BraveMen S3E55: Jurgen Matthesius - Stalwart: How One Man's Faith Is Transforming A City Of Millions

Jurgen Mathesius is one of the thought leaders in North America. He pastors a great church in San Diego, California, but he speaks across the country around the world. He's a pastor. He's a thought leader. He's an author. And I believe he's one of the great young leaders. I say young Chris, because everybody's young to me anymore. But the fact is that he's a surfer. He's vibrant active. He's got young children. Older children, one summer married, some are still in high school and stuff. But Jurgen and his wife, Liam Mathesius, a pastor, one of the most vibrant churches I've ever been to in my entire life. Yes, awakened. And it's where I'm from. San Diego, there you go. The best place. Yeah, in his ministry, to men, I don't know of any that are quite as robust as what they do there. In fact, their ministry, to men is called, I would call it a full contact. Yes, to men literally. I've seen some of the commercials that, you know, of the invitation to go to some of their events. And I'm just like, whoa, that's like going to football practice. Well, they're a men's conference that they haven't been able to do during COVID. Yeah. They've actually purchased an entire ranch. Wow. You know, a couple hundred acres in East County, San Diego, just four ministry to men. Wow. That's how committed he is. And so Jurgen's a great friend and his wife, Liam, they moved here from Australia in 2005. I've had a commissioning service in 2004, a word from the Lord and a word from their pastor, my pastor, Phil Pringle. Go to San Diego and build a church. And now almost 10,000 people come to that church, you know, every week. They've got more than that that are online. Yes. But he's a thought leader. He thinks about things. Leanne is one of the most amazing young women's speakers in the world today. And I say women's speakers, not just two women, but a woman who speaks with great authority. I can't tell you how many notes I've taken in meetings I've been with them where she gets up and has a word from the Lord. Man, it is. It's stout. It's fire. That's what this simply fire. It's a fire. Yeah. And I love, you know, them together. They're the definition of a power couple. Yeah. It's true. It's amazing just seeing, you know, what they're stewarding. And, you know, one of the things that I love about Jurgen specifically is I'll never forget when I first met him at Lions Roy. You know, one of the sweetest guys, but you can also just see, you know, you meet some guys and it's just like, Oh, okay. Yeah. But then you meet other guys and you're just like, wow, the presence of God is in their life. He is anointed. She's anointed. Yes. And they've raised up. Well, they got a multiple campus church. Yes. I think five or six campuses now. And he raises up leaders. Yes. That's all there is to it. He raises up leaders and he doesn't do it in some sort. You know, here's a deal. He's it's that that mix of a mix of strong and bold with generous and gracious. Yeah. And caring and caring, you know, because like, you talk to some people and it's just like, okay, nice to meet you. Oh, yeah. Because you're the, yeah, I'm you're helping them to get to exactly whatever you're doing your job. They treat you like that. And then there's others that take their time and say, Hey, how are you doing? What? Tell me about your story, you know, and that was, you know, what he did. And then he got on stage and then he blew me away when he spoke on and you can go to achieve lab.org to hear this message. It was phenomenal. Give me a man. Give me a man. And the biggest thing that I think everybody will remember from that time when he spoke on this, this message was when he started to literally tell you the whole lion king story. Oh, yeah. The guy, the guy, the guy's a freak. He's phenomenal. He's crazy. How do you do those voices? He remembers movies and voices. And then he goes, give me man. Give it's fantastic. But we caught him in an unguarded moment. In a sense, he's, in fact, he, he and I talked on the day of their anniversary. And he was in the backyard. And I just begin to ask him questions. And this is really, this is a remarkable interview because for all of us, if we're going to grow, we learn from the word of God, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, books we read, but also people we meet. Yes. So for those of us listening to Brave Men right now, you're about to have your heart enlarged, your spirit increased just by being around a man who lives a very large life. He's full of grace, graciousness, but he's also full of grit, power, tendacity, and strength. So I'm excited today to have my really close friend, Yurgen Mathesius today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. I'm talking with the Yurgen Mathesius and who is the lead pastor and founding pastor of Awake and Church in San Diego with known each other for years, but you know, I've been watching you, I guess from afar and then we met each other. But man, you guys, you guys came to the United States in 2005, is that right? Yes, 2005. You and your wife, four little kids like on an adventure, but you were very successful in Australia. You dropped everything. You come to the US and you launch in August of 2005, Awake and Church in San Diego. What in the world caused you to do something like that? And why San Diego, of all places, aren't there other places that like have a five or something? You know what I mean? Oh my gosh. Well, you know, the truth is we were happy to stay as youth pastors for Phil and Chris Springer. We love them. And the beautiful thing about being a youth pastor is you never have to grow up. It's the Peter Pan ministry. So I was just like, man, bury me here. We love Oxford Falls. And then Pastor Phil called us in his office and said, listen, I just think your next chapter is a church plan. Like, oh man, we kind of felt it but didn't want to acknowledge it. So he said, I want you to pray about it. So we met, you know, about two weeks later, we came back and back into his office and said, yeah, you know what? You're right. We feel it in God. We really would really like to go to the Gold Coast in Australia. And Pastor Phil goes, no, no, no, I want you to pray about San Diego. I'm like, San Diego, that's not even in Australia. He goes, no, it's in America. So I'd never been to San Diego, seen San Diego. But so we just started praying. And over the next six weeks, literally from the most random sources, we were just getting like these confirmations that we were meant to go to San Diego. Like it was so undeniable. And I think God has to speak by that to me because, you know, maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So he's got to make it so emphatic. So we knew that. And so back then we only had three little boys. So he hadn't been born yet. And so we just sold everything and put him on and playing with one way tickets and flew to San Diego and landed here on the 4th of July. So all the fireworks, my birthday's at 3rd of July. When we're coming in to San Diego on the 4th of July, I'm like, wow, babe, they've gone, they've gone all out for us. Look at this. Look at this welcome. So in other words, you're still living kind of the youth pastor maturity at this point. Yeah. It became, it became reality very quick when there was no one at the airport. You know, when you're itinerant, you know, you'll land at an airport and there's somebody there to, hey, welcome to the city. Can I carry your bag? You know, take you to the car. When we got there and there was nobody there, like, you know, we're just getting our bags and then we had to get a shuttle to the car, the, you know, the car lease place, Alamo car rentals. And what was interesting was I couldn't, I didn't tell Leanne that our lease had fallen through. So I'd leased a home in Ranch open auto. And because I had to give my laptop back to the church when I resigned, you know, when on my last day, which was four days before we flew out. So I'd give them my laptop back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, babe, hang on, I'll just stop right there if you don't mind. So, so they're sending you, but they want to keep their laptop. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It was, it was church, it was church property, not personal property. So I did, I had to give my laptop back. So I didn't have any internet. And so we went and stayed with Leanne's folks, you know, so that she could, you know, do the goodbyes and all of us sisters. She's got, she's one of five girls and so if there was day there, but they, they, they have no, they had no internet back then. There was so behind the time. So I didn't get to check my email till we get to the airport. So we get to the airport and I go into one of those little kind of internet cafes. And, and I click on there and I've got all this, all this mail in my inbox. I thought, that's interesting. So I click on it and it's from the, the guy and I just wired about seven days earlier. I'd wired the deposit for our four bedroom home in Ranch Urban Auto. And the first one said, Hey, listen, I just had someone wanting to lease out place for two years. You've only asked for one year. Are you interested in two years? And then the next email underneath that said, Hey, listen, I haven't heard back. If I don't hear back, I'm going to go with this guy. Let me know if you can match him two years. And then the 30 mail said, I've refunded, refunded. And so I'll check out bagging count. And I'm like, no, wonder there's more money in there. So I thought, how do I tell Leanne? I thought, I've got to tell Leanne before we get on the plane. But I look and she's crying because she's hugging them. Oh, I'm not going to assist us. We're about to, well, I don't want to tell her now. She's already upset. I'll wait till we sit on the plane for once we're on the plane and she's seated. Then I'll tell her, we get on the plane. And you know how in the back of the seat in front of you, you got those little screens where she puts her headphones on. She's crying, but she clicks on a movie. And I'm thinking, well, you know, I'll wait till the movie spin. The movie finishes and now she's eating. And I'm thinking, well, wait till she's finished the meal. Well, I look back over and now she's asleep. I thought, oh, no, I don't want to wait till she's sleeping. So I thought, you know, as soon as she wakes up, I'll tell her, well, she wakes up as we're landing. And anyway, said, then it's a mad dash. We get the bags. We get to Alamo car rental. We get in the car. And Leanne says, oh, so this, this property, what's it like? And I said, well, funny, you should ask. It fell through. Where are we going to stay? I'm like, oh, my God. So we found, we found, we went to, we just drove on the freeway. I had no idea where I was going and we saw a resident's maria, the resident's in maria. So we just pulled in there and I said, I'd give any room. By now, it's close to midnight. Oh, no. And the manager said, well, how long do you want to stay for? How many nights? I said, oh, six weeks. You know, I was just trying to think. And he goes, six weeks. It's July. He goes, I can give you two nights. I said, I'll take it. And so we started. That's where it started. Yeah. Oh, my. And so now, did you, all right. So that's July. Now you launch the, is that, did you launch a year later or a month later? No, no. We launched six weeks later. New lights. Okay. So I'm not resistant to every church planting rule. There is. Yeah. We, we, you know, except the annoyance. Yes. Well, Tim, Timmy low, you know, Timmy low from C3 in the city. Timmy, Timmy refinanced our property in Australia. And he goes, mate, what, you need a lazy hundred. And I'm like, I need a what? A lazy hundred. I'm like, I'm never one heard of that. What an earth is that? He goes, you know, just a lazy hundred K sit name for whatever. So he did that refinance. And so we realized we had a hundred thousand dollars. And that we needed to be the first investors and the biggest investors, you know, because if we don't believe in our church, we're going to convince anybody else. So I didn't want to do the whole, let's take six months or a year and build, you know, do all of that kind of stuff. I just knew that we needed to start because I had a wife, I had kids, you know, we were now renting a place by that time. And so we, we just felt the start. So we did one preview service on the third of August. I think we had like 45 people turn up. And then we started on the 21st of August. And we had 67 people turn up. And there was meant to be a mailout go out, you know, to 5,000 homes. And they, they messed that up. So they didn't go out to the following week. And because it didn't go out to the following week, they said, listen, you know, because it was our fault, we'll double it, we'll increase it at no extra cost to 10,000 homes. So the following week, we had 99 people turn up. But when I get a phone call from the, from my music guy, Andy Bennett, and he's like, Oh, dude, pastor, you're not going to believe this. But the hotel has made a double booking. There's no room for us there. And I'm like, there's got to be room. I booked it from now to the end of the year. What they didn't realize was August was a five, five Sunday month. And so, yeah. So anyway, so long story short, we ended up, that was our famous parking lot service where we had service out in the parking lot in a hundred degree heat. Yeah. And now you're doing it again. Yeah. Now we're doing it again. Yeah, COVID. Yeah. Man, what a start. But you know, God's really blessed you there. Obviously, you and Leanne have worked extremely hard. You've built a large church. You've done it. And I want to talk about some of these things. You've done it with the anointing with the power of God. You've done it without backing off. I can remember you a number of years ago standing on the pulpit and saying they told me that I should be a little bit chilled out in San Diego. You started like running and yelling across the stage. Yeah. And then you said, you know, kind of chill on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and stuff. And then you just begin to speak in tongues and say, chill on this. And then Jeff Forbes described to me recently, who's your men's director, how he came to Christ. He comes, shows up the church as an angry young black American man. And he just, you know, I don't even know why I'm here. I'm angry at everything. God, if you're really real. So it's like, Hey, if you want prayer, come up here. He goes, what the heck goes up. And he gets prayed for and gets knocked out in the spirit. Just bam on the floor. And you said, he said he could hear this. He said, it was kind of like, he said, it was so surreal. He said, but he could hear you say, leave him there. And he's on the floor of the entire service. He gets up and goes, I guess this stuff's real. Wow. The amazing story. So amazing. Done. That's how you've done it. But let me move into something and then come back around. You waited a number of years, though. This is a fast, anything I remember you and I talking about. You waited a number of years before beginning. I really robust ministry to men. Yeah. We're being discipled. Yeah. Intensive camps, you know, prayer stuff. Yeah. What was the thought behind it? And what's your, what you're thinking on that? Where are you at? Well, my wife felt to start a women's ministry straight away. So she did like within the year hadn't even finished. I think we started in August and October. She had her first women's conference. And and say, everyone, there was pressure on me. Hey, what are you doing for the men? You got to do something for the men. You got to do something for the men. But pretty much everything I'd seen for men wasn't working for me. So basically up until then, you know, and obviously I hadn't been to one of your meetings. And I loved your dad stuff. So I had, you know, maximized man who had money, sex, I had, you know, everything that Dr. Ed Cole, when he came to Australia, filled stadiums, you know, impact. But all of our churches, whenever they would run stuff, it was let's just get a whole bunch of men into a building and then beat up on him. Hey, you know, do you like boobs? You know, you're a, you're a bad man. Do you like fights? You're a bad man. Do you like muscle cars? You're a bad man. Do you like, you know, competition? You're a bad man. And so so literally by the end of it, we've, we've, we've emasculated men. And I thought, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And so it was maybe three years later that we started our first one. And it actually we stumbled into it. A good friend of yours, you know, Pastor Jim Crumbly, who was at Atlanta. It was a, you know, a marine corsage and did a, did a training, a team's training with a whole bunch of the C3 pastors back then. And it was like we had to, and he was yelling at us. And when we failed, we had to drop and give 20. And then, you know, someone was talking while he was talking. So we had to pick up this log. And you know, we all had to run with it. And we had to, you know, then lay back and do sit-ups with it. And I'm thinking, this guy's a dictator. And and it was just, it was the most incredible thing. And at the end of it, like the next day, I couldn't walk for like two or three days. But then the next day, I thought, that's the blueprint. That's the blueprint. That's what's missing. It's men want to, you know, you're talking where I'm talking, drop and give me 20, right? Your whole platoon, your whole team, breaking up into teams, solving problems, you know, tug of war, strength. And so that's when we decided, hey, let's take this thing and let's celebrate how God made man. God made man to fight. God made man to conquer. God made man to take territory. God made man to be competitive. So happily and so that became the genesis of it. So really, I should be thanking, you know, Jim Crumbly. Yeah, it's a, I've seen it firsthand. It's an amazing thing. And and now you've actually, you've actually bought a ranch. I mean, this is happening. You've bought a ranch in East County, San Diego, in California, in the COVID season. Yeah. You've purchased 160 acre ranch with the purpose of training them. Yeah. And right now, we're looking at buying this 240 acres next door. If we buy that, everything else is surrounded by national part, which means that there'll be no restrictions to what we can and can't do. Because right now, because we have neighbors, we have to to run everything through city approval because, you know, of noise restrictions and everything else, whereas if we buy that, so they're right now, we're in negotiations on that. But basically, the goal was haul and you saw it the last time you were there. Like, there was no facilities left in San Diego that were big enough, not because we're so good, but just because of the need. Like, you know, we're probably not the best at marketing, but people were just bringing their friends and bringing, you know, it was almost like 30 or 40 percent of the men who were attending on night one were not even church. We're not even safe. We had a guy who literally just just got out of jail on the Tuesday and came on the Thursday and just got, you know, his bell wrong and now is married, the mother of his kids and, you know, is living for God and on five for God. So we found that there was just a need. And so we didn't want to be limited by the campsites or the facilities around. And so we just cried out to God and I think you were there. And I think you, you and beautiful Judy sowed into it. But we said, let's take an offering. How many people believe in this? And so we bought, you know, 168 years ago, we got it for, you know, a screaming deal and yeah, and God is just so good. So tell me, you know, help us, you know, when you talk about a healthy man, when you talk about a healthy, biblical, biblical masculinity, when you talk about a healthy man past year, I'm talking to Jürgen Mathesias, pastor Jürgen, pastor of awakened church in San Diego, who's got one of the most remarkable ministries to men that I've ever seen or witnessed and a church that's growing even in difficult seasons, having just started literally from your bootstraps as from a hotel room in 2005. I mean, you were in a hotel room and the church was in a hotel room. What's your concept of a healthy man? What's that look like? And how do we form that in men? Yeah, I think the first, the first thing that I really felt God say is, is don't punish men for being man, but give them permission for being men. So God wired us as men to like boobs. But then he requires us to only commit ourselves to one bear and that's our wife. So the Bible says always be in rapture with the breast of your wife. So God made us, wired us to fight. So we like fights, we like watching fights, but the Bible says that we ought to fight the good fight of faith. God wired us to be competitive, but I'm not competing against my brother. I'm competing against a devil. I'm competing against forces and I'm coming alongside my brother. God created brotherhood. You know, the first murder in the Bible was Cain murders. I even God says to him, where's your brother? And I says, what? Am I my brother's keeper? So that's the confession of a murderer. That's the, that's the paradigm of a murderer because the truth is if you love, then yes, you are your brother's keeper. And so building camaraderie men, men need each other, men like, you know, team sports and getting in there. But at the same time men like to excel, men like to pioneer. And so for me, it's, it's, it's celebrating what God, how God wired men, but then attaching to that, and I think you do this so well Paul, is attaching to that a biblical pattern, a biblical vision and a biblical purpose. You know, and so that's what we want to do. We want to, we want to create men. You don't have to become feminine to be pleasing to God. You can be masculine. But in your masculinity, this is how you channel up. This is how you direct it to bring glory to God. Yeah, and the beauty of that, you're talking identity purpose and brotherhood, the three basic elements that every man wants, you know, the previous generation with success respect and, you know, having those having the aspects of that. And so in a generation in a world, identity purpose and brotherhood, and most men don't have an identity. Warren Farrell in his great book, The Boy Crisis, said that the greatest single issue in the culture of boys in America today is they don't have a purpose. Number one issue. And then you provide brotherhood. Now, now let me just say something. Because you're talking about competition and this kind of stuff, and sometimes guys go, oh, okay, well then it's just all, you know, we're going to, you know, chewed back on spit and cut, you know, cut our clothing out of bark or something. And, but you're also an artist. So, and you've done these beautiful, you do them on an iPad or something, you do these beautiful wave paintings. Incredible. Yeah. And any print them, you have prints and all that. So you're an artist, you love beauty. So we're not talking about guy has to be some sort of macho thing over here, whatever that. Yeah. Not going to fully order of who you are as a man. If you're a writer, if you got a script writer, write the greatest movies that have ever been done. Yeah. To me, what I love about what you do, Yurgen is it's acts 217. I will pour out my spirit in the last days because I believe the last, we may be in the last days, but the last 1000 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the sign of the last days is the pouring out of his spirit. Yes. All the other crazy wild properties. Yeah. Yeah. About the earth shaking in the cracks, opening in people falling in it. No, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, all this stuff, it's, it's literally it says, acts 217 says, I will gush. Pour out my spirit and all flash. Young mental prophesies. Young men have visions. Old men will dream. Everybody will prophesies. Speak the word of God. So really, that's what I see you, you know, that's why I see it going. Obviously, you have, you must in order to do all this, you must have had a pretty amazing start. Right? I mean, let's go up in this really healthy neighborhood. Perfect. I know. That's a great question. Yeah. You know what? I had an unbelievable encounter with Jesus Christ and sometimes I think, you know, like for an hour to fly forward, it's got to be pulled backwards and the further back, it's pulled the, you know, the greater flies forward. And I think because I grew up in a home, my father was an East German atheist who escaped from the East, you know, by running across a minefield to get into the West and become from a very abusive, broken home. And then because he had never had Christ, he lived with bitterness, rage, anger, animosity and unforgiveness towards his father. And so unfortunately, whatever you don't forgive, whatever since you don't forgive, you retain. And so, you know, and you can only reproduce up to your own kind. So he reproduced the exact same thing. And I was on the same path because, you know, he was an alcoholic and he would beat up my mum and beat up us kids. And so my goal was when I turned 18, that's the time where I feel like I'll have groans. I tried to, I tried to defend my mum one time when she was being beaten when I was 15. And my dad overpowered me and, you know, beat me to the ground and then tried to smash a chair over my head. And so I felt like I'm going to wait till I'm 18. So, you know, I started doing boxing and everything. And so I knew that I could clean his clock at 18. And instead, I get invited to a Christian surface thing. And I hear the gospel for the first time and I get radically saved. I mean, radically born again. And so I think that because I had no Christ, no God, no church, no faith growing up. This encounter with Christ so shifted everything in my world that I couldn't deny what I just experienced. And every word that I heard from God began to bring healing on the inside. I mean, so I know the power of the gospel and the power of Jesus Christ. And so that's really the foundation I think for everything we do is, so that's what I've been saying before when you come to San Diego, they said, hey, don't move in the gifts of the spirit. Don't be a power of God church. Don't talk about money and don't put women in the pulpit. And it was brilliant because honestly, if I was honest with you, Paul, I'm like, oh, shoot, I mean, I don't even know what to preach. Do I start a series? What's my first sermon? And then it's like they helped me and they said, okay, don't do these things. I thought, brilliant, there's my first three series. That's what I'm doing. That's so big. I'm going to do because I've thought God didn't bring us all the way to San Diego to give them what they've already gone. Why would you do that? 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 and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmin.min. That's the Christian Men's Network at cmin.min. Christian Men's Network does special events across America and around the world. You can find all the information at cmin.min. 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. Also, please take the time to check out majoringinmen.com, which is the solution to men's discipleship because of our generous partners. What would normally cost $100 is now free. That's majoringinmen.com. Now, let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Jürgen Mathesius. Hey, let me, let me ask you this though. You know, so there's a lot of guys listening and a lot of men that we talk to that you counsel and we all counsel who really are dealing with those father wounds. Yeah. Not an encounter with Christ, but was there a moment where you had to actually forgive your dad and did that ever heal up? What happened with that? Yeah. So I was in Bible school and studying to get opportunities to preach in the chapel at Bible College, you know, the what the hat was on a roster. And then someone said, hey, were you sharing my Bible study? And then someone said, hey, were you speaking of my youth camps? I did that. And I thought, man, I could really go for this. I could really like this. And then all of a sudden, I had two speaking invitations that cancel canceled just out of the blue. And then I'm praying. I'm saying, God, you know, what's going on? And he said, listen, I canceled them because you need to forgive your dad. I'm like, I ain't forgiven my dad. Number one, he's not asking. Number two, he's not deserving. God said, I forgave you when you didn't ask and I gave forgave you while you were still in your sense. And God showed me then that that I was because of my bitterness towards my dad. I was like a spring that was polluted. And then what would come out of me would have this bitter bent. And that what I would put into people, you know, because you can't give them what you don't have. So what I would put into them is the same bitterness, the same unforgiveness that you got to forgive your dad. So I wrestled with it. And finally, I said, all right, I'll forgive him. And God says, no, two late, three months ago was forgiven. And so I'm going to one up. And you got to tell him that you love him. Now, we grew up in a home where obviously he'd never heard those words. But me and my little brother, we'd never heard those words. We never heard the words. I love you or I'm proud of you. I remember one time when I was playing soccer, I love soccer. We're playing oat flats, which was the best team in the league. And we beat them for three. And I scored three of the goals. And at the end of the game, the coach lifted me on the shoulders. It was amazing. I remember my dad was in the crowd. And so, you know, after all the celebrations, me and my dad had welcomed back to the county. He's completely silent. And then we get to the car and open the door. And I sit in the car and he starts the engine drives out of the parking line. He's completely silent. We're on the road heading home. And he's completely silent. I'm happy to be silent. So I said, Dad, what did you think of the game? And he just said, when you're on, you look like an old woman. That there was that was all that was all he could say. So we never heard, I love you. We never heard. Nothing we ever did was ever good enough. And so now God said to me, I don't want you just to forgive him. I want you to tell him that you're loving. So I made a commitment because I was dating Leigh Ann. I said, all right, I'll do it on my wedding day. And so on my wedding day, you know, I left my mom and dad intentionally to last. And I went up and he put out his hand to shake my hand or kind of stoic. And I pushed his hand away and I gave my hug and I said, Dad, I want you to know that I love you. And he's like trying to push me away going, you're okay, you're okay. And I just held him. And I said, a second time, Dad, I want you to know, I love you. He's like, no, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay. And then I said to the third time, you dad, I love you. And then he just, he just almost like collapsed into me. Well, we go away from our honeymoon. We come back two weeks later. And we were in New Zealand at that time with Pastor John Morgan. And we had our wedding in our honeymoon in Australia. And so the next day after our honeymoon, we're flying back to New Zealand. And Mom said to me, I'll listen, you're a phaser. He's up in the German club, you know, drinking beer was all his friends. Why don't you go up there and say goodbye to him because you won't see it because you've got to leave early in the morning to go to the airport. So Leon and I drive up there. And anyway, we get to the German club. And some of his friends are, you know, me just kind of at the door. And they they go, Hey, what's happened to your phaser? And I'm thinking, what? He's had an accident, you know, like he's collapsed. He's drunk. He's had a heart attack. Well, what do you mean? What's happened? They're like, yeah, ever since you're a vetting, he's become a softie. What's going? Something's gone wrong with it. They they could see a difference. When when when we started having our sons like Jordan and Ash, my dad would hold them and cuddle them, kiss them, tell them that that have beautiful. They were how much he loved them. Everything shifted. So so I began to realize that somebody's got to break the cycle. Somebody's got to be the chain breaker, the generation curse breaker. And so and then a few years ago, you in fact, you were the catalyst. We built a home and I brought you when they were about halfway through. I think they just put the the second floor on and you stood on there and you gave me a word and it was so profound. Paul, you said, when you when you when this house is finished, you need to get your dad to bless this house. And I and I thought, Oh, you know, Paul, God bless you. You're so busy. You travel around everywhere. You've got me confused. You think my dad saved. And so I had to remind you of Paul, sorry, mate, yeah, my dad's not saved. You're like, here doesn't matter. He's still the father, still the patriarch. And there's a power on the father's blessing. And it's so riveted me that the following year I sent an email to my dad saying, I'm flying you and Josie is part of when my mum died. He woke up with this French bird. We're flying you out for thanksgiving. And I want you to speak a blessing over the home. And and God said, I really want you to honor him. So I was online looking for, you know, the cheapest possible flights. And God said, no, honor him first class. And so I thought I'll get him a first class ticket. You know, he can look after Josie and he says, no, no, honor him, him, and so the whole thing ended up and then when he landed, God said, he's not to pay for anything while he's here. You ought to take care of it. And so you ended up being about a $16,000 venture over, you know, over the eight days, including the affairs and everything else. But it was so powerful. And when I said, dad, you know, and look, I'd love to tell you that it was a beautiful benediction and blessing. It was filled with the F bomb and the S word. And but you know, that's the language. That's the Australian that he learned moving from Germany to Australia. That was the English he learned. That's the street language. But it was, it was, it was, he, he was so nervous, but took it so seriously. And then I got him a limo ride back to the, to the airport. And when he saw the limo pull up, he just began to weak. And then he said to me, he says, you know, how long do I have before we have to leave? I said, oh, I've had to go about, you know, 20 minutes. And he said to me, do you know the song Hallelujah? And I'm like, Dad, I know a lot of songs, Hallelujah. You're an atheist. What do you tell me? Which Hallelujah you know? Because you know, it's a one by Leonard Cohen. I said, I doubt I've got it on my playlist. In fact, I've got it on my, my YouTube channel, you know, on my YouTube. Let's go out and put it on YouTube. So we go out then we're starts, and we start playing it. He's crying, Josie's crying, and he's singing with the top of his voice, Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now I'm boiling. You could feel the presence of God. He now sends us cards and letters with scriptures in there completely misquoted. And he'll drop the F bomb halfway through. But it's, it's just, but we can see the transition. So I mean, in another project right now of honoring my dad, but I'm believing that on this one, he's going to finally come to Christ. But, but it was all started with, with your words on it, your father. Yeah. Well, that's the, that's the fifth promise of the commandment's fifth five ten commandments. And it's the one with the first one of the promise. So you know, this is remarkable stuff. But you know, I think, you know, we can talk about a lot of things in one sense with you, Jürgen, because you're a master communicator. You've been on some of the largest stages of the world. You know, you've got this church with thousands and thousands of people every week and all these different things we point to. But I think for me, what, what underwrites all of this is the care for one person at a time. You didn't start the men's thing until you knew, you know, what we can actually take care of guys. You wanted your dad. In other words, you've done this stuff that people don't see in order to stand where people see you. Most men want to stand in a place of position without first having humbled themselves before God. And they work on their talent rather than their character. And that's one thing that's seen about you and Leanne. And I've told you this privately. I'll say it publicly that you guys actually together have built each other's character so deeply that it, um, it's Romans 15 13, a passion translation that says, may you be, may you overflow with hope with abundance so that it's absolutely like a transparent glow. It says, may you glow. And I think that's on you. Not that you guys don't have occasional dust up, you know, um, yeah, by occasional, you mean at least a few times a week, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was, you know, whatever you guys matter what occasional is. But, but really if we want to get down to it and we could talk about all these different things and you walk towards or you guys have done music and all this stuff. But me, bro, that's the real stuff right there. And I wanted guys to pick up is that that is those are not that easy conversations. And we could talk about marriage sometime else, but that healing of the father one. Yeah. I'm going to war in Pharaoh the other day. He said 100% of all the mass shooters and America school shooters have been a dad deprived. Yes. 90% of all the ISIS recruits are dad deprived. And they look for those are dad deprived kids. And you can say, well, you had a dad in the home. No, no, no. He wasn't involved. He wasn't involved in formation. Uh, Warren Farrell in the boy crisis. And psychologists tell you that in the one thing I've talked about is the center of a man is formed in the breath of his father. Yes. Yes. Warren Farrell told me that there's actual research that shows that fathers rough housing with their kids causes our children to learn empathy, structure, fairness, justice, rough housing. You know, we're mom y'all somebody's going to get hurt. Yes. And you go, of course, that's yeah. And he was telling me the other day, he said that where children learn things and how to operate in culture. And he said because most kids don't have that. No. They basically have if they ever have a man in their life, it's a guy tells them rules and regulations, what not to do. Yeah. There's no touch. We live in a high tech low touch world. We live in a world more concerned about the calorie content of our children's, you know, lunches in the character content of our children's hearts. You've done and the way the church is cranking. I wanted to get dig in. And then one more thing is as we finish this because man, Judy and I love you guys so deeply and dearly. But one thing you've done, it's been absolutely remarkable in the middle particularly of this pandemic and the closed down everything else is you've spoken out very strongly for the nation you've adopted and it has adopted you because you and Leanne became American citizens. Yes, sir. One year ago. And it means something to you. Yes. It wasn't done just for taxes or no. We love America even growing up. You know, the best, the best of what was in Australia came from America. Like when I think of the, you know, I remember being eight years old, eight years of age when McDonald's came to Australia and you couldn't get in and you know, I remember at my birthday party we had to book months in advance to have a birthday party at McDonald's and to see the system and to see the burgers and I remember having a big Mac and the french fries and no fries in Australia tasted like McDonald's french fries and you know, the thick shakes back then. It was just extraordinary. And then, you know, Coca-Cola and the programming and the NBA and the NFL and the MLB and everything from America, you know, all the TV shows everything the creativity, Hollywood, everything America was this incredible land that I remember coming here for the first time in 1994 and as the wheels of the plane touched down it was like the word of the Lord came to me and I just heard the word liberty. I just heard the word liberty and that's that's weird because I know there's a statue of liberty but I just landed in Los Angeles, not in New York but as we begin to go around I saw that there was a freedom here that it was unlike any other nation. Now I lived in Germany, I was born in Germany, lived in Australia, lived in New Zealand and now here I am in America and I noticed that rather than a government ruling over the people, there's a constitution that was written here that the government leads or is allowed to lead at the consent of those governed. So it was the other, we don't, we don't come under the government is meant to come under us and obviously that's been under attack. Did the wider people for the people? Yes. And so I just saw I saw freedom, I saw opportunity, every American preacher that would come to us when we were in New Zealand or in Australia would come with confidence, they would come with a level of blessing and prosperity, they had nice clothes, nice shoes, nice things, they weren't afraid to dream, they didn't apologize for blessing, all of those things were just robbed and deficient down under and then I realized man there's something magnificent. So when we came to America, began to study the history of the American, saw that the 55 signers of the declaration almost half of them, 27 of them were clergy, 51 of the 55 were practicing born again Christians that even that the foundation of of our politics is that with there's a creator who was created all men equal and endowed us with certain inalienable rights, liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness and so everything is rooted in God that our rights didn't come from man or from government, they came from God. And so when people say well you know separation church and state church shouldn't get involved in politics, I'm like you know you're unbelievably ignorant because our entire politics came from faith, our entire politics came from and the reason they wrote in the second amendment that Congress shall make no law establishing or prohibiting is because rebelling from England where the state controlled the church, they knew that Gannipathers knew that the church is meant to be the moral conscience of the state and if the state rules over her she's now compromised from being able to speak the truth and so that's why there's the dividing wall and the dividing wall isn't that the church is not meant to speak into state issues it's that the state is not meant to interfere but they do that again and again hey by the way we've redefined marriage oh by the way we redefined when life and conception begins oh and now we want to legislate that you can actually kill the baby even after they were I mean so they have no problem coming across into moral issues but as soon as we speak up from morality I mean they blow the whistle foul separation church and state you get back into your corner will come over anytime we like but you can't come over here that's not the way the founding fathers wanted it so that's why I because we love this nation we want to see America America is and the greatest nation that has ever existed nobody is more benevolent nobody is more generous nobody has has spent more of her treasure her blood her wealth to free other nations from tyranny and oppression she is the only superpower ever that hasn't dominated and a slave and colonized other nations rather she's done the exact opposite she said other nations free from tyranny tyrannical governments from from oligarchs and dictatorships she is the first to send aid she's the first to send help she is the number one sending of missionaries the number one funding of missionaries all over the world and Satan hates the fact that America is blessed because she is good and and I think it was the the French philosopher who came out and he said I sought for the greatness of America in her harbours but it wasn't there I sought it for in her halls of commerce it wasn't there I sought for it he goes and then when I went into church there it was her churches I'm not like the churches of Europe the pastors are on fire there is a flame of fire then I saw that America is is great because she is good should she ever cease from being good she'll cease from being great and that's why we're seeing this attack against the church there's attack to silence the church muzzle the church shut down the church get rid of prayer from schools the bible from schools the bible from our hallways the bible from our colleges the bible from our courts because the the the agenda of the devil is if I can stop America from being good I can take away their greatness 67% of Americans I just saw the status morning 67% of Americans are intimidated to reveal their political beliefs to anybody around them and so you know we've let the mob mentality the cancel culture in a small group begin to get more things and you stand against that and you you are basically calling out other pastors to stand for righteousness liberty to vote for people who on who have high moral standards yeah and you know basically you've been really strong about it and you've taken some hits Instagram your Instagram is is your master yeah it's a nickname uh so you find it you're gonna mathesias it might be easier to spell your master yeah it's actually sorry man but you joke about it j-u-r-g uh any i-e-r uh your master yeah uh your master and uh so get on his Instagram follow us off awaken church dot com is that right yes sir making church dot com uh emerge uh men emerge ranch is the ministry to men powerful stuff i i'm disain right now if you're a pastor leader anybody who is concerned about spiritual formation of people you're involved and connected to you nisten need to listen to your gans podcast you need to listen to his sermons you need to follow his Instagram and at some point attend one of their emerge events at least look and at least see the video you guys just did he emerged ranch video did you see it out fun yeah with hygricks and mat and all those guys it's just golden man and you in the pickup truck with a little uh strong your mouth you know but that's what's you know that's the other thing we appreciate about uh awaken church in your c3 background is that uh it is i always tell guys it's a it's a strong pentacostle core with a contributor to grapple yes yeah i agree yeah we're just not gonna get stuffed up with all these little religious rules that don't know guys become guys and we need men to be set free in the fullness of who they are if they're artists if they carve if they carve wood and make amazing art if if they build churches if they build cars whatever that thing is yeah let men be fully alive fully followers of Christ and fully connected to a community of men who don't look at them and go oh yeah hey you're good yeah we're good who actually know them yeah to be known to know and to be known this is it's you know it's uh it's just one of the greatest things in in a man's life so yes this is a great stuff thank you for taking the time pastor you're thank you there's a hundred other things i want to talk about and we'll have to do that i'm gonna talk about leadership place but i wouldn't say this that uh frankly you are you stir duty and i up when you and me and post about our nation you stir us up because if you will for some of us who've just kind of i mean i'm older i live through hate asher in the six season the crazy violence of the early seventies and all that and so some stuff is like yeah you know it's too we are and you stir us up you waking us uh good name for a church but you do that and i want to i just want to say we just pray over you and lian and your family and and your new uh daughter-in-laws yeah we pray that every place you put your beauty holy ground and everything you touch will prosper and the god will keep you deep within the favor and grace of his love uh thank you you're in the pieces thank you love you both thank you so much thanks for having me what a powerful story yeah he shared like yeah you know everybody especially young leaders we want things we want to advance we want success whatever that is our definition of it but we oftentimes are not willing to go through the process man and i mean to see what they are stewarding at a waking church but we also have to take in consideration like you just shared with us the process of what it took for him for them to get there yeah it was quite a process and then for you know they arrive there's no house there's no living lian and she's a young mom had she's trusted her husband he's like wow and you know what they just went for it man yeah you know you're gonna you know as we talked about and gave you a little background on him out of New Zealand, Australia he just got a tenacity about him and i i think that's part of what i hope all of us pick up yeah is that sense of um just not backing off and the other thing was they told him you know if you want to have a really good church in San Diego kind of laid back you got to be kind of chilled yes and he's anything but oh he's tall opposite he's fired he has fire yeah i mean they are powering the 19 of the Holy Spirit no they're not goofy no they're real they're trendy they're sharp all that kind of stuff whatever the right words are yeah Gucci lewie lewie is that the product opinion is that what's happening right now okay i mean i can't keep up with all that i'm still on dude i'm still on their fly yeah they're fly i don't know uh but yeah they they've got all that stuff and everything going and yet the power and annoy to the Holy Spirit people being healed marriage is being healed awake in church uh calm uh very they're very connected with the C3 churches yeah the Pastorville Pringles C3 International Global Churches but um and that's where we met was through that but my goodness man you hear this stuff and you go okay i want that yeah what it takes it takes prayer perseverance perspiration preparation and more prayer and also what you love to say doing the stuff doing the stuff doing the stuff but i also you know i just thought you know of your book bartender though and what you say in there i mean the reality is you know what are you willing how much are you willing to suffer yeah what do you want to see your dreams see your dream come to pass yeah and that's the reality of what yurgen and lian are stewarding they took on the pressure of the stuff and they said you know what we're not gonna allow the pressure of the stuff to dictate our narrative we have a dream we have a call and we have a destiny and we have a purpose and it's coming now now that now that they're as large as they are and everything now there's even more pressures from different places exactly because now they're they're like they're up there where people can see them and and so political pressures uh community pressures around the newspaper sometimes positive they feed a ton of people yeah and then sometimes negative because uh you know the secular press doesn't necessarily like the fact that we preach jesus yeah well i mean when you're not authentic and then something authentic hits you what are you gonna do to attack it well that's well there you go and that's why they get hit i think i think you're really that's a pressing comment and i think you really speak right on that chris hey thanks for being a part of everything that we're doing with brave men and then you mentioned majoring in men at the at the break and i always almost have to spell for guys majoring yes majoring majoring in men calm and we have a number of partners and friends who have who have been a part of this ministry who said uh we want this resource this twelve part how to how to build a ministry to men how to do meetings it is it is detailed it's everything you need plus then you can get the the leadership kit to go with it but it's free and we have over four hundred churches just in the last few months that have accessed this started going through it and we're hearing great reports of what's happening in our lives yes yeah majoring in men calm and also don't forget to subscribe subscribe hit the subscribe button hit share to share it with a friend you know what you just heard encouraged you so make sure you send it over to somebody else so they can be encouraged yeah and also even if you don't have a friend yeah okay right a review in little and you can make a friend because then they know right of you yeah right of friends yes exactly they'll see your name and they'll be like man let's reach out to this guy and you made a friend and Chris will be your friend oh I'm everybody's friend hey if you want to write to us right to uh Paul at cmn dot men Paul at cmn dot man hey thanks for being part of brave men today and thank you for praying uh for the outreaches that we have with christian men's networking the global fatherhood initiative and over one hundred nations around the world uh we actually live in your prayers and that's how we operate by the power and the 19 of the Holy Spirit in Jesus name hey thanks for being here with us God bless you just experience brave man with Paul Lewis Cole Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cmn dot man or write to him at Paul at cmn dot man