"The God story is that He always is faithful
to glorify Himself, and we're in constant awe
of Him and how He works."
We sat with Nate and Liz Dunn, who are coming off of their latest release "The Daniel Song", to discuss times in life where God was present, as well as what it looks like to put together a song.
Interview by Caroline Gutierrez and Cody Cooksey
March 29, 2026
Tell us your favorite God story from your music ministry.
Nate – I think a lot of times this question goes to one specific thing that happened, but for us, we're going to talk about the fact that I think the biggest thing that we see God doing, and that He's done over the years, is that He's completely worked through all of our weaknesses, failures, impatience, lack of faith, mess, and our family—all that kind of stuff. We've seen Him be so incredibly faithful with His timing, with His kindness at the right time, chastening us and encouraging us, opening doors at the right time. We moved from Oregon to Arizona five years ago, and we left everybody that we knew in Oregon after 26 years of doing a ministry up there. There was a lot of worship. I was a worship pastor, and Liz was with me all the time. We were touring regularly and doing special events, things like that. So we had a band, friends, people—all that—and we moved to Arizona for some health reasons. There was a little bit of a desert season. The Lord has, in His perfect timing, as He’s healed Liz and taken us through some pretty significant things medically, He’s provided exactly the right people at the right time—a new producer, new musicians, friends. We’re still leaning on Him for a lot of those things. It's been His hand of providence in His timing, which is never our time, but is always perfect.
Liz – I'm going to say something similar. The God story for us is ongoing—just that God would do or make anything beautiful from us. We have confidence in His work in our lives, but we still are a mess. We don't have it together. He’s helped us grow in our marriage for twenty-eight years now, raise our kids to fall in love with Christ, and make beautiful music to glorify Himself. That's our prayer, and even though that's our goal, we are always getting in our own way and constantly causing problems for ourselves, making things difficult. The God story is that He always is faithful to glorify Himself, and we're in constant awe of Him and how He works. We want to be faithful, and He helps us be faithful. That's the story. It's ongoing. It never stops. We’re in constant awe.
What is the songwriting process like for you guys? Do you find an element of truth that you want to turn into a song, or do you find the melody first, how does it come to you?
Liz – We're both very different in how we write music, musically. I can't think of a time it ever started with music. Usually, it's the truth first, and then the way that the song comes or how it's built is different for both of us. Nate's a guitarist. He's been writing music a lot longer than I have. I met him, and he had written songs. We've been singing together for 30 years. I've always been an arranger. That's what I've always done—sing and arrange music—and then I just started writing music without planning. It was pouring out of me, but it always comes with the truth first. I'm reading God's Word and reading it out loud to meditate on it and to really proclaim it out loud. I didn't think that I was going to go out and read this and try to write a song. It's not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm reading it because I'm really having a hard time getting my emotions and my mind in line with what I know is true. Through prayer and reading Scripture, or meditating on a particular Scripture that I want to just wash over me, then the words and the music often come all at the same time—not just the melody, but everything, all at once. A song usually comes as a way to meditate. I want to let the truth of God's Word really saturate my emotions and my thought process. It's something I already believe and I confess, but I'm sure you can relate to the challenge of knowing what's true and living what's true, and then habitually thinking what's true in response to a circumstance. Obviously, on this side of heaven, there's a lot of breakdown there, which is why I'm always in His Word and praying, pleading with Him, “please transform my disordered thinking, my disordered emotions. I know this is true and I confess this about You,” and then the song comes out. I believe it's a gift from Him to help me keep it in the front of my mind. Singing doesn't make it more true; it doesn't make it more special to sing it. It’s a kindness of God that He made music. I mean, He had Moses write a song. He had lots of people write songs, but Moses wrote a very long song about the judgment that's going to come if you don't obey the law. It's like a tutor as well. It's something that I desperately need, and the Lord brings it, so I sing it to help meditate on it and bring myself into alignment with His glory of spirit. That's how music comes. Then I'll finish it with a name, writing out words or chord charts, things like that. I am very much on the production side as well. I'm not fluent in any instrument. I dabble in piano and guitar, so it's a little hard to build the songs out, but it's worth it in how I'll hear the colors. Not physical colors—it's not that I see them—but I use the word colors because when you have a melody, there are lots of chords that can go under a melody that will work. The chords can take you in different emotional directions. There are lots of different things that could work for a melody. The way I hear a song, there's one way, and I say this is the color, the feeling that I have. That's how I come up with chord charts and write hooks. Those are important to me, whether it's an instrumental or vocal hook, because they're an emotional memory thing that helps connect somebody with a song, make it more memorable, and engrave a truth. I like coming up with those as well. We both write, and that's how we write a song. Nate writes mainly from the guitar, but sometimes from the piano, and writes great music, and then I'll arrange it, or we'll finish arranging it together.
Nate - I would say we write a lot individually; we don't write very much together to start a song. Colossians 3:16. says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” So for us, Melody and TRUTH really exists and comes out of the devotional aspect of being in God's Word, and then typically a song will come directly out of that for either one of us. Whether that's pulling out my guitar, or whether it's Liz coming up with whatever the lyrics are, God giving her the tune, and her recording that in a little note on her iPhone, then we're coming back together. Every songwriter has years and years and years worth of stuff that they have never published or never done anything. For example, "The Daniel Song" is something that just came out, that's been percolating since 2009. Liz did a Bible study on the book of Daniel, and Daniel 2:20-23 was the memory verse. She sat down to work on the memory verse and sang it, and that's literally the melody and the song. She's revamped it a bit, because verse 23 is Daniel's response, thanking the God of heaven for telling him what the dream was. Obviously, that's maybe not something that you and I are gonna sing in church on Sunday, but Liz revamped it to be more of the mystery of Christ, and it fits really well, and it's something that we all can sing. At the end of the bridge it says “Like Daniel, we trust, in all things, at all times.” Just like Daniel did. So it's word for word scripture that we wanted to meditate on, and here it is in this song now, The Word of God going out, not returning void, right, coming to do and to accomplish what He wants it to accomplish. Most people will never know that's word for word, but it is, it's God's Word, which is Jesus, the Living Word, speaking about that. So that's where those things come from. There's this song that Liz wrote from Psalm 63, and it's word for word just Psalm 63. It's coming out some time this year, so just a lot of that kind of stuff where it's very devotional content, and we’re meditating on it because either she or I are personally into the scripture and asking the Word to help transform us. Then there's a song maybe given out with that.
Liz - I don't want to sing phrases that are misleading, confusing, or vague. Especially in a worship song, I want to say things that are clear. Everybody who reads the Bible and worships Jesus Christ knows what we're singing and agrees out loud wholeheartedly. I don't sing this phrase and think “I am not quite sure what it is. What are we singing? What does it mean?”
Give us your elevator testimony. You have one minute each to share the joy of salvation through Christ with someone in the elevator using your redemption story. What would you say?
Nate - I would say that from a very early age, I was fortunate and blessed that the Lord put me in a family where Jesus was worshiped. My mom taught me early on that I was unable to do all the right things. I was sinful, and that the answer to that issue in my life was that I needed a Savior. I was very young when I learned the sinners prayer, but I would say that when I was thirteen is when I realized I can't do this on my own. I don't have all the answers. I can't fix my own heart, let alone everything else that is going on in the world. That's where my faith became very personal to me, in trying to know Christ through His Word. All along the way now, at almost fifty years old, there’s lots of hurdles, starts, and stops, some bits of moving on, falling backwards, and challenges, all those things, but God has been faithful through all of it to hold me fast, to grow me and to lead me.
Liz - I have a similar beginning, in the sense that God put me in a family that really worshipped Christ. I heard the Gospel when I was being naughty. I remember one time when I was five, I had done something naughty and I was being disciplined, and I'm pretty sure they shared the Gospel with me pretty early on and it clicked. I felt bad, and I remember feeling like I understood who they were telling me God was, and that he forgave my sin. I was desperate to be forgiven. I prayed, I confessed my sin, and I asked the Father to forgive me and I placed my faith, as a five year old, in Christ. As I grew to read, I read in my own Bible and really grew in the Lord, reading His Word and knowing Him. I knew that I might not have been able to articulate it at five, but I'd been through a lot, even in a Christian home and growing up in Christ, I had just been through a lot and increasingly aware that I can't fix anything like Nate said. I can't even make things happen on my own, in my own life. I can't fix other people's problems, I can't fix the world's problems. I'm increasingly aware of that sinfulness and the brokenness, and that I need a Savior. I read God's Word and I believed every Word He said. I believe He's the one and only true God, and I'm thankful that He did what I couldn't do on the cross.
We talked about this a little bit, but your Daniel song was released a few days ago, what are your hopes for the song?
Liz - I was in a large Bible study at our church, and it was mostly older ladies. It was at least a couple hundred ladies, and I shared it with somebody and they said “you should teach that.” To this day, they still remember it, and they're excited that it’s out. I've been praying for the last several years, I really wanted it to be a worship song, and singing verse 23 verbatim isn't a worship song because we're not all Daniel. We didn't interpret the dream for King Nebuchadnezzar. All of Daniel’s prophecies point towards Christ, and we're like him in all these other ways. I've been praying for how to change that one last verse into something that's faithful to the verse, but something every Christian can say. A couple of years ago, it finally came to me. It was a memory verse song, but not a worship song. I realized that we can do this now. We’ve got to share this one day. So my hope is that it's shared far and wide, and that people are encouraged by the truth of God's Word, and whatever is stressing them out about the geopolitics of the world or the politics of their own home, that they would be so encouraged that God is sovereign, and also intimately involved in everything that's going on for His glory. We don't have to understand everything He's going to do and how He's going to do it. We want to have peace and believe in His Words, be encouraged by His words and His promises, and I hope that people are at least as encouraged as I am when singing it. I do fall into anxiety and fretting about things, even though I know I shouldn't, that's why I read my Bible and pray to be brought out of it. This is one of those passages that does that, and it encourages me to sing it out loud to the top of my lungs. I don't have to know all the other details to rejoice in that, and I hope that other people can have their perspective changed in that way through the power of His Spirit.
Nate - I’ll add that in the world, it seems to be getting more and more chaotic. This song calls people back to the truth, that God is the King over the kingdoms of the earth. There's not a single leader who's in charge who hasn't been allowed to be in charge, because God allowed it. There's not a single thing that's happening in the darkness that He doesn't know about, that He won't work His redemptive plan through. It's really an anthem of faith in God who's over all things and is sovereign.
Liz - It's easier to sing about that and think about it in regards to all the darkness we see and even perceive from political leaders or different things like that, things we know are going on. To me, it's even better than that, and more intimate than that, because we all have darkness in our lives, that is maybe not as fun to talk about or point out, but that is the grace of God, and the steadfast love of the Gospel, that He would come and rescue us, and bring us into the light. It's easier to think about getting everyone else fixed, fixing their problems and their darkness. What about me being dead in my sins? That Christ saved me? I live in the light with Him because of His work on the cross. I know we don't sing Jesus’ name in this. We're not singing about the cross, but it's pointing to it. That is the hope for the song. There's no hope outside of Christ. So it's both the hope for our personal problems, our personal state of being lost, and the world, all at the same time. He is the answer for everything.
What is your life verse?
Nate - Colossians 3:16 is a ministry one for both of us. One we continue to come back to. And then one that was actually in our wedding, Psalm 37:3-6 “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday.” It continues about not fretting, being still before the Lord, waiting patiently for Him to move. For both of us, we're go-getters. I own a business outside of ministry, so we're always like “What can we make happen?” Those are verses that just remind us that it's nothing. God's going to do what He wants to do, so we’re trying to constantly bring our desires in alignment with His words so that we can delight in Him, and then He can give us the desires of our heart, which are going to reflect what His desires are. So that may change exactly what we thought we wanted or needed, or the timing of it, but it's going to be what He wants, which will be a blessing. It's always better, whatever it is, it's always better.
Liz - The verse gets better and better the more you read through the scripture, because you can interpret scripture from the rest of scripture. It's all one person. It's Jesus speaking to us from the first verse to the end, and to delight ourselves in Him is something we can't do without His power. Everyone's desires are disordered. Giving us the desires of our heart obviously needs to align our heart with His heart, which is such a relief when He does it. I think about heaven a lot in regard to that, because in heaven, the struggle will be over in our flesh. The spirit will be in charge forever. Even though we are flesh and God made us flesh, and we're embodied people that God made, I don't want to say that flesh is nothing. The best part of heaven that I'm looking forward to is that struggle is over, that battle in Romans 7 and 8 that Paul talks about, It's done.
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