After the Chase - Nathan and Jenna's Blog

Moments and Miracles

2009-07-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've had moments -- watching movies, watching live performances, listening to certain songs, looking out over a beautiful sunset from on top of a mountain -- where I feel my skin go all tingly, goose bumps rushing over me ... that feeling of being moved. Where you know at some intrinsic, deeper down than conscious level that something you just witnessed something signficant, where you felt like you were touched by God somehow.

I listened to this "feel-o-meter" for quite a long time in my life, and thought it had great significance. Until I saw a Disney show at California Adventure park, and when Aladdin hit this really big crescendo, I unwillingly had that same feeling sweep over my body. I felt dirty - like Aladdin had somehow manipulated me. Ugh - to feel something so significant at a Disney show! I was embarrassed to even think about it!

And then I had to step back and wonder - how many other times had I felt this way, and it really was just a certain chord, or sound, or feeling, and nothing really spiritual at all? I had to re-examine a lot of my earlier "spiritual" experiences, and look at them with a new perspective. It's good to question things -- and of course, good to find answers. But sometimes we are just stuck with questions, and that is the fine line between doubt and faith, where we choose what we are going to make of whatever the world has handed us.

So maybe when God dips His finger into reality and does something, it happens very quietly, and without all of the fanfaire we come to expect in church. I've witnessed several things that I think may have been miracles (although it's difficult to be sure) -- and at every single one, there wasn't a goose bump in sight.

Jenna and I were in Latvia several years back, playing some concerts and helping out with some summer camps. She woke up at 5am one morning with an incredibly sore throat. She hoarsly croaked out (waking me up) "Nathan, my throat hurts!" -- we were supposed to sing that day, and she was worried she wouldn't be able to sing. So I rolled over, and tiredly mumbled "Jesus, please heal her throat", and started falling back to sleep. I felt no goose bumps, I heard no trumpets in the sky. But Jenna suddenly shook me awake and said, in her very normal, musical voice "Oh my gosh - my throat just expanded, it was so weird, everything is back to normal!" She said she was afraid in that moment -- I guess that's a reasonable experience in the face of something supernatural. God doesn't show up very often when we pray for a miracle, so when He does, it's scary to face that reality.

During that same trip to Latvia, I stabbed my finger accidently with a guitar string at the end of a concert. It was a pretty deep wound, and bled a bit. I didn't think about it much more, I just kept soaking up the blood until it stopped bleeding and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I stumbled into the dining hall, starting eating breakfast, and belately realized that I had hurt my finger the night before. I looked down at my hands, and couldn't even figure out which finger had been hurt. There wasn't a single mark on them. I asked if anyone had prayed for me, and two of the pastors who were with us on that trip said they had prayed for my healing that night. There wasn't a chance of a psycho-somatic healing event on that one, since I wasn't even thinking about healing. Sure, there is a possibility that the puncture wound entry area healed rapidly, and all of the blood under my fingernail dissapeared because I sucked on my finger at night or something, but it was still more than a little unusual.

Yesterday I had another strange event. I was helping a friend fix up his yard in Vallejo, Ca, and we spent hours trimming hedges, digging up weeds, picking up trash, doing all we could to help make the house look presentable so he could rent it out. He bought a new pickax to help with the work, and I used it to dig trenches so we could put in some ground cloth to keep the weeds down. I went to use it to dig up some tougher roots, and swung pretty hard as I orbited around the root, digging up the dirt around it. Suddenly the pickax bucked in my hands and banged into my leg. I looked down, and glad I hadn't cut myself open - and then looked at the pickax, only to find that it was bent 90 degrees downward. I'm no superman - so I know my shin didn't bend that ax, and on the same note, I'm not a big strapping lumberjack, so I don't think I generated a lot of force to bend the pickax. So I was left with a question. No goose bumps. No signs in the sky ... just a bent pickax and a question -- did God save me just in time, or was it just pure coincidence?

I posted a picture of the pickax to Facebook, and it was fun to see my facebook-friends debate whether or not it was a miracle, or just an accident. It was interesting to see the various comments -- some people instantly praising God, others more skeptical, saying they didn't even see dirt on the pickax, so the whole thing was a little suspicious to them. I guess that's a lot like how people viewed Jesus when he walked this earth. I doubt everyone who saw him had goose bumps -- he was probably a pretty rough looking carpenter guy. He didn't have a huge band accompanying him, playing all the right chords at the right time. But he did some things that were genuinely out of the ordinary, and left us to wrestle with the question -- was that a miracle, or is there some other explanation?

Not a goose bump in sight to give us guidance -- and that's probably a good thing. Answering that question isn't easy - and the answer we choose really impacts just about everything else in life.

Nathan

New Year's Newsletter

2009-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

We saw that not everyone was able to receive our latest email newsletter so here it is:

Happy New Year!

We hope this email finds you all well rested from time off and filled with love from time with friends and family over this past holiday season. For After the Chase, 2008 was our busiest year ever. We played all over the country this year - Washington, Oregon, California, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida - and got to meet and connect with many wonderful new people and church families. We saw more fruit in our ministry in 2008 than ever before - God gave us opportunities to share our faith in Jesus and we saw people come to Christ at our concerts. We had such a great time and are excited about what this coming year may hold for us.

In early December, Nathan and I found out that we are going to have a new addition to the band. Unfortunately we won't know what instrument he or she will play for about 9 months...that's right...we're having a baby! We haven't been to the doctor yet (still very early) but we think the due date is Aug. 30th. We would appreciate your prayers for the baby this year.

About 4 days after we found out that we were pregnant, we also found out that Nathan's last day of work was Dec. 31st. He was laid off from his full time job this year. As many of you know, Nathan's job has been supporting the majority of our music ministry. It enabled After the Chase to grow, travel, and record new music as well as let me (Jenna) work full time from home on bookings and various ministry details. We are a little concerned about the financial future but also know and trust that God will provide all of our needs.

We are exploring what God has in store for us this coming year. Please pray for us! Pray for a healthy baby, for guidance in the next steps of our ministry, and for God to open new doors for us. We've had people ask us in the past if they could donate towards our ministry to help us. We have mainly declined given that Nathan had a full time job that was supporting us. But now, given the dramatic changes in our life, we're freely accepting any help you want to provide!:)

So if you would like to make a tax deductable donation to After the Chase's music ministry, you can send us a check made out to "Redwood Covenant Church" (our home church). Just make sure to write "After the Chase" in the notes section on the check. If you don't care about tax deductable donations you can always send us a check made out to "After the Chase" or buy lots of CDs and give them away to your friends. The address to send your checks to is:

After the Chase
779 Riesling Road
Petaluma, CA 94954

If you'd like to see us live this year, just email us to book ATC for 2009 now as our weekends are filling up. We will continue to tour through July and stop in August for the birth.

Thank you for all your prayers and support,

Jenna (and Nathan!)
After the Chase

On the road...

2008-09-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

I thought we should start recording a little bit of video while we're traveling. We're new at this, so forgive us for the lack of showmanship. Maybe we'll get a better camera soon that will make this easier ... right now there are twenty steps just to post a video!
~Nathan

Nathan, Jenna, and Gary on the road in Ohio - Sept 2008

Nathan and Jenna on the road in Florida - Sept 2008

Who are you becoming?

2008-09-17T17:28:00.001-07:00

There is a junior high school right across the street from our house. (recently built, and frankly I wish it wasn't there by the way, but that is another story). I was driving by the school today, and I saw a bunch of kids standing around, waiting for their parents to pick them up. Every Wednesday they get out early, and if I leave at just the wrong time, I'm stuck in parental deadlock for a long time before I can even get around the block.

As I sat there, waiting, watching parents cut off other parents, honking horns at each other, picking up their loved ones, I started wondering what each of these kids would become someday. Would the red headed girl laughing with her friends become a business woman, running some kind of successful enterprise? Would the young man sitting off all by himself become the next Bill Gates and start a new technology empire? Would any of these kids end up crashing their lives on the rocks of bad relationships, substance abuse, and fade away before they ever got a chance to live? Would many of them just come out "normal" in society's eyes -- because that is the path of least resistance?

And then I thought about that phrase: "what would they become?" What a strange, permanent sort of phrase that is. As if we as human beings start out young, get educated, and then "become" whatever it is we are trying to be - doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, plumbers ... and then we're done. How tragic life would be if that were really the case. And what a tragedy it is for people who do stop growing, changing, and learning at some point.

In life, either you're growing, or you're dying. Status quo is just another form of fading away, and waiting to die.

My hope and prayer for all of the kids standing around, waiting for their parents to come pick them up, was that they would never "become" anything. That they would never cease "becoming" who they are -- life is a journey of becoming, drawing closer to family, friends, and God, or moving away. The choices that we make every day, the plodding commute to work and back, the words we exchange in anger or in love -- they are either part of becoming something more beautiful, or becoming something less beautiful.

Who are you becoming?

~Nathan

Ode to St. Paul's EYC

2008-09-12T18:54:00.001-07:00

Oh what a sad day
When After the Chase couldn’t fly away
To Shreveport is where they had wished to go
To be with a special group that they know
But blasted Ike reared it’s head
And dreams of seeing friends seemed to be dead
And now here we are so sad and blue
St. Paul’s EYC we’re so lonely without you!

Tour Update

2008-08-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a weekend in Oregon. We played in Mt. Shasta on Friday, Portland on Sat, and Sweet Home on Sun. I just wanted to share an article that someone wrote about our Friday night experience at a small coffeehouse called The Coffee Connection. It's a little embarrassing how this article reveals that we sometimes play for an audience consisting no more than my parents but it also paints a great picture of why we do it. You just never know what opportunities you might pass by if you are not willing to look a little foolish for God. Click here for the article. And if you really want to know what it was like that night, you can watch it here. I'll try to post the other video of our rendition of "La Bamba" soon:)

Jenna

Thanksgiving in LA - 2 years ago

2008-06-26T12:22:00.001-07:00

Here is an old blog from Nov 2006 that we had on Xanga – now we’re blogging here, and I only wrote two things on that other blog, so I thought I would move it over here:

Nov 2006 -

We just got back from a weekend in Los Angeles. It was Thanksgiving at it's best - 30 people crammed into my grandmother's house, all catching up on 5 years of life that we haven't shared together. My extended family is very loving when we're together, but not very good at visiting each other, other than when someone like our grandmother calls us all together.

My Grandma told us stories about her childhood in the old south, about the gifts of the Spirit, and about how she forgave her father. She spoke in tongues for the first time when she was 45. Soon after, she felt a heavy pressure on her heart to forgive her father and apologize for the mean things she had said to him when she was young about his drinking. It was really wonderful to see how God moved in her life to bring reconciliation and healing to her family. The day she apologized to her father, he stopped drinking and never drank again.

She told us stories about my Dad and his brothers throwing mice into the maid's room to keep her trapped there while they rampaged through the house -- decorating the windowsills with crayon drawings, drawing on the walls, and knocking things over around the house. They were throwing things out the windows when my grandma showed up to give them a serious spanking. My uncle said that once they realized they were going to be in trouble and get spanked within and inch of their life, they decided, what the heck, why not just keep doing more fun stuff until we get caught?" My grandma said she used to invite her to eat with her at lunch time at the same table, and she never told my grandfather (who passed away 7 years ago) because he wouldn't have approved of such a thing. I don't think she ever protested for civil rights in public, but I was glad to hear that she treated people like human beings in the privacy of her home.

We got a chance to play concerts at a church in Upland and a Calvary Chapel in Redlands. We had a blast playing our songs, and it was wonderful to hear people come up after the concerts and say "I don't know if you were here for any other reason, but I know for sure that you were here to play that one song just for me -- it was exactly the message God wanted me to hear today." Nothing makes our day more worthwhile than to hear that.

Grandma's stories and playing concerts - all in all, not a bad way to spend Thanksgiving at all.

Nathan

2008-06-26T12:18:00.001-07:00

I looked back on some old journal entries when I was a teenager -- all I talked about was grandiose dreams: changing the world, inventing time travel, and learning to be more like Christ to people around me. Every once in a while I would stray from these things to writing about whatever girl I thought was going to be my future wife. I haven't invented time travel or changed the world (at least that I know of) -- but I did find a wonderful wife in Jenna. Or rather she found me. Or something like that.

But contrary to popular opinion, the band that we named After the Chase has nothing to do with romance between us. It does come from an old saying the south "He chased her, until she caught him" -- but it's more of how we relate to God. We chase after truth and God, trying to find what's really out there, what made the universe, what made us -- and in the end God catches us. So if you were ever wondering, or didn't catch the meaning on our own website.

I spent my lunch time yesterday with my nieces and nephews, and talked about light sabers, star ships and teleportation. And my niece pretended to be an alien with little ear muffs on her ears. Then they had to work on their school work (they are all home schooled) and I helped them learn how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. It was a a good day, even the school part. My sister sure has a lot of work on her hands, home schooling four children. I had fun teaching one of them about negative numbers.

I've got to say - lightsabers were definitely more fun than denominators. But lightsabers will probably never really get invented without denominators.

Nathan

2008-06-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

I went to visit my grandmother a few weeks ago in Los Angeles. I slept in the guest room that she keeps nice and clean downstairs. It was very strange to lay alone, asleep in the guest room downstairs in her house, where 10 years ago my grandfather lay dying. I stared at the cover over the four poster bed, wondering if during those last few months my grandpa stared at the same thing. What an odd thing. I remember the last time I saw him when he was alive, he looked like he was in pain, but he was filled with more love than I ever remembered before. He was a pretty conservative guy, not too expressive most of his life. He was a successful business person, he attended church regularly, he liked to cook breakfast for my grandma, he was an incredible carpenter ... but I seldom heard him speak about Jesus. But from what my grandmother told me, the last thing he did when they were carting him into the hospital was to share his faith with the orderly who was pushing the cart. Wow. Too many things going on there to even write about.

Do you ever wonder what your ancestors were like? Your great, great great grandfather? Did he want to be remembered? We are so disconnected from our ancestors in the US. Unless we have an ancestor that was famous for something, then we brag about it. So many years, so many lives going by that nobody remembers. Nobody but God. I'm sure glad He makes this life worth living.

Nathan

2008-05-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

I got into another environmental discussion. I think this is starting to become a passion of mine. Uh oh.

The other “Christian” viewpoint that came up when we began discussing this issue was “well, this is all going to come to an end soon anyway – God is going to wipe the whole slate clean and start over again.” Another excuse for not taking care of our home.

The problem with this is that everyday behavior of Christians is driven by their understanding of the Bible. One simple change in understanding can have such a huge impact.

Or to put it more simply. Would you put your car in your family room, and leave it running all night while you sit there with your family and watch a movie? I hope not! You would all die from carbon monoxide poisoning. Somehow we know that in our own house, this is a bad thing – but in our own world, we drive our cars for hours, and hope the poison will just go away. Disappear. Vanish somewhere without impact.

So where am I going with all this? I guess I’ve found a passion I didn’t even know was there. We as Christians are commanded to “be responsible” for this earth. That’s not a passive, “sit back and hope things get better” charge from God. That’s an active command to get up and do something. To use natural resources responsibly. To recycle. To buy products that are ecologically sound. To carpool whenever we can. To think about this globe as our living room, and treat is like we live in it.

This is a command from God. It’s like “honor your father and mother”. Or “do not lie”. This command was given to us long before those other commands. If Adam had looked God in the face and said “no way – I don’t want to be responsible for all this – I’m going to poison it all until everything dies” – wouldn’t this have been a sin, just as not obeying these other commandments is a sin? That’s the thing about living in this world – we’re just not good enough, ever, to live up to the standards and commands God called us to. This is yet another reminder. I’m sure glad we have God’s grace to fall upon for all of this, otherwise we’d be in a world of hurt. No pun intended. Or maybe pun intended just a little bit.

Nathan

Christian Environmentalist?

2008-04-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

I had a discussion the other day with a friend about global warming.

Apparently they read an article recently that stated instead of global warming, we actually might be facing a period of global cooling. “So,” they went on smugly “Al Gore might not have been right after all, and the earth may just be going through another cycle of warming and cooling.” All I could do was stop and stare.

None of us really want Al Gore, and thousands of scientists who have been warning us for decades, to be right. It would mean we would start reaping what we have sown.
But in this case, the theory is that global warming might come back to bite us in an odd way. Maybe instead of global warming, we face global cooling because the increased melting rate at the polar caps (caused by warming) is shutting down the huge oceanic currents that circulate around the globe, and a natural backlash is going to happen: perhaps an ice age awaits instead of a global desert. (like in that movie The Day After Tomorrow). Either way we’re talking about disaster for human beings.

But no matter what environmental disaster may await us, I think that Al Gore is actually preaching something straight from the Bible. Christians seem to ignore this passage so easily.
The Genesis 1:28 in the NIV translation of the Bible says “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Unfortunately, in our land of democracy, we really don’t have a great intuitive grasp of what “ruling” means. Our general cultural considers ruling to be the same as dominating, “lording it over” … pictures of French monarchy living in splendid wealth while stomping on the backs of starving peasants come to mind.

I must say, I like the Message translation of Genesis 1:28 better. It converts the intention of the word “rule” into a meaning relevant in our cultural context: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

A good ruler is responsible for the well being of those under his/her rule.

So should we rejoice that we may have global cooling coming instead of warming? Hip hip horaay! Let’s drive our SUVs more, because we really haven’t ruined the world after all! We’re going to need to warm this place up more! That was the short-sighted response my friend seemed to be having to the “latest study”.

Argh!

Nathan

2008-03-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

I got sick a few weeks ago– sore throat, fever, followed by nasty congestion. It was strange to feel the moment the tickle started in my throat. Normally I really can’t tell the moment I got sick, but I sure did this time. Both nostrils plugged up with congestion, headache, cough, etc … it’s a flu, or something like it. I couldn’t think of a better time to get sick – I actually thanked God that it started now, after our big CD release concert, instead of a week before the concert. Jenna got sick a few days after me - my poor wife. It hit her harder than me - she still has a bad cough.

It was odd to thank God for getting sick. I’m not thanking him so much now, many days into it. But I certainly am glad to be alive. This virus has gotten a lot of people around here, and it seems to last for weeks.

So as I was sitting at home, reading a book, watching some movies, doing dishes, I started thinking about comforting memories. I thought – what if I could pick any memory I wanted to relive, or recreate today, what would it be?

My thoughts first circled back to my friend Wyatt and I playing with Legos in his basement, with Star Wars playing in the VCR in the background. I think we probably watched Star Wars at least 100 times that year, or absorbed it in the background anyway. We were always making up our own stories and characters, and giving them adventures that were way cooler even than Star Wars.

Then I thought about the days I first discovered Narnia, reading all seven books in a row while listening to Keith Green music. I still get that magical sense of something beyond these shadow lands when I listen to certain Keith Green songs. The songs somehow trigger a faint memory, or longing for heaven, or something of both.

I just searched the web for a Keith Green picture - here he is - man, I've got hair envy. :-)

Then I thought of the hours I played Descent 3 (a networked video game) with my friend Mark. And ping pong, and the times we went water skiing and slept outside under the stars. And the girl Susie who I had a crush on at the end of high school, who introduced me to climbing on top of the Healdsburg reservoir and gazing at the stars.

And of course thousands of memories with Jenna, the girl who I fell in love with and who I love even more every year. Walking in the park, writing music with her, hiking, playing Boggle (we are very competitive Boggle players :-), watching 12 episodes of Lost in a row while we were sick together, performing together, leading worship together, going to Latvia on short term missions together …

Well, needless to say, by the time I was done walking memory lane, I felt better. And realized that I really didn’t want to go back in time and relive them – just soaking in them was enough.

Nathan

Make Me New CD Release Concert

2008-03-02T21:44:00.001-08:00

Last night was a blast - we had a great CD release concert. Many thanks to all who came. We got some video footage and pictures that we will be putting up in a few days. It was a wonderful time of music, art, and fellowship. Now it's time to hit the road with the new CD!

Tuesday

2008-01-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

It’s morning now and the shock still hasn’t worn off…

Late last night our worship pastor called to let us know that our electric guitar player died of a massive heart attack while on stage playing worship music at the mission. Wow!...

Well, he wasn’t really “our” guitar player but he had played guitar with us in the past. Actually, to be more specific, he had practiced guitar with us for one practice last Monday. He was someone who had always been fond of our music and always talked about playing with us but the timing in his life was never right and we never got around to it. Finally, last week, things had settled down in his life and it looked as though it was going to work and he was going to play electric guitar with us for our CD release concert on March 1st. We had a great practice with him on Monday and he died the following Tuesday…

He only made it to Tuesday. He didn’t even get to finish the week…

Whenever I’m this close to death I’m reminded that we tend to live our lives with this notion that we deserve every day we get to live. We assume that we will be able to finish out our week when in actuality we might not make it past Tuesday.

Out of these statements I could easily say that every day is a gift but I don’t actually think it is. Every day is just a day and it’s up to you to make it the rest. Will you make it a gift or will you keep it all to yourself today? Will you make it a gift or will you wait to forgive that person next week?...

Just a thought

Santa Jenna

2007-12-28T16:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I felt something like a Fairy God Mother or Santa Clause while delivering all of the pre-ordered "Make Me New" CDs. I was so full of joy being able to give these gifts. Not just because they were gifts but because we had prayed over this music and knew that what we were about to deliver might truly touch people.

While listening to the music, people might have the opportunity dance and play with their children. They might be swept up in tears while sitting in traffic. They might be able to find a quiet moment with the music and feel God's presence for the first time in a long time.

I prayed over every package I put together yesterday and found that ministry can even be found in CD boxes and stamps.

We just got our new CDs in!

2007-12-27T19:24:00.000-08:00

Today we finally received our new CDs in the mail. We printed 4,000 CDs for the first run -- we'll see how long they last. I had no idea how much space those CDs were going to take up; that's almost 1,000 pounds of CDs.

So now we have a cause to strive for: buy our CDs - Nathan wants to park in the garage again!