Rob Chartrand (00:01.697)
Well, hey, we are here with Nathan Wetzelake. He is the lead pastor of Prairie Alliance Church in Portage-le-Prairie. And so glad that he's here to talk to us today about what God's been doing in his life and in his church. So Nathan, just want to say welcome to the Church in the North podcast.
Nathan (00:20.694)
Thanks Rob, it's nice to be here, really appreciate the Anglophone pronunciation of Portage-la-Prairie. That's how like 99% of the people who live in Portage say it, Portage. Portage, yeah, there's not many Francophones here, but originally, obviously, that was the origin of the title, the town name.
Rob Chartrand (00:26.574)
La Portale.
Rob Chartrand (00:31.501)
Did they say portage or portage?
Rob Chartrand (00:38.793)
Well, yeah, and I mean, maybe that's a little embarrassing since that I am a chartrand or chattrall and a M.A.T. So I, of all people who should maybe say it right, it might be me. Ha!
Nathan (00:49.394)
It should, it probably should be you. If you want to start again, I understand. Okay.
Rob Chartrand (00:53.757)
No, I'll just leave it. I'll avoid butchering it. You and I, yeah, I mean, we've got history. We've we've done some podcast time together. We're in the same tribe, the Christian Machinery Alliance and I've spent some time at your cabin in the woods, which is an adventure in and of itself. So many stories I could tell but I'll spare our listeners the gory details at this point.
Nathan (01:11.766)
You did.
Rob Chartrand (01:22.314)
But let's talk about you and a bit about your church. Why don't you just explain to us? What's your what's your current role? with Prairie Alliance Church
Nathan (01:30.918)
I am the lead pastor at Prairie Alliance Church. That's pretty much my current role. It's a multi-site, multi-staff church, so most of my time is spent in that vision casting and calibrating the staff, keeping the teams properly motivated and happy. And then I also do the majority of the teaching here on a Sunday morning.
Rob Chartrand (01:49.237)
Okay, great. Let's talk a little bit about your leadership journey. You're a hometown boy. So you're the prophet who's not welcome in his own hometown, moved away, eventually found yourself back to where you're at. But give us a bit of a snapshot of your, your church leadership journey. I don't think it starts as most pastoral leadership journey starts. So tell us about that.
Nathan (02:12.53)
No, our church has been in this building since 1986, I think, and before that we were in a different part of town and my family's first Sunday at Prairie Alliance Church, then Portage Alliance Church, was like two Sundays before we moved into this building. So I've been a part of this church, it's all since probably 86 in one way or another. So I grew up here, graduated from the high school that's affiliated with this church. I get to walk past my grad photo on the
Rob Chartrand (02:28.13)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (02:38.638)
Mm.
Nathan (02:42.406)
every day. It's no bigger than anybody else's grad photo, just for the record we keep it all you know the same size. There's no... yeah there's a bit of a halo around it. And then I was away for a couple years to university and to Regent College. I guess it was more than a couple years but however long that takes to do your undergrad and your masters. And then I was in Winnipeg for two years as a youth pastor at what was then First Alliance Church.
Rob Chartrand (02:49.581)
And there's a big yellow highlighter circle. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan (03:12.218)
and then found myself back here in my home church as the teaching pastor, was in that role for about four years and have been the lead pastor ever since. So yes, like you said, I was the prophet who, I was welcomed, but I didn't have honor. So I was without honor, even though they welcomed me. And I've had to sort of earn the honor part of it over the last 20 years.
Rob Chartrand (03:36.045)
Yeah, okay. So you, you've only been the lead pastor, I understand, there for 16 years. So how did how did that transition happen? How did you work your way into a different role?
Nathan (03:48.91)
There was two guys on the team back then, the lead pastor Ray Wilms and the executive pastor Jake Enns, and Jake has since passed away a couple years ago. And they were both in a season where they were wanting to transition and looking at what was least disruptive for the church. And they discerned that right under their noses, they had the person that they thought would be a good lead pastor. And so they started the...
the ball in motion with the board and with the denomination. And then once they had that, they came to me and I could kind of see it coming. And so that was really where it started. What was interesting for me was I thought that the transition was going to be in title only. They had developed me to the point where I felt like I was running everything and people just didn't know it. And so I wasn't imagining there would be really any shift.
in how I felt. I was quite surprised by that actually looking back at the, I don't know, the psychological weight maybe of leadership and the title. The biggest thing that I felt was the financial side of it was suddenly my responsibility and we were in the middle of a fairly large building campaign, at least by our standards then, that was suddenly right in front of me. And the first two years we're really taken up with trying to raise money for that.
Rob Chartrand (04:58.009)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (05:11.221)
Right. Yeah. The mantle is the mantle is heavy in the lead pastor role and you don't really feel the full weight of the budget until you're in that role and then it's suddenly Oh, man.
Nathan (05:20.526)
I remember going out with a guy early on, an experienced, pastor with more experience than me in Winnipeg at the time. And I'm picking his brain as a new lead pastor. I'm like, what do I do here? What books do I read? How does this all? And finally he just stops me. He's like, how long have you been lead pastor? I was like a year and a half. He's like, oh yeah, well just wait. Like by the time you get to year five, all this stuff is okay. And I was like, that's so not helpful.
Rob Chartrand (05:43.105)
Hmm.
Nathan (05:45.538)
But it might not have been except he was right. Some of the things just, you just have to adjust to and acclimatize to and have your capacity build naturally and that seems to have been what happened.
Rob Chartrand (05:56.641)
Yeah. Well, you know, succession planning is a bit of a challenge for a lot of churches. I mean, I know in your denomination, your lead pastor doesn't just wave a wand and suddenly choose a successor involved in all that is also a board of elders, right? So how did how did that work its way out with your guys?
Nathan (06:14.934)
We have the distinction, I'll say, of being one of the only churches I know of that's been able to do it quite this way. It doesn't mean there aren't others, but what it does mean is that myself and my predecessor, Ray Wilms, have been invited by probably four or five churches to coach them through a scenario like this.
because it's very desirable obviously. You have a known commodity and there's minimal disruption to the congregation. Hopefully the predecessor doesn't have to go move and become a Home Depot creator or something like that. And we managed to do that. Ray is still a part of the church, he's still active in ministry, he still comes to the occasional staff meeting. He was on staff for about six of the years afterwards and it was just been a really good story. The variables for us that
Rob Chartrand (06:37.413)
Sure. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (06:47.449)
Right.
Nathan (07:03.774)
have allowed it to work here in ways that it's broken down in other places because those places that we did the consulting, none of it has come to be the way that we all had hoped it would be. Either the new guy or the new pastor flamed out early or the outgoing pastor didn't really out go. They stuck around and it got a little ugly and then they really did have to go, but that scenario where both people get to stay and flourish is pretty rare.
Rob Chartrand (07:13.739)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (07:30.562)
Yeah.
Nathan (07:31.766)
When I think about what we managed to do, there's a few factors. Ray and I worked together for six years, probably before that transition. And for two of those years, he was fighting cancer. So there was a strong emotional bond and trust that was built in a season where both of us could have done dumb things and they would have been understandable, but they still would have been dumb. I could have grasped for more.
than I had in his absence. He could have powered up as, what are you doing kid? I'm out of commission. This is wrong of you to do. But we navigated that almost pseudo transition ahead of time. So that's one thing, high levels of trust, whatever form that takes. And then, what's that? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then the other thing is our board was smart enough to not look for a junior version of Ray.
Rob Chartrand (08:17.682)
Yeah, and submission, like, I mean, and mutual submission. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (08:30.029)
Hmm. Yeah.
Nathan (08:30.678)
They wanted something very different and that made it easier because that meant when people continued to go to Ray when he was on staff for what he was good at, it wasn't outside of his new lane. The pastoral care, the shepherding, the counseling, the marrying and burying, that was all still in his wheelhouse. And so he wasn't that younger quote unquote visionary.
Rob Chartrand (08:53.41)
Yeah.
Nathan (08:59.014)
leader that they were wanting back then, I was those things. So we didn't necessarily overlap. And what I see in some churches, and it's always a red flag in the secession planning, is like, oh, so and so it's just like a younger version of, I'm like, that's not going to work probably because you're not able to separate vocational priorities from people.
Rob Chartrand (09:14.345)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (09:27.329)
Yeah, for sure. Can you hear me still? OK.
Nathan (09:31.134)
Yeah, I can still hear you. You're pixelating here and there, but I can still hear you.
Rob Chartrand (09:35.249)
Awesome. Yeah, I mean, and I think having the different roles and different gift sets really helps to eliminate some of that comparison trap that can happen, right? You'll never be as good as this guy at this, or maybe you're better at this than this. And it's like, no, actually, we're just different types of leaders.
Nathan (09:44.715)
Right.
Yep.
Right. Yeah, we had already conceded that, right? I will never be as good as him at these things. He might stretch me in that way and that'll be helpful, but I don't, I'm not even going to try, and vice versa.
Rob Chartrand (10:00.873)
Yeah, good. Hey, a lot has happened in your church over the years. So I want to dig deeper into that because I think that's going to be really helpful to our listeners to maybe reimagine different ways of conceiving of the church or helping them maybe to synthesize what you've learned and apply it in their own settings. But one of the things I want to talk about is one of the unique features of your church is that it is a rural multi-site.
Nathan (10:13.518)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (10:30.505)
church. So unpack that a little bit for our listeners.
Nathan (10:37.078)
The genesis of that idea is tied to a season that our church had where our board was feeling like they needed to come up with something that was distinctly ours to be focused on that was greater than my own personality or attention span. Because we had been in a bit of a season, and I think most churches are aware,
The pastor goes away to a conference or reads a new book and wants to change everything to focus on what's new and exciting for them. And I had a tendency to do that. So we were wanting to have things that we were about, a vision for the church that was larger than anybody's personality or preferences. So they entered a period of discernment for about a year and a half. And out of that, they received four guiding prayers for the church that they believe and we cherish as being what we're about.
as long as our doors are open. And one of those things was that we were to be a church that planted rural churches in rural hubs. So the terminology we use is rural hubs. And so we're looking for towns that are like Portage-le-Prairie, cities that aren't that big, but a good rule of thumb is basically they're big enough to have a Walmart.
So if there's some sort of demographic study, Walmart's already done it. You have a greater service area. It's the town where people come to get groceries, go to a movie, go to eat that kind of thing. But there'd be lots of farms and smaller little communities around. The heart behind it, though, aside from kind of being guided that way, was understanding what our church here in Portage had provided to a small town that often small towns don't have. And that-
That was a church that you could invite somebody who was unchurched to fairly easily. And you knew that they would have, if they did come, a good experience. They would understand what was being said. The music wouldn't be something that you would have to apologize or get them acclimatized to. It wouldn't be ultra conservative in dress, these sorts of things. And it was that to me. I was playing hockey.
Rob Chartrand (12:44.569)
Right.
Nathan (12:50.918)
had this prayer that I wanted 25 of these guys that I play hockey with to visit our church by 2025. I actually kept changing and it was 20 by 2020 and then it had to be 21 by 2021, et cetera. Now it's 25 by 25. And I loved that if I could get them to say yes, I had a place to take them. But I understood that in a lot of these
We understood that in a lot of these small towns, if you are playing softball with somebody or you're at the mums and tots thing with somebody or whatever and you're starting to have spiritual conversations, you don't have necessarily a community that they will find winsome and engaging to help you lead them towards Christ. We wanted to provide that in rural hubs.
Rob Chartrand (13:31.125)
Right, right.
Rob Chartrand (13:36.537)
Hmm. So, tell me a little bit about that then. I think, how did you end up going from a desire to bring your hockey mates to a church plant to, you know, or to a local church to kind of getting this off the ground? What was its genesis?
Nathan (13:57.198)
The Genesis was fairly pragmatic. We wanted to be close enough that we could send volunteer teams up. At the time, and we've changed this since, we thought we were really along the lines of a strict franchise model. Let's just do everything the same because it worked here in Portage, so let's go an hour up the road. There was a town called Nippawa that was growing at the time, largely due to a lot of immigration, and they didn't have.
Rob Chartrand (14:09.942)
Right.
Nathan (14:22.678)
the kind of church that PAC would have tried to be there in that season. And so we started thinking about that, dreaming about that, talking about it. And I remember talking about it a lot with our congregation, getting people starting to think about maybe getting money to this, getting some of our teams excited about maybe driving up on a Sunday morning to do music, starting to staff accordingly. And in one particular meeting, our music pastor asked this question that was,
such a balloon popper as I'm trying to create this energy. He goes, do we know anybody in Nippoa that is interested in this? I remember thinking to myself, shut up, that's not helpful. Just keep the momentum train going, we'll just charge blindly there. But we prayed instead of me chastising him for just asking a good question, I pivoted and we prayed a little bit that the Lord would bring us somebody quickly.
And that Sunday, somebody showed up on a Sunday morning that was very timely, but it was quite hilarious. It's the sort of thing that you begin to expect of the Lord over the years of walking with him. So we're positioning ourselves as this gift to Nipua that's going to be young and hip and relevant and come with your whatever at the time was the plunging V-necks and the ripped jeans, whatever, in that season. And you'll find a community.
Rob Chartrand (15:27.609)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (15:47.897)
What decade was that?
Nathan (15:49.298)
Yeah, exactly. Well, that would have been, I won't even try and guess when that was relevant. But the, uh, the person that showed up, it was Ruben and Mary Claussen, and they were both in their mid eighties and, uh, so, so different than what we imagined that it was almost disappointing. Somebody came up to me that morning. They're like, Hey, you, you prayed for somebody to come.
Rob Chartrand (16:03.021)
Nice.
Nathan (16:16.842)
from Nippawa, right? I'm like, yeah, oh, they're here, they're here, come in, come in and meet them. So I come running out in the lobby before the sermon and I'm looking for somebody that fits that mold and there's Reuben and Mary and I was like, oh, okay, I'll go and try and have conversation with them. But the Lord really used them to open a door there to build a nucleus of a community and they had been praying for a church like ours for about 15 years.
Rob Chartrand (16:41.248)
Mm.
Rob Chartrand (16:45.817)
Wow. OK.
Nathan (16:47.683)
So that was just the sweet little moment of recalibration, some humility in our own journey. Through them, we got a bit of community there. Then it's actually quite a story around how we got the building, which I can tell you we looked at an old funeral home that was being sold.
So our first experience of this building was walking through, seeing all these coffins lined up. So our board was quite taken with this symbolism, right? We're just looking for any kind of sign here. And we're like, oh, look, it was a place of death. Now it'll be a place of life. And I'm half rolling my eyes and half going, sure, if that helps us move things along, I'll be with you on that. And yeah, exactly. I didn't make it on the sign.
Rob Chartrand (17:12.633)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (17:22.149)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Rob Chartrand (17:30.509)
I don't know if that's marketable, but okay.
Nathan (17:37.186)
But we were finishing up this building program in Portage that had me stressed. And we were at the end of a season where we needed, I think, something like another quarter million dollars and we were behind budget. So we needed money for the capital campaign. We needed money for this building and then looking to buy this building in Nippoa. It started the building in Nippoa. They wanted about 450,000 for it, something like that.
which was fine, market value, that kind of thing. There's no way we could do that. Then the owner calls and says, I'll knock a hundred thousand bucks off the price. I'm good to have a church here. I was like, I still don't think we can do that. Calls back two days later. It's like, I can do a $75,000 personal donation to you.
Rob Chartrand (18:12.642)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (18:30.794)
and you can use it. It's like, okay, it's getting interesting, but no, we still like, we don't have two cents to put towards this thing. And then he convinced his business partner to match his donation of 75,000. So that brings it down. I think it was like 130,000 bucks. And I was almost at the place where like, well, geez, I think I can afford this. The church can probably manage. So we saw some of that momentum early on and that's what got us there.
Rob Chartrand (18:58.85)
Wow. And it's not like you talk them down. It's just that your lack of resources, he just, yeah.
Nathan (19:05.298)
Yeah, no, we weren't strategic. I wasn't, I wasn't thinking I'm going to play some hard ball here. It was just legitimate. Um, here's our situation and the Lord stirring his heart.
Rob Chartrand (19:15.285)
Wow. Well, since then, I mean, you started in Nippawa and then since then you've added Dryden and Dolphin. Is that right? Dolphin? Is there a friend? Dolphin? Awesome.
Nathan (19:25.654)
Dauphin, yeah. Dauphin. There's another French word for the Dauphin.
Rob Chartrand (19:34.549)
You know, I'm thinking there gotta be a lot of unique challenges in leading a multi-site church, let alone a rural multi-site church. Like, I mean, these are, these are our rural places. Um, and maybe with their own unique context, but very similar context as well. Um, tell us about maybe some of the challenges that you faced, uh, you know, leading this.
very complex organization now, then you know, that's different than just leading one site, you know, what are some of the least of challenges you faced? And how have you dealt with them?
Nathan (20:09.198)
Two that come to mind immediately are how do you pay attention to the uniqueness of the location that you're going to and honoring that uniqueness and those distinctives of those towns and those communities at the same time as unapologetically trying to bring a culture that's healthier than what was there. If there was a culture, a church culture there that was healthy, we wouldn't cope.
So you want to honor the distinctive parts of the community at the same time as not have what you do be determined by that. So you don't want to franchise. How do you take the right amount of cues from the location and how do you pair those with the strength of the Mother Church has been a bit of a dance for us that we're still figuring out. And then in the midst of that, the other thing that would be difficult is how do you build trust?
Rob Chartrand (20:48.782)
Okay.
Nathan (21:08.926)
across that wide of geographical region because Dauphin is about 900 kilometers from Dryden and Nepo is kind of in the middle of that and Portage is a little bit farther down. So we're not a multi-site church in suburban Atlanta where everybody can get in the room and talk to each other at staff meeting.
Rob Chartrand (21:33.263)
Yeah.
Nathan (21:34.014)
We have to build good trust across those things. Then here in Portage, I've been pastor for 20 years. In Trident, I've been the pastor for a year. They've only met me maybe a dozen times. How does that affect things like dynamic in an annual meeting? We're trying to sort all that stuff out.
Rob Chartrand (21:49.238)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (21:57.109)
Yeah. And I mean, if some of our listeners have never led a multi-site church have been familiar with the light, the multi-site church, I mean, there are these polarities or these tensions that you have to try and navigate. I mean, one of them is, are you going to be, you know, a multi-site church that looks the same and acts the same everywhere? Or are you going to be a multi-sert church that gives a lot of flexibility and diversity?
to each local site while still kind of maintaining the quote unquote brand or the ethos or the DNA of the overall church. I mean, and that's a that's unique to every church multi site how they're going to do it. Like there's lots of different forms and ways they can do that. So yeah, is it cookie cutter? Like say, I think the great example that is like life church, I mean, they're there. Every church is the same wherever you go.
But they're also setting up in very similar types of neighborhoods where they're planting, like for the most part, right? So, but then on the other hand, you might have what's called not multi-site, but multi-church, whereas they give a lot of local autonomy to the local church, and then they're more or less just kind of resourcing that small little church. Where, I mean, where are you guys kind of at in this tension between the two Polish?
Nathan (23:15.638)
You've laid that out fairly well. We have floated between the two poles as we've tried to figure it out. But I can give you a snapshot of where we are now and maybe a bit of why.
We have had seasons where we have wanted the sites to have more autonomy, more uniqueness. Those have been times where there's been an emergence in those communities of some of the dysfunction that kept a healthy church from being there in the past. Now, I say that knowing that it could sound like, yeah, but what about how unhealthy you are?
Rob Chartrand (23:51.492)
Okay.
Nathan (23:57.302)
You know you empire building lead pastor who has to have it your way. I'll just ask your listeners to trust them. I'm not that way. But the way that we're set up diffuses some of the chronic problems that can come up in a rural church where over time they've cycled through pastors of decreasing levels of education and experiences, the budget shrinks.
At the same time as that's happened, whoever it was who either with good intentions or sometimes with malignant intentions is paying the bills and keeping the door open grows in power and standing in the church. It eventually isn't so much First Baptist Church of whatever. It's this church that's run by this family. When it's run by a family, it's not a family.
Rob Chartrand (24:47.329)
Right, exactly.
Nathan (24:52.29)
there's often these problems and you see that in rural churches. So the more that our central location with governance and with budget and direction and decision making, it lets us import a healthy culture. But then you risk people just showing up for something that they don't actually have a stake in or that doesn't feel like them or it's artificial. And we don't want that either. So what do we do? Well,
We try to have structures and forms that are continuous across all the sites, but that within those structures and forms, you can put in content that makes sense and that's site specific. Our own little mini liturgy is for our churches to float along week by week by an upside down rhythm, upside down party rhythm. Yeah, yes. Maybe I'll go now because it'll flesh it out. That comes out of...
Rob Chartrand (25:41.781)
Yeah, yeah we'll chat about that. Yeah or you want to go now? You want to talk about it?
Yeah, I think that'll bring it all together. Yeah, let's go for it.
Nathan (25:50.418)
Yeah, so that comes out of Acts 17-6 where they're alarmed that the people who have turned the world upside down have now come here. I started playing with that a few years ago and thought that's an easy way for a five-year-old to understand what a church is about. Up to God, side to each other in community and down in humble acts of service. Then one of our associate pastors was like, we're missing out on the full cadences and rhythms of the Christian life if we don't celebrate.
So it's actually not that different than what every church on the planet has, right? So we do stuff that wants to connect people to God, we're connecting with each other and we're serving or some version of that. Where it's different for us is it permeates every aspect of our culture. So the themes of our staff meetings, the themes of our host churches, the themes of our youth group, the themes of our kids ministry.
they are distinctively upside down or party. And on Sunday morning there's different things that happen when it's an up Sunday than when it's a down Sunday across all sites. So the configuration of the chairs changes, the opening prayer changes, the benediction changes, but it's standardized across all sites. Every site would have some sort of a celebration potluck kind of meal on a party week.
Rob Chartrand (26:53.365)
across all sites, right?
Nathan (27:11.394)
There would be collecting groceries on a down week and there's all these different cultural elements built in. But they would decide what does down mean for them? What does side mean for them? What does up mean for them inside of those forms? And so you've got some continuity, but also across a broad range, but also some specificity that feels localized.
Rob Chartrand (27:33.057)
Yeah. So I mean, just to help listeners understand, help me understand. I mean, what you're saying is you basically have a four week rotation that just keeps going, right? Up one week, the emphasis is upside down and then party, you know, and then rinse and repeat. But it's a liturgy, but it's a rotating four week liturgy. And does that happen all year long or do you make exceptions at all? Or is it just how does that work?
Nathan (28:01.383)
We haven't made an exception in years. Yeah, no, we just do some complicated math and figure it out, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (28:03.621)
Okay. What about the leap year? You don't make an exception for the leap year?
Rob Chartrand (28:12.001)
Yeah. Okay. So, um, but is it, is every Sunday look radically different or there are some commonalities, but then there's like an emphasis on up week on up and an emphasis on side. How does that, how do you, how does he make that work?
Nathan (28:27.023)
Are you talking radically different as far as the syllables are different from each other or radically different that Dauphin might look quite a bit different than Dryden?
Rob Chartrand (28:35.282)
No, not from site to site, just generally how you do your service planning for that day.
Nathan (28:37.143)
Okay.
Nathan (28:41.746)
not radically different, but distinctive enough that you would know that it's the syllable specific Sunday. So, some of it is subconscious. The fonts and the colours of each syllable are different. The atmosphere in the room is different. The announcements are usually made after an opening song and then there's a moment where we all stand and we'll say the up prayer together and there'll be an explanation of what the upside down life is.
Rob Chartrand (28:43.097)
Okay.
Nathan (29:10.638)
and then we're off to the races for the rest of the service and then the benediction is up specific. Where you'd see even more distinctiveness is in our weekly house church or small groups gatherings where they very rigorously focus on the syllables in a way that we can't as much in the large group. So up is about your personal relationship with Jesus, your Bible reading, your prayer, your evangelism. It's the more spiritual of the weeks.
is where you get to talk about your marriage, your fight with your mom, that social part of community. Then the down is when they actually have all the house churches go out and serve the community somewhere, and then party, you are supposed to invite somebody to come check out your house church and you just do something fun. This really helps purify, maybe that's the wrong word, diversify what a house church experiences because everybody's been in part of a house church where the house church leader
They really just wish that they were Rob Chartrand teaching theology at Briar Creston and now is their chance every week they have a captive audience in their living room. And they're going to do a deep dive on Song of Songs for their whole summer. And eventually people are like, we don't want to do this all the time. But nor do you want a side week all the time where you're chronically just talking about somebody's dysfunctional relationship somewhere and it sabotages everything.
Rob Chartrand (30:17.625)
That's right. Sit at my feet. I need my cookies.
Rob Chartrand (30:38.289)
Yeah, or you're swimming in the shallow pool of pooled ignorance and everybody shares their own subjective opinion of what scripture means and nobody comes to any concrete solutions or agreements. Yeah.
Nathan (30:48.21)
Yeah, or even if we do that, we just do that on Up Week. So that is just, the damage is mitigated by the syllable. And the person who's always like, we need to get out in the community and do something and they have their Down Week outlet.
Rob Chartrand (30:52.597)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (31:04.629)
Yeah. Well, everyone needs a down week, right? It's usually the week after Easter. That's how it rolls for bastards. OK, so upside down, you've actually written a book about this and I got a copy and I was looking through it. And this is this is really an interesting premise behind the book. I mean, it's it's.
Nathan (31:07.954)
What's right?
Nathan (31:13.614)
Ha ha ha!
Rob Chartrand (31:30.985)
It's a book for, you have a friend who wants to know more about Christianity. They just kind of stepped into this Christian world and they're just trying to navigate and figure it out basically. And, you know, the book is, is captivating. It's, it's, it's narrative form. You really get into the heads of the, I think the, the readers and kind of what they're experiencing. But.
essentially you kind of unpack what it means to have an upside down life is am I am I reading your mail? Is that is that kind of what the books about or you want to add to that?
Nathan (32:03.79)
Yeah, definitely I can add to that. So I had a sabbatical about six or seven years ago that the board wanted me to write something and they wanted me to write on a project I had going called the braid. And so I did a bunch of writing on this and I got about 110 pages in and, and got a decent start on it. And then, and then I had a friend who had recently come to church for the first time, about 31 years old.
and it's the story I tell on the back cover. They wanted a resource. And so I'm like, oh, well, there's a great book by N.T. Wright. There's this one by Willard. And I was like, no, they aren't that person. But everything that was on the lower shelf, I thought, theologically, this is going to be pragmatic. This is problematic for them. I couldn't find the book that I thought would actually set them up, that could meet them where they're at and hold their attention. So I decided I'd give it a shot.
writing it. I had in my mind people who haven't read much since they were forced to in high school. If you could communicate and hold the tension. A lot of it is tongue in cheek, irreverent. My mom read it and was really annoyed at me. My pious Christian mom, she was worried that I would have insulted my cousins and the Joker off color.
whole thing was lacking in holiness. And she's since come around as she's seen some of the fruit of it. So I would say this, when it's ended up in the hands of the people that I was dreaming about it ending up in, it's been really gratifying to see how the Lord has used it and some of the people that have caught that have ordered good numbers of copies for their churches and for new people and that kind of thing. But it's also been a little bit polarizing.
Rob Chartrand (33:43.896)
Right.
Nathan (33:55.534)
I mean, not like it's a household name or anything, but for people, some of them just, they didn't make it past chapter three. They were just offended. They thought it was silly, but that's not the person I'm writing for because they're the one that's going to pull Max Lucado off the shelf and find something that they like.
Rob Chartrand (34:11.321)
Right. Well, this is definitely not Max Lucado. But I mean, it's and you're not trying to be, you know, your Gen Xer, right? Is that right? Yeah. I mean, and so you're not trying to be the typical Gen Xer who's like angsty and anti-establishment and trying to, you know, write something just for the sake of being that way. And you know, you're actually, you're actually seeking to do good gospel contextualization.
Nathan (34:22.246)
Yup.
Nathan (34:36.203)
Right.
Nathan (34:40.578)
Very much so, very much so.
Rob Chartrand (34:40.749)
Right? Knowing your audience and how do you translate the gospel to those listeners?
Nathan (34:45.874)
Yeah, there's no deconstruction in it at all. There's no like, yeah, I hope my love for Jesus comes through loud and clear and it definitely fuels it, but it is very much got somebody in mind that I wanted to write the only book of its kind.
Rob Chartrand (35:01.665)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I hope listeners, we'll put it in the show notes, but I hope listeners who are looking for a resource like that would pick it up and give it a shot. So, okay. So I want to talk about another beautiful side to your church's story that I think listeners need to hear about. And I know that you and I talked about this quite a bit. And I think on the one podcast that we were on, you were able to share a lot about that. And it's dear to my heart because I think it's...
Nathan (35:06.775)
Yeah, that'd be great.
Rob Chartrand (35:31.337)
it kind of rubs against my own childhood and my own story. But talk about your desire for your local church to have a church population that reflects the demographic of your community. Let's start there. So you don't want your church to be, you want, you know, when you look at the population breakdown of social demographic and ethnic demographic of the community of portage, you wanna make sure that Prairie,
Nathan (35:57.332)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (35:59.841)
reflects that it looks like that. So tell me about that.
Nathan (36:03.914)
This was one of those four prayers that I alluded to earlier. One of the four prayers was rural hubs. Another one was, at the time it was one-third indigenous because we only had the one church here in Portage-le-Prairie. For us to be representative of our larger community on a Sunday morning would be for me or whoever is on stage or in the congregation to look around and see that we are made up
Rob Chartrand (36:18.115)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (36:33.882)
as a congregation of one-third indigenous people and it grieved us that we weren't. So Portage-le-Prairie has three large reserves very close by and the town itself is made up of one-third indigenous people. And in our church, when we first articulated this prayer, let's say our church back then was about 600 people, it's since shrunk, I would say maybe 30 were indigenous and most of them were in the same two families.
Rob Chartrand (37:03.595)
Okay.
Nathan (37:03.962)
So it seemed to me and to us like this was not a sign of the kingdom that is to come, where all of the diversity of the nations bring their glory into the holy city and we learn from each other and so we strove and wanted to be a sign of that kingdom and that was the corporate side of it. What I was unprepared for was how God would stir my heart more powerfully for this kind of ministry than anything else that I have ever been stirred towards in my entire life.
and it gripped me. I remember the day I was coming out of our gym on the first day of school and we had, we're blessed to have 20 kids come from a local reserve that had been in a little reserve school till grade eight and now they're coming to Portage to school for grade nine. And I watched them a little bit through the morning and they were so out of sorts, indigenous kids in a white Christian school. I mean that's going to be a little bit peculiar and
caused some fear. And they were at lunch all standing in the vestibule by the parking lot. And I thought, well, that's good. At least they have somebody to come and take them for lunch and spend some time with them. And I watched a little longer and I realized they're all bluffing. They are trying to look like kids who have somebody coming for them. Really, really kind of a minor thing, but I went over and started chatting with them.
this guy fumbling along trying to talk about movies and music and basketball, just trying to make somebody. That was such a formative experience of the Holy Spirit for me. I actually had to leave that little room because of how I was starting to sob. I had a one o'clock meeting that I ended up being about five minutes late for. Went in to talk to...
Rob Chartrand (38:50.405)
Hmm.
Nathan (38:56.726)
the team there that I think we were planning a Sunday morning or something and told them what just happened again, just sort of a small little thing and I started crying again. The team was just delighted because generally I'm kind of stoic so if I'm in tears it's like cause for celebration so there's no empathy. But since then...
My passion that the Lord has given me in my heart for this, He has not left me frustrated. He's opened all kinds of doors for ministry for our church to indigenous people. That's been tremendously gratifying.
Rob Chartrand (39:30.288)
Hmm. So why were they in the vestibule? I'm just trying to get a bit more context there.
Nathan (39:34.674)
Yeah, every time I tell this story, I'm like, it's not a very good one. It's probably just a me story because it moved me so much, but they had this look on their face like they're looking out of the parking lot for the person that's going to come and give them a ride so that they can go out for lunch with that person. But that person's actually not coming. They're just bluffing. It was a picture of their lostness and their aloneness. My heart went out to them.
Rob Chartrand (39:50.436)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (39:59.094)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (40:02.393)
So did they have lunch?
Nathan (40:05.106)
No, they didn't have lunch, but they did. Every Wednesday for the next six years, I started a lunch for those kids. And I run into them around town. They show me their babies. If I'm buying a beer or something, there's often one of them at the liquor mart, most of them haven't finished high school.
They're all wanting to make better choices, but those better choices are eluding them. By God's grace and kindness, one of those young men that was at that lunch ended up being one of our foster kids for the last five years.
Yeah, so just dove in where I could and it's turned into some pretty remarkable stuff for our church in the last couple of years.
Rob Chartrand (40:56.397)
Well, this is a challenge to work cross-cultural in any situation, Nathan, I mean, for any church. And I think a lot of our listeners are wondering, well, how do I start? Where do I... Where did it start with you guys? What did you go from there? Obviously, God has given you a sense of holy discontent in your heart. Something is stirring. But what happened next? Where did it go?
Nathan (41:22.594)
I think there's two tracks and maybe it's hard to articulate, but there's the standard church stuff where we have the rhetoric and oh, do we ever want to make a difference and it's heartbreaking, but we don't want to make people projects and we don't want to step on any cultural toes and history is complicated. We end up just chatting, chatting about the whole thing and maybe send money somewhere or do land acknowledgments and those are both fine things to do.
And we tried to do some of those things. But I think more just what happened in our church was God just grew our hearts to a place where we couldn't possibly have projects. It would be impossible. That was, when somebody would accuse us of that, it was just nonsense. Because when love for people, a desire to learn from them, a desire to provide...
in whatever way you're invited to provide shelter from some of the things that history has rained down on them and to help them change their family trees as they want to and let them write their own story. When you're invited into that and they sense that you have a heart good enough and trustworthy enough to be invited into that. So that's what's happened for us. We've just gotten invited into a lot of things. And one of the blessings of being here for 20 years is that
If another church said, wow, Nathan's good at reconciliation, let's invite him into our church because we want to be good at reconciliation. It just wouldn't work. It has to be a 20-year story to be where we are of kids that needed rides and people that needed babysitting and apologies made and trust built. So I don't quite know how we did it, but I know where we're at right now and it's spectacular.
I get to fly up to God's Lake Narrows next week on an airplane that the Lord provided for our church to give us access into flying communities so that we can help elders in those communities preserve their indigenous stories, their songs before they pass away and they're lost. How do you get from having lunch with five grade nine kids that aren't so sure they want to have lunch with you?
Nathan (43:46.03)
to being invited to God's Lake Narrows to help with the Sundance is a story that only the Lord can orchestrate, but he has to break your heart for it first.
Rob Chartrand (43:54.677)
Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's just it. I mean, you can't, you can't orchestrate any of those scenarios, can you? They, they, they just kind of weave their way into it. But what you can orchestrate is inculcating a right posture in your church community as a leader, like, like that, that it starts with, I mean, that conversation and the what if, and what does it mean to be a people who are pushing towards that grand vision?
in the book of Revelation of the final things where, you know, as you say, all the nations are coming into the into the city. I mean, what right? I mean, so you must have laid some groundwork with your with your own church family for this, or maybe that God was already doing it in your midst. And you just added water to it. I don't know what did that look like for you guys?
Nathan (44:43.01)
That's a really good question. I think God just does stuff, Rob. I do agree that our part would be to risk and our parts would be sensitive enough to be vulnerable enough to say, I'm actually not gonna look away from this thing that is stirring me. I'm gonna try and look at full in the face and just take that in a real vulnerable way. And then...
The beautiful thing about reconciliation maybe is that you can't actually manage it. There's no technique for it. I'm delighted at what's happened and it's not just me and our church. There's different businesses that have changed their entire philosophy of business to try to bless northern communities with services that aren't gouging them in any way and the way that I've seen God provide for them and bless them.
But I don't know that I have anything other than, I was surprised that I was having an emotional reaction to this one particular problem in front of me that I've never had to any other problem that I've ever seen. And as I started to walk towards it, God radically transformed.
transformed me and then gave me opportunities that line up with it. Like I imagine it wouldn't be a whole lot different with what you might be in for with your shift to Briar Crest. Like you have a passion to save the church. I'll put it that way. There's a void of young leaders in the church and you look across Canada with a stirred heart and blinking back tears and you're like, I'm going to give my life to change this and it gives you energy.
and opportunities come and introductions come and you just get to say thank you Jesus along the way. So I suspect most ministers or Christians would have that stirring and they just need to jump on it.
Rob Chartrand (46:40.161)
Yeah, no, I agree. I guess, you know, with our with our, I think about the cross point, our church plant in Northeast Edmonton and our desire to be a, to be a multi ethnic church and to in the same in the same way to see our church community reflect the kaleidoscope of cultures and people all around it. I mean, we're in Northeast Edmonton. It's very multi ethnic and, and just so many beautiful people from so many different parts of the world living there.
Um, but when we planted cross point, we were pretty monolithic. Like we were, we were a pretty white bunch. I mean, I was, you know, I, I'm Métis, but I'm, I'm the white kid in the family. Right. And so I, I look pretty, uh, pretty European and, uh, but I'm not. Um, but we didn't have a lot of, um, but, but our, you know, a lot of different ethnicities, um, other than European Anglo European ethnicities, but we really wanted to, um, to
to reach all of these different cultures around us. And, but the challenge is you can't program that. You can't program your way towards that. You can't, it's just, I like to say we accidentally fell into it. Like, but the one thing I think I could do at the time in our early days of Crosspoint was just continue to share Christ's vision for the nations and to try and model that in my own life. And then at the end of the day, I mean, Jesus just, you know,
began bringing people and developing relationships and whatnot. And I think our church community was open to it, you know, because we had that posture. Because I know there's not every church has that posture yet or they're growing towards it, but like I so that's why I kind of press in on you a little bit is you know you were you maybe you probably were digging up the soil a little bit.
Nathan (48:21.887)
Yeah, not on mine.
Nathan (48:28.119)
Yeah, there's two things as I've been listening to you and reflecting if I can't answer your question a little better than I did that have come to my mind. And so when you're engaging with Indigenous spirituality, like I alluded to us going and recording these stories, you're going to have people in any church go, why? Those aren't Jesus stories, maybe in their most...
critical way, they'd be like, aren't we maybe better off without those demon stories being there? Sometimes I'll hear this from indigenous Christians. There's some teaching that has to happen around that about the supremacy of Christ and the lack of fear when we enter into some of these places. Then a telling of the stories as well, because most of the time when I've heard
Rob Chartrand (48:58.723)
Right.
Nathan (49:19.662)
it is so congruous or adjacent to a parable of Jesus or one of his wisdom teachings. Here's a funny example to me. I asked a Dakota elder, teach me something about God I don't know. What would you say to me and people like me? He said, well, you need to know that for the Creator, one of his priorities is for us to share our blessings with each other, not to hoard them ourselves. So like if you have two coats,
Rob Chartrand (49:33.25)
Mm.
Nathan (49:48.558)
The creator would want you to share with somebody who only has one or who doesn't have anything. I'm like, oh, what a controversial subversive indigenous teaching this is. It was sort of like, tell the Christians that if they have two of something they should share. Oh, come on. It's just a slap in the face. Some of them, yeah, right. And having attended a Sundance now.
Rob Chartrand (49:55.557)
the
Rob Chartrand (50:10.541)
And for those who don't get the Jesus reference there.
Nathan (50:18.434)
This is a ceremony that the church banned. And it still has some gruesome elements to it, I think, for some modern white sensibilities. But if you were to sit and watch what unfolds over five or six days, you would be struck by how incredibly cruciform it is. When they choose the tree, and then the young men in the community carry the tree up onto the hill, and then they all lift it up over top of the community, and then they literally tie ribbons.
which are their hopes and their prayers and their sins onto the tree. And then the young men fast for several days asking who they can be for their community and what does it mean to support this group and the family and live for the creator and you're going, Oh my tradition has something so similar where a young man carried a tree up on a hill, not just for the sins of his community, but for the entire world. And let's just start talking about how on earth did you guys figure this out?
and be doing this for hundreds of years before you would have like, who told you about trees and piercings and like, it's just beautiful.
Rob Chartrand (51:24.985)
Yeah. And then just for our listeners, because I know that this might feel like a bit of a tension point for some of our listeners, I think, I think what you're arguing for is not syncretism, which is, you know, the amalgamation of religions and all things, all beliefs are the same, etc, etc. But what you're arguing for is gospel contextualization and seeing how God has already gone ahead of you and is at work in the world now to bring his message and to
Nathan (51:32.834)
for sure.
Nathan (51:36.479)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (51:54.15)
And it shouldn't surprise us that God, God is way ahead of all of us already in the world today.
Nathan (52:00.988)
Yeah, there's, I'm definitely not talking about syncretism and I think both sides would be offended by that because there's a, but I'm a Christian and a Christian pastor and I hold to the supremacy and uniqueness of Jesus Christ. But that doesn't make me particularly defensive about him or paranoid.
Rob Chartrand (52:23.544)
Yeah.
Nathan (52:24.986)
It allows me to enter fearlessly into some places that might, that some might feel would be contaminated in some ways to see what he might be doing there and where he's gone ahead.
Rob Chartrand (52:37.281)
Yeah, like Paul in Act 17. I mean, he's wandering around and he's, you know, I mean, it's, you know, and I think we could probably get into discussions about transference and all of that. But I mean, I think, you know, I wanna get back to the idea is that how did you get into these conversations? It's through trust and the building of trust and relationship, the fact that you're able to participate in this way.
Nathan (52:42.956)
Yeah.
Nathan (52:54.882)
Sure.
Nathan (53:00.546)
Yeah.
Nathan (53:06.57)
Yeah, our goal was to try to have enough Indigenous people feel comfortable at our church that we would then be invited into those communities. It seemed to have happened backwards from our intention. We're invited into the communities now and I don't think if you looked at our congregation now on a Sunday morning, you'd find us any closer to being one third Indigenous than we were five or six years ago.
Rob Chartrand (53:31.63)
Right.
Nathan (53:32.066)
But we are sure more embedded in those communities and able to share. But one of the reasons though, and this is that we have been invited, is because we are the Christians that they have met that surprised them. So they're pretty tuned to the Trojan horse Jesus, where I'll pretend to listen to you. I'll pretend that I'm actually learning something, but then I'm going to
Rob Chartrand (53:53.497)
Okay.
Nathan (54:02.706)
sneak Jesus in. Now, I want Jesus to be a part of their lives. I want him to do what I believe only he can do and what he longs to do for them. But...
I can't share him in a way that even smells remotely colonial. So there's a subservient posture of genuinely, when I ask that question, teach me something about God I don't know yet. I'm actually meaning that. It's not a technique or a way to try to engender trust. And I think that's what's allowed us to build trust with people.
in these communities is because they have taught us things, they have blessed us and when we celebrate that and are grateful for that, they realize there isn't going to be another shoe here that's going to fall. And eventually they talk, they end up talking about Jesus anyway.
Rob Chartrand (55:04.833)
Yeah. So you, you genuinely want to be friends and you genuinely, genuinely want to, to love them full stop. Um, and of course, the greatest expression of love would be to, you know, to reveal Jesus to them and help them encounter this God who you love, who's, who's amazing. Right. But, uh, you know, I, I think it's kind of, I think we, we face a similar tension.
Nathan (55:25.069)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (55:30.977)
on a very small scale with friendship evangelism, you know, and friendship evangelism, you know, we, we make friends with people, but, but we feel it's kind of inauthentic friendship if we're making friends with them only so that we can preach Jesus to them, right? I mean, whereas we're supposed to just be friends, period with people and love people, period. But on the other hand, you know, if we truly love somebody, why would we not share this
You know this thing that we have that's so amazing to us and central to our lives, which is a relationship with the living God, right? But but there's that tension right because you don't want to your friend to ever think oh You're only friends with me so that you can preach Jesus at me, right? That's that kind of is not a great basis for a friendship Do you know what I mean? Like it's
Nathan (56:19.467)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and then the other side of that is, what if all somebody experienced from me their whole life is the love of Christ, but they never knew where I stood on things?
Rob Chartrand (56:33.272)
Right.
Nathan (56:34.938)
And that one I've found myself increasingly letting go of and being less concerned of.
Rob Chartrand (56:41.411)
Okay.
Nathan (56:44.93)
that I think it's okay to just have somebody know that they are loved by Christ and it's up to them whether they're going to love Him back.
Nathan (57:03.09)
Not quite saying that right. I don't want to say it in a way that causes your listeners to not um not engage with because it sounds um like I'm crossing a line. I'll tell you a story instead. Um there's this elderly Indigenous woman who had cancer and I'm friends with her brother who's an elder and he wanted me to come out and pray for her healing.
because my prayers and his words have power. So I'm invited out and there's a few other medicine men. I guess I'm not a medicine man, they're not other medicine men. And I'm standing on the periphery of this experience watching all these people that have so much in common yet I've been invited in for some reason. And for about an hour and a half, I just stood around the periphery of the circle. She was actually in some ways elevated up on the deck of her house with three or four of her sisters around her.
Rob Chartrand (57:43.586)
Okay.
Nathan (58:01.11)
and she was in frail shape. There was a fire going that was lit in her honor for her healing. There was TPs and those sorts of things and there's old, the representative of the Christian Missionary Alliance is in the corner talking with her ex-husband. That's kind of where I'm standing, right? I'm in the, I'm in the circle with the, but then it was time to pray. And a Dakota elder prayed in his language.
and hid their way and I don't know what it was. And enough to give it a check mark is like that passed the kosher test. And then I prayed. And after that prayer, she moved to the side and she sat down and she patted the seat beside her and said, come sit here for a while. And so I sat there and...
Rob Chartrand (58:50.599)
Hmm.
Nathan (58:53.83)
She told me about her life. She told me about her kids. Um, we had actually some of the kids that were in my Wednesday lunch were actually her nieces that lived in her house for a while. And I felt the old evangelical pressure to close the deal for this beautiful woman.
Rob Chartrand (59:02.445)
Wow. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (59:12.526)
Yeah.
Nathan (59:14.714)
And for the life of me, I didn't know how to gracefully go there. And when I drove home afterwards, feeling a sense of incompleteness or failure, and I wasn't quite sure because she died shortly after, as near as I can discern, I felt like the Lord said, Nathan, your presence there, let her know that Jesus loves her.
Rob Chartrand (59:18.947)
Yeah.
Nathan (59:42.246)
And it's enough for her to die knowing that. Let me take care of the rest.
Rob Chartrand (59:42.284)
Hmm.
Nathan (59:49.21)
I don't have time to build chapter and verse or the whole narrative there, but that humble posture and giving what you can in a season and trusting the Lord to honor it.
Nathan (01:00:02.306)
gives me some measure of peace and that I don't imagine there will be many of these conversations I'm having with Indigenous people where they go as far as the sorts of stories you can put in a fundraising letter. But they're still powerful.
Rob Chartrand (01:00:15.949)
Yeah. So you did pray for her? Yeah.
Nathan (01:00:20.682)
Yep, yeah we prayed for healing that Jesus would touch her, that he would remove the cancer and yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:00:24.257)
Okay. Yeah. Now just, I mean, that last statement, someone's like, oh man, he's a universalist. He's saying when Jesus said to you, you'll take care of the rest. You're not saying that she's in glory and he's got all this figured out. You don't know that. None of us do. I mean, that's not what you're saying. You're not saying, you're just saying that you've done enough. The rest is up to me to do whatever that to do is.
Nathan (01:00:33.536)
Right.
Nathan (01:00:36.78)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:00:42.034)
No, no.
Nathan (01:00:49.386)
Right, no, whatever needs to be done with every human being for eternity is going to be up to Jesus to do. So there's nothing outside of Him doing it. But for Him to do something there that was a happy ending, He'd have to do something that's different than what I would have imagined.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:07.597)
than what you... Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, and I feel for you. I'm sure some of our ministry staff, sorry, our ministry leaders out there have felt the same thing. Those tension moments where you... You know almost know for sure that if you go down the path of the four spiritual laws and laying them out and all that, it's just gonna sabotage things. It's not gonna actually help, right? And you feel this tension. Well, what should I do in that moment? And hey, sometimes you just gotta...
Nathan (01:01:30.378)
Right, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:36.549)
Trust the leading of the spirit and what the spirit's leading you to do and say. So, and not always stick to the formula.
Nathan (01:01:45.022)
Right, yeah, and that's well said.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:48.549)
Yeah. Well, 20 years in the same church, man, that's pretty long. I mean, I mean, wow, you're getting old. Tell us a little bit just as we're closing things up here, what have you been doing to build resiliency? I mean, how do you how do you how do you take care of yourself for a leader as a leader? I mean, Covid was hard every year is different. You know what? In a month, the fall is coming and you're kicking things off and it's going to get crazy.
Nathan (01:01:53.151)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (01:01:57.176)
hahahaha
Rob Chartrand (01:02:17.205)
I mean, you got to deal with the grind. You got to have some grit. What do you do to take care of yourself?
Nathan (01:02:20.654)
Grit, there's a good, grit is a good alpha male podcast word. I've heard that from, is this an alpha male podcast you've learned me into? Grit, okay, okay.
Rob Chartrand (01:02:28.921)
No, I've read a book. I've got a book on my shelf called Grit and the author is female. And there's actually been studies on grit. It's just a but you're it's true. It's kind of like a I don't know a catchphrase for resiliency that a lot of us use. But yeah, I mean, we could be alpha male. So I mean, that's some of us can't help ourselves. Yeah.
Nathan (01:02:36.46)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:02:43.892)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:02:47.53)
Let's say ice baths, ice baths are how we do it. Yeah, that your question about resiliency of all the ones that you floated my way that we might talk about, actually I thought about it the most because it was a peculiar word in my own lexicon. I don't use that much. I've talked about longevity. I'll talk about gratitude.
energy, but resilience. It was peculiar to me. I asked my wife last night, I don't know what to say about the resilience stuff. She was like the most complimentary she's been in a long time. Yeah, so let me tell you about how my wife admires my resiliency. Oh yeah, the editors will have fun.
Rob Chartrand (01:03:24.009)
All right. You're welcome.
Rob Chartrand (01:03:38.754)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:03:41.722)
She talked about physical, physically taking care of myself. So I mountain bike, I cross country ski, I play hockey, I watch my diet, I lift weights and I do that some form of that every single day basically and have for 20 years the mountain bike stuff and the ski stuff occasionally I'll actually do racing with it. So physically.
She's like, you probably have more energy than the person that doesn't do that stuff. She pointed to my daily devotional life. Most days, about six o'clock in the morning to seven, I'll have a devotional routine. So those are just kind of like the normal things that any, I mean, that's no different than like what a CEO is going to do. But how does a pastor...
not get progressively more disillusioned with people over time so that they just get cynical and cynical and cynical. Especially when I live in a community where so much of what I dreamed about having happened hasn't. Somebody asked me a funny question the other day. They saw the multi-site and they saw the book and they saw the airplane in their lake. How do you keep pack from becoming an empire?
I was like, well, empires are all relative, right? If my empire is this little rural town, but it doesn't have to be impressive to be an empire in your own heart. And I thought, why has, and I think if it's an empire, it's hard to be resilient because you don't really love it. You're just trying to build it and protect it and its reputation. And what came to my mind?
for resiliency was what it feels like for me to walk around my neighborhood with my dog. And it won't seem like resiliency at first, but I think it'll get us there. I can't walk my dog in this town without having to fight against some profound feelings of failure. Two blocks from my house is a guy that I baptized five years ago, who doesn't come to the church anymore. Three doors down from him is a guy from hockey whose son passed away.
Nathan (01:06:01.73)
and he doesn't come to church either. Another block is the family that left our church. They were angry about something I preached and we couldn't sort it out. And two doors down is the drug house where I went over with popsicles in the garage to help the little kids at least and didn't do a darn thing and two people committed suicide in that house. And then I get to my own house with the undone baseboards and the kids leaving and all the memories of...
failures and successes and false starts and finish lines. And it's just so darn humbling that it lets you feel really grateful that the Lord has blessed you still. And I think when I'm grateful, I'm resilient. When I'm entitled, I don't have any ability to stand strong.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:00.035)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:07:02.367)
But the Lord has blessed me with a growing love for the people in this town, in this church, over 20 years instead of an increasing level of cynicism. And so that love is part of the resiliency as well. So I'm sure there's a part I've had to play in that, but I'm not so sure exactly what that was. But I do feel resilient. And Tamara, yesterday when I was talking to her, my wife, she's like, of course you've had your bad days, but...
Maybe once a year I'll have a conversation with her where I'm like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. But it's the kind of conversation that about three days later, like she doesn't take me that seriously because it's not a real bottoming out. So what does that mean for listeners who are tired or wondering how much longer they can go?
Nathan (01:07:53.81)
I guess first of all, really basically it means actually do take care of yourself. Don't neglect that. And then find stuff to be grateful for. Like Jesus, what have you given me that I need to be really happy that you've given to me? And by your spirit would you put that into my heart in a way that is emotive, that I'm not just trying to pep talk myself out of this.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:57.934)
Yeah.
Nathan (01:08:21.11)
but I'm actually feeling your grace in a real personal way here. Cause he is really the only one who can change how you feel on the inside with any real consistency. He's the only one who can pull your vision to something that actually causes you to be perpetually buoyant. And he's been kind enough to do that for me when I need it.
Rob Chartrand (01:08:42.49)
Yeah, good word, good word. Um, we've all got empires, even paper boys have empires. I mean, your paper route could be an empire. So hold it loosely. Let it go. Cast down your idols.
Nathan (01:08:48.782)
That's right. My empire. But you know what? 20 years ago when everything was a third of the size, if that was more of an empire then yeah, now I'm just trying to not let my broken heart get the best of me in lots of places. There's just so much to fix.
Rob Chartrand (01:09:10.722)
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know what, I think so many of our listeners can relate to everything you've just shared about. Sometimes it feels like you're failing forward all the time. There's just you see the progress in someone's life and then they break your heart. And I think that constant feeling of getting your heart broken or people leaving or people disillusioned or all of that. I mean, it's making so many pastors just want to quit. And they are. I mean, and then you get covid and you feel
Nathan (01:09:39.884)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:09:43.069)
that you don't have any power or control over this thing. And then you see the polarization that's happening. And so, yeah, it's not surprising that so many pastors feel that sense of disillusionment sometimes. But I think you're right, gratitude is a keeper. That's gonna change. And it's all about changing your perspective. So appreciate that word.
Nathan (01:10:07.534)
There's another thing about brokenheartedness that I find interesting and this only came on my radar a few months ago. You might know more than me because I'm not super familiar with ancient languages, but apparently what's translated in the Psalms as brokenheartedness is maybe more accurately understood as fragmentation. The heart is something that helps you to pull the threads of life together and to hold it together so to speak, which is different than being sad.
So we tend to think of broken heartedness as like, oh, I'm really sad. And maybe that's a byproduct of not being able to hold it together. But this fragmentation of the broken heart that's caused by a broken heart, that's been helpful for me to then understand, okay, so part of my role as a pastor is I have to learn how to hold this together. And when I'm learning, Jesus is near to the broken hearted, to those that can't quite figure out where the pieces fit.
Nathan (01:11:11.266)
So intimacy, intimacy and gratitude, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Rob Chartrand (01:11:14.517)
Yeah, yeah, good. Well, my brother, I think our time is about done here. I want to have you back. There's so many other things we could talk about and reflect about. And I appreciate you giving your time to our listeners and on the podcast here. So people want to talk to you. People want to be in touch with you. How can they do that?
Nathan (01:11:37.674)
I'm on Instagram from time to time. When it starts to feel unhealthy for me, I get off it, but it's one of the ways that I stay in touch with my kids. So I'm usually on there. So just look for me on Instagram and Westlake, I think. I also don't mind an email. I'm blessed to have an assistant who goes through those emails. And if somebody's got some questions and whatever, she can just fire it off to me. So that's nathan.westlake at mypack.tv.
Rob Chartrand (01:12:05.633)
That's great. And we'll make sure that we put all that information in the show notes. And of course they can check out your church as well, Prairie Alliance Church, easy to Google. Is that the, what's the URL on that?
Nathan (01:12:17.906)
www.mypak.tv. And we're always looking for young people that want to serve the church. So if you, one of those emails that I get is like, hey, I'd like to come pay a visit and maybe be an intern or learn about being a campus pastor or whatever. That would be awesome to have that kind of conversation.
And here, if maybe what God is stirring in your heart doesn't maybe line up with some of the unique things and opportunities that he has here.
Rob Chartrand (01:12:48.745)
Awesome. And we certainly wanna encourage some of our young leaders who are looking for places to learn and grow and in a great apprenticeship environment to check you guys out. So Nathan, it's been great. Thanks so much, man. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye.
Nathan (01:13:01.438)
Yeah, you're welcome, Rob. Thanks.