Take it from a church-planting veteran who has wept more and laughed with joy more through this journey than in almost any calling (parenting seven kids occupies the top spot). Church planting is not some ministry hack to rid yourself of the baggage that established churches often carry. Nor should you hope to use it as the critical ingredient to revive your church. Nor should your church planting organization build in funding measurements based upon how many and quickly your church or church plant reproduces another church plant. These postures toward church planting do not reflect that we submit to the sovereignty of God’s redemptive plan. 

Every church that claims to make Jesus followers and be faithful to the truth of God’s Word must weave church planting into its fabric. Church planting is the church’s collective mandate of her mission given to her by Jesus. To be committed to the non-negotiable Great Commission means every church must be serious about participating in reproducing disciples who are reproducing disciples of Jesus. Indeed, this doesn’t mean ONLY planting churches, but it does mean ALSO starting new churches in every place that might need a church.
I cannot tell you how thankful I am for the quality of church planting movements I have been a part of and a cheerleader for in the last decade across our country. I have seen a genuine uptick in church planting taking its rightful place as a critical value for many denomination and mission organizations. It is right and a beautiful answer to prayers for our nation.
It also is in jeopardy of becoming a fad.
Fads Are Fickle
When I think of fads, I think of:

The latest social craze that screams, “I am in the innovative now!” (Shout out to the latest social app that I MUST download).
The end-user product that promises quick and easy results. (Shout out to my latest don’t eat this-eat this, diet plan).
A must-have gadget that has become a talking point for success. (Shout out to the latest Apple product).
A flash-in-the-pan packaged life hack that has an over-inflated cost to own. (Shout out to the latest fix-all pyramid scheme).

Fads Do Not Make a Good Mission
When planting churches becomes more of a fad than a mission, we begin to value the following:

Innovation over Biblical Foundations. We are willing to set aside foundational biblical principles on what defines an actual church. Instead, we call our innovations church. Examples? When we equal evangelism efforts such as online, para-church, or Bible studies to being churches planted. If we do this, we are missing several key components of what makes a biblical church and what produces healthy followers of Christ (i.e. regular physical gathering together for sacraments, the ministry of presence within community and neighbourhoods, the function of biblical eldership, deacons and membership, the healthy function of church discipline, etc. etc.).

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There is no legal “right” to compel others to say things they don’t believe. Until the Supreme Court explicitly reaffirms the foundational protections of religious liberty and free speech, there will be no end to the state compulsion or harassment.

By the time I visited Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2016, Jack Phillips, the man who had famously refused to bake a specialty cake celebrating the wedding of a gay couple, had been the victim of a four-year campaign of harassment by the authoritarians at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission intent on punishing him for a thought crime.
Now Phillips is back in the news, as his lawyers attempt to get new charges against him dismissed on appeal from a Colorado judge’s decision last year.
For the past decade, the media and lawyers and judges and leftists have misrepresented Phillips’ position. No, the baker never turned a gay couple away from his shop. Or a transgender person. Or anyone else. No, he never refused to sell anyone a wedding cake (ceremonial, in the case that made him famous, as the request predated both Obergefell and Colorado’s recognition of gay marriage). Philips refuses to create any specialty item from scratch that features any message that conflicts with his long-held religious beliefs. He will refuse to create such cakes for any customer, gay or straight or black or white.
After years of fiscal hardship, Phillips finally won a 2018 Supreme Court decision, in which the Court ruled that the Colorado commissioners had displayed “a clear and impermissible hostility toward [Phillips’] sincere religious beliefs” in their efforts to punish him—by which the justices meant members had compared Phillip’s faith to that of Nazis and segregationists. While it was a personal victory, it did almost nothing to preserve religious liberty or free expression rights.
Really, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission wasn’t much of a personal victory, either. All the commission now had to do was avoid openly attacking faith. A person can still walk into a business in Colorado and demand the proprietor create a message that conflicts with their sincerely held convictions — as long as that message comports with the contemporary left’s evolving virtues.
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As Proverbs says, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” We all need a good word. We all need the hope of Christ. It is suffering that binds us together in that need. 

When I think about what has made my faith stronger, my first thought is when I see Christ in others. When I see others live as though heaven were real and this earth fleeting, it strengthens my faith. When I see others be generous with their time and money, or courageous enough to be people of integrity when compromising their faith is the far easier path, that strengthens my faith. People who live hidden lives.
But in terms of my own life, the most surprising circumstance that has strengthened my faith in God’s goodness is my own struggle with Lyme disease and its aftermath. Of course, the struggle has involved lots of complaining and self-focused misery.
But my pain has also caused me to commiserate with others who are also struggling—with trials far worse than mine. For some reason, my suffering has caused me to have more hope for the hurting of the world. Why is that? I am not sure I can explain it, but perhaps my pain is allowing me to see truths in Scripture that have always been there but which I had neatly boxed away.
As I have prayed for strength and healing for myself, I have often looked around at the hurting around me, including many unbelievers, and I ask, “why should I ask mercy for myself and not also for them? Why should I expect God’s love for me in my pain, but think He does not equally care for them?”
I know the correct theological answers, about profession of faith in Christ and God’s election. But somehow, when I am in pain, those answers are not enough. I feel much more like the psalmist, complaining to God about injustice, and asking why won’t He act? Why won’t He—in the end—have mercy on so many who suffer from oppression?
I feel Paul’s cry in Romans 9 when he expressed his “great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart” for his fellow Jews. I look around at those who are my fellow sufferers and ask for God to show them mercy—not only in this life, but in the life to come, through Christ our Lord.
Perhaps that is why I am still here—to pray. Perhaps I am Jonah under the withered plant. Perhaps we all are.
And I wonder. When I read in the Psalms about God lifting up the poor, or when Jesus says “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” there is no qualifier of faith there, no mention of the visible church. I know my theology. I know the technical answer, the analogy of faith I am to apply to such texts. But that does not mean I cannot wonder. And that does not mean I cannot pray for all who mourn now to be comforted, both now and forevermore. Why would I not?
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Author’s note: this essay includes reflections which may appear as part of an article in byFaith magazine sometime in 2024. This is published with their permission. My thoughts are my own.
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