Liz: 0:12

All right, welcome to our One Blessed Mess. This is Ben and Liz, and we are here telling our story of raising six kids and eight years while having a dual entrepreneurial home with two businesses, plus raising four teenagers, seven chickens and two dogs just to keep it interesting and I'm so excited because today's conversation is about what Ben- the Creative Legacy Conference yes, and we just attended we just attended and so we figured we'd do a little recap and just mention all the cool things that we got to do and learn.

Liz: 0:46

It was awesome. So what exactly was this Creative Legacy Conference.

Ben: 0:49

Yeah, and learn. It was awesome. So what exactly was this Creative Legacy Conference? Yeah, so it's a conference for Christian creatives and it is put together by someone who's kind of near and dear to us our brother-in-law.

Liz: 1:00

Justin Rizzo? Yes, that guy.

Ben: 1:02

That guy.

Liz: 1:03

That guy? He's our Bill, isn't he?

Ben: 1:05

Yeah, our Bill. What's a Bill?

Liz: 1:07

A bill is, I like to call either a brother in law or, you can say, brother in love, although we have some family members that don't like that term, don't we?

Ben: 1:18

Yeah, that's true, and they told me that to my face and we're kind of calling them out right now actually.

Liz: 1:23

Yes, if you're watching this, you know who you are, that's right. I know. I wonder if those who know us have any guesses of who doesn't like that. We won't we won't say that, we won't say that yeah. So anyway, tell us, like what totally was this conference about?

Ben: 1:38

Yeah, so it was a conference again just about, you know, creativity, and we had some really cool people that attended and spoke there, and so one of them was Stu G. Stu G who is from the band Delirious. Yes so all you 90s people out there.

Liz: 1:55

You might know him. If you grew up in the 90s, then you know the band Delirious. They did some amazing songs that we all used to rock out to in youth group days.

Ben: 2:05

It's true, yeah, he's great, he's cool. Yeah, what do you call it? Papa Stu, papa Stu. Group days, it's true. Yeah, it's true, he's great, he's cool. Yeah, what do you call it? Pop a stew. Pop a stew. Yep.

Liz: 2:13

um, there was also josh scott, who he is the head of jhs pedals yep he is, and actually he and stoogey did a guitar clinic for a couple hours and I think their room was packed with like all these musicians who are just in in heaven. I it looks like they were in heaven. I saw some of the pictures and stuff. It sounded like it went really really good. I don't play the guitar so I didn't know, but every it appears that people were geeking out it sounds like it.

Ben: 2:41

Yeah, it sounds like they're having a good time. There was also uh sean blanc who does like the time management stuff, courses and things, things like that.

Liz: 2:47

Oh, he's amazing, so he got to speak there. That was really cool. Yes, yeah.

Ben: 2:52

And there was another artist there, Andy Squire. Oh, yeah. And there was also an author, Rachel Hauk. Rachel Hauk.

Liz: 3:03

Rachel Hauk. She is phenomenal. She's a novelist. She's written quite a few books. One that's just coming to mind is called the wedding dress, but she also watched, uh wrote a novel which became a hallmark movie. So yeah, she, she's quite, quite the the the um author. She's amazing in person too. We just, we just enjoyed um getting to know her, and there were a lot of others too we had caleb.

Ben: 3:28

There was jordan. I know fady spoke it was had Caleb, there was Jordan. I know Fadi spoke. It was amazing, it was really amazing. One in particular that spoke, who was someone I know actually.

Liz: 3:38

Well, who is that? Ben, that was you.

Ben: 3:41

Liz, and you did a great job. Oh well, thank you.

Liz: 3:44

I love how you just set me up there. There was someone else. Well, yeah, hopefully you know me.

Ben: 3:50

Yeah, yeah I do, I do.

Liz: 3:51

We have quite the life together.

Ben: 3:53

But what did you talk about?

Liz: 3:54

Well, I spoke on a great topic called trading your comfort for calling. Yeah, we can get into that in a minute, but let's talk about Justin for a second, because he is the one that was behind this and Justin's kind of like a renaissance man. I don't know how else to explain him and who he is, other than saying that, because there's like a laundry list of things that he can do.

Ben: 4:17

It's true, he is probably one of the most hardest working people I know.

Liz: 4:22

Yeah, I agree.

Ben: 4:23

And just talented too. He has his hands in a lot of different things. He's very gifted a lot of different ways, musically, obviously. If you don't know Justin, definitely worth a Google search and then we'll put some links to the conference and to him. And he's got a podcast as well, but he writes worship songs and he has written several musicals, films and done films as well to those musicals, and so he's just a really cool guy. He's very creative and he's very connected and he just loves kind of just the creative process.

Liz: 4:54

Yeah, and he also has a worship soaking channel.

Liz: 4:57

So, if you look him up, justin Rizzo Music, he has a soaking channel. He has other worship leaders that hop on there and he's my brother-in-law. So it's like of course you're going to say these things. But to be honest, you guys, I put that on, especially in the mornings when things are a little chaotic in my house. I put it on and it's just like this piece that just comes in our house and his stuff is like an hour and a half. It's not like just like 30, you know, 30 minutes is like for a while. My sister sings on there as well, naomi. She's phenomenal. But you guys, when we think of Justin, it's like is there anything this man cannot do?

Ben: 5:33

Actually, I can think of one thing.

Liz: 5:34

What is that?

Ben: 5:36

Well, it kind of coincides with the story we have about him.

Liz: 5:40

What is it?

Ben: 5:41

Well, I think it's actually return library books.

Liz: 5:51

Oh, okay, yes, we need to tell this story.

Ben: 5:52

Yeah, yeah, let's tell, let's tell the story, because we kind of are going to throw them under the bus a little bit, a little bit, yeah, but he's going to watch this. Yeah, we do love you.

Liz: 5:56

He's going to watch this. He's probably he's like great guys. Thanks.

Ben: 6:01

Okay, let's, let's talk about this. Yeah, so we got the story with Justin and he's at our house and we're cleaning.

Liz: 6:06

We're doing a deep clean. The family's visiting us. Yeah, my sister, you know. Justin, and the kids, justin.

Ben: 6:11

Yeah, and of course, Justin, he is a clean freak. He likes to clean.

Liz: 6:16

He loves to clean, he helps us, he hops right in there. He really does, yeah.

Ben: 6:20

Takes charge. Sometimes it's great. I mean, sometimes it's just like kind. I was a little too hands off this one time, though.

Liz: 6:27

Uh-huh.

Ben: 6:28

And Liz sent me and Justin to a thrift place to kind of get rid of some of the stuff that we no longer needed.

Liz: 6:35

We're donating. Yeah, we're donating it. Yeah we do that.

Ben: 6:39

While we were doing that, we actually donated something that we weren't supposed to which was a big old bin of past due library books.

Liz: 6:50

They weren't past due. I'm sorry they were past due, but they were library books. They were coming up to being due.

Ben: 6:55

Well, they ended up being past due. Yeah, Well they ended up because Because we gave them to the thrift shop.

Liz: 7:00

Yes.

Ben: 7:01

And I mean it was a big crate of books.

Liz: 7:03

Yeah, it was because, let's be clear, you guys, we homeschool we. Let's be clear, you guys, we homeschool. We have a lot of kids. So when I go to the library with my crew, our six pack, you know, when we get there it's half a dozen. You know it's kids. Sometimes they're getting six to 10 books a piece and they will read all of them and it's part of their homeschool curriculum. So when you know that's, if each of them gets six, that's 36 books.

Ben: 7:32

Okay. So of course I have a lot of books, a lot of books.

Liz: 7:33

Well, now, that thrift store had a lot of books. Yeah, they dropped them off because we mistakenly just dropped them right off.

Ben: 7:38

And then what happened?

Liz: 7:39

Well it was like a couple of days past and I'm thinking where, where's the bin? I got to go take them in because the do they're due, like it's due in the next day or two, and all of a sudden it was realized yeah, all of a sudden, were they over by the door?

Ben: 7:53

was that been in the back of the car?

Liz: 7:55

with the other stuff? Yes, we might have donated that to a good cause and so at our expense, at our expense, and so that became a very frantic moment. I mean, I felt like, oh, like, oh my gosh, so I started calling.

Ben: 8:11

And I should have checked. I think I actually drove the car and then Justin got everything out of the back and happened to grab that mistakenly. Anyways, how much do you think it ended up costing?

Liz: 8:21

Well, I started making phone calls to see if we could get them back and apparently, like the way that the thrifting system happens and where we are, it like goes to a distribution area and then they make the decision, and so they couldn't find them.

Liz: 8:36

They couldn't find any of them. And they said, well, sometimes when we find them we'll just go and drop them off, so give it a couple of weeks. So I called the library in the midst of it to say, hey, I need to let you know what's going on. Here's all of our books which, by the way, we had put them on one child's card, so that one child is still not use their card, even though they got their card back and everything's fine. But it was okay. So the librarian that I spoke with, they sent me to the higher ups, and that person sent me to the higher ups and so, anyway, I'm talking to the person who is going to hopefully help me. They had like a board meeting or something and they went on my behalf and the total, you guys, was over $600. Over $600.

Ben: 9:21

A lot of books.

Liz: 9:21

Oh yeah, I think every bit of blood in my face just drained as they were saying this to me and I was like all I could think of is having $600 bills and just lighting them on fire, Like there they go. There's nothing I can do about it, you know. And so she said, let me see what I can do. And she literally got in there somehow and called back after it had been so many weeks.

Liz: 9:44

Nothing was ever returned, Not one library book was ever returned, and so she just she said, hey, they forgave that and you don't need to worry about it. And I said well, what about this one kid's library card? She's like, we're going to take care of it. That was a story.

Ben: 10:02

That was a story, yeah.

Liz: 10:04

That was a Justin.

Ben: 10:05

Thanks, Justin. That was a Justin at the center story.

Liz: 10:08

Yeah, we still love you. But back to the legacy conference, like I mean, what were our like takeaways? What was the overall.

Ben: 10:14

So what did we learn? Yeah, I think the number one thing that I took away was that and this is kind of an obvious thing, but it was helpful to hear it again is that God is a creator.

Ben: 10:24

You know, a lot of times, you know, we hear the salvation story and that's great and a lot of focus is put on that. But even going back further, the creation story, it's kind of where it all started and it really set the tone for who God is and his personality, and then also the fact that we were made in his image, like we're creators too, and he gave us dominion, and I believe he wants us to create and he wants us to um even create with him, and so that piece was really cool, like just realizing that again, um, seeing ourselves as kind of having this creative bent, because our God has creativity and our God is a creator, and so, yeah, this that was cool.

Liz: 11:07

Just to get refreshed in that thinking and you are a creative.

Ben: 11:11

Well, so are you.

Liz: 11:12

Yes, I am, but you are creative too. I mean, I felt like you were inspired. There was different moments throughout the weekend that I looked over and I was like, okay, I can see like a little fire being rekindled. A little spark A little yeah being rekindled in you Because I mean, let's face it, you're a dad, you have a job, you know we're doing this podcast, you know you have me in your life.

Ben: 11:32

Oh man yes.

Liz: 11:34

I know.

Ben: 11:34

Suck all the creative juices out. I'm the best part. What are you talking about?

Liz: 11:38

Yeah.

Ben: 11:39

And we have creative kids too.

Liz: 11:41

Yeah, we have a lot of creative kids. Yeah, incredible creative kids.

Ben: 12:00

Yeah, I they do.

Liz: 12:07

Well, I think one of the things that I came back with was that creatives need a plan, because the idea Well, I mean think about it. A lot of times we hear create or creatives. They're just like oh, I'm free whenever I feel, you know, blow me wherever the wind takes me, Like you know, that kind of thing. But one thing that we came away with is, if you're going to create, you have to create space to create.

Liz: 12:31

You need the space, intentionality, intentionality, but also you need to plan to create. And again, we're going to bring up Justin, because he's in our lives and we've watched him, but when?

Ben: 12:41

he, he's a planner.

Liz: 12:42

Is he ever? Is he ever? Actually he's really fun to be with when we're going on family vacations and stuff, because the guy like plans and I love it because I love planning too. So it's fun to have somebody that's like kind of doing it with you. But I'm just going to use him as an example and I hope he's okay with this. But when he was writing his first musical 14 years ago, I remember that he sat down and looked at his schedule and in his schedule he found four or five blocks where he had four or five hours to just sit down his piano and create writing songs. I mean, he wrote how many songs in that first musical? Is it 24 songs?

Ben: 13:25

It was a lot, you guys, it's a lot.

Liz: 13:27

Plus the dialogue, plus the screenplay, like I mean so many things that went into that. And so, as painters, as writers, as dancers, musicians, you need to, yes, have your life, looking at when are you working, when are you in school, family time, but then creating that space and planning to make sure it takes place. I felt convicted in that, really, because I've got some things in my heart that I want to do and I thought all right. I want to make sure that I'm allowing the space for creativity to flow.

Ben: 14:00

So do you have a plan?

Liz: 14:01

I actually do Nice, I just got to implement it. I like it. I got to implement it.

Ben: 14:05

Well, one thing additional that I learned was we talked about fear in the process of creativity and how that can be a thief yes right. So just the fear of like what others think, the fear of failure, the fear of being scrutinized or criticized, like that is real, that's a real.

Liz: 14:29

It is.

Ben: 14:29

But that oftentimes kind of sinks the ship before it can even go out to sea.

Liz: 14:35

Yeah.

Ben: 14:35

Like it just stops the effort from even happening, and so we need to think in terms of being proactive, like having a plan. Yeah, but also just like throwing that fear away and just going for it.

Liz: 14:47

I think being brave and taking risks, and doing the effort to be creative.

Ben: 14:53

apart from the fear, I think that was one thing that I came away with as well.

Liz: 14:57

Yeah, and also just thinking about sometimes the fear that people have is that they're just going to be copycats.

Ben: 15:03

Yeah.

Liz: 15:06

And so part of the risk is not being a copycat and exploring that.

Ben: 15:11

Right, right, that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was good and I think just being able to, you know, just get out there right, just do something. That was one thing that someone kept saying just do something. It's almost like a Nike commercial, you know. Just give some effort, put a little time here and there, just whatever it is, do something, just get going and see what sparks from that.

Liz: 15:40

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, and creativity looks different.

Ben: 15:43

It does.

Liz: 15:43

It doesn't have to be just one medium.

Ben: 15:46

It can be multifaceted, multitalented. Yeah yeah, multi-faceted, multi-talented, yeah yeah, for sure. Well, do you?

Liz: 15:55

want to jump into your talk. What you talked about. Sure, I totally can do that, okay, so I actually had the topic of trading your comfort for calling, and that was a really near and dear topic to me. In fact took a couple of weeks to get that going, and Ben was there plowing through all of the ups and downs of getting it going, just because I'm a mom and homeschooling and busy and all those kind of things. But I was so honored to be asked to speak, especially from the main stage, and so it was about navigating significant life transitions and particularly when God calls someone to leave their comfort zone for a greater purpose, and so I shared about how I had laid down my business after 14 years and what that looked like being in the midst of transition, because transition is pretty intense if you are doing something like that and I was literally leaving one ecosystem to, I didn't know, the great unknown.

Liz: 16:53

Right, right, yeah, so you were literally trading comfort for where you felt like God was calling you yeah, yeah, and didn't know where God was calling me Like. Let's be clear.

Ben: 17:05

Yeah, still, maybe don't know all of it. No, not at all.

Liz: 17:08

Not at all. I mean other than, like the main things, being a wife, you know, of course, being a mother, a daughter of the king, you know daughter A podcaster. A podcaster. I love that one, that one I never thought would be mine, but you know, but transitions can be scary, you know, and I kind of went through nine different ways to know that you're going through transition.

Ben: 17:30

Why don't you tell us a?

Liz: 17:31

few. Well, and how to recognize it? I'll tell you a few, since you asked Ben Sure, of course, Pull those right up. Sometimes you have more capacity than you're currently using. So you know it could be that you may be having impact. You may be seeing, you know, great influence, those kind of things, but it's like you're not really using all of your gifts, talents, you know, yeah, that you've been given a little stifle.

Liz: 17:57

Yeah, and sometimes also to in transition, just your assignment is finished, right, you know it's a clear cut, you know you've you've done a good job and the Lord's like, yay, I'm proud of you. But now you know there's it's actually finished and that can be maybe the job's ended. Or you just know in your heart like you're just not moving forward and sometimes also, too, you know your current environment could become limiting. I use the example of you know, if you are putting a coat on that used to fit perfectly and then all of a sudden now it feels too tight. The coat hasn't changed, but you have, there's something in you that has actually changed.

Liz: 18:34

Um, and one of the other things I I heard feedback from some of the girls that were actually other moms that I guess were going through transition. They shared that. Um, I said that your current position was never meant to be permanent. So the idea is like you're on your way, you know, heading to a direction, you get off at a pit stop to get gas, but then you end up making that pit stop your permanent spot and all along you had something else to head towards, and so a temporary stop over has become a permanent habitation.

Ben: 19:04

There's like a guy in the Bible that you mentioned, right.

Liz: 19:06

Yeah, I spoke about. It was me. Read the scriptures right here. It says one day Terah took his son Abram and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but he stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died still in Haran. So that was actually in Genesis 11. And what it's talking about is sometimes we make a pit stop and you know, and we make it into that permanent address like I was just talking about, and so how many of us are living in Haran when God is calling us to Canaan?

Ben: 19:39

That's good.

Liz: 19:40

Yeah, yeah, and so you know there were some other ones that were in there, but you know it was really cool too, because as I was thinking about speaking at this conference, there was a couple of other things that were kind of sticking out to me, especially as a creative. And you know, I see people and I've done this to myself. I'm actually also a dancer, and so when you're creating something, you know you are concerned with what people are going to give you know feedback to you, but then also to you.

Ben: 20:05

Sometimes you have this internal dialogue that's going on and it's critical Right.

Liz: 20:26

And it can even be cynical.

Ben: 20:28

Yeah cynical.

Liz: 20:34

And when the Lord was creating the heavens and the earth, when he was creating creation in the beginning, in the book of Genesis and right now I'm reading through the Bible because we just started a new year and when he created, after he created, what did he say? Every single time? What did he say? It was good, it is good. So, as creatives whatever that medium may be even us doing this podcast, this is a creative thing that we're doing because we're speaking and writing and all this stuff.

Liz: 20:56

But as a creative, no matter what it is, when you do it, look at it and say it is good. And if someone comes up to you and they say, oh, great job, this really blessed me, your song that you wrote, or your piece that you painted, or whatever it may be you created, don't dismiss them and go. Oh, they're just saying that because they have to say that or they don't really mean it. They see, all the things that I did wrong. Literally say it is good, because when you say it is good one, you are mirroring the one that we've been created after right the Lord. But then also, too, it's happening as we're speaking. What's happening in our minds and our hearts and in our basically our spirits. It is agreeing with what is right, and so it changes your thought process. So that was something that I shared. And then do you have a thought about that?

Ben: 21:48

You look, like you have a thought about that. No, it's good. It's good, yeah, I think about that. You look like you thought about that. It's good. Yeah, I think like just hearing your own self say it. I think that kind of re, that reinforcement learning like say it, believe it you know, just I like that act of like getting it out, yeah, yeah.

Liz: 22:04

Well, because when you say it, then you believe it right, like that's part of it.

Ben: 22:07

It's part of it. Well, it could be for good or for bad, true, yeah, so yeah, that's true we.

Liz: 22:12

We can get into that another day. I'm sure Ben has some books that he's read that he can jump into that. Are you thinking of any?

Ben: 22:18

books? No, no, not at the moment. No, it's a miracle.

Liz: 22:20

This is a true miracle on this episode. Oh boy, I know.

Liz: 22:24

But something else that I did have the chance to speak also into was the story of the talents you know, the master and there was the one, two and five talents and you know you can be a one talent person, a two talent person or a five talent person and when you are given the talent, whatever that may be okay, you choose if you're going to really use it double it, become amazing at it, or if you're going to bury it, squander it, right yeah, squander it and we don't want to be a one talent person.

Ben: 22:58

Right.

Liz: 22:58

Because in that parable, when Jesus is telling that parable, the person who had the one talent says I buried it because I knew you were harsh.

Ben: 23:06

Not that the one talent's bad, but just what they did with that one talent, right did with that one talent. Right and we want.

Liz: 23:14

we've all been given gifts. We've all been given talents Every single one of us, I no matter what your physical state is, even your mental state. There there is stuff that the Lord has given you that you can use and bless the world.

Ben: 23:26

Like it's really there.

Liz: 23:27

That's scriptural and so you want it. You want to multiply that. And then the other thing is is that I was thinking about the story when the king came to Elisha and was asking Elisha about going to war, and I mean, I've heard all kinds of sermons on this and I'm sure you have too, but you know, when Elisha instructs the king to take the arrows and strike the ground, Right. And then Elisha's irritated with him. Like why didn't you? Strike it more.

Ben: 23:53

Because he did it three times. He only did it three times.

Liz: 23:55

Yeah, just a few times, and it's like there's a fear factor that's there, is my God going to pull through, or there's, like you know, a pride or something like that Something, something limited, like I'm holding back.

Liz: 24:12

Yeah, not holding back, not holding back just like jumping in there and doing it and you know there's something about that. There's something that's beautiful and our work is our worship. Our creating is our worship. Like it's beautiful and we're meant to, as creatives, display that. Like there's. There's something that opens in the hearts of people when they see it, they hear it, they feel it. I'm thinking about what happened at the creative conference, when there was a painter who got on stage Philip Ortiz Right, so that happened at the very end, right.

Ben: 24:43

Yeah, it was the last thing, one of the last things, yeah, so there was this painter who got up there on stage and just started painting and had a microphone on and he was being videoed at the same time and he didn't. I guess he had kind of like an inkling of what he was going to paint, but he just was like going for it and he, in the moment he was like kind of praying and dialoguing with the Lord and just trying to figure out what he's going to do, while in front of everybody and there was someone playing the piano and worshiping, and so it was just kind of this weird, um and good, like good, but strange in the sense like we we don't really see that whole uh very often, but it was cool and he really just kind of like went for it and it was almost like, uh, like a Bob Ross moment where he's like oh I made a little mistake here.

Ben: 25:30

I'm going to make that a happy tree.

Liz: 25:33

Kind of like that, but it was uncomfortable for him.

Ben: 25:35

It was he's never done this before.

Liz: 25:37

Yeah, and it was.

Ben: 25:38

And it was a risk Like he took a risk. Yeah, he took a risk and he kind of illustrated that whole like fear is a thief thing and he just went for it.

Liz: 25:51

Just like struck the room.

Ben: 25:52

You're right. You're right Because he was sharing, like his own journey in the past year and coming for some painful things in his life and even near death experiences with some of his loved ones.

Liz: 26:04

Yeah.

Ben: 26:04

And so he was talking that through, as he was painting, as he felt the Lord like lead him, and he was painting about some of those grief moments and man, it was really, and he was painting about some of those grief moments and, man, it was really powerful.

Liz: 26:17

It was super powerful, in fact. At one point I looked over at you and you were tearing up.

Ben: 26:19

I was tearing up, you were tearing up, and it just kind of hit me very differently, because I was seeing art expressed, but then I was also hearing the artist behind each brushstroke saying kind of what that represented, and the place that he was coming from. And man it was, and then, of course, you had someone playing the keys very beautifully. So, yeah, it was very emotive.

Liz: 26:40

An amazing worship leader, Matt Gilman. Phenomenal, I mean literally phenomenal.

Ben: 26:45

We forgot about him. Yeah, we forgot Matt. We forgot to mention that he was part of the creative conference. Yeah, he was there in Zachton's Moor. He led worship as well.

Liz: 26:50

Yeah, he was there in Zachton's more, he led worship as well. We also saw another display of risk happening in front of us we had Andy Squire. He's also a singer-songwriter. This guy is like a lament.

Ben: 27:04

I don't know how to describe him. How would you describe Andy? Squire to someone who's never heard of him. It is such a strange guy, amazing. And I mean that with a lot of sincerity. Strange in the sense that we just don't have a grid for someone like Andy Squires. He literally is like a modern day psalmist, and what I mean by that is he would present to the Lord his lament, and even stretching some of the boundaries of what we would consider worship. And it was kind of beautiful. It was very beautiful.

Liz: 27:39

And also risky and yeah, it was risky and sometimes uncomfortable.

Ben: 27:41

I mean I'm not going to lie Like there were some things you know that he would talk about or say, and I'm like can you put that in a worship song? Like, can we talk?

Liz: 27:48

about this subject in a worship song but it was moving because there was a realness and a raw, like you, yeah, it was beautiful, but I was thinking so, um, some of the, there was a band that got put together, phenomenal worship, worship band. I mean they were playing all their instruments I mean phenomenal and they're all from all different backgrounds. So they all came together and he doesn't play this. This guy, andy, doesn't normally play with a band.

Liz: 28:12

And so he got up there with the band, yeah, and they went for it and it was very risky, I mean. So you could see. You could see it happening before your eyes, but it was amazing and I'm not a musician, but some of the people with us are musicians and they were like did you hear that? Oh my gosh. Yes, as a matter of fact, we did, even though I just thought it was amazing.

Ben: 28:40

Right, yeah, it was really cool. It was really cool to see that put together and what a cool guy I mean. Definitely go check his workout. His stuff's cool, got a lot to link to. Yeah, we do. We're going to have to link to a lot. A link tree is going to be very long A link tree Just go through, Just follow, follow follow, follow Phenomenal.

Liz: 28:59

Phenomenal conference. We were so blessed to be there and we're looking forward to the next one. Yeah, we're excited, we're excited.

Ben: 29:07

Yeah, I mean, I think just kind of like in summary, like just some takeaways, right, the biggest thing for me, I believe, from this conference was just like making sure that I'm doing something to create.

Ben: 29:20

And one of the things I kept hearing from the different speakers was like talking about how we're such a consumer culture and even you know us as Christians we like to consume just a lot of stuff, but very few of us are actually creating. And there was just a charge put forth from the stage. It was like hey guys, we need to be creators because God is a creator, and so not just relegating the creating to the people who are the most creative right the five talent people but just expressing it might even be a half talent that we have, but just making sure that we own that and just start creating ourselves. Not just thinking about being consumers, but creating for other people and for the Lord and for ourselves, just like getting out there and doing something.

Liz: 30:08

And doing it in community.

Ben: 30:09

Oh, that was a good one too. Yeah, a lot of community expressed, even as people were giving talks and things like that Just how to be in community with one another and just to link up. That was really cool too.

Liz: 30:22

We have our own community in our house.

Ben: 30:24

We do.

Liz: 30:26

Our house.

Ben: 30:27

There's all kinds of people. It's an eight-person community.

Liz: 30:30

There's a lot of community.

Ben: 30:31

In fact, some of our community members, I think, would like to escape the community at times.

Liz: 30:35

Sometimes that's happening. I was going to say, now that we have teenagers, you know that age is where they love all their friends. So, today I just had a conversation with one of our teenagers and the conversation went something like this hey, what do you think about if, for the summer, my one friend could come and live with us all summer? I said, what wait, what? Wow, yeah, I haven't even had a chance to talk to you about that.

Liz: 30:58

That's news to me and so, yeah, that's news to you. And I was like well, uh, what okay?

Ben: 31:02

I mean honestly, we probably wouldn't even notice.

Liz: 31:06

We've got so many people in the house already well, I mean, and yesterday we had two other teenagers that, like hang hung at our house all day long. They showed up at 930 and I think they left at 9 pm. They literally were here all day. My point is is that we are living in community and we, you know, practically you may or may not be able to do this, depending on your kids and I'm going to switch to parenting creatives, to parenting creatives, but we've created space for our kids.

Liz: 31:32

So we have an actual music room that we have set up. There's a bass, there's an electric, there's a guitar, there's a piano, we have the drums, which are so quiet.

Ben: 31:41

That's not true.

Liz: 31:43

No, the drums are not quiet, but we're allowing the kids to have that space to be able to create. Their friends come over, they create. We have a whole craft area because we've got some serious crafters and it's not just the girls, you guys. The guys like to get in there too and they'll create. We sometimes do creative things as a family, like painting rocks together.

Ben: 32:01

This is true, and sometimes even being creative means we're choosing not to do other things right. So it's like we're stopping maybe some of the normal activities or some of the things that we just kind of default to and we're just giving space for this kind of sounds weird, but when you give space for a little boredom sometimes you never know what comes out of that boredom mentality you get creative. It's kind of almost by necessity.

Liz: 32:29

Well, they get really creative because they have created shops. Oh yeah, I mean the shops. We really should dive into this in another episode about raising entrepreneurs. But I mean they like straight up made shops and then got all the neighbors and other families involved and my whole living room became this shop.

Ben: 32:49

Marketplace.

Liz: 32:50

Marketplace and if you've ever followed me on social media, you've seen some of these things that kids have come up with. Um, I mean, the boredom is actually a good thing because it causes them to get into that space of creating. And we do limit screens, we do limit, you know, gaming and all that kind of stuff, but that we'll have to dive into definitely another podcast, if you're interested in that, just let us know in the comments.

Liz: 33:12

Like, hey, we'll have to dive into, definitely on another podcast. If you're interested in that, just let us know in the comments. Like, hey, we would love to hear about these kinds of things because that helps us to kind of, you know, get in there and talk about it. But, yeah, boredom is good. We throw I don't want to say we throw the kids outside, but I'm like it's a beautiful day, get outside, you know, and they go out there and and from the oldest to the youngest I mean even our older emerging adults yeah, they get out there.

Ben: 33:35

They do.

Liz: 33:36

So just creating. My point is just creating that space. All the kids have journals. We'll put on music and have them draw. Not everybody draws the same. We have some that are better than others, but the point is just kind of getting that pumped and going yeah.

Ben: 33:52

That creative well, that creative well, that creative well. Yep, cool man. I think we've hit most of the conference stuff. I think that's really what we kind of wanted to get through, I know. We have enjoyed today have you enjoyed today, definitely, definitely, feel inspired.

Liz: 34:11

Well, thanks for being a part of our One Blessed Mess today. Don't forget to subscribe like share heart, all the things for anybody that you think that would enjoy this podcast. We certainly are very grateful and thankful that you're listening or watching today, and we are just loving this. So, again, if you have any questions or anything like that, let us know, reach out to us. But until next time, we want you to embrace your beautiful mess, Because if our mess can be blessed, then we know, so can yours. That's right. Have a great day.