Planting our best

When Planting Our Best Really Means Planting Our Best

For more than forty years, one of our core values has been this: we plant our best. We don’t cling to people, gifts, or leaders for our own benefit. Instead, we joyfully release them for the sake of the Kingdom. When done with humility and unity, it is one of the most beautiful expressions of the gospel — a reminder that the Church belongs to Jesus, not to us.

Scripture reminds us:

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
— Matthew 6:33

Over thirty years ago, in a team meeting, Dudley Daniel quoted this Scripture and said something that has stayed with me ever since:

“In all things — big and small — consider FIRST the Kingdom of God.”

That’s the heart behind planting our best. It’s a Kingdom-first conviction.

But I’ve also seen moments when that value was laid aside. Sometimes it happens quietly, almost unnoticed, when selfish ambition begins to overshadow godly ambition. Instead of asking, “How can we serve the mission of God?” the question becomes, “How can this benefit me?”

And when that shift takes place, things often get messy.

Loyalty gets pushed aside. Relationships are strained. People — real people, with real hearts and real stories — get hurt. And in those moments, church planting can start to look less like a joyful sending and more like an escape hatch. The calling to plant churches — something deeply biblical and beautiful — can begin to feel like the equivalent of a “get out of jail free” card.

I’ve often heard it said that church splits are really just undiagnosed church plants. But what if the deeper question is this:
What happens when undiagnosed church plants are actually birthed from undiscerned Absaloms?

In 2 Samuel 15, we read about Absalom — a gifted leader whose ambition and offense led him to quietly win people to himself rather than to the purposes of God. When unresolved ambition, hurt, and untested motives go unchecked, the fruit may look “successful,” but the root is already compromised. And eventually, that brokenness bleeds into the life of the church.

This is why Scripture calls us to another way:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”
— Philippians 2:3

Healthy church planting flows from honor, unity, humility, and genuine mutual love. It requires honesty. It requires courage. It requires a willingness to lay down ego for the sake of Christ and His Bride. And when we truly “plant our best,” it means this:

We bless.
We support.
We stay relationally connected.
We celebrate what God is doing — together.

Church planting when done correctly releases incredible joy, faith and explosive generosity. When it is done out of order it leads to hurt, a diminished faith for future plants.

At the end of the day, we are not building personal platforms or brand identities.

We are building the Church of Jesus.

And that will always — always — require hearts that are willing to go low, love deeply, and seek first the Kingdom every single time.


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