Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Leadership: Matthew Sanders

If you’ve ever been to the official Vatican website, it might tempt you to despair of good design in the Vatican. However, there is top notch work being done out there, and today we are talking to someone who is making it happen. When Matthew Sanders looked at the design coming out of the Vatican and didn’t just critique or groan, he said, I think I can help. So he moved across the world to do something about the church’s communication problem.

Matthew Sanders has served in the military, worked at an archdiocese, and now is the founder and managing director of Longbeard, a digital design agency based in Rome and Toronto.

Today, we’re talking about what kind of approach we need to take as professional lay people to help the Church’s message spread in the world and on the digital continent. We also talk about why there should be more homilies about Captain America. I’ve personally worked with Matt and the Longbeard team in the past and can testify to his humble leadership. He puts his words into action, so take heed!

Before we get started, we just went live with our first group wide collaboration. It is called 8 Beats. Over 80 filmmakers, designers, marketing professionals, and artists from across North America have been divided into eight regional teams. Each team will produce and distribute a 5-12 minute short film inspired by the themes of the eight Beatitudes, done at the highest quality possible and distributed with all the power of modern marketing strategy.

Why? We want to build community. This movement isn’t a Facebook page- it's like minded people creating deep and lasting relationships with each other. We want to see lifelong friends, professional teams, or partnerships created here- and who knows, even marriages. We wouldn’t be Catholic if we didn’t want to help people find their vocations amiright?

So this collaboration is an important next step for us in developing real relationships, going beyond a facebook group

You can find out more at www.8beatsmovie.com 

As always, create something awesome this week, and enjoy the podcast.

Vulnerable Ministry and the Launch of Anthem: Megan Mastrioanni & Jacob King

Hello, creatives! We’re here to talk about something awesome that happened this weekend and the people who made it happen. We’re talking about the launch of Anthem, rebrand of the youth and young adult office of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Joining us are Megan Mastrioanni and Jacob King, who are leading the charge up there in the diocesan office. 

While you’re listening, unless you’re in the car or something, go visit anthemphilly.com, which was designed by our friends at Glass Canvas. You need the full experience because this is like no diocesan office you’ve seen before. There’s literally a grunge-style GIF of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It’s amazing.

This launch is so important not just for Philly but for the mission of the New Renaissance. The need that the Church has for this kind of branding, strategy, and vision is exactly what we talked about at the Summit. But as you’ll hear from Megan and Jacob, this isn’t just about graphic design or videography or branding. All those things are built on a basis of vulnerability and authenticity. It’s an expression who Megan and Jacob and the rest of the team in Philly are, and how they approach living an authentic Catholic life in the modern world. Community in faith and collaboration in mission is what makes this happen. That’ exactly why Catholic Creatives exists and why we’re excited to have these two as our guests today.

In this podcast, we talk about the process of the rebrand, the risks they’re taking in pushing the envelope, and how vulnerability and community have made all of this possible.

So listen to their story, and then visit the website, like their Facebook page, and say a prayer for them. They’re doing something incredible for the Church and they need all the support we can give them.

As always, create something awesome this week, and enjoy the podcast.

The Power of Having a Bigger Vision: Ashley Crouch

Hello, creatives! This week, you’ve got a question to answer, one that you probably don’t ask yourself enough, something that is challenging and maybe even daunting to all of us. And that question is: just how big is your dream?

Our guest and the person who inspires this question is Ashley Crouch, founder of Appleseed Communications. Ashley was homeschooled in Arkansas, studied theology at the University of Dallas, was a founding team member of Verily magazine, and now runs a PR firm that brings the power of media to the stories of women entrepreneurs around the world. 

As you can hear from that quick description, Ashley has had some interesting changes in her life. Going from raising chickens in Arkansas to founding a PR firm is a pretty dramatic shift. I don’t know about you, but I can definitely relate to not always knowing where my life is headed and sometimes wondering what God is working for me. As entrepreneurs, even as members of Catholic Creatives, we can’t know exactly how things are going to work out, but as people of faith, we need to have a huge vision for the future. We have to believe that the businesses we’re starting, the projects we’re creating, and the work we’re doing is going to change the world and that God will bless that work and make it fruitful.

In this podcast, Ashley talks about why business can be the greatest catalyst for cultural change, how dreaming big guides her work each day, why celebration and having a tribe are essential for entrepreneurs to avoid burnout, and why Catholic Creatives need to be multilingual when it comes to talking about beauty.

Before we get started, a huge thank you to all of our patrons on Patreon. You’re the ones who are pushing us to the next level with the resources to grow and become sustainable. If you haven’t signed up yet, visit our page and think about becoming a patron yourself.

And while you’re listening, think and pray about that question: how big is your dream? Because it’s probably not big enough. The world is more open than ever to entrepreneurs and creatives. Let’s not put a limit on what God can do through our lives.

Create something awesome this week and enjoy the podcast.

Creating an Experience of Truth: Therese Bussen & Anthony D'Ambrosio

Hello, creatives! We are back with a little bit of a twist on the podcast: this week, I am being interviewed by Therese Bussen with the Archdiocese of Denver. Therese was one of the first members of Catholic Creatives. We got to know her through her work on the FOCUS blog, where she wrote some of the most forward thinking and honest articles in the Catholic world, with titles such as, Jesus Doesn’t Alway Fill Your Emptiness, and Why That’s Ok, so it was an honor to be talking with her today.

One of the major questions we get asked as a group is why beauty and creativity are so important for the Church. With all the big problems we’re facing as Catholics, it seems like worrying about websites or branding and liturgical music should be the least of our problems.

But we believe that the greatest force of evangelization and social change in our world is beauty. It isn’t about making things pretty -- it’s about creating an authentic experience of truth that has the power to change someone’s life. 

Today, we're discussing why Catholic Creatives exists, why beauty is essential for the growth of the Church, how to create an experience of truth rather than just preach to people, and what we as creatives can do to take our calling of creativity more seriously. For those of you who have joined the group recently or haven't heard the full story of how we got started, this conversation is a crash course.

A quick reminder: one of the most important aspects of our group is community -- getting to lend each other support and insight for our creative endeavors. If you’re a new member or just haven’t seen it yet, you should check out our Patreon page. Patrons get access to monthly online meeting and discussions with fellow creatives and guest speakers, as well as first dibs on tickets for the next Summit which, if you talked to anyone who went to the first one, you won’t want to miss. So go sign up on Patreon!

I hope you all have an incredibly productive week, and that this discussion helps get you thinking about how to fulfill your personal vocation to creativity in a more complete and authentic way. Enjoy.

High Performance Leadership: Benji Vega

This podcast is a very vulnerable conversation between myself and Benji Vega, Art Director at Pyro, a branding agency whose clients are some of the largest brands in the world (LucasArts being one). He has consistently produced award winning work, and specializes in directing teams of creatives, enabling them to operate on the highest level of excellence. In this conversation we talk about his conversion to Christianity: how the Holy Spirit has impacted his career, and about how he saved a million dollar production by riding on a cop’s segway.

The Early Church & Pagan Culture: Dr. Italy

This conversation was between myself and one of the most eminent scholars in the early church fathers, a man who also happens to be my father: Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio “The Greyer” as we call him.  He was the valedictorian of Catholic University of America,  he holds a PHD in Theology, is currently is professor at Catholic Distance University and is a renowned speaker. He runs Crossroads Initiative, which started out doing youth and young adult ministry as a rock band in the 80’s, and that is transmuted into an organization dedicated to helping the world rediscover the adventure of the Christian faith. 

We asked him to come onto the podcast because, one of the major conversations happening in the group and in the Church at large is centered around the question: How should we deal with secular, pagan culture?

Implicit in this question is another. There is this tension between tradition and creativity: how do we value the treasures of the church that we know and love, while at the same time valuing and adapting to modern secular culture for the sake of innovation? This tension is especially present when we grapple with conversations about liturgy. For those of us that are grappling with questions of how how do we integrate cultural art with our Catholic heritage, I wanted to bring Dr. Italy onto the cast so that we could talk about how the early church approached these questions. The conversation was deeply enlightening.

Crossroads Initiative 

Christians, The Soul of the World - Letter to Diagnetus

How Healthy Conflict Creates Healthy Organizations: Steve Lawson

Marcellino interviews Steven Lawson, the Director of Communications for Dynamic Catholic, a fast growing nonprofit that develops innovative learning-systems to inspire people to rediscover the genius of Catholicism. While working towards his childhood dream to become an animation director in New York City, Steve had a profound conversion experience that lead him into his current work.

This conversation is at once startlingly frank and incredibly hope filled, as they speak about creating a better world, about management, and about how healthy conflict creates healthy culture in organizations.  What would happen if the Church was hopeful and creative and inspired?

Steve's advice:

• Awareness of self will make you a more effective leader and manager.

• Take ownership over your problems. It is very freeing to achieve self-mastery over one's subconscious reactions and communication.

• Everything we do has to align with hope.

• Creativity is a hopeful experience.

• "Catholicism is inherently creative and life-giving."

Resources: 

• radical candor

• marcus arilius meditations

• abandonment to divine providence

• ENTJ- Biographys of people with your myers brigs

• leadership and self deception

• Organizational life cycles

• Seth Godin

•  A VC

• Both Sides of the Table

• Man's Search for Meaning

• Monk Manual Planner

From Selling Donuts to Making Movies: Jack and Jamie McAleer

One of our guests may be familiar to you — Dan Johnson from 4pm Media, winner of the Collaboration of the Year Award 2017.  But the other two interviewees are perhaps less known in this group- yet they have had a powerful influence in the Catholic world, albeit from behind the scenes. Jack and Jamie McAleer, major players in the growth of the Krispy Kreme dynasty, are the Financeers behind 4pm media.  They are board members of Legatus and Franciscan, and they started 4pm Media with their son in law in order to set a new standard for art and media in the church.  

“After working as a store and dough factory manager, the younger Mr. McAleer, now 40, moved into marketing.

Rising to exec VP-brand development, he worked to restore Krispy Kreme’s original logo and ‘50s-style store design, deployed miniaturized equipment that lets patrons see doughnuts made, and added neon “hot” lights to tell passersby when fresh doughnuts were cooking.
”

— https://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/krispy-kreme-exec-mcaleer-leave-post

The McAleers are modern models of the Medicis: the family that sponsored much of the art of the Medieval Renaissance.  We talk in this podcast about how they had their spiritual awakening in faith, how they left Krispy Kreme, and helped to found a Catholic production company with their son in Law.

resources: Family Fortunes
 

Being Cool with Being Weird: Kate Hazen

Meet Kate Hazen, a graphic designer, brand architect, creative genius extraordinaire.

She is one of the most excellent creative directors that I have ever met, and she has so much to offer our group in terms of pushing us to think bigger and with less constriction. In this convo we talk about the time she designed a LARPing game for her company’s conference. We also talk about how she became cool with being weird, about tattoos, and about the CC Summit.

Resources:

Walker Percy, "Lost in the Cosmos"

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cosmos-Last-Self-Help-Book/dp/0312253990
 
Thinking with Type

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695

The Timeless Way of Building

https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028

Sustainable Packaging Design

https://books.google.com/books?id=Atf_OQAACAAJ&dq=sustainable+packaging+design&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG24zwm9nTAhXJjFQKHS6MAAkQ6AEICTAA

Don't Make Me Think, Revisited

https://books.google.com/books?id=QlduAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=don%27t+make+me+think+revisited&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-ldCVnNnTAhWprlQKHROSDnwQ6AEICTAA#v=onepage&q=don't%20make%20me%20think%20revisited&f=false

The works of Twyla Tharpe, the work and talks of Stefan Sagmeister, the work and process of Seb Lester and Aaron Draplin.

Kate Hazen Links: 

And this weird work she’s done:

katehazen.myportfolio.com

instagram.com/kazen117

tumblr.com/kazen117
 

Why Digital Marketing For Ministry?: Patrick Langrell

(And why we should all get off of our phones)

In this interview, Marcellino talks to Patrick Langrell (Adjunct lecturer in Philosophy & Senior Digital Media Analyst for the Arch Diocese of LA). They talk about the importance of Analytic thinking and of digital marketing for reaching more people with better messages.

They get into the ways that Patrick has used this to grow a pro life clinic and target abortion minded women. They also talk about their personal difficulties with technology and their desire to bypass it in search of authentic personal communication.

Patrick is a Renaissance man with an international reputation for successful engagement in communications, events, and digital & social media. He also is a sought after public speaker, a researcher and consultant in policy and ethics. He contributes to high-level diocesan and public policy…. and to the development of the Catholic intellectual tradition and evangelisation initiatives. His work with Matt Meeks and the others from the Archdiocese of LA is really exciting, and we are looking forward to hearing about that at the Summit, where he will be giving a workshop specifically about the unique circumstances in which Catholic Creatives find themselves at this particular moment in the church.  

But he is not the only one who we will be present from the Archdiocese of LA. The Diocese of LA has become one of our major sponsors- coming on as a Patron of the Arts. They will be sponsoring the first session of the summit, "The New Renaissance." 

As you probably already know, LA has a reputation for being one of the epicenters of innovation for communications in the church. They have (by normal diocesan standards) a huge team with what I believe is around over 15 employees totally dedicated to helping churches and Diocesan branches market themselves better. We are excited to partner with them to make the new Renaissance happen.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plangrell

Linked In:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-langrell-51539225/ 

The Vessel, Terrence Malick, and Raising a Million Dollars: Julio Quintana

This podcast features an interview with Director Julio Quintana. Julio just released his first feature film- which is always a big deal. But he also raised 1 million to do it, got Martin Sheen to act and had the master Terrence Malick as executive producer. Their influence in the film is visible, giving it a spiritual, cinematic gravitas that is really undeniable.

(Here is the trailer)

So in this not only do we we talk about the film, we get into all sorts of other good stuff like beauty and perseverance and the hard work of making it as an artist.

Blu Ray

Itunes

Hulu 

Empathy & Defining Your Audience: Elise Crawford

Today we are taking a break from the break from the podcast hiatus to bring you an interview with Elise Crawford. As we announced in the group, we've been taking a break from our podcasts in order to plan for the Catholic Creatives Summit in March. But since Elise is going to be speaking at the Summit, we thought it might be a good way for those of you who are coming to get to know her before you see her there. 

So Elise is awesome. She started Ringlet Studio, a creative agency that specifically focuses on working with female entrepreneurs. Why is that cool? Because it's super niche. She picked a very defined audience. Which is painful because it is exclusive; and I don't care who you are, a business owner or some one who works in ministry — we all struggle so so hard with picking a niche and sticking to it. 

It is so easy to fall prey to generalism and over inclusivity, and these issues are rampant in our ministries and businesses. So in this podcast Marcellino asks Elise a lot about how to be more targeted and clear with our audiences. They also talk about her acting role playing Helen Keller, and how it taught her empathy. This empathy has characterized her life and ministry since. 

Resources: 
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Beloved-Spiritual-Living-Secular/dp/0824519868

https://emyth.com/ 

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Leap-Conquer-Hidden-Level/dp/0061735361

Data Driven Ministry & Catholic Aesthetic: Brandon Vogt

This podcast is Marcellino’s conversation with Brandon Vogt, Bishop Barron’s right hand media man at Word On Fire. Their talk ranges from Brandon’s conversion to the Catholic Aesthetic and its influence on Brandon’s understanding of creativity and story. Interesting stuff for sure. 

Brandon's work has been featured by some little networks like NPR, FoxNews, CBS, Vatican Radio, Our Sunday Visitor, National Review, and Christianity Today. He is a convert to Catholicism, and also a convert from the engineer life to the life of a media guru and author. He has written SIX books. You can learn more about his work here: http://brandonvogt.com/ 

Pirates of the Caribbean & Gender In the Creative Industry: Leah Murphy

Leah Murphy currently serves as a video editor at Life Teen International. She has six years of experience in leadership positions including campus ministry, TV station management. She has also successfully avoided ever seeing a Star Wars movie, which is as we all know… a huge shame.

In this interview with Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Leah talks about her creative genesis as an artist, and her transition from youth group teen to professional artist. Also, as a woman who has studied Theology of the Body and who has worked for years in the creative industry that is largely populated by men, Leah has a perspective on gender that is particularly thought provoking. They get into her background and the origins of her creativity, but when they begin to talk about power and gender later in the podcast the conversation goes to a different level.

See her work here: http://lifeteen.com/cym/resources/videos/
 

Catholic Mindfulness, Meditation, and Inner Healing: Dr. Gregory Bottaro

Dr. Greggory Bottaro is the founder of the CatholicPsych Institute, and is an expert on self improvement He is also a successful entrepreneur, marketer, and gifted communicator.  In this episode, Anthony interviews him over his work to integrate the popular meditative “mindfulness” trend that has taken off in Silicon Valley and in the creative industry with Catholic spirituality. His course, Catholic Mindfulness, employs the cutting edge research in the field of mindfulness and the spirituality of Abandonment to the Divine Providence to help attendees gain control of their mood, find inner healing, develop concentration, and enhance their creative faculties. 

Resources:

Catholic Mindfulness

Abandonment to Divine Providence

Headspace

From Apologetics to Better Communication: Michael "Gomer" Gormley

In this show Anthony interviews a New Evangelization Expert.

His name is…
GOMER.

Michael Gormley, AKA Gomer, is one of the founders of the Catching Foxes podcast, and is all about human connection in ministry. His theology and approach to communicating about the gospel is touching, vulnerable, and convicting. 

The first sentence of his bio on his website reads: “Everyone is talking about the New Evangelization, but talk is not enough.”

In this podcast we talk about his transition from Apologetics to this new and compelling approach to evangelization, and we talk about how we as members of the church can improve in our ability to communicate about the gospel. 

Resources

Poetry
As King Fishers Catch Fire:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44389

 That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44397

 Comedy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UahqgK60vuk

Lay Evangelist:
http://www.layevangelist.com/

Hand Lettering, Alcohol, & Love: Erica Tighe

This conversation super awesome with the talented Erica Tighe. A lot of the people in the group are well known for their art in Catholic circles, but Erica really embodies that spirit of CC that seeks to be excellent in the secular world as well and operate in both spheres. 

She’s been featured in Goop, the Los Angeles party planning guide, the Fashion Magazine Elle, and Verily, the Christian women’s magazine. Erica is an awesome woman that you guys should all get to know because she’s also demonstrated how to make money doing what she loves. So this conversation we get into Erica’s story. How she went from being a missionary in Brazil to making a career in hand lettering, her recovery from alcoholism, how her time with Debtors Anonymous changed the way she dealt with money, and advice to other creators on pursing their craft in faith. This is one of those podcasts that’ll get you in the feels, so I hope you’re as moved and excited by this one as I’ve been.

Announcements:

The David Initiative, our collaboration with 4pm Media, Papercastle Records, Dave Moore, Robert Feduccia, and Gretsch instruments has launched. We will be giving away a ton of Gretsch equipment a single recorded by Paper Castle, a video from 4pm and now announcing our newest partnership with AbbyFest in Philly, the band that wins will lead worship for the mass at AbbyFest, travel and accommodations paid for in full. If you want to learn more about that go to www.davidinitiative.com, or if you want to get involved in the project, give us a shout through the website.

Resources:

Debtors Anonymous:
http://debtorsanonymous.org/

Jenna's Podcast
http://www.catholiccreatives.org/podcast/2016/4/25/04-jenna

Erica’s Site:
http://beaheart.com/

Skillshare:
http://skl.sh/29fArUK

Be A Heart Etsy Shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/beaheart

Forget Politics. Support Art, Impact the World: Gregory Wolfe

In this episode, Anthony D’Ambrosio interviews Gregory Wolfe, founder and editor of the the Image Journal. It is a true honor to have him on the podcast. He has been called “one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation” (Ron Hansen). Through the journal and through his work in the academic world, he has sparked a resurgence of interest in the relationship between art and religion, which has had widespread impact both on religious communities and the public square. He was the founding director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at SPU, and author of many formational books, such as Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age.

In this podcast, we talk about Gregory’s story- about his transformation from a young voice of conservatism in the “culture wars” into a champion of cultural change through art. This lead to his mission to found the Image Journal, which he began with the intention of discovering this generation's T.S. Elliots and Flannery O'Connor's. In other words, he wanted to support artists who were redeeming the culture.
 

Image Journal.

Check out Read their mission and try not to get excited: 

“We believe that the great art that has emerged from these faith traditions is dramatic, not didactic—incarnational, not abstract. And so our focus has been on works of imagination that embody a spiritual struggle, like Jacob wrestling with the angel. In our pages the larger questions of existence intersect with what the poet Albert Goldbarth calls the “greasy doorknobs and salty tearducts” of our everyday lives.””

Is Youth Ministry Trivializing the Church?: Fr. Casey Jones

Fr Casey Jones is a super bad (i.e. awesome) priest, who is a friend of outcasts and a strategist in the Youth Ministry game. He has a degree in the school of Hard Knocks, as demonstrated by his copious amounts of tattoos (usually hidden from view under his clerics) . He is currently working on his Licentiate in the New Evangelization, and is knee deep in youth ministry. He is a chaplain at a school in Florida, he preaches Camp Hidden lake (Lifeteen’s middle school camp),  and he has a lot to say on the topic of evangelization that I think is incredibly relevant to us as innovators/creators.

Notes from Marcellino:

Father Casey and I go way back. He was actually my RD at Ave Maria. Fr Casey celebrated my sister's wedding this summer and he killed it.  

Part of the reason I’m bringing Fr. Casey on is because we both were also friends of Fr. McTeigue whilst at Ave Maria. Fr McTeigue wrote an article on Aleithea called “Beware the Juvenilization of American Christianity (HERE). We wrote a response to that article (HERE) but I felt like the issues he brought up started a conversation that deserved deeper thought.

 The Story:
Before we get into that though, some of you know that Fr McTeigue preached against one of my marketing efforts whilst at Ave, I promised I would tell the story

I ran unopposed as SAB president my sophomore year, believed that good events could dramatically affect the trajectory of the school’s culture, and started going for it. My team put on concerts, dances, lip syncing competitions, it was a blast. One weekend we invited the Afters & Between the Trees to Ave Maria, but unbeknownst to us the history department had assigned term papers that were due the following day. In an effort to rally the student body, I got up on a table in the middle of the cafeteria and announced that this was totally worth pulling an all nighter for.

The next morning I received reports that at the 7am mass, Fr. Mactigue had delivered a sweltering homily on how we are not at school to have fun but to study and not to be led astray by other students who are attempting to co opt our educations and lead us down the path to culture of mediocrity. As you can imagine, he used the word vocation many times. That was the 4th homily I had preached on something I did. 

There you go. 

UXing the Church: Brian Sullivan:

 Anthony interviews Brian Sullivan, a renowned UX designer and expert on the creative process. He is invited to give presentations almost annually at South By South West, and is also the founder of the Big Design Conference- one of the largest UX conferences in the nation. Brian is a recent convert to Catholicism, and was instrumental in helping us found Catholic Creatives. Here we talk about how UX and creative brainstorming principles can be applied to help creatives be better thinkers, solve teamwork problems, and assist the church in evangelization.  

Edward DeBono - Lateral Thinking

Alex Osborne - Applied Imagination