Latest / The Daily Writer / Storytelling, Imagination & Invention (with Manuel Luz)

Transcript

Storytelling, Imagination & Invention (with Manuel Luz) · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: In her excellent book Walking on Water, the author Madeleine Lingle wrote Jesus was not a theologian.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was God who told stories.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Storytelling was not only a major focus of Jesus' ministry, it's also a significant part of our calling as artists and creatives.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest helps us expand our vision as creative storytellers as we talk about music, imagination, invention, worship, and writing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those interviews that will expand your mind and leave you thinking for days.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So stay tuned.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome to the Born to Create podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Ken Sanders, and I'm an author, professor, and creative coach.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and principles to help you make a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored today to bring you this conversation with Manuel Luz.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's a songwriter, author, inventor, arts advocate, and creative arts pastor.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: He has served with Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California for over 25 years, which is an eternity in creative arts ministry in the local church.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Monwell's new book, Honest Worship from False Self to True Praise, addresses the critical intersections between spiritual formation and worship.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Monwell's first published book, Imagine That Discovering Your Unique Role as a Christian Artist is a practical and personal theology of the arts, and I highly recommend both of those books to you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Monwell is also the inventor of the patented musical instrument The Walkabout, which was widely received at the world-renowned NAM show recently.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: In our conversation, we explore several themes from his two books such as humility, imagination, storytelling, and honest worship.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: We also dive into the behind-the-scenes process of inventing, manufacturing, and marketing the walkabout, which is a new kind of percussion instrument.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: As a drummer myself, this was really interesting.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, you'll learn practical tips from writing for Monwell's own creative process.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to take a deeper dive after the episode's over, be sure to check out the show notes at KentSanders.net slash Monwell.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's M-A-N-U-E-L.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: KentSanders.net slash Monwell.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get right into the interview.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Monwell, welcome to the Born2Create Podcast.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you taking time to chat with me today.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's great to be here.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, before we dive into some questions, I want to say congratulations on your book release from last year, Honest Worship.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've been reading it and it's really a fantastic book, so thank you for taking the time to write that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a great resource.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I I think I said in the introduction it was the book I was trying not to write for many years.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was like the such a great introduction to the book is hey, I've been trying not to write this book, but this is kind of what happened.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: So Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well Well, I appreciate your ministry over the years, and you know, you didn't know it until we kind of connected a short time ago on Facebook, but you've been ministering to me for a number of years through your writing, uh particularly your first book, which of course your book that just came out honest worship that just came out last year, but your first book is such a great resource, and I really appreciate it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for pouring into my life, even though you didn't realize it uh over the years and for serving artists in the church.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's really a cool thing.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um I've had a lot of really good um feedback from Imagine That.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very uh um humbled by the fact that God was able to use that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought in our chat today we would talk about several topics.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I'd like to uh throw you a couple questions about your your new book because I know that's close to your heart, and also I want to help promote it because it's a great resource.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And also I'd like to chat about your previous book, Imagine That, as well as a couple of questions about the walkabout, which is a really cool topic I want to explore.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then if we have time, I'd like to ask you a couple questions about your book writing process.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, just a couple of very minor topics you know, we want to get to today.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh of course I say that sarcastically, I always try to cover too much in these interviews.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start out with talking about your book Honest Worship that came out last year in 2018.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can you unpack that title a little bit?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or what do you mean by honest worship?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um actually the the title itself uh came from my editor.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't come from me.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um my original working title was called Falling on My Face.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I like that one too.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, it's it it has to do with the fact that uh um, you know, I I was doing worship and leading worship and being a worship pastor for not all reasons that were good reasons.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think part of it had to do with my own ego, my own um, my own foibles and dysfunctions, and and coming to grips with um who God really made me to be and what he really called me to be, and learning how to seek humility in all of that, and and uh learning how to s how to how to lead worship with humility.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: So the the subtitle of the book on us, worship, is from false self to true praise.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so I go into a lot of detail about talking about um what our false selves are.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it's my contention that the congregations that we lead um on a Sunday morning are filled with people who are worshiping from their false selves and not from their true selves.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: So that's powerful.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's the issue that I'm trying to tackle in this book.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, with worship leaders in particular, and I know you obviously come from a worship leading background, how do we have, and and and I guess this would apply to any artist of faith, really, but especially in the church setting, how do we maintain humility and worshiping from a true self while we're in the spotlight in a setting that emotionally is more performance-driven?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever feel that tension?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I have in the past, um, not so much now.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think that uh my church has um very healthy understanding of spiritual formation and how it um is uh um a God-directed, god-breathed um way of living in the kingdom of God.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um but it it takes a while for different people because um you know if you're any kind of a uh musical performer, or I would say any artist of any kind, actually, um, we kind of live in uh in a sense of having this stage presence.
• 6:50
  unknown: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then we do, we have right, so I go to I go to the supermarket and people see me, and they're first of all they go, hmm, I didn't know he even ate.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: He just sits on, I only only see him on stage, you know, that kind of thing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but then we have to put on our pretty self instead of being who we actually are.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's a certain amount of that going on um from the stage and also in in in the uh in the pews as well.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the issue of of honest worship, I think uh the gist of it has to do, or I should say the crux of it is is in chapter five.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I talk about the woman at the well.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um so that so we all know the story.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus is uh um sitting at the uh at Jacob's well, this woman comes, Samaritan woman comes to draw water, Jesus breaks convention and starts talking to her, and then um she's trying to deflect um the conversation and says, you know, well, you Jews say you worship this way and we worship this way, and Jesus says, Well, wait a second, you have to, you know, you have to worship in spirit and in truth.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: And my understanding, at least the understanding that I'm I I have of of that now, we all know at some level what it means to uh to worship in spirit, but when he says to worship in truth, not only does he mean the truth of who God is, but you have to realize that that in this context of this very real conversation, this woman is lying to Jesus' face.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: She's just she's just bold-faced lying to him, trying to put up a false front.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: She's um showing her false self to Jesus, and Jesus sees right through her.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so when he says, you have to worship in spirit, and I'm I picture him looking in her eyes and going, and in truth, you know, because you're lying to me.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I think that's the whole the gist of it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: We we we come into our sanctuaries and we put on our pretty selves, and we have a tendency to not really be real and authentic before our God.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: We want God to think the best of us instead of just coming before him by who we are, and it it requires a certain amount of self-knowledge.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: We need to know ourselves well, and I think that that uh a lot of churches have a tendency to actually do the opposite.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh without meaning to, we encourage our people to put on our false selves when we walk in the door.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: What are some ways that's oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's okay.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's okay.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um go ahead.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask, what are some ways in your particular church setting or ways that you have seen or would like to see that churches can encourage people to be more transparent?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some really practical things that leaders could practice or or anybody in a church setting could practice to be more transparent and authentic?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I um I I think it does start at some level with leadership.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um and there's a certain amount of creating uh an atmosphere where um grace is a natural language that people can can say, hey, I screwed up here, and but it's okay.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Where I'm learning this about myself.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm learning I'm learning that anger is um a natural uh uh response to things that are happening to me.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I am going to apply spiritual practices to um um make that not the response of my heart.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um it it requires a great deal of you know understanding spiritual formation, um uh applying spiritual disciplines in uh an accountability way.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh um we have a very open uh staff and we talk about our sins, you know, the or our favorite sins, I should say.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's rare in any leadership, but especially in a church setting.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then talking about how how we can um move beyond that, because that's that's God's desire for us, is that uh that we grow in grow in him and allow him to be in charge of every aspect of our lives, even the even our thought lives, even our the the things that that happen when no one is looking.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: And um I think that that's where you you know true worship or to use the term honest worship happens when we're able to really be who we are, warts and all, before God and before one another.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of blew my mind with that phrase that you mentioned.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if if if if this is the phrase that you use in in your church setting on a regular basis, but you said grace is the natural language of the church, or I'm paraphrasing what you said.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is really compelling because so oftentimes our natural language that we default to in the faith community is judgment.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're known for by the rest of the world.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Wow, what what if we changed our natural language to our our default setting to grace and assuming the best about people rather than seeing one little snippet and you know developing this huge scenario or this huge judgment about their life?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: That could be really radical.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh Dallas Willard talks about the idea that um um Christians um uh need grace more than non-Christians do.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh in a sense, he says that um that uh a uh Christ follower um burns grace like a 70 747 taking off.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Because we're because we're constantly living in God's kingdom and constantly um we're called to uh live out that grace in other people's lives and into the world.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're we're we're um the language of grace to use that term should be the way that we interact and and communicate and um and love the world and each other.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that's powerful.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna have to chew on that a little while.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when we get off the call today, I'm gonna be thinking about that for the whole rest of the week.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I appreciate you playing that little seed.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's really powerful.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Something else that you mentioned in the book, of course, you mentioned a lot of things that are super thought-provoking in the book, and I highly encourage everybody to get this book.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll put a link in the show notes, of course.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter 10, you talk about the need to develop our imaginations.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was a great chapter.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like we've lost our imagination today?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how can we get it back as artists and as leaders?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, well, uh, at one level, um I think we have lost our our imaginations at some level, or at least we've abdicated our imaginations to other people.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think I I think I I talk about how uh you know um when I was a kid, I used to imagine dinosaurs, right?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: And now kids today don't have to imagine dinosaurs because Spielberg has imagined it for us.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um we uh instead of using our uh Disneyland is supposed to be uh the happiest place on earth.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: You go to Disneyland and there's no imagination required because they've imagined everything for you.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: Every scenario is in a different land.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so we've at some level we've abdicated our imaginations.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: On another level, though, I think that we lost our imaginations in the Reformation.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And uh as a church, we we s we, in an effort to um, you know, not be worshiping idols, we we threw out the baby with the bathwater.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Along with all the beauty of cathedrals and stained glass and all those things.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: And there's reasons for that, which I understand, but the the whole idea that um that we have an imaginative God, and if we're made in his image, imagination is such a key aspect of being able to worship God.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um there there um the the there's uh understanding now that there is this intellect, and then there's this other thing called imagination, and we have this left brain, right brain dichotomy that we have.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: But um, you know, the back in the old days, um in uh intellect included the imagination.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, you could you weren't smart unless you had a really fertile imagination.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: It was considered one and the same.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I think that uh so much of uh worship services today, the the worship devolves into um singing and the sermon devolves into studying.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: And we need to recapture a sense of allowing people and training people to use their imaginations in ways that are God glorifying.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are there some practical ways that we can do that in um in a church setting?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, earlier we were talking about college settings.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: What are some ways that you have found that really works the best to help people develop their imaginations?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, um in services, for example, uh we we use more figurative language.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um we've I I've taught specifically on how to use the imagination and interact with the imagination in our in our worship times.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um for example, um uh telling a story and inviting people to imagine what God would do there or in this scenario.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Or um every time you tell a Bible story and you imagine yourself in the scene, yeah, that's an act of imagination, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um the probably the the the one thing, probably the most important thing we do in worship is to invite people to a greater view of the communion table.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: If you think about Jesus being the person who had the greatest imagination who ever lived, and he uh the communion table is it's just a beautiful thing.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: He he takes the most important um sacrament of the Jewish faith, the the most important event in the history of Jewish uh Jewish times, and and then he says, I'm overlaying my story on top of this story.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is the most important story up until now, and now I'm gonna overlay my story, the story of the cross and the tomb, over the story of the Passover in the Exodus.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's just amazing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um his his uh creativity, his poetry, his artistry in being able to do that.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then we invite people into the imagination of understanding what that is.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's a communion is a very imaginative act, if you allow it to be.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, something that you mentioned in your your previous book, Imagine That, so I'm gonna piggyback off that because that reminds me of something that you said, actually, something that Madeline Lingell said from her book Walking on Water.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: She said, and you quoted her in the book, Jesus was not a theologian, he was a God who told stories.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that quote just jumped out at me when I read that.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was so great.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel like storytelling is such a key part of our culture today?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my, yeah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's it jumped out at me as well.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that you um you see this, you have a very under good understanding of the story.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's this word called the meta-narrative, um, talking about there's a meta-narrative is a story that gives sense to all stories.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so the meta-narrative is that God uh there was there was creation, there was sin, and God is in the process of redeeming.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: So this there's this story, and God is the author of days.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so he's writing each one of our stories, and and life is defined, can be defined as all of our stories kind of intertwining over the course of time.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, God God is in the process of helping those stories interweave and interact, and somehow His His will is done through the process of it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: But there's this whole story that God is telling in the universe, and we get to be a small part of it.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: So we when when I say G uh I I I really uh like Madeleine Langles' quote in that God is not only telling the story, and Jesus was not only telling his stories, but he is writing the actual story.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: The story of of creation, fall, and redemption in the world.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is such a great thing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then us as as creatives, as artists, um, that's our job is to help to tell the story.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: There is a story um always being written.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um in everything we write, and everything we we dance or act out or um we sing or play.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: There's a story embedded in everything we do.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: See, I love that approach to you know, to business, to life, and also to worship planning is the idea that we're telling stories, not just through songs and sermons, but you know, really the the whole worship service for for many hundreds of years has been structured as a story.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: You enter into enter into a gathering place and you know, we have have music where we're we're gathering together and we're singing, we're worshiping God, and we hear a message and you know, we exit to go serve the world, and yeah, the whole storytelling aspect is so embedded in the Christian faith.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is really it's just a cool thing to be a part of that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been really fascinated by that element of our faith.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's pretty cool now because that is that has come more to the forefront, something that people are recognizing and studying and teaching about, just the whole storytelling aspect.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to be culturally you know, in the broader culture, it's a sort of a hot thing right now.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of fun to look at that as a person of faith and go, well, yeah, we've been we've been doing that since the beginning.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, interestingly, um um I am uh um I'm a Baptist.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: So we we didn't we we we were not big on uh an understanding of all of this until we started to uh uh use the church calendar again.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the church calendar is all about story, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I I have to say that that that in a lot of churches uh Um you have to throw you have to throw the entire holy week into one day.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's con and it's confusing.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't make sense.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's a it's a confusing mishmash, and it's wonderful to be able to take that apart now and worship in all of those different aspects and tell that story in the way that that is chronologically correct.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's there's something really compelling about the lectionary cycle in a church.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and for those who are listening who are not from a more traditional Christian background, a lectionary is basically a way to systematically go through the whole Bible in three years.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm greatly simplifying it, but I've always thought that was a cool idea where you're telling the story of Jesus every year and going through the cycle, and a lot of churches seem to have no interest in that at all.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think we're losing something compelling there.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: The it's uh ironically, the the high church where you're doing a lot of this uh um liturgy, there's actually more Bible read in those in that in that stream versus in uh uh in a Bible-believing evangelical church, for example.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is much, much more many times.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh not not and although you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater on the other side of it, too.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: We're always going to be in the evangelical church.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which but it but bringing back some of the uh practices which allow us to s have a more full version of who God is or understand him in a better way, that's why we're reacting.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me shift gears a little bit and and ask you about the walkabout.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we're this is kind of like a hard left, I guess, as far as topics, because I'm really compelled by the walkabout.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, for those who who don't know what it is, the walkabout is a you call it a drum guitar.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is a really cool instrument that is so interesting and so innovative and it has so many uses.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to just just hear the story of how this came about and what you've learned from this process and how you went from idea to f finish manufactured product and just the story behind it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's kind of a crazy thing.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um I've always considered myself a creative person, um, but that creativity has always manifested itself in like songwriting or or writing books or blogs or things like that.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um I guess uh I so um I'm I'm very close friends with a person named Bob Kilpatrick, and a few people might know who he is of your readers.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: He's a his claim to fame is he he wrote the song Um Lord Be Glorified.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: In my life, Lord be glorified.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: Sing so he he wrote that song and um it made it into the hymnal.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know if you know anyone who wrote a song that's in the hymnal, but uh he would be the only one, I think.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: He would be the only one I know, and he's really that old too.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: He's like 400 years old.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: No, he's not.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: Anyways, uh he and I meet for lunch, uh I'm sorry, for coffee every every Friday morning, and uh uh we we've we hold each other accountable.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we talk about life and and art and music and stuff, and and he's also a book author, so we we get together and talk about different things we're we're struggling with.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um and one day we just uh I was talking to him and I had said I had this crazy idea, and um I pulled out a napkin and I started drawing this idea out, which is uh uh which is a uh walkabout drum is a uh strap-worn drum that's in the shape of a uh guitar body.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: So if you picture a guitar without the neck and without the strings, um that's pretty close to what it is.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: So we I I told him this idea that uh you can have an entire drum set that you can wear on a strap and when plug it in with one plug, and and uh you can um it can take the place of an entire drum set.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: And he started riffing on that for a while, and by the end of our coffee, um we had a little handshake and said, hey, let's let's let's let's pursue this.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: So the the irony of it is that I didn't want to be uh manufacturer.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: I I think manufacturing is boring.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, you know, working in a factory is a is a wonderful thing, but it's not always you're making the same thing over and over again.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm having to I'm having to come to grips with the idea that there is an art in that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: So um we what we originally wanted to do was license um patent it, license it, and uh let someone else build it, but it didn't seem to go in that direction.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: We talked to a lot of manufacturers and they all thought it was a great idea, but they didn't want to take a chance on it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: So we decided uh the only way to do this is to start making it on our own.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: So we've been in this for a few years now, and uh um the walkabout drum is now available um um on the Guitar Center website, on the Musician's Friend website, and as well as walkaboutdrum.com, that website as well.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it was my hope that um uh one the uh the the last instrument to my knowledge anyway, the last instrument that was developed for the glory of God was the organ.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: And every other instrument that is in the church um started out in the world and was brought into the church.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted to have an instrument that started in the church and went out into the world.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I love that.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's really cool.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's our yeah, it it is it's cool and humbling at the same time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: So, anyways, you guys could all check that out.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's demos and stuff on our website if you want to see it in action and that kind of thing.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the funny thing is that I'd I came across the walkabout, gosh, probably two or three years ago.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember how I came across it, but then as as we were kind of connecting and and I was prepping for this interview, you know, a little while back, I suddenly realized, oh, he's the walkabout guy.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I I had totally not made that connection.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So what kind of feedback have you gotten from players?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do they uh have they been integrating it into settings that are not just a local church setting, maybe you know, small acoustic type of groups or coffee houses or different kinds of things?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I imagine it has tons of different uses.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, it does.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is an interesting thing that I didn't really realize.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're still in process, so uh in learning this, but um, you know, you understand the um the the theory of the product cycle, and then you have your early adopters, and it's like a bell curve, and it kind of kind of um then the late adopters come and get it and then becomes accepted.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: So for us, I'm starting we're starting to realize that there's a there's a a step even before you can get to the early adopters, because this is a completely different instrument.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like we're coming out with another guitar.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's like we're coming out with something, and there there's not even a an established way to play it yet.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a category for this instrument.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: There is not a there's not a category, there's not a people people go up to it and they go, well, how do you play it?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: We go, well, they're looking for the neck on the guitar.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: You show us how to play it.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, put it on and start banging it and see what happens.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh the our our NAM show last year, uh Nam is the uh um is probably the largest uh trade show for musical instruments in the world.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: So we were at uh Anaheim and uh we had some world-class percussionists come by our booth, put it on, and blow us away.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: They were the most amazing thing to say, okay, I've built this thing, and now somebody's playing it in a way I'd never even imagined.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the and and crowds would form, you know.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: The coolest thing that would happen is we had we had two demo stations at our at our booth.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: And uh two demo stations had uh you know two different um um uh walkabouts, two different amps, that kind of thing.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so somebody over here on my left would be demoing it, playing it, and then someone on my right would be playing it, and then they would like suddenly start one would start a beat and the other would start playing along, and then they'd turn and face each other, and then they would start interacting with each other and start playing together, and suddenly, you know, two people who'd never seen each other before were suddenly a band, and they started performing, and a crowd would show up around them, and all the full iPhones would come out, and they would start it was the coolest, it was the very coolest thing to see uh you know, you you you give birth to a musical instrument and then you see it actually performed by other people.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it is.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think my favorite feature now I haven't had the pleasure of playing a walkabout yet.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Actually playing.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I started out as a drummer, so I have an intense interest in percussion and drums and and I'm a guitarist as well, so that that guitar shape that is a strappable drum, you know, basically, is very compelling to me.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to go to our local guitar center and check that out.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, Kent, uh let me hook you up afterwards.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be fun.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, what I was gonna say was as I was watching your demo videos.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you were you were playing some things on it, and then you brought out an I'm sorry I can't remember the name of it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a little thing that is the snare that you clip on the inside of the walkabout.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Sound dot.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sound dot.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you put that in, and I was just like, oh my gosh, that is amazing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: It clips on the inside and it creates you know kind of a snare effect.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just thrilled about this instrument and am really um compelled and engaged by this whole process of inventing it and the creativity that that went into it.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Those those sound dots um are attached magnetically.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: So they slip in, they just snap, and then you can just pull them right out.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we're in the process of um developing a whole family of sound dots.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you'll be able to plug in, put in a shaker or a tambourine or whatever it is, and get a different sound everywhere you want.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: So um that we call it uh it's like um when they invented uh the iPhone, and they they said we don't know what exactly what it's gonna do yet, but you can make an app, and you and people started making apps, and the iPhone is doing things that Apple never conceived of it to do.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's that's kind of what we're hoping.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, congrats on uh doing that.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know that was not an easy process, I'm sure.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, manufacturing, figuring out all the data points and and all the stuff that goes into to creating something.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So as we sort of head into the the last section of our conversation today, I'd like to ask you about your writing process and uh how you go about you know, you you've written some books.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go about writing a book for those of those of our listeners who really want to write a book?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do that and what kind of opportunities have your books given you that maybe you wouldn't have had otherwise?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um it might be different for me than for most because I am uh before I am a book writer, I'm a blog writer.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: So um I'm I'm always in the I'm always writing something.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm always in the writing process, or I'm thinking about writing something.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: And because um I'm a blogger, I don't have to think in terms of an entire book.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: So so it's so much easier to to do it that way.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so you write all these blogs, and then there are certain themes in those blogs, and pretty soon, this is how imagine that turned into a book, because it was a certain it was a series of blogs, and uh um I started to uh put them together in a way that started to make sense.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's that's how it became a book.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: So that's it's different than than saying I'm gonna write a book now.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a there's obviously a a discipline in writing a book uh where you outline it and you know where you're gonna start and where you're gonna finish.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: And um for me it was a little bit different in that about 70% of the book was written in one form before I said I'm gonna start writing a book.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: So but but then it was a question of you know, a book is never written, it's only rewritten.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: So then then it was a long process of taking that 70%, adding adding another 30%, then throwing out 50% and adding another 50%.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: That is so true, you know, and yeah, and and turning that into a book.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I um I've always been a uh a very uh motivated person.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: I guess on the uh if you're doing enneagrams, I'm a three, so I'm an achiever, and I've always had a a high motor.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: So um my my when I'm in book mode, uh what I do is is I force myself to not write throughout the week.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then my my Sabbath is is uh is Monday uh because I'm a uh I'm pastor.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then I do all my writing on Mondays.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll I'll take notes, I'll say I need to add this or that, um, and uh um throughout the week and then devote Mondays to writing, and then I'll go eight, ten hours in a row.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I find that um when I'm in book mode, the other six days of the week make me really hungry to write.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then by the time I'm I'm hitting Monday morning, I'm getting up early, I'm going, oh cool, oh boy, I get to write.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: As opposed to it being uh uh a slavish uh effort, it it becomes something I enjoy doing.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: See, I'm really glad that you that you have shared this because everybody has a different process, and there's there's kind of a thing in the writing community today, particularly among bloggers and you know people who are doing a lot of self-publishing, that you've got to write every day, you've got to write 500 words a day, a thousand words a day, and and if you don't meet some sort of false metric that people are throwing out, then well, you then you're not successful, you're not really a writer or something.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really glad you shared that because uh I just want people to know there's all kinds of different ways you can write a book.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I totally I love your concept of blogging a book, and I've done that as well.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a great way to get feedback on what you're doing as you go along, and to just do it in little chunks.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I just kind of figure you're writing it anyway, so why not then compile it into a book in some form or fashion and repurpose it if you can.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's also the the thing about being a blogger is um uh um I don't write books, I am a writer.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's a do versus be thing.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: If if if what you are is a writer, you're always writing.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's that's the that's why um blogging makes sense because there's a format there that allows you to always write.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with your identity and with first calling yourself a writer and accepting that that is who you are.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so many people are afraid to call themselves an artist or a writer or a blogger or whatever.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: I and the other then the one final thing about that is having to do with um as you write, hopefully you're getting better.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're you're working on the craft of writing.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I have I I have to put my 10,000 hours in to get good at what I'm doing.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: So um the constantly writing hopefully makes me better, better writer.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then also reading, right?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: You have to you have to have input to get output.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if I'm reading um good uh substantive books, hopefully I'm thinking good substantive thoughts uh that can turn into good writing.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any any books that you have been reading recently or the last couple years that have really impacted you in a strong way?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I I think I told you off offline that I have just come back from a retreat where I was doing a lot of reading and some writing and some songwriting.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um I actually have them right here.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: They're um Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that book.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing, amazing book.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then also um Aaron Nyquist, Eternal Current.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have not seen that one.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: You have you have not seen that one?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Nyquist, he's uh um he uh uh was um over at Willow Creek, and he was he was doing um their uh um liturgical service over there.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of um bringing back some of the uh uh fourfold um Robert Weber type of things into uh the evangelical stream.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's some of it.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um also um I'm gonna plug my friend's book, Bob Kilpatrick's book.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um he just came out with one called uh Ghost in the Cloud, which I just read, finished reading, and that had to do with uh the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that one's a good one.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put links to all those in the show notes and I'll be checking those out.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Always on the lookout for new for new and awesome books.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: So to kind of wrap this up, uh just a couple more quick questions.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are some practical actions that someone could start implementing in their life today that would help them to be more successful or more creative?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this podcast is uh deals with a lot about habits and practices and mindset of creativity.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: So are there anything that c anything that comes to mind as far as things that someone could start doing right away?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, um the going back to the whole honest worship, I think that uh um looking at ways to create um spiritual practices for yourself.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um the traditional ones obviously are uh fasting, prayer, um, reading the Bible, um those kinds of things.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's also um a little bit more uh contemplation, solitude, that kind of stuff.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um but uh I've always been like out of the box on those as well.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I've created my own set of spiritual practices that help me particularly.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think I use this as an example in Imagine that, where I realized that I wasn't a very touchy-feely person and my body so my my whenever someone would give me a hug, I would like kind of tense up because I wasn't comfortable with it.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: And um so I realized that I needed to grow in this area.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: I needed to allow my body to express that which my heart was feeling.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I made um hugging a spiritual discipline, and I made myself hug people for a long period of time until I got used to it.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: And now hugging is part of what I do now.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I see hug them.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: But it took it it was counterintuitive at first.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: I had to adopt it as a spiritual practice before it became something natural to me.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm using that as an example, uh, a silly example actually, of creating spiritual practices that might feel counterintuitive at first, but then they become natural to you over time.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so um uh carrying, say, carrying a um a journal with all your thoughts in it.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: And even though they're errant and err uh errant and all over the place, you carry it with you, for example, if you're a writer and you you have an idea, you write it down, and you just write it, and the point purpose is there is no purpose other than it's written.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, and then every once in a while you pull it out and just look at it.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: At first it feels weird because you're it's not a full thought.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Or it might feel counterintuitive, and then at some point it becomes natural to you.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and then that's that's the way you that's the way you live.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: So um I'm just using those as examples.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think you your readers are, I'm sorry, your listeners are very creative people, and they should be able to come up with their own ideas on how to create a spiritual practice that helps them themselves.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been a big journal journaler, and I think that is such an important practice.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, this morning, um so I get up early and I do what Julia Cameron, she wrote a book called The Artist's Way, talks about doing morning pages, just writing three longhand pages every morning.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so interesting as I was writing this morning, I flipped to the back of my journal and I had written two pages of quotes from different people and I thought to myself.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have absolutely no recollection of writing these quotes.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did it, I guess, a few months ago.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny, it's like that whenever you're constantly writing stuff down, you don't remember things, but it's there on paper, which is the beauty of you don't have to remember it because it's recorded.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that is a great practice, and I highly encourage people to do that.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: As well as the hugging thing.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's brilliant, especially for those of us who are introverted and probably need to get more comfortable with our bodies.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: I have a question for you, Kent.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: When you opened that up and you started reading these quotes so that you had no recollection of having written, did it hit you in a different way?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that's a good question.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: It did a little bit.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then you then you interacted them differently as a reader of someone you had of something you had written.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my first my first thought, I actually my only thought as I scanned through those, and there was probably 25 quotes there, was that about half of those I really, really liked, and about half of them I thought to myself, why did I write that down?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not interesting or compelling in any way.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: But at the at the time that I wrote it down, it was interesting for some reason.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of funny to go back, you know, and read things that you've written even years or decades ago, and it kind of makes your memory jog back, and you you remember what frame of mind you were in when you wrote that, which may be totally different than your frame of mind today.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or even yesterday for that matter.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just kind of a such a great practice to get into, I think.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: I the reason why I'm asking is because you know, when we interact with our own art, whatever art form we have, we're interacting as a creator and then later as an audience.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: We become the audience to our own creation, which is uh it's a different way of interacting with your own art.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do you have that experience when you go back and read your books?
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the pub the books they're published, they look great, the covers are really nice, and it's you know edited in a pristine way and it's a total package.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: And you have this new book smell.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: And you break you break the spine, and then it has it's so great.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a new baby.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a new baby that you have.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: The the problem with uh having a new baby, uh giving birth to a baby, is you have to change the diapers every once in a while.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: That's the that's really the actual work of coming out with a new book is the actual work is actually after the book has come out.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: And and now you have to substantiate it in a way be talking to you.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: I really believe what I wrote.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's a that's a key thing.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um or did I just like the way it sounded when I said it?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe over the years you grow to the point where you think, well, I I believe that when I wrote it, but I've changed my mind on this, or I've changed my thinking about this particular issue.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, hopefully that's the case.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully we're all growing and developing.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd I hope that something I wrote five or ten years ago is not I hope I'm a different person, you know, than I was back then, at least to a degree.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I think that that's very true.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think I've my my thoughts have developed a little bit beyond um imagine that.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think I hold that holds true to me in a lot of different ways, but it does uh uh represent a time in my life as well when I was wrestling with certain things.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: So it is it is a different thing.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: I read some of the stories now, and you know, my story, my stories of when my girls, my twin girls are three and they're 20 now.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it goes by fast.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: It goes by fast.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: It really does.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my son is 14, he just started high school this past year, and man, it just it just goes by so fast.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, whenever you you don't have kids, you you hear people say that and you think, oh, it doesn't really go by that fast.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: But man, it really does.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: The older they get, it just zips by and you think, where did the time go?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's true.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I really appreciate you taking time to chat today.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm so glad that we connected, and I appreciate your heart and your giftedness and your innovation and creativity.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just lots and lots of stuff for people there to chew on.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: How can our listeners connect with you and and your books and the walkabout and all this goodness?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for that.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um if they want to go to my blog, it's uh manuelluz.com.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: So M-A-N-U-E-L-U-Z.com.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um if they want to check out the walkabout drum, it's uh it's one word, walkaboutdrum.com.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um if they want to listen to any of my music, um, I am on uh cdbaby.com or on iTunes.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: And uh um I have uh four albums.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: So uh going all the way back to 2001.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: So um and then finally, if you want to go to uh any of my books, um the uh honest worship or imagine that um all everything's on uh Amazon these days, so you can get on Amazon.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks so much.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to connecting with you further.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we can meet sometime uh in person.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: That would be great.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: That'd be awesome.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ken, thank you so much for having me.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Manuel Luz.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of every interview, I always share three specific things that I learned from the guest.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: And these are three key action steps that you can put into practice right away to make a bigger impact in your creative work.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number one is to practice speaking the language of grace.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Toward the beginning of our conversation, Manuel mentioned a phrase that really caught my ear.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: He used the phrase the language of grace.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he was talking about switching our default response from judgment and anger to that of grace.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: This really hit me right between the eyes.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to rush to judgment of others and to assume the worst about them.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we assumed the best about people?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: What if we assumed that our information about people is incomplete whenever we hear something bad about them?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if our default response was to extend grace, kindness, and understanding instead of anger and judgment?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, to be honest with you, this kind of insight that Manuel shared with us, that's exactly why I do these podcast interviews.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I guarantee that I'm going to be thinking about that for quite a while.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number two, use your blog to write a book.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was really happy to hear Manuel talk about a strategy that I've used as well, which is using your blog as a way to write a book.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the advantage of having a blog is that it gives you a platform and a reason to write regularly in small chunks.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's very doable to write a five hundred or a thousand word post.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when you put enough of those together, then you have a book.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that being said, keep in mind something else that Monwell mentioned.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't just slap a bunch of blog posts together to create an excellent book.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those blog posts have to be edited, organized, you know, rewritten, and probably need to have additional material created in order to produce a grade A book.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Monwell also mentioned that he batches his writing on Mondays, and I think this is a great strategy.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also a great reminder that you don't have to follow somebody else's process for writing.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I mentioned in the interview you know, as I mentioned in the interview, some people say you've got to write every single day, or else you're not a real writer.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or you've got to write early in the morning, or you've got to write this other certain way, or with a certain tool, or at this certain time, or whatever it is.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that none of those things are true.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just pick a process and follow your own process.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do what works for you and your schedule, your temperament, and your stage of life.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now you may have also noticed that Manuel said, I don't write a book, I'm a writer.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't write a book, I am a writer.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really important insight to keep in mind.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds us how our language shapes our identity.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you start calling yourself a writer, then you'll start to act like it.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it begins first with saying, I am a writer, and then your actions will be much more likely to follow suit.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, takeaway number three is simply a question.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to pose a question out there, and that is why isn't more creative art invented in the church?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: As a drummer and a musician, I am really interested in the process Monwell followed in creating his walkabout instrument.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also inspired by this on a cultural and a philosophical level.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: In our conversation, he mentioned that he wanted to create an instrument that came out of a church setting and would then be used in other settings.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it struck me that this kind of thinking and this kind of creativity rarely happens today.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure why.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it comes down to a simple lack of imagination on our part.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about the Middle Ages, for example.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Middle Ages was a period of history when most of the great art came out of the church world.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was a time when the church was at the center of influence and culture.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope and pray that as a collective body of artists and of leaders we can help the body of Christ return to a similar place of influence in our culture.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I encourage young artists to not just consider careers in the church world, but also in film scoring and television, theater, movie directing, screenwriting, and so forth.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can't stay within the comfortable walls of our churches and expect to make a big impact.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get out there and learn from the best artist in the world.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have to create the best art from a perspective that is informed both by our faith and also by the best craftsmanship.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot have first rate influence if we're creating second rate art.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to create great art, and we have to do it to the glory of God.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Monuel has reminded us to reach higher and to use our imagination and creativity to serve both the church and the world with our very, very best.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, that wraps up this episode of the podcast.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Monuel for taking the time out of his busy schedule to share this amazing conversation.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the show notes at KentSanders.net slash Monwell.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's M-A-N-U-E-L.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like a great resource to help you save time and be more productive, you can download my guide, 21 Time Acts to Writers, for free by visiting KentSanders.net slash subscribe.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: It only takes a second and it helps other people to discover the show.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that by visiting KentSanders.net slash Apple.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member who you think would benefit from it as well.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can find lots more resources to help you unlock your creative potential at KentSanders.net.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designed to make a difference.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now go create something awesome.