be careful of Danville. It is in the scope of liberal creep.
how big a problem is homelessness & drug addiction on pleasant ridge road ?
Probably not much. But, not many of the members live there either. There probably are not a lot of locations in GSO where you can build a large church. Mercy Hill outgrew its location in an office park off Hwy 68 and fortunately was able to find a larger location not too far away on Pleasant Ridge Road. There are several locations around the city and they have a lot of members involved who do volunteer work in the community.
thank you. i almost overdosed on moonies, babas, lamas, priests, rabbis, clerics, evangelists, scientologists, gurus, prophets, missionaries, apostles, bishops, popes, deacons, messiahs, mullahs, saints, medicine men, sorcerers . . . my ontologist is worried about my state of being – please pray for my id !
Would be interesting to see a financial report for Mercy Hill.