Dungeons & Disciples

Tony Benda 0:19
Hello, hello everyone out there. Welcome back to dungeons and disciples. For those who are here for the first time, my name is Tony bender. And this is a podcast about Dungeons and Dragons. And we love that game. And here we are trying to do this game from a biblical perspective. So thank you for joining us today. It seems that our normal co host Josh is out today. But his two evil twin brother Joe, she's here.

Josh Shaw 0:52
Hi. Ay, yeah, I

Tony Benda 0:57
don't know what came over Josh to interrupt today. And he said he's tried it yet.

Josh Shaw 1:09
He's out with laryngitis. Oh, yeah.

Tony Benda 1:11
Josh is out with Leonard Wood learn jazz Joshi is taking his place tonight. Hello, now this is Josh Shaw with me in the booth again today. You know,

Josh Shaw 1:21
this is the worst. This is the worst. I really don't know what else to say about it. But I will say it's good. Because what we're going to be talking about today correlates with what's going on. That's exactly true. When you think about it, really. Because we plan an episode about talking about using our voice to carry the gospel, and then hearing the voice of God.

And we plan this a couple days ago. And then all of a sudden, my voice is gone.

Tony Benda 2:04
That's the funniest thing in the world, either.

Josh Shaw 2:06
It's terrible coincidence, or the enemy does not want this to happen. And I want to tell you why. Because today, Tony, we have a special guest this we do

Tony Benda 2:18
I special is one way to put it. So it was it was July 10 1997. That my life forever changed. I was no longer the only son in our household. I think all of Illinois wept that day.

Aaron Benda 2:40
I know. Laura did.

Tony Benda 2:41
My sister. Yeah, our sister wept. Because apparently my brother Aaron, who is now joining us in the booth was supposed to be girl according to her mother. But that didn't happen. Surprise. We had a baby brother. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Josh Shaw 2:59
That's how that's how we're gonna introduce him.

Tony Benda 3:02
I don't use my brother. I don't I don't know any other like way to introduce him other than just think

Aaron Benda 3:08
about it this way. If I was a girl, I probably wouldn't be playing d&d. That is very true now because girls don't play d&d They do. But I probably wouldn't want

Josh Shaw 3:19
to take this back. Let me provide the layer and the laryngitis version of an introduction.

Tony Benda 3:27
Please. Alright, here we go.

Josh Shaw 3:29
Oh, no, we're gonna keep that No, I

Tony Benda 3:30
know that we're always by rewind. Yeah.

Josh Shaw 3:34
Aaron Benda.

Aaron Benda 3:36
Yes. Hi, hey,

Josh Shaw 3:38
I span this brother. Phenomenal worship singer, married to a phenomenal, phenomenal woman of God. And they lead worship at our church motion church in Greensboro. And, and just meeting him has been has been an incredible experience. And just to see the heart for God, the love for d&d, doing voices, and really coming to be here to talk about worship, with your gift on the piano, and your hair like Legolas now, my

Aaron Benda 4:17
goodness, you knew I was gonna say he did say

Tony Benda 4:18
I'm white, but it's still beautiful. So not as long. I

Josh Shaw 4:22
already said your name. But Aaron, welcome to the show. Thank

Aaron Benda 4:26
you. It's, I'm very thankful to be here.

Tony Benda 4:30
I think his introduction was better. It was calmer and peaceful and lovingly.

Aaron Benda 4:35
Sure. But what else do I expect from my brother?

Josh Shaw 4:39
But we we we bring you on the show today. Because we have an incredible message we want to talk about what is that? For those who haven't already clicked on the podcast and already got the name spoiled to them. Today's title is bro, what a voice

Tony Benda 4:58
What a voice you have why The voice

Aaron Benda 5:00
what voice you currently have?

Tony Benda 5:02
I love it like I got the mic. I know you don't love it. I'm sorry. Well, when you first got on the mic my ears just like taking hold. I

Aaron Benda 5:08
was like, really?

Tony Benda 5:09
This is what voice actors aspire to. Sometimes it gets sick and to have a second laryngitis just this, this low sultry kind of like, it's almost like you're a character in the show.

Aaron Benda 5:21
We're coming to you live from Radio City jazz. I love it.

Tony Benda 5:29
Now, it definitely does truly fit in with the podcast episode today, bro, what a voice

Aaron Benda 5:34
it gave you options for a voice? Right?

Tony Benda 5:38
It's pretty great.

Josh Shaw 5:40
What do I even say now? I

Tony Benda 5:41
don't know. Well, we could. Before we continue with bro to voice I do want to say if you haven't listened and subscribed yet, please click that subscribe button, follow us. So you guys can get the last few episodes. Last week we talked about being stuck in shackles and how through Christ we can have freedom from our shackles and from our bondage, which allows us to be free enough to have these voices to then proclaim both the gospel in our testimonies and all of these wonderful things. So reach. Bro, what a voice I love it. Before we jump in, if

Josh Shaw 6:22
you haven't listened to our episode roll for initiative. Tony and I had the opportunity to roll for for our character traits. Yep. And today, Aaron, you will be doing the same thing.

Aaron Benda 6:36
Yes. I'm not gonna lie. I when I listened to that first podcast, I know you you receive this info from multiple different people like, hey, every guest that you have on you should have them roll. But literally I was thinking that's just such a cool idea. Like it doesn't take super long but it's super fun. Thanks, Kenny. Thanks, Kenny. And saber saber. Saber as well. Yep. Steven probably.

Tony Benda 7:02
Yeah, we had great suggestions. But Aaron, today, you're gonna be rolling your own personal character stats and where you think your strengths and weaknesses are based on your roles that happened in table today.

Aaron Benda 7:13
Josh, can I see your D six, please? You can.

Josh Shaw 7:17
Tony, why don't you outline exactly what the character traits are, again, for people who are listening, okay, and describe a little bit to Aaron, you've played with it. I'm not worried about that. But describe a little bit, what he's rolling for you and why he's rolling for it. And then describe how we do it in the show. So that way people can see like, exactly what Aaron's gonna walk through. Yes.

Tony Benda 7:42
So in Dungeons and Dragons, there are six core attributes or modifiers that we roll for which categorize these different things and they kind of make themselves obvious as we go along. Strength which is you know, physicality your dexterity which is a more nimbleness ability to kind of move and maneuver and you know, predict movement sometimes constitution which is your you know, body's fortitude so to speak. The Constitution helps you if you're, Let's hypothetically say you're in a tavern and your you know, character drinks something too much or you know, has eaten something that may be poisonous you this your body's constitution will allow you to, you know, withstand something physical and that sense intelligence it's kind of a obvious one. Not all characters are intelligent and that's okay. Everyone has their, their strengths and their weaknesses. My personal characters, IQ is on the more intelligence side, but definitely not on the strong side. As you guys may know from listening in the first episode, wisdom is a different type of modifier that is yes, different than intelligence wisdom. There are, let's just say for like a wizard class, you would use your intelligence I believe as a spell modifier. You were for a different class such as like a cleric or druid, I believe you would use wisdom as your modifier. Is that correct? Yeah.

Aaron Benda 9:23
Like, I play druid, and he does use wisdom for his modifier.

Tony Benda 9:28
Yep. And then our last. Our last core attribute is charisma, which is how likable or persuasive or charismatic so to speak your character may be. So the higher your charisma the more likely you're able to persuade someone to do something or to deceive someone to not get caught in a in a bad situation. Like we described last week. Yeah,

Aaron Benda 9:55
that was interesting, Zach how How do we do these rolls? Do we? I know what you guys did you guys rolled. And then just to kind of keep that keep it going a little bit, you rolled individually, and then assigned a number after that after you did that roll. What if I rolled all my numbers and then assign them

after that with that, but it's up to you guys, what would you prefer?

Josh Shaw 10:21
Acceptable? Yeah, I really can't I really write,

Tony Benda 10:26
I'd say go ahead, roll

Josh Shaw 10:27
all of your that sounds six attributes.

Tony Benda 10:29
First, I will hold on to what the numbers are, and then we'll, yeah, we'll let you assign him afterwards. So folks at home, what he's gonna do is he's got four, six sided dice in his hand, he will take the lowest number and drop it. So if he rolls a four, a five, a six and a seven, he'll drop that lowest number, which is that four so to speak, and then he'll add up that total, and that will be one of his. That'll be one of his attributes, scores.

Aaron Benda 10:59
And just if you are rolling six sided dice at home, a seven is not an option. True. So when you say 4567 Don't expect a seven or six.

Tony Benda 11:14
I'm not gonna cut that. I'm sorry. This is just it's been a long it's been

Aaron Benda 11:19
a long we are Wow, does anybody want to share what time it is? A night is 903 at night on a Tuesday? My brother's episode is airing. Yeah, my brother and I have both had our church's worship practice directly before the hour and a half,

Tony Benda 11:31
two hours long. Yeah. And another fun fact, my wife and I, who we mentioned this, I think last time on the episode we had a baby. So yay, has been at an all time low. Even though

Josh Shaw 11:46
it's great. We're all in the struggle together. Amen.

Tony Benda 11:51
We're all doing our thing. So real quick before Aaron rolls. I am sorry, but I have to brag about my little baby for a second. She was born on July 1 at 4:47am. Seven pounds and two ounces. 20 inches long and her name is Charlotte. Eleanor.

Aaron Benda 12:05
What do we call it?

Josh Shaw 12:06
Brady? I love that.

Tony Benda 12:08
Yeah. We're gonna nickname or Charlie just for fun. Charge

Aaron Benda 12:11
hard charger.

Tony Benda 12:13
No charger No. to charge our charge our beings? No. None of the above. Just Charlie. She's super sweet. And we will have if my wife permits picture on our Instagram, featuring our newest feature d&d player. And my knees. Yep. And Aaron's nice, that's right, aiming it. It's true. Anyway.

Josh Shaw 12:36
Claiming,

Aaron Benda 12:38
claiming Oh,

Josh Shaw 12:39
they said, reclaiming. I was like, it's already happened.

Tony Benda 12:40
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's. Let's get back to these roles. Sorry to interrupt that with little baby news. But yeah, we couldn't be more excited. And I know Erin, loves his new niece.

Aaron Benda 12:52
Oh, yeah. She's so cute. She's

Tony Benda 12:53
so sweet. Anyway, let's roll together.

Aaron Benda 12:56
Sorry to interrupt. But let's roll.

Tony Benda 12:58
So here he is, again. Rolling six sided dice that don't have a seven on the numbers. There is no PIP total of seven on a six sided die.

Aaron Benda 13:06
Should I give him a little rolling? Go for it. All

Josh Shaw 13:08
right, I'm keeping count. I'm keeping count Boria.

Tony Benda 13:10
Here's our first rule.

Aaron Benda 13:12
All right. I've got a six, a four and a one and another one. So that is a total of 1111.

Tony Benda 13:17
That's after he's dropping the lowest number, correct.

Aaron Benda 13:21
Yeah, yeah, it would be 12 but I'm dropping one. Yep. All right. Got 11

Tony Benda 13:30
Don't tease them. It's an intro music.

Aaron Benda 13:32
Yeah, sure. Sorry. Oh, that's a good roll. It's gotta we got I got a three, a five, a six and a six. So that is a 17. That is close to the best good, highest number you can get. Um, fun fact as I'm scrolling these dice in my hand when I created the character Elroy, which is in our main campaign, I rolled three sixes did your Yeah. Wow. Totally. Totally. 18 Yeah. So that put that in wisdom which is his spell casting modifier which gives him pretty much all his abilities for his true. Yeah. All right. 63210. So that right, there's another level level? Yes. You guys didn't know his book ranch. Oh, okay. It's got a one. That's a very cool one. Josh. You just got somebody dies for three and a six, which is 13. That's

Tony Benda 14:28
okay. That's pretty good.

Aaron Benda 14:29
Yeah. About two

Josh Shaw 14:30
more, two more.

Aaron Benda 14:31
All right.

Tony Benda 14:32
Two more rolls, folks.

Aaron Benda 14:36
All right. No, okay. One less than that. I got 6331 So that's 12 right there. 12. Last

Tony Benda 14:44
roll, folks. Oh, no. Mas. Just fun.

Aaron Benda 14:52
Okay, all right. Let's look into d&d fashion. This one was slightly cocked, so I will be rolling that he would. Okay. Still doesn't affect it. Alright, that that I reroll was a two. So that is the lowest number that I will be dropping. And another six, six and 517.

Seven.

Tony Benda 15:10
That's another great number.

Aaron Benda 15:11
That's pretty good. If I was rolling for a character, those are some keeper numbers right there.

Tony Benda 15:15
I would agree with that. Yeah, those are some great roles and I

Aaron Benda 15:20
keep them keep them too.

Tony Benda 15:23
So what now? Would you like to do with those numbers? Okay.

Josh Shaw 15:29
In other words, give us that testimony.

Aaron Benda 15:32
All right. So we've got constitution, string strength, charisma, wisdom, dexterity, and intelligence. Got it? Okay. Let's start with the lowest because I think we always say what our bad qualities are first, unfortunately, earrings,

Tony Benda 15:51
lowest quality,

Aaron Benda 15:53
I would undoubtedly say constitution. So, for us, who will always tell us who are listening. I am a total whopping total of five foot six. And up until recently since I got married, my heaviest was like 140 Other than the last couple years, which that number has probably I'm probably like 156 now. Maybe? Yeah, ish. Which is is I mean, I got I got married. They say that's what happens.

Tony Benda 16:31
Metabolism changed my excuse started in college.

Josh Shaw 16:33
I mean, you are also gluten does double damage. Yes. Yeah.

Aaron Benda 16:41
I am gluten free. Yeah. Stephen likes to call me soy boy.

Josh Shaw 16:47
Ouch.

Aaron Benda 16:49
And Steven is our DM and also my brother in law. Not necessarily Tony's brother in law, but we all essentially he is our brother. He is Yeah, he is all our brother. But just Just for reference, I married his sister. That's how the connection happened. So constitution is undoubtably the lowest not just because my height or my body weight and not free food. That adds no fat. Yeah, I definitely had some health things in the last couple of years quick. Sidebar, I unintentionally became malnourished. It all sort of a crazy events that that that happened to lead up to that, trying to figure out if I was gluten free. But I also thought out the option for a while yeah, try dairy free cut out a bunch of things was working 60 hours a week. And I was just kind of recommended, like Hey, cut this out, cut this cut this out. And slowly I just kind of stopped eating unfortunately. That was definitely a physical battle, trying to get my hunger hormones back because at a certain point they do shut off. But trying to get that back spiritually there was a there was a definitely definitely a praise coming out of that. But yeah, that's that's a long story short on on constitution, I've always kind of been a lightweight as far as just like, caffeine affects me very quickly. You know, that pretty much. I mean, if if I've had alcohol limited very, very to a very small number. You know, just because I don't really like the way it makes me feel anyways, as far as like that. Just that general aloofness to the world. Just because I being malnourished I actually experienced kind of what it feels like to be drunk a lot. And I don't really live love that associating feeling now. But, you know, danger zone. So you know, I don't know how we got down that rabbit trail. Still. Constitution. Yeah. Constitution.

Tony Benda 18:52
So you would say your constitution is your lowest out of these six?

Aaron Benda 18:55
Yes, undoubtably. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I see you deleted that the lowest number for me, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 19:03
Let's go.

Aaron Benda 19:06
Let's go. On the opposite end of the spectrum. Let's go 17. Um, I would say it's hard to say like, Yeah, this is my strongest quality humbly. Just because you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to say like, yeah, rocket this and just, you know, but what I will say on the on the flip side of that, I feel like the Lord has blessed us all with certain gifts and certain abilities. And thank you, Jesus, that you did that in your in your wisdom. I'm going to go ahead and put that under wisdom. I think. Like, definitely in high school. A lot of people knew I was a Christian. But I also think that like, a lot of people just were looking for answers and I think they thought of me is very level headed. You know, so they kind of came to me with questions. I was like our friends, counselor, At times, but But yeah, I think the Lord has blessed me with some wisdom I've grown a lot in, in my faith since then I feel like wisdom kind of goes hand in hand with with knowing the Word of God being able to apply the Word of God to your life. Just because I think in James, it talks about how all wisdom comes from above. And anything else besides that is, is a little bit. I mean, they use pretty strong words, but but it's not to misquote the Scripture, but not to take it out of context. It's just, it doesn't compare to God's wisdom, you know, but I feel like the Lord's blessed me with some wisdom. I agree. Let's go to the other 11. We're kind of going low, high low. I would say. Let's see what's left strength, intelligence. dexterity. And what's the last one? Charisma charisma? I would say? Probably intelligence. Not to again, not to knock myself as a human not saying that, like, you know, you're great at one just awful at the other. But we rolled what we rolled, and we're sticking to it. So but I would say intelligence, I think I love to learn. I really, really do. I think I maybe I shouldn't. I don't know, I'm gonna stick with it. I'm just gonna say intelligence. Or charisma could be my next one, but might be my next one. But intelligence I would say personally, I've never there's just like some concepts that my brain really struggles with. Chemistry, for example. The only reason I probably didn't flunk out of high school was because my chemistry teacher loved me. I had decent grades everywhere else A's, B's, sometimes C in math. But, Mr. Roth, he would always wear a bowtie. And it was on it was on lab days that he would wear a bowtie. That's how we knew. I don't know it might have been test days. Anyways, thanks, Mr. Roth for getting me through. But I used to go to like all the study times like before, before school, I would try to do every extra credit thing I could. I had a D in the class up until the final What did I get on the final? C 53. And I ended up with a C in the class. Wow. Praise the Lord and that is the hand of the Lord. Thank you. Yeah, and thank you Mr. Rodman. Because I really think he knew I tried like, I just I just didn't get it. Yet. Another one is a Physics I really struggled with physics.

Josh Shaw 22:45
I skipped that class. You know,

Aaron Benda 22:47
they no way I could do it. But like the on the on the flip side. I love learning about like human anatomy. Like I just find it so interesting. That's how God made us. Well, yeah, it is biology but I like I took a an anatomy and physiology class. Oh, cool in high school as well. didn't love the physiology side, like a molecular side of it. But I just I liked learning. I like learning but I would I would say I'm not the brightest bulb in the room because God has gifted other people with some brighter lumens and their light. You Yeah. Anything to add? I

Tony Benda 23:22
don't know. I was gonna say you, you worked your butt off in school? No, I remember because Laura, our sister used to complain, because tests would come easy to me. Yep. I don't I didn't do a lot of homework all the time. And when I did I did it the night before. Like, yeah, or I did an essay the night before it was due. And I still, you know, cranked out a b plus or an A on some essays. And I don't know how it must have been adult ADHD and the Lord knows

Aaron Benda 23:51
a combo of all you

Tony Benda 23:53
know, I remember you guys worked your butts off and I kind of just, you know, squeaked by.

Aaron Benda 23:57
I worked my butt off when I needed to true like, like, as if, like, I wouldn't be able to continue life if I didn't, but yeah, I think it happened. What, let's kind of Let's go next number 13. I would say or no, I'm sorry, there was a 12 I missed the 12. Um, I would say probably charisma or strength, because here's the thing. I'm gonna go charisma. I think I when it comes to like talking to people and stuff like that, unfortunately, when I was a kid, I did use to fib often. I would sometimes blame my older brother for things that may not have been the most truthful and I would only do that if I did get caught every time like the I literally this this thought came back into my mind in my brain the other day you remember those glass jars that would hold the flower? Oh, it's confession time. Unlike the Lazy Susan spot, like the corner cabinet, yeah, and I broke it. And I blamed you that one time you broke the glass jar. Yes, I accidentally did it. But then I blamed you, Mom and Dad came home. And mom and dad came to you and said, you know, how did this happen? And you said, Aaron, Aaron did it? I don't know. Yeah, I don't remember this. I appreciate you not holding it over my head. The last there's that hold those won't be sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. There is actually no longer than 1215 20. I don't know. I don't know. But I guess I'm turning 27 tomorrow. So that would be like 19. Anyways, anyways, I would say charisma, I do think I know, like social cues and stuff like that. I get them very well. But I think I've realized over the years, I'm much more introverted than I thought I was. I think growing up, I felt so much anxiety at parties. My mom like and dad, when we would host stuff at our house. I would just like, get this look on my face when I was like three years old, mortified. And I would just start crying. Like when my mom looked at me, and she would just take me in another room. And she just say it's okay, sweetheart, and never asked me what was wrong. You know, I'm sure she did at one point, just like the first time to figure it out. But she probably caught on quickly that like, I had a little bit of a not social anxiety, but like, it just got overwhelmed a little bit. You know, I wouldn't say I have a lot of social anxiety at parties now or anything like that. I just, it's not my most comfortable setting. I feel like I'm talking a lot. Is this too much? No.

Tony Benda 26:41
Okay. All right. This is part of a podcast, we ask the questions and you answer things. Okay,

Aaron Benda 26:46
sweet. So I'm just like, it's just not my most comfortable setting. It's not always my cup of tea. But podcasting. Oh, yeah, this is great. I mean, like small numbers of people love it, even but even on the stark opposite, when I'm at church, and I feel like I have to talk and you know, on like, on the platform or like to a bunch of people I don't mind that at all. To me, my brain equates that or the Lord literally has just gifted me for it. It just, it's almost like an equation in the same in my brain as if I'm talking to like, just YouTube or just like one person. Like, I feel that level of comfortability however if I'm in like a social setting, to like mingle a bunch, I'm not a great mingler

Tony Benda 27:37
Yeah, I hear that.

Aaron Benda 27:38
I actually put that on an interview for a job not not a great mingle. I'm just kidding.

Tony Benda 27:45
This is not my strong suit. Yeah. Mingling steps. It's not about me. So continue. Okay.

Aaron Benda 27:48
Um, let's go 13 So my second strongest suit, I would say is my strength. It but it is funny because I have a very low constitution. Like I'm a lightweight when it comes to, you know, a lot of stuff. But I feel like the Lord for some reason, genetically has just gifted us with some strong genes. My brother is literally a brick wall. Giant Jesus giant. Yeah, he is all of what 5565 and a half sorry, five enhancement. Yeah, forgot a whole inch above. But he literally just a solid brick wall. And I feel like I got the some of those jeans as well.

Tony Benda 28:36
There was a point in college when you were like end of high school into college that you you've it buff, you started to do the gym thing. And you started working out. And then you were like Arnold with your abs and your six pack and you have you pumped your shoulder. Have

Josh Shaw 28:53
you seen his biceps now? No.

Tony Benda 28:57
No, there was a point where like, he was like literally ripped. grinds

Josh Shaw 29:00
his own bread. I noticed and he just yo, like, how does

Aaron Benda 29:06
someone or pastor you use like, Yo, you're getting kinda like you're getting kind of you weren't getting bulky, Nick. And it's cool. Yeah, also, I got a little bit more rottenness than I've ever had as well. And the mid midsection? Yeah, but yeah, just you got to prepare dad jokes and DadBod I've been preparing

Tony Benda 29:26
my dad bod for the longest time. Well, you do what you got it in. It's finally happened. So

Aaron Benda 29:31
but to finish that thought. Our pastor was like, Dude, you're kind of getting like a little beef here. It's like, what do you do? I was like, honestly, I literally haven't been in the gym whatsoever. And I said, Oh, you know what? I've been grinding my own flour. And

Tony Benda 29:48
yeah, that's part of the living. I think it's great. Your bread and your sourdough is very good.

Aaron Benda 29:53
Thank you. You're Yeah, your sourdough waffles were delicious. Use the discard. Oh man.

Tony Benda 29:58
We got to find that recipe.

Aaron Benda 29:59
I have the recipe. Okay. Got it. Segue. The next is, what's the last one? dexterity? Oh, okay. Honestly, I would put Tony's dexterity higher than one for like, as far as flexibility and but I would say I do have some great hip flexibility and in specific and the reason I point that out, is because I used to rock climb a lot in college, that's true. And I would be able to do climbs that like, these guys that are like six to six, three, all they have to do is just reach up for it. And it's difficult for them to get to, but I used to be able to do it because I did have a lot of you know, like, lower body upper body strength, like in college, and I would somehow figure out, obviously, it had to be the harder way to do it. Because, you know, I don't again, I'm not that tall. With all five, six, but, but yeah, I would be able to reach and get to certain things that like most people would not be able to do. And I was very, I love doing it. It was very fun. Had a blast and met some cool people doing that.

Tony Benda 31:09
That's awesome. Yeah. And you are good at rock climbing. I remember who did the wall to visit you when you were working there. The school that was yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was a lot. I wish it was more like, open when I was there.

Aaron Benda 31:22
Yeah, yeah, they've

Tony Benda 31:23
done after after. They put it in just as I was leaving. So bombed or also would have been actually rock climbing in college. We're talking about Olivet Nazarene University. For those who are familiar or even unfamiliar. There was a great school Nazarene school about two hours south of Chicago. Yeah, awesome place. So yeah, Erin, thank you for the roles and the testimony that was provided with said roles. You gotta as Josh is re gathering himself and shaking his head because his laryngitis is at the point of frustration. You know, we're gonna just jump right in here. You're welcome. It'll come back. I promise. It'll come back. Keep drinking that tea and that delicious stuff you got with you? Yeah, so I guess our first question today, jumping back into row would have voice which is our podcast episode title for today? How do you find your inspiration when creating a character voice?

Aaron Benda 32:25
Well, Tony, what do you think I'm gonna say?

Tony Benda 32:30
I don't know.

Aaron Benda 32:30
It's an acronym.

Tony Benda 32:33
Enlighten me, please. WW.

Aaron Benda 32:34
TD? What would Tony do? Welcome to this episode of What Would Tony didn't know. I'm just kidding. My brother is great at character voices. And I will be asking for samples. And he has to oblige me. Because I'm on his podcast. Don't mean nothing. So but he's great at character voices has always done just impersonations of everybody and everything. One of our favorite movies as a child was master of disguise. And if you haven't watched it, you can, it won't drastically change your life, other than you have probably an hour and a half of just shaking your head at the TV a little bit, one of

Tony Benda 33:16
the dumbest, but one of the most, you know, David Harvey movies I've ever seen, and it was

Aaron Benda 33:21
very fundamental to our childhood. But essentially, it's just the guy makes a lot of impressions. Dana Carvey is a great impressionist. Very funny actor. But yeah, he was in Wayne's World, too, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. I've never fully seen that movie but I've mastered disguises. Anyways. So yeah, my a lot of my question on how I what when I'm building a new character, what would Tony do what impersonations have I heard him make Tony has a great King Julian voice that I will now be asking him to.

Tony Benda 33:54
This came out of left field I have to I have to get into the contrarian voice persona for dogs. Not the most comfortable for me to do but every now and then I do like doing the voice. What would

Aaron Benda 34:06
you rather do schmegle.

Tony Benda 34:10
process

for us this is a PG bot.

Aaron Benda 34:22
It's It's scary. How good wow. Yeah, just clean? Yes. can legally Yeah, no, it is a little scary. But imagine, okay, Tony never got in trouble as a kid and did get in trouble. And when he did get out of trouble. It was always because he used to make our mother laugh. It was like she would be disciplining him. Rightly so as a parent as should and and, you know, all that. But he would just impersonate his way out of a discipline because he would start laughing It's true. How do you discipline a kid that's,

Tony Benda 34:56
you know, cracking jokes.

Aaron Benda 34:58
Yeah, while you're disciplining them. It's

Tony Benda 34:59
You know, it's a gift, I guess.

Aaron Benda 35:04
So yeah, that's one of the questions I asked myself is what would Tony do? I don't know, I just think of different nationalities that are that are out there. We went to. We were very, very blessed and privileged to go to Jamaica, on our honeymoon when I got married, found a super good deal online at like a resort. But I loved the Jamaican people down there that like, and granted you're on a resort, you're there catered to, you know, be very great and gracious people to you. However, the the people that we did meet, were awesome, very genuine. But I came back and kind of created a character that was almost slightly Jamaican, in in origin and like background, he was born on an island amongst other islands, and he traveled this this sea a lot and his name is His name is Elroy and, yeah, these guys are both looking at me like I'm supposed to do the voice. Go ahead. Elroy savatree. Can you be stuck for a second? Just say you're comfortable for me.

Tony Benda 36:14
So Zach is a little bit higher of a pitch is a small three foot six Verdun. This is my exact voice

Aaron Benda 36:21
and Elroy centuries. I've never heard myself do this voice said sorry.

Tony Benda 36:27
Go for it. Keep doing it. Take the headphones off. Yeah,

Aaron Benda 36:29
if you have to. Zola is yelling at Korean or it used to be Kenan but rip to Canaan. Love Again. But Zook, Ezra, Korean, always giving problems, but he's always trying to keep them in line a little bit. Granted, it's not the best Jamaican accent but it's kind of morphed a little bit into like, Jamaican afro, you know, like Jamaican African. You know, accent over the years, and yeah, he's, he's helped erase ng Belrose. Fun. Yeah.

Josh Shaw 37:14
I request a voice. Okay.

Aaron Benda 37:15
Okay. Brah Frong and lon

Josh Shaw 37:20
Frong along one of my, one of my favorite characters from like, a one shot that you've done. Yeah, is wrong and long. And so you're the voice Frong was

Aaron Benda 37:33
a tortoise that I don't remember the the tortoise tortoise creatures. It's turtle turtle. Yeah, he was a turtle. That was cousins with a small grunge, which for those that are not familiar. It's a frog type creature. And his cousin's name was long. Maybe like, all of 18 inches tall. So fun. We had a blast. We played like a carnival themed one shot from one of our friends. Jeric. But Steven played this character long with me and Stevens character was this raging barbarian of all of 18 inches tall, always ready for a fight. But Frong man, he was kind of like this, this smooth, easy going to Oracle, you know, he just really was all about world peace. But sometimes when the going got tough, you know, as it does in a one shot. You know, he would he would go into turtle mode. And he was kind of unaware of what happened. But he would actually he thought that he would completely black out just as in like a defense mechanism. But what would actually happen is his monk character would come alive. And he would just have raging fisticuffs Yeah. Almost picturing like, what is it from Kung Fu Panda? What's his name? Master Oogway with like, his staff, not like as old but But yeah, just super easygoing, man. You know, just love in life. And that's awesome. Wrong. Oh, man. But yeah, I think character voices like they just be as fun as you make them. I think. I think as far as like creating an environment, I really just think they help create an environment like, if, if I just use my regular voice, you can absolutely there's nothing wrong with that and like, especially if you don't feel comfortable creating a voice. You know, I like I kind of grew up in theater a little bit Tony did to Josh, I don't know if you did. He shook his head, thinking laryngitis. But hey, we're still making this podcast happen. Praise the Lord. But we kind of you know, have a little bit of a theater background and it's just like one one year I played Donkey and trek And that was one of the best shows Oh fun at the high school. It was so fun. I'm not kidding. It was so fun. But I think just like being forced out of your element, as you guys can hear, I sound nothing like Eddie Murphy. Nothing. My skin color is the exact opposite of, of any word resembling a dark skinned color. Super pasty. That's true. That's another reason for my constitution being low put me out in the sun for like six hours. He

Tony Benda 40:30
burns. Yeah,

Aaron Benda 40:31
I'm toast inside out. But it was so fun. Like, I think the reason. And like, I prayed all the time, when I was trying to play that part. I just wanted to do a good job, you know, and I killed and I appreciate that. But I think other than the Lord helping me so much with, like, learn how to do that. And just gifting for it. But I think it was such a stark contrast to who I was to where I just I had no, I had no hold barred. Like if I was going to play this character. I had to go all the way. And I think since then it just kind of taught me like, Hey, it's okay to like, even if it feels uncomfortable, like saying you're playing d&d, for the first time ever. It is a little uncomfortable, like, trying to pretend to be someone else. But like, the more you do it, it just morphs into something that's kind of fun and something that you look forward to. I always look forward to hearing that small green verdens voice across the table. You know, or just seeing what Stephen RDM can come up with as far as voices go. It's just it adds a whole nother element to the game. That's just it's just very fun. Like

Tony Benda 41:37
mischief. We talked about mischief, I think last week yeah, man.

Aaron Benda 41:42
You guys did the voice really? Well. Korea? Why am I stuck in here?

Tony Benda 41:46
Well, I'm on chain docking you know, that's good. So you're kind of talking about some theater things. Obviously, Shrek was a movie. What are some other sources of inspiration? I'm assuming games and things like that? Um, yeah, I said a bunch of radio theater to growing up here. We did the throwback to the Chronicles of Narnia by Focus on the Family Radio theater, shout out to them and their amazing voice cast. Truly, my goodness gracious. The the Narnia series on dramatized CD was by far one of the best anything's I've listened to Yeah. Highly recommend. Oh, my goodness, because that's like where I really, I don't know, started like really getting into the voice stuff. Yeah, because I tried imitating the characters on the, you know, the CDs as we're driving 40 minutes to school every morning. That it was crazy. Yeah. Aslan, whoever played as was just like,

Aaron Benda 42:45
can you give us a little snippet,

Tony Benda 42:47
please? He had this booming kind of voice. I can't really know that. He's British, too. So like this. It was just so good. I'm looking at his name real quick. Yeah.

Aaron Benda 42:59
But yeah, I mean, movies are definitely great inspirations radio theater, like you're saying. Not that we listen to a ton of radio theater, but like video games, like

Tony Benda 43:08
we listen to McGee and me and yeah. Adventures In Odyssey it's the one

Aaron Benda 43:14
all the Christian Yeah, it was. You expect

Tony Benda 43:20
typical 90s Christian Yeah, audiobooks. You know,

Aaron Benda 43:24
if you know, you know, if not truly that's okay. That was fun. Oh, Josh is currently typing.

Go. Is that what that is? That was? That was the start? Yeah, he's

Tony Benda 43:38
Chancellor Palpatine.

Aaron Benda 43:39
Yeah, good. Actually

Tony Benda 43:41
the Emperor.

Aaron Benda 43:43
Awesome. Awesome. He also typed in SAM. No, no, no, he didn't. He's shaking his head. Sam Witwer.

Josh Shaw 43:54
Oh,

Aaron Benda 43:54
Darth Maul. Yeah. Oh, Josh. Josh wanted us to mention the guy's name sandwich where he played Darth Maul in the Clone Wars. He also played right. And then he who else did he play?

Josh Shaw 44:11
He did Darth Maul in the Clone Wars. And then, if you did, the force, the force unleashed video games. He voiced that character to Okay, very cool.

Yeah. For the audience.

I will probably I'll probably be typing a lot throughout this podcast. So he's doing you a pipe and when you feel like I'm gonna pipe in when I feel like y'all know that. It's sounding my now my friends will chime in a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys.

Tony Benda 44:41
So there's, there's definitely some movies and games and things that like, you know, hit home for me. I don't know it was. It's fun watching Lord of the Rings. It's fun. You know, imitating some of those characters like Gollum or Smeagol. You heard already mentioned. And then there's also Ghibli, who's played by Hey, John Rhys Davies. It was recorded. I've heard this like deep sounding voice is pretty good.

Aaron Benda 45:07
That's pretty good. Thank you. Or like another voice that sounds similar just right off the cuff is Admiral Akbar from Star Wars. We're all big Star Wars now. Oh my goodness. Drop. Like I don't know how many years we've said that now. Now that it's gotten any better, but voices are fun. voices are fun. I think I think they can bring a lot to your gameplay. I think it's really um, you know? Yeah, I think they can I think they can do a lot. Yeah,

Tony Benda 45:33
so kind of like leaning back into the character thing. Some of my favorite characters that I've played. Aaron, you're part of that Star Wars fivey campaign, a campaign that Steven lead. Gore lagged for leg trail. He was like the same species as Dex from second movie the second movie Attack of the Clones when he had the diner dexus diner where, you know, we had one of those Camino darts. Have you been to Jamba Juice? That's pretty good.

Aaron Benda 46:11
Santa like she was from a New York a little areas. Josie a little bit. But yeah, she was a droid. Sorry, Al Gore like

Tony Benda 46:19
drill was like one of my favorite characters to play, but it was the most tiring voice I've ever done. Was Coraline troll, kind of similar to Dex.

Aaron Benda 46:26
But he was a comedian. Yeah, he

Tony Benda 46:28
was a comedian. Oh, fun. I had to do a stand up routine. He did. I don't even remember what I did even like

Aaron Benda 46:34
killed it. Like you actually killed it as Tony in as Gore leg drill. You really did kill it. Because you roll the neck 24 out about therefore you're at the very end of our short Star Wars campaign. It was like a two shot. And at the very end of it. He was this aspiring comedian. Yep. Like trying to get over to Corizon and do some shows. But anyways, we had him in this diner that we were in Yeah, we had him do an insert

Tony Benda 47:03
and he started making his rounds at all the local, you know, Outer Rim Territories in and was in this diner and somehow rolled really well on a I don't know, what is it a Christmas just performance or performance or something like that. So I wrote a really good performance role. And so for lag trail, I guess just started making the comedian you know, tour kind of thing,

Aaron Benda 47:24
but you actually did it. And like I was really proud of Oh, thank

Tony Benda 47:27
you. I had some really good jokes that I had found pulled up and I was trying to not act like I had a sheet of paper in front of me. Stephen wanted me to do like a, you know, a tight five with. For those who don't know what a type five is a type five is like a five minute comedy routine, mostly off the cuff or it could be some pre made work, but it's a type five, which is a nice thing to do in a comedy circuit for those who are starting out. So but yeah, my character had to do a type five at this place. And it was pretty, pretty fun. So Gore lag was one of my favorite voices to do. zyk is another one, which you guys heard earlier. He's a little more high pitched and kind of relaxed, but he's he's small, but he's, he's a he's a bookworm. His intelligence but not too strong.

Aaron Benda 48:13
He's kind of a lot more sass lately, too. He's been very spunky.

Tony Benda 48:17
Because all the stuff we've been going through as characters. He's been very sassy, especially listen back into last week's episode to really understand how kind of you know, gung ho he's been for, you know, getting to the, you know, end of this not the campaign but just to the end of the story, like, figuring out the problem like he really wants to know how he's tied in with this thing that's been happening in our campaign. But Zach is another really fun character I've got other fun character doesn't really like to do. But Aaron, how about you? What are some of your favorite characters to do I know we, you know, mentioned Elroy,

Aaron Benda 48:54
yeah, yeah, the other one I've done was in the Star Wars campaign that we did oh yeah. IGP to six. Oh, rip Yeah, he he went down in a very fiery lava demise.

Tony Benda 49:08
Yeah. Love it. It

Aaron Benda 49:09
was like all you needed was like a like a D five you know you needed like it was a DC 10 Okay, as a DC 10 for like a save to like go across this law, but we had to do the check a lot. To be fair, but like, it was a Dr. Diem. Steven tried to give me everything he could, but I kept rolling like threes, fours, fives, even sevens on a on a six sided die. But but I just I couldn't I couldn't get to the DC Daniel. But, but you'd like it just Yeah, it was bad. And so he ended up having to go down in a fiery Blaze. But I do believe that his voice was very robotic, and very, but he did have quite the personality. I love that. He loved to laugh. I don't remember the voices a long time in combat. But um, another voice that that I liked doing sorry. Are you good? Is a kind of like a, I don't know, lady from the Bronx in like, you know New York to Florida he is smoking waitress. Yeah. And she's 44 Like, you know, that will it be? Yeah. That's just kind of a fun voice. Just Just stuff we've done. Yeah, we

Tony Benda 50:32
silly voices just growing up. Yeah. It is a lot of fun. Yeah. Coming out of character mode. Characters that we would like to do one day, man. That was another point we wanted to talk about. I think for me, even just beyond d&d. My goodness, one of the one of the things I've always wanted to do was beat like a voice actor. And if anyone's out there listening, if anyone is out there at all, please contact me. Dungeons disciples@gmail.com dungeons disciples@gmail.com. Anyway, that wasn't a cry for help. That was a like, I've always wanted to do voice acting. I really do think it would be really, really fun. Either side hustle or career if it leads to that. You'd be great at it. It would be a blast.

Aaron Benda 51:22
When I picture like the beginning of Mrs. Doubtfire. Have you ever seen that when Robin Williams it's just it's doing it all figured it we're like with it, but like he's that small bird and the Tomcat? Yeah, he's bouncing back and forth. Yeah, like that is my brother to a tee. I'm not kidding. Like, thanks, guys. That that is that is my brother right there.

Tony Benda 51:46
I I would love to do voice acting in some degree down the road. So if anybody was out there, let me know. Yeah, no, there was there are some really fun characters that we could just create together. And I think it always changes too because like no campaign is the same. No one shot is the same. No character is the same so I can play the same character in two different two different ways. Which I've done before we've done a couple of different one shots where one of my characters has been Salvador Vaughn sloop. I'm trying to remember exactly what he is one

Aaron Benda 52:27
of them, which sounds like Torvalds Exactly. That was the second version of Salvador

Tony Benda 52:32
he was more like kid that slot from from IKEA. Ah,

Josh Shaw 52:35
no, no, no, you sound like that dude from the kid from Polar Express. Oh, yes. You

Tony Benda 52:43
sound like bowler. Ever seen that movie? Once? I

Josh Shaw 52:45
really don't stick out with the glasses. Yeah, that's, that's you sound like that's pretty

Tony Benda 52:49
funny. I'll have to watch the movie again to like really capture it. But Salvatore Vaughn sloop is a Drake and blood Dragonborn. And he was a bard at the third level. So I'm trying remember like the first time I did Salvador, he was just like, I think I played him as like a rough and tough kind of like, Bard kind of thing in the first little mini, you know, one shot that we did that and the second time I played it as the as more like the said, The sloth or the Polar Express type. Salvatore von Shoop here a little bit more lighthearted than others would like to think. But that was Shall I call them shell blast.

Aaron Benda 53:29
We had a lot of fun with them. We did.

Tony Benda 53:32
I don't know, any opportunity to play a character, I will take every opportunity and just like run with it. Yeah, yeah, characters are fun. And I think it is fun, kind of like immersing yourself into the gameplay. So after talking about these, like characters that we really would like to play at some point, or honestly, you know, come up with stuff on the spot, sometimes. There are unique ways that we can use her voice to like change the roleplay experience. And it does impact the gameplay in different, like, in different ways. Because, hypothetically, if my character zyk did not talk like Zuck. And it talked like, Tony, I think the way my character would come across is a lot different than I don't know, I don't know if our discussions would be the same. I don't know if our I don't know, the outcome would be the same. I think my SAS wouldn't be there. But my like, push to do things. I don't know. Yeah.

Aaron Benda 54:29
No, no, I agree. Because I think that kind of goes along with what we talked about the other day, like, it just helps you embody the character a little bit. And I think when you when you play a quote unquote, character, very rarely do they match you exactly. You know, obviously, you're creating the character so you can make the beliefs very similar. You can make them totally different. Not that that one's right or wrong, but I do think it that helps you just creating a little bit of a voice shift So even if it's just like a little bit higher, like, if this is your normal speaking voice, but you choose to kind of like put them up here like it, that totally changes how you perceive the character that I'm playing. Yep. I also think one thing, like, we talked a little bit like just trying to think of the right word, just as far as logistically, when you are playing the game Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes you have this moment where you kind of go meta, and if you guys have listened to the previous episode of meta, it's kind of a moment sometimes where like, you just need to talk like, hey, just so you know, this room is 500 feet wide by, you know, 200 feet long. Sometimes the DM just has to tell you that, or sometimes you have a question like, Hey, can this person see me? But if I'm talking like, this lady from the Bronx, you know, that has been, you know, and then I start asking the DM a question in my voice. They're gonna know if that's meta, or if that's in game, you know, and I think that can it's just one thing, logistically, it's kind of, it kind of clears things up a little bit. Definitely.

Tony Benda 56:11
I think, as we said, it does impact the gameplay. Does the voice impact how you play though? Absolutely.

Aaron Benda 56:19
Yeah. Yeah, I think, again, embodying that voice. It can I really do think that can change the actual gameplay itself. You

Tony Benda 56:29
think if Aaron is doing a voice that changes your decisions in, like in game or as a character?

Aaron Benda 56:34
Now granted, if I was playing the character, Aaron, and all I did was change my voice? Well, it wouldn't necessarily. I mean, maybe it would, I don't know.

Tony Benda 56:41
It'd be some weird characters. Yeah, I

Aaron Benda 56:42
would. I mean, I'm weird enough as it is true, but but even it just, it just helps me get into character, I would say, and I would make the choices that my character would make, because I'm already trying to think as how they think it's, it's enough work to try to get into that voice. But I think getting into that voice, helps you think a little bit differently to

Tony Benda 57:04
be? Well, so we know how we find our voice for characters. I want to ask now, how do we find our voice in the Lord?

Aaron Benda 57:17
Good question.

Tony Benda 57:18
Is it? How do you use your voice in worship? So first, let's discuss that.

Aaron Benda 57:23
Let's break that down. Because those are two different things. I

Tony Benda 57:25
think they are but they're, they kind of go together? How do you find your voice in the Lord?

Josh Shaw 57:30
Um,

Aaron Benda 57:34
I think, number one, I don't know if there's a number one or if this is just something that we're always figuring out. But like, how do you how do you find your voice in the Lord? I think describe what is your voice in the Lord? If I can ask that question.

Josh Shaw 57:51
It's so discouraging not having a voice. I literally love to talk about this stuff. I know that you

Aaron Benda 57:57
got it. You got to work through it has given you enough.

Josh Shaw 58:01
Think of your voice and Lord as your natural giftings. So like you're here with us, right? How did you You're here because you're a vocalist. You can sing you can play piano, you're so gifted in that area. So how did you grow into that voice? You know, the Lord gave you that voice. He gifted it to you. So describe to us how you use that. Yeah. Yeah. To grow and find your voice new God called you to be Yeah, rather than new the world called you to be

Aaron Benda 58:45
Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's, that's good. Well, finding my own, like natural singing is like singing voice. Definitely, like we were talking about, we used to listen to gnarnia a lot in the car. We had, we had 45 minutes one way to school 45 minutes back. So we had a lot of time in the car. Our mom and dad are both very musical. You know, they would they would not ascribe to that. But they are and we got our abilities from somewhere. As well as the Lord but the car it would either listen to radio theater, or we would sink and that a lot of that was how I learned to sing, and how I grew up loving music and just figuring out who I am with that as well and discovering like, how the Lord has called me to that are really, for me personally a little bit my own testimony I I got I felt like I got called when I was a senior in high school. And I felt like the Lord called me to music ministry immediately and granted at that time, you know, your senior in high school, if any buddies listen to this, and they know a senior or they are a senior in high school. It's just a time trying to figure out like, what am I supposed to do with my life. And at 17. Sometimes it's hard enough figuring out who you are a little and who you are in the Lord, let alone what you're supposed to do for the rest of your life. I'm 27. Now, so that's 10 years ago, I know a lot better who I am in Christ today, who I am, who has made me to be also some of the things that he's called me to do. A lot of the big questions looming over your head when you're 17 is, what am I supposed to do? Where am I? What am I supposed to go to college? Am I supposed to go to college? Who am I going to marry? If you feel like you're supposed to marry someone, you know what I mean? Like so many open questions, and it can feel like a lot of pressure. But I would encourage anybody that's, that's any situation where they feel like they've opened roads ahead. As we follow the call of God in our lives, He will direct our steps. Proverbs talks about like, the steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord. And as we follow Him, He makes her way very clear. I think it's either proverbs three, four, or four, three, I can never remember. But when it talks about, like, Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light onto my path. It's just crazy. Like when you think about it, like back then when when the writers were writing it, they had lanterns. And they said, Your word is a lamp from my feet, a light on my path. As I'm walking this path, they didn't have giant spotlights that didn't have like, you got into this parking lot. And there's the whole parking lot is lit up, even though it's dark. When when you follow God, when you walk with God, it's literally like you're holding a lantern like, he gives you everything you need to take that next step. And are we supposed to know the next 25 steps? Probably not. Because there's sometimes on our, on our walk, there's things that can look scary 25 steps away. And when we pick that path, odds are no. So I think sometimes when the Lord leads us like that, you know, trusting is his guidance is very cool. But as far as my natural voice, that was kind of how that grew. And that progressed at a young age to feeling like that call to music ministry in my life when I was getting ready to go to college. And immediately I thought, Man, that means I have to be a worship pastor, because that's the only thing that I can do with music and ministry. Wrong. Wrong. As the Grinch would say, wrong. Oh. But that's good. I quickly learned that ministry looks not only found in the church, much, much, much more ministry happens outside of the church to what's right. So the thing that I'm currently doing, my wife is the worship director at our church. That's how we actually met. She still is our worship director and I help out on Sundays with the music, love doing that love my wife, as well. And I just that was that was how we met. You know, we started she was taking piano lessons for me just because she's an incredible vocalist who want to learn how to play the piano though. She wanted to spend time with no none and and and now she learned she was signed up for a music class that my friend Mike and I were teaching a quote unquote, music class. It was It wasn't us. It was a theory class. There was like time with you while there been other students in the class. Okay, but she still spent time with you while learning the piano. That was true. That is true. That's true. But so at the end of it to it later, most of it was a like all mine for these students. Just because we weren't all in the same space. But I'm in North Carolina, my friends who taught it was in Illinois. So we did a lot of it online and and yeah, so but but after the class was done, we did private lessons with with the students and 30 minutes turned into three hours of just talking about life and getting to know each other and yeah, and that was how we started dating and then getting married.

Tony Benda 1:04:08
And now they're still making sweet music together.

Josh Shaw 1:04:10
Yeah,

Tony Benda 1:04:11
I mean that in the worship sense on Sundays, and I also mean that in their off Sunday time, because much, much music has been written in the last year by the two of them, and they may not admit it out in the open but they've got some killer songs, killer songs. This is I hate to sound like you don't I don't know. I do hate to sound like a music snob sometimes, but like, I mean, I lead worship here at our church, like I don't go to the same church as Aaron. I lead worship at our church as well and I've been you know, playing music for a while. Longer than Aaron's been alive? Well, no, no, not longer than human life. I was seven when I started playing piano and I'm 31 now, so it's almost two years. Yeah. 27 almost the same. Yeah. Okay, folks, we're recording this on July 9, Aaron's birthday is tomorrow. So if you can, in the comments and things, we should make a big ol Happy Birthday, I'm going to take a selfie, this is gonna be great. Now, So Aaron, and Jesse have been really writing songs. And they've been amazing songs, I have the privilege of hearing a few of them in person. One of them was at a worship night that I secretly recorded and he didn't see here and had no idea that I was filming it at the time. And I keep coming back to we have to record these things, because these are not just songs for you. So Well, I appreciate you, we're gonna work through that. And we're gonna record the songs because I'm a, I kind of know what I'm talking about. That's not a boast. But it's, it's, it's a it's a place of experience. Like I know, good music. And that is excellent music. So you and Jesse have been doing great things. Thank you very worshipful songs that the world needs to hear very soon.

Aaron Benda 1:06:11
Oh, my goodness, Josh wrote in our open google doc, when you recall the season during your life, how have you used your voice to get through these seasons? struggles, pains? rejoicings. Do you want to answer that too?

Tony Benda 1:06:26
I would, I would love to but with one of your songs. Oh, my goodness. So there is a the first song that I recorded secretly of Aaron playing was at a worship night. Most church does their first Thursday's. The line is there is a reason that I praise. There is a reason that I bless your name. There's a reason that I praise you've been, you've been so good to me. Like that. Yeah, it's slightly repetitive for the for the lines. But like, it's good, though. Because yeah, talking about God's goodness, there's other songs about God's goodness, like goodness of God. He's a good good father. Like all of these things. There's that, that vein of goodness. But like me, and that's a killin song. And I play it back sometimes, because it's just, it's good. And yeah, they're like, even in this current season, like, we have a new baby girl who's so adorable, and she's so sweet and cuddly. But like, I mean, I can even sing that song in that season. Like he's been so good to me. And, you know, there's other songs that we can, you know, relate to different seasons about, you know, hurt and pain and walking through stuff. Like one of the ones that I do. Worship here wise is a Cody Carnes, Song run to the Father. It's just, it's, it's a very, very like, I don't know, testimonial type song that, like, a lot of people can relate to. The lyrics are I've carried a burden for too long on my own. I wasn't created a beard alone. I hear your invitation to let it all go. Yeah, I see it now laying it down. And I know that I need you. So the chorus goes, I run to the Father fall into grace, I'm done with the hiding no reason to wait. My heart needs a surgeon. My soul needs a friend. So I'll run to the father again. And again. It is so good.

Aaron Benda 1:08:24
Yeah. And I think like, this is a good segue to talk about it. Like for the people that haven't like grown up in the church, or have never been to church or are curious about church, like why do people do these things? Like, why do people sing at church? Like why? Like, like, I think people think of Christianity and like, not a

Tony Benda 1:08:42
bunch of weirdos that get together and chant things. Yeah. Yeah. We literally cry out because we're called to cry

Aaron Benda 1:08:47
out. Yeah. Like, there's a there's a song that King David wrote, and or I believe King David wrote, David wrote a lot of songs, Psalms that were actually songs. But Psalm 1231 through five and this is this really is the reason why we why we praise the Lord through songs. It says, Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit. Amen to that, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles and the three of us are sitting at this table talking about Dungeons, Dungeons and Dragons, but we're also talking about Jesus and and the reason is because that whole thing that I just read that whole list is exactly what he's done to all three of us. He there's been times like, like I shared with things that were going on with my body, like, like as far as being malnourished, like, there were literally there was a time where I ended up in the hospital because I was so bad. I almost blacked out at the wheel. All, I had to take an ambulance to the hospital. It was a really scary time. Yes, it was, but I had nothing but peace. And it wasn't because it wasn't because I had any reason to other than I knew that the Lord was with me. Like, he made his presence, so aware to me. And there's times where I just can't help but praise Him. And a lot of the times that we do that through song, we do that with our voice. We can do that. A lot more than outside of, you know, just just making music. But there's something about music like, everybody loves music. I I've never met a person that's like, the question is like, if you if you're meeting someone new, like what, what type of music do you like? The question is never do you like music? Like, No, I hate I hate music. Like, literally, I think it's something that like God has just hardwired inside each and every one of us that like, literally, if you look at the science behind it acoustically, when things when a chord meshes. There's difference, like, different, you know, what are they called net while we're music people and now I can't even think of like the distance between nuts. intervals, intervals. Thank you, Josh. Wow, Josh is also very musical. He's lazy. Killer saxophone. Gosh, was in the Marine Corps Band.

Josh Shaw 1:11:23
You're so lucky, I can barely speak. Yeah,

Aaron Benda 1:11:26
I am. Because we get to brag on you, just like you brag on us. But, but literally, there's just something about music. And true, we believe that God is literally the creator of every good and perfect gift like that talks about in in James as well. But like, God created music, like in Zephaniah, in the Old Testament, it literally talks about Gods singing over you. And it's just if you want to get to know your Creator, read the Bible, for sure. But also, like, look at the creation that he's made, and like music is part of that.

Josh Shaw 1:12:00
We're gonna edit this very later, so I'm gonna try my best. Alright, I come back to for whatever reason it's on my heart. Something in the valley of dry bones. And I don't know, as a saxophone player. The mechanics of breathing to make sound come out. Yep. The mechanics of singing to make sound come out. The people of God were dead. For not even like a couple years like it I think the I think zekiel says centuries they were dead generations. Yeah, generation. They were done

Aaron Benda 1:12:39
in this Ezekiel like passage.

Josh Shaw 1:12:42
And yeah, I don't remember where it's at my I want to say like zero 17. But I don't think it's right. If you're curious. Go.

Aaron Benda 1:12:49
Look all your dry bones. Yeah, look at Valley Dry Bones.

Josh Shaw 1:12:51
But what God did was he went, and he raised the entire valley of dry bones. But before even even though he did the miracle to raise them, they were still not alive, right? God had to breathe life into them. Before they could express true life out of them. Yep. So we talk about voices, we talk about seeking the Lord, we talk about all these things. We were created in the likeness of God, he literally breathes life into our lungs. The least we can do is praise the life that He's given us in our lungs.

Aaron Benda 1:13:46
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And like, honestly, that all like I keep hearing. And again, this is the cool thing about music. Like as we talk about these things, like how often do you have a conversation, and just a song pops into your brain? Like all the time, especially if you're a musician? Yes. Even if you're not a musician, like someone says something, and it's like, and then you get Rick rolled. So well. So you're welcome for Rick Rowley. But like, as you were saying, like he breathed, like in Genesis, it literally talks about us being made in the image of God. So if you're curious about who am I like, what am I supposed to do in this world? Well, you were literally made in the likeness and in God's own image. And if you want to know what the world says about you, you don't have to look very far to get beat up. Or just like feel so down about yourself, like have such low self esteem, self esteem, not self esteem. But you don't have to look very far to get like beat down from the world. But if you want to be lifted up and like know who you truly are, look at the word of God. Like he says, like, You are my masterpiece. And he said, I don't know he just has so many cool things about like who we are because we're made in His image, but the song that comes to my mind, are you talking about the valley of dry bones? You know what it is?

Speaker 1 1:15:07
It's your birth. And so we pour out of phase, we pour it up phases your birth. And so we pour it up. Pray see you Oh, holy.

Aaron Benda 1:15:22
It's just like, it's just, I mean, that's it right there. And like, there's some about music and like, being able to praise God with your voice like, there's just something about it and

Josh Shaw 1:15:33
how you use that voice in in d&d? Yeah. We were talking about it earlier. Your voice will help make or break that story. Like, Critical Role. Critical Role is so good. Because they're voice acting. Shout out to y'all. If you ever listen. Their voices are so good. Awesome. I mean, on doubtedly good. Like you are drawn by the voices they give. Is that Matt Mercer?

Aaron Benda 1:16:09
Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Excellent

Tony Benda 1:16:13
point that Mercer is phenomenal DM and Voice Actor Sam Regal, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham. Liam O'Brien, Ashley Johnson. Oh, my gosh, and the list just goes on. It's just Yeah, Marissa Ray and Teles, and Jeff, I'm sorry, I'm butchering that name. But my Lord, You y'all are phenomenal voice actors. And there's so many good ones out there. And

Josh Shaw 1:16:36
honestly, I praise you guys for what you do in the community. It's phenomenal. Because God has gifted you with those voices. And you're using it to create a story. Yeah, amazing stories. I mean, we're not even that encouraged me. Yeah. But my encouragement is like, if you've got a voice use it. Yeah. Even if you're like, saying to yourself, it's not good enough. Oh, it's not? It's not I haven't refined it or whatever your excuses to use it. Go in and use it. Because a lot of times, and this is a question I want to ask you, Aaron. Is the world sometimes can have us use our voice for evil never good. So how do you use your voice for good and not for evil?

Aaron Benda 1:17:29
That's a good question.

Josh Shaw 1:17:32
I'm so thankful I sat and listened for as long as I did, because my voice is slowly coming back. Hey, man. Oh, y'all prepare for it. Thank

Aaron Benda 1:17:40
you. How to Use Your Voice for good enough for evil. I think.

Proverbs 1821 comes to mind. It says the tongue has the power of life and death. And those who love it will eat its fruit. That's just a very like, it's just, there's so much packed into that. But the tongue having the power of life and death. That just shows that like, how much power we do have is as being created in the image of God. Like how much weight we can carry in our lifetime, with, with the things that we say the things that we choose to do based on what we say and no, like, maybe what some of you are thinking like, like, words don't really carry that much weight. Well, how many times? Are we looking at ourselves through the eyes of other people and what they have said about us? How many times can you recall in your life, that you look back on the thing that someone said that really hurt you? That you've been carrying for years? Or? Or on the opposite? Like, what's something that like someone's encouraged you with, that you've held on to for so long? I just I just think we don't realize sometimes like how much weight or words can actually carry again, Proverbs 1821 The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit. So if if you are if you are gracious with your tongue, I know that sounds weird, but like if you are loving with the words that you say, like there will be good fruit. Like I keep referencing James I love the book of James in the Bible. But like how it says every good tree bears good fruit. Like and bad trees bear bad fruit. Like it's just it's almost common sense to where like if you reap what you sow. If you're reaping life with your tongue, that's what you're gonna get back. Like if you're in a friend group of people that are super demeaning to each other. Like they granted sarcasm can be you know, sarcasm has its moment. Yeah, it's got its moments like, Yeah, but when you use your tongue each others with Yeah, like when you use your tongue to like cut it people. Yeah, and maybe that does actually carry some weight. Maybe You're hitting a soft spot on your friend and you don't even realize it. Like, I think having life filled conversation, sometimes it feels harder. But how much more? Are you actually getting at the good things in life? Like if, if all I have with Tony or with Josh, is this superficial, sarcastic lace conversation all the time? When am I ever really getting it? Like, Hey, how are you doing, bro? Like, like, how are you truly, you know, like, is there anything I can be praying about for you or like, you know, or even just like, if you don't feel comfortable with that. Or if you don't like necessarily consider yourself like, a follower of Jesus yet. I would just say, you know, like, just just start having like, uplifting conversations and just like, see where that leads you, you might get some pushback, or initially, but like, I guarantee you, the people that you start seeing yourself around you are surrounded, you are probably going to be people that also like to lift each other up in life, like who wants to go through life just like, downtrodden all the time. And just like, weighed down by people's words. I mean, like, we go by, you know, sticks and stones. You know, I mean, like, the words can never hurt me. But like, that is if we actually back up and look at that, that is not true at all. Like,

Josh Shaw 1:21:21
you know, words are?

Aaron Benda 1:21:22
Yeah, like words are words hurt like power of life, and death is found in the tongue. And those who love it will eat its fruit.

Josh Shaw 1:21:30
Can I can I speak into that a little bit? I dare you. You dare me. All the voice that I have left. I believe biblically to it's not just about death and life being for other people. But for yourself. I think we live in a culture where it's funny, I actually just got we saw inside out to I don't know if you guys seen it. I've not seen it yet. Okay, well, they embody a character of anxiety. And, and I hate to spoil every all but anxiety begins to form a core belief. And through all the actions that anxiety is doing, like she's adding these memories to the character. They're embodying in of their feelings. And as the core belief shifts, and builds, it finally lights up. And they, and it hangs up to the ceiling. And the words that the core belief words, when she pulls this string, just says I'm not good enough. And I think Death and life are in the power of the tongue for what we say to others, but also to ourselves. I think words can hurt us just as much as others. And I think if you're listening to this, if you're in this season of like, I'm not good enough, I can't do it. i People hate me, or, you know, speak life, from the Word of God into yourself. You have to, you have to say to yourself, I'm loved. I'm beautifully and wonderfully made.

Aaron Benda 1:23:16
And I hate to say it, but like, what the world offers, as its best. As its like most self motivation, its highest form of like, self praise. Really, it just doesn't measure up to what God says about you. Because I can at any point in time, just come in my own mind, like, how often do like we build ourselves up, and then tear ourselves down in the same sentence or in the same day? Like, are we actually believing the things that we're manifesting over ourselves? That's powerful? You know, you know what I mean? Like, if, if, if you have a bunch of sticky notes that are written on your window, I mean, some of them can be based in truth, like, I am beautiful, I am loved. I mean, yes, absolutely. Those things are true, but like, how often does the enemy try to if we don't know, one of the most powerful things that the enemy can do, meaning Satan is telling you that he doesn't exist, that that there is no war that like, the things that happened in Genesis like when when when Adam and Eve fell, like, we don't have an enemy. That's that's not true. And if, if you've been wondering, like, where's the source of evil comes from? Yeah, that's, that's where it comes from. But all that to be said, Sorry, oh, you're good. That's powerful. But even just like looking at the best that the world has to offer, like, sometimes we can kind of refute it ourselves. Maybe someone will say something to you the next day that will refute it, and you'll and that's just what you buy. But all I did was I typed in, what does God think about me? That's what I typed into Google. And they they put it into sections. You are valuable. You are new. You have my spirit. You will be transformed. And again, we are carriers of this thing called the Holy Spirit when we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. Let me just look at the you are valuable. These are all written from God's perspective, through His Word, almost just like it's, we look at this scripture that He's given us. And it's almost like he's taking this on through this website that I'm looking at, says, I am the creator, and you are my creation. I breathed into your nostrils the breath of life, that's Genesis two, seven, we just talked about that. I created you in my own image, Genesis 127, as the reference there, my eyes saw your unformed substance, Psalm 139 16, I knit you together in your mother's womb. So I'm 139 13 I know the numbers of hair on your head. And before word is on your tongue, I know it. And that's just that that's just like a very small section of the you are valuable. portion you are new in my eyes, you are a brand new creation, the old has passed away, the new has come. And again, this is found through Jesus Christ like through what he did on the cross. Second Corinthians 517, sin is no longer your master. Again, breaking shackles, For you died this in and are now alive in me. Romans 611 And Ephesians, two, four through five, these are all just kind of summaries. But like, root scripture is riddled with who you are, who you are, and Jesus, who God says you are. If you want to find your purpose, you want to find your voice. You want to find who God says you are. That's where to look,

Josh Shaw 1:26:35
there's two powerful compressions you can do with your mouth, like one of the confessions is this, the biblical theme of this podcast, Revelation 12, verse 11, and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. They love not their lives even unto death. Your testimony is a powerful thing, which is why we had you start Aaron with that testimony. I've even just a little things you did. But then even our entryway into accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, takes foothold in the voice that God has gifted us for Romans, chapter nine irts. Romans chapter 10, verse nine says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for what art one believes and is justified, and what the mouth one confesses and is saved. For those listening, that have been sticking with us through these episodes, and you don't know Jesus, right there, Romans chapter 10, verses nine through 10, is the way you accept Jesus into your heart, and you confess that He is Lord. That's, that's the gospel. That's the thing. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be whole. You don't have to be this. I don't even know the words of it. It's just we I feel like we need to go, I feel like people need to go and they think like, oh, I have to go into church and be a completely whole person. When God wants you for you being broken,

Aaron Benda 1:28:20
right? I can't go to church because I'm not put together like those people. But

Josh Shaw 1:28:24
the people that are not put together. I want you there. Yeah. I'm so thank you, Holy Spirit for giving me my voice back because I need this part. And I need people to hear this. Stop staying away from church because you think you're too that you need to be too whole. You have to go to church. Not I want you to go to church, because you're broken.

Aaron Benda 1:28:50
Yeah. And that's an honestly that's, that's what Jesus did to Jesus came to us, right. And he also said, he came for the sick, he didn't come for the healthy, right? If you're wondering if you've gotten some judgmental errors from people, if you've gotten some, some notion that like God came to condemn you, literally, Jesus said the opposite. I came into this role not to condemn the world, but to save it. Exactly. And that was through His death on the cross. But, you know, we look at the people that even Jesus interacted with, like, what like first eyewitnesses that these are found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are like some of his disciples that witnessed it, and there's so many more people that witnessed it. Who did he come up and rub shoulders with? Exactly, he came up and rub shoulders with sinners? Yep. Tax Collector tax collectors, which again, at that time, were the worst of the worst. The Roman government came in and imposed so much of their Roman will onto Jewish people of Israel. And the tax collectors were those people in between there were Jewish by birth. But they said yeah, I'm gonna go work for the Roman government because I can collect people's taxes. And then charge extra for myself. They were the worst of the worst. Because I mean, but look at, I mean, look at who Jesus called. He said, like, I came for the sick, like the sick need the doctor, it's not the healthy. So he came to, to heal, to fix our brokenness. And thank you, Jesus, because all three of us sitting in this table and many, many more, are living witnesses of that. Yeah, a

Tony Benda 1:30:23
church realistically should be a, a triage station.

Josh Shaw 1:30:27
Amen. Like,

Tony Benda 1:30:29
we're not these, you know, Crystal cathedrals, so to speak. We're hospitals, you know, are that that like, need this triage this spirit filled triage so we can be fixed and then sent back out from where we came to then minister to the people who need that Holy Spirit triage again, to keep that cycle going. Like we're here to be made a disciple, and then to make disciples and then go out and put it into motion.

Aaron Benda 1:30:58
Yeah, that was the last thing that Jesus said to His disciples before he went back to heaven. He said, Go and make disciples like, I have shown you a better way. Like, Go show other people that way. Now, I

Josh Shaw 1:31:10
want to encourage people with a way to look this, because I because I lived it. If you want to know what you're feeling, especially in the d&d world, look at your character that you made. Kanan, we talked about Canaan, my character that I played in our campaign, I look back on Canaan. And I realized that Canaan embodied a lot of my struggles, and a lot of the things that I needed to work through. You know, Kanan was angry. Kanan was an alcoholic, Canaan, wanted to fight at the drop of a drop of the hat. Yeah. You know, anyhow, at the time, I was like, Oh, this is just a cool character. But I really realized that the character was me. So in a way, it's kind of poetic that he died.

Aaron Benda 1:32:13
Mm hmm. Wow, I never thought about that.

Josh Shaw 1:32:17
It's kind of poetic again and died. Yeah. Because at the time he died, is when I really was walking into the call the call of ministry, the call of preaching the call of podcasting. And then a new character come, and I built Ezra off of a new stage of my life. That's a lot more wise. That's careful. That's strong willed, but diligent. So if you want to know, I encourage all your list all the listeners here, if you're in a d&d campaign right now, and you have a character. Take a look at all that character, not for the traits, not for the stats. Take a look at your own. The backstory you wrote, is your story in that backstory? Yeah. Yeah. Is your story hidden within? Is there trauma you need to work through? Is? Is the voice that you put on paper or in trying to embody actually a cry for help at the role table? No,

Aaron Benda 1:33:23
yeah. Honestly, the passage that came to my brain earlier was Luke 645. A good man and this is Jesus talking. A good man brings good things of the good stored up in his heart. An evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart, For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. So even just like looking at the characters that we create, what's coming out through the words that we say using the voice that we've been given? That's good, you know, we, again, I think being a vocalist as far as just like, just something that I do often, and I'm not trying to place too much importance on that. But like, it truly and I tell a lot of my like, I've taught, I've taught piano, I've taught guitar, I've taught voice. My favorite thing to teachers voice. asked me why, why, Aaron? Well, I'm glad you asked because, because loud was like, Sure, sure. No, I just, I love teaching voice. Because it is the only thing that is truly unique in this world. You and I can both sit down and play the piano. And if both of us had done a play a C, like middle C, it'll sound pretty much the same. I mean, I might know technically how to hit it the right way, because I've used that piano more. But I cannot use any of anyone else's voice but my own god, literally from the time creation happened until the end of all time. Literally no one's gonna have my voice. No one has even even if I some, some people say Tony nice on the lake, you know when we sing and stuff like that, and sometimes when we speak, especially sometimes when we make voices, it's, it can be fun trying to trick our spouses into, you know, on the phone. But it's just I tell my students like, no one has your voice. No one has let alone just the sound that comes out of your vessel. But to another level, no one can replicate the things that you've been through. Even if I sound like someone that I've maybe that I've never met, even if I sound like Tony, Tony and I have, even though we come from the same family, similar experiences have a totally different experience of life. Even just middle child, youngest child, even just the things that Tony's done, like he's been in the military, I haven't. That brings a whole new set of experiences that that can be reflected in, in the way you carry yourself and the way you voice in the way you you know, sometimes sing, I've I believe different things about my voice. You know, just because, honestly, Tony, I blame you. No, I'm just teasing. I really don't blame. You know, I grew up with a brother that was incredible, as a musician, and he would never boast on himself like that. But it truly an incredible musician from a very young age. And I kind of I feel like I grew up a little bit, trying to figure out, how do I get as good as Tony WW, TD? What would Tony do. But what I was doing to my voice for a couple years, and our shout out to Prof. Dalton, she really helped us a lot in college. So she was our voice teacher, we both went to the same school. And we're privileged to have her as a voice coach very much, but but she kind of helped me figure out that like, hey, like, you're kind of sound like trying to sound like someone you're not when you're singing well, and, and a lot of the stuff that we had to do was classical music. So I think again, I'm really teasing Tony, I wasn't blaming you. But I what I noticed sometimes is like, from spending so much time in the car, listening like to how we do voice stuff, our ears got really developed. And like it was just it was kind of cool. Like, again, we love impersonating people. But all that to be said, I think I started believing that like other people were better than me. Like, I'll never be good as anybody else that that I hear, or that I'll never live up to this person or that person. And truly, like, I needed to start hearing my own voice and the voice that God gave me. And I think that was when I started figuring out how to actually sing was when I stopped trying to get everybody else's voice out of my head. Again, God's gift to them too. But I tell this to my students to God has given you your voice. No one else. So don't try to sound like anybody else. But who God's made you to be.

Josh Shaw 1:38:09
One of the things we want to touch on is that God has a voice. We've explored our voices. But God has a voice. Aaron, how do we get in tune with the voice of the Lord? Do it say it

Aaron Benda 1:38:33
looks like Tony has some thoughts too. Are you just anticipating I'm

Tony Benda 1:38:37
anticipating got it I'm excited.

Aaron Benda 1:38:42
I think there's a lot of ways to get in tune with the voice of the learner. We have a creator that made so much in such a short amount of time. And it was so cool. Like he spoke us into existence. He spoke I just realized he used his voice to create. I just wow. Thank you, Jesus. That's a cool connection. Literally, in Genesis one it says, And God said, Let there be this. God said let there be light. And guess what? Then there was light. Like their Bible is very clear about just the authority that God brings. When he speaks. I

Tony Benda 1:39:23
was literally just typing in that song authority.

Aaron Benda 1:39:26
Yes, so good. It is the

Tony Benda 1:39:29
elevation song authority. Like the very first line is creation knows the voice that spoken to the voice. The breath that brought the dust to life and sang the stars to form Wow. I mean, it's a little poetic in the English elevation license that they bring. But like truly though, who's to say God didn't sing it into existence?

Aaron Benda 1:39:51
Yeah, I'm actually pretty sure biblical scholars think that he actually saying no like,

Tony Benda 1:39:56
which is a fascinating thing to think about because like I like

Aaron Benda 1:40:00
theologians that have studied like the original, like, yeah, like Aramaic text. I

Tony Benda 1:40:05
mean, even looking at at the end in Revelation, it says that we're going to be singing for eternity Holy, holy now. And Worthy is the light like, yeah, these different.

Aaron Benda 1:40:15
And don't worry, that's not all we're going to do in heaven. So like when we think about like, like, what we're gonna do in heaven, I'm so excited. Like, I feel like, I mean, it says, like, the Lion and the Lamb are gonna lay down together, I might be able to write a lion. You never know. You know, you never know. I mean, lions eat people too. They don't just eat, you know, little lambs, but like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I'll be able to ride on the back of a lion. I mean, the Bible disables surroundings,

Tony Benda 1:40:42
like I mean, you do have a glad mean, your veins will flow together, that would be you know, but did bring it, bring it back, to bring it back, mentioning the fact that the, the authority of God's voice, if it's true, and those lyrics, one word from you, things change on your authority. It's just really, really cool to you know, sing that here in church. Like it's one of my favorite songs that I bring back way too much. Probably the congregations probably tired of it, but it's such a good song, because we need to proclaim it right? And just remember that because there is authority and there's power in God's word. Just like there's life and death in our tongue. Yeah. So worship is one of the ways that, you know, we get in tune with the voice of the Lord, listening or just worshiping corporately, which is what we do frequently. Yeah, worship for me. It's just a huge one. Obviously, you know, for you, too. Yeah. And Josh, as well.

Aaron Benda 1:41:36
Well, and I think it worshiper, I think something Oh, you are, bro. I think sometimes, like, you act like you're not? Yeah. Well, I think sometimes, like just being able to, like, almost like how us using a character voice can get you more embodied into your character. Yeah, I think worship music, like just having music that we have that like, can help us praise the Lord. Like even when we're not feeling it. Like say, we're going through something. There's something about listening to a song that like, embodies something that we're not necessarily feeling. But maybe it's embodying scripture. Maybe it's like Romans 1017. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of God. Some a lot of times, like when we, when we are either like, listening to worship, music, a lot of that is straight up scripture that is being sung. So like, when we hear the word of God, like it just increases our faith. I do have to make a quick mention on the authority of God's word go for it. We want to know what to get in tune with the voice of God, sir, I really think I got saved. Like Cana No, Jesus, my freshman year of college is a quick, I know, we're I know, we're maxing out on time go for it. But it was at the time where I was taking 18 credit hours, I was taking multiple lessons. And we would need to like as a music student, you need to be practicing minimum of six hours each week. So that that's just 12 hours right there out of two classes, which were like maybe four credits total out of the 18. I was in a musical, which was like 20 hours a week. Our grandma was dying of cancer at the time to be real. And I literally, I was struggling with so much just like my own personal sin. And I grew up trying to be as good as I possibly can. Growing up in the Christian house that we did, I tried to be I tried to be good for good enough for God. And I would I hit such a low point, I would never say I don't think I've ever been truly like struggled with depression, other than maybe at that time in my life. And I think a lot of it was situational. I think a lot of lack of sleep. So if you do struggle with depression, I'm not saying I definitely know what that's like. But I think that was the closest I've come. But I was again at church at a worship set. And it was written from the drum cage at our church at the time. It's like a place. And I said, God, I can't do this anymore. Like, I've tried everything. I truly I've tried everything. But but I'm done. I can't keep doing this. And I've never heard the audible auditory voice of God, like to my ear canals. However, God knows how to speak to his children. And if you're wondering if, if this is the voice of God, if that's the voice of God, you will know when God is speaking to you, he has that much authority. He said to me, good. This was this was when I was telling him how done I wasn't trying to be a good enough person to live up to God. And I thought I was saying, God, I'm done. I can't like I can't do this anymore. Like I don't know what I was saying. But he said, good. Now I can work with you. And that was all it wasn't this like 45 minute I The heavens open and out shown this bursting late, and God, Thus saith the Lord. That wasn't it at all. I heard a Vasquez road. Yeah, I heard inside of me. Good. Now I can work with you. But the love that came with that. That was God's voice, like, like the acceptance that came with that. That was God's voice. I've carried a bird. Yeah.

Josh Shaw 1:45:25
Have kids carry the burden

Aaron Benda 1:45:28
to too low? Yeah. And that's what we were talking about. Yep. Run to the phone. That's so good. But yeah, I did. Yeah.

Tony Benda 1:45:36
So the worshipping side of things, the being physically in the word. That's another way we can, you know, get into the voice of the Lord. Praying some scriptures that are here are Romans 1017. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of God. That using the word of God as a lens for everything we see and hear in do is huge, primarily because the Scripture is God's word, not just some of it, but truly all of it. Hebrews 412 says, For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. And going back to that breath concept, Second Timothy 316 states that all scripture is God breathed in is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. And that's something we have to take to heart to like that all scripture is God breathed. So if if God has inspired through his breath, the word of the Lord, and we are given life through His breath, there's, there's just so much that we can take away from that, like, it really brings to mind like those those truths of the Bible that we are called that we are loved, that we are acceptable, that we are sons and daughters, that we are co heirs with Christ that we have inheritance of the heaven and everything that Jesus has, you know, inherited, we also can inherit, it's just amazing to see those things. Yeah.

Aaron Benda 1:47:08
And another like, sometimes, like when we are wondering, Is God real? Like, man, I wish I could just hear an audible voice from God, like, like, Why doesn't he just come down and say something like, show me like he's, we look at the Bible. And that was literally God speaking

Tony Benda 1:47:27
to people handed us a physical copy of his voice. And

Aaron Benda 1:47:31
if any, if you're curious about how the Bible got here, there's a whole, you know, there's a whole nother thing about that he's spoken to his people over the years, and he has tried to reveal Himself to us through His Word. You want to know what God sounds like? Check out the Bible.

Tony Benda 1:47:47
Another way to like really get in tune with him is through prayer. There's different ways you could pray. I mean, people have their like modes of prayer. They could do it corporately they could do it privately. I think private prayer in relationship with God is one of the most, I don't know. It's one of the most like humbling experiences. Because it's just you and him at that moment. It's it's a very exposing. It's a very private, it's a very loving and intimate thing that you can do with a father and we'll get to that in another episode for sure. We're going to do probably a whole episode on prayer. I think in the future. There's ways to pray because it's what it boils down to. It's it's communing with God. Then First Thessalonians 517 says to pray without ceasing. While you're driving your car, when you're mowing the grass when you're, you know, fishing when you're sitting there eating your Chipotle burrito bowl and doing a podcast doing a podcast, pray without ceasing. Holy Spirit is here because when two or more gathered, there

Aaron Benda 1:48:53
he is, there he is in great. Jesus also said the same spirit that raised Him from the grave also lives inside of anybody that accepts him. Yes, you know. Yeah. And that's just cool. Because like a lot of times, the Lord speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, leading us to say this or that through scripture, all sorts of stuff.

Tony Benda 1:49:12
Yeah. There is definitely something powerful about getting quiet and just breathing and praying and sitting with the Lord. Yeah. Well, I know this can keep going. And I love where we are. And I love this conversation. But I do think we have some last minute encouraging things to say before we wrap this episode, man, we can keep going. We want to give our listeners a break and just give them something to hold on to till next time. So gentlemen,

Aaron Benda 1:49:44
yes.

Tony Benda 1:49:45
Do you have any encouragement for our listeners?

Aaron Benda 1:49:48
I think keep trying to figure out who? Who God has made you to be your voice. Keep trying, keep trying to learn and it's less about us. When we look at God, he is enough to just kind of be enamored at. And we are already made in His image. So don't go try and like, figure out who you are in the world, I would suggest, not so much. Go on this whole journey of self exploration. We can waste a lot of time trying to do that. I tried to figure out who I was for a long, long time. But I really started to figure out who I was when I started to try to learn who I wasn't God out. Like we said, we were made in His image. Yeah. So we want to know more of who we are. Discover more of who he is. Yes. And you'll be mind blown. Literally,

Tony Benda 1:50:49
that's good stuff. Yeah, I think, to leave with the listeners, just continue getting in that prayer closet. And truly just find ways that you can hear the voice of the Lord. Again, it's not always an audible thing. It's what was it Elijah that went to the mountain?

Aaron Benda 1:51:14
No, yes. I'm talking about like, with the fire. And yeah, yeah. So it was Elijah. I'm

Tony Benda 1:51:18
terrible, with like, scriptural references, and where they fall in with specific people. But I know the stories very well. So like when Elijah went up to the mountain to hear the voice of the Lord, you know, there was this, there was this huge wind and the Lord was not in the wind, there was this huge fire the Lord is on in the fire. But it was a still small voice that he heard. And who say it was audible or not. God will make Himself known to you. When when you're able to sit and reflect and just be at peace, and truly listening to what God has to say. So find your opportunities this week, and next week, and whenever you're listening to this, to take a few moments and just sit with the Lord and listen to his voice. You don't even have to say anything. Just be like, Yo, God, I'm here. Thank you. And just sit. So

Aaron Benda 1:52:07
I do want to read for Josh. I will read for Josh. Yeah. He typed it in. His voice is Josh. Yep.

Tony Benda 1:52:16
So Josh is word of encouragement is hope, with heaven in mind, in his voice on your

Aaron Benda 1:52:21
heart, and the scripture to go with them.

Tony Benda 1:52:26
Psalm 3124 Be strong and let your heart take courage. All you who wait for the Lord. So remember to wait on Him. Because Isaiah also says For they that wait on the Lord will renew your strength, the amount of wings like eagles will walk and not be weary or rather not faint. It's good stuff. So thank you all for listening. Aaron. Thank you, I guess thank you for my blood brother, my brother in Christ, my DND brother, all the things, brother. Thank you for coming on this show and just gracing us with your presence in speaking your testimony and your existence on the show for listeners. It's been great. It's been fun. Yeah, thank you.

Aaron Benda 1:53:21
I have loved every second of it.

Tony Benda 1:53:22
I sure hope so. Yeah. Because I know where you live. That's true. Audience Thank you for again, being here. Taking the time to listen. We would like to invite you guys to subscribe to leave reviews to share the podcast. Oh my goodness, some really cool stuff that's happened. I'm just gonna mention it real quick. There have been people from all over the world listening to the show. 34 states 34 states has come across. It's even in the UK. So England and Scotland both they both have. Wow, there's listeners there. It's kind of cool. Scotland is not the easiest accent to do. But Scotland. Thank you for those listening to Scotland. England, of course. Canada, we have listeners Norway. Now, I don't know many people in Norway. But whoever you are, thank you. If you're MDX please let me know because I love your YouTube channel. He's in Oslo, Norway, Australia, our friends down under in New South Wales specifically. Thank you guys for like, Thanks, Mike. Yeah, the Australian accent here. Yeah, some of our favorite band members are from Australia. Nick, shout out to newsboys and he's vice Peter, fellow lead singer there. And then Phil Jones from New Zealand. Good stuff. We have other listeners and Russia and Puerto Rico and Singapore. So thank you all for really tuning in. It's been awesome. Just like getting to see these analytics, the nerdy side of the podcast life now, but it's really encouraging that so many people are listening. So thank you wherever you are. Again, like Subscribe and follow do the things our socials are on Instagram and Facebook. It is dungeons and disciples with the word spelled out, and dungeons and disciples on both Facebook and Instagram or email if you want to reach out to us and an email. Tell us your testimonies. We've gotten some really cool emails that we're about to like respond to. Josh and I have not had time to sit down and do things together this last week and a half with a new baby in mind. But we're so grateful for those who have reached out to us on Facebook and Instagram and emails. Our email is dungeons disciples@gmail.com dungeons disciples@gmail.com There's no end in that one. So thank you guys for seriously reaching out. We're gonna get back to those who have already emailed us. It's been just very, very encouraging. But yeah, we're on all the podcasts and platforms. subscribe, rate, review all the things, folks. Yeah, if there's any additional resources that we're leaving out, we'll throw them in the episode description. And with that, let's pray out. Aaron, would you like to pray us out today, Mr. guest on our show? Sure. Awesome. Let's pray folks.

Aaron Benda 1:56:12
Josh, any final words? Just kidding. He lost his voice. Alright, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for allowing us the space to be able to talk about dungeons and disciples are talking about Dungeons and Dragons, I should say, but also laying it on the hearts of these two men of God, to minister to a group of people that and by Minister we just we just mean talking about you. So thank you for allowing us to share our lives, our testimonies, and just how you've changed them so much from who we are to, to who we were, Lord, we can never stop singing your praise. We can never stop using our voice. The ways that you desire because you have been just that good. So Laurie, thank you for this episode. Lord, we ask that You would bless the time bless the listeners and a year to many more Lord, continue to do what only He can do through this Jesus name we ask and pray. Amen. Amen.

Tony Benda 1:57:14
We'll see you guys next time.