What makes something a trend in one season and a norm in another? While identifying trends is valuable for assessing how church planting (CP) practices work in real-life settings, trends need not be foundational. Trends should become norms only when they arise from biblical roots. With that in mind, let’s think about five trends (among many) circulating in the CP world.
TREND 1: KINGDOM OVER CHURCH
Church planters like visionary-sounding aphorisms. “Transform the city.” “Advance the kingdom.” “Build the kingdom.” Elevated language around cooperative work has its place, yet let’s make sure such language doesn’t tamper with our theology. We don’t “transform” the city or “build” the kingdom. The Spirit does.
While Jesus calls people to the kingdom (Mark 1:15), he focuses his building work on the church (Matt. 16:18). He makes his redeemed people a kingdom of priests who exercise their priestly role through local churches (Rev. 1:6).
The kingdom is amorphous, while local churches experience concrete difficulties. It’s easy to talk about building the kingdom when one doesn’t have a gauge for what the building will look like. It’s harder to talk about planting a
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