038 The Film That Almost Broke Me

Faith isn't a feeling; it's the courage to move when everything around you suggests standing still. 

After stepping away from a full-time worship leader position six years ago, my wife and I embarked on what would become the most challenging and faith-stretching season of our lives: creating three feature films in three years.

What followed was a masterclass in holding onto faith when provision seems delayed. 

This experience fundamentally reshaped my understanding of divine provision. Heaven doesn't always meet you before you step out, and sometimes the miracle comes after you've already jumped. 

For every entrepreneur and creative: What dream has God placed in your heart that seems too big? What one small step could you take today?

SPECIAL INVITATION
Join me for a special online vision night July 28th, where I’ll share exciting new developments and opportunities. RSVP at justinrizzo.com/invite to receive the link.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back & Introduction
• 1:39 The Three-Movie Journey
• 6:43 Carrying the Weight of Debt
• 10:19 When Heaven Shows Up
• 12:39 Hearing God & Moving Forward
• 17:26 New Projects & Special Invitation
• 21:33 The Father's Unlimited Menu

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, what's up everyone. Welcome in to the podcast. I'm so excited to be back with another season here. This has been a long time coming. We have had plans to start this season as of several months ago, but just some different projects came up and things came up and it has been a process to get us here. But we've got a great season planned to have some special guests coming on the podcast. It's going to be a great time.

Speaker 1: 0:23

For your first time listener, my name is Justin Rizzo and this is called the RizCast podcast, where we discuss the intricate life of being an entrepreneur and creative while pursuing passions and dreams from a biblical worldview. And if you're watching this on YouTube, this is the first ever video podcast that I'm doing. So if you're listening to this on a different platform, you can go over to YouTube. It'll be there. You can listen and watch at the same time if you want, or just keep listening from wherever you're at right now. That's great as well. So this first episode, I'm just going to kind of give an update on where I have been, what I've been up to, and talk about a couple of projects I have coming up. Lots of exciting things have been happening, along with some really challenging things. You know, and I feel like that is the life of a worship leader, you know entrepreneur, a creative and that's the primary kind of demographic of people who watch or listen to this podcast. We have a lot of worship leaders who tune in, we have a lot of entrepreneurs, some CEOs and a lot of creatives and really some of the episodes and if you've been a long-time listener you know this will apply real specifically to different niches, but I really do try and kind of encompass that 30,000-foot view where all three of those different niches would kind of fall under being encouraged by this podcast. So where have I been? What have I been doing? So again, if you listen to the show, some of this will be reviewed for you.

Speaker 1: 1:45

But six years ago six years ago this month actually I stepped down from being a full time worship pastor and the Lord kind of impressed upon my wife and I and we did three movies in three years. To kind of quickly summarize that the first movie was a very, very small budget of $65,000. We accomplished that. We had a $5,000 last minute gift come in via our nonprofit when I was literally on set filming this movie four years ago and that first movie was paid for. The next day we wrapped shooting in my office, did the budget for the next movie, and it was $170,000. You know, my faith was built there, and three weeks out from filming that second movie, we were $100,000 short and I'm just, you know, stressed out of my mind like what am I doing? And the Lord, an email came in from someone who said hey, could I call you? I did not really know this person and we ended up having a conversation where this person gave a $100,000 gift that got us up to budget. This is three weeks out from filming, so I was sweating, stressed out, whatever and we were able to pay for the second film.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So why am I saying all this? Well, because the third film brings us to literally this year 2025, of the fulfillment of what the Lord asked us to do happened and that film was paid off. So our third movie we actually shot in October of 2023, so well over a year ago and that movie was a quarter of a million dollars and I had raised a good amount of money, but we were not yet up to budget, and so we were actually $90,000 short for that film in October of 2023. And my wife and I were leaving for a European worship nights tour 10 days after wrapping shooting that movie and I refused to be that Christian company. That was like, hey, we're a Christian company, can I pay you? Like in a couple of years? I was like I'm not going to do that. So I took out a personal loan to pay everyone, and so the $90,000, I was able to pay all my crew and the staff and the cast and everything. And then I told the Lord. I said, lord, I'm going to be preaching on faith wherever I go, unless you tell me different. Even if I'm just doing a worship night, I'm going to sneak in a five-minute sermon just on faith.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Faith is not a feeling. And again, if you follow my career, you've heard it on the podcast, you're on my email list, you've seen emails Talking a lot about that the past year and a half, because the Lord just had us on this journey of learning what faith really looks like. You know, I think growing up in the church for me, I thought I knew what faith was. You know, obviously there's two types of faith. Right, we put our faith in Jesus and that's like salvation, the finished work of the cross, you know, comes upon us, the Holy Spirit indwells us and we are, you know, one with Christ, seated with him in heavenly places. You know all the things right. That's faith in Christ. But then I see a different type of faith over here and you know, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word, faith in Jesus, or faith that you know the Lord will provide for, you know, a healing or whatever. I say yes to both of those things right.

Speaker 1: 5:07

So I think faith is so intertwined, but I think there is a different type of faith that the Lord's been kind of awakening my heart to these past, this past, really four years, but the last year and a half, specifically, where it's not like is Jesus real? Is my salvation? Like it's nothing of that nature has come into question, but it has come into question of the Lord. You know, kind of put it upon our hearts to do three movies in three years, and the first two were miraculously paid off and the third one, you know, I'm boarding a plane to Europe in October 2023, $90,000 in the hole, asking God some serious questions. Like you know, what are you doing? Did you bring me out to the wilderness here just to leave me? Let me die, whatever all the things. So I talk about faith.

Speaker 1: 5:51

You know, all across Europe, as we're going, come out to Kansas City and we have a conference for creatives that we host every year, and January that year we had our conference, had, you know, just amazing lineup of worship leaders and speakers who were coming to encourage these creatives who gather every year at this creative legacy conference and do some different things. That had happened. Church I was a part of there was a horrible scandal that happened. So people were like canceling tickets, like we can't come to that right now. We're just it's so much going on or whatever, like we associate you with that movement, all this other kind of stuff, and so that conference did not meet budget. Instead, we were $60,000 in the hole for that conference. So do the math we have 90,000 from this film and then we have 60,000 from this conference. So I took out a second loan to pay all these speakers and worship leaders and, you know, to put on this, this event, event.

Speaker 1: 6:44

So February 2024, I'm like what in the world is happening in my life? You know, I thought I'd heard God on these movies. I thought I heard God for this conference and here I am, just like you know, financial strains. You know, with all of it I'm like God what is happening? So March of 2024, I have a phone call with someone of a pretty high stature in the business world, and one thing led to another and this thought came into my mind call it the Lord, call it whatever, but from talking to this person I need to just keep the pedal on the gas. That's what I need to do. I don't need to just take this whole year and it's very, very hard to back fundraise to pay off debt for a nonprofit. There's not much vision there. No one's interested in paying off your debt in your nonprofit for the most part, and so I'm like I'm going to forward, think whatever.

Speaker 1: 7:39

So we put this budget together to do a Christmas show and I wrote a show called One Found Worthy and it's I'm calling it a. It's a big statement, but a modern day Handel's Messiah, and it's just a really cool, well done show. But it's different than you typically think. There's no like manger scene. There's no, you know, mary holding a doll or whatever it's like. I'll talk about that at a different point. But we kept the pedal on the gas and we really felt kind of the wind in our sails to do that.

Speaker 1: 8:08

And so December 2024, we did three shows, uh, in in here in Kansas city and it was a great time, and we were fundraising. You know, to put that on, it was a very, very evangelistic event. Uh, we had there was no ticket prices. We're like we're going to put this thing on for free and just raise donations and we had 19 people meet the Lord for the first time. So it was incredible, just a great time. And you know, we do the creative conference again in January, a much smaller budget, so we didn't go. You know, have any chance of going into debt on that.

Speaker 1: 8:40

And then February 2025, to bring this long story to a close here, I was leading worship down in a southern state and someone who had been heavily a part of helping us to fund several of our movies came to this worship night. It was my actually first time ever meeting this person in person. So they attended the worship night, my wife and I led, and then we go out for food afterwards and they again, I won't share all the details of the story, even just for privacy for this person and but basically that the 150 debt, um, they took care of and my wife and I are. You know, I wasn't even emotional enough. I don't. Maybe I was like I don't know if I was hardened in my heart or whatever like tears didn't even flow. We're sitting in a Mexican restaurant, but I was just. I was just overwhelmed and it's almost like I carried the weight of this debt. For so long I'd carried the weight of this. God called me to do this and then I feel like he left me out to dry. I wasn't angry at God. I was on the journey, man, of processing it out. I wasn't going to take no for an answer. I was still figuring out ways to pay off the debt or whatever it is. So February was the month I forgot to mention this that payments were to begin with interest in February 2025, and that same month the debt was taken care of. And so I find myself here today.

Speaker 1: 10:14

In that process of the spring, we had a lot of travel going on hosting our recharge gathering for worship leaders in Nashville and all kinds of different travel and things happening. We'll talk about it another time. But I stand here today, months after this debt has been paid off, having processed it a lot, having talked it through with family friends, you know, my counselor, my therapist, whatever it is, and really just just standing. You know, I know in Christian it's so easy to say it's like we just stand in awe of God. But genuinely standing in awe of what the Lord has done and standing, you know, in a place of faith and assurance that if the Lord has asked you to do something and by that I mean you don't have to hear an audible voice, you don't have to hear, you know, you have to see it on a sign or billboard driving down the highway.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Because for us, like these three movies in three years, it wasn't a, you know, a prophet came and gave us a word, or we saw it in the stars or whatever. It was literally an impression. That's how much we quote unquote heard the voice of God. But when you move forward in faith, the Lord has your back, the Lord will take care of you. Many lessons to be learned along the way, absolutely Many lessons to be learned along the way, absolutely Many lessons to be learned along the way. But he is so faithful and he is so kind, and so we see this chapter of these three films in three years. He had four shows in four years of the Christmas show that we did in 23, or 24, rather in December, and so we see that chapter closing and now we see a new chapter beginning.

Speaker 1: 11:52

The Lord, the Lord, is always writing. You know, I don't think, even if to us it might feel like all right, lord, I've been quote-unquote in between chapters for quite some time here. When are you gonna move? When are you gonna give us marching orders? When you're gonna do this, whatever? And and I really do believe that and I'll talk about this as well in a future episode, but I really do believe that hearing the voice of God, yes, the Bible gives many examples where he calls this person and they go. It's really, really clear, right. But I believe the Bible also gives many, many examples where you just kind of move and you just kind of go. You, you just kind of move and you just kind of go. You know, believing that, you know in you we live and move and have our being. You know, if he's a creator of all things visible, invisible thrones, powers, rulers and authorities and if we are seated with him in heavenly places, then I genuinely believe that it's both and like should you just fast and pray for 40 days and put out like 25 fleeces to see if you should, you know, start this business or cut this record or, you know, move cross country, whatever it is like, maybe you can do that From my life I'll speak from my life A lot of times when I'm quote unquote, waiting, I feel like I'm saying quote unquote a lot, when you're waiting for the voice of God to so clearly speak and just rock your world with, like thus sayeth the Lord, do this.

Speaker 1: 13:13

At this point in time, you know, whatever For me and my personality, where I'm more of a propensity to be, you know, more in fear or more in delay, or like I got to have all my ducks in a row because if I mess this up it's on me and I'm very, very hard on myself. You know, and a lot of you guys who are listening to this can totally understand and relate to what I'm saying. So I have leaned in the other direction, specifically these past four or five years, where the Lord has led my wife and I and our family in the realm of cutting and producing records, in the realm of songwriting and co-writing, in the realm of my production company, and the Lord's asked us to do some really you know specific things, and again the terminology I say, ask, like, has impressed upon us or we've had a desire to do certain things and instead of waiting for this, like God says go, we've just kind of begun to walk, you know, millimeter by millimeter. I know putting on a quarter of a million dollar film doesn't seem like a millimeter, it seems like, you know, a hundred yards. That's like a really, really big you know thing to put yourself on the line for to do this movie. But I'll say I didn't start there. I started this, a $65,000 film which, again, you know, to some people that seems like a lot of money. Now you know, having done, and if you're a business owner listening to this, you're like, oh that's, that's cute. You know the one position I paid to my admin person to run my whole company. You know we're talking like millions and hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars in these companies. And so I didn't start at a quarter of a million dollars. I didn't go from never having fundraise at that level. Then just jump in. I had like 65, then 170 and quarter of a million. So to me that is millimeter by millimeter, and I'll say this like a broken record, millimeter by millimeter. And I'll say this like a broken record.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Whenever I talk to creatives or young people or whatever, I tell them this If I had waited until I had $65,000 raised and in the bank before I pressed go on my first movie, I fully believe with all my heart, four years later I'd still be trying to raise that $65,000. Faith without works is dead. Raise that $65,000. Faith without works is dead. And you can't just sit on the couch waiting for marching orders from God and then you'll stop eating your chips and watching your show and then you'll start moving.

Speaker 1: 15:20

It's like no, that's really not like the principles we see in the Bible. When opportunity comes, it's only going to magnify what is already there. When money comes, it's only going to magnify the way you think about money. Right, you're not just going to set. Like, if you don't tithe, for example, with your finances now you might think you make a little bit of money. If you don't tithe on that and you're like, well, once I make this amount of money, then we'll start tithing. It's like, no, no, you won't. Money is simply a magnifier to what's already there. Opportunity that might come is simply a magnifier of what's already there.

Speaker 1: 15:55

So many times, lack of opportunity, lack of you know the Lord's sovereign hand coming, you know, coming in at the 11th hour to back you out, or whatever is, I believe, many times because of my or your whoever, you know lack of faith, it's like, well, the Lord knows, you know, I don't steward it well or I won't walk out in faith, so why would he ever give me a million dollars if I'm going to, like you know, rub it in my hands, not to take it, even for myself, but like, all right, how can we, like the most strategically possible, not waste this money? And I spent five years, you know, with the burn rate for a million dollars again. Yes, be wise, absolutely. But as you step out, you know, know, heaven just meets you, heaven just meets you, heaven just meets you. And so I really do believe that, as creatives, as artists, as worship leaders, I coach hundreds of worship leaders all around the world over the past seven years on my online worship leader academy and I literally had conversations this morning in some of my coaching sessions of of talking to these people about, you know, you know dollar amounts in like $1,500, $2,000.

Speaker 1: 16:55

And that's like this huge, you know monstrous mountain between them and you know, the production of a song or a single or, you know, an EP that they want to do with their music. And again, I'm not not bashing that or whatever it is. And I I remember when that was like literally a ton of money to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't do a single because it's like $2,000. Like what am I crazy, you know. And now, where it's like no, like there is so much in the kingdom of God, so much that he wants to deposit into us if we would just move.

Speaker 1: 17:28

And so in this opening session of the season, I just wanted to share kind of an update on where we're at as a family and our production company. On the worship leading side of things, there is lots of music in the burner right now. Worship music, not musicals. There's a bunch of stuff happening with musicals as well. We'll talk about that in a future episode and I'll actually mention something there at the end. A quick announcement about that. But on the worship side of things, lots of songs, lots of co-writing happening, some things I'm not quite ready to share publicly yet, but some awesome things are coming down the pipe in that regard.

Speaker 1: 18:00

And then on the discipleship side of things I mentioned it worship leaders continuing to coach and be in the trenches with them, and so if you're a worship leader on here, maybe it's your first time listening. Click in the show notes justinridgewelltrainingcom. I have tons of online courses. I'm the only worship leader program out there that offers truly unlimited one-on-one coaching for worship leaders. Getting in the trenches with you that's really my heart is to get in the trenches, not just be this public figure out here you can never really access or whatever like one Zoom a month or whatever it's like. No, I want to get in the trenches with my clients, and so that's kind of an update on where we're at Lots of other things.

Speaker 1: 18:38

But in this first episode I just wanted to give a quick, brief overview and I want to end by announcing this on July 28th 2025, july 28th, that is, a Monday night at 7 pm Central my wife and I are hosting a special it's all on Zoom in a Zoom room, a special online night of ministry and vision for our ministry, and that entails the coaching, the discipleship, the worship, leading, songwriting, as well as the production company, and we have some fun, exciting announcements. I'm going to wait until that night to give. I'm not going to share here on the podcast, but so much is happening, so much is in our hearts Lots of impressions from the Lord, some clear directions from the Lord about some different things. I'd be lying if I said I was 100% excited about it. Where I'm at today, right now, in this moment, there are better days and worse days, but I'm probably like 80%, 70% excited, 20, 30%. Like what in the world am I doing? Cause it's, it's a stretching, like if I thought I was stretched the past four years. Some of the things the Lord is, is, is impressed upon us, are like gonna just take that even more. You know, and and it's.

Speaker 1: 19:53

I was talking to someone recently who, uh, is really, really versed in a specific craft in the physical space of you know, uh, uh, boxing and workout and all that kind of stuff, and they were just saying that, you know, in their, their years, they've been in it for you know, 10, 15, 20 years, actually probably 20 plus years in their training. You know, had goals right and they reach that certain goal. And then they'd be like, okay, that was cool, now what's the next thing? Okay, that was cool, now what's the next thing? You know, and I feel like, in a way, that is the lord with us and he really gives like just a buffet to us. And I want to make it really clear the lord.

Speaker 1: 20:29

I don't think, when I read my bible, I don't think the Lord has given you like hey, you know, you go to a nice restaurant, for example, and if you have too many people, sometimes they're going to limit you to a certain menu, right, because the chef can only prepare so many things. Whatever you get like a private event. I don't think that's how the Lord is. I don't think the Lord has given you hey, here is your mini menu. Like well, I really wanted, you know, a steak it a steak. It's like well, that cut of steak takes too long to make, so all we have is sirloin and a salmon. That's the only two meats we have. It's like well, I really wanted whatever. It's like well, I'm sorry, that's not what God has given you. He's only given you a mini menu. You can order off of this. Instead of 12 sides as options for your sides, you only have two or three whatever.

Speaker 1: 21:19

I don't think that's the heart of the Lord. If you have children, you're listening to this. Or even if you don't, you know, imagine, like you know your kid for Christmas. It's like hey, man, I got you what you need and I want you to be happy with what you need. And, um, I don't want to hear another word about it. Like, that is not the heart of a father at all. It says in the book of Matthew why are you worrying about tomorrow? Today has enough words of its own. The lilies of the field. Do they worry about how they're going to survive the verge of the year? Do they worry where their next meal is going to come from? The baseline of a heavenly father who loves us is I'm going to take care of you. That's the baseline.

Speaker 1: 21:49

But I feel like so many times myself, we can just box ourselves into okay, here is the menu that I see. Here's what I can order off of Anything else. You know, I can't do that. Oh, that person over there I see on Instagram Okay, they're great. You know this person on YouTube they're awesome. I can never do that. You know, and again, do what you feel the Lord telling you to do.

Speaker 1: 22:08

But is it your limiting belief as to why you can't flip to page three of that menu and order exactly what you want, believing that your heavenly father loves to give good gifts, loves to give good gifts to his children. Believing that he who seeks first God's kingdom and his righteousness, all these things will be added onto him. Believing Psalms, chapter one, where he says he who's like a tree planted by streams of living water, whatever he does will prosper. I'm not preaching prosperity gospel here, guys. I'm not preaching prosperity gospel. Those are just three simple Bible verses I just quoted that talk about a good heavenly father who loves to give good gifts to his children.

Speaker 1: 22:51

So as we enter into you know kind of Q3 of the quarter three of this year, into quarter four, I just want to ask you and put before you what might the Lord be asking you to do in your entrepreneurial niche, your business, your creativity, your worship team, whatever it is, whoever you are listening to this, what is a one millimeter step? What's that step that you can take today? Again, I'm not saying go in debt and do all this crazy type of stuff or whatever, but what is the dream? You know that you can just go a little bit bigger than you did last time and watch your heavenly father. Just move on your behalf. That's what I want to just call you to and encourage you in that. And if you're watching this on YouTube. Comment down below. Hit me up Like what's one thing that the Lord impressing upon your heart that you're going to step into Again.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Reminder July 28th there's a slide up on the screen talking about that so you can see all the details there. But you can go to justinrizzocom If you're listening to this, you can't see it justinrizzocom slash invite a really unique URL there justinrizzocom slash invite. It'll be on Zoom about an hour, a little over an hour. My wife and I we're going to share some really exciting things we have going on and it's just going to be an amazing time. So you have to RSVP. That's the only way you can get the link justinrizzocom slash invite. Thank you guys, so much Again. I'm super excited to be back for this season Got some great things coming down the pipe this fall. So if any of you are going to be doing and I'm excited to be on this journey with you guys, you, you.