A Transformative Journey: Philip Wagner on Mission and the Jesus Movement

00:11 - Speaker 1
Hi, this is Paul Louis Cole. You're listening to the Brave Men Podcast, fired up about having you here today, because this conversation with Philip Wagner, my friend, is really fascinating to me. He has lived a lifetime of ministry. He has been in some of the most unique situations You've heard of the Jesus people or the Jesus revolution or any of that happened in the West Coast. He was in the middle of that. He was in the middle of helping groups go together. He actually did a couple of albums with Maranatha Music and on and on. And then he and his wife Holly, who was an actress and a reporter and is a brilliant speaker today and writer, they got married and started Oasis Church in Los Angeles and it's a remarkable church. They've now transitioned out of that Church. They've now transitioned out of that, and so Philip is speaking into the lives of men around the world working with a number of different groups and it's a great conversation, great stuff.

01:12
I get a little bit in the weeds because I was kind of around back then and so it's fun to kind of reminisce. Hopefully I find it interesting. I just got this. Hopefully I find it interesting. I just got my friend Lowell Norman wrote a book about his working with John Denver. For 25 years. The musician and I got in on some of that and stayed at John's house and worked with the Windstar Foundation in Snowmass and so that was fascinating because you know, the shared experiences, the things that kind of mark your life, are so important. That's why if you're a father, you've got to create some of those moments so that the markings of their life are actually things that came from you, not from somebody else. And that's not a bad thing, you know to have that, but there's got to be that core, that foundation, that comes from you. I take, for instance, we talked recently if you're not on the Brave Men email, get that. It's the Brave Men motivational email Comes out three times a week. Go to cmnmen and sign up for it.

02:20
And we're talking about in one of them we talked about the prodigal father. That's Luke 15. And the prodigal father you think about this and it's a prodigal son. It's the lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. Right Jesus telling parables, teaching through stories. And when I say the prodigal father, what I mean is that it really to me he's this hero.

02:44
But it wasn't just that he waited and didn't give up on his son. It's that, if you read this story closely, that son got his money didn't demand it, asked for it. I think there's a little difference in temperature there. And then it says he lost his money and righteous living. Well, we don't know if he got taken advantage of. We don't know exactly what happened. Maybe he was fairly naive, went to the big city, you know a little kind of didn't know what was going on, got taken advantage of because once the money ran out, you know his friends ran out. So then in the story it says that he goes and looks for a job. Now, think about this. He's not a deadbeat. In other words, there's something in him that says I've got to get a job, I'm going to go to work, I'm going to get some things done, I'm going to take care of stuff. The only job he could get was taking care of the pigs.

03:36
So when you look at that and then he comes back and the father's there, what we're really looking at is what are we putting into the hearts and lives of the next generation? That's why I appreciate men like Philip Wagner, who continues to do that, who continues to speak into the lives, mentor young men, but has done that for decades and decades, because there were men who did that for him, taught him. We talk a little bit about that, but that's what it's about. It's about raising up that prodigal son. Yeah, he took off, but he came back. Why? Because there was the seed of righteousness in him. And I just want to speak to you right now.

04:22
If you've got a son or daughter that's walked away from Christ, I want to speak hope over your life. I want to speak the spirit of the prodigal father over you, because you've put the kingdom inside them and they'll eventually come back to that. And here's the thing You've got younger kids. You've got younger men, people that work for you. Put the seed of the gospel in them, because when they get, the Bible says, when they get older, they won't depart. What it means is they'll come back to that center line.

04:53
Hey man, hey, good stuff. Man, I'm fired up about having Philip Wagner on Brave Men today and we get into some great things and you know he talks about some of the obstacles of life cancer, the other things that they've walked through, and it is really a remarkable story and I love the fact that he came on Brave Men with us and he and his wife Holly, tremendous ministers, awesome stuff. Hey, thanks for being with us today. On Brave man, we've got shows every week, we have a new podcast every week and really fascinating, encouraging, motivating men like Philip Wagner here's my friend, philip. So Philip Wagner a Dodger fan. Is that right that?

05:46
right fan and a yankee fan dodger, wait, wait, wait, wait, and a yankee fan yeah, dodgers, my national league team yankees american league. I've been what do, you do my dad was a yankee fan.

05:56 - Speaker 2
I I learned baseball watching mickey manuel and roger maris really yeah, did you really so uh to Yankee Stadium like six times or something.

06:05 - Speaker 1
Really, because I always know you, because you pastored in Los Angeles for years, part of it and we're going to go into some of that, because it's fascinating that we see these movies coming out now Jesus People movie, all that sort of stuff. But you were there, you were actually on the ground.

06:22 - Speaker 2
I was there. I was in the small chapel, yeah, yeah.

06:27 - Speaker 1
On Sunflower Street yeah.

06:30 - Speaker 2
That later became a bookstore, and then I was there in the circus tent when they did that.

06:34 - Speaker 1
Yeah.

06:35 - Speaker 2
In the big building Talking about Calvary Chapel. Yeah.

06:38 - Speaker 1
So I always took you as a Dodger fan, because every time if you post something on your social, it's usually what I've seen is Dodgers right.

06:48 - Speaker 2
Yeah, a lot of that. I mean, that's my home team and they're in a good season right now so hopefully they can keep it together Doing well.

06:56 - Speaker 1
They won the COVID World Series. Is that right yeah?

06:59 - Speaker 2
they did, didn't they win that one? They won that here in Arlington, that's right, because it was all here.

07:04 - Speaker 1
And then the guy who was what's Seager. What was he? A shortstop, what is he? Third, base.

07:09 - Speaker 2
Yeah, corey Seager, and we got him with the Rangers.

07:11 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and we did the same thing. We won the World Series with that guy. It's Corey Seager. He's the Seager, so it's him.

07:27 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so Dodgers fan pastor, you pastored Oasis Church for 35 years 35 years. And where is Oasis Church located Now? It's on Wilshire Boulevard, right in the middle of LA. It's on the border of Koreatown and it's a part of town where they're renovating and making things upscale there a little bit. Yeah, but we got an old cathedral that was a historical landmark.

07:46
I'll never forget, seeing that we couldn't have got it if it wasn't because the real estate would have been too high. But only a church or maybe a museum could get it or something.

07:55 - Speaker 1
Okay, because of the historic notation Okay yeah. But where did you start that church? Where did that church start? It started in 1984. Is that right? Where did that church start? It started in 1984. Is that right, right?

08:06 - Speaker 2
We started in a home Bible study in Beverly Hills, really, and a friend of mine who's kind of like a big brother to me he was a songwriter, he'd won Academy Awards, he's very successful in the entertainment industry and he would have Bible studies every once in a while in his house and so he asked me if I would come teach one. Really, just started a Bible study. We haven't had one for a while. So I went there and we had 10 people and just started teaching and then it started growing. The funny thing is I knew it was because of my brilliant teaching, but afterward I realized it was the two Academy Awards on the shelf.

08:47
And the kind of people that would show up to be around. You know successful people in the entertainment industry, so you know Donna Summers would pop in, and different ones.

09:01 - Speaker 1
So when you actually had to move out, move into a facility, did you take some of those awards with you? No, no, just a photo, or?

09:07 - Speaker 2
two, just a photo or two, that's fascinating.

09:12 - Speaker 1
Why did you start a church?

09:15 - Speaker 2
Well, I had been a worship leader, I had been a youth pastor and assistant pastor, and where was that? And that was all. In Southern California. I was an assistant pastor, associate pastor, at a place called the Hiding Place in Beverly Hills, with Henry Catrona and Todd Fisher Wow, and it's not in existence anymore, but I'm still friends with those guys. But so when I taught that Bible study, I was in kind of a waiting like what am I going to do?

09:53 - Speaker 1
What's God going to do next?

09:55 - Speaker 2
Yeah, what am I going to do? And then, because it wasn't my dream to necessarily be a pastor or lead a church, I wanted to teach, but a lot of my thinking was naive, because I don't know many people who aren't pastors, who can make a living teaching. There's not many that travel and do well. But then I just felt like God nudging me. Like you know, you need to start this church, and so we. Probably before we got into that cathedral, I think we met in 17 different places.

10:28 - Speaker 1
Did you really?

10:28 - Speaker 2
Community centers and elementary schools and parks and you know, seventh-day Adventists or whatever we could do. Yeah, because they meet on Saturdays.

10:38 - Speaker 1
You could meet in their building on Sunday. So whatever it takes. So you just committed to it. Now, it wasn't called Oasis Church when you started, was it?

10:46 - Speaker 2
We called it Oasis Christian Center. Okay, it was Oasis, it was Oasis and the Christian Center, christian Church those things changed over the years. Most people just called it Oasis.

10:59 - Speaker 1
And why'd?

10:59 - Speaker 2
you call it that, um, uh, actually I I had this picture in my heart about a desert and planting a church in Los Angeles being a spiritual desert and um and being, and the church being an oasis, and so it would be where people would come for healing or for direction, or what do I do at this point in my life? That's how I pictured an oasis. And a little side note is a friend of mine that I met at Calvary Chapel in the early days was Lonnie Frisbee, and for a while he had a Bible study in Long Beach and I think Bible study is loose because I think it was pretty big, but he called it oasis and so when we started I had him come speak for us a few times.

11:45 - Speaker 1
Really he was a captivating speaker. You know I attended some of the Monday night Bible studies with Lonnie and I remember part of you know the Jesus movie that they did the Jesus.

11:59 - Speaker 2
Revolution.

11:59 - Speaker 1
Jesus Revolution, yeah, and what's his face Riverside, greg Laurie revolution, yeah, and uh, what's his face uh, riverside, uh, greg laurie. Greg laurie did that and I thought I thought they treated uh lonnie really well in that. But what they didn't have for me, thinking back of the jesus movement and all that era was for me it was driven by the music just me personally, you know. So there could have been more music in it, but still it was a great story. Yeah, and the fact that Pastor Chuck Smith, basically the founder of Calvary Chapel, when Lonnie comes along and I think was it wasn't it his son that actually picked him up? Was it his daughter or son that picked him?

12:39 - Speaker 2
up he was hitchhiking. Yeah, that's just one of the interesting things about the movie. He wasn't in there. There's a Chuck Smith Jr I know who taught Bible studies that I went to Right and he had the church in San Juan Capo.

12:50 - Speaker 1
Yep, yeah, for a long time.

12:51 - Speaker 2
And he still has a real small little gathering that my niece and her kids go to sometimes.

12:59 - Speaker 1
Really yeah, Really so. Yeah, because he picked up Lonnie and brought him home.

13:04 - Speaker 2
That was what I had heard yeah, yeah.

13:07 - Speaker 1
And then here's this guy with no shoes on. Chuck didn't know what to make of him.

13:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, he was pretty. Chuck was pretty straight-laced conservative and I think his wife, kay, was the one that was really a burden for the young people, the hippies, yeah, and it was like the people that are outcasts that people don't understand. Yeah, people in the margins, and so they reached out to him and he didn't know what to do. So he got somebody. He said I want to meet a leader, a Christian hippie. Want to meet a Christian hippie. That was Lonnie.

13:40 - Speaker 1
Okay, when is this? When is this? This has got to be 1971 or 72 or somewhere, probably 69, 70. Right, 69, 70.

13:49 - Speaker 2
Because I went there, started going in the summer of 1970. I was a junior in high school and my friends were actually a buddy of mine said hey, you want to go to this hippie church? This is a hippie church, like, okay, I wasn't really following Jesus at that point, but I went and it was. I had a reference of church life. I was raised in a very ultra fundamentalist Baptist church, so it was very rigid and rule driven and those things.

14:18
So I knew about Jesus but going there it was like I'd never been to church before. It was just like you could feel the presence of God and they talked about Jesus in a way that's very personal and it changed everything for me.

14:33 - Speaker 1
So yeah, leonard Sweet, my professor in my program I'm in right now he says they knew the verses but they didn't know the story. So, fundamentally, you had the verses but you didn't know the story. And then you met the person of the story. What was that moment like when you became a follower of Christ? Do you remember that moment?

14:56 - Speaker 2
I don't think there was a particular moment, but I started going to the services there and it was midweek. But I started going to the services there and it was midweek. You know they had Monday, wednesday and Friday. Who was that Friday was the one who started the vineyard, ken Gullickson. But I went there and just over a few weeks I just couldn't get enough of it. The worship was like nothing I'd ever heard and I'm worshiping and it just sort of like brought to life all those seeds on the inside of me.

15:27 - Speaker 1
So I'm sure I made a decision several times Somewhere, but you just moved right into it Over and over and over, several times, as we do when we're young.

15:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and then at one of their Maranatha concerts, I went there with one of the bands and they had a prayer gathering before the concert and Lonnie was leading that, wow. And so he came over and prayed for me to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I didn't ask for that, by the way, yeah, but he prayed for me, but he was like that because he was just out there.

16:01 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and I remember one of the Monday Night Bible studies that Greg Laurie ended up teaching, but when Lonnie was doing them, when it started, I remember one night he started like waving his hands and I don't even remember exactly what he said, but it was kind of like miracles are going to happen. Miracles are going to happen and these are at the time Coming out of the 60s if anybody watching has seen the movies or whatever, seen Jesus, revolution or any of the others it was a really different time because there was a lot of things shaking, a lot of things changing the hippie movement, the anti-war movement. You had a lot of things going on and changing in culture, right, yeah. And so now higher education, education was changing all these different things, rules and regulations. I mean, dude, when I went to college, which was right about the same time, you were a junior, my first year of college, uh, I remember the. Of course I was at a bible college, but you had to. You had to wear like, wear a sport coat, like a jacket, you to go to class.

17:12
And then the second semester of my freshman year, I think it was, it was like, because nobody was doing it who were younger, they go all right, forget that rule, but the fact is there were rules and regulations and what's changing at this point in time is a lot of the underlying fundamental laws and rules and regulations of church, life, culture and everything else we're changing. So now here's Lonnie up there with a I don't know some kind of big, oversized hippie white shirt, as I can remember it, blue jeans and going something like it, like he's saying miracles are going to happen, and this girl screams in the back yeah and uh, and everybody's like what happened? What happened? And her, she had a hole in her tooth and it was filled. I'll never forget that. Everybody's freaked. Yeah, there may have been a couple thousand unusual kind of miracles that happened in those meetings.

18:11
Yeah, and so you were a part of all that. Then you started attending those things. You say you were with one of the bands. Do you remember those bands that you were with?

18:20 - Speaker 2
There was a band that I had made friends with I think they were called Sila at the time.

18:25 - Speaker 1
Oh yeah, sila.

18:26 - Speaker 2
And so I just went with a couple of them and hung out to watch the concert.

18:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah.

18:35 - Speaker 2
And is that what got you into music? Probably the music at Calvary Chapel and all that, but it really inspired me a lot, so I started learning the guitar and playing. You know I did a couple of albums for Maranatha. Did you know that?

18:48 - Speaker 1
No, I didn't.

18:48 - Speaker 2
There was a label that they did that was kind of a sub-label to help younger artists develop, and so I did one project that they paid for and a second one. We got halfway through and they went belly up. Oh really, I finished it off with my $9.

19:10 - Speaker 1
You crushed it, but you did a full album. Yeah, that's fantastic, and that was with Maranatha's label.

19:17 - Speaker 2
Yeah.

19:17 - Speaker 1
And was that in that? I remember going over to an old house that they had that was a recording studio. I'm trying to remember who was it that was running Maranatha and I just remember somebody was playing bass and they were in the, the uh like the bathroom, you know, and then they had, they had uh like big packing blankets over walls and stuff to try to keep all the sound muffled and all that kind of thing and yeah, by the time I started recording it was it was closer to 1980 and okay tommy coombs who was in love song.

19:51
He helped manage some of maranatha at the time yeah, this would have been 72, 73 and I forget the guy's name, but uh, but I remember that and I was at uh. It was a, I think a tuesday or wednesday night or something, or sunday night or something. It was at the first I think I talked with chuck gerard about. I think I was at the first Love Song concert. They didn't even have drums, john Maylor was that the guy's name, John Maylor.

20:16 - Speaker 2
Yeah.

20:16 - Speaker 1
He played like bongos under his arm.

20:19 - Speaker 2
Right.

20:21 - Speaker 1
And I'll never forget that, because Little Country Church on the edge of town, yeah, but thousands of people came to Christ.

20:27 - Speaker 2
It was just amazing.

20:28
What was that like to be in the middle of that? It was just amazing. What was that like to be in the middle of that? It was like you never knew what was going to happen next. You knew basically we're going to come and sing some choruses and then someone was going to teach, but there just was always some testimony that was amazing, or altar call. After a while Chuck had Lonnie do what they called afterglow services, right, so that people who wanted to stay, he would minister and pray for people and get into more of the spiritual gifts and that sort of thing. But yeah, just those miracles that would take place.

21:03 - Speaker 1
Or you'd hear Lonnie or whoever bring somebody up and tell a story a story and it was like so now, when you started, uh, doing your music to the point to where you were actually playing in front of people, was that, when calvary chapel was now moved to the tent, that kind of uh, yeah, it would when I was playing actively, would have been probably when, after they got in the the big auditorium now yeah, and then yeah, and then Greg Laurie was doing the Monday nights.

21:32 - Speaker 2
I saw Greg preach in the tent and he had long hair and a beard. Before he had no hair.

21:40 - Speaker 1
Yeah, as happens to some of us.

21:42 - Speaker 2
He did those little—he was kind of gotten known by those little gospel tracks.

21:46 - Speaker 1
Oh, that's right he would draw them he was a good little sketch artist. Yeah, a little sketch artist, that's right he would draw them.

21:51 - Speaker 2
He was a good sketch artist. Yeah, a little sketch artist.

21:52 - Speaker 1
That's right, and I remember there was a guy was it Rick Griffin? With Surfer Magazine that also did some of them ended up doing some of them.

21:58 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't know.

21:59 - Speaker 1
Yeah, fascinating, yeah, what a great era.

22:04 - Speaker 2
One of the things that makes it relevant to us today is I heard Greg talk before that movie came out and he was comparing some like you were social tensions of the day. So there was racial problems, there was a war that people were against, there were riots and protests and people were not trusting political leaders, people were not going to church for help and there was a lot of drugs being used and people weren't sure what to do about it. And then he's comparing it to today the racial tensions, the wars, politics and and so it was almost like the, the stage was set for a revival or an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That happened then, and so sometimes people get a little discouraged about the things we see today. But you know, it's like the Scripture talks about when things are—it's darkest, the light rises and shines in the darkness.

23:05 - Speaker 1
Do you think, philip, that we're poised for that type of revival now? Poised for that type of revival now that, uh and I speak particularly, I know we have we have men in scotland listening, men all over the world that we get comments from but do you feel america is poised for a revival? Do you think we're in the front edge of one? Do you think it's you know where? Do you feel like we're at? Well, uh I feel like we're in great need of one. Yeah as well. Pouring of the Holy Spirit is what.

23:31 - Speaker 2
I think, but it's hard to predict the times. I know that the need is there and I'm encouraged by—I've been through it once before where I wasn't as aware because I was 17. But being aware now of some of the social dynamics, I'm very hopeful. Being aware now of some of the social dynamics, I'm very hopeful. And I kind of feel like the guy in the New Testament when he was praying and said Lord, let me live long enough to see the Messiah. And so I feel like Lord, let me. I just want to see it one more time. One more move, one more outpouring. That would be amazing. So I'm in my 70s now, so he's so what is so? What was?

24:12 - Speaker 1
the mark If you said these are the defining marks of that movement of revival, renewal that happened. I mean starting at the time you were in high school. As you look back on it now, what were the things that really fomented, that caused that to happen? Were causative you?

24:30 - Speaker 2
know, caused that to happen, or causative. Well, from my perspective, I would think that a message of love and grace was so huge and so powerful because people felt like they wouldn't be accepted in church and therefore, you know, God is mad at them or they're not accepted by God, and so this message of Jesus loves you and his grace is more than enough. He will forgive you and take you as you are. I think that that was huge in causing a movement like that. I think the worship and the music which you mentioned before is a big part of it. That was amazing, and I do think the focus on the Holy Spirit being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit. I think sometimes we know that, and so I think sometimes we try to force it a little bit and that's just not it. It's just not the same and that's just not it.

25:30 - Speaker 1
It's just not the same. Well, we have a tendency, all of us as people, to get comfortable in a certain repetitious manner of things, and so maybe there's an outpouring if we want to call it that of the Holy Spirit in a particular manner, and then we want it to happen that way again. Yeah, you know, we want it to happen with a certain uh, you know, people are slain in the spirit or fall out in the spirit, and and then we want that to happen every week and something else, and people are at at an altar, let's say, and everybody's crying, and there's a real move of repentance, and we want that to happen again. And so we get in these little niches, if you will right, you know we get locked up in that. What was, uh?

26:13
What was it? Because, uh, oasis church became a church of thousands. Thousands of people came to, became followers of christ at the church that you and your wife holly pastored and and I want to get into a little bit of that in a minute with god, chicks and all that but but what was it that you feel like began to really? Because you didn't like, you weren't like hey, I've got these, I've got all these core values that we're going to do as a church and we've got all this thing and this is our growth pattern and this is our. You didn't have like an overlay of you know we're going to do all these direct mail things. No, we just tried. Anything we tried anything and everything.

26:51 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, we were probably a church of 100 for eight or nine years, wow, and it was a different 100 every year.

27:02
So, we were learning and figuring it out and, honestly, holly and I were both trying to figure out who we are, how we're going to minister, and, and so there was a kind of a convergence of, um, you know, at the time, hillsong church, um, we connected with them and and just the way that they did, they were relaxed in their dress and they had put a focus on late eighties, early mid 80s, early mid 90s, early 90s.

27:31
Yeah, way back then, and so it reminded me a little bit of my roots. Like, this is where I came from music and you know it's because I was dressing up and wearing a suit and tie and trying to yeah, the men that would give me input and help me. I tried to be like them.

27:49 - Speaker 1
Okay.

27:49 - Speaker 3
So Fred.

27:50 - Speaker 2
Price was right there in LA. What a great legend, and Casey Treat was mentored with Fred. So I met Casey and Casey always addressed me. So I was, you know, but that's just me trying my best to gain from them. But there was a point where we got so frustrated with our church I thought you know what, if I wasn't the pastor of this church, I don't think I'd come here. I wouldn't go here.

28:16 - Speaker 1
Don't you think that's a test, though, for if you're pastoring a church, don't you think that's something you need to ask yourself?

28:24 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Who am I doing this for and what am I doing? Would I go?

28:28 - Speaker 1
to church here? Yeah, because then if that's not the church you would go to, then you're not being authentic to your voice.

28:36 - Speaker 2
Yeah, right, yeah, and so part of it is just getting a confidence. So, in a way, watching what I was seeing with all the young leaders in Australia, and I just it was kind of giving myself permission to be me, and I just it was kind of giving myself permission to be me and so that's how I took it, and so right at that time we got a theater Art Deco Theater that was showing movies for 99 cents and there was trash and rats everywhere there, so they weren't making any money, but we bought it.

29:10
We raised enough money. It was owned by a woman. She carried the note and trusted us. I couldn't even believe she did, we I think we got it for 10,000 down and so then that, but at that time we were kind of coming into our own and this was right on Wilshire Boulevard and it used to be. It had a great history, that theater. It was the original four-star artists Okay, yeah, United Artists, all that stuff.

29:41
United Arts and all that, yeah, and they had big premieres there and everything. We found a lot of archive photos with the city black and white, but anyway, we got in there and we took off. We went from about 300 to 400 people to 1,500 to 2,000. Which?

29:59 - Speaker 1
then allowed you to do things you wanted to do outreaches and that sort of stuff. Where'd you meet your wife Holly?

30:05 - Speaker 2
I met her. A friend of mine was a mutual friend with Holly and then they were roommates for a while. A friend of mine was a mutual friend with Holly and then they were roommates for a while. But I would go with her to the vineyard or to a hiding place and we just knew each other. And so she goes. I've got a new roommate and I came over and met her and so then we're still friends with our friend Lisa, who introduced us, but she introduced us and then we started dating.

30:35
I started the church in April of 84 while I was dating Holly. Oh really. So I started the church and then we got married in January of 85. So we'd been going for about eight months or something, which is another thing. I don't recommend any church planters listening to this.

30:54 - Speaker 1
Get married in the middle of the first six months of planting a church.

30:56 - Speaker 2
Don't get married or have a baby in the first year.

30:59 - Speaker 1
Right first year. So now Holly's got a background in media.

31:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah she was an actress, actress and acting in commercials.

31:11 - Speaker 1
She did a lot of on-camera things.

31:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, doing TV shows, hosting something I think at some point she hosted a talk show for a while a celebrity pets thing and she was living, her family lived here in the Dallas area, and then she moved to LA and had an agent because she started to work here, right, and got there, and so then we met and I didn't trust her because she started to work here, right and got there, and so then we met and I didn't trust her because she was an actress, right, right and so. But she turned down you know things that would have paid her a lot of money because it was just a little sketchy.

31:40
And so that was impressive yeah.

31:43 - Speaker 1
So little did she know. She moved out to be an actress and to marry a pastor Right.

31:48 - Speaker 2
Yeah, her family was very successful in the business world, so I didn't fit their mold either, so that was interesting. How long did that take? 10, 20 changed, I guess they figured it was permanent.

32:13 - Speaker 1
When you had Jordan, yeah yeah, it was like, okay, yeah, we're going to do this. And the church grew and Holly, you've both written books and you've had a great ministry to marriages. But she wrote a book it's called God Chicks Right, and it seemed to me that was that really seemed to resonate. When did that come out?

32:36 - Speaker 2
Do you remember about when that was? I don't remember the, the dates of it? Holly's written twice as many books as I've done. I've done like five or six, but and hers you know, like everything you know.

32:49 - Speaker 1
Hers are now in different languages all over the world and everything so, but she— Well, I did introduce—I think, when I introduced the podcast, when I do the little pre thing, I'll say and now today we have Holly Wagner's husband.

33:04 - Speaker 2
Okay, good, I'll do it like that, that's right, that's okay, I'm used to it, but yeah. So she started to speak out a little bit. I was encouraging her because she wasn't like I want to be a speaker or teacher or something. And then she started to have this passion for women, helping women and the women's events that she went to she thought were kind of boring or not. You know, she just couldn't A little cheesy. So then she started doing some of these and speaking. And then she had probably spoken a handful of times, three or four times, and we met Brian and Bobby Houston through Casey and Wendy Tree Okay, of course. And so we went to Australia and hung out with them and then Bobby and Holly became best friends. So Holly goes, bobby's going to start this women's conference and she asked me to speak and I was like she's never heard you speak, she goes, yeah but she thinks I'm fun, and so her first thing.

34:05
she spoke in front of an international group of women at the color conference and was a regular speaker there for years.

34:12 - Speaker 1
And then Holly, you guys, and then you guys built a large women's conference in LA.

34:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, she called it God Chicks for a while, and then they changed it to she Rises yeah, and so she had that for about 10 or 12 years Is the most recent book Find your Brave.

34:31 - Speaker 1
Is that the most recent?

34:32 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, think that was. That's one of her great bus, one of our best.

34:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, judy has read that and absolutely loved it. Yeah, because, and so I want to recommend that. Find your brave. And then the. You know you've got some books. If you look under Philip 1l Wagner on Amazon, you've got some Kindle books and some things. You've got one about dreams. Dream your Dream.

34:57 - Speaker 2
Yeah, Unlock your Dream.

34:59 - Speaker 1
Unlock your Dream and that's the one where you got real transparent and told everybody that your childhood dream was to be in the Harlem Goldfathers.

35:08 - Speaker 2
Yeah, is that true? I was making a point that not all dreams are realistic, not all dreams are real. Yeah, I just loved the Globetrotters and I just thought I want to be like them one day.

35:22 - Speaker 1
And actually.

35:23 - Speaker 2
That's why, when I was in high school, my favorite player was Pete Maravich, because he was kind of a wizard with the basketball. Yeah, he was unbelievable LSU, but anyway, yeah. So a lot of the book is unlock the dream from. We limit ourselves or we don't have the confidence to obey God's leading. And then some of the unlocking is qualifying the dream, because a lot of us get ideas or we say it's a dream from God, but not necessarily.

35:53 - Speaker 1
How do we do that? How do we? Because you know, the big thing is, the big Instagram thing is follow your dream, go for it, don't quit, blah, blah, blah. But you and I both know there's some things that we've thought about, that that shouldn't be the dream, because we'll never do that. You know, it's like a guy who's 35, 35 years old. He's out shooting hoops in his driveway thinking, hey, if a scout goes by right now, he'll look at this form, yeah, they'll sign me up. Man, I'm probably gonna be at least g-league yeah right, it's a how do you?

36:27 - Speaker 2
it's dangerous ground to step in and tell somebody it's not a good dream or not. I, I think, because there's always those exceptions.

36:36 - Speaker 1
But how do we do that for ourselves to be authentic?

36:40 - Speaker 2
Well, I go through some of that in the book where you test out the dreams that you have. I think you kind of start where you are and are faithful with the opportunities that God gives you and it opens one door and another. But I think about Joseph. When he had a dream, his interpretation was hey, I'm going to be the coolest kid around and you guys are all going to bow down and worship me, and I love this dream. It's God's dream. But that's not exactly what the dream was. It was his interpretation. So he had to go through a lot of humbling and develop the character that God could trust. A lot of pain Put him in that position and then he could be trusted. So it wasn't like I am so good, it's that everybody's going to love me. It's like I've been so humbled and been so faithful. Now I can be trusted.

37:33 - Speaker 1
But before you started Oasis, you had been faithful in working to help other people build what God had given them their vision. And it goes back to when you're faithful. It's a scripture when you're faithful in that which is another man's, then God will give you your own. Yeah, and it seems to me that that's one of the things that perhaps we don't teach enough Faithfulness, Right.

37:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree.

38:00 - Speaker 1
Working into somebody else's being a servant. Yep Right being a servant.

38:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's so important is being faithful where you are and honoring who you're with, who your leader is. I mean, we know that leaders fall and have problems, but still you can have grace in how you move in and out, and I just feel like how you move out of one situation is what you bring into the next. You know the attitude. But, yeah, yeah, I have a good friend that pastors here in the Dallas area, earl McClellan.

38:41
He pastored for my friend, rob Koch in Austin Right, and he was talking with Rob that he wants to go out and start a church and it was at the time he didn't know. But then all of a sudden Rob's son was killed in a car accident and Rob was devastated. And so, earl, just like you know, I'm going to shelf that conversation. He's going to need me here. He stayed there and served with the same attitude he served before he got this dream and vision and then, when it was the right time, rob was feeling better and healthy. Then he came here and I mean Shoreline City Church in Dallas is just blowing up in the best of ways.

39:18 - Speaker 1
It's an amazing church, yeah, and they got a new and they're doing fantastic.

39:23
So they're one of those few churches that, since COVID, has been multiplying and growing, just reaching people, it seems to me that when you talk about the power of the Holy Spirit as one of the marks of Oasis to me, when I look around and I travel a lot with Christian Men's Network, I see that those churches who have leaned into the full movement of the Holy Spirit in people's lives, those are the churches that have grown since COVID, Because there's a freshness, there's a hope, if you will. And Earl, his message is a message of hope.

39:54
Yeah definitely Right, and so now we get back into—so you and Holly get married, the church is going well and in 2014, you get a report from your doctor. In fact, it was a phone call.

40:10 - Speaker 2
Yes, I had—yeah, there was a little bump on my scalp and I'd had some skin cancers you know on my back, little things that we cut out or froze off or something. And I asked my family doctor and he said, oh, that's just a little fatty growth thing, it's no big deal. So I came here I've been here three times to the Cooper Clinic in Dallas and I went there one time and then said they have all different kind of doctors check you out. So I said the dermatologist, what is it? So he goes oh, I need to get a biopsy of that. And so he did it and found it was a lymphoma. Normally you find those growths in the nodule areas but, for some reason, mine was on the scalp.

40:58
It wasn't a skin cancer, but it was. But for some reason, mine was on the scalp. It wasn't a skin cancer, but it was lymphoma. And so man Holly and I were at Mark and Darlene Czech's church in Gold Coast area up there in Australia and I got a call from the doctor. We were going to be speaking that night and got a call. She's like, man, I wish I had good news for you, but it's, the diagnosis is cancer. So it's like wow, so it was a shocker.

41:32
Anytime you hear that and in hindsight it was small, we got it early, we got it fast, so it was good.

41:36
But when you hear, you know, if the doctor says you have the best kind of cancer you could get, all you hear is I got cancer, it doesn't matter, no, here there's no best kind. You know yeah, so Wow, but we just, you know, finished the conference and then we talked to Darlene a little bit about it, darlene and Mark, because Darlene had been through a cancer journey herself. Wow, but I came back here and then I got treated in January of 2015. I had four weeks of chemo and it wasn't a kind of chemo that you lose your hair, but it wiped out my immune system, and so really I feel like there was more going on in my life than just that cancer. I think the stress was building up in me beyond what I recognized. It's kind of like the iceberg thing, where you see some problems on the top but underneath there's a lot more going on, and so we had moved into that cathedral which was a big project, a huge financial project, trying to get that thing done.

42:47
I've never been a guy who could raise a lot of money, but in two years we raised more than I did the other 30 years or something. So we got into that cathedral and we had six months of great church and then things it's like well, I've heard people say in the past that you take property. It's like the, the devil, owns the property, the earth, and you're taking it back for the kingdom or whatever. So maybe we got into some warfare things I don't know but.

43:19
But things got kind of rough. So when I did get cancer later that year, my immune system got wiped out with that treatment and I just never really recovered. So I've been sick on and off for three or four years and just thought, okay, I can't keep doing this to the church. So a young man, Julian, who kind of worked his way up from being children's pastor.

43:43 - Speaker 1
Yeah, there you go. He was a pastor, assistant pastor. He served your dream, served your vision. Faithful man, great guy, great man and a great speaker yeah, but he served, and little did he know that that would qualify him to then pastor.

44:02 - Speaker 2
And I kept telling him he's like, what's your plans? And so I go give me three months and I'll feel better, and I go give me another three or four months and I'll feel better. And then I was like, okay, we got to come up with a plan. We got a consultant, sam Chan, to help us put together a transition plan, and brought him in and did that. And so I did the 35 years and I'm grateful for a lot of the great things that God did. And one of the cool things that is still part of my life now is I didn't have a missions pastor because I got so passionate about missions and I'm working with this group called Watoto Child Care Ministries out of Uganda, and we had the children's choir come to our church and I think it was 2008. And I just, you know, just opened my eyes. I just fell in love with these guys, and so we took teams to Uganda from the church and every time the choir was near, we had them come, we'd take them to disneyland and I sponsored all these kids.

45:04
You know, holly and I would have these conversations no more kids you can't sponsor any more kids we, we had all these faces up on the fridge and so um, but anyway, um, uh, I I really got connected with them. I ended up on their board Wow, I've been on there for 15 years about. And so after moving here to Texas and I got settled into the house, it was like, okay, I'm ready to get busy. What should?

45:31 - Speaker 1
I do Do something.

45:32 - Speaker 2
And so I started working with them and, man, I just love it. Love what they do.

45:36 - Speaker 1
You were just in Uganda and Gary Skinner, yeah, yeah.

45:43 - Speaker 2
In Kampala, gary and Marilyn Skinner. They started Watoto Church the same month and year that we started Oasis no April of 84.

45:53 - Speaker 1
Are they originally from Canada? Yeah, they're from Canada, canadians.

45:58 - Speaker 2
And they. This year I went because they had a little belated celebration. They did their celebration in June. They celebrated 40 years.

46:06 - Speaker 1
Well, they're an amazing ministry and you're helping them with Watoto Children's Choir, the Watoto Outreach, because they've got outreach all through East Africa, not just in Kampala.

46:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I think they have 17 locations in Uganda and one in South Sudan. They have one in Juba, which is the newest capital of any country.

46:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so you're working with Watoro, and then you and your son co-started a generosityorg.

46:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, Right yeah, and that was around that time the same time with Watoto as I just started becoming aware of global needs. I don't know, it was like a light went on and and, but it was at a time when AIDS was uh was going on and we were aware of uh, the problems going on in Africa. But, um, I just read the headlines of a paper one time that said, uh, africa. But I just read the headlines of a paper one time that said 1.1 billion people didn't have access to clean water, and I was just, I couldn't believe it, because that's one out of. At the time, I think the population was 6 million, 7 million in the world One out of six.

47:14
So I said, well, we can't. And this little thing I said is like a heartfelt philosophy of mine. As I said, we can't help everybody, but we can help somebody, wow. And so we raised money and we built a hand pump water. Well, in some country I think it was Kenya the first one, maybe I don't, I can't remember exactly and then, and our people just loved it, and so we got pictures and we'd show them on a Sunday. And so we said, well, let's do another one. And so we got pictures and we'd show them on a Sunday. And so we said, well, let's do another one. And so we raised some money and built another. Well, and then we just had this idea well, everybody buys bottled water. What if we buy bottles and put a label on it that says generosity, and every time we sell a bottle we'll put you know.

47:58 - Speaker 1
Some money into helping somebody.

48:03 - Speaker 2
And so it ended up being more of a communication tool because we couldn't go into the water business.

48:06 - Speaker 3
I mean because when Pushgun Bershow, it would take a long time to sell what we could collect on a Sunday.

48:12 - Speaker 1
If you're talking, this is a big need, but it was a profile point. You know, here's the need water. You're holding some water and it's clean and need water. You're holding some water and it's clean, and there are a billion people who don't have that and I think we've all seen the photos or the pictures. That would probably all helped somebody do water right. But generosityorg you guys have done hundreds of wells now.

48:35 - Speaker 2
Yeah, we did it for about a year and a half and my son was transitioning from a business that he was in and I said, well, why don't you, while you figure things out, why don't you just come help me with generosity? You just take it, and I mean he took it to a level I didn't even expect. So we built 850 plus water projects in 21 nations, wow yeah. So it's pretty wild. And it just came from this thing. We can't help a billion people, but we can help somebody.

49:11 - Speaker 1
Or we can help somebody.

49:12 - Speaker 2
And I think God takes that. It's just like God will use that and multiply. I did that with a young man in uganda. We, we went to celebrate the opening of one of those hand pump wells yeah and uh, up in gulu, near gulu and northern uganda and this little boy came up to me and he goes uh, hey, will you be my friend? I'm broken english and I was like sure. Then I asked the translator like did I just commit?

49:42 - Speaker 1
to something. What did I commit to?

49:45 - Speaker 2
But then we just started a conversation and he said he couldn't go to school anymore because he couldn't pay the school fees. And so I asked through the translator well, what's the school fees? And it was like $40 for the year. And I was like, well, I spend that on Starbucks, you know. So I'm like, okay, I'll cover you for a year. Well then I covered him every year. Then I got him moved into Watoto schools because I know the quality is what is great. So he went to secondary, or what we call high school. Then he said I want to be an airplane mechanic. So I raised money and we paid his way through Ethiopian Airlines, did a mechanic school and went to mechanic school and so now he's working as a mechanic. His name is Daniel and he's in his 20s and got a job.

50:37 - Speaker 1
And just like this little, I can help this one person, but it just spreads you know, you know it's that and you've probably told it a hundred times, but it's the old story of the starfish, where the boy was throwing the starfish back. I love that story.

50:52
And the little boy's throwing the starfish back and a man comes by and says there's hundreds of starfish that have washed up on the shore of the beach and he's throwing them in one at a time and the man says you know, you're not going to make a difference, you know. And the young boy picks up a starfish, throws it in and says makes a difference for that one. And that's what we do, you know, with discipleship, because one of the core issues in our culture today, fatherlessness, is, I believe, a result of the lack of discipleship right.

51:24
Yeah. So when we talk about that one of the things that I've seen when we talk about church life and Oasis Church and anybody listening connected to a church with Christian Men's Network, we have—I talked with a pastor the other day and he said I'm having a real tough time. I said what's the other day? And he said I'm having a real tough time. I said what's the tough time? He said I can't get all my men engaged. I said well, what if you just got six of them engaged? You know how many men do you have in your church? You know 35, 40?. Well, what if you got 10% of them engaged? What if you got? He said yeah, but what about the others?

51:56
I said you know what, once you start with a few, it's like Gideon's 300 men. Once you start with a few, it'll start changing the atmosphere of things and the others will move along behind. That and I think that's one of the things is one of the reasons we don't start is because we want everything to come together all at the same time. But if you'd have stopped, I mean, I think about this. You're three years into it. You've got another new group of 100 people in your church. You know, holly was probably working in the industry. Was she working in the industry at that time?

52:31 - Speaker 2
She worked for the first maybe nine, 10 years, but then she stopped.

52:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, but you're three or four years into it and if at that point you had said you know what, this is just too hard, we're going to stop. You think of the thousands, tens of thousands of people, because the ripple effect of 1,000, 1,500, 3,000 people as the church became that large, the ripple effect is every one of those people affects another 20, 30, 40, 50 people. Yeah, absolutely. And you think about if you'd have quit, how many people wouldn't have had that. Now I trust God. I trust God to be coordinated, that if I didn't do that, he'd have somebody else slide in. Right, right, yeah, but at the same time, because you were faithful, all those people were touched. Now you and I have been friends and known each other a long time, but in your most recent posts over the last, say, three or four years, you really talked a lot about emotional health.

53:35 - Speaker 2
Yes.

53:35 - Speaker 1
Did that come out of some of that journey, out of the? You talked a few minutes ago about stress and the cancer thing and all that and kind of you didn't realize how tough it had gotten. Is that why you're concerned about people's emotional health?

53:48 - Speaker 2
Well, I think it gives me a sensitivity and awareness to it, because I definitely struggled with anxiety and stress and burnout, was completely emotionally, physically burned out and it took me a couple of years after the transition to just recover. Just unfortunately, after the transition we went right into COVID, so that made everybody's journey a little longer, a little more difficult, but once we got here and settled in and then I just I'd done a lot of work on my own heart and soul and dealing with health things.

54:26 - Speaker 1
What does that mean? Doing a lot of work on your soul. What does that mean?

54:31 - Speaker 2
Well, I think I went to therapy. I went to some counseling sessions and many, but I think I was evaluating the whys that I didn't even know were there, like sometimes I think I was more driven to reach more people than I was aware of the one person standing right in front of me. Oh, wow.

54:53
And so, and I think, some of my drivenness was I felt like if I had more people, if I had a bigger church, I would have more value and people would respect me more. But it's really about me respecting myself and being comfortable. You know the parable where Jesus tells us that one gets one bag, one gets two bag, one gets five. If you're the two bag guy and you're looking at the five bag guy and going, why did he get five? You know it's like Peter saying, well, what about John?

55:32 - Speaker 3
How come if I'm going to go through that what?

55:33 - Speaker 2
about him and Jesus goes it doesn't matter, doesn't matter. And I think one of the things that people struggle with today in leadership and in life we have this emotional health crisis is comparison is a big deal, oh man, and so like, and it affected me a lot. But you know, like we said, we had 100 people for eight, nine years, but we've got guys that, in my view view are crushing it. They've got 300 guys, but they've got social media. They go to a conference and they hear this guy started with a thousand and now he's got 5,000 or whatever, and they just think I'm horrible, I'm the worst leader ever. And I think, no, you have. You've been going for a year and a half. You got 300 people. I would have died to be in your shoes, and so I think that comparison just brings out things in our soul Like why are we doing what we're doing? And I don't think the kingdom of God defines success the way we do in our society. Yeah, no question.

56:42
And so if somebody's pastoring a church of two or 300 people, they're not going to be a better pastor if they had a thousand it's. What is God leading you to do? Is this the place for you to be? And I wanted to leave LA a number of times. I just would get so frustrated, and we actually flew to a couple of different cities and said, maybe because we're in the inner city, nobody's in the inner city except us.

57:13
And I had I don't want to say his name, but an influential leader said you know, you guys would do great in the suburbs because you're here in the inner city and you're like this young little white couple and here you are in the urban. So but then we stuck it out. And then, while the city of Los Angeles is racially diverse churches aren't at all but we, by the end of our run we had around 20 something percent black, 20 something percent white, 20 something percent Asian, 20 something percent Hispanic, so we were diverse racial.

57:54 - Speaker 1
I remember going to church there very diverse.

57:56 - Speaker 2
It was wild and so I mean I give. Obviously that's the grace of God.

58:02 - Speaker 1
Yeah, but going back on this thing, this comparison thing is huge, isn't it?

58:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah.

58:08 - Speaker 1
You know, and we live in a Facebook Instagram culture.

58:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, Right, yeah, that would be the negative part, and we hear that all the time about social media. I mean, I enjoy it, I think it's good.

58:26 - Speaker 1
But you're good at it.

58:26 - Speaker 2
I'm not out there trying to compete, philip wagner, it's uh, because you always have some great stuff, yeah, and then some funny things philip wagner 2.0, but um, but yeah, that that teenagers especially really struggle because they see, you know you post your highlight reel, yeah, that, that's not life, it's not the locker room, it's not everyday life, and so I'm always impressed when somebody is honest about I've been through this depression or discouragement or I wanted to quit, and people need to know that that's normal.

58:58
You know, I think sometimes in my reflecting I wanted to be positive, I wanted to be a man of faith, and so from the platform you can't really get into all your struggles. But I think sometimes we tried to normalize or we didn't normalize going through problems and we talked we're overcoming, and I'll just say the right words if at the week say I'm strong, but there are people sitting there that are just in such pain and such loneliness and isolation and we're not giving them, I don't know, enough attention in some way.

59:37 - Speaker 1
They're not able to grab a hold of hope.

59:40 - Speaker 2
Yeah.

59:41 - Speaker 1
In a way that demonstrably moves them to a different level of thinking in life. Yeah, yeah, I think that's, but that's what the church is supposed to be. Yeah, right, I mean, two of the major stories that are only in Luke, is that right? Or are they only in Matthew? They're only in one ofke. Is that right? Or they only have to throw it? This is great. Uh is uh, that's luke. Uh is uh the good samaritan? Yeah, and the woman caught in adultery. Those are fulcrum points of the gospel, because it's, it's how it's. Jesus and grace. The religious people showed up with stones. Jesus showed up with grace. And then it's how we're supposed to act. Because the Good Samaritan and that's a racial thing too, because the Good Samaritan took care of the guy it says, in fact, it says that he walked over and looked at him. He had to go out of his way, he had to go over and look and see. But that's the gospel and that's what we're supposed to be, but that's the gospel and that's what we're supposed to be.

01:00:41 - Speaker 2
That's what we tried to make. Our heartbeat at Oasis was that that was my favorite the prodigal son, the good Samaritan. That's how we wanted people to hear and understand the gospel. And one of the things that's really disturbing to me and alarming to me is, on social media that you look at the comments from Christians about people who've messed up or fallen, or maybe they post something that has the wrong information or something, but people just crush them. It just doesn't seem like there's much mercy or grace in people's heart, which I think that is the message yeah, there's no grace in anonymity.

01:01:32 - Speaker 1
It's difficult and that is the message. So Holly is speaking in some places occasionally.

01:01:38 - Speaker 2
Yeah, she speaks at women's events and she'll speak at— sometimes churches have her for the women's event on the weekend and then she stays over into Sunday.

01:01:45 - Speaker 1
And then you guys do marriage things.

01:01:48 - Speaker 2
No, we did that for a season, we did some many conferences in churches, but we haven't done that for a bit and then you're helping with the Watoto church.

01:01:58 - Speaker 1
I do that. She's fantastic.

01:01:59 - Speaker 2
So I will go and see pastors or churches that have supported them and encouraged them, and so I speak. I work with the ARC, the Association of Related Churches, so there's a lot of church planters and I like to encourage the young guys and I'll speak at different churches from time to time.

01:02:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, I like that. Well, there are so many different areas. You're a multifaceted person and from music, jesus, people, stuff, all that era to planting a church, launching a church, surviving that, thriving, going through the things you went through health-wise, and all of that is pretty amazing. Philip, you're a remarkable man and I want to thank you for being on Brave Men with us today.

01:02:51 - Speaker 2
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation and I'm just grateful that God would use me to make a difference.

01:02:58 - Speaker 1
Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I think it's been really encouraging because we can hear ourselves in a lot of your conversations. I've seen you from afar for many years and then we've gotten to know you and you're a very humble man, but you've done some great things, but you're humble about it and I appreciate that. So that helps us guys like me just connect with you and with what the Lord is doing in your heart and so, yeah, it's awesome man. Thank you.

01:03:37 - Speaker 3
Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts or download it. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.