John Cope

JOHN COPE is founder and senior pastor of Keystone Fellowship and Send Network Director of Pennsylvania & South Jersey for the North American Mission Board. Having grown up in Arkansas, John served as a student pastor there for 16 years before taking on an executive pastor role in Lakeland, Florida. A few years later God began drawing him toward church planting, then one phone call from a connection in Pennsylvania opened the door for ministry in the Northeast. As John puts it, “I almost said no, but God said yes.” He and his family moved to Pennsylvania in 2001 and began meeting in a home for Bible study. Since then Keystone Fellowship has continually grown and are currently in the process of planting their eighth church.

John has a bachelor of arts degree in education from Ouachita Baptist University and a masters in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. John has written and developed a highly effective church-growth, small group development tool titled, “Nothing But Net.” Based on Jesus’ outreach and ministry examples laid out in the book of Acts, this strategy has been used very successfully in every ministry that John has been involved in. He has taught and trained thousands of ministers and lay people in this biblical approach to ministry through empowerment of lay leadership in fruitful small groups. John is married to his wife, Teresa, and they have three adult sons — two of whom are church planters and a third who serves as an international missionary in the Middle East.