The Beginning
One man, one calling, and a living room full of people who believed something true was worth building.
A Word Before the Work
Long before New Hope had a name, an address, or a single member, it had a word. Richard Leaphart-Mack, a young minister from Jersey City, New Jersey, was licensed and ordained in 1997 under Bishop George Hoke at All Nations Church of God. Within a year he was appointed Assistant Pastor there, in January 1998 — a season of training under another man's roof, learning the weight of the pulpit before he ever carried one of his own.
But training seasons end. Somewhere in that stretch of years, a verse took hold of him and never let go: Habakkuk 2:2 — "Write the vision, and make it plain." Bishop Leaphart-Mack became convinced he was carrying a specific assignment — a message of new hope for people who had stopped expecting anything to change. He didn't wait for a building. He wrote the vision down and started making it plain to the handful of people willing to listen.
It Started in a Living Room
In July 2001, Bishop Richard Leaphart-Mack and his wife, Synetra Leaphart-Mack, opened the doors of their own home and called it church. There was no sanctuary, no sign out front, no staff on payroll. There was a couple with a conviction and a small group of people who showed up because they believed the word Bishop Leaphart-Mack had written down was worth building a life around.
They named the gathering New Hope — not as a slogan, but as a declaration of what they believed God was doing among them. What began around living room furniture would, within a decade, become an 11-acre campus. Every institution New Hope has ever built traces back to that first room.
Outgrowing the Living Room
The home fellowship didn't stay small for long. By January 2002 — just six months after its founding — New Hope had outgrown the space that birthed it and moved into Chapel Hill Elementary School. It was the congregation's first worship location outside the Leaphart home, and a plain signal that something real was happening: people were being added, week after week, to a church that didn't even own a building yet.
Folding chairs in a cafeteria may not look like much on paper. For New Hope, it was proof of concept — the first evidence that the vision written in obedience to Habakkuk 2:2 was, in fact, being made plain.
Covered, Not Alone
Just eighteen months after its founding, in December 2002, New Hope came under the spiritual covering of Bishop Eddie L. Long and The Father's House Ministry. It was an early and deliberate decision — a young pastor choosing accountability and mentorship before growth made it convenient.
Bishop Leaphart-Mack became known within that circle as a spiritual son to Bishop Long, who later appointed him an Ambassador within The Father's House, tasked with assisting and encouraging other pastors. That relationship shaped his ministry for years afterward, until Bishop Long's death — and it marked the beginning of Bishop Leaphart-Mack's own transition from local pastor to bishop, apostolic mentor, and eventually senior leader within the Kingdom International Consortium, where he now serves as Assistant Presiding Bishop under Presiding Primate Bishop Eric Garnes.
The First Property
Growth creates a decision point. By late 2003, New Hope's membership had reached a size that folding chairs and borrowed classrooms could no longer serve. In December 2003, the church purchased its first piece of property: 2999 Flat Shoals Road in Decatur, Georgia — sanctuary space and classroom space, a physical answer to a congregation that needed room to gather, teach, and raise children in the faith.
The church carried that mortgage with the same discipline it had carried the vision, and paid it off in full within roughly six years, around 2009. A debt-free building isn't just a financial milestone. It's a statement of stewardship — and it positioned New Hope for the next, much larger, chapter.
Coming Home to Stockbridge
In 2011, New Hope acquired an approximately 11-acre property at 1738 Fairview Road in Stockbridge, Georgia — roughly 55,000 square feet, including a football field that would later host civic gatherings for the whole community. On Sunday, April 24, 2011, the congregation officially moved in.
New Hope owns the Stockbridge campus outright, a fact that has shaped everything since: independence in budgeting, independence in decision-making, and the freedom to build a worship center, conference venue, and community meeting space without answering to a landlord. What started in a living room in July 2001 became, within a decade, a cathedral campus. The name changed along the way — from New Hope Church of God, to New Hope Christian Ministries, to New Hope Cathedral — but the word behind it never did.