Kill The Dragon Win The Girl - with Josh McPherson

“Kill the dragon, win the girl” sounds like a movie line until you hear Pastor Josh McPherson explain what it means for your actual life. We’re joined by the lead pastor of Grace City Church for a story that’s equal parts outdoorsy Washington State grit, deep family faith, and the kind of suffering that either breaks you or builds you. Josh walks us through his path from homeschooling and patriotic convictions to real estate, law enforcement, construction, and finally the moment he could no longer ignore a lifelong call to preach and build people, not just projects. 

We also go straight at the question a lot of families are quietly asking: why are so many men stuck, passive, and comfortable, while a growing number of Gen Z and millennial men are waking up hungry for discipleship? Josh makes the case that when men lead with humility and responsibility, families stabilize and communities get stronger. He shares what he learned watching years of crisis counseling up close: when one man fails, it takes many people to replace what he refuses to do. 

Then we unpack the heart of Strong Imagination and Stronger Man Nation, including the “first dragon” every man faces each morning and what it looks like to win a wife’s heart over a lifetime, not a single moment. This is part one of a series, and it sets the foundation for a practical, biblical view of masculinity, marriage, and service. If it challenges you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Our website's wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. Wallbuilders.show, if you need to catch up on any of the programs that we've recorded over the last few weeks and months, it's all available right there at wallbuilders.show. Basically, what you get is Monday through Wednesday, typically interviews with special guests that are on the front lines out there. And then Thursdays, that's our Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Where you get to send in the questions, which you can do right now, radio@wallbuilders.com, radio@wallsbuilders.com, send in any question about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, Declaration, bills that are going through Congress right now or in your state or something that's happened at the local level, and you might have a question about the historical references that would help to have a good perspective on that issue today, or maybe the constitutional question of how that is to be applied in that particular issue or perhaps a biblical perspective on that particular issue. Send in those questions to radio@wallbuilders.com. We'll get to as many of those as we can on Thursdays. This week we're gonna have a little bit different Thursday. Oh, and by the way, Fridays are Good News Friday. That's of course when David and Tim rattle off all the pieces of good news that they've gathered or as many as they can rattle off in our 30-minute program that they've gathered over the previous week or so. So, interviews Monday through Wednesday, Thursdays, Foundations Freedom Thursday, and then of course Good News Friday going into the weekend. But this week we're going to do something a little bit different. We'll, we'll be using up our Thursday program in order to share a really cool interview that Tim just did with Josh McPherson and we had Josh on, oh, I think it was about three weeks ago, maybe a month ago, talking about this incredible conference coming up where just amazing gathering of Christian men from across the nation at the Gorge Amphitheater. It's Father's Day weekend. Man, it's gonna be amazing, incredible. David and Tim will both be out there. I can't make it. I was already booked somewhere, but the lineup's off the charts. Man, I'm talking Eric Metaxas, John Lovell, Nick Freitas. I mean, all these folks, Chad Robichaux. It's gonna amazing. Anyway, so Tim will be talking with Josh a little bit about that, but also just talking about men's ministry and Stronger Man Nation and all of these cool things that are being launched, tools that dads everywhere need to use. So let's jump into the interview of Tim Barton with Josh McPherson. 

Tim Barton [00:02:33] Today, I am joined by someone who has quickly become one of my favorite people. I haven't even known him that long. I'm so excited to have Pastor Josh McPherson on the program with us today. He's a lead pastor at Grace City Church. God is doing so much in and through him right now. I was very privileged to be in Washington, D.C. With him not very long ago, doing a pastor's event at the White House with the Faith Office, just incredible stuff. I want you to hear all about it and hear some of the story and testimony. So join me in welcoming Pastor Josh McPherson. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:03:09] Huge, huge honor, Tim. Thanks for having me. 

Tim Barton [00:03:12] And I already realized I said McPherson instead of McPherson. So I apologize. I'm not even saying your last name right. I know better. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:03:18] No, no, you did good, you do good. 

Tim Barton [00:03:20] I know your pastor's heart, you're going to forgive me and we'll move on. So it's okay. So for those that don't know, I obviously just explained that you're a pastor, but I appreciate even some of your background cause I've heard you tell some of your story, a homeschool life growing up. So, so for everybody who doesn't know you, will you walk us through some of your own story? 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:03:45] Absolutely, born to Greg and Canyon McPherson in the heart of Washington State. I have one brother and we were homeschooled. And my parents oddly enough, they started homeschooling us right at the time when it was not quite legal, almost barely legal. I mean, it's hard to imagine, but in 1979, it like wasn't legal to homeschool kids. And so my mom had a very deep conviction that God gave her and her husband children to raise, not the state children to race. And so, they were very clear about that. So I was raised by a very patriotic father and mother. And 4th of July was a bigger deal than Christmas sometimes. I mean, just the decorations and the radio shows we'd listen to and the books we'd read and grew up reading World War II books that my mom would hand me. And so we had an incredible childhood. Was raised in Leavenworth, Washington, an incredible place to grow up, up in the mountains in a cabin my grandpa built the year before I was born. So, you know, four or five feet of snow a year. Bears in the front yard, hunting, fishing, hiking, just being outdoors as boys should at incredible childhood. Went to college at George Fox University, met my wife Sharon, got married, came back, did a few years in real estate, I sold real estate. Did a few in law enforcement, did a a few as a framer and builder, framing and building houses. Went to seminary to get my seminary degree. And started doing youth conferences and then planted a church. We've been doing that for 18 years now, Grace City Church. Have four kids, our oldest daughter, Ella Mae, you met Ella Mae. She was born with spina bifida, which is a huge part of our story. She's in a wheelchair. Levi, she's 20, Levi's 19 and married. You met Levi. Amelia is 16 and then Gideon is 13 and Gideon was also born with Spina Bifida. It's not hereditary. It was just lightning striking twice. And so between my wife's heart attack and my two children's spinal cord and brain surgeries, we've had like 22 surgeries in the family in the last 10 years, which has been crazy. So that's been a huge part of our story as well. 

Rick Green [00:05:59] Quick break everybody, we're gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right back with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:07:13] We're back on the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:07:19] We're in Washington, going strong, having fun, trying to stay alive and see if we can turn the state around and get it back on track so that it can actually be a place where families flourish, and which is not exactly the case right now, but that's a whole ‘nother conversation. That's my story in a nutshell. 

Tim Barton [00:07:37] And knowing some of the background, so part of the history nerd of me is going like, Washington State exists because of a missionary named Marcus Whitman. And right, I mean, literally, and you talk about hearing your background as a pastor, knowing that you've been a builder, that you been in law enforcement, you grew up hunting in the outdoors, that's not a typical pastor thing. But also like Marcus Whitman, he was a frontiersman who goes with a missionary and a pastor. Knowing that that's some of the background, it's really interesting, Josh, to see where some of places that were birthed specifically because of Christians, the influence of Christian leaders. When you look, for example, in Massachusetts, up in Boston, literally it was the pastors, it was a Christians, it was their influence that were part of the impetus that birthed America. And today that's one of the most secular places in America today. It really is crazy how far some of that legacy has fallen in a wrong direction. So let me back you up. So before you go to seminary, it sounded like just in sequence, you were a builder, you're framing houses. So what happens in your life? You're like, you know what I really need to build? A church. And to do that, I got to go to seminary. What is that progression? What in your mind clicked to make you go, I'm gonna not be a builder, I'm going to be a pastor. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:08:59] That's a great question. There's a lot of ways to answer. I think the most honest answer, not honest, the most simplest way to answer would be that it was in my family DNA and chemistry. So when I looked, I did two years in youth ministry, two years and real estate, two years of law enforcement, two years at in building. And I was 27 going, I got a two year pattern here of moving on and getting bored. And this is making me nervous. Am I gonna land on anything and do it consistently for more than 24 months? And what my wife helped me see was that the consistent thread through all of those activities had been building men in ministry. So whether I was still in real estate or in law enforcement or building homes, I was always involved in ministries, doing Bible studies, speaking at conferences, organizing youth events. And so when I was 10 years old, I was at, I haven't thought of this in years, this is wild. When I was ten years old Tim, I was a warm beach camp. My dad was preaching. Talking about the cross, surrendering to the call of God in your life. And the spirit of God just came on me and I went out into the playground, crawled into this tube on the playground with communion and was just weeping as a 10-year-old, Lord, I give You my life. I wanna serve you, follow you. And the Lord just spoke so clear to me, Tim, because I was like, should I be a fireman? Should I be cop? All the things that, you know, should I'd be a soldier? All the thing that 10- year-old boys wanna do. And the Lord spoke to me very clearly and He said, you're not gonna go into one profession for My name, I'm gonna put you in a profession where you can touch all the professions for My Name. And so I didn't know what that meant at the time, but obviously I know now as a minister of the gospel, I get to pastor men, and lead men, and challenge men, and build men, and catalyze men, and encourage men, and strengthen men who are in every sphere of society, every every specter of society doing all sorts of different things. And so that began to rise in my heart about 26, 27. And actually I was, in Minneapolis at a conference for Desiring God Ministries, listening to John Piper and John MacArthur and Randy Alcorn and all these great men. And I got invited to move back there and help run some of their conferences by the man who was running Desiring God, and went back to our hotel room and I said, honey, this is a chance of a lifetime. And she said, when are you gonna do what God puts you on earth to do? And I said what do you mean by that? And she says, you were meant to run conferences, you were mean to speak at conferences. And what you meant by that was God's put a call in your life to preach, not just organize. And so we went back and we planted Grace City Church. And that started with my dad and my brother and a couple of our close friends who'd been mentored by my mom and dad, which by the way, I met your parents, adorable. They are so sweet. And I just, you know, you meet some people, you just instantly love them. It's like, that was your mom and Dad. And I'm like, they would be such good friends of my mom, and dad. I bet they could finish each other's sentences. And so we went back and planted the church and started literally the classic in our living room with six couples and dear friends and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Tim Barton [00:12:04] So one of the things you've said several times is there's a ministry to men and I'm picking up on that now. I already know you, but I heard it several times. So where along the journey do you feel that God birthed something in you that you're not just, you're not a standard pastor and I don't mean to be disparaging to like the standard pastors, but we know, right, there's 380,000 whatever senior churches and pastors in America. And so many of them, it seems like, just statistically affirms this, they're far more comfortable to be teachers, they don't want to be offensive, there's a seeker friendly gospel, or sometimes they even reject the Bible. There's this woke things. So much has happened inside the church and yet we know that God is on the move and part of God being on the there is an increase of Gen Z and millennial young men that are coming to faith that want to grow and be discipled. And so I think your heart was already there before we saw the transition. But I don't know. So did you see part of the transition in your heart change or did God lead you there before culture shifted? How did that work for you? 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:13:22] It's just been on my heart, I don't know, I mean, I've only seen it since I was a kid, but whether it was how I was raised in my home or the unique call of God in my life, for me, it has just always made sense. If you win the men, you win the family. If you win the family, you win the community, if you win the community, you win the state, you win the state, you win the nation, you win the nation, you win in the world. It just worked itself out. If the man fails to do his job, then everything else suffers. And so. So my dad, this is interesting. These are things I haven't thought about or talked about or you're asking good questions. My dad spent like something like 20,000 hours in crisis counseling situations. And so he'd be in these crisis counseling situation, he would come back and then he would dump everything that he had just been dealing with. That's the wrong way to say it. He would process all the things he had just talked with in these counseling situations with us at the dining room table. And so I grew up, Tim, eight, nine, ten, twelve hearing about these dumpster fire marriages and these dumpster fire families. And what it did, I think it grew me a conviction as my dad would talk, is if the man would do his job and if the man would step up and pursue and win and love and protect and nurture and strengthen and build the heart of his wife and the man which show up and protect his kids and provide for his kids and lead his kids and love them like Jesus, the statistics show, man, if a dude goes to church, 90% of the time his family gets saved. If the wife goes to church, 15% of the time they get saved. It's like there's something in how God has built the world to work that the men are supposed to go first. The men are called to lead. 

Rick Green [00:15:02] Another break today, guys. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:13] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:16:19] When one man failed, it required 10 men to replace him. Cause it just made so much sense. It's like, what's better here? That my dad step in and try to love Johnny whose dad's abandoned him or Johnny's dad just stay and do his job? Well, of course it's better for Johnny if his dad does his job because when my dad has to do Johnny's dads job, both Johnny and me are suffering because Johnny's dad bailed. So it just makes sense to me like if every guy just did his job, everything instantly gets stronger. And it's remarkable to me because in the plan of God you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You don't have to a wizard. You don't have to be exceptionally gifted. All you have to do to make a global impact for the kingdom of God is to do the job that God has assigned you. And so Stronger Man Nation, our motto is "kill the dragon, win the girl". And in those six words, I think we have captured both the story of the galaxy we live in and the job of every man when he wakes up in the morning. So I 

Tim Barton [00:17:17] Josh, can I already say like, I haven't heard you use those words before. Again, for those listening, we haven't been friends all that long. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:17:23] No, eight days! 

Tim Barton [00:17:23] I just love getting to know you. It's so great. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:17:26] We're in single digit days, bro. 

Tim Barton [00:17:30] But literally when you said those words, like something inside of me was like, yes, kill a dragon. Wouldn't like, yes, it resonates on such a deep level. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:17:43] Yes. 

Tim Barton [00:17:44] And, and, and I feel like I'm living that I literally am following God's call in my life. I have a wife and we have a great marriage and we have like, I'm there. And yet it still resonates. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:17:56] That's right. 

Tim Barton [00:17:57] Kill the dragon, win the girl. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:17:58] That's right. 

Tim Barton [00:17:59] OK, it's profound. OK, please keep going. That was amazing. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:18:04] So, dude, I love you so much. So what day is it today? Help me out. It's Tuesday. We met Wednesday? Is that right? I think we met. 

Tim Barton [00:18:15] Yes. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:18:17] Dude, this is a six day friendship that's just so rich. I just treasure our six day friendships. This is awesome. So when I say kill the dragon, win the girl, there's two things happening. We're capturing the global story, the cosmic story we live in and the calling on your life every day. And what's beautiful about it and what resonates with it is it will demand everything you have to accomplish today and then you gotta get up and do it again tomorrow. Like you've never arrived in the business of killing the dragon and winning the girl. What resonates in your heart, Tim, is that you know intuitively it will require you to be the best man you can possibly be to accomplish it. So let's talk the cosmic story. We know at the end of the day, this whole story that we're all wrapped up in is the fact that there's a dragon wreaking havoc on the king's people. And we need someone desperately to kill the dragon so they can win the girl. And thanks be to God, that story has an ending that's been promised in the King Jesus Christ, he's gonna come back and once and for all, put the dragon down and win His bride and take her to heaven. So that's exhilarating. But on the local level, it's the duty of every man to wake up every morning and kill the dragon and win the girl, and the first dragon that he sees in the morning is in the bathroom mirror. 

Tim Barton [00:19:35] Yep. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:19:36] And so what I love about the focus of "Kill the Dragon, Win the Girl" for our movement of Stronger Man Nation. Is it doesn't put the first to focus out there. Go kill all the nasty Democrat dragons. No, no, no. See if you're man enough to kill the dragon that rises up in the form of your flesh every morning when you're tired, when you are selfish, when you run down or whatever. And so when you focus there, it builds into the movement of a baseline humility that we all have a dragon to kill and the first one we see is in the mirror. And then winning the girl, I tell my young boys is this, just like. My 19-year-old son's married, my 13-year old son is not, yet. But what I told my boys before they were married was this, you do not yet have a face or a name of the girl that God's gonna call you to win. But that doesn't mean that you can't start winning her right now with how you live your life and make your life decisions before you've even met her. So what I tell young men is you’re preparing to win the girl you haven't even met yet by how you're making decisions as a single man in your thought life, when no one is looking, walking in integrity. So live in such a way as to be worthy of winning the girl God brings to you one day. And then to my son who's been married to his sweet, precious wife for almost a year, the beauty he's finding out is to be the kind of man that can win the kind girl that you'd wanna marry requires you to be better today than you were yesterday. And here's the cool thing that you find out after you get married. You don't win her once. Bro, God's called us to win her heart every day. I think that requires, that challenges the heart of a man, that resonates with how God wired him. It taps into our fundamental wiring as a man that I was made and given the power and authority to kill the dragon in Jesus' name. And I was given the challenge of knowing how to woo and win the heart of a girl. 

Rick Green [00:21:44] Another break for today, folks. Stay with us. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:22:55] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:23:01] God has made this female species so complex. 

Tim Barton [00:23:05] Yeah 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:23:07] And so intricate that it's not a one-dimensional winning, because what would win her heart today may not be what will win her tomorrow, which means you gotta be paying attention. You gotta be curious. You have to ask questions. You have listen, you have to observe. And all of that makes a man better. And so, and even how God wired a woman to be and the responsibility God gave a man to carry, by nature, if we live into that, it makes us better day by day. What a brilliant and beautiful design of God. 

Tim Barton [00:23:39] So I have so many thoughts and questions because I want to go through these and we don't have time for all of them So let me throw out three thoughts and you pick the one you like the most. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:23:49] Okay. 

Tim Barton [00:23:49] So I Actually, you know what? No, we we had two of them we have to do anyway, ‘cause I want know when was Stronger Man Nation birthed? I want to know what is happening in your church right now like from where you started to where you are? 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:23:59] Yeah 

Tim Barton [00:24:00] But maybe so maybe let's knock this first one out real quick. So what happens when we have a a culture and generation when so many young men, now God's moving young men. They're being drawn to the Lord, incredible. Revival's happening. 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:24:14] Yes. 

Tim Barton [00:24:15] But so many young men, I know young men and they are comfortable living at home with their parents. They want to play their video games. They're not pursuing girls. They're trying to kill the dragon. So if, for example, there are parents maybe listening right now, or maybe there are some people listening and they got a friend. What can be done to maybe help encourage, challenge, motivate? Is this something like we just gotta pray for them? What do you do to help reach people who haven't understood or embraced that concept? 

Pastor Josh McPherson [00:24:48] That's a huge topic and we can go a thousand different ways. Our culture has become so safe that we don't need dangerous men and that's not a good thing. What a young man needs to feel immediately and as soon as humanly possible is that he's needed and he needs to carry his fair share. So when parents treat their sons as if they're not needed or necessary, or when parents do things for their sons that he should do for himself, they're neutering him. They're domesticating him. And the thing about it is they're appealing to the flesh that wants the lazy way out. Let's be very clear, to be a stronger man means you have to die to yourself, die to your desire to be comfortable, die to you desire to be served. It is a sacrificial. So we say like this, as a stronger man, I will be, as a choice of my will, ready, willing, and able to do my job in the service of others no matter the cost to myself. And so that's like the strong imagination pledge. And so we unpack that as I will be as a choice of my will, ready of mind, I've thought it through, willing of heart, I want to, and able of hands, I am capable of, doing my job as a soldier, farmer, athlete, son, these are categories that Paul gives us in Timothy, or protector, provider, leader, lover, doing my in the service of others. So it's not about wielding my power for me, but wielding it for the good of others, and that's a huge part of our movement because we believe God made men powerful. So this whole Marxist kind of push in our culture where power is bad. No, no, God's powerful. We've been made in His image. 

Rick Green [00:26:27] Alright folks, got to interrupt the interview with Josh McPherson in order to come back tomorrow and Thursday. So this is going to be a three part series. And so you'll be able to get it all at wallbuilders.show. But for now, it's part one. Tomorrow, you get part two. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show.