vague concomitance of souls floating in outer space. Most occurrences of the word ekklesia in the New Testament refer to local churches. Twice only do the Gospels in Greek put that word on our Lord’s very lips, and the second time the local character of the community cannot be doubted (Matt. 18:17). Planting churches, which as ‘planted’ are necessarily local, agrees with the Lord’s intention as evidenced in Genesis 2. We could boldly draw a parallel between church planting and the Lord God’s planting of a ‘garden’ in the beginning!
