Nathan Knight never wanted to be a pastor, and certainly not a church planter.

But as he often does, the Lord gradually opened Nathan's heart to the work of pastoral ministry

and church planting, helping him see that such work was not less than other callings, but

is instead crucial and important for the building up of Christ's

kingdom. But as Nathan got further and further into the work of church planting, he began to notice

some problems with what he calls the church planting industry. Rather than pursuing a truly

biblical vision of planting healthy churches, many planters focus more on metrics drawn from the business

world. Metrics like size, speed, self-sufficiency, and spread. And while paying attention

to these metrics isn't necessarily wrong, placing too much of an emphasis on them can start

to deform a church, distracting pastors from the core of their calling,

shepherding the people God has entrusted to them.

Today I'm talking with Nathan about his journey to pastoral ministry, why he's concerned about

the way that church planting is often done today and what he sees as a better way based on the New Testament.

Nathan is a pastor at Restoration Church in Washington, D.C.,

and serves on the lead team for the Treasuring Christ Together Church Planting Network.

He's also the author of Planting by Pastoring,

a vision for starting a healthy church from Crossway.

Let's get started.

Well, Nathan, thank you so much. from Crossway. Let's get started.

Well, Nathan, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

Thanks. Good to be here.

So today we're going to talk about church planting and some of the unique challenges and even temptations or maybe wrong ways of thinking that can sometimes slip in as we think about church planting. But before we get into some of that, could you just share a little

...