Serving Jesus as musicians and worship leaders since the Jesus Movement, Terry and Nancy share about partnership with God and with each other, and what it means to live a life of dependance together, as their website says “Jesus has been their Savior, manager, and booking agent for 40 years!”
Learn more about Terry & Nancy and listen to Terry’s podcast Terry Clark & Friends at: catalystpeople.com
DONATE NOW to support the production on this podcast and other project by Stockton Ministries.
Visit us at stocktonministries.com
Listen below starting at 31:44
Redeemed for Unity
Gina:
The beauty of redemption is those things that the enemy meant to destroy you, God has turned around and He’s created those as the vehicle to bring you into that dependence with Him, which most people don’t recognize and aren’t able to go to. Because of what you went through, you have to be in this place of dependence, which is what we’re all called to.
It’s that being with Him, it’s John 17. It’s what Jesus said, “I only do what I see my Father doing.” What are we doing today? Lord, should I go here? What a precious gift. This really bounces back from what we were talking about to begin with, that organizations and churches and everything that’s going on as normal, they get in a cycle of “This is how we do things. This is what we know to do.”
And it’s really running on its own steam and not really depending on the freshness of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom that He wants to bring to people’s lives. So what has to happen, there has to be the shaken up that we were talking about. There has to be changes and transformations and we will not choose that. So God, in His mercy, allows us to come to the end of ourselves so that we can be transformed. We can look up, we can say, “Yes Lord, You are our only sanity.”
Terry:
The most beautiful thing that I can think of He’s, He created me, He created the world and everything in it, and He orders everything for our good. He orchestrates everything, not just for our good, but for His people’s good, for those that love him. There’s a multiplication that’s happening.
It’s not something I would make ads out of, but you know, it can be 5 to 15 years after some seismic thing that happened to somebody we don’t know. Suddenly we get a call or a letter or an email that says, “I have to tell you about what happened to me when I heard this song or when I heard you talking and Jesus just transformed me. Of course it’s not my doing, but it’s me out of the way, isn’t it?
I pray that that continues to be the case so that I can stay out of the way, but be vocal enough to do what He puts in my hand to do, and know that He’s orchestrating it for somebody. Even this podcast is going to be orchestrated for somebody.
I did a “Terry Clark and Friends” episode with Kelly Willard, and I mean she’s been through a lot. Just her brokenness and her humbleness before the Lord and her desire to please Him; that comes out so clearly in everything. It’s bound to pull down barriers that are walls around us. I was looking at something this morning that was said by Marcus Rainsford, in the 1800s.
He wrote an expository book about John 17, and the title of the book is “The Lord Prays for His Own.” In that he starts to get into the scope of God’s love, and that He saves us, He brings us into relationship and commitment to the Lord Jesus, to connect us to Him. So we become one and He prays that we would become perfectly one.
You can’t understand that way of saying it, but there’s something in it that connects. And it says now you’re His. Now you’re one with Him, you’re in Him because Christ has drawn you to the Father. He is God. The Father is a wall of fire around you that will not let the enemy touch you. Thank you Lord. Jesus is the portal, the channel for which you’re able to enter in and have this intimacy with the Father.
Then the Holy Spirit is the communicator of all this stuff to you and speaks your language. And even when you’ve lost your brain, He’s there to be Jesus’s voice that you recognize, because you grew up with Him. I would run to an old plank altar back when they had ’em. I know I wasn’t very big because all I remember is lifting my elbows and leaning and saying, “Jesus, make me what you want me to be.” I didn’t know what a factory he’d have to build to do that. But I’m so glad He did, and I know He’s ready to do that for anybody.
Gina:
Yes.
Terry:
If He did it for a hard head like me, He’s bound to be ready to do it for you, whoever’s listening.
God’s Pursuit of Prodigals
Gina:
Well, I also think that something so powerful and encouraging about your story is that you grew up in a home where you knew Jesus, but there was a point, like you said, where you were leaning over the banister, seeing these people bickering, seeing these people who were supposedly representing Jesus, and you’re just like, I don’t want a part of it. And you walked away from God, but God didn’t walk away from you.
There’s a whole generation right now that have done just that. There’s a whole generation right now that has looked at what the church has become. They grew up in church, they’ve been hurt, they’ve been offended, they’ve been told they have to behave a certain way. It’s about doing, it’s not about being with, it’s about doing four so that maybe Jesus will love you enough.
What I love about your story is that there is nothing new under the sun. We all walk through this journey of we are all created to have this relationship with God. He is a pursuer, and His pursuit started before time, and it continued in the garden. It continued at the fall, and it continues to this day.
Jesus is the pathway to the Father, the whole point was reconciliation into intimacy. Jesus’ whole life was a demonstration of living in connected intimacy with the Father. The fruit of that is how you live your life and what you do. But the point of it was relationship, the point of Jesus dying on the cross was that not one drop was wasted and that veil was torn so that we can come boldly, and so we could live out His prayer in John 17.
It was so that we can live out Matthew 11 and that easy yoke of, “Come with me.” You know, I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. It says in the Message translation, “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” I think that’s the grand lie that I think so many believers fall into. It’s that feeling like they’re on the outside.
Feeling like they’re constantly trying to work for approval and kind of just camping out at the foot of the cross in shame rather than receiving the gift and walking through the veil. It’s Psalm 91, “In the shelter of the almighty abiding under the shelters of his wings,” in that place of dependence and love and your testimony and your story and how you live your life now is a demonstration of being in that place.
Where you felt like, “Well I don’t want to do what these guys are doing.” and then going through such horrible stuff, but then being reconnected and reunited. But in a way now that you see and you recognize there’s no place you’d rather be.
Terry:
Well, it’s your only home then. The picture that you’ve drawn there is so clear and so prevalent. We know young people that have seen the hypocrisy or the self assertion or the self obsession of people that call themselves Christians, and then been hurt by those people, that are so hard now. They are so hard.
Our hearts break for people that are close to us that have gone through that, and the enemy will use that to try to tell me that, “There’s nothing you can do.” I just look him in the eye and I go, “Yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing I can do. But look at what Jesus has done. He can do it.”
Nancy:
He won’t stop pursuing. Our part in the praying department is just participating with Him. It’s not changing His ability to go and capture that one that’s gone astray. It is simply participating with Him while He goes and does it.
Partnership
Gina:
Because it’s all an invitation, right? He’s already interceding on our behalf. That’s the craziest thing to me. He doesn’t need me to pray, but He is inviting us. The analogy I’ve used before is it’s like a four year old and his dad goes to Ikea and brings something back to build, and the four year old is “helping” and air quotes.
I don’t need you here, but I want you here. I want you to come join me. I want you to do this with me so that we can do this together. I’m seated in heavenly places far above all principalities and power in heavenly places, and you’re with me.
Nancy:
Paul talks about that very same thing too in a Scripture that I love. I I believe it’s the end of the first chapter of 2 Corinthians where Paul is talking about desiring that many would pray with him. As we go through this, as I’m encountering these tribulations, et cetera, so that there’ll be many more giving praise to God as a result of the answers.
Terry:
The Lord has shown us that it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, He’ll just bring somebody to our mind. He has made it very clear that when I do that, I’m saying, come here. Come into my prayer closet with me because these precious lives and these souls are what we’re praying for right now and what we’re interceding. Join me.
Gina:
What a privilege. One of my favorite verses is in Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. Do not quench the Spirit…” It’s so easy for us to go “Pray without ceasing? Okay. That’s for a monk.” But that’s the thing, it’s that invitation. It’s not this vein repetition, it’s communion. It’s Jesus life on earth with The Father. It’s constantly being aware that He is with you and He’s constantly moving and speaking. So then that’s one of my favorite things to help people to discover that He’s already speaking to you.
Now, how can you posture yourself to listen, and to be aware and pay attention. There’s so many things that I guarantee you, six times a day, something flip flips through your mind and you just kind of push it away. But what would happen if you stopped and went, “Oh, maybe I’ll text so and so, or maybe I’m going to pray for that.” It’s so sweet when you start to discover, and then you start to recognize His voice. It’s being familiar with the way He speaks.
Having proximity with someone is very different than being with someone. Sitting next to someone is very different than connecting with them. That’s the difference. How do we learn to be in His presence? And to see Him, and to hear Him, and to join Him, and to laugh with Him, and to go on the adventure with Him. There is nothing else like that. That’s the beauty. So Nancy, you’ve been chiming in and helping Terry keep on track telling his story…
Nancy:
Well, it’s because I’ve heard it so much that I could tell it better now than he can.
Gina:
Yeah. <laugh>. But what do you want to share about your journey in the middle of all this and the partnership? You know, it’s interesting. Norm and I did a couple episodes at the beginning of this season about partnership and marriage, and the significance of calling and believers recognizing the fact that you are something together that you are not apart.
The call in Terry’s life is not just the call in Terry’s life, it’s the call in both of your lives. The call in your life, Nancy, is not just the calling in your life, it’s the call in both of your lives. It’s the two of you saying “yes” to that call, and then in that unified place with Jesus, whatever the enemy brings against you, it just doesn’t have room because you’re choosing to say “yes” to that call whatever that looks like. Well, the sacrifices that are going to be required, the lifestyle that is going to be a part of it, all of it…
Terry:
Which Is the definition of love.
Nancy:
It’s such an ongoing process that you don’t really ever arrive at where you’re managing adequately. It’s always being challenged by the enemy. Just recognizing all the instructions, that if we do not put into practice those foundations, then the rest of the day, the rest of the week, month, year, is just not working as the Lord intended it to work. Those foundations have to begin in the morning, casting all our cares upon Him, submitting to His lordship. We’ve been married so long now I can’t imagine ever having a different kind of lifestyle or a different focus.
Terry:
Yeah. It’s always been this way.
Nancy:
Being called by the Lord is one of those untalked about truths. You don’t debate about it. You just start in a certain way of life and the Lord initiates something to happen. You don’t stop and scrutinize it. You just are in the moment and it continues to grow and this is what life is. Then you really can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s been that way for over 45 years. He’s still leading us along.
We keep seeing, there’s no top and there’s no bottom to His well of faithfulness. He continues to blow us away with how He provides. Through our married life there has been story after story of that, there was no other way, but God providing, and God opening the door and making that opportunity happen.
Terry:
It is almost embarrassing. His generosity is just outlandish. I mean, it’s just lavish and you’re going, “Lord, maybe somebody will see this.” I don’t
Nancy:
<Laugh>, I love those stories where it’s obvious it’s only God so you don’t take the credit for it. It’s totally the Lord.
Terry:
And we got hooked on that right after our marriage. I mean, it was that way in that environment, or you didn’t survive, but that was a great foundation for us. He knew best. But anyway, we loved being back together with you, Gina.
Gina:
Well, I am grateful.
Terry:
It is such a beautiful thing that the Lord has done. I thank God for preserving you and building you and giving you such a great man who loves you. You’re both called and your partners in things that wouldn’t be possible if He didn’t have both of you doing well.
Gina:
Thank you so much for being here. That’s sweet of you.
Nancy:
It’s our pleasure.
Gina:
I love you and appreciate you both.
Terry:
Would’ve been a real bummer if you hadn’t been here. <Laugh>
Gina:
<Laugh>, God bless you in all that He’s doing it And through you.
Gina:
I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Terry and Nancy and I really want to encourage you to check out catalystpeople.com, that’s their website. Terry has a podcast, “Terry and friends.” And let me tell you, it’s the who’s who of Jesus movement artist, Kelly Willard, Tommy Coombs, Chuck Butler, Chuck Gerard, John Wickham. Go listen and check it out cuz these guys have walked it out, and they’ve lived it for a lot of years.
They’ve seen Jesus do a lot of things. They’ve been through a lot and they are pillars in the faith. So go check them out. You can also find Terry’s music going all the way back to some of the early albums like “Let’s Worship” and “Living Worship” that were the soundtrack to my life. Anyhow, I’m so grateful, so grateful to have been able to spend this time with them.
Hey, if you wanna support the production of this podcast and other projects from Stockton Ministries, you can make a tax deductible donation at this link. And last but not least, share this with your friends. Let people know if you haven’t already. Would you please rate and review us in iTunes. All of it helps people to find us. As I always say, you are our best advertisement because we want people to be encouraged and find some hope. Have a great week. We’ll see you next time in the Sacred Space.
Check out the rest of this conversation: Partnership with God & Patterns of Revival
Check out the Dwell Meditations
