May 8, 2025 • 20 mins
What happens when your identity is shaken to its foundation? Taylor Nelson, Director of Fine Arts at Ben Lippen School, takes us on an intimate journey through the defining moments that shaped his understanding of art, faith, and purpose.
As Taylor shares stories from his six years at Ben Lippen and his previous teaching experience in Charlotte, we discover a man driven by more than just artistic excellence. His personal narrative weaves through travels across continents (with a goal of "seven continents by 70"), a loving marriage, and the joy of new parenthood with five-month-old son Davis. But beneath these achievements lies a powerful testimony of transformation.
During college, Taylor faced a crisis that would redefine everything. As a vocal performance major whose entire identity was wrapped up in being "the music guy," he suddenly lost his voice for months. Through this challenging season, Taylor discovered the danger of making good things—like artistic talent—into ultimate things. "Nothing is strong enough or firm enough to root my identity on the inside except Christ," he realized, a lesson that now permeates his educational philosophy.
This revelation shapes how Taylor leads Ben Lippen’s thriving arts program. Rather than teaching students to create for self-glory or recognition, he instills a three-fold purpose: creating "for God, for others, and for fun." This approach frees young artists from the crushing weight of perfectionism and redirects their focus toward reflecting their Creator's excellence.
Under Taylor's leadership, Ben Lippen’s arts department has flourished with expanded opportunities, expert instruction, and a biblical worldview. Recent musical productions have nearly sold out, demonstrating growing community support. Looking ahead, Taylor hints at exciting developments including potential tours and international experiences that will further enrich students' artistic journeys.
Want to support this vision of arts education that transforms not just skills but hearts? Connect with Taylor at taylornelson@benlippin.com or join the Friends of Fine Arts Booster Club at benlippin.com/fofa.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, everyone, welcome to another episode of
the Ben Lippin podcast, andtoday I have a colleague, a
coworker and someone that theBen Lippin community is very
familiar with in the room withme, and he is going to be one of
our voices of Ben Lippin as weare exploring the stories of who
is in Ben Lippin that makes ourcommunity thrive.
(00:20):
It's just so important to tellthese stories and to connect the
community together in a deeperand a richer way.
So, without further ado, I haveMr Taylor Nelson with us.
He's our director of fine artshere at Ben Lippin and I'm just
going to turn it over to him andlet him share a little bit
about who he is.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, thank you, erin .
So I'm Taylor Nelson.
I serve as the director of finearts at Ben Lippin.
I'm finishing up year numbersix here, which is half of my
teaching career.
I had six years in Charlotteand now six years at Ben Lippin,
which is awesome.
I love being a Falcon.
I'm married to Kayla.
She's a PA at Prisma and wehave a five month old son named
(00:56):
Davis, who is precious and justlearning to roll over and pretty
soon he'll be sitting up and heis the light of our lives.
We love being with him everyday.
We are members of FirstPresbyterian Church downtown,
which is actually where my wifeand I met a few years ago.
We've been married two and ahalf years and loving every
second of it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, mr Nelson, tell us some things that you like to
do in your spare time.
What are some of your hobbies?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
My spare time is usually spent directing musicals
at the Performing Arts Center.
I have a great team that helpsme with that.
When I'm at home with my wifeand my son, we love to go on
walks at the Columbia RiverWalks, whether it's the
Riverfront Park, whether it'sthe one by the zoo or whether
it's the one down in WestColumbia in Casey.
We love going down to all threeof those and doing walks with
(01:41):
our puppy, rudy, and gettingsome of his energy out.
We love into coffee.
You can catch us thereregularly.
We love doing that.
And my wife and I love to travel.
We have made it one of ourgoals in our marriage to step
foot on every continent.
We say seven continents by 70and 50 states by 50 is our goal.
(02:02):
And then we also want to have abottle of water from every
ocean in our home.
So we've like tailored ourtravel around going places where
we can go to the differentoceans.
So we've been to Hawaii andgotten water from the Pacific
Ocean.
We have been to Myrtle Beachand gotten water from the
Atlantic.
We've gone to Norway and gottenwater from the Arctic Ocean and
(02:24):
we've been to the Maldives forour honeymoon and that's how we
got the Indian Ocean, so thelast one we still have to go is
the Southern Ocean, aroundAntarctica, and that will be a
long time from now, when we'vesaved up enough money to afford
that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So what has been your favorite trip that y'all have
taken?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It depends on if you're looking for relaxation or
adventure.
If you're looking forrelaxation, man, it was the
Maldives.
It was the place where westayed.
My wife found this awesomeresort where we were able to
stay for about a week and it wasvery relaxing and lots of fun
snorkeling and it was reallybeautiful just seeing all the
different types of fish andmarine life that was there in
the Maldives.
It's so untouched, you know, itwas just really beautiful.
(03:03):
But I think, in terms ofadventure, my favorite one had
to be Norway.
We did all kinds of hiking inthe snow.
It was winter January when wewent to Norway and the city
where we stayed is above theArctic circle, so it was like
negative 20 degrees when we werethere and we're climbing
mountains covered in snow.
We went on several fjordcruises and we even did a polar
(03:26):
plunge jumping in part of theArctic Ocean, which is super fun
.
But the best part of it was wewent dog sledding while we were
there and I thought, hey, thisis going to be fun.
We get to sit on the sled andthey're going to drive us around
and do all these fun things.
No, no, no, I got to drive thedog sled.
I did not realize how muchcardio that was going to be,
because when you get to thehills you have to help them push
(03:47):
the sled up the hills, so thedogs aren't doing it alone.
So that was a lot of work, butman, it was so fun.
We had the best time doing thattogether.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The beauty of his handiwork when you go to all
these different places.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, absolutely.
Especially in Norway, we sawthe Northern Lights when we were
there.
And Especially in Norway, wesaw the Northern Lights when we
were there and it was juststunning.
We were out in a field feedingreindeer.
It was one of the things thatwe had signed up to do.
And out of nowhere you neverknow when the Northern Lights
are going to show up and out ofnowhere, here they come, and it
was stunning.
We just stopped and we laiddown on the snow, looked up at
the sky and saw it and it wasbeautiful.
(04:20):
And it made me think of thehymn the Honors Choir has sung
the past couple of years.
This is my father's world.
The second verse talks about heshines in all.
That's fair.
We see him in everything good,we see him in everything
beautiful, because he's thesource of goodness, he's the
source of beauty and so ofcourse, it comes from him.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean it points our hearts back to him as the
creator when we see the beautyof creation.
So one of the pillars that wehave here at Ben Lippin is to
know him and to make him known.
So share with the listeners howyou learned who the Lord is.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, that's a great question I have.
I don't really remember a timewithout knowing and loving the
Lord and that's something I kindof came to terms with after
college when I became aPresbyterian.
I started studying Reformedtheology and thinking about that
and I kind of wrestled with man.
I don't really remember thistime without knowing the Lord
and I don't really remember thisdrastic change from death to
(05:11):
life that I see in my life.
And I started talking with someof my elders at my church up in
Charlotte and they were likeTaylor, that's a good thing,
like the Lord.
Some people there's a drasticmoment of conversion where you
immediately go from death tolife.
And some people the Lord isjust gradually drawing to
himself over a season of years.
And some people the Lord drawsto himself really early.
(05:32):
Parents have you involved inthe church.
You're hearing the gospel froman early age.
You don't really rememberanything else and that's kind of
my story.
The Lord drew me to himselfpretty early in my life and I
don't really remember a timewithout knowing and loving the
Lord Jesus and wanting to turnaway from sin and follow him.
So praise the Lord for that.
That's the testimony.
(05:52):
I pray that my children have aswell, and I'm thankful that the
Lord is the one who draws us tohimself.
In spite of our stubbornnessand our sin.
He does that.
A moment where I really rememberthe Lord revealing himself to
me and graciously teaching meand continuing to sanctify me
and take away sin from me wasprobably my freshman year of
college.
All throughout high school, Imean, you guys know me, you know
(06:13):
I love theater, I love music, Ilove all things in the arts,
and I've been that way my wholelife.
I've loved singing forever.
My mom said when she waspregnant with me I would move
around anytime she sang and Iwould respond to the music that
early.
So in high school I was knownas the music guy, the theater
guy.
My Instagram handle is Mr Musicman.
That was a big part of myidentity in high school and it's
(06:37):
a good thing to be involved inthat.
It's a bad thing, as Tim Kellersays in his book Counterfeit
Gods.
It's a bad thing to take a goodthing and make it an ultimate
thing.
So nothing besides the Lordshould be an ultimate thing in
our lives.
Everything else should fallbehind our relationship to him.
And I didn't quite understandthat in high school.
(06:58):
I looked at the core of myidentity to be my ability to
perform music, my ability toperform theater, and so I made
that kind of the core of who Iwas and I went to college to
study music.
I had a music scholarship up inOhio and started studying voice
my freshman year vocal musiceducation and I started taking
college private lessons in voiceand was doing well.
(07:20):
I was doing well, I was beingsuccessful.
I had been selected to somegroups and I was scheduled to
lead worship at my school.
This was a Christian collegeand I was scheduled to lead
worship on a Friday in November.
I was in front of about 3000people I was supposed to lead
and I woke up that morning andmy voice was just gone.
It was, it was not thereanymore, and so I stumbled
through leading worship as bestas I could and I went to my
(07:41):
voice professor afterwards andsaid what's going on with my
voice?
This is new, I've neverexperienced this before.
And he said hey, take theweekend, it's a Friday, your
voice is probably just tired,take some time to rest and
you'll be back to normal onMonday.
Long story short, I wasn't, andI had to go see several doctors
(08:03):
.
My vocal range starteddecreasing and it hurt to sing,
and so I knew something was moreserious going on in my larynx,
and so, after seeing severaldoctors, I had to be put on
voice rest for about two and ahalf months Spring semester.
I had to drop out of privatelessons, drop out of choir.
All these things that, I thought, made me who I was, and I was
very much in a season that feltdark for me.
Different people go throughdifferent seasons of darkness,
(08:23):
and that was a season ofdarkness for me, and I couldn't
tell where the Lord was and Icouldn't tell what he was doing,
because I clearly knew hewanted me to use my gifts and
music for His kingdom in someway, and I didn't understand why
he was taking those away forthat season.
And during that time the Lorddrew me to himself in prayer.
The Lord drew me to himselfthrough his word he's so
faithful to do that and he drewme to himself through the good
(08:46):
counsel, the good wise counsel,of godly believers who were
smarter than me and wiser thanme and love the Lord and have
walked with him longer.
And in that season the Lord didtwo things he most importantly
taught me that he's with me allthe time, even though I walked
through the valley of the shadowof death Psalm 23, the Lord is
still my shepherd and he's theone who is with me in that
(09:08):
season.
And then, number two he taughtme through that that nothing is
strong enough or firm enough toroot my identity on the inside
except himself, that nothing Ido or nothing that I earn or I
achieve can ever earn his love,that he loves me just because of
who he is, not because ofanything I do.
And then he also tore down theidol of my voice and the I, the
(09:31):
idol of being identified as themusic man.
And he said, no, I want you tobe identified by me, I want you
to be identified by the blood ofmy identified as the music man.
And he said, no, I want you tobe identified by me, I want you
to be identified by the blood ofmy son that was shed for you,
to redeem you and to draw you tomyself.
So praise the Lord for thatseason where he worked in my
heart and uprooted sin, uprootedidols, and also was graciously
teaching me that he was with mein hard seasons.
(09:51):
And after about two and a halfmonths of vocal therapy, my
voice came back and I was ableto continue studying, graduated
from Cedarville University andstarted teaching.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Beautiful story, you know, in recent history, where
the Lord has really been movingand developing you, that you
would like to share with ourlisteners.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Students who are listening, I encourage you to
grow up and get married.
Marriage is awesome andmarriage is sanctifying.
The Lord is faithful to use mywife to uproot my selfishness
and show me my selfishness.
You never know how selfish youare until you get married or
until you have a roommate ordifferent seasons of life.
You start seeing differentsides of yourself and your sin
(10:29):
comes out in different ways, andeven being a parent ever since
my son was born, it has shown memy selfishness more too, and so
I would say the Lord isfaithful to use the different
seasons he puts you in to uprootyour sin and to sanctify you.
He promises to sanctify us.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So, speaking of that, in what ways do you make him
known?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, so that's the other half of to know him and to
make him known the biggest waythat he really it's him making
himself known.
Right, the Psalms teach us thatthe heavens declare the glory
of God.
We see him making himself knowneverywhere and he is gracious
and kind to include us in thatprocess.
He commands us to be a part ofthat process and the Great
Commission, and what a privilegethat is to do that.
(11:11):
And you can do that in a lot ofways.
You can do that withspecifically evangelizing and
telling people the gospel, andthat's a really important way
and a really good way that weshould all be doing.
Another way is to bear theimage of God and to reflect him,
make him known by reflectinghis image to the world, which is
probably where my world linesup, more so in terms of fine
(11:35):
arts.
Obviously, we share the gospelas much as we can, but my day
job every day is to helpstudents embrace their roles as
creators who reflect the imageof the ultimate creator to the
world, and so we tell them youare made in the image of God.
Genesis teaches us that, and wesee his image stamped on us in
a lot of ways, and one of thebiggest ways that we see it is
(11:57):
you can create.
You can create music, you cancreate theater, you can create
art, and that's not an accident.
The reason you can create thesethings is because you're made
in the image of a creative God,because God is the big creator.
You can be a little creator,you can be a mini creator who
reflects him when you createmusic, art and theater.
(12:17):
And that begs the question okay, how should I create If I'm a
reflection of the creator, howshould I create?
And our answer to that at BenLippin School is you should be
an excellent reflection of yourcreator, and that's why we push
ourselves in the arts to be thebest that we can be, not for the
sake of saying, look, how greatBen Lippin's school is, not for
(12:38):
the sake of saying, look, howgreat Taylor Nelson is.
That was the mistake I made inhigh school before I had that
experience with my voice.
The better thing to do is tosay I want to pursue excellence
because the Lord is excellent.
When I create, I want toreflect him as well as I can,
and I know that our reflectionsare broken because of sin, but
(12:58):
we should still be pursuingexcellence as we create because
we serve an excellent God who'sin the process of remaking us to
, into the image of his son, andso we teach them that.
Then we also teach them that'smusic, art and theater for God,
right.
And then we say music, art andtheater for God, right.
And then we say music, art andtheater for others.
We teach them that the secondreason to create with excellence
is because we want to give awaya good gift to our audience.
(13:21):
We want to take that reflectionof the creator and give it to
the people who are looking atour artwork or the people who
are listening to our music orthe people who are attending the
performance of our musical.
We want to give them the bestpossible reflection of the
creator because we want to gettheir attention.
We want to open doors for thesecond part of making him known,
(13:41):
which is evangelizing, and wewant to open doors and say, hey,
we want to present to you thevery best because we serve an
awesome God.
We serve a creative God who isexcellent, and not only who is
excellent and not only made youbut loves you and gave his son
to die for you, to redeem youand draw you to himself and all
(14:02):
those who turn away from theirsin and believe in the Lord
Jesus can be saved.
And so that's the second reasonwhy we want to be excellent.
We want to give away a goodgift to our audience that helps
point our audience to somethinggreater.
And then we say for fun, webelieve that life should be
enjoyed.
We believe that God is a God ofjoy.
Scripture teaches us that.
All over the Psalms, all overIsaiah points to that the coming
(14:23):
joy of the fullness of God'skingdom at the end of time.
And so we believe that God is aGod of joy, and music and art
and theater are a big way thatwe can celebrate that.
It's a big way that we can havefun and build relationships and
be excited together.
And so we teach students tocreate for fun, because we want
(14:43):
them to embrace good things inlife.
We want them to embrace goodrelationships with each other.
We want them to have fun asthey create because our God is a
God of joy have fun as theycreate, because our God is a God
of joy.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Reflecting back to now, how have you seen these
pillars of the fine artsdepartment grow and develop and
help some of these students growcloser to him?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think, in order for us toprovide that well, we have to
have three main things.
Number one we have to have agreat vision that is aligned
with scripture and a greatvision that is aligned with
scripture and a great visionthat is aligned with the mission
of Ben Lippin School.
And so we want to make surethat we are teaching truth and
teaching a biblical worldview inall of our arts classes and all
(15:24):
of our arts programs afterschool.
And that's where we summarizethe For God, for Others, for Fun
kind of philosophy making surewe're teaching them aligns with
scripture and reflects our lovefor the Lord.
That's why we're selective inthe content we choose to
introduce our students to.
But then I think the secondthing it needs is we have to be
able to teach students todevelop their skills to the
(15:46):
highest possible level, and sowe have to be on the cutting
edge of pedagogy and teachingthem the best vocal techniques,
teaching them the best artistictechniques, giving them the best
real world opportunities togrow these skills.
And I think the third thing isit takes the right people in the
right seats on the bus.
We have to have the rightteachers, who love the Lord, who
are experts in the arts and whoare experts at teaching, to be
(16:07):
able to help our studentsdevelop these skills and build
them.
For the glory of God, benLippin School has always been
excellent.
I'm grateful for the mayberenewed interest and renewed
investment and emphasis on thearts over the past six years
that the school administrationand leadership has chosen to
invest.
Well, this position was createdand it didn't exist before.
(16:27):
And this position is importantto help lead those things and
provide those things.
Whether it's me in this seat orsomebody else, this position is
important and the funding forthis area has has dramatically
increased as well over the pastsix years to provide some of
those opportunities.
That's why we can hire a fullorchestra to play for our high
school musicals and give ourstudent, our students, that
(16:50):
level of experience.
That level of excellence intheir experience is why we can
hire 10 people to be on ourdirecting team for our musicals,
because it takes that manypeople to do it well.
So I'm grateful to theleadership for providing those
opportunities and investing wellin the arts through positions
and also through funding.
It has been a joy to see howthat has impacted students.
(17:11):
Those three things right theworldview and philosophy.
Teaching at the highest leveland having the right people to
do that has impacted students ina massive way that I could tell
you story after story ofstudents who have grown their
worldview through the arts atBen Lippin and learned and began
to understand that the arts arenot about them.
The arts are not aboutthemselves.
(17:31):
The world will tell you hey,make great art to make a name
for yourself.
Make great music to make a namefor yourself.
How many monthly subscriberscan you get on YouTube?
How many monthly subscriberscan you get on I'm sorry, not
Instagram, spotify, monthlylisteners.
How many people will like yourpost if you post a video of
yourself singing?
That's what the world tells youit's about.
(17:52):
And at Ben Lippin, we tell youthat's not what it's about.
The arts are not about you.
The arts are about glorifyingthe Lord by reflecting him well
and giving a good gift to otherpeople and enjoying building
relationships with those aroundyou.
That's what it's about andthat's so freeing, right, it is
so freeing because it takes thepressure off of you.
(18:12):
You don't have to say, oh, myword, my identity rests in this
and I better be perfect at this.
There's room to make mistakesand there's room to grow because
we're not perfect, right.
And so it's important that ourstudents understand the arts are
not about them.
That's why it's not devastating.
It's why it shouldn't bedevastating if you don't get the
role you want in a play,because it's not about you.
You have the opportunity toreflect the Lord, no matter
(18:39):
where we put you.
That's why it's not devastatingif you make a mistake on a song
, because it's not about you.
You should be pursuingexcellence and you should be
building your skills, but at theend of the day, that's not
where your identity lies.
It's not about making a namefor yourself.
It's about raising the namethat's greater than your name,
and that's what I believe thedifference is at Ben Lippin
School in the arts.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
All right, so are there any closing thoughts you'd
like to share with ourlisteners?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I would say keep supporting the arts, keep coming
and keep being a part of it.
It is a joy for our team tohelp our students produce music,
art and theater and we lovesharing that with the Ben Lippin
School community and it's beenso fun to watch that interest
grow in the community over thepast several years.
We sold out Beauty and theBeast, we sold out Mary Poppins,
except for 14 tickets.
(19:22):
We had 14 tickets left thispast year.
So keep coming.
It's so encouraging to ourstudents, who are being
vulnerable and learning to buildtheir skills and share them
with other people in avulnerable way, to get the
support of the community.
We just love that and we're sograteful for the fantastic
support the Ben Lippin communityhas provided so far and I'm
thankful for the administrativeleadership investing in this
(19:42):
department, helping our studentsshine.
We have some exciting things instore for next year.
We're working on some things,hoping to get our students out
in the real world even more inthe arts, whether that's through
tours, whether that's throughsome collaborative opportunities
, whether that's through someinternational trips.
We would love to start movingin those directions, but we'll
see.
We'll keep praying and askingthe Lord to guide us and provide
(20:03):
for our needs as we continue tohelp our students build their
skills.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Knowing him and making him known.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Well, thank you so much for being here with us
today.
And if people have questionsfor you or want to reach out to
you, what is the best way forthem to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
My email is taylornelson atbenlippincom.
I'd be happy to talk to you Ifyou love what you hear and want
to invest in fine arts.
At Ben Lippin we have theFriends of Fine Arts Booster
Club and you can join atdifferent membership levels at
benlippincom.
Slash, f-o-f-a and Erin.
Thank you so much for having meAll right.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Thank you everyone and we look forward to seeing
you on the next episode of theBen Lippin Podcast.
All right, everyone, welcome to another episode of
the Ben Lippin podcast, andtoday I have a colleague, a
coworker and someone that theBen Lippin community is very
familiar with in the room withme, and he is going to be one of
our voices of Ben Lippin as weare exploring the stories of who
is in Ben Lippin that makes ourcommunity thrive.
(00:20):
It's just so important to tellthese stories and to connect the
community together in a deeperand a richer way.
So, without further ado, I haveMr Taylor Nelson with us.
He's our director of fine artshere at Ben Lippin and I'm just
going to turn it over to him andlet him share a little bit
about who he is.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, thank you, erin .
So I'm Taylor Nelson.
I serve as the director of finearts at Ben Lippin.
I'm finishing up year numbersix here, which is half of my
teaching career.
I had six years in Charlotteand now six years at Ben Lippin,
which is awesome.
I love being a Falcon.
I'm married to Kayla.
She's a PA at Prisma and wehave a five month old son named
(00:56):
Davis, who is precious and justlearning to roll over and pretty
soon he'll be sitting up and heis the light of our lives.
We love being with him everyday.
We are members of FirstPresbyterian Church downtown,
which is actually where my wifeand I met a few years ago.
We've been married two and ahalf years and loving every
second of it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, mr Nelson, tell us some things that you like to
do in your spare time.
What are some of your hobbies?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
My spare time is usually spent directing musicals
at the Performing Arts Center.
I have a great team that helpsme with that.
When I'm at home with my wifeand my son, we love to go on
walks at the Columbia RiverWalks, whether it's the
Riverfront Park, whether it'sthe one by the zoo or whether
it's the one down in WestColumbia in Casey.
We love going down to all threeof those and doing walks with
(01:41):
our puppy, rudy, and gettingsome of his energy out.
We love into coffee.
You can catch us thereregularly.
We love doing that.
And my wife and I love to travel.
We have made it one of ourgoals in our marriage to step
foot on every continent.
We say seven continents by 70and 50 states by 50 is our goal.
(02:02):
And then we also want to have abottle of water from every
ocean in our home.
So we've like tailored ourtravel around going places where
we can go to the differentoceans.
So we've been to Hawaii andgotten water from the Pacific
Ocean.
We have been to Myrtle Beachand gotten water from the
Atlantic.
We've gone to Norway and gottenwater from the Arctic Ocean and
(02:24):
we've been to the Maldives forour honeymoon and that's how we
got the Indian Ocean, so thelast one we still have to go is
the Southern Ocean, aroundAntarctica, and that will be a
long time from now, when we'vesaved up enough money to afford
that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So what has been your favorite trip that y'all have
taken?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It depends on if you're looking for relaxation or
adventure.
If you're looking forrelaxation, man, it was the
Maldives.
It was the place where westayed.
My wife found this awesomeresort where we were able to
stay for about a week and it wasvery relaxing and lots of fun
snorkeling and it was reallybeautiful just seeing all the
different types of fish andmarine life that was there in
the Maldives.
It's so untouched, you know, itwas just really beautiful.
(03:03):
But I think, in terms ofadventure, my favorite one had
to be Norway.
We did all kinds of hiking inthe snow.
It was winter January when wewent to Norway and the city
where we stayed is above theArctic circle, so it was like
negative 20 degrees when we werethere and we're climbing
mountains covered in snow.
We went on several fjordcruises and we even did a polar
(03:26):
plunge jumping in part of theArctic Ocean, which is super fun
.
But the best part of it was wewent dog sledding while we were
there and I thought, hey, thisis going to be fun.
We get to sit on the sled andthey're going to drive us around
and do all these fun things.
No, no, no, I got to drive thedog sled.
I did not realize how muchcardio that was going to be,
because when you get to thehills you have to help them push
(03:47):
the sled up the hills, so thedogs aren't doing it alone.
So that was a lot of work, butman, it was so fun.
We had the best time doing thattogether.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The beauty of his handiwork when you go to all
these different places.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, absolutely.
Especially in Norway, we sawthe Northern Lights when we were
there.
And Especially in Norway, wesaw the Northern Lights when we
were there and it was juststunning.
We were out in a field feedingreindeer.
It was one of the things thatwe had signed up to do.
And out of nowhere you neverknow when the Northern Lights
are going to show up and out ofnowhere, here they come, and it
was stunning.
We just stopped and we laiddown on the snow, looked up at
the sky and saw it and it wasbeautiful.
(04:20):
And it made me think of thehymn the Honors Choir has sung
the past couple of years.
This is my father's world.
The second verse talks about heshines in all.
That's fair.
We see him in everything good,we see him in everything
beautiful, because he's thesource of goodness, he's the
source of beauty and so ofcourse, it comes from him.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean it points our hearts back to him as the
creator when we see the beautyof creation.
So one of the pillars that wehave here at Ben Lippin is to
know him and to make him known.
So share with the listeners howyou learned who the Lord is.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, that's a great question I have.
I don't really remember a timewithout knowing and loving the
Lord and that's something I kindof came to terms with after
college when I became aPresbyterian.
I started studying Reformedtheology and thinking about that
and I kind of wrestled with man.
I don't really remember thistime without knowing the Lord
and I don't really remember thisdrastic change from death to
(05:11):
life that I see in my life.
And I started talking with someof my elders at my church up in
Charlotte and they were likeTaylor, that's a good thing,
like the Lord.
Some people there's a drasticmoment of conversion where you
immediately go from death tolife.
And some people the Lord isjust gradually drawing to
himself over a season of years.
And some people the Lord drawsto himself really early.
(05:32):
Parents have you involved inthe church.
You're hearing the gospel froman early age.
You don't really rememberanything else and that's kind of
my story.
The Lord drew me to himselfpretty early in my life and I
don't really remember a timewithout knowing and loving the
Lord Jesus and wanting to turnaway from sin and follow him.
So praise the Lord for that.
That's the testimony.
(05:52):
I pray that my children have aswell, and I'm thankful that the
Lord is the one who draws us tohimself.
In spite of our stubbornnessand our sin.
He does that.
A moment where I really rememberthe Lord revealing himself to
me and graciously teaching meand continuing to sanctify me
and take away sin from me wasprobably my freshman year of
college.
All throughout high school, Imean, you guys know me, you know
(06:13):
I love theater, I love music, Ilove all things in the arts,
and I've been that way my wholelife.
I've loved singing forever.
My mom said when she waspregnant with me I would move
around anytime she sang and Iwould respond to the music that
early.
So in high school I was knownas the music guy, the theater
guy.
My Instagram handle is Mr Musicman.
That was a big part of myidentity in high school and it's
(06:37):
a good thing to be involved inthat.
It's a bad thing, as Tim Kellersays in his book Counterfeit
Gods.
It's a bad thing to take a goodthing and make it an ultimate
thing.
So nothing besides the Lordshould be an ultimate thing in
our lives.
Everything else should fallbehind our relationship to him.
And I didn't quite understandthat in high school.
(06:58):
I looked at the core of myidentity to be my ability to
perform music, my ability toperform theater, and so I made
that kind of the core of who Iwas and I went to college to
study music.
I had a music scholarship up inOhio and started studying voice
my freshman year vocal musiceducation and I started taking
college private lessons in voiceand was doing well.
(07:20):
I was doing well, I was beingsuccessful.
I had been selected to somegroups and I was scheduled to
lead worship at my school.
This was a Christian collegeand I was scheduled to lead
worship on a Friday in November.
I was in front of about 3000people I was supposed to lead
and I woke up that morning andmy voice was just gone.
It was, it was not thereanymore, and so I stumbled
through leading worship as bestas I could and I went to my
(07:41):
voice professor afterwards andsaid what's going on with my
voice?
This is new, I've neverexperienced this before.
And he said hey, take theweekend, it's a Friday, your
voice is probably just tired,take some time to rest and
you'll be back to normal onMonday.
Long story short, I wasn't, andI had to go see several doctors
(08:03):
.
My vocal range starteddecreasing and it hurt to sing,
and so I knew something was moreserious going on in my larynx,
and so, after seeing severaldoctors, I had to be put on
voice rest for about two and ahalf months Spring semester.
I had to drop out of privatelessons, drop out of choir.
All these things that, I thought, made me who I was, and I was
very much in a season that feltdark for me.
Different people go throughdifferent seasons of darkness,
(08:23):
and that was a season ofdarkness for me, and I couldn't
tell where the Lord was and Icouldn't tell what he was doing,
because I clearly knew hewanted me to use my gifts and
music for His kingdom in someway, and I didn't understand why
he was taking those away forthat season.
And during that time the Lorddrew me to himself in prayer.
The Lord drew me to himselfthrough his word he's so
faithful to do that and he drewme to himself through the good
(08:46):
counsel, the good wise counsel,of godly believers who were
smarter than me and wiser thanme and love the Lord and have
walked with him longer.
And in that season the Lord didtwo things he most importantly
taught me that he's with me allthe time, even though I walked
through the valley of the shadowof death Psalm 23, the Lord is
still my shepherd and he's theone who is with me in that
(09:08):
season.
And then, number two he taughtme through that that nothing is
strong enough or firm enough toroot my identity on the inside
except himself, that nothing Ido or nothing that I earn or I
achieve can ever earn his love,that he loves me just because of
who he is, not because ofanything I do.
And then he also tore down theidol of my voice and the I, the
(09:31):
idol of being identified as themusic man.
And he said, no, I want you tobe identified by me, I want you
to be identified by the blood ofmy identified as the music man.
And he said, no, I want you tobe identified by me, I want you
to be identified by the blood ofmy son that was shed for you,
to redeem you and to draw you tomyself.
So praise the Lord for thatseason where he worked in my
heart and uprooted sin, uprootedidols, and also was graciously
teaching me that he was with mein hard seasons.
(09:51):
And after about two and a halfmonths of vocal therapy, my
voice came back and I was ableto continue studying, graduated
from Cedarville University andstarted teaching.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Beautiful story, you know, in recent history, where
the Lord has really been movingand developing you, that you
would like to share with ourlisteners.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Students who are listening, I encourage you to
grow up and get married.
Marriage is awesome andmarriage is sanctifying.
The Lord is faithful to use mywife to uproot my selfishness
and show me my selfishness.
You never know how selfish youare until you get married or
until you have a roommate ordifferent seasons of life.
You start seeing differentsides of yourself and your sin
(10:29):
comes out in different ways, andeven being a parent ever since
my son was born, it has shown memy selfishness more too, and so
I would say the Lord isfaithful to use the different
seasons he puts you in to uprootyour sin and to sanctify you.
He promises to sanctify us.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So, speaking of that, in what ways do you make him
known?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, so that's the other half of to know him and to
make him known the biggest waythat he really it's him making
himself known.
Right, the Psalms teach us thatthe heavens declare the glory
of God.
We see him making himself knowneverywhere and he is gracious
and kind to include us in thatprocess.
He commands us to be a part ofthat process and the Great
Commission, and what a privilegethat is to do that.
(11:11):
And you can do that in a lot ofways.
You can do that withspecifically evangelizing and
telling people the gospel, andthat's a really important way
and a really good way that weshould all be doing.
Another way is to bear theimage of God and to reflect him,
make him known by reflectinghis image to the world, which is
probably where my world linesup, more so in terms of fine
(11:35):
arts.
Obviously, we share the gospelas much as we can, but my day
job every day is to helpstudents embrace their roles as
creators who reflect the imageof the ultimate creator to the
world, and so we tell them youare made in the image of God.
Genesis teaches us that, and wesee his image stamped on us in
a lot of ways, and one of thebiggest ways that we see it is
(11:57):
you can create.
You can create music, you cancreate theater, you can create
art, and that's not an accident.
The reason you can create thesethings is because you're made
in the image of a creative God,because God is the big creator.
You can be a little creator,you can be a mini creator who
reflects him when you createmusic, art and theater.
(12:17):
And that begs the question okay, how should I create If I'm a
reflection of the creator, howshould I create?
And our answer to that at BenLippin School is you should be
an excellent reflection of yourcreator, and that's why we push
ourselves in the arts to be thebest that we can be, not for the
sake of saying, look, how greatBen Lippin's school is, not for
(12:38):
the sake of saying, look, howgreat Taylor Nelson is.
That was the mistake I made inhigh school before I had that
experience with my voice.
The better thing to do is tosay I want to pursue excellence
because the Lord is excellent.
When I create, I want toreflect him as well as I can,
and I know that our reflectionsare broken because of sin, but
(12:58):
we should still be pursuingexcellence as we create because
we serve an excellent God who'sin the process of remaking us to
, into the image of his son, andso we teach them that.
Then we also teach them that'smusic, art and theater for God,
right.
And then we say music, art andtheater for God, right.
And then we say music, art andtheater for others.
We teach them that the secondreason to create with excellence
is because we want to give awaya good gift to our audience.
(13:21):
We want to take that reflectionof the creator and give it to
the people who are looking atour artwork or the people who
are listening to our music orthe people who are attending the
performance of our musical.
We want to give them the bestpossible reflection of the
creator because we want to gettheir attention.
We want to open doors for thesecond part of making him known,
(13:41):
which is evangelizing, and wewant to open doors and say, hey,
we want to present to you thevery best because we serve an
awesome God.
We serve a creative God who isexcellent, and not only who is
excellent and not only made youbut loves you and gave his son
to die for you, to redeem youand draw you to himself and all
(14:02):
those who turn away from theirsin and believe in the Lord
Jesus can be saved.
And so that's the second reasonwhy we want to be excellent.
We want to give away a goodgift to our audience that helps
point our audience to somethinggreater.
And then we say for fun, webelieve that life should be
enjoyed.
We believe that God is a God ofjoy.
Scripture teaches us that.
All over the Psalms, all overIsaiah points to that the coming
(14:23):
joy of the fullness of God'skingdom at the end of time.
And so we believe that God is aGod of joy, and music and art
and theater are a big way thatwe can celebrate that.
It's a big way that we can havefun and build relationships and
be excited together.
And so we teach students tocreate for fun, because we want
(14:43):
them to embrace good things inlife.
We want them to embrace goodrelationships with each other.
We want them to have fun asthey create because our God is a
God of joy have fun as theycreate, because our God is a God
of joy.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Reflecting back to now, how have you seen these
pillars of the fine artsdepartment grow and develop and
help some of these students growcloser to him?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think, in order for us toprovide that well, we have to
have three main things.
Number one we have to have agreat vision that is aligned
with scripture and a greatvision that is aligned with
scripture and a great visionthat is aligned with the mission
of Ben Lippin School.
And so we want to make surethat we are teaching truth and
teaching a biblical worldview inall of our arts classes and all
(15:24):
of our arts programs afterschool.
And that's where we summarizethe For God, for Others, for Fun
kind of philosophy making surewe're teaching them aligns with
scripture and reflects our lovefor the Lord.
That's why we're selective inthe content we choose to
introduce our students to.
But then I think the secondthing it needs is we have to be
able to teach students todevelop their skills to the
(15:46):
highest possible level, and sowe have to be on the cutting
edge of pedagogy and teachingthem the best vocal techniques,
teaching them the best artistictechniques, giving them the best
real world opportunities togrow these skills.
And I think the third thing isit takes the right people in the
right seats on the bus.
We have to have the rightteachers, who love the Lord, who
are experts in the arts and whoare experts at teaching, to be
(16:07):
able to help our studentsdevelop these skills and build
them.
For the glory of God, benLippin School has always been
excellent.
I'm grateful for the mayberenewed interest and renewed
investment and emphasis on thearts over the past six years
that the school administrationand leadership has chosen to
invest.
Well, this position was createdand it didn't exist before.
(16:27):
And this position is importantto help lead those things and
provide those things.
Whether it's me in this seat orsomebody else, this position is
important and the funding forthis area has has dramatically
increased as well over the pastsix years to provide some of
those opportunities.
That's why we can hire a fullorchestra to play for our high
school musicals and give ourstudent, our students, that
(16:50):
level of experience.
That level of excellence intheir experience is why we can
hire 10 people to be on ourdirecting team for our musicals,
because it takes that manypeople to do it well.
So I'm grateful to theleadership for providing those
opportunities and investing wellin the arts through positions
and also through funding.
It has been a joy to see howthat has impacted students.
(17:11):
Those three things right theworldview and philosophy.
Teaching at the highest leveland having the right people to
do that has impacted students ina massive way that I could tell
you story after story ofstudents who have grown their
worldview through the arts atBen Lippin and learned and began
to understand that the arts arenot about them.
The arts are not aboutthemselves.
(17:31):
The world will tell you hey,make great art to make a name
for yourself.
Make great music to make a namefor yourself.
How many monthly subscriberscan you get on YouTube?
How many monthly subscriberscan you get on I'm sorry, not
Instagram, spotify, monthlylisteners.
How many people will like yourpost if you post a video of
yourself singing?
That's what the world tells youit's about.
(17:52):
And at Ben Lippin, we tell youthat's not what it's about.
The arts are not about you.
The arts are about glorifyingthe Lord by reflecting him well
and giving a good gift to otherpeople and enjoying building
relationships with those aroundyou.
That's what it's about andthat's so freeing, right, it is
so freeing because it takes thepressure off of you.
(18:12):
You don't have to say, oh, myword, my identity rests in this
and I better be perfect at this.
There's room to make mistakesand there's room to grow because
we're not perfect, right.
And so it's important that ourstudents understand the arts are
not about them.
That's why it's not devastating.
It's why it shouldn't bedevastating if you don't get the
role you want in a play,because it's not about you.
You have the opportunity toreflect the Lord, no matter
(18:39):
where we put you.
That's why it's not devastatingif you make a mistake on a song
, because it's not about you.
You should be pursuingexcellence and you should be
building your skills, but at theend of the day, that's not
where your identity lies.
It's not about making a namefor yourself.
It's about raising the namethat's greater than your name,
and that's what I believe thedifference is at Ben Lippin
School in the arts.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
All right, so are there any closing thoughts you'd
like to share with ourlisteners?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I would say keep supporting the arts, keep coming
and keep being a part of it.
It is a joy for our team tohelp our students produce music,
art and theater and we lovesharing that with the Ben Lippin
School community and it's beenso fun to watch that interest
grow in the community over thepast several years.
We sold out Beauty and theBeast, we sold out Mary Poppins,
except for 14 tickets.
(19:22):
We had 14 tickets left thispast year.
So keep coming.
It's so encouraging to ourstudents, who are being
vulnerable and learning to buildtheir skills and share them
with other people in avulnerable way, to get the
support of the community.
We just love that and we're sograteful for the fantastic
support the Ben Lippin communityhas provided so far and I'm
thankful for the administrativeleadership investing in this
(19:42):
department, helping our studentsshine.
We have some exciting things instore for next year.
We're working on some things,hoping to get our students out
in the real world even more inthe arts, whether that's through
tours, whether that's throughsome collaborative opportunities
, whether that's through someinternational trips.
We would love to start movingin those directions, but we'll
see.
We'll keep praying and askingthe Lord to guide us and provide
(20:03):
for our needs as we continue tohelp our students build their
skills.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Knowing him and making him known.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Well, thank you so much for being here with us
today.
And if people have questionsfor you or want to reach out to
you, what is the best way forthem to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
My email is taylornelson atbenlippincom.
I'd be happy to talk to you Ifyou love what you hear and want
to invest in fine arts.
At Ben Lippin we have theFriends of Fine Arts Booster
Club and you can join atdifferent membership levels at
benlippincom.
Slash, f-o-f-a and Erin.
Thank you so much for having meAll right.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Thank you everyone and we look forward to seeing
you on the next episode of theBen Lippin Podcast.
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