In this episode Gina has a conversation with Terry & Nancy Clark. Terry & Nancy have lived a life of complete dependance serving Jesus as musicians and worship leaders since the Jesus Movement revival. From Terry’s story of ending up in a psychiatric hospital in Germany post Vietnam, and his miraculous healing to 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
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Listen below starting at 00:00
Building Identity
Gina:
I’m so excited about my guests today, Terry and Nancy Clark, who have been leading worship since the Jesus Movement. Terry is one of the most prolific songwriters, and worship leaders, and he has a profound testimony. And guys, his voice was a seminal part of the formation of my life as a believer. Terry leading worship was a significant part of my getting to know who Jesus was, and learning about God’s love, learning about worship, learning about His presence.
So the fact that I got to have this conversation with them was just so sweet. Norm and I had the privilege of leading with them a lot back in the nineties. We got to back them up and be a part of different things that were just incredible. So, I really hope you enjoy this episode, that you recognize that these are giants in the faith.
These are mother, father, grandmother, grandfather in the faith who have just been walking that life of faith with Jesus, have been completely surrendered and obedient to him. I really hope you glean from their wisdom, from their story, and I hope that you enjoy your time in the sacred space.
So Terry and Nancy Clark, welcome. I’m so excited that you’re here! I’ve been sharing the story with people when I’ve been telling them this week that you were coming. So I met you, Terry, for the first time in 1987. I was 18 years old and there was a mission trip to Scotland with Horizon. I had just recently kind of come back to church.
I got saved at the end of the Jesus movement when I was 12 in old North Park Theater before Horizon was called Horizon. You know, John and Lisa Wickham were leading worship and then high school senior year, I was just busy and doing all the things and eventually just wasn’t going to church. I wasn’t walking away from Jesus, it was just the less important thing in my life.
And then the Lord brought me back when Horizon moved campuses. So 1987 was when I came back. They announced that trip, which is a huge miracle that I went, because I was super insecure and kind of socially scared and would never go places without friends. I took this weird risk to go on this trip. I didn’t know anybody.
Terry:
It was perfect medicine for that problem.
Gina:
This was a time when Horizon was big, there were thousands in attendance. There were tons of services, like whoever is leading worship, you have no relationship with those people other than the connection spiritually. So you, of course, Terry, Nancy, you guys were a big deal. Like God would just do crazy stuff through your worship. I got on the plane to go to Scotland by myself.
I’m totally nervous. I walk down the aisle and I look at the row and I look down and who am I sitting next to? But Terry Clark! Everything in me was like, “Oh my gosh. I am sitting next to Terry Clark. Oh my gosh.” You were the sweetest, most kind, loving man. You just took me under your wing. I think your daughters and I are similar age, so you just kinda looked at me and decided, “You’re here on your own. I’m going to take care of you.”
And that trip was the beginning of a lot of things for me. I met Chuck Butler on that trip, who was the worship pastor, another person that I never thought I would meet. I sat next to you on the plane. I sat next to him on the bus to the dorms where we were staying and m he invited me to join the worship team for the trip. I had never really been a part of a worship team before, and I came back and that began my journey in ministry.
And it’s interesting, I did a podcast with Karen and Mickey Stonier. They were talking a lot about your identity, how seeing so many believers in the church having their identity being so tied in what they do for the Lord. That was true for me in a lot of ways. Not because I felt so great for singing, but I was such an orphan that was where it became my new home. Being a part of the worship ministry became part of my identity that gave me a sense of belonging.
“I can do this. I can’t do much, but I can do this. Is this okay? Can I stay now?” That became my purpose to be in this community and be with these people. Now I can actually serve and do something that beautiful that maybe Jesus would like, which is a good thing and powerful thing. God used it in really powerful ways. But then those are the things that I had to deconstruct and reconstruct later.
Terry:
Because he was building your identity.
Gina:
Yes, He was building. I remember when my first daughter was born, and the Horizon praise band that we were part of. Our team member Roy, God called him to another church and different things were happening. Then I had kids and God was moving Norm and, the Lord kind of pulled me back and he just was like, “Gina, I don’t need your gift. I want you. I love you.”
Just like with the spit up on your shoulder and not feeling like you’re a good mom. I love you just the same, you know? So it was quite the journey. But I’m just blabbing like crazy. You’re my guests, and I would love for you to share. You’re my gift to share.
Terry:
It’s a mutual thing.
Gina:
So anyhow, all that to say is I love you guys a lot. It’s a huge honor to have you here. So I would love for my listeners to hear from you, to hear who you are, and hear a little bit of your story.
The Cyclical Nature of Revival
Terry:
Well, I just want to say that that Scotland trip was a very pivotal trip in so many directions. So many directions, because Mike Mac and I were standing on the top floor of Close Mission up on the top, looking down High Street. We both almost broke down weeping because right across the street, almost straight across the street, just down a little bit, was the cathedral that was on fire with the Holy Spirit at one time in the history of that town. It was just blazing.
The lights were on all night with people worshiping the Lord and great preaching. It was historic stuff. I mean, it was right next door to John Knox’s house. One of the iconic names from back then. But we almost wept because the color was all gone. It broke our hearts. We went, “Why does this happen?” And we both know Scripture well enough to know that it wasn’t passed on to the next generation.
Like you said, the identity becomes what you do. After you do it for a while and you’re successful… Then that same cycle happens as the Lord moves, as the Holy Spirit comes and transforms a city or a nation or a home or a person. We have to keep our eyes on the Lord if we don’t then we drift. So it’s a spiritual pressure that’s on during these cycles that we go through. I think it’s parental. It’s a cycle of bearing a child and being a parent and then that results in consequences.
Gina:
I would even say it’s not even just biological parental, it’s spiritually parental too. It’s interesting that there is this cyclical kind of history of the church. I remember back in the nineties, Dr. Wert would teach at the school evangelism. I didn’t attend the School of Evangelism. School evangelism was like a ministry school, just for those who are listening and don’t know what it is.
It was a ministry school connected to Horizon Christian Fellowship, which is a Calvary Chapel. This was back in the early nineties. My friend Bridget was going, and I went with her one day, and Dr. Wert was teaching, who just an amazing man of God who worked for Billy Graham and edited Citizen Magazine. He was in his nineties at this point and still white water rafting and climbing the mountains and whatnot.
He taught in the class and he started talking about the cyclical nature of the church and starting with the early church starting in Acts, how these powerful supernatural moves of God would have to come in and bulldoze these constructs that man had made where they’ve taken the heart of God and traded it for religion. That supernatural move has to come in and push through and tear down the strongholds.
Isaiah 61 says, “They open the prison doors, set the captives free, bring oil of joy for mourning, beauty for ashes…” (paraphrase) And he said, but eventually that wave is going to recede and man is going to try to perpetuate that in their own strength. Then those solidifications are going to happen again, and a new move’s going to have to happen. And that’s what the Jesus movement was. He said, “Mark my words, the same thing is going to happen to Calvary.
And he’s like, “This isn’t an accusation. This is reality.” Look at the Old Testament and how Israel constantly came back to the Lord and then fell away and back again, this is the way humans do things. This last year 2020, has been a grand disruption, and especially for our western evangelical church and what it’s become and the organizations and the institutions and the programs and the things that we’ve made of it.
Again, this isn’t an accusation. These are the cultures we build. Those things are being disrupted, and in that disruption, there’s a choice. There’s a choice to re-orient ourselves on Him or to place blame and look everywhere else. It’s an interesting place and there is a huge divide.
Nancy:
A lot of kids that were raised in the church are now questioning things and there is a lot of reason why they’re questioning. Some of their questions are good questions and should cause the parents and the grandparents in the faith to examine and reexamine what is it that we’ve been building without shaking. We’re not going to want to get to the center. What is our stability and foundation?
Terry:
That’s the grace of God that he shakes things that will shake. Everything will be shaken that can be shaken, and the reason He does that is that he loves us. Everything’s because He loves us. And that’s been piercing our hearts and our devotions lately, the phenomenal library of God’s love that we’ve hardly scratched the surface of. If we would do more scratching, then we wouldn’t worry about a single thing.
We wouldn’t be crushed by a single thing. It changes everything because it’s the breeding of faith. When we see God’s love and we actually practically experiment with it and discover it. Back to the cyclical thing. He brings a move that transforms everything that’s going on, like the Jesus Movement did, but He’s done that through history, and there were a lot of moves of God more seismic than the Jesus Movement.
The other part of it is that this is supposed to be a very personal thing. It doesn’t happen by mass. It has to become a personal seismic event for it to stay, because then it can be passed on. Otherwise, it’s just an event in your life. It can’t stay in the organizational box.
Gina:
No, it can’t then.
Terry:
No. Because it’s all based in this love that we can’t even quantify, and therefore we can’t understand it because we’re human. We can’t grip it and analyze it. We just have to receive it. You have to get rid of the idea that you’ve got to understand everything before you believe it.
Check out the rest of this conversation: A Prodigal Story & Partnership with God
Check out the Dwell Meditations
