February 28, 2025 • 59 mins
In this episode, we chat with Josh Whitehouse of Go Chatter Studios, an innovative initiative where the Bible is being brought to life through captivating LEGO animations, designed to engage both young hearts and unacquainted minds alike.
Josh shares his remarkable journey that turned a near-fatal battle with cerebral malaria into a passionate mission fueled by faith. We delve into his upbringing in a Christian family and the challenges he faced in figuring out how to channel his love for LEGO into a tool for spiritual engagement. This conversation brings forth not only inspiring anecdotes but also a deeper understanding of the purpose behind Go Chatter Studios: to share the message of Jesus through animated storytelling.
Throughout this episode, we explore the meticulous process of creating short yet powerful animations. Josh describes the various stages involved, including scripting, building sets, and animation, all while ensuring that the true essence of each Bible story is conveyed. We learn how each project is a collaborative effort, emphasizing teamwork, creativity, and an unwavering commitment to spreading the Gospel message.
As we look towards upcoming animations, you’ll discover how you can get involved and support this meaningful mission. Join us to be inspired by the incredible stories of faith, resilience, and creative expression. Don't miss out on this opportunity to widen your understanding of how modern mediums, such as LEGO, can intertwine with spiritual narratives for a truly transformative experience. Subscribe, share, and help us spread the word on this exciting journey toward bringing the Bible to life!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joey (00:00):
We're here with Josh Whitehouse of Go Chatter Studios
.
This has been a really fun.
How this happened, you know Ireached out to Josh and I saw
his stuff online.
I think it was my wife,actually, that first saw it.
Whatever you guys are doing,it's working.
Somehow it ended up on ourscreen somehow the algorithm.
(00:20):
So it's working.
Keep it up.
But we found it and we thoughtman, we want to learn more
(00:45):
no-transcript.
Josh (00:50):
So much for having me, joey, it's such a blessing to be
here on this interview, on thispodcast.
And yeah, yeah, I mean I'vebeen a Christian my whole life.
That's a very standard start toa Christian's testimony.
But yeah, I have been achristian my whole life.
I grew up in a christian familyand ever since I was young,
I've been being taught thegospel, taught jesus, but that
(01:12):
doesn't make me a christian.
Um, and it's not through myparents faith that I am saved.
It's, it's through my own faith, and so it was.
It was when I was about 12 thatI first made that initial
commitment to god and to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm going to
be a Christian, I want to be aChristian, I want to take this
faith in for myself.
But I think it was, I think,the probably the biggest moment
(01:39):
in terms of my testimony in thepast few years.
My life was about three yearsago uh, back in, back in 2022,
and now my, my family, hademigrated out to south africa in
2014 and we'd been living insouth africa for about seven or
so years at that point, and we,we took a trip.
(01:59):
We took a trip up to kruger,the northeast.
Sorry about that, no worries.
Still, we took a trip up tokruger in the, the northeast of
south africa, um, and I cameback with cerebral malaria,
which is a very, very, veryserious disease and a very, very
serious case of very seriousdisease, and I almost lost my
(02:21):
life.
Um, I spent three weeks inhospital and the doctors didn't
think I was going to make it.
They didn't think I was goingto make it, but God pulled me
through that.
He threw through the answeredprayers of many, many people
around the world that werepraying for me.
He pulled me through that, andthat taught me a couple of
(02:41):
things.
Firstly, it's that God isalways in control, and even when
you can't see what is happening, you can't see why on earth is.
Why on earth am I, as I was 17at the time, why did I almost
lose my life?
And God was in control and hehad a plan.
Because that has shaped therest of my life and and my
(03:03):
attitude towards life in so manyways.
Because that was the secondthing was it made me realize
that we don't know how long wehave left on this earth, we
don't know what time God hasgiven us, and so we should be
using every single moment thatGod has given us for his glory,
(03:23):
for his purposes.
Joey (03:26):
And that really sparked me .
It was like a second lease,like a second lease on life.
Josh (03:29):
Yeah, exactly Exactly.
And it really sparked in me thesense of mission, like I have
to be using my time for God andhis glory, because I don't know
how much longer I've got left.
And when I was 12 and firstmade that commitment, I hadn't
felt good enough to get baptized, but it was.
(03:50):
It was this, this gettingmalaria, this almost losing my
life that that made me realizeno, I can't keep on putting this
up off because I don't thinkI'm good enough, because I'm
never going to be good enough.
And so so it was.
It was shortly after that thatthat I got baptized and that
just turned my life around.
And it has been, and that wasone of the most pivotal moments
for me in my entire life.
Joey (04:08):
I'm so thankful you shared that and it's such a contrast,
or seemingly a contrast.
Right, we have this deep, scarystory with these toy sets in
the background, but I'm excitedto see how this is going to come
together, how there's such agreat mission and purpose here
(04:28):
in what you're doing and whatwe're talking about, and how you
know you can think, oh, thatmeans you know, I had that
experience, so I became afull-time missionary or ordained
or pastor or clergy or man.
God has a certain mission foryou right now.
I'm just excited and think ofall the young people that could
be watching or listening.
You know, when they find outabout hey, there's an interview
about Legos Bible man, maybethere's a young teenager
(04:51):
watching right now, listeningright now.
What a testimony, you know, at17 years old, realizing, man,
I'm not guaranteed the next day.
I want to live for the Lord.
Josh (05:03):
Yeah, this is.
This is what I'd encouragethose kind of people that are
listening.
If you're, if you're young, andespecially if you're going
through a really tough period inyour life like during the time
it is, it's so tough, itgenuinely and and that's that's
not a bad thing but if you're achristian, you can hold on to
that hope that God has a plan,that God has a plan and, as I've
(05:27):
seen in my life, I went througha very tough time when I was 17
.
But I've been able to look backover the past three years and
see exactly why God put methrough that time, exactly why I
went through that, and it'sbuilt me up as a person in so so
many ways.
That and it's it's built me upas a person and in so so many
(05:48):
ways, and and that is that isthe promise that god gives us,
isn't it?
Romans, romans 8, 28 in allthings, god has a plan.
Yeah, for those who love him,um, and that's just such a, it's
such an amazing promise to beable to hold on to that.
Even if you're going through atough time in your life, god has
a plan.
He's going to be using that insome way amen, amen.
Joey (06:04):
Um, you know, for folks that are watching or listening,
I'm, you know, looking away heredoing the sound and some of the
technical stuff.
But, uh, man, just because Iwant everybody to hear what
you're saying, ah, so blessed.
Uh, joshua, josh, um, I'llprobably go back and forth
between josh and joshua D.
You know, that's the amazingthing about the Lord.
(06:25):
You know we could talk aboutthis one thing for the hour, but
there's a lot of other thingsthat we want to talk about.
So, in kind of changingsubjects, I realize too.
You know, we have 10-plusminutes into our time together
and people still might not knowwhat's with the Legos, what are
we talking about?
What's going on?
So I want to kind of skip ahead.
Before we come back, just tellus a little bit about Go Chatter
(06:48):
Studios, about what you guysare doing, kind of why you're
our guest today, and what we'llbe talking about.
Josh (06:55):
Yeah, sure, so Go Chatter Studios is a ministry that is
making the Bible brick by brick.
So we are making three to fourminute long lego animations of
stories from throughout thebible, and the goal is to make
the whole bible in lego stopmotion.
Now, obviously there's going tobe a few areas of bible that
are trickier to make into legostop motion, but if you picture,
(07:17):
if you picture, for example, achildren's storybook bible, a
picture book, that's that's whatwe want to do, but in lego stop
motion in three to four minutelong videos, and so by the end
of the project the goal is tohave 70 to 80 lego animations
from throughout the whole biblethat are telling the story of
jesus, from genesis torevelation, and we're nine
(07:41):
animations in so far.
We've got another two comingout in the next couple months.
So, as I'm sure we'll talkabout a bit later, we've got
Creation coming out on the 5thof March and then the Prodigal
Son coming out a month or soafter that, and so, yeah, we're
a decent way into the project.
Joey (07:59):
Let me ask you one thing, and I realize we're going to
backtrack here in a moment toget more of the start in the
story, but I've seen only a fewof them.
I need to catch up.
I've seen a few.
Are you purposing to committedto maybe that's too strong of a
word having the gospel at theend of every single one, or is
(08:19):
it kind of animation byanimation?
Josh (08:24):
So what we're trying with all of our animations is to
always tell more than just thestory, because there's a lot,
there's a lot of bible storiesout there and then lego, stop
motion animations that that tellthe story, and that's that's
great.
That genuinely is that, don'tget me wrong that's a really,
really good thing to be doing.
It's just telling the story,but we do, as an organization,
(08:46):
we do want to be going that stepfurther as well, particularly
because a huge part of whatwe're doing is is evangelistic.
Lego is such a such a draw,such an eye-catching medium to
be using.
Yeah, that what we're doing isis actually very evangelistic,
especially online and because ofwe don't want to just be
(09:06):
telling the story, but we wantto be bringing in the meaning
behind each story and pointingto Jesus.
So it won't necessarily alwaysbe the explicit word for word
gospel message at the end ofevery animation, but we will
always be trying to be bringingin the meaning behind each story
and, where possible, pointingat jesus.
(09:27):
So, for example, I don't knowif david and goliath is one of
our animations that you've seen,but we tell the story of david
and goliath and then go into whydavid is a picture of jesus.
Why why that story is soimportant and what it means for
us today.
And that's something that we dowith all of our animations and
will continue to do for thewhole project.
Joey (09:48):
Gotcha, gotcha, yeah.
The last one that I saw wasJonah, so that was just too easy
.
I mean, jesus said, like Jonah,I'm going to do this.
So, that was just the Lord setthat one up for you so amazing.
Okay, so now everybody's up tospeed.
Go Chatter Studios, the entireBible, as you would find it
(10:08):
almost like a children's Bible70 to 80 animations, the whole
Bible, brick by brick.
Now let's rewind a little bitNow.
I didn't tell you this ahead oftime, but my wife actually
thought of this question.
Can you remember your firstLego set?
I can, indeed.
Josh (10:30):
Oh nice.
Can you remember your firstlego set?
I can indeed.
Oh nice, okay, it was.
It was a, a lego castle, um, soit was.
Oh, what was it?
Yes, it was a very, very oldlego castle that came out in the
1970s or 80s how do you, how doyou even get a hold of?
that.
Well, my dad got a hold of iton on ebay and he got it for me
for my fifth birthday.
Um, and like he knew he knew II liked castles.
I was big into medieval swords,knights, castles, that sort of
(10:54):
thing.
And so he found, he found thiscastle on ebay, bought it for me
for my fifth birthday.
It was a massive, like 700 pieceset, which for a five-year-old
is I was gonna say as your firstset my first set is my first
set, um, but yeah, threw me inthe deep end and that's really
got what got me hooked, got mestarted, and it just kept on
growing and growing from there.
So, yeah, that was, that was myfirst set that's amazing.
Joey (11:17):
Do you remember what it was like building it?
Was it hard or frustrating?
Did it come easy, was it?
What was it like when youfinished?
Tell us more about that firstset man, yeah, I mean the.
Josh (11:27):
The first time I built it was with my dad, um so okay, he
was out as a five-year-old okayfirst 700 piece lego set.
No, my dad, my dad did help alot, so so he, he likes, he
likes to claim that, um, he'sthe reason this whole ministry
started.
Okay, um, but yeah, yeah, no, soso it was, it was a lot of fun,
but but what I do remember isthat, with with all of the lego
(11:50):
sets that I built and and eventhat early on I would build them
and I'd enjoy building the setand I built that first one with
my dad, but then I'd take itapart and I'd build something
else.
And that that was the caseright from the beginning of of
my passion for lego was I'dalways I'd build the set because
it was fun.
I'd got the set, but then I'dalways take it apart, I turn it
(12:11):
into something else.
With this castle, I turn itinto various other castles, into
ships, what it, what, whateverit was, um, and that was the
case with every single set.
I got it, it would, it wouldlast for a few days, and then
I'd start taking pieces from itinteresting because most people
display them, but you wanted totake them apart and and recreate
, I mean right from the age offive.
Joey (12:32):
And we can see I mean I'm pointing behind you, we can see.
Well, that's that makes sensenow, right?
Josh (12:37):
yeah, take, take the pieces and make your own thing.
These ones I keep togetherbecause, yeah, models and I have
to.
Joey (12:44):
But but it was up to me.
Josh (12:46):
They'd all be in pieces by now.
That's funny.
Something else into dragons,whatever, but what?
Joey (12:50):
I mean is.
What I mean is and we touchedon this already right, the, the
creativity that the lord hasgiven you, with the imagination
that you can take, you know theI don't know what the right word
is the unassigned bricks or theindividual bricks and create
your own set right, your owndesign in a sense, and I look
forward to hear about your teamand who's helping you and what
different people do.
But that gifting that again I'mthinking of if parents are
(13:14):
watching and listening, right,that way the Lord designed you
right and the way the Lord madeyou and the mind he gave you
really really neat, reallyinteresting to see how that's
developing.
You know, I guess the next sortof well, if, if you wanted to
say anything on that, I mean I,I was.
Josh (13:32):
I was just going to say that that every aspect of this
ministry is down to the lord,like the, the, the gifts that
he's given me is down to thelord, as, as we'll find out as
we'll chat about in a bit how hegot me here, it's all down to
the lord, and and that that isthe the case with everyone in
ministry is that their gifts andskills are all down to the lord
and we are, we're just vesselsthat god is using for his
(13:54):
kingdom and his glory oh man,amen.
Joey (13:57):
So I guess the next logical thing would be well, you
, you got your, your castlebuilt, you unbuilt it.
And how do we get to, brick bybrick, through the Bible?
I mean, how did this developinto you starting this ministry
and this project?
Josh (14:13):
Absolutely so.
As I mentioned earlier on, abig part of this was the fact
that my family emigrated out toSouth Africa in 2014.
So I'd already been a Lego fanfrom from when I got my first,
first Lego set, that firstcastle.
I'd been a Lego fan since then,but it was when, when my family
(14:34):
emigrated out to South Africa,that that that really, really
grew.
And I'd always wondered, fromfrom when I was five, six, seven
, eight years old, I'd alwayswondered, from from when I was
five, six, seven, eight yearsold, I'd always wondered how on
earth can I be using my, myskills and my passions for God?
Right, because I was aChristian, I love Lego and I
(14:54):
remember being in a Sundayschool where they were they were
talking about the parable ofthe talents and I remember
thinking, oh, how can I be using, how can I be using my skills
in Lego for God?
At the time I was like, maybe Ibuild a whole church out of
Lego and people can worship in aLego church.
Which, yeah, gives you insightinto my eight-year-old
(15:15):
imagination, but obviouslythat's not very practical, and
so I wasn't really sure how Icould be using my skills and
passions for God.
Anyway, as I said, my familyemigrated out to South Africa in
2014, and there we startedhomeschooling.
So my my parents um boughtnature reserve.
We lived in the middle ofnowhere, and so we didn't see
(15:36):
people a lot, so we werehomeschooled out in South Africa
, and so what that meant was Iwas able to do all my school in
the morning, I was done bylunchtime and I'd spend the rest
of the afternoon everyafternoon playing with Lego,
building models, and then, onceI turned 13 and was allowed to
(15:57):
get allowed to start enteringcompetitions online, because you
have to be 13 or above to entersome of these online
competitions that was whatreally took my passion to the
next level.
I'm quite a competitive person,and so I found out about these
competitions when I was 12,actually, and started building
models for them, waiting a wholeyear, and then, as soon as I
was 13, I started entering them,and that was the next five
(16:22):
years of my life pretty muchjust building and entering these
Lego competitions.
Joey (16:26):
Let me interject there because I know nothing about
this.
Maybe some of our listeners orviewers can you elaborate on
kids listening if they want toparticipate.
Josh (16:38):
Yeah, sure.
So the site that I first gotinvolved with is Lego Ideas.
That I first got involved withis Lego Ideas.
So if you're a fan of Lego, youmay well have heard of the Lego
Ideas line, which is essentiallyfan designers designing models
that then have a chance ofbecoming a Lego set, and so all
(16:58):
the products in the Lego Ideasline have been designed by fan
designers rather than officiallego designers.
Yeah, and, and that wasparticularly what caught my
imagination was designing amodel with the chance of it
becoming a lego set have any ofyour models become one sadly,
sadly not, oh man that wouldhave been crazy, very, very hard
process okay, um but the.
(17:19):
So the process is first you haveto get to 10 000 supporters on
lego ideas and then it goesthrough a review process once
you get to that 10 000, and Igot two of my models to 10 000
supporters but hey, that'ssomething cool.
Joey (17:33):
Do you remember what they were?
Can you share what they were?
Josh (17:35):
yeah, yeah, so it was a.
It was a fantasy castle was thefirst, of course, of course, of
course, of course, and then aworking lego orrery, um, and if
for the, for those of who don'tknow what an orrery is, it's
essentially a kinetic modelwhere the sun's in the middle
and then you have the earthspinning around the sun and then
(17:56):
the moon spinning around theearth at the same time.
And, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Yeah, so those are the two thatgot to 10,000, but sadly,
neither of them passed thereview, so you were doing that
your whole teenage life.
So I was doing that my wholeteenage years and then also on
Lego Ideas.
They have competitions wherethey'll give you a prompt.
You get 30 days to build basedon that prompt.
(18:18):
You submit an image.
Joey (18:20):
These are different kinds of competitions and things you
could do Okay.
Josh (18:29):
And is that through the same site.
I think I'm looking at it now.
Uh, challenges, yeah, like legoideas, okay, yeah, challenges.
And then they, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that.
Um, so, yeah, that's that'swhat really got me started.
And then I started moving intothe, the wider community there's
.
There's lots of competitionsrun on on discord stuff like
summer jououst and Bricks,calibre, all these sorts of
things in the wider LEGOcommunity.
But as I started making moreand more LEGO models, I got more
(18:52):
and more known in the LEGOcommunity.
And yeah it just startedexpanding, so you're LEGO famous
.
I'm just kidding.
Joey (19:00):
In some circles, in some circles, okay okay, well, hey,
hopefully how do I say thisproperly?
Hopefully you will be, becauseof what the lord's gonna do and
how the lord's gonna use it.
Amen.
So praise the lord, awesome, um.
So now you're getting to 17, 18.
You go through this tremendousuh trial in your life.
You nearly die, yeah, um.
So where are we at now in thethe?
Josh (19:22):
So go back a couple years first to lockdown, and that's
where the.
Bible animation started.
So it was during lockdown thatmy mom actually suggested hey,
why don't you make some?
She was helping with the Sundayschool at the time and she
asked me hey, could you makesome?
(19:43):
Could you make some legoanimations for my sunday school
lesson?
And so I made.
I made a few very, very basiclego animations during lockdown.
Uh, over the course of 2020 itwas um, and I posted these.
I posted these to my youtubeYouTube channel at the time and
(20:04):
then very quickly started losingsubscribers because I I'd I'd
never posted Christian contentbefore, and then suddenly I was
posting Christian content and Istarted.
Now it was only it was onlylike 20, 30 subscribers that I
lost, but at the time that was abig deal for me, yeah, and and
so I was like, oh, I don't wantto be losing subscribers, and so
(20:25):
I took the Christian contentoff the channel and put it on
this separate channel.
That was mostly hidden andnobody found out about.
Joey (20:36):
Because having it available online was the way
that the Sunday school wouldaccess it.
That's why it needed to be onthere.
Josh (20:43):
Yeah, exactly, but I took it off my main channel and put
it off, put it off a second oneand I always, I always felt a
bit bad about this becausebecause I'd kind of been well,
I'd been hiding my faith, um andand when I'd, when I put it out
I'd, I'd then took them offbecause I'd been embarrassed,
I'd lost subscribers and and,yeah, I felt bad that the
(21:04):
subscribers were were moreimportant to me.
but anyway, god, god had a planbecause and again through my mum
, he put me in touch with thisChristian ministry in the UK.
So my mum my mum, had a had acontact that was working at a
Christian, a Christian ministryhere in the UK that was making
(21:24):
video content, and the contactshe had in this Christian
ministry sent some of the videosthat she'd made under this
ministry to my mum, and my mumresponded in typical mum fashion
by sharing some of my videosthat I'd made.
Joey (21:41):
Look at what my son has done.
Josh (21:43):
Exactly, exactly.
I get it.
I'm a parent man.
It's normal we, if somethinghappens, that switch turns on
Sorry, no, absolutely Absolutely.
And so, yeah.
So she she responded by sharingsome of my videos and then this
, this Christian ministry werelike oh, these are cool.
And they got in touch with me.
We hopped on a call and thatthat was, I guess, officially
(22:05):
the start of of the lego project.
Um, so, under this christianministry, I started freelancing.
I started freelancing for them,um, and over the course of that
next year, so so it was it wasin the end of 2021 that this
ministry got in touch with meand I started freelancing for
them at the beginning of 2022.
I did the Easter animation forthat Easter Easter of 2022, then
(22:30):
had a break over the summerwhile I was in the hospital with
malaria, and then, once I wasout of hospital with malaria, I
started working on the Christmasstory, freelance as well as my
finals, because this was myfinal year of school.
So 2022 was a slightly crazyyear for me, um, but yeah, yeah.
(22:50):
So I was freelancing with thisministry for a year and then, at
the end of that year, I waslike, okay, well, I, I don't
want to go to universitystraight away.
I was planning on going touniversity in South Africa, but
I don't want to go straight away.
So I mentioned this to theministry that I'd been
freelancing for and they saidwell, why don't you come out and
work for us for a year andcarry on?
(23:12):
Carry on making the Legoanimations, because the Lego
animations have been doing so sowell under this ministry and it
was.
It was some of the best contentthat they'd and most popular
content that they'd made them ina while.
Um, and so they invited me tocome out to the uk and start
working for them for a year, andthen the plan was I'd go back
to south africa study the plan,the plan, the plan exactly yeah
(23:37):
um, study architecture orproduct design something like
that back in south africa, um,but the plan was my plan and not
God's plan and I got out to theUK, back to the UK, at the
beginning of 2023 and startedstarted this job really exciting
making Lego animations withthis Christian ministry for what
(23:58):
I thought was going to be ayear.
I started it within two weeks,literally two weeks.
I I knew that I was not goingback to South Africa and that
this, this was God's plan for mylife, and I phoned up my
parents and was like how wereyou so confident?
Joey (24:15):
How did that happen?
Josh (24:17):
Because I was just thinking what else do I want to
do with my life?
Like there's, there's nothingelse that I personally would
want to do with with my life,and God has given me this such
unique and honestly incredibleopportunity to be doing
literally my perfect dream job.
I'm not going to turn that down.
(24:39):
I'm not going to do it for ayear and then go back.
It was just, yeah, as I saidinitially, just thinking well, I
was planning on going touniversity, but then I'd want to
come back and do something likethis after university.
Joey (24:54):
Why not just stay on?
Just stay doing it, yeah.
Josh (24:58):
What's the point of university in that case?
So yeah, anyway, I phoned up myparents and was like I don't
think I'm coming back to SouthAfrica anymore.
And they were like oh yeah, weknew that, we knew you weren't
coming back.
Joey (25:11):
Wow, which was so, so funny, but also such apparent
moment yeah, and like a, like aconfirmation, you know, like a
confirmation for you as well,wow, wow, so, so, yeah, so we're
in 2023 right now, in thebeginning of 2023, that that I
started started working for this, this christian ministry,
full-timetime, and over thecourse of 2023 we made.
Josh (25:34):
so I made two animations freelance with them.
Over the course of 2023, wemade another five together and
then at the beginning of lastyear so at the beginning of 2024
we realized that for the Legoproject to really grow, really
expand because we could see alot of potential for it, but for
(25:56):
it to really grow and expand,we needed to move it out of of
this ministry, which was abusiness, it was a profit
structure where we were sellingthe videos, but that wasn't
really working, and so werealized we needed to move it
into a non-, into a charity herein the UK.
And so for a lot of last year,since pretty much April, may
(26:18):
time last year, I was working onsetting up this charity for,
specifically, the Lego project,and at the end of the year, last
October, the charity wasapproved, and so now we have
GoChat studios with the goal ofmaking the bible brick by brick,
and that is how this, thisministry, was formed wow.
Joey (26:40):
so for for folks that are not, well, you know it's funny.
So this we have the, the videointerview that we're doing.
Uh, there's going to be anaudio podcast as well.
And then this this might air onour FM radio, right, our
terrestrial radio, so my raingoes radio, for those tuning in,
which might still happen, right, people might tune in in the
(27:02):
middle of this.
I want to give the website,because we haven't said it.
We've said the name, but notthe website, which it's easy to
remember Gochatterstudiosorg,gochatterstudiosorg, and that's
that's probably the best placefor people to go to do.
You want to take a moment nowto give any other contact
information, channel information?
We'll repeat it again, butlet's just take a moment and
(27:24):
give the relevant information orchannels.
Josh (27:27):
Yeah, sure, sure.
So, as, as you said, ourwebsite is go chatter studiosorg
go chatter studiosorg.
Then if you want to get intouch with us, you can get in
touch by email and that will beinfo at gochatterstudiosorg.
That's info atgochatterstudiosorg.
And then we're also on socialmedia.
Go subscribe on youtube againgochatterstudios on youtube.
(27:49):
And on instagram and tiktok,again go chat studios.
Just search up go chat studios,you'll find us excellent,
excellent.
Joey (27:58):
So we've been talking about it, we've been seeing it
from afar, but, josh, I thinkyou have some things to show us,
some of the actual hands onwhat you guys are doing there at
go chatter studios.
This is probably one of theparts I was most excited for for
our video interview.
What, what are you, what areyou going to show us today?
Josh (28:21):
so I will start by showing you this massive set that I
have right next to me.
That's amazing.
So this, this is the set, andyou're going to get my head cut
off for now, but that's worth it, because you can see the lego
and that's what's important yeahum, so this, this is the set
that I built at the the start ofthis project, when, when I
moved back to the uk in 2023,because I knew even even at the
(28:45):
start, I was like, okay, well,even for a year, I'm going to be
making making bible animations,and pretty much every bible
animation that I make is goingto have some kind of town scene
and it's going to have some kindof landscape as well.
And so I built this set asbasically a covers all bases
(29:06):
that could be used and reusedand repurposed for every
animation that I made over thecoming years, and that's exactly
what it's been used for.
So this, this town scene, forexample, this has been used and
repurposed and rearranged.
The house has been rearrangedfor every single town scene that
we've used which which roof?
Joey (29:25):
which roof did you break through in the paralyzed man?
Do you remember?
Josh (29:29):
so it.
It wasn't one of these roofsthat that was physically broken
through okay the house.
The house that I used was thisone, so this was the exterior
house that I used, but then Imade a custom, custom built okay
, specifically for thebreakthrough that needed to be a
bit bigger, and and was wasslightly customized so that, so
(29:51):
that it had the, the few partsthat that fell through, um,
amazing, and and also the, theother.
The other thing with with myanimations is you'll you'll
probably notice that the, theoutside houses are a lot smaller
than the interior sets and andthat's because it's it would
just be too many bricks to buildthe houses.
Joey (30:12):
Is that like a plant creeping up the side of the
tower there?
Is that what that's supposed tobe?
I think you look at this one.
Josh (30:22):
There's plants creeping up the side of the tower.
What was really fun aboutbuilding particularly this town
scene was I did a lot ofresearch into first century
Israel culture what the houseswould have looked like back then
, what kind of details wouldhave been on the roof.
So, for example, you can seehere and where else over here as
(30:42):
well, you've got some beds,some mats on the roofs.
Oh, and here as well that'sprobably the closest You've got
some beds and mats on the roofsbecause people, people lived on
their roofs, like their roofswas a another room of the house.
Essentially gotcha you also got.
You also got some nice scrapelines on the tops of a lot of
the houses, and a lot of thehouses are kind of multi-story,
(31:05):
um, with stairs going on theoutside.
So you can see, you can see,here you've got, you've got
stairs going leading up to thisupper room in this house and
then again over here, thesynagogue.
This was built pretty muchground up from some ruins in
Israel that I found pictures ofonline, and so it's very
(31:26):
accurate to what a first centuryIsraelite synagogue would have
looked like.
And again, as you can see in thebackground, we've got some more
, some more landscape yeah,that's mountainous areas really
cool the mountainous area again,I was looking up what the kind
of cliffs and the mountainswould would have looked like in
that area, um.
So, yeah, this, this set, hasbeen incredibly, incredibly
(31:49):
useful over the past two, twoand a half years now, um, and,
as I said, I've used it in everysingle one of the animations
that that we've made so far.
So if, if you look through allof our all of our animations
since the start of this projectso not including christmas and
easter, but all of theanimations since, you'll be able
to spot parts of this set inevery single one of them that's
(32:12):
amazing.
Joey (32:13):
Oh, man, that's so cool.
Thank you for showing that tous.
And you know, again, you knowthe credit goes to the Lord, but
I hope folks listening realizethe amount of work that went
into that.
I mean, I don't know that Iever thought I would say, oh,
and here's a?
Um, archaeologically,historically accurate lego set
(32:36):
of israel, like that's amazing.
That's amazing how god led youto do all that.
And it comes through in thevideos.
You know, again, I, I, I, I'm,I'm put on the spot here, man, I
should have seen them all.
You know they're not that long,but but I have more to look
forward to, I guess.
But the ones that I've seen,man, they are so what's the word
you could just tell.
(32:58):
I mean, they're so thought out,they're so prayerful, they're
so scriptural, they're so good.
I mean, they're so good really,and not just because you know
you can't buy me lunch anyway,you're very far away, so it's
not to get, it's just for peoplelistening.
I mean, man, they're going tosee it.
I suspect many folks are goingto watch them.
Let me ask you something else.
(33:19):
Kind of jumping around here alittle bit now, kind of towards
the middle of our time together.
I've got some notes here, somewebsites open.
The other thing that I noticedis there seems to be a sort of a
poetry rhyming structure to it.
Uh, is it the same voice everytime?
Tell us maybe a little bit moreabout, uh, how the story's put
(33:41):
together and now, at this point,maybe some of the team as well,
tell us about that, yeah, yeah,yeah, absolutely.
Josh (33:47):
so.
To start to start with a bit ofthe process and the story
behind it, um, behind eachanimation yeah, the, the script
and the story is always thefirst step of every single
animation we make, because thatis the most important part of
the animation.
Sure, the the lego is reallycool and making the lego look
amazing is an important part ofthe animations, but the most
(34:09):
important part for us as achristian ministry is making
sure that we are accuratelyrelaying the Bible stories and,
as I said again earlier,bringing that true message, that
true gospel message and themeaning behind each of our
stories into the stories andinto the videos that we're
making.
So the script is always thefirst stage and we're very, very
(34:30):
blessed to have an incrediblytalented, incredibly gifted
scriptwriter and poet and voiceartist on the team called Rachel
Hood, and since the Christmasstory she has done all the
scripts, all the narration, allthe voiceover.
Joey (34:48):
So she actually writes the stories the rhyming the scripts
.
Josh (34:52):
I guess I say lyrics.
Joey (35:01):
Because it sounds very sing-songy.
Josh (35:02):
It was very it's very enjoyable to listen to, not just
to watch but to listen to.
Yeah, no, she, she.
I mean again, it's anotheramazing example of of god's
really really blessing andgifting someone and them using
their gifts, her using her giftsthat God has given her for his
glory.
And yeah, so it's a real, realblessing to have her on the team
and she does an amazing job attaking each Bible passage that
(35:22):
we do and then turning it into areally accessible, really
engaging and then rhyming scriptas well, and so, yeah, it's
such a blessing to have her onthe team.
So that's always the first stepof the animation and I tend to
work with her a bit on thatprocess, particularly because
sometimes there's things in thescript that, as she's writing
(35:47):
them, may be harder to turn intoLego animation or wouldn't
necessarily flow as well in avideo visually.
So I'll work with her a bit inthat process to kind of finalize
the script and make sure thatit's going to it's going to flow
well as an animation and notjust as a script, and and then
(36:08):
once, once the script isfinalized, I'll go through and
plan um, plan out the animation,plan what sets I'm going to
need to build, what, what thedifferent scenes are going to be
and I'll start.
I'll start by thinking okay,what parts of this set?
Joey (36:21):
can I use?
Josh (36:22):
for the animation.
But then if there's, if there'ssets that I'm going to need to
build on top of that, then I'llstart building those sets.
So say, for example, you cansee behind me creation.
It was the animation I've justfinished.
You can see the set forcreation behind me, which is a
completely new custom set that Ihad to build specifically for
creation.
Again, another, another setpiece that I show you here is
(36:45):
the boat, the boat from jonah,and again the, the whale as well
so both of those were custom.
Joey (36:52):
Those were from the ground up, yeah yeah, from the ground
up.
Josh (36:55):
So no, no instructions or anything.
Um, both both custom designedspecifically for for the jonah
animation can we see uh thewhale a little bit.
Joey (37:03):
Uh more front and center because there's like, uh, you
know I'm, I'm in, in in learningabout you guys.
Oh no, in learning about youguys, I've I've heard some of
the lingo.
You know the smooth face andthe brick face, and I mean
there's a lot of differentthings going on there.
Can you give us a tour of thedesign of this a little bit,
please?
Josh (37:23):
yeah, sure.
So I think the the first thingto start with is that everything
, everything is built builtoutwards.
So usually when you're buildinga lego model, uh, typically
you're going to have like two byfour blocks, one by two blocks,
whatever it is, and you'regoing to build it start.
We'll start with the base plateand you're just going to build
up, and that's that's how a lotof this model was built.
(37:44):
It was just built built up fromthe base plate, stacking plates
and bricks and and so on on topof each other.
This model was built completelydifferently.
Every single face is is builtoutward.
So you'll see studs here andstuds on the outside here, studs
in outside here, and basicallyI started with this model and
and with all animals I build.
(38:04):
So one of the one of my favoritethings to build, other than
castles, uh, back in the day waswas animals and nature related
stuff.
So whenever I'm building ananimal, I always start with the
face to to get the proportionsright.
So with with the whale, Istarted with the face.
Figure out okay, how, how am Igonna?
How am I gonna create the, thelook of the whale?
How am I gonna create the, thelook of the whale, how am I
(38:25):
going to create the curves ofthe face?
And I was, I was searchingonline for for parts in this
blue and this white and foundthat you got, you got this slope
piece, um, which if I uh,actually I'm not going to take
it off because otherwise thewhole whale's going to fall
apart.
Um, but but you can, you cansee, you can see this slope
piece.
I'll move it a bit closer yeah Isee um and and this, this slope
(38:47):
piece, came in in both blue andwhite which is what I needed to
create this, this shape at thefront of the whale, um, and then
, and then, it was just a caseof okay, next, next, figuring
out the positions of the eyes soI've got.
I've got these two main slopepieces.
Then let's figure out thepositioning of the eyes.
That's the the next mostimportant part in terms of
(39:08):
creating the proportions of theface yeah and then figure out
how the mouth is going to work,because this was the whale for
jonah.
Joey (39:16):
It needed it had to articulate yeah, I've got my
jonah character.
Josh (39:21):
Um, right here, there we go.
Joey (39:23):
Here's the, here's the Jonah character, and it had to
be able to fit the Jonahcharacter inside the mouth, and
then you built a set of aninterior of a whale also, yeah,
which is separate.
That's amazing.
Josh (39:36):
Exactly.
And then, once the face waskind of, once the face is kind
of down, it was relatively easyto just kind of taper off that
shape to the back and thencreate a tail with some hinges
so that I could, I could animatethe movements of the fins.
And again you've got, you'vegot the fins on the on the side,
which may as well, so they canall be animated Again.
Joey (39:59):
This is one of those.
This is one of those.
Yeah, yeah, this is one ofthose things where each one of
these pieces and how'd youdesign this and what pieces do
you use maybe you know maybewe'll do down the road lego
series how to build this thing,but, um, so many questions are
coming to my mind.
I'm trying to write some downas well.
Um, I forgot man building thewhale.
(40:23):
Maybe learning how to build thewhale.
I don't remember that part.
Um, I know something I hadwritten down here as you started
talking about the process howlong does it take from beginning
to end, from concept topublishing the animation?
Josh (40:39):
yeah, yeah.
So so from beginning to end, ittakes on average about two to
three months, from concept tofinished animation.
And just to finish the, becauseI just remembered where we were
.
Oh sorry, sorry From the whale,but just to finish that and
bring in the rest of the team.
So once I finish building thesets like the whale I'll then go
(41:02):
on to the animation process,like the whale, um, I'll then go
on to the animation process andit's a cycle of setting up a
scene, then animating andsetting up the next scene and
animating and so on, and that'sgenerally the longest part of
the process.
And once all the animation'sdone, then I have a, an editor
on the team, uh, called joshmanley, who puts so another josh
is very confusing with a smallteam having two out of three
(41:23):
people both called josh.
Anyway, um, we've got used toit by now, but, yeah, um, so so
josh josh works on on editingthe animations.
So he, he takes all the clipsthat I send him, puts them all
together, he adds rachel'svoiceover that she's already
recorded, then he has music andsound effects.
Uh, he does all the complicatededits, like for the whale had
(41:46):
to remove the stand that washeld up on I saw that bring that
and just bring the whale backinto scene.
I was, I was animating it onthis stand, moving it along on
this stand, so this, the stand,had to be edited out, yeah, in
in the final footage, and so.
So, stuff, stuff like that hedoes.
And then he'll also make thesocial media posts around, uh,
around, promoting each of ouranimations, um, and, and then
(42:10):
the.
The final, the final member ofthe team is is our other
animator, amy, and sheessentially does the the same
thing as me, um, so she'll,she'll work on animations at the
cycles of setting up scenes,then animating them, setting up
the next scene and animatingthem.
And we, what?
What we do as a, as a team, iswe work on separate projects as
(42:32):
animators.
So I, while I've been workingon the story of creation, she's
been working on the prodigal son, and so that's so smart, so
nobody's waiting.
Joey (42:41):
There's always something in Exactly.
Josh (42:43):
Man, you guys got this dialed in.
Joey (42:46):
That's really smart.
Josh (42:48):
So, yeah, that's the team at the moment, the whole three
of us.
So myself, amy and Josh, do youanticipate as well as people
like Rachel and others who dofreelance work for us.
So Rachel's not full-time, butvery, very, very key member of
the team.
Joey (43:07):
Do you anticipate that the team's going to need to grow as
the the um you get further intothe bible?
Josh (43:13):
yeah, oh, absolutely gotcha, and that's that's very
much the plan, because it's it'sthe.
The speed that we can makeanimations is proportional to
the number of animators we havegotcha and and so it's.
It's very much the the planthat, as this project continues,
we'll be increasing the numberof animators, so that we can
then increase the number ofanimations that we're releasing,
(43:35):
do you think I don't know ifthis is one in the same you'll
bring in other builders, or youthink you'll be the one building
all of it?
I think I'll be the one buildingall of it.
So so, partly because, as theproject goes on, there's going
to be less building to do likewith this set, not gonna have to
rebuild that again, um, butalso also because the the lego
(43:57):
skill that god has given me is alot rarer and and it's also a
very unique style.
So so this is something youmight not know about about lego,
but it's the same as with anyart medium um, you have painters
.
Every painter has a completelydifferent style, and it's
exactly the same with lego.
Every, every lego artist has acompletely different style.
(44:21):
And so if, if I brought inanother lego builder into the
team, they'd have a differentstyle, um, and that could be
good.
But I think I think there'svalue in in keeping a as an
overall style for our animations, for the whole project.
That makes it recognizable,that that makes them stand out,
and so I think I will probablyend up sticking to being the
(44:43):
only builder for for theanimations that's interesting.
Joey (44:45):
That's really, really interesting, josh, I can't
believe it.
We're kind of getting towardsthe end of our time together and
I know there's two things forsure I want to cover, which is
upcoming animations, wherepeople can donate, support, give
all that bullet pointinformation I wanted to talk
about or hear about what's kindof like the main mission and
(45:09):
vision.
Right, what?
What's the mission?
You know, and and we talkedbefore, it's those kind of two
branches.
So I want to end with those twothings.
One last thing before we get tothose final two things uh,
they're kind of I can't lumpthem all into one question.
Okay, first question that itcould be a very brief answer the
(45:29):
minifigs.
Is it mostly just mixing andmatching?
Is there any painting orcustomization?
Josh (45:34):
yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's mostly just mixing, matching, um
, the.
The furthest we go in terms of,in terms of painting
customization is, uh, I'll take.
I'll give you the goliathfigure, for example.
Um, so this is, this is ourfigure for goliath and this,
this torso here that is used toto give him his height.
Let me find a another legominifigure to compare.
(45:56):
So this is the usual legominifigure and this is goliath.
Um, and the, the torso is fromhagrid, from harry pot Potter.
Yeah, and what what I've doneis is erase the, the printing,
so he does have his like hiscloak or whatever it is.
So I've erased the printing tomake it plain and then to be
able to use it for for Goliath.
But but yeah, it's very much aa case of mixing and matching
(46:19):
different parts from differentcharacters and finding ways to
creatively reuse differentdifferent parts.
So a lot of the characters arefrom Star Wars, from Lord of the
Rings, from the Hobbit, thatsort of thing.
Joey (46:32):
That's so cool, okay.
And then this gets to the nextpart of the question, which I
can kind of bundle up.
What would you say to any kidsthat want to build their own
Bible Legos and start to, justfor their own sake, right, just
to enjoy, just to learn?
And again, the second part ofthe question is a little silly
(46:53):
on purpose, and we also want tobe careful speaking about
companies and speaking well ofcompanies.
But the silly part of thequestion is do they just buy
their Bible sets from Lego, oror, or?
What can kids do um with thisidea that you've given them?
Josh (47:07):
yeah, yeah, of course.
So lego.
Lego doesn't sell any biblesets themselves, but the great
thing about lego is that you cando whatever you want with it.
It's it's up to yourimagination.
And so what I'd encouragechildren, family teenagers that
are listening to this, I justencourage you to go for it, get
out your Lego collection andstart being creative, because
(47:29):
that is what Lego's for.
It's for being creative.
Um yeah, they make.
They make the sets, but butit's the purpose of Lego is is
to get you being creative and toget you thinking outside of the
box and make your own thing.
Um so, so get out, get out yourStar Wars, get out your castles
and start turning them intoBible scenes, because, genuinely
(47:52):
, you can be using any bricks tocreate whatever you want.
Joey (47:56):
So cool, so cool man, thank you.
So I want to start to land theplane here in, like I said,
giving people the information onwhat's coming up next and how
they can support this ministryand this project.
So, as of recording, we're in,we're in early february, as of
recording yeah, that's right.
Josh (48:15):
so so, as a recording, I have just finished the story of
creation, as I as I mentioned,which is very, very exciting.
It's been a this one has been asix month process six days, but
a six month process.
Okay, but that's that's.
Because of the whole charitysetup over over the past few
months, it's it's taken a bitlonger, but yeah, I've been
(48:37):
working on creation for aboutthe past six months and it it
was, it was finished at thebeginning of last week.
And Creation the story ofCreation, will be releasing on
our website, on our YouTubechannel, on the 5th of March, so
in just over a month fromrecording date, just under a
month even from recording date,march 5th, for Creation, that's
(48:58):
the March 5th, or 5th of Marchif you're from Europe 5th of
March 5th of March.
So, yeah, creation will be outfifth of march and after
creation, as I said, my, mycolleague amy, has been working
on the prodigal son and now,nice, something that I don't
think we've particularlymentioned in in this podcast yet
(49:21):
but is worth mentioning now isthe fact that we are a fully
crowdfunded project so all ofour animations are made
completely available, completelyfor free, for you guys to watch
and download and use in inchurches and sunday schools, in
christian ministries.
Joey (49:37):
Yeah, that is all, completely for free, and that
goes into that last question.
Josh (49:41):
Yeah, and that goes into that last question.
And that's that's because weare a crowdfunded project, and
so if you want to help supportthe creation of our next
animations, you can go to ourwebsite gochatsstudiosorg and
you can donate towards thefunding of each of our next
animations.
So we're currently still in theprocess of funding the Prodigal
(50:04):
Son, so if you want to helpfund that, you can go to our
website and start donatingtowards that.
Joey (50:11):
Oh, and then I see a funding soon.
Josh (50:14):
Exactly.
Then, once the prodigal son isdone, we will be on to funding
the book of Ruth.
Once the book of Ruth is funded, we will then and I'm very
excited about this, so getexcited as well.
We are doing a three partseries of the book of Exodus,
which is going to be a hugeamount of fun.
There's going to be some crazyscenes in that.
I'm looking forward to doingthe party of the Red Sea and all
(50:36):
the 10 plagues, but yeah,that's kind of a bit of a
forecast 10 plagues in Lego,interesting it's going to be so
much fun.
It's going to be so much fun,it's going to be so much fun,
interesting, and so that's a bitof a forecast of the immediate
future of this project.
Joey (50:51):
Yeah, and thank you for that.
I mean that was kind of like abehind-the-scenes exclusive,
because on the website it onlygoes so far as Ruth.
So only our listeners andviewers.
You know what's coming afterRuth, so that's why you got to
tune in to God's Way Radio andlisten to the podcast produced
in part by God's Way Radio.
Hey, just a little plug therefor the ministry here, and I
(51:12):
really wanted to give you achance to again speak to church
leaders, listening how they canuse your resources, what's
available, what's not available,what's required if anything and
then also talk about theevangelistic side of the
ministry yeah, yeah, yeah,absolutely so.
Josh (51:31):
As I briefly mentioned in in that last section, all of our
resources are available forfree.
All of our videos are availablefor free on our website.
It's very, very easy to go toour videos page.
You can go to our videos page.
You can search up our thevarious different animations
that we have and then you can goand download them.
All you need to do to downloadthem is just enter your name and
(51:53):
email and check a box to saythat you're going to follow our
terms of use, and that's all youneed.
All you need to do to downloadthem.
You don't need to sign up oranything, it's just name and
email.
Joey (52:02):
Great, yeah, and the terms of use are pretty standard.
You know, don't use it on yourown social media, don't make
money off of it, that kind ofstuff yeah, exactly exactly that
.
Josh (52:11):
So, so it's not at all a complicated process and we're
not asking you to sign up to asubscription or anything like
that.
Um, it's, we want to make it assimple and as easy for for
church leaders, for children'sworkers to be using our
animations, to be downloadingthem, and, of course, if you
don't want to go to our website,you can always just use them
off YouTube, go to our YouTubechannel, check them out there,
(52:34):
but they will be available onour website earlier than they
are available on YouTube.
Joey (52:38):
Oh, interesting, so that March 5th date was for the
website for creation.
Josh (52:42):
So for creation it's for both, but sometimes so website
for creation.
So so for creation it's forboth, okay, but sometimes so say
, for example, easter's comingout, coming up soon, easter's
going to be, easter's alreadyavailable on our website, but
it's only going to be releasedon youtube a couple weeks prior
gotcha gotcha, so it depends onthe animation, depends on the
animation, um, but yeah, yeah,the.
(53:02):
The idea with these resources isthat you can use them to
support your ministries inwhatever way.
Really, the great thing aboutLego is that it is such a good
way of engaging children andcaptivating them, because the
thing with Lego is it'ssomething that already is
emotionally connecting with them.
They already love Lego, theyalready are engaged when they
(53:26):
see lego, and so by using legoto tell bible stories, you
already have a higher engagementrate and you already are
captivating and helping thechildren to to actually listen
and actually want to listen.
So they're not going to think,oh no, it's bible time again.
They're going to think, oh,lego, lego, I want to listen
(53:47):
this is what are we doing withlabels.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, and soit's such a great way of
engaging children, engagingyouth and engaging people of all
ages yeah, to be honest,because who doesn't love like,
yeah, um, with with the bible,with the gospel, which I think
is such an important thing thesedays?
Because certainly I don't knowwhat it's like for you guys in
(54:07):
the States, but certainly herein the UK, where we're based,
there's more and more peoplethat just have no idea who Jesus
is and have no idea of evenbasic Bible stories like David
and Goliath and the story ofJonah, the story of Jonah.
(54:28):
And so that brings me into theother aspect of this ministry,
which is the evangelistic side,and using the fact that we're
using Lego as a way of drawingin people who haven't come
across these stories, who maybeare less familiar with
Christianity, drawing them intothe gospel, into the Bible,
using the medium of Lego Because, again, when they're scrolling
online, when they're scrollingthrough their social media feeds
(54:50):
, they're not going to think, ohno, it's Bible, let's not watch
this.
They're going to see the Legoand they're going to think, oh,
this is so cool.
Joey (54:58):
What is it?
Josh (54:58):
Yeah, yeah, I want to watch and this is exactly what
we've seen on our social medias.
We've seen on our social mediasis we've seen so so many
comments over over the past fewmonths now that we've set up as
a charity, of people commentingon our videos and saying, hey,
I'm a muslim, hey, I'm anatheist, but I really, really
enjoyed this content and they'rewatching it anyway, and that's
(55:19):
because it's lego, because it'sengaging, because it's engaging
and because it's connecting withthem, outside of the fact that
it's it's a Bible story.
And so that then helps connectthem with the Bible story.
Joey (55:31):
Yeah, oh man, Joshua, I'm so excited and again, if people
didn't catch it, they didn'tmake that connection we had the
opportunity to meet on theground level of what God's doing
.
You know, at the beginning, atthe inception, like you said at
the time of this recording, it'sbeen not even a year, I mean
(55:52):
just several months since you'veestablished the charity and
really pushing forward fullspeed ahead.
So we're so excited to havefound you.
I hope many, many people willlearn about you through this and
then tell others about GoChatter Studios.
So, Joshua, by God's miracle, Icovered everything I wanted to
(56:13):
cover.
We've heard so much about GoChatter Studios.
We've learned about you.
We've got to see behind thescenes a little bit.
Is there anything else youwanted to share or mention
before we end our time together?
Josh (56:28):
I think the only thing that I'd want to end on is that
I would just really encouragepeople going away from for the
gifts that God has given you andto trust that he knows what
(56:50):
he's doing in your life and tobe seeking ways of using those
gifts and using the situationthat God has put you in for his
good and for his glory.
I think one final story thatI'll share and this is something
that we kind of touched on umearlier is is that when, when I
first started making bibleanimations, as I said, I took
(57:14):
them off my channel because I Iwas embarrassed, I I didn't like
the fact that I was losingfollowers, losing subscribers,
and so I took them off mychannel.
But now, when, when I startedworking for the ministry in the
UK full-time, I was like, okay,right, god, I'm going to give
this another go.
I'm going to start posting thevideos that I'm making with this
(57:34):
ministry to my own social mediachannels and just see what
happens, because I'm not goingto be creating any other lego
content.
This is going to be the onlycontent I have to post, so let's
just start posting it and seewhat happens.
And, god, I'm just gonna trustyou, even if, even if I'm a bit
scared of what might happen tomy following, um, and so I
(57:54):
started posting the christiancontent that I was making on my,
particularly on my instagram,and at the time on my instagram,
I was on about 2000 followersand over the course of the and
that's, that's 2000 followersthat I built up over about two
years of being on Instagram,over the course of the next six
months of posting just Christiancontent, for the first time I
(58:18):
had reached 50,000 followersjust just from, just from
posting the Christian contentand videos were getting millions
, literally millions of views,and it was just such such an
eye-opener to me that I had beenlike I'd been scared to post my
Christian content and to to putmy name out there for God.
(58:40):
Um, and it was just such aneye-opener that I I should have,
I should never have doubted, Ishould never have been scared
for one second, because as soonas, as soon as you're taking
that step for God, god is goingto, god is going to meet you, he
meets you there and he's goingto carry you through and take
you above and beyond what youcould ever have expected.
(59:03):
So I'd really encourage you.
If you're holding back fromsharing your faith or if you're
scared to do so, just trust thatGod is going to meet you there
and he has a plan for your life,yeah.
Joey (59:16):
Oh man, joshua, I'm so glad that you ended with that.
It's an encouragement to me,it's an encouragement to anyone
listening or watching, and all Ican say is I look forward to
speaking with you again.
I can't wait to see what God'sgoing to do and, who knows,
maybe God's Way Radio andthrough our radio ministry or
through our podcast, can be partof the journey and check back
(59:36):
in from time to time and hearand see what's going on.
Joshua, it's been a great time.
Josh (59:42):
Thank you so much, jerry.
God bless you, god bless.
We're here with Josh Whitehouse of Go Chatter Studios
.
This has been a really fun.
How this happened, you know Ireached out to Josh and I saw
his stuff online.
I think it was my wife,actually, that first saw it.
Whatever you guys are doing,it's working.
Somehow it ended up on ourscreen somehow the algorithm.
(00:20):
So it's working.
Keep it up.
But we found it and we thoughtman, we want to learn more
(00:45):
no-transcript.
Josh (00:50):
So much for having me, joey, it's such a blessing to be
here on this interview, on thispodcast.
And yeah, yeah, I mean I'vebeen a Christian my whole life.
That's a very standard start toa Christian's testimony.
But yeah, I have been achristian my whole life.
I grew up in a christian familyand ever since I was young,
I've been being taught thegospel, taught jesus, but that
(01:12):
doesn't make me a christian.
Um, and it's not through myparents faith that I am saved.
It's, it's through my own faith, and so it was.
It was when I was about 12 thatI first made that initial
commitment to god and to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm going to
be a Christian, I want to be aChristian, I want to take this
faith in for myself.
But I think it was, I think,the probably the biggest moment
(01:39):
in terms of my testimony in thepast few years.
My life was about three yearsago uh, back in, back in 2022,
and now my, my family, hademigrated out to south africa in
2014 and we'd been living insouth africa for about seven or
so years at that point, and we,we took a trip.
(01:59):
We took a trip up to kruger,the northeast.
Sorry about that, no worries.
Still, we took a trip up tokruger in the, the northeast of
south africa, um, and I cameback with cerebral malaria,
which is a very, very, veryserious disease and a very, very
serious case of very seriousdisease, and I almost lost my
(02:21):
life.
Um, I spent three weeks inhospital and the doctors didn't
think I was going to make it.
They didn't think I was goingto make it, but God pulled me
through that.
He threw through the answeredprayers of many, many people
around the world that werepraying for me.
He pulled me through that, andthat taught me a couple of
(02:41):
things.
Firstly, it's that God isalways in control, and even when
you can't see what is happening, you can't see why on earth is.
Why on earth am I, as I was 17at the time, why did I almost
lose my life?
And God was in control and hehad a plan.
Because that has shaped therest of my life and and my
(03:03):
attitude towards life in so manyways.
Because that was the secondthing was it made me realize
that we don't know how long wehave left on this earth, we
don't know what time God hasgiven us, and so we should be
using every single moment thatGod has given us for his glory,
(03:23):
for his purposes.
Joey (03:26):
And that really sparked me .
It was like a second lease,like a second lease on life.
Josh (03:29):
Yeah, exactly Exactly.
And it really sparked in me thesense of mission, like I have
to be using my time for God andhis glory, because I don't know
how much longer I've got left.
And when I was 12 and firstmade that commitment, I hadn't
felt good enough to get baptized, but it was.
(03:50):
It was this, this gettingmalaria, this almost losing my
life that that made me realizeno, I can't keep on putting this
up off because I don't thinkI'm good enough, because I'm
never going to be good enough.
And so so it was.
It was shortly after that thatthat I got baptized and that
just turned my life around.
And it has been, and that wasone of the most pivotal moments
for me in my entire life.
Joey (04:08):
I'm so thankful you shared that and it's such a contrast,
or seemingly a contrast.
Right, we have this deep, scarystory with these toy sets in
the background, but I'm excitedto see how this is going to come
together, how there's such agreat mission and purpose here
(04:28):
in what you're doing and whatwe're talking about, and how you
know you can think, oh, thatmeans you know, I had that
experience, so I became afull-time missionary or ordained
or pastor or clergy or man.
God has a certain mission foryou right now.
I'm just excited and think ofall the young people that could
be watching or listening.
You know, when they find outabout hey, there's an interview
about Legos Bible man, maybethere's a young teenager
(04:51):
watching right now, listeningright now.
What a testimony, you know, at17 years old, realizing, man,
I'm not guaranteed the next day.
I want to live for the Lord.
Josh (05:03):
Yeah, this is.
This is what I'd encouragethose kind of people that are
listening.
If you're, if you're young, andespecially if you're going
through a really tough period inyour life like during the time
it is, it's so tough, itgenuinely and and that's that's
not a bad thing but if you're achristian, you can hold on to
that hope that God has a plan,that God has a plan and, as I've
(05:27):
seen in my life, I went througha very tough time when I was 17
.
But I've been able to look backover the past three years and
see exactly why God put methrough that time, exactly why I
went through that, and it'sbuilt me up as a person in so so
many ways.
That and it's it's built me upas a person and in so so many
(05:48):
ways, and and that is that isthe promise that god gives us,
isn't it?
Romans, romans 8, 28 in allthings, god has a plan.
Yeah, for those who love him,um, and that's just such a, it's
such an amazing promise to beable to hold on to that.
Even if you're going through atough time in your life, god has
a plan.
He's going to be using that insome way amen, amen.
Joey (06:04):
Um, you know, for folks that are watching or listening,
I'm, you know, looking away heredoing the sound and some of the
technical stuff.
But, uh, man, just because Iwant everybody to hear what
you're saying, ah, so blessed.
Uh, joshua, josh, um, I'llprobably go back and forth
between josh and joshua D.
You know, that's the amazingthing about the Lord.
(06:25):
You know we could talk aboutthis one thing for the hour, but
there's a lot of other thingsthat we want to talk about.
So, in kind of changingsubjects, I realize too.
You know, we have 10-plusminutes into our time together
and people still might not knowwhat's with the Legos, what are
we talking about?
What's going on?
So I want to kind of skip ahead.
Before we come back, just tellus a little bit about Go Chatter
(06:48):
Studios, about what you guysare doing, kind of why you're
our guest today, and what we'llbe talking about.
Josh (06:55):
Yeah, sure, so Go Chatter Studios is a ministry that is
making the Bible brick by brick.
So we are making three to fourminute long lego animations of
stories from throughout thebible, and the goal is to make
the whole bible in lego stopmotion.
Now, obviously there's going tobe a few areas of bible that
are trickier to make into legostop motion, but if you picture,
(07:17):
if you picture, for example, achildren's storybook bible, a
picture book, that's that's whatwe want to do, but in lego stop
motion in three to four minutelong videos, and so by the end
of the project the goal is tohave 70 to 80 lego animations
from throughout the whole biblethat are telling the story of
jesus, from genesis torevelation, and we're nine
(07:41):
animations in so far.
We've got another two comingout in the next couple months.
So, as I'm sure we'll talkabout a bit later, we've got
Creation coming out on the 5thof March and then the Prodigal
Son coming out a month or soafter that, and so, yeah, we're
a decent way into the project.
Joey (07:59):
Let me ask you one thing, and I realize we're going to
backtrack here in a moment toget more of the start in the
story, but I've seen only a fewof them.
I need to catch up.
I've seen a few.
Are you purposing to committedto maybe that's too strong of a
word having the gospel at theend of every single one, or is
(08:19):
it kind of animation byanimation?
Josh (08:24):
So what we're trying with all of our animations is to
always tell more than just thestory, because there's a lot,
there's a lot of bible storiesout there and then lego, stop
motion animations that that tellthe story, and that's that's
great.
That genuinely is that, don'tget me wrong that's a really,
really good thing to be doing.
It's just telling the story,but we do, as an organization,
(08:46):
we do want to be going that stepfurther as well, particularly
because a huge part of whatwe're doing is is evangelistic.
Lego is such a such a draw,such an eye-catching medium to
be using.
Yeah, that what we're doing isis actually very evangelistic,
especially online and because ofwe don't want to just be
(09:06):
telling the story, but we wantto be bringing in the meaning
behind each story and pointingto Jesus.
So it won't necessarily alwaysbe the explicit word for word
gospel message at the end ofevery animation, but we will
always be trying to be bringingin the meaning behind each story
and, where possible, pointingat jesus.
(09:27):
So, for example, I don't knowif david and goliath is one of
our animations that you've seen,but we tell the story of david
and goliath and then go into whydavid is a picture of jesus.
Why why that story is soimportant and what it means for
us today.
And that's something that we dowith all of our animations and
will continue to do for thewhole project.
Joey (09:48):
Gotcha, gotcha, yeah.
The last one that I saw wasJonah, so that was just too easy
.
I mean, jesus said, like Jonah,I'm going to do this.
So, that was just the Lord setthat one up for you so amazing.
Okay, so now everybody's up tospeed.
Go Chatter Studios, the entireBible, as you would find it
(10:08):
almost like a children's Bible70 to 80 animations, the whole
Bible, brick by brick.
Now let's rewind a little bitNow.
I didn't tell you this ahead oftime, but my wife actually
thought of this question.
Can you remember your firstLego set?
I can, indeed.
Josh (10:30):
Oh nice.
Can you remember your firstlego set?
I can indeed.
Oh nice, okay, it was.
It was a, a lego castle, um, soit was.
Oh, what was it?
Yes, it was a very, very oldlego castle that came out in the
1970s or 80s how do you, how doyou even get a hold of?
that.
Well, my dad got a hold of iton on ebay and he got it for me
for my fifth birthday.
Um, and like he knew he knew II liked castles.
I was big into medieval swords,knights, castles, that sort of
(10:54):
thing.
And so he found, he found thiscastle on ebay, bought it for me
for my fifth birthday.
It was a massive, like 700 pieceset, which for a five-year-old
is I was gonna say as your firstset my first set is my first
set, um, but yeah, threw me inthe deep end and that's really
got what got me hooked, got mestarted, and it just kept on
growing and growing from there.
So, yeah, that was, that was myfirst set that's amazing.
Joey (11:17):
Do you remember what it was like building it?
Was it hard or frustrating?
Did it come easy, was it?
What was it like when youfinished?
Tell us more about that firstset man, yeah, I mean the.
Josh (11:27):
The first time I built it was with my dad, um so okay, he
was out as a five-year-old okayfirst 700 piece lego set.
No, my dad, my dad did help alot, so so he, he likes, he
likes to claim that, um, he'sthe reason this whole ministry
started.
Okay, um, but yeah, yeah, no, soso it was, it was a lot of fun,
but but what I do remember isthat, with with all of the lego
(11:50):
sets that I built and and eventhat early on I would build them
and I'd enjoy building the setand I built that first one with
my dad, but then I'd take itapart and I'd build something
else.
And that that was the caseright from the beginning of of
my passion for lego was I'dalways I'd build the set because
it was fun.
I'd got the set, but then I'dalways take it apart, I turn it
(12:11):
into something else.
With this castle, I turn itinto various other castles, into
ships, what it, what, whateverit was, um, and that was the
case with every single set.
I got it, it would, it wouldlast for a few days, and then
I'd start taking pieces from itinteresting because most people
display them, but you wanted totake them apart and and recreate
, I mean right from the age offive.
Joey (12:32):
And we can see I mean I'm pointing behind you, we can see.
Well, that's that makes sensenow, right?
Josh (12:37):
yeah, take, take the pieces and make your own thing.
These ones I keep togetherbecause, yeah, models and I have
to.
Joey (12:44):
But but it was up to me.
Josh (12:46):
They'd all be in pieces by now.
That's funny.
Something else into dragons,whatever, but what?
Joey (12:50):
I mean is.
What I mean is and we touchedon this already right, the, the
creativity that the lord hasgiven you, with the imagination
that you can take, you know theI don't know what the right word
is the unassigned bricks or theindividual bricks and create
your own set right, your owndesign in a sense, and I look
forward to hear about your teamand who's helping you and what
different people do.
But that gifting that again I'mthinking of if parents are
(13:14):
watching and listening, right,that way the Lord designed you
right and the way the Lord madeyou and the mind he gave you
really really neat, reallyinteresting to see how that's
developing.
You know, I guess the next sortof well, if, if you wanted to
say anything on that, I mean I,I was.
Josh (13:32):
I was just going to say that that every aspect of this
ministry is down to the lord,like the, the, the gifts that
he's given me is down to thelord, as, as we'll find out as
we'll chat about in a bit how hegot me here, it's all down to
the lord, and and that that isthe the case with everyone in
ministry is that their gifts andskills are all down to the lord
and we are, we're just vesselsthat god is using for his
(13:54):
kingdom and his glory oh man,amen.
Joey (13:57):
So I guess the next logical thing would be well, you
, you got your, your castlebuilt, you unbuilt it.
And how do we get to, brick bybrick, through the Bible?
I mean, how did this developinto you starting this ministry
and this project?
Josh (14:13):
Absolutely so.
As I mentioned earlier on, abig part of this was the fact
that my family emigrated out toSouth Africa in 2014.
So I'd already been a Lego fanfrom from when I got my first,
first Lego set, that firstcastle.
I'd been a Lego fan since then,but it was when, when my family
(14:34):
emigrated out to South Africa,that that that really, really
grew.
And I'd always wondered, fromfrom when I was five, six, seven
, eight years old, I'd alwayswondered, from from when I was
five, six, seven, eight yearsold, I'd always wondered how on
earth can I be using my, myskills and my passions for God?
Right, because I was aChristian, I love Lego and I
(14:54):
remember being in a Sundayschool where they were they were
talking about the parable ofthe talents and I remember
thinking, oh, how can I be using, how can I be using my skills
in Lego for God?
At the time I was like, maybe Ibuild a whole church out of
Lego and people can worship in aLego church.
Which, yeah, gives you insightinto my eight-year-old
(15:15):
imagination, but obviouslythat's not very practical, and
so I wasn't really sure how Icould be using my skills and
passions for God.
Anyway, as I said, my familyemigrated out to South Africa in
2014, and there we startedhomeschooling.
So my my parents um boughtnature reserve.
We lived in the middle ofnowhere, and so we didn't see
(15:36):
people a lot, so we werehomeschooled out in South Africa
, and so what that meant was Iwas able to do all my school in
the morning, I was done bylunchtime and I'd spend the rest
of the afternoon everyafternoon playing with Lego,
building models, and then, onceI turned 13 and was allowed to
(15:57):
get allowed to start enteringcompetitions online, because you
have to be 13 or above to entersome of these online
competitions that was whatreally took my passion to the
next level.
I'm quite a competitive person,and so I found out about these
competitions when I was 12,actually, and started building
models for them, waiting a wholeyear, and then, as soon as I
was 13, I started entering them,and that was the next five
(16:22):
years of my life pretty muchjust building and entering these
Lego competitions.
Joey (16:26):
Let me interject there because I know nothing about
this.
Maybe some of our listeners orviewers can you elaborate on
kids listening if they want toparticipate.
Josh (16:38):
Yeah, sure.
So the site that I first gotinvolved with is Lego Ideas.
That I first got involved withis Lego Ideas.
So if you're a fan of Lego, youmay well have heard of the Lego
Ideas line, which is essentiallyfan designers designing models
that then have a chance ofbecoming a Lego set, and so all
(16:58):
the products in the Lego Ideasline have been designed by fan
designers rather than officiallego designers.
Yeah, and, and that wasparticularly what caught my
imagination was designing amodel with the chance of it
becoming a lego set have any ofyour models become one sadly,
sadly not, oh man that wouldhave been crazy, very, very hard
process okay, um but the.
(17:19):
So the process is first you haveto get to 10 000 supporters on
lego ideas and then it goesthrough a review process once
you get to that 10 000, and Igot two of my models to 10 000
supporters but hey, that'ssomething cool.
Joey (17:33):
Do you remember what they were?
Can you share what they were?
Josh (17:35):
yeah, yeah, so it was a.
It was a fantasy castle was thefirst, of course, of course, of
course, of course, and then aworking lego orrery, um, and if
for the, for those of who don'tknow what an orrery is, it's
essentially a kinetic modelwhere the sun's in the middle
and then you have the earthspinning around the sun and then
(17:56):
the moon spinning around theearth at the same time.
And, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Yeah, so those are the two thatgot to 10,000, but sadly,
neither of them passed thereview, so you were doing that
your whole teenage life.
So I was doing that my wholeteenage years and then also on
Lego Ideas.
They have competitions wherethey'll give you a prompt.
You get 30 days to build basedon that prompt.
(18:18):
You submit an image.
Joey (18:20):
These are different kinds of competitions and things you
could do Okay.
Josh (18:29):
And is that through the same site.
I think I'm looking at it now.
Uh, challenges, yeah, like legoideas, okay, yeah, challenges.
And then they, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that.
Um, so, yeah, that's that'swhat really got me started.
And then I started moving intothe, the wider community there's
.
There's lots of competitionsrun on on discord stuff like
summer jououst and Bricks,calibre, all these sorts of
things in the wider LEGOcommunity.
But as I started making moreand more LEGO models, I got more
(18:52):
and more known in the LEGOcommunity.
And yeah it just startedexpanding, so you're LEGO famous
.
I'm just kidding.
Joey (19:00):
In some circles, in some circles, okay okay, well, hey,
hopefully how do I say thisproperly?
Hopefully you will be, becauseof what the lord's gonna do and
how the lord's gonna use it.
Amen.
So praise the lord, awesome, um.
So now you're getting to 17, 18.
You go through this tremendousuh trial in your life.
You nearly die, yeah, um.
So where are we at now in thethe?
Josh (19:22):
So go back a couple years first to lockdown, and that's
where the.
Bible animation started.
So it was during lockdown thatmy mom actually suggested hey,
why don't you make some?
She was helping with the Sundayschool at the time and she
asked me hey, could you makesome?
(19:43):
Could you make some legoanimations for my sunday school
lesson?
And so I made.
I made a few very, very basiclego animations during lockdown.
Uh, over the course of 2020 itwas um, and I posted these.
I posted these to my youtubeYouTube channel at the time and
(20:04):
then very quickly started losingsubscribers because I I'd I'd
never posted Christian contentbefore, and then suddenly I was
posting Christian content and Istarted.
Now it was only it was onlylike 20, 30 subscribers that I
lost, but at the time that was abig deal for me, yeah, and and
so I was like, oh, I don't wantto be losing subscribers, and so
(20:25):
I took the Christian contentoff the channel and put it on
this separate channel.
That was mostly hidden andnobody found out about.
Joey (20:36):
Because having it available online was the way
that the Sunday school wouldaccess it.
That's why it needed to be onthere.
Josh (20:43):
Yeah, exactly, but I took it off my main channel and put
it off, put it off a second oneand I always, I always felt a
bit bad about this becausebecause I'd kind of been well,
I'd been hiding my faith, um andand when I'd, when I put it out
I'd, I'd then took them offbecause I'd been embarrassed,
I'd lost subscribers and and,yeah, I felt bad that the
(21:04):
subscribers were were moreimportant to me.
but anyway, god, god had a planbecause and again through my mum
, he put me in touch with thisChristian ministry in the UK.
So my mum my mum, had a had acontact that was working at a
Christian, a Christian ministryhere in the UK that was making
(21:24):
video content, and the contactshe had in this Christian
ministry sent some of the videosthat she'd made under this
ministry to my mum, and my mumresponded in typical mum fashion
by sharing some of my videosthat I'd made.
Joey (21:41):
Look at what my son has done.
Josh (21:43):
Exactly, exactly.
I get it.
I'm a parent man.
It's normal we, if somethinghappens, that switch turns on
Sorry, no, absolutely Absolutely.
And so, yeah.
So she she responded by sharingsome of my videos and then this
, this Christian ministry werelike oh, these are cool.
And they got in touch with me.
We hopped on a call and thatthat was, I guess, officially
(22:05):
the start of of the lego project.
Um, so, under this christianministry, I started freelancing.
I started freelancing for them,um, and over the course of that
next year, so so it was it wasin the end of 2021 that this
ministry got in touch with meand I started freelancing for
them at the beginning of 2022.
I did the Easter animation forthat Easter Easter of 2022, then
(22:30):
had a break over the summerwhile I was in the hospital with
malaria, and then, once I wasout of hospital with malaria, I
started working on the Christmasstory, freelance as well as my
finals, because this was myfinal year of school.
So 2022 was a slightly crazyyear for me, um, but yeah, yeah.
(22:50):
So I was freelancing with thisministry for a year and then, at
the end of that year, I waslike, okay, well, I, I don't
want to go to universitystraight away.
I was planning on going touniversity in South Africa, but
I don't want to go straight away.
So I mentioned this to theministry that I'd been
freelancing for and they saidwell, why don't you come out and
work for us for a year andcarry on?
(23:12):
Carry on making the Legoanimations, because the Lego
animations have been doing so sowell under this ministry and it
was.
It was some of the best contentthat they'd and most popular
content that they'd made them ina while.
Um, and so they invited me tocome out to the uk and start
working for them for a year, andthen the plan was I'd go back
to south africa study the plan,the plan, the plan exactly yeah
(23:37):
um, study architecture orproduct design something like
that back in south africa, um,but the plan was my plan and not
God's plan and I got out to theUK, back to the UK, at the
beginning of 2023 and startedstarted this job really exciting
making Lego animations withthis Christian ministry for what
(23:58):
I thought was going to be ayear.
I started it within two weeks,literally two weeks.
I I knew that I was not goingback to South Africa and that
this, this was God's plan for mylife, and I phoned up my
parents and was like how wereyou so confident?
Joey (24:15):
How did that happen?
Josh (24:17):
Because I was just thinking what else do I want to
do with my life?
Like there's, there's nothingelse that I personally would
want to do with with my life,and God has given me this such
unique and honestly incredibleopportunity to be doing
literally my perfect dream job.
I'm not going to turn that down.
(24:39):
I'm not going to do it for ayear and then go back.
It was just, yeah, as I saidinitially, just thinking well, I
was planning on going touniversity, but then I'd want to
come back and do something likethis after university.
Joey (24:54):
Why not just stay on?
Just stay doing it, yeah.
Josh (24:58):
What's the point of university in that case?
So yeah, anyway, I phoned up myparents and was like I don't
think I'm coming back to SouthAfrica anymore.
And they were like oh yeah, weknew that, we knew you weren't
coming back.
Joey (25:11):
Wow, which was so, so funny, but also such apparent
moment yeah, and like a, like aconfirmation, you know, like a
confirmation for you as well,wow, wow, so, so, yeah, so we're
in 2023 right now, in thebeginning of 2023, that that I
started started working for this, this christian ministry,
full-timetime, and over thecourse of 2023 we made.
Josh (25:34):
so I made two animations freelance with them.
Over the course of 2023, wemade another five together and
then at the beginning of lastyear so at the beginning of 2024
we realized that for the Legoproject to really grow, really
expand because we could see alot of potential for it, but for
(25:56):
it to really grow and expand,we needed to move it out of of
this ministry, which was abusiness, it was a profit
structure where we were sellingthe videos, but that wasn't
really working, and so werealized we needed to move it
into a non-, into a charity herein the UK.
And so for a lot of last year,since pretty much April, may
(26:18):
time last year, I was working onsetting up this charity for,
specifically, the Lego project,and at the end of the year, last
October, the charity wasapproved, and so now we have
GoChat studios with the goal ofmaking the bible brick by brick,
and that is how this, thisministry, was formed wow.
Joey (26:40):
so for for folks that are not, well, you know it's funny.
So this we have the, the videointerview that we're doing.
Uh, there's going to be anaudio podcast as well.
And then this this might air onour FM radio, right, our
terrestrial radio, so my raingoes radio, for those tuning in,
which might still happen, right, people might tune in in the
(27:02):
middle of this.
I want to give the website,because we haven't said it.
We've said the name, but notthe website, which it's easy to
remember Gochatterstudiosorg,gochatterstudiosorg, and that's
that's probably the best placefor people to go to do.
You want to take a moment nowto give any other contact
information, channel information?
We'll repeat it again, butlet's just take a moment and
(27:24):
give the relevant information orchannels.
Josh (27:27):
Yeah, sure, sure.
So, as, as you said, ourwebsite is go chatter studiosorg
go chatter studiosorg.
Then if you want to get intouch with us, you can get in
touch by email and that will beinfo at gochatterstudiosorg.
That's info atgochatterstudiosorg.
And then we're also on socialmedia.
Go subscribe on youtube againgochatterstudios on youtube.
(27:49):
And on instagram and tiktok,again go chat studios.
Just search up go chat studios,you'll find us excellent,
excellent.
Joey (27:58):
So we've been talking about it, we've been seeing it
from afar, but, josh, I thinkyou have some things to show us,
some of the actual hands onwhat you guys are doing there at
go chatter studios.
This is probably one of theparts I was most excited for for
our video interview.
What, what are you, what areyou going to show us today?
Josh (28:21):
so I will start by showing you this massive set that I
have right next to me.
That's amazing.
So this, this is the set, andyou're going to get my head cut
off for now, but that's worth it, because you can see the lego
and that's what's important yeahum, so this, this is the set
that I built at the the start ofthis project, when, when I
moved back to the uk in 2023,because I knew even even at the
(28:45):
start, I was like, okay, well,even for a year, I'm going to be
making making bible animations,and pretty much every bible
animation that I make is goingto have some kind of town scene
and it's going to have some kindof landscape as well.
And so I built this set asbasically a covers all bases
(29:06):
that could be used and reusedand repurposed for every
animation that I made over thecoming years, and that's exactly
what it's been used for.
So this, this town scene, forexample, this has been used and
repurposed and rearranged.
The house has been rearrangedfor every single town scene that
we've used which which roof?
Joey (29:25):
which roof did you break through in the paralyzed man?
Do you remember?
Josh (29:29):
so it.
It wasn't one of these roofsthat that was physically broken
through okay the house.
The house that I used was thisone, so this was the exterior
house that I used, but then Imade a custom, custom built okay
, specifically for thebreakthrough that needed to be a
bit bigger, and and was wasslightly customized so that, so
(29:51):
that it had the, the few partsthat that fell through, um,
amazing, and and also the, theother.
The other thing with with myanimations is you'll you'll
probably notice that the, theoutside houses are a lot smaller
than the interior sets and andthat's because it's it would
just be too many bricks to buildthe houses.
Joey (30:12):
Is that like a plant creeping up the side of the
tower there?
Is that what that's supposed tobe?
I think you look at this one.
Josh (30:22):
There's plants creeping up the side of the tower.
What was really fun aboutbuilding particularly this town
scene was I did a lot ofresearch into first century
Israel culture what the houseswould have looked like back then
, what kind of details wouldhave been on the roof.
So, for example, you can seehere and where else over here as
(30:42):
well, you've got some beds,some mats on the roofs.
Oh, and here as well that'sprobably the closest You've got
some beds and mats on the roofsbecause people, people lived on
their roofs, like their roofswas a another room of the house.
Essentially gotcha you also got.
You also got some nice scrapelines on the tops of a lot of
the houses, and a lot of thehouses are kind of multi-story,
(31:05):
um, with stairs going on theoutside.
So you can see, you can see,here you've got, you've got
stairs going leading up to thisupper room in this house and
then again over here, thesynagogue.
This was built pretty muchground up from some ruins in
Israel that I found pictures ofonline, and so it's very
(31:26):
accurate to what a first centuryIsraelite synagogue would have
looked like.
And again, as you can see in thebackground, we've got some more
, some more landscape yeah,that's mountainous areas really
cool the mountainous area again,I was looking up what the kind
of cliffs and the mountainswould would have looked like in
that area, um.
So, yeah, this, this set, hasbeen incredibly, incredibly
(31:49):
useful over the past two, twoand a half years now, um, and,
as I said, I've used it in everysingle one of the animations
that that we've made so far.
So if, if you look through allof our all of our animations
since the start of this projectso not including christmas and
easter, but all of theanimations since, you'll be able
to spot parts of this set inevery single one of them that's
(32:12):
amazing.
Joey (32:13):
Oh, man, that's so cool.
Thank you for showing that tous.
And you know, again, you knowthe credit goes to the Lord, but
I hope folks listening realizethe amount of work that went
into that.
I mean, I don't know that Iever thought I would say, oh,
and here's a?
Um, archaeologically,historically accurate lego set
(32:36):
of israel, like that's amazing.
That's amazing how god led youto do all that.
And it comes through in thevideos.
You know, again, I, I, I, I'm,I'm put on the spot here, man, I
should have seen them all.
You know they're not that long,but but I have more to look
forward to, I guess.
But the ones that I've seen,man, they are so what's the word
you could just tell.
(32:58):
I mean, they're so thought out,they're so prayerful, they're
so scriptural, they're so good.
I mean, they're so good really,and not just because you know
you can't buy me lunch anyway,you're very far away, so it's
not to get, it's just for peoplelistening.
I mean, man, they're going tosee it.
I suspect many folks are goingto watch them.
Let me ask you something else.
(33:19):
Kind of jumping around here alittle bit now, kind of towards
the middle of our time together.
I've got some notes here, somewebsites open.
The other thing that I noticedis there seems to be a sort of a
poetry rhyming structure to it.
Uh, is it the same voice everytime?
Tell us maybe a little bit moreabout, uh, how the story's put
(33:41):
together and now, at this point,maybe some of the team as well,
tell us about that, yeah, yeah,yeah, absolutely.
Josh (33:47):
so.
To start to start with a bit ofthe process and the story
behind it, um, behind eachanimation yeah, the, the script
and the story is always thefirst step of every single
animation we make, because thatis the most important part of
the animation.
Sure, the the lego is reallycool and making the lego look
amazing is an important part ofthe animations, but the most
(34:09):
important part for us as achristian ministry is making
sure that we are accuratelyrelaying the Bible stories and,
as I said again earlier,bringing that true message, that
true gospel message and themeaning behind each of our
stories into the stories andinto the videos that we're
making.
So the script is always thefirst stage and we're very, very
(34:30):
blessed to have an incrediblytalented, incredibly gifted
scriptwriter and poet and voiceartist on the team called Rachel
Hood, and since the Christmasstory she has done all the
scripts, all the narration, allthe voiceover.
Joey (34:48):
So she actually writes the stories the rhyming the scripts
.
Josh (34:52):
I guess I say lyrics.
Joey (35:01):
Because it sounds very sing-songy.
Josh (35:02):
It was very it's very enjoyable to listen to, not just
to watch but to listen to.
Yeah, no, she, she.
I mean again, it's anotheramazing example of of god's
really really blessing andgifting someone and them using
their gifts, her using her giftsthat God has given her for his
glory.
And yeah, so it's a real, realblessing to have her on the team
and she does an amazing job attaking each Bible passage that
(35:22):
we do and then turning it into areally accessible, really
engaging and then rhyming scriptas well, and so, yeah, it's
such a blessing to have her onthe team.
So that's always the first stepof the animation and I tend to
work with her a bit on thatprocess, particularly because
sometimes there's things in thescript that, as she's writing
(35:47):
them, may be harder to turn intoLego animation or wouldn't
necessarily flow as well in avideo visually.
So I'll work with her a bit inthat process to kind of finalize
the script and make sure thatit's going to it's going to flow
well as an animation and notjust as a script, and and then
(36:08):
once, once the script isfinalized, I'll go through and
plan um, plan out the animation,plan what sets I'm going to
need to build, what, what thedifferent scenes are going to be
and I'll start.
I'll start by thinking okay,what parts of this set?
Joey (36:21):
can I use?
Josh (36:22):
for the animation.
But then if there's, if there'ssets that I'm going to need to
build on top of that, then I'llstart building those sets.
So say, for example, you cansee behind me creation.
It was the animation I've justfinished.
You can see the set forcreation behind me, which is a
completely new custom set that Ihad to build specifically for
creation.
Again, another, another setpiece that I show you here is
(36:45):
the boat, the boat from jonah,and again the, the whale as well
so both of those were custom.
Joey (36:52):
Those were from the ground up, yeah yeah, from the ground
up.
Josh (36:55):
So no, no instructions or anything.
Um, both both custom designedspecifically for for the jonah
animation can we see uh thewhale a little bit.
Joey (37:03):
Uh more front and center because there's like, uh, you
know I'm, I'm in, in in learningabout you guys.
Oh no, in learning about youguys, I've I've heard some of
the lingo.
You know the smooth face andthe brick face, and I mean
there's a lot of differentthings going on there.
Can you give us a tour of thedesign of this a little bit,
please?
Josh (37:23):
yeah, sure.
So I think the the first thingto start with is that everything
, everything is built builtoutwards.
So usually when you're buildinga lego model, uh, typically
you're going to have like two byfour blocks, one by two blocks,
whatever it is, and you'regoing to build it start.
We'll start with the base plateand you're just going to build
up, and that's that's how a lotof this model was built.
(37:44):
It was just built built up fromthe base plate, stacking plates
and bricks and and so on on topof each other.
This model was built completelydifferently.
Every single face is is builtoutward.
So you'll see studs here andstuds on the outside here, studs
in outside here, and basicallyI started with this model and
and with all animals I build.
(38:04):
So one of the one of my favoritethings to build, other than
castles, uh, back in the day waswas animals and nature related
stuff.
So whenever I'm building ananimal, I always start with the
face to to get the proportionsright.
So with with the whale, Istarted with the face.
Figure out okay, how, how am Igonna?
How am I gonna create the, thelook of the whale?
How am I gonna create the, thelook of the whale, how am I
(38:25):
going to create the curves ofthe face?
And I was, I was searchingonline for for parts in this
blue and this white and foundthat you got, you got this slope
piece, um, which if I uh,actually I'm not going to take
it off because otherwise thewhole whale's going to fall
apart.
Um, but but you can, you cansee, you can see this slope
piece.
I'll move it a bit closer yeah Isee um and and this, this slope
(38:47):
piece, came in in both blue andwhite which is what I needed to
create this, this shape at thefront of the whale, um, and then
, and then, it was just a caseof okay, next, next, figuring
out the positions of the eyes soI've got.
I've got these two main slopepieces.
Then let's figure out thepositioning of the eyes.
That's the the next mostimportant part in terms of
(39:08):
creating the proportions of theface yeah and then figure out
how the mouth is going to work,because this was the whale for
jonah.
Joey (39:16):
It needed it had to articulate yeah, I've got my
jonah character.
Josh (39:21):
Um, right here, there we go.
Joey (39:23):
Here's the, here's the Jonah character, and it had to
be able to fit the Jonahcharacter inside the mouth, and
then you built a set of aninterior of a whale also, yeah,
which is separate.
That's amazing.
Josh (39:36):
Exactly.
And then, once the face waskind of, once the face is kind
of down, it was relatively easyto just kind of taper off that
shape to the back and thencreate a tail with some hinges
so that I could, I could animatethe movements of the fins.
And again you've got, you'vegot the fins on the on the side,
which may as well, so they canall be animated Again.
Joey (39:59):
This is one of those.
This is one of those.
Yeah, yeah, this is one ofthose things where each one of
these pieces and how'd youdesign this and what pieces do
you use maybe you know maybewe'll do down the road lego
series how to build this thing,but, um, so many questions are
coming to my mind.
I'm trying to write some downas well.
Um, I forgot man building thewhale.
(40:23):
Maybe learning how to build thewhale.
I don't remember that part.
Um, I know something I hadwritten down here as you started
talking about the process howlong does it take from beginning
to end, from concept topublishing the animation?
Josh (40:39):
yeah, yeah.
So so from beginning to end, ittakes on average about two to
three months, from concept tofinished animation.
And just to finish the, becauseI just remembered where we were
.
Oh sorry, sorry From the whale,but just to finish that and
bring in the rest of the team.
So once I finish building thesets like the whale I'll then go
(41:02):
on to the animation process,like the whale, um, I'll then go
on to the animation process andit's a cycle of setting up a
scene, then animating andsetting up the next scene and
animating and so on, and that'sgenerally the longest part of
the process.
And once all the animation'sdone, then I have a, an editor
on the team, uh, called joshmanley, who puts so another josh
is very confusing with a smallteam having two out of three
(41:23):
people both called josh.
Anyway, um, we've got used toit by now, but, yeah, um, so so
josh josh works on on editingthe animations.
So he, he takes all the clipsthat I send him, puts them all
together, he adds rachel'svoiceover that she's already
recorded, then he has music andsound effects.
Uh, he does all the complicatededits, like for the whale had
(41:46):
to remove the stand that washeld up on I saw that bring that
and just bring the whale backinto scene.
I was, I was animating it onthis stand, moving it along on
this stand, so this, the stand,had to be edited out, yeah, in
in the final footage, and so.
So, stuff, stuff like that hedoes.
And then he'll also make thesocial media posts around, uh,
around, promoting each of ouranimations, um, and, and then
(42:10):
the.
The final, the final member ofthe team is is our other
animator, amy, and sheessentially does the the same
thing as me, um, so she'll,she'll work on animations at the
cycles of setting up scenes,then animating them, setting up
the next scene and animatingthem.
And we, what?
What we do as a, as a team, iswe work on separate projects as
(42:32):
animators.
So I, while I've been workingon the story of creation, she's
been working on the prodigal son, and so that's so smart, so
nobody's waiting.
Joey (42:41):
There's always something in Exactly.
Josh (42:43):
Man, you guys got this dialed in.
Joey (42:46):
That's really smart.
Josh (42:48):
So, yeah, that's the team at the moment, the whole three
of us.
So myself, amy and Josh, do youanticipate as well as people
like Rachel and others who dofreelance work for us.
So Rachel's not full-time, butvery, very, very key member of
the team.
Joey (43:07):
Do you anticipate that the team's going to need to grow as
the the um you get further intothe bible?
Josh (43:13):
yeah, oh, absolutely gotcha, and that's that's very
much the plan, because it's it'sthe.
The speed that we can makeanimations is proportional to
the number of animators we havegotcha and and so it's.
It's very much the the planthat, as this project continues,
we'll be increasing the numberof animators, so that we can
then increase the number ofanimations that we're releasing,
(43:35):
do you think I don't know ifthis is one in the same you'll
bring in other builders, or youthink you'll be the one building
all of it?
I think I'll be the one buildingall of it.
So so, partly because, as theproject goes on, there's going
to be less building to do likewith this set, not gonna have to
rebuild that again, um, butalso also because the the lego
(43:57):
skill that god has given me is alot rarer and and it's also a
very unique style.
So so this is something youmight not know about about lego,
but it's the same as with anyart medium um, you have painters
.
Every painter has a completelydifferent style, and it's
exactly the same with lego.
Every, every lego artist has acompletely different style.
(44:21):
And so if, if I brought inanother lego builder into the
team, they'd have a differentstyle, um, and that could be
good.
But I think I think there'svalue in in keeping a as an
overall style for our animations, for the whole project.
That makes it recognizable,that that makes them stand out,
and so I think I will probablyend up sticking to being the
(44:43):
only builder for for theanimations that's interesting.
Joey (44:45):
That's really, really interesting, josh, I can't
believe it.
We're kind of getting towardsthe end of our time together and
I know there's two things forsure I want to cover, which is
upcoming animations, wherepeople can donate, support, give
all that bullet pointinformation I wanted to talk
about or hear about what's kindof like the main mission and
(45:09):
vision.
Right, what?
What's the mission?
You know, and and we talkedbefore, it's those kind of two
branches.
So I want to end with those twothings.
One last thing before we get tothose final two things uh,
they're kind of I can't lumpthem all into one question.
Okay, first question that itcould be a very brief answer the
(45:29):
minifigs.
Is it mostly just mixing andmatching?
Is there any painting orcustomization?
Josh (45:34):
yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's mostly just mixing, matching, um
, the.
The furthest we go in terms of,in terms of painting
customization is, uh, I'll take.
I'll give you the goliathfigure, for example.
Um, so this is, this is ourfigure for goliath and this,
this torso here that is used toto give him his height.
Let me find a another legominifigure to compare.
(45:56):
So this is the usual legominifigure and this is goliath.
Um, and the, the torso is fromhagrid, from harry pot Potter.
Yeah, and what what I've doneis is erase the, the printing,
so he does have his like hiscloak or whatever it is.
So I've erased the printing tomake it plain and then to be
able to use it for for Goliath.
But but yeah, it's very much aa case of mixing and matching
(46:19):
different parts from differentcharacters and finding ways to
creatively reuse differentdifferent parts.
So a lot of the characters arefrom Star Wars, from Lord of the
Rings, from the Hobbit, thatsort of thing.
Joey (46:32):
That's so cool, okay.
And then this gets to the nextpart of the question, which I
can kind of bundle up.
What would you say to any kidsthat want to build their own
Bible Legos and start to, justfor their own sake, right, just
to enjoy, just to learn?
And again, the second part ofthe question is a little silly
(46:53):
on purpose, and we also want tobe careful speaking about
companies and speaking well ofcompanies.
But the silly part of thequestion is do they just buy
their Bible sets from Lego, oror, or?
What can kids do um with thisidea that you've given them?
Josh (47:07):
yeah, yeah, of course.
So lego.
Lego doesn't sell any biblesets themselves, but the great
thing about lego is that you cando whatever you want with it.
It's it's up to yourimagination.
And so what I'd encouragechildren, family teenagers that
are listening to this, I justencourage you to go for it, get
out your Lego collection andstart being creative, because
(47:29):
that is what Lego's for.
It's for being creative.
Um yeah, they make.
They make the sets, but butit's the purpose of Lego is is
to get you being creative and toget you thinking outside of the
box and make your own thing.
Um so, so get out, get out yourStar Wars, get out your castles
and start turning them intoBible scenes, because, genuinely
(47:52):
, you can be using any bricks tocreate whatever you want.
Joey (47:56):
So cool, so cool man, thank you.
So I want to start to land theplane here in, like I said,
giving people the information onwhat's coming up next and how
they can support this ministryand this project.
So, as of recording, we're in,we're in early february, as of
recording yeah, that's right.
Josh (48:15):
so so, as a recording, I have just finished the story of
creation, as I as I mentioned,which is very, very exciting.
It's been a this one has been asix month process six days, but
a six month process.
Okay, but that's that's.
Because of the whole charitysetup over over the past few
months, it's it's taken a bitlonger, but yeah, I've been
(48:37):
working on creation for aboutthe past six months and it it
was, it was finished at thebeginning of last week.
And Creation the story ofCreation, will be releasing on
our website, on our YouTubechannel, on the 5th of March, so
in just over a month fromrecording date, just under a
month even from recording date,march 5th, for Creation, that's
(48:58):
the March 5th, or 5th of Marchif you're from Europe 5th of
March 5th of March.
So, yeah, creation will be outfifth of march and after
creation, as I said, my, mycolleague amy, has been working
on the prodigal son and now,nice, something that I don't
think we've particularlymentioned in in this podcast yet
(49:21):
but is worth mentioning now isthe fact that we are a fully
crowdfunded project so all ofour animations are made
completely available, completelyfor free, for you guys to watch
and download and use in inchurches and sunday schools, in
christian ministries.
Joey (49:37):
Yeah, that is all, completely for free, and that
goes into that last question.
Josh (49:41):
Yeah, and that goes into that last question.
And that's that's because weare a crowdfunded project, and
so if you want to help supportthe creation of our next
animations, you can go to ourwebsite gochatsstudiosorg and
you can donate towards thefunding of each of our next
animations.
So we're currently still in theprocess of funding the Prodigal
(50:04):
Son, so if you want to helpfund that, you can go to our
website and start donatingtowards that.
Joey (50:11):
Oh, and then I see a funding soon.
Josh (50:14):
Exactly.
Then, once the prodigal son isdone, we will be on to funding
the book of Ruth.
Once the book of Ruth is funded, we will then and I'm very
excited about this, so getexcited as well.
We are doing a three partseries of the book of Exodus,
which is going to be a hugeamount of fun.
There's going to be some crazyscenes in that.
I'm looking forward to doingthe party of the Red Sea and all
(50:36):
the 10 plagues, but yeah,that's kind of a bit of a
forecast 10 plagues in Lego,interesting it's going to be so
much fun.
It's going to be so much fun,it's going to be so much fun,
interesting, and so that's a bitof a forecast of the immediate
future of this project.
Joey (50:51):
Yeah, and thank you for that.
I mean that was kind of like abehind-the-scenes exclusive,
because on the website it onlygoes so far as Ruth.
So only our listeners andviewers.
You know what's coming afterRuth, so that's why you got to
tune in to God's Way Radio andlisten to the podcast produced
in part by God's Way Radio.
Hey, just a little plug therefor the ministry here, and I
(51:12):
really wanted to give you achance to again speak to church
leaders, listening how they canuse your resources, what's
available, what's not available,what's required if anything and
then also talk about theevangelistic side of the
ministry yeah, yeah, yeah,absolutely so.
Josh (51:31):
As I briefly mentioned in in that last section, all of our
resources are available forfree.
All of our videos are availablefor free on our website.
It's very, very easy to go toour videos page.
You can go to our videos page.
You can search up our thevarious different animations
that we have and then you can goand download them.
All you need to do to downloadthem is just enter your name and
(51:53):
email and check a box to saythat you're going to follow our
terms of use, and that's all youneed.
All you need to do to downloadthem.
You don't need to sign up oranything, it's just name and
email.
Joey (52:02):
Great, yeah, and the terms of use are pretty standard.
You know, don't use it on yourown social media, don't make
money off of it, that kind ofstuff yeah, exactly exactly that
.
Josh (52:11):
So, so it's not at all a complicated process and we're
not asking you to sign up to asubscription or anything like
that.
Um, it's, we want to make it assimple and as easy for for
church leaders, for children'sworkers to be using our
animations, to be downloadingthem, and, of course, if you
don't want to go to our website,you can always just use them
off YouTube, go to our YouTubechannel, check them out there,
(52:34):
but they will be available onour website earlier than they
are available on YouTube.
Joey (52:38):
Oh, interesting, so that March 5th date was for the
website for creation.
Josh (52:42):
So for creation it's for both, but sometimes so website
for creation.
So so for creation it's forboth, okay, but sometimes so say
, for example, easter's comingout, coming up soon, easter's
going to be, easter's alreadyavailable on our website, but
it's only going to be releasedon youtube a couple weeks prior
gotcha gotcha, so it depends onthe animation, depends on the
animation, um, but yeah, yeah,the.
(53:02):
The idea with these resources isthat you can use them to
support your ministries inwhatever way.
Really, the great thing aboutLego is that it is such a good
way of engaging children andcaptivating them, because the
thing with Lego is it'ssomething that already is
emotionally connecting with them.
They already love Lego, theyalready are engaged when they
(53:26):
see lego, and so by using legoto tell bible stories, you
already have a higher engagementrate and you already are
captivating and helping thechildren to to actually listen
and actually want to listen.
So they're not going to think,oh no, it's bible time again.
They're going to think, oh,lego, lego, I want to listen
(53:47):
this is what are we doing withlabels.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, and soit's such a great way of
engaging children, engagingyouth and engaging people of all
ages yeah, to be honest,because who doesn't love like,
yeah, um, with with the bible,with the gospel, which I think
is such an important thing thesedays?
Because certainly I don't knowwhat it's like for you guys in
(54:07):
the States, but certainly herein the UK, where we're based,
there's more and more peoplethat just have no idea who Jesus
is and have no idea of evenbasic Bible stories like David
and Goliath and the story ofJonah, the story of Jonah.
(54:28):
And so that brings me into theother aspect of this ministry,
which is the evangelistic side,and using the fact that we're
using Lego as a way of drawingin people who haven't come
across these stories, who maybeare less familiar with
Christianity, drawing them intothe gospel, into the Bible,
using the medium of Lego Because, again, when they're scrolling
online, when they're scrollingthrough their social media feeds
(54:50):
, they're not going to think, ohno, it's Bible, let's not watch
this.
They're going to see the Legoand they're going to think, oh,
this is so cool.
Joey (54:58):
What is it?
Josh (54:58):
Yeah, yeah, I want to watch and this is exactly what
we've seen on our social medias.
We've seen on our social mediasis we've seen so so many
comments over over the past fewmonths now that we've set up as
a charity, of people commentingon our videos and saying, hey,
I'm a muslim, hey, I'm anatheist, but I really, really
enjoyed this content and they'rewatching it anyway, and that's
(55:19):
because it's lego, because it'sengaging, because it's engaging
and because it's connecting withthem, outside of the fact that
it's it's a Bible story.
And so that then helps connectthem with the Bible story.
Joey (55:31):
Yeah, oh man, Joshua, I'm so excited and again, if people
didn't catch it, they didn'tmake that connection we had the
opportunity to meet on theground level of what God's doing
.
You know, at the beginning, atthe inception, like you said at
the time of this recording, it'sbeen not even a year, I mean
(55:52):
just several months since you'veestablished the charity and
really pushing forward fullspeed ahead.
So we're so excited to havefound you.
I hope many, many people willlearn about you through this and
then tell others about GoChatter Studios.
So, Joshua, by God's miracle, Icovered everything I wanted to
(56:13):
cover.
We've heard so much about GoChatter Studios.
We've learned about you.
We've got to see behind thescenes a little bit.
Is there anything else youwanted to share or mention
before we end our time together?
Josh (56:28):
I think the only thing that I'd want to end on is that
I would just really encouragepeople going away from for the
gifts that God has given you andto trust that he knows what
(56:50):
he's doing in your life and tobe seeking ways of using those
gifts and using the situationthat God has put you in for his
good and for his glory.
I think one final story thatI'll share and this is something
that we kind of touched on umearlier is is that when, when I
first started making bibleanimations, as I said, I took
(57:14):
them off my channel because I Iwas embarrassed, I I didn't like
the fact that I was losingfollowers, losing subscribers,
and so I took them off mychannel.
But now, when, when I startedworking for the ministry in the
UK full-time, I was like, okay,right, god, I'm going to give
this another go.
I'm going to start posting thevideos that I'm making with this
(57:34):
ministry to my own social mediachannels and just see what
happens, because I'm not goingto be creating any other lego
content.
This is going to be the onlycontent I have to post, so let's
just start posting it and seewhat happens.
And, god, I'm just gonna trustyou, even if, even if I'm a bit
scared of what might happen tomy following, um, and so I
(57:54):
started posting the christiancontent that I was making on my,
particularly on my instagram,and at the time on my instagram,
I was on about 2000 followersand over the course of the and
that's, that's 2000 followersthat I built up over about two
years of being on Instagram,over the course of the next six
months of posting just Christiancontent, for the first time I
(58:18):
had reached 50,000 followersjust just from, just from
posting the Christian contentand videos were getting millions
, literally millions of views,and it was just such such an
eye-opener to me that I had beenlike I'd been scared to post my
Christian content and to to putmy name out there for God.
(58:40):
Um, and it was just such aneye-opener that I I should have,
I should never have doubted, Ishould never have been scared
for one second, because as soonas, as soon as you're taking
that step for God, god is goingto, god is going to meet you, he
meets you there and he's goingto carry you through and take
you above and beyond what youcould ever have expected.
(59:03):
So I'd really encourage you.
If you're holding back fromsharing your faith or if you're
scared to do so, just trust thatGod is going to meet you there
and he has a plan for your life,yeah.
Joey (59:16):
Oh man, joshua, I'm so glad that you ended with that.
It's an encouragement to me,it's an encouragement to anyone
listening or watching, and all Ican say is I look forward to
speaking with you again.
I can't wait to see what God'sgoing to do and, who knows,
maybe God's Way Radio andthrough our radio ministry or
through our podcast, can be partof the journey and check back
(59:36):
in from time to time and hearand see what's going on.
Joshua, it's been a great time.
Josh (59:42):
Thank you so much, jerry.
God bless you, god bless.
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