Church Planting 5: The Retreat

This is our fifth and final episode following pastor AJ Smith, who has been trying to grow a new church in Philadelphia. It’s a process that has come with all sorts of existential problems, but also… some very practical ones. In order for Restoration Church to become self-sustaining, it needed to double in size by the end of the year. We’re now half-way through that year and the big question is, how close are they? To cope with the stress of starting a church from scratch, and to seek clarity on how to move forward, AJ takes a trip into the woods with reporter Eric Mennel. But over the course of the day, Eric finds himself reflecting on his own relationship with God, confronting a question he has been trying to avoid for months: Why has he stopped going to church? Hear about the future for Restoration, and a bit about Eric’s fraught relationship with faith, in the fifth episode of our series.