BraveMen S3E54: Paul Coughlin - Stand Up! Calling Men To Courageous Masculinity

when i first saw no more christian nice guy i thought now this is a book that needed to be written and of course it was written about uh... my co-host uh... today christ written about you right no more christian nice guy yes and paul cocklin wrote this he's the founder and president of the protectors which is a freedom from bullying organization but when he wrote this book originally a couple decades ago he was a newspaper editor and uh... very involved in what was going on in his church and in his you know his faith but as a newspaper editor begin to look at it and thought why why are we portraying men so you it's such an emasculated way yeah you know it's like the book david murrow why why men don't go to church and it's it's like because they don't like maw and lace right yes you know and uh... so when when paul cocklin hit this man it it really resonated i remember seeing this and and now he's redone it and so to be able to spend some time with them talk to him this interview here with paul cocklin i think is is going to sell it set a bunch of guys free yes i do too yeah yeah i and i mean this guy is amazing i mean he's done stuff with you know the l.a. times good morning america yeah you know um and he's a varsity soccer coach whoa i don't know that he's one couple state championships man in uh... he's done stuff with the bots more ravens he could have really used in the other day or they could have used him the other day so when it actually you know when we tape these little things there's different stuff going on so we can kind of people could tell what's what's happened yeah but the fact is is that uh... i think no more christian ice guy i thought really hit something and i just i want guys to get a hold of book read it in fact the first 10 pages i told him i said uh... christ i said uh paul i'm really kind of mad at you about something he goes what i said well those first 10 pages i wish i had written them i know it was like shoot man this is so good yeah dang it and uh... so anyway it's just great and then out of there came no more christian ice girl and uh... merry but not engaged uh... number of other uh... books that he's written yeah and it's on kindle and audio books and all that sort of stuff yeah i want to read the raising bully proof kids yeah i mean that thing the whole protectors piece has come out of his research also yeah and uh... it is is become a really large thing he's actually become a uh... he goes he speaks in court he's professional witness uh... he talks about bullying with people he he uh... goes to schools uh... this is a fascinating uh... interview and he's just the nicest guy to super nice like oh my gosh like working with him to um... coordinate the interview he just hey anything you need yep i'm here you know well that's the thing because he's just real he's in the present he's not trying to put on something which was part of the whole the whole thing no more christian nice guy isn't about some being a jerk it's really about just not being soft yeah and so in living in a present and being real and being a guy and somebody calls you you call them back wow you do that yeah we do that you know somebody text you text back you know it's in other words it's it's you're just your guy your man yeah you respect other men yeah but i think it goes to you know the fact that oftentimes we do not teach the fullness of love you know we talk about the soft gushiness of it but there's a toughness to it and i love you know that's one thing i love about maximize manhood is seeing the other side the complete wow it's okay to say no sometimes yeah it's kind of like this you know i love you you love me yeah i also love my grandchildren we have one word for it in english you know it's love i love my grandkids i love you but if you mess with my grandkids you'll find out how much i love them exactly because i'm taking you out exactly yeah and so that i think that side of it is love that's where discipline comes from is it father that's where respect comes from it's where where courage comes from and so that whole missing virtue if you will that that seems to be missing in our culture for men the way we've emasculated men you know we're just rising up man we're calling up the spirit of Elijah and men it's game time come on man yeah it's time to be real get with it getting a fight and so i'm excited to have today i'm brave man Paul Cochlan it's brave man with Paul Lewis Cole wisdom and courage for the journey i'm talking with Paul Cochlan who wrote an amazing book i read years ago and i want to get right into it it's called no more Christian nice guy and apparently it's it's the confessions of a former Christian nice guy but then you also started something and you're a coach soccer coach which means actually in reality your football coach and then you started something called the protectors freedom from bullying so we're going to try to get into all this you are a fully orbs person you have a lot going on but i want to direct you uh paul to page 88 where you said we should burn the bible is that maybe i maybe i pulled that out of context no i i think so i think i think what we should do that's that's good i think what we should do is um we need to burn what i call the ngb the nice guy the ngb version it's uh it's very similar to uh Thomas Jefferson's version of the new testament right where he couldn't you know he couldn't get his mind or whatever around the fact that there were supernatural things happening so he cut them out he cut them out they say Jefferson bible still exists yeah yep yep and and so i think we need to do something similar to the ngb and uh when i first started going to church i was grafted into it i didn't grow up in the church and uh when i got into the church and many other men too you get a certain version of it and that version is largely we're only the nice stuff is emphasized and the tough stuff is um it's just not covered and if it's covered um it's certainly not emphasized it's covered in a nice way so nice to you became a swear word a four letter word it is it's right up there with uh the word fair that's also another four letter word if you're looking for fairness this is the wrong place uh unfortunately i bring that up because that takes have a lot of nice guys nice guys believe that if if they are virtuous that others are bound to be virtuous toward them and uh obviously there's some truth to that but that is uh that the world just doesn't work that way right there are benevolent people in this world and they will take a person's niceness and they'll use it against them because they see it as weakness and many times niceness is weakness let's be honest um i know that i was nice not because i particularly cared about other people i just didn't want conflict with them so you're just the nicest guy to ever be around and you can get away with that behavior in the church uh largely rewards it but uh when you get in the marriage it's a whole notable game uh and in fact the main group as you know the book's been around for like 12 years there's a been revised version that uh i was able to do the number one group pal that uh it gravitates toward this book sons of pastors wow sons of pastors because they're expected to be nice all the time and uh it makes sense uh and what do you do John yeah so now here you are your coach have you ever coached uh a soccer game uh where they decided just for the benefit of the player so nobody gets upset they decided not to keep score never never i was never part of that generation no no i didn't really nicer paul it'd be nicer they would drive it would drive your better players crazy and uh some of the parents as well yeah uh see that's so that's fascinating to me so when i talk about ngb and nice guy bible so uh no more christian nice guy is the book and you revised it and so it's it's available wherever finer books are found then uh out of this this nice guy thing and i want to get back into some of the background you started an anti-bullying or freedom from bullying because trying to be a nice guy if you will even as a young man you ended up becoming being bullied you sure do um let me point out two things so uh the protectors are anti-bullying organization work in public private schools in North America throughout the world um that actually came out of no more christian nice guy uh as you know uh spoke a lot across uh United States other countries as well i spoke for promise keepers iron sharpens iron a lot of other men's conferences there and one thing i noticed pal was when i um would talk about justice uh i noticed that my audience would just like rise up like this this primal sap through a tree right i mean they just would you see men just get get like yeah that's right that's right uh i call that thumos the thumotic spirit that the Greeks uh and the Romans wrote about as well particularly Aristotle and so uh they there's something about fighting for justice and it does it in women too but it it uh it grows that martial spirit uh you ask a little boy what he wants to be many times he wants to do the martial occupations you know i want to be a soldier or firefighter or a police officer and i think we're made that way uh by god uh i think that men if if if if i were to define masculinity by the way the words only like 125 years old doesn't appear in the bible it's a social construct right and um if if i were to define it i would say it is love bolstered by courage so it's a courageous flavored love that i think masculinity should be so hey i talk about that their promise keepers and guys would just light up and uh and so i created a movement to to um find out where is justice missing why is it missing and back then we settled upon adolescent bullying and uh the protectors were was born at a no more christian ice guy wow that's amazing you know it's uh it stirs the heart it was years ago uh canvas crusade bill bright bill bright said this he said in a group meeting i was in he said uh small dreams don't stir the heart of big men and and so basically what you what you what you've done is you began to speak to something larger we're going to fight for this we're we were made you know it's it's david you know it's david we were made in the image of god and david uh god said about david when he was about eight years old he said because Samuel's lamenting Saul and uh in Saul's a perfect example of you get the government you voted for you voted for so picture for us today in fact you live in oregon i do uh it's uh i lived in i grew up in california so uh you've got governor moonbeam's sister is your governor so uh no that's right fascinating so but but david david god said i found a man after my own heart when he's about eight or nine years old i've found a man after my own heart he's speaking Ephesians 2 10 over him he's speaking life over a nine year old who's the youngest of you know eight boys and he's throwing rocks at the sheep and stuff and but god says i designed him to be this way you know that stew-ever tender warrior thing that you know david could kill a bunch of guys and write a poem about it you know i mean and that is that is who we're supposed to be and it seems like christianity or the church let's put it that way has kind of demasculated men and uh feminized us and it's yeah that's what we call it sanctification yeah the sanctification as we do it's it's it is something we're expected to just lay our you know masculinity at the foot of the cross um and and therefore we become sanctified in it and and so you know i think that it's it's a be careful with gas for type of thing right because pastors will often lament and rightly so you know the the men sometimes just don't know that active yeah well they're not all that active in part because um a certain nutrient has been taken out of them uh there's this kind of spiritual anemia that could take place when all you do is read the NGB if all you do is read the NGB the sweet stuff you're just going to get spiritual cavities as is how it works wow we talk about the fruit of the spirit what about the vegetables of the spirit um you know what about courage you know these these are the things that are really really important for us to do and be and and and you know men men want a bone to chew on we're very much like dogs um if you don't give a dog a bone to chew on it's going to chew on something else and so we really do want to to to fight to solve a problem to lift others up um and we need to be shown how to do that to me to be encouraged how to do that and if we think that the kingdom of heaven is only ushered in by just a big nice guy smile that's just not how the world works yeah thank the world wisdom yeah sanctification you know it's it's as if is as if they they misconstrued circumcision right into cutting off the entire member yeah okay so in other words in other words it's uh uh sanctification is is the cutting off of the colonies of a Christian man I mean that's essentially what the church has done over the years thank god for people like yourself Paul who have written books like this and thank god for uh well my dad yeah Dr. Cole and coach Mack and and other guys and and uh you're on down the line you know Pat Morley and all the guys who begin to speak about the things and Stu Weber and you know um who begin to speak of the masculinity of men yeah yeah I think what happens so you know masculinity is often been it's a social construct right and it's it usually asks uh fundamental questions and it asks what does society want from a man what does the military want from a man and what does religion want from a man and that was pretty codified for a good amount of time and then the sixties and seventies comes along and they jettison the religious part in the military part and so we stay with what culture wants and so you're kind of getting one third of a guy unfortunately now that's kind of changed since then the things have beginning to reform and promise keepers was a huge move forward on that because they were inserting back in what religion and I think to some degree what military wants from man as well so it's a little better than it used to be but it it's not where it should be it's not where it should be and it comes down to this you know this thumatic spirit that Aristotle and others wrote about this kind of a primal sap that guys have and it thumus is a word that I covered in a book called unleashing courageous faith has to do with courage has to do with strength and what has happened is we've decided that that is just dangerous at all of it's dangerous and it is the baby with the bathwater argument certainly a man who does not have his power under control is it can be an extremely dangerous benevolent human being but we forget the other side of it the other side is if a man has no thumus he's dangerous too but he's just dangerous in the sins of omission not the sins of co-mission we haven't I don't even know how to think anymore when it comes to some of these things and we need to learn how to think better because you rip that out of a man he's not reliable he's not going to do well he's going to be a horrible friend and he's certainly not going to be meaningful for the kingdom of heaven never named one nice person who's done anything meaningful other than give us the weather in the morning and some really good recipes shoot that just you might as well just go ahead and hit it head on the thing is Paul is that you know to be a man and again society you talk about the three areas culture religion and military and and this has been studied quite a bit the fact that we don't have as many young men in the military we don't have to fight as many wars you know so a lot of what the purpose was for young men isn't there anymore and we've called them you know here's your here's your battle you're gonna this be a nice guy and and it does it it ameliorates that manhood it kind of rips it out of us in that sense and so I think that that voices like yours and again we're talking about we're talking to Paul Kaufland and we get into protectors in a minute and no more Christian nice guy and here's a quote you said you said this is great you know I'll tell you why I got really mad at this book when I first read it about the first I don't know I you know I had the paper and now I'm reading it off a you know digital and about the first 24 pages or so I got really upset I get really mad and the reason is is that I wish I had written it I got I got really tech it was like gosh I wish I'd have written that this is fantastic you knew the difficulty I'm through reading that book published you wouldn't be you wouldn't be too jealous I'll tell you that it was so hard to get it published so so here's what you wrote right near the front it says talking about the NGB version of the Bible the nice guy Bible you said to get to where we need to go with this book we have to kill the Mellow Yellow Dossile unemotional lotus sitting Jesus drinking kombucha and finding us little humans mildly amusing amusing while trying to clear his head of conflict and division as Tennyson put it contemplating all you know yeah because we forget when you talk about dangerous Paul Jesus was dangerous this guy beat up guys in church and the last supper this holy special very wonderful moment where he grabs the cup that nobody had drunk from him 1500 years and chewed his tips over and all those stuffs happening and he's and he tells the guys listen you're going to have to go out you're you guys are going to get this done but hang on just a second does everybody have a sword yeah yeah that's right that's what look at it you guys does everybody have a sword well if you don't sell your cloak sell your cloak that's that's what he writes sell your jacket and get one and then later on Peter he goes yeah we got a couple swords and he cuts the guy's ear off and Jesus goes no no this not exactly what I meant hang on and he picks up the ear puts it back on the guy and looks at I mean think of the Roman centurions and he looks at him goes what's he ear back on goes are we all good you know it's such a great moment but he was dangerous Paul and we just need to have ripped that out of like Jefferson ripping out miracles we've ripped out the dangerous side of Jesus yeah yeah and we're left with a incomplete picture we're not given the whole Jesus to emulate unfortunately you know Martin Luther King said that no one is good unless they bear within their character antithesis strongly marked that is an egghead way of saying no one is good unless they're both tender and tough the great Irish proverb do not trust a soldier who can't cry right so we're really not good a good person is a whole person a good person is one who has integrity integrity does not mean only avoiding sin that's not what it means to have integrity is to be whole it's to have a spectrum of character traits and right now what's happening with NGB is we're taking that integrity away we're not making whole men we're making a a caricature really of men who are not going to do well in this world the NGB makes naive men and naive men get eaten alive and the main group that has gravitated toward this book for help and I did a podcast last week with a young man who was the son of a pastor and he said your book fundamentally changed my life in fact it saved his life he had lost his first wife and his second marriage is better because of the book and now he has six kids all of them girls so sons of pastors are the ones who really get a very dangerous message and think about this what you know about this right it I didn't grow up in the church I've been a contrarian voice with all my book almost all my books and it's just two I am I'm an outlier without a doubt I'm not really embraced frankly by the official Paul where'd you grow up grew up in receipt of California my parents Irish immigrants and so I grew up phenomenally Catholic and but didn't really I'm not putting down Catholicism any way shape or form but you know I just grew up largely just a lost kid you know and then I you know someone inviting me to church and and I went it was a life changing experience but even today but I have to tell you when you don't grow up in it right and so you get grafted in you look at some of the things we do and you're like why do we do these things and why do we have pal some of it honestly has been my life to some degree when it comes to church has been an adventure and missing the point if you know it was largely just don't sin you know which is interesting because the one sin I never heard about was the sin of cowardice revelation 218 that they never ever came up in the list of sins I was supposed to avoid you know oh so I believe in it and I'm part of it but there are parts of it that just make you go really that's what I'm gonna talk about yeah it's sort of like you know it's not attractive to a guy when you tell me why don't you come to church and and then they show up and you're doing like the two-step hop and clap thing and and they're like this is it you go yeah man this is awesome I'm good do you know what happens pal when you when you ask a man to hold another man's hand in church and they close their eyes but they're not praying they're going they're going one Mississippi two Mississippi three just want it to be over shoot that's fun you know I've been in so many men's meetings where they've done stuff like that and I've gone up and I've just schooled the guys afterwards who were leading it you know I'll do I do what we did in our team you know you know if you play football you and you were on the defense there were times you held hands you usually you just held each other's finger you know it's like a that's right it's good it held each other's finger and and it wasn't like a full-class and but what what we always did you know most teams I was on in place so we just put you know hand on each other's shoulder and we're like come on let's do this man yeah so we do the shoulder thing so I was in I was in one deal Paul and you've been around a lot you've seen this I was in one thing where the guy goes hey it's been a long day everybody stand up turned to your right reach out put your hand on the guy's shoulder now begin to and did this thing where everybody rubbed the guy's shoulders in front of like a like a helping his shoulders feel better or something and I turned around the guy behind me I go bro don't touch me man I just said I did I go bro no no no don't touch me and the guy to my right I go bro you are not getting one of those so maybe when you get home you're good lucky yeah that's right that's right and I went to school the guy afterwards I go you know you got to do stuff that men do man you got to do stuff that men do not stuff that you do like in a Sunday school class because you grew up at yeah hey this is Chris let me take a moment right in the middle of this great conversation to remind you how to get in touch with Paul and Christian men's network in the global fatherhood initiative you can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmn dot men that's the Christian men's network at cmn dot men Christian men's network does special events across America and around the world you can find all the information at cmn dot men click on events we also have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website everything a church needs from a to z to mentor and disciple men of all ages and backgrounds before we get back to the interview please take the time to hit the subscribe button to help us continue to reach other men now let's get back to this powerful interview with Paul and Paul cockling yeah I think when you grow up in that culture that's what you see I mean and that we're all that way but when people point it out the way you have in the way I have we shouldn't automatically be seen as some sort of adversary rather it could be provoking one another to good works you know the word provoke isn't always bad where we are to provoke one another to good works and I think that's that's part of it um a cold organizations have their own cultures right and they often had you know they all have carbon echo chamber and some of the stuff uh very good friends who are pastors and I've said I have said more than one to say buddy that's pastor talk I mean if what you just said this doesn't exist outside the Petri dish it just does it won't live outside of a Petri dish and most of us guys don't live in that culture and if I were to do sometimes of what he said I was supposed to do I'd lose my job I mean you just couldn't write for your family uh yeah it sounds good yeah it doesn't lead it doesn't lead to the abundant life yeah and and and so continuing voices need to be part of the of the of the body yeah revolutionaries are all always the way change happens and radicals are always radicals are always the way healing happens so but you're not talking let me let me just clarify something here because I see guys okay we're gonna do this this fully robust ministry to men and all of a sudden they're all wearing camo and and doing five paragraph orders and you know it becomes militaristic you're not talking like a jingoistic sort of Christianity you're talking in other words a man could fight okay uh against the encroachment of a godless culture by writing a great movie yeah right right absolutely yeah you know the word love appears in number christian ice guy about a hundred and twelve times it's really about love yeah but it's about a certain kind of love it's it's it's a male flavored love which is not as sentimental though there's a place for that uh it's more courageous it's got it's I think I said it before men have to have a bone to chew on or we're gonna chew on the wrong things we need a bone uh big enough to capture our dreams our desires a bone that that creates sacrifice um sacrifice is essential to to righteousness it's essential to a life will live and uh and and that's what we need and so you're talking about writing a fantastic movie you bet starring in it underwriting it I mean some people just don't have the time uh to do certain things but you got the resources if if it worked for support so many godly and righteous things just would not happen because they don't pay for themselves I run a nonprofit and if it weren't for if it weren't for the support of other people and you know what it's like it's just not good you can't you can't sell enough resources uh in order to pull it off so so a man that goes into business and builds an insurance company okay and he builds his insurance company ends up with five offices and he ends up with discretionary funding Paul that's that's as much a fight for righteousness as a man who does a commentary on the book of acts you mean right there's no difference because what he's doing now with that funding and let's say he has a hundred thousand dollars he can put into something and he funds a movie on bullying for the protectors that's as powerful a ministry as anybody who ever stood on a pulpit and you know what's sad about that guy who did that he doesn't get that message they almost feel like they have to apologize for it now provided they didn't make that money being a jerk to other people but they don't see it that way and I know so many of those men across the country they are absolutely we we cannot do what we are doing without them it doesn't it's sad they don't get more of a adaboy you know you know Jesus was you know we take it out of context he said the son of man has no place to lay his head but he had a housing cappurnium you know right have a housing pernium that's the house they dug the hole in and mark two when they dug the hole it was his house he lived on a lake and and but he had people who supported the ministry of why else would he have Judas yeah right taking care of the funding and he had a friend named Lazarus right Lazarus was a business guy and there were people like him who funded this stuff happening and Lazarus becomes pivotal to the whole narrative of the passion because not only did they want to kill Jesus but kill Lazarus because they sat on account of him being raised from the dead many have become followers of Christ hey protectors the protectors.org protectors.org this is a anti-bullying freedom from bullying in the workplace in schools it has resources for parents and you talk about in this something it's like a pivot I'd not seen this before and I've talked to a lot of people about bullying I've not seen this and that is bystanders yeah you and I want you to just kind of unpack that a little bit because you there's this place where we're told you know okay don't get involved or back off or okay it's the nice guy syndrome you know don't get in other people's business that's their thing and you talk about the courage of bystanders can actually be one of the greatest things that stops bullying it across the country you and I live in and around the world unpack up for me yeah so the Department of Health and Human Services did a 10-year landmark study in America on anti-bullying efforts and found most to be ineffective even dismal when we expect authority to change the harp mind soul or spirit of a cereal bully but what they found what worked is positive peer pressure or what psychologists were called positive deviance and this is the secret sauce of any anti-bullying effort is the targets or bullies will listen to positive peer pressure so when there appears that now's that behavior in a assertive but nonviolent way much than the tradition of the great mark of the king who taught us how do you stand up to adjust this without becoming unjust yourself he showed the way and others did as well well we've taken great inspiration from that and so we have trained thousands of students across the country on how to say no no was one of the greatest spiritual words we will ever say no was one of the most powerful words that we will say on behalf of ourselves our families and others so we train kids how to say no particularly Christian kids because they often will have a hard time with saying no because they also got a copy of the NGB they've been told to go man they've been turned to turn the other cheek which has nothing to do with adolescent bullying has to do with having a generous spirit has everything to do with their strength yeah they are targets in a horrible way because bullies look for nice kids a bully's not looking for a fight a bully wants to overwhelm so they look for the kind of kid they're pretty sure we'll take it they look for the Frank Pretties of the world I don't know if you were familiar with Frank Pretties I have an interview with Frank in my in my book and it's probably one of my favorite interviews I've ever ever done I've done thousands of them and yeah Frank was told no good Christians don't defend themselves I'm very sad Frank regrets that he's 65 now and he he cried during the interview we got angry so we are about taking that bystander turning them into a protector standing up for others and we're also about hardening the target as well many targets do not self advocate well bad body language things like that so we train kids how to appear more assertive even when they don't feel that way inside it makes a big difference we train them how to stand up for themselves as well wow this is incredible and you can find out you I mean you're all over the internet in that sense but the website is the protectors.org and and that'll also give you a little bit more about Paul's life and and so forth you know one of the things that that I decided a number of years ago when I read the book and then particularly more recently as I thought about the different people we wanted to talk to with our podcast and interviews I decided a long time ago that once I meet you okay which is like right now this is the way we virtual meet in COVID culture that's right once the once we meet you're never going to get rid of me that's kind of what I decided you're like a cold you're like a cold I won't go away there you go thanks yeah that's I've never been described as that before let me write that down with the list of 48 other things that people have said about that's good uh but seriously I I want to go through some of these things uh in depth in future uh times together and I look forward to meeting and I look forward to you speaking for us because you mentioned you're speaking speaking for Brian Doyle and you mentioned speaking for coach Mac and Randy Phillips and all the guys and I thought well hey man he's never spoken at our leadership summit or anything so and you can find that at cmn summit dot com cmn summit dot com and then our website Paul cmn dot men christian men's know we're cmn dot men and see what we do but man I'm gonna I'm one of your advocates bro well you know it's interesting paling that front you know the book came out like you know 15 years ago 12 years ago there's been a resurgence in the interest in it and it's been something to it's been something to witness you know I just maybe I know what do you think I mean I do think that you know every generation has its pet virtues right and cs Lewis wrote about that we are clearly in the groups of a um uh the gentle virtues and my goodness we need more gentleness in in this world we need more patience we need more kindness without a doubt yeah but it has come from genuineness well I mean but think about this we cannot be virtuous consistently unless we're courageous um for example you see a little kid being picked on in walmart and greek right and you want to help the kid but you don't have the courage to stand up the mama bear you let that get hang my my point is that if we truly want to be virtuous we truly want to be righteous we have to start grafting in more vegetables of the spirit and one of those vegetables is courage and it's not even on our spiritual radar so I'm wondering because a lot of our work has been about courage and by the way I'm a recovering coward like everyone else I mean I I suffer from cowardice I ain't no great example of it but I guess what I would say is at least I recognized it and I've written a series of books to address it for myself and for others there's no stones in my hand but I'm wondering whether we're being prepared to really graft in spiritual courage in a way we haven't done before and maybe maybe there's something happening right now I'm getting the feeling there is yeah I think you know here's here's just my observation having lived a number of years on the planet and and you know some of the same background as you marketing media so we end up being you know we look at stuff and we see trends and what people are I think we're in the middle of what they call a social justice I do think some of the thought life of Saul Olensky and those guys has permeated the atmosphere so the way I describe what we do today then is we are a human justice mission focused on defeating fatherlessness and Indian child abuse and I've never found anyone yet who would fight me on that and the reason is is I've taken we have taken who we are as followers of Christ and if you will profile that put it in a filter pivoted the definition to fit who we are as followers of Christ but in a way the real world can receive it there this is not going to take our old language that stuff's dead you know we shared a thing the other day we shared a thing the other day Paul and I know we got to bring this to a closet we shared a thing the other day we're Paul in acts of 27th chapter he told him in on the ship they're on the way to Rome trying to get to Rome big storm and he said you're all gonna live if you listen to me you're all gonna live but this ship is gonna sink and sometimes your ship just needs to sink when you've been proud of the climbing wall that you thought was the entrance of the youth ministry the the lights and the smoke you thought would grow the church sometimes your ship is gonna sink has to sink and everybody lived and he got to Rome but that's that's the way it is and it takes voices like yours Paul and I thank God for you and you say you're an outlier I think you're actually the tip of the spear because it it takes people like that who are willing to write things that then resonates in the hearts of men and we can't figure out why is this resonating where is this voice coming from the tuning fork the tuning fork in the chest yeah what why does chariot's a fire stir my heart why does gladiator make me want to do that what is that shashank redemption shashank redemption is the number one movie of men yeah well okay okay is it really okay I believe so when asked I mean it's a great story of standing up to justice it's a fantastic story it's something way better than the than the short story by the way when they do those surveys you know they do surveys which are favorite well what's you know well I don't want to tell everybody my favorite movies velocity you know more than my favorite writer Stephen King so I'm gonna choose John Steinbeck and shashank redemption yeah there it is I think that's where that comes from hey pal you mentioned child abuse I don't know if we've had a chance to talk about this bullying is the number one form of child abuse in the world yeah if it is going to experience abuse it's going to be more through bullying than any other behavior so as as Christian men we really need to stand up to it and we have a medium to do it with the to the protectors yeah we have to speak to it protectors dot award you know in as we're talking right now the COVID-19 shutdowns have happened domestic violence is off the charts city of Austin are writing restraining orders as fast as they can get the paperwork done the hotline in Charleston South Carolina went 300% higher domestic violence we'll do hardly the great psychologist told me this he said 90% of all domestic violence happens outside of marriage so when we talk about healing a culture wow if we come back to the center which is which is the fierceness of love that God love people so he loves us so he disciplines us if we would actually read Proverbs 13 for the day that we're on right now it would begin to shift and change things so here's a deal Paul you know for you and your family we didn't get into you've got three children right i do yeah i'm held or they know uh 28 26 and 22 28 26 and 22 those are great ages man i mean it's amazing when your kids become an agent you absolutely vividly remember yeah that's right right that's right and then you try to keep them from making the same mistakes i know no no no no listen wait wait wait wait wait wait and uh but man our prayer for you and your wife and and family is that God will uh take every place you put your feet and make it holy ground and that everything your hands touchable prosper and that he will keep you your family and your loved ones deep within the grip of his grace and favor in the days ahead and thank you for being at the tip of the spear Paul Cofflin COU GH LIN no more christian nice guy and many other books and protectors dot org thanks for hanging with us and man anytime i really would love to come back and and uh talk about what we can do to battle bowling together it's a great way to burn out the bad soil pal i mean some people were target yeah and they have never forgotten that and some people have been a bystander and they kill them this is a way to burn out that bad soil yeah we've lived with shame for being a bystander that didn't that's right that's right yeah we all have we've all done that this is great stuff man so thank you and thank you for what you're doing thank you for uh taking the taking the hit you know of of making this stuff happen so uh yeah you definitely and then we got to here's what i want to do we've got a studio we're building here in four worth and uh i want to have you come in and i want to do a whiteboard session and uh videotape the whole thing and and you know basically draw out the whole deal i know you guys have done this i'd like to do it within the the context of our cultural culture speak that we have i didn't be great so anyway thanks Paul well i my my pleasure to do that in case people were well i noticed that my finger was appearing on on screen right here the middle for you if if people can't see it you got you got a broken middle finger so it's it's it's worse i wish it weren't broken i cut the end of it off on a jointer oh my god man i miss that that way if anybody you're you're you're an organ and if anybody cuts you all in a freeway it's going to be very easy to wave at them your number one it is that's right so number one i'm 99% of the man i used to be that's that's the deal well at least it was the front tip of your finger i know yeah not the tip of something else we've been talking about a lot that's right that's right all right hey Paul god bless you man and uh you have at least uh substantiated one thing i've always said is that men who are named Paul are always the best looking guys oh my goodness no more Christian nice guy wow man that was awesome man i got it down now i can be a full person and know it's okay yeah i just you know the whole thing is hey and let me mention it again you can go on amazon dot com and get this book you know no more Christian nice guy and uh you're life will be blessed in fact i'd say get a couple of them yes good one for somebody else because they're they're marked down they're not as much as they used to be and they're paperback bam hit one with some guy go dude you really need this exactly and i mean in the reality too yeah the reality too is what is knowledge if you hold it to yourself come on man you know if we're gonna really see change in the world it starts with us humbling ourselves and passing on the information that we know it blows me away sometimes when people say hey you ask somebody hey how do you uh do this or how do you know that and it's like well this is what keeps me unique no that's not what keeps you unique yeah that's what keeps you from making a difference there's a difference yeah i really appreciate the fact that he took that whole thing about living a passionate uh purpose-filled life as a man yeah and and is doing that for young men with this uh bullying anti-bullying thing you know that's fantastic yeah and uh so uh Paul is going to be with us he was supposed to be was at a couple of events that covid kind of erased and uh he'll be with us at some things in the future yes looking forward to that and it's uh Paul Cochland and it's spelled c-o-u-g-h-l-i-n yes okay just so guys get that yeah but the great thing too you know i just want to add uh uh and on that is the you know i love his heart for the next generation yeah because if we're gonna see it our nation change you know it does start with getting the hearts of kids so if we can get kids to realize hey walk in the fullness of who God has called you to be we're going to see our nation change and i'm excited about that no question yeah so it's uh the book it was Paul Cochland no more christian nice guy and i want to thank you again for being part of the brave men uh community and brave men is a ministry out of a christian men's network and it's a podcast we started well really started a couple years ago but when Chris shields came on board who's up my co-hosts right now uh as you started producing it Brian was co-hosting last season uh the thing really took off so i want to thank you Chris for that thank you for the opportunity yeah cool that's it that's all you got to say yeah you got nothing else i mean speechless no i'm not speechless wow i'm firing you and your speechless i get fired wow i think that's the first it usually happens at least one of our savings yes no it's been awesome i'm just again you know honored and excited to see what God's doing you know yeah and and i think uh you know frankly just being you know i've got a lot of friends who listen to this on on a way into the office or to work or or you know on the job site i've got some guys who because they drive a lot and travel and uh so make sure you share this with somebody yes yes share it and please write a review because writing a review also gets the attention of others there's some people that may not know about brave men podcasts so when you write a review it's not just for us to yes yeah it's not just for us to you know continue to improve on what we're doing but it's also for others to be aware of what they're going to be experiencing through this podcast so if it's touching your heart write what's on your heart it's right some podcast you don't have to be awesome no it could just be the word awesome yeah just say awesome cool inspirational fantastic phenomenal you know one of those good things in those different voices to yes please yeah if you don't pronounce it that's not doing it so yeah Paul Cochland uh varsity you can kind of hear the varsity coach that you know is interesting mix you know this varsity coach guy and then uh newspaper guy so he's a researcher and he's a strategist and a planner and all that mixed up and then a coach so uh yeah like hanging out with the guy yeah he's awesome yeah it was really good so thank you and i like hanging out with you listening right now to brave men so thank you for being a part of this and uh go to cmn. men for all your resources that you need we've got events coming up like the cmn summit that happens every uh the first weekend of November every year and a global summit lions roar and so that's cmn summit.com whenever you're listening to this i'm sure there's one coming up in the future go to events on our cmn. men page we've got events all across the country at different times uh we're doing zoom events all sorts of stuff a lot of great things going on and then plus uh we have majoring and men.com majoring men.com and when you go to majoring and men.com what because of the uh generosity of our friends and partners what was uh $100 now is uh there's absolutely no cost and your your way has been paid to take that 12-part course that will walk you through how to build a ministry to men and uh those of you already have one going this is going to be something to help you expand it and uh help you in large what you're doing if you haven't launched one in your local church this is the way to get it started so thanks for being a part of brave men remember that's majoring in men.com majoring in men.com and then cmn.com god bless you love you guys you just experienced brave man with Paul Lewis Cole Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cmn.com or write to him at Paul at 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