A Different Imagination for Church Planting (Pt.2)
Many of us grew up in churches where the baptismal waters had grown still. Churches were growing numerically, yes — but often through transfer growth. Christians moving from one church to the next.
I want to continue expanding on the thoughts from my previous post.
From my vantage point, I’m seeing more pastors and church planters arrive at planting with a different imagination.
There’s a holy discontent.
A quiet frustration.
And yet, a surprising hope for the future church.
For that, I’m deeply grateful.
When I talk with prospective or current church planters today, I hear questions like:
How do we develop different success metrics?
How do we form people, not just gather them?
How do we build something sustainable for our families and souls?
How do we plant without burning out?
These are different questions than the ones many of us were asking in the early 2000s.
I don’t say that simplistically — as if these are better questions and those were worse. I think what we’re seeing is a reflection of at least three realities:
The Spirit is always reforming His church.
We are in the middle of an ongoing reformation.
We are living with the very real fallout of prior models.
Time has a way of revealing both fruit and fractures.
The Missional Urgency Years
When I first planted, the dominant question sounded more like:
“How do we reach as many non-Christians as possible — as quickly as possible?”
It was the height of the missional movement.
There was something prophetic about that moment.
Many of us had grown up in churches where the baptismal waters had grown still. Churches were growing numerically, yes — but often through transfer growth. Christians moving from one congregation to another because of better preaching, stronger programs, or more compelling worship.
Sometimes those moves were healthy.
Sometimes necessary.
But many of us became deeply dissatisfied with the lack of new believers. We had slowly inoculated ourselves from the outside world.
Christian coffee shops.
Christian bookstores.
Christian conferences.
Christian subculture.
It was possible to go an entire week without meaningful interaction with someone who didn’t share our faith.
And so prophetic voices emerged.
Voices calling the church to leave the four walls. To scatter into neighborhoods. To form smaller communities with intentional presence. To reclaim a missionary identity.
Language like “go and die” felt charged and compelling.
Many of us grew discontent with simply accumulating Christians and caught a renewed vision for evangelistic fervor. We wanted to preach the gospel boldly and live incarnationally among our neighbors.
In many ways, that was a gift.
The Shadow Side
But every movement has a shadow.
And if we’re honest, we’re now living with some of those shadows.
For me personally, one of them was this: I disciplined people for mission.
On the surface, that may not sound problematic. Disciples are sent. The Great Commission matters. Evangelism matters.
But I subtly reduced formation to function.
When I taught passages like John 15 about abiding in the vine, I often framed it this way:
We abide so that we can reach more people.
We connect to the vine so we can bear more fruit.
We pursue intimacy with Jesus so that we can be more effective.
There is truth there. The more we’re connected to Christ, the more fruit we will bear. But what I minimized — sometimes unintentionally — was the heart of the passage. Jesus doesn’t invite us to abide primarily because He needs our productivity.
He invites us to abide because He loves us.
He wants union.
Communion.
Friendship.
Abiding is not first a strategy for mission. It is an invitation into relationship.
And when formation becomes primarily instrumental — when intimacy becomes a means to output — something inside the soul begins to thin out.
We may gain urgency.
We may even see growth.
But we risk losing our souls.
A Different Imagination Emerging
What I’m hearing from younger planters — and from many weary mid-life ones — is not a rejection of mission. It’s a longing for wholeness.
A desire to:
Measure depth, not just width.
Celebrate emotional health alongside conversion stories.
Care about a pastor’s marriage and children if they have them as much as attendance charts.
Build communities that can endure decades, not just launch Sundays.
This isn’t anti-missional. It’s missional with a different center of gravity.
Less anxiety.
Less performative urgency.
More rootedness.
More presence.
Perhaps what we are witnessing is not a pendulum swing away from evangelism, but a maturation of imagination.
The Spirit seems to be asking:
What kind of people must we become if we want the world to see a compelling picture of the Kingdom?
That question reshapes everything.
Ongoing Reformation
The church has always moved through seasons of reformation. The missional movement was needed. It exposed complacency. It called us outward.
But reformation is not merely correction. At its root, reformation is about formation.
What if this current moment is inviting us to reform not just our strategy — but our inner life?
To plant churches where:
Abiding is not a tactic but a gift to be received.
Mission flows from union, not pressure.
Success metrics include joy, peace, and sustainability.
Pastors are sons and daughters before they are leaders.
Perhaps the next wave of church planting will not be defined by bigger launch Sundays or sharper branding.
Perhaps it will be defined by healthier leaders and slower, deeper communities.
And maybe — just maybe — that kind of church will be far more compelling to a tired world than our urgency ever was.
I’m not interested in critiquing the past from a distance. I was shaped by it. I participated in it. I benefited from it. But I’m also living in its aftermath.
And I find myself praying for a different imagination. One where we don’t abandon mission — but where mission is no longer driven by anxiety. One where abiding is not instrumental — but central. One where church planting is less about proving something and more about becoming something.
I’d love to hear what questions you’re asking in this season.
What kind of imagination is forming in you?