We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Blake Wright a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Blake, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?
I grew up in Taylors Falls, Minnesota which is a town of about 1,000 people. Throughout my teenage years, the church was my safe place. I was the kid who would never miss youth group on Wednesday nights. I would even rollerblade or bike on Wednesday nights if my parents weren’t available to give me a ride!
Growing up I struggled academically, so when graduation time came I knew that I didn’t want to go the traditional route of attending college right away. My love for music and ministry lead me to join a traveling music ministry team upon graduation in 2011. The name of the organization that sent me and five others on the road was Youth Encounter and they were based out of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Youth Encounter was an incredible organization! In short, what they would do is gather a handful of 18-30 year olds who were looking to travel the country, play music, and share the Gospel. After a month of training, they would send teams (groups of 5 or more people) out in a 15-passenger van with a trailer full of sound equipment, to different areas of the country. The teams would then travel to multiple communities and churches throughout the territory given to them by the organization, playing music, running food packaging events, and running youth gatherings for middle and high school students.
The team that I was on traveled throughout the east coast region of the United States. We traveled as far north as Vermont and as south as Georgia and everywhere in between. My time spent traveling was the most impactful and formative year of my life thus far. My teammates, who were strangers to me, became family, the people that I had met on the road made an impact that was far greater than they will ever know, and I found my passion in life which is to serve those around me with the gifts that I have been blessed with.
In 2016, Youth Encounter closed their doors after 50+ years of ministry. This was heartbreaking to not only me, but also the thousands of people that the organization had impacted. My time with Youth Encounter was formative and I started to think about how the heartbeat of this organization can’t die!
Fast forward to 2017, my friend Steven Wagner and I started to toss around ideas of things that we could do to help keep the heart beat of Youth Encounter alive. We really wanted to start an on-site gap year program but as two broke college students, we knew that this was something we would have to build up to. We started to explore low cost ways for us to share our vision and where we landed was actually starting a podcast specifically tailored towards young adults. This was just the start for The Awaken Project!
As we continued to grow the podcast, our vision started to come to life! A camp that Steven and I were both a part of (Mount Carmel Ministries located in Alexandria, MN) had reached out to us and shared that they would be willing to host our on-site program for young adults. The both of us were pumped for this opportunity to finally have a host site!
From 2019-2020, Steven and I started to game plan how to get something off the ground at Mount Carmel. Just like with the podcast, we continued taking small steps forward and ended up launching our first gap year program with a group of students in the fall of 2021!
The Awaken Project would not have become a reality if we did not have the community of people we have rallying behind us to make it possible. As this project slowly became reality, we continually sought out advice on the things we did not understand, and did the best we could with the resources we knew that we had. I would be lying if I said that I knew The Awaken Project would come to life when we first started. There were many obstacles we had to overcome and I know that there are going to be more as we continue to grow!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I’m a Minnesotan boy who married a Michigan girl and now lives in the greater Orlando area!
The Awaken Project is a non-profit ministry that aspires to grow young adults in their faith. In addition to the work I do with The Awaken Project, I am also a solo creative, podcaster, videographer, and digital media editor. This year I launched a podcast/video editing service called Credo Caster.
Ever since I was a kid I have shown interest in digital media. From YouTube to early social media platforms, (cough…Myspace…cough) the ability of being able to personally create something and then post it to be seen and heard on the internet has continually inspired me!
Why?
Because today’s presented online platforms allow us to openly share our passions, creativity and voice to a larger audience and community.
I am the current host, producer and editor of The Awaken Project Podcast, and co-host and editor of The Basic B’s Podcast.
The whole podcasting process is something that I enjoy now, but my journey wasn’t an easy one.
In 2013, my obsession for podcasting began. I was so consumed by the idea of podcasting that I went out and bought my very own laptop, microphones, and “gear” so that my friend and I could start hosting our own show!
True story, my friend Abby and I loved Taylor Swift so much that we wanted to start a podcast where we talked about how in awe of her we were. Needless to say, BLABBLE (that was going to be the name of the podcast,) never successfully recorded or posted an episode. I’ll share more about why, just stick with me.
Fast forward to 2015; I’m in college, still obsessed with podcasting, and decided to try starting a show with my college mentor. It was supposed to be a cool, “mentor to mentee” type podcast. Once again, I went out and bought MORE gear that I thought I needed, got my mentor pumped up for the show, and attempted to record. Sadly, no successful episode of “Mentor to Mentee” has been recorded or posted.
Keep on tracking to 2017-2018; my friend Steven and I wanted to start a show that inspires young adults in their faith. There was one problem… I was sick of failing at starting a podcast!
I began heavily researching how to create a podcast, only to find out that all the gear I bought was overkill. I needed this thing called an RSS feed and learned that Apple has the power to approve or deny your show on their platform.
Both Steven and I didn’t want to give up. Through trial and error, we continued to grind, and somehow found a way to successfully record and launch a podcast!
In January of 2019 we launched the first episode of The Awaken Project Podcast!
The podcasting journey was a long one for me, but that is because I didn’t recognize what I was missing until Steven helped me discover it.
As much as I love to talk about T-Swift’s breakup songs for hours, nothing sparks more passion in me than having the opportunity to share and encourage others in the love of Christ.
My credo was the missing piece to starting a podcast and little did I know that it was the most important part of the podcasting journey!
Believe it or not, podcasting is still a relatively new digital content platform for creatives. There are a lot of moving parts that play into it, which is why I started CredoCaster.
Your credo deserves to be known.
I believe that your credo is the most important and powerful part of your podcasting journey! You shouldn’t have to go through years of failed attempts, like me, before you have the technical skills and knowledge to share your credo through podcasting.
CredoCaster takes care of the tedious side of things so that you can focus on the most important thing; your credo!
(Visit CredoCaster.com to learn more!)
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Yes! Both The Awaken Project and CredoCaster, are focused on encouraging people to live a life on mission. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the mission written on our hearts is what drives each of us to do the things that we do. Where does this mission come from? Most of the time it comes from something we’ve experienced (good or bad) that we cannot shake, so we take action to make a difference.
My creative journey is driven by creating a space for people to discover their mission (The Awaken Project) and helping them to develop a way to take action by making their mission known (CredoCaster).
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
This is going to sound incredibly lame, but I wish that I would have taken advantage YouTube sooner. There is so much content on YouTube that can actually help you grow as a creative/business owner! If I’m not mistaken, YouTube is the second largest search engine, which makes sense!
YouTube is now my go to resource for getting answers on creative questions I may need answered.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.credocaster.com www.theawakenprojectmn.com
- Instagram: itsblakewright theawakenprojectmn
- Facebook: Blake Wright
- Linkedin: Blake Wright