BraveMen S3E63: Danny Silk - Love Kids and Change the World

Welcome to Brave Men Today. We at the Christmas Network are fully committed to building strong men, strong families, and strong churches. We believe the family is the cornerstone of what God's created. In fact, before God was anything else, He was God in community or in family. And in fact, one of the things we've said with the Global Fatherhood Initiative, which is an outworking of the Christmas Network, is that we are a human justice mission, focused on defeating fatherlessness and ending child abuse. And so talking to Danny Silk a couple of days ago about his books, his ministry, about loving our kids on purpose, it really resonated with me. You were going to love this conversation. Chris Shields is here, of course, with me as our co-host on this season of Brave Men. But you know, his stuff on loving our kids on purpose, you know, you don't think about having to tell people to do that. No, you don't. It's like, what do you mean? I'm supposed to love them. Yeah, it's like, um, but see, the funny thing about you pointing that out is it reminds me of something that you always talk about when it comes to definitions. And I think, how can't, if you don't know the definition of something, how do you know the purpose of something? So in one of the biggest things that always stood out to me about loving our kids on purpose by Danny Silk was this scripture, Psalms 127 verse 3, where it says, children are God's love gift. They are heaven's generous reward. Children born to young couple will one day rise to protect and provide for their parents. That says that in there. That's what it says in the pageant translation. God wrote that. And I think if we would learn how to define the kids to people and get in say it's more than just a reward of having pleasure. Yeah, it's actually something that is setting the transaction of your, well, I can't even speak the trajectory of your life. What you're here to speak. Yeah, that's part of your job. I know. You know what I'm going to have to work on that, bro. Yes, I know. I'm sorry. Anyway, yeah, I do know what to mean. And the thing is is that, you know, in a culture in which we think abortion is okay. I mean you and I us, but or any right thinking people, but in general, a culture that says it's okay to kill 70 million kids or 150 million kids worldwide, kill them. That because they're a nuisance, then that same thought life can permeate everything. And you can begin to look at kids is what a hassle, what a nuisance, what a pain, but you know, that kind of thing, right? Yes. So for Danny soaked to come along and God's given him an amazing platformer of influence and he's out of Bethel, right? Bethel Church, which is where you first came in contact with him. Yes, I'd never met him before until we talked and totally resonated with him. Yes. And then he moved down with somebody that you knew down to Sacramento. Yeah, back in Lambchew. Yeah, to work with a church there. Yes. Which is now growth of Bethel Church in Reading, California, where Bill Johnson's a pastor and Danny Silk was on the senior leadership team for many years. And written a number of books. And I guess his most famous one is keep your love on. Yes, keep your love on. Which sounds like a Barry White song. Yeah, it does sound like a song. It really does sound like a song. You don't remember who Barry White is. Well, it was quite a few years before my time. Okay. But I know, come on, your mom and dad have to have heard some Barry White. I know who Barry White is. Which is when you guys get embarrassed and leave the room. Yes, it's like, okay, it's not. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Or read a book. But yeah. Yeah, put your heads that on. Yes. Like, don't hear anything else. But keep your love on. It's about connection, communication, boundaries, really well-known book. It's sold hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, most likely. And so he became really well-known. And now he's delved into the whole family thing. The whole conversation is really important for every dad, every father, really, every family member. Yes, every son, every son, every body, really. I mean, in one of the things that, you know, when you were touching on, but what Danny touches on is the reality is we live in a society that is built off assumptions. As if there is no answers. Wow. So when you don't know what the answer is, then you just label anything as okay. But the problem is. No center of truth. Yes, no center of truth. Wow. God gives us kids to be a voice, to be an answer to problems. People are answers to problems. What did you just say? God gives us kids as an answer to a problem. That's amazing. Yeah. And when you really look at it, I mean, you go throughout all the genealogy of people. Right. There are names mentioned and you go and you look at those names and it's like, wow, that was the answer to the issue that they were going through. Well, the book of Matthew is, you know, the genealogy of Christ. He starts with Abraham. And when you start reading through the genealogy of Jesus, you find some messed up people. Yes. Which really speaks of a savior that came knowing our stuff. Exactly. Having a story, having some history. This conversation with Danny Sog. I'm so blessed that Danny was able to be with us on Brave Men. You're going to want to tell somebody about this. Really, you're going to want to sit down. I know some of you are driving and working out and doing other things. Listening to podcasts. But you need to sit down with some paper at some point. Really listen to it. Write some notes down. This is going to be a great conversation with Danny Sog. Talking about loving our kids on purpose today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Wisdom and Courage for the Journey. I'm talking with Danny Sog. Danny is the president of loving on purpose. He and his wife Sherry have been our experts in raising children. They are people who have given their lives. And you wrote a book, Danny, called loving our kids on purpose. And that's kind of where I want to center in. I'm sure there'll be some other stuff. But you said something in this book that I thought was great. You said not the only thing you said that was great. But you said it's raising teens is like flying a kite on a windy day. And then on your bio it says you've actually had 70 teenagers that you've parented. Tell me about that because that sounds like Gideon, right? Judges 8th, chapter 70 kids. Yeah, we actually weren't our kids, but they were. Awards of the court. They were juvenile offenders. And we lived in a group home for five years. And we just had kids just come through our world. And we learned we were young. We were, we were some of them. We were barely 10 years older than. But it was it was a training. It was a, it was an experience for sure. Yeah. Now what, what caused you to do that? What, I mean, how would you as a young marriage say, hey, we're going to go ahead up this group home. And people are going to come through who are totally jacked up. Yeah. How do you make that pivot in your life? Uh, you know, I think that it was, it was within a few years of getting saved, you know. And realizing that I am really called to pour out my life. That's why that's what Jesus did for me. That's what I'm, that's what I'm here. And so it was very much a. Just a following the Lord before we feel like he's leading you. And that's exactly what we did. So we, we got on a path at that point. That was, that was our entry into ministry. We've been a ministry ever since. So that was, uh, now, you know, it was, was that 91? Is that when that was? That would have been 86, 86, okay, 86 and 91. Yeah. 93. So then, so then was there, was there an empathy and over? Did you get into this thing? I mean, you know, just walk into something like that. Was there an empathy from your own upbringing that said, man, I've got to help kids like this. What was your upbringing like? I mean, I wouldn't have attributed it to that. Exactly. I mean, I have to raise my single mom and a little tiny town. Um, I had zero gang related experience or intercity. Anything. I was, you know, I was, uh, not boy. But that. And so that was, uh, to set the context. That was in Weaverville, California, which is trying to. Yeah. Northern California. Northern California. I don't want to think they think they could California. They don't have the weird. But, uh, that was back when California came out with their lottery. And, uh, some friends of ours were sitting around talking and, and, uh, they said, what would you do if you win the lottery? I said, oh, I would have a big ranch. And I'm going to have kids there that had no place to live. Wow. And I would teach them a trade. I was a butcher at the time. I said, it would be a cattle ranch. And I'd teach them how to cut meat and I teach them how to farm and teach them how to, you know, ranch and. And I said, that's what I would do if I won five million dollars or whatever that was. So it was in there. It was in there. And then within a year, we got an offer to move to red in California and work in this group on agency. Wow. So, so the thing you were talking about was like a prophetic thing inside your heart, man. Absolutely. That's amazing. Now, how did you, how did you end up being a follower of Christ? Where did that happen? Uh, it happened and we were going to, I, you know, move there when I was seven years old. And I got saved when I was 21 years old. So, you know, I had plenty of time to, you know, wreck my life. And so I was, I could, you know, I, I, I was just surrounded by people. Chris Valentine. He is a friend of mine that's a part of Bethel Church and the movement of Bethel Church. And I met, I started working with Chris Valentine on when I was 16 years old. So, yeah. So he was a real catalyst in me ever hearing the gospel. I'd never even heard it before. And he was, he was just an evangelist, but he drove me crazy. So, it took, you know, five years, five years of knowing him. And I was like, whoa, dude, but as soon as it, as soon as I had that burning in my heart, I went around him and I said, how do you go to church? Wow. I said, how do you go to church? He goes, you just come. I said, oh, they're going to let me just walk into a church. And let it be known for the record that Trinity County, and this is back in the 80s, right? Late 70s, early 80s. Trinity County was probably the number one growing of hallucinogenic herbs in the United States, perhaps. Right? Yeah. Why is it marked? Oh, you were marketing marijuana before it was slightly legal. Is that right, Danny? And then, and we're let, we're going to read your book on kids. Well, I've cleaned up since then. You've cleaned up. So Chris, so you work with Chris, he begins to talk to you. And you end up going to this little church pastor by guy named Bill Johnson. Is that right? That's where I got saved by a prayer and the church with Bill and Chris. You know, that's a stunning thing. We reveal for those who don't know. It's a small town. 3,400. Is that what you said it was? Yeah, it was. It was. It was. I'm not sure what the present day count is. Yeah. It was 35 and I grew up there. Yes. And they're claimed to fame. You and I were talking about it off my, because they're claimed to fame is they. There actually is not one single stoplight in the entire county. Yeah. There's a blinking light in we reveal. It's a red light. It is. It's a three way stop now, but there's no traffic signals. Yeah. I've actually been there. My sister was assistant district attorney there. And so you get radically saved. I mean, something totally tips over it. Now, have you met your wife, Sherry by then? We met in elementary school, but we didn't actually ever date until after we had both got saved. Really? And she except crisis at the same place. Same place. A month before me. Wow. And then your lives connect. And then is your, and there you are working as a butcher. And it's like, what's the next thing? And God leads you into this. Like you guys are the parents of a group home. We're, I mean, 13 and 14 year old bad people are coming. Yeah, they were, they were from another planet, really. I mean, they just had such a different paradigm. Many of the kids that came into the group home. You know, they're 15, 16, 17. They're going to go back. And their, their goal really is to go to prison. Like they, they have to be validated as men. You know, they have to be validated as. Members of their community. And they're, they're going to prison. Like so. So all of a sudden you saw, you saw the, the lack of validation. You know, I think it was Plato that said, most men live on examined lives. And, and I think today we don't live unexamined lives because our stuff is everywhere on the Internet or wherever. I think we live uninitiated lives. And, and that's what you found in these young men that caused you really a lifelong journey now. Of, of, of here's how we reach that young man. So what's the first thing you do now that you've gone through years of this study and training and dozens, while hundreds of cases, but dozens and hundreds of hands on help. What's the first thing I do? You know, as a dad or a mentor to reach a young man who's just, he's a little turned. Um, well, I, I have another book called Keep Your Love On. And that, that first, the first section of that book is about being powerful. You know, being, being essentially self controlled, meaning that I'm not a victim of what's going on around me. I actually have, I always have two choices at least. I always have at least two choices of what I'm going to do. Something good or something dumb, you know, I always have choices. So I don't get to blame my life on anybody. I mean, nobody's going to stand before the Lord at the end of time and the Lord's going to say, so who'd you like to blame your life on? You know, it's not going to work like that. You know, I'm going to stand there and I was powerful because I was free. And because I'm free, I'm responsible. And so that is an internal transformation because most people, but many men have been trained to believe that something out there controls them. They're just getting in reaction to whatever. So it's fine finding our centers, finding our true identity. And of course, we know as followers of Christ, we find our identity in Christ. So what you find in a young man is particularly an unfobored. Let's talk about unfobored, non-mentored young men. What's the first thing they need? Is it just a listening ear or is it somebody who actually begins to speak into their life? What do I do in that case, Danny? I think there's probably three things I'm going for. I'm going for, you know, I've answered the question for this young man. Do you like me? Does this guy like me? And because I want to be affirmed, I want to be enjoyed, I want to be respected. Does this guy have anything that can help me? Does he even know me? Does he have any solutions for me? Will I trust this person? So I think I got to answer those three questions in that young man's life before this is going anywhere. So as a mentor, and again, let's talk about, you know, I'm kind of relating it not necessarily to the parenting experience. But to the experience, a lot of us find ourselves in a church where a lot of single moms are. There's a young man. And the first thing I need to do is actually be engaged. I mean, I need to ask him how he's doing. And then when he says, yeah, I'm fine, then I need to ask him again and then be prepared to actually engage. Yeah, I think that, you know, this kid, he's, he's insecure. He doesn't, he doesn't belong really to any men. You know, there's, there's no, there's no real association to men. He might associate with other boys, but he doesn't really associate with a man. And so I am, I am sending a signal to this young man that, you know, there's something special about you. Let me say, let me tell you, I noticed some things about you. And I noticed that you're a cowboy fan. And I noticed that you like Chevy's. Hey, I noticed that you like Minecraft. You know, I, I, I noticed that you like whatever, whatever. And, you know, I noticed you. Wow. Wow. And I like you. Yeah, yeah. It's huge, but it, man, I just, you know, Danny, you know, I got to just go tell you something right there off the bat right there is just doesn't sound like it's that difficult if you actually have a heart that loves people as the father's asked us to love people. Yeah, it's, it, it comes kind of natural way when you, when you make it doable, you know, like, hey, I, that kid really stood up to me. I don't know what it was. He ran by screaming like a wild Apache, but you know what? I like that kid. You remind me of something. Now, you know, so, so the church is an easy target when we say the church because the church is just a whole collection of people. But, but you feel like the church in that sense is doing that well for young men. And if we're not, what do we need to do? I'm sure that some churches are, I think every church that's intending to is probably doing a pretty good job. I think there's just a lot of places that are intending to do other things, you know, there's just a lot of things to do. Some places have some men that have have a real heart for mentoring and family, you know, orphans, sons and daughters. I mean, there's, you know, there's some, some places have just men that are gifted with that, that sort of leadership in their community. And others are, you know, just focused on other things. I hate to really pass judgment on a church because you're right. The church is just massive, you know, whatever. Hey, man, if somebody, if somebody do all my stuff, I'd be an easy target too. You know, I have a million weaknesses, so let's talk about milk. So, okay, let's talk about parenting then. I mean, you are, you're, we've got a master's in social work, so you not only have an educational background, you actually have a practical hands-on background. And then you were a family pastor on staff at Bethel. Now you're in Sacramento area with Jesus culture. And so you're a hands-on guy, you've done this stuff, you've helped parents parent. Now, by the way, give me the website, just so the guys listening can grab some of this stuff. I love you on purpose.com. Just the way it sounds. Loving on purpose.com. Yeah, that's our, that's our ministry and that's, that's our website. And you have children that are now one or two of them have grown up to help you with this, right? Well, my oldest daughter, Brittany, she's actually taken over the parenting arm, the family arm. Her husband, her and Ben are doing the family arm. We have a relationship, family leadership focuses. We have an online academy, life academy, sort of all these resources online that you can go into this. You can run small groups with it. You can study up. You can, you know, present it to your church, whatever. It's all kinds of online stuff. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's just, you just capture your life and it's fantastic. And you make it, you make it available. Hey, this is Chris. 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That's the Christian Men's Network at cmman.men. Now, let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Danny Silk. We actually live with my daughter, her husband, and my three grandchildren. So, we're seven of us all quarantined. Now, if we had known, if we had known, we would have quarantined with our grandkids. You know, of course, they all live within five or six miles of us, but they're different families. And our house isn't big enough to include them. So, but if we had known, right? So, finally, you know, after, I guess I'm seeing March 14th, after a month, I mean four weeks, right? Barely seeing it. We did drive-by's, my wife and I drive-by's to the grandkids. And finally, we did an Easter party in our front driveway. And I pulled these umbrellas from the back, you know, that patio umbrellas. Pull them out to the front in our driveway and our little neighborhood we live in. And kind of made a little camp cold, you know, sort of little area. And I brought the cooler out there and the stuff. And they all, and everybody showed up because it was outside and the wind's blowing and all that sort of stuff, you know. But you, you live in the good life, man. Quarantine with your grandkids. It's awesome. Both my sons are there in and out, you know, my youngest son. He actually left the LA to come stay with us during this whole deal. He's like, I'm out of here. Yeah, and now there's some wisdom right there, man. You know, LA County, those guys shut everything down and it's been worse for them, but that's a whole other deal. Your oldest son, is he, is he living in LA, is he in college and school or what's he doing there? My youngest son is living and working in the film industry. He just said, I'm going to go be with my folks and my oldest son, middle child, just recently get out of the army. And so he's living in the area. And so he's, he's around. Yeah, well, that's fantastic. And any of your youngest sons in the film industry, we'll talk about that a little bit in a minute. So, so here's the deal. I'm talking with Danny, so loving on purpose. You've been a family pastor all these things. But you, you've hung around with Bill Johnson and Chris Vallerton. So let me ask you, do you fish? I have fish in the hunt and race cars. You race cars. Yeah, I have two race cars. What, what are they? Dirt or they? I just tracked this. I have a little 3d series BMW and 944 version. Oh, so you're, you're on pavement. You're like Laguna Seca, stuff like that. Yeah, so Sonoma Speedway is just about half for my house. Very, very. Our house. Yeah, very familiar with it. That's great. And are those, what types are those trials or what types of races are those? Well, it's actually a kind of a scoofed racing that departments way of getting into racing. It's called lemons 24, which is a lamons. You know, it's a sofa on a lawns. No, and it's a two days. It's a two day race. It's an endurance race. So you have a team of, we have a team of four or five guys at a time and we just rotate through the seat and it's so much fun. I say it's the most fun you can have if you close on. spoken like a true family pastor. Okay, so here's the deal. What you said, now you said something in this book and I know you've written a bunch of other stuff, but I've got in front of me loving our kids on purpose. Okay, and I recommend this book to any parent. So here's what you promised to me as a parent is you promised me this is a value added proposition that's right here in the first chapter. And you said, I'm going to help you no longer have any arguments with your teams. Is that what it says? With your kids. With your kids. Yeah, you can get yourself out of an argument with a toddler. And then I love the technique. One of the techniques I read was being a cloud becoming a cloud. So, so first of all, I think it's a great promise, even though have to people listening right now are rolling their eyes. Yeah, yeah, but the fact is you've made it work. Okay, otherwise you wouldn't be able to hang around with banning or bill or any of those guys because they're truth guys. Yeah, right. And in valetime, what I've already just kicked you out. Okay, well, he would have known about it ahead of time because he's a prophetic truth guy. So, so the thing is, what does it mean to be a cloud? I found this absolutely, absolutely fascinating. Well, you know, the probably the big deal with parents is that, you know, they, they actually believe that it's their job to control their time. And, you know, that's a setup. It's just a setup whenever you enter a relationship and you think somehow it's your job to control another human because you don't, you know, on a good day, you can control yourself, you know, on a good day. I mean, a good day to day man. I told him what to do and I did it. You know, I mean, that's, that's your setup. And so we don't teach our children, we can control them, we teach our children, we can control ourselves. And then you know, that's an example of controlling yourself so that you can teach your child to control themselves. Wow. And that's, that's the impartation. That's the gift that you give to your child is I taught you how to control yourself. Wow. You know, you, you made a statement in here about relationship above the rules, page 35. And, and what I wrote down was something that we teach in Krishmin's network is where there's more law, there's less love. And, and too often as dads, we've just kind of heard it or we picked it up somewhere, you know, I'm going to take my kids, I'm going to lay down the law. And the Bible teaches us the law always kills the kills dreams. Yeah, right? Yeah, we teach a lot about connection. You know, we call this heart to heart connection. I think that's the subtitle of that book is, you know, we get, we have to we have to build that because I think it was James Dopson, and it used to say that rules without relationship equals rebellion. You know, and that, that really does play out. When you just lay down the law, and you do, you do your toddler or your teenager, you're, you're going to find out that you don't control people. That's, that's the day that you get, you get confronted with, I don't control other humans. And so I'd better have a connection with them so that I can leave them. And they will, they will behave to protect the connection because we made this connection valuable over the experience of our life together because when your kids leave, all you have is that connection. If you don't have a connection with your kids and they go out to be adults, you don't get much life with them. And it's their choice because they have no value for this connection because all we did was manage the disconnection and I survived you. Wow. And in your right, it is their choice. At that point, it flips, doesn't it? It just changes. Well, it always, it's always the case. It's always the truth that this relationship is really all we have, but because we think that when we can control people, we actually think they have to have a relationship with us. They don't. That's what we realize after they leave. Well, in fact, that could start at seven or eight years of age, couldn't it? Oh, it's, yeah, it can start pretty early because by then they know how to open a refrigerator and get their own stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's kids are home a lot and they're unsupervised a lot, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's amazing where I live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. What we find in the Dallas Independent School District because we're involved with Tony Rory and honor academy and a lot of things that we do there. What we're saying, finding right now is 82% of the young men in junior highs in that huge school district, 82% of the young men in junior highs have no father figure in their home. Well, we're also finding is close to 20. It's about 18 and a half, close to just under 20% of the children that are elementary kids, elementary children. So that's up to what? 11 or 12 years old are functionally homeless. Another research, mom, mom with the prisons, sort of aluminum with their aunt or the aluminum with the grandmother or somebody left that couldn't make ends meet whatever and then somebody else moves over so they move over to the couch. In other words, they don't have their own space. So what is, what does that pretend for the future? How do we shift this thing, Danny? I mean, you know, I can do this, I can work, I can get this book work on my child, you know, in that sense. How do we shift the thing, you know, more macro way? Oh, repentance, you know, I mean, it's going to be a society's repentance. It's one and one, you know, has a chaiar, you know, it's one of those where we have to have such a global shift in the way that we perceive family, marriage, God, love, covenant. I mean, we have to repent because there's just no, you know, this narcissistic pleasure-driven ship that we've been on for however long, it's going to sink, it's going to crash, you know, and revival will come out of that. It will, but it's, that's, I mean, we can harp about this all we want, but if we don't have a leadership repentance on our nation, because leaders create culture, the leaders of our society create the culture. You said earlier that, you know, we, somebody said, we have the government that we deserve. Well, that's, the government is a reflection of what's going on with the people, especially when you elect them. So we have a, we have a repentance in store, I think, and that will turn our hearts back to the Lord, and then we can flourish as a people again, because when the righteous rejoice, or when the righteous rule, people endorse flowers, you know, that's, that's, but we're growing right now, because we've had some pretty, you know, we've had several decades now of absolute immorality at the helm. You talk, because you talk a lot in your book, you talk about the connection of the heart, what you're talking about, and you talk a lot about it, it's covenant, yeah, moved to a place of covenant. And so covenant loves and covenant continues to love, covenant is first Corinthians 13, but you also said that, it was really fascinating to me reading your book was that you talk about children raising kids, you even use the word kids. And then you said something, because you shifted the, the timber of it just a bit, when you said, if your kids misbehave, then you said the words something like this, that person that, talking about the kid, you didn't say the kid again, you said that person, talking about an eight or nine year old, that person. In other words, you shifted the temperature, the focus, the, the texture of the relationship to this is another person. I mean, you know, right? Kids are people too, you mean like that? You're people too. That's huge. My, my youngest son, he, it's a longer story. And some people, some of our friends know the story of his wife passing away a year and a half ago, but they're married six weeks. But for two years, when he was her primary caregiver, she went through cancer, and they started dating, he, he parented her three little boys. And the youngest, the four-year-old was acting up one day, and Bryce's, Bryce is telling him, you have to stop this. And his name's Elliott, and had to stop this. And Sarah turned to Bryce and goes, Bryce, you can't, you can't be that strong with him like you are with William, the oldest one. Because Elliott's only been on the earth for four years. In the first two, he didn't even know where he was. Yeah, and this is the best phrase I know. He's only been on the earth for four years. They, kids are people too. Have you written that book yet? Because that's, that's fantastic. Yeah, I love this stuff you're doing Danny Silicon. Thank you for being with us on Brave Men. And again, the, the website is real simple. It's lovingonpurpose.com, lovingonpurpose.com, you and your wife, Sherry, committed your life to it, your children are involved. Your youngest son moved back from the film industry, moved home, so obviously have a relationship. So you haven't only taught it, but you actually lived it. And then what you did was teach what you lived. And I love that because I think Danny too often, we forget that you either minister from those areas in which you have been tested, or you will be tested in those areas in which you minister. Yeah, we got too many of us speaking of stuff we've never done like a Bruce Springsteen song, who he never lived any of the stuff he wrote. But he made a great living. He said that himself. He said, I've made a great living writing songs about things of which I've never experienced. But, but you've written about things you've experienced. And I want to thank God for you and your wife, Sherry, and we pray every place you put your feet is holy ground. And everything you put your hands to it will prosper. And that God will keep you deep within the grip of his favor in the name of Jesus. Thank you, Danny. You're awesome, man. You know, Paul, you being someone that has been a dad and now a grandfather. Oh, so dad. Well, yeah, you know, you know what I mean. I'm a dad. Yes, you are dad. But you've also graduated on to being a grandfather too. So let's put it like this. You're two generations of being a dad. Wow. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I realize that. So with that, exactly. Ain't you? No, honestly, I like my job. But with all that being said, how what have you learned? What is a gold nugget that you can leave us with on the importance of loving your kid on purpose? You know, I thought he really hit it well in our conversation about being engaged. You know, being present in the moment, we can get so busy with different things. You know, we live in this really this high-tech, low-touch world. Wow. And for me, I think kids need low-tech and high-touch. Yes. I love the way my children parent their kids and the way Bryce is a stepfather parent to his boys is a limited screen time. So well, you know, we call it, you know, basically we call it, you know, cocaine for the brain, really, if people aren't careful about the digital stuff. And so they limit that. And they do a lot of, like, Lindsay, I'll see pictures on Instagram of them taking walks, picking up stuff. Like Cameron, last year picked up a stick. He goes, Dad, look at this stick. He goes to pick it up and his dad goes, stop! And it was a cotton mouth. Wow. You know, cut her bed in them. So they have these adventures. So you take walks. You do stuff. You go ride bikes. You know, Brandon, they've got a little dirt bike. You go ride the dirt bike. Do stuff like that. And I think that those are the kinds of things that children need. Definitely. That, you know, I worked a lot. We owned a business for many, many years as my children grew up. And I remember it. I think it was a 40th anniversary for my life. And I ran and stood up. And he said, you know, Dad was gone, but we never felt anything but safe. We always felt safe. That's how we put it. We always felt safe. We always felt secure. And we always felt Dad was there, even though I wasn't. Because I set my calendar based on activities that my kids had. So I might have a business thing that we had to go do. But I would say, okay, I got to work around it because on my calendar already was somebody's, you know, thing at school, you know, the game, whatever. And I missed a few games, but I didn't miss the important things. So they always felt I was there. But it reminds me of what your dad always says, you know, affection is not measured by distance. You know, it's measured by affection. Yeah, you know, in communication sex and money is great book. It's cmd.man that we have communication sex and money. Very important. And we have the, what's the father book conversations with fathers? Oh, absolute answers. Yeah, absolute answers about my dad and his dad and the spirit of protocol. And there's even a picture of you in there. Is it real? I'm reading that book right now. Dude, come on. Yeah. Oh, man. We're going to have to edit that one. Because it's when I was young right now. Well, I put one in my book, Gary, in any way. It almost looks like the one you have in your office. Yeah. That picture. Yeah. It's great. Thanks, Chris. Yes. Classic. And then we have father moments. We have the number of books and materials people go on. The father minutes. Yeah. Yeah. What's the name of that thing should be in front of us here on the table, but it's not. Yeah. If we're known, we're the daily devotional. If you had been producing the show in such a way that we knew it had what was going to happen. Anyway, hey, thanks for being with us today and brave men. It really is an honor that you would take the time to be with us. And you've sent us some comments. If you want to get a hold of me, just write to me at Paul at cmn.man. Paul, that's P-A-U-L. I got it spelled the other day by barista totally different. It was like P-O-O-L. I'm like, whoever had a name like that. I mean, why would you even write that down P-O-O-L? Anyway, nonetheless. And there are some unusual names these days. Yes, there is. But anyway, so Paul at cmn.man would love to hear from you. And that comes directly to me and Chris, right? And Bruce. And then also Bruce has, you know on that Monday night menu you talked about, Bruce has special discounts for all churches, for all the resources. If you've got a group or your meeting with some guys, we've got a number of churches that watch Monday night men, or they take the video off of YouTube, watch it at a different time, because we're on Monday nights at 8 p.m. Central. They'll watch it at a different time and live and watch the video and then have a group meeting and do a 90-minute thing. And the pastor doesn't have to come up with a new message. It's, I mean, we spend, we probably spend 20 hours of research and work on each of those half-hour messages along with the book that's already been written. Yes. So it's an incredible resource and people can grab a whole of that. And even Wednesdays, we do go on Facebook and we do. Yeah, we do a follow-up. Yep. That's always fun. We have some great guys come on that. Hey, Chris, thanks for being with me today. Our co-hosting this. And thank you for being a part today of Brave Men. Make it a fantastic day, God bless. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.