Planting by Pastoring E-Book

Nathan Knight

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: 9Marks
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Recentering the Goal of Pastoral Ministry to Cultivate Christ-Treasuring Church Plants As churches rapidly expand, Christians risk viewing the church with an entrepreneurial mindset. Church planters can be tempted to fixate on gaining numbers and achieving financial stability as their only metrics for success. They fail to focus on lifting up Christ's people within the church.  In Planting by Pastoring, author Nathan Knight challenges our view of church planting and centers the goal of pastoral ministry on a basic biblical foundation: a church plant is in fact a church, and a planter is in fact a pastor. A healthy church plant is not measured by size, speed, or level of self-sufficiency but by good pastoring that produces faith, fruit, and a flourishing community. Once pastors and church leaders redefine their plant as a church, their ministry will begin to align with Jesus's mission to shepherd the flock and bring glory to God alone.   - Provides Wisdom: This book reminds church planters of the heart of the church and the core purpose of pastors - Offers a Unique Perspective: Addresses foundational elements of church planting other books fail to address - Appeals to Pastors, Elders, and Church Planters: Great for those in the process of planting a church

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“This book is a long-expected and theologically compelling wake-up call for future planters and existing pastors to come back to the good old way of starting churches by taking care of souls. Here you’ll find provocative and passionate thoughts that make you value the godly and the biblical before the trendy and the flashy. I can personally attest that Knight’s teachings and stories mentioned here are not only real but heartfelt, as I’ve personally benefited from his living example and his pastoral leadership to treasure Jesus above everyone and everything. I hope you can also be encouraged to do so as you read this masterpiece.”

Alejandro Molero, Pastor, Iglesia Biblica Sublime Gracia, Washington, DC

“If you want to ‘pastor-plant’ a church that can be explained only in terms of the power of the gospel at work, and if you want to plant a church that takes New Testament ecclesiology to heart, this book is for you. Knight takes us down ancient paths and shows how they lead to healthy church growth. His advice may not be what you want, but it is certainly what you need as a church-pastoring church planter. The path is hard, but it will produce a church that can endure hardship; it may be laborious, but it is the surest way to plant. It may be painful, but it will result in a healthy, strong church that presents and protects the gospel. Read this book, preach the gospel, love God’s people, rest in faith, and watch the Lord of the church do his work.”

Dieudonné Tamfu, Pastor, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Yaoundé, Cameroon; Assistant Professor of Bible and Theology and Executive Director of the Cameroon Extension Site, Bethlehem College & Seminary

“Biblical faithfulness and faith in God are twin essentials for church planting. Follow the Master’s guidelines and trust the Master for the growth. This is the thrust of this book, and I am glad to commend it to those who seek to plant and grow biblically faithful churches for the glory of King Jesus.”

Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Nathan Knight has been a model for me of a pastor who serves with humility, faith, compassion, and zeal for the supremacy of Christ. In this inspiring book, Knight explains that a church plant can be healthy, despite being small, financially needy, or expanding slowly, even if it is growing more deeply than it spreads. Using Jesus as the reference point, Knight invites us to view church planters as shepherds and church plants as biblical churches. He contends that shepherds ought to display godly character, capability, conviction, confidence, and compassion. He encourages sending churches to care for and watch over church planters. The book presents wise strategic advice and important lessons learned by suffering for Christ.”

Déholo Nali, Pastor, Connexion Rockland, Rockland, Ontario

“Church planters and leaders are drowning in too many opportunities, pressures, and ideas. Deep down we feel like we’re failing even when it looks like we’re ‘successful.’ In Planting by Pastoring, Nathan Knight thrusts hope into our hearts with the Bible’s truth and goodness. He clarifies our roles, tools, and goals with simplicity and utility so that we rest in and move with Jesus in planting by pastoring. Find refreshment here for the good work Christ has for you.”

P. J. Tibayan, Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, Bellflower, California; blogger, SaintPJ.com

Planting by Pastoring

Other 9Marks Titles

Overview Books

The Compelling Community, by Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop

How to Build a Healthy Church, by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, by Mark Dever

No Shortcut to Success, by Matt Rhodes

The Rule of Love, by Jonathan Leeman

The Building Healthy Churches Series

Church Membership, by Jonathan Leeman

Conversion, by Michael Lawrence

Corporate Worship, by Matt Merker

Deacons, by Matt Smethurst

Discipling, by Mark Dever

Evangelism, by J. Mack Stiles

Expositional Preaching, by David Helm

Additional titles available

The Church Questions Series

How Can I Find Someone to Disciple Me?

How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics?

How Can Our Church Find a Faithful Pastor?

How Can Women Thrive in the Local Church?

Additional titles available

Titles for New Christians 

Am I Really a Christian?, by Mike McKinley

Rediscover Church, by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman

What Is the Gospel?, by Greg Gilbert

Who Is Jesus?, by Greg Gilbert

Why Trust the Bible?, by Greg Gilbert

Healthy Church Study Guides are available on all nine marks.

To explore all 9Marks titles, visit 9Marks.org/bookstore

Planting by Pastoring

A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church

Nathan Knight

Planting by Pastoring: A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church

Copyright © 2023 by Nathan Knight

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design and image: Jordan Singer

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-8811-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8814-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8812-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Knight, Nathan, 1975– author.

Title: Planting by pastoring : a vision for starting a healthy church / Nathan Knight.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Series: 9marks | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022054987 (print) | LCCN 2022054988 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433588112 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433588129 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433588143 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Church development, New. | Church growth.

Classification: LCC BV652.25 .K63 2023 (print) | LCC BV652.25 (ebook) | DDC 254/.5—dc23/eng/20230417

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022054987

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022054988

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-06-20 11:41:12 AM

To Joey, Page, and my beloved wife. Where would we be without Christ and one another?

Contents

Series Preface

Introduction

Part 1: Church-Planting Residency

1  Jesus as Shepherd: The Prince of Planters

2  Pastors, Not Entrepreneurs: The Posture of the Planter

3  Qualified, Not Charismatic: The Character of the Planter

 4  Church, Not Crowd: The Markers of the Planter

5  Unexplainable, Not Explainable: The Culture of the Planter

6  Christ, Not You: The Goal of the Planter

Part 2: Church-Planting Mobilization

7  Sent and Sustained by a Church, Not a Parachurch: The Mother of the Planter

8  The Team, Not the Man: The Team of the Planter

9  Needy, Not Hip: The Place of the Planter

10  Love People, Not Programs: The Mission of the Planter

11  Bricks, Not Straw: The Desire of the Planter

Conclusion: Defining “Success”

Appendix 1: Covenant Ceremony

Appendix 2: Statement of Beliefs

Appendix 3: Church Membership Covenant

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

The 9Marks series of books is premised on two basic ideas. First, the local church is far more important to the Christian life than many Christians today perhaps realize.

Second, local churches grow in life and vitality as they organize their lives around God’s Word. God speaks. Churches should listen and follow. It’s that simple. When a church listens and follows, it begins to look like the One it is following. It reflects his love and holiness. It displays his glory. A church will look like him as it listens to him.

So our basic message to churches is, don’t look to the best business practices or the latest styles; look to God. Start by listening to God’s Word again.

Out of this overall project comes the 9Marks series of books. Some target pastors. Some target church members. Hopefully all will combine careful biblical examination, theological reflection, cultural consideration, corporate application, and even a bit of individual exhortation. The best Christian books are always both theological and practical.

It is our prayer that God will use this volume and the others to help prepare his bride, the church, with radiance and splendor for the day of his coming.

With hope,

Jonathan Leeman

Series Editor

Introduction

Size, speed, sufficiency, and spread.

These four s’s determine success and significance in church planting. Grow, grow, grow as fast as you can! Be financially self-sufficient sooner rather than later! Spread your impact by multiplying services or campuses or churches! If church planting were a sports car, then the four s’s would be its whirring engine; you can’t see it, but it’s there under the hood, powering everything. It sounds powerful and impressive. It purrs and hums. Who wouldn’t want to drive that thing?

But what if we popped the hood and discovered that this engine needed work? What if the engine sounded nice, but we knew this engine wasn’t built to last? What if the engine merely looked good, but actually endangered passengers?

This is a pop-the-hood book. Its goal is to ask the questions of the previous paragraph, applying them to church planting. What if the four s’s aren’t what your church plant needs to run on? What if we should look elsewhere for success and significance?

Oh, but size and speed and sufficiency and spread are so enticing! We all want them. I know I did when I first started out. I wanted more people to hear the gospel, and I wanted those people to come quickly so that we would “make it” without external financial support. And yeah, I wanted—and still want!—to spread the gospel into other communities through more church planting.

Every church planter should pursue the four s’s. But is pursuing them the point of church planting? Is achieving them the goal of church planting? Can a church planter be successful without size and speed and sufficiency and spread?

Yes, I think so. I hope to persuade you of that in this book. But first, let’s talk a bit more about the four s’s. Are they really that prominent?

Size and Speed

Church planters love books. We love instructional manuals and manifestos and how-tos and everything in between. Popular church-planting literature places a great emphasis on the four s’s. Let’s talk about the first two for a moment—size and speed.

Nelson Searcy comes right out and says it: “As you think about the launch date for your church, remember that your primary goal is to launch as publicly as possible, with as many people as possible.”1 Ron Sylvia agrees, and in doing so lumps Jesus in with him: “Launching large is congruent with the best of missionary theology and with the Methods of Jesus.”2

And then there’s Ed Stetzer—perhaps the most popular purveyor of church-planting wisdom.3 In Planting Missional Churches, Stetzer and Daniel Im say “reproduction is the goal—reproducing believers, ministries, groups, and churches.”4

“Rapid mobilization” is often thought to be central to church-planting success since it spreads the gospel to more people more quickly. Stetzer and Warren Bird advocate this approach in their book Viral Churches: “Our hope is to inspire and help you develop a church multiplication movement—an exponential birth of new churches that engage lost people and that replicate themselves through even more new churches. A church multiplication movement is a rapid reproduction of churches planting churches.”5

Steve Addison follows suit in Movements That Change the World. He lists “rapid mobilization” as one of the requirements for global change.6 Dave Ferguson, president of America’s largest church-planting conference, writes in his book Exponential that “Jesus has given his church the problem of rapid reproduction.”7

Without question, common church-planting wisdom says size and speed are vital to success. However, when we consider Scripture, we find a narrative not of speed but of slowness, so that God might be glorified as his people put their trust in him.

Consider Abraham and Sarah, who were childless for nearly twenty-five years after God’s promise. Or Israel, who endured slavery in Egypt for 420 years before their deliverance. Or the coming of Christ, which happened thousands of years after God’s initial promise in Genesis 3:15. Or consider Christians right now, who have been longing for Christ’s return for more than two thousand years. As my old mentor used to say to me, “God is rarely early, but he’s never late.”

Self-Sufficiency

Now let’s talk about the third s: self-sufficiency.

Think for a moment about how we refer to church plants that don’t make it. “Failed,” we often say. If, after a long enough time, there simply aren’t enough people or money to go around, then the church planters have “failed” at their mission.

This sentiment dominates the landscape. Just consider these comments from a so-called “failed” church planter: “In the end, the church plant did not last. After thousands of dollars raised and about fifteen months of effort, it failed. I simply could not get enough traction when gathering. I was underfunded. I lacked experience. I was alone. I had heart, and I had zeal.”8

Not enough money. Not enough people. Failure. When I read this, I wanted to reach through my screen and grab the author and tell him, “Oh, brother, you didn’t fail!”

It is true that 1 Timothy 5:8 commands us to provide for our families; however, financial profitability has zero bearing upon the essence of what makes for successful church planting. I suspect a hard-working church planter who, over the course of many years, can’t gain any traction with people apart from his family generally might need to move on to something else. I’m not arguing that church planters should never give up. It’s the relationship of size and survivability as “essential” that is dangerous.

Too many planters can subconsciously begin to believe that the essence of a church is its financial success (or lack of). Few might think this consciously, but I fear many think it subconsciously. Consequently, when a financial goal isn’t met within five years, they can believe they’ve failed to plant a church. Or, perhaps they think they’ve failed as individuals. Maybe the planters do need to move on, but it’s not because they lack the essence of what makes a church plant.

Think about impoverished areas in your community or in Bangkok, Thailand. Churches need to be planted there, and yet, we might assume they will never be financially viable. Yet, insofar as they are doing the basic elements of what makes a church a church, they can thrive more than the prosperity gospel “church” down the street that has throngs of people coming in and out of it each week along with huge financial windfalls. That church has failed; the biblically faithful church plant hasn’t.

Kenneth Jones, a fellow pastor in Washington, DC, planted Redeemer City church eight years ago. To date, the church has not been able to fully support him financially. Not only does he continue on, but more importantly, the work of the church continues on. He said to me recently, “Our church is small, but we gather and preach the gospel every week, we participate in the ordinances together, members are cared for, and our neighbors are hearing about Christ. The size of our gathering or the size of our bank account hasn’t stopped the work of our church.”

Spread

So far we’ve seen that speed, size, and self-sufficiency often become the litmus test for a church plant’s success. But there’s one other factor—one that usually happens after self-sufficiency is reached—that also looms large. I’m talking about spread. Generally speaking, church plants aren’t successful until they’ve spread their influence through multiplication.

Continuing in their book Viral Churches, Stetzer and Bird say that for a church-planting movement of multiplication to occur, there need to be new markers of success: “The better option is to develop new benchmarks, such as a more organic mind-set that focuses on abundance verses size. . . . Perhaps we need to think more like farmers, hungering for the orchard that we’re helping to plant to become wildly out of control.”9

What are these “new benchmarks” for achieving a church-planting movement? In short, Stetzer and Bird encourage the planter to focus on an abundant amount of church plants, not simply larger gatherings. The more churches there are, the more we can keep up with population growth. If we can achieve this, then we will successfully achieve a church-planting movement. But the goal is exponential multiplication.

We see this in church-planting literature, but we also see it in church-planting events. Perhaps the largest conference on church planting, Exponential, produced a field guide that teaches planters how to become a “level five” multiplying church.10 On their website, you can take the “multiplication challenge” and, in the process, unlock your church’s potential by “launching more churches with greater success.” You can even find a list of reproducing churches and, upon following their advice, build a legacy as an exponential church-planting church.11

Let’s talk about books again. One popular church-planting website listed the top ten church-planting books of 2019. Four of the ten are explicitly related to multiplication or spread.12 Some of the brightest lights in the Southern Baptist world consider multiplication necessary for a healthy church. J. D. Greear, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the pastor of Summit Church, writes that the greatness of the church is not in its seating capacity but in its sending capacity.13

While I trust that Greear would in no way mean to pit multiplying against growing in depth, we need to make clear that multiplication doesn’t come at the expense of depth. When we aim so much at reaching more people, it becomes easy to look past the ones that are already here. We become like so much of the church in America, a mile wide and an inch deep.

Imagine a book on parenting that urged you to have as many children as possible as quickly as possible because children are a blessing from the Lord. Now imagine the book never addresses how to meaningfully serve, love, and discipline those children. That would be a bad book; I hope you wouldn’t read it and recommend it to others.

But what would the result be if people took that book’s advice to heart? Large families that were unhealthy and poorly provided for. I fear the same might be said in certain corners of our church-planting conversations. We’re inviting planters to join a movement that leaves its families malnourished and its children anonymous.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had members, attenders, and nonbelievers over to my home, where they expressed a level of shock to have dinner with “the pastor.” Time and again, these people tell me that their pastor was often an elusive figure “up there” on the stage—not someone in their lives, not someone who knew them and checked in on them. I’ve had to convince certain members to come and talk to me about problems they’re facing or decisions they’re weighing because they thought I was “too busy” for them. Too busy doing what? I thought this was what we do?

Our church also has had Christians show up for months without committing. When asked why, they tell us that it’s because they’ve never been taught that committing to a church actually means something. Church has been like Verizon or Burger King; you tap into the service and leave when you’re full. If you get tired of the church, then you move on to the next one, like switching to Sprint or Wendy’s. After all, no pastor or church leader would even notice.

Perhaps saddest of all, we sometimes meet Christians who have followed Jesus for decades—men and women who have been part of several churches. When they learn that we spend half our elders’ meetings giving brief updates on members and then praying for them individually, they can’t believe it. They’d never been individually known, heard, and prayed for like that.

Are We Missing Something?

Size, speed, self-sufficiency, and spread aren’t inherently bad goals. I trust that the authors quoted above are eager and godly and well-intentioned. They want to spread the gospel just like I do. They want to see churches planted just like I do.

Ultimately, however, our intentions matter less than our ideas. Ideas have consequences. Focusing on four good things at the exclusion of other good things has ramifications. So let’s back off the gas pedal for a moment and ask some questions that may lead to some different practices—or at least some different emphases.

What is a church?

How would you know when you planted or started one?

What does a church do?

What are the ordinances? What do they have to do with a church?

What is a pastor? What does he have to do with a church?

In sum: Where’s the church in all these church-planting resources?

It seems to me that the emphasis on size, speed, sufficiency, and spread leaves individual people behind, as well as the family life that Jesus intends for those individual people. It seems to prioritize their being “reached” over their being “formed.” I don’t know about you, but most people I know struggle to follow Jesus. They wrestle against sin in their marriages and in their singleness, on the job and in the home. They face suffering. They wonder where God is.

When we aim to reach people and reproduce them quickly, it becomes difficult to actually minister to them as Jesus did. It becomes difficult to get up close and personal, as a family does. How do you slow down to love people who struggle to follow Jesus when size and speed and spread are so important? Planting by pastoring is glorious and grace-filled work. But it’s inefficient work.

I want to ask one more question: Where’s the worship? We’re told that the goal of church planting is to reach the lost. But is that the proper goal? It’s most certainly critical to the work of church planting, but surely evangelism isn’t the finish line.

I’m reminded of a John Piper quote that’s pretty famous, at least in the Christian world. “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”14 This isn’t some “Jesus juke.” Piper’s right. Worship is the heart of our life together as a church. The goal isn’t size or speed, sufficiency or spread. The goal is to know and enjoy Christ Jesus