Iron Sharpens Iron Men’s Conference (Indianapolis) – Why Most Men Stay Stuck & Don’t Show Up

Most men in America are still fatherless on the inside.
 And most won’t do the one thing that could change it.

This is a raw, unfiltered conversation with Brian Doyle (Iron Sharpens Iron) about why men stay stuck—and why showing up to a men’s conference might be the turning point.

If you’ve ever wondered:
 Do I really need a men’s conference?
 Is this just another church event?
 Why would I give up a Saturday?

This episode answers it straight.

Iron Sharpens Iron is NOT a rally.
 It’s NOT a feel-good event.
 It’s training for men who know they’re not where they need to be.

Most men:

•  Had absent, passive, or emotionally unavailable fathers 
•  Were never trained to lead, fight, or build 
•  Are now trying to wing it as husbands, dads, and men 

You don’t have a discipline problem.
 You have a father wound.

And if you don’t deal with it… you pass it on.

This conversation walks through the real path:

De-Formed – Wounded by what we didn’t get from our fathers
 Re-Formed – Meeting the Father we never had
 Con-Formed – Becoming the man God designed daily
 Trans-Formed – Leading your family, not just existing in it

This is not Sunday teaching. This is Saturday training.

You’ll get:

•  Real conversations about lust, anger, money, and pressure 
•  Training on marriage, fatherhood, and leadership 
•  Tools you can take home THAT DAY 
•  Brotherhood that actually sharpens you 

As Brian said:
 “Most men aren’t broken… they’re just dull.”

EVENT DETAILS

Iron Sharpens Iron – Indianapolis Area
 Saturday
 8:30 AM – 2:55 PM

Register here:
 https://ironsharpensiron.net

(Also happening nationwide—search your city)

This is for:

•  The dad who knows he’s coasting 
•  The husband who feels disconnected 
•  The man hiding behind work, distraction, or porn 
•  The guy who says “I’m fine” but knows he’s not 

You don’t need another podcast.
 You need a moment that marks you.

This Saturday could be that moment.

CALL TO ACTION

Subscribe to Dudes Without Dads on YouTube
 Join the brotherhood in our Mighty Networks community
 And most importantly… SHOW UP

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

That's why we make sure that when a man comes and invests that stuff event, he gets practical training and tools that will be life-changing, life-altering, and will impact not just him, but the people he loves the most. We want to make sure men get what they need to succeed in the areas of life that really count. So when they put their head on their pillow in their 60s, there's a smile on their face.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

My life is just spyrolling downhill depression, alcoholism, incarceration, death by despair. One guy who showed up is just Jesus. If you can give a man clarity and community, he can start to live out his purpose. You can break generational curses of alcoholism.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Welcome to Dudes Without Dads, the show that trains men how to become the dads they never had. But Brian Doyle, welcome out to the Dudes Without Dads Podcast. Pressure Washington Pastor. We are excited about what we're talking about today. If you are a wife, if you're a mom, if you're a sibling, if you're a dude or a dad or thinking about being a father, um, or just a man trying to navigate through this life, you are going to want to listen to our conversation today. We are actually promoting an event that's taking place next Saturday inside of right outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. And my guest today is none other than the Brian Doyle. What's up, Brian? How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Doing great. Good to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, likewise. I want to jump right in and I want to look at the big picture. If somebody is watching, if they have been uh someone forwarded or put their name in the comment section, they need to know the answer to this question right here. For a dude to give up an entire Saturday to step away from their family, step away from yard work, step away from work, why would they give up an entire day of their life, travel to Indianapolis and come to a conference that you created?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Well, a lot of times uh I was a dad uh with kids at home for a season. And keep in mind it's a season, so I affirm that you want to use and steward your Saturdays wisely. Uh, but this isn't a golf event, it's not a barbecue, it's not a canoe trip, it's not a ball game, it's not an outing like that. This is uh a training. You're investing a day, uh, not for yourself, but for all the people that you influence. That's really, really the day is about them. We're giving you training and tools toward that end. Uh, we're building you as uh what I would say as we're building men with others in mind. That's God's plan. It's not our idea, it's God's idea. He wants strong, godly men because he knows it's the men that are shepherding the wives and the children and the grandchildren. So why do you do something like Iron Shepherds Iron? You do it for other people. Uh, this is Saturday ministry, not Sunday ministry. This uh we we affirm great Bible teaching, and hopefully you're getting that on a regular basis. We're not going to do Bible teaching, we're going to do training. Training is different than teaching. This is a training day. Uh so if you know, I would just encourage you as a man to get the training you need for the people that you love the most. Uh, so that's why we're there.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

You said something earlier, and thank you for answering that. You said something earlier to me where you said these this is all the stuff that we do not talking about, that we do not talk about on Sundays. And so I'm a dude, I'm listening to this, I'm a man, and I'm like, man, I go to church on Sundays. I don't know if I need to go to a Saturday. How is what you discuss or what you equip people with different than a Sunday morning church service?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Well, as I just uh stated, the uh it'll be in a church, and then it probably changes from there. Jesus will be front and center. Uh, but what we're gonna talk about, for instance, you're you're a married man, we're not gonna talk uh to people about being spouses, we're gonna talk to men about being husbands and you're you're a father. We're not gonna talk to uh people about being parents, we're gonna talk to men about being a dad. We're not gonna talk about uh generic strongholds that you know can be addressed on Sunday morning. We're gonna talk about things like lust and anger, strongholds that are often most specific to men. Uh, we're gonna talk about money, men in money. We're gonna talk about things that grab a man's heart. Uh, we're gonna talk to young men. I mean, I'm doing a seminar for young men. So if you're a young man, if you're in your teens and twenties, uh, you want to come to this and go to my seminar, join me. Uh, my seminar is called Waiting, Dating, and Mating. I mean, when was the last time you had a men's event where you're addressing young men about how to uh, first of all, how to be how to prepare yourself for dating? Uh, that's contrary to the world, how to then begin to invite a daughter of the king into your life and treat her like a daughter of the king, and then take steps of faith to discern the will of God and to lead in that relationship toward marriage, courting, and then a marriage. So, what's that look like? Well, you're gonna come uh on Saturday the 11th and get the goods. That's just sort of there are this is not church ministry, this is men's ministry, this is training and equipping. Um, we're here to compliment Joshua. We're here to compliment and bless the local church. The local church probably intends to do the kind of stuff that we're doing on Saturday, but they do not get to it. They do not have the expertise that we have. We're bringing people in from all over uh who have experience and expertise in niche areas for of men. And so those are guys who are there. So the conference really has the local church in mind. We want to bless the ministry of the local church by offering something that the local church just doesn't seem to get to. And when it thinks about it, tries it, uh, takes the initiative because they don't know how to get men there, and the men are reluctant because it's not completely broken. Part of the dynamic of men's ministry is a lot of men, American men, unless it's broken, they're not looking to fix it. You said this isn't a fix-it day. If if you're broken, you need help, you need therapy, you need counseling, you need pastoral intervention. This is for uh men where it's not broke, but you need to be sharpened. We call this iron sharpens iron based on Proverbs 27:17. As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. A typical guy in a typical local church is not broken, but he is dull. That I know for sure. He's dull, he's nowhere near as sharp as God intended him to be, as God created him to be, as he needs to be for the people in his life, in his home, in his church, in the marketplace. You know, he's not living the type of fruitful life that God intended him to live. Why is that? Yeah, he's not sharpened, he doesn't have the tools, he hasn't got around some other men who are willing to poke him in the chest in a gracious manner. This is a Christ-centered, gracious conference, but we're going to talk to men, men are gonna talk to men. Again, this is Saturday ministry, not Sunday ministry. If you're easily offended, stay home. It just means you don't want to grow. I mean, read Proverbs, stay home and read Proverbs, and when you're ready, we'll do it again next year. Because we will do it again next year or next week. And uh, I'm glad you'll be with us at the conference, Josh. Or what what what will be your topic at the conference?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Mine is what I've been experiencing all my life, and some of the tools I've learned recently. Uh, specifically, I don't know if you followed what I did a couple of weeks ago, but I'm addressing father wounds. And so leading the dudes without dads podcast, I've learned that you can even have a dad inside the home, but if he's not intentional or if he's doing things that are destructive, it can absolutely just jack up how you view who you are, wherever you are. And so I'm hitting the father wounds. We're gonna get into a room and we're gonna discuss uh dad stories, and then we're gonna unpack it and see how the heavenly father wants to heal what's broken on the inside. And so it's gonna be very experiential, and I'm excited just to be a part of it and see what the father desires to do. But you mentioned something, you said experience. How many years have you been leading men's ministry type activities?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Well, for many years, for about 30 years, Iron Sharpens Iron specifically is 25 years old. So we started this in 2005. But in fact, we started it in New England. Uh, I would share something that it was uh you bring up father wounds, of which a lot of guys are going to hear that and they're gonna uh immediately dismiss it because we're we're not one to self-think and over overdoor thinking we just we keep moving because that's what men do, we keep moving. But if you've been wounded and you keep moving, you're just moving with wounds, and and it doesn't work as well. I was at a conference in New England in 1994, I believe it was. And I was hoping to organize, I was sitting in the front row, and the man who was uh on the podium in front of me asked the man, there's about a thousand men in the room, it was during the uh the Promise Keeper era, and he said, How many uh let's score our own dads one to ten? One being as low as possible, ten being as high as possible. If you score your dad five and above or something like that, uh raise your hand. Well, I my dad was not a Christ follower, but he's a good dad, consistent dad, caring dad. So I raised my hand. I was gonna give him a seven. Let's just say that. So I'm not paying really attention, maybe I should have been. Did when he said this. Okay, how many guys would score your dad below five? And then I'm just looking at the guy, again, I'm in the front row. I'm looking at the guy and he goes, Whoa. I go, what does woe mean? And I turn my head around and I said, Whoa. Yeah, over half the adult men in this group of New Hampshire guys, just regular guys or Christ followers, had scored their dead below five on a scale of one to ten. Now, I don't know any of their stories, but all I know is that the Holy Spirit clarified with me a men's ministry marker for me. And I I I it was clear to me that this was a big deal, and this is part of the reason why we have such a challenge in men's ministry, because dads did not get the job done. Doesn't mean they were bad dads, but they just didn't get the job. They weren't the dads that God had designed them to be. So being a dad, you know, can you you you might have uh you have clearly have more influence than you could possibly imagine. And that again, that's the design of Almighty God. So I'm grateful for you being there doing this seminar. I hope it's uh well attended and guys come with hungry hearts, because when you get uh your wounds addressed and begin to process it with other men, again, iron sharpened iron, then you can really aggressively move forward and be a blessing in other people's lives.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah, thank you for this. Is not about you know my workshop, it's about the entire um ministry that you've been leading. And uh I'm excited to have the opportunity to be there. But more importantly, the overall idea of taking a day, breaking away, and working on self and equipping yourself to be the man, husband, and father that God's called you to be is a massive, in my opinion, it is the problem to solve. And so if you're watching, if you're listening, if there was a problem to solve in our culture, it is the lack of what a good man looks like. We just don't have enough image bearers. All the songs, all the videos, all the movies, it's all imaging poor image bearers. And that is the very thing that God has called us to do is bear his image in all creation. And we don't recognize how our wounds are feeding who we are today. Every frustration, I would say many of the frustrations that we get ticked off at are actually things that are deep on the in inside of mind that we are actually the biggest problem, not the other people. So 30 years of experience, men's ministry. I want you to think back over 30 years of doing this thing. Who are the who are the men that you look back and say it was most critical? And I know you're gonna say all of them, but I want you to think about specifically what are the stories, who are the men that if they're listening, if their wife is watching, their moms, if if someone's watching this and they're trying to identify if if they should send this, should invite, should say, hey, take the day, I've got the kids. What are the situations that are going on that indicate, hey, you need to show up at this conference and find some community and get some training? I want to thank you for taking time to listen to this story. And if there's something inside of here that is adding value to you, I want you to stop and hit subscribe. I am on mission to help men become the dads they never had. Many of us struggle with father wounds, addictions, identity issues. And really what we need is we need a model. We need to see people that have broken the patterns and come alongside of them. I want to simply invite you to join me on the journey. Every Thursday, we're gonna release a new episode. Each episode is gonna help you and others become the dads they never had. Hit subscribe and share with a friend. Now let's get back to the story.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yeah. Well, there's plenty of guys that have uh modeled this for me, that have spurred me on, uh, that have reminded me that when you build godly men, everybody wins. I think of uh Dennis Rainey, uh, who spoke for us a number of times and wrote a book called Stepping Up. I recommend this book. It's a video series, also. But the idea behind uh what Dennis was doing, Dennis ran a ministry for years or started a ministry called uh Family Life, Part of Crusade, and they do weekend through remember conferences and stuff like that. But really, Dennis was a men's ministry guy in a family ministry because he he knew the key to the whole deal. It's the man, it's the husband, it's the dad. Not much is gonna happen in that family without the husband being engaged and walking with God, surrender to the lordship of Christ. So good. That that is what that's the whole key to the whole deal. Um he he understood that when when a pastor looks at a local church and there's 200 people sitting in the the congregation, that's not really he's not responsible to shepherd 200 people, he's responsible to shepherd 200 families or households, and the leaders of those households, as designed by God, would be the man, the husband, the father. Uh, but we've strayed from that. We've created programs, we've created staffing and budget in local churches where men can get away with being on the sideline. In fact, sometimes it feels like that's where we're supposed to go, to go to the sideline. You know, just make sure your family shows up, get your family where it belongs in the hands of the professional. So we've done that now for multiple decades, and I can assure you it's not working. It's why people in your church, anybody who's listening today, it's why the young people in your church will make decisions to walk away from God. You think, how could that possibly happen? It's because we're doing ministry, youth ministry, children's ministry our own way. We're enamored with our own ideas. We're not enamored with the word of God and his design and plan, but we are enamored with ourselves. And so we do our own thing. Saturday, when we get together, uh, we're gonna look at the design of God. It's gonna be challenging, it's gonna be provoking, and it's gonna be exhilarating. That's what it's gonna be. You know, I talk to uh, you know, we talk about fatherhood. People go, Wow, you had five kids and seven and a half years. What was that like? I go, it was exhilarating and exhausting. I chose exhilarating. You got to make a choice. Are you gonna look at investing and shaping the next generation of young people? Are you gonna look at it look at it as exhausting? Because it is, or are you gonna choose to look at it as exhilarating? What a privilege, what an honor, what a responsibility. And you, the man, are responsible. You cannot give this away to the professionals. I know the people at church desperately want you to bring uh their bring your kids and drop it off and go to youth camp and Sunday school and Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and all those kind of things. And I'm I did that as well, but I never really depended on it for anything. You know, there are no Bible verses on children's ministry and youth ministry. It's all our own idea. All children's ministry and youth ministry really comes down to mom and dad, and that's why it must be exhilarating. That's why the man of God must be exhilarated with the privilege he has to shape and mold those arrows that Psalm 127 someday he will pull back that bow and he will let them go. That's so good into godly adulthood. So that's what we're doing. I mean, we're we're we're building men with others in mind. It's not it's not a social club. Iron Shepherds Irons is a social club. I had a guy call me the other day, maybe a couple weeks ago, and he said, Hey, when's your next rally? And I go, What the heck is a rally? This isn't a rally, it's an equipping conference, it's a training event. Yeah, you could you got the wrong number. Yeah, this is not a rally.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

You're so blunt. That's one thing I've learned about you is you don't pull any. I mean, even to ask you a question, I had you as a guest on the Dudes Without Dads podcast, and you made a statement that most people wouldn't make, especially those that have been a part of churches for, you know, I was a student pastor for almost 22 years. And you don't say some of the things that you say publicly unless you really mean it with all of your heart. And you you said the following if you're depending upon the youth group, the youth pastor, the church to disciple your kids, you're wrong. You're just plain wrong. It doesn't work. When you said that, I'm like, I know it's true, I've been there, but to say it publicly, where all of your friends, all of your pastor friends are going to hear you say it, it's a fact. Why are you so passionate about that?

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Well, well, there's a variety of reasons. One is the design of God as laid out in his word, which is a lamp to our feet and our light to our path. So I'm enamored with the word of God. That that would be number one. Number two is now I'm in my 60s, Joshua. As are my buddies. They're in their 60s. I'm talking about senior pastors of large churches, I'm talking about presidents, vice presidents, founders of major parachurch ministries all over the nation. Many of those men. We're used by God in enormous ways, and frankly, continue to be used by God in enormous ways. But when they put their head on their pillow at night, and these are my friends, I care about them. I care about when they put their head on their pillow at night. They're not thinking about their large church, large organizations, um, the hundreds of thousands that they've impacted. They're thinking about their children. And for many of these guys, well, quite frankly, for most of these guys, their children are wayward, sideways, not surrender to the lordship of Christ, not leading a fruitful night life, and not simply following Jesus. In the midst of all that stuff that they did, and they did wonderful stuff. And these are not just good men, these are godly men. Their children are not godly children. So we will so it's not like it happens to them, it happens to us. Yeah, there's an intentionality that the man of God in his home must make on a for a season of life, season of life. You know, I do this thing with uh my wife on Monday nights with couples, and we tell them it's a season, it's a season of life that you've got this enormous influence to mold and shape your own children, everything else, like you mentioned at the beginning of our time together, give up a Saturday. I would be reluctant to give up a Saturday. Those Saturdays are pressures, it's only 52 a year, and you only have 15, 16, 17 years. So do the math. There's not much time, there's not many Saturdays. That's why we make sure that when a man comes and invests that Saturday, he gets practical training and tools that will be life-changing, life-altering, and will impact not just him, but the people he loves the most. We want to make sure men get what they need to succeed in the areas of life that really count. So when they put their head on their pillow in their 60s, there's a smile on their face.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

100%. 100%. 100%. Hey, if you're watching, if you're listening, if you're processing, and you know anybody that has a four-year-old, a six-year-old, an eight-year-old, that's a young family. I I beg you to share this with them. I remember when I was, you know, early 30s, I had three little girls, and I first read a book that absolutely changed my direction and my intention on how I functioned as a father. And I don't know if you're gonna like the name of the book or the dude that I'm about to share, but it radically, radically shaped me. It's uh family driven faith by Vody Baccom. And when I read that thing, I was like, I am actually the one supposed to be catechizing my kids. So I started catechizing. I was in youth ministry at that time, and I was like, I've got to leave youth ministry and start discipling families of children to get them to start discipling their children. And so, long story short, I beg every listener, every viewer, you have to process what really matters in your life. And right now, you've got affairs going on, you've got people looking at pornography, you've got passivity inside your life, you're not leading your family. You've got to love them enough to stop and get some training from this event. You've got around 16 seminars going on. Would you mind sharing maybe two or three so anybody that's looking, thinking about going, they can know some of the seminars that'll be there. You mentioned one for young people. I mentioned one for fathers that that have wounds in their past or men that have wounds. We're gonna talk about that. Can you drop two or three others so guys can start thinking about? Oh, yeah. I know.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Well, I you know again, I'm doing one for guys who aren't married. We have one for guys who are married. Um, Gabe Turner, who is our morning speaker, is also doing a seminar on a marriage myth. And so what he's gonna do, he's gonna go into uh men and women, equal yet different. And what's our role as husbands? What is what is it that God expects of us? What uh what is it that he demands of us? And so if you're gonna, again, you're asking, if you're married, you're asking your wife if you can invest a better part of a day on the weekend uh to go to a Christian men's event, that that might be a strong choice, uh, I would say. And if you go to it, you your wife while you're at that seminar and say, I'm at the seminar to be a godly husband. I mean, that's again, uh we're talking about dads and stuff like that. One of the best things you can do for your kids and grandkids is make sure you have a thriving, growing marriage that uh is growing in alignment and in oneness. Um, one of my friends, Jack, is coming in and he's doing things that are very specific to men, uh, but are common in our culture, which are uh overcoming strongholds, and another one on stress and anxiety. Uh, you know, in some ways technology has made life a little bit easier, but in some ways it's made it a little bit more complicated. So stress and anxiety. And speaking of uh strongholds, we have a fathering seminar that's specific to technology. Phil Telfer, Jack's coming from Florida, Phil Telfer's coming from San Antonio, Texas. That's good. He's doing a seminar on the father filter. The father is the gatekeeper to the home. What do you need to know about technology and what can you do about it, especially as it relates to your children and grandchildren? Just a super great, gracious man with a lot of expertise. You don't have to figure all this stuff out. You just need to get with a guy who has invested time and energy to figure it out and allow him to train and equip you. That's really what's going on at this conference. We've got guys with niche expertise who are coming in and sharing their experience and niche expertise. This is not a Bible teaching conference. I've been to many men's events over the years where they're it's Bible teaching. And who's going to be down on Bible teaching? Nobody. But I'm just here to tell you: if you want a Bible teaching conference, it's not Iron Shepherd's Iron. This is a training conference in areas that are specific to the roles that Almighty God has called us to play, and specific to the becoming the man that God has called us to be. So we've got strong biblical exhortation to begin the day. We've got training, and that's what these seminars are about. We've got resources that are specific to men. You put all these together, you merge it with the brotherhood that comes with uh a masculine context where our guard drops down, and we're more likely with the word of God, uh, the man of God, the spirit of God, to really hear from God. And it's a marker. So, in many ways, March 11th will be a marker, a place where you can drive a stake in the ground and say, okay, like Joshua 24, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. So you make a decision on a Saturday, what you're gonna do for the rest of your life, and you do it on behalf of your family.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Thank you. I think you just nailed the question. And you're not only in Indianapolis. Would you mind for dudes that are processing and looking at uh in the future? Let's say somebody watches this and it's after you know April 11th. Um, what all cities currently is Iron Sharpens iron in? Do you have an incredible story of overcoming the home that you were raised in? Or maybe the father wounds that were placed inside your life? If so, I want to share it with other dudes without dads. Simply go to dudeswithout dadspodcast.com and apply to be a guest on the show. The reason it's important to share your story is because when you share what God has done for you, it helps other men believe that God can do it for them, and he can. To share your story, head over to Dues Without Dads Podcast today.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah, well, you go to the website, ironshepersiron.net. I think there's 25 cities. I mean, it's mostly Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic. Uh, you know, COVID kind of took away some of the West Coast guys, but you know, if you're in the Midwest, Iowa, Illinois, you know, they're all over there. If you're in the Northeast, New York, New England, uh, if you're in the southeast Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, I mean, coming up after April 11th, we've got conferences in Carolina. Uh, we've got conferences in Midwest Kansas City, we've got conferences mid-Atlantic and Maryland, conferences in the Northeast up in uh New Hampshire. Um, so there's plenty of opportunities to get there and get the tools. And if it doesn't, you come the fall again. There'll be conferences uh in mid-Atlantic in the Northeast. So there's a nice variety. Um, you know, get what you need to do, make the decisions. You know, back in the 90s, guys would rent a bus or rent a van or a minivan or something, and they would just gather some men from local church and they'd make an outing of it. And I think there's some room for that. We've tried to make it as easy as possible um uh by fine-tuning this event so that it's 8:30 to 255. So that means you're in the Indiana area, you can wake up in your own bed and go in what I say, I say go to work, because that's what it is. You go to work, you're going to work in your life in Christ, and then at 255, you know, you're out there, it's like a NASCAR event, and then you're home for dinner, and you bring that program guide, the same one that every guy's done at uh thousands of men. I mean, over 640,000 men have attended Iron Shepherd's Iron, about 20,000 will uh visit this year. And um, you take it home and you look at your you talk to your wife, talk to your kids, talk to your teens, and you share with them what you're learning, what you're gonna do differently, how God spoke to you. There's nothing more profound than an adult man sharing with his family how he is surrendering to Christ and growing as a man of God. You want kids who are surrendered to Christ and grow and know him, model it. We're just giving you a very solid, succinct opportunity to do that, then you take it back, and you don't do what I used to do. My wife would go, how was the conference? That's good, fine. No, I I learned that I needed to give my wife the details of what I was learning. I need to sit down at the table and share with my children uh how God was speaking to me through his word and uh what I was gonna do differently as a result of investing a Saturday at this men's conference. My kids would just look at me and you know, nod their head, didn't know what to do with it. But over a period of time, my kids saw that dad was continually surrendering his life to the lordship of Christ. That was their model up close and personal. We we want to be those men. No youth leader, you you mentioned you were a youth leader, no youth leader, no Sunday school teacher, no pastor on the in the pulpit, has the power to do what God has entrusted, husbands and fathers, which is right in front of the people we love the most, surrender to Christ and live for him fully. So that's that's what we're training men to do.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

You just did an amazing mic drop. You said no pastor, no youth pastor, no children's pastor can do what a father can do inside the home. None of them. And what more do you need? All right. So let me close it up by saying this if you have if you're a man and you have any proximity to men's ministries, any proximity to a police department, fire department, any local service, if you have any proximities, any friends, networks, why not bring them with you? They're people that you can go and do this life with, they can actually hold you accountable, you can grow together. So my challenge and encouragement is if you have to go alone, go. If you have any friends that you can bring with you or proximity, come. And the willingness to do it now is better than the willingness to do it later because you don't know the cost of what it's going to cost by putting it off. In reality, the best time to put in play, you being the best version of you that you possibly can be is now. You have marriages, you have children, you have interpersonal relationships that are dependent upon us being the best men that we possibly can be. Brian, 60 seconds. Let people know where they can go, how they can sign up, and why they need to. I think you've already told them why they need to come, but where they can go to sign up.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Yeah, very easy. Uh, just go to iron sharp printsiron.net, pick the conference, whether it's April 11th in Indianapolis or Carolina the 18th or Massachusetts joining, whatever it might be. Pick one. Uh, if you have any questions, send me an email. It's there on the website. Give a phone call, there's a phone number on the website. Uh, I agree with you, Joshua. Two are better than one. Uh, part of the secret sauce of this conference is coming with a couple other guys. It's learning together, it's processing together. Again, we call the conference iron, sharpens iron. This is not a content dump. It's a training endeavor where we're together with other men and we're learning and growing together. We're processing really over lunch what we're learning. We're speaking into one another's lives. We're praying over one another, we're holding each other up and we're holding each other accountable. So, Lord, I pray for the men that do come, the men that are considering coming, that you would mobilize them and give them courage. Help them to be strong and courageous so that they would be fully devoted, followers of you for all those that they influence. In Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Forgiveness is more for you than them.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

I had inner peace for the first time in my life.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

It's just Jesus. Just Jesus.