Krystal Whitten (Creator of The Lettering Prayer Journal)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm your host, Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work not for their own fame and fortune, but primarily for the glory of our great exceptional Creator God, and for the good of others. Each week I host a conversation with a creator Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery. We talk about their daily habits and how their faith influences the work that they do. And hey, before I introduce today's guest, I just want to say Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I am so thankful for you. I'm thankful for the tremendously loyal and growing audience behind the Call to Mastery, behind my weekly devotionals, behind my books. Thank you guys for giving me the privilege of being able to focus on the work I believe that God has created me to do this morning. I was praying that this week, wherever you are in your career, wherever you are on the path to mastery, that you would give thanks. You give thanks to the Lord for the season that you're in. You would give thanks to him for the work that he has given you to do in this season of life. Even if you're not where you want to be vocationally, I pray that you would give thanks for the work that he's given you to do today, tomorrow, next week as you get back into the office. So hey, today on the Call to Mastery, I'm going to share a conversation I had with my good friend Crystal Whitten. Crystal is an exceptional artist. She is the creator of the wildly popular lettering Prayer Journal, which many of you know that product. Well, if you don't know about it, you'll want to tune in, especially before Black Friday shopping. Crystal's art is found in retail stores all across the United States, including the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. which is wild, huge museum sitting right there on the National Mall. If you read my last book, Called to Create, you probably recognize Crystal's name. I heard over and over and over again from readers that Crystal's story in Called to Create was one of their favorites in the entire book. So Crystal and I recently sat down to basically get an update on her life Publicly for you guys. After reading the book, we talked about how to master the art of the graceful. No. Right. It was probably my favorite part of this conversation. We talked about how she turned her hobby of lettering scripture into a very significant business. And we talked about the good that has come from her children watching both of their parents work outside the home. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation as you're getting ready for Thanksgiving. So please enjoy this conversation with my good friend Crystal Witten. I'm here with my friend Crystal Whitten. Crystal, how are you?

I'm great, Jordan.

Good. You have a giant cup of water that you brought with you to the, to the official Jordan Rayner and company home studio. So, Crystal, a lot of people in the audience read your story in Call to Create. So a lot of them know about you. But for those who have no idea who Crystal Witten is, even though we just did this big great intro, who are you? And tell us a little bit about the business in particular. Right. So what do you do professionally?

Okay, so what I do is I take scripture or inspirational words and I turn them into hand lettered works of art. So I love letters and the way letters look. And so what I like to do is create artwork. And what that has turned into is a greeting card line. And I sell art prints and then other paper gift items. But mostly I focus on scripture because I feel like scripture has such an ability to comfort and encourage and bring hope to our lives. And I feel like that we all need a little bit more of that in our lives. And so I, I like to create scripture for people to put in their homes to build them up throughout their day.

I love it. And so you're selling greeting cards, you're selling other paper products. And then you have the lettering prayer journal. And then I have the lettering prayer journal. Let's talk about that a little bit. So you mention loving to have selling this artwork, this scripture artwork that hangs in people's houses that like, started very personal for you. Right. And if I recall, that was like part of the impetus for the founding of the business.

Right.

So take us back to the beginning.

Okay. So I went through some dark times. I grew up in church. I had a family that was very firm in their faith. And we were in church every time the doors were open. But for me, there was a period of time and it was well into my married years. My mom was sick. She had been re diagnosed with breast cancer. And we just went through a lot as a family. And I felt very Cynical and bitter. I didn't necessarily always draw the conclusion with what my mom was going through, but just there was a lot of rebellion in my heart. And so while outwardly I was doing all the right, churchy, good girl things inside, I was rebelling. And I just didn't have a whole lot of intimacy with God. I just felt like there was no interest really in reading my Bible or having any kind of closeness with Him. And so that was a good period of several years and just continued doing the good, outwardly things. And then my mom passed. We went through that. I had my son, I was pregnant with my first child. It would have been her first grandchild. And so she passed it. And, you know, there was just. Those years were, were tough. And I did draw on my faith. I did lean into the Lord, but I still just felt like there was some rebellion there. And so there was a point in time where a friend of mine invited me to be in a Bible study with her. And I had just had my second child and I. I had really avoided doing any kind of committed Bible studies for a long time. But I thought, okay, well, it's two hours of free childcare a week. I could really use that and some of the social time. And so I told her, yes. But little did I know that even though my motives for starting that Bible study were not the best motives, God was doing something in me. And so the Bible study was called the Amazing Collection. And it was beautiful. You are basically the premise of it is that you read a whole book of the Bible a week and then you have homework on it and you come in once a week and you talk about it. And so for the first time really that I can ever remember, certainly in my adult life, I was reading the Bible every day. And that was so powerful. You know, here I had been in church my whole life and I'd never put together the whole story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And so it was just, it was a life changing thing for me. And so it wasn't too long after I had started that Bible study where I was just really falling in love with God's word, that I started like, dabbling in some hand lettering.

So back up. Like, did you know what hand lettering was? Like, what made you just start?

Like, I didn't know that was what it was called. But way back to whenever I was in high school, I always loved writing out, drawing out scripture or song lyrics or whatever it was and taping them to my walls. And so that back then looked like bubble letters. You know, and I was using my Crayola markers with some printer paper and.

Your Lisa Frank stickers drawing out.

Yes, exactly. And taping them up. And so I had, you know, scripture and different things that were meaningful to me all over my walls in high school. And so I remember that, like, specifically. But whenever I got into college and I started doing some graphic design, I, you know, immature brain thought that it was unprofessional to hand draw letters. And I thought that I need to do everything on the computer. All my illustrating or artwork had to be on the computer. And so I just set aside all the hand lettering or lettering or whatever it was that I was doing back then. And so. But then with the advent of Pinterest.

Yeah.

Is when I started seeing these beautiful drawn pieces and I started seeing, you know, these fonts. It looked like fonts everywhere. But then I started realizing people hand drew those and I thought, well, I have got to learn how to do this, because that is so fun. And I have a background in graphic design, but I was doing some freelance and it just really wasn't. It was sucking all the creativity out of me and I needed something that was just for me, that I could do whatever I was inspired to do and nobody was going to pick it apart. And so that is where the hand lettering came in, where I was like, I'm just going to learn how to do this. And I just little by little, there weren't that many books out there. There were no YouTube videos. I searched YouTube and the Internet for some tutorials. And this was probably five and six years ago. And so there wasn't much out there, whereas now there's tons.

But so hang on a second. So this started like very much on.

The side for you.

This is a personal thing.

Very.

You started just hand lettering some verses. You had this graphic design business that was your source of income. Which, by the way, I just remembered, didn't I hire you to do the graphic design for my first self published book? We're going back like six years.

Yes.

Yeah. Like I literally just remember that Startup Stories, that gem of a self published project. Yeah. So you had this graphic design business. You start dabbling, you're doing this lettering on the side. How did this turn into a business though? What was that trajectory?

So the very first time I hand lettered a scripture and I liked it enough to put it in a frame and put it in my house and I realized like, oh, this is kind of nice. And I memorized that verse as I was doing it, but every time I walked by it, I would look at it and say the verse in my mind. And at some point I read the verse in Deuteronomy that talks about, you know, writing God's word on your doorposts of your home and on your gates and, you know, the whole idea of surrounding yourself, putting it in your home for other people to see. And I loved that. And so I thought, well, if I like this, maybe other people will too. And it's done in. In a hand lettered, very kind of fun way that I thought could speak to some people. And it didn't look grandmotherly, you know, like a lot of the scripture things, you.

It wasn't knitted together. Right, right.

Or like crochet English style calligraphy or something, you know, from like in the Middle Ages. I don't even.

Anyway, so my grandmother's so offended right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So probably my grandmother would. So. So anyway, I just thought, well, let me do another one and I'll put it out there on Facebook. And so I had a few followers on Facebook at the time. I had a business 10 years ago where I did some things, and then it kind of turned into a freelance page. And I didn't really do a whole lot, but I had like, you know, maybe 100 followers on that Facebook page.

Yeah.

And so I just put it out there to my friends and family and said, hey, would anybody want to buy an art print? And because of my graphic design background, I had the knowledge of how to get things printed. Sure. How to do it, you know, bring it into the computer and have it printed. And so maybe 30 people that bought that first art print and it gave me the encouragement to. Okay. You know, maybe people liked.

Keep going.

Maybe they were just being nice. They were my friends.

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

But everybody was really encouraging. And so that's kind of where it got started. Yeah, yeah.

So now the business. Tell us about the business today. Right, so you've reached, like, meaningful scale. You're in Museum of the Bible.

Is that right? Yeah, yeah.

See some like massive accounts.

Right.

It's like a very big deal.

That's my biggest account.

Is it? That's a big. I mean, that's a big deal. So if people don't know the Museum of the Bible, it's on the mall in dc, Right. I haven't been. Have you been?

I have been.

You have?

Yes.

Have you seen your stuff there?

No, that was before my.

We talked about this at coffee, right?

Yes.

You got to go back. You got to go back. I have to Go back and see it in action. But in terms of the business, so you have these greeting cards, you have some of these other products, but the lettering prayer journal accounts for the majority of your revenue.

Right?

Okay, tell us about that. What is that? Why did you start it?

That was something that really just kind of came out of. You know, there are certain things that you can look back in your life and go, God ordained that. And so the Lettering prayer journal is one of those things because I had just created a few art prints. I mean, I had just really started this business and, you know, thought, okay, well, I personally need a way to. To write down my prayers. I had read the book the Circle Maker, which is probably one of the most impactful books that I have read. And a lot of people, just a side note, think that that's a name it claim it book. But for me, it would just showed me how I did not value prayer. And I. My prayers were so weak and pitiful and I just did not very small and I just did not. I just didn't expect God to do big things. And so my. I didn't pray for big things. And so I had read that book and I was just looking for a way to write down my prayers to be very intentional about it, and tried out several different things and long story short, came up with this journal. And somebody suggested to me, you know, you should put a scripture there so that you could hand letter it. And I thought, well, does that make sense? And then the more I thought about it, I said, yes, it does. Because when we write out God's word, we memorize it, we meditate on it. When you hand letter, you have to go letter by letter and slow down. So it's different than just scribbling it out like you normally would write something. And so you have to spend some time. And what it does is it saturates your heart and your mind with God's word and then we can pray scripture. You know, that's one of the most powerful ways to pray, is to pray scripture. And you know, you're praying God's will when you're praying his word. And so, so I created this lettering prayer journal and it sold really well. It was right around Christmas time. I just again put it out there to my Instagram and Facebook. Didn't have very many followers, but. But people ate it up. And I was having it printed here locally in the Tampa Bay area. Just a local printer was doing it. And I quickly just wanted it to be a little bit more. I wanted it to Be more of an expensive experience that you got this journal that was a year long journal and it was a keepsake that you would pass down to your kids one day, you know, something that you would hold on to and look back on it and say, like, God was so faithful. Look at how God was so faithful back then. And that gives me hope that he's going to continue to be faithful, you know, going forward in this thing I'm going through now and like how much that grows our faith whenever we write down our prayers because we can see that God answered them and how he guided our lives.

So I've never like lettered, quote, unquote, a Bible verse.

Right.

But I do write out scripture. So my daily quiet time, right. First thing in the morning I read a passage of scripture. Actually, I can't take credit for this process. This is Martin Luther. Right? So Martin Luther would read a passage, he would select a verse to meditate on and then he'd write it out. And so I find that very helpful to meditate on the verse. But when I write it out, I write out in 30 seconds. How long does it take you to let a verse? Two hours.

It depends. I'm quicker now. It used to take me a lot longer.

I mean, there's no way that you can stay that focused on what that verse is saying as you're doing that. Right. Your mind is wandering.

Sometimes I try to pray or I'll turn on worship music or something to try to keep me focused. But yeah, yes, my mind is always wandering, sure.

But by and large, you're remembering to come back to the thing they're actually writing.

Right? Right.

It's a good way to do it.

And I may only spend five or ten minutes on it. You know, it used to take me a lot longer, but now it's just more of part of my routine where, you know, I want to. To think about that verse for a little bit and then you gotta move on with your day, you know, so there's a point where it has to work with, you know, your life. Your life.

Yes, right, right. That's exactly right.

Exactly.

So your business is growing. I'm thrilled to see that. By the way, it's been three and a half years since we sat down and did the interview for Call to Create. Blows my mind.

I know.

And it's been awesome for me to be able as a friend to just step back and see your business grow. So you're becoming a more and more masterful entrepreneur, but really you're an artist at heart. Like, that's the craft that you seek to master. Right. It's like, how have you pursued mastery of that craft? Like, what are the practical things you're doing today to get better at your art?

Well, you know, the crazy thing that I didn't realize when I started this was that 5% of doing business is the creating. 95% is running the business. And so I wish that I had known that to begin with just to have proper expectations. So I go through cycles of being able to sit down and just create a lot at one time. And then a lot of my other time is spent running the business or, you know, working on marketing or future product plans and, you know, handling smaller sides of it. So the biggest thing that I can do to master, and I don't do it every single day, but is to practice, just to keep going, keep practicing. When I started, I would make sure that I spent 15 to 20 minutes a day practicing so that I could get better. Yeah, we all want to be, like, instantly awesome, you know, but that doesn't. That's not reality. So as I practiced, I mean, I could go back, I would date my work so that I could go back and look and see how I had progressed. And so even now, I still have to practice and try new techniques and new methods. And I do a lot of my work now on an iPad, which I love. It's really shortened the process for me so I don't have to scan in my artwork. It's just already digitized, which is helpful. And so. But there's still a lot of techniques and things I need to learn. And. And, you know, you kind of get into a rut, too. You have a look as an artist, you have a look that's important to have. And it's taken me a while to kind of find my voice, so to say, you know, of what my work looks like. But at the same time, you don't want to get into a rut. So I'm always trying to look for different ways to do different things.

So you're hitting on this theme that I talk about in Master of One, which will be released in a few months, that mastery. Getting world class at anything takes a lot of time. Right. Like, everyone's familiar with the 10,000 hour rule. It takes 10,000 hours to get masterful.

At any one craft, which is so overwhelming. When somebody overwhelming, I'm like, okay, well, then I give up. That sounds so.

That's wiser than people who say they want to be masterful at something but aren't Willing to put in the hours. But. So, yes, it requires this tremendous discipline over time, but it's also in how we practice, right? In practicing on purpose and reviewing our work and getting feedback from others and always, like, raising the bar to go outside of our comfort zone to, like, make ourselves better.

Absolutely, yeah. 100%, yeah.

Do you batch create? So you batch create now?

I do. Now I do. I used to. No.

Like, how much content do you create at once?

So over the summer, I was actually kind of late working on Christmas stuff, so I was working on it in June and July instead of. Probably April was when I should have been working on Christmas stuff, because now I'm in the wholesale market. And so you have to have your stuff ready to go for, to sell to stores so that they can have it in time. But what I did was I sat down and I would just create. I mean, whenever I had an opportunity. You know, I still have my kids at home. They were. It was summer, so they were home every day. And so whenever I had an opportunity, I was working on creating, and I created 25 designs just, you know, in the course of a few weeks. And that was new for me, though, because normally I do not create like that. But I was trying to get all my Christmas stuff ready, and I liked it because I felt like I was in a zone.

I want to talk about that. So this is something I think a lot about when I'm creating content. So when you're in the zone, when you're knocking out 25 pieces of content, I'm assuming you're letting kind of everything else with the business kind of sit on the back burner so that you can focus just on that thing. Is that right?

Yes.

Yeah. So I'm all in on this idea of, like, singularity in our careers, hence, master of one. But I'm also all in on this idea of singularity within your calendar. So, like, one thing I've been experimenting with and finding a lot of success with is focusing on one massive project at a time at a week or two weeks or month at a time. So, for example, like, this month, all I'm thinking about is the podcast, like, by and large, like, and there's some other things, like, recurring that I absolutely have to get done to make sure that the business, like, keeps going. But, like, that's all I'm thinking about. And when I'm, like, that focused on one thing, it's magic. Right? Like, I'm just wildly productive. Like, so much more productive than if I did, you know, one episode A day. Right. For five days or one episode a week. Like, that just, like, doesn't resonate with me. So.

No.

Is that how you think about it?

Yes. And it's funny because I would not have said that about myself, but it takes me so long to get into the creative groove.

Yes.

And so that is. Yes, again, I'm splitting my time between being a wife and mom, like, running my kids to baseball practice and gymnastics. And so I only have so many hours a day to sit down. And if it takes me a good hour and a half to get into the creative groove, then, you know, if I only did one design and then jumped to something else, then the next day it would take me another hour and a half to get into the groove, you know, and so that resonates. What you're saying really resonates with me that I need to plan that a little bit better going forward, because I can see that my work would be so much better if I allowed myself to just stay in the groove and work for a good, you know, five hours. It's gonna look like a collection, you know, it's gonna look like it was. It goes together.

Yes. It's so hard to, like, have that through line if you're producing content, like, on a regular basis. So even with my weekly devotional, a lot of you guys who are listening subscribe to my weekly Faith and Work devotional. You know, I batch create that content. Right. I'll create those devotionals for six months at a time. Right. Because there's a through line through them. There's a connection between all those things. I love that. Yeah. I've been kind of the practice I've been experimenting with. That seems to be working. I'm not ready to, like, say definitively this is. It is. Once a quarter, I review my quarterly goals, my okrs, my objectives, and key results, and then I plan out my okrs for the next quarter, and then I build out my weeks based on three themes. Right? So I have this separate calendar in Google Calendar that goes above everything else on my calendar that says, okay, for these two weeks, I'm focused on the podcast, and for these eight weeks, I'm focused on getting ready for the launch of Master of One. And, like, that's been gold.

See, I admire that in you a lot, Jordan, because you are so structured, whereas I don't know if that's the creative, like, I don't know, artist.

I don't know how much you should admire that.

But, you know, I feel like a lot of times I go it's very willy nilly, like, what am I inspired. Inspired to do today? Because if I'm not inspired, it's really hard to just, you know, forced it out. If it's not like creative work, if it's not coming, you can't force. Sometimes you just got to sit it down and walk away. Yeah. And so it's hard for me to schedule out things like creating like that, you know, and so I would like to be a little bit more, I guess, intentional about putting together a calendar and going this quarter, you know.

Yeah.

So you're gonna have.

Okay, so walk me through that a little bit later. I gotta write this down so far. Here's one more tip I'll leave you with and then we'll move on. What I found really helpful is saying, okay, this week I'm focused on this topic, but I know that there are going to be things that pop up that I absolutely have to deal with in that day. So giving myself the margin to be reactive to something. So being proactive and saying, okay, for, you know, five hours of this day, I'm focused on xyz, the podcast, whatever, but I'm going to give myself these 90 minutes at the end of the day to deal with the inevitable. Like, that seems to smart, that seems to work. Yeah, that's all right. So people are sick and tired of hearing about our routines. So you mentioned you only have a few hours to work. You're splitting your time between. I mean, you're always a mom, right? So we never stop being parents. But how many hours are you working a week?

Okay, so my kids are in school six hours a day and I really don't get up to my office till probably close to 10. So we're looking at maybe five hours a day. Really? So yeah, that's about 20 hours a week. Is it?

A lot of people who are listening to the podcast, if they got a business, they're doing it from home. How do you create space in your calendar and physically to get great work done while being physically in your home? Does that make sense?

I am.

Do you have a separate office now?

I haven't, no. I have an office. I have two offices in my home. One is upstairs and that's where I sit down and do my work. And then I have a stock room that's downstairs. And I hired a lady last year who is wonderful, who comes in twice a week for me and she packs and ships. Because we have a product based business, you have to actually ship things out, which you know is like yay, I made a sale. Now I have to go ship it. And that was taking up so much of my time. So that's been wonderful. So I have those two rooms in my home and. Yeah.

So do you have any other things that you do to try to like, isolate yourself from everything else that's going on in the house? Like, do you wear headphones? Like, what's your favorite?

Put my phone on airplane mode. That's for sure. Do not disturb, at least so that it's, you know, not binging and turning off my email so that that's not constantly distracting me. Some days it's really hard to just put down the phone. You know, I just, I find how many times I pick up my phone and how much time I'm wasting when I do that. Yeah.

By the way, do you measure this now? Now that there's the screen time feature.

Oh, no, no, no. I don't want to know. I do not want to know.

No, you should do it. I think you'll be very depressed initially.

Yeah.

But like, so like, I'm just like wicked competitive, right? So I take everything to its extreme. So when I started tracking screen time when iOS updated and had the screen time feature, I was at like, I don't know, like an hour and 15 minutes a day. This week I'm averaging 15 minutes of screen time a day on my phone.

You're kidding me.

No, I'm like, I'm. And. But it's almost gotten like unhealthy the other way. Like now I like don't text people, I don't call people, I'm a hermit. But no, it's, you know, you're wildly productive. I'm wildly productive. It works. No, but I mean, it's the principle of deep work, right? Like eliminating distractions, all that good stuff. So, okay, so you're at your desk, you got five hours, five and a half hours, whatever it is. What does a typical day look like for you?

There's not a typical day for me. Jordan, what did yesterday look like for you yesterday? So I'm working on my marketing and advertising. So yesterday I spent some time in a group and watching some courses.

Can we start earlier? Like sun comes up or you get out of bed.

Oh, that.

What's your whole. Like from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed, what is your day? Yeah, what does your day look like?

Stumble out of bed, going to my kids room, wake them up. Hey, we're. You're late for school. We've gotta go get up. You Know, we gotta eat breakfast, we make lunches. My husband most of the time takes them to school. Okay. I take them on Thursdays because he has an early morning meeting. And so once they're out the door, it's kind of like, oh, you know, now it's quiet because we've been running since the second we got out of bed. And so then I'll sit down with my cup of coffee and my Bible and have some prayer time and some Bible study time. And then if I've got to do, you know, finish the laundry from the night before, pick up, you know, try to pick up a little bit. And then I eventually will make my way upstairs to my office. So depending on what's going on, if I have to do some stuff in the stock room, then I'll be downstairs. But if I'm working from my computer or doing any design work, then I'm upstairs.

Do you have a set time that you're like, I'm definitely going to be at my desk at this time.

I'm just not disciplined enough to do that. I need to be, I need to be. I have things, things to work on. You're pointing out my way on my goals.

This is, this isn't a fun conversation for you. What are your spiritual disciplines? So like you sit down with your cup of coffee, you pray, like what does your time in God's Word look like?

So I like to do Bible study. After all my time of avoiding doing Bible studies now I, I love them. And so after I did the amazing collection, which is about two and a half year commitment, we took breaks for Christmas and summer. But after I finished that, I wanted to do more of a deep dive. And so I've started doing the precept ministry Bible studies, which is K. Arthur and our church has several precept studies that you can choose from. So. But I have a teacher that I love, she's a dear lady. And so I just kind of followed her. Whatever study she's doing is what I'm doing. So we did Hebrews and Daniel and Genesis and now we're doing Revelation. How's that? We're on our third semester of Revelation. It's great. I love it. I love. Yes.

Wow.

Yeah, it's, it's a deep dive.

So I get comments a lot from people who read your story in Called to Create. So there are a couple of people from the book that really stand out in readers minds.

Right.

Like stories that like really resonate with them. Yours is one of them. So thanks for sitting down with Me, three and a half years ago, who would have known? But for those who haven't read the book, can you. And maybe you don't even remember this, but can you recall the story you told me about this decision you and Andy were talking about whether or not to have another child, Right. And the decision you made, you felt called not to and to focus on your business instead, because the business was kind of a child where three and a half years after the interview, you guys haven't had another kid talk about that.

I think that we've both come to a piece of where our family is. We, we check in with each other. So every so often, you know, where are you? Do you want more kids? And, you know, we're not completely closed down to it. I just, I never want to shut off, you know, what God may have for the future. But for now we have agreed that our family, we're happy with how our family is. And we have a piece about that. And my husband's been very supportive about the business and growing the business with Called to Create. We were in such the early stages of that business whenever you and I had that interview. So much has changed since then. It's hard to even go back and remember three and a half years ago. I mean, I was in the throes of how do I handle having a child at home and this business and all these ideas and I wanted to create. I wanted to spend all my time, you know, and there was a lot of tension with being the mom and being there for my kids and not neglecting them, but also not neglecting this exciting passion and dream that God had put in my heart, you know. And so my kids are both now in school, you know, from 8:30 to 3:30 every day. And so I have the ability to spend the time, although some days it still feels like it's not enough time.

You know, it's never enough time.

It's never enough time. But I feel a lot more at peace now with where we are than I did back when we. Whenever you wrote Called to Create, you know, there's just a lot more peace in the business. And God, you know, sometimes I feel like it was slow growth and then sometimes I look back and go, wow, so much has happened in the last three years. I wasn't slow. You know, God has done a lot. He's given me a lot of opportunities that I never would have expected to have. Just some major dream come trues. And so it's been exciting. I guess that's just been very. It's shown me that that was from him, that dream. It wasn't just me. It was him putting that in my heart. And then he, you know, you gotta just trust him with it. You have to just. Some days you feel like everything is falling apart or it's not worth it and you just want to give up. I've had a lot of days where I felt really frustrated and this is hard and why am I even doing this? Is it really worth it? Do people really like my work? You know, and. And just kind of ready to have a normal life, just be like a normal mom and yeah, pick my kids up from school and run to baseball and not have to answer emails and messages and, you know, but then I always come back to the fact that I do feel that God has gifted me for this and that I'm doing what he has called me to do.

And you need to be a good steward of that calling. The call to motherhood, right? But also the call to mother this business. I haven't told you this yet, but I thought a lot about that story when I was writing Master of One. Because, you know, I think in order for us to become world class at the work that God has created us to do, it requires that we say no to a lot of things, big and small, right? In your case, at least for a season, maybe forever. A third child, right? Like, no, we're not going to do that. And it's not exclusively because you wanted to focus on this business, but that you certainly played a factor. Like, what else are you saying no to? Like, what do you find yourself in order to really live ambitiously and feel like you're being a good steward of the calling that the Lord has on your life to create these products? What else do you have to say no to?

I remember back in the early years, three and a half years ago, that I was saying no to a lot of people who wanted to get together, you know, hey, let's get our kids together at the park. And not like, I again neglected my daughter and didn't ever let her play.

With people, to be clear, to set the record, right?

But I did have to put some boundaries up and say, you know what? This time of the day is when I can get my work done. And so that I'm going to have to say no to that now it's just saying no to other commitments. You know, of certain things, I am trying to free myself a little bit so that, hey, I could be the room mom or I can go up to the school and I can do some things in my kids classes. Whereas I had said no to that the last couple of years. I am trying to now kind of free myself up to do that because they're little and they're, you know, I want to enjoy that time with them now. So I am trying to keep some perspective with all of that. But I really just maybe other than like a random lunch or breakfast with somebody here and there, I just don't schedule anything while they're in school because those are my work hours. And if I can do it in the evening because again, my husband's very supportive or you know, we're running around and so if they're at baseball practice then hey, I could schedule to meet somebody for dinner instead. And so I just try to order my day and my commitments to, you know, meeting with people or seeing people or whatever to times when they're not my work hours.

Yeah, it's first things first. Right. It's deciding this is what's important. I'm allocating time for this and making all decisions after you've decided what's important. I love that. So I'm actually like really struggling with this with our kids right now. So you guys listening know I have a five year old and a three year old and we're starting to commit to a lot of things on their behalf.

Right.

So we're committing to soccer, we're committing to Iwan is at church. Like you as parents still have a tremendous amount of power over like what your kids commit to, like what's been right for Yalls family in terms of the number of things your kids are committed to.

We've been slow to commit to things so we did some of the recreational sports with our son. He's eight, he's about to turn nine. And so, you know, we did that but nothing competitive until just the last year. Yeah. And so then we got into baseball and he loves it. He is a baseball player. No, I don't want to play soccer. I don't want to. I don't do anything else. I just want to play baseball. And our daughter is six and she's just now kind of where we feel like developmentally she could do something. So we signed her up for gymnastics, but that's kind of it.

You know, they have one thing, one thing.

I will say that today is their first day for piano lessons.

Nice.

Yeah. So but they're going straight from school so they're actually being at school for their piano lessons. So I can actually pick them up an hour later. So I get an Hour of extra. So. But I try not to over schedule because I have Bible study on Monday nights and we have church on Wednesday nights. And so we already are doing a lot of things in the evenings. And those couple nights that we might be home, I protect those very, you know, carefully. Like, those are our nights home and we're not going to do anything else. And what that has related to recently is that we're not necessarily hanging out with our friends as much as we used to. We're not having people over. We're not going out to hang out with friends because we're busy with these other things and we, we need to have our family time at home. So that's been a little different in these last, you know, year or so. But. But it's a season.

Yeah.

You know, Right. That won't last forever either.

I respect a lot. I feel like we say no constantly to things and sometimes I feel guilt over that. But then I realize, no, like we've decided what we believe the Lord has called us to as important in this season. Right.

I'll tell you something else too. Something else I have to say no to a lot being a designer is that lots of people will ask me to do custom things for them. Oh, could you do a logo for me? Could you do. And I always feel so bad, like saying no because I want to say yes, you know, but the truth is is I have done freelance before and I hated it. And so as much as someone says like, oh, I want to give you creative freedom, I feel like they're going to want something real specific and I may not be able to deliver that. And so I put a lot of pressure on myself to deliver exactly what they want, but I don't really know anyway. So it has been a really good boundary thing for me to just say, I say no to all freelance, to all customers, custom projects. Whether you want a specific verse for your home, I will write that verse down and add it to my list. But like, I cannot. I don't have the margin to do custom work. And so that was really freeing once I finally decided to do that.

Yeah, I love that you gotta have those hard and fast rules. It's easier when you just have a blanket statement to say, I don't do this ever. It's hard when you're making exceptions and people get wind of that and people respect it.

They go, totally respect that.

You know, Absolutely. People respect no way more than you think.

And someone told me or I heard it either in a podcast or something early when I First was realizing that I needed to say no to things that you feel bad disappointing someone, but they'll be disappointed for maybe a couple minutes and then they'll move on. Whereas if you say yes to that, if it's something you didn't want to do, you're going to be struggling through that commitment for the life of however long you're doing it.

And if you're in that state of mind, you're not going to do exceptional work.

Right, Right.

I think the graphic design is a really good example. Right. If somebody comes to you says, hey, I want this custom logo work done, whatever, and you're not. That's not the thing that you're spending 30 hours a week getting great at. You're not going to do it as well as somebody else would anyway. And so I think there's like a gracious no. Right. That can be delivered there that is truly loving of that person and being true to the calling that you think God's putting your life. I have a good example of this, I think. But I'm curious to hear from you. What's the most gracious no you've ever heard? We're talking a lot about saying no. Like. Like what hurt? Yeah. Like, who's that? Like, really great. Like, you've asked for something or you've asked for, I don't know, book, endorsement, whatever it is, and somebody said no, but they did it, like, so generously in the way they did. Do you have an example of that?

You know, I don't. I think a lot of people have trouble saying no. Yeah. I think that's something that a lot of people really struggle with. I feel like I've perfected the art of the no.

All right, so give us the tips of the art of the no.

Just, you know, oh, thank you so much for asking me, for thinking of me. That is such an honor that you'd want me to do that for you. I'm just at a point in time in my life where I don't have the extra time to do that. And so I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to do that. And people appreciate it. Okay, well, thank you.

So it's like gratitude, and then they.

Say, well, do you have someone else that you could suggest? You know, so I try to keep people in mind that I think could. I can refer them to, you know, that helps, too. That kind of helps take the edge off the no, if you can say. But this person might be able to. Yeah, so.

Yeah. So there's Gratitude in there, right? So, hey, thank you so much for thinking of me. And then just explaining very personally, I think just being transparent with people goes a long way. Right. Just explaining why you aren't taking this on in this season. Like, right now, we're getting a lot of podcast requests, and I'm saying no short term, but, like, hey, as we get, you know, closer to X date, I'd be happy to do it. I asked somebody that I like, really love their writing to endorse Master of One. And we got amazing endorsements for the book. But we got a lot of no's, too, right? We got some amazing ones because we asked a lot of people. And this one woman who I really respect was, like, super generous in her no. She's like, hey, no, let me explain why. Here are my rules for what books I will and will not endorse. And it was like, basically, she had to personally be involved in the shaping of the project, and she had to have read the book in its entirety, which, obviously she wasn't a part of the project. But that was, like, very generous of her to share that advice because she turned around, she's like, hey, I would. I would advise you, when you get these requests to say no, unless you've done these things in here. Here's why.

And it's probably, like, very thoughtful.

It was super, super thoughtful. Just generous. So, like, I'm a big fan of this, like, generous, no concept. So. All right, let me ask you something else. Like, one of my biggest pet peeves in. I think this is, like, particularly true in Christian culture is when people ask women about how their decision to work has negatively impacted their children. So you don't hear this.

Oh, my goodness. You're just starting off with the negative when you ask somebody that. So.

Well, so this is my question for you. So let me ask the opposite question. How is your decision to work inside and outside the home positively impacted your kids? Like, what has been the good that has come of your kids, in your opinion, having a mom who's working?

That's a good question. I think it's important for them to see balance, that I can balance my work and my time with them. But I think it's also important for them to see that Mommy has some important things to do and the world does not revolve around you. So you're gonna need to wait. I'm gonna be on the phone for the next 20 minutes. And if you have something, I mean, they're eight and six, so they're old enough unless like, they're bleeding, and we need to go to the hospital. It's not an emergency, you know, and so you can wait. You need to learn to wait. You know, from the teaching standpoint, I think that's really good for them to understand that Mommy has some work to do, and then also teaching them that they could have their own business one day and what it would be like to be an entrepreneur. And, you know, I love having the ability to work from home and pick my kids up from school, and I think that's a huge blessing. And I know not everybody can do that, but that they can see the balance, that it's a. That you can do something for yourself and you could create your own business. And it takes work, and it's hard, but it's possible. So I hope that I'm instilling some good work values and family values in them as they watch that.

That's good. So the art that you're creating is all centered around scripture, Right. So I'm not even gonna ask you how your faith connects to your work, because that's a silly question. But I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this episode who are producing work, producing art, producing books, businesses that are not overtly religious. What encouragement would you give to those people about the eternal significance of their work?

You know, the Bible says that we should do everything as to the Lord. And whenever he's given you a gift, whether that be writing fiction novels or, you know, creating jewelry or clothes or whatever it is, to do that as unto the Lord, to do your very best. And God puts people in our lives, if we just notice that, we can impact for him and for the gospel. And so if we're doing our very best at our work, whatever that work is, we're going to be impacting people. And so if you do a bad job at your business or at your writing and you don't try to be excellent in that, then, I don't know, I say that that kind of puts a little bit of shade on God, the Jesus that you're talking about, you know that if you're not willing to put your best into your work, then what does that say about Him? So, you know, I think that it all. Regardless of what your business is, how we live as Christians is very important, and it speaks to the world even when you don't realize that.

Yeah, we're called to be image bearers.

Exactly.

Of an exceptional is too short of a word. There is no word to describe a perfect God. And, oh, by the way, shoddy work fails to live out Jesus's commandment to love neighbor himself. Yeah, we don't appreciate receiving shoddy work mediocrity. So, no.

You feel like you got chipped.

That's exactly right. So let me ask you three questions I like to ask every guest. First, which book or books do you find yourself giving others the most? Like, what are your go to. Go to titles that you're giving?

I will definitely say I mentioned it earlier. The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson was just really powerful to me. Oh, my goodness. It's gonna escape me now. The name of it. Well, no, the author. The book is called with, about doing life with God.

Yeah, Is that good? I've heard. This is great.

Yeah, fantastic. And that really was so good for me to how I view life with God. And then there was another book and I'm not going to be able to remember the title of it. He's a missionary and. Oh, man. It was about the persecuted church. Like going into other parts of the world with the persecuted church. Yeah, I'm sorry.

No, I'm glad you mentioned with, because that's been on my list for a long time. I gotta prioritize sitting down and reading.

That's a great one.

All right, last question. What one piece of advice would you give to somebody who, like you, is pursuing mastery of their vocation, whether they're an artist or an entrepreneur or not? What one piece of advice would you give to that person?

I'd say the main thing is don't let fear hold you back. Because I had a period of time where I really did let fear inhibit what I was doing because I was afraid of how it would be received. You know, putting myself out there and doing something, it just felt very scary, you know, and I avoided it for a long time. I found all kinds of other things to do to keep me busy, but then finally realized, like, I'm just avoiding this and I need to just face it head on. And so whatever it is that you feel that God has put on your heart called you to do, don't talk yourself out of it or let yourself be too afraid to just start, you know, I think sometimes we feel like we have to be at the perfect place at the perfect time or whatever, and sometimes you just kind of get the momentum going.

Just start.

Just start. Yeah. I love it.

Crystal, I'm so impressed with you. I just want to commend you for the exceptional work that you're doing and helping people engage with God's word on a regular basis. And just thank you for prioritizing excellence, excellence in everything that you do. Still follow you on Instagram and everything I see is just of such high caliber and high quality. Thank you for loving Neighbor itself. Thank you for doing work that's important, work that matters, even if it wasn't overtly evangelical. Thank you for just doing really, really great work. And thank you so much for being here. Hey, so the project is the Lettering Prayer Journal by Crystal Whitten. By the way, what's your website?

Crystal Whitten.com super, super complex.

But check out Crystal's work, the Lettering Prayer Journal in particular. I bought it for Kara actually for Christmas last year. Packed full of really creative instruction, beautiful artistry for those interested in either the Bible or hand lettering. Highly recommend that you grab a copy. Hey, thanks for hanging out.

Thanks for having me, Jordan.

I'm such a Crystal Whitten fan. I hope you are too after that conversation. Hey, if you're enjoying this podcast, make sure you subscribe wherever you subscribe to podcast so you make sure you never miss the an episode in the future. We got lots of great guests coming up like Crystal and very different from Crystal as well. If you're already subscribed, please take 30 seconds and go review the podcast. Especially if you're using Apple podcast app. If you have no idea how to do either of those things, go to jordanraynor.com podcast where we've made it really easy for you to subscribe and review. Hey, before you go and start getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, I've got another short conversation I want to share with you guys. As you guys know, I'm an avid reader, right? So a few months ago, maybe I guess about six months ago now, I started sharing with you guys which books I've added to my personal reading list in my weekly devotional email. By the way, if you guys aren't subscribed to that weekly devotional email, you could sign up for free right now@jordanrayner.com we've got almost 100 people who are getting this weekly faith and Work devotional for me. Which blows my mind. So I recently sat down with the author of one of the books that I've added to my personal reading list. His name is Mark Sayers. He's the pastor of Red Church in Australia. He's also the co host of this Cultural Moment, a podcast that he co hosts with John Mark Comer, which as you guys know, one of my all time favorite artists, authors, writers, pastors. John Mark actually called Mark sayers quote, one of the most important living teachers in the world. That's a very bold statement from John Mark. So after I heard that from John Mark, I was like, all right, I gotta check out this Mark Sayers guy. And it just so happened that Sears was putting out a new book called Reappearing Church. So I sat down with Mark and asked him just a couple of questions about Reappearing Church. His answers were so concise, but so rich and deep. I think you're gonna really enjoy the last few minutes of this episode as I sit down and talk about Reappearing Church with Mark Sayers. Mark, thanks so much for joining me. We were just talking about your good friend John Mark Comer, who I was talking to yesterday, talking about our mutual appreciation for you and your work, man. So I'm really excited to talk about your new book, which I'm loving, Reappear in Church. Let's start here. For those who don't know, give us a glimpse of the book. What's this book about, Mark?

Essentially, this book has a very. Almost counterintuitive message that there's a lot of concern and worry about the state of church, the state of faith. And I go in the opposite direction, actually. Say, what if this moment is a moment of tremendous hope? What if when we look at how God has worked throughout history, how he's worked in individuals, that actually it's at moments of challenges that actually God turns things around? So when you look at church history, you look at moments of technological disruption, you look at moments of cultural upheaval, you look at moments when globalization happens and people move around the world, and the moments when people almost write an epitaph for the church and say it's going under. It's exactly at those moments that God turns things around and does new things.

So who's this book for? I mean, I guess you could say it's for everybody, but can you be a little bit more specific than everybody?

I think that at moments like this, people are concerned about the future of the church and people see decline in statistics. But really, I think what it is is when you look at it more accurately, it's a decline in cultural Christianity. The people are just going along habitually who are just following patterns which are just traditional or just that they've fallen into. So what I realized is what happens at moments of renewal, it's actually that God focuses on the remnant. Who are the people who really believe this stuff, who are committed to the kingdom of God, who want to make change in their lives. So Essentially, my great hope for this is that this inspires the people who are asking the question, how do I continue in my faith? How do I apply that in my home, in the workplace, in the world? And how do I actually be part of the next renewal that God wants to do? So it's for the hungry, it's for the humble, it's for the people wanting to affect change for God at this time.

So how do we do that in our work? I mean, that's what this whole podcast is about. How do we do our most masterful work not for our own fame and fortune, but for the glory of God and good of others? How does your book play into that conversation? How can we take your book and apply it to creating for the kingdom?

I think that we're used to this concept that when challenge or difficulty comes, that that's almost something to be avoided, to go around. But what I noticed was that what happens in renewals, renewals doesn't begin with this huge culture wide phenomenon. It actually begins with individuals who go on a process which often happens alone, where they begin to see their lives for a very different mechanism. They don't look so much to the metrics of the world. They begin to look at how God use people and changes them. So whilst the book talks about revivals and awakenings and these big picture things, it's really about an individual process that any believer can go through where they look at the challenges external to them, even the challenges internal to them, and they push into a deeper understanding of God and then a process of transition where they become an influencer for God's renewal wherever they are and particularly in the workplace. I think this next renewal, the world is less disconnected. I mean, so the world's, you know, now this integrated place, you know, the overlap between work and ministry and all these things are coming together. So we need people in those overlapping places so that, you know, this book points to how we do that.

I love it. Very concise, very compelling answers. Like I said, I am loving Reappearing Church. I can't believe I just now discovered Mark Sayers.

Absolute pleasure.

If you enjoyed that conversation with Mark, go pick up his book Reappearing Church of available wherever books are sold. Hey, that's it for today's episode. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Enjoy some quality time with your family, with your friends. Enjoy some time in God's word. I would challenge you guys, spend, if you spend typically 15 minutes in God's word, spend 30, spend 45 minutes tomorrow just praising him for his character, praising him for his goodness, praising him for the gift of work. Let us remember tomorrow on Thanksgiving that work is a good thing. Work is a gift. It was created by God pre fall to enjoy as a form of worship. So give thanks for your family. Give thanks for the things that God has given you. But give thanks for your work too. And give thanks for the ability to learn and to develop and to travel further down the path to mastering whatever work God has created you to do. Thanks for listening to today's show. I'll see you guys next week.