The Lion Within Us - Leadership for Christian Men 

543. Discipleship 101 With Pastor Trey Brunson

• Chris Grainger

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Did you know roughly 20% of men report having no friends at all, while 50% avoid discussing anything meaningful with the few connections they have?We're diving deep into the critical epidemic affecting Christian men today—isolation, shame, and the transformative power of authentic discipleship. Pastor Trey Brunson of Church of Eleven 22 brings electrifying energy and profound wisdom as he unpacks their discipleship model that's changing lives in Jacksonville and beyond.

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Chris Grainger:

Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, guys, meat episode time. Let's get right into it, okay? So the scripture of the week this week is in the back of chapter 2, verse 14. It says, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So, guys, go back If you want to know how to simplify and apply that verse to your life.

Chris Grainger:

The last podcast in your podcast feed is our spiritual kickoff episode. Listen to that. I'll try to take some time to unpack that at length, just to give you some insights. And again, if you like the spiritual kickoffs and I know you guys do check it out Monday through Friday within the Lion Withinist community. Monday through Friday within the Lion Within us community, this is exclusive content within our community. Go to thelionwithinus, get started. It's a super easy way to get plugged in, to get content, to get extra, that extra little boost that you need, a whole lot better than anything you ever get from Starbucks. Guys, I promise you that and you can check this out If you can't make it live. The videos are there exclusive for you, inside the inside the community. You pull it up, press play and it's right there. How about that? All right, guys. So look, this is going to be a fun one.

Chris Grainger:

Now you talk about a guy that has a lot of energy. I thought I had a lot of energy. I met Pastor Trey Brunson. He is awesome. He is the pastor of ministry at the San Pablo campus, pastor at the Church of 1122. He works alongside with Pastor Joby, pastor Ryan you guys know we've had them on the show before Joby several times Pastor Ryan Britt once they're out of Jacksonville, florida. He also he talks about this in an episode. He was the executive producer of a 2019 film that some of you guys may have seen before. It's called Run the Race. So he's got definitely just a wonderful background.

Chris Grainger:

From Dallas Baptist University. He's currently finished up his schooling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's served on several church staffs. He talks about all that stuff. He's got an amazing wife. He's got five kids, fellas. I mean it's just incredible stuff that he has going on Love, his energy and we're going to talk specifically about discipleship and what does that look like practically for you as a man, I'll tell you, he hits it. He hits it head on. He gives us some really good advice, he gives us good insights and he challenges us. That's why you're listening to the Lion Within Us. You want to be challenged. So sit back and enjoy this conversation with my friend, pastor Trey Brunson. Well, pastor Trey, welcome to the Lion Within Us. How are you?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

doing today I'm doing great man. It's an honor to get to be here. I'm so thankful for you and what you do, man, to equip men to make disciples and make disciples.

Chris Grainger:

That's it, bro. That's it. So you're the third 1122, man. So I worked with Joby, with Pastor Britt, and now you and I just like the hits keep on coming, brother.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I apologize. It's a steep drop off from those two to me, so you know.

Chris Grainger:

Oh no.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

This is the first 1122 person you're experiencing. And listen to those two guys.

Chris Grainger:

No, no, no, no, I don't believe I've. I've heard you on on the podcast too, so you're doing some great stuff out there. So give us a fun fact about you that maybe not many people know about Pastor Trey.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah, I'll give you two, Uh one. I'm the father of five kids and we talked about this last time we were chatting and uh, and I think that is one of the greatest joys in my life I've got three boys and two girls is seeing them grow up and thrive in the things God made them do. And then the second thing is my best friend and I made a movie that came out in theaters in 2019 called Run the Race. So I've had the joy of getting to put my life on the line for the kingdom of God in a few ways, one of them making a faith-based film.

Chris Grainger:

Tell us a little bit about that movie before we go any further, because some of our listeners may not have heard about that before. I wanted to just give you a spot to at least share a little bit there.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Sure, I met my best friend, jake, in college, at Dallas Baptist University back in 2004. We really just connected as friends right off the bat and he was telling me about a story and it really is a true story and how he thought it would make an incredible film. And after he would tell me bits and pieces of this story for about a year and a half, I finally said I don't want to hear you talk about it again until you start writing, because it'll never be a film that people see until there's a script. He did. He went away for a weekend, got a hotel room, unplugged the TV out of that hotel room and he came back with 200 pages of a script. And so that was 2008. And from 2008 until 2014, we were just trying to figure out how do you take a script? Like, you know your book. I'm reading through your book right now. You got this thing and now what do I do with it? What's the next step? Well, sometimes it's easier and a little more obvious, like with a book let's get it to a publisher or let's self-publish, let's just get it in front of people. With a movie script, it's not so obvious, like there's tons of people who write movie scripts that never get made, and so we just leveraged everything possible. I used to be on staff at First Baptist Jacksonville and we would do these men's ministry events and you know every guy that would come in. That was kind of nationally known. I would just leverage that as an opportunity to talk about hey, I got a movie script. Do you know anybody in the industry we should talk to? Eventually, it just hit me. I was shopping At First Baptist. We used to host the Gator Bowl Breakfast, which is Gator Bowls here in Jacksonville. Tim Tebow's brother, robbie, was the head of FCA Northeast Florida. Then we were shopping for supplies for the Gator Bowl Breakfast. I just said, hey, man, have I told you about the movie that my best friend and I are working on? And he said no, and so I gave him the elevator pitch.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Run the Race is a story of two brothers. They grow up in this small town. Their mom died of cancer when they were young. Their dad is a runaway drunk. They're raised by the older lady who lives across the street from them. They're just by the older lady who lives across the street from them. They're just trying to get out of this small town.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And what you see in the story is how the older brother is a believer and the younger brother is not. And it makes a ton of sense because of all that he's been through and you see how the older brother loves the younger brother and leads him to the Lord through some pretty intense situations that happened to them. And so, as I'm telling that story to Robbie, we're standing in Publix and he just starts crying and I think there was this connection he had as Tim Tebow's older brother with like I love my brother so much and I would do anything for him. And he said we have to tell Timmy about this. So we fly out to Los Angeles this is when he's training out there with whatever that guy was before he went to play for the Eagles. And we just tell him the story.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And Tim, I remember he's such a giant he's sitting at this conference table with all of his lawyers. It was a very intimidating meeting and he's getting. He's rocking in his chair and he's just getting pumped as my friend Jake is telling him this story. And he said I'm all in. What do we have to do now? How do we make this happen? And God brought a couple of other people to the table and we raised the money we had to raise to make the film and started shooting in 2017 into 2018. And then it's all editing and marketing and you got to raise money to market a film and it came out in theaters in February of 2019, man.

Chris Grainger:

That's awesome.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And what's crazy, chris, is I got a text message last night from a friend who apparently had just seen the movie last night and was like you didn't tell me this was going to happen in the movie. I love that something that God put on our hearts in 2004 is still, in 2025, impacting lives with the hope of Jesus. Just the beauty of writing a book, of making a movie, of putting something out there that God's called you into, is you have no clue how that will resonate long beyond your timeframe for it and point people to Jesus.

Chris Grainger:

I was going to ask you too, because you know we do a book of the week each each week at the Lion Within Us, and I saw the Run the Race Bible study. So you guys put that together, so that goes along. Does that kind of accompany it? Yeah?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

yeah, I wrote that just trying to think through. Like there are some pretty heavy moments in that movie, some. We wanted it to be an honest story and you know you kind of hear this from time to time. Um, charles martin, he's the author, he's a live and 22er charles been on the pod.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

He's been on the pod, yeah what a stud yeah um, he had a book called the mountain between us that was turned into a film. Okay, his kind of story with that was he didn't see the script until the week the film was coming out and it was not his story. They changed his story dramatically and he's been very reluctant to turn any of his stories into films since then because of that. He's now got a guy that he's created a partnership with and they're working on turning the Keeper series the Water Keeper, letter Keeper, record Keeper and he just released the Keeper, the fourth book in that series. They're going to turn that into either a streaming series or a film series.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

But he's 100% spot on Like, if it matters to you, if it's important, you have to fight for it to stay in your film. And there were things that we fought for and we fought for them because we didn't want the gospel message that was heard to be trust in Jesus and everything gets better for you, because that's not true. Sometimes you trust in Jesus and your finances don't straighten out, or your marriage doesn't work out, or your marriage doesn't work out, or we wanted it to be true to life that when you trust in Jesus, you get Jesus. Who's better than life, not, as Pastor Joby says, a lot cotton, candy and Cadillacs.

Chris Grainger:

That's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And sometimes that does happen. Sometimes you trust in Jesus. I love the Kendrick brothers and your marriage does get reconciled, your children do come home, things do turn around for you. We just wanted to be honest. That shouldn't be what you're after. God change, make everything better in my life and I'll trust in you. It should be that you're better than my life and, no matter what happens, I get you and you are the abundant life. And so we fought to keep that in the film. And so, knowing there's a point in that movie that a lot of people it's all like, oh my gosh, I didn't see this coming Part of that we wrote that curriculum as a like great Bible study that you could go through. That would help you to like process. What is the gospel? What does it mean when my life is hard? After I've trusted in Jesus and literally Chris, what I did was I just took characters in the Bible like Joseph. I mean, did God give Joseph the dream or not?

Chris Grainger:

Amen Absolutely.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And he got thrown in a pit, and he got thrown into prison and he was forgotten and all of these things. And yet God had a trajectory for his life that was greater than he could have ever imagined. All of those moments mattered to get there.

Chris Grainger:

Right A hundred percent.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah, man, we wrote that curriculum to try and help people understand the gospel and walk out gospel implications in their life.

Chris Grainger:

That's so cool. I'm getting a copy of it, guys. That's going to be our book of the week Spoiler alert for you guys who are listening on Friday. So that's it. We're going to promote that. So I'm super pumped just to your energy for one, pastor Trey. That's when we first met. I'm like this guy's let's go, that's it.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Performance enhancing drugs man.

Chris Grainger:

I know we're going to dive into the discipleship journey, what that works, how that works at 1122. Because our listeners, we talk about you guys all the time but I'd love to know more about you, your personal discipleship journey, a little bit of your background, so share that with our listeners.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah Well, my dad is a pastor. He's still preaching. He's the pastor of church in Birmingham called Valleydale church, and crushing it, I mean I. I guess I'm at that point, chris, in my life where a lot of my friends are losing their dads and their dads are passing away for whatever reason, and I don't take it for granted that I can pick up the phone and just call my dad. I spoke to a group of widows on Sunday evening this week and they asked me to speak on prayer because they said we all prayed for our husbands and they died. Would you help us? And how can we trust God when we pray? And I called my dad on Saturday and I said hey dad, what'd you up to? And how can we trust God when we pray? And I called my dad on Saturday and I said hey dad, what are you up to? My dad was headed to officiate a funeral and I said quick, I just want to know. Here's what I think I'm going to say. What would you say? How would you help? And I remember when I said I love you, talked to you later and hung up the phone thinking like man, what a blessing I've got one of the world's best dads and I'm just thankful for every moment that I've had with him.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

A lot of pastor's kids grow up and they hate the church. I love it. I've given my life to the church man. So I grew up with a dad who was a pastor. We moved pretty regularly. I was born in Greenwood, south Carolina. My dad was in seminary at that point at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, texas. He went to his first church in Chesapeake, virginia.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Wow, yeah, we were there for seven years, left there and went to High Point, north Carolina. We were there for seven years, left there and went to Dallas, texas. We were there for seven years and then we came to Jacksonville, florida, and he was a pastor here for 13 years. I was here for almost 10. I left and planted a church in Burbank, california, and left there and went to seminary at Southern Seminary in Louisville, kentucky, and was a pastor on staff at Southeast Christian Church and during COVID, wound up on a Zoom call with Pastor Joby and he said, hey, man, any chance you'd want to come home and we came back in 2020. I've been on staff here for almost five years, five years full of joy, man. So I have grown up in and around ministry. By God's grace, I have not grown bitter towards ministry, but just fallen in love with the bride of Christ and the joy of getting to be a disciple. I am a disciple. I get to make disciples, by His grace.

Chris Grainger:

That's awesome. So Southeastern. I'm trying to remember correctly that's Al Mohler. Is he out there Other?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

seminaries Al Mohler.

Chris Grainger:

And Southeastern.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Christian was Bob Russell and then Dave Stone and now Kyle Eidelman.

Chris Grainger:

Okay, yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome, Great stuff. So what do you do at 1122? I'm sure you have many hats that you're wearing there.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I do. I have a few hats. I am the campus pastor at our San Pablo campus, which is our broadcast campus, so Pastor Joby's here, preaches from here, so I do a lot of things with and for him to help him. He's the best man, you know. It's such a joy that he was a good friend. But then to come and work for a great boss and one of the best preacher and pastors I've ever been around, I couldn't ask for a better guy to look up to and to get to serve alongside and serve. It's a joy for me.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I also help oversee discipleship for us centrally and I help oversee all of our multi-site and campuses with another campus pastor. We kind of oversee campus pastors and staff and it's the old job description, it's the last bullet point of all other duties as assigned by your supervisor. It's a big bucket for me and it's with joy. I love it. Um, having grown up around ministry, there's a lot of things that I just don't think about and what I've had to do in the last few years is figure out how do I take what can feel uh, just natural instinct for me and how do I help, coach and lead other people's to thinking and seeing and doing those things.

Chris Grainger:

Sure, absolutely Love it, love it. Well, guys, we're going to take our first break with Pastor Trey. We'll be right back. I've got something big to share. We're making a major shift because we know the battle was real and it's time more men had access to the support they need.

Chris Grainger:

For too long, guys have been trying to carry the weight alone pressure at work, tension at home, wounds from the past and a world that demands strength but offers no place to rest. We see it, we've lived it, and that's exactly why we built our community. It's a stronghold, a place where warriors can find rest, truth and a band of brothers standing beside them. And starting now, we're making it easier than ever to step in. We've lowered the barrier to just $15.99 a month. That means, for less than the cost of a drive-thru lunch, you can join a brotherhood that's centered on Christ and built for growth. Inside you'll find access to our daily spiritual kickoffs every Monday through Friday, our Lion Lunches, our Bible Studies, our Friday Forge Gatherings all that and so much more. Every man needs a stronghold, and you don't have to fight alone. If you've been waiting for the right time to jump in, this is it. Go to thelionwithinus and join the community and see for yourself what happens when iron truly sharpens iron. So, pastor Trey, I'm super curious because you know, joby and I have talked about this a couple of times in the past, but it sounds like you're the guy who makes it happen. So walk us through.

Chris Grainger:

I came from the traditional Southern Baptist. We had Sunday school, you know, and a Sunday school setting. I'll just be. I teach Sunday school now. It's just different. Basically I'm teaching to the group and it's very little interaction. The way Joby explained the groups to me, it was very different. So I'd love to get your insights. So what does it look like for a new member to 1122 when they're walking through and Joby's talking about? You know you have to get into a discipleship group. What does that look like? How does it work? Just love to get your insights here.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Sure. So you know, one of the things you have to do and this is this is like pretty acute for me. We on Sunday, pastor Joby and I are in the lobby after the nine o'clock service, okay, okay, and two ladies are in the line coming up. Pastor Joby is one of the I don't know guys who do this. Pastor Joby will stand in the lobby as long as it takes to pray for, talk to every person who wants to speak to them, and I try and stand right there and help, be like the. Let me help you take whatever that next step is, or help with whatever that thing is that God's doing. And these two ladies walk up.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

One is a tall blonde and the others are shorter. She has black hair and she won't look at us. I mean, her head's down the whole time and her friend says this is so-and-so and she's been a Satanist since she was 14. And today she trusted in Jesus and Chris. She's like shaking and I get it Part of it. I know that that moment I mean you got to think this is not just I trusted in Jesus. This is like her entire life is changing. This is the majority of her life.

Chris Grainger:

Her identity yeah.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

She began to share with us that she, her dad, died when she was younger and Satan was who she would talk to at night and Satan told her that she was his daughter. I mean, this is like her entire life, her entire worldview is is kind of deconstructing. It's the end of fight club, where all the buildings are falling down around them, yeah, but it's also a large room with a lot of people and it's very loud. So I don't know how much of this is like fear in that moment. So pastor Joby was just so tender with her, prayed for her, and then what he does a lot of times, this is pastor Trey. He's going to help you take your next steps.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So we go, sit down and we're talking to her, and I brought a lady along with me who is just the best. She's so motherly in her discipleship, and she said so, you've surrendered your life to Jesus. And the girl looks up and she goes. I don't know what that means. And she was like you've, you've trusted in Jesus to save you. And she was like I've done that, she's great. So is your next step to get baptized? And she goes. I don't know what that means, like she's never been in church, man Sure sure.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

You should like surrender. And I laughed. I said, you know, was it weird when we sang all these songs about the blood of the lamb? And she was, like there are a lot of this. So to answer that question, let me go back to like.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I think there's some basic things that we ought to get in order to understand getting in a discipleship group. The first thing is what is a disciple? Pastor Joey has done such a great job helping me and I think a lot of people here at 1122 understand that a disciple is just someone who is taking steps to follow after Jesus. So we use the language here a lot. What's your next step of faith? Your next step of faith could be to get baptized because you've trusted in Jesus but, like, maybe your baptism was on the wrong side of your salvation or maybe you've never been baptized to go public with your faith. Maybe your next step of faith is to find a place to serve and use the gifts that God's given you. Maybe it's to get in a disciple group and get some people in your life who are digging into the word of God and walking out all of life with you. So it's important that, like, we understand what we're after in discipleship is helping people take steps of faith to follow him.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So years ago, pastor Joby kind of sketched out what we call the discipleship journey and you can find all of this on the 1122 website If you just Google church of 1122 discipleship journey. It's a triangle. And the reason it's a triangle is Pastor Joby says discipleship isn't linear, it's not running the bases. It legitimately is taking next steps. And if you look at the discipleship journey, in each of those corners there's a phrase like this is what a disciple loves, all people. A disciple discovers their identity in Jesus. A disciple deepens in their relationship with Jesus. Like you're doing that all the time. You're loving people for the rest of your life. As a disciple, you're discovering more and more what it means to be a son or a daughter of the king. As a disciple, you are deepening in your relationship with Jesus, like you never stop doing those things.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And then on that triangle right, if you just think, like the top of the triangle and the corners of the triangle, there's two words in each of the corners. So these are things that you're just asking. Which one of these is my next step? Do I need to serve? Do I know what my gift is. Do you know what your spiritual gift is? If you don't know, one of the ways to find out is just to start serving and figure out. What are you good at? What are you not good at? How has God uniquely wired you? Like God has uniquely wired you, chris, you just have a mind. You think about things in a way that a lot of guys like they're just busy with work or baseball or whatever. God has given you a teaching gift a mind to open up the word of God and help people understand what it means.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I would say one of the gifts that God has given me is discernment. Like there are times, like I do a lot of discipleship, where I'm sitting with there's a couch right over here in my office and I'm sitting with couples and I'm trying to figure out how do I help this husband who's struggling with pornography, or this wife has had an affair who's telling me the truth right now, and a lot of times I can just kind of sort through things or get to the root, like I teach my kids a lot the thing you did, that's the fruit, but there's a root. Why did you hit your brother? Why did you say that thing to your mom or me. Why did you? Whatever that thing is, what's the root of that? I think sometimes it just feels like it's a little bit easier for me to get to the root of a thing, and that's a gift from the spirit of God. So how are you using that gift in order to build up the gifts?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

In Paul's writings, the word for the gifts is charis, which means grace. It is a gift that is meant to bring grace to the body of God, to build up and establish the body of God. This is 1 Corinthians, 12, 13, 14. It is not meant for you to be put on a pedestal. It's meant for you to build up and edify the body with whatever that gift is. The flip side of that is share. Who is the person that you're praying for? We use the language of a one more. Who is the person, the one more? What's a significant number in the kingdom? One more? Jesus leaves the 99 for the one. Who is the one more person that you're praying, that they would come to know who Jesus is and what he's done for them. And so you know this is the Pastor.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Joby just talked about it this past weekend that statement that's attributed to Francis of Assisi to share the gospel and, if necessary, use words he's like. First of all, he didn't say that and he'd be mad that people said he said it. Second of all, it's impossible. The gospel is good news, right? People need to know that.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

God made you, he designed you. Like what a truth in our culture that says a fetus is just a clump of cells. To say not at all. This is an image bearer of God, and God has a purpose and a plan for their life. None of us are just accidents. You're not just the like happenstance of a man loved a woman and here you are now. You were designed. God had the idea of you when he fashioned you in your mother's womb, but because of Adam and our own sinful decisions, we are separated from God and none of life will make sense.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I love the? Uh, the opening scene of the equalizer. You know we're in some men's podcast. Uh, two most important days in your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why. That's it Right, man Like how many guys are out there walking around and they have no clue why they exist. And so God so loved every person in this world that he sent his only son to live the life that we couldn't live, meaning, the standard is not. Can you be good enough? Can you be better than the guy in the cubicle next to you? Can you bench more than that guy? Can you cuss less than that guy? Can you be faithful to your wife? The standard is holy, morally. I'm on my hands above the screen right now. That's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

It is unobtainable to be morally perfect. We all know that if perfection is the goal right and God doesn't grade on a curve and we need grace, which is God's riches, at Christ's expense, he lived the life we couldn't live and died the death that we deserve. And so, because of Jesus, we get reconciled, forgiven for our sins and reconciled to God, and he's making all things new. All things new. Man Like you're busted up marriage. There's hope for your. Your addiction, whatever that thing is. You're addicted to lying about your golf score, or you're addicted to cocaine, right, whatever? Whatever that thing is that, it's like it got the hooks in you. You can be set free from that. Everything is and will be made new.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So who, who in your life needs to know that? I had a professor in college that used to ask us, chris, how many people cried themselves to sleep in our city last night Cause they have no hope. Who are you sharing with All right now, go faster, cause I know you probably got a break coming up. Are you leaning into the faith family? Who knows you? And who do you know Like? Isn't it terrifying when you hear every now and then that somebody was in the hospital and had like a borderline life-saving surgery, and you didn't know until after that ain't doing it right, man Right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

You need to be in community, people need to know you, and I always kind of talk about it in terms of like you need people before the fire hits your house to help you navigate when it comes, and you don't want to have to find those people after it's hit. You want to build them in before. But also you want people to celebrate with man. Sure, absolutely person. Have them, bring a like thing out at a restaurant and sing happy birthday to the solo individual. Yeah, there's always people around who's celebrating the high moments with you, not just walking you through the low moments. Right? What about faith? How are you growing in your ability to trust the word of god, to trust the spirit of god in your life? Like, how are you fanning into flame the faith that's been entrusted to you? Who are you entrusting, who are those faithful men that you're entrusting those things to? 2 Timothy 2.2. Then the last corner of it, the bottom left corner, salvation. How are you leaning into and remembering what he's done for you?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I love how David constantly tells us we've got to remember. We've got to go back and remember. David had to do this all the time in his life. Sometimes you have to when you're walking through a hard situation, be able to go back and remember he was faithful 20 years ago when I went through that thing. He was faithful 15 years ago when I went through that thing. He was faithful five days ago when I went to that. We forget all the time how faithful God has been to us. You got to go back and remember your salvation and lean into that and I would say even in salvation, if you haven't been baptized since you trusted in Jesus to save you from your sins, that is your next step. And then the last one is steward, and this is the. I'm saving this for the last because this is the hardest one for guys. Okay, Okay.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Your wallet may be the number one tool in your discipling and your discipleship. Your money goes where your heart goes. It's crazy, chris I mean, we know this. Every guy listening to your podcast probably knows this that 20% of people in a church are paying for everything and 80%. They're fine paying for their kid to play on every travel ball league. They're fine paying whatever the greens fees are. They're fine paying to go get that hunting lease and I'm into all of it. Right, I would love to join all of your guests and doing all of those things.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

But if you're stingy towards God, what do you think the outcome of that would be and what I would say? To a certain extent, if a guy's open to like, just hear me be honest with you right now. If you are not bringing back to God, who has given you everything you have, it's not just that you're missing out on a healthy and helpful rhythm that God designed for really logical and tangible purposes, that it helps you to understand how to manage your money better by being generous to God, but you're also missing out on the blessing of being a part of the movement of God in your community and to the ends of the earth, like part of like what I love about giving is when I see these videos on Sunday of people who are like because 1122 gave, I heard the gospel in Uganda because 1122 came in. Like the hurricane effort reliefs in North Carolina, I have a home now like all of these things. I'm a participant in all of that. God has, like, used those seeds that I have, so just in bringing back to me he's multiplied the things that I've gotten to be a part of.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I think guys always look at the bottom line and forget you're missing out on an exponential joy that you could have in your life in joining God and all of the things that he's doing. A disciple stewards and I'll just make it super tangible for everybody who listens to the lion within us. It may be hard for you to figure out how to build it into your budget to give you just got to start somewhere and trust God. Now let me make it super practical. Every single one of us have somewhere between two to five thousand dollars worth of stuff in our house that we are not using and we will not use Like whatever that workout equipment was that you bought in the 90s and it's sitting in your garage your local church just to participate in all the things.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

When you go to that church every week after that, you look at it completely different because you are investing into the kingdom of God. You see the fruit from your following him, the generous God who gave everything for you. You're following him into that. Maybe just take that simple step. What kind of stuff do you have that you could liquidate today at a garage sale, at a pawn shop or whatever? And you could take a step. You're just not doing it because you're lazy. Get in the fight. Steward everything God has entrusted you, from your body all the way down to all of the stuff in your garage. Steward it to the glory of God.

Chris Grainger:

That's the discipleship journey.

Chris Grainger:

Love it, love it. Guys. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. We'll keep digging into this. With Pastor Trey, we're making a big change that I think you're really going to enjoy.

Chris Grainger:

I spent a lot of time thinking about our spiritual kickoffs and, honestly, I love doing them each week, so much so we started doing them live every Monday through Friday inside our exclusive platform. And here's the best part we decided to give full access, completely free, so now you can join our daily spiritual kickoff space at no cost. Every day, we go live to read the word, to encourage each other and find simple and powerful ways to apply God's truth to our lives. You'll even have the chance to engage with me directly, and if you missed a live stream, don't worry. The videos are posted the same day so you can catch up whenever it works for you. This is exclusive behind-the-scenes content that is not available anywhere else, and now we've removed every excuse. So if you're ready to get started, head over to thealigningwithinus and grab your free access today. Let's grow together.

Chris Grainger:

So, pastor Trey, I am curious on the discipleship journey. Love the model, definitely the framework. Give us some practicalities of how it works. So do you have a discipleship leader for a D group. I mean, do they meet in homes? Do they meet at the church? Love to get some insight for guys who are maybe interested, or even church leaders who are interested in how you guys do it.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah. So what we're looking for we're going to start a disciple group is I'm looking for someone who'd say, hey, I'll help lead it and we'll coach you in that. All right, like, here's what you say, here's curriculum. All of our curriculum is based out of the sermon, right? What we're trying to do is double down on.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

First of all, pastor Joby preaches the scripture, like we are this coming weekend, tomorrow night and Sunday will be the last week in Titus. We spent three weeks in Titus. He'll finish that Like we teach through books of the Bible. So what we're doing is helping you to understand what the scriptures mean for you, and so we're going to have a handful of questions that come out of that sermon. The first one is usually going to be something about who is God from that text, because you can't know who you are until you know who he is, and knowing him is going to drive whatever steps you take. So we help coach disciple group leaders to. Here's how you use that curriculum, here's how you guide those conversations. A disciple group leader doesn't need to be a seminary professor.

Chris Grainger:

Okay, yeah.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Disciple group leader just needs to be someone who says I'm willing to like lead the conversation. I'm willing to either open my house Some disciple groups are in homes, some disciple groups are in restaurants. Some disciple groups are at our campuses. Some disciple groups meet online right Like we want to, wherever you are, help you take that step of faith, and so we're just trying to create community.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Part of our bent at the moment, culturally, is individualism and isolationism, which those are some of the easiest weapons of the enemy to get you alone and then to lie to you and then to take you out. Right. John 10, 10 says you have an enemy and he seeks to steal and kill and destroy. That's his job description and that's what he's doing in our culture by you thinking I've got 400 followers on whatever social media network, but that ain't community. Those people don't know that you're failing in your marriage or yelling at your kids or struggling with alcoholism. Those people see the edited pictures that you post and the edited statements that you put on social media. That ain't true community People who see you.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So the disciple group leader is just the person who kind of facilitates that gathering together. Then what you're doing is you're asking questions, you're helping people to get talking. Let's talk about what the text says, not let's share all of our thoughts about everything that might be pooling ignorance. I had a high school wrestling coach who said that we were welcome to drink from the fountain of ignorance when we asked him questions. So what we don't want is like what your neighbor down the road's opinion is about. What we want to know is what are the scriptures saying? How can we follow and be biblical in the things that God has called us to do? So a lot of people are like all right, well, I'm willing to do that. Where do I get the people from? Next question is who's in your life?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So I launched a disciple group with a buddy four years ago and it started with who are some guys on staff that, like we just kind of wanted to create a space for us. Let's not assume just because you're on staff at a church that you're leaning in and that you are thriving in your faith. Let's be intentional about it. So there were a handful of us staff guys that started to get together at 7 am on Tuesdays and after a while there's probably about six to eight of us in there.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

All of us started to say I've got these guys that I'm kind of running with in different areas, why don't we invite them to jump in with us? So I had a buddy that I met at a coffee shop and we just started talking. I'm like, hey, man, why don't you just come to my disciple group every week with me? And I've met a couple of guys who they were in our, like college ministry, but aged out, and when I'm like, hey, what disciple group are you in now? They were like, well, I'm not. And I'm like, well, you come jump in with us. And it just kind of becomes the like as I'm interacting with different guys. That's one of the questions I'm asking. You know, do you go to church? Where do you go to church? I don't go to church. Well, come sit with me. Personalize that invitation.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Come sit with me this weekend. We have church 722 on Thursdays or 9 and 11, 22 on Sunday. Come sit with me and then eventually, if they're coming, I'm like who do you have in your life? The base assumption, chris every man you meet has probably no other men in his lives unless he's an intentional disciple making disciple. There's all these studies right now that are coming out that are saying men at an alarming rate, like 20% of men would say right now today I don't have a friend. 20% man. Then it builds up to like I think it's like 50% say I might have a few people that I could talk to but I don't talk to them about anything significant.

Chris Grainger:

Yeah, surface level Yep.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah. So so you're just bearing the weight of all of your wounds, all of life happening to you, and you wonder why guys are like doing desperate things, dumb things. It's because you're carrying more weight than you're supposed to and you're looking for outlets and unhealthy places that are easy outlets. They're just not the right outlets.

Chris Grainger:

That's right, or?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

you'll always be an easy outlet, it will make you feel better for a moment, and that it immediately adds shame and guilt and probably fractured definitely fractured relationships in the rest of your life, because it changes the way you think about yourself and other people. That's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

The gym can be a healthy or unhealthy outlet If what you're trying to do is work out in order to deal with shame and guilt. It don't matter how much you bench press man, if you don't deal with the heart stuff, it's just compounding down on that. All of these hobbies that we would have like you can be an expert at hunting, fishing, whatever thing you can tell me who you know the bills drafted in 1981. That's a waste of time If you're not dealing with what's actually beneath the surface. It's like repainting your car when it needs a new transmission. Yeah, it doesn't fix the problem.

Chris Grainger:

That's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

What we need is we need other guys in our life getting beneath the surface, which requires you to be vulnerable. It's tough, but if you'll be honest you can be free, and if you won't be honest you'll never be free. So, helping guys to get into life together and to begin to talk about things the best disciple groups, honestly, are probably when you're getting more honest than you're actually like leaning more, like getting stuff out. Getting it out in the open and having guys come alongside you is what every guy needs. But we're all avoiding it because we're afraid and you shouldn't be afraid. Fear is a spirit. You got to pray that thing out. You got to recognize every man that would be sitting around that table with you relates to you and wants to help you. But you got to say it, you got to get it out.

Chris Grainger:

Curious too, Pastor Trey. How do you guys combat like the age and stage mentality, Like that's how most Sunday schools are set up in Southern Baptist churches? You know it's. You know you have the older groups, you have the 20 year olds, you have the 34 year olds. I've heard Joby talk about it, I've heard Britt talk about it. You know, I know that's intentional for you guys where you don't want that right, you don't want a bunch of 20 year olds giving each other advice that's like that's a recipe for disaster, you know. So how do you go about?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

you know cultivating that as soon as you said that the tough thing is, everybody listening to this was laughing. Thinking about 20 year olds all giving each other advice about life. Right, like we know, that's a caricature of like that won't go well for long that's right no, no, you don't know what you don't know, so what you want.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

what's amazing is when you get some like older guys who would say, you know, out of Titus, older guys pour into younger guys, older women pour into younger women. Younger women be willing to receive that from them. Younger men which is funny in Titus, I think that's the only thing he tells younger men is to be self-controlled. I think everything after that's for Titus, but it's like the one thing, because this is what younger men need self-control.

Chris Grainger:

That's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

But what he's also saying is listen to the older men who can help you see in yourself, to control it, what you can't see in yourself and you can't control in yourself. You need some of these older men in your life. So, yeah, man, what we're trying to do is keep it from being cul-de-sacs, where what we're actually doing is all the like police officers are meeting together and they're just talking about work, and all of the firefighters are meeting together and all the 20 year old men are actually just talking about 20 year old girls, and all the older men are talking about what's wrong with the government. And what you want is all of those people mixing and mingling life together, because you need people in your group. In my group, I've got guys who are in their early 20s and I've got guys who are in their 80s. What's wild to me is how often the 20-year-olds can call out the 80-year-olds.

Chris Grainger:

Yeah, yeah, right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah, and we pray that the 80 year old guys hear it. And, what's amazing, we got a guy in our disciple group. His name's John and John is the closest thing to a saint I've ever seen. Like this guy's going to cry in every disciple group because he just moved by love for Jesus and he's going on in his seventies. He's going on mission trips to South Sudan like one of the most dangerous places in the world. This guy just loves Jesus and he's so quick to say, like, don't look to me, look to him.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And it's like all these 20 year olds now, like we talk whenever John's name comes up, every single one of them says I want to be like that guy when I grow up. You know what we're missing in our culture, chris Heroes, that's it. Old dudes listening to this podcast. You're just showing up to a disciple group with some young dudes. You become the hero. You become the guy that we. Just we want to be like you. We want our marriage to make it, we want our kids to not hate us and we want to see them thrive. And we want to know, like, how do we navigate these difficult moments? The 20 year old guys want to know how do I find a wife Right? And you did it and you've been successful at it because your marriage is still going. If you just show up to the disciple group, what you do is immediately give a standard to a bunch of 20 year olds and 30 year olds that, like you can do it.

Chris Grainger:

Just keep chasing after him A hundred percent and you've alluded a few times, but I don't want to just fly by this Are the groups typically, you know you have your men groups and you have your lady groups. Do you have groups that are couples? I'm just curious how that works.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah, we do men's groups, women's groups and then mixed like co-ed, okay. And so again, like my wife has a group of ladies. They meet on Friday mornings from, like it feels like, 10 to 4. But I'm pretty sure that's not the time. They just they love being together and so they're together for most of the day on Friday, it feels like. And then I'm in a men's group on Tuesday morning. And then we have couples groups where, like I'm sure a lot of young couples get in a group, especially when you get married.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

It's one of the first questions I ask couples I do premarital counseling for Do you have an older couple that can mentor you through the first year or two of your marriage? And it's sad, chris, how many of them say no, they don't have an older godly couple that they can lean into. So I then try and help seed that relationship by putting them in a disciple group with other couples. It's just normal. I did a Zoom call last night from seven, 30 to nine, with a couple I married six months ago and they just wanted to talk through like we're fighting about this, we're struggling with talking about that, and I kept laughing. They're like why are you laughing? I'm like this is just normal marriage. This is not uncommon, but you don't know what you don't know.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And they do have some unique things like tensions with her dad, who's not a Christian and he's very selfish, and it's creating a lot of trouble for them. So I said I'd love for you to talk with and join a disciple group with this group of couples. For one, it'll make you feel normal. Two, it'll give you some community to help you navigate those conversations with and this is just life Like. We have to cultivate community, not just either neglect it or expect it. You have to this is on every disciple. You have to cultivate it.

Chris Grainger:

I mean, and I know this, the stats for 1122 is through the roof for your listeners, your people that are showing up for all the services. How is that correlating to the D groups? Are you seeing a nice trajectory there as well, Growth for people? Because that's to me, that's where they're starting to really lean in yeah, yeah, we, we would say like healthy metrics for discipleship.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

So you got any pastors who you know are listening to this I want to look at.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

We kind of have three main discipleship pathways serving in the church, being in a disciple group at the church and going on a mission trip at the church and we would say all discipleship. Everything we do is an on-ramp to one of those three things. How are we helping people to take steps of a disciple, to use the gift that God's given them to be in community where they're growing in their faith, and to take the faith to the ends of the earth to see the gospel cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. So we're constantly pointing in that. So we're always looking at those numbers and trying to figure out of all of those and you could count, like you probably have people who are going on a mission trip in a disciple group and serving it's okay if you count multiple times, but what percentage of your people at your church? Or you know, if you're a multi-site church like us, all of your campuses are engaged in those three things and we want to see that growing proportionately to the number of people who are coming to our church.

Chris Grainger:

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, that's a good message to look at for sure. Okay, well, guys, we're going to take our last break. We'll come back and finish up with Pastor Trey. Life can feel heavy and too often we try to carry it alone.

Chris Grainger:

At the Lion Within Us, we build a Christ-centered community where you can go, connect, grow and be encouraged by brothers who get it. And now joining is easier than ever. We've lowered access to just $15.99 a month. Inside you'll unlock our daily spiritual kickoffs, our Bible studies, lion Lunches, friday Forge and, most importantly, a space to be real. Remember, every man needs a stronghold and you don't have to fight alone To get started, visit thelionwithinus. We'd love to welcome you in. That's thelionwithinus, I'll see you inside. So I am curious, pastor Trey, on the discipleship journey for men in particular, you know you've walked with a lot of guys. What do you see as maybe the biggest headwind or roadblock that gets that prohibits guys from really leaning in and sharing and being open and being vulnerable and transparent, all the stuff that we know we need? Just curious, from your purview, where do you see that hurdle being?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I think some of it's fear. I don't think most Christians have a healthy theology of the enemy. You know, like I feel like I'm holding a lot of movies today, but the movie the Usual Suspects back in the day it was Stephen Baldwin and all those guys when the famous line from that movie was the greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world he didn't exist. I think, probably functionally like there's two ditches with spiritual warfare. One is like thinking that there's a demon behind every red stoplight, but the other, which is probably the majority, it's probably like 20% of people, maybe 15% of people. That's a problem is that everything is demonic, but like 85% of Christians, the struggle is they have no category. Like you're not thinking through your day. Is the enemy lying to me? And what I have found in my life to be true is that the voice of the enemy sounds so much like my own voice in my head and what happens is like a lie just kind of gets sewn through a situation I'm in. Maybe he plants that lie, or maybe it's a wound from, like my past somehow, but a lie just starts rolling around in my head and honestly, chris, I don't know why, but like it feels to me like it takes about three weeks before I will say something, and it's almost always my wife who will catch something that I say in a conversation and she'll say hold up, what did you just say? And I'll think about it and I'll say it. She's like how long have you been believing that? And I don't know why, man, three weeks is kind of like a magic number for me. For some reason. Three to four weeks like it's. Like I've had a thing in the back of my head, not like the front of my mind, but in the back of my head, just multiple situations. You know, at night, before I go to sleep, you know when I'm driving in the car, like just a thought that's in there, and it takes other people almost always Chris to help pull that thing out, for me to see it, which is like we want to take every thought captive. As Paul says, we want to pull down whatever's been elevated, any lofty thing that's been elevated above what he said of us. Like you got to have other people and I think so many men get stuck in lies and that a lie. Quickly in our faith and in our hearts and minds it moves from a thought to like a thought pattern to an identity.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

There's a book that was written years ago. I think the guy's name was Ben Paisley. He was a worship leader and the book's title was Orphan, slave Son. What Ben said was the enemy is going to try and pull you to seeing yourself as an orphan, like I'm all on my own. It's up to me. You know, a real, manifest, destiny version of discipleship. I got to make my own life, do my own things. This is a pretty common lie I have found in a lot of baby boomers Go build your life, build your empire.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

The second identity lie that the enemy can throw at you is a slave, and this one's a common one for me because I grew up as a pastor's kid and I grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention and I know that we talked a lot about the gospel and grace. But what I heard a lot was you just got to be better. Just be good, be better, don't do these things Right. Don't do those things. What's the Joby says don't drink, smoke or chew or go with girls who do that's right.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

That probably is a pretty good summation of what we were unofficially taught. And so there's this like performance drive in me that I've got to earn God's approval and I've blown it. I failed right Like. That is not true. That immediately moves from a lie of the enemy into an identity that I embrace and what we're after is we are sons and daughters of the King. That's a liberating identity. It's also a convictional and a calling identity. Sons and daughters of the King have things that we do that are different, like we're called to live different. There's more for us. This is the abundant life he has more for us. It's not just that there's an enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus has come to give us an abundant life, and so we've got to lean into the voice of the good shepherd because we have access to his voice. That's right. There's a lion within us, right On the, because we have access to his voice.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

That's right. There's a lion within us right, it's on the wall behind you, dude. The spirit of the living God is within us and he's calling us not just into more, but more of himself and more of his heart. And I think so many guys just get jammed up on one of these lies from the enemy that becomes an identity and it keeps you from taking that step of faith because you think it doesn't matter and you think you can't. Or he keeps you jammed up because there's just fear and shame and guilt.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And what you have to know is the gospel doesn't just liberate us from death to life, it also sets us free from guilt and shame and fear, and bondage Like this is why repentance is important. It's not just the key into life with God, it's the rhythm of the life of the believer is saying I have been believing a lie, I need to surrender that to you and I need to take steps of a disciple to follow you into the identity that you have for me more and more, because it's more of your heart for me. Guys, just get jammed up on lies, man, and lies lead to identities and identities lead to like decades of bondage 100%, brother, 100%, pastor Trey.

Chris Grainger:

You are on fire. Brother, look, before we wrap up, we always like to have a little fun lightning round at the end, just to kind of dovetail, let the guys know a little bit more about you. So if you're willing to play man, we'll jump right into that. Let's do it All right, buddy, what's a hobby? What do you enjoy doing for fun?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I enjoy hunting. I enjoy honestly coaching my kids. Right now, that is the hobby I see coming. I've got my 10-year-old Judah, who just lives for sports. I get so much joy out of watching him and my son, wyatt, just crush it, crush it at football and soccer. Right now, I'm learning soccer. I didn't grow up playing soccer Soccer. Right now we're about to get back into tackle in the spring.

Chris Grainger:

I got you. I got you. Okay. What about favorite food? What's your go-to?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Steak.

Chris Grainger:

That's easy favorite food. What's your go-to steak?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

that's easy we're like if it's a hard day at the church and I'm driving home, I stop at public's and pick up a steak and just go in and treat myself there you go, there you go.

Chris Grainger:

Now you've mentioned a few movies already, so it sounds like you're a movie buff, so what is your favorite movie? What's your go-to?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

well, you're gonna laugh at me, man. My favorite movie is willy wonka. It just was such a like okay movie to me as a kid and I think what it did for me was showed me like how powerful storytelling can be, because when you look at it now, obviously it's like there's no gospel and willy wonka but all of these kids who are controlled by their passions and at least destruction. Yeah. So I love willy wonka, but man, but man. I'm a sucker for any good action suspense. I've loved all of the like Tyler Sheridan stuff right now. It blows my mind that that guy can create so many worlds. I'm a big reader. I've read all of the like Reacher series, all of the Jack Carr stuff. I love a good Navy SEAL slash tough guy story. So I'm loving the Reacher stuff right now on Amazon All good testosterone inducing.

Chris Grainger:

There you go. What about sports teams? Like, who are you pulling for you? Because you've lived all over. So I'm super curious, like where's your loyalty lie?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I have the weirdest loyalties. You you know, you think, all the places that I've grown up. So it's hard for me to not pull for florida, because tim tebow invested a lot of money and run the race and he's become a good friend and I'm just thankful for that guy. So I I yelled pretty loudly the other night when florida won I was saying, man, they just had a big night, big night. I cannot believe I was so nervous because it came down to the wire. College football boomer sooner man. I'm a big Oklahoma fan.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And part of it was when I was growing up in Texas. Adrian Peterson, was that Oklahoma Brother, that guy? He hung the moon in my mind in terms of football players. He's up there there, man. Uh, of greatest of all time in my opinion.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Um, I'm a big packers fan and I just pull in for green bay, which is funny. Uh, you know, the cowboys haven't won a super bowl. Uh, since I think I was in elementary school, you would think, having grown up in dallas, right, they were losing. When I was there, a lot man, I was a big brett far was a big Brett Favre, a big Aaron Rodgers fan. You know, pull for them. My mom is a massive Clemson fan and a massive Dallas Mavericks fan, so I pull for the Mavericks.

Chris Grainger:

Okay.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

You know I just love competition. I'll watch any sport anytime, especially with my kids, because I'm trying to teach them about sportsmanship and the heart of you know a leader. I want my kids. My dad did such a great job Every day going to school. My dad would say be a leader, be a leader, be a leader. And the funny thing, Chris, is I hear it in the back of my head all the time. I step into a room when I know it's a difficult situation and I hear my dad's voice in the back of my head saying be a leader. So I walk into a lot of situations just thinking what would a leader do right now? And I'm trying to do that with my kids, and sports is one of the best ways you can do that with your kids 100% Great, great teaching grounds right there, for sure.

Chris Grainger:

What about a superpower? If you could have one, pastor Trey, which one would you pick and how would you use it?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I have no clue, man Wisdom.

Chris Grainger:

I don't know if that's your superpower.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I pray that Prayers. You pray a lot. I pray for wisdom all the time. God, please give me wisdom. Give me wisdom in parenting these kids. Give me wisdom in loving Rachel better. Give me wisdom in being a pastor, leader, partner in the gospel to Pastor Joby, pastor Britt, you, man, give me wisdom today. I want the guys on the line with us. I don't care if anybody remembers my name. I hope that God's given me some wisdom that I can pass on. And some guy right now is saying I don't want that lie to be the identity that shuts me down for 20 years. Let me get out.

Chris Grainger:

That's it. That's a great one. That's a great one. That's it. That's a great one. That's a great one. What about if you look back for maybe the last few months or last year? What did you spend too much time doing? I always like to pull this out of gosh, just to see where you know. Just to reflect for a second too much time doing probably worrying okay, I hear that one a lot yeah.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I mean, yeah, there's. There's those things in your life you wish you could unroot somehow, and part of that is you got to go back to where it started, like I had a moment, man, that like was difficult, painful for me, and it led to like a long season of anxiety. And I've done a lot of work to dig some of that out, to go back and see what. What was happening in that anxiety is me taking the place of God and not being able to do anything about it.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I got no power to change some of these things, and so I put myself in the sovereign king of the universe's position. He can do something about anything. Anxiety is I'm just worried because I can't do anything about it and I stay fixated on it. So you got to do a lot of work to get that out. But worry is like the unwelcomed college roommate that I wish I could kick out.

Chris Grainger:

That's it. That's it. Well, a couple more here real quick. So what's your favorite thing about God when you think about him? Summarize that like what's the top thing.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

I just met with a guy who's been struggling with pornography and his wife caught him and he was asking me, like, what are my next steps? And one of the things I said to him was hey, man, you need to string together some days of being honest, no more lies and being above reproach, not hiding anything, but also you need to be tender. And I'm trying to remember where it's at, where it says that he won't quench a smoldering wick and he won't break a bruised reed. And it's talking about the tenderness of Jesus, how tender he is with us. And I can look back on my life, Chris, and see these moments where it was hard and it was heavy and my mind is swimming in anxiety and doubt and fear and all of this stuff. And God was just so tender in those moments with me, Powerful for sure, I mean, he's the God of the universe but very kind and tender and caring for me. The tenderness of God is an attribute that I don't know. We talk about a lot, but I experience it a lot.

Chris Grainger:

Awesome, and that's the first we've heard anyone bring that one up. Now let's flip it 180. Least favorite thing about the evil one.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

How consistent he is in lying. He's consistent man, it's not like the enemy, you know. You read after the temptation in the wilderness and it says that Satan left and waited to come back for an opportune time. An opportune time is right now, right right. And you think in your life, man, like how often it can feel like it's a barrage.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

My grandfather went in at Utah Beach. I went over a few years ago to France with him before he passed away and my grandfather could point out exactly where he came in on the beach, exactly the path he took to get up to this little crest of a hill where he built a little fire. He wanted to cook some eggs that night and his commander came over like kicked sand on the fire and told him they could, they could pick you off from a mile out, like he knew exactly where all of that stuff was. But he told us how We've seen all the movies but it's intense, right, they've got all of those guns just shooting down on all those troops trying to get off those transports to get onto the beach so they can get up those hills to get into where the enemy was. The other thing he told us was about all the hedgerows. There were all these hedgerows and the Nazis would hide behind these hedgerows and they would wait for troops to come around and they would just shoot them and destroy them. And what Patton did? Patton just said, ah, screw it. And I don't know if this is okay to say in your podcast, but that's what Patton said and he just drove the tanks right over them, right Like just run over those hedgerows.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

The enemy is always there, he's always taking shots, he's always lying to you, he doesn't take a PTO day, he doesn't get the flu, he doesn't need a nap, like it's just, it's, it's consistent. And Screwtape Letters another great book for in listening to this is such a great insight into screw tape letters. And then this present darkness from Frank Peretti. I don't hear anybody talk about that anymore. That was a great book that I read years ago about the reality and and um, what spiritual warfare probably looks like. And it's a little bit more modern. Uh, from like a screw tape letters.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Um, the enemy is always coming after you. He doesn't stop, he doesn't have a day off and I think sometimes we think he's just gone away, he's waiting to come back in an opportune time. No man, this is Normandy, it's Utah. He is shooting bullets down at you every single day, at your wife, at your kids, at the buddies in your disciple group, at the people sitting on the pews in your church.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

The enemy is coming after them and we have to have some like sober mindedness is what Peter says in first Peter five like there's an enemy and he's out there and he's coming after you. He's a roaring lion, he's on the prowl. Pastor Joby says if you got a text message right now and it said wherever you are at your office, at your home, at your church and you got a text message that said a lion got out of the zoo and they spotted it around wherever you are, you wouldn't just bebop out of your office or church or your car. You would be vigilant on yourself and you would be looking for. And yet so many people are just going about life like it's Wednesday and there's no enemy after them.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

And I would say to that Chris, like he follows that up and he says right after that, cast all of your anxieties on him, which kind of in my mind connects to like well, maybe that's part of how the enemy's coming after me is, through worry and anxiety, and it doesn't say cast your anxieties on him because Jesus is bigger and stronger and can solve them. It says cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Now take that and fast forward to Revelation, chapter two or three. When he's talking to the church in Philadelphia and he says, hey, I know your tribulation, I know the poverty that you're enduring like they're being persecuted, he says I need you to endure, I need you to keep going after it. We have an enemy who's coming after us and what we have to do is be aware of his attacks and endure with faithfulness. Amen, brother. Amen. Long answer to a short question.

Chris Grainger:

Well, it's a great answer. It was well needed too. And the last question for you is what do you hope the guys listening remember the most from our conversation today, pastor Trey?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

You have the authority and the power and the community and all of the tools that you need to change that conversation in your head and that leads to changing the way you live your life. You are not the failure. You are not defined by your divorce. You are not defined by your failed business. You're not defined by the ways that you blew it with your kids 20 years ago. You're not defined by whatever that thing is.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

My brother's a corrections officer in a prison full of lifers Union Correctional Institute here in Florida, which is also where we have a campus in that prison, and I go in and worship with those guys. Those guys are more free than a lot of people that I worship with in church on Thursdays and Sundays and it's because you are locked up in lies and the gospel sets us free and you can just take yourself right back and put yourself right back in bondage If you're not careful by allowing that lie to become your identity. I hope if any guy's listening to this, he recognizes shame is not from God. There is therefore no condemnation for those who in Christ. Guilt is not from him, conviction is from him. Conviction says you've been believing the lie or you've been living beneath the calling on your life, but guilt and shame do not come from him. Don't live in that lie.

Chris Grainger:

Amen, brother, amen, pastor Trey. This has been phenomenal. I knew it would be. Where do you want to send guys if they want to connect with you? Or 1122? Any websites or social media that you'd like to point them to?

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Yeah, coe22.com is the church of 1122 sites. I can tell you Pastor Joby is one of the best preachers in the United States period, in the world period. I don't know anybody outside of the US but Pastor Joby is such a man of faith. He's a great friend. Like how often do you get to hear that from guys you know on staff at a church? He's not just my pastor, he was my friend long before he was my pastor and I serve with joy because I see a man who walks in integrity, who walks in conviction, who walks in his gifting. I don't feel like I get up and go to work, man, I get up and join my friend and going after the enemy and setting captives free. It's a joy, man. You should listen to him preach.

Chris Grainger:

Amen. I've pretty much listened to everything back to 2012 when it started, so I've binged it all in. I point so many guys to him, to you guys. Thank you so much for sharing. It's been an honor. I knew this was going to be awesome and, pastor Trey, I just appreciate everything you did today.

Pastor Trey Brunson:

Love you man.

Chris Grainger:

Love you. Most men are fighting battles. No one sees Strain marriages, silent wounds, pressure to lead without a place to rest. That's why we created our community to help build, strength, sharpen and support brothers just like you. And now it's even easier to join than ever. And now it's even easier to join than ever. We've lowered access to just $15.99 a month. Immediately, you'll get our daily spiritual kickoffs, our Bible studies, lion Lunches, friday Forge and so much more. Every man needs a stronghold and you don't have to fight alone. Join today at thelionwithinus that's thelionwithinus and get started today.

Chris Grainger:

All right, guys, I told you I was gonna be a good with pastor trey brought it. I knew he's gonna brought his a-game. It was just I, just something. When I met him the first time, I knew I was like you know what this is going to be awesome and I know it was. Let's just face it. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that. Definitely go check out church of 1122.

Chris Grainger:

If you're not listening to Church of 1122, I don't know what else to tell you. That's something that's a given for me. Every week I'm listening to 1122. Whoever's preaching there, right, it's not. If Joby doesn't preach, I don't. It's not like I don't listen. I want to listen to all of them, because there's so much to learn, there's so, or to yourself and really think about that, because if we're pointing it to ourselves, we're trying to get the glory. We're missing the opportunity, the true opportunity that God has put forth in front of us. Okay, so, guys, look, give us a rating, give us a review, come back on Friday. We'll have a fun Friday episode that you're going to like. We're going to have our tips, our dad jokes, all that fun stuff we do on a fun Friday.

Chris Grainger:

But I would highly encourage you, head over to thelinewithinus that's our website. Check out our resources, open up the Bible app, search for the Line Within Us. You'll see all the devotions we have out there. I there, I'm constantly trying to pray and to write and just to put things out that encourages Christian men to be the leader that God has called us to be. And fellas, thelinewithinus is a great way to find all our resources. We have a weekly ROAR email. We have a Christian leader assessment. All these things I've mentioned so far are just free.

Chris Grainger:

We just want to give and bless you with, okay, and then, if you're ready to lean in and really, if you're missing that, what Pastor Trey was talking about today so far as the communities, the connections and the true relationships that you could be all just open with. That's what we built a line within this community for, because we know it's missing in so many guys' life. So check it out, check out our mastermind groups. I'm telling you, guys, we have built some incredible resources. God gets all the glory and I want you to be blessed. I really want you to be blessed by leaning in and checking it out. So, thank you so much for listening, fellas. We'll catch you next time. You know what's coming. Keep unleashing the lion within.

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Chris Grainger

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