The Soloist
By Christa A. Banister, senior music editor, GospelMusicChannel.com
When Nathan and Christy Nockels decided to move on from Watermark, the group they started nearly a decade before, the couple was ready for new adventure and the proverbial next chapter in their ministry.
Slowing down, however, wasn’t really part of the plan. Instead of pausing to take a little breather after all those years of traveling from city to city, however, Nathan and Christy have been “doing the only thing they know,” which of course, includes music, ministry and travel.
And if that wasn’t enough to keep their schedules jam-packed, the couple, along with their three children, have recently moved from their longtime home of Franklin, Tenn., to Atlanta, where they’re part of Passion City Church.
“For us, life is really about seasons. And trusting God one season at a time has been so helpful for us,” Christy says. “We honestly never thought we’d leave Franklin. We were really happy there; it was home. But we’re believing that He has us where we are for ‘such a time as this.’ And right now, there’s really no other place we’d rather be. Atlanta is home now, and we’re thankful that we’re loved so well at this church.”
Also on the docket is Christy’s first solo album, Life Light Up (sixsteps), a project she and Nathan worked tirelessly on. “Nathan was really the superhero here. He worked harder on this album than I’ve ever seen him work on anyone’s record,” Christy shares. “He just lived and breathed it until he was like ‘I can’t do anything else to it. I have to let it go.’ It was so important to him, which was so sweet to me.”
Aside from a more congregational worship approach, Christy says the process of making Life Light Up wasn’t much different from making a Watermark album. “That’s something Nathan and I kept laughing about,” Christy says. “The only real difference is the promotional aspect. During the recording process, we kept saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ because that’s what we’re used to.”
