10 Things You Didn't Know About United Pursuit

Ten Things You Might Not Know About United Pursuit  

I know, top 10 lists are so cliché of me. But it felt appropriate on multiple levels, the main reason being we’re in a season of clarifying who we are and what our vision is for our future. For the past 5 years, United Pursuit has grown slowly and organically by you guys spreading our music. Thanks by the way:) One of the things that comes with organic growth is ambiguity of all kinds. So for the sake of bringing a bit more clarity to the messy, here goes.

1. “So…Who/What Exactly Is United Pursuit?”

We often refer to United Pursuit as a mythical being up in the sky. For example, when a piece of audio gear breaks and we want to replace it, we’ll often look up into the air, and ask the great UP in the sky if we have permission to buy a new one.

Ok, seriously though, United Pursuit is simply a name we gave our music 5 years ago when we set up our Myspace profile. There were just a few of us then. Now there’s many more. We were and still are friends first, musicians and songwriters second. So in short, United Pursuit is the collective name of our worshipping community, loosely based out of Knoxville, TN, but with members scattered across the US.

2. “But almost every album your artist name changes! Please explain.” 

Sorry about that. This has happened because, like I said above, we’ve grown organically and so has our name. I’ll walk you through the name evolution. Probably more info than you’ve ever wanted to know…
The beginning, 2008: United Pursuit Band, EP, Radiance

  • There were a few of us back in the day, and it seemed at the time that we were a band. Makes sense right? We all wrote songs and put them together on two albums.

2009: Will Reagan & the United Pursuit Band, In the Night Season

  • This time around, Will had a bunch of songs he wanted to record, and we all gathered around him in the studio to help make it happen. It didn’t feel right to call it a UPB album because it was all his songs. But Will didn’t want to call it solely a Will Reagan album, because we all played on it. Thus, Will Reagan & the UPB was born.

2010: Will Reagan & United Pursuit, Live at the Banks House, Endless Years

  • Don’t be fooled. This one is a subtle shift. Noticed how we took off the word “band”? Well, turns out “band” didn’t quite do our story justice. To us, “band” represented a fixed number of members. Either your in or out. That’s not us. We felt that we couldn’t be limited to a fixed group, as our numbers kept growing. It felt more appropriate to describe UP as a collective. So we dropped it. (Alas, Facebook won’t let us change our name, so we’re sorta stuck in the mean time. Anyone know someone who works there?) [well, never mind. Thanks Margie C. for helping us change the name on Facebook!]

2011: Michael Ketterer, Andrea Marie, Brock Human, Love/War/Solar System, Here Begin, Color of Red

  • Now things start getting interesting. As our numbers grew, so did the amount of songs being written and recorded. We decided to pool our resources and help each other record and release albums. UP acted as the indie record label here, while the UP community helped make these albums happen. Stylistically, the music felt unique and different enough from our previous material, so we didn’t want to stamp UP on the end of it and potentially confuse people with “hey, your about to listen to a vertical worship cd” when it was more like“dance/pop tracks you’d like to work out to (Michael Ketterer)”, or “beautiful love songs you’d like to walk down the isle to (Andrea Marie).” The plot thickens indeed.

United Pursuit / Iris Ministries , Found

  • We decided to partner with Iris Ministries, an orphanage/church planting movement in Mozambique, to help raise some money for them. 100% of this album proceeds go to them.  And you get a nice devotional worship album in the process. You can thank Brock. He masterminded this gem.

2014: Michael Ketterer & United Pursuit, The Wild Inside

  •  Ah, the moment I’ve been waiting for. We’ve always planned on releasing multiple worship albums from different members of our community. The first three happened to be with Will. This time around, its with Michael Ketterer. You might remember him from his previous dance/pop project. This one is nothing like it. This is scream your guts out “anthemic” worship”, if that’s a real thing. We’re excited about this one. Coming Feb. 25th.
    Click here to sample the album.

3. “Are You Signed On a major Label?”

No. We formed our own in-house record label, which is a fancy way of saying we write, produce, record, create art, websites, videos, and tour with the help of our amazing and talented community.

4. “How old are you guys?”

As of 2014, we range roughly from 23 to 36. Not naming names here:)

5. “ What is the Banks House? Who is the Mr. and Mrs. Banks?”

This might be sad for you to hear, but there is no Mr. or Mrs. Banks. The Banks house simply resides on Banks Ave. The name stuck way before there was an album recorded there.

6. “What “church” are you part of?”  

Easy cliché answer = we are the Church.
More complicated answer = we are part of a small house church community that, as we say it, “does life together” throughout the week. (Read Bonheoffer’s Life Together. Good read.) We love the Church and live to serve Christ’s bride.

7. “You guys don’t tour too often, do you?”

 Compared to a normal band, we don’t travel much. Usually 5 to 7 days a month, with a few longer international trips per year. We feel called to keep our roots in our home town of Knoxville, TN. We don’t want to live on the road, but live at home, and share what God’s doing in our home when we’re on the road.

8. “Do We Like Tasha Cobb’s Version of Break Every Chain?” 

YES! It’s the cat’s meow. It’s the bee’s knees. Let’s face it, Break Every Chain was destined to become a gospel song.

9.  “Are you connected with Jesus Culture? “

Not officially, but we love what they do, and are friends with some of their group. Chris, Kim, and crew, we love u guys!

10.  “So what’s the Banks House 2.0?”

Woops. Didn’t know that name would catch on. Its actually called the Fifth Ave House. Banks House 2.0 was the name of our crowdfunding campaign (thanks for that. We owe you big time).  “So What is the Fifth Ave House?”Glad you asked. Last year, we felt the Lord calling us to plant deeper roots in our city (Knoxville). We’ve been dreaming for years for a common space for the church of Knoxville to gather in unity and simply worship Jesus together. And because Knoxville is really central to lots of people on the East Coast, we thought it would be cool to have a place where you could easily join us too. We’d run out of room in our homes to host any more people, so the Fifth Ave House is our bigger living room so to speak. At 119 W. Fifth Ave, you will find us there every Tuesday night. And coming real soon, no matter where you live in the world, you’ll be able to join us via live streaming every Tuesday night. Thank you internet. We’re pretty excited about it. Stay tuned.

 

That’s a wrap ya’ll.
If I missed some burning question, write a comment on this blog and we’ll do our best to respond, or at least follow up with another blog post. Peace! – nate

There Is No Such Thing As Atheism

I stumbled upon a graduation speech of an American novelist David Foster Wallace today, and the Lord really was speaking to me through it. Keep in mind, this author is secular writer, which to me makes this all the more poignant…

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping.
Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”
(click here to read his whole speech. worth the read)   


A few years later after delivering this speech, David Wallace committed suicide. He struggled much of his life with depression, and he chose the only path he knew to escape the prison of his pain. But his words live on as powerful reminders that sin and our separation from God leaves behind a world enslaved to what we worship, what we attempt to fill the empty void. Money, power, appearance, intellect, religion,  if worshipped, it all leads us to a prison of the mind and soul.

I add religion to this list, because sneakily it can lead to all types of idolatry.
We can end up worshipping the rules and miss Jesus in the process.
Religion says “we can work hard and make peace with God. We just have to avoid doing bad things, and do the right things.”
This type of thinking doesn’t work.

Author Greg Boyd says it the best….

“We have failed to understand and internalize the biblical teaching that our fundamental sin is not our evil – as though our solution for sin was to become good – but our getting life from what we believe is our knowledge of good and evil. Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be god and what we judge to be evil. And this judgement is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created us to do, namely, love like he loves.”  (from book Repenting of Religion, pg. 17)

The world we live in might not know it, but they are looking desperately for a life of freedom. The lie is that we can be authors of our own freedom. This path takes us to worshipping anything but God. Money, power, sex, religion…it all falls short of filling the hole in our soul.

True freedom comes from believing and living for a King and Kingdom that is not of this world. This King that isn’t interested in subjects.
He’s after sons and daughters. 
Life on this side of eternity is all about letting this love flow out of us to the world. We must remember to lay aside the temptation to divide and judge the world with our knowledge of good and evil. That’s the King’s job. We’ve given that up. The tree of life is so much sweeter – nate

Collective Boldness

Over the past 16 months, I have witnessed as my friend Brock says, a “collective boldness” descend upon our community. Last night, we held our first worship night in our new home, the Fifth Ave House. It was a surreal, emotionally charged night, feeling the promises of the Lord come to pass and momentum of our community expressed physically in one space. It took every single person to make it happen. Spencer, Jordan, Gina, Travis, Brittany, Melody, Peter…the list goes on and on. This is where the collective boldness explodes…when the challenge of ahead of you is too great for one or a few people. When it takes an army. Yes, there is strength in numbers. Yes, there is power being in one accord.  Within any community rests all the giftings and strengths needed to accomplish the task at hand. This describes our community’s past 16 months. The dust is settling, and the old idiom rings truer than ever… “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

I would add, life together is a journey. Don’t miss the joy of a community pursuit when Jesus is the center. It’s what makes the journey worth it. The Fifth Ave House is just a building, with 4 walls and (leaky) roof. It has no heart, no soul in of it’s self. But when it’s filled to the brim with people alive and free, a collective boldness arises to be witnesses of Jesus. This is something worth fighting for. The destination is just the icing on the cake. The community journey is the main course. –  nate

We Need Each Other

Sometimes life gets really busy.

One sure way to prove this is to look back at your blog and realize you haven’t posted since September of 2012. Guilty as charged. Needless to say, lots of life has happened since then. It would be easiest to take the next paragraphs chronicle all the things we’ve been up to, but I feel the pull to attach some words to our community’s inward journey of the past 10 months. More about the heart stuff, not just the doing stuff.

First a little disclaimer: I (Nathan) am attempting to write on behalf of the whole crew, but of course its going to be bent towards my personal experience. Consider this a blog memoir of what I’ve witnessed, felt, and heard from my friends along the way.

The past 10 months has centered greatly around the process of finding, fundraising, buying, and renovating a big warehouse in downtown Knoxville.

(watch this video in case you have no clue what I’m talking about)
This journey has proven yet again how much we need Jesus.

 

This is what He’s been speaking to us along the way…

When God gives us dreams, they are often incomplete, dim (and disjointed) glimpses of the future. Its scary to share them with others because of fear of people thinking our dream is unlikely, impossible, or insignificant.
We must overcome this fear if we are ever to see dreams become reality. Why?

Because we need each other.

We can’t see in fullness. We only see in part. God did this on purpose. He loves it when His kids play together.

When we open up our dreams to our friends, actually inviting them to share what they see too, together our dim dream becomes a vibrant canvas, taking beautiful shape and color from the contribution of our friends. This dream now is something worth taking a risk and moving towards together. Everyone has a role to play. One Body, many members, right?
This is just the beginning. To move forward, we need each other more than ever to see the dream become reality.

Back in June of 2012, we returned from a UP trip to the England and Israel, and God started speaking. Will felt a tug on his heart to dig some more roots down in Knoxville. Since releasing Live at the Banks House back in November of 2010, we’ve increasingly received invitations to travel and share these simple songs with people all over the world. And of course we love it. But something was knocking on Will’s heart about it all…about how so much of the travel momentum we’re experiencing now all hinges around one night at the Banks House back in 2010. That was a real moment in time, but now becoming years ago. “We can’t continue to travel forever on yesterday’s experience with the Lord. We want to wholeheartedly pursue the Lord TODAY.”

So the call to pursue Jesus in the here and now was renewed again. Interestingly, we were out growing every living room we could find. By word of mouth alone, people were streaming into every space we’d move into. So we started to dream about a bigger home…a place that we could put down roots in our town for years to come. A home just like the Banks House, but way more room for more to join us in our pursuit of Jesus. A living room for 400 friends, not just 60 like the past.

One day Will mention he noticed a warehouse for sale near downtown Knoxville and how it’s probably a million dollars or something crazy. But we decided to check it out for fun. We did the whole peer in the windows/walk circles around the property thing, and got enough guts to call the realtor. In our most professional voice, we asked how much it was. To our surprise, $350,000 was the asking price. Still an insane amount of money to us, but psychologically way better than a million.

I should stop here. Too many details to share on a blog post.
But the moral of the story…Will had an outlandish dream. But he had the guts to share it with us, his friends. We sensed the Lord was up to something, and as a community, we started dreaming together about finding a bigger home. The faint vision started gaining some shape and form as each friend brought their unique perspective, ideas, and talents to the table. One month later, and wild idea emerged.

“Let’s launch a kickstarter to see if our idea wants to happen. If we reach our goal of $100,000, we might have enough to renovate the warehouse. Then, we might be able to convince a few foundations about our vision, and they will help us buy the building with cash. No mortgage.” 

Lots of maybes, what ifs, and mights. But that’s where God comes in. The Lord breathed the vision, yet the insanely amazing thing is that He actually loves to see His kids dreams come alive through the blood, sweat, and tears of our community. You, me, your friends are all “his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10)

A dream often starts in the secret place of people’s imaginations. But for it to become fully alive, it takes each other and whole lot of trust.

We grow closer. We risk. We fall. We get back up again. And God gets the glory seeing His sons and daughters fully alive along the way.

Fast forward to today. I just got a text message saying the fire sprinkler plans have been sent to the city fire marshal.
I didn’t write up the plans of course. I didn’t even know anyone who could do this. But my contractor friend Peter did. He told me we needed to talk to Gregor the architect  And he is conveniently friends with the Knoxville fire marshal who says we need a fire sprinkler system throughout the whole building to make it legal.
Just one of a hundred roles that it took to pull this off.

We will be moving into the building sometime this fall, probably 1 year exactly from our online fundraising campaign.
The journey continues…so honored to run with you all.

nate

30 Day Freefall

30 days or bust.”
“All or nothing.”

It has to be this way…30 days to raise $100,000, and if we fall short, nothing happens. To dream, especially publically, involves risk because it’s hoping and planning for a future with no guarantee of certainty, except this time, if we fail everyone will see it. To accomplish our goal of $100,000 in 30 days, we know there’s only one way.
To stare risk in the face and jump.
(its at http://www.indiegogo.com/bankshouse2 in case you haven’t seen it)

When we were children, dreaming wasn’t scary.
It was really the only thing we knew how to do.
Remember dreaming with no rules or limits?
Remember the little kid in you that could be anything you wanted to be when you grow up?

Hello tension.
It feels like a war going on inside us.
Kid vs. Grown Up, coming to you live on indiegogo.com“Hello world, we have a dream of converting a warehouse into a space for our generation to gather to worship Jesus. We need to raise a lot of money in a not many days.”

We feel like kids with a big dream, and can’t imagine our Father not wanting to make our dream happen. But then again, we’re grown up now, and we’ve all experience disappointment, missed expectations, failed dreams, mistakes, and pain.
The tension is scary.

Yesterday we jumped.
Now we have a 30 day freefall. Everything is in slow motion. In the air I turn my head and see a crowd of people watching. Some are mouthing the word “don’t jump.” Some are watching, wondering what will happen. Some are wondering why we’re jumping in the first place…what could possibly be below worth jumping for?
But I’ve already jumped. Its too late to turn back.
I’m not jumping alone though. Our whole community is jumping with us because of what we see when we close our eyes…something beautiful that’s worth jumping for. Something the crowd hasn’t seen. Yet.
And within the first 24 hours, many of you have already joined us in the air.

So for us, 30 days to $100,000 is jumping off a cliff, leaping for a future that we feel beating in our hearts. Its more then a building. It’s our passion to help make space for our generation to discover and experience the goodness and love of God all over again.

The math feels like a formidable opponent.
Yes, we raised $4,000 in the first 24 hours, but we need to do that for 29 more days. Yikes. Unfriendly voices in our head are saying there are sharp rocks at the bottom. We are choosing not to listen…instead, to believe in what we’ve seen.

We’re asking you to pray and see if this dream is a God idea, not ours.
And if the answer is yes, to jump with us…to jump believing what’s below is better than where we are now. To NOT base this decision around probability, but around the possibility of what could happen if we all jumped together.
Today, jumping means bringing your financial pledge to the table, and to share this dream with your world.

Anyone can look at the amount raised, and see how many days we have left, and think, “the odds don’t look to good, better wait and see.”
Welcome to the crowd.

Or you could jump with us, feeling the freedom of leaping for something bigger than ourselves. Something that takes God to see an impossibility bend. 
Let the kid inside win.

What if a movement grew out of this one dream?
A movement of reclaiming empty, unused space and re-purposing it for the Kingdom of God. Not just in Knoxville, but in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cape Town, London, Sydney, and beyond. Reclaiming space for the people of God to live and breathe as they family of God, inviting the lonely and orphan home.
Warehouses, homes, offices, empty lots…the world says we’re in recession, and space is costly. The Kingdom of God is never in recession though. It’s always on the move, making space for the hungry and thirsty to come inside and rest.

Let the freefalling continue.
Kid vs. Grown Up, Live from Indiegogo.com will continue airing for 29 more days. 
You can watch, or you can jump with us.

Finding the kid inside,
Nathan

p.s – jumping is more fun.

His Story

Found this in a old journal of mine this morning, dated May 2nd 2010.

Its a simple faith deceleration over our generation.
Stirs my heart again…

“God is raising up a people who will tell His story. They are full of God’s Spirit, flowing in creativity that this world hasn’t seen. This level of creativity has been entrusted to them by the Creator himself because they have given their lives as stewards of God’s Kingdom. They have died to the flesh, and a Holy pursuit has taken over them. Their King’s values and virtues are written in their hearts. They live and breath to do His will. Their perspective of life comes from above, and thus their discernment in this world is deadly accurate, deadly to the stronghold’s of the enemy. Ever person they come in contact with is seen through the eyes of love. Boundless creativity will be released to those who’s desire is to partner with God in drawing the nations to Himself. Its time for the Kingdom story to be told. Its time for the Kingdom to be fleshed out in every facet of society with breathtaking beauty, because we serve a beautiful God. Its time for the Church to come out of hiding and be filled with the Spirit of God, the great Spirit of Love. Movies will be made, songs will be crafted that will cast out confusion and awaken hearts to the never ending calling of their Father to come home. An army of lovers freely given to our Father’s will are gathering. Are you one of them?”

Bonheoffer

I rarely take a breath in and forget to exhale. Especially while reading a book. But with Bonhoeffer’s biography by Eric Mataxas, I guess this is my exception. (For those that don’t know, Bonhoeffer was a theologian, pastor, and author in Germany during WWII, and was eventually imprisoned and martyred for his faith.)

Wherever Bonhoeffer stepped, even in the darkest of prisons, people witnessed his constant joy. He lived and breathed peace. He was a man absolutely for others. He was a pastor, not by title alone, but at his core. Prisoners would find him and pull on his life, the life of Christ inside of him. On his last day on earth, Bonhoeffer’s fellow prisoners asked him to hold a church service, with one of the most vocal askers a professed atheist. He read from Isaiah 53:5 (“By His stripes, we are healed.”) and 1st Peter 1:3 (“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”)

Just as Bonhoeffer finished his closing prayer, a SS guard stormed in the prison, demanding Bonhoeffer relocate to another prison, which happened to be notorious for being a place to go die.  Bonhoeffer said his goodbyes to his prisoner friends, closing with these words.

“This is the end. For me, the beginning of life.”

This is where i forgot to exhale.

Because after 542 pages of this man’s life, i understood God had prepared him for this moment in time.
Reading the detailed process of Bonhoeffer’s relentless pursuit of Christ and willingness to follow when NO ONE else was has taken my breath away.
A hero, yes. But more than that. A prophet whose words live on, who stirs my heart to be willing to follow Jesus, even unto death.

Please read this book if you have sometime. Its long, heavy, and quite intimidating to read. And to finish was a long process, in which i almost gave up at various points.
But wow, I’m so glad I finished. His life is a prophetic call to live obedient to Christ above all else.

When the foundation of the German Church was crumbling at all sides be the relentless onslaught of lies from the Nazis,  Bonhoeffer held to the truth.
Religion can’t withstand these lies. On a true relationship with Christ is strong enough. Truth moved Bonhoeffer to risk everything. He did, and was hanged for it, requested by enraged Hitler himself two weeks before his suicide. But he died knowing it was now the beginning. The long walk to freedom was over. He had arrived.

Bonhoeffer wrote about “Religion-less Christianity.” He had a vision of faith in Christ without the dead works and empty traditions. Just Jesus.
And he was one of the few that stood up to the lies, and proclaimed the truth of Christ with boldness during WWII from within Germany.
May we learn from his story.

Finally, watch the author of the biography give an INCREDIBLE speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in D.C
It is well worth the 30 min video

For an introduction into Bonhoeffer’s books, read “Cost of Discipleship” – so good!
Here’s a quote from it.

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

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