Planting by Pastoring: A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church 

EMQ » Jul – Oct 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 3

Reviewed by Cameron D. Armstrong, Asia Graduate School of Theology, Philippines. 

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Must church planting be so complicated? What if church planters do not exude a magnetic, entrepreneurial personality? What is the goal of all of this? Such are the questions church planter Nathan Knight answers in Planting by Pastoring. Knight proposes church planters move away from emphasizing speed and strategies to deeper issues of ecclesiology and relationship building.  

Knight divides his book into two parts. Part 1 (chapters 1–6), entitled “Church-Planting Residency,” dives into biblical definitions and roles of pastor-shepherds and the churches they plant. Church planters who shepherd like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, care more about people than the “four S’s”: size, speed, self-sustainability, and spread (1). Knight calls planters to “slow down and press the gospel into people’s lives, just like Jesus did” (22). Subtly depending on the planter’s charisma and outreach plans for targeting specific populations is a surefire sign that things are biblically off-track.  

After expounding the fundamentals, Part 2 (chapters 7–11) develops “Church-Planting Mobilization.” Here Knight offers practical advice for starting and establishing a church. Knight relays the intentional coaching he received from the pastors of both the mother church and a local church in Washington, DC. He repeats again and again that churches, not parachurches, plant churches.  

Instead of looking outward, pastors should look for potential church planters already serving in the church. Such potential planters then gather teams that pray together, grow together, and reach the lost through intentional relationships. Knight concludes by reminding readers that the ultimate goal is not to plant a healthy church, but that more people magnify Christ. Therefore, church planters must never stop planting churches.       

Planting by Pastoring breathes fresh air into the church planting conversation in at least three ways. First, Knight hammers the essentials oddly lacking in many church planting books, such as what a church is and what a church does. Second, Knight pushes back against a subjective call planters receive for a specific location, claiming instead planters are to look to their gifts, listen to the advice of their church elders, and talk with real people in real neighborhoods. Third, planters must remind their teams that their best evangelistic tool is sharing life at their dinner table. 

Readers may be tempted to find in Planting by Pastoring a model suited primarily for the North American context. Although Knight explains how his church went about planting a Spanish-speaking church in Washington, DC, he does not detail how churches may contextualize these principles cross-culturally.  

This minor issue aside, Knight’s book deserves careful attention. Echoing other 9Marks books calling for churches to prioritize disciple formation over mere outreach, Knight’s honesty and biblical wisdom cut deep and convict hearts. Except for moments of silent and joyous weeping, I could not put the book down. For bringing clarity to the task, Knight is to be commended.  

For Further Reading

What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever (Crossway, 2005) 

The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything by Collin Marshall and Tony Payne (Matthias, 2024) 

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EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 3. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.