SPEAKER_00 0:03

So why are men disappearing from the places they're needed most?

SPEAKER_03 0:07

That's a great question, James. And you can find out today on the Courageous Faith podcast where we discuss these questions with Dr. Wendell Hutchins.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Yeah, so here's the deal, man. I noticed this the other day, you know, and uh, you know, I think one of the amazing things about this this campus, you know, our church, the Church of Champions, is that there's a there's things going on all the time. You know, so we're not a Sunday only type of place. Um so you know, because of the vision of our pastor, uh His Excellency, Dr. Wendell Hutchins. Um I'm gonna fit that in every episode just so you know. Um But uh one of the things that is amazing is that every day of the week there's some sort of ministry happening, right? Whether it's through the school, uh through the clinic, uh through the gym, right, the food truck park, whatever's happening, there's different levels of ministry happening, serving the whole man. And I noticed something last week, and I was kind of being tongue-in-cheek a little bit in one of my classes, is there was just all women in the class. And it was it was an earlier, it was like noon class, so made some sense. But then probably I would say 80% of my membership, the people that actually come to the gym are women, you know, and a lot of them are married. And so, you know, I'm always trying to get the men in. I want them, I want more testosterone in the building, you know. Um, and I always kind of make fun of it and be funny with it. And but I asked him, I was like, you know, I noticed, guys, why why is it just women? Where are your husbands at? Why are they not coming and working out? And some of the answers they gave me were, you know, well, they're working, or well, you know, I invited my husband, but he came, or you know, he's like, I don't want to take an aerobus class, or uh, you know, those, those, they I like to do this type of workout. And once I understand that they're all excuses, right? Because what I find more than anything is that number one, either they're sorry guys, but they're lazy. Yeah, you know, they're just lazy, bottom line. Number two, they're too proud to realize that they don't know what they're doing and they don't want to kind of acquiesce and say, hey, somebody else can teach me something. Um, or they're embarrassed because they're they've let themselves go to such a place that they're not willing to like get over the the struggle of starting to get to a a better place, right? And their wife may do it better at this point, right? Yeah. So it kind of it's can be, I guess, a little bit intimidating intimidating and emasculating to an extent, right? And I mean, and I feel like culture today, over the last what, maybe at least since I've grown into adulthood, so at least the last 30 plus years, yeah, it seems to have been the target of culture is to emasculate men. Oh, absolutely. And absolutely and you know, everything that is man or anything that I was raised to think that was manly is toxic.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

You know, there's something wrong with it. Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Well, it's by design.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

So uh there there is a great uh well, I mean, throughout scripture, you see this from the from the earliest pages of Genesis to the closing words of Revelation, you see that the enemy's design has always been to corrupt the masculinity of men and destroy uh his place in the universe of creation. And and uh if you read Revelation with any sense of uh prophetic understanding, you'll see that the the mighty armies that Satan is going to arsenal are going to be uh men who've been emasculated by the spirit of Diana Diana, and they're going to have uh this Aphrodite's worship given to them. All of that is emasculation. All of the enemies of God want to emasculate men because it's the attack of Satan against the reproduction of life, the life-giving cell of God, if you will. And uh we see that in our world today. This is where you're seeing all of this trends uh emission. They want to make a culture androgynous. They want to blend they want to take women out of being feminine and move them into masculinity. They want to take men and move them from masculinity to effeminate. And they want to meet, they want culture to be drowned in this being that is that is nothing like it was created to be. And if you have an androgynous uh uh creature, then you have something controllable by technology.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Wow. Well, you know, the other day you and I were talking, and uh, you know, we're talking about relationships. We're talking about, you know, men and women, and even friend relationships, men and men, all these other types of things. But you would you had mentioned something about marriage and about uh a certain demographic right now. What was that stat you gave me?

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Uh right now, 19% of women from uh 29 to 44 are single. And by 2030, the women from 25 to 49, 45% of them will be single. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

45%. Well that's crazy. That isn't that's the end of a civilization. That is, yeah. When people stop uh forming families and units, right? Of matrimony, and there's there's no more childbirth happening, uh that that's the end of a civilization. Look at Sweden. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Well, I think a big big part of that is the main thing you always hear about, or I always hear about is love. You hear that word thrown around just so casually. Oh, yeah. Right. But real relationship isn't just about love, right? The main thing about relationship is leadership, presence, and responsibility. Being willing to step up, be a leader, take responsibility, and then communicate throughout that relationship uh the the individual parts, right? So with my wife and I, I'm gonna be very transparent, okay. My wife and I had a riff recently, okay. Um and in that riff, I came home one night and you know I could tell there was something wrong.

SPEAKER_05 6:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Because you can all a real husband can always tell when his wife is not exactly happy with him. Yeah. You know, so I walked up to her and called being discerning. I walked up to her, and there's another part too, uh, and you'll understand here in just a second. I walked up and said, Are you okay? And she said, I'm fine. So, guys, if your wife ever says the word, the two words, I'm fine, pro tip, it ain't fine. All right, and so uh, you know, we were I was trying to talk to her and communicate and figure out what was going on, and you know, she she gave me a response back, and I said, Okay, I get that. Well, do you want to hear what's going on, what the what the whole thing was? And she she said, No, I need a process. Well, I've been married to her for 21 years now, yeah, you know, and I know what those words mean. It mean. I know it means that I'm gonna get the cold shoulder for an extended period of time, right? And so that's not biblical. I told her, I was like, well, we need to talk this out, we need to figure this out, we need to work this out. We are the two have become one, right? Type situation.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And no, no response, no talking, no nothing.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

And I was like, so how long do I have to wait? How long, how much time do you need? And I knew it was, but I was mad. I was upset at the moment because she's doing this to me, right? And said, So, how long do I have to wait? And uh she didn't respond. It's like, okay, I'm gonna give you all the time you need. So uh, so throughout the week, you know, I'm doing my normal thing, she's doing her we're coming together, we're whatever, right? So we're not nobody probably even knew anything was going on. But we weren't making those little normal communications, those normal whatever. Um, and so I was giving her her time. Well, my wife and I are completely different, yeah, and then I can't handle that. Yeah, I need closure, I need, I need to know we're okay and everything's fine. So I was like, I'm gonna wait her out. I'm gonna show her I can do what she does. Yeah, and I'm I cannot do what she does. I think it was like maybe three days later, and I can't. I was like, are you ready to talk now? Can we talk, please? And she says, I'm fine. I was like, oh my god, no. So I gave her another day, and finally I put my foot down. I was like, listen, dude, we have got to get this worked out. And so, you know, we started talking, whatever, we worked it out, and uh so everything was fine. We hugged it out, we you know, all that good stuff, and so we're moving on. A day later, a day later, I came up to say hello in the middle of the day like I usually do, and she says, Are you busy? And I said, No, no, I'm good. She said, Well, come into my office. So I went and I sat down, and then she starts spilling it out, you know. She's like, you know, explaining that it's hard to communicate and she she has to process and she do all this. And I'm inside, I'm not doing it on my face. I hope I didn't do it on my face, but I'm just like kind of giggling inside and laughing. I was like, why couldn't we just done this a week ago? Yeah, you know, what have you? And so I think oftentimes when we are in the relationship, that was hard. That was a challenge. You know, that kind of stuff. I could count on my hand how many times that's probably happened in our lives, in our relationship. But those types of situations are very difficult.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And in the culture we, you know, we live in oftentimes, you know, that's the game they always try to play.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

But here's the beauty that you have to always uh mine from your experiences the beautiful nuggets, right? The the treasure. And so the beauty in all of that is uh the uh dexterity, the depth, the richness, the um I want to say it it's like a fabric that is hard, you know, uh to rip. The tenacious uh uh life of God is is woven even tighter into your relationship. And so you'll be stronger for going through that. And you'll learn from that, and you'll learn how to close that window down from you know, and and that's always been my challenge in raising you guys is I've always told you that you want even when it comes to God speaking to you, you uh yes, you do process and you take time. But as soon as you can, you want to you want to make that measurement and you want to go back to her and say, I've learned some things through this latest uh incident and experience. And what I'd like for us to do is commit to one another that next time something like this happens, we don't wait five days to be able to articulate it. We move that to to the first twenty four hours. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

And that's one of the things that I was thankful for that she came back again, yeah, right, is because we were able to talk about that, you know, and say, hey, you know, if we had, you know, taken a moment, because I think a lot of times we do this, especially in ministry, yeah, is that we're very gracious with people, yeah, and we show people a lot of mercy that maybe they don't necessarily deserve, you know, and that's the grace that we give. And we'll let people talk to us a certain way, or they'll we'll let people treat us a certain way. And so it's almost like we we take so much of that on ourselves that the people that are closest to us are the people that we're that we live with, right? And that we we share with. Anytime we do anything that might remind us of how those people treated us, it triggers us.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah, well, it's it's it's you're touching a you're touching an already wounded place.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Right. And so your response to that person is different is because they should bent up. Right. And so they should they should know better already that I'm wounded and I'm hurt, and so they should be aware of that. Right, right, right. So that was one of the things that you know I was talking about. I was like, listen, you know who I am more better than anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

But think about think about the investment that you have in your in your home. Twenty-one years of marriage, a child, a business, a ministry. You have all of this going on, and you have all of that invested into this vessel called your home. And whatever the circumstance was, it caused that kind of disruption. Well, you think about the poor this generation, these poor young people that have this skewed identity, this androgynous mindset of not knowing what gender they are or what is masculinity, what is femininity, a rejection of everything that God calls polarity. And and they're swimming in this in this um muddy water of this briny water, salt and and fresh water. They're they're in the briny waters of life and culture, and they don't know what they believe one day from the next. They don't know what their center is from one moment to the next, and they don't know how to communicate. Right. And so, how in the world can two different universes be comported into one house and survive? Yeah. Right? So I think there's a high time that we have we have a real relationship with truth and say, hey, we need to learn how to communicate with the opposite sex.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Yes. Well, so my blessing in all this, his story, his testimony was that I was able to receive knowledge from him afterwards, wisdom from him not too long because we got to hang out this past few years. Yeah, we got to hang out. And then in that in that talk, he gave me real I'm still in my early years of marriage. Yeah. And he gave me this advice about these three pillars I need to have in my household. Yeah. Communication, intimacy. He said communication, intimacy, and finances, that's what causes divorce. That's right. Those three things can cause divorce. Then he said communication. If you get that communication down, the other stuff will submit to it. There won't be an issue with intimacy or finance problems because you're communicating the entire time. And to me, he may have not known it, but that was mind-blowing. I went home, not to my wife, like, look, here's the three pillars we need to work on. And her mind was like, that's amazing. She really liked the whole the whole golf, like she might have might have been a little upset about golf, but that three things that I earned, those things that I learned, and I earned technically, she was like, Yeah, that's let's work on that. I was telling her, we need to work on communication. What what makes you feel like this? Because James even told me to ask her these certain questions. What do you how do you respond when you things like this happen? Things like that. And I went and I did that, and it helped out my relationship, but I wouldn't have had that if I didn't have a mentor or someone discipling me.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

That's right. Well, and we need to talk about these things, and it's something that we probably need to do as part of our discipleship portfolio. And I'm just now thinking of this because of this conversation, which is good for me. When I was 13 years of age, um I was in a discipleship track where we were, we were told, we were geared, we were uh groomed, if you will, I hate to use that word because of the salacious connotations that are attached to it now in our culture. But back then they were preparing us, would be a better way to put it, they were preparing us for leadership. So at thir 12 and 13 years of age, I was made the lead teacher of the five-year-old class. And at 14, I was told, now we're we're going to we're going to be preparing you to be the superintendent of the teenage class. So I was a peer that was a leader. So I said all that to say to do all of those things, part of our preparation was we had to go to seminars and we had to take marriage seminars at 13. Wow. Not because we were getting married at 13, but to hear how you communicate with the opposite sex. So from 13 to 18 years of age, I was enrolled in uh a course curriculum called Basic Youth Conflict. And um it it was some of the most fabulous material that was just very basic, psychological slash spiritual, um the commandments of God, how that are is articulated and grounded in our psychosis, right? So we were we were provoked to learn how the opposite sex thought, right? Well, I can't imagine living in a world today where not only is there not any of that provocation, there's a complete distortion of and a deception in what God made you to be.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Well, would you say that uh the kind of what I was talking about with the women epidemic, the singleness, would you say that's because we we let the world take care of that? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

That's right, that's right. Well, 35, 40 years ago they started stripping masculinity out of men. Right? Couple that not so that's academia is is fostering this uh twisted, demented mindset. Couple that with the the uh uh sociological engineering that's going on by the government to take men out of the home and to create single parenting. Right? So now children are being raised without a father and without a father figure in the home. And so they're robbed of masculinity, these young men, they don't know what a father is, they don't know what hunting and fishing and working on trucks and doing all they don't know what all that stuff is. They're being raised by their mothers, right? And as as difficult of a job as that is, and and these women are are doing Herculean work to try to raise their kids by themselves, I applaud them. I I'm thankful for their input, but they cannot be a father, right? And so these kids are coming out, they're growing up, they don't know what a dad is, they don't know, they've never seen their mother and father in a relationship to hear how relationships should sound, right? So they watch television, they see affairs going on everywhere, homes breaking up, and so their whole world um outlook is uh and their viewpoint is that marriage won't last, marriage is gonna hurt, relationships are pain. Give me a video game.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Well, we have here at the church, we have connect groups.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Where would we have men's ministries? Where would I have all these other men pour out it to each other? I know I've had some friends come to a men's ministry group and they left in tears because one person spoke and spoke their life without them even knowing what they had gone through.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

How does like how do we get that nationwide? How do we get something like that to where men can pour into other men and groups can come together with like-minded, I want to grow, I want to help because a lot no matter what age you are, you can still help out. You can still help the kingdom out. Oh, that's right. Wisdom, knowledge, finance.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Contrary to what people think and contrary to what men want, uh, this kind of effort starts at the grassroots. And it's it's the same principle as revival. You want a revival in your church, you get outside on your concrete driveway and draw a three-foot circle and stand in the middle of it and tell God this is where revival starts. It doesn't start with a pulpit, it doesn't start with a pastor, doesn't start with a leader, right? So it's somebody else's problem. No, no, no, no. You want revival, it starts here. Well, if you want a good marriage, draw a circle and put yourself in it. Don't put her in it, don't put him in it. It's not their challenge, it's my responsibility. So I need to become, you know, my prayers always be, Lord, let me become the man that my wife needs me to be. Right. Because only he knows how he needs to shape me so that I can be the ultimate minister of deliverance to her life. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Actually, that was one of the things when we were talking that I I expressed to her was that, you know, when we're going through this, was that was my prayer. Yeah. You know, not fix my wife. Yeah. Get her to not be mad at me anymore. I was, Lord, what do I need to do?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

And that's so counter to the culture.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

It is. Because everybody wants to fix the other one. Right. So what do I need to do? Search my heart, O Lord, right? Yep. And I've I believe, right, I could just see her demeanor change because my heart wasn't that she's wrong, or my heart isn't to change her. My heart is the two of us coming back into unity or staying in unity in whatever needs to happen in me. Right. So I think that's what when when when the Bible talks about what real love is.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Now that's in and the law of love, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I've got to throw this out here. That is what it means to have submitted love. Right. Exactly. Not that she you're making her the head, but you're making her the preeminent desire. So I love you enough to submit to becoming what you need me to be.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Right. To meet her at the point of her need. Right. Right. And then what's what is beautiful about that biblical version of what God created us to be, right? Right. I saw something the other day, um, it was a clip or what have you, and it was talking about relationship and was talking about men and women, and it was very controversial because what the what the guy said was is that you know, when God created Adam, yeah, he created Adam to work the land, to have dominion. Yes, right, to name the animals and do all this stuff. But when he created Eve, he created Eve for Adam.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

And so and when he created Eve, he was she was the only creation he said was very good. That's right. That she was the best. Thing out there that there could be, right? Of all creation. She was very good. And so if that's the case, then you know we are, yes, we are created to serve one another, to love one another. And that love that is described, the beautiful definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is a list of things that is very challenging. It is not easy to do. Right. But when you are willing to not keep a record of wrongs, to not boast and how great you think you really are and all the good things you're doing. Right. To to to literally be kind in the face of someone not very happy or kind to you. Right. And be gentle to them, that changes the entire dynamic of that communication. Absolutely. And how you would communicate to that other individual. Absolutely. Well, the Bible says what a soft answer turns away wrath. That's right. That is how hard is it when somebody's yelling in your face and pointing at you and telling you how bad you suck for you to be soft in your answer. It's very challenging. It's extremely challenging because there's emotion involved, right? And these emotions, and you're being attacked, and the first thing to when someone goes on the offensive, you you become defensive and you immediately try to offend the other person. That's right. Counter.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Well, you're trying to justify yourself. What you're doing, defend yourself. What you've done, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Because you feel like they're being unjust in their declaration to you. Well, if I if I know who God's created me to be, and I know people are always like, you know, God knows my heart or what have you, well, the heart's inherently weakened. So usually the things you do a lot of times in response to how people treat you, it's usually not very, very good, right? Especially when those emotions are high. And so if you can get yourself to a place where you're able to give that soft answer and remember that what love really looks like or what that vision of love really is, that unconditional love is that in spite of how you're treating me, in spite of what you're doing, I'm still going to love you, I'm still gonna be kind, I'm still gonna be gentle, I'm still gonna do what God's called me to do, then in that relationship, I think you create this opportunity for the emotions to settle, right? For the blindness of those emotions to calm down. Right. And then they can actually see the real issue or the real problem. Right. Um, and then you can start making corrections.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Well, and I think too, it it depends on your it depends on a lot of things. There's a myriad of emotions and and circumstances, but if you can remember as a child of God, yes, that we're we're put in relationships and we're forming relationships that are designed and ordained to better us. And so if you can always keep in the back of your mind, especially in a marital relationship, if you're uh if you're confronted with an adversity or a circumstance and there's a heated moment, if you can remember this, God, what are you teaching me? And what area in me needs to be crucified? Because the the sweetest deliverance comes at the hands of those that love us the most because they can hurt us the worst. So don't ever forget that. Your enemies you expect to try to wrong, right? Right? But it's it's how you suffer at the hands of your friends that determine how mature you are in Jesus Christ. You remember what he said? I'm wounded in the house of my friends. And so there's you know, and I'm not talking about becoming a a whipping post, and you know, I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying, if you can remember in the heat of the moment, you're you're bound to somebody that you love and she loves you, right? And yes, a circumstance has occurred, yes, this has happened, yes, that took place. But if you can remember God's ordained my steps to be the man she needs me to be. And if and if he's allowing me to go through this, right, by my own foolishness or whatever, whatever brought it on, then there's something in me that needs to be corrected. And most people invert that. Right. They totally flip the lens and they want to say, it's your fault, you did this, and you know, I want to bring it to your attention. And here's why. Because ultimately our injury speaks to us in a in the language of dishonor. So we feel dishonored, right? Disrespected, especially men. Right. Because we thrive, our fuel is respect, right? Women, they need security, they need to feel loved, and love should equate to them a sense of security. So if you take, for example, if a man berates a woman, he's stripping her of that security. She can't feel secure if she's thinking he's never satisfied with her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

True. No, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

And so we have this generation that's been raised up to where women are protecting themselves and they're the leaders of men. You know? And then these men, they're unhappy because that's not in a right relationship with truth. Well, they're unhappy, so they they cower any feminine weakness and can't wonder why they can't get respected.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

It's because you're a lazy bum. You won't put in the work to be a man, right? And I'm not talking about, you know, walking around and puffing and oh, I'm this. I'm not talking about that. You're if there's anybody that will know you're authentic or you're sincere or you're um not a hypocrite, it's it's your mate. Yeah. You know, they're gonna smell it first. And if uh a woman is not going to appreciate a man that is full of hypocrisy.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Some of the best advice James is giving me, other than, you know, was I was having some stuff with my wife, where and he told me, What are you doing around the house? How are you building trust up around the house? That's right. What does your reputation at the house say?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah, that's right. That will follow. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

That will come with it. She will follow anywhere if everything there at the house is perfect. Everything else you're doing, all you're supposed to do there.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yeah, and I don't like the word perfect. Not perfect, yeah. I didn't use that. He didn't say perfect. I never use the word perfect. That is a high standard. That's a high standard. Yeah, but but you're you're exactly but you're putting in the work, exactly. Right? And to me, you know, we can use uh very flamboyant language, but we we talk about putting in the work. It's just being a husband, it's being a soulmate, it's being somebody that's stewarding your home and having a plan. And uh my my heart breaks for these these women, you know. I mean, I I had the opportunity to stand a couple of weeks ago, and I they wanted a picture with me, and so I got around and and they took the picture. I didn't even think anything of it. I take pictures all the time, right? And then they showed me the picture, and it was like me looking into something, and I saw, oh my God, there's there's 15 women, and none of them have a good relationship that I'm aware of. And that just leaped out to me. I'm like, what what is the deal with this generation? So back when I was growing up, if there was if there was a good looking girl, there was 10 boys. You know what I mean? Yeah, right? So if the the rule was if you get a church with with five good-looking women, you're gonna have 50 young men. You're gonna you're gonna have an army to work on, right? Now you can have a church pew full of beautiful women, and you can't find a man.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Because they're playing video games in their mother's basement. And the challenge is for me, it's not the women.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

God bless you, keep doing what you're doing. We need to go out and kick the men in the tail and tell them, get up and let's get to work and be a man.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Come on.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Is that too hard? Maybe we need to cut this off.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

No, I don't think it's too hard.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

But it just but here's the point you can have a men's meeting and nobody will show up. You can have a women's meeting, or I'm talking about a stitching class, and they'll have but they'll be a room full of people. Right? The gym, the women are showing up. But you you are, hey, where was you at? Well, you know, I I put in a long day and I just didn't feel like it. And then they're potbellied, they're you know, doing all this stuff, and they won't take care of their self. That's like I had somebody the other day tell me something about they went to see our clinicians and went to optimal family care. And I was just waiting for it, waiting for the shoe to drop. And you know, they help I said, Well, did they help you? Oh yeah, they helped me, but it's too much. I don't think I can do all that. It's like I don't love myself enough to have a future. What do you do with that? I just I'm I'm too old. I'm too old for this, and and I'm and I'm getting short uh with people, but I just wanted to slap them. It's like, man, what what is it gonna take for you to wake up? What is what will it take? A stroke, a heart attack? What's it gonna take for you to wake up and realize you're forfeiting the best years of your life? Your children need you, your wife needs you, and you're a slop. That's what I was thinking, but thank God I had the Holy Ghost and didn't say that. You heated up, is it? Well, I'm it just gets me fired up, man, because these men have the world at their fingertips and they have such I mean against this bleak backdrop of a society where men are not men anymore, those that will be men stand out. The shortest circuit to greatness is just be who God created you to be. Yeah, just show up. Show up, man. You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to have all your act together. All you gotta do is try. And if you try, you're you're in the the 10 percentile.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Yeah. Well, uh this past weekend uh when you preached, you know, and you were talking about the sheep and the shepherd, and uh you used a word that Morgan and I were talking about implacable.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Implacable.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Uh uh we talked about it. Um and she accused you, I didn't say it. She accused you of making up words, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:41

And I'm she said I made that up.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, she said he made that up. I looked it up immediately. I got on there, right? So um, but with with what you were talking about, you know, one of the things that uh I get a lot of joy out of is on Tuesday afternoons I do a run group. Yeah, and it's on the it's in the Memorial Park area.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

And that is the one workout where it's mainly guys show up.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

It's a lot of guys, and they're a lot of young guys, right? They're like 20 something, early 30s, what have you. Excuse me. And uh, you know, as we're running, we're doing things, a lot of times they ask me questions. They're always talking about something. Sometimes it's uh, you know, about you know how to be a better runner or how to be stronger, get better at high rocks or something. But you know, oftentimes it's very personal. Yeah, it's about relationship, it's about what have you. And so I don't think it's a a lack of uh honest from what I'm seeing, is I think what it is more than anything, it's a lack of being taught. Yeah, they've never been taught and because that's the challenge. Because of what they have been taught through culture and TV and everything else, they don't have a realization of the right way to do it or how to be the right type of man, you know? And so we have a generation of people that have been given the wrong information. There's been a lot of propaganda on what the right way to do things are. And so we have a generation now that like they are implacable. They don't have their they're they're very contrarian, they're very resistant to uh they're not teachable.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Um, and I think they're getting to a place now where they're realizing that that's not beneficial for them. They're very unhappy. They don't know why they're unhappy, but they're very unhappy. They can't keep a relationship, they can't develop a relationship. We're talking about marriage. Well, there's a 20 to 40 percent of the population out there that can't understand what we're talking about in marriage because they can't get there.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Well, they don't know how to engage courtship. Exactly. That's I mean, that's a lost word.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

No, that's that's everything's done either through an app. Yes, you're meeting people, people what you're it's an algorithm telling you who you should be dating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Um, or Chat GTP is telling you the perfect woman.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Exactly. You know, makes me want to chase rabbits. All you gotta do is swipe left or swipe right to make a decision or a choice. And hope they swipe right back and hope they do the same thing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Um and so what is the fundamental, what is the fundamental answer to that?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Well, I think number one, discipleship is always gonna be the fun. You asked, how do we get this on a global scale? And the first thing came to my mind wasn't a global scale. It was what he talked about, grassroots. So that means it starts one-on-one. One-on-one. It starts in small group. It starts with you know us. Men being honest. Yes, being honest and not being lazy.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

What happened to the generation? Because my dad had this gift. What happened to the generation of young men that would submit to being told, hey, hot shots, you're not all that?

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Uh we passed too many tests, got too many high scores.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

What tests?

SPEAKER_03 35:50

I'm just saying, and high school you probably did all these things. I don't need to study for this, and you s you go and you succeed very well without having to try so hard. Yeah. Well, is that because the test was maybe a little skewed? Well, then he knows. I don't need to know anything. I don't even know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah, and I just I just think that the hard work of the melodrama involved in developing courtship. So back in the day, and I know I keep referring to antiquity because that's about all I've got left, but uh but the 60s. Back in the yeah, back in the day, we went on dates. Like literally went out and spent money. Can you explain what that is? What's a what a date is? What did you tell you to do on those? But so you you you uh you proved your you that you had uh value and that you were worthy, and that you there was merit to your life by dressing appropriately, taking the young lady, I mean washing your car, preparing all the preparations, taking the young lady to a very nice restaurant, not McDonald's, right? Taking her to a nice restaurant, spending the evening, and learning about her family, her mother, her father, what they're involved in, who she is, where her family came from. You and you build a relationship and you see if there's any uh compatibilities and some, you know, is there any place that the law of attraction will take this friendship to a new stage? And you and you learn that, and you didn't get that overnight. You didn't get that, we didn't have apps, we didn't have the uh internet, right? You had to develop synchronicity through language, through understanding. You had to learn to speak up.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

All of that's gone.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Well, I think one of the big challenges though is that the because of the the the thought process of culture today, I mean, for my wife and I, now in our story, I would probably have been definitely deemed toxic because she actually was not interested in me. In fact, her exact words were he's not my type. And when I was told that I wasn't her type, yeah, my response was she doesn't know what her type is. I'm gonna show it.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

That's just like Jay.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Right? So that I don't know, that like fired me up because I could testify that she was not your type.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

She was just because while you were lifting weights down in the gym in my house, and I heard you and Blair talking about that blonde you was gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

No, Redhead, I was very specific. She was my type. I wasn't her type, apparently, right? But that's the the point was is that that fired me up because I honestly was not the type of individual who like sought after people. Like I didn't go, I didn't just randomly ask girls out, I didn't go see whatever. But I was interested in her. She did meet a lot of the things that that I found attractive and uh desirable.

SPEAKER_05 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

And I was like, what do you mean? I'm not your type. And so that's fire. It did that I that I I pursued her.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

I went after her. I wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Well, these ladies today don't they don't know what what is a man that's in pursuit? What does that even look like? They look behind them, they they look behind themselves, they don't see anybody. And that's that's where my uh grind is. It's not with the women, it's with the men. The men are not showing up. The men aren't showing up in America, the men aren't showing showing up in prayer, the men aren't showing up, they're not showing up. And when I talk about not showing up, I'm not talking about all you guys that are married and building families. I'm talking about this young generation. They don't know how to get off first base to even create a family.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Because why would I need to submit if I could just subscribe? If I can just subscribe to somebody on YouTube, they can tell me. That's the thought process. Why do I gotta submit to anybody if I can just subscribe to somebody? They can tell me what I need to know here on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

So you're gonna let the Chinese send you an inflatable doll and call her your wife? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Or a robo deal?

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Robot now, it's not a dollar. No, get back to it.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

When you get these big characters now for the toxic man, because I'm you gotta be a man, but they see it online. I'm subscribed to this guy, but I'm not submitting to anybody in reality. That's right. Because nobody ever submitted to. No one I'm pouring to me, pouring to me, teach me how to be a man. I didn't have a father, lost my father, he's incarcerated, so I'm not gonna let no one in, I'm gonna build this wall. Yeah. I'm gonna be my own dad. I'm gonna find one.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

And so they keep repeating first generation mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Exactly. Right. Well, so I think one of the biggest things that is important to understand is like we're talking about leading, right? We're talking about you know, being able to develop these relationships. But first of all, you have to learn like some of those nuances and intricacies, and that's part of that is from discipleship and being willing and able to be shepherded. Right. Right. So, you know, I think one of the one very negative connotation about being a follower is that you are a sheep, right? And nobody usually thinks of sheep in a very positive manner, but Jesus described us more than anything else as sheep as sheep. Yeah, because he knows us, right? He created us, he knows who we are. And so if you already know that that's who you are, if you can make that realization, well then you don't think of it as a negative, you say, okay, well, what do I need to do? Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Well, and and my contention was Sunday when I was speaking about that, the the the thing that I was carrying in a burden was because people don't know what uh the proclivities of a sheep is, right, exactly, they will never understand how to value and view and discern a shepherd. So the the idea of God being their father is foreign to them because they do not know how to be sons and daughters. Come on. I mean, we follow people on Instagram, we follow people on TikTok. But you're not in a relationship with them.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

That's a good point, because I've never looked at it like that. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's exactly the whole point of it is there the goal of social media isn't just to get, you know, subscribers, it's to get people who are a part of your community. Right. And so, you know, I was one of the things my wife and I were talking about, you know, as part of this uh discussion was, you know, we were talking about some of the people that we're connected with, and she was a little hot when she said it, but she's like, you show me the five people that you're in a relationship with, and I'll show you your future, and I'll show you who you're in, and I'll show you where your life is going. Leah said that? Yeah, she did. Wow, I told you she was she was only, man. She was, man. And I was like, listen, man, I'm you're my five people. I'm five. What are you talking about? L-E-E. W. W. So, but that community that is formed. Yeah, some that's the that is the not the sheep, but that's the herd.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

That's the herd that you're following along with, right? And that's the direction you're going. So when we submit um to the right shepherd, when we understand the tendencies of sheep, and we what we're learning is we're learning what our weaknesses are. We're learning what we are, what we have a tendency, the direction we we have to go, so that we can make those corrections.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Well, in real life, that's what I was telling you when we started this podcast is at 13 years of age, we were learning what relationships were like, work vocabulary, how you speak to a young lady. You know what I mean? All of that was was learning that process of discipleship and how to lead and how to follow. And how that when you're leading, if you're not following, you're not leading. See, it's a broken continuum. You can't be a great leader if you're not first a follower. Right. And if you ever break that cycle and think, I'm just the leader, then you will never have anybody coming behind you. You will forfeit your children, you will have a broken home, you'll abdicate every throne God tries to give you because you can't value submission. Yeah. And it my my deal is is we've got to get back to Sending a clarion call to the ears of men to rise up and understand what God's called them to be, what he's made them to be, and how he's created them to fight for truth, for freedom, for the liberty of their home, and for the woman he gave them. Nuts. He didn't create Adam and Steve. He created Adam and Eve. That's right. And if she's not the most beautiful thing in the world to you, then you've got a problem. That's it. It's not her problem.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

It's your problem. It's your problem. So what practical tools can we give men and women to say we understand what the issue is. We see that you know we have these challenges and that there's a lack of discipleship, a lap lack of shepherding. So what are practical ways we can say, okay, you don't have it, how do you go and find it? This is you realize, okay, I've been slapped in the face. I realize I'm lazy. I realize that I I'm trying to lead without the ability of knowing how to lead, and I've never submitted, and I don't know what that true submission looks like. How do we engage them into the right places to be able to learn that?

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Well, I think the first step is, I mean, it's biblical, is we repent. We we are honest with ourselves and say, look, I'm deficient in this, I don't know everything I need to know. And then I'm going to be submitted and humbled. I'm going to be uh humbled enough to go and appeal to godly leaders to help me. And there you don't go search it on the internet, you don't, you go get in a relationship where the truth that's given to you is also given to you in a court or in a boulevard of accountability. So if I tell you, I want I gave you a I gave both of you a book last week. If I come back to you, if I just give you the book and you walk away with it, then it's it may or may not be valuable to you. But if you know that in three weeks I'm gonna ask you what chapter five said, then all of a sudden there's some there's some duty, there's some performance tied to the reality of I'm stewarding something here. I've got to give an account for something here, right? And that's where men are deficient and they've got to realize that, hey, I don't know, first of all, I don't know how to value a relationship. Secondly, I don't know how to steward a relationship, and thirdly, I have no idea what to say to be accountable to a relationship. Right? And as they get themselves correctly oriented, then of course, we might have a hope of helping these ladies that have been broken and busted and disgusted by men that were not being credible. Yeah. Right? You're you're look- I mean, when you look across the landscape of that one picture that I rem I'm referring to, 90% of them are divorced.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

If not all of them. And it's a sad, sad shame. And I'm talking about there's everybody from medical doctors, brain surgeons, to physical therapists in that line. Beautiful ladies. And every one of them. If I'm not wrong, maybe one had a marriage, the rest of them are divorced. And he's going, what what what has happened to culture? Right? And where where is the church in that? And the church, it it's sadly, uh, in too many places we we can say there's a great deficiency in men's development, not because of the pulpit, but because of the pew. They're not hungry for it.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah Well, and even more so when you say the pew, rem if we under if you understand this, right? The church is not meant to just be a place that you come to.

SPEAKER_05 47:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Right? We come to be equipped to go out and do the ministry, right? To to minister the gospel. So the people in the pew, I should be discipling someone, right? I should be ministering and leading someone as I'm in submission to someone else, right? So that deficiency can I think it can be easily rectified if if we have the heart that that Jesus had for us, if we if we or if we quite honestly are just obedient to what he told us to do. Um and so if we're willing to do that and we understand that the job I have, so trainer, coach, whatever, that's not who I am. That may be how I my vocation. Yeah, that's your occupation. That's my occupation, but that's not what I'm called necessarily really to do. That's not who I am, right? So your occupation is not your identity. It's not. My identity is in Christ.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

And what he has called me to do is to go out and minister the gospel, to love people and love Jesus Christ, love God. And so as I'm ministering that gospel, I can't do that without being in relationship with people. You cannot be effectual in truly evangelizing without being in a relationship with people, especially in this day and age.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

That's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

You have to connect, and in that connection, there's gonna be some struggles, there's gonna be ups and downs, but still in that, there's submission, accountability, and you're constantly moving forward together. Yes. Right? And I think that is the best, that is always gonna be the best way. I don't care what app comes, I don't technology is amazing, I love it, it's great, what have you? There's there's definitely a place for it, and you can definitely utilize it to further the gospel for sure. But it will never, it will never, ever, ever, ever overcome the beauty of shoulder-to-shoulder relationship. That's right. Of walking together, sitting at a table, that's right, being in a golf cart, sitting around, drinking coffee together, because that is what God created us for.

SPEAKER_04 49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

And so I think as men, we have to, I think that's got to be a desire of ours. It is. Is that we've got to find other men that we can connect with that are gonna build us up.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

And make us who God's called us to be.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

That's right. And that's where it starts. That's what the house of God's for. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

Such a powerful episode. Yes, sir. Such a powerful episode. Thank you guys. Anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_02 50:07

No, sir. I'm looking forward to seeing all the men rise up. Amen. Become a mighty army for God.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

Amen. Yes. So if you know a man who needs to hear this message, I think we should uh we should delegate that. Yes. We gotta let that. Send it to all the ladies, too. Yes, yeah. They need hope. They need hope. Send them. Yeah, a call to action. Send this out to one person who you know needs to hear.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Because it's all about relationships, men and women.

SPEAKER_03 50:35

So, yeah, let's do it. Oh, yeah. And as always, thank you for joining us here at the Courageous Faith Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. Go to champ.org for everything you do, everything that we have to stay connected with us. fparmy.com. Check that out. Sign up, get involved with someone around you, more people around you. BC Fitness and Epitreams World. Epitreamsworld.com. And Optimal Family Care. Optimal Family Care. And come and eat at Champions Food Truck Park.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

We got it all.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

Do all the things.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Be a part of the community. God's creator, right? Amen. We love you guys.