Worship profile: Nathan Stonge

“It’s not about me,” says Nathan Stonge, pastoral assistant for worship and young adults at the Dillsburg (Pa.) Brethren in Christ Church, while speaking about worship. “Repeating that over and over sometimes helps,” he adds with a smile.

In his leadership role at the Dillsburg congregation, Nathan leads a worship team in music on Sunday mornings. Even while he’s onstage, he keeps himself grounded in the knowledge that music ministry is not a narcissistic pursuit. “We probably lead best when we’re ‘invisible,’” says Nathan of the role of the worship leader. “Sometimes it’s [about] surrendering to God our tendency toward mediocrity or virtuosity, knowing these can be hindrances . . . into worship depending on our heart.”

For Nathan, worship is about “expressing . . . God’s ultimate worth—that we appreciate and desire Him more than anything else. It’s loving God for who he is.” This, of course, takes many forms: “kneeling, dancing, shouting, silence, offering our bodies as ‘living sacrifices,’” which he defines as “offering each aspect of our lives to God.”

“I feel most comfortable when I sense the presence of God or sincere desire for His presence,” Nathan acknowledges. “I can think of lots of different settings where I’ve experienced this kind of worship—in a friend’s living room, at a rock concert, reading Scripture with some elderly friends at a nursing home. I remember one occasion when a message was being translated from Spanish into Arabic and then into English, yet [amidst that confusion of languages] there was a powerful, united sense of worship the whole time. While we truly ‘find our place’ in God’s presence . . . it’s often accompanied by very uncomfortable moments that are wonderful as we come to terms with God’s perfection and our own sinfulness and neediness.”

Karen Tony Jim Sandra

Working to reconcile this inevitable dichotomy—the holiness of God and the fallenness of humankind—Nathan observes that too often we fall short of the goal of worship. “It is my hope that we offer up worship that’s not focused on the worshipers or the way we’re worshiping, but on the One we worship,” says Nathan of his vision for worship within the BIC community. “I want our interactions in corporate worship [to] be marked by deep love and grace that celebrates our diversity. This kind of unity would allow our worship to be the witness to the world that God desires.”