the natemac

I’m finding that for every great piece of art I create, there must be at least five that...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:34:45 -0400

I’m finding that for every great piece of art I create, there must be at least five that shouldn’t see the light of day. {yet one more reason quantity is important to creativity}

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… So that He might be..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:20:03 -0400

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… So that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

- Paul - from Romans 3

"People often asked me then as they do now, “How do you do it?” The answer has never..."

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:02:16 -0400

“People often asked me then as they do now, “How do you do it?” The answer has never changed and is so simple: I don’t. It’s just a little bit if coffee and a whole lot of Jesus.”

- Katie Davis in Kisses from Katie

"The true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship."

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:24:27 -0500

“The true knowledge of God will always lead us to worship.”

- John Stott

Worship Stuff on my mind.

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:11:36 -0500

I’ve been thinking a lot about worship lately. More specifically I’ve been thinking more about our Sunday Gatherings. Sometimes I feel like these get stale. We get into our routine. It’s very common in our culture for church to be something you do. You put in your time, you get some nice encouragement then you go off to live this week basically the same as the last. I think sometimes we lose the anticipation of our Gatherings. Especially in our vein of churches that are based on logic and faith being something of the mind. So here are two things I want to capture when I walk in on a Sunday morning and I hope that my people start catching as well:

We gather hoping that our worship offers something worthy to God. It’s not about just singing some songs. The songs themselves have no power on their own. We’re not coming to church because it’s what you do. But no, I want my worship and our worship to not be lip service but be something that expresses what God means to us. That I can convey my need for him. That in worship, I could express the weightiness of God in my life. And I want it to be evident that we really are seeking him. This isn’t just something we do — Christian karaoke — it’s a privilege and maybe even a responsibility that when I offer praise to God, it is not half-hearted.
We gather hoping that God will speak to us. That we expect him to show up. We’re not just here to hear some nice life-lessons from Greg or put in our Christian hours, but we fully expect God — to put it bluntly — to give us something useful. To give us guidance in a hard situation. To give us strength to tackle something he’s laid on our heart. To give us courage to face what we know will meet us when we walk out of those doors. To light a fire in us for something on his heart. Or simply be Present and let us know it; which may be enough to inspire us to seek him and his ways in this world more than anything else that could happen on a Sunday morning.

I want us to be Church that is fully aware of God at work in this world and expects him to be active in our Sunday mornings too.

"The most beautiful thing : that God himself - God incarnate - was the least religious person..."

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:53:33 -0500

““The most beautiful thing : that God himself - God incarnate - was the least religious person the world has ever seen””

- Hugh halter

"When love is extravagant its never wasted."

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:48:59 -0400

“When love is extravagant its never wasted.”

- Bob Goff. Story2012

"Creativity, in the Divine sense, is when we see a void, then fill it with ourselves. … Does an..."

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:07:25 -0400

“Creativity, in the Divine sense, is when we see a void, then fill it with ourselves.
…
Does an artist need to be creative? Yes.
But does a Creative need to be an artist? Absolutely not.”

- Gary Molander - Pursuing Christ. Creating Art.

"We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our..."

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:28:17 -0400

“We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.”

- John Cleese. Touché John, touché…

"Mercy: a disposition or inclination to forgive and to be kind."

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:01:28 -0400

“Mercy: a disposition or inclination to forgive and to be kind.”

- Webster’s

An update from me, Natemac!

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 21:18:58 -0400

I’ve made it through my first week at my new ministry in Highland, IN!!! I led this morning with the talented Robert Ebbens who has been leading worship for the Highland campus for the last few months. He’s about to head off to college and so this was both a last sunday for him and a first sunday for me. A great transition that I think we pulled off well.

Today was the first day I led worship at Suncrest Highland and it was a very affirming day! God let my first sunday leading be fairly smooth sailing. The day just felt normal… just like it fit — like I just fit. The people I get to work with and interact with already feel like good friends even though I’ve only been here a week! I was blown away by the incredible team I’m going to get to be in the trenches with. They all knew exactly what they needed to do and were right there with me as I had questions or to pick up slack or make corrections on the fly. Really. They are a solid group and I’m excited to be a part of Suncrest Highland!

This first week has been crazy and I’ve had to remind myself to cut me some slack on not having everything figured out yet! I’ve got a lot of planning ahead of me, but I’ve got a great team of worship pastors and leaders around me to help me keep everything rolling.

In the last week I have…

moved across state
led worship
went to “Beatlesfest”
had 6 meetings in 3 workdays
gone sailing
participated in an acoustic open mic
met 5,983,006 people. (ok, not that many, but a lot!)
shucked around 500 ears of corn at the Highland Corn Roast
jammed on guitars with friends
aaaaand helped to build two desks & two chairs

Yeah. It’s been a memorable first week. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers and sharing with me in my new journey! Excited to see what God has in store!

"I live in the paradox of having found God, or rather, of having been found by God, and yet having to..."

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 09:21:20 -0400

“I live in the paradox of having found God, or rather, of having been found by God, and yet having to always search for him.”

- The way of the worshipper: Buddy Owens

Top 10 fav things about my year in Indy

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 11:20:37 -0400

(not quite in sequential order)

1. A mild winter for this region : )

2. Coming to know and love my dad’s church

3. All my new friends that will make me want to come back to Indy more often!

4. Planning Collide with Jeff Stalnaker

5. Living so close to the Chew family

6. Having more time than I ever thought I’d have to travel and spend time with good friends

7. Audio books on long drives

8. Having a reliable car to get me around (thanks lifepointe!)

9. The refining process on my passions and direction of my life.

10. Having an extra year with my family and all-growed-up lil sister : )

Everything I needed to know about creativity...

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:44:30 -0400

creativesomething:

When someone looks at our lives, does the evidence prove that we follow Christ? “It is the...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 14:21:30 -0400

When someone looks at our lives, does the evidence prove that we follow Christ?

“It is the Christians, O Emperor, who have sought and found the truth, for they acknowledge God. They do not keep for themselves the goods entrusted to them. They do not covet what belongs to others. They show love to their neighbours. They do not do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves. They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in this way they make them their friends. It has become their passion to do good to their enemies. They live in the awareness of their smallness. Every one of them who has anything gives ungrudgingly to the one who has nothing. If they see a travelling stranger, they bring him under their roof. They rejoice over him as over a real brother, for they do not call one another brothers after the flesh, but they know they are brothers in the Spirit and in God. If they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed for the sake of Christ, they take care of all his needs. If possible they set him free. If anyone among them is poor or comes into want while they themselves have nothing to spare, they fast two or three days for him. In this way they can supply any poor man with the food he needs. This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians, and this is their manner of life.”

-Aristides, Apology 15, 16. 137 A.D Philosopher who most likely came to know Christ later in life after earnest investigation (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.xv.xiv.html) - quote found in Jesus for President, by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haws, p232

I have a job!!! Woo!

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:06:00 -0400

I’m excited to announce to everyone I will be joining the team at Suncrest Christian Church as the Worship Pastor for their Highland Campus. Some of you might be saying, “Nate, that church sounds familiar.” And you would be right! Suncrest was the church I interned at for a year right after graduating from Johnson. Since that time, they have been a huge supporter of my ministry in SO many ways. Suncrest was the church that ordained me for ministry (put their stamp of approval on me and the work I would do for God) and they also supported me financially and with their prayers as I served with Lifepointe Christian Church in Charlotte, NC.

And I’m so excited that God has worked behind the scenes and moved around all the pieces so that we get to join forces again in order to be used by God to change lives in northwest Indiana! Suncrest is a church that is so passionate about their mission and are always looking for new ways to push and grow for the Kingdom of God.

If you are unfamiliar with the area, Suncrest is a multisite church with campuses southeast of Chicago. 3 out of their 4 campuses are actually in the Central Timezone even though they are in Indiana because they are so close to “Chicagoland.” Highland, where I’ll be serving is one of the last stops for Chicago’s transit trains!

Suncrest is a great environment to work in and I’d say their worship ministry is one of the best I’ve seen! The great thing about a healthy multisite church is that you have both autonomy AND support. A campus at a multisite isn’t just a photocopy of the original church! As one of the men-on-site, I get to know, love, and pastor my people, and build a worship service that I think will help connect them to God in the most meaningful way possible. However, there is a support system of 3 other campuses that are covering the same topic and running with the same series and are trying to help connect THEIR campuses to God in the most meaningful way possible. And we talk about that! And we borrow the best ideas from our sister campuses so that we are all doing our best possible job. If one of my projects is stalling out, they’ll help me take care of it. If one campus’ bass player calls in sick last minute, one of ours will go help out for a Sunday. Very much what the church is about! I love how we get to work together to tackle big projects and also have room to experiment and test our own ideas. Best of both worlds!

I think that’s a pretty good overview for you! If you want to know more about what I’ll be doing, feel free to catch me and we can chat some more about it! I’ll be starting VERY soon (August 1st!) so it’s an exciting time! Thanks for all your prayers and support while I’ve been on this journey over the last year and I can’t wait to share what God is doing in Chicagoland next time we talk!

Zombie Church - a book review

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:28:14 -0400

If you like zombie movies and love the church, then you will love this book. Ok, I have to admit, when I read the title I thought, oh this book is gonna be really campy just like all those spoof zombie movies (Sorry, Ty). Tyler Edwards confesses in the first pages his love for horror movies; the cheesier the better. While the surface concept might seem a bit silly at first glance, Edwards is quick to bring us to some deep rooted issues in the Church. And I found the metaphor he uses to be pretty spot on when we look at the state of many of our churches.

The premise is this: “We claim to be followers of Jesus imitating his life, but that is exactly the problem. What we have is imitation life. So many Christians do not live their lives with Jesus at the center.” A zombie lacks a spirit; they are an empty shell. They play at being alive but are really dead. And we have a lot of churches inhabited by zombies; people who play the part of being alive in Christ, they may even know a lot about Jesus, but they have missed knowing Jesus. Edwards makes the great observation that the one thing we are “selling” is the one thing so many churches are missing: Life.

One thing I love about Zombie Church is Edward’s overwhelming sense of hope in the Church. Instead of running from these zombie churches, he calls us to embrace our call to the Church and people of God with even more fight and fervor. Unlike in most zombie movies, there is a cure for those who have become zombies. That despite all the problems that come with owning the Church (with all her branches and imperfect, often aggravating people), it is still the greatest hope for the world in being connected with the love of Christ. We need to be as sold out to the Church as Jesus is — who “loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).

So if you have ever felt like your church is missing something essential, this may be the very book you need to pick up. There is a cure for those who miss the life and love of Jesus, you might just be the one to help them find it.

My favorite sections:

“Maintaining Our Connection to Life” at the end of Chapter 2
The list of “symptoms” of a dying church (in Chapter 4)
“If we get poured into but don’t let anything out, we become stagnant…” (lots of good stuff in Chapter 8)
“Anti-Social” in Chapter 11. i.e. Why I should go to church.

My Default Creative Element

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:54:01 -0400

My favorite creative element is Scripture. You can’t go wrong with Scripture. I can come up with a lot of really bad skits. I can cover a lot of popular songs. I can find lots of videos on Bluefish. All of these can be pretty hit and miss in our church services. So I find my best default element is to read Scripture.

God says in Isaiah, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isa 55:11 NKJV)

I’d rather bet on this promise than on some random song by Coldplay.

Creativity in Worship

Thu, 10 May 2012 18:05:36 -0400

The thing we can always give people is Jesus. This is what they need. So if we are going to sacrifice anything in our worship services, let it be the lights, let it be the artsy videos, let it be the rock n roll music and cover songs, don’t let it be the message.

Its easy for me to sometimes feel this pressure to come up with bigger and better “creative elements” for my worship services. I’ve got to find some video that vaguely connects with the message. Or write some drama that is supposed to reflect a life issue. Or find myself needing to find some popular song people might know that maybe uses a key word from the title of the current sermon series. And at this point, it just becomes noise. It ends up feeling manufactured to me - fake -

And that’s because it is. We walk this line, don’t we? We want to do creative things, we want to have a variety of ways for people to connect with the message of the Gospel, but we also don’t want to cram extra things into a service just because its expected. That’s the way I feel sometimes. “Well, I couldn’t find a song that fits exactly what we’re talking about… but this is a fun song that says “relationship” in it, so it kinda fits.”

Here’s what I try to remind myself:

1. Don’t feel like you have to have some special creative element every week. You’ve heard a saying like this: if every day is special, no day is special. We’re not aiming for sensationalism (at least every week!). Don’t force it because that’s when we start cluttering the message. No creative element is better than one that isn’t making the point you’re trying to make.

2. Prep for creativity. I think this is a problem many of us run into. We hit the deadline, so we just hurriedly come up with something, even if it isn’t that great of an idea. Good ideas need time to marinate. They need time to be carried out. Here’s a piece of advice that has stuck with me: With Creative projects, you only get to pick two of these: Low Cost, High Quality, Fast Turnaround. If you’re like me, you don’t have lots of money to throw at your projects, so if you want to keep High Quality, you’ve GOT to get better at planning out your projects ahead of time.

3. Build a team who’s purpose is just coming up with ideas. What? Are you the only one with good ideas? Most of us would admit we are horrible at consistently great ideas. So open up the brainstorming process to more brains.

4. Make God part of the process. Isn’t it silly that we have to be reminded of this? But I do. We are busy, we’re just trying to check things off the list, and for some reason Sunday morning comes EVERY single week! But the best ideas and creativity are the ones that God inspires. So make time to make him part of the process and make space to hear Him.

"All of us love miracles. We just don’t like being in a situation that necessitates one."

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:02:14 -0400

“All of us love miracles. We just don’t like being in a situation that necessitates one.”

- Mark Batterson - The Circle Maker