Creativity is a Gift from God with Dan Lietha

Creation Fellowship

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Okay, and I think that we're going live but normally it would say that so this is that time where people when they watch the recording and months and years to come work and they go look at that Cooper Oh yeah it didn't work.

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Hold on just a second. Maybe you can push pause on the recording. Okay, I think this is going to work this time so.

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Hello, I am Terry cameras L and I'm here on behalf of creation fellowship Santee, where a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

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God created life and, and, and the earth and everything on it in just six days, a few thousand years ago, we've been meeting here on zoom since June of 2020 we've been blessed with by presentations that are a blend of creation science current events and theology and you can find most links to most of our past presentations by typing in tiny url .com

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forward slash CF Santee that see like creation F like fellowship and Santee is spelled s a n t e, you can also email us at creation fellowship

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Santee at gmail .com so that you get on our email list we promise not to spam you, but we will send you links to each of our upcoming fellowships on Thursday night so that you won't miss any of our speakers tonight we're blessed to have back with us cartoonist

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Dan Lita. Dan was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and he received

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Jesus as his savior and started drawing at a very young age, his love for dinosaurs and animals were instrumental in motivating him to start drawing and keep drawing.

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You might be familiar with his long running cartoons creation wise and after Eden that he drew for answers and Genesis.

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Now Dan serves with the ministry reasons for hope and he draws truth jabs, which is a weekly cartoon he also draws a monthly cartoon for Dr.

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Lyle's Biblical Science Institute and that's called ready to reason so you can find those on Facebook and multiple locations you can also find

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Dan's website at Dan Lita .com and Lita is I before he Lita .com.

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And so tonight we're happy to have him talk to us about creativity and the fact that it is a gift from our creator.

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So Dan with that I'm ready to turn it over to you. All right, well thank you

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Terry, and I'm going to go to my slides here because I depend on my visuals for my notes and so I'm going to minimize my face and look at some of the things that I've created and put together as far as my slides go but as Terry said

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I work for reasons for hope so we're gonna we're gonna find out a little bit more about the ministry that I work for and I'm going to give a little personal history to this is some of the crew that I work with Carl Kirby and my co workers.

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This slide was created when we went we went down to Florida for a Christian educators conference and so this particular talk that I'm going to do tonight was fashioned for that crowd, so I've modified it a little bit for you guys tonight but I think it's something that hopefully everyone will be blessed by, but we have a, this is a bit of a smaller family than the one that I worked with when

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I was back at answers in Genesis and these are a bunch of dear, dear people. And our mission here is training and equipping the next generation to stand boldly on the word of God our desire as a ministry reasons for hope is to to train the upcoming generation to defend and to proclaim their faith, because they are being heavily

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And we really really need to up our game to to preserve the next generation as they are we going to be the defenders of the faith.

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And part of how I do that and what I do is using the creativity that God has given me so that I can create images and slides and all kinds of things and tonight

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I want to talk about some of that. And then incorporate what is creativity and think about that from a worldview point of view.

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All right, so it's from my point of view it's a it's a gift, and it's from God it's from our creator.

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So to sum up tonight's content, I want to talk a little bit about my career in my art. The origin of creativity where that truly came from.

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And then I want to share some experiences of mine that I have when I was a young artist, and hopefully some of these things will be helpful for those of you that maybe you're not a creative person.

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You don't draw on that sort of thing, but you, you have contact with in your sphere of influence a creative person, a grandchild or a child or a student or something like that.

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Hopefully these experiences that I'm going to share will be a blessing to you that you can encourage those creative people.

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And then I'm going to share some of my creative process, people ask questions about that a lot of me. And then some tips and information along the way, as well as some resources that I'll point you to.

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All right, so to start out with, these are my closest supporters. My, my wife

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Marcia, and our daughter Hannah, and she is 19 years old now, boy the years have gone by so fast and she is a young creative that's grown up in my home.

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And I've been able to encourage her and it's been fun to see her grow in her creative abilities and I think she wants to pursue some creative profession.

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So hopefully that'll happen down the road but she just enjoys creating and drawing on her iPad and that sort of thing.

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So, it's been the Kentucky three for many, many years. But there's four people in this picture right here.

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Now, something I need to clarify too is that my wife works at the Creation Museum, she's been there for a little over a year now.

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My daughter works at the Creation Museum, she's been there. See, we worked, she and I worked together at the

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Creation Museum for at least two years, maybe probably more. And then that young man next to her is not just her boyfriend that's her fiance, and they're going to be married this

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March, and his name is Noah Hamm. So, he is

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Ken Hamm's grandson. So, Hannah is going to become a Hamm, which is very, very interesting.

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So, we love Noah dearly. He's a fantastic young Christian man, solid foundation and we are excited about Noah and Hannah.

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All right, so I've been a cartoonist for many, many years, and it's not just that I cartoon, I illustrate as well.

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And so I like to dabble in both areas, although I primarily will tell people I'm a cartoonist.

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And I've been able to do that in Christian ministry for around 30 years, somewhere in there.

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And it's been a blessing to do that. Now, again, my history is that I started in Christian ministry with Answers in Genesis.

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I was with them for 23 years full time, volunteered for Ken Hamm two years, so about 25 years,

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I worked for them. And as Terry said in my introduction, I did a comic strip called

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Creation Wise from the very beginning. I mean, that comic strip helped get my foot in the door, because I was doing that before I even joined the ministry.

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So that was a very valuable tool for me. And then I started After Eden after I was there for a number of a few years.

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And so those two features are pretty well known by a lot of people. And, you know, to this day,

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I still keep getting a lot of requests about use of After Eden and Creation Wise and such.

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And so I want to take a brief moment here because people know, wait, you left Answers in Genesis last week.

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I think it was asked, why did I, why did I leave? And so just to help people know that I'm no longer there.

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And I can't grant permission for use of my cartoons that I did while I was there. You have to ask them.

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But what happened was on October 11th, it was a Friday. I was brought into the

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H .R. office and they told me that they as a ministry had been doing some restructuring type things and that my position as cartoonist was eliminated.

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So I didn't have a job for about three weeks and the Lord provided reasons for hope for my next ministry position.

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So I'm super thankful for that. Something that's more recently occurred, though, is that my good friend,

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Dr. Jason Lyle, wanted me to do some cartooning for him, too. And so on my off hours on the weekends, once a month,

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I draw a cartoon called Ready to Reason. And so that's another avenue for my creative abilities and juices to sink my teeth into.

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And I very much enjoy my friendship with Jason and being ministry partners in that regard.

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But Reasons for Hope now is where I hang my hat and my art, most of my art these days.

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And so I've got a feature called Draw and Know It. Again, for the young artists that are coming up,

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I want to instruct them. And this feature teaches them how to draw line by line these particular animals.

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And then I'm not only teaching them how to draw the animals, but I'm teaching them about them from a Christian worldview.

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So it's an art creation lesson. So you can find I'll tell you where to find those later on. Truth Jabs is kind of my main cartoon feature these days.

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And so this is an editorial cartoon with a Christian worldview. And if you haven't seen them, go look them up and please help us share them.

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Hopefully they're a pointed message, but one that points people to the gospel and to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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So that's the ultimate point that I want to get across. So apologetics really is the realm that I've been in during my course of creation cartooning ministry.

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And for those of you that might not be familiar with the term, it's reasoned arguments or writings and justification of something typically a theory or religious doctrine.

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So it's a defense of the faith. And basically, when it comes down to it, there's two different opinions going around.

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There's God's word and man's ideas, man's fallible opinions. And so we're arguing for the fact that reality is ultimately based in God's word.

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And man's ideas are not reality based or not as factual as people would want us to believe.

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So in this realm of creativity, then we ask the question, well, where did creativity come from?

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Which is a great question. So, again, let's take a look at that from a worldview perspective.

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And we're going to start with man's ideas on this. Now, if you look up creativity online, you'll see that a lot of people are dealing with this particular topic from the point of view is that there's no

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God, that there's an evolutionary process that, you know, everything started from nothing and then boom, it exploded and became everything.

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And creativity was in there someplace. It all happened. It just happened. Right. So that's what

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Darwin would propose. And so that's how people are trying to explain why we have creativity in the world today.

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Well, one thing that we can point to is let's look at nature and let's see if there's creativity in nature itself.

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And then let's see what we can tell from what we see in nature there.

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All right. So looking around, you see things like spider webs, which I know some people are kind of grossed out by those things, but I think they're marvelous, beautiful structures.

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So I love spider webs. I think that the things that bees and wasps can make are amazing.

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Look, look at how consistent those things are. It blows my mind just just looking at those things.

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And that's that's a thought of as a lower type of creation. Right. But marvelous things that they are able to engineer and to build certain birds, build certain nests.

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And so they apparently have this information in them that causes them to build these structures that are, again,

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I think, lovely and very unique and special. These designs cause quite a stir online a while back as people were looking at them.

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It's kind of funny because some people were thinking maybe space aliens made these. They're kind of like the crop circles that you see.

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But these are on the ocean floor. So for a while, they couldn't figure out where they came from. And then it was found that the culprit actually is there's a picture of the culprit right in the middle there.

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It's a puffer fish. So puffer fishes make these things to attract a mate.

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And animals do all kinds of really interesting things to to get get a mate. Right.

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They sing songs. Think about music and that whole realm. We see beautiful melodies and tones and I don't know if you call them songs or not.

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Bird songs, I suppose, coming from different varieties of birds. Beautiful, beautiful things that we see in nature and here in nature.

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All right. And then the again, the courtships that some animals do and go through the displays that they go through and stuff to attract a mate.

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If you've ever seen a peacock strutting around doing its thing, it's shaking and doing its little choreography that it does.

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Or other birds have this very unique choreography, too. So dance, I guess, would be a sort of a art that is in nature that you see.

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If you've ever seen a beaver dam, the engineering that goes into these things. Again, amazing, incredible stuff.

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This this particular one right here is very small. When I was growing up, I was able to walk across a beaver dam that was probably 10 times larger than this thing.

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And just a hint, don't ever walk across the beaver dam and bare feet. OK, but marvelous engineering feet.

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So what can animals teach us about creativity? This is from a Web article that I found online. It says, but is creativity really unique to humans or do other species show any evidence of creativity?

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Understanding how creativity evolved in other animals can help us better understand our own creative ability.

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So there it is. They've got this evolutionary worldview injected into looking at the creative things that we see in nature.

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And they're saying that we can learn about ourselves by looking at our animal relatives. Right. So recent research suggests that creativity is a spectrum with other animal species showing rudimentary forms of creativity.

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So you find simple forms of creativity in nature. And we're kind of a culmination of years of evolution.

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We're the we're the top of the creation, the creativity pyramid. So, well, let's ask the question again, though.

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But so do animals have a measure of creativity? And I would say, yes, I would agree with a portion of that quote that I just read that there is creativity found in nature.

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However, it is far less than what we see in the human family. All right.

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So here's an image that I made to kind of picture what they're trying to come up with as far as like an origin story for creation.

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You've got simpler forms, earlier ancestors, so to speak, that are starting to get creative.

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And then as as humans supposedly evolved, then the creative abilities grew and grew and grew until you have an artist at his easel, you know, expressing his creativity and really fantastic in great ways.

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So is that what really happened? No, but they they need to tie all of that together.

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They need to tie the creativity that we see or that the creative abilities in creation in the in the world around us in nature.

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They need to tie that to the human family. And so to do that. They think about it like this.

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You see these structures in nature that there are similarities, right? You just get the whale, the frog, the horse, the lion, the bat and the bird.

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If you look at limbs on those creatures, they look very similar in design to the human arm.

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They've got these fingers and the forearm and the arm bones and stuff.

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And so you see a pattern there that looks very familiar to all of those things. And so you think, well, we all must be related because there's similarities there.

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And from a creationist point of view, though, it's not that we're related where we have something in common, though.

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And that's our our creator. It's not common ancestry that produced us.

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It's our creator. And so those similarities are just God's choice in using similar solutions in solving problems with each of those creatures.

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And so that's why each of us has a similarity to a lion or a horse or a frog.

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It's not that we're related. It's that we have a common creator. And so I want you to think about artwork in that way, too, or the creative things that we see in nature.

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There's a measure of creative ability in the creatures that God has created. But that's because he's the creator and he's given those to them.

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We have a common creator. It's not that it's a product of evolution.

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That creative element is not an element of our evolution. And that's why we all have it because we're related.

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It's because we have a common creator. So what about animals that can do things that are closer to what humans do?

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That painting and some of that sort of stuff. Is that something that we see as well? And I think that those types of things are promoted to get people to think, yeah, animals are closer to us than you think.

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They're always trying to connect those two worlds together. And the

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Bible clearly keeps them apart. The animals are one thing. Human beings are specifically very, very different.

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All right. So here's some really interesting images. You can find videos and I highly recommend looking them up.

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They're very, very entertaining. Very amazing, too. You can put a paintbrush in the mouth of a dog or a pig or an elephant or even a dolphin.

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And you can train them to move that thing around and they can make some designs on paper or canvas or whatever it is.

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Zoos are raising money for their facilities by doing this sort of thing and selling some of these at hundreds and thousands of dollars.

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So you can buy artwork from an animal artist at a zoo. Well, there's a particular pig out there that's pretty famous for doing artwork that's like this.

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And I want you to think about this from a pig's point of view, maybe.

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Is it pig or people? Is this artwork more the result of pig or people?

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Let's think about this. The paint. Where did the paint come from? Pig or the people? It came from the people.

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Or how about the colors of the paint? Did the pig choose those? No. How about the tools that the pig used to paint that?

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The brush? No, that came from people, too. How about the canvas? No, that came from people. And even the design.

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Well, I guess that would be the one factor that maybe the pig contributed. But is that much of a design?

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Is that an abstract thing or is that representing anything? It's just that this pig has been trained to swing his head back and forth with that paintbrush in his mouth.

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So how creative is that really? We call it artwork because we're humans. We like to read that into it.

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But I think that's not much of an artwork type of thing.

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But there's something even more specific towards the art direction that animals can do.

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What about animals that can actually draw? Is that a thing? Well, let's take a look.

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Again, videos that you can look up online, and I highly recommend doing this. If you go to India, you can see elephants that have been trained to hold a paintbrush in their trunk.

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They're not just painting. These elephants are drawing. And so here's one of their drawings that's along the way.

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And that is very obviously an elephant that this elephant is drawing.

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It's an amazing, amazing thing. I'd love to have one of these, actually. So is the elephant an artist then?

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Does this qualify as artwork from an elephant? Well, the elephant, again, looks to us like an artist because we recognize what that elephant is drawing.

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And here's some other examples of some finished artwork. They can even letter on there. The name of that elephant is

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Sudha, I guess. And then there's a tree with some flowers on it. Beautiful for what they are.

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And yet that wasn't made by a human. It was made by an elephant. But let's think about that. This looks like artwork to us.

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We're used to seeing this. It means something visually to us. But these images are actually meaningless to the elephant.

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They don't know what that is. They've been instructed line by line, probably through a reward or punishment system.

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I don't want to think about the punishment so much, but hopefully more reward. You draw this line at this spot in this way, you get a reward.

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And this is the culmination of that training. So it's really not the skill of artwork and creative ability.

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It's more of the ability to hold a brush in their trunk and to repeat something that they've been trained to do.

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They've been trained to copy, and it's not so much an artistic process.

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So these symbols right here don't look like much to most of us, probably.

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That's actually the word artist in Chinese, and I could learn how to make those symbols.

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But does that mean that I would know what the language is or what that really means?

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No, that would just be something I could repeat. And I have the ability to eventually learn what that is, but animals aren't the same.

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So that art that the elephant is supposedly producing is an amazing thing to watch.

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But it's just something that they've been repeating over and over and over again. It's not really art as we think about it.

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From another web article that I found called Elephants that Paint, Birds that Make Music, Do Animals Have an

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Aesthetic Sense? It says, like the Bowerbirds decorated home, paintings by elephants, seals, dogs, and ravens and other species have no recognizable connections to depictions of reality and hence no symbolism.

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They are art to us in the sense of modern art, abstract expressionism, but we are far from knowing whether they are art to artists.

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And this is a secular source. Both those quotes that I quoted to you are not

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Christians. Those are secular people admitting that these animals doing these images that are amazing again are probably not the art that we read into them and how we appreciate them.

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All right, so these things seem entertaining and innocent, but think about it.

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What are they ultimately trying to do with these animals that are painting and they're trying to read into what they're doing, where our creative abilities came from?

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They're trying to erase the creator out of existence and ultimately deprive him of the credit for his creation.

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They're trying to take that away from him and explain it through an evolutionary process that's impersonal and all that.

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Romans chapter one reminds us that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

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Those things are an unrighteous act of suppressing the truth that God is our creator.

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And how awful is that for God the creator to not get credit for his creativity?

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Here's a truth jabs cartoon that I made not so long ago. In the world today we have a lot of people talking about identity issues and that sort of difficulty.

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Well, we've got an evolutionary identity disorder. Seeing oneself as a relative of the animal kingdom instead of a distinctly separate and special creation of God created in his image.

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So let's end this massive identity crisis. You are not an animal. Jesus offers salvation to no animal, only to the human race.

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Each human, we are one family, is very unique and special and different from the animal kingdom.

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So the book of Genesis is very handy in helping us to identify who we are as people.

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And it's something that I want to tell people about and to help them get a grasp on and have a firm foundation for who they are and where creativity came from.

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It's from God and it's for his glory. So think about our creator, that he's the one that deserves our worship and us giving him credit for it.

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I'm going to read some verses here. Look at these wonderful creations of his as I do that. How many are your works,

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Lord? In wisdom you made them all.

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The earth is full of your creatures. But God made the earth by his power.

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He founded the world by his wisdom. And stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

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The heavens declare the glory of God. And the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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God is the source of all creativity. Human creativity is unique and special.

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And it's something that we're responsible for in how we use it and what we do with it.

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And sadly a lot of people, think about this, the whole idea of evolution and those processes that people are trying to use or think of and invent to explain away our creator

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God, that's man misusing his creative abilities in unrighteousness to ultimately deprive our creator of his credit, the credit that he deserves.

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So why do people have the abilities that we do? Look at Genesis chapter 1 verses 27 and 28.

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So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them.

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Very important. And then verse 28. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

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God has given man tools to carry this out. The dominion that we're supposed to have to rule over God's creation, this earth that we were put on to live and inhabit and to take care of,

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God has given us the ability to do all those things. And I think the creativity that we have as humans that's unique from any animal, any other creation that God has made, you know, think about all the different compositions that we can make and the complexity that's in the artwork and the structures that we build, the expression, imagination, the message, the meaning, humor, originality, purpose, function, invention.

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All of those things far surpass anything else that God has created on this earth.

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So I'm not going to claim that I have the most outstanding creative abilities, but I want to kind of talk about the creative world that I live in and how

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I create. And again, hopefully some of the creative people that you know would benefit from this information and maybe you're a teacher.

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There's some things that I have in here for you, some good and bad experiences that I've had. But when people find out that I'm a cartoonist or an illustrator, right away, parents in particular, will start asking certain questions.

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What tools do you use? What computer do you have? What art apps do you use? And so to answer that question very quickly, and this is kind of funny because this is where I'm sitting right now in front of my computer screen that you're watching from my camera that's on the top of that monitor that I have my hand on there.

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My artwork these days isn't so much on pen and paper. It's done digitally on a

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Wacom Cintiq. It's a graphics tablet that has a screen on it that allows me to draw right on the screen with that special pencil that they have.

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And I wear that white glove on my hand, not because I'm a Michael Jackson fan so much, but because it protects the screen from my hand oils and it helps my hand glide across the screen.

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So I draw on the screen there. So everything that you've seen on my cartoons and stuff, it's made on this particular piece of equipment.

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And I am of the Macintosh or Apple persuasion for my computers. A lot of creative people are.

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And I tend to use Photoshop Adobe Photoshop a lot. And for those of you that want to use a program like that, but you don't have the money for it.

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There's another one called GIMP, G -I -M -P. You can go to GIMP .com,

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I believe, and download a program that's like Photoshop. It's different, but it's free.

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And you can do a lot of Photoshop type stuff in GIMP, G -I -M -P. So ask me about that later if you want.

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Now, creativity is something that the hand gets a lot of credit for, but it's actually something that happens in the brain, in the mind.

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All right. So this is where creativity takes place. And let's go to scripture and back that up.

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Exodus 35, 31, 32. And he has filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze.

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I love that the Bible talks about artists and creation of the things that people make, that God is the one that gave us those skills.

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All right. Exodus 35, 35, a couple of verses later, he has filled them with the skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linens and weavers and all kinds of skilled workers and designers.

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So creative people that God has made to make things to glorify him.

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I love those verses. So what we do with it happens here. What we do with our creativity also takes place in our mind.

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And the Bible calls that our heart. Well, that's not the heart that we're dealing with here. So let's picture it this way.

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It's not our cardio heart. It's the heart, our mind, our will. That's where we handle our creativity and we're responsible with what we do with it there.

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All right. So Proverbs talks about it says guard your heart with all diligence. It's very important that we guard our young artists.

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Well, whoever we are, guard what goes in, because there's output to for from it flow the springs of life.

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That input that your children are getting from their school or television or movies or books or whatever online, even art courses and things like that.

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That stuff needs to be clean and something that won't have baggage in it that gives them problems later because that stuff comes out.

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So guard your children, guard them. So here's a cartoon that I produced not so long ago, and I was able to actually present this down in Florida, not in Orlando at the

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Christian Educators Conference. And I got a lot of response from this particular cartoon.

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The first image. It's a biblical image. You can find Matthew 715 talks about a wolf in sheep's clothing.

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And so a warning then a warning now. And so something that looks innocent like Mickey Mouse these days isn't so innocent anymore.

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And there's a lot of bad ideas that's being injected into our children's minds through these seemingly innocent things.

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So parents protect your children. It's so, so important. And if you find this cartoon online, please share it.

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Here's another cartoon that I made to express the difference in worldviews and the pressure that Christians are under.

34:59

We're seen as very, very different if we're thinking biblically. The world has been so brainwashed and they don't even recognize the brainwashed condition that they're in, and they think we're the ones that are brainwashed.

35:11

Well, hopefully our brainwashing is a cleansing washing, not a dirtying up of our minds with clutter and stuff from the world.

35:22

All right, so our brains contain this gift of creativity that God has given,

35:28

I think, to each one of us. Some of us use it more than others, but all of us have creativity at some level or level of ability.

35:37

So the amount of creativity that you have, you're probably familiar with Spider -Man, and there's a certain saying that's associated with him, with great power comes great responsibility, right?

35:48

So there he is, the hero saving someone. Well, where did that saying come from?

35:54

Where's the foundation? Luke 12, 48, everyone to whom much was given of him, much will be required.

36:01

And from him to whom they entrusted much, they will be demanded the more.

36:06

So the Bible says that clearly. God's given to us things that we're required to be careful with how we do with them, and we're responsible for doing great things with them for the kingdom of God and for God's glory.

36:22

So let's talk about some of my early day experiences again, and hopefully this will be encouraging to parents and teachers, particularly.

36:31

There's me in the beginning of my art career. I was drawing at a very, very young age, and if you don't know which one

36:38

I am, take a look at the screen there. I am this guy right there. Yeah, the ears gave me a lot of, got a lot of comments in my growing up years about my ears.

36:49

Anyway, that's me in first grade, 1970, a long time ago. There's some of my original artwork. I was drawing dinosaurs and monsters even way back then.

36:58

And, you know, I'm still doing that to this day. I love those things. And, you know, back in those days, my teachers weren't so excited about my drawings of dinosaurs and monsters.

37:07

And I would get comments like, why can't you do something more constructive? Which is kind of sad to think about that they couldn't warm up to it.

37:16

It's not some of the stuff that you see today. There's nothing occultish about it. It's a silly dinosaur monster type scenes that little boys in particular,

37:26

I think, tend to like more than girls. But that was fun stuff for me. I like,

37:31

I love doing it. I didn't listen to my teachers' criticisms. And I'm glad I didn't because these days

37:38

I'm still drawing dinosaurs and monsters. Well, more dinosaurs these days. But here's some of the books that I illustrated over my career time at Answers in Genesis.

37:47

A lot of dinosaurs and monsters for the glory of God. And I wish

37:52

I could show some of my teachers this type of subject matter that I'm still doing to this day.

37:59

So criticism is something that I've endured a lot in the years of my drawing career.

38:06

And I think all artists will deal with criticism at some level. There's good criticism, there's bad criticism.

38:12

So I want to talk about that. And the bad criticism, I think, has the potential to do damage to young creative people.

38:20

In fact, I think they can be creative killers in a large way. One thing

38:25

I would recommend not doing so much is trying to inflict your own personal opinions into someone's artwork.

38:35

I find a lot of times that someone will try to reject an idea of mine not working with me and they want something else.

38:43

And so they'll say, well, I think this is better. You should do that. And I'm not looking for criticism. I mean, if the idea is bad,

38:50

I'll throw it away. But I want you to help me with this one. Don't inflict your personal opinion on something so much.

38:58

I want you to know what you think, but help me with this instead of rejecting it and preferring something you want.

39:07

So as parents, that can be kind of tough sometimes. Flavors and opinions are something that can get in the way.

39:15

If something's wrong, then tell the young student that. But if it's a preference, if it's a flavor, if it's a taste, try to withhold and help the young one to come up with their own sense of taste and flavor and all of that.

39:34

I hope that's clear. You can ask me about that later. If you get a lot of that kind of input as a creative person or as an instructor, you're trying to do a lot of that kind of guidance, not working with the young creative person.

39:51

They will get this feeling that you're against them and not working for them and they don't want to hear from you so much if that's going to be the case.

40:00

Children, think about this. They all start out with a lot of creative abilities and excitement about that.

40:06

I think it's a lot of that critical comments that kind of wears that down. After a while, there's just a few kids that are kind of left and the rest have moved on to other things that aren't so creative because of that criticism component.

40:22

But criticism is something that I appreciate and I think it can help your creativity if you know that what you're drawing is on target and on track and worthwhile.

40:34

If there's some praise mixed in there and stuff, creative criticism, constructive criticism is very, very helpful.

40:43

So be tactful in how you critique a creative person's work.

40:50

Don't beat them down, but help lift them up even if you're criticizing them, their artwork.

40:56

Help them to know that you're for them as an instructor, as a parent. Be encouraging even if you say, well, this is probably not the right thing or maybe you should consider something else.

41:08

Be tender and tactful in how you do that. And then help them to learn to desire criticism because if you do that, there is a road of excellence that's ahead and you can increase your speed in getting there.

41:22

And I'm going to tell you some personal experience of mine in that regard in a little bit. Proverbs 15, 31 through 33.

41:30

The ear that listens to life giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

41:41

The fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom and humility comes before honor.

41:47

Very, very helpful verses in helping us to receive input from the outside instruction that will help us.

41:59

And that's what we're going to be doing as teachers. All right, so the power of being valued, especially for a young creative person is powerful, powerful.

42:08

You can help energize their creativity and give them a desire to do more creative things.

42:14

If you can fill their creative sales with a positive input and proper praise, not manufactured, not false praise, but help them to feel valued in what they're doing.

42:28

I think creative people tend to be people pleasers. I know that I am. And so if I know that I'm giving someone an image that can bless them and help improve them and make their day better, that it's a positive thing that they enjoyed it.

42:47

That gives me joy and it spurs me on to more of that sort of stuff. When I was in junior high, here's an example of another story of someone that got it right.

42:57

I had a particular teacher that saw that I like to draw. And so she realized that she could harness that creative energy in giving me an extra credit project that she didn't give to any of the other students.

43:09

And so she said in this particular class, if you will draw some cartoons about what we're talking about,

43:19

I will give you extra credit. And so I put a lot of energy into that. And back in those days, I was a

43:24

Mad Magazine fan. Sergio Aragones is still one of my favorite artists.

43:30

In fact, if you look you can see some influence of his in my cartoons and how I draw. Anyway, I copied his cartoons that related to the topic in the class.

43:43

And I got that extra credit. And copying is not a bad thing. It is a way to accelerate your learning because you're thinking through how that artist did it.

43:51

It's not something you want to stay in. But as a young artist, as a young creative, I recommend copying.

43:58

It's a great exercise. Anyway, so my learning increased through that. My teacher I learned was for me.

44:04

She was excited about what I did and wanted to see more of it. She was not against me. I connected better with that teacher because of that positive input and that praise from her.

44:16

And my confidence in drawing increased. And so she actually put those up as decorations for the wall.

44:22

And so those projects were seen by all the other students too. And so that was very flattering for me too.

44:29

So my creative process real quick here as we're coming into a close, it starts with filling up my mind.

44:37

If I try to come up with an idea and I don't have anything to work with, that's not a good thing. I can sit here for hours trying to come up with something and it's not working.

44:46

And so if I can charge my creative batteries by looking at other people's artwork, sometimes

44:51

I'll sit and look at other, I'll surf around online and find artists' websites and videos and I'll watch them draw.

44:57

It helps get the gears in line that may have not been quite lined up in the morning when I wake up.

45:04

And then I look for information on the particular topics. If I'm doing a cartoon about abortion or a particular thing in the news,

45:12

I need to be informed about those things so I have details to work with. So then the ideas kind of come together.

45:18

It's kind of an unlocking process sometimes. People think that I just come up with ideas and it's so easy.

45:25

Not all the time. It's a work. Ideas are hard to come up with. Good ideas are very hard to come up with sometimes.

45:33

There are those rare occasions where it just pops into my head. I wish that happened all the time, but more often than not, it's an unlocking process and I'm trying to find the right combination.

45:43

So get those light bulbs to come on. That's the magical aha moment that I strive for.

45:49

All right. So to get the ideas to flow, I like to doodle. So that's an encouragement to those young creatives.

45:55

Get the pencil out and start just letting the mind relax. If you're tense and trying to force something out, sometimes it just won't come.

46:03

So have some fun. Doodle. Get the brain active in that way. Make a list. Sometimes I just start writing down different aspects of a topic that I have to come up with an idea for.

46:13

And sometimes two of those things that I wrote line up and it gives me an idea. And then

46:19

I have to capture those ideas, too. So sometimes if you see me walking around in church or wherever it is,

46:25

I'll have a clipboard with paper and pen ready to write something down. Or I have a voice recorder with me to ready to capture if I'm driving or I'm walking around and I don't have the ability to write something.

46:38

I have one of these devices with me and I'm making voice notes all the time so that I can get that idea before it gets away.

46:46

That's very, very important. And then some of the places that my brain is more active in,

46:51

I call them my concepting zones, is the shower, which I'm away from everything.

46:58

My brain is free to relax and not feel the stress of all this distraction. Driving a car is great for me.

47:05

Walking is great. So getting away from my desk, which you would think that would be the most creative place, but it's actually not.

47:12

I need to be relaxed and free of pressures and distractions. And so that's key for me.

47:18

So I would encourage you to watch for those things in your young creative that work for them.

47:25

Just keep in mind, not everything that works for you is going to be the same for them.

47:30

So take notes, find out what works for them, and then leverage that knowledge into helping them to be more effective and creative and excited about creating.

47:41

And then watch out also for those things that hinder, some of those things that get in the way. One of my previous jobs that I had,

47:48

I was taken from an office and put into a cubicle. My office was seclusion.

47:54

The cubicle was public and distraction and my creative abilities went down, down, down after that happened.

48:01

And it was a struggle to create. And so there were lots of other artists that were in that situation.

48:06

I suppose everyone thought, well, what's wrong with Dan? He's not able to do his creative thing as well in the cubicle and he complains about it.

48:15

Well, we're not all the same. And so keep that in mind. Distractions, noise, people being around.

48:22

I don't like people watching me draw. That might sound kind of weird to you. Now, if I'm doing a caricature, that's public performance and that's fine.

48:32

But when I'm coming up with my cartoons, someone looking over my shoulder distracts me and takes me out of the creative zone.

48:38

So here's my Truth Jabs cartoons and I want to take you through my creative process with them real quick.

48:44

Many times I'll doodle a concept down real quick just to get the image down.

48:51

And then I go to my creative or my criticism people.

48:56

I have an inner group of people that I go to to say, is this idea good or is it bad?

49:03

And I will trust them to not just laugh at it. Hey, that's good, Dan, and hand it back to me.

49:09

If it's funny, I'll trust that they are genuine in their critique of it. But more often than not,

49:15

I'm looking for I don't get this or I think this could be clear or Dan, this idea really doesn't communicate.

49:22

And that's valuable for me. And then I take that and throw it away and start over. So I've learned that that negative criticism is something to value and it's something that I embrace.

49:33

And I treasure my people, my close friends that will tell me yes or no.

49:39

And some of them are listening right now. So thank you for your input. So I ask for their thoughts and I want to know is it good, bad?

49:47

Does it make sense? Is it accurate? Is it biblical, spelling and punctuation? Valuable input.

49:53

And so here's just an example of sending the cartoon out and then some of the input that I get from people.

49:59

Again, I don't need all positive. I want to know for sure this thing is going to fly and it's going to communicate.

50:06

And that negative input helps me to do that. So here's the cartoon in process as I'm drawing it.

50:13

And then it ends up being finished and published. And hopefully it goes out into the world.

50:18

A finely tuned communication tool that that won't be picked up because something is wrong in it.

50:24

But I've eliminated those things through my friends and input from them at that stage.

50:30

So as a parent, as a teacher, producing creative students is not the goal.

50:36

Producing students that creatively glorify God, that is the goal. So First Corinthians says, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

50:47

And so our ministry reasons for hope. This was a booth that we had at the Florida conference.

50:53

So this this talk right here is an extension of that conference. And so we're desiring to equip you and to arm you and give you truth and tools to use.

51:02

So I would encourage you to find the draw it and know it's there on Facebook. And they're also on the

51:08

YouTube channel that Reasons for Hope has. And then we're on there on the app, too. And I'll tell you about that a little bit.

51:14

And then also the truth jabs, cartoons, too. Those are tools to get out there in the culture and hopefully stir things up and make a difference.

51:21

And you can find truth jabs on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for truth jabs.

51:27

And then Reasons for Hope has an app that I highly, highly recommend that you get.

51:32

Go to your store for whatever phone that you have, Apple or whatever your device is. Type in Reasons for Hope.

51:39

Look for that asterisk, that logo there. Download that app. And then you have access to my draw it and know it's and my truth jabs, cartoons and lots of other resources that in the debunked videos that we make and all kinds of other speaker messages and stuff from Reasons for Hope.

51:57

And then the last thing I'll tell you about is just my YouTube channel. Again, I want to educate and I want to encourage young artists.

52:04

And so I'm trying to grow this YouTube channel to get an audience of young creatives that are

52:09

Christians that I want to help them think in a Christian manner and glorify God with their artwork.

52:15

So thank you for listening. And I think now we're going to go into a

52:21

Q &A situation. Yeah, that was really great.

52:27

And I like that you give ideas for people who parents who have kids that might want to grow up drawing and need some tips about how to encourage their creativity.

52:38

So, um, can you tell again you mentioned the name of a software program that if people can't afford

52:44

Photoshop, a good alternative. Can you mention that one again? Yes, it's

52:49

GIMP g i m as in Mary p .com.

52:56

It's a it's a program that you can download for free. And it will work on a

53:01

PC or a Mac or whatever. I think they've got other ones too.

53:06

But yeah, it's it's completely free. I've heard from friends of mine that have downloaded it that have learned how to use that, that it does everything they want it to and it's it's free.

53:16

Nice. And do you have you heard of Inkscape? Somebody mentioned that.

53:23

Yes, that's a I think that's an app right for for devices. I'm not sure somebody in our in our zoom fellowship said that they use

53:32

Inkscape. I've not used it, but I think that's I've heard really good things about it. So, okay, you know, in the in the art realm, you kind of pick your programs and kind of stick with them because there's a learning curve for each one.

53:43

But I'd be curious to kind of fool around with Inkscape and see what it can do.

53:49

So, all right, well, there's a there's an assignment for you. And then, who, who owns the books that you published when you were with AIG?

54:02

AIG? Yeah, that's what I thought. So somebody just asked about that.

54:09

So, okay. We don't have a lot of questions. I mean, it was very interesting talk, but I think that not a lot of people it generated questions for, you know.

54:20

Yeah, and that's fine. I mean, Jason last week, he had a ton of questions because there's such a scope of knowledge there.

54:27

This is kind of more specific and sometimes people don't relate with the creative realm as much as some other things.

54:36

So that's, that's fine. Well, my son is very creative. He has been drawing.

54:42

I mean, I don't know where he got it from. I think from my dad, because it certainly wasn't from me.

54:49

But he's 37 now. So it's probably too late to, but I wish I had encouraged him more.

54:59

I think maybe because I wasn't artistic that I didn't. I don't know.

55:06

I mean, as parents, we do the best we can. And even my parents, when I was growing up, they encouraged me, but sometimes

55:16

I think they were kind of like, what are you doing? And they weren't as creative as I was. And so it's kind of like two different mindsets going into it.

55:25

And they supported me, they sent me to art school and they did some of that. But I think they were kind of wondering, what's he going to do with this type of thing?

55:32

And so you're kind of still working at two different wavelengths. And so my dad kind of beats himself up to even to this day that he wasn't as encouraging as he could have been too.

55:46

I've got a confession. My son wanted to go to the Chicago Institute of Art. And he probably could have gone and I told my son, what are you going to do with that?

55:55

You know, you need to get a real degree. Yeah, I've heard that too.

56:02

Now, education for artwork is a problem too, though.

56:08

And it's something that I would caution people in, in that the art realm tends to be one of those places that they want to be pushing the envelope on expression and the stuff that you go to see in school is probably not going to be so Christian sometimes.

56:25

Some of the stuff that I saw at the school that I went to, you know, was kind of, you know, type of type of thing.

56:32

Sometimes I was firm and strong in my faith. And that really helped me get through the time that I was there.

56:40

I could see how a lot of kids could be taken and drawn away from their faith as so many are.

56:47

So the art realm is really a more of a liberal context.

56:54

And so they push a lot of things like that. So that's, that's where Christian education,

57:00

I think, is very, very important in the in the arts. So just something to keep in mind. We are getting some questions.

57:07

And so there's the first one I'm going to ask you is along that same line. Is that, um, have you ever had someone tell you that you've wasted your talent not going into mainstream art world or, or the mainstream world comic book places?

57:25

Um, not really. I think most Christians have appreciated that I'm, I'm drawing in ministry contexts and doing my work for the

57:37

Lord. Now, there are Christian artists that are working for secular companies. I mean, before I came to AIG, I worked for a company for five years in Minnesota called

57:47

Mellow Smellow. And that sounds kind of funny. It was Scratch and Smell Stickers were the thing that they were famous for.

57:55

But they did a lot of artwork for secular companies.

58:01

I did stuff for Dairy Queen. I did things for Taco Bell, Chi -Chi's

58:06

Restaurants and Window Clings. The first one that I saw of mine in Kmart, I bought one, you know, just for fun.

58:13

But I was doing secular stuff there. I wasn't doing anything Christian. And so I'm a Christian in that, in that realm.

58:19

And so I kind of had to watch out for what I did and didn't draw. There was one project that came to me on a freelance basis, that was a dinosaur box.

58:29

And it had a bunch of evolution stuff on it, on the writing. And I said, Hey, tell you what,

58:34

I'll do the illustrations for this box, if you'll let me rewrite some of the content on it. And so I actually wrote out some of the evolution type, the millions of years and put some other fact type stuff that they wouldn't have problems with.

58:48

But it was kind of a creation leaning type stuff. And so I had the blessing of being able to take something out of the market that would have been promoting evolution and was able to inject a little creation type stuff into it.

59:04

So I think there's value in Christians being in a secular context. It's just getting harder and harder for that to happen because there's so much.

59:14

It's such a divide in our country these days. And so Christians are finding a harder time communicating.

59:21

It's just staying clean from and not pushing the world's agenda.

59:28

The other thing that I've heard from people in regard to my artwork and Christianity and that sort of thing is that I've gotten a lot of criticisms from Christians about drawing

59:38

Bible cartoons. A lot of people look at cartoons and they'll go, it's a cartoon.

59:46

It's about the Bible. It must be mocking the Bible. They must be making a joke out of scripture. And so I'll get these accusations like, why are you mocking scripture with these cartoons?

59:54

I don't know if they've bothered to read the cartoon to see that it's actually defending scripture.

01:00:00

So that's kind of an odd thing that I've found from time to time is that criticism. Well, and that goes along the lines with the other question that we got here is, as a fellow people pleaser,

01:00:13

Jessica says, how do you not let the opinions of others get in the way of your creativity?

01:00:19

Oh, that's a battle. Like I said, a lot of times

01:00:26

I'll have an idea and I want to work with my idea.

01:00:33

And if you've got a strong personality that you're working for, sometimes they just want you to be their wrist and to draw for them and to throw away your creative abilities.

01:00:47

That's a hard, hard thing. And I've endured a lot of that sort of thing.

01:00:54

And you're supposed to please the people that you're working for and to be a team player and that sort of stuff.

01:01:02

But you feel real devalued when they start throwing your stuff away and wanting to just use your drawing ability and not your ability to come up with an idea.

01:01:12

And in all of that comes a discernment for, is the idea that someone else wants you to do, particularly if you're working for a particular project that they're wanting you to do, is that a biblical thing?

01:01:27

Is it, you know, you got to kind of sort all of that out too. But as a people pleaser,

01:01:34

I do want to, if it's their idea, to make it shine as best

01:01:40

I can, even if I add something into it that helps that. But you have to get their approval for it, not want to change their stuff so much either.

01:01:49

So there's a kind of a balancing act that happens. And I'm going to give you an opportunity to answer like something we've talked about before.

01:02:00

From a cartoonist's perspective, how do you feel when you see other people's cartoons or your own miss or not miss, but reused?

01:02:12

Like we see that a lot with like Peanuts cartoons where people like change the captions and stuff and use them for whatever intention they want.

01:02:21

Yeah. Yeah. I recently made a video on my YouTube channel that talks about people not sharing, you know, on Facebook, you can hit the share button and then you can share that cartoon.

01:02:34

And that creates a link to the creator of it. And then when the shares happen, the numbers for Facebook or whatever it is, add up and you can look at the results.

01:02:45

But a lot of people like to copy the cartoon file to their computer and then repost it. And so that's a form of doing that.

01:02:52

But then one step further as you're talking about is taking that file on your computer, opening up in Photoshop or whatever it is, and then altering it, putting in your captions.

01:03:03

And I've seen them do that to any comic strip you can think of. Peanuts. You see that all the time with that.

01:03:09

You know, look for Charles Schultz's font that he drew with his hand is very distinctive. So if it's a

01:03:16

Helvetica or something like that, someone's changed it. And there's been some funny ideas that they've shared and created with that.

01:03:25

But ultimately, that's Charles Schultz would not be happy that people are taking his cartoons and injecting their ideas into his artwork.

01:03:33

And a while to kind of piggyback off that when I was at AIG for a time there, there was a group of atheists that would take my after eating cartoons.

01:03:42

They created this like contest within their little community. They would look at the cartoons that I posted online that were posted of mine, and they would

01:03:52

Photoshop them into these blasphemous R and X rated things and then repost them online.

01:04:00

And so, you know, think about how happy I was that that was happening. We kind of went to battle over that issue and lawyers got involved.

01:04:11

And it came down to the fact that we live in a country that has free speech. And there's certain things that people can do to express their free speech.

01:04:20

And so, I guess within the laws of copyright and all of that, they were able to take my cartoons, take away my name, the copyright, the name of the cartoon feature, anything that identified it with my name.

01:04:33

They were able to do that with the ministry and the artist, and then they were free to do anything they wanted to with the cartoon.

01:04:39

And so I felt like a clip art service for the atheist community to make these blasphemous things that basically shook their fist at the creator.

01:04:48

And it was a hard thing. I had to stop looking at them, because I would get so down and depressed looking at my artwork taken.

01:04:56

It was meant for the exact opposite purpose and taken and misused in that way.

01:05:02

It was very, very difficult. That's terrible, but I'm sure that was very frustrating.

01:05:08

Did you, did you always know you wanted to create as a profession? Jessica's asking. Yeah, I think pretty young.

01:05:16

I mean, I started drawing animals when I was a kid, dinosaurs and monsters came along too. So the creative process was something that, well actually let me back up.

01:05:26

My first profession of choice was veterinarian. I loved animals. I started drawing them.

01:05:33

And then after a while I thought, you know, I think I like drawing them instead of fixing them. So I went in that direction.

01:05:40

But that happened at a pretty young age. I didn't know what I was going to be particularly. There were so many options for art, but I knew cartooning and humorous illustration was something

01:05:50

I love to do. So it was going to be something in that realm. And God has blessed me with being able to do that for Christian ministry, which

01:05:58

I couldn't have dreamed that when I was a kid. So I'm very, very thankful. And, and of course we want to, you know, just kind of conflate,

01:06:11

I don't know if that's the right word, but, but, you know, this gift of creativity that we have, it's not just restricted.

01:06:17

Your passion is drawing. You're very good at that. But a lot of other people have different kinds of creativities and, and for example, our friend

01:06:27

June, who's in here, she mentioned that she's creative with fabric. She sews and quilts.

01:06:33

And I think Robin even wanted to say something add on to that too. Yeah, June is amazing in her creativity.

01:06:43

I don't know if she can draw or not, but she can sure so. And we have our friends have a wedding this weekend.

01:06:49

I don't know if you know Stacey Guyona. Joyce is doing the flower arrangements for it.

01:06:56

And they're just beautiful so she has a talent with with that I have none at all, but they have a talent with arranging flowers and cooking and June with her sewing.

01:07:08

Does anybody else have any kind of creativity that they'd like to shout out.

01:07:15

I'm a creative writer. Oh, writing. Yeah, I do a big large pieces of painting.

01:07:30

Somebody in here who has named themselves, who me tonight, and who me says my creativity is usernames.

01:07:39

And that's Angela. And Robin is very creative when it comes to snarkiness.

01:07:49

I can, I can really think on my feet. When it comes back to snappy answers, and I attribute that to my dad because he was the king of sarcastic and Rachel Rachel's in here she she posts a lot on her

01:08:03

Facebook about different projects she does around the house and she mentions, or around her yard her property, and she mentions

01:08:10

I like DIY, and that she is she she's posted some pretty impressive things so well in my creative process.

01:08:20

Mine is expressed through illustration and cartooning, but at the core of it when

01:08:26

I'm coming up with my ideas and concepts. I think that's kind of the common creative thing that however it comes out whether it's, you know, writing, or if it's building a building or, you know, whatever it is, it happens in that idea of things that kind of mix around in your head and you're putting concepts together and, and, and then it just comes out in different ways.

01:08:54

So it's, I think we all have that commonality of the creative component in our, in our brain.

01:09:01

It's just a flavor type thing how it comes out. And there's other forms of creativity that I think everyone has.

01:09:08

It's just, are you exercising it on a regular basis and because I think it's a muscle that you can you can improve and and get more benefit out of in life, you just kind of think about it that way.

01:09:22

Rob, did you want to mention a creative thing that you have. Yeah, I create new trails for Boy Scouts.

01:09:30

Nice. So you have to figure out how to engineer, you know, where you're going to hang it on the hillside.

01:09:38

Rob is a pilot, Rob can fly a helicopter and a plane. They call that an unrestricted pilot.

01:09:45

Okay, well your brain has capacities that I can only dream of thinking about. You know

01:09:52

I teach classes for homeschoolers and chemistry is one of them. And one year

01:09:57

I had a class that they were very, they were very bookish.

01:10:03

They had five students, and, and they did most of their work at home so then when we got together for our two hours together each week, we had extra time because they didn't need me to do a lot of modeling of the of the problems and stuff for them.

01:10:17

So, so instead they said can we make some do some special projects so I think, sorry to any of my other classes that are listening but for the most part

01:10:26

I think they all know that that was my favorite year of teaching chemistry but we did a project in the fall for our, for our open house, and it was, we made it.

01:10:37

I came up with this idea and they all helped with it was called a chemist tree. So, so we took like a big shower board and we made a big periodic table of elements that was 3d.

01:10:50

I had them all fold origami boxes and we label them with all of the elements and made this, this and we put a screw through all of them and one of the dads made it like kind of a circuit board on the back.

01:11:01

So then we hooked it up to a little Christmas tree with little lights and if somebody came up with an alligator clip and touched one of the metals and the tree would light up.

01:11:12

And if it didn't, then it. If it was a non metal than it wouldn't light up so that was our chemistry.

01:11:18

And then in the second semester we made a chemistry monopoly game. And it was very, very well done my students helped me do a really good job we that we work together really hard on it and so Dr.

01:11:32

Jay while who was one of our first speakers online he he's the author of our curriculum and he he shared it on his website and on his

01:11:41

Facebook page and it kind of went viral so that's some creative things that we've done that have been fun.

01:11:46

Yeah, just think of the blessing that God gave us to make life more fun.

01:11:52

Yeah, with, with the creative component that he's blessed us with. Yeah. So, um, okay,

01:11:59

I think, Oh, Bill also said something about that he did a chess bills that way you were saying,

01:12:06

I see that you're unmuted. Yeah, oh yeah I created a chess problem that made the

01:12:11

Denver newspaper a few years ago. Just one was cool. Interesting.

01:12:18

Very cool. All right, well, Dan we're going to go ahead and end our time online, or I mean on on public so and then we can hang back and people can thank you and you can pray but before we go, can you remind everybody again how they can find you and how they can support your work.

01:12:38

Okay, well, as far as ministry goes. Reasons for Hope is the website is rforh .com.

01:12:51

So that's reasons for hope rforh .com. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and Tick Tock and debunked is also part of our ministry to we have got these short, very quick videos for youth that answer questions that are hard to deal with sometimes in a very entertaining and thought provoking way so I would highly encourage you to look up the debunked videos that reasons for hope is producing my truth jabs cartoons and the draw and know it's are both on Facebook and on.

01:13:28

And, well, the draw it know it's on YouTube, but get that app that I told you about in my talk, and you've got the key to having all that stuff right with you on your phone.

01:13:39

And then personally, my, my personal website is Dan Aletha .com.

01:13:46

And, and then I have that YouTube channel that I'm trying to grow so highly recommend subscribing you know click on the thing and, and, and then liking videos and viewing them really really helps me out too so.

01:14:00

Okay. And again we're creation fellowship Santy and you can find links to most of our past presentations, and also links to our upcoming speakers information about our upcoming speakers by typing in tiny

01:14:13

URL com forward slash CF Santy. Let's see like creation

01:14:19

F like fellowship and the word Santy is spelled s a n t e, you can also email us at creation fellowship

01:14:26

Santy at gmail .com. Next week we have Eli Allah, who's part of, or who's the header head of whose ministry is revealed apologetics and some of our creation.

01:14:42

People family will know him that a couple of years ago he was the moderator of a debate between Hugh Ross and Dr.

01:14:50

Jason Lyle, so he's going to be speaking for us next week on the topic of presuppositional apologetics, so that'll be a good one to listen into.

01:15:00

So, with that we're going to go ahead and sign off the recording and Facebook.