[1]SALISBURY, Md. – He shouldn’t be here.
He knows that. His wife knows that. And pretty much every one of the 400 or so people who gathered recently for a special Sunday celebration know that too.
Five years have now passed since Richard Pope did a stubbornly faithful thing and planted Canvas Church in Salisbury. The launch on Sunday, April 4, 2021, came just weeks after Richard received a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Their story was featured several years [2] ago in the podcast, “Terminal: The Dying Church Planter. [3]”
“I thought I’d be dead by now,” Pope said. “I mean, I knew back then that if God called me to plant a church and He knew I was going to get cancer, then He must want me to plant a church with cancer. So, we did the thing. But still, I was terrified and sad and very, very sick.”
So now, 1,836 days removed from the launch day of his church plant when Richard was, as he remembers, “puking my guts out,” he most definitely should not be here.
And yet, here he is.
“We didn’t plan an anniversary service just to celebrate the fact that my cancer started shrinking and now I’m more or less healthy, even though my doctor is pretty surprised by that,” he said.
[4]“And we didn’t plan a special worship service just because Canvas Church made it five years, although if you know the statistics, making it five years in the church planting world is kind of big.
“No, we planned a special service to celebrate those things, and all the other great things God’s done. He’s shown us that if we just keep stepping closer to Jesus, which honestly has sometimes felt more like stumbling towards Jesus, and if we focus on faithfulness and doing the next right thing, He will always overwhelmingly surprise us with how good He is.”
Surprised by success
In the beginning, Richard and his team launched Canvas Church with what they thought were God-sized expectations.
“When we started,” he said, “our goal, our ‘God pretty please’ prayer, was that Canvas would see 50 people come to Jesus in our first five years.”
“But now, I think back to our launch Sunday when 14 people put their faith in Jesus. It was electric, and I remember telling people, ‘Wow, our goal’s 50 so we’re already one-fourth of the way there.”
“Little did I know.”
It turns out, Richard’s “God-sized” five-year expectation was entirely too small. In last month’s five-year anniversary service, Canvas Church recorded its 325th, 326th, and 327th baptisms.
“God has just kept growing His church,” said Richard’s wife, Payton. “Even though all along the way there were all kinds of seemingly logical reasons for us to give up, every time we asked or doubted, He produced fruit. Seeing that is really what’s fueled us to keep going.”
Richard Pope said they have learned “God is far more good and far more able than we ever thought.
“He took us from, ‘We’re going to take this hill,’ to now looking at all the hills we’ve taken and seeing all the qualified, discipled, godly people He’s raising up to advance the mission of the Gospel through Canvas.”
Surprised my multiplication
Andrew Cooper came first. In 2023, after serving a two-year residency at Canvas Church, he and his wife were sent out to plant Garden Church in the nearby community of Cambridge, Md. “Since then, we’ve baptized 52 people,” Cooper said. “Now, we’re getting ready to send out our own church planter.”
After Cooper, there was Jason McConnell. Canvas sent Jason and his wife to Federalsburg, Md., in 2025 to start Marshyhope Church. “We planted in a community that’s 70 percent unreached,” McConnell said, “and we never would’ve been able to do that without a Sending Church like Canvas.”
Then there was Davin Okerblom. In January 2026, Canvas Church sent Davin and his wife to Delmar, Del., to plant The Gathering. “We’d never done anything like this,” said Okerblom. “The people at Canvas are the ones who really got us started on this journey of church planting.”
Canvas Church has now planted five churches, and, said Pope, “God’s not done. We’re sending missionaries all over Maryland and Delaware now. And for me, when Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, ‘What is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?’ That’s the verse I think of now. I think of guys like Andrew and Jason and Davin, because my goal used to be to see a bunch of people get saved.
“Now, I want to see a bunch of saved people get sent.”
Surprised by God’s goodness
The symbolic gift for a fifth anniversary is wood. That’s because, according to tradition, wood symbolizes a relationship that’s begun to put down solid, long-lasting roots.
There were no wooden trophies at last month’s five-year anniversary celebration. But there was overwhelming evidence that solid, long-lasting roots are beginning to take hold at Canvas Church.
Three new believers were baptized. A sixth church planter was sent out. And a still-very-much-alive pastor who wasn’t supposed to be here was able to stand in front of his congregation and preach the same message he preached five years ago, only this time, with a slightly different conclusion.
“In April 2021, on our very first Sunday, I preached a sermon called ‘Love has provided,’” Pope said. “Back then, that was what we were hoping for. It was a theological conviction.
“Now it’s a lived-out testimony.
“We have so much to celebrate, because God has done incredible things apart from just beating back my cancer. I look at all He’s done in this church in the last five years, and I’m more thoroughly convinced of God’s goodness and His desire to give good gifts to His children.
“When we seek to please Him, He’ll provide what we need. Always. Sometimes that means He gives us exactly what we pray for, sometimes he does not.”
“But I’m even more certain now that we can trust that whatever He gives us, He is good.”
Related posts:
SBC DIGEST: Litton to address UM graduation; Ohio Baptists to sell Seneca Lake facility 
‘Jersey’ impacts Ohio & the world 
WEEK OF PRAYER: Prayers back home boost new Japan church 
More than 13,000 registered for Send Conference 
Church returns blessings to Cooperative Program 
Annie Offering totals record high $61.4 million 
Chasing the Darkness N.Y. mayor renews pledge to churches