Red Letter Leadership: Shaping Your Environment and Family Vision with Jordan Ames

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Join Jordan Ames (Red Letter Leadership) for a live virtual masterclass on Dec 30 designed to help men lead with biblical conviction, courage, and clarity. Learn how to overcome fear, step into your calling, and lead the way Jesus did—at home, at work, and in the world.

👉 Register here: https://www.redletterleadership.com/seize-the-impossible

How can I become a stronger leader in my home, work, and community?
What does authentic, Christ-like leadership look like for men today?
How can I thrive in faith, family, fitness, and finances while balancing real-world challenges?

This week on the MOI Podcast, host Ryan Zook welcomes Jordan Ames, co-author of "Red Letter Leadership," to dive deep into the practical, transformative principles of Jesus’ leadership found in the Gospels. From the trenches of Marine Special Operations to fostering and adopting seven children, Jordan Ames shares powerful lessons on personal growth, overcoming adversity, and leading with humility and vision—even when life gets hard.

#leadership #fatherhood #masculinity #christianmen #servantleadership #family #menofiron

Transcript

Ryan Zook [00:00:00]:
But he says, like, if you're going to follow me, you need to take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. That's one thing I always like to stress, especially in personal growth. Like, how are we denying ourselves? We have two images. We have our self image and we have God's image. We're made in God's image. So when you look at that and he tells us, deny self, well, what are we leading? We're leading with God's image. That should change everything. Our potential is now unlimited.

Ryan Zook [00:00:33]:
This episode of the Men of Iron podcast has been sponsored by Garmin Builders. Garmin Builders sets the standard in home construction. With more than 50 years of expertise, Garmin Builders has been building homes, communities, and connections that positively impact the lives of others. By blending tradition with innovative building science, Garmin delivers a better built, more efficient home. Discover the edge@garmin builders.com thanks again to Garmin Builders for sponsoring this episode of the Men of Iron podcast. Hey, welcome back to the Men of Iron podcast. At Men of Iron, we want you to thrive in your core five. That's your faith, family, friends, fitness, and finances. And I'm excited about the conversation we're going to have today, because we are joined today by Jordan Ames. Jordan just recently co authored a book, Red Letter Leadership, and so he's here to talk to us about leadership, about Jesus, specifically how he led and some of his own experiences. So, so welcome. Jordan, Glad you're here with us, man.

Jordan Ames [00:01:25]:
Thank you, Ryan. It's good to be here.

Ryan Zook [00:01:27]:
Tell us a little bit about the book right off the top, like, what is it? How can people get to it? And then we'll go from there.

Jordan Ames [00:01:31]:
Yeah. So here's the book, Red Letter Leadership Leadership Lessons from the Life of Christ and what the book is. It's over 370 leadership lessons that we took from the Gospels. And we didn't want to skip any passage in the Gospels. So from Matthew 1 through John 21, we pulled a leadership lesson, whether out of the actual words that were written or out of the context of the situation that was going on. And we, we put it into a book. We weren't originally intending a book. Yeah. But we were pushing these lessons out on an email list. And as we, as we got into John, we started thinking, well, what's next? And we said, well, we can impact a lot more lives if we put this into a book and just take that step. Step. So you can find it at our landing page for RedLetterLeadership.com book. And it's sold On Amazon. And yeah, we're excited for what Lord's going to do in people's lives through it.

Ryan Zook [00:02:28]:
We'll put a link in our description. You can find that link just right below this video and you can go check it out for yourself. One of the things we just talked briefly before we started shooting, you talked about, like, when people talk about Jesus as a leader, it's like, oh, yeah, he's a servant leader, but there's actually way more than that going on in Jesus ministry.

Jordan Ames [00:02:44]:
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of Christians or non Christians, when you think of Jesus and his leadership, they think of servant leadership. And oftentimes they go to the feet washing example, which is great. That's a perfect example. And yes, we should be recognizing that and practicing servant leadership in our lives. I like to say leadership isn't really leadership without the servant portion. So to say servant leadership, as if it's a style of leadership or different from other forms of leadership, I think is inaccurate because I think in all manner and terms of leadership, styles of leadership, being a servant and serving and sacrificing for others has to be a part of it. But Jesus and this book was as much as a blessing to me as just. I dug into the Gospels and there's, I think, some of the better lessons that I wrote. And my co authors Ben Hunter and Eric Albright wrote a ton of lessons. But speaking for myself, the ones that I wrote, sometimes I think the better ones came when I struggled to find a leadership lesson, because those were the times where I stopped and I was like, all right, Lord, show me what's in here. Because I'm not seeing it right now. And it would come to me and I'd be like, wow, this is a really good lesson. So, yeah, Jesus showed us anywhere from just his own personal growth journey, his humility. Matthew 11:29, I believe it is, says that he is. It's Jesus speaking. He says that I am gentle and humble at heart. So his own humility and not just being a servant leadership or servant leader, but his own humility and his personal growth is a great example and his discipline to do that. Like, he led him, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, right? Yeah. You could only imagine what kind of growth happened during that time. 40 days and 40 nights without food being tested. It wasn't until after the temptations and him denying those temptations that the angels came and attended to him. So, like, I think that's important for us to realize. It's like when we face trials, God's not always just rushing to our. To our aid. Right. He's there. But the growth happens whenever we face those trials. So sometimes, you know, we don't like the conflict, we don't like that opposition. But we also have to live. We also have to understand we live in a fallen world. And if we're comfortable in a fallen world, I think there's something wrong there.

Ryan Zook [00:05:28]:
It's interesting, I think, what. What happens to men. It's so tempting to be just hanging out in that comfort zone, you know, like, hey, I have this figured out. I know how this works. I know what's going on here. I want to stay right here because I'm safe, I'm comfortable. There's. There's not hard things happening in my life. And what we want to do at Men of Iron is just call guys into hard things. Like, you're. If you're comfortable, you're probably not growing, right? I mean, if you're. If you're working out in the gym, uh, and you're not feeling any stress on your muscles, your muscles are probably not growing. You're probably just maintaining your time. And it's the same thing if you're. If you're a man, especially if you're a man after God's own heart. Like, you want to be in places that are stretching, that are a little bit more tense than normal. And don't shy away from those circumstances, because you're going to grow in those circumstances, and you're going to see God move in those circumstances. So I love how you're highlighting Jesus being drawn in the wilderness. Of course, that was a difficult circumstance for him, and he had to grow through. So if Jesus had to grow through hard things, surely it's probably okay for us to grow through hard things. It's probably part of our lives. So there's a lot that we can dive into with the Gospels. What I want to do first is just hear a little bit about your own life. What makes you Jordan Ames and what makes you want to dive into something like Red letter leadership?

Jordan Ames [00:06:42]:
Yeah. So I was born and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. My dad's a retired Harrisburg police officer who. Who have since became a pastor at the church I grew up in. Kind of took an associate pastor job there.

Jordan Ames [00:06:58]:
I had always wanted. I was intrigued by the law enforcement line of work. The military. Always wanted to go into the military, and specifically the Marines. And I joined really in 2000, right before my senior year. And then I went to boot camp in June of 2001 thinking I would do my four years, get out, get a degree, get. Do some federal law enforcement. Because that was kind of the direction I saw myself going. Well, certainly 911 had a big change to all that, just far as my perspective, worldly perspective. And, and, and so I ended up being a presidential security guard. At Camp David is like my first actual assignment, which was a great assignment, but it was standing post. It was monotonous. Again, great assignment. I gotta be there at a time when Bush's first administration, they're getting into the global war on terrorism. They had war council there, and different heads of states talk about invading Iraq, all those type of things. So I got to be there as a security guard.

Jordan Ames [00:08:07]:
But then I was thinking, well, after this time at Camp David, what's next? Do I write out my time? Do I go to college, get into law enforcement? Well, really, I started getting a passion for special operations work, reading about it, learning about it. And I really felt the Lord call me into that work.

Jordan Ames [00:08:32]:
And really, one, whenever I was at Camp David, I attended a church in Frederick, Maryland. And there was a missionary that came to speak the one day, and he said, if you feel called into missionary work, I want you to come forward and let me pray over you and, you know, to the altar. And I remember sitting there as he's saying this, thinking, no, that's not me. Like, I'm in the military. And God just told me, you're a missionary to the military. So I got up and I walked down there, and that's awesome. You know, I was just shy of my 20th birthday. I think right around my 20th birthday.

Jordan Ames [00:09:05]:
Yeah, I didn't know that would. Calls me to make a career. I still, still was thinking I'd get out of four years, but I had an opportunity to get into Marine reconnaissance. So I took the, Took the screening for 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company in Camp Lejeune. I ended up passing. I told myself, like, if I get through this training I want, I'm going to reenlist. So I get a full experience of what this line of work is all about. So I got through the training. I reenlisted and did two deployments. At that time, the Force Recon units were redesignated as this new command called Marine Special Operations Command was forming. And, and so I just kind of rolled right into my platoon, rolled right into that task organization. They more or less changed our name on our building, changed who we work for. But at my, my level.

Jordan Ames [00:09:58]:
Our job was the same, doing direct action and special reconnaissance type of missions and tactics. Nothing changed there. It was just like, who we're doing it for, you know what, you know, who our commander is, why we're doing it, and who's going to give us assignments and stuff. So. So again, I was like, I'll finish this enlistment and then we'll see what's next. And.

Jordan Ames [00:10:21]:
I ended up putting in for an officer package and got accepted. I was like, I'm just going to do this once. If I don't get accepted, I'll get out. Got accepted, went to Penn State, got my degree, became an officer, and then I was an infantry officer and then always wanted to get back into the special operations community. So I went back to the community. And just not out of any sort of, you know, greatness of myself, but just because of timing, I ended up being the first.

Jordan Ames [00:10:50]:
First person to have served as an enlisted operator in MARSOC to then become an officer in the community. Yeah. So whenever I was going through a process, they had no pathway for that, like Navy seals or Army Green. Like, they have a pathway to. If you served in their units enlisted, you come back as an officer and you don't have to go through all the same stuff. Well, they didn't have that pathway. So I pretty much went to the recruiter and be like, hey, I want to do this.

Ryan Zook [00:11:19]:
That's awesome.

Jordan Ames [00:11:20]:
So went to square one and went through their selection and training and came back as an officer. So. And then I ended up. Ended up doing six deployments total. Okay. Four with either Special Operations or the. The first one with Force Recon, and two with as an infantry officer. Okay. But moved up here back to Pennsylvania in 2020 as, like, a intention to retire with those orders. And so I retired in 2022.

Ryan Zook [00:11:48]:
So during that time in Special Operations, especially in that community, how much impact did your faith have on what you were doing? Like, how do those two things work together?

Jordan Ames [00:11:56]:
I mean, I think it had all the impact.

Ryan Zook [00:11:57]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:11:59]:
I was, I was raised in a Christian home.

Ryan Zook [00:12:00]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:12:01]:
Saved at an early age. You know, arguably, I was probably. My parents probably tell you I saved it like VBS or something. But I had the typical, like, you know, just rebellious middle school years. But it was in. It was in 10th grade where my youth group went to Word of Life Bible Institute in New York.

Ryan Zook [00:12:20]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:12:21]:
Great places. Only weekend I'd ever been there. But I. I went forward and rededicated. My testimony is that's when I actually got saved. That's when I actually was for real about it and just started being on fire from God since then. And. And really, as far as My faith in the journey and special operations. I'm naturally not an aggressive person.

Ryan Zook [00:12:44]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:12:44]:
I played football in high school, which taught me to be aggressive. Like, I had to learn how to get hit a lot of times before I was really ready to hit somebody. I'm just not by. By nature not a. Not a person who.

Jordan Ames [00:12:59]:
Like, wants to confront people. And I recognize that, and I know there's a right place for it. So it's just something that I need to understand about myself. But in the special operations environment, you're surrounded by a bunch of alpha males, which I am not.

Jordan Ames [00:13:17]:
And so, yeah, truly, from a faith perspective, I had to. I had to just persevere, have the endurance, you know, learn where I fit in. Yeah. And where I didn't. And. Yeah. I mean, it's. It was all God that I think if I didn't have. If I didn't have faith, I don't think I ever would even try to go that direction.

Ryan Zook [00:13:41]:
Interesting.

Jordan Ames [00:13:42]:
Naturally, I don't really care for change, but I've lived a lot outside my comfort zone. Yeah. And in a lot of uncertainty, whether in training or in real world situations. So that even though my. My. My style, my behavioral style is not one to, like. I just like comfort, I've. I've learned to really operate in uncomfortable situations. And one thing I didn't share is really about my family. Yeah, I got married in 2007, and we were. I was. We were newlyweds when I was up at Penn State, so it was a great duty station.

Ryan Zook [00:14:21]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:14:21]:
Newlywed. And. And kind of cement the. The marriage relationship. And a couple years later, my wife was like, I want to try and get pregnant. Okay, great.

Ryan Zook [00:14:30]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:14:31]:
So we tried for about a year, and she wasn't getting pregnant. And what I didn't know is the Lord was working on her heart about adoption. And she came to me one night saying, I want to adopt. It's like, okay. Never really thought of that for my family.

Jordan Ames [00:14:49]:
But I've known people to adopt. So we prayed about it, we thought about it, and, yeah, Lord led us into adoption, and we still wanted to figure out why she wasn't getting pregnant. So it turned out she wasn't ovulating, but we were all focused on adoption. We ended up adopting a sibling group of four from the Pennsylvania foster care system. This was April of 2011. So. Okay, they're much older. They're. Out of those four, only one of them is still a minor. Wow. And then a couple years later, we adopted our oldest two from Ethiopia from an old Village in Ethiopia. And then, so that's six people were like, so don't you want to have a biological child of your own? Like, no, six.

Ryan Zook [00:15:32]:
We got a full house already, man.

Jordan Ames [00:15:33]:
Yeah. And of course, by all this time I'm deploying, I'm going a lot. Like, yeah, we had a full house. And I came back from one deployment in 2015. My wife and I went to a blood drive at our church, and they asked Red Cross, you know, personnel asked us if we would be willing to be added to a national donor registry. Okay, sure. Well, six weeks later, Duke University, we're down in North Carolina, Duke University calls my wife and they want to test her as a potential living donor match. I'm like, okay, well, what's that all about? She's like, they want to test me for my liver. Like, well, you only have one liver. How are you going to donate your liver?

Jordan Ames [00:16:16]:
And well, what I understand at the time was that liver is the only organ that regenerates itself. And so she ended up being a match. She donated a third of her liver to a young 11 month old boy. At the time, he'll be, I think, 12 this upcoming year. Wow. And a year later, she gets pregnant.

Ryan Zook [00:16:35]:
No kidding.

Jordan Ames [00:16:37]:
So she goes to a doctor, like I wasn't ever supposed to be. I couldn't, couldn't get pregnant.

Ryan Zook [00:16:43]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:16:43]:
He's like, well, when the liver, when you undergo, the liver undergoes that kind of trauma and it regenerates itself, it'll produce enzymes that'll, that can reset the body system. And that's what happened.

Ryan Zook [00:16:56]:
So you have seven.

Jordan Ames [00:16:57]:
So we have seven. And our youngest is, is very much a miracle baby.

Ryan Zook [00:17:01]:
That's amazing. So your oldest is how old and your youngest is how old?

Jordan Ames [00:17:05]:
My youngest will be nine tomorrow.

Ryan Zook [00:17:07]:
Okay.

Jordan Ames [00:17:08]:
And my oldest is 25.

Ryan Zook [00:17:10]:
Wow.

Jordan Ames [00:17:11]:
25, 24, 21, 19, 18, 16.

Ryan Zook [00:17:19]:
That's incredible.

Jordan Ames [00:17:20]:
That's cool.

Ryan Zook [00:17:21]:
You're doing deployments with married and six kids at 1.7 at the most.

Jordan Ames [00:17:28]:
Yeah. So during those deployments, my first two deployments, I was single. I became an officer. Then the third deployment, my first one is an officer, married, four kids out of the foster care. The second deployment as. So I'll say my fourth deployment, we have the two from Ethiopia. So now we have six. And then by my, my fifth deployment, we have our, our baby. And then.

Ryan Zook [00:17:56]:
So how are you, how are you handling that? Just as a man, as a husband, as a father being away for like months at a time, Right? It's a long time.

Jordan Ames [00:18:05]:
Six month deployment.

Ryan Zook [00:18:06]:
So how are you how did you manage?

Jordan Ames [00:18:07]:
I'm going a lot during the work. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first off, my wife is incredible.

Ryan Zook [00:18:12]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:18:13]:
I said I'm not type A. She's type A.

Jordan Ames [00:18:17]:
She, she gets it done. She doesn't let any task undone. We had phenomenal support group from family up here. Like I actually this is a testimony in and of itself. So when my wife was in the hospital to donate her liver, I was at marsoc's selection course. So zero communication with the outside world for several weeks. And before, before I left to be in that situation, we knew she was being tested, but we didn't know she was a match or anything. And we set up to like, okay, what would happen if she goes under surgery? How would they contact me? Yada yada. Yeah. And she would of course, just let the, let the command know and they'd be able to contact me. Well, I didn't know she had the surgery until three days after she had the surgery. And it's a seven hour major surgery. But her mom came down to take care of the kids. Her best friend came down from Pennsylvania to be with her in the hospital. Yeah. And so I get told this and like everything's, like everything's already covered. Wow. Yeah. It's tremendous. Testament to the support group of friends and family.

Ryan Zook [00:19:37]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:19:38]:
And even, even friends locally to where we lived in North Carolina. We still, we were just down there this past summer visiting friends because we made, you know, lifelong friends down there.

Ryan Zook [00:19:48]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:19:49]:
So. Yeah. And that is, you know, as far as sometimes I look back, I'm like, what if I took a job that wasn't as demanding? You know, I could spend more time. Right. And sometimes I tell myself maybe I should have done that. I think God directed me and where. So I have no regrets. But I will say this lesson I learned is during those years.

Jordan Ames [00:20:14]:
And my kids, of course, were spread out. We adopted the oldest two whenever they were 12 and 13 out of an orphanage in Ethiopia. And the other ones were a little younger at the time. But I always thought like, I'm going to commit to making sure I spend quality time with them. And I think that's something all men want to do. But I'd argue probably until the teenage years, maybe even into the teenage years a little bit time is quality time. And that's something I think I missed.

Ryan Zook [00:20:40]:
Just any time, anytime. Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:20:43]:
I mean, it seems, especially with the younger kids.

Ryan Zook [00:20:46]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:20:46]:
You know, your daughters want to play Barbies with you and you're like, oh my God, I got other stuff I can do. Like I need to do this, I need to get this done. And you do that. But that's, that's most important. You do time.

Ryan Zook [00:20:59]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:20:59]:
And certainly like your kids are going to understand if you can't do something because you got other stuff to do. But, but don't act like that's not quality time. Don't act like, well, I'm going to take her to a show or I'm going to do this with her or do this with him later. So I can, I can forget about these other, you know, getting down and drawing with them or doing whatever. Like, no, you can't and you shouldn't.

Ryan Zook [00:21:24]:
It makes a huge difference.

Jordan Ames [00:21:25]:
Right?

Ryan Zook [00:21:26]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What about your, your, your own personal faith in those times, those deployments? Like, I'm sure your relationship with God is probably strengthening under those circumstances.

Jordan Ames [00:21:36]:
Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. My, my very first deployment to Iraq in 2005, we ended up doing, I think it was somewhere around 80 direct action raids throughout the, throughout the time there. And we committed, a few of us committed to praying before we go out on a mission, before we loaded trucks, loaded helicopters. We wanted to just get together quickly. Sometimes we had more time. There was times where we were working with other units and we got together and even, even Iraqi units. And I remember times where there's 30, 40 people in a circle praying. And then there's times where it's like, you know, we grab two or three guys and we pray. You know, the rotors are spinning like, we gotta load. We'll just do a quick, quick prayer. But either way, it was just a testament to, I think, God, God's provision. We didn't, I mean, there's guys in my platoon that, that were killed on follow on deployments. But that deployment, we didn't lose any in our platoon. Our reservist platoon had a couple casualties and they, they had one guy killed in action.

Jordan Ames [00:22:44]:
But I mean we, we really shaped the battlefield. Yeah, I know our higher commanders had told us like what our effects were and stuff towards the end of deployment. So despite the fact that it wasn't really kinetic, like some infantry deployments or some other special operations deployments were.

Jordan Ames [00:23:07]:
Just the impact we had on the battlefield and then taking high value people off the battlefield and knowing that especially when we're praying, we weren't always praying that God protect us, we're doing dangerous things. Like if we were really so concerned about our protection, we shouldn't have been doing the work we're doing. But we did. Of course we prayed for our protection we want to make it home. But we also prayed like that we do our jobs well, that we get the person, we're going after things of that nature. And he delivered for sure. That's phenomenal. That's cool.

Ryan Zook [00:23:41]:
Okay, so let's start to talk. I think a couple years ago you start working on this email list that is red letter leadership. Is that right?

Jordan Ames [00:23:49]:
Yeah. So I had, as I was looking at retiring.

Ryan Zook [00:23:52]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:23:53]:
I went through a great organization to help me. It was like a 12 week curriculum. It's a nonprofit organization that helps.

Jordan Ames [00:24:02]:
Guys transition out of the special operations community. And they really, they spent time with like you get a life coach and they work you through your, your why, you know, your purpose statement. First time I'd ever done that exercise. And I started learning like what I'm passionate about, what I might want to do when I retire. Because I'm just thinking I'll just get some corporate job, whatever, just like my peers do and yeah, I'll go that route. But as I really sat and thought like sitting in some cubicles somewhere going down like, it just didn't appeal to me. I had zero desire to go get an MBA or anything like that.

Jordan Ames [00:24:38]:
And so Lord really put on my heart a passion for leadership development. Didn't know what that space looked like. And he really put on my heart to make it like very openly faith based. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know about organizations like Men of Iron at the time. I didn't. Since I've gotten into the space, I've learned of there's, there's plenty of non profits, there's plenty of for profits that are, that are Christ centered.

Jordan Ames [00:25:05]:
By the time I, I didn't, didn't know what was out there. And I just, I just knew that, you know, my best leadership coach has been Christ.

Jordan Ames [00:25:16]:
And so I wanted to, to move forward with that type of brand. And I'm like, I'm. No, I, I have a bachelor's and master's in history. I'm not a very creative, artsy person. Branding and all that stuff.

Ryan Zook [00:25:28]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:25:29]:
Um, and I just remember like, I'm thinking of what would I call some business and the whole red letter leadership name just popped in my head and I'm like, I'm going with it.

Ryan Zook [00:25:40]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:25:41]:
But I actually took a job as an executive director of a veterans nonprofit for about a year.

Jordan Ames [00:25:48]:
And it was just some, some friction with that job. It just wasn't the right fit for me.

Ryan Zook [00:25:53]:
Okay.

Jordan Ames [00:25:53]:
And so I left that job a year after I retired.

Jordan Ames [00:25:58]:
And I Was like, well, I want to start finding work in the leadership development space, and then I'll build a business. You know, as I just kind of. And I started a little bit, but really I jumped in with two feet, not. Not knowing even anything about entrepreneurship or what to start a business, anything like that. So there's a lot of trying and failing. Yeah. But the one thing that he really laid on my heart to do was write leadership lessons out of the Gospels. I remember praying, asking, like, where do I start with this business idea? Like, you put this on my heart to teach leadership from the perspective of Christ. Like, where do I start? I just remember, you know, it's almost like those times where you hear an audible voice. It's like starting the red letters, like, all right, that's a good point.

Ryan Zook [00:26:47]:
That's easy enough. Easy enough, right?

Jordan Ames [00:26:48]:
Easy enough. So, yeah, January 1st of 2024. Started.

Jordan Ames [00:26:54]:
On my own. Just started pushing out little lessons, you know, a couple paragraphs out of a start in Matthew 1. And my goal was to work the whole way through the Gospels. Thankfully, the Lord blessed me with two amazing leaders. Ben Hunter, who's still active duty in the army, and then Eric Albright. And by the time I got to Mark, which was four months into these, both of them, you know, wanted to help me out. And. And I say, help me out because at the time, I. It was like a workload. Yeah. I need to be developing my business, whatever that meant. Right. I'm trying to figure that out, not knowing that these lessons were really foundational to. To me as a. As a coach, as a consultant to how I want to teach leadership. But at the time, I'm just thinking, oh, I'm giving this free content out, you know.

Jordan Ames [00:27:48]:
But really, it was a tremendous blessing to have them with me, and just for me to spend that kind of time in the Gospels, reading through them and pulling those lessons out. So they started writing, and we finished John, like, early January 2025. And already, by that time, we already had a vision for turning this into a book. And so I met with a publisher in March and started that process. We released it in September. That's awesome. Yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:28:18]:
So you've done, at this point, a deep dive into leadership lessons from Jesus life.

Jordan Ames [00:28:22]:
Yeah, I. I argue. I. I tried to throw different things into chat GPT.

Ryan Zook [00:28:27]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:28:27]:
Figure out, like, what I wanted to find a study that's been done with this type of detail. As far as how comprehensive it is, I say it's. It's comprehensive. It's not exhaustive. Yeah. Because you could read a passage and then even read one of our lessons and still get a different lesson because it's speaking to your life. And that's what's great about God's word. Right. Speaks to us in different times.

Jordan Ames [00:28:54]:
So it's comprehensive, it's not exhaustive, and arguably it could be the most comprehensive work ever done on Jesus leadership. Just because of not skipping, you know, a lot of devotional style, things will skip around and pull this or pull that or. Of course, there's a lot of works out there that. That focus on Jesus's servant leadership, or they might focus on Jesus leadership as a whole. But it's not, as. I don't want to say it's not scripturally founded, but it's like they write the book on Jesus leadership and they just reference some scripture, whereas ours is we. With every lesson, we have the passage that you should read that connects to the. Yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:29:38]:
So having done all that work, what are some of, like the. What are some of the most impactful lessons that you've seen from Jesus life and leadership?

Jordan Ames [00:29:45]:
Oh, again, going back to like a. Speak to us.

Ryan Zook [00:29:48]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:29:48]:
The time we're going through. Yeah. So 2024 was a very. Probably one of the roughest years for. For me and my family. Okay.

Jordan Ames [00:29:59]:
There's a. There's a guy I like to listen to on YouTube. He always says, disruption follows intention. Yeah. And I would argue that whenever we're moving forward in faith, the attacks are going to come.

Ryan Zook [00:30:13]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:30:13]:
And that's what happened within seven days of me starting these lessons. January 1st, the attacks came, is January 7th. I'm not going to get into it much on this podcast, but, yeah, it's just some decisions made within the family.

Jordan Ames [00:30:31]:
All for good, good purpose and goodwill. But it's just how things were handled, things that were said, all that type of stuff. It was like a bomb was detonated in the family.

Ryan Zook [00:30:41]:
It sounds like it was just personally incredibly impactful. The one that you're going through hard things and you're deeply studying Jesus life and leadership at the same time. I mean, what better scenario than that? I mean, obviously we don't desire to go through hard things, but if you're going to focus on Christ in those times, you're going to learn a lot in those times. I think that's valuable to anybody.

Jordan Ames [00:30:58]:
And as I'm working on building a coaching program, what I'm drawing a lot on is like casting vision and communicating it. The bigger picture that Jesus is able to provide to his disciples. Whenever they're like, you Know, I just did a video a week or two ago about when Jesus asked Peter asked his disciples, like, who do you say I am? He's like, you're the Christ. And then the next passage, Jesus is like, yeah, well, the Son of Man's going to be betrayed and killed. And. Yeah. And Peter's like, yeah, no, what are you even talking about? We just agreed you're the Messiah. Well, what do they think he was? He thought he was this earthly ruler that's going to show up, take the throne of David. David, you know, destroy the enemies of the Jews and, like, be this king for them. And he immediately just rebukes.

Ryan Zook [00:31:48]:
That story is wild because if you look at it from Peter's perspective. So Peter has this incredible moment of like, you are the Christ. You are the Messiah, and Jesus, like, yes, you got it. And so it's like this high mountaintop experience for Peter. It's less than a chapter later that Jesus actually says, get behind me, Satan, to Peter, right? So Peter's getting, like, lots of attaboys for doing a great job recognizing Jesus is the Christ, but then actually being called literal Satan, like, less than a chapter later.

Jordan Ames [00:32:13]:
But then Jesus doesn't. Doesn't just rebuke him. Like, if somebody criticizes us for a vision we're casting or some perspective we're trying to bring, and there's like, no, that's not going to happen. That's not how it's supposed to be done. Sometimes we just want to put up the defenses. But, yes, it is. And then we get into argument. That's Jesus explains. He delivers the picture and he goes right in. So he rebukes Peter with the other disciples there, but then he addresses the crowd. So I don't know what the crowd looked like at that time, because it says the Bible is pretty clear that Jesus had many disciples. He had the close 12. But there was also crowds that followed him, Right? So there's. There's probably. I know in. I think it's in Luke where it talks about the 70, sends out the 72 disciples. So there's. There's that size of a crowd. There's probably more than that. But anyways, he addresses the crowd because it's like he knows not only Peter's acknowledging he's the Messiah, a lot of disciples may not even be at that point yet. But he says, like, if you're going to follow me, you need to take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. That's one thing I always like to stress, especially in personal growth, like how are we denying ourselves? We have two images. We have our self image. We have God's image. We're made in God's image. So when you look at that and he tells us, deny self, well, what are we leading? We're leading with God's image. That should change everything. Our potential is now unlimited. So, yeah, I just, I love how, how Jesus, you know, addresses a crowd and he's. He's pretty much saying, like, you guys are all focused on this messiah to come and change your current life here on Earth. I'm telling you, give that up and you'll have life eternal. Like, completely changes their perspective because he was willing to communicate it. A lot of things that, like, I shared at the beginning of the podcast, you know, naturally, I don't like the confrontation and to have hard conversations, I know that's the right thing to do, and so I need to be more intentional about doing that.

Jordan Ames [00:34:25]:
But nobody did it better than Jesus in a loving way. You know, he rebuke you, tell you you're wrong.

Ryan Zook [00:34:31]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:34:32]:
But then explain.

Ryan Zook [00:34:33]:
Yeah. You had shared a little bit about some of what you learned in special operations and then some of how you see Jesus carrying his mission out. Can you talk? There were like four things, I think.

Jordan Ames [00:34:45]:
Yeah, yeah, four. So. So I talk about. I like to conceptualize a lot of things around. I mean, my experience. Right. Everybody has their story, their experience. And so when it comes to leadership.

Jordan Ames [00:34:59]:
I conceptualize that around shaping our environment. So in special operations, there's what's called phase zero, shaping operations. And that is the first phase of a large joint operation, like, let's say Operation Iraqi Freedom, this huge joint operation. Well, before the invasion happens, special operations are sent in to kind of shape the environment so that these large units will be successful. And that could be. It's not always special operations. It could be like the shock and all campaign. That's a shaping campaign. Right.

Jordan Ames [00:35:36]:
But anyways, the idea of shaping. How are we shaping our environment so that it looks like what we want it to look like in our future vision, our end state. And so when I look at Jesus's life right from. From start to finish, and to sum up all the leadership lessons that, That I took from the Gospels.

Jordan Ames [00:36:00]:
I break down Jesus's way of shaping the environment, which is it mirrors us, Mirrors how we need to be looking at it as first, it was about his own personal growth. Like, I mean, he.

Jordan Ames [00:36:16]:
He was born a baby.

Ryan Zook [00:36:17]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:36:17]:
And it wasn't until he was around 30 years old to where he was baptized. Right. So. And The Bible says he grew in wisdom and stature. So he's growing one form or fashion. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, he's growing.

Jordan Ames [00:36:34]:
And then he. He is humble to baptism. There's growth there. Right. And then he gets sent into the wilderness. There's a lot of discipline there. And then he starts his. His ministry. So. And of course, throughout his ministry, he's. There's still personal growth. There's. There's the personal growth of what we just talked about rebuking Peter.

Ryan Zook [00:36:58]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:36:58]:
Like, he need. Jesus needed to understand his identity, the purpose for which he came, and understand that truly and not let the voices of the enemy speak differently to him. We have to understand he was 100% human. So if he did something, we can replicate it. I'm not saying we're divine, we're not divine. He was 100% divine. But we can take lessons what he did in human form. He came to give us that example, so we should execute that. Um, then second area from, from personal growth. The second area, which I think we kind of miss when we think leadership. Yeah. Is just gaining influence. Jesus gained influence. He didn't, he didn't just immediately start calling people. And there's not too much in the Bible about how he did that, but it does say, like, he went to different towns, he preached the kingdom of God. He, you know, preached to repent, he healed, He. He cast out demons. It does say that. And then he started calling people. So though, you know, you might hear a sermon about, about the first disciples call. They drop what they're doing. They follow Jesus. Yes.

Jordan Ames [00:38:17]:
We. We have to accept they. They heard of Jesus. They knew who he was. Not. Not as far as the Messiah, but they knew he was. He was a rabbi of some sort. They knew he had a lot of knowledge. They. They knew something. Like, they're not just going to drop their nets and follow someone who had no influence. Jesus already had influence. So how did he have influence? I think through his integrity, the truth that he spoke. He put his words to action. Like he actually was going around and healing. He was preaching the good news. And he wasn't your typical religious leader. Right. We know that. We read the rest of the Gospels. We know that. So. And when I say that, people don't think about that, because when you think of leadership, a lot of people just think of organizational leadership.

Ryan Zook [00:39:04]:
Yeah, okay.

Jordan Ames [00:39:05]:
I'm a leader. And then I have these people in my team that follow me, and that's important to consider. But I think before we even are in that position, we need to understand what does it mean to have influence over other people?

Jordan Ames [00:39:20]:
Because once you have influence, then you might actually have a team. And so that's where we get into organizational leadership. That's the third area where I think Jesus shaped his environment. He started calling people to truly follow him and be an organized team. And so of course, we know that as the 12 disciples.

Jordan Ames [00:39:41]:
And then there's. I mean, there's tons of lessons there from. From casting vision to.

Jordan Ames [00:39:49]:
Just.

Jordan Ames [00:39:52]:
Leading with compassion. I mean, that's a big one, I think, because leadership, yeah, we need to be decisive. We need to be tough sometimes. But the way Jesus kind of did all of those things with compassion, I think is. Is a tremendous example, and we miss it a lot. I think.

Ryan Zook [00:40:12]:
On the, on the compassion note, the thing that's interesting to me is we can. We can turn Jesus into this kind of soft, overly empathetic, overly compassionate person who takes no stances.

Jordan Ames [00:40:24]:
Right.

Ryan Zook [00:40:25]:
And when you read through the Gospels, which I'm sure you've done quite a bit, he's not that way at all. And he has this incredible ability of standing firm for what's right. Right. He. He's saying, get behind me, Satan. To Peter, he's tossing temple tables. There are times where he's making hard stances.

Jordan Ames [00:40:43]:
Oh, yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:40:43]:
But always with compassion. It's out of deep concern for his followers and people who don't know him yet so that they would come and know the Father. So there's. There's these times where he has these incredible compassionate moments, like, like letting Mary wash his feet or speaking to the woman at the well or. Or healing the blind man. Like, they're incredibly compassionate moments where he's noticing people really never been noticed. But other times where he's taken bold, firm stances for what's right and refusing to compromise on what's right.

Jordan Ames [00:41:20]:
So true.

Ryan Zook [00:41:21]:
Jesus is not.

Ryan Zook [00:41:24]:
Soft and just always accepting. He's. He's compassionate in a godly sense, which I think is encouraging to us as men. Like, yeah, we need to be compassionate in a godly sense. Like, it's not this hard.

Ryan Zook [00:41:37]:
Just not caring, firm, harsh attitude. It's actually like, hey, I know it's right. I exist to serve the Lord. I still care about you. I still want you to do well, but I'm going to call you up instead of hide from you.

Jordan Ames [00:41:50]:
Yeah, the standard. Yeah, calling you up to the actual standard. And that's where I think, really, I see that in the church, too. Oh, yeah, Big C church. We're just. We. We don't Want conflict.

Ryan Zook [00:42:04]:
Right.

Jordan Ames [00:42:05]:
And sometimes we think.

Jordan Ames [00:42:08]:
Conflict is a bad thing or somebody did something wrong, therefore it brought conflict. It's like, well, no, again, if we're comfortable in a fallen world, there is a serious problem. We are the Church. If we are comfortable in a fallen world.

Jordan Ames [00:42:28]:
Well, then are we fallen?

Ryan Zook [00:42:31]:
We've probably made a series of compromises that have led us to this comfort. That's not godly.

Jordan Ames [00:42:36]:
Right. We're not. We're not growing, certainly right from there. The fourth area. Yeah, he developed leaders because, like, he. He wasn't sticking around forever, and he knew that. He knew that wasn't his purpose. And that's so encouraging to me because, like, he. He wants us to do his work. He wants us to. You know, I think it's Ephesians 2, 10. We are his workmanship. Like, he wants to work through us. We are his vessels. And how do we know that? Well, he left. Like, he left and I was just. Just in Acts 2. Or is that the. The second part of Acts 1, where after he said, you'll receive power and the Holy Spirit comes on you, and. And he goes, he ascends into the sky. And his disciples are looking into the sky. Like, they're still looking into the sky. I don't know how long the ascension took, whatever, but they are looking into the sky. And this angel shows up. Doesn't give them time to, like, you know, look down, start walking back to Jews. No, they're looking in the sky, and this angel shows up and he's like, what are you doing? Why are you still looking in the sky? And what I took from that is like, get to work.

Ryan Zook [00:43:52]:
Yeah, go do it.

Jordan Ames [00:43:53]:
Like, Jesus started this whole movement, and now it's in your hands.

Ryan Zook [00:43:57]:
Yep.

Jordan Ames [00:43:58]:
Stop. Like, he's going to come back, but you got work to do.

Ryan Zook [00:44:01]:
Well, the incredible thing about that is those guys. It's in Matthew 28. It says, Many believed, but some doubted. So even those guys that had followed Jesus, that had seen him living, seen him dead, seen him rise from the dead, watched him go into the sky, still had doubts. So what I take from that is those guys still carried the mission. You know, they're watching this happen, and they're like, is this really. You know, I think many of us struggle with that. Like, is this really what God's called me to do? Is, is God really going to show up and help me? The answer is yes. God has not called you to someplace to embarrass you. He is going to help you and empower you. But you have to go do it. And so those guys. And I think there was women in that crowd, too. They.

Jordan Ames [00:44:42]:
Yeah, there was.

Ryan Zook [00:44:43]:
They went and took the job seriously, even though they had doubts. So they engaged in the mission, even though they were, like, a little on the fence. And it. It's those faithful people that entrusted what they had learned to other faithful people that had entrusted what they had learned to other faithful people, which is why we know Jesus today. It's why Christianity is still growing today. And it's the task that we have now before us. Like, we carry that part of the mission that Jesus entrusted to his disciples at the end of Matthew. And the task for us is to just as faithfully carry that mission not in comfort, not in complacency, but in, like, hey, let's get it done. Like, God's given us this one short life, and. And it's to build his kingdom. So let's build his kingdom.

Jordan Ames [00:45:28]:
Let's do it. Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned something there. You're talking about the, like, you know, is this really what I need to be doing? Like, we. We have those doubts. And truly, that's from the enemy.

Ryan Zook [00:45:39]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:45:39]:
Like, that is exactly what he did to Eve in the garden. Did God really say, like, he's. He is a deceiver. He's more deceiver than he is an actual liar, like, telling you, oh, you're worthless. No, he's. He's not gonna tell me I'm worthless because I know I'm not. Yeah, but he could say, yeah. I mean, like, you're. You're really amazing. But does God really want you doing that? You know, like, he just deceives us to. I mean, you talked about even. Even some doubted who. Who actually saw Him. Like, that gives me hope.

Ryan Zook [00:46:13]:
Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:46:13]:
Because I feel like when I doubt, like, well, at least I didn't actually see Jesus go into the air. Right.

Ryan Zook [00:46:18]:
You're in pretty good company at that point. Yeah.

Jordan Ames [00:46:20]:
Yeah. I feel myself praying often, like. Like, lord, I believe he's shown me enough. I've had some do on the fleece type moments. He's shown me enough. But I find myself listening to those doubts. Yeah, but did he really mean that? And I'm just like, lord, help my unbelief. I just help me there, because I am. I know I'm growing. I know he's. He's getting me out of my comfort zone, and I want to keep going that direction, but sometimes you just get, you know, worn out.

Ryan Zook [00:46:52]:
What is something. You know, we have an audience of men all over the country in all kinds of different ways of life and stages of life. Like, what would you encourage guys in our audience with today?

Jordan Ames [00:47:02]:
We talked about the whole idea of casting vision. I think I'm, I'm pretty good at like, envisioning something big. And I've always been driven, self driven, go getter, so to speak. But where, where I'm weak at times is communicating that vision. Kind of like, like Jesus communicating it to Peter after he rebuked Peter. But yet he takes the time to like, show him the bigger picture.

Jordan Ames [00:47:31]:
I think, I think I failed to do that with family.

Jordan Ames [00:47:35]:
Even, you know, with, with church or with just with other, other situations. But I've learned like, that is. You know, we talked before the podcast. Faith without deeds is dead. Yeah. If I have the faith that God can have, this can accomplish this big vision in my life, in a ministry, in a business, whatever. What deeds am I doing to show to. To show God that I have that faith? Am I taking risk with finances? Because, you know, we talk about like investing and then the roi, like, but sometimes we're how we can't. Good stewardship means being conservative with our well, it's all belongs to God. So if he's calling you to something and that's going to stretch your finances, well, take action to, to stretch that or.

Jordan Ames [00:48:25]:
Or just like a vision for your family. Like actually sit down with your spouse and pray about that. Get her buy in, get her feedback.

Jordan Ames [00:48:36]:
Be ready for her criticism because she doesn't have the perspective you do, but be willing to communicate that perspective.

Jordan Ames [00:48:44]:
I think those are, those are the big things that God's really working on. My heart is the communication piece. Yeah.

Ryan Zook [00:48:51]:
Check out Jordan's book, Red Letter Leadership. Red Letter Leadership, you can find. We'll have a link in the description. Thanks for being here. Thank you.

Jordan Ames [00:48:58]:
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Great.

Ryan Zook [00:49:00]:
Yeah, man. Enjoyed the conversation.

Jordan Ames [00:49:02]:
Yeah, same.

Ryan Zook [00:49:03]:
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. We exist to change a culture one man at a time. And we believe that you are one of those men. We want to call you up to know God and know your purpose. We want you to be actively engaged in building his kingdom. If you need help in doing that, you're not sure where to start. You need some account, some help, some accountability. Reach out to us. We would love to help you. We can get you plugged into a group of guys that are trying to do the same thing. We can get you a mentor that can help you along the way. If you have questions, concerns, whatever, please reach out to us. We'd love to help you. We'll be back again next week. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe and share at Men of Iron. We exist to change a culture one man at a time, and we'd love to have you partner with us. So go to menoviron.org to see how you can get involved. Or donate@menaviron.org donate.