God Stories - Marlan Yoder - The Tree of Life Painting Origins

Guys, I'm here with my good friend Marlon Yoder.

Hey Marlon.

Hello, Jeff.

And we're gonna we're gonna go through your story, and just to kind of give people a little bit of like a preview of it, um, you were born in the 50s as a Mennonite in a very rural part of Ohio.

Uh left that became a professional artist and worked professionally as an artist in a variety of different capacities for many years.

Um, followed Jesus, loved Jesus, um, but had a real upgrade in your relationship with Jesus later in life.

And uh, you've been part of our church for like 20 years, and you uh you now paint paintings that are inspired by some things that God has done here at his hands that have become like our actual logo.

Your paintings line the hallways of our church, and you've brought life to every single hallway here.

And you helped start this ministry, uh, I'll call it a ministry, that has raised over$300,000 to help people in need with art.

And so that's a lot of things.

We've got Ohio Mennonite, professional artist, uh church paintings on hallways, church art events that raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And we're gonna cover all of that as we sit down and talk.

I'm excited, man.

Awesome.

Me too.

Yeah.

Hey, Marlon.

Marlon Yoder.

I how long have we known each other now?

You and I have known each other, I mean it's gotta be almost 20 years.

When did you start coming here?

2007 is when I came here.

I was here 2006, August, when we opened in the Okay.

Now the youth center.

Yeah, the student center is what we call it.

Student Center.

But you so you were like original building first opened.

Yeah, I got here the original uh tree of life teaching.

Okay.

Yeah, very cool.

So we're gonna talk about that in a second.

So yeah, I've I've been here since 2007.

I met you guys early when I got here, and so here we are almost 20 years later, and you guys have been part of this church from the the get-go.

Yeah.

Um and for the people who are are watching this that that are part of our church, you've probably heard of Marlin.

And for people that watch this and maybe they're like, they don't come from our church specifically, they just find this on on the internet or or uh podcast, whatever.

Um, you're an artist, and you have been, I mean, art has not been a hobby for you.

It has been your livelihood for for how long now?

Aaron Powell Well, I mean, I I painted all my life.

No, that's not true.

Not all my life.

I knew all my life I was an artist, even as a boy.

Okay.

And I would walk through fields, like winter cornfields with snow on the ground, and say, God, how am I going to get out of here?

I know I'm supposed to be an artist.

I don't know what that means.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Yeah, because you grew up not in an art.

I mean, like you grew up in Mennonite.

You were a Mennonite in what Ohio?

Yeah, and I was born in 53.

So I grew up when, you know, women still wore the coverings and all that.

And so an artist was unheard of.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Yeah, everyone's a farmer, everyone's doing some type of trade.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It was all construction unless you were a teacher.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Okay.

But no one was an artist.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Right.

So you weren't you weren't painting in your fields and people were like, well, Marlon's a really good artist.

We should support his passion to paint.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

And all my cousins made fun of me.

Okay.

Call me a pencil pusher.

Okay.

I was cool with that.

But um how'd you start that question?

Well, you said that you knew from a young age that you want to be an artist.

Because my point is I've I've always I've known people who are artists as like a hobby.

You know, they have a career, but then they they love to paint as an extra thing.

But you have been the whole time I've known you, like art is what you do.

Yeah, and that's the point I wanted to make.

When I was 33, I I don't know, did you when you hit 33, was there a Jesus connection?

I mean he died at 33.

I know.

I became the lead pastor here when I was 30.

Yeah.

And so that was kind of a that next few years were pretty much a blur at that point.

And but I do remember Jesus was 30 when he started his ministry, and I thought that was weird for me.

I was like, oh, I'm the same age Jesus was when he started.

So I remember feeling that.

But at 33, I realized I Josh and Graham were had they were three years old.

Um two little dudes hadn't been born yet.

I realized I was I was playing with being an artist, that I was treating it like a hobby.

Okay.

And that ticked me off because everyone knew I was an artist.

They called me an artist in on my high school yearbook.

Everyone's saying you're gonna be a great artist, you know, that kind of stuff.

And and so I I decided I really gave thought to it.

So I went outside, we had a gravel driveway.

Okay.

And um and I and I realized I wanted to declare to God, I said to to God in all entities that can hear and see me, I'm gonna cross this line and from here on out, I'm gonna live the artist's life.

Live the artist's life.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because otherwise, if you don't take it seriously.

Okay.

So And what would you describe?

What is the artist's life?

What does that mean?

Well, to start with, it was God, you are first.

Okay.

Cheryl is second.

Okay.

The boys are third.

My art is fourth.

Okay.

And everyone and everything else comes after that.

Okay.

So you went God, wife, sons, and then art.

Yeah.

Like it's not gonna I'm not gonna let anything else.

Yeah.

And and I failed miserably in not making that the fourth.

Okay.

I was often first and second.

Yeah.

Um I did fail that way.

Yeah, that that happens, right?

Like we the to keeping things the right priority, but you have felt up to that point.

So you at 33 were like, man, art is it's too low of a priority.

You need to take it more seriously.

Yeah, and then in my early 50s, I started thinking about legacy.

Okay.

Two ways.

One of them being, how have I affected anyone's life?

Have I affected anyone's life?

Yeah.

And I felt like I had failed miserably.

Like, man, what have I done?

Yeah.

And and I I was pretty hard on myself about it, but that's how I was feeling.

And um because when I met you, I mean, you had done art for major companies.

It wasn't just like you painted and sold paintings at art shows.

I mean, you you had done everything from I mean, I it was a huge company at the time.

Yeah, well, I started doing advertising.

I worked for a big agency, it was the third largest agency in Ohio, and had Goodyear with my client, and uh and that was pretty cool.

And and then I went on my own.

Um and and I ended up the end of my career was um art services and having a gallery.

Okay.

So then I had Time Warner as a client of going to New York half a dozen times a year, hanging it not paintings, but it was like art in imagery of of of Seinfeld or on on uh on air people on CNN.

Yeah.

And so I got to meet all those people, I was like Santa Claus to them.

Yeah, because I was bringing in imagery of them.

Then when they get fired, they'd fly me up right away to get all their imagery off the walls.

Oh yeah, before it all got it.

Yeah, you've done some really cool stuff, but you mentioned a minute ago, we'll kind of get to the his hands connection.

Um because through this church, your art kind of took a different direction.

And you mentioned uh uh you were here for the original, you said Tree of Life Teaching.

Yeah.

Um and uh you know it's funny, I I don't know if I've ever told you the story.

If you're you may have heard this on Facebook, you and Megan going to Missouri.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So okay, so when our church first started, Steve and Susan Crager, who founded our church, and you were incredibly Susan passed away from cancer a little over 10 years ago, and you and your wife, uh Cheryl, were two of Susan's closest friends.

Yeah.

That was a really tough season.

Uh but when Steve and Susan started the church, Steve would teach on Sunday, Susan led the worship, and Steve had this teaching he did really early in our church, and it was on the tree of life, and we wanted to be a tree of life church.

And I flew in to interview for the youth pastor job when I was 23 years old.

And we're saying, Who's that kid?

Oh man, I was I was a kid.

And I didn't think I was gonna get the job.

I really didn't, because I felt like this place was just so much bigger than anything I had ever done, and it felt it just felt over my head.

But when we left, they gave us three CDs, you know, back when messages were on you know some type of physical media.

They gave us three CDs and they said, hey, these three messages really will give you an idea of what our church is all about.

And they wanted me to listen to those, and Megan and I to listen to those.

And one of them, I can't remember what it was.

I just don't remember it all, which is horrible.

It didn't change.

It didn't change my life.

Uh the second one was the Tree of Life message, which was I remember we were in the car listening to that, being like, How have I never heard this message?

Like growing up in church, never heard this message before.

The third CD was blank, it didn't have anything on it.

And I thought I thought that was like a test.

I was like, man, it'd be pretty because it'd be clever if they were like, hey, how are those three messages?

And I was like, oh, they were all awesome.

They're like, aha.

The third one was a blank.

You failed the test.

So I wonder, I was like, was this some type of crafting?

Turns out no.

That's funny.

It was so funny thing is they gave me three CDs, one didn't have anything on it, and they said these three really embody our church.

One, nothing on it, so I don't know.

The second one I don't really remember at all.

But then that that one, though, the tree of life.

And it was this concept that when God first created the world, we were meant to, there were two trees, right?

Tree of life, tree of knowledge, good and evil.

And what Steve connected that I never thought about was how that tree of knowledge, good and evil, that's religion.

Right?

It is it is good and bad.

It is the knowledge of right and wrong, and how he didn't want us to eat from that tree.

He didn't want us to be accountable to that.

He wanted us to have life with him and live in this, this I almost like an innocent child relationship where your kid doesn't know right from wrong yet.

And when you have little kids and they don't know right from wrong, you don't hold them accountable to that.

Right.

So they make mistakes, they do things that are quote unquote wrong, but it's cute.

You laugh about it.

Um, but then when they know, when their eyes are opened, you know, raising kids, it's like when they hit that age where you go, they know that they lied to me.

Yeah.

Now you have to hold them accountable.

And it's like God didn't want that.

And so what I had never thought about before was the concept that the forbidden fruit was not lust and greed and those types of things.

It was knowledge of right and wrong.

And then Steve went further and he said, What is religion?

And not when we say religion, we're not talking about the reverent worship of God, but like, you know, the man stuff, most man-made stuff.

What is religion obsessed with is right and wrong, good and evil.

That's bad, that's good.

Don't watch that.

The rules.

And I had grown up in that, like most Christians had.

Mennonite, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't grow up like that.

So even but it was like I can have a relationship with God, and that doesn't mean it's not important how I live, and I don't, it's not that, but it's goes, oh, my relationship with God is not based on some set of rules that I have followed up to a certain degree.

It's it's different.

It's we I can live at the tree of life.

I can go back to that relationship with God.

And I remember hearing that message, and it really impacted me.

And I've spent years still still processing that message.

But you were inspired by the Tree of Life message in a very specific way.

Yeah, it changed my life.

Yeah, so talk about that.

Well uh connecting with Jesus, what uh what I came to realize after all these years of having not had read through the Bible yet, I didn't read through the Bible until I was in my fifties.

Okay.

But I thought I realized I know all about God, but I don't know him.

I don't know him.

That and then what what's the scripture?

I may have even said this to you before about we're to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul.

How many people or things do you love with all your heart, mind, and soul?

Yeah.

How many?

Very few.

Very few.

Now, how do you love a God you can't see with all your heart, mind, and soul if you don't know him?

So my goal was to learn to know him, get to know him.

Ironically, and I don't mean to jump ahead or whatever, but in 2008, end of 2008, we had the economic crash.

And Turner and all my big clients cut their budgets quite a bit.

So I was in trouble.

Yeah.

And by March I had to shut the gallery down.

Now here's where it got.

Yeah, because you used to have your own your own gallery, yeah.

Yeah, and I I started painting the the first tree of life painting was I painted two, I saw how daft I was.

Okay, the tree of life changed my life.

And in my gallery, when I had time, in the afternoons, I would paint.

I painted two of them.

One of them is in the um board not boardroom, but uh conference room.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's the green one on the right.

And that I I called it springtime.

Okay.

I the first one I did, uh, Max named um the cotton candy tree.

Okay.

I go, what did I call this?

He said cotton candy tree.

He has that one now.

Okay.

The third one was different.

And I the way I painted it, everything about it was different.

And I called it when God laughs.

When God laughs, yeah.

Yeah, that's the first one I remember.

And so, you know, my my uh kind of getting to know you a little bit or being aware of you was all of a sudden, this is how it felt.

I'm sure it wasn't all the sudden for you, but all of a sudden, this tree of life message that had been so crucial to our church.

I remember Steve was like, Hey, there's this guy, Marlin, and he painted a tree of life painting.

And I remember seeing it for the first time when God laughs, and it was a tree, but it was almost like it was exploding.

It was like it was like a you and so you see tree of life.

Yeah, yeah.

It wasn't just like a landscape painting of a tree, it was this very unique style where it was the beginning of a style.

It was something, yeah, really unique.

And I remember Steve was like over the moon about it, and then that led to another painting and another painting, and eventually you kind of became known as the tree of life painting.

The the tree of life was August 2008.

Okay.

January 2009, I did one that's uh called um In the Beginning.

Okay.

And that I literally cried while painting.

I there was such emotion there because it was I was doing things I'd never done before, and and God was there.

He was there, he he would show up and uh and I was very aware of it.

It was very emotional.

And I said to Cheryl, Well, I've done four of them, but that's probably all I'm gonna do.

I mean, what else am I gonna do?

Yeah.

And then that was January, then March.

And this is when I was wanting to like, what can I do?

How can I serve?

Like I always wanted to serve outside of the church because I always served in the church.

And I figured that was and that's important.

All that's important, teaching and all those things that we people guys parking cars, everything is important.

But I wanted to do something outside, and so I was thinking maybe I could you know volunteer at um um uh orphanage and pain with kids.

And and I was telling Susan this, and I said, or maybe I could be in a men's prison uh men's ministry ministry of some sort.

Oh prison ministry, yeah.

And she said, she laughed, she goes, You should be in prison.

Okay.

She goes, No, paint.

Yeah.

I go, what do you mean?

She goes, paint.

Like that's the gift God's given you.

And I said, that's what I do.

And she goes, I know.

Right.

And and I I go, you mean like that's what I'm I go, you d you I you mean I don't have to go to Africa?

And she said, no.

She goes, those are all lies.

I said it I thought serving was supposed to be painful.

Yeah.

How dumb, but that's what I I thought.

She said, No, that's a lie.

She said, paint.

And and then two weeks later, I shut the gallery down.

And I um had these Tree of Life paintings.

And I said, Susan, could we maybe put some out in the coffee uh the what what do you call it, the fireplace room.

Yeah, the fireplace room with our coffee shop in it.

Yeah.

And this is where I learned how to work with her.

It was really cool.

She said, Okay, bring him in.

And then she staged him.

Yeah.

And we looked at him, she goes, Now let's go home and let's pray about it, and we'll know.

Okay.

And that's what we did.

That's Susan, really definitely Susan, for sure.

Yeah, and so it's funny because if you walk through our hallways now at his hands, you're gonna see tree of life painting after tree of life painting.

I mean, your your paintings, they they've become our logo.

You know what I mean?

I mean, we actually we'll talk about that in a minute.

Um, but now our if you go down our hallways, it's this all these tree paintings, tree paintings, tree paintings.

And that's something that actually happened kind of organically.

I mean, you painted a few, and you know, they're inspired by the tree of life message that you heard here from Steve.

And then there were a couple in the coffee shop, and then you paint a new one, and can we hang it here?

And it would be on the hallway, and just bit by bit over the years, our hallway.

She finally said, just do it.

Yeah.

And then our hallway went from our hallways went from being blank and just, you know, it was cavernous.

It was.

It was like I remember looking at it and thinking.

Yeah.

I thought maybe people who can do graphic arts can do bigger.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

When they first opened the church, it just was sort of this big blank canvas.

And uh but you over time, your paintings just sort of they lined up our hallways, and now we have huge hallways, huge walls.

And your paintings have brought so much life to this place, but they're not just decorations.

Nope.

I mean, they're they're very much in the DNA of who we are as a church, that we are a tree of life church.

And yes, we are we are living life to do what pleases God.

We want to obey God, but that's not the foundation of our relationship with him.

We obey him because we we we know he loves us and we have a relationship with him.

Our obedience to him comes out of that relationship.

It's not the other way around.

We don't obey him so that he will love us.

Exactly.

He's loved us, and now we sit at that tree.

We sit at the tree of life like we were meant to in the first story.

Jesus brings us back there.

And it's not about the rules, it's about that relationship and the good things that we do and the good life that we live, it flows from that versus just some type of, well, you better do X, Y, or Z or else.

Um, and it's a totally different shift, it's a different way to think about it.

Steve was the best at teaching it.

Obviously, God gave it to him.

But yeah, you were inspired, you started painting these trees, and they're they're dude, they're amazing, by the way.

Thank you.

Like they are really unique.

And even it's cool, over the years, they've sort of morphed, right?

You've got the original exploding tree, but then you've probably got all these different variations.

I've gone through periods.

You've gone through like it's like a swamps, actually.

I I've gone through periods where I I couldn't paint clouds where the crap.

Yeah, I was struggling with clouds and and um the the pointalism, which people call dots, now I call dots, that got to be overwhelming because it takes layers and layers to do it right.

But um yeah, I I it it was something I joke, I say, yeah, when I was in my early twenties, I was like, yeah, you know what?

When I grow up, I'm gonna make paintings and put them in my church.

Like that was the last thing I ever wanted to do.

You know, it and and I even struggled with like being a Christian and reconciling being an artist because of being raised Mennonite.

And it's not that anyone told me you can't be an artist, that's bad.

It was just in me that Yeah, you you you thought about things in a very specific way.

And what you I mean, the revelation that you got through painting those paintings, and we'll continue to talk about how that's even morphed beyond that, is a way I can do the thing that I love and that I feel gifted to do.

I can do that for God.

It took me years.

It took me years to actually embrace that.

Yeah.

For a lot of people, you imagine that whatever God whatever you enjoy, God wants to take away from you.

And so I have a kind of a weird funny example of that.

Um, I grew up in the 80s and the 90s.

So as a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, like we played video games.

Video games were a huge part.

I don't know if your boys played video games growing up, right?

Because uh 64.

When were your oldest boys born?

83.

83.

You're the exact same age as my dad.

He was born in 53.

Uh-huh.

And I'm the same exact age as as your sons.

Now I was my dad's third.

You know what I mean?

Uh I had two all at once.

Yeah, you just gotta go.

So yeah, so 80s and 90s, we played Nintendo, we play all this stuff.

So I don't know, for me growing up in church, I I remember being like in middle school, maybe high school, I don't know.

And feeling like God probably wants me to never do this.

Just because they were it was fun.

I mean, I literally had that thought, like, well, I really have I enjoy playing video games.

God probably wants me to give that up.

And I remember thinking, as it's such a silly thought as a kid, like, I bet like I wonder when God's gonna tell me I I can't play anymore.

Wow.

You know what I mean?

Well, and then the funny thing is is that that didn't happen.

But, you know, I became a youth pastor here.

Um, we started doing these like video game events, and we just we get a bunch of systems together and we'd get the kids to bring all their friends, all the guys would come, and we just have these big game nights.

And there's a bunch of guys now who still go here who that was what brought them in.

Like they came here to our church for a game night, and we all hung out, and then they kept going.

Like Robertson, who leads our, he leads our our fourth and fifth grade area now, and he pours into all these kids, and he and his wife uh met in the youth group here and they got married and they have kids.

He's like, Yeah, I just I started coming here because I heard that you guys were playing games and you know what I mean?

So it's funny, the thing that I thought God would, he was clearly gonna tell me to give this up, actually ended up being a vehicle to connect with other people and bring them in, not to the same degree that your art has, but it's just that idea that God is not just waiting, He doesn't take pleasure in removing from us the things that bring us joy.

Now, if those things are sinful and and truly destructive to us, obviously.

But most people don't think, oh, the thing that I love.

Can be a ministry.

The thing that I'm good at can actually be, it doesn't have to be set aside.

It can be used for him, and it's it's powerful.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Well, I mean, I grew up with that lopsided feeling or idea that a lot of people have where Old Testament bad God, angry God, and and New Testament Jesus, the the fun God.

Yeah.

And they're the one in the same.

Right.

And until you read the entire Bible, which I encourage everyone to do, I I'm on my third time right now.

When you you if you know a bunch of verses and you think you like, yeah, I know the Bible.

No, you don't.

You know a handful of verses that mean something to you.

But if you're gonna know why God did those crazy things in the Old Testament, you gotta read it all.

And then you gotta read it again, and then you gotta read it again.

And each time I read it, I go, I don't even remember reading this thing.

It's kind of like the I have these little like little semi-arguments with my son who loves basketball, about you know, he's he's young, and so he he'll kind of dog on the greats of a previous generation, and he'll sometimes like dog on Michael Jordan a little bit.

You know, I know.

That's funny.

I know.

Well, yeah, but I'm like, dude, you've seen you've you've seen seven minutes of Michael Jordan play basketball.

Right.

He's seen Steph he's Steph, right?

Steph create.

He would say LeBron is better than Michael, but I'm working on him.

Just give him time, okay?

Well, I kind of lean a little towards, you know, Cleveland.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, you're from Ohio.

So yeah, LeBron's great.

But uh but you know, Michael in my generation was but I've told him I'm like, man, you don't really like you've only seen a handful of minutes.

You've seen a few highlight videos, you've seen a few this.

If you would have watched the guy play, if you would have been alive and you were a Cleveland fan and he keep it kept beating you because he had a good team back.

Yeah.

But a similar idea is like you might know some verses, you might know some things, but if you haven't actually just in totality taken in I'm not saying that Michael Jordan is a god.

That's maybe a bad analogy.

But I am saying that, yeah, we have a tendency as people to only get little snippets here and there and think and form a whole idea out of that.

And no, you have to know him.

You have to like yeah.

I remember saying So you've done that, now you're saying he's not the he's not God in a he's not angry God in the old testament, happy God in the New Testament.

No, I found he was extremely patient.

And extremely loving.

Yeah.

He wasn't he was no more angry.

I mean, he he had to do what he did.

And and I don't like I always am fascinated with your wrestling with God.

I always took that wrestling with God as questioning him and saying you didn't do it the right way.

And I know that's not what you mean, but there again, the way I was raised and everything, I would be afraid to ever do that.

Yeah.

And and so I do wrestle.

You know, I found I actually do wrestle with God, yeah, but I just never thought of it being in those kind of worlds.

Yeah, I encourage that.

Like, well, I talk to a lot of people, and I'm like, sounds like you're wrestling with God.

Keep wrestling.

Yeah.

Like God likes it.

He can handle it.

He can he likes wrestling.

Yeah.

Um he named the people of Israel Israel, which means to wrestle with God.

And so apparently, you know.

So, okay, so the art, let's let's keep going with this.

Um you can you have this revelation, I can actually do art as a service to God.

I don't have to have these, it doesn't have to be a separate compartmental thing.

I don't have to that led to you starting an art group here at our church.

Um, you and my father-in-law started it together years ago.

Yeah, and many different artists have come and hundreds.

And some people that like, I mean, oh my gosh.

Like some of the people I'm thinking of that have become such a huge part of our church and and help you and I mean pour into people like Stephanie and there's some amazing, amazing artists.

Stephanie is uh and Sylvia, they they've been that my my my two sisters who when we're gonna do something uh outside of the art group, I'd just say you guys figure it out because they're women.

And I'm I'm an old dude.

I what am I gonna say?

Let's go, you know, I don't know what I would do.

Let's say you're not saying what's funny is you're not saying that in a derogatory way.

No, no.

You're saying like they're gonna figure things out that I can't figure out.

I'm a dude.

Well, and I mean you've got Cheryl, your wife, who's like as I mean, Cheryl is as driven and as I mean, she was like major executive at a huge marketing company that managed Coca-Cola.

She is like an executive level leader.

And so you've had a lot of really strong women around you.

Susan was one of the strongest women.

Yeah.

And so you started this art group, and it's been a blessing.

It's a group, and it still meets here on Wednesday nights, and artists can come of a variety of different levels, but over the years, your art group kind of became a ministry and of itself.

And so we're about to have an event here in a couple weeks.

Here, his hand's called Canvas.

And for people that are listening and they don't go to our church, don't know what this is.

Um, Canvas has it's an art night fundraiser to help people in need.

And how much money has Canvas now raised?

330,000.

330.

That doesn't count what we're about to do.

No.

So$330,000 that's been given away to people in need.

And it all, I mean, it's kind of, and I mean not kind of, it's this extension of you saying, I'm gonna start using art to honor God, and I'm gonna put I'm gonna merge these two things together, which they should have been from the beginning.

And he he's creative, he's an artist.

And now, could you have ever imagined back then?

No, no.

In fact, the the beauty of Canvas is is a couple things that I I love.

He how God, what he showed me, because when I started thinking about have I have I affected anyone's life, right?

And and then I I I've realized I probably have unknowingly.

Because there's people like Christy Lingerfeld.

Yeah.

Okay.

She gave me the idea to do I wanted to make some extra money with art.

Yeah.

And she gave me the idea to do ladies' night, ladies' paint night, and do it in my home studio.

So there'd be 10 to 12 women who would come and paint.

Charge them 30 no, I charge them$25 and and I, you know, had the supplies and we did the tree of life.

And so I did four of those.

Yeah.

Two of them at home and two at my wife went to one.

She went to the first one.

Okay.

Yeah.

That was that was the the best one.

So we did four of them.

And um then the next one was we're going to be Candy Patterson.

And now keep in mind, I made maybe$150.

Yeah, you make a couple hundred bucks every time you do one, right?

Just made a little bit.

And so on hers, she finished, you know, we were like, okay, well, we'll we'll we'll get to it.

And then she goes, Oh, by the way, would you mind donating some of what you make to the Moss family?

Because they have hospital bills because their little girl Ari was sick.

Clinton, April Moss, great part of our church.

And little daughter, yeah.

This is how cool God is and how our minds how our minds work.

Because this is still so clear to me.

She said that.

Could you donate something?

In my mind, I thought, what, forty dollars?

Yeah.

And but what came out of my mouth?

Words I never said before or since, words you would say.

You would use words like this.

I said, No, let's go big.

Let's do it in the church studio.

We'll invite the mosses' family and friends, charge them$35, and give the mosses the money.

Yeah.

And Candy goes, that's a great idea.

And that was the first canvas.

Did we even call it canvas at first?

It was just it was a one-off.

But keep in mind, those weren't my words.

Yeah.

That was God.

That was God truly, and I'm not God doesn't speak through me very much, you know, but he did there.

Those are those are his words.

And and the the irony, if you want to call it that, is that it took that was November 2012.

We didn't have the the the art night until March 2013, because Candy's husband, Bill, he'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Yeah.

And so when it was so it took they were going back to the Duke and you know the they at the hospital.

So when it was all done, there were 43 people there, I think, including you and Megan.

Yeah, we were there.

And and Steve and Susan.

And um when when it was done, Candy takes the check and gives it to April, and April takes it and she goes, This is you take it.

You need it more than we do.

And that's like that's how that's how Canvas got started, except it was a one-off.

So so let's like go back.

I'll I'll kind of go through and recap.

So if I'm if I'm hearing it right, you know, you're an artist, someone gives you the idea, hey, you should do these art nights.

Christine Lingerfelt, who actually works here at his hands.

She's like, you should do art nights, and people will pay money and you can make some extra money.

That's a fun night.

They invite their friends.

They invite their friends.

Yeah.

And those are, I mean, yeah, great.

You do a few of those.

Yeah, this is good.

You're making a little extra money.

Great.

Um, Candy Patterson, who was a part of our church, she comes to one and she's like, Hey, you know, this family in our church, the Moss family, um, they had a little girl, Ari, who was born with some major disabilities.

Could you donate something to help them out?

Yeah.

And you have this idea that it's not like you.

You said this was not your norm.

Like, no, let's do something big, let's let's do something at the church.

And you're like, people will basically do the art night that I'm doing here, but we'll do it at the church, and all the money will go to the family.

Yeah.

And so we did it.

I was at that first one.

We raised, you know,$4,000 or something dollars for the Moss family.

But Candy's husband, Candy, who kind of helped you get it all going, her husband got diagnosed with cancer in the meantime.

And so that first night, you raised three or four thousand dollars for the Moss family, and then you gave it to them, and then they turned right around and said, Actually, Candy, we want you to have this.

You need it more than we do.

And so you just see this generosity, like layers and layers of generosity.

But it didn't it didn't like go, hey, this is something.

Yeah.

It was a w truly a one-off.

Yeah, I think I was part of it not being a one-off.

Because I was there and I remember being like, this needs to happen again.

Well, then a year later, yeah, another guy comes up and he goes, like exactly a year later, he goes, Hey, my wife had an aneurysm, we got hospital bills.

Yeah.

Could you do that art thing?

Yeah.

To raise some money?

And I said, Sure.

I'll went to the art group.

Bill and Christina Thrasher.

Yeah.

I talked to him, I said, You guys down?

They said, Yeah.

So that was that.

That was that was 2014.

We did two of them actually.

I remember that.

We did.

Yeah, we did them two weeks apart because they had 80-some people.

One year later, I don't know if it was Christy, I don't know, who came up to me and said that there's a need, there's a woman who has brain cancer, and could you do the art night thing?

And by then we had we had grown so much as an art group that we moved into the larger room and had a larger studio.

So we had 84 people.

And then that's when you and Megan, however that worked, I never heard the actual story, but what I heard after that was, hey, we're gonna do this every year because we have needs in the church, and we're gonna call it Canvas for a cause and whatever money you need to make it happen.

Because those others, we did that with all our own stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, we we didn't raise money, we we we did it.

And and our spouses would bring food and all that kind of stuff.

It was totally like just as uh organic as it could possibly be.

With and I and during that whole time, because this is important, this isn't me being some great guy, some philanthropic dude who's gonna do stuff for people and raise money, never entered my mind.

But God was like, hey, here's what's gonna happen.

Instead of you making hundreds, we're gonna make tens of thousands at a time.

Yeah.

And and I mean, he didn't say that to me, but that he did it because that's what happened.

Well, it was so funny to me.

So obviously, like I do tend to be someone who thinks like, I'm always thinking, like, hey, well, how can we do something that's high impact?

You know what I mean?

That's I get excited about things being big and exciting.

So I remember probably after the second or third one, you know, and seeing we were I remember we were pulling out tables and putting them in hallways and just packing people in and doing these nights.

And they were fun.

They were just enjoyable, they're like date nights.

I mean, Megan and I would look forward to them, and even though the money was all going to a cause, they were just really special and fun.

I remember thinking, man, this could really grow.

And so let's knock some walls down in this area we have behind the offices.

Because I was thinking, well, then we could maybe even do a hundred people.

That's how big I was thinking.

I remember you talking about after that coming out and going, we could, we could do like 200 people.

And I of course me, I I No, Justin, we could never do that.

Well, and the funny thing is, is I'm thinking big.

We knocked all these walls out.

We made a a studio for you guys that now it's had to move because we, you know, buildings changed over the years.

But that's probably how big I was thinking at first.

And I think we only did one ever in that space and we outgrew it immediately.

Yeah.

And so it was like we did one.

Student center.

And then we went to the student center and we were getting to where a couple hundred people are coming.

Yep.

And then did we ever do one in the lobby, or did we go so we didn't have a lighting was too quick, that's right.

So we did it in the student center, and then we got to the point where we're like, we can't hold it in the student center anymore.

And at this point in time, we're starting to raise not, you know, five thousand dollars.

We're having canvases where it's twenty thousand dollars.

And then you started painting paintings and we're doing like buy tickets to enter a drawing.

Christy Lingerfeld's idea.

Christy's she's brilliant about that.

She she if she goes, I think she did it because she wanted to win it.

That's her best way to win one of your paintings.

Uh but she that was her idea.

Yeah.

I mean, Christy is just growing.

Very important in this story.

Yeah.

And then fast forward to today, the last three or four that we've done, we've had to do them in the big room.

And for someone that doesn't go here, the big room for us is our main worship space.

Um, some churches call it a sanctuary, we call it the big room, that's our vernacular.

Yeah.

And we uh it's seats, we have 1,800 seats in it right now is how many chairs we have.

So we cleared the entire space out.

Um and we set up tables and we pack it with people for canvas.

I mean, last canvas that we had last year, we're a couple weeks away from the next one as we filmed this, but the last we had last year, we had over 800 tickets sold.

808.

808.

And so, and then and we're talking the last few, we were raising fifty thousand dollars in that range for people in need.

And this year we're gonna work with an organization in Guatemala, but it's like this has become a major thing.

And so here, you know, years ago, you're at an art night making a couple hundred bucks, and you're like, let's think big.

And what a cool testament to how big God actually is, and when you just partner with him, because if you would have said in that moment, hey, 10 years from now, you will have raised over$300,000 for people in need through these art nights.

I mean, that's just Yeah, I would have run away because I I I because things like that are are so bold.

Yeah.

And and I always want to be careful not to, you know, even with you know, we were talking about the Guinness Book or World Records.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And and for me, the only thing.

Someone said they thought we may have broken the Guinness Book World Record.

We we probably did.

Uh, there was that other thing where I told you about where there was a couple thousand people, I don't know what that really was, because they were like printing out things and people painted on them, but but regardless, I just felt like this is well I'll put it this way what I tell the art group every Friday night of we be well, we get together and and pray before we go out there that just remember tomorrow morning when we wake up we're gonna say, wasn't last night cool?

Wasn't that so much fun?

It's like heaven on earth.

You get 800 people, you get hundreds of people together, and we're doing this and and it it's so much fun.

However, the people with the last year, Gracie, she couldn't even be there.

What's what was her mom doing the next day?

Her mom was at the hospital all day the next day.

Right.

Their cancer goes on until it doesn't, but they they're still living that.

And we go home and we go back to our lives.

Yeah.

So I try to impress that on them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For us, it's like a big event, it's a win, and we we high-five each other, and and rightfully so.

It's a it takes a lot of work.

Um, you know, as a church, we donate all the supplies, and it's a lot.

It's thousands of dollars of supplies that because our people here are generous, we can do that.

And but you're reminding people that you know, for them, this is a this is a really powerful moment, but then they go right back into the fire of all the because we're dealing with people in really hard situations most of the time.

And you know, and I don't want to go into any detail, but or certainly you don't need to, but you know, we have in our family, we have cancer in our family.

Oh, yeah.

And so I've got skin in the game.

So for me.

Your wife has had cancer, your son has still has cancer.

And so that's the end I'm so glad you mentioned that, because as you've been doing these events for other people, you've also had major hardships in your family.

The one in 2015, the the brain cancer one.

Yeah, Josh hadn't been we he had already had a surgery, but we didn't know if it was malignant or benign yet.

Right.

And I remember thinking, wow, what is the irony of this?

Yeah, you're doing a canvas event for someone with brain cancer.

And my son has it.

It turned out to be malignant.

Yeah, is waiting to hear back his roots, which ends up being malignant brain cancer, which he's now had for what, uh, ten years now?

Ten years.

Ten years.

But and then your wife gets cancer.

And we actually came to you, and people I'm I'm okay sharing this.

We tried to do a canvas for you, and you turned it down.

Yeah.

Um because we're like, yeah, you've put all these events on, now your family's going through this, and you're like, no, and you were really adamant you didn't want to do that.

Um but yeah, it's not like life has just been smooth and and easy for you over these last several years.

You're doing all this to bless other people.

Meanwhile, I've got skin in the game now.

So when I talk to those people, I'm not just some dude on the stage joking around with Madison, having a good time.

Yeah.

But we do that.

Right.

But uh when I talk to them, I know what to say.

Yeah.

I know exactly how to talk to them and and have true empathy.

Yeah.

Uh so God and his economy, he didn't make my wife get cancer or Josh get cancer, but he knew.

Yeah.

And I don't know if that's why he chose me.

I I don't know any of those things.

All I know is that has made a huge difference for me.

Yeah.

And what's been cool for me to watch, you know, as your friend, is it's not like you can see where someone would be like, man, I've done all these events to help other people, and a lot of the people we've served have had cancer.

Um, and we've done some organizations.

Five brain cancers.

Five brain cancers.

And it's like, well, God, I'm doing I'm raising money to help people with brain cancer.

Like my son gets brain cancer.

What in the world?

You know.

But your attitude, I'm sure you've had moments, but every time I've talked to you, you haven't you haven't with me expressed bitterness toward God.

Um you've actually expressed over and over again that your faith and your the depth of your relationship with God has grown deeply.

Incredibly more.

And so that's the other thing too.

Because of it.

Yeah.

I love I love and know God more now because what Josh had gone through in Cheryl the last two years.

That's how amazing he is.

I mean, I'm not some great guy.

I'm a I'm a butthole most of the time.

Uh not maybe not most of the time, but a lot of the time.

I've seen you be one before, yeah.

And uh Cheryl can tell you lots of stories.

But I truly love and know love him and know him more because of going through that.

I mean, either you either it's gonna drive you away and you're gonna say, God, this isn't fair, why me?

And all those questions.

I understand them, it's just not my bag, I don't do that.

Uh and there again, not because I'm great, I just don't.

Um but I I I and I'm not saying it hasn't been hard, but you know, Sheryl and I talk about all the time that God always comes through.

I think you mentioned a verse recently about, or it's like, don't give me more than I need or less than I need.

Yeah.

But just yeah, it's a proverb that says, I long neither uh I don't I desire neither riches nor poverty.

Um but give me just enough.

That's you know what I mean.

That's kind of how I've actually, because of the way I was raised, kind of poor and all that.

I I never cared about being rich.

I just wanted to have enough.

Now it's nice to have a cushion, it's nice to not have to worry about money, but um but there's other things that come that are aren't about money.

You know, it's about other things, it's about life and death.

Um but God is He's faithful, um, He gets us through.

Um we're surrounded by great people, my goodness.

Uh the outpouring that we've had and uh the the way people love on Josh, you your your team, the the team here at church, because Josh has volunteered before and they they love him and he loves them.

Josh is great.

So we've been just so blessed.

I didn't mean to get off on it.

No, no, no.

I mean what you're saying is really important.

It's like it is important, okay.

A couple of big takeaways.

And we'll wrap up, like for me, just sitting here, and that's the cool thing about doing these God stories, we don't really have a plan.

So it sometimes I feel guilty.

I'm like, I should have had a more clear agenda, and maybe I should, but I really like just how the conversations flow because I learn things and I'm not directing the conversation, I'm just a part of it, and then I learn.

Like, so two things.

Well, a couple big things.

Your passion and the things you love don't have to be laid aside for the Lord.

Now he he could call you to do that.

There's times where he could take it away in a second.

He could, right?

He's God.

He has that.

He can do what he wants.

But no, so often he's like, no, I I gave you that for a reason.

Like it took a while to get it through my head.

Yeah, I gave you this gift for art.

I want you to use this, enjoy it, but you can use this for my kingdom too.

It doesn't just have to be segmented off.

And we tend to compartmentalize our God stuff in like its own little category.

And we're like, well, I have my job and my family, and then there's God.

And it's like, no, he's he's part of all of it.

Everything.

And so you realize I can actually do this.

And in that, that ends up leading you to paint these paintings that were inspired by a message here that have literally become the like your tree of life is the logo for our church.

So years later, I asked you, will you paint a picture?

Because our name is His Hands.

It always bothered me.

I'm like, we should be Tree of Life Church, because we talk about the tree of life, it's tree of life paintings, and we're called His Hands, and no one ever talked about hands, and what's that about?

And at one point I almost maybe changed the name of our church, and some people advised me not to.

But I was like, Marlene, can you paint a picture of hands holding a tree of life?

And you painted that, and then Matt, who's a really gifted artist on our staff, he took that and kind of partnered with Megan's sister Britney, my wife's sister, and they made this graphic version of that that's our logo.

So, you know, your tree of life painting becomes the logo for our church.

And these tree of life paintings have inspired so many people.

They bless so many people.

Um, and then even beyond that, you know, now you've got this ministry in Canvas that you and your art group do that's raised$300 plus thousand dollars.

It's gonna hit half a million dollars before too long how much money it's been raised.

It's gonna be really cool.

And again, it's just this it's the natural outpouring of you saying yes to God and realizing I can I can use my talent for you.

And so that's this one major takeaway.

Your your talent, your gifts, your passions don't have to be set aside to follow the Lord.

They can be redeemed essentially and and brought into that.

And look what God can do with it.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of lives changed, you know, through that.

Really truly, people impacted because every time we have a canvas, everyone who walks away from it, we all walk away changed.

I've met people who will say, um I started coming here because my son-in-law and daughter invited us to come to Canvas.

Yeah.

And I go, wow, it it really is a ministry.

But uh I always say that God has never told me what I do is a ministry.

So I personally never call it that.

Yeah.

I'm cool with if other people want to call it that.

You know, that that's up to them.

I've never looked it up.

Like, because I I have a feeling if I read it what a ministry was, it I it probably fit in there.

But unless God tells me this is a ministry, because the ministry usually is like, this is my ministry.

Right.

Canvas has not been mine for a long, long time.

Yeah, it's a lot of people.

I mean, your art group is it's a lot of people.

It's a lot of people.

So that that that takeaway for me is huge in this conversation that you know you can you can surrender it to the Lord.

But then the second one, what you're just talking about with your family, okay, so you've done all these canvas events, and five of them have been for people with brain cancer, and then your son gets brain cancer.

And then we've had other cancer patients and other things, and then Cheryl gets cancer, your wife.

And it's not that it's important, I think, for people to understand that you can devote your life to serving the Lord.

And that that doesn't mean that your life is impervious to pain and struggle.

In some ways, we're almost guaranteed we are gonna struggle.

Those are the things that you you go, oh, I I don't want to ever have to deal with cancer.

I never want to deal with cancer, you know, and then boom.

But yeah.

I mean, but I've watched you go through it and it's been really inspirational for me to go, here's a guy who's devoted so much time and energy to helping other people.

And you know, a lot of people would think, well, then that guy, surely God's like, well, he's I'll make sure he never has to deal with that because he's helping other people with it.

And I could even see cynical people being like, Well, how do some great God you have, you devote, you help raise thousands of hundreds of thousands of dollars to help people in in need, help people with cancer, and then your family, your wife and your son get cancer.

What does that tell you about God?

Um, but your attitude's never been like that at all.

I I've walked, I've talked with you, and we've had lots of long conversations, usually here at the church, and I don't know that you're here in the building or at lunch, we'll just sit and talk.

And you have just drawn closer and closer and closer to the Lord through all of that.

And so God, it's like he wants everything, right?

He wants your life, he wants your gifts and talents and abilities, and he's like, I can take those and I can use them in ways that you probably couldn't even imagine.

But he also wants all the pain and the hardship and the struggle, and we don't get to pick and choose what we get with God.

He wants all of it, and we give it all to him, and the whole thing, partnering with him, it's just better and sometimes harder, but still better than we could ever imagine.

You know what I mean?

I wouldn't change anything.

Yeah.

Wouldn't change a thing.

Because the good that would come out is you know, and and we all we're all gonna die one day.

That's true.

I don't mean to be glib about it.

No, it's true.

Yeah.

That's what being a pastor has been unique for me because you know, I I was mentioning I was 30 when I became the pastor.

I never thought about funerals, and I've done about 75, I think, at this point, funerals.

Wow.

And uh it's made me face death at a younger age and recognize, oh, this is a real thing.

This is not avoidable.

Um especially when they're young.

I've had a lot of those.

It's been tough.

But like you said, it it doesn't push me away from God.

It makes me lean into him even more because I see how faithful he is even in those situations.

I see how he shows up and he comforts people.

And so, yeah, you give him everything.

And so uh here you are, Marlon Yoder, artist extraordinary.

You are an extraordinary artist.

You really are.

It's amazing what you do.

And thank you for letting our church be your gallery.

And thank you.

I have believe me, I've sold a few out there.

I know we don't put price tags up, but if anyone ever wants to, you can buy a Marlin painting.

Now, what we usually do for you is when you sell one, we're like, hey, can you make a print of that?

Yeah and we replace it.

There's a few things to replace.

But man, you're so gifted and you have such an incredible story.

We could probably talk for hours of just separately about growing up in the Mennonite community in Ohio and leaving that.

And I I've had I've heard a lot of those stories.

Um, but you have a really remarkable life, and you have a remarkable family, and you have made a major, major impact on our church.

I think and our on our whole community.

And so To God be the glory.

To God be the glory.

I mean, I don't I don't think I glibly either.

We've got to give him the glory.

I mean, that's the whole point of canvas and all that.

It's for his glory.

Yep.

We we get to work a little bit.

There's a lot of work that goes into it.

Yep.

A lot of love.

A lot of love, a lot of tables and chairs and tablecloths and paint and uh ticket sales and all that.

A lot of it's it's enough, dude.

When you're talking about a an 800-person event where everyone's gonna paint a painting, that's 2,400 paintbrushes.

Oh, and we have you know screens and cameras so that people can see what you're doing because you're leading it.

It's a co it's a it's grown and grown and become more and more complex, but it's cool.

And to God be the glory, I agree.

Thanks, Marlon.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.