Transcript
Speaker: Hello everybody, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
Speaker: I'm John, the host.
Speaker: Today's a little bit of a different episode because as you can tell, I have no guest, which is fine.
Speaker: I had been trying to get a guest in and it just wasn't working and I figured let's not force it.
Speaker: It's Christmas.
Speaker: Things are busy.
Speaker: So I'll just do it myself.
Speaker: If I look a little...
Speaker: bleary and groggy.
Speaker: It's because I recorded this episode once before and I didn't like it.
Speaker: So I was like, I want to record something else for you guys.
Speaker: Because what I had was kind of meh.
Speaker: So we're doing this again.
Speaker: Don't worry, you guys aren't missing out on anything.
Speaker: I'm taking all the good parts from the last episode and I'm putting them in here.
Speaker: And I'm leaving out all the bad, awkward stuff.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So there was a couple things I wanted to do this episode.
Speaker: It's going to be our last episode of the year.
Speaker: I'm going to take a break through Christmas because Christmas is always very busy for my family.
Speaker: Christmas, we have like three birthdays.
Speaker: Oh gosh, four birthdays now between Christmas and like the first half of January.
Speaker: And then we have Christmas and New Year's and all that stuff.
Speaker: You guys get it.
Speaker: You all have families.
Speaker: I hope.
Speaker: I hope I don't have anybody listening without a family.
Speaker: If you do, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Anyways, but yeah, so there's a lot of stuff going on over Christmas.
Speaker: So I'm taking a break during that time.
Speaker: We're going to come back probably middle of January.
Speaker: I'm not setting a super hard deadline on that, but it will be for sure by like the third week of January.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Today, I just wanted to take a little bit of time and talk about a couple of my favorite movies of the year, actually, and one of the recurring themes that I saw in that, in those two movies, because I thought that would be fun to talk about.
Speaker: And then I also just want to chat a little bit about...
Speaker: cool things that have been happening with Artists of the Way this year and kind of what we're looking at next year and just some of my heart moving into the next year with Artists of the Way.
Speaker: So first thing I want to chat about, like I said, two of my favorite movies this year.
Speaker: So I love movies, if you didn't know.
Speaker: I used to want to go into making movies and
Speaker: It's a big, big passion of mine.
Speaker: Uh, just isn't where God took my life, but I always try and see good movies in theaters.
Speaker: If I can, that's important to me.
Speaker: I'm not always able to, I haven't been able to as much the last couple of years, um, cause of COVID and life and money and, and things like that.
Speaker: But I was able to get to see a few more this year, which was really cool.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: The last two that I saw really quite possibly the two that are in contender for my favorite movie of this year so far.
Speaker: Sorry, I might have awkward drink breaks this time because I don't have a guest to fill in the time where I would drink.
Speaker: But those movies were The Creator, which is a sci-fi movie by the director Gareth Edwards.
Speaker: he did the 2014 Godzilla movie and, uh, rogue one are the two films of his that I've seen.
Speaker: I know he did other smaller movies as well that I'm sure were quite good.
Speaker: Cause he's a very good director.
Speaker: Um, and the premise of the creator, it's, it's kind of a standard sci-fi robots type thing.
Speaker: Um, which if you're not into sci-fi bear with me, cause there, there are cool themes in this.
Speaker: Um, I think, I guess maybe there aren't, but I thought there were, um,
Speaker: But the premise is there's this dude, he was in the army.
Speaker: And he's basically tasked with hunting down the creator of AI.
Speaker: Because there's a war now between robots and humans.
Speaker: As you do, you know, you see a robot, you want to shoot it.
Speaker: And so they're doing that thing.
Speaker: And his journey throughout that, it plays with a lot of interesting themes, which I'll get to shortly.
Speaker: Basically, he ends up running into, in his quest, he finds this weapon, quote unquote, that the artificial intelligence made.
Speaker: And it's this, basically a child.
Speaker: It's a child robot.
Speaker: And so he has this weird ethical dilemma of like, oh, that's a kid.
Speaker: Are they really real?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I've been killing a lot of these things if they're real.
Speaker: And so that's kind of our tension point there.
Speaker: And then the second one... Again, I'm sorry if you don't like sci-fi.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I like sci-fi fantasy.
Speaker: But the second one is Godzilla Minus One.
Speaker: And I know I said this with the last movie, but if you don't like sci-fi, please, especially with this one, bear with me.
Speaker: Because, my gosh.
Speaker: Holy cow.
Speaker: Such a good movie.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: It could have not had Godzilla in it, and it would have been still amazing.
Speaker: If you don't know any of the history of Godzilla, Godzilla was a Japanese-created monster film from the 50s, and originally it was really the...
Speaker: the director and some of the Japanese people kind of unpacking their fear around nuclear weapons, around having been nuked by Hiroshima, and the war and all of that.
Speaker: Godzilla is kind of a metaphor for all of that in the original film.
Speaker: And then since then, he I mean, that's not to say the original movie wasn't a B movie.
Speaker: It was it was a
Speaker: B-movie monster movie, but it had a lot of interesting themes it was playing with.
Speaker: And then it kind of just, you know, became a whole bunch of different stuff.
Speaker: Godzilla became a superhero.
Speaker: Godzilla fought King Kong.
Speaker: America did a not great reboot in the 90s.
Speaker: And then we have all the wonderful CGI-filled Godzilla movies today, which I really enjoy.
Speaker: Most of them.
Speaker: One of them I don't like, but...
Speaker: But this one is a foreign film.
Speaker: It's written and directed by and stars completely a Japanese cast.
Speaker: It's in Japanese.
Speaker: There's not even a dub.
Speaker: You have to watch it with subtitles.
Speaker: But it takes it back to that 1950s setting or 1940s where it's like five or so years after World War II.
Speaker: And what it does with its characters is fascinating.
Speaker: And it could have just been a story about the Japanese people after World War II and these specific characters and the trauma that they're dealing with and the way they're trying to rebuild their lives.
Speaker: Honestly, that is what the movie's about.
Speaker: It's just, and then a giant monster walks in and they have to deal with that too.
Speaker: But I mean, just the way that it works thematically is great.
Speaker: And I'll get into that in a minute.
Speaker: I'm going to try really, really hard not to spoil these movies.
Speaker: I think you should go see them if you can, especially Godzilla Minus One, because that one legitimately might be the best movie I've seen this year.
Speaker: There's a couple other contenders, but it was good.
Speaker: So I'm going to try and stay away from spoilers.
Speaker: But I just wanted to talk about some of the themes because I think there's some themes that would resonate with what we're talking about with being artists and Christian artists looking for the beautiful and the truthful and the good in today's world.
Speaker: I think these are two movies that, as far as I know, don't approach these things from a Christian perspective and yet really end up
Speaker: very firmly, I think, planting themselves into Christian ethics.
Speaker: And that was fascinating to me, watching them both back to back.
Speaker: I was leaving the theater with both of them, just like with so many thoughts.
Speaker: So the main thing that kind of unifies these two movies, and the reason I wanted to talk about both of these, is they put a lot of emphasis on...
Speaker: the value and worth of human life.
Speaker: Now, there's a caveat to that with the creator where you have to kind of suspend your disbelief a little bit in order to buy the themes of the movie and believe that robot life is also human life.
Speaker: I had no trouble doing that because I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars and I'm like, yeah, robots are humans and sentient and, you know,
Speaker: they're created in God's image too, right?
Speaker: So for me, that wasn't really an issue, but you do have to be able to do that in order to buy into it.
Speaker: And then Godzilla minus one also puts a lot of emphasis on the value and worth of a human life and the way that we tend to cheapen that today.
Speaker: I'll get to that in a second because I'm going to start with the creator.
Speaker: So
Speaker: As I said, the creator plays with this using robots kind of as analogs for humanity.
Speaker: And the thing I thought was most interesting with the creator, as far as the topic of like the dignity of human life, is basically there's this event that happened and humanity then goes to war against the AI, believing the AI did this, and
Speaker: believing that that means AI is now basically evil and wants to destroy Earth or conquer Earth, you know.
Speaker: I think there's some of the light classic, oh, they're the next evolved species, so, you know, we're trying to fight against people that are stronger than us type thing.
Speaker: But there's not really any...
Speaker: humanity given to them, which is a fair assumption because they're robots.
Speaker: But when you go into this movie, first of all, first of all, I think across the board, the movie does a great job of humanizing all of its characters, right?
Speaker: There's not, that's not true.
Speaker: There's maybe one character where you look at and you're like, that guy is a jerk just to be a jerk.
Speaker: There's maybe one character in this massive ensemble.
Speaker: But it's a wonderful cast.
Speaker: Every single character
Speaker: on every side of this conflict, and everyone that's working with and against our protagonist in the various directions he ends up going in his journey has genuine human reasons for doing what they're doing, which is really was cool to see.
Speaker: It was not like, these are the good guys, these are the bad guys.
Speaker: There is a clear side that you're rooting for, but you also really understand where the people you're rooting against are coming from.
Speaker: Which is not what's happening at the start of the movie with our protagonist.
Speaker: And that's very interesting.
Speaker: He very much does not value the lives of his enemies.
Speaker: And that gets challenged.
Speaker: And the way that gets challenged is imposing the question, can you be sure that the robots that you're putting on standby, he says, I'm just putting them on standby.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: Can you be sure that that's not a life that you're taking?
Speaker: Obviously, you know, if you want to talk about the ethics of AI and stuff, you can.
Speaker: But to me, what I found interesting in that was I feel like that's basically what we do to the people we disagree with a lot of times.
Speaker: I think it's especially easy in the digital era.
Speaker: And we've talked about that a little bit, right?
Speaker: If it's just words on a Facebook page, it's way easier to just be like, whatever, that's a Democrat, that's a Republican.
Speaker: That's a, you know, this, that, or the other thing.
Speaker: It's too early for me to come up with other things there than the easily grabbable Republican and Democrat.
Speaker: But it is really easy to just hide them behind the label.
Speaker: And that's what the protagonist in that movie does constantly.
Speaker: And it goes through this really interesting journey through what happens to the robots that he's fighting, as well as what happens to, or maybe not fighting all the time, because he finds this kid.
Speaker: What does he do with that?
Speaker: And then what happens to the other human soldiers in this movie?
Speaker: And just some really dehumanizing ways that they're treated.
Speaker: I think the movie really takes time to say, okay, is this how we should be operating in the world?
Speaker: Should we be operating with so much war?
Speaker: Should we be operating with such an easy, you're my enemy, I'm not going to engage with you type mindset?
Speaker: And I found that really interesting and affecting for me.
Speaker: I was kind of thinking through some of those things when I saw it too.
Speaker: But I think it paints that really beautifully.
Speaker: And then the other theme with that one that I really loved was this theme of, I think, a very Christian theme, love overcoming death and war and...
Speaker: the evil that man can do.
Speaker: And I can't get into that theme too much without spoilers.
Speaker: I'm going to do my best to vaguely give you an idea of that.
Speaker: But I mean, it was very clear that the good things that were happening were coming out of the love that people had for each other and the love actions of love.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And there was this unrelenting force of war throughout the movie.
Speaker: It felt like the war was always coming for you.
Speaker: You weren't safe from it, right?
Speaker: This is a lot of anxieties we have, I think, today.
Speaker: Where it seems like new things are popping up every day.
Speaker: And it was like, oh, you know, it was just this unrelenting force constantly going after you.
Speaker: And it seemed too big to really be able to get your hands on and tackle that.
Speaker: But there is throughout the film this beautiful, simple through line of love between what characters.
Speaker: I will leave you to find out if you haven't already surmised.
Speaker: But that love ends up winning the day.
Speaker: And I think it was a really beautiful way to frame...
Speaker: Some of the suffering that we see in the world versus what ultimately wins the day is Christ's love.
Speaker: And that is so powerful that it can't be stopped.
Speaker: And I thought that was a really optimistic, beautiful...
Speaker: uh, lovely theme that I feel like we don't get to see a lot of that type of theme in big budget Hollywood filmmaking today.
Speaker: And so I really enjoyed seeing that.
Speaker: I would highly recommend you check it out.
Speaker: It is kind of an unwieldy film.
Speaker: Uh, the script is a little messy and pulling all of these things together, but the characters and the performances are wonderful.
Speaker: And visually it is hands down the best movie I have seen all year.
Speaker: The visuals are spectacular.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: The cinematography is amazing.
Speaker: So if you are at all a lover of framing or beautiful, well thought out visual effects, everything in that movie looks real.
Speaker: You can tell they took their time with it.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: So that's the creator.
Speaker: Now I'm going to move on to Godzilla, which I just recently saw.
Speaker: So that one's a little more fresh in my mind.
Speaker: I'm having an intellectual discussion with you guys about Godzilla.
Speaker: I love this.
Speaker: This just plays into, I love pop culture.
Speaker: And I know there's a lot of bad in pop culture, but really, there is a lot of good to be found as well.
Speaker: And I love when you can see great, beautiful, truthful, Christ-like themes in these popular films.
Speaker: And I love, as a creator, getting to see these rich things present.
Speaker: put into a crazy bombastic sci-fi or fantasy movie and getting to explore those things there.
Speaker: Because on the one hand, it's so much bigger than anything that we're, you know, experiencing.
Speaker: It's fantastical and crazy.
Speaker: But on the other hand, it can just be so raw and human.
Speaker: And that is what Godzilla is.
Speaker: I just saw it like two days ago.
Speaker: So that's why I'm kind of in geek out mode with it.
Speaker: But
Speaker: So I mentioned the premise is it's bringing it back to World War II.
Speaker: Let's go back, baby.
Speaker: That time was great.
Speaker: It wasn't great.
Speaker: But that was where Godzilla originally originated from.
Speaker: And so I was very interested in this idea of bringing Godzilla back to its roots and using it as like a horror monster and seeing, okay, what's it going to, what's the anxiety of that going to be?
Speaker: And again, I was just struck by how profoundly optimistic a movie this was.
Speaker: I just think I'm used to when we're getting rich artistic movies, it means they're probably going to be cynical in some way or at least melancholy.
Speaker: And this movie was so incredibly optimistic.
Speaker: I was like, wow, I was very impressed.
Speaker: So again, I'm going to try and avoid spoilers as much as I can.
Speaker: I'm going to give you the basic framework of what we're dealing with character wise.
Speaker: So again, if you want to go into this movie, only off of my recommendation, which I am heartily giving, then, you know, and want to know nothing, then, you know, maybe jump to, I'll put a time code in there when I'm talking more about other not movie things.
Speaker: So the premise, it's World War II, and our main character is a kamikaze pilot who, at the start of the film, I don't think this is a spoiler because it's the first thing you see, he lands his plane and is saying that there's something wrong with it, even though there's not.
Speaker: So he is avoiding his duty of suicide, essentially.
Speaker: It's a very heavy topic.
Speaker: And this is the thematic core of this movie.
Speaker: Things happen.
Speaker: He ends up not quite performing his duty.
Speaker: And you're never really clear about, okay, is that... Does the film think that's good or not?
Speaker: You're not 100% clear until the end.
Speaker: But he ends up not performing his duty.
Speaker: of crashing his plane and kind of sacrificing his life for his country.
Speaker: And that then becomes something that he has to work through through this whole film.
Speaker: And the question that he has to deal with is constantly, was that okay for me to do?
Speaker: And the inherent...
Speaker: The inherent answer for him, based out of his culture, kind of the honor-shame culture in Japan, the way the government kind of viewed its people, at least the way the film frames it, was, no, that was not okay.
Speaker: How dare you try and preserve your life in that way?
Speaker: You were told that this was what your life was for, and you stepped away from your duty.
Speaker: That is his self-narrative.
Speaker: When he returns home, he ends up finding this woman who has adopted this child.
Speaker: And she doesn't have anywhere to go either.
Speaker: And so the three of them end up kind of rebuilding their life together.
Speaker: And then Godzilla shows up.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: I'm telling you, this is a raw, beautiful look at humans and the value of human life.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: What that all means.
Speaker: And it's all in the trappings of a Godzilla movie.
Speaker: So I'm just pulling up my thoughts again because I'm trying to stay somewhat orderly.
Speaker: The basic track of the movie...
Speaker: is to learn that life is valuable.
Speaker: Every moment and every scene works around this theme of does the life we have have worth or no?
Speaker: And I was just so struck by that.
Speaker: I was moved to tears multiple times because this film constantly reaffirms the value and dignity of human life.
Speaker: every single time.
Speaker: And I thought that was fascinating because again, kind of like the creator, you have this giant relentless force, which in this case is a giant irradiated dinosaur called Godzilla.
Speaker: But you have this giant force of nature that does not care about human life in any way.
Speaker: It does not care about the individual people that you're seeing.
Speaker: in this film.
Speaker: And you feel small.
Speaker: And this monster is devastating.
Speaker: Like the way they captured it is wonderful and terrifying.
Speaker: I was on the edge of my seat, literally.
Speaker: I was like gripping Shay's hand throughout the entire third act of the movie.
Speaker: And during our, oh my gosh, our first big encounter with Godzilla.
Speaker: as this gigantic, irradiated, terrifying thing is a terrifying encounter.
Speaker: And you feel the smallness of humanity in the face of the horribleness of evil and the fall.
Speaker: And it was terrifying.
Speaker: But in the midst of this giant, unbeatable, terrifying, lifeless-looking thing, its eyes are terrifying.
Speaker: Totally lifeless.
Speaker: It sends chills down my spine.
Speaker: But in the midst of this, the film is constantly saying, no, human life is worth everything.
Speaker: Which is, of course, what Christ said.
Speaker: Human life was worth his death and resurrection that he could give us the opportunity of salvation.
Speaker: It's such a pro-life movie.
Speaker: I don't want to go too much more into it.
Speaker: I could.
Speaker: But everything else I would want to talk about would have to talk about the third act and would have to talk about spoilers.
Speaker: But it is, the film is just this wonderful war between the main character's guilt and...
Speaker: And belief that he should have died.
Speaker: And that if he had died, maybe everything would be better.
Speaker: Maybe a giant dinosaur wouldn't be smashing buildings.
Speaker: And another narrative that says your life matters.
Speaker: It absolutely matters.
Speaker: One of my favorite lines.
Speaker: Favorite lines.
Speaker: Which is not a spoiler.
Speaker: It's not from our main character.
Speaker: It's from two side characters.
Speaker: One who had been in the war and one who hadn't.
Speaker: And it's kind of really idolizes people who are in the Navy or in the Air Force.
Speaker: He's adorable.
Speaker: Every time he sees a soldier or something, he's just like, oh my gosh, you were in the war.
Speaker: You're so cool.
Speaker: And this guy really wants to fight Godzilla.
Speaker: And this beautiful line is said,
Speaker: It is an honor.
Speaker: No, not an honor.
Speaker: Not being in the war is something to be proud of.
Speaker: Not having to fight that is something to be proud of.
Speaker: And that was such a profound narrative that was very anti-everything we're fed as Americans.
Speaker: Not to say I don't respect the people who have given their lives for our country to have the freedoms they do.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I respect people that have gone into the military and any branch of the armed forces.
Speaker: I know that that's a sacrifice, and I really respect that sacrifice.
Speaker: But I thought that's a beautiful thing to say.
Speaker: That's something to be proud of.
Speaker: Because ultimately, when we look at...
Speaker: right the track god has us on he doesn't have us on track for a war that's not the future kingdom we're promised he's going to come and he will handily defeat satan and crush him under his feet and put an end to everything right but and this was something i struggled with as a as a young kid growing up who wanted to be handed a sword and go fight bad guys but
Speaker: The war is not something we're necessarily going to partake in.
Speaker: Everything that the Bible says seems to describe us rising up from the dead and seeing God going and ending war himself single-handedly.
Speaker: Christ coming from the clouds with a sword coming out of his mouth, looking super awesome.
Speaker: And we're going to do nothing.
Speaker: We just get to receive the gift of peace.
Speaker: And we get to receive the future and eternity.
Speaker: And that's mind-boggling to me.
Speaker: And that is what these characters are trying to do in this film for this young man.
Speaker: And it's beautiful and lovely and so reaffirming of human life that it's worth... Human life is for more than just cannon fodder to throw at our problems.
Speaker: Every human is worth...
Speaker: caring about.
Speaker: And neither of the movies know why.
Speaker: We know why.
Speaker: Because we are made in the image of God, right?
Speaker: We reflect his personhood.
Speaker: And because of that, we have inherent worth.
Speaker: And we have inherent worth because we're loved by God.
Speaker: Neither of those films know that.
Speaker: I don't think.
Speaker: I don't think either of the directors know that.
Speaker: Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker: But my goodness, do they preach it.
Speaker: My goodness, does that theme just permeate both of these films.
Speaker: And I thought that was really, really wonderful.
Speaker: These themes of fear and war and love, love and human dignity come out on top.
Speaker: And of course, they come out on top, because those are core to who God is.
Speaker: He loves, he is love, and he loves us humans.
Speaker: I thought that was really lovely.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And it does, both of them do a great job of contrasting those with our fallen nature as humans.
Speaker: And kind of everything that we could fear.
Speaker: So I just wanted to share those thoughts with you guys.
Speaker: Give you some interesting thematic things to chew on.
Speaker: And a couple recommendations for you.
Speaker: If you can handle sci-fi violence, the creator is a little bit more grisly.
Speaker: Other than one scene, Godzilla Minus One is pretty not grisly, but Godzilla Minus One is way more emotionally raw and true to life, I think.
Speaker: There's times where I forgot completely about the monster and I was just watching these people rebuild.
Speaker: But my gosh, a beautiful movie.
Speaker: I highly recommend both of them.
Speaker: Water break.
Speaker: So we're going to move now to kind of talking about Artists of the Way.
Speaker: If you guys have any thoughts about anything with the movies that I talked about or any questions, comment or shoot me a message.
Speaker: I'd love to chat with you guys about them because I love talking about movie themes.
Speaker: It's like one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker: So the other thing I was thinking about in this end of year podcast is just...
Speaker: A couple different things.
Speaker: Over the last couple months have really been reflecting on you guys, the people who listen to these episodes.
Speaker: We have about 40 to 50 people that listen every episode.
Speaker: That's mind boggling to me.
Speaker: But it's such a privilege to be able to create this and put this out and give it to you and have people that are consistently listening and that benefit from this.
Speaker: I'm so moved by that.
Speaker: I really am.
Speaker: And I, first of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving like an hour of your life every couple of weeks to these conversations that I'm putting out.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I really am just so grateful that God decided to use this in some way.
Speaker: I wanted to do it for a couple years, and it's beautiful that it's kind of found a niche and that there's people that are benefiting from it in the ways that I hoped that they would.
Speaker: That's been really meaningful to me.
Speaker: And also, thank you to all of the guests that have been on.
Speaker: We're at, I think this is our 16th episode.
Speaker: So for these last 16 ones, especially the ones that didn't know me, that were kind of taking a chance on this new podcast just because they thought the things that were being tackled in it were worthwhile and valuable.
Speaker: So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker: That really, that matters a lot to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As I've been reflecting on the community and where Artists of the Way is going to go in 2024, I feel like God's been laying some things on my heart.
Speaker: And so I want to kind of share those with you and kind of tell you what we're going towards coming up here.
Speaker: He has made it very clear to me that in this next year, the kind of
Speaker: artistic, I guess, vocational thing he wants me focusing on is artists of the way.
Speaker: Um, like that's, that's the side project that I feel like he's inaugurating.
Speaker: So I'm carving out some more time in my life to put more time into this, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker: Some of that is from necessity because as you know, I've been talking about it a lot the last couple months.
Speaker: We're doing Godspell next year.
Speaker: So that necessarily is going to take up some more time in my life.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But on top of that, there's just some other things I've been chewing on with the podcast, with Artists of the Way, really, as an organization that I want to do next year.
Speaker: A lot of that has to do with my heart for community.
Speaker: I talked about this a little bit in the opening episode, but...
Speaker: One of the things that was really important to me about Artists of the Way, and as I was thinking about whatever Artists of the Way was going to be, was the idea of community and church-like community.
Speaker: One of the competing names for this, which if you look on our Instagram, it's still the username for it, was Artists Ecclesia.
Speaker: Ecclesia, if you don't know, excuse me, my voice is getting a little, little gravelly.
Speaker: It's early in the morning.
Speaker: I'm just getting a cool like country film protagonist voice.
Speaker: We're going to talk like this for the rest of the episode.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Reign it in, John.
Speaker: Going to take a quick drink of water here.
Speaker: Okay, so Ecclesia is the word in the Bible that we now translate as church.
Speaker: When I was thinking about everything that Artists of the Way was going to be, Ecclesia kept coming back to mind, and I was doing a study on Ecclesia.
Speaker: My wife and I were trying to figure out what church we were going to, what exactly that was supposed to look like.
Speaker: I was thinking about it for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: So I did a deep study on Ecclesia every time it appears in the Bible, what it's talking about.
Speaker: And I did a word study on it.
Speaker: And Ecclesia doesn't actually mean church.
Speaker: It means community or gathering.
Speaker: Specifically, it means gathering.
Speaker: But a lot of times it can refer to community.
Speaker: And I, for a while, one of the soapboxes I can get on is that the church needs to get back to that very universal view Christ had of Ecclesia, of his gathering, of his people.
Speaker: I'm very much a fan of the heart behind the ecumenical movement, and
Speaker: and like the idea of a united church.
Speaker: If I could see the unification of the church to be the one church that Christ inaugurated, I would love that.
Speaker: For us to finally live up to his prayer to Christ, or to God.
Speaker: He's not praying to himself.
Speaker: In a way he kind of is.
Speaker: Trinity's confusing.
Speaker: But his prayer to God that
Speaker: We as the church would be one as he and the Father are one.
Speaker: That's really near and dear to my heart.
Speaker: I don't think I'm going to see the unification of the church in my lifetime, but it would be awesome if I did.
Speaker: But an area where I have seen that really beautifully is in the arts.
Speaker: There's something about having a story to tell
Speaker: that has allowed people from all different denominations, from very different doctrinal leanings, to be able to put those aside and say, okay, we can find unity in the fact that we believe that Jesus is Lord and that he came to save us from our sins, defeated death for us, and has secured eternity for us.
Speaker: We're going to surround on that and tell this story we think is important.
Speaker: I have seen art, especially theater, but art, do that in a way I haven't really seen anything else do.
Speaker: Not to say that can't happen.
Speaker: I just haven't really seen it anywhere else than in art.
Speaker: But my gosh, I've seen it a lot in art.
Speaker: So that is just for me a very core important thing that art is something wherein the church can come together to tell stories to reflect God's beauty and truth to the world and co work together as the body of Christ as the one church.
Speaker: Maybe that would lead to the unification of the church.
Speaker: I don't think it probably will.
Speaker: I don't think it'd be cool if we could just get all the denominations together and be like, let's all do paint by numbers and then we'll be happy and unified.
Speaker: I don't think that would ever happen.
Speaker: But I do hope that the church sometime can find unity in the fact that we're all telling the story of Christ.
Speaker: God become man to save us.
Speaker: Because that's the story we tell every day.
Speaker: Or should tell every day.
Speaker: through our lives through the way we live.
Speaker: So anyways, I was looking at this artistic community.
Speaker: And I was like, I kind of want to create something that can be
Speaker: A hub, I guess, that's almost too ambitious, but just a place where people can come for resources and for fellowship, to fellowship with each other, to encourage each other, to disciple each other, to help each other grow artistically and spiritually.
Speaker: And the podcast has already had a role in doing some of that with some different people I've talked to, which has been wonderful and beautiful and shocking to me, but I've been very grateful for.
Speaker: But going into the next year, that's something I have a keen eye on.
Speaker: So I want to be able to foster a little bit more the spaces for you as the audience who listens to this podcast, as the community that's really around this podcast,
Speaker: around artists of the way to be able to go to and engage and, um, ask questions and talk to each other and talk to me.
Speaker: I want to hear what you guys' thoughts are on episodes.
Speaker: I want to hear if you guys have questions or further insights.
Speaker: I, for every hour of conversation I have on a topic, there could be countless hours more because there's so many other viewpoints, so many other, um,
Speaker: things that we just haven't considered.
Speaker: So outside of Godspell and regular podcast episodes, I'm going to be putting time into trying to create something that's easy for you guys to use.
Speaker: It's not going to be like a social media and I'm not like coding anything.
Speaker: I'm going to utilize things that already exist, but I want to be able to foster that space and
Speaker: for creative flourishing and spiritual fellowship and discipleship.
Speaker: One of the ways that I'm looking at doing this is using the platform Patreon, which Houston Coley talked about a little bit in our episode with him.
Speaker: And that was what kind of got me thinking about how it could be used as a community tool.
Speaker: But Artists of the Way is going to be
Speaker: looking into getting a Patreon going in January.
Speaker: If you don't know what Patreon is, let me explain it to you because there is a little bit more than just that it can be a space for community because it is.
Speaker: That's not necessarily what it's designed for, but I think it could be really helpful for that.
Speaker: And I'm looking forward to experimenting with it and seeing how that works and if that works and if you guys enjoy that.
Speaker: But Patreon basically is an online platform.
Speaker: that is there for people to be able to create things and put them out for their audience.
Speaker: And then we can set up different tiers basically of where people can subscribe.
Speaker: That's the word.
Speaker: I described this one so much better on the last podcast.
Speaker: But basically, the idea behind it is the old classic patronage of artists, where, I mean, we saw this a lot with the church, the church would have a patron art would know would be the patron to an artist, they would pay them, the artist would get to make their art, and also make some things that the church wanted them to make.
Speaker: And I think it was a great system that we should go back to.
Speaker: But Patreon is kind of about that.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: My goal with the Patreon, and I'm going to talk more about this in January because I'm in very pretty early phases about praying about it and planning it out.
Speaker: But I want to launch it early next year.
Speaker: The goal is that one, it can be an easy go to space for community where podcasts will be going out there.
Speaker: Any of my like weekly musings that are in the newsletter will go out there as well.
Speaker: I'll maybe post on there.
Speaker: I would like to get a conversation going on there that you can come and continue discussing with each other and with me things from the episodes.
Speaker: And then I also want to utilize it to help cover some of the costs of the podcast because the podcast costs about $50 a month.
Speaker: Overall, $50 to $60 a month overall to be able to put on in the way that I'm doing it.
Speaker: I probably could cut some costs if I wanted to, but the funds all go to, I think, creating a high quality podcast and quality is important to me.
Speaker: So I want to make sure this is as good an experience for you guys as well.
Speaker: So I'm going to be setting up some payment tiers as well.
Speaker: To be able to get into the community side of things, that's going to be free.
Speaker: Like that won't have a cost to it.
Speaker: And then I'll have like $5, $10, $15 tiers.
Speaker: They're not going to be huge.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: with different things available for each one.
Speaker: So I'm hoping to be able to produce some more artists of the way things I might do some things like this, where if you enjoyed listening to my unfiltered thoughts about these movies, um,
Speaker: I have unfiltered thoughts about art all the time and thoughts about how you can see the beauty of God in things that the artist maybe didn't intend for that to be there.
Speaker: And, you know, I play video games and watch movies and watch shows and read books all the time.
Speaker: So some things might be things like this where it's kind of unfiltered thoughts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some of it might be getting the opportunity to contribute to an episode or suggest episode ideas.
Speaker: Things like that would be things that would come along with you being a Patreon subscriber who gives money to the podcast to be able to keep going.
Speaker: Not that it's at risk of stopping.
Speaker: I just want to make it a little more sustainable for myself and my family.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but the thing I'm really excited about that is not getting money.
Speaker: It's really the community aspect.
Speaker: I'm excited at the opportunity to be able to expand our community and grow that and hopefully engage with you guys more because I genuinely really, I've gotten to talk to some of you guys and that's great, but I want to know what you guys' thoughts are about these conversations that I'm having because I know that they're out there and I know that there's
Speaker: People that listen and then are like, oh, I want to talk to people about this, but I can't.
Speaker: And so I want to be able to not just have conversations with people on the air, if you will, that I put out towards you guys.
Speaker: I want to actually...
Speaker: I want to foster discussion between all of us.
Speaker: That's a goal of mine.
Speaker: So that, outside of God's Belt, is probably the biggest thing that we're looking at in 2024 for Artists of the Way.
Speaker: We are also going to be doing some kind of acting, either acting class or acting workshop.
Speaker: I did an acting class this past year that I taught.
Speaker: which had like 20 some students.
Speaker: It was a huge class.
Speaker: Huge thanks to my assistant teacher, Lorna Torres, because my head would have exploded if she was not there helping me with this giant class.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: that was really cool.
Speaker: I really enjoyed that.
Speaker: I'd been wanting to lead an acting class for some time and it went quite well and I've heard good things about it and I've had quite a few people expressing interest in another acting class.
Speaker: I don't know what time we're going to have around Godspell, but my goal is either to host another class like the one I did last year, which was an eight-week class in the summer, or to do a couple different workshops that
Speaker: like all-day workshops where we can really hit it hard and learn some things.
Speaker: Theater education is very important to me.
Speaker: I care a lot about the craft of acting.
Speaker: And in Grand Rapids especially, we have a really strong theater community.
Speaker: So I think we deserve some solid, great professional education.
Speaker: Not that there aren't other resources out there, but I really care about being able to dive deep into the heavy...
Speaker: deep side of acting because people can handle that.
Speaker: And, and I want us to explore that a little bit more.
Speaker: So that's kind of, um, really, I think all we're looking at next year, um, Godspell, which I'm super excited about if you haven't yet and would like to donate.
Speaker: Um, we're about a thousand shy of getting to a third, which was my goal for the end of the year.
Speaker: If that doesn't happen, that's okay.
Speaker: Fish and loaves.
Speaker: I'm offering this all up to God.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But I thought one third was a fun buzzword, but we are up to a quarter.
Speaker: So that's great.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Truly, thank you so much to everybody who's given to that.
Speaker: I've been blown away by the support for that.
Speaker: I'm so absolutely thrilled about that.
Speaker: godspell more podcasts i've got a whole list of guests that i'm gonna invite on the podcast next year we're gonna have some podcasts about godspell chatting with our creative team once we have a cast we're gonna have that uh discussions i want to do uh if i'm able to this i want to do like a round table about playing jesus with whoever we get as jesus and myself um and then uh tyler sutner who played jesus in the singer
Speaker: and maybe Rich Garnott, who played him in the story.
Speaker: I would love to just unpack the experience of playing Jesus with some people.
Speaker: We'll see if that happens or not.
Speaker: So lots of exciting conversations coming you guys' way.
Speaker: And then the Patreon, with hopefully some expanded community and expanded things.
Speaker: I'm trying to avoid the word content because I don't like the word content.
Speaker: But more stuff for you guys to be able to take in from Artists of the Way.
Speaker: And then acting class as well.
Speaker: Hopefully, maybe.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: That's the goal.
Speaker: Just have to make it, figure it out with the schedule.
Speaker: So thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker: Thank you for listening for the past six months.
Speaker: I can't wait for 2024.
Speaker: I'm so excited to see what God wants to do with Artists of the Way moving forward.
Speaker: And ultimately, all of this is for him.
Speaker: It's submitted to him.
Speaker: And I can't wait to see where he wants to take it.
Speaker: So thank you all.
Speaker: My prayers are with you all.
Speaker: I'm keeping you in my prayers as artists and as Christians.
Speaker: I pray that God really blesses you this Advent season, this Christmas, that you just be able to joy.
Speaker: in the arrival of Christ, in his coming, as we celebrate his birth, what he came to do for us, and as we look ahead now in our second advent to his second coming, when everything will be made right.
Speaker: I pray that that's just a beautiful, lovely time that you all have a Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year because I'm not going to see you guys till the next year.
Speaker: So I'm going to do the classic dad joke and I'm going to say, see you guys next year.
Speaker: Yeah, hope you have a great rest of the year.
Speaker: That God blesses you as you grow in your art, grow in him.
Speaker: That you just have a beautiful, beautiful Advent and beautiful Christmas.
Speaker: God bless.
