10 Reasons I’m hoping Pastor Ryan Mount will be free to preside over my wedding this Summer.

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Pastor Ryan Mount at his 2nd annual crawfish boil in Portland, bringing his Louisiana roots to the Pacific Northwest. He is the Executive Pastor at Mars Hill Portland.

He’s a busy man, and I have great options for Pastors who could do my wedding, but here are 10 reasons why Pastor Ryan is my top pick.

  1. When he talks about Jesus, there is a blood-urnest look in his eye that scares the crap out of me.
  2. He used to be a Navy lieutenant driving multimillion dollar ships around the world. At our church he is sometimes referred to as lieutenant Pastor.
  3. He’s from Louisiana, and within the first two weeks of meeting him I participated in my first crawfish boil per his enthusiastic request. (See photo above)
  4. Traveling around the world with the Navy, while his shipmates bought prostitutes, he bought presents for his future wife to give her on their wedding today, and that’s exactly what he did.
  5. I was the chauffeur for he and wis wife on their last wedding anniversary, and her constant refrain all day was, “Ryan, I am so glad you married me.”
  6. He and his wife let me live with them for 7 months, and invited me deep into their lives. My fears, doubts and anxiety about the possibility of marriage faded into the background of their display of grace with one another.
  7. He has cried in front of me more than once. He’s a hard man with a soft heart.
  8. He knows how to kill.
  9. I’ve had a front row seat to watching him passionately and faithfully help plant a growing church in the least churched city in America while growing his passion for Jesus and deepening his marriage.
  10. More than any friend I’ve ever had, he has modeled what it looks like to repent of sin and trust in Jesus often, and call others to do the same without fear. I have never learned so much from one person in such a short amount of time.

After getting lots of positive feedback on my engagement story, I’d like to make a few things clear.

First, I need Jesus. Not like, I used to need him, then I got him, now I don’t need him anymore. No, not like that. I still need him everyday. Why? Because I’m still a sinner. So, to my non-Christian friends, I’m not better than you. To my Christian friends, I’m not better than you. To those who have cheated on their wives, I’m not better than you. To those who had sex with their girlfriends before marriage, I’m not better than you. To the arrogant, the insolant, the pervert and the pagan, in the same way I think you need Jesus, I need him. Any Christian pretending to be better than anyone is behaving in a non-Christian manner. The whole premiss of our faith prevents us from acting better than others. We cheated on our God, murdered him, and though he rose from the dead and saved us from our sins, we continue to fail him everyday. We are better than nobody, and only better off than everybody because our God shows us grace in an unending and incessant pursuit of love that cannot be stopped. I’m not a holy man, but an unholy one clothed in the holiness of my God who died for my sins, and changes me everyday. As my Pastor likes to say, it’s not my job nor my goal to impose Jesus on anyone, but to propose him to everyone.

Second, because of God’s grace I’ve managed to pursue my fiancé in a manner that I can point to and say, “this is one of many awesome ways to do this well.” I haven’t walked the only path nor the best, but a real good one. I learned everything about this from Jesus and those who follow him, and I have been able to follow through because I relied on his Spirit to empower me and his people to look out for me. That’s how it works.

Third, it’s not over. I have a six month engagement and then a lifetime of marriage. I’m still going to need a community of Jesus-Butt-Kicking-People to rock my world from time to time. I still need to take all the emotional risk in our relationship as much as possible, and I still need to be praying and preparing for our future. This is far from over, and I’m just as dependent on Jesus right now as I ever was.

Last, I was single for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with being single, there’s something wrong with idolizing it. You get absolutely nowhere in ministry by trying to make yourself unattainably holy. There are legitimate reasons for being single, but if you’re not mature enough, rich enough, healthy enough or just generally not ready enough, then start working towards those things. Some of the best wisdom I received was that everyone is either called to celibacy or marriage. The problem is thinking that being called to marriage means you have a divine right to it, you don’t. I had to accept that, and I personally prepared myself as best and as fast as I could by God’s grace trusting that even if I never married, the spiritual growth that would come from preparing for it would be worth it because it would mean being closer to Jesus. To be honest, that’s how I’m still functioning. Jesus is my teacher, and I run out on him all the time and he is nothing but patient with me.

Jesus is the man, and he’s the point of all this.

I just want to make that clear if I can.

10 Reasons why my Dad will be my best man on my wedding day.

My father, Randy Nation. He is the senior Pastor at Woodford Community Christian Church in Versailles, KY.

My father, Randy Nation. He is the senior Pastor at Woodford Community Christian Church in Versailles, KY.

  1. He has been preaching the Gospel faithfully longer than I’ve been alive.
  2. He knows and loves me well.
  3. He is my oldest friend. We go way back.
  4. He is my best friend. He’s seen me at my worst, more than once, and is still my friend.
  5. He is one of the rare men who loves Jesus, stays faithful to his wife, loves his kids and has never failed to put his family before himself and provide.
  6. I can’t think of an athletic event from my childhood that he didn’t attend while cheering enthusiastically.
  7. He taught me how to hunt.
  8. He has baptized more people than I can remember, including me.
  9. I have never once in my life doubted that he would do anything for me.
  10. He has been my greatest theological teacher, starting with the doctrine of adoption. When I was 3 days old, he and my mom adopted me into their family.