A gifted songwriter and worship leader Christy Nockels<\/strong>, is well-respected in the Christian music industry as a singer\u2019s singer.<\/em><\/p>\n Christy Nockels has a gift for imbuing each lyric she delivers with an authenticity and emotional integrity that resonates with the listener. Considering it a true privilege to be used by God in His redemptive work here on earth on any level, she desires nothing more than to witness true revival in the church. To this end, she exhibits unique transparency and humility in both the songwriting and performance stages of her artistic process.<\/p>\n \u201cThe songs always come from something deep,\u201d she said, \u201csome kind of refining work that God is doing in me first. It always starts with God\u2019s pruning and my response to that pruning. The more we yield to Him, the better the fruit that comes from it, so, for me, songwriting is always an \u2018I lay me down\u2019 kind of process where I ask God, \u2018What do you want to do in me so I can share it with the people?\u2019 It\u2019s an approach that I learned from my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n A pastor\u2019s daughter, born in Fort Worth and raised in Oklahoma, Nockels grew up singing in church.<\/p>\n \u201cI sang my first solo when I was seven,\u201d she said. \u201cMy dad said, \u2018Christy, I want you to find a song that speaks to your heart and share it with our people.\u2019 My parents were always very ministry-minded. They didn\u2019t say, \u2018You\u2019re so talented, Christy. People need to hear you.\u2019 Instead, they taught me to minister to people\u2019s hearts. I was always on the lookout for songs that were meaningful. I think that early platform and the way my parents approached the whole process had a big impact on the way I write songs.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing that music would play some role in her future, but unsure what that future would look like, she chose to attend college at OBU in 1992 and major in music.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing to OBU was just what you did in my family,\u201d she said. \u201cMy parents met and fell in love there. My older brothers went there. The choice to attend was really a family thing, and OBU felt like home to me from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n During her time on Bison Hill, God began to whisper to her heart, calling her in a vocational direction she hadn\u2019t anticipated, one that was difficult to define at first.<\/p>\n \u201cMy time at OBU was very shaping, but not in the way that I thought it would be,\u201d she said. \u201cAt that time, there were only a couple of educational tracks you could take in music at OBU. I discovered that classical music was not for me, but I didn\u2019t know what else to do. Worship music was not a genre at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n A gifted musician in his own right, Christy\u2019s husband Nathan chose to attend OBU and major in music as well. The two started dating in 1993, following her freshman year, and the couple\u2019s shared experience at OBU continues to influence their ministry today.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an exciting time to be at OBU,\u201d she said, \u201can exciting time to be alive. People were starting to sing songs to God, not just about Him. It was new and fresh. All over campus, there were pockets of Bible studies happening and people having worship nights. Nathan and I loved getting to see Christian artists at our own Raley Chapel. The whole experience was incredibly shaping for us, something I don\u2019t think we would have gotten on a secular campus at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1993, Christy and Nathan attended the Christian Artists seminar in Estes Park, Colorado. During the conference, they spent quality time with a mutual friend of like mind and purpose, Charlie Hall. Within six months, Charlie, Nathan and Christy were working toward recording an independent record under the name Sons & Daughters, one that would, upon its release, lead to an invitation from Louie Giglio to participate in the first Passion conference in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n OBU felt like home to me from the beginning.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Christy and Nathan married in 1995, sharing not only a mutual love and respect for one another, but a burning, God-given desire to \u201cpush the boundaries of Christian music.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just the two of us in our little apartment, and there were all of these songs coming out of us. It was a special time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know we could make a living doing what we were doing. We thought we would have to get \u2018real\u2019 jobs to support our music habit.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon graduation, Christy and Nathan moved immediately to Houston to lead worship Bible studies at First Baptist Church Houston\u2019s Metro Bible Study. Feeling a pull to stay in Oklahoma City, Charlie Hall stayed behind, and Christy and Nathan went on to record another album under the name Sons and Daughters. In 1997, a representative from a Christian music label visited Metro Bible Study and began a conversation with the couple about their future. In 1998, the couple signed with Rocketown Records and formed the duo Watermark. Watermark recorded four acclaimed albums, giving Christy\u2019s voice a national platform.<\/p>\n In 2008, they moved to Atlanta to become part of Passion City Church, where Christy served on the worship team with Chris Tomlin and Kristian Stanfill. A year later, she released her acclaimed solo debut album \u201cLife Light Up\u201d and spent much of the next two years touring with Tomlin and Passion, her husband Nathan intricately involved in the Passion ministry as well.<\/p>\n Christy and Nathan now make their home in Franklin, Tennessee, where she continues to write and record. They collaborate musically whenever possible, writing songs that come from a place of mutual experience and meaning. The album \u201cLet It Be Jesus,\u201d released in 2015, was one such collaborative effort and is special to Christy because it marks twenty years of marriage and ministry with Nathan.<\/p>\n \u201cA straight-up genius songwriter, musician and producer, Nathan is one of the best musicians I know,\u201d she said, \u201cand the most loving husband and dad to our three precious children.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nockels make a point of involving their children in their ministry just as Christy\u2019s father once involved her in his ministry. They don\u2019t consider the demands of parenthood to be a hindrance in any way, although being a mother has certainly had an impact on Christy\u2019s creative process.<\/p>\n \u201cI have three children and homeschool two of them,\u201d she said. \u201cThese days, inspiration comes while I\u2019m standing over the kitchen sink or waiting in the carpool line. I carry my iPhone everywhere and record songs and thoughts as the Lord gives them to me, thousands of little moments, and some eventually turn into something that is an offering, a story.\u201d<\/p>\n For Christy and Nathan, the personal and professional struggle lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the real challenge comes in staying in the lane that God intends for us,\u201d she said. \u201cI love Ephesians 2:10. It talks about how we are God\u2019s workmanship created to do good works that He has prepared in advance for us to do. I believe that all our days are planned and that God is sovereign and has specific things laid out for us to walk into. With social media like it is, we are all living in a saturated moment, and the hardest thing is to stay in the secret place. When Nathan and I first began this journey, we didn\u2019t have a marketing plan. There were no cell phones. There was no internet. There was a purity to what we were about back then, and we have to discipline ourselves to stay there. We can\u2019t let ourselves look right or left or worry about what other people are doing or we will derail. So we try to focus on just doing what He\u2019s given us to do and let that speak for itself. Longevity in ministry comes from staying the course.\u201d<\/p>\n Christy and Nathan continue to welcome the future one day at a time, enjoying the rewards that come with remaining obedient to God\u2019s leading.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a gratifying thing when people come up to you and say things like, \u2018You gave me the words to sing to God when I didn\u2019t know how to say what was in my heart.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing like it, and I can\u2019t imagine doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pushing Boundaries A gifted songwriter and worship leader Christy Nockels, is well-respected in the Christian music industry as a singer\u2019s singer. Christy Nockels has a gift for imbuing each lyric she delivers with an authenticity and emotional integrity that resonates with the listener. Considering it a true privilege to be used by God in His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":""},"categories":[136,47],"tags":[159,160],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Christy_mag-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7BMz3-re","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3699,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions\/3699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.okbu.edu\/obumagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}