Old Roots and New Wings
Watermark's Nathan and Christy Nockels have gone back to their worship beginnings with their latest CD.
by Maryann B. Hunsberger | posted 8/23/2004
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Watermark's Nathan and Christy Nockels have a long history in worship music. The husband and wife team began leading worship ten years ago at their Oklahoma church. They moved onto Houston's First Baptist Church, leading worship for 2,000 people at the weekly Metro Bible Study.
In 1998, Watermark released their first CD with Rocketown Records. Besides recording, Nathan produces for Phillips, Craig and Dean, Point of Grace, downhere, Charlie Hall, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman and Passion Worship CDs. Christy also sings on Passion Worship CDs.
Their recently released fourth album, The Purest Place, brings them back to their original roots as worship leaders. Two weeks before embarking on a national tour with their children, four-year-old Noah Luke and 18-month-old Elliana Noelle, the couple spoke with us about the main catalysts for their newest project.
You've gone from church worship leaders to recording artists. What has the transition been like?
Nathan Nockels As we look back, we see how certain things have changed. Our lives compared to a church worship leader's look different with all the travel. We've tried to maintain the same goals. I guess there's a conflict of interest between a recording artist and worship leader—it's almost an oxymoron. It's been a challenge to maintain a worship leader's heart versus a recording artist's heart.
Christy Nockels A lot of the switch happened when we felt God calling us to travel. When you're traveling, you go from place to place and can't invest in the people. Even now, we're trying to figure out how we can invest as worship leaders. With this record, we really tried to steer back to those roots.
You juggle parenting, songwriting, recording and touring. How do you balance everything?
Christy Staying involved in a church has been a great way to stay grounded. We met with our church to let them know what we're doing. They are our umbrella. We communicate through e-mail and keep accountable with friends. Nathan makes a huge point of having us pray together every night. He makes sure we stay connected to God. We have a team around us that believes in us and loves God. These are the vital things that help make it work.
How do you find inspiration for songs in your everyday activities?
Christy Our songs come through everyday situations. If God speaks to me, I'll write it in my journal or whisper it into my tape player. I piece these things together and create songs. It's about being diligent to search out, ponder and keep those ideas organized.
Is it difficult to focus on the desire to be in "the purest place," as your CD title implies, rather than focusing on good reviews, sales figures and radio spins?
Christy Absolutely. That's exactly where the title song came from. As artists, it's easy to focus on those things. We lost our manager, who had a different agenda from ours. That brought us back to where we started, when God put in our hearts the desire to create songs that would connect people to him. We prayed that God would let this be our most Jesus-focused record. I believe it happened. The title song was our prayer to remember that it's not about being in front of masses and on the radio. It's about being in the center of where he is.
The Passion of The Christ inspired this album. How did you translate what you experienced in that movie to your songwriting and album creation?
Christy Worship is a response to who God is and what he has done. After seeing the movie, I had to respond. I came home that night dwelling on the images of that movie and I started singing, "The perfect lamb that was slain. There's the glory of your name." We worked on the song for two nights. It was the catalyst for the record, so the whole record ended up being a worship response. We had been having writer's block and wondering if we should just not make a record. We asked God to do a new work in us and not let us put out a mundane record. He happened to use that movie to inspire us.
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