Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast where we help to renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel.

Today we're pleased to share with you one of our articles on audio.

Welcome back, church planting by Sarah Eikoff-Zyelstra, read by the author.

For a while, it looked like the church planting party was over.

Back in the 2000s and 2010s, everyone was there.

In 2001, Tim Keller founded city-to-city.

In 2005, Mark Driscoll took over Acts 29.

In 2008, the Pillar Network was born.

In 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention officially cannonballed in with what would become

the Send Network.

Harbor Network followed in 2011.

The energy and enthusiasm about church planting in North America is at an unprecedented high,

miscellologist Ed Setzer and researcher Warren Byrd wrote in 2008.

Young men with beards and flannel shirts, inspired by the brashness of Driscoll and the brains of Keller,

grabbed their Bibles and headed to the city centers, historically among the most

difficult places to start a church. But within a decade or two, the hype faded. A lot of great

churches were planted, but a lot of people in that first wave also crashed and burned, said Noah Oldham,

executive director of Send Network. Marriages fell apart, families fell

apart, and church planting teams had disasters. At the same time, the pipeline of young men dried up.

Because it kind of happened out of nowhere, every college pastor, associate pastor, or student pastor

that was hungry, ready, and gifted, planted

churches, Oldham said, once they were all sent out, there was no backfill. Indeed, interest in

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