TURNING TESTIMONIES // S02E08
God loves to redeem our stories for His glory—He will even turn our testimony into a ministry. Canden Webb wears many hats, but they all revolve around calls God’s placed on her life. Evangelist, artist, performer, entrepreneur, teacher, consultant, beautiful mind. Canden shares with us on how she came to love bridging gaps with conversation and her artistry. Note for Parents: This episode contains a single mention of the word “sex.”
QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:
- Are you avoiding difficult conversations?
- Why speaking up is important?
- Are you using your testimony to reach others?
VERSES FROM TURNING TESTIMONIES
1 Corinthians 7, Genesis 1:27, Matthew 24, James 3:17
Connect with Canden
Help fund BME’s Tech Initiative
Purchase Heartache on a Silver Platter or The Girl with the Pen (Affiliate Links)
QUOTES FROM TURNING TESTIMONIES
“And I love what you’re saying. It’s like going out and meeting the people. Cause that’s what I experienced when I go to your events for beautiful minds and like Sunday social, you cultivating these spaces where you don’t have to be a believer, but you’re going to feel the love of God when you’re present.”
Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E08, Turning Testimonies
“Like that Genesis 1:27 says, so God created man in his own image. And when I think of this, we all have a uniqueness, something that God has given us, but it’s not us. All of these different talents are God’s talents. If we’re created in his image, this is what he has.”
Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E08, Turning Testimonies
“Even the fact that Christ chose the church as a place to place his affection and his love, and then chose to create marriage as like the sacred place where you can sharpen each other, you can have companionship cause it’s not good to be alone. And, and you can have all of these things. It speaks to how creative God is in general. He is the master creative. And so if anyone’s going to take the credit for people being creative, it should be him. You know, and that’s, that’s the way I feel about it.”
Canden Webb, The Pantry Podcast, S02E08, Turning Testimonies
Annotated Script
Michelle: We’re gonna be talking about turning testimonies. And I think I want to get to the meat. We’re going to leave all the explanations for everything I’m about to say in the meat of the episode, but our friend Canden, she’s an incredibly talented sister in Christ, her spoken word, glorifies the Lord, but it’ll also just expose how you’ve fell at your deepest level. She’s a poet, she’s an author. She’s an entrepreneur. She’s the founder and CEO of beautiful minds entertainment, the host of Sunday, social and live with cannon. She co-hosts the conversation on the passion for Christ. Movement’s YouTube channel. She’s the author of heartache on a silver platter and the girl with the pen.
Michelle: And she’s currently crowdfunding for the BME, which is beautiful minds, entertainment, tech initiative. That’s aiming to make performers and artists accessible worldwide. So with all that going on, somehow we get to see her Sunday mornings at church. So we want to say welcome, Canden.
Canden Webb: Thank you. It’s such an honor to be on here with you guys. You guys are also just doing so many amazing things and all that stuff. It’s just because of the grace of God anyways.
Michelle: And you know, we’ve been friends on Facebook, Instagram for a long time. And so one of the things that we’ve noticed is you love to bring up topics that a lot of Christians might shy away from, not know how to talk about, but you state God’s truths about those things plainly and you love to stir up conversation somehow on, on your threads. You know, those conversations tend to stay grounded in the word, respectful, even when people disagree. So what are your faith roots and how have they impacted? What kind of conversations you tend to choose to start?
Canden Webb: You know what? I actually love having conversations. It’s a unique exchange. You can literally have conversations with people in different countries, in different States at the same time. Now there are some cons to that, but thank God. There are a lot of pros as well. You’re able to connect with all kinds of people with so many different ideologies and perspectives. And you’re able to reach folks that you would not have been able to reach 40-50 years ago, especially coming from my background, where I was raised in a Kojic church, you have a specific setting, which you are in pretty much all the time. And thank God for my mom who kept me in the house of the Lord. I saw worship from an early age, I saw you ministry an early age.
Canden Webb: I saw evangelism from an early age, but with that comes a kind of sheltering that you may not experience had that not been the case had that not been your roots. So it’s so great to be able to go out and be with the people because that’s what Jesus did. He went and was outside with the people he was talking to all kinds of people, even people that folks were like, why are you talking to her? Like, why are you entertaining her? Like she don’t even belong here. You know, no one understood, you know, he was still having conversations. Sometimes you have to be able to listen just as much as you can talk truth, because if you can’t listen to a person express themselves, hear about their experience and their thought process and where they are emotionally, then you won’t be able to get the truth to them where they are.
Canden Webb: And so I love having these faith based conversations with a lot of people who are already Christians, a lot of people, but there are some people who are listening and looking who want to be a part of the conversation and we have all different types of topics. And it’s just a great time to really receive and to really give truth back, you have to be a little bit more willing to engage. And I love that about Jesus. And I try to do that as much as possible to engage so that everyone can win. And so there’s no secrecy. And like people could be doing stuff, feel like totally alone. But if you would have just had a conversation, they may be like, Oh no, like you struggle with this to that school when you, and you still cool, you, we need more opportunities where we can really see eye to eye with each other so that someone can see like, Oh, well, I’m struggling with this, but that doesn’t have to mean I’m a bad. It just means I’m human. It just means there could be, I could live a better life. And so that’s why I do it.
Shea:I liked that Spurgeon, if you don’t know his story, you know, if you just read what he writes, you’d be like, wow. Right. And then if you just saw him on the street, pop in that cigar that, you know, people would be like, who’s that. And then when they associated it at first, there was actually controversy over that. But at the end of the day, he knew the word of God, you know? And he knew the grace that God gave. He knew the love that God had for him. And so it was really cool. What you’re saying that like, we go out, you know, and we meet people. We meet people where they’re at and we just listen, Jesus asked questions. I think it was like 300 something questions. He only answered like two or something like that. That might be a little often the number, but it’s close to that. And, uh, and it’s kinda, I like what you’re saying, and we get to go out, meet people. I get to travel all over the world. And if you don’t have an ear to like, listen to the atmosphere, you’re going to miss what’s at the heart.
Michelle: Right, right, right. To listen, slow to speak. And I love what you’re saying. It’s like going out and meeting the people. Cause that’s what I experienced when I go to your events for beautiful minds and like Sunday social, you cultivating these spaces where you don’t have to be a believer, but you’re going to feel the love of God when you’re present. Yes. And that’s very intentional because I feel like many people, if you’re not like connected to a community in a body who has experienced the love of Christ, you’re going to have minimum be experienced with things like worship being held accountable, just seeing things from a biblical perspective. And everyone doesn’t always give it to you in a way that’s palpable. Like we get so much from engaging with each other, like community is huge. And I think that the Lord is very clear when he’s like, you can not do live by yourself.
Canden Webb: He had 12 people that he was regularly on a daily basis ministering to and walking through life with. So, you know, it’s necessary that we have these exchanges.
Michelle: Yeah. I think I forgot to even bring this up, but the single wife life right. Is the Instagram account. And I feel, yes. Shout out to all right. Can you go into that more for people? Because I think that is the perfect example of taking a testimony and turning it into a full blown community ministry for a group of people that might have felt isolated. Like you said,
Shea: I just want to throw in something there. Cause this was a really good question that I pulled off of your page. Cute. Ain’t going to get you very far. You better have some resilience followed by glass. I know exactly who you are. Happy Saturday. I just want to throw that out there. I want people to know the atmosphere here that we’re talking about.
Canden Webb I mean, and sometimes I’m just, I am literally in such a silly and joyous mood, but people because they know me, I can just them be crazy with that particular community, myself and Candice, who is my co leader of that is we wanted to just bring an awareness to the fact that singleness does not always have to be. This said you’re missing out type of thing. And a lot of the stories we were hearing in the faith were painting it that way. Like there’s mayors in their singleness and singleness. It’s just like everyone’s waiting to get married. And marriage is such a beautiful, sacred thing, but I believe the Lord uses to show his love for the church in, I personally love the concept of marriage love that it how’s his family and that it contributes endlessly to community. But there are so many people nowadays who are single and getting older and still single and encouraged so much to get married.
Canden Webb: It’s like, we just automatically assume that you are trying to get, but the thing, the thing that makes it kind of interesting, the men are not being necessarily pressured to get married. Sometimes they are, but they’re less likely to be pressured really weird because they’re usually the ones who are going out and finding the wife. So I just saw all of this kind of going on in my environment. And I was like, you know what? We need to have more positive. And so you can be preparing for marriage and empowered in that, but still love your singleness, cherish your singleness and be developed in your singleness without being discontent. We’re, we’re grateful enough that people kind of see the vision and they’re kind of like latching on. And we have some followers on Instagram and we have a private Facebook group and we have a public one as well. And so build community around relatable stories so that people won’t think that they’re going through the issue alone because that’s when the enemy attack. He’s like, Oh, I can destroy your mind. I can tell you you’re not worthy because you’re not married. Or you’re like, no, everyone else is, but you’re not. And that’s when he starts to, you know, plant those seeds.
Shea: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s really cool. How you have gone on the attack. I love the idea that I’m a bride. I know that that might sound really weird coming from the dude in the room, but it’s like, but you know what cannon, here’s my hats off. I know failure. You know what I’m saying? I know failure in relationship. And I know now what it takes and man clapping right here right now because you know what it takes, Christ has gotta be your center. And if you can’t bring someone into that center with you that has that same mind, how would it ever work? When I listened to your side, I actually do look at it. I’d never comment. Cause I’m not the single person in the room, but I look at all your content because really it’s interesting. And I like to see people who are on fire for Christ and really living that walk and saying, you know what, I’m not settling. I’m going to keep moving forward and I’m going to keep pressing.
Michelle: Right. I love seeing it be something. Cause you said like that’s when the devil attacks and you’ve brought all these things that I think people always have those little moments, those inklings with the Lord where he reveals something and they’re like, Oh yeah, I’ll put them a little note section and move on. Think. Cause it’s like something that’s grieving the spirit, but you don’t, it’s not really your priority saying, okay, as a single woman, I’m still married to the Lord as a single woman, I actually have this unique ability to move forward without any kind of permission, except from the Lord and just do ministry. You might hear that prompting, but then the world comes in your every day comes in. And so you kind of leave it to the side. And it’s like being single ends up being just that waiting station, that holding station where it’s like I’m in limbo until because you know, Instagram and Pinterest say so, whereas you’ve really encouraged and empowered people and challenged them to look at what the Bible actually says because in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, you’re kind of blessed.
Canden Webb: If you’re single, it’s great to be married. But if you’re not, you have your own unique ability and path to move forward. So right. I definitely wanted to bring up that ministry, take something people might be like, Oh, is this really compatible with Christianity? Like being an artist like, and you make it. So it’s like, well, Hey, come over here. If you’re a Christian artist and I’ll hook you up with opportunity is so, so rich being a Christian because you literally can take every aspect of your life and plug it into that foundation. And people don’t always see it that way. Even the fact that Christ chose the church as a place to place his affection and his love, and then chose to create marriage as like the sacred place where you can sharpen each other, you can have companionship cause it’s not good to be alone. And, and you can have all of these things. It speaks to how creative God is in general. He is the master creative. And so if anyone’s going to take the credit for people being creative, it should be him. You know, and that’s, that’s the way I feel about it. And I love the fact that this love story of him going to the cross for us can be the basis by which we find our identity and wherever it is that we want to be in, that were gifted to me.
Shea: Yeah. Like that Genesis 1:27 says, so God created man in his own image. And when I think of this, we all have a uniqueness, something that God has given us, but it’s not us. All of these different talents are God’s talents. If we’re created in his image, this is what he has. So all he’s doing is laying out these talents onto different people and saying, how are you going to use this for me? It’s just, that’s where you run. And it’s like, wow, what, how, how am I going to do what he’s given me? And then put it, turn it to where it glorifies him,.
Canden Webb: Even having the pantry podcast is like so crucial to people maintaining that. It’s blessing so many people when we decide to use those gifts that God gave us on behalf of his kingdom. You know, just like you guys are doing here. I know you both have workshops to help artists grow in their gifts, but also you help artists plug into opportunities to perform and present. What kind of experience have you had helping them along? So I’m really, really grateful to know so many talented artists ridiculously talented. That’s the reason, one of the reasons why I decided to start beautiful minds entertainment, to give a voice to artists who were insanely talented, but just didn’t have the exposure maybe to get the same opportunities as like a big name artists, because I just knew like you have your you’re just as talented. You just don’t have the exposure.
Canden Webb: And it’s also one of the reasons why I started doing artists preneur Academy, which is my consulting service to help with things like branding website, building social media, and then just like basic business opportunities. Like what are you using? Are you going to do YouTube? Or are you going to do Patrion on how much are you going to charge? And so it’s been great. Just being able to develop as an individual artist and then passing that information on to other artists who may need it, who are up and coming. They’re so talented that we’re able to come together, create a collective show and there’s power in those numbers. I’m blessed to be able to give to them, but I’m also super blessed to be able to receive the power of having a collective that people want to listen to
.
Shea: I’m going to say this, those collectors when they come together are awesome spoken word. Some would know, and some wouldn’t know, but two things, your description of what spoken word is, and maybe a few lines, man, I’m telling you when I first came to greater grace and I heard Canon does spoken word and I’m like, and then, right, right, right. And then she got up and did one and telling you I was hooked. I think I was at the next show. I was like, this is so awesome.
Canden Webb: So what spoken word essentially is, and people have different names where it is some Carly spoken word, some call it poetry. My, how I define each of those is poetry can be a thing that you write perform record. Um, and the in spoken word is more performance based of course, cause you’re usually going to say it in front of people or do it at an event. Someone is hearing a story, such a beautiful way. So they like the story because it’s fanciful, but they also are able to relate to the heart of the story because maybe they even, they have experienced something that you have experienced or they can feel it, they can taste it, they can hear it, they can smell it because of the way that you’re describing it. It’s like really, really plays on the imagination. So, um, so there’s a really rich bass history.
Canden Webb: There’s different types of poems. You know, I’ll just say a couple of lines to this poem that I really, really like, and it’s called God and King. “I remember when they crucified him just for being innocent in the very place they lacked flogged and beaten blue and black. And I’m sure not even a breeze could comfort or an ocean could remove the blood spilled like my tears do when I don’t understand my innocence by his stripes, remember how they left him hanging, accused before Jews, the very people he had came forward to offer living sacrifice. But I’m sure when they cried out, kill him and free Barabis they were doing what they thought was right. I was there in that very crowd because you see, we men like to think ourselves King, but King is not an easy thing to be. And I’m just praying every day he makes men masquerading as such more like him starting with me”.
Shea: I mean, we were just getting in a roll by the way, coming to your shows. And then Michelle got pregnant. We were like, we’re going to go. And then it was like, no, I think we went once when I was pregnant. And then I was like, you guys.
Canden Webb: So that’s great. Yeah. I know you’ve done it at our, at our church as like a sermon opener a few times, but then also at like the women’s meetings, what’s the creative process. Like when you’re writing these things, you know, it’s always different. Sometimes I write for other people, like there’s been weddings that I’ve written for and it’s just like capturing the story more often than not. It is me feeling a thing, seeing a thing and being like, I want to explore this more from the depth of my mind. I want to really figure out every way in which this, this can have meaning. And so I usually just sit down and I’m, I have my notes section in my phone is lit. And I just go from there. I might, it might start off with bed stand so that I read you guys or like two sentences.
Canden Webb: And then I might come back to it later and build upon it. And those are the most authentic and genuine ones. A lot of times these topics are the ones we struggle with the most as believers partake or being a minority even, or not understanding the heartache on a silver platter. I was definitely talking to God, had a whole conversation with them like, yo, what is it? What is real? And, but other other poems, it’s just me really seeing the beauty of the world or thing, the beauty of someone’s story. And just wanting to put that to paper, wanting to connect with another person, you know?
Shea: And what’s really cool about what I see again. I mean, I mean, we just sit here all day and say how cool you are. But, uh, humbly of course humble, of course. But, uh, but you know, when we ask God to light our steps, you know, we cause we want to be biblical about it. Um, I know that a lot of feelings like, you know, we write or I write and we do things and devotions and stuff like that. And some of it starts from like the, the atmosphere at the moment, whether that’s my inner atmosphere and outer, but I really want to make sure that I dial it in. It could be raw. It could be whatever it could be. And man, everything that you’ve ever written that I’ve heard, it’s like, Whoa, she went there. But like, look how she got God’s right in the middle of all of it. In fact he’s over all of it. And so if anyone was a comeback on it, it’d be like, well you just come back on Christ.
Canden Webb: Right? And it’s so it’s that, it’s such a beautiful thing being in Christ because you won’t have all of the answers. Like sometimes you won’t know what to say to someone where you’re trying to evangelize on the street because they may be like when I was in church that I was a pastor’s daughter and he beat my mom. The thing is when you’re talking to people, they have so many different experiences. You will not always be able to know, thank God for Holy spirit, because he will reveal to us what to say, how to do it, how to approach it. He will give us a wisdom through his word and through just us housing him and receiving him and allowing him to speak through us. But we’re very much human beings. We think that we’re right. When sometimes we’re wrong, you have to just approach these topics.
Canden Webb: Knowing that if Holy spirit is in me, even if Candon is not all the way, God, at 100 Holy spirit, got it. You know what I’m saying? So that’s how, that’s why you go, you’re bold. You’re bold going because you know, like Holy spirit got me, Jesus got me on the cross. I’m good. And you know what else? You really have a humility enough to forgive your brother or your sister. When they say something that’s out of pocket, everyone is just benefiting from a sharpening that comes from the exchange in this conversation. And in this, this doing this life together,
Michelle: You always dropped truth. Sometimes I’m like, Oh my gosh. If anyone else said that, if I read these comments, I would be like appalled, right? Oh my goodness. Because like, because you say something that’s just, there was a blog that really it’ll let people realize like how valuable the stuff you put out there is you wrote a blog. Uh, it was probably a years ago at this point I am so tired of not having sex. And it was all about celibacy. There are so many people out there that feel that exact way. And yet they’re honoring the Lord and this is something to be celebrated. But there are struggles in that. And no one writes that, you know, but like candida bold, Canden wrote that blog post.
Canden Webb: You gotta be honest. Sometimes Michelle, like, you gotta be a hundred. The thing I love about Jesus and humans, can’t always handle this. So you have to know where to put it. When you have to be insightful, you have to have wisdom as to know like what’s appropriate. Like I don’t go to work and be like, you know, but I can literally tell God exactly how I feel. And in that he can either affirm me or rebuke me. And I love that so much because it, the thing is people hide how they feel inside and they end up depressed, suicidal, because they don’t feel like there’s a release. Jonah was like, I’m not going, Lord. You want me to go over here to these people because you want to be merciful to them, but they don’t deserve your mercy. And, and the Lord sat him down and he was like, did you, Oh, you got some shade? Did you call or did I do it? Or did you do it? Because you seem to think that, you know, better than me, but I love the fact that Jonah could come boldly to God and be like, okay, this is how I feel about this. Get checked and move on. We have to be honest in order to get that from God. Sometimes we can’t just go around pretending like everything’s okay.
Shea: I hope Jonah recovered somewhere. I hope after, after this story, it was like, okay, God, I get you. We good? We good?
Canden Webb: Yeah, no, I believe he did though. Cause I don’t think that would have used him in that or even told us the story. If he hadn’t had had plans for Jonah beyond that, you know.
Michelle: He always has a purpose and that purpose is to build us and to bring us along and to grow us and to bring other people. Yeah.
Canden Webb: Yes. I like when we are honest, actually, and this is why this is kind of why the country is in crisis because I feel like everyone is now being honest with one another because it’s just forced now, you know, is this line okay with you? I was out here now and I feel like it is important to have a foundation of honesty and transparency before the Lord first. And then before people, because there are a lot of people now who may be considering leaving the faith. They’re like, well, I tried the Christianity thing and I’m not really feeling it. And you know, I’m just going to go over here to Islam or I’m just going to be an atheist or agnostic. A lot of that is because they have either hurt or they didn’t feel like in the environment they were in that they could be on it because it caused problems, issues, conflict.
Canden Webb: But conflict usually is a thing that comes before resolution, right? Sometimes you can’t sit in the conflict long enough for it to, you literally have to try to move forward into the resolution. A lot of people whose hearts are wanting God, they can’t get there because they’re not being honest with themselves. And they’re not being honest with other people. If we can see how sometimes our hearts need something and we can say that to the Lord and still, still take his word for what it is. Ask, seek, knock. Just because I didn’t give it to you today because the scriptures before that say be persistent. The Frank came in the middle of the night and he wasn’t gonna open the door. But because you kept knocking, like I need this. And because you had the motive of your heart was, well, the friend came and opened the door in the middle of the night, but you had no business there in the middle of the night, just because something didn’t happen the way you wanted it to when you wanted it to how you thought it should does not mean that you stop speaking him, you stop asking you stop knocking that you don’t bring it up anymore, that you hide it.
Canden Webb: And so I’m exactly the opposite of that. It’s all going to come out so that we can have a real discussion and people can really break the bonds that hold them and chain them to this false, you know, got everything’s going to be perfect when you get safe thing. Because a lot of times it isn’t, you know, and sometimes you still have to trust the Lord. Anyway, you still think that he’s still not a liar. He still want to bring you through it. He still loves you. You know? And so that’s the thing that I want us to just understand all the more, if we could really just master, not hiding, just like they did in the garden of Eden. When the Lord was looking for him, despite their sin, then I feel like we could really get to a place where the Lord has everything. And we won’t even need a lot of this other that we think we do
Shea: 100, what you just said. I love to sit down and talk real with people. Sometimes my feelings, they’re not, I might have a feeling is wrong or right, or indifferent, but it’s a feeling and it needs to be addressed. And that’s what we’re seeing. Now. I hope that churches start to at least have groups where people can come together. This is a, this is actually a dream of mine right now that I’m pursuing a space where we can come together as leaders and congregation and people and friends, body, children, Christ have these painful conversations because people are hurting and we need to address it, man. You know, I was reading Matthew 24 and this hit me today. People saying that they want to sorry, but people saying that they want to walk away from the church. That’s powerful. That’s that, that, that means something that hurts. And that means that we need to do something. I want people to know that the person that we’re sitting with today, cannon just has a heart for God.
Canden Webb: I’m very encouraged by being sharpened in the faith. I’m very encouraged by brotherhood and sisterhood. Shout out to greater grace, Christian fellowship, just having the ability to fellowship with so many people who are different in ethnicity and culture in routine and personality. Um, but it’s literally a privilege. And sometimes that takes you being willing to be offended and being willing to be uncomfortable in order for you to get to a higher place, a more fulfilled community setting, because we all need to be amongst each other. The Lord is not far, you know, from our feelings. He just wants us to always have, like you guys said that foundation of faith to guide our feelings, amen.
Michelle: I’m a wrap it up with this verse from James 3:17. It says, but the wisdom from above is first pure. Then peaceable gentle, open to reason full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And I think that wraps up a lot of what we’ve just said about the art of community and talking. Amen. That’s good.
Shea: It was a pleasure sitting here with you candidate
Michelle: And it’s, Canden not Camden. It’s C A N D E N.
Shea: And you can search her and find her.
Canden Webb: I appreciate you telling them.
Shea: And no matter how many times you tell people, it’s like Shea butter. They still call you Shia. Hey man,
Michelle: Follow Canden Webb on Facebook. Remember to follow us at the pantry podcast on Facebook and on Instagram. And you can always send us prayer requests, questions, comments, all that good stuff, and support us with merch @thepantrypodcast.com. So until next time, bye. Bye.
KEYWORDS: TALENTS, PURPOSE, HONESTY, SPEAK WITH PURPOSE, TRUTH, BE CREATIVE, CREATE.
