Dr. Levi Skipper

Pastor Levi Skipper was called to Sagemont Church in December 2023. Prior to arriving in Houston, he served as the Vice President of Church Strengthening for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, where he served with the Georgia Baptist Convention from 2019–2023. Levi has over 25 years of ministry experience, most of which has been in the role of Senior Pastor. Levi graduated from Shorter College, received his Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and then completed his Doctor of Ministry at Luther Rice University. He has been married to his wife, Christa, since 2000, and they have four children who are in their teens and 20s: Garrison, Mattie, Gavin, and Marlee.

Dr. Skipper was licensed to the Gospel ministry at Fortified Hills Baptist Church in Smyrna, Georgia, in 1997. He was ordained at First Baptist Church of Centerville, Georgia, in 2000. At the age of 23, he was called as Lead Pastor of Ewing Road Baptist Church in Austell, Georgia. He served there faithfully, and the Lord blessed the church during those seven years.

In 2009, out of a heart for evangelism and missions and a clear call from God, Levi founded First Day Ministry. Through First Day Ministry, Levi preached at evangelism conferences with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, led revivals across the state, and held numerous evangelistic crusades overseas. He was also instrumental in founding a theological training school that has equipped over 300 pastors in Ethiopia.

In 2010, Levi sensed God’s call back to the pastorate and accepted the call as Senior Pastor at Concord Baptist Church in Clermont, Georgia. God greatly blessed Concord during his nine-year tenure. The church tripled in size and became known as one of the leading churches in the Georgia Convention for giving to the Cooperative Program and for its record number of baptisms.

In 2019, Levi sensed what he describes as a “Macedonian-type call” to help revitalize Baptist churches across the state of Georgia. He accepted the role of Director of Evangelism for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. In that role, Levi helped establish a strategy to equip local churches with effective tools for evangelism. Among those resources, he developed and wrote The Domino Effect: Building an Evangelistic Culture in the Life of Your Church and No Sweat Evangelism. Through these tools for personal evangelism, more than 10,000 people were trained across the state.

In 2020, Levi was promoted to Vice President of Church Strengthening, where he directed the hiring, leadership, strategy planning, and management of the Church Strengthening Ministry for the entire state convention. In this role, Levi oversaw the following statewide ministry teams: evangelism, missions, worship, discipleship, next generation ministry, Baptist Collegiate Ministry, the Young Leader Network, and Hispanic ministry. He also had opportunities to preach weekly in churches of all sizes throughout Georgia.

Along with his resources on evangelism strategies, Levi has also developed several tools for training church leaders. These include Welcome to Witness, No Sweat Discipleship, Ride the Waves, Your Ministry Zone, and Time Management Training, as well as Marriage in the Red, a resource for married couples.

Since arriving at Sagemont in January 2024 as the church’s third Senior Pastor in 57 years, he has led the church in developing missional and ministry strategies focused on helping people take their next step following Jesus. Each week, the Lord uses him to lead new believers to Christ and to help build the church as it reaches the city of Houston and beyond with the gospel.