What is a graft?

The language of church planting has become crowded with metaphors - seeds and soils, fires and embers, scaffolds and blueprints. One that has gained quiet traction in Church of England circles is the image of a “graft”: a new leadership team and congregation planted into the life of an existing parish. It’s an evocative picture - one of renewal, integration, and shared life. But like any good metaphor, it brings baggage. Push it too far and the image can strain under its own weight. In horticulture, a graft is not designed to revitalise tired roots. Quite the opposite: the grafted branch - the scion - draws life from the strength of the rootstock, not the other way around. So if the biological logic of the metaphor seems inverted, does it still hold? I think it does - but perhaps in ways we’ve overlooked.

The Conventional View

This conventional view - where new energy revitalises an old system - underpins many current resources. In his influential guide, How to Plant a Church, Bishop Ric Thorpe presents a clear and detailed framework for this model. He defines it as a “leader and a congregation ‘graft’ into an existing congregation with a view to infusing the church with new DNA and fresh energy.” This perspective, which consistently frames renewal as a unidirectional flow from the new team to the host, is a foundational part of the current church planting conversation. However, it risks telling only half the story. It casts the newcomers as the primary agents of transformation, and the host as passive ground to be reworked. The focus remains fixed on what the new plant brings, potentially missing the most profound dynamic at play. The potential for relational damage in this view is significant. Thorpe shares a cautionary tale where a team member’s comment to a local vicar - ‘I bet you’re really pleased we’ve come to help sort things out’ - caused a rift that took two years to mend. This highlights just how important it is to understand the deeper story.

Beyond the Surface: A Case Study in Renewal

A church I know offers a compelling case study. On the surface, it’s the picture of a successful “graft,” celebrated for the very things the wider church is eager to see: numerical growth, an influx of young families, and a thriving children’s and youth ministry. The conventional narrative would credit the vision and energy of the new plant for this revitalisation.

Yet when I asked a friend there why people were joining his church, a different story emerged. Yes, parents were drawn to the engaging and safe children’s work, but many of these same families were also quietly seeking refuge. They were spiritually weary, coming from high-control church backgrounds where the demands for commitment were relentless (yes, from churches engaged in Breenism, though not exclusively).

The two primary needs of the newcomers - a safe place for their children to flourish and a gentle space for their own healing - were both rooted in a profound sense of safety. What an outside observer wouldn’t see and what my friend helped me understand, which would never appear on a diocesan spreadsheet or feature in a church planting presentation - was the preparation that the congregation had put in place. The host congregation, the ‘rootstock’ of this graft, had spent decades faithfully praying for healing, restoration, and mental well-being . They had cultivated a spiritual environment that was stable, gentle, and safe long before the new plant arrived. This quiet, patient work of spiritual formation leaves no statistical footprint, generates no PowerPoint slides about growth metrics, yet proved to be the foundation upon which everything is being built.

Wholeness in the rootstock: Safety, Stability, and Healing

This story is where the graft metaphor, when understood correctly, finds its true power. The standard narrative, exemplified in prominent church planting resources, positions the new plant - the scion - as the dynamic force bringing life to a static or declining host. But horticulture teaches us a deeper truth. A gardener chooses a rootstock not because it is failing, but because it is strong. It is selected for its resilience, its adaptation to the local soil, and its deep, disease-resistant stability. The scion, which bears the visible fruit, is entirely dependent on these foundational, life-giving qualities. Its survival is a testimony to the strength of the roots it’s joined to.

Viewing church planting through this lens offers a profound perspective shift. It allows us to see the success of the church in the story not only as a case of the new reviving the old, but of the old providing a life-giving sanctuary for the new. The new families and leaders were the scion, bringing the wonderful and visible fruit of growth and youth. The host congregation was the rootstock, providing the invisible but essential nourishment of safety, stability, and a culture of healing prayer. The metaphor we thought was upside-down turns out not to be broken at all. It simply points to a different kind of renewal - bidirectional - one where life flows from the roots, unseen yet indispensable.

This perspective affirms what many established congregations have long known in their bones, that their years of faithful prayer and patient love have been quietly preparing the ground. They’re tending the soil where the Spirit brings forth healing and new life. The question ‘what gifts are hidden in our own rootstock?’ might already have answers in our communities - decades of faithful prayer, deep spiritual maturity, a culture of welcome, or the resilient strength of a community that has learned to love one another through seasons of trial. Perhaps the grafting metaphor, properly understood, simply names what the best church partnerships have always embodied: the new and the established each bringing their distinct gifts, creating together what neither could achieve alone.