Church planting

Absolutely.

And we were able to do that and, uh, and see what I hope has been a new era of church planting and health and, uh, growth.

A- a- as I said, I'm very grateful to have spent now 22 years there.

Yeah.

Well, you used a word I wanted to come back to immediately, and that's church planting.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we're in an interesting point, I think-

And, uh, you know, at one point, uh, the megachurches were the main focus of attention.

Pregadores.

Church planters.

Plantadores de igrejas.

In the name of Jesus.

And so...

Hey, let's talk about church planting among Muslim background believers.

Is the goal a visible church, a quieter gathering, weighing security issues, indigenous ownership, all those things? Actually, we could do a whole podcast on that, but at least let's hit it.

Let me give a real quick

One more question here, and then we'll turn to talking to kids about hard things.

I'm wondering, Michael, what did you learn about church planting from doing it yourself that you did not even learn growing up and you didn't learn from your dad?

Well, I want to be clear.

We planted our church about 10—it'll be 10 years in the spring.

And— There's scratch church planting and then what we did, which was we hive church planted.

And I think there is a distinction.

I want to give a shout out to church planters who scratch plant.

We had funding.

So how are they most likely to be reached? They're most likely to be reached, with some exceptions, we recognize there are English-speaking parts, et cetera, et cetera, but they're most likely to be reached with raising up of indigenous Québécois leaders who are planting churches to reach irreligious people, and that's gonna be how ultimately it's reached.

So we just know statistically there's no greater means for conversionary evangelism than church planting.

[upbeat music] Hey, friends.

Jordan here, and welcome to The Pastorate.

You'll hear him be quite open about how he's still in the beginning stages of learning what it means to trust God with a recovery that's completely outside of his control.

In the conversation, Jason and Ed talk about suffering without wasting it.

They talk about the specific cultural moment that the Western church currently finds herself in, and why Ed is still bullish on church planting even when the church planting hype of the 2010s has faded.

So whether you find yourself walking through your own hard season or you just need a clear-eyed, hopeful voice on the church in Canada from an American, albeit who is, as you'll soon hear, remarkably educated and aware of Canada, this conversation has something for you.

In Canada right now, there's a church you planted, Lakepoint Church.

This is one of our 100 Church Plant.

You planted this church in Montreal.

Our pastor in Montreal is now under threat of criminal prosecution if he firmly and clearly preaches some aspects of the Word of God because something called the Combating Hate Act has been passed in his area that labels some aspects of the Word of God as hate speech.

But you're right, we're planting across the country.

FIEC has always been a church planting movement.

That was in the DNA from the start.

When FIEC started in 1922, one of the visions was to encourage churches to work together.

they? That's right.

Some of them historically weren't originally FIEC.

Actually, the Brethren was a very dynamic church planting movement in the first half of the 20th century.

In many communities, churches that are now in FIEC were planted by people who came from a Brethren background who had a heart for a local church.

So they appoint elders there.

I mean, you know, they're setting up, this is church planting.

They're not just winning believers, they're planting churches.

So they appoint elders in all the churches with prayer and fasting, we're told.