Brave Men S2E14: Brotherhood

I live in Texas. I went fishing last year in Alaska, and then love going into Wyoming and Montana. The interesting thing in the image we have about these states is it. It's a man on horseback standing stronger against the wind, sitting tall in the saddle, against the obstacles of life, that rugged man facing the elements. The real issue though is that in those particular states, Texas, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, they are the fastest growing states from men committing suicide. Men between the ages of 45 and 65, you know, perhaps men ruggedly facing the obstacles only happens in the movies if you're Jason Statham or the rock. We'll talk about that today on Brave Man. It's Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. With me today on Brave Man is the provocateur of the show today, which is Brian Boyd, my friends. Good to have you here Brian. I'm not sure about that. Great to be here Paul. Thank you. This is a great podcast. You're a great host and excited to get this next season of Brave Man up and running. Yeah. I'm talking about brotherhood and what that means and what it means to be friends. You know, in that little intro, Brian, I talked about the rising pattern of men committing suicide between the ages of 45 and 65 and it's in the places that we would normally say, oh, these are rugged men are facing the elements, you know, the tough guy. It's, you know, Bruce Willis walking away from the explosion in the movie. You know, it's that, you know, tough men always walk away from explosions. So, but man, it turns out that that's not the case. So what is brotherhood? How do you define brotherhood? You know what? Maybe brotherhood is this. I was in the maybe here's what it isn't. Okay. Let me start with what it's not sometimes. That's an easier way to look at things. I was I was working out the other day and I was in a particular area. I was on the stationary bike and guys next to me were talking to each other. One guy said, hey, where's and he mentioned the guy, you know, where's where's, you know, David and the other guy goes, you know, he had an accident and he's been he was in the hospital for a couple of months. Another guy goes, really? He says, yeah, he said, he said, how did you know that? He says, why I heard it from another guy. And the one man next to me goes, huh, well, I worked out, you know, almost every day with him for the last few years and I didn't know anything about that. Wow. And yet if if if the guy that's in the hospital said, if you asked him, who are your friends? You go, oh, man, I've got these three guys I work out with. Right. Those guys right had actually known that that happened. That is a picture of how we talk about friendships today and what friendships really are is not that. Brian the other day, I was with I was in a meeting and I had just done some research on this brotherhood friendship, what it means to be a friend. And I said, you know, the the stats in the US now is that the average man has 1.7 friends. Okay. And I told those guys, I said, everybody knows who the point seven guy is. Yeah. Because he's the guy that doesn't show up when you have to move. Wow, that's true. The pizza doesn't do it. Do justice. It doesn't work. So friendships though are so different today. And I want to talk about social media for a second, Paul, because I just yesterday I spoke with somebody on the phone and we hadn't spoken in probably a year or so and he knew everything about me. He said, Brian, you're still running marathon. You're doing this. How things going? So on the outside, it seemed like we were friends because he knew everything was going on, but we haven't talked. So, so friendship seems to be diluted in such a way that that at least there's a tertiary level of people that we call friends. You know, I don't know. It's it's it's it's different today. Yeah, it you know, here, let's look at it this way. Let's let's look at it from a different perspective though, Brian. What if that guy you talked to you who you hadn't talked to for a while? But you've been friends for decades, right? Yeah. And so here you are. And he says, man, I see you're still running marathons. You know, Brian, you had a big business that you started back in New York. And so he kind of knew about some of those things. What if rather than just totally being disconnected? What if that media, social media actually helped him stay connected with somebody who's a a long time friend, but who he doesn't see very often. You know, in other words, you can't go on social media and say, I've got eight thousand friends. Right. You know, there was a there was a social scientist, a number of years ago, came up with a number called Dunbar's number, Dunbar's number. And then a guy named Joe Gerard came up with a number that came out of him and he wrote a book about himself called the greatest salesman who ever lived. He talked his number was 148. Dunbar's number is 149. And what that is was a number which they came up with that you have influence in that you basically have within a sphere of influence in your life. I look at it sort of like this. Jesus had, you know, the 70 that he sent out. He had the 12 that he hung out with. He had the three that were intimate. And then he had one guy that was a close friend that wasn't even a part of that group. So I think there's different levels of friendship. Brian, I think that sometimes here's what I think a close friend is a close friend knows the names of your kids. Sure. I mean, if you have children, if you're single, he at least knows what your hobby is or what your last, you know, trip was or what you're dealing with the work. I think that's a friend. And I think that comes in closer and closer. I've got friends. And when we get together, man, we just catch up. Right. But I may only see them once every two years. But the beauty of the beauty side of Instagram and all that is that for instance, Dave, who's been my friend since a sophomore year of high school. So that's let me think. That's back in black and white. That was electricity was. Yes, electricity was that I think just to be a kid off. He has cool. Yeah. Thanks, Brian. And so I think of Dave. Dave and I talk about once or three months. I haven't seen him in two year and a half. But I'm watching his children grow his grandchildren. So when we get together, there's a platform of catching up that's immediate. I ran into a guy yesterday. I hadn't seen him four years. But I knew about his children and I knew about his new grandchild. Right. Hey, ask the new grand. So there's the upside. The downside is that we've become increasingly high tech, but low touch. Yes. We begin to depend on those things to keep us connected. Whereas I believe real connection. And it's true even in the church, Brian, you know, in community. I don't believe that that we can connect with people sitting in rows facing the stage where one guy does a monologue. I believe we really connect with friends around a table with a cup of coffee, talking about issues. Or as a man, I connect with other men. And really when we give fully connected, it's because we're facing a challenge together. Might be building a habitat for humanity house. It might be putting an event together. It might be working on a car or fishing fishing. I think fishing is probably the ultimate. Good for you, good for you, Paul. But but that's really the so I think there's different levels and but a man has to have a guy. Here's here's let me look at this brotherhood Brian, I think I think you've got it because you've faced some hardships. You and I have talked. I've faced some issues. I think you have to have somebody you can call on the phone at midnight. I believe a good friend is life's shock absorber. You know, I heard it said that you know, a good friend lights up the room when he walks in. Others light up the room when they leave. No, no, it's true. But you know, that's it, man. You see your you see your friend walk in. We see some Judy and I have dinner with friends on a regular basis. And when they walk in, I'm it's like, Hey, you know, just lights up. They know our stuff. We know what they're going through. That's great. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, there have been dinner meetings at dinner things that we just look count the days to those to those. Oh, we're getting together with the so-and-so this weekend. Yeah, you know, you count the days till you get there. There's other meetings you have where you count the minutes till you can get home. Sure, man. All right. The nice thing about friends on a social media is if they don't, if you want to be their friend anymore, you can keep them as friends, but you can mute them. You're kidding. So they disappear from your feed, but they're still friends. I had no idea. So when real life that's much harder. Oh, wow. I guess you can use duct tape or something. It's called ghosting. Ghosting. That's true. Ghosting. You just kind of aren't there. You just the kids on TikTok know about that, right guys? Yeah, TikTok. There you know, anyway, you know, and the issue here's the downside of it is the pressure that comes, you know, from having a great feed or having a cool video or whatever. And all of that, here's the beauty of a friend. A friend has grace. A friend loves the Bible says a friend loves it all times. First Corinthians 13 and talking about love wasn't just about it. It's always Brian, we always do first Corinthians 13 at weddings. Yeah, right. Love is love. You know, I think first Corinthians 13 is really activated in friendship. We were in India. We've been in India a few times and helping some churches there and doing some marketing and trying to think if I should say his name, I think I'll just leave it out. But a pastor in a church in India, we got to know each other really well. He was taking us back to our hotel one night after a long day of whatever. And he kind of took me aside and said, you know, I'd really like to be your friend. Something like that was lying. Yeah. Like he mentally stopped, took a moment, took me aside, said, hey, I really want to be a friend friend to you. Only time in my life, 53 years as someone's ever said that to me. Really? And I broke down. It was so moving that he would take the time to say that. Wow. And so really, those moments are unforgettable. Let me ask you one more thing about social media before you move on. Do you think that people put on a fake persona? So on social media, you're one type of man, one type of guy, but in real life, that's not who you are. So your friends don't even know who you are because you're putting on a totally different face. I don't know what you call that. There's probably a name for that. Yeah. It's just glamin' your life, you know, trying to make it look a certain way. And people do that in order to attract followers in order to become influencers in order to make money and they create funnels and all this stuff in. You know, if you have to do that in order to be something or create affirmation, you know, really it's a cry for validation. It's a cry for validation. And I think that validation is found in friendships, not in having this really cool Instagram feed. Now I do follow a couple photographers that I don't know the guys, but manner of photography is remarkable. I was just looking at Clark Little's stuff this morning, out of Hawaii, you know, where he does the the short breaks and the ocean shots. And I grew up on the ocean. And so I love his stuff. And so I follow that. I look at that. It fills my heart, fills my life. You know, I don't know Clark. I know guys who know him. But, you know, but for the other stuff, you know, that's all that fake stuff. It's just posing, man. And it's counterproductive to you becoming the person God designed you to be. And here's the other thing, Brian. Here's another thing that I think some conversations should be private. Right. In fact, I think there are some things that people post and put on their feed. And we call it, well, it's false humility, but we call it the humble brag. For the humble brag. And you know, I'm just grateful to be here, to be used of God. And it's a shot of this guy on a yacht. You know, somebody's yacht or something. I'm just grateful to be here. Whatever I can be, I'm just a servant. And he's in front of 12,000 people. I'm just nothing, but God can use nothing to do. And it's a humble brag. Some of that stuff just needs to be private. There's some places that that some people are blessed to go, maybe a resort, maybe some other place like that, that 98% of us will never go to. That's true. And we look at it. And it's like, oh, I'm just, you know, blessed to be here. And or somebody gets. It just makes you feel, yeah, it makes it makes your pit in your stomach. Well, here's what it is. You know what's the fundamental question of a man's life? Do I measure up? Do I measure up? And I think there's some things, in fact, a number of things that people put on social media that don't help another man be lifted up. In fact, it lifts them above somebody else. And whenever I post something, I'm thinking of my friends in different parts of the country and different parts of the world. My friends and Vietnam, my friends, friends, when I say friends, they're friends, my friends in Indonesia, my friends in Uganda, my friends, Jerry and his wife in Botswana, I think of the stuff they're going through and what's happening in their lives. And so I try to do something. You know, well, a lot of my Instagram feed is grandkids. So it's awesome. I love that. Somebody post that dinner, that plate of vegetables. Let's let's let's all agree to stop posting. Yeah, that whole thing is unless you so here's a deal. If you shot it and cooked it or caught it and fried it, and you shot then there's it. I'll go with that. It's like here's, you know, here's the way I cooked the deer. I just shot and skinned in the wild. You know, with my with my bare hands. So, you know, I'm going with that. The thing is is that what happens for a lot of that, and because we get so tuned into the high-tech load touch, we become isolated. It's what happened to Elijah, Brian. And first Kings XIX chapter, here's a guy. Let me think about it. Elijah, Elijah, in fact, he doesn't even say God says he just says it ain't going to rain anymore. He said on my word, I mean, this is a man of faith, power, substance. This is a man of strength. This a man who goes to the king and says it is not going to rain until I say because you guys are all on righteous, right? And then he does this big contest with over 400 of these prophets of Bale, the priests of the Antichrist or evil. And they do this thing with the sacrifice on an altar. And he says, if you guys can call down fire, we'll serve Bale. And so 400 guys, man, they're dancing all day, cutting themselves, doing all this stuff. Elijah's over the side. Now I like this guy, because he's a real guy. He says at one point says maybe you're, if you're God's busy, maybe he's on the toilet. Yeah, it's great. He's just, I mean, he's the slammer. That's a real man. But here's Elijah, this guy who did the, and then he calls fire from the sky. First of all, he says it's not going to rain. Then he calls fire from the sky and then kills all of those guys. And this is, this is an amazing man. But here's the problem with Elijah's life. And the reason that we don't want to walk this direction, he then his, the wife of the king then puts a contract out on his head and he runs for his life. He's, he become, he's alone. He's isolated. He's in fear. In fact, he tells his servant, no, you just stay here. I'm going to this cave and he gets in a cave and he just says, God, why don't you kill me? And it's a pattern of suicidal thinking. He's disconnected from any other person. And God, after a series of conversations and things that happen, he said, well, I'm the only one that's left that's following you. He's alone. He's disconnected. He's isolated. He gets depressed. Fear happens. It's a pattern. And when we're disconnected from community, this is what happens to us. And he gets, he says, hey, just kill me. I'm the only one left. God says to him, Brian. He says, uh, Elijah, get up. Go back to work. I've got 7,000 other men who haven't bowed a knee to bail. So my question is that it just hit me last year, Brian. I was like, look at this goal. Why didn't he know the any of the other 7,000 guys? How narrow had had his life become? And what he was doing, building his ministry, you know, his, his, the man he meant to order and gave his anointing to Elisha, went very different. He built a school of the prophets. He built a community of brothers, but Elijah was by himself. And by himself disconnected, this guy who had called fire from the sky, right? This man who had said it ain't going to rain. And God, God connected or agreed with his word. And that guy said, just kill me. God said, no, I've got 7,000 other men. Why didn't he know any of those other guys? I think that's the issue. And that's why, you know, we've talked a lot about social media. And I know Brian, you're very involved in all of this communication and helping me do this podcast, all this. And we talked about being able to mentor people or mentor or teach people over the internet. And we're doing some things this year to disseminate this. I think God gave us all this to be able to get the gospel out of established this kingdom. But I don't believe true brotherhood can happen on a Zoom call or a Skype connection, right? I believe you've got to sit down with somebody. That's why the local church is the hope of the world. Because it's in the local church, we see the incarnation of Christ and community in the hearts of believers, penetrating culture, permeating with the Holy Spirit culture. You can't do it by yourself. You're going to be the guy on the horseback, facing the elements, rugged, and then tipped over and caved saying, God, just kill me. So the local church is key to that. I think there are churches that don't have programs for men. So what do you say if you're a small church if let's say 50 or 200 or 2000, you know, before we close out today, maybe we can talk a little bit about the role of the church as you just kind of segue it into. But how does the church get a program started? Where do they start in? Well, first of all, I think, you know, here's a deal. Most pastors, and I've been a pastor in a church planter. I've also been in business for most of my life. And most pastors are taught how to preach sermons, not how to, not how to disciple men. So we don't do it. What we don't know how to do, we don't do. And I want to pull it down to something simple because we, man, we take this discipleship then Brian and we make it really complicated. You know, religion really complicates the gospel. Jesus came to just blow that up. And here's why here's what he said in John 15, John records this. He said, I no longer call you slaves because a master doesn't confide in slaves. I call you my friends. Powered the life of Abraham was he was a James says he was a friend of God. So Brian, I think fundamentally the role of a pastor in a leadership in a church is to build friendships. Let me think about it. If you build friendships, if you build community, that community in those friends will build a church. But if you build a church that's just a crowd, when the tough times come, when the, when this stuff happens, it's going to rock that thing and people are just going to leave. They're gone. Right. Because they weren't, they didn't have friendship. You know, I want to talk some other time Brian and one of our times together on this brave man podcast. I want to talk about Jesus had a friend that was such a close friend. He didn't make him a disciple. And that friend was I think the outlet for the life of Jesus on the earth as a man. We've got in his name was Lazarus. We've got to have friends. Friends, I believe are the secret to life, to a good life and to living a fulfilled life is building friendships and they're build Brian. They happen over time. They happen on purpose. They happen because you call somebody. You go out for a cup of coffee, you. I just texted a friend of mine this morning. So what are you guys doing Sunday night? He's a pastor of a large group of churches. And so you guys in town, he says, yeah, so let's grab Sunday night and man would love to. So the four of us, Judy and I and he and his wife will get together. Great. And we'll talk purposefully about things, about family, about friendships and we'll talk about life. We'll talk about philosophy of ministry. He's a brilliant man. And so I'm always whenever I'm around people like that, I always ask a lot of questions. That's friendship. There's a lot to unpack from today's podcast. And I can think of four or five different points that really stand out to me. What is a friend? How can you be a friend? That person you call it midnight? What is brotherhood? The role of the church. And for those of y'all listening today, y'all like it. That was good. You're rubbing off on me for. Well, that's I don't say. It's where I live. I don't know where that comes from. You moved south. You moved down before. Yeah, I don't know. picked up all the old calories. All right. They're talking about calories. For any y'all listening today. Well, Paul the Apostle said that. He said, I would that you all see. There you go. Speaking of y'all. See a man has a Southern Israel. See a man has a great resource called majoring in men. And you can learn more about it at majoringinman.com. And if you're a pastor or a leader or you just want to learn about how to start a program, majoring in men is a great series of short videos that you can listen to and give you some real practical and tactile steps to creating a men's ministry to men in your in your church or in your organization. So learn more about that at majoringinman.com. Paul, thank you for today. Brotherhood. It's a great kickoff to this next season of the Brave Men podcast. And I think we've got some great topics coming up. Do you want to tease any of the other topics coming up in future episodes? Well, we're going to talk about forgiveness, the power of that, what that means. And then I want to come back to Lazarus. Why don't we just do a podcast that just talks about Lazarus? Sure. It's a pretty amazing guy, you know, the whole, you know, like raised from the dead thing. That's a pretty cool thing. It wasn't just 10 minutes. It wasn't, you know, 15 minutes in heaven and it wrote a book. It was like four days now. Awesome. I mean, there's dead and then there's dead. So I'm not sure what to say, but I can't wait for that topic. So please share this with your friends and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Brave Men podcast. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network. Connect with Paul at cmd.man or write to him at Paul at cmd.man.