So who’s Nathan Dean?

I’m glad you asked (you did by the way when you clicked on this page)!

Like most people, who I am is a bit of a moving target, but there are some important consistencies.

I am someone whose life continues to be shaped, empowered, healed, and guided by the Higher Power I believe is best expressed and revealed through the person of Jesus.

I’m navigating life with the coolest wife and adventure partner anyone could hope for. We met on an adventure, drove each other crazy, found out we needed each other and we liked the crazy and we never left the adventure – we just change chapters every now and then.

I also get to be the dad to four of the most beautiful souls in the world – Oliver Finn, Lyra Grace, Harvey Samuel, and Nora Anne. Together we are helping each other learn what it means to love and live well.

I am a community minister and missional church starter who has spent years in both a poor white & Hispanic neighborhood and more years in a poor black and white neighborhood (that became less poor and less black over the years).  I have learned a ton through first-hand experience about racial reconciliation, engaging cycles of poverty, personal and community violence, drugs, alcoholism, mental disorder, abuse, and the simple but challenging road to redemption.

I am also human. I am a survivor of multiple types of trauma. I am familiar with wild depression, anxiety attacks, nightmares that don’t stop coming in the daylight, and wrestling both the demons who come as persistent whispers and the ones that rush in like a crushing tsunami – the ones that still don’t have adequate labels but that are almost universally known by survivors.

I can be a workaholic, partly because I love my work, partly because my demanding work demands it, and partly because I’m still learning to let go and to trust in God’s invisible hands instead of the insatiable gods of accomplishment, achievement, and production.

I love the outdoors. I love storms coming up over the ocean. I love the wind in my face. I love my wife’s smile and my children’s laughter. More than anything I love those unpredictable experiences of God’s presence and the gift of getting to see God effecting someone else’s life the way God has effected mine.

I am Nathan Dean