Using Skateboarding and Beatboxing to Bring People to Christ with Trevor Heyd

speaker-0: Welcome to Creative Chapel, a podcast exploring the vast landscape of Christian artistry. Across denominations and disciplinary mediums, Creative Chapel is building a space where saints can gather and celebrate their walk with Christ with their God-given gifting, encouraging each other in their faith and their craft. Creative Chapel is the place for inspiration, curation, and revelation. Hello and welcome to Creative Chapel. I am your host, Chris Mack. And today I'm joined by Trevor Hyde of Stay True Ministries, a preacher and evangelist reaching the lost with his gift that God has given him in skateboarding and beatboxing. Trevor is about traveling and encountering people in unique places with his unique giftings. And ⁓ we have a pretty cool history, so I'm excited to have him on the show. And so Trevor, welcome.

speaker-1: Yeah, thanks for having me man. Appreciate it.

speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ this is really cool and it it gets me thinking about my my history a little bit and so the first time I don't know if you know this, I feel like I'd probably mentioned this, but the first time I encountered you was at Unity Fest in twenty twelve. And and so you were on like the B stage, which is where they put all like the the hard rockers and all the the music that scared the parents, but And so that's where of course I was hanging out. And so I saw your set and I think you did I was I was w re watching some of your your content last night and so I think you performed Conquer Your Giants at Unity Fest 'cause I can vividly remember you hitting your p pedals, beatboxing and and doing your your lines and then, you know, at the end, you know, yelling out Stay True, which is the the name of your ministries. And so Yeah, that was I was It was very unique. I'd never seen someone who was just in and of himself, just a dude beatboxing, hitting a pedal to loop that, and then doing some ⁓ harmonies and then doing like spoken word and preaching over that. And I I was really impressed by it. It stuck with me. And then a couple years later, maybe maybe just a year later, I bumped into you at Spring Arbor University, which is where I attended. And then did you attend Spring Arbor or were you just Kinda getting some classes or bumping in.

speaker-1: I don't even know why I was there. This is a great recap of memory, dude, because I I don't I'm trying to remember all this. I remember the Unity set for sure. I don't know why I was at Spring Harbor. I went to be Western University.

speaker-0: You were just kinda like roaming the halls of the communications building, which is where I spent a lot of time because I was my major. And so I made sure to connect with you because I had remembered you just from like a year prior. And then I at that time I was getting I had just gotten a camera and I had just gotten like a a a fly cam for it. So I like I was looking for projects to do and I'd saw like some of your content somehow. Probably just following your ministry after Unity Festival. And so I was like, ⁓ this would be a really cool guy to collaborate with. I love what he's doing and he's got the skate aspect, so I think that it'd be really sweet. And so from there I just kinda started the conversation. We got the ball rolling with doing a a video project and one of my earliest video projects that I'd done. ⁓ and so I re watched it last night. ⁓ and I I'm pretty proud of it still. I'm like, ⁓ this holds up and the audio sounds pretty good for what I was working with.

speaker-1: Great. I loved it. Yeah.

speaker-0: So it's a cool little video called Hell Holes.

speaker-1: Dude, that's amazing 'cause that was so long ago, Unity Festival. And that was when I was like homies with NF and we were touring a lot together because we had the same manager, so he was on that stage too. We like did that shit together. That was like a those are good memories, dude. That was a while ago.

speaker-0: That's kinda cool though. I didn't I don't know if I remember NF being at Unity, ⁓ but I do remember N F playing Spring Arbor. And it's funny how like N F's career has kinda gone a weird way of like kinda being a foot in and a foot out and like not being overtly saying that he's Christian these days.

speaker-1: I don't have any bad things to say about him. He's he was like, if you don't like God, you're an idiot kind of a dude. He just is bold about it. But when he hit Capitol Records, there was his first year with Capitol Records, he and I shared a set at another festival called Rock the Island. And after that he just kind of there was a almost overnight thing where other ⁓ musicians and artists in the Christian industry have told me he's done the same thing. He just stopped. find the text and everything. It's like so I don't have anything bad to say about him or anything. But I mean yeah. Good dude. Wish I knew him now. Don't know him anymore. Yeah. But we were we were homies at one point. He was a good guy, so ⁓

speaker-0: Well it's cool that that you had this experience of sharing stages with ⁓ so many cool artists. And so I'd love to to get into that a little bit more, but before we get there, I'd love for you to just like share more about yourself and your testimony and how you even discovered these giftings that you have with beatboxing, with skateboarding and and how you felt like that the Lord has opened the door to to use those for evangelism.

speaker-1: Yeah, for sure, man. I ⁓ I when I was in high school, there was this dude that beatboxed and he was a senior in high school and I looked up to him. My oldest brother really enjoyed trying to do some beatbox stuff. He that's this kid was an inspiration. He was really good at it. And that's where I was exposed to it. I never really did anything with it except where I knew what it was. And then when I went to college Then for some odd reason I started fiddling with it. I went to Indiana Weston University, I started fiddling around with beatboxing, and I had buddies on my dorm floor that loved what I was doing so much and they were all into like R and B hip hop beats and stuff and there was one day specifically where I was in the student center in a little fishbowl entryway, like glass doors, walk in a couple feet, glass doors, then you're in. So I I love going in between these glass doors and beatboxing because nobody was around. It was the back of the building and it was echoey in there, had good acoustics. And so I remember one day my buddies I was in there just having fun practicing stuff and my buddies from my dorm floor came in like, Dude, dude, show us that song, 'cause I put together an entire song and I couldn't do it till I don't even remember it. Like just a whole song, like lyrics, the beat, the music, everything, the harmony, and all just vocal and I was like alright so I closed my eyes to focus and I did this whole entire song when I opened my eyes this whole little fishbowl area was full of students and there was money on the floor in front of me and was like no this is not a thing think of your cash dude it was pretty funny so like I

speaker-0: Okay. If that was me, I'd be like, Thanks, I'll be here I'll be here tomorrow at the same time.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I I was I didn't want that at all. I didn't want the attention with it. It was something I did behind closed doors. I had some buddies on my dorm floor that came into my dorm room. That was when I went into a buddy's dorm who had a keyboard and I started fiddling with his keyboard and beatboxing with the keyboard and I had my own harmonica, so I started beatboxing with the harmonica while I was doing his keyboard. So I just like You're in college, you're in a dorm. You have you have tons of time. And I didn't party, so that's what I did. And I entered a gong show with another friend at the college who beatboxed it. He was really good at it. And we we tag teamed, did this whole thing together that we put together, choreographed this whole thing together, and we won this gong show with like I think the campus was probably three, four thousand students at the time. I think there was probably about a thousand students at this thing. It was noisy and fun and rowdy. And we won the gong show with it. And that was this spark for me where I was like, Man, I think people would like this if I performed it. So that's kinda where like that was kinda the nucleus of beatboxing skateboarding I've done ever since I was in like fifth or sixth grade. And I was obsessed with skateboarding. And I loved skateboarding. He neglected everybody except for my homies that skated, and I skateboarded, skateboarded, skateboarded. I went to hardcore punk shows, metal shows all the time. That was kind of the culture I was in. That was just what I was doing non-stop. And when I got to college, it was actually at Indiana Westland University, also where I was picked up by an action sports team. So for skateboarding, there was a faith-based action sports team. They had professional BMX. bike riders and professional inline rollerbladers on their team. They had some skateboarders. They they weren't at a professional level, but they were really good. Excuse me. And they weren't like they weren't I mean, I don't think they were necessarily what they needed for like ministry purposes. I love to evangelize and preach, so they loved that I I spoke. Mm-hmm. So they brought me onto the team and they made me their professional skateboarder while I was in college. This is probably my f my s second to last or last year of college. So in college, I was driving to like New York for festivals and like like these wild festivals and carnivals and fairs and stuff. And we would do shows where we'd set up out of a semi truck and we'd do these awesome demos and we'd throw our bodies all over the place. And then they would put me up and I'd give the message. So then I'd start traveling out on weekends at college doing these shows. And then I would go back to school and do school. And it was just this wild balance. And it was there that I was like, you know what, I could make my own ministry when I graduate, I could just step into my own contacts and the contacts of the action sports team. And that's what I did. So when I graduated I was full time just right out the gate. I just started going speaking for camps, youth camps, doing all kinds of shows with enemy opposition. That was the name the action sports team. And beatboxing came into play and I was like exposing that as something I did. I started doing it at youth events and all nighters where like just teenagers were rowdy and wanted something wild like that. And then ⁓ Enemy Opposition, the team, they started asking me to beat box during our shows. I think that was also a good footstep towards it too, because our shows gathered a lot of people. So that got me really that greased the wheel like crazy for this thing. And I just started travelling full time. ⁓ instead of just kind of doing all kinds of events, man, like skate park outreaches. So it is. It's it's a ministry built off of three core elements. One of them skateboarding with skateboard demos. One of them's beatbox performances. And another one is preaching the word of God. And so performed that out of out of college and it just went down went downhill. Just ⁓ snowballed into something active.

speaker-0: Thanks for being an early listener of the Creative Chapel podcast. As a new show, it means so much that you're here. Please like, subscribe, and download our episodes to keep the momentum going. And share it with a friend who could use encouragement in their creative journey. Alright, back to the show. Yeah, I think it's such a great ⁓ way to use your giftings. And you know, we were talking before starting the show about kind of like the the ethos of Creative Chapel. And I feel like the audience, through my encouragement of, you know, the artist having liberty to just have the calling of an artist, that they might get this idea that I might not like love evangelism, but I do love evangelism. I'm I'm very pro evangelism. I have been trained in evangelism through things like Circuit Riders and Carrie the Love. And we did a lot of evangelism growing up around Metro Detroit where I grew up doing crosswalks and talking to people and and so it's just through some of the studies I've had lately, ⁓ through guys like Francis Schaefer and and Makato Fujimar that I kinda come to to see the liberty that artists have. But But with that I think it's important that we do highlight voices that are evangelists and and are saying, you know, like these are the gifts that God has given me and I I I see how they can be used to intentionally live into the calling that is being an evangelist. And so if artists are called to be an evangelist, I think it's, you know, important to utilize that and I think that's something that you're doing well. And so I'd love to to hear kinda like some of the stories throughout the years of what you've encountered, whether that's ⁓ sharing the stage at these big event festivals or just just some of the the opportunities that you've had to connect with people, whether it's at camp or anything. I guess, you know, when I think about it, I'd love to hear a story about ⁓ a place that you unexpectedly had a connection with someone. Maybe not even intentionally evangelizing, but just through your skills and through your character interacting with somebody. ⁓ did you ever have like a moment like that?

speaker-1: Yeah, I have tons of moments like that. And just based off of what you were saying, I I wanna if I could chime in on that. For sure. I grew up in this metal hardcore punk scene. And what I loved about that was that a hardcore band that was Christians could be in a whole lineup of other hardcore bands that weren't Christians. And that band wasn't even preachy, they didn't mention anything. It was just the fact that they were honorable human beings, their values lined up with the Christian faith, and their lyrics were spirit filled. Mm-hmm. So their ministry was beautiful because less was more for them. They weren't called to preach eloquently speech. They were called to yell on a microphone and be a part of a community that made them feel like they belonged. And they would just build a brotherhood with individuals. This is what I did in that scene. I built a brotherhood with individuals. They were my my homies. They were my friends. And I never preached at them. That was like a very Personal ministry for me. It always came down to when people asked, then I could talk. People buy the album, they'd hear the lyrics. It wasn't corny, it wasn't cheesy, it was just as powerful and good as anybody else's. So it fit in the scene, it fit in the culture, and they knew that they went so hard on preaching that They wouldn't have that platform anymore to like do that kind of ministry. So I love that kind of stuff too, and I think that there is room for all different callings of evangelism. And then Yeah, for me, I had an experience where I was brought out to a really large church in New York for a youth thing. And I did some beatboxing. I don't remember if I did any skateboarding. Their stage setup was in the middle of this room. It was like a mega church. They had a boxing ring in the middle of the youth room and that's what I preached from. It was cool. It was makeshift, but it was cool. And there was a girl that came up to me afterwards and ⁓ she told me that it was the night before she was planning to commit suicide. She was planning to take her life. And it was one of those stories you hear a lot of perhaps you do perhaps you don't like one of those stories where like, alright, God, I'm I'm just gonna make it through this night and I'm gonna go to this thing that my friend wants me to go to. And it was the thing that I spoke for and I did this beatbox thing for. And she came up and she talked to me afterwards and she came to know the Lord at this event. And she shared with me, I was gonna take my life just yesterday. Excuse me. But because of what you said, which it was the Lord through me, right? But like mm-hmm. And I asked her if she had a Bible and she didn't have a Bible. This is one of my favorite stories to share, is like this is how I like doing ministry. She didn't have a Bible, so I shared with her Psalm 139, which talks about you are created fearfully and wonderfully. You were fearfully and wonderfully made. Every day ordained for you was written in God's book before whatever it came to be. You were knit together in your mother's womb. Beautiful passage of your identity in God. And I wanted her to remember it. I asked her if she had a Bible and she said no. So I said, if I were to rip this page out and give it to you, Psalm 139, would you keep it? And she said, Yeah. So I ripped that page out And I gave that page to her. And that kind of stuff I love because I think that there's I think that there's like an idol with the physical Bible sometimes where you know, I mark mine up, I use it to preach. I got blood stains and holes in mine. Like I have pages missing. I have smoke from stages that are stained on the outside of like s like I use my Bible and I bring it everywhere. It's used. So

speaker-0: color.

speaker-1: That's a story that I that I really have in my head really heavily is in China, that's how they study the word. They rip out pages and they share it around because it's so underground. They pocket them and they remember the the whole page and they give the page at somebody else. So that was a really cool, unexpected experience. And now now whenever I like that's my old Bible and I have a new Bible, my wife gifted me, and there was another experience that I had that was pretty intense. And I did the same thing with that person. And so I have two Bibles that are missing Psalm one thirty nine in ⁓ But I love that. Gives my Bible character and this page is missing, right? So that was a really cool experience that I had.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's so special to think about on the receiving end of that of if I had a night that was so transformative and I talked to the person who God was using to to generate that and they they just ripped out a page of the Bible and gave it to me. I would like keep that forever. I would frame that. Like that's so such a special keepsake of an important moment. And not only like a keepsake, but like this is like page of scripture that I can recall and go back to any time that I'm I'm feeling down or or even that I feel like just rejoicing thinking about what the Lord has done for me. ⁓ I think that's so cool. You know, you you you touched on something ⁓ right before heading into that story of ⁓ you know it was just kinda like a a quick line you said of like all different callings of evangelism. I I don't know if there's really more to that, but I think there's something that tells me that there is. And so I'd love for you to like maybe expound on on what that could mean of like all different callings of evangelism and and the different aspects of evangelism. And since I think you're probably the first person on the show who who is an evangelist, I'm sure there'll be people watching this show who feel the call of God to be specifically an evangelist. and might not even know where to start or where to begin or it might feel even insecure about having conversations with strangers. I'd love for you to like kinda unpack the the position of being an evangelist and and maybe some other expressions that you've seen in your travels and your journeys and just seeing that gifting utilized in the world.

speaker-1: Yeah, ⁓ for sure. I'll do my best. I have an entire course that I do trainings on evangelism at churches, but due to a traumatic life experience recently, I don't have a very good memory. So let me see what I can do. I know that there is one called friendship evangelism. All of us are called to be evangelists, by the way. Like we're all created to do evangelism, but that doesn't mean you're Billy Graham on the stage in front of millions. When I was in high school school and I had this drastic Holy Spirit change in my life, I started writing scripture on my skateboard. I started making my own t-shirts. I was all punk rock stuff. I was like, if it doesn't look like everybody, it's awesome. So I'd make everything. I made like scripture and sayings on my like I had a shirt I made that said Satan is a turd. stupid stuff because I thought it was funny and I I know people would ask about it or laugh at it too and it'd open up a door. There's all kinds of different things. My wife did evangelism, and I know that we'll be able to talk about her story a little bit. But my wife did evangelism through a blog. She was very intimate. She was very meek and quiet on the outside, the exterior, but her writings were profound. And she was very gifted and skilled at writing. And she started a blog, an evangelistwife dot com. And she started reaching thousands of women through it. For me, I feel called to preach. I feel called to stand in front of people. I feel like I've been gifted and skilled and I've had affirmation of that. gifting to communicate in front of crowds of people. That is what I do. We talked a little bit about artists at one point and in the hardcore metal scene, there are bands. There's one called For Today. They're not around anymore, but they were super rad and they were very preachy. Every event they did. They'd go to bars, they'd tour with other secular artists And they were preaching. They preached hardcore. They gave an altar call on the stage in front of in secular venues. I know people on the inside of the culture and scene who weren't believers hated that. But I also know that there were people that have found the Lord through that ministry. And then there's other artists like you and I were You and I were talking a little bit about NF. N F, like I said, I don't have anything negative to say about him. There's controversy. I know other hip hop artists in the Christian music industry that have told me straight up NF is not a Christian artist. He doesn't accept Christian music festivals. He doesn't do Christian events. I I knew NF personally. We had the same manager. We did shows together. We were homies. Like NF's a solid dude as far as his character goes. He thinks Anything against the Lord is stupid. He's just that straight laced guy. But he doesn't take theology and unpack it in a bo in a he doesn't take a Bible verse and unpack a three point sermon in a song with it. Like and ⁓ like his ministry, I I don't know where he feels how he feels led and called. I know in his lyrics he's just all about music, music, music. But I see a lot of people I used to do construction work. And I was on top of a roof with a dude that spent time in prison who started talking about NF's music and how much he loved it and it got him out of trouble. And I was like, ⁓ I I I used and I don't know him anymore, and I'm bold about that. I was like, I used to hang out with him. And he's got this huge reach now. Like the way Switchfoot would have. Yeah. I just recently listened to an interview with Skillet and Skillet is one of the only Christian bands Who chose to go on the secular side of reaching people? They said that 70% of their audience are not believers. But they decided they they said in the industry there is this thing that when you start to grow bigger, you start to pull out of Christian events. And they said we always wanted to be in the Christian events. So there are different tiers, different waves. You can be super introverted and just choose to evangelize.

speaker-0: Mm.

speaker-1: By not being a jerk. I mean by shining with your character. When I was a teenager, I chose not to cuss. When I was at the skate park, that stood out a ton. And then kids would ask me about it. And then I just start telling them about my faith. And like so there's all different kinds of ways to do evangelism. It doesn't have to necessarily be on this large platform. You don't have to be some famous well known person. But as a believer, we're called to be a light in some way, shape, or form. And there's people that I still look at NF and I still look at him and I see his music and I'm like, homeboy doesn't swear at all. He doesn't seem to be talking about anything satanic. He it comes down to the fine line for a lot of people of like he says music saved him, didn't Jesus save him kind of thing. All that kind of stuff, I get. He sounds really angry and all that stuff. I get but I don't know, there's different levels, there's different tiers to evangelism. If you're a school teacher, you can pray over the seats of your kids before they come in, and you can play some kind of worship music that doesn't have any lyrics to it in there. You can do small little things to help the students see little attributes of God or just character traits that are more moral that line up with the Bible. There's all kinds of different things that you can do for evangelism. So hopefully that Elaborates and answers a little bit.

speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. I I think it's it's important to see and just even touching on like what you just said about teachers, finding other ways to to evangelize that's not exactly spoken and that that kinda like operates in some of the stricter confines of of different institutions. Or even thinking like as a filmmaker There's something that's pretty common of like you bring on a lot of random people, whether they're Christian or non Christian, onto a potentially Christian movie. ⁓ and so, you know, it's common to start the day with prayer with the crew and they can choose to engage with that or not. Or just even thinking like how how much deeper could I go is what stirs ⁓ what you just said about teachers is like how much could I just like pray over the hair and makeup chair and just be like whoever sits in this, you know, just pray that they they encounter God here. Or or just thinking about how to carry myself when when things go wrong and how that can, you know, still open the door to to show God's light and to to draw curiosity and be like, hey, I saw you handle this. Like what you know, what what was the motivation handling it that way? I've never seen a a director do that. And so I think that's encouraging and and and good to think about as like, like you said, we're all We're all called to be evangelist with a great commission, right? To to go into all the earth and and share the gospel. And I think again in in this podcast I think what I'm trying to to help artists do is to just value their work and show that hey, if you don't have the full gospel of Jesus being fully God, fully man, coming down to earth, hanging out with the disciples, sh preaching, you know, that got him to The cross and then the resurrection and then, you know, the full package. If your singular artwork doesn't contain that, you know, that you're gonna be okay. You you can still glorify God with that. And even in the same light of like Looking like someone like the NF, ⁓ that still benefited a person to the point of starting conversation that you know led to you opening a door to potentially talking about faith and and just keep watering the seed that had been planted into him. And so I think when we zoom out of all these moments we can see what stage we were able to come into, whether that was through our our relationships or through our art. and so I think it's super helpful to think that. Kinda going backwards a little bit. I feel like in your story you talked about How you kind of just fell into beatboxing and were able to do that in a way that mm you know people were interested in. You were always skateboarding. And so it sounds like the Lord was always kind of like generating your heart towards evangelism in ministry. But I'd love to know like a a specific moment where you felt clarity on your calling. I think artists really struggle ⁓ with calling, and especially like young people struggle with calling. And so I'd love to to hear your story on on when you really felt and had clarity. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. I I was going to a Bible college in Canada at the time and I went to college 'cause I was told to go to college to do ministry. I wanted to do evangelism, but there was nothing in school that geared towards evangelism. It was just more so pastoral ministry, missionary ministry, and worship music ministry. There was a chapel at my Bible college one day Tuesday morning. There was an altar call. I went up front. I was struggling. I was struggling. struggling hard because I loved it. I was impacted by an evangelist as a teenager and that was my conversion of like I was a pastor's kid going through the motions, my faith was really my parents, but then this evangelist at a youth camp, ⁓ the spirit of God just moved through him well and shaped me. And ever since that moment I was like, I want to do what that guy is doing. I could do that. And So I was struggling. I I was always going, Lord, I want what your will is, not mine. I know I really want to do this. Now you give the desires of your heart. And so I went up to this altar call and the president of the university comes over, lays his hand on me, doesn't know anything about me, doesn't know why I'm up there. He just simply said a little prayer or something really quickly, but then he shook my shoulder when he said it and he said, He wants you to say yes. And I was struggling for a little while with this. Will you say yes? And then I was just leaking out of every hole in my face. And I was like, Yes, yes. And so I said yes solidly in that moment. But then I really struggled as I continued and finished up college because nothing was geared towards helping me figure out how to do full time traveling preaching evangelism. Long story short, I should have just taken business like doing business. Growing a business or something. Mm-hmm. But I remember talking to the very evangelist that impacted me at my camp. He actually came to my university, Indiana Wesley University at one point. And I talked to him privately. He remembered me as a teenager at the camp. And I asked him how he knew he was supposed to do this. And he just looked at me and he just simply said, If he goes, You know you're called When you're organically getting booked for events. Like, pretty much you don't have to try, but events come your way. People want them they want you to preach. That was always hard for me because I was still a college student. I like, that's not the answer I want. But the affirmation of what he said was you're called if you're getting booked for these things.

speaker-0: Yeah, right.

speaker-1: I like the advice, wouldn't agree wholeheartedly on it. Paul did not live a very cush life and he was called to evangelize. Like he was not welcomed in cities, you know. So for me, what I can tell you from my personal experience is God wants you to have the desires of your heart. People tend to think that means I really want a really nice car or something, and he's gonna give that to me. Really the desires of your heart. If you think about it spiritually, are to truly feel content in your soul, feel freedom. All the things you pursue in the world that are trying to fill that and give you that, really you need to ignore those and pursue God to give you the true desires that your very being was created to have. You're a soul with flesh. The desires of my heart were to preach. and not do it inside the walls of the church, but to travel and do events and to preach to people who hated God and weren't going to come around. Instead of inviting them to my church, I wanted to go right into their world and do something that really grew their grew authority, which was beatboxing. If you beatbox good, people like that's sick, I want to listen to this. If you hear an artist on a platform that's good and they're exactly what you love and they hit you and they say something, rather whether they're a believer or not, Travis Scott, dude, big influence on people. You like his music, you do what the guy says. And he gets thousands of people doing all the same thing in the show's like so that for me it was a burning sensation in my heart I could not ignore. I organically was all about doing it regardless of what it looked like financially, I wanted to make sure it happened. And I couldn't I couldn't not do it. It was part of me. So that for me was like helping me with kind of a calling and understanding my calling in doing evangelism.

speaker-0: I I'd be interested so I'm sure you've come to this ⁓ s situation before too, but doing a little bit of role reversal if if there was a young person that came to you and that was like, How do you know if you're supposed to do this? I think you've already alluded to it, but you communicated as like you know, what that evangelist said to me, you know, I don't think was the best way to communicate it. How would you like distinctly communicate it?

speaker-1: how would I distinctly communicate whether you know you're called or not. Honestly, it's a burning desire within you. See there's a difference between so there's a there's a job. A job is where you do something to get paid for, to pay the bills. Then there's a hobby. A hobby is doing something you love, but you don't get paid for it. You do it because you love it. And then there's a calling. A calling is something you organically love to do and you're so good with it that you can make it into a mean it doesn't have to be a career, but it's something that you're gonna do regularly and it's gonna be a life choice. So I would say if you just want a job to make money But you hate your job, you know this ain't it. If you have a hobby you love to do and it's like something you desire so badly to do and you do it all the time, and you know you can do that to glorify God, that's probably a good inclination that that hobby could be part of your evangelism plan. You can use that in some way. You might be wasting it, and it's created for you to give glory to God to. And when you can take something that is more so of a hobby desire, something that naturally is within you that you love to do, you can't part from it, it's part of you, you can make that into something that glorifies God in a new way. Maybe nobody's ever done before. Maybe you were created on earth to do that thing. That's yours to do. Oftentimes we look at other people, we try to follow an outline of somebody else, try to copy what they're doing. But God's created each and every one of us so individually. The calling is Gonna burn in your heart so badly that you can't ignore it. And you've heard the stories like Michael Jordan played basketball with the flu, like he played a game with the flu, he was told no so many times, he was cut from the team when he was a kid. It's not that everybody in life is gonna tell you yes, it's more so that you have a relationship with God that's personal. and you have intimacy with him in the spirit to where you know what you desire to do and it burns within you and you wanna do it. That's that's a calling for you. And you pursue that calling. God's calling you to do that thing. I would definitely explain it to be a burning sensation in the very core of who you are to do. And it's hard and scary sometimes, but you just have to say yes to it.

speaker-0: If you're someone who loves apparel that shows your creative side while sharing your faith, I've just the thing for you. Our sponsor, the Printing Ox, has hooked us up with some t-shirts I designed that we're planning to launch later this summer. If you want to support the show, go ahead and pre-order one of the shirts. It has the Creative Chapel logo on the front, and on the back it says you were made to create, with the scripture of Revelation 4.11 underneath. You might even recognize the design from our backdrop here at the studio. If you'd like to pre-order a shirt, visit the link in our description. And if you have any t-shirt needs for your church, business, or event, make sure to hit up my buddy Forrest at the PrintingOx. He does everything with quality and exemplifies the Creative Chapel spirit. Visit his link in the description as well. Alright, back to the show. Yeah, I really appreciate that answer. I think it honestly brings a lot of clarity and will be super helpful for people. And it makes me think about even My first job out of film school was being a youth pastor. And I was passionate about the work of the Lord and I was passionate about ministry. You know, I I was also PK, grew up in the church, Christian college, Christian film school. ⁓ you know, my whole life centering around my faith and and even in the point of I transferred from Spring Arbor University, which was a very like ministry driven education type of school with other curriculum and and areas, but I was studying communications and feeling like okay, that's not gonna take me to the film goals that I have and so I transferred to this film school and then during film school I was like, you know, maybe a a year a year into film school and like just studying the word and and keeping up my devotionals and being like maybe like I should go into maybe I should start studying ministry. And at that point, after transferring once already, my parents were like, You should probably just see this through and we'll figure it out later with with the ministry aspect. But and so it's funny, like studying film, first job out of college, being a youth pastor, and then simultaneously while I'm doing youth ministry, I can remember editing music videos up into time to like give a sermon. And so it was like I couldn't there was never like I never felt the need to like let go of filmmaking, but it was interesting noticing like my office hours were pretty split between ⁓ still like doing freelance video work and ministering and and doing the roles of this youth pastor. And so I think that just further communicates like God's calling on my life to to operate both within the church and outside the church, in the marketplace and in the four walls of of of the church. So I think what you said is super helpful and and can help people just analyze their life in a very practical way. And I feel like sometimes the conversation around calling can be a little bit ⁓ heady or just filled with

speaker-1: It's almost impossible to find out after you hear like

speaker-0: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. A and you touched on something saying that God will give you the desires of your heart. You know, I feel like we hear that in church and we forget that that is scripture. And so just to highlight that, I I looked it up real quick. ⁓ and so that is Psalm thirty seven verse four. And so that verse says, Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart And so, you know, I think sometimes we can approach hearing that and if we don't know the reference point in scripture we can just hear it on a whim and be like, Okay They say that but also I know scripture of the you know, the heart is the most deceitful thing above all all else, so I like shouldn't listen to my heart at all and I ⁓ or I'll you know, feel like God wants me to like sacrifice and lay down everything

speaker-1: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: And all those have an interesting interplay with with God also when you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. And you know, you should be that's all working together in this weird Venn diagram of like shaping your heart towards the Lord, sacrificing things that are not of God and letting the Holy Spirit reveal what can be used for God and what can be enjoyed in the Spirit. So I'm really h glad that you touched on that scripture as well. That verse. And so kinda like transitioning a little bit. Something I've been convicted about lately is the ambition that I have for filmmaking, ⁓ for this podcast, for career and life and everything. The ambition towards that and recognizing how I talk about God's faithfulness in that feels I guess there's been an impatience in my life for that. So in general I feel convicted about that. But also I reflect on how I talk about that in union with my family, of being like it's like, ⁓ God, like I feel like you haven't like answered my prayers here. And I do try to like pinpoint in in a specific area. But sometimes comes out, like my wife confessed to me, she's like, you sometimes when you talk like that it makes me feel like it's like I know you're specifically talking about a a specific area in your life, but it kinda makes me feel like you're not seeing me and And your son. And so that's been a conviction of mine. And so I'd love to talk just a little bit about family. You mentioned earlier that you've recently gone through a traumatic event and you know, I don't wanna get into too much of the details of that or anything, just to just for your own mental health and as well as like just the the privilege of privacy. But I'd love to to know more about what it's like to be a a travelling ministry and a family and prioritizing your family within the midst of that.

speaker-1: Yeah, man. My so I was married with my wife for eleven years and so before we had kids I was going full time. She had a three day a week job that was third shift that was really flexible if she needed to leave it. So she came on the road a lot with me. We did ministry together. It was really fun. And then we had kids. And when we had kids we found stability through a church position, pastoral ministry, and always tried to find a church position that would let me travel and do my thing. So We kept that balance kinda like what you said you'd do a little back and forth, kind of a teeter totter. At one point I heard from somebody who gave me advice that in life you do ninety percent of what you don't want to do in order to do ten percent of what you love to do. And so I kind of took that advice to balance it all. Like I will do some church ministry work that'll be stable, that'll be income that we know is coming, and then I'll do events. So we did a lot of traveling together. We did traveling as a family, we took our ⁓ children to events and the events were really fun and enjoyable for our family all together. Kinda just like enjoyable times together. ⁓ my wife started a blog and she just had an incredible story that was pro-life related and she wrote this blog from a Christian perspective who had an abortion, Planned Parenthood, and how it just kind of rocked her and the things that were lied to about her and that process and wanted to help women. understand the value everybody really. And it got picked up by the three biggest pro life movements and they shared it and this thing just kinda spread like wildfire and she was just ministering to women from all over the place through like Messenger on Facebook. Then she'd start speaking for events. She spoke for her own camp. ⁓ she spoke alone at a camp a couple times. She I had her come and speak at a an event I was booked to do things for for seven hundred ⁓ teenage girls and I was like, Can I involve my wife in this? 'Cause I'm a dude. Yeah. So she came out and she spoke her story just like five minutes of it, maybe five, ten minutes. So we were doing ministry together. It was beautiful. And we were a partner. We were a tag team. You know, she was kind of the backbone behind the scenes. And and then Yeah, just recently, ⁓ December of twenty twenty four She passed away from a rare liver disease that ⁓ kind of surprise attacked our family. Very extremely rare disease that only attacks 200 people a year. The aggressive speed of it was so aggressive that she was in a two to five percentile of that two hundred. So they didn't have enough cases to go off of, didn't know what to do with it. They go case by case. So aggressive that chemo would have sped up the process and the transplant was not doable. a a thing. They are found late in people. It only attacks people of the age of forty and under with predominantly healthy livers, so you don't expect it. My wife was very healthy, a health nut. She was the healthiest person I knew. And it is not detected through blood work and if you find this early it's 'cause you went in to get a scan, like some gnarly scan for something else, and like they rarely find this early. And so yeah, a twenty nine day hospital battle and And she passed away in the hospital. ⁓ this is just our three boys now. We have almost six year old, eight year old, and a ten year old. And so now ministry looks a lot different. I focused on my boys for a hard year and nothing else. So they were my ministry, they are my ministry, they're my congregation, man. So focusing on my boys this last year so twenty twenty five, I intentionally only did one event only 'cause it was booked a year in advance and I knew I've done it in the past, I knew would be a great getaway for my boys and I. ⁓ but twenty twenty five was pretty much like intentionally a desert, turning down events, not doing anything, not not being out out in public, like on a public platform or whatever. And twenty twenty six is here and I'm I'm just getting offered things out of nowhere. People are asking me to come to events and I and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna say yes and Some of them I did with a numb head, some of them I did where my head felt swollen, I was barely present, but the Lord still worked through me. And I just started saying yes to these events. And so I did quite a few this year. Coming up for next year, right now, I am Yeah, I'm I've opened up the door to allowing the Lord to just lead how he wants, and I've already accepted a ⁓ Quite a lot of events. Usually I would only do this many events in a year and I've already accepted though that that much so far for next year. And so I am just seeing where the Lord leads, taking what taking what is coming for next year. I am preparing for I'm preparing for a wave of events that I am gonna speak for. So I'm looking forward to seeing what God does in this new season that's coming for the next year.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I think that's such a a wise and and loving choice that to like just take a break and focus on your boys 'cause I've I've also known people in a similar circumstance who just kinda became secluded and and you know, with their family and they kinda like were they were all, you know, these kind of things draw out a lot of interesting responses. And so I'm not trying to fault anybody, but, you know, I feel like I've known people whose wallets have come up and it's like their family's left to just kinda like figure it out w alone without them. In this season of life, how have you anchored yourself to the goodness of God? I I feel like If I walk through I mean like I'm in a weird place with employment. I have been for the past I guess since twenty twenty, honestly. But especially for the past three years it's been like in and out of jobs to the point of being you know, putting stress on me and my wife. And I feel like even in that it's like hard for me to to center in consistently on the goodness of God. And you've gone through something that's much worse than than what I'm experiencing and I know it's not like a battle of of experiences, but I'd love to know how you've just anchored yourself there. And also if that feels like you'd get too emotional and you don't want to do that, that's totally cool too.

speaker-1: No, that's fine. I think that that is something I desire to share with people as much as I can. I think that one of the biggest things that's missed in understanding walking with God and understanding God is God's attributes. It's a fancy word for saying is character. God has got an amazing character and as Christians There's a difference between understanding God's character and believing he actually is who he says he is. When we believe he is who he says he is, and we put our faith in that, we rest in that, and he actually counsels our soul in a way no one else can. So I leaned on the fact that I know God hears me. He is a God who hears. I leaned on the fact that God sees me. He is a God who sees and nothing hides from him. And I leaned on the fact that he is not changing. And here are these things like when we hear God hears me, it's like, well no, he didn't answer my prayer, he's not saying anything. It's like that's not what it's talking about. It's the fact that he is the ultimate counselor. He's a great counselor. He he knows. He's there for you to yell to, he's there for you to vent to. My prayers have mostly been groans. And I know that he interprets the mind of my spirit because that's who he is, and that's what the Bible promises to me, that he can do that. So I've leaned into knowing the character of God, not just knowing it, but believing it. And it's been something I've preached for a long time to know the character of God, but this experience has forced me to put my faith where my mouth is and be like, All right, know God's character. He sees you here and now. You're wanting to go to some person invent or a counselor invent and counseling's good. There's nothing wrong with counseling. It's good. I've been through four counselors. That's good stuff. But when you lean to God and know that God sees you in a moment and He's there for you, okay, and God sees my heart, He knows my heart. So okay, in this moment, because I missed reading my Bible for what a year? Is he gonna whip me on the back for it? No, I know God. God's character is good and loving. He knows me. And he knows that in this moment I'm worshiping him by giving my cares to him, my concerns, crying out to him, giving my groans to him. And for a long period of time, still a lot right now, but for a long period of time, I placed myself on the bench of the game. I would usually be the quarterback in the field. I'd be leading people spiritually, but I on purpose put myself in the locker room, sat by the water boy on the bench, and I let the body of Christ minister to me. And it's hard when you're a leader because you don't like to do that. But I on purpose I sat back and I just let the body of Christ do what the body of Christ needed to do. And I allowed them to love me, minister to me, care for me, and just sit still and know that God wants to love me through these people. And I'm gonna let that happen 'cause this is the season of life I need that for.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think all of that is really helpful. And I think whether people are are struggling with traumatic events, whether they're struggling with employment or finding the next gig as a freelancer or just struggling with ⁓ you know, God's calling seeming like it's not coming to fruition. All of that is so important to to latch on to and it makes me think about A. W. Tozer's book, The Knowledge of the Holy, which is probably the first like heavy theological book I started reading ⁓ in college. And ⁓ I I've talked about that book before on the podcast. And so if you're if you're someone who needs to do a deep dive into God's character, ⁓ I highly recommend that book, ⁓ Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer. And so as we kinda wind down ⁓ the show here. I'd love to just hear some of your thoughts on the nature of creativity and and how it applies to our faith. You know, I think you're someone who is very creative. You've you've come up in a very creative aspect both in sports of skateboarding and in terms of your talents and beatboxing and and your experience in the hardcore scene. ⁓ and just being a minister and experiencing a lot of people and and people latching on to creative acts. And so I'd love to just hear some thoughts and you can take your your time in answering this if you wanted to like think about it for a second. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on just the the creativity that Christians can tap into and how that can bless and minister themselves and others.

speaker-1: Yeah, I would think that it's important for us to realize that all of us are created differently. We are all created in God's image together collectively, but every single one of us is a secret weapon for something. Skateboarding for me is a secret weapon. And I loved doing it as a teenager. It consumed all my time. I was addicted to it, right along with all my other friends. And the fact that I got good at it allowed me to get creative as creat as of creative as I wanted with it. And it allowed me to do my own thing. It was a way to express myself in a different way, but all of us were skateboarders, so we could skate and relate, but I expressed myself through skateboarding differently. Beatboxing was something I had no influencer for. I just did it because I was a weird guy and put stuff together and then ended up being something and it allowed me to express myself in a new way that nobody else was. It's it's shining who you are. And when you think about it, in life there are all these opportunities. Somebody else is going to do it and not give God glory. Like if you're gonna film and make a film and some actor has insane moral values you disagree with, but they're such a good actor and you want them to be involved in this film, as long as they're not gonna blaspheme God in the film, you know, and they're gonna help the film, they're going to go do another film. They're somebody else is going to have them on. It might as well be a Christian filmmaker. Like that's just a perspective for me. I'm sorry. Yeah. So as long as it's not like blaspheming God in the film, it's like Tim Hawkins bit, my favorite comedian, who says, like, I just want a plumber. It doesn't have to be a Christian plumber. I just want you to fix my toilet, you know? So somebody else is going to do these things. It might as well be you and it might as well be you giving glory to God with it. So every single one of us is created to do something unique. And it doesn't have to be extravagant, it doesn't have to be overwhelmingly outgoing or charismatic. It can be profound note writing for people or drawing a picture for somebody or actually just choosing to say what's on your mind because you think somebody looks good today and you want to compliment them because nobody's complimented them before and they're probably looking that good because they want you to compliment them, like just saying what's on your heart because you actually are an encourager and there aren't very many people around that are encouragers anymore. Being creative with your art. Just expressing yourself outspokenly with what is truly inside of you makes the world beautiful and amazing. When you hold that in and you choose not to do it because nobody else is doing it, it's like a waste of what you have. And so it's important to express these things and use your creativity, but when you glorify God with it, it is like this awesome secret weapon God has instilled in you. in order to glorify him with. You don't again, you don't have to put a three-point sermon in a song, but however you choose to do it, glorifying him, being creative with your arts, and making sure you're giving excellence in what you're doing, the best of your ability, because that's who God's made you to be and he wants that to show.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's ⁓ that's such a great point to end on. It's super encouraging. I think it can lead people into a great point of journaling of like just figuring out what that secret weapon is in you, ⁓ that the Lord has made and is calling you to ⁓ put into the world and put beauty into the world. And so Trevor, thank you so much for for that and for what you brought to ⁓ Creative Chapel. And so I'm gonna ask you ⁓ two questions I ask all my guests, or at least I try to. The first one is what is inspiring you right now, what is a source for inspiration, whether it's a a book, a show, a you know, some cool skate trick, what out there is inspiring you right now.

speaker-1: Right now what's inspiring me is others who believe in me coming around me and helping me out with the future of what my calling is. I have a buddy of mine who owns his own rap vehicle rap business and he's wrapping my motorhome that I got for me for my ministry, which is cool, and just blessing me in that way. I've had somebody that I did an event for this summer give me this really large speaker. and two Bluetooth microphones and a power box that I can do skate demos outside and not have to bother with asking a church if a church doesn't have the facilities, like the the equipment, like I can provide it. People desiring to have me come out and do events for them has been inspiring. But really inspiring lately has been No joke, man, like just people like you and a buddy Ryan of mine last week who had me on his live stream. He's doing he's doing live stream ministry to thousands of people online and he's he's kind of showing me really good ways to do ministry through online platforms. That's been inspiring to me. So lately it's truly just been people who have been giving their skills and their talents, truly like giving their creativity towards me. Whether it's a gift of giving or Or it's like, hey, I'm I'm gifted at graphic design and putting stickers on vehicles. I wanna bless you with this. Or it's just giving their advice from their experience and their creative platforms of like doing online ministry in ways that I don't know the ins and outs of, but they see that in me and want me to look into doing that or be a guest on their livestream and help them with that. And that's been Truly, that's been really inspiring to me lately. This very season in life that is the most inspiring thing for me right now.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's awesome. And then still testing the waters with this question, ⁓ kind of treat it as like a lead engine for me. But who is someone that you would love to see on Creative Chapel?

speaker-1: Well, I just heard you have John Rubin on. That's pretty cool.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm excited. That the episode just aired today.

speaker-1: You know what would be super cool? D ⁓ do you know the band Wolves at the Gate? So my buddy Nick is the vocalist for that. It'd be super cool to see him come on.

speaker-0: Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah, I would love that. I'd love to get Nick on the show.

speaker-1: I could shoot him a text and hook you guys up and see if he'd be open to it. 'Cause they're always doing stuff and they're such a creative band and they're they're they got such a mix between metal and singing stuff and they do all kinds of events. ⁓ they're really good they're really good foot in, foot out of like secular Christian

speaker-0: Yeah. They're they're a super consistent band. Their their sound is always dialed in. I have I have two of their records and just a handful of of just some of my favorites of their songs. But yeah, super consistent, great, great band.

speaker-1: They'd be they'd be cool to have on here. I'll see if I can text Nick and see if I can put in a feeler.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Yeah, dude. And so as we close the show, how can ⁓ people get a hold of you? Especially as you know, I hope that ⁓ you know, if somebody's listening that they can can bring you out. ⁓ having having Trevor at your event or your church or your camp or whatever, ⁓ would be an awesome blessing to to an audience. So how can people get a hold of you?

speaker-1: So a lot of it is on my social media platforms. Just my first and last name, Trevor Hyde, H E Y D, not H-I-D. H-E-Y-D, folks. But yeah, message me on Facebook or Instagram, TikTok, just all the platforms. My email is Trevor Hyde, first and last name, 87 at Hotmail. Good old Hotmail. You know? Or they can reach out to you and you can throw them my way. But yeah.

speaker-0: Definitely.

speaker-1: Working on a website right now, trying to reboot my website at the moment, but that'll probably be State True Ministries dot com. ⁓ so that should be hopefully up within the month. So

speaker-0: Great. That should be it. Well we we will ⁓ link your links in the show notes for anyone that's looking to get in touch with Trevor. And and again if ⁓ somebody's listening and you just forget all those links exist, you can just reach out to me and I'll I'll get you in touch. So alright Trevor, thanks for being a guest on Creative Chapel.

speaker-1: Thanks Chris. Appreciate it, man.

speaker-0: Thanks for watching this episode of the Creative Chapel Podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow along to stay up to date on more episodes. We're shooting out of Communion Church in San Diego, California. If you're looking for a great church to be a part of, this is the place to be. Stay faithful, stay creative, and I'll see you in the next episode.