The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Rethink: Manhood | June 15, 2025
What does it mean to be a man in today's world? Beyond cultural stereotypes and shifting expectations lies a timeless calling that speaks to the heart of masculine identity.
Drawing from Genesis, we unpack the profound truth that men were designed with dual purposes: to cultivate (work with intention) and protect (guard what matters). This isn't just ancient wisdom—it's the blueprint for fulfilling our deepest longing for purpose and meaning.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
Welcome. Welcome back, ken Pierce, welcome. It's a good day to be in the studio today.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's aging me, but whoever's out there that's old enough to know the Johnny Carson show and Ed McMahon, I feel like sometimes I'm Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1:Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, old reference lost on younger listeners, perfect, yeah, like. I'll just say like it sounds like that on the uh, on the break, that we do, talking about outdoor activities.
Speaker 1:Yes, outdoor activities, yeah, and I'm like that sounds like Ed McMahon.
Speaker 2:Uh, on the break that we do, talking about outdoor activities yes, outdoor activities, yeah, and I'm like that sounds like ed mcmahon or at least the phil hartman version of ed mcmahon that he would do on saturday night live yeah which I'm okay with.
Speaker 1:I could be worse I've always wanted to be. If we're talking tv voices, announcement personalities I've always wanted to be. Who is it Johnny from the Price is Right? Is that his name, rod Roddy? Who is it the?
Speaker 2:Come On Down guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, rod Roddy Is that his name, rod Roddy? Yeah, ken Pierce, you're the next contestant on. The Price is Right, come on down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you're the guy that's like high-fiving everybody All the way down, yeah, and then you're the guy that's like high-fiving everybody All the way down. You might trip a little bit, but you caught yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tripped a little bit, caught myself. I'm here with my wife. I love her very much. That's right. Go to bed, kids.
Speaker 1:Blah, blah, blah. She's got a shirt with your face on it. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Faith she has one with my face, I have one with her face. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, a couple meant for each other yes, and I bid one dollar you're that guy, I'm that guy or whoever bid next to me, plus one dollar oh yeah, whatever they bid plus one dollar knowing my luck, you'd be the person to my left.
Speaker 1:That's just how it always plays out but I would get a terrible prize like you deserve you deserve a bad prize if you win, like the like a perfume set something or like back in the day it was like the the uh, the cd set the walkman with a time life music cd, yeah, or columbia house subscription, you know what I don't like about that show is in the showcase, the the trip set you know what I mean like there's always the the toy showcase, and then there's the vacation showcase.
Speaker 1:Stuff versus experience. I want the stuff, man yeah, give me the stuff stuff especially now, because you can turn it around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can be like okay, I'm gonna sell it well, if I, you know, give me a boat.
Speaker 1:Now I'm having an experience on the lake every weekend, although, to be honest, let's be real, I'm not getting that boat out on the lake every weekend, not every weekend no, two weekends a year. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Fourth of July, Memorial Day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and pack it up.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing a lady won a trip to her home hometown.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's, she won a trip to New York. Well, that's lucky of her.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know why they would do that Like what are the chances?
Speaker 2:somebody's from New York is not bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Give them an international. Just go ahead and give them an international trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's an old Seinfeld episode where Elaine gets gifted, or it was part of her job. She did an interview with a company and they put her up in the Ritz Carlton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, is that a famous hotel, yeah.
Speaker 1:And she stayed in that for the week instead of her regular apartment. Actually, I think the episode goes that Jerry's parents came in town and they stayed in the hotel and used up all the guest services and charged a huge bill to the room that that company had to pay for, and so elaine lost the job because, of course, the hotel bill was too high.
Speaker 2:She's embezzling money already, yeah yeah, and that's the show.
Speaker 1:If only podcasting were that simple. A podcast about nothing, yeah, that's what we should be doing. Who's to say that's not what?
Speaker 2:we're doing.
Speaker 1:That's what we're doing right now this weekend we talked about fatherhood which is not nothing really it was about manhood, but it was on father's day, and so the the title this weekend was rethink manhood is this a part of a series?
Speaker 1:uh, we're doing just kind of like a little. I call it miniature series, not based on the length, but it's kind of topical, so each week is a different topic and they don't string together. So just Rethink Manhood. This coming weekend is Rethink Generosity and week three is Rethink Freedom, leading up to July 4th. Okay, cool, yeah. So just a couple of different topics for the summertime and yeah, so rethink manhood. We had a great back in January. We had a great men's night of worship that really sparked a lot of this conversation for me. Okay, you were there, ken, I was, yeah, drumming. The speaker that night was a little more graphic on his description of what it means to be a man. Yeah, yeah, I wonder if anybody in the audience thought that's where I was about to go on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know. Maybe, Anywho, I didn't cut my eyes at Bo or anything, because Bo was also there, bo was there too. Yeah, yeah, and I remember that on the night, going slowly turning my head.
Speaker 1:Well, I was sitting front row that night. In fact, I think I was sitting next to your father-in-law. Yes, yeah. And yeah, yeah, I could have looked over at him, but I, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That would have been interesting. I don't know if he would have made the same connection.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he would have thought it was as funny as I thought it was, at the same time.
Speaker 2:But also, yeah, you know, but me and Bo were over there on those couches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting quip that he had, but what he talked about that night, some of that stuff made it into this weekend's message, you know. Made it into this weekend's message, you know, and we came primarily from Genesis this weekend to describe that when God made Adam the first man, he put him in the garden to work it and to keep it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Two Hebrew words means you're laboring with a purpose and you're the protector of what God has given you. You're the cultivator and protector.
Speaker 2:That's the better word Cultivator, cultivator, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Working to bring God's intention to uh, to reality.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, turn it, turning it into its ultimate purpose.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Or bringing its ultimate purpose about. Yeah.
Speaker 1:In the. In that cool though that uh out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that cool though that God created all this and then gave us authority to cultivate it. Yeah, I like that, like we have a specific purpose. You know, yeah, what is the purpose. It's to do God's will on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, as men, what we talked about was that we are the cultivators of the garden and the protectors of the garden, and so we likened the garden to just you know, in general, where has God placed you? We're not really talking about the paradise garden anymore. We're talking about the good things that God has given us in this world. And so, for dads, it's your family, it's your wife and your children, you know, for just a married man without children, it's your, your wife. And, um, for a younger man, or for a man who's single, it's uh, it's, you know, the dating relationships that you're in. Uh, your job, you know things like that.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean it's. It's a he's given you the ability to take on responsibility in a certain in some way and I was. It was way too late in life that I realized that, like I have, I have a lot of abilities that I'm not using and you know I've talked about it on here that led to serious anxiety and depression issues. And once you take on those responsibilities, that's what helps you get out of it, yeah. That's what helps you get out of it.
Speaker 1:Huh yeah. So the thing that you're anxious about is the responsibility, or lack of Lack of responsibility.
Speaker 2:Why am I not doing what I'm supposed to be doing?
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And that gulf leads to the anxiety or the depression.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What led me here? That's depression. Where am I going? That's anxiety.
Speaker 1:Ah Okay, what led me here? That's depression. Where am I going? That's anxiety. Ah Okay, what led me here is depression. Okay, that's interesting. I never heard it put that way.
Speaker 2:How did I get here Of? What use is the road that I walked down to get here? Yeah, if it led me here, why did I do all that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If just to end up here.
Speaker 1:Oh well, there's the good question why did I do all that? If people love here, yeah, I would think that it's good to think back on the past and, you know, think about the steps that led to where you are. Is that depression or is it the question of why am I only here? Yeah, that's depression. Yeah, why am?
Speaker 2:I only here here? Yeah, that's depression. Yeah, why am I only here? Because if you're in a place that you love, that's not depression, that's just right, that's uh reminiscing, you know, that's that's. Looking back fondly is definitely not depression no looking back and going why and how am I here? Yeah not like I'm somewhere where I don't want to be. How did I get here? What, what mistakes did I make that I now cannot do anything about, except for to move forward? But now where?
Speaker 1:am I going?
Speaker 2:If I'm here and I don't want to be here. Everything has not gone the way I wanted it to. Now I've got to move forward. Only to mess it up Now, that's anxiety. So a lot of people that have depression have anxiety, and vice versa. They have both, because you're just caught in the middle constantly.
Speaker 1:That was one of the things that I said from stage that the failure to do what you've been designed to do produces both depression and anxiety. Yeah, that's a good way to put it Failure to do what you've been designed to do produces both depression and anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good way to put it Failure to do what you've been designed to do. And you can recognize that and I know I've said that here is, if you're employed under your intelligence level or under your education level, you're not doing what you were designed to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Simple as that. Now how do?
Speaker 2:you were designed to do. Ah, yeah, simple as that, uh-huh. Now, how do you get out of it? That's anxiety. Do I go back to school? Do I try to get a better job? Do I quit this job? Uh-huh? Do I line up something else before I quit this job? Do I go into an entirely new field?
Speaker 1:And now I'm getting fatigued anyway on the different decisions that have to be made. It's almost like a syllabus fatigue. Everything's just put in front of you. And where do I even begin?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's tough.
Speaker 2:Because your mind cannot distinguish between so many things at once yeah, it has to go between one and zero.
Speaker 1:It has to choose between two things I joked from stage that you know men's minds and women's minds are different. I mean it's a joke, but there's also real science to back it up. Yeah, and also just life experience. It's the difference between a plate of spaghetti and a plate of waffles.
Speaker 2:A waffle has all those little squares in it.
Speaker 1:That's a man's brain. We think one square at a time and when we're done in that square, everything goes back into the square and then we move on to the next square and unpack it and then put it back in. The female brain thinks in terms of spaghetti. It's connected to everything and it's all. It's all over the place. Yeah, in such a good way, right?
Speaker 1:that's certainly not a knock against in a gifted way. Yes, absolutely. Uh, so I made that joke. But uh to describe that. Men often feel depression and anxiety when they're not accomplishing what they know they should be accomplishing or when they fail at striving for an accomplishment. Task orientation.
Speaker 1:Yeah our brains are very task oriented. Idea of wasting time as a dad is really like man. We need to pay attention to some of these numbers that I shared on Sunday. So there's the funny part of you know so many workers waste time during their workday. What is it? They waste up to two hours, not including their lunch hour, so it's like three hours a day that companies just are getting no benefit from a seven $759 billion in salaries. That just adds up to nothing, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the company's not recouping anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:But it's distractions that kill productivity and in a similar way, dads are. It seems like dads are distracted. Bible-fearing, jesus-loving dads are distracted. Eighty-three percent of Christian dads say that they do not regularly pray with their families. Man, listen, I'll just be honest. I totally get that. I understand the—it's not a fear, it's almost an uncomfortability of praying with your family. Okay, you know, I've struggled with that before and still do Like I do pray with my girls. It's not as often as probably it should be.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you what is really nice for us. When I am driving with just the girls in the car, it's a really easy place to do this. Um, I'll stop and say you know, I'll turn down the radio and say girls, uh, anybody want to say a pray with me? You know, we, we call it a pray, a pray, okay, anybody want to say a pray? Okay? And uh, uh, I'll reach my hand in the back. We did this this morning and we hold hands and then they just repeat after me. You know just little stuff. It's like a 15 second prayer. Yeah, you know, thank you for today, for what we're getting to do today. Thank you for loving us.
Speaker 2:Amen yeah.
Speaker 1:And they repeat it. And that's that's that. That's that's I, that's discipling kids in prayer as little as it is, but I want to get to the point where, when my kids and I pray together, one day, when they're older and they're able to conceptualize how to actually pray to Jesus, to be able to sit down and hear their prayers, it's a lot of fun actually to hear Vivian pray. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, well, let me go back. Faith is the leader in the clubhouse. As far as we're going to pray now for this, we're going to pray now for this right before bedtime, right before meals, things like that. Right before bedtime, right before meals, things like that. And Rondon and Simon are starting to answer the question whether they want to pray or not when Faith says Rondon, is there anything you'd like to pray for?
Speaker 1:And they just learned the word no.
Speaker 2:So they'll say no, but they're responding yeah, and that's, you know, the baby step to actually doing it. But Vivian will actually take time and pray for like individuals in the family, which is great yeah, that's awesome so faith is excellent at keeping us on track. For that she will she will set aside time in the routine for that, yeah, which is good. That's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that yeah, I sat down recently with my kids at dinner and it was during VBS and came home and was like, what did you play tonight? Oh, we did this game and that game. Oh, who are your friends that you played with? Oh, this person and that person. I said enthusiasm around the Bible portion of what we're learning Right, that they also have around, like the games and the snacks and the friends, and that's something I'm trying to figure out. You know, how do I, how do I produce excitement in my kids over that part?
Speaker 1:And maybe it's because maybe it's the way I'm portraying it yeah you know, like look at myself and do I, do I project excitement over those things in my household, or do I project like, um, not that it's a bad way to do it, but like a solemn reverence over?
Speaker 2:those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know yeah, um, I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that. I'm just resonating.
Speaker 2:I think that there are.
Speaker 1:It is awkward Like it can be awkward to lead your family and things you know. 75% of Christian dads say they don't intentionally read or discuss the Bible with their children. Yeah, yeah, the toughest part. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the toughest part, I think, is your kids, and all kids can detect insincerity really easily, because obviously people are very social and sincerity is a very social aspect of how we communicate. Are you being real or not, right? I can tell, yeah, there's something off, right?
Speaker 1:I don't know what is a lie about what you're saying right, I know that you're lying right, you know oh gosh, you just made me feel really bad about myself kids can tell your eyes were like staring at me, right? There like no, you were saying that to me right kids can tell.
Speaker 2:Your kids can tell your line and they can tell somebody else's line, because body language often when you're lying doesn't match the words yeah so, or the energy doesn't match what you're saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if I were to roll my eyes every time faith said, okay, we're gonna pray, done? I have just. I have just shut that door. Yep, all by myself, I have shut that door. Yep, all by myself, I have shut that door and I have now negated whatever faith is trying to do. And now we're not on the same team. We need to talk. What are we going to do going forward? So that's one, the social learning aspect of it. Oh, dad's excited that we're praying, mom's excited that we're praying, and she actually asked if I wanted to pray. That's a big deal. Let's keep that going. That's how kids learn.
Speaker 1:They're just watching their parents Right More is caught than taught. Is that the phrase I've never? Heard that, but yeah, yeah, more is caught than taught.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much everything. I learned about how to deal with people. I just watched my dad. He never sat me down and went, so, son, when somebody says this, they're not going to do that. Nobody has that kind of time, so I just watched him. Oh, okay, he's writing this person off as an idiot. I thought that, but now I have a good reason because when we got in the truck he told me hey, don't listen to anything, that guy said he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 2:This is like after a little league game you know something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That we had lost, right Whatever. So I'm like, okay, cool, got it. People like that don't need to be listened to. Got it Something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, for example, yeah, they're catching on to how parent their parents deal with. Yeah, life, yeah, yeah and I saw how.
Speaker 2:But I also saw my dad wasn't just a critical person, he was also very generous yeah I. I saw that in the community he was a very generous leader in the church that's awesome so I saw that, which it's. That's possibly, as I'm it now, the reason that I like playing the drums. Yeah, it's totally possible that that's the reason, like I could not play the drums for the church just as easily, right, but why do I play the drums for the church? Well, I saw my dad serve in the church. Why not?
Speaker 1:me that's huge. Yeah, that illustrates the point almost perfectly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that's discipling your children to follow Jesus Absolutely, and now our kids see me in faith. That's right.
Speaker 1:We have to be men who are connected and engaged in what's going on in the family. That's what we've been called to do as those who do the all bad work. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:The laundry folding to work it right, yeah, nobody laughed at that on sunday, it's like what are we doing?
Speaker 1:it's the word your wife says when you fold the laundry and she says, oh bad, yeah, I thought that was gold, maybe it's my delivery. Listen, I'll just be totally honest, I think I'm a terrible joke deliverer. You try these on, emily.
Speaker 2:No, okay, no.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's. My problem is that I go in without having tested them. Okay, well, I practiced them.
Speaker 2:Let's go back for us, okay. That's good, let's go back for a second. I have an illustration that perfectly lines up with one of your stats. Okay, the two hours a day, uh, wasted by the average worker. Yeah, I have at my job a productivity tracker. We we're hooked up to a productivity tracker. My numbers last month were I was 76% productive. 76%, that's two. That is six hours out of an eight hour day there you go.
Speaker 1:That's where you get the two hours. There's your two hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all month it goes daily.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, how many notes did you enter? Like it goes by the the notes that I enter in the people I see. Yeah, so, but what's funny is this company that I work for, acadia. They only want you to hit 55%. Wow, that's a low bar. It seems low, but when you're dealing with 55, 60 people, almost on a caseload, you might not hit that every day, because people are squirrely when they're they get their medication, they may not stop and see. Also, it's not necessarily your fault, it's not my fault. Okay, but that's that's why that's built in. Like you're probably going to be about 75% productive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we need to knock off another 25% because it's not your fault.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and believe me, it comes in, usually on average around 55 to 60%.
Speaker 1:Well, corporations in the article that I read that had that stat. It says that organizations account for that in salary packages.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They know that people are going to waste time on the job. And you know what? Gallery packages, yeah yeah, they know that people are going to waste time on the job and you know what? I suppose in some ways, perhaps God understands or knows that we're going to waste time.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where grace comes in. Like we are covered by grace, well, you can't. I mean, there's no such thing as a perfect machine that's going to return 100% energy with 100% fuel, yeah, but I want to be careful not to give us an out you know, say well, if the corporation expects us to waste some time, then it's okay to waste some time.
Speaker 1:You know? Sure, that's a cop-out.
Speaker 2:If everybody else is doing it Right.
Speaker 1:We're not like everybody else. We're saved man, that's it. We're not like everybody else. We're saved man, that's it. We are saved people, saved by Jesus, and saved people cultivate what God has given them and protect what.
Speaker 2:God has given them.
Speaker 1:We're about to wrap up here, but I just want to briefly get onto that protect thing. And man, that's so like, it's always important. But I'm telling you right now, man, in the age of technology, and if you have young kids in the home, it is so important to be the protector and protector of yourself as well. And so there's two challenges, really, two encouragements to the men who are listening, to the dads who are listening today. Number one if you don't have safeguards for yourself, man, go get some. Go find there.
Speaker 1:There is a friend in your life, a Jesus follower, who will come alongside you and help put up some safety rails. It might be your wife who needs to help you, you know, by putting a lock on your phone, on your phone, like a content filter that she only knows the password to. I have a friend who suggested that to me years ago. He went to the Apple store to get his iPhone fixed and he had to disable the content filter for them to be able to reset the phone. And they were like, well, what's the code to this? And he was like I don't know it, like what do you mean? You don't know the code to your phone? Who doesn't know the code to your phone. He said brother, I don't know the code to my phone. If I did, I'd be addicted to porn Is that an app you can get.
Speaker 1:No, it's built into the iPhones and the Androids. There's content filters built into the settings so that stuff is possible. I would love to educate people on that if you're so interested.
Speaker 2:Wasn't there a seminar you led or somebody led at the church?
Speaker 1:There was a couple of years ago, yeah a couple of years ago, I did a seminar on parents and technology, and it was both for parents of teenagers, but also just for parents themselves, and so if anybody's looking for information on that, I'd love to help out. You can shoot me an email or you can find my info on crosspointconyerscom. But so be the protector of yourself, but also we've got to protect our young ones, and protect them in multiple ways Across time too, across time as well. So, man, don't give up on that protecting thing, even when it's inconvenient for you to do. It will pay dividends for the future.
Speaker 1:Not only yours but your child's future, and I'm a dad, so I can say this confidently All dads want their children to have a good future. Yes, and the best future we could give them is one protected in the garden with Jesus. Yep, so let's do that, man Ken. Anything else to add before we pop out today?
Speaker 2:There's a ton to add, but we can't yeah. Well, maybe we can't, yeah, well, maybe we extend the conversation next week, part two yeah, yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us today on the Extra Podcast. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there and I hope to see you in church next weekend. Bring the whole family, that'd be great. We'll see you next time. See you Sunday.