Don't Make God Pry It From Your Hands. A Conversation with Natalie Runion.

Natalie Runion is a USA Today bestselling author, speaker, worship leader, songwriter, and pastor. She founded the Raised to Stay movement and has spent the last several years helping people stay in the church when everything in them wants to leave.

She is also one of the most refreshingly honest people I have ever had a conversation with.

This one hit close to home in the best way.

Don't make God pry it from your cold dead hands

Natalie said something in this conversation that I have not been able to shake.

Don't make God pry things from your cold dead hands. Just give it to Him.

I know what that feels like. I have lived it.

When I felt led to step out of my first full time worship pastor role it was one of the scariest things I have ever done. I had started as a volunteer bassist in the church band. Over the years I became the first paid worship leader at that church. We eventually built a brand new building with all the gear, the giant LED wall, everything that for many worship leaders would feel like the goal finally reached.

But I realized years later that my heart had never followed me into that new space. So when Suzy and I felt led to step out in faith and go full time into our music company, I tried holding on to what I knew for so long. I gripped it. I held on.

And eventually when we let it go and stepped out in faith, it brought us to so many things we are still living in to this day.

God was not trying to take something from me. He was trying to give me something better. But He needed my hands to be open first.

There is no greater place than the local church

Natalie said something else that I want every person in this community to sit with.

There is no greater place than to be trusted with the local church.

Now I want to be honest about the tension I feel in that statement personally. Because I've always been one to work on ministry inside church and outside of church.

But here is what I believe. Being plugged into the local church does not mean everyone needs to work for a church. And it does not mean everyone just attends a church either. Finding the right fit for being plugged in based on the season you are in is what matters.

The goal is not a job title. The goal is connection. Presence. Showing up for the people God has placed in front of you.

We made church cool and now we have to find our way back

Natalie talked about how Gen X and millennials basically created celebrity culture in the church and now have to retrain themselves out of it. And I think she is right.

The boomers were not cool in a worldly sense. The music was different. The environment was different. Our generation made church cool in a mainstream way. We turned sanctuaries into auditoriums. We traded projectors for LED walls. We traded camp songs for stadium anthems.

And I do not think any of that is inherently bad. I think it was a natural progression and a real attempt to meet people where they are. But excellence creep is real. And I feel like we are now starting to reverse it. It is just going to take time.

The goal was never a production. The goal was always people.

Retraining does not have to be complicated

Natalie described what retraining looks like for her. Getting involved locally. Opening her home. Making ministry about people not platform.

And I think sometimes we overcomplicate what that looks like.

For me it can be as simple as keeping up with people via text. Taking an extra five minutes to actually talk with someone during a Sunday service instead of rushing to the next thing. Doing lunch with someone who needs it.

It does not have to be an everyday Bible study. It just needs to be intentional personal contact. That is what makes ministry real. That is what keeps your heart tethered to the people instead of the platform.

She just kept moving

The thing I keep coming back to from this conversation is Natalie's persistence.

The publishers turned her down because her following was not big enough. She got in a bad accident and could not post on social media for a season. The world kept trying to shut the door on what she felt called to do.

And she just kept moving toward the calling anyway.

That is the thing about a calling. It does not go away when things get hard. It does not disappear when the doors close. It just waits for you to take the next step.

Natalie took the next step. And look at what God did with it.

Your calling is not dependent on your follower count. It is not dependent on a publisher saying yes or an audience being big enough. It is dependent on your willingness to keep moving toward it even when the world is trying to shut you down.

Just keep moving.

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zHSJX_Le4EE?si=a9WRWxMbXHNS3QeJ

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