Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: I'm going to, make these

relationships whatnot.

They might be in mainstream pop music.

They might be in Christian music, but who it ultimately

goes to is I give that to God.

I give that the destiny of that to God and I'm not going to necessarily

try to get all that figured out.

And that has been that's just been swimming against a 60

foot wave my entire life.

You

How can the seemingly insignificant details of life

unveil profound insights on love, creativity, and faith?

Today on Seek Go Create, we're honored to host Charlie Peacock, a multi Grammy

winner, and author Andy Ashworth, as they share the wisdom gleaned

from nearly 50 years of marriage in their latest book, Why Everything

That Doesn't Matter, matter so much.

This couple brings to life the notion that every aspect of our existence, no

matter how small, has the potential to impact people, the planet, and culture.

Through a collection of letters, they offer hope and practical advice to

Christians seeking to navigate the complexities of the modern world with

kindness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: for that wonderful introduction.

Yeah.

am, I I want to say right out,

I usually start off with this odd question about what people do, but I have

thoroughly enjoyed over the last few days.

I feel as if I've gotten to know you through your book.

And, and I think, and I want to say this, this might be a good thing, might not.

I didn't know much about you before that.

It's really been quite intriguing for me that this is kind of my

introduction, which is really cool.

But, I, I think what I'd love to do, I usually kind of get people to talk

about what they do or things like that, but it's rare that I have couples.

So what I'd love to do and maybe, start with you, Andy, I'd love for maybe you

to intro or say something about Charlie.

And then Charlie, if you could say something or intro Andy, and

then we'll kind of get rolling and see where things take us.

So

Andy, introduce Charlie to me.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Okay, I will I will start with Charlie

has been my boyfriend since I was 6 15 15 years old and The first thing he

ever did was sit me down in his room and have me listen to Miles Davis,

an important Miles Davis record.

And to, to, tell me that this was really important to him.

Music was really important to him.

And he's an extraordinary musician and songwriter and record producer

that he's in a really, beautiful, beautiful, encouraging husband.

And a really fun grandfather, and a very fun dad, and, in the world of things

that he makes, he makes a lot of fun, memorable things happen in our family.

So I would, I would start with that.

Oh,

That,

that is an excellent introduction.

Charlie, can you.

uh, how about that?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: don't know if I can match that.

Yes, this is Andy and as she said, my sweetheart since I was a teenager

and, we have created a life together that is completely unexpected, not

planned for and yet in many ways planned for, since we were kids.

I mean, we can go back and look at things that we journaled or something that we may

have, may have made it a sort of, vision board or something in high school and,

and see so many things that came to pass.

And, a big part of that is that Andy is the glue in our

relationship and in our family.

because.

She puts relationships first.

And, in my work, I've had this weird mix of relational and transactional.

And there's just not a transactional bone in Andy's body.

It's, it's like all love, all people all the time, and always concerned about what

someone is thinking or feeling and how she can serve them and, bring them in closer.

So she does that with me and she does that with our kids and her grandkids.

And, and it really is that we really are first on her mind.

And then out from there, she has extraordinary friendships.

I mean, she has friendships with, with girlfriends from

when, before we were together.

So that's, that's how much she is this kind of sticky, sticky.

glue centered relational person, that she makes a friend and she keeps a friend.

And that's a really beautiful thing.

And then, then she just has a huge hospitable heart that is a welcoming heart

and create spaces for people that, are deeply meaningful for them, for strangers

and for people that she's known for ever.

I mean, that's just the tip of, tip of it, but that's a good introduction.

uh, I, I appreciate those words.

And like, I, I think we're in a society and culture where number one

longevity, almost 50 years of marriage, my wife and I just celebrated 35.

So we're a number of years behind, but, but heading in that direction.

And.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Doing well.

Yeah, thank you.

And we, I think very similar to the two of you are still still in learning mode.

I mean, do y'all feel

like, I don't want to say you're just getting started, but, but

I mean, is it, is it, I mean, where are you at in the spectrum?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah, we're just getting

started on our fifth marriage.

To each other.

Yeah, to each other.

Yeah.

I mean, Andy said it well at different times that, that we are, they're just

these big phases, and we are very grateful to be in a really good one right now,

where we have gone through a valley where we had to learn a lot again.

Yeah.

And come, come out of it.

And yeah, we, we know that now.

I think, I think that the certainty of our love and our marriage has,

has never been greater because of the many valleys and mountaintops

that we've traversed together.

One thing that's interesting to me, I had a conversation

recently with, with a guest and.

He was talking about that the goal isn't really balanced.

He was talking about being a business leader and he says,

we're not to lead a balanced life.

We're really called to lead an integrated life where we integrate our faith.

And, and, and, we, we hear this, we hear things thrown around in our culture,

society, things like opposites attract.

And I don't know that I agree with that.

I, I believe that with my wife and I, and kind of what I'm hearing

with you two and reading is I think that compliments attract.

It's like people that are complimentary that can integrate.

And to me, it seems as if one of our journeys in this married life

is learning how to, integrate and, and, and we're still learning.

It sounds like, y'all are, y'all are still learning.

Now, the thing that.

Let me go ahead and dive right into the book because I think it's going to lead

us in a lot of different directions.

The book, Why Everything That Doesn't Matter Matters So Much.

And the thing that I kept, that I kept getting from it

was how well y'all integrated.

I think I saw plenty of places that there could be conflict because when

you have a certain personality and a certain personality, but I, I kept seeing

integration and I was wondering if that was one of the intentions of the book,

or is it a by product or have y'all even thought about it that, that Andy, what

are, what are your thoughts on that?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: I think it's both.

I think it's maybe something we don't even realize all the time, but.

We do tend to be of one mind about a lot of things and then we also definitely have

our own personalities and I, I agree with the person you, you were referring to.

I don't think the balance is a possible thing.

I think there is grace and there's tension along the way of our life.

I just think that's the real thing.

I think there's you know, lots of tension for lots of reasons, whether

age or stage or personalities or, but then there's grace inside of that.

And that is, I think the journey, the pilgrim journey is to, to, I don't know.

I always see it as putting your, your palms open at really difficult

passages and saying, I don't, I don't know how to move forward.

help us, guide us, we're really needy, and then we'll integrate

again, even if we've been far apart.

I think we get closer and closer and closer together.

The more we age, the more we experience.

And yeah, so it's been, it's been all of that.

Yeah, one,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: And the book, yeah,

well, I was going to say, Charlie, one of the

things that was intriguing to me, it actually wasn't intriguing.

It was more affirming.

This may be the better word, was one of the last chapters that you wrote.

And I don't want to say it was almost like an apology.

I think you even worded it more of a confession.

Of these are some things that I've done that, as a, a multitasker, you use the

word multitasking and, as someone who is more transactional and someone who

is more maybe in the business space, you, I, I don't think I'm putting words

in my, it was almost like you were sort of as a, as a husband, father

saying, I'm sorry that I was this way.

I wish I could change it a little bit.

And, and I think that relates to the, the tension or the integration, whatever

that we feel as people that are leaders.

You want to, what can you say to that?

Did I, did I read it right?

Or was I just, was I projecting

my issues onto what you were writing?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: it right.

No, I think you did read it right.

I think there's a I'm not one of these people who who thinks that you should

go through life without regrets.

I actually think that if you don't have regrets, then you've got

probably a serious ego problem or a problem with the self analysis.

So I'm okay with having regrets, but I put them, I put them in my whole

perspective and knowing that all my efforts, all my best efforts, approximate

efforts, I haven't done anything with perfection, that the reason for

the analysis or the reason for the confession is, is simply to grow in

grace and to receive grace for that.

continue to mature and not look at just my age number and say, Oh,

well, yeah, I'm pretty much done now.

Now I, it's, it's more like as, as I feel that God reveals things to me

that I do want to mature and, and grow.

and so a lot of the things that worked for me in business, It's kind of like

they had a, two sides of the coin, there's a positive side and a negative side.

And so you could so easily tip over, just flip the coin and

then it's all negative, right?

So you take things like, a really, unusual, resilience perhaps, right?

or the ability to work long hours or any of those kinds of things, right?

then you use, you think, well, look, I don't an eight hour day.

I mean, shoot, let's do a 16 hour day.

I mean, look how much more we can get done.

Right.

but that's based on the object of just getting things done.

Right.

And there are many things in life, for entrepreneurial people where,

yeah, that, that is job one.

getting it done and getting it done well and getting it done for the

least amount of expense and the quickest amount of time, right?

So you can become so oriented by that way of thinking that you'll,

you'll miss the people that you love the most and missed moments in

life that, that you'll later regret.

You'll think like, well, did I really have to do that?

I mean, and this is where Andy has been such a good voice through our

entire marriage, to just, insert the, Sabbath theology, of dependence and

rest into day to day living where, where we can hold to this idea that we're,

we're just small little people, right?

We, we do get these extraordinary opportunities to do really big things.

And some of us are super excited about that.

And we enter into it and we execute it and do that.

But at the end of the day, what I learned was that I did a lot of that

stuff based on the wrong motivations.

And so most of my maturity and healing has come through

discovering why I was so motivated.

Certainly a part of it is taking care of a family, building

businesses and all of that.

I get that.

But there's also a part where it becomes your meaning.

And for me, I mean, I, I was in a sense addicted to imagining

and addicted to creating because that's where I felt the safest.

The ability to just immerse myself in my imagination and draw out of that things

that I wanted to bring into the world.

And that just made me feel safe.

And when, when it came time for the world to decide whether it was going to

applaud me and pay me for it, they made the decision to applaud me and pay me.

Right?

Which of course, what did that do?

That just reinforced it.

And so I lived on that for a long, long time while trying to be.

a good husband, good father, good grandfather, all of that.

But I did have to finally come to terms with the fact that this was that two

sided coin and that there was a super positive contribution to culture, to

family, to all of that, but that all it took was just a little flip and it

could go to, the negative side of it.

The interesting thing about

that is that I recognized I I've always business has always been

my quote unquote, I guess, arena.

Maybe my art.

I don't, I don't, I don't know if that I've what's, what's cool about

this conversation is I've never considered myself someone who is an

artist, even though in the last few years I've written a novel, which was

quite an interesting stretch for me.

It's very fascinating.

We can kind of sidebar that, but

related to what you were saying there, Charlie, what I recognize with me.

A while back, and I'm still working through this, is that

I had an addiction to more.

And I spoke to someone recently that said they, it was a related addiction,

but they were addicted to tomorrow.

And I've never heard someone say they're addicted to imagination.

And I don't think that those are the same, but I think they're related.

And, and I think they could spin off in different directions.

I think the challenge with our culture and our world, and I might even let Andy

address this and speak to this is that often that is rewarded and applauded

and celebrated as opposed to if.

you and I had been addicted to, I don't know, alcohol or,

meth or something like that.

We would, we would obviously have issues there, but we're applauded

because it looks as if we're succeeding, but I'm not sure

that we are in the eternal, I think we are,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah.

we're not.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: You're succeeding by a standard.

It's just not an eternal standard.

Well,

and so what does that do for someone in your role, Andy, when you're, uh,

attached or integrated or married to, or cleaning up the messes or whatever you

want to say about someone who is that way.

Cause my wife, we could probably get y'all here and y'all

could have this conversation,

but, uh, but, that

like?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: well, it's different at

different stages of life.

I'm thinking of when we were young, younger parents.

And we had just moved to Nashville.

And the music business, the music making, recording, touring, record

companies, began to have a more and more say in how our life was lived.

But I didn't really get any say.

But it was all coming from, it was coming from outside of us.

And, I, I didn't.

have a chance to respond much.

So the way I was responding is that I'm trying to hold up a flag for somebody to

see, to say, I'm starting to drown here.

I need, I need, and then it, it moved into the realm of the hospitality

thing where we had, a very, very open home for, more than two decades.

And so everything was happening inside of the home.

in that regard where I was, whether it was taking care of children,

oftentimes on my own for that.

Or whether it was later in life, taking care of guests and houseguests and,

the people who were coming through, which was all something that I really

I felt very called to and loved.

But then there was a place where I also wanted to say, but I don't

want to be alone in these things.

I want a partner.

I want, and I don't think that biblically it's meant to be that way either.

so that was, that was often a big struggle for me.

And, now we're at a different stage of life.

So we don't have, guests in our house all the time, as we used

to, our children are grown.

We have, we have a lot more choice and we have come to a much better understanding

of each other and, what's good for each other and how we want to live.

it's so much better in that regard where both of our voices are heard.

But I will say that, in those other things that I just talked

about that, that made them.

It had the joyful part and the called part.

And then the part that I thought, I don't want to be alone in

these things all the time.

And I want to have choice and I want to have a say, but as Chuck already said,

especially with the music business, it's, or, with record companies, there's,

it's always like every opportunity is the, is the right opportunity.

Right.

But that might not always be the case.

For a marriage or a family or,

Charlie, one of the

things, and

I know, and I love in the book, and I was afraid I would call him Chuck because

you call him Chuck throughout the book.

And

so, Charlie or Chuck or whoever will, we'll just, he'll answer.

I'll answer to

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Well, I'll tell you how it breaks down is

like if my, if my parents, let's see.

No, I think when my last days, my dad would call me

Charlie, just for fun, I think.

but my mom still always called me Chuck, and then Andy called me, Chuck.

Yeah, because I, I didn't start being Charlie till I

was about 21 or so, I guess.

so I have like people that, in fact, I just got an email

from someone yesterday, right?

And so they said, Dear Chuck, right?

Because they qualified like they've been around so long.

They qualify to be in the Chuck years, right?

But you do whatever you want.

Yeah.

Well, good.

Well, That's something that I enjoyed.

so here's a, another bit of confession for me.

My personality would be one where I would really enjoy the content of.

Charlie's letters that he wrote in the book, because generally they had a, had a

flavor of some business and, some things that were going on and all of that.

And I'm, I'm hopeful that, that Charlie, this is when you might say, I want you to

call me Charlie, not Chuck, that Charlie's okay with this, but I found myself.

Truly enjoying Andy's letters.

I, I felt as if I was, if this, as if I was sitting with her and

talking with her, where with Charlie,

I was gathering information that I loved.

I also want to say this about the book, and this is, I think, Probably

one of the best endorsements that I could give my wife and our readers.

I read a lot, obviously, to consume content, to do research for the podcast.

And my wife, almost every book she reads, she tells me, you need to read this book.

You need to read this book.

You need to read this book.

I rarely will read a book and say to her, my wife's glory.

Oh, you need to read this book.

I was about halfway through over the weekend.

And I said, this is a book you need to read.

There's a lot of things that can touch you.

There's a lot of things to pull from things like that.

So having said all that.

Charlie, I'm about to ask you about one of the letters that you wrote that

really pulled at me as far as the topic.

And that is this whole aspect of putting the label Christian in front of Whatever.

I, I deal with it

because I'm a businessman and I always, oh, you're a Christian businessman.

I said, well, I don't even like the word Christian much anymore.

I mean, I noticed y'all use this term follower of Jesus or follower of Christ.

I try to use that too.

And I'm almost,

I don't think I'm trying to distance myself from people.

Maybe I am.

We don't have to get into that, but

talk a little bit about the industry you've been in that.

label that you really in that early on letter in the book you, you, I, I

won't say you were ranting, but I said, he's trying to get a point across here.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: very much.

So I mean, and it's I will say that as much as I don't want it to be.

I mean, it's been one of the kind of Keystone work works of my lifetime,

since I've been a young Christian.

I mean, I have been in this conversation.

writing about it, speaking about it, and I can't tell you how difficult it is to

get this point across or to get anyone to, to understand it or receive it.

That and, and my retort to that is that that reveals just how much the

church is indoctrinated to branding as a way of being and a way of life.

And, what I've tried to say is that no, you're free from

that and you can distinguish.

I mean, I honestly, I saw this with the Gospel Music Association

back when I was involved with with Christian music quite a bit.

They really jumped on the branding bandwagon, 25 plus years ago when,

when people were really, people were hiring consultants right and left about

everything had to be branded, right?

Everything had to have elevator pitch, mission statement, I

mean, everybody was in it.

I don't care.

You're going to start a business, tomorrow, that was going to be

the first thing you did, right?

It wasn't about big ideas anymore.

It wasn't about passion.

It wasn't about instinct, intuition.

It wasn't about risk anymore.

All, All of those things followed after you got your branding together.

And I saw that infiltrate the church in every aspect of it.

Pastors became branded, I mean everything.

And then all the products that were associated with it.

And I just was like, man, you guys, you just don't know where this leads.

It leads to narrowing.

are concepts of what it means to be a Christian.

It doesn't widen them like that.

The whole purpose, the whole economic purpose of branding is to have the

least amount of conversation to produce the highest effect, right?

If I say water, your, your mind can immediately go to the options.

It is the simplest conversation.

That's why water was chosen as something that was so simple to

sell and so simple to brand, right?

And something that you can make an extraordinary amount of money on.

I mean any of us who have been entrepreneurs, we would have been lucky

to just be water salespeople, right?

I mean, it's so simple and that's exactly what branding seeks to do.

It seeks to simplify everything.

And the point about being a Jesus follower is that it is not simple.

It is not simple.

It is so complex and it's so individual and it has so many different missions so

many different looks not only that it's generational and it's international.

And I mean, it's so so the ability the idea that we would

brand something as Christian.

It's like What Christian?

Who's Christian?

I'm going to need more information than that.

And it's so especially now, that's why I would take that positions because

look, if you call me a Christian, I want to know what you mean by that.

If I call something a Christian, you should want to know what I mean by that.

Because if anyone who studies it for even five minutes is going to find out that.

There are so many ideas about what constitutes a Christian today that we

are not speaking the same language.

We are just absolutely not speaking the

I, I think what

bothers me, I mean, again, I'm, I'm a business guy is kind of

all, most of what I've done.

That's where All my successes and addictions and challenges

have been related to,

and you know, the mantra there, like you said, with branding, I'll say

it maybe a slightly different way is you have to know your audience.

You have to choose your audience.

You have to focus on your audience, isolate your audience, and

speak directly to your audience.

And what that gets us Is I, I think what it gets us is the culture we have

today where we have an extreme tribal.

And again, we, we, I don't want us to go down this path, but

we're extremely tribal, confusing.

I, isolated group of people at a time where we should be more connected

than ever, because we could do things like we're doing right here.

three people meet, get on a, a, a techno, not a Technology platform

and have a one hour conversation and share it with the world.

How cool is that?

And, and so I, I think back to when I was reading through that chapter, it,

it reminded me of years ago, I started following Tim Tebow on On Instagram and I

was following him because I was attempting to identify kind of how to call myself.

I mean, I'm a, I'm a coach at heart, but I love doing this and I love doing a

lot of things and I've written a novel.

How interesting is that?

And I, and I wanted to say, do I need to put Christian

businessman, Christian coach?

Cause I see that.

And I went to Tim Tebow's who we all know Tim's, background and stuff like that.

And at that time he had athlete that was, that was his

description.

So it is more of that, what one, one, what one does or their gift.

And, and I, and I think it's pretty, Part of what's causing our issues today

is that we're attempting to, I, I'll say it this way and then I'll be quiet.

Maybe I'll let Andy respond to this.

I really believe we're attempting to use Babylonian principles to

describe kingdom of God, people, and what we're trying to do.

I mean, we're just trying to do all the stuff that the world system says

when we really should be Operating out of what y'all's book says, the

way of love in a world of, so anyway, there wasn't a question there.

Anything you want to say to it?

Either one of you.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: no, but you, I mean, you nailed it.

You nailed it.

Exactly.

I mean, I wish more people understood, would understand what it was that

you were saying, but you did nail it.

I mean, that's exactly what it is.

It's Babylonian principles,

Yeah.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: in sort of inserting kingdom language.

so you're devaluing the language because it's actually the.

The kingdom language is inflated or informed by all

this Babylonian, impulse, right?

And so it's really not the words don't mean what we

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: they're just they're placeholders

for a different kind of affection.

And I think that's, that's the, that's the reason why we are, we try to be

as careful as we can, to, to find what we're talking about and try to write

in such a way and speak in public in such a way that, that people can look

over our shoulder or anyone can be in the room, I will say this and then I'll

pass off to Andy is that I do think that there can be a place for someone

to say, I'm a Christian life coach.

Okay, if you want to, if you want your audience to only be Christians.

And, and that's it.

So like when my, really, really close friends that I worked with for

years at EMI Christian music group.

or Sparrow Records or any of those folks, when they self identify as, as

a Christian business person or self identify as a Christian record company,

they want to do that because they do want to sell things to Christians.

The difference between them and I is that I was never, I was never driven to

sell things to Christians exclusively.

And I've never been driven that way.

I'm so much more on the making side, my driven.

This is on the making and then I sort of draw a line in the dirt

and say and now who it goes to.

Of course, I'm going to, make these relationships whatnot.

They might be in mainstream pop music.

They might be in Christian music, but who it ultimately

goes to is I give that to God.

I give that the destiny of that to God and I'm not going to necessarily

try to get all that figured out.

And that has been that's just been swimming against a 60

foot wave my entire life.

But I do believe for me, that's my calling and so I have to stick with it.

And that's, that's what faithfulness looks like for me.

I'm not saying it has to be that way for you, but I'm, I'm saying

that's what it looks like for me.

So I do want to be understood.

Maybe that's why I keep writing about it.

I want, please, someone understand this.

Or, or you want to convince someone, I think that's sometimes what

I'm trying to do is people to be more.

I don't know if it's more open.

I mean, I'm sure you have seen these situations if you've been

around the industry, there are times that I would much rather hang out,

I hate to say it this way, with heathens than with, than with people

that call themselves Christians.

And, And, I, I think this is, I'm going to lob it over to Andy here.

I think that that is kind of the root of this hospitality gift that people have.

I don't think that one can be hospitable and be discriminatory.

To me, it doesn't

seem that way.

I mean, I guess we could be maybe choosy, but, and, and it seems as

if, and, and my wife has that gift too, that this hospitality has been

a gift that you've had, you even talk about food in the book in a way I'm

going, this is one of the things I'm saying, my wife's going to love this.

I'm going, she just talked about soup in a most beautiful.

Descriptive way that I've never heard anyone talk about soup.

So anyway, talk about

hospitality, Andy, and why it's important and why it fits into this conversation.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Okay.

Well, I love what you said.

about it because I, I think you really hit the nail on the head.

Hospitality is a way of being.

So that's, that's where it starts.

It's not, I mean, it is a practice and the, and the practice can have so many

different kinds of looks depending on who you are and what your situation is and.

what your, the fullness of your gifts are, all of that.

So no cookie cutter stuff here.

And no, I mean, it is a way of being that is throughout the scriptures as a way

of life to be hospitable to strangers and to just to all kinds of people.

So it's, it starts as.

a welcoming presence, I guess.

And so that is not discriminatory.

That is not narrow.

It's not, I have to know who you are and the fullness of your story before I can

sit and have a meal with you or a cup of coffee or take a walk or, it's more

of, I actually want to know who you are.

And I'd like to share myself with you.

And I think that is.

And then there are obviously the, the feeding and the sheltering parts

of hospitality that are, really important, central to who we are, any

of us, in some way, So there is that.

That part that there is something real and, in the moment and in,

on the earth and meeting needs of people in these different ways.

But I think that the very beginning is that place of where we start and

that is like, I want to know you or I want to be open to knowing you.

I want to look at you and I want to see another human being and I want to see

all these things that we have in common.

and which is our humanity and our needs and our vulnerabilities and some of the

greatest times that I can think of are even in our, our previous life or our

life now is just as to be with people at a table or over a cup of coffee and not

have to have everything figured out about.

You know who you are.

I don't have to sign off to you.

You don't have to sign off to me I'm just interested in who you are and it's a gift

if the interest is returned then we can actually have a conversation together and

and that's just a really beautiful way to be a human being and I think you're

right and that when we Discriminate and say we have to check off boxes before

we can be hospitable to somebody It's just, it's such a wrong starting place.

It just doesn't have any place, even with that word, I don't think.

And there's no biblical precedent for it

the, the thing that I kept, this kind of came to my mind a number

of times, primarily when I was reading some of the letters that you wrote, Andy

was, I kept getting a visual of Jesus.

With the woman at the well, and one of the things I've talked to my wife about this,

I've tried to repent and all that my voice come across with a very, know it all tone.

And, and I have to attempt to soften it or someone might think

this guy thinks he knows it all.

Even though I don't think that I do, maybe I do.

Maybe there's some issues there, but I keep reminding myself of that.

That woman at the well, and I even use things like, I really

wish we would use more what I call woman at the well language.

And, and I kept thinking about it in the book because to me, I kept

hearing woman at the well language because if we look at the business

world, we don't often get it there.

If we look at a lot of relationships, husband, wives, I see some talk to people.

I'm wow.

Is this your Partner, this is, and, and we definitely, we, see it in

the political arena and some of our leaders and, and things like that.

So is that, is that a good representation that, that one of the things you're

sharing is how Jesus, who, who, if people know the background of the woman at the

well and the story, there was every reason for there to be discrimination there.

But yet we saw.

None is, is, is that, is that a good

thing for me to think of when I'm reading through your letters?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: I think so.

Yeah.

I like that.

So that.

leads to

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: It's, will you give me a drink?

Yeah.

And the stages, I mean, it's almost like an outline of the stages of relationship.

so you go from the simplicity of can I have a drink to I see you.

I see the deepest part

Right.

So one, one

of the things that was intriguing I think I told you all early on that I

got, I didn't know a lot about you But I got to know you from reading this

book And there were a number of things that were intriguing that I obviously

would love to ask more about, but the one thing that I want to do, and I'll

let either one of you or both of you tell this, and that is the art house.

I saw it early on in the book and then it unfolded a little bit more what it was.

And then, and then later I got more of a description of it, but

I guess, Andy, if you can start, tell me what the art house is.

Was and is, and then maybe Charlie, if you want to chime in after she's done, just

because to me, it, I think it speaks to a lot of who the two of you are as much

as almost anything is this concept of

the art house and what it was.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: I'm going to try to make a long story

much shorter and say that the art house began with an idea of a place.

To gather.

And in the beginning, it was more specifically for artists to gather for

fellowship, teaching, and hospitality, and to really, connect the dots between

biblical faith and daily life and vocation with a, with a more artist centric focus.

And then that grew, so it was a place, and it began with an old, at that time,

an old Methodist church that was built in 1912, and we bought that place.

It was down the street from our house.

We had, we were a young family at the time, pretty new to Nashville.

And this idea, this longing, this thing that was beginning to take

shape, had taken shape in Chucks.

journals and in his mind and in his heart and he was feeling called and

propelled toward this thing that was kind of difficult to explain but was growing

and he was trying to explain it to me and I was kind of like hmm uh I'm not

sure what I'm not sure but and then a place became available and we had this

kind of wonderful kind of miraculous but really great story which we probably

don't have time to tell it but There was this old church, it was down the street

from our house, we bought it, and then we started hosting gatherings there.

And all kinds of people came, from students at Belmont and

Vanderbilt University, older people.

And it grew from being a place that was just for artists to being a place

where lots of people wanted to come for different kinds of gatherings.

and to hear, to hear different authors and speakers and theologians

and musicians and filmmakers.

Yeah.

So then that was the beginning and we, but then three years after beginning

this work, we moved our family in to this place and we, we, what's the right word?

Well, we consolidated.

We had a separate recording studio.

We had a separate home.

And, we consolidated everything on this one property so that we were living there

and the recording studios were there.

And the gathering place for people to come.

Yeah, and family life.

And so we were, renovating all the time.

That's what I was trying to say.

so creating this beautiful place, and I was planting gardens, and we were

feeding people, we were living there, we were raising our family, we were making

records, or Chuck was making records, and there was the, the business part of our

life, and everything was all together.

But hospitality, this welcome, was at the center of it all.

No matter what else was being done or created, hospitality was the center.

We're welcoming you into our home, into our studio.

So that was like, very core value.

And then we lived, we ended up living, almost 25 years in this place.

And, and so it grew from just a place to gather to being a place where we had

a lot of house guests and dinner guests and studio guests coming inside to

have lunch and just all these different things that you could not imagine.

set out to, to really know that's what you're creating in

the beginning, but that's what it became as God was leading us.

And now, so it kind of became this movement.

And then some people took this and, and started an art house in Dallas.

And then, and that was the Reeves family and, So there's an art house, Dallas,

and they just have served Dallas.

And so the kind of the central thing is creativity for the common good.

That's a little, the little tagline and they do all kinds of things, all

kinds of programs and serve their city in lots of different ways.

And then in art house north is in St.

Paul, Minnesota, and that is run by, by, Sarah Groves and her husband, Troy Groves.

And they are in an old church that they have created an art house north

and they do all kinds of hosting and gathering and gosh, name some of it.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah.

Like art house Dallas is they have a, a building, but

they're more of a pop up model.

So they use a lot of different facilities and, and we're talking

like highly organized, the, the whole.

Dallas area, the DFW area.

I mean, I think they had over 150 events last year.

and yeah, Art House North in St.

Paul is a little more like the way Art House in Nashville was

when Andy and I were running it.

and, but they do like theatrical productions.

I mean, they have partnerships in the community.

with, for a lot of different regions, they do, specific artist care.

I mean, they have square dances, which is really cool.

songwriters, songwriters, workshops.

yeah, yeah, it's, it's quite, extensive

The,

the reason that's fascinating on multiple levels for me.

And one of the things that I've been saying for some time in the role that I'm

in is that the closest thing I have seen to what I believe that the early church.

And I'm, and I want to make sure I word it that way.

So it doesn't come across that.

I think I know what I'm talking about because I don't think I

do, but my observations as I've traveled and work with companies and

startups and things like that, I've observed that coffee shop culture.

Startup and coworking spaces, to me, seem to have the vibe that I read about

through my eyes in the Book of Acts.

And, to contrast that, that somewhat frustrates me when I go into the way most

churches are structured in our culture.

And also have to say to you guys, the people listening,

no, I wasn't saved in a church.

I was saved in a business setting.

So my paradigm is a bit different than people.

I'm not sure that a church setting would have done it.

I think I read, Charlie, where a saxophone is, which that's, Got to be a cool story.

We don't have time for where someone who was a saxophonist helped you meet

Jesus, which, wow, that's, that's cool.

But,

but to me, and I don't know if this was intentional or if it just

formed up the way, the way it did.

The art house sounds a lot like the church of the book of acts.

Is that correct?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah, I think so.

I think there's people, that.

It's like, if you're going to have a house church, you got to have

somebody who's got the house that, that's going to be like, well, your

house is perfect for this, right?

and that person's got to be willing, that person's got to

be willing to do that, right?

And so yes, and, there's that just in terms of the infrastructure and the place

and, and then, is this a I mean for us, I mean we wanted to have a place that had

some built in magnetism and, and sort of could speak without, without us speaking

so that it would say, come in, be welcome.

Which, as we know, I mean, that's what good architecture does

and, good, groundskeeping and, beautiful gardens and all of that.

you step onto a property like that and you Oh, people tend to this,

there's, there's already, I just got out of my car and I've already been

hit with this wind of intentionality.

Right?

So maybe I'll be tended to, maybe I'll be cared for, if I keep walking

the walk up to the door and see what happens when the door opens.

we played with that, I mean, that was very intentional and, and all the art

houses, I mean, they all have that kind of aesthetic and, yeah, with, with

an emphasis on that, I mean, we have, because we've been in the arts and faith

intersection for so long, we've, we've had the opportunity to speak and all kinds of

places with all kinds of kinds of people.

And I remember, Decades ago, Andy and I having this revelation together

about we were at this place speaking on imagination and creativity, right?

In the most, like, in the single most unimaginative, uncreative

environment possible, right?

With so little attention paid to the people who were coming to it,

who'd put down their, whatever, 35 bucks for the weekend or, and And we

just thought, we'll never do that.

We'll go broke if we have to, to, in order to not do that.

But that, it's like we're not going to say we profess to believe something

and then create the contradiction.

So that was just such a good lesson for us.

That it, that it, and it's not about having a lot of money.

It's, it's really not.

I mean, I've saying on a lot of these podcasts that we've done when people

talk to me about imagination and creativity and I've said like, one of

the most radical things that you can do in creating is creating a mood.

it's just setting the stage for good to happen.

The way you're greeted, are you greeted?

Hopefully.

Are you greeted by being known?

I mean, we we're grateful to you that you read our book.

So that speaks to us, right?

That speaks to us to that.

We have been known in some way.

And so that that prepares our hearts more to be open to you.

And that's just the exchange of the way we humans work best together.

And when we don't have that, that's when you see things

organizations that don't work.

Well.

I don't care whether it's a huge corporation or it's a five person team.

But when you don't have that, I mean, full well from your own work that that's that's

one of the first things you've got to fix.

What's interesting earlier, Charlie, you mentioned that,

especially in the industry you were in, the industry I'm in, really anyone

where there's an exchange of money or a possible exchange of money.

I've even actually seen this in church settings.

Things can become very transactional.

It's very transactional in that if I do this for you, you either

pay me or you do this for me.

And Everything about the tone that, that I feel coming from you, and

I'm not, I don't think we're totally pure that, we, we don't do some

things or we don't, we're not okay with someone paying us for things.

We definitely are.

But everything about the tone

of this conversation about the book is anti transactional more.

communal, anti, business about money, more about love and interacting,

which to me, I think that's, I've done deep dives into the kingdom of God.

And y'all can tell by my language, the, the contrast between the kingdom

of God and the Babylonian system.

And, this is dollars and cents over here.

This is love.

And that was the foundation, I believe of what y'all were, Projecting, I

think with your book, I've got a couple more quick things before we wrap up.

And one was, I wasn't sure if we'd get down this path, but I saw

somewhere, Charlie, that you were, you were really utilizing, AI, or

at least you had some AI interest.

I hope I read that right.

And, and I have two, and I've actually interacted with some Christian groups in

the podcasting circles and all that are almost like, scared, afraid, whatever

they, they question things like the integrity of someone that is using it.

And as a creator, as someone who I think you call yourself a

improvisational creator what are your

thoughts on AI?

And, we don't have.

Two hours here.

I wish we did, but you know, in a few

minutes, talk about where we are with creating things doing things with, with

this new tool, I call it a new tool.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: right.

Yeah, it is.

It is a new tool.

yeah, I would direct people to sort of my introduction and talking about this.

They can just look at my own podcast, Music and Meaning, and they'll see a,

a, an episode on the subject there.

But in short, I would say, I have an openness to the new technology.

Because that's the way I'm wired.

I do have an openness to things and I I don't make sort of like quick

judgments, like, oh, that's nonsense, particularly when I see how much people

are investing in it and and how much it's it's sort of been like the frog in

the pot, I mean, it's been around a long time, and we're already indoctrinated

into using a lot of it, right?

Whether you call it that or not.

I think what's really happened is that people have now woke up

to like, we're actually going to call it artificial intelligence.

and before they were just calling it Siri, right?

They're just talking to Siri.

and now, now they know like, Oh, so that's.

That's part of this whole artificial intelligence thing.

For me, for the music part of it, I'll tell just a very short story.

I started out with analog recording, okay, which is, analog tape, This

is, it's a magnetic process that imprints the sound on this tape, right?

So most of anybody who is 60 years and older who's ever owned a

cassette, knows this process, right?

Well, then we move to moving around ones and zeros on a computer,

which is the way all music is made today with very few exceptions.

Transcribed and then we, of course, there's a whole group

of baby boomers and Gen Xers out there who listen to CDs, right?

And now we just stream.

And when you're streaming, you're just streaming the same kind of

data that was embedded in a CD.

So I tell just a little bit of that to help listeners see that this

is just a big potpourri of, of.

these interchangeable technologies that we're playing with and mixing up.

And now what we have with the possibility with AI, from a musical standpoint, is

I can literally take your mp3, right, of, that you recorded on your voice memo

of your grandchild's birthday party, I can find your grandchild's voice and

you're saying, Oh, I just hate that.

I can't hear her telling us.

Thank you for that birthday gift.

Well, I can go in isolate that voice.

Now, pull it out, raise the volume of it, put it back into the

recording and hand it to grandpa.

And now they've got their grandchild's voice saying, oh Papa.

Thank you so much.

I love this bicycle.

Right?

So there's a lot of just small practical ways that the technology of artificial

intelligence will be used in helpful ways.

It is going to undermine some jobs.

Like I'll give you one example and then we'll just move off of it.

But for example, if you're a musician who produces sort of low hanging fruit music.

That's, that's under bed music on a TV show.

And you're used to getting like 500 to 750 for a 20 second, 30 second

clip of music that you can't quite hear, but it's supposed to sound like

a rock band from the 1970s, right?

You're not going to have a gig anymore.

There's going to be one person who just simply uses all this artificial

intelligence to produce that music and they're going to have like,

VP of AI at ABC television, right?

And they'll have a couple of helpers and they'll do all the music

for it for that level of music.

But it doesn't mean that they're still not going to go license some big song

or some new hit song or like that.

But it's those little pieces that like we use music all the time, but

we're not really listening to it.

So anything like that is probably going to be going to be replaced by AI in some way.

And not only that, Andy, I know,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: That's that's my introduction to

And I, I I'm using it quite often and I tell people I'm

using it as a brainstorming partner and a writing assistant because, we

create quite a bit from, of content from these And, and then we feed it

through some tools that we have, and it creates some, small content items.

And I'm still overseeing it all.

It's still part of,

but you know, it kind of, it kind of brings me to the last question.

I'll go, I'll go with you, Andy, and then we'll wrap up here and talk

about how people can find the book.

It does, At times make me ask, what am I creating for?

Who am I creating for?

And is something like the writing process more for me, or is it for

the person that I'm writing it for?

So just kind of, I'm just curious.

Cause obviously, Andy, I, I told you, I loved your writing.

I felt as if I was able to really get to know you with that.

Who do you write for?

Do you write for you?

Were you writing for me?

Were you writing for someone?

What's, what, what is that as, as we finish up here?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah.

What's the The beginning of writing for me is that I'm writing out of this deep

sense of I have to write if I don't write somewhere And that could be in

a journal it could be something that is not meant for somebody else, but in

this particular book, obviously I was I was writing for the the publishing

company that we'd signed to But prior to that, I had written a lot of these

different parts of what ended up being the, what ended up in the book.

I had written them along the way of my life for just for a blog that

we had or for a magazine or for just my own self, kind of because I

need to write my way through life.

as a response to life and to understand what's going on.

So it's kind of, it's all that.

And it becomes narrowed.

If, if I'm writing it, definitely for a book, then I don't really

know who's going to buy the book.

So it's still a place of I'm sitting at my desk and I'm

asking God to direct my writing.

And, and then also I'm writing out as out of a sense of I love to do that.

I can't not do this in some form.

I would say connecting back to the AI conversation in terms of

artistry and the, the writer's voice, Andy is a perfect example of

the writer who should not use AI.

In other words, if we're going to have all of this AI doing different things, we want

to, we want to have Andy Ashworth in the world that we can come back to and say,

like, okay, this is just pure writing as self discovery with the community in mind,

and I can come to this writing and receive something that I can't get anywhere else.

And so I believe that very strongly not just for her writing,

but for all kinds of artistry.

And then just as much as I believe that for you, if you told me you said,

look, I always know that it's I want 500 words as my introduction and we

have a general way that we do it.

So I start with, an AI template that I do and then I start.

Adapting language from there.

I'd be like, yeah, that makes perfect sense,

Yeah.

And I,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: and, and there'd be no, like,

there'd be no negative judgment.

It'd be like, who your audience is.

You're, you're doing it every week.

You want it to have a certain tone.

It already has.

It's like, why, why mess with it?

You're just, you're going to do some plug and play of information, right?

And then you're going to add more to it.

That's going to be personal and all of that.

And that's something that AI can help us do,

and I think the message part of y'all's message in the book

is there's room for all of that.

we don't necessarily, and, and we do know, here's what we know about a tool like AI.

There will be people that abuse it.

Every technology that has ever existed, there has been abuse.

And, but we know that it's not as if that should

surprise us.

And so that doesn't mean we're fearful of it or any, anything like that.

You brought up something, Charlie, I think in one of the letters that you wrote, and

I kind of linked it together with what.

Andy was just saying, and that is for me, when I'm purely writing, not writing as

a tool for getting information out to a large group of people or different things

like that, if I, when I'm purely writing, it is impossible for me to multitask

and multitasking is I've realized

for me, I need to do less of it, even though I think I'm good at it.

I don't need to.

Do that as much.

I think you even said that right, Charlie.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: I my point in the book was that I

thought I was really good at it.

But you learn after a time that that you may be getting one thing

really really good and the other three things you're juggling or

approximations, they're good enough.

It's because you're highly skilled, right?

So they're good enough to get by and they do their work, they do their job,

but they don't have that pinnacle of excellence, like the one thing if you're

just sitting down and concentrating on it.

And it's, it's actually one of the reasons why I love what

I am doing here and with writing it's, it's like, I Charlie and Andy

for 60 minutes is my singular focus.

And, and that I believe, unfortunately, I love what y'all talked about with

the art house and other things that unfortunately, even with all the tools we

have to connect with people, we're really connecting with less quality in many ways.

So I love that.

One

of the things I love, let's go back.

Kind of start wrapping here.

I, when I'm reading through this, I'm really wanting to ask the

question of two people that have had extremely rich lives, rich careers,

again, almost 50 years of marriage.

I'm kind of wanting to ask, how are you defining success now?

And you, Did it somewhat in the book, but I'm going to let you verbally tell

me because it could be a little bit different verbally than it is in writing.

So Andy, maybe first for you, how are you defining success right now?

And then Charlie will jump to you.

And then I've got a couple of questions we'll wrap up with.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: success for me is I think when

I am at my best, I'm coming back to the fact that I am grateful.

I think that, that we're together, that we have people who love us

and that we have people to love.

I'm grateful that.

I do get to write, which is a really important thing to me.

And, it's those kinds of things that make me feel a kind of success

that is not a numbers thing.

It's not quantifiable.

I can't measure it.

There's no possibility of measuring.

So I think if, if I leave from this life onto the next life and I really

have a central goal, like if my children and my grandchildren know and are

sure of that they are deeply loved and that we have loved them and I have

loved them, like that will be success.

That will be That will be a fruitfulness and or that other people have been

felt loved and cared for and you know The relational part of things is in

place That's where I feel fruitful grateful and also I also can't be

the one who measures that so that's kind of like a Resting place of

that's kind of great because yeah,

an eternal measurement,

not there's an eternal measurement, not a, my wife and I've been focusing

on attempting to understand eternity more, knowing full well that we can't.

But part of that feeds into that answer.

That was a great answer there.

Charlie, how about you?

How are you defining success now?

Or what do you want to say about success?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah, really similar to, to Andy.

I have achieved all of the worlds, in my, in my small music world, I've

achieved all of the, the mountaintop awards and experiences that are available

and, grateful for those, that's, that's the world standards of success

according to the music business, and, But I'm also at a point in my maturity

is that if, if I would continue to be driven by those things, I would

be a man who hadn't learned anything.

And so the, I'm, I'm grateful, but I'm also like Andy, I just want my kids to

love and respect me and my grandkids.

and I want them all to know how deeply they're loved.

And, and I, I want to, leave my time here in this part of my mission, as I leave

for the next part, I just want to leave.

I don't want to have any enemies.

I don't, I want to have all men's made.

I want to like, Clean up and throw away a lot of stuff that I don't need.

I don't want to leave my kids.

And mostly I just want, at the end of the day, I want Andy and, and

my kids and grandkids and everybody who knows me to just say, Oh yeah,

no, he was definitely with Jesus.

Yeah,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: He was, he was definitely, if there

was a Christian, then he definitely,

I, I think that's good.

And, for those of us that attempt to measure things, I'm an engineer

by training and that's like, man, how, how do we quantify

things that are not quantifiable?

I think that's the thing that's so fascinating to me.

And so the, both of the responses and my wife and I've been

through like all couples ups and downs and things like that.

And the thing that we say over and over again is that we wouldn't wish our journey

on anyone, but we're so thankful that we've been through it because it's, it's

who we are and it's how you end up with a

book.

Like you guys have why everything that doesn't matter matters so much.

The way of love in a world.

I've heard excellent book.

Like I said, I rarely recommend books to my wife.

I'm recommending this.

And it's when I finish it, I've got it on my Kindle right here.

I finished it earlier and, my wife will be reading that.

So appreciate you writing that we are,

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Thank you

we are seek, go create those three words.

My final question here, before I do a wrap up, seek, go or create,

I'm going to allow you or force you depending on your personality.

And with the two of you, it could be one of you says, Oh, he's going to

force me and the other one might say, he's going to allow me, I won't tell

you which one I think it is, but, I'm going to allow you or force you to pick

one word, seek, go or create just real quick, which one do you choose and why,

and don't overthink it, this is not like a scientific things, seek, go or

create, Andy, which one do you choose?

Choose and why, why seek?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: it's my starting place.

Seek, and then create, and then go, probably in that order.

Very good.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Yeah.

But seek is first.

cause I want to know, I want God to, yeah, I just, I, I need to seek first.

you.

Very good.

How about you,

Charlie?

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: think people who, yeah, I think

people who know, maybe some of your listeners that know my work would

think that I'm going to pick create.

But I'm gonna pick seek to, seek is the starting place for everything.

I love that.

Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock: Seek ye first the kingdom of

and there's a reason

that they're in the order that they're in and y'all could probably guess that.

Andy and Charlie, I've enjoyed this so much.

the book again is why everything that doesn't matter matters so much.

And I love the tagline, the way of love.

In a world of hurt, we need more messages like this.

I encourage everyone to get the book.

Thanks for listening in.

This has been a great conversation.

I've enjoyed it.

We do have new episodes every Monday here at Seek Go Create.

And, I just encourage you to subscribe, follow, leave reviews,

all of those things, because they help us get messages like this out.

So again, thanks for listening in until next time, continue being all.

That you were created to be.