BraveMen S3E68: Manhood in the Mess of Life - Brian Tome Has Opinions

You know, I first encountered Brian Tome and reading the book, The Five Marks of a Man. I'm not even sure how I got into my hands, but when I began to read it, I thought, man, this guy, I want to meet that I went online and found out that he had a thing called man camp. And now that, dude, I really want to meet him. I called his church. He pastors Crossroads church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I said, I'd like to talk to the pastor. He got on the phone with me. We had a great conversation. And from that, I followed him on social media and then finally able to get him in a conversation on the podcast. So I'm thrilled today to introduce you to Brian Tome and his material, his resources and his inspirational life. He says, Chris, and with me again, today, I'm brave men as Chris shields. And he says, you know, I'm ready to lead you into the the adventure of life. Yeah. And it's kind of his thing, you know, if you follow him on social media, which you and I do in his Instagram, which actually ticks me off. Right? Why? Because it's always pretty cool. And I'm like, I'm sitting on my back porch, you know, you know, and he's out trying to kill him. Moose or something or you know, he's pulling a part up, you know, a motorcycle and showing you how to do the rims and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, you know, anyway, so, uh, and then the agnarch thing that was interesting. So, uh, I couldn't, I couldn't post the agnarch thing. But he can. Yes. Yes. Great guy. Great conversation. But the five marks of a man, that book, when I read that truly, I do not remember how it came into my hands. I don't know if I just ordered it. I think I did. I think I saw it. I ordered it. Begin to read it. And I thought, and this guy's nailed something. Yeah. I want to meet him. Yeah. And, uh, really like the guy, you know, but again, like I said, is IG ticks me off. Yeah. But I mean, IG just represents his devotional move. Well, there you go. The end devotional listen to this 66 prompts to kick your rear into gear. Yeah. And then think about his Instagram. Yeah. There you go. That's what he does. Yeah. That's what he does. It's about moving you off of, uh, if you will, for a lot of us, the little religious stuckness that we're in. Yes. Or your couch or your couch. Yeah. Cause I mean, think about it. It's like the one thing that I really admire about him is he is representing the action of ministry. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people have the, how can I say it? Like the scholastics of ministry. Yeah. But very few people have the action to ministry. Yeah. It's good. The walking in ministry. Okay. There you are. A lot of people can talk it. Yeah. And then it's just actually walk it. Yes. And you can see it. And it's like man, I want to be a part of that church. It's fun. Yeah. In other words, his IG is actually who he is, rather than, uh, best of. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like it's not a, oh, at the end of the year, like this is the best photos that I had this year. No, it's constant action. Yeah. It's not all posed. Yeah. Oh, man. John Aldridge talks about that and some of his stuff, right? The posters. Yeah. And so there's this conversation with Brian. I really enjoyed that. In fact, I'd like to have another one. Yeah. Because if we can, if he's got time, because there was some stuff that I felt like man, I'd love to ask about that. Yeah. But then again, that's why he gives books. Yes. Right. Which is websites? Brian Tom. Yeah. Brian tom.com. What is it? Brian tom.com. T o m a. Yeah. Great guy. Hey, uh, and speaking of that, if you could at the mid break, tell everybody where to get on our social media and that sort of stuff. Brave men is a production of the Christian men's network, a, um, ministry to men, a ministry that helps churches disciple men. We have the website majoring in men.com, uh, which hundreds, uh, now over thousands of churches have actually used to help launch ministry to men in the local church. We do that in 134 nations right now in 19 languages and getting ready to launch into the dangerous nations initiative, which I'm really fired up about. So, uh, you know, that's why love Brian. He's a church guy. Yes. You know, and that's who we are. We're church guys. But we're part of the fun church. We're part of the fun. I'm sorry. I had to say it because I just remember growing up and it's like, man, I remember being a PK and some of my friends are like, Chris, I would go to church with you, but church is so boring. Yeah. Your church is boring. And I'm like, no, church is not boring. People are boring. People are boring. You know, but that's true. And that's what he talks about in Crossroads Church and Cincinnati. It says right on their website, right? Adventure. Yes. Adventure of life. And that's what Brian's about. And that is the adventure of following Jesus Christ. Exactly. And that's what CMN is about. The Global Fatherhood Initiative. It is, it is about the adventure of life. Exactly. You know, following the ministry. Yeah. We are just having fun. Yeah, we are having fun. You know, that's an interesting thing. We can explore that on the after thing because Brian speaks about that. You know, there is a depth to it. Yeah. There is a seriousness. There are parts of life that hurt. Yeah. Right? And so Brian speaks to that and brings it back to it really is all about Jesus. Hey, I'm excited to introduce you today to Brian Tom, who is the pastor of Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, Ohio and has a number of books he's written. We're going to talk about that today, the aggressive life podcast and so forth. Today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Talking with Brian Tom, who is a pastor of Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, I just found out a few moments ago talking before we started the recording. You were a Steelers fan growing up though. Yeah, man, if you're a Pittsburgh, that's the way it is. I mean, you're born in Pittsburgh. You're you're dyed in the black and gold. So it was really it was really paying for me Paul to go from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati to a place where there's super balls and a team that knows how to win the playoffs to a team that has not won in the playoffs in decades. So it's painful. Well, you know, here's the deal. I'm in Dallas area. So we're the same way except it's in reverse. In other words, we were doing great for until about 24 years ago. So it's only been 24 years of mediocrity, which, you know, there you go. Don't tell Jerry Jones that. Well, okay. Well, thank you, Jerry. It's usually what we say. Hey, Brian, but you've pastored for years planted that church there and then you just did it start with? Did you start this church with a sense of man? I've got to build some strong men. Or did that happen over a period of time because now with a man camp and all the materials you do for men, your Instagram is really encouraging men, you're new devotional, all this stuff. And you are just carving out something and reaching men across the North America. Did that come across your path later or was it something you always started with? We didn't we didn't start the church saying, hey, we want to put our thumbprint on men, but we did start the church saying we want to chart new ground in the area of vulnerability, in the area of realness, in the area of just being more relatable to the average guy. We want to want we want to have a masculine voice. So that's always been important to do. Not saying, hey, we're going to have a church full of men, but hey, I'm kind of a classic guy's guy. So let's just make sure I am who I am on stage. And then about, oh shoot, Paul, I don't know about about, I don't know, eight years ago, seven, seven years ago, things started taking form where we saw that there were some new things you wanted to start that were really helping men. So that's the journey we've been on. Yeah. And so the instigation of that, when you talk about that seven or eight years ago, what what tipped over? And you know, did you see something you called to me to go, man, this is a mess? Or was it just like, hey, this is a cool thing? Well, everything I was seeing in culture was bothering me. Yeah. It's hard to see it much in culture if you're a man who's trying to go up to the heart of God and not scratch your head and go, what? What are you? What are we doing here? What what? It's hard not to see that. Yeah. But I did a sermon series. Oh gosh, I don't know, eight, nine years ago, it was called new man. And it was based on stuff I was doing with my son, trying to bring my son into manhood. And in that series, I talked about the five marks with man. It was the five things I worked on with my son. And it was an amazing series like everybody loves it. Love, love, man, women, the whole thing, which I just spoke to guys in the whole series. And then three years later, we said, well, let's do this again. Let's call it something different. But this time, we realized we need to have something from men to do afterwards. Yeah. So why don't we, I was on a motorcycle trip with some guys that we were sitting around a fire in the morning and talking about some important media stuff. And I said to the guys, how can we get more guys experiencing this? We come out, we're stretched, we're pushed, we get away from normal life, we laugh, we have significant deep conversation. What can we do to get more guys experienced this who don't have to ride a motorcycle and don't even like motorcycling? Right. And that that group come up and said, well, why don't we just do a camping thing and have men camp and we'll have some adventure things and have some campfires. And so he said, all right, good. We'll try that. So for that series, Paul, that second series, we told folks, all right, the end of the series, we're going to name a series called Wolfpack because we all need, we all need our own wolf. You know, I went to see a trainer out in Montana. You're seeing a real wolf, Paul. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're, they're really intimidating creatures. And one of them was a lone wolf in the, in the, in the guy this Montana guru guy rescues wolves and everything. So that's a, that's a lone wolf. And so you know about that lone wolf. I said, no, I don't, much, much about it all. And he said, well, lone wolves are always smaller than all the other wolves. And they always die sooner than all the other wolves because you, the wolves need a pack to be able to pull down something that gives them real protein. You know, of course, in America, how many of us as men are, well, I'm kind of like a lone wolf. Oh, he's a lone wolf guy. It's just like, he's big bad. No, if you're a lone wolf, you're freaking loser. You're a lone wolf. You're hurting. You're weak. Yeah, it's the moral, burrow man on a, on a saddle on a horse, you know, facing the, you know, obstacles or whatever. With no one around him. Yeah, an army of one always loses, basically. Yes. Right. So we had that, we had that series called Wolfpack. And then we said, as an addendum said, Hey, if you want to dig in these ideas more, then we're going to do, we have an overnight, we had a guy who had a farm in Indiana. And we got, we got room for 500 dude. So if anyone wants to come, it's, I don't know what it was, 25 bucks, something like that. When registration to open up on Monday morning at 6 a.m., we had 500 people paid up with credit card entered in 90 seconds. And we realized, okay, we've got something here. So that started the beginning of man camp. And so here we are six years later, we take about 17,000 guys through an experience to connect with each other and connect with God. Where do you, where do you feel like men are? So now you're a study, you, you begin studying man culture in that sense in our culture. Yes, in general. Where do you feel men are today? And we're speaking about North America. Even though guys would be listening, but pretty much I think, you know, as I traveled around the world, this Western culture sentence to permeate most cultures. Where do you feel we're at? I think the main problem, I think the problem that is most common, not every guy has it that is most common is loneliness. I think loneliness and isolation is, is the biggest problem. It's leading to, it's reading the suicides. Men have suicides. I think the last time I saw the statistics is twice as often as women have suicides. We're three times more, more likely to have alcohol-related legal incidences in our life. We're three times more likely to have a, a mental disease. So, and I think the common thread to all these things is loneliness guys don't know other people. They don't know who to unwind with. They don't know who to talk to the crap about with it. They don't know. They don't have anybody to laugh with. They don't have anybody to just do life with and and we're not made to be alone and we're alone and it's killing us and it's killing our country. One of the things you see with all these mass shooters, active shooters, which is maybe one good thing about the COVID stuff we're in. We haven't had an active shooter for seven months, you know? But one of the things you find out with all those dudes is one, they're all dudes. They come from the right. They come from the left. They have different spiritual allies, different skin colors. But they're all dudes. They are all lonely. They are all lonely and they are all isolated and this is not good for our culture. You know, and Warren Farrell who wrote to the Boy Crisis, I'm sure you've seen that. Warren and I were talking last week about it and he said they're all fatherless. Yes. He said in his studies and research, he said that's one of the key indicators that leads guys towards that. And perhaps that leads to loneliness. Well, if you think about, well, this is one of my problems. My dad was around. The very thankful for my dad, but my dad also didn't model for me what it looked like to have a friendship. My dad didn't have any friends. I never saw a dad going out and hanging out with guys. I think part of that might be that my dad's on the spectrum someplace. He's a classic engineer, nuclear engineer. So maybe there's some of that, but I didn't see that. And guys, when they don't have dads, which is an increasing percentage of America, they're not seeing that model either. And so we have our, we have our frat boy days or our party days or underage drinking days, maybe in high school for some guys who get into that. And those environments were, we're quote unquote, male bonding. It's not only around alcohol, right? We're quote, unquote, male bonding. We go to a, we go to a fraternity or we're in college and we're around people. We do interview sports around people. And then once we get out of those environments, fall and we're into a normal life, then it's like game on. Now I'm trying to make it in my career. And we don't have anything in our mind that brings men into our life. We don't have any environment to hang out with guys. And so when a guy says, I say, who's your best friend? And when they name somebody who they work with, I know there's a problem because you're only that friend because you work with them as soon as you get transferred or they get transferred, you've lost your friend because it's purely work related. It's convenience. It's not a relationship of the soul. Yeah. Yeah, we've committed to comfort the expensive character. You know, I was on a bike at the gym, you know, kind of been working out at home for the last few months because of this COVID thing. But but I was on a bike and a guy came up to a man next next to me and he goes, Hey, I haven't seen, I forget the guys now. Haven't seen Bill around. You know, we used to always see each other. You know, he's a friend of mine. The guy looks at him and goes, dude, Bill had a heart attack. He hasn't been around here for miles. Yeah, really? That's my idea. Right. He's a friend of mine. And I'm like, there you go, man, that's it. We're friends if we're sitting next to each other on stationary bikes. Right. Exactly. And the guy's not there. I don't even, you know, to me, I guess Brian, to me, the part of the picture of friendship is not only are you there for somebody, but you're actually involved in your lives. You know the name of their kids. You go, you know, if they have kids for that matter. And to me, I think that's where church, your pastor, pastor of a significant church in North America, that's where to meet church. And we talk about isolation and all this, this whole COVID thing and zoom and all that. I feel like it's been isolating, guys, but that's where church really pulls guys together. That's a place to meet friends. We talk about why do I need to go to church? Well, because you need brothers. Well, it can be a place to pull us together, but it's not going to pull us together. If the extent of that is sitting in a 65-minute weekend service, that is generally, genuinely geared to women. Yeah. So the church can be and should be a great melting pot for men to connect and see one another and then connect outside of those walls. Yeah. But, you know, normal, normal church programs are just not doing it. Yeah. So it has to be fair that out. It has to be somebody like you. A friend of mine, Jeff Gorsuch, who was a fighter pilot, he said that women bond face-to-face, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a challenge. And so what I've seen you do, you know, everything you talk about, you know, aggressive life, you know, your podcast, everything is about get up, do something. It doesn't have to just be motorcycles, right? We could get up, we could write a script for a great movie. We could, you know, whatever it is, create something. Start a business, write a script for a movie, plant a garden, any of those things. Guys bond with one another when they're doing something together. Yeah. So the old days of, and there were days like this, some men like this, I was never one of them, the old days of, hey, let's gather into a living room and let's put a book on our lap and let's talk about the contents of the book. For most guys, most of the time, that's not something they're going to reorient their schedule to. Now, if you say, hey, we all like gardening, we're all going to go garden together. And then we're going to talk about these things, or we all like bowling, or we all like hunting, or if there's something you're doing, and then the conversation comes, that's okay. But most guys, they need that. Whereas my wife doesn't need that. My wife just needs to talk with some people, and that's what she wants. Guys, aren't like that. No, it's true. You know, at Lakewood Church, where we do a lot of ministry, where our curriculum there, one of the things that they always do is they always have doing something. Like right now, they're going to a whole group of guys. They've gone to Louisiana to help with, you know, the hurricane relief efforts. And they've done a ton of work over the last couple of years because of the hurricane that came through Houston. So you're right. I think you're right, Brian is doing something. Now, there's got to be a place for teaching, training, you're a teacher. You train. It can't just be organic in a sense of a few guys to start talking, and all of a sudden, here's these tip over points for somebody, right? Well, I did, I did an event, event is too intense of it. It wasn't a man camp, which is a pure event. I did something gosh, a couple of months ago, where I just put out, I'm going to be at these GPS coordinates. And if you want to come, you can come. And we had, I don't know, 30, 40 dude show up, and it was a night of camping. And we camped and we talked. I gave a couple, I gave a scriptural talk on the night and then the next morning. But you know, guys were guys were having fun laugh with each other, cutting up with one another, you know, doing things that guys do when they're out out in the woods around a campfire. But it was the thing. Like if I said, come to Crossroads church and meeting room A, I'm going to talk about some principles. I'm telling you, we would not have had 30, 40 dude show up. That was just one little quick post. They need to do something. You know, guys asked, but guys will tell me, hey, you know, you'll mention something like that and they go, well, I'm not really into a bubble. So it was not really that it's about being successful in in scaling your business. Oh, or it's about, you know, helping keep your kids off drugs. Oh, I had no idea. And the fact is, is that what that's what the word God does in our lives, right? Wisdom, character, conviction holding yourself rightly, doing the right thing, not not being overwrought with anxiety in the middle of crisis. And that's what the word of God and the power of God and power of the Holy Spirit doesn't man's life. So yeah, there has been an intentionality about that, doesn't it? Yes, there does. Yes, there is not just intentionality of the content, but the intentionality of the environment. No, we're never going to make someone do what they don't want to do. Yeah, someone doesn't want to stop drinking. They're not going to stop drinking no matter how much accountability you put into their life. And if someone doesn't want to come to the meeting, simply because it's a Bible study, you're never going to get them to come to the meeting, let alone apply. There's got to be something in it that makes them feel like they should be in it. Yeah, the stirs are hard. Yes, Bill Wright years ago said, he said, the large men aren't stirred by small visions. And so there has to be something that stirs a man's heart. Hey, what stirs your heart, Brian? Oh, man, I'll tell you what what's stirring my heart today is seeing the level of man, just confusion in the average guy's life. The average guy is just confused and he's lonely. We already talked about loneliness. Yeah, isolation. And a lot of guys we talked about that seven months ago was said, I'm not, I don't feel that. I don't feel isolated. But boy, they do now, after all the COVID stuff is hit, the level of depression in the normal guy's life is skyrocketed. So I just have a heart for average dudes getting to a new place. And I've been one of those guys the first time my life I had depression. Now, my depression is not was not the, I brought up in a fetal position lying in bed. You look on the National Institute of Health website and they may they talk about depression for men. And it looks different. You go down the list, it was like anger, check, irritability, check, not sleeping as well, check, not doing a hobby that you traditionally really liked. Check, I mean, just go down these things. I'm going, man, I am for the first time. I'm not myself here. Now, if a guy like me who's pretty rude with Christ, who still has a job, by the way, who's got kids who are going the right direction, who, who doesn't have any other health problems, if I'm feeling hurt, if I'm feeling beaten down, what is it like for the average person, it doesn't have the, the spiritual fortitude or the bank of years following Christ that I do, and has problems that I don't do. Who's helping that guy? Who's, who's getting that guy to a place of sanity? Yeah. There's not that it may place in the in the country, Paul, that are doing that. There's, there's just not. There's a lot of people trying to get people to follow them on social media, but there's just not a lot of places that are, or, or things that are actually trying to reach out and pull some guy to the next level. You know, it's something that I've shared for some time that that really was a revelation to me, Brian, some time ago was Goliath. You know, I'd always grown up and I grew up in the coast in California, and so you're a little different filter on things. And so when I heard about Goliath, you know, I read that story about Goliath came in cursed Saul and his army. Now, I just figured the guy showed up. He's big, huge guy. He's got a little buzz on. He's drinking beer and he starts f-bombing Saul. And what I discovered later is that the curse is the underlying meaning of that wasn't cursing or swear words. It was actually telling them they'll never make it. You don't measure up. Things are not going, going to go well in your life. I will defeat you as all those things. I feel like we have a Goliath in our lives. Everything one of us, yeah, on a regular basis. And somehow we got to show up like David, even having been rejected by his daddy still shows up because he had a heavenly father. How do you help guys navigate towards that, Brian? Man, you bring up Goliath and you bring up David. That story is rich and rich and and there's there's time. Every time I look at that story, I get new things I hadn't gotten before. Like I give two most recent things. I thought I learned everything about that. I hadn't, you ever noticed, maybe you already know this and you're smarter than me because you are older than me. I want to be very clear. Come on. All is older than me. I'll come right through the phone right now, bro. Older than me. Do you remember when when Goliath falls? Do you remember which way he falls? No. He falls forward. That's the text where he says, he falls forward. Now it also says that the stone hits him in the forehead. How is it you get hit in the forehead, but you fall forward. You know, it's supposed to be the loss of a 38 special bullet that hits him. How does that happen? Well, I just learned recently because the Hebrew there, the word actually could be translated, hit him in his front. And when does a man fall forward? He falls forward and gets kicked in the balls. It's very likely that David, that that thing hit him in the balls. And then he takes a sword and he takes off his head. And I think what that says to me as a man is, you know, sometimes I can't kill things that are right before me immediately. Sometimes you got to be okay with the ball shot. Sometimes it's just the little things. You've got to, you've got to, you've got to see your wins, right? You got to see the little wins and not go for the kill shot. The other thing that happens with Goliath, I'd never noticed. I got this from a Chuck Schwindall book when he wrote on this. I hadn't seen it for every day he's taunting. Every day he is, Chuck Schwindall didn't talk about getting hit in the balls. Maybe he did. I just read one little section of it. But every day Goliath was cursing Saul. He was taking new ground. He was getting bigger. Every day he was getting, he was going forward with his taunts and getting bigger. And as men, if we don't, you know, kick our problems in the nuts or take our problems off at the head every day they get bigger. Yes. Every day they get more ominous. Every day the situation becomes worse and worse. We need a, we need a, we need a guy, we need a guy. Well, how do I help? I just tell people, you can't do this. You are, you are stronger than you think. You are more capable than you think. I'm not trying to do Stuart Smalley and dog gone it. I like me. Let's try to say I'm just saying, you have drank you think. You think about ancient men. Nero's legions, the ancient emperors, they would carry a pack. It was 50% of their body weight. And they would do a marathon a day for multiple days. Sometimes a marathon and a half in terms of marching multiple days. Us as men, we are way stronger than we think we are and we become very, very weak. You know, we have shin splints now as men. There's a lot, a lot of evidence that shows that men used to not get shin splints at all. You know why we get shin splints now? The best, the best theory is, best theories because we have such soft, comfortable shoes that our bones and our shins aren't hardening the way they used to. In World War II, no one ever got shin splints and they were just on hard leather. We've softened ourselves. And I like to remind guys, you're stronger than you think you are. You have more capacity than you think you have to pass before. Yeah, there's no question. The problem is for all of us, capacity is always the result of stretching and most of us push back on that. Yes. Yeah. And we're not better as a result of it. We become weaker. And when I say weaker, I'm not talking about what we need to be macho, man. Man, I'm not Paul saying that we need to be the Tony Robbins Christian version of accomplishments. I'm just going like our loneliness, our isolation, our listlessness, our directionlessness. That's a word. Those things are real and every cultural indicator points to those things. And so we've got to have guys believing that we can have a different future. And God can do something with us that we might not have thought possible. Hey, this is Chris. I want to take a moment right in the middle of this great conversation to let you know the Brave Men podcast is a production of the Christian Men's Network Worldwide and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. Christian Men's Network has helped pastors and leaders disciple men for over 40 years. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at cmin.men. That's the Christian Men's Network at cmin.men. Christian Men's Network has a YouTube channel with inspirational videos. There you can find the Innovative New Study Monday Night Men. When you get there, make sure you click subscribe. Monday Night Men is a fresh resource for men and pastors. As a pastor, you can follow up the 30-minute study with a digital meetup with your men for prayer, discussion and teaching. Some churches are using the videos as part of a group meeting. As an individual, enlarge, energize and build a strong mindset. This 13-week study will be on YouTube and Facebook. Get your books and materials at cmin.men. That's the Christian Men's Network at cmin.men. Stop what you're doing and take your phone, tablet or computer and like us on Facebook. Follow us on Instagram. Follow us on Twitter unless you think you will lose the podcast. In that case, make a note. That's the Christian Men's Network or Paul Lewis Cole. Now, let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Brian Tone. You know, you've got one son, two daughters and your son. I love that little part in reminding me of like an Eldridge thing. When he was five years old, you bought him a slingshot. It wasn't just a little five-year-old game slingshot. It was an actual full-on hurt somebody slingshot. Heck yeah. Yeah, of course. I thought that was awesome. I would bring him knives when I would go away, go out of town. I'd bring him a new knife. If you have a knife collection, you're like six years old, you've got these sharp objects and people go, what are you doing? You can't handle that. It's a, well, if he thinks that he can't handle it, then he won't handle it. But if I am telling him that he can handle it, then he'll be able to handle it. That was my way to telling me he can to breathe life in him, to give him confidence. And my son at age six needs that as much as my son does now at age 27. As much as I do right now at age 54, knocking on the door of 55, all of us are more insecure than we think we are. All of us have needs that we're not broadcasting the world. All of us need somebody to breathe life into us and encourage us. Yeah. And then you also in that same section talked about one day, you went to where he worked. He was working in a restaurant. And you and your wife showed up and he wasn't there. Tell us that story. It's a great story. Yeah, he hates that I tell the story. I know, I know. I was with my dad, man. I'm in a book. I'm in books. Guys, walk up to me in the middle of African go, are you the one that kicked the whole in the door? I go, yeah, dude, that was like 60 years ago. He was at a high in restaurant. He was bus and tables and Lib and I my wife and I decided to go and just seem at work and it was expensive restaurant for us. But we also knew the owner. So I kind of final support the owner and and see Jacob at his first legit paycheck job. This is the first real. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, he had yard jobs and so like that. But this is like the government knows you and they're taking your money kind of job. So, so we showed up and saw a little major D guy there and I said, oh, yeah, we're here to see Jake today. So any table that he's going to be busted or something to find. I said, oh, Jake, Jake called on sick today. He said, he did? He said, uh, yeah. Okay. So go home and like, hey, man, what went to one seat? Where were you? You know, just feeling low. His girlfriend broke up with him. Yeah. I said, you're girlfriend broke up with you. You don't, you don't not work because your girlfriend broke up with you. You don't freaking go home and like, when, when, just cry yourself to see because your girlfriend, but no, you have a, you have a business that's depending on you. You have people who are counting on you. You're a person of your word. We don't just not show up because we're sad. That's what I said to him in my mind. Exactly how I said it to him, by the way. And, um, but that was, that was an identity moment. And that's what dads do for, for sons. And that's why fatherlessness breeds kids who don't know how to, you know, they, they're, you know, they haven't dropped yet. And they don't know how to pick themselves back up out of something because nobody's ever caught them. And, you know, it's, it's like a little meme I saw the other day where the guy was joking about a football game and the, the announcer was talking and he said, uh, wait a minute, to stop playing. What is it? So and so is on the field. Hang on. Uh, is he hurt? Oh, no, no, the team psychologist is out there. And he said something to him. And he's on the ground. That is, you know, but you were teaching an identity and perseverance and endurance and tenacity and, and, you know, it also like, I thought it was great because I think the way you said it was, uh, uh, let's call her Jill, even though her real name was Stephanie. You've got this little rebellious thing in you, you know, out of the streets of Pittsburgh, and you moved a sense of natty with it. And it seems to have gone well. But, you know, uh, do you think that? What do you mean by that? That this rebellious thing? What do you mean by that? This rebellious thing? Uh, because you'd like to poke at people. Yeah, you'd like to poke at people and rebel using the sense of, I'm just not going to take that because this is what you said it's supposed to be. Uh, or this is the way culture is. Uh, I don't think so. So it's bam. I don't remember, you know, so it's in that sense, uh, a radicalized sense of, uh, self direction that is willing to be in the minority. And you talked about that a lot. Yeah, I think that that's one of the, that's one of the differences between a man and a boy is a boy wants to be in the majority and a man, uh, you man takes a minority position. You know, you're, you're probably like made very rarely do we ever vote for somebody who wins, you know, because our values, our beliefs are in the minority that they just are. So I, I like to, when you say poke people, um, just because I'm in the minority doesn't mean I'm wrong. The man, Jesus says why is the way that leads to destruction? So if you're in the majority, you're likely going towards the way of destruction because the way to life is very, very narrow. Why is that a very, very narrow path? Because very few people are on it. That's why it's not like God is intensely restricting the way life. It just doesn't have to be a super highway because not a lot of people want that. So I like poking at people and poking at things because generally it's around the narrow way concepts versus the wide is the way. That's generally why. Even in churches, there's just some wide avenues that people are on that everyone's why I just like to, just kind of like poke at it say, hey, are you sure? Not to be an antagonist just because I think there is a, there's a different life out there. If we see the ways of God versus the ways of the masses, you know, tell me about how, uh, how you protect your wife. How, how do you do that? You know, we, we talk about this a lot to guys and they're like, well, I, you know, I bring them money. Make sure that's there. How do you protect your wife's heart? How does that actually work out in your life? I don't, I honestly don't know that I've done a great job with that. I don't, I don't know. I could tell you how I've tried my wife and I've, you know, had our share of challenges just like this, but every other, other married couple. Sometimes you protect your wife's heart when there's a guy who's hitting on her and, and, uh, and you know, that needs a stop. I found that out with a trainer where my wife was going to work out. There was a trainer who was doing that and I intercepted some messages and started to go into the gym and call them out in the middle of that. Um, went on the parking lot. Fortunately, I'd, I'd, I'd surprising so much when I interrupted a session that I went on the parking lot. We just had literally had words and that was it. So I was thankful, thankful for that. Um, but yeah, I find, I find Paul, those are, those are sort of the easy ones. I mean, it's not easy to go and maybe get into a physical fight where you could lose a tooth. Well, it's very clear. It's, it's clear. It's, that's it. Obviously, obviously obvious. I got obvious. Okay. Bam. But the subtle slices of razor blades are hard to see. Right. The subtle things of talking about your protecting your wife's heart. Like, you know, yeah. Can I, it is my humor to jarring for her. Uh, can I treat her verbally the same way I do my male friends? No, I can't. Um, I haven't been so good at that. Um, noticing things that she's doing that could, that could turn into something that's really addictive or really destructive. Hmm. Do I, do I say something about that? How do I say something about that? How do I, how do I engage in that without being, you know, a moralizer or whatever that, that, that's a difficult one. Yeah. The conversations around her hopes and dreams would where our money should be going. Well, I tend to have some real opinions about our family's hopes and dreams or where the money needs to be going. So I tend to enter those discussions with her trying to convince her of my ways. That's not protecting her heart. Um, that's not, that's not cultivating an intimate relationship. These are all the things Paul that are, that are about intimacy, not sex. Right. Sex can be intimate, but these are the things that I as a guy struggle with. Yeah. Well, good sex comes out of intimacy. Doesn't create intimacy. It comes out of it. Yes. Yeah. It's the, I think Kevin Lehman said this. He said sex starts in the kitchen. His whole point was when you go in and help and load the dishwasher and unload it, that starts some areas of intimacy that most men don't even recognize. I thought it was a fascinating comment by him. Well said. So okay, but my point is on that, Brian, is that when you raise your son, you had some intentional things, and when you guard your wife's heart, there's some intentional things. So where does that intentionality come from? How do you order your day that creates those things in your heart, a true north, a sense of center? You've got to, you have to have the big rocks in the calendar, that old Stephen Covey illustration from a long, long, long time ago is that you know, if you've got, you got a big container and you fill it up with big river rocks as a full, no, it's not full. Then he takes gravel and puts it in because it fills in the crack. He says it's full, no, it's not full. He takes sand and he pours it in. It goes in between the cracks. He says it's a full, no, it's not full. He takes water, you know, he pours in. And of course, if you started with water or sand, you wouldn't have any room for the big rocks, bigger rocks. But when you put the bigger rocks in, it gives space for things. So I've got to have the big rocks in my schedule with my wife, which are things that are just no brainers in there. Like our family meal together, our family meal was all the kids and now it's just her and I. But we're still having it together. Like, you know, morning conversations and cup of coffee with one another. Like a date night on Thursday night, which has been very difficult with COVID, you know, like our couple small group that we have tonight. And I'm not saying you have to have all those things, but you have to have things that are in your calendar, in your schedule, where conversation is going to naturally come out of, where things are going to naturally come up. And so that's the things that we've tried to do. Yeah, such a personal calendar first. Yes. Yeah, I put all I started each year, you know, I'm probably like you halfway through this year. I'm working on next year and and there's stuff that goes in and ink and then there's other things going in pencil. And kids' birthday is an anniversary is an, you know, things with close friends are in the ink. Basically, the only thing to change a couple things this year, of course, was COVID. So, but I think that's that's really key, Brian. I want to mention everybody, brinetome.com, to you, me, b-r-i-a-n-t-o-m-e.com. And you've got an increase and it also we can go on, we can go on Amazon or one of the other sales things and grab five marks of a man. And I want to mention that. And then also you've got the new devotional move, which I think is tremendous. And then your podcast is everywhere, right? The aggressive life. Yes, everywhere. Everywhere for the finest podcasts are we can find. That's right. And then we've also got a special in Amazon Prime called Phantom Lake. Yeah, that's the motorcycle. Yes. Yeah, I saw that. Fantastic. Well done. You know, it's, and I so appreciate, Brian, I just got to tell you, man, I appreciate you. And I thank God for a wife who understands and gets this stuff because she's in the journey with you to reach the hearts of men. I feel like if we touch a heart of a man, we'll reach the soul of a nation. And until men find that place of acceptance of responsibility in that center in Christ, you know, Colossians 117. You know, we're going to wish keep having these issues in the church and culture and everywhere in the world. And so, you know, my thing is, it's just the world changes one man at a time, right? That's right. Always has always will. Yeah. So that's, and also your Instagram, it's Brian Tom, T-O-M-E, and your Instagram's awesome. And your stories, I think your stories are great when you do the answered questions because some guys have some really pertinent questions like about sex, about drinking, about different things. They're not just asking you, what kind of, because you've got an over, because you're an overland camper, right? That's your one of your things. Yeah. Yeah. So you've outfitted a truck really well done though. Was that a Chevy truck? I can't remember. Yeah. Overlanding has been my, well, it's talked about marriage. Paul, this is a big one. I've done a lot of motorcycle adventuring and it's been, it's called, we've gone basically from one side of a state to the other side of state on dirt the whole way, and we can't pull away. Me and my friends, we've done a lot of states. It's great, great, great. The problem is, is it's hard to do that with your wife. You can't, you can take your wife on the back of a Harley. You can't take your wife very easily on the back of a dirt bike and have two people's camping gear. It just, it just doesn't work very well. So I, I wouldn't say transitioned out of motorcycle. I'm still doing that, but a lot of that time is spent with my wife doing overlanding, which is an essence doing the same thing except with four wheels. So I had a Chevy Silverado. It probably would not be anybody's prime suspect to overland with. You put a rooftop tent over. You put all your stuff in, but I already had it. It was four-wheel drive and it was paid for. There you go. We tricked, we tricked that out, put, put a bunch of stuff on it, and we get out and do it pretty regularly. It's really brought us, brought us together. It's something we do together, which many of us know the old line, you know, families that pray together, stay together. I don't know how true that is. I believe in prayer. I'm not sure it's true, but I'll tell you one thing that I know is true. Families that play together, stay together. Come on, man. We have, we have got to find ways that we're actually laughing with other people and smiling and having fun. And so the overlanding stuff is done for my wife and I. That's awesome. I think Jesus did that. In fact, like Lazarus, I think about Lazarus as he was always hanging out in Bethany. And Lazarus was such a close friend. He didn't make him a disciple. Because he needed somebody to hang out with. He needed a guy that he could sit with and go, you know, if James and John's mom shows up one more time, they're both out. You know, it's like, before you should have seen Peter, man. I picked him up and it was and they're just laughing. And then not only that, but he's got, he's got two sisters. One of them can cook and the other's dangerous. That's my take on him hanging in Bethany a lot. I like that. And then the minute, you know, the minute he started his ministry, he built a house on the lake at Cessarria. So, you know, there's things about Jesus. We holy fire it. I don't know. That's probably not a word either, but we make it too sacred in the sense of not living life. And that's why I appreciate what you do, Brian, because you bring this, when I say rebellious, I mean, in the sense of poking the traditional sort of sacred cows of religion or whatever you want to say. Yeah, we've got them for sure. Have you seen the chosen? Oh, no, no, no, no. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I was a guy here in Dallas who produced it. And I watched the first episode. Haven't seen it since. Yeah, I enjoyed that greatly. I think it just gets better and better every episode. And I think he portrayed Jesus doing that really well, appropriately poking and just appropriately win some. I thought he did a great job with that, but, but I appreciate your words. I'm not really trying to do shock factor. I'm really not some people think I'm not. I'm just trying to help us see things that I think are pretty obvious and pretty helpful. You know, if it's shocking, we're too religious. So a number of years ago, my wife and I are sitting in a meeting with some friends of our small Australia, my pastor's in Australia, Phil Pringle. And we're some of these Aussie guys and these Aussie guys, their background is not religious. But man, these guys are just fire breeders. Man, they're getting cranked up stuff done. And this guy's up talking about some things so vulnerable and so open and so just Aussie style. When we got done, my wife and I got in the car together and we both looked at each other and we said, we are really religious, aren't we? We didn't think we, we didn't think we were. We're children of the 60s. I grew up, you know, going to head ashbury and surfing in the 60s and 70s and we thought we were, but you know, this stuff gets on us, Brian. And it takes guys like you to kind of knock that stuff off of us because why would some guy be attracted? How could we reach men if we're walking around going, hey, come be like us. And we're these kind of bent up, shriveled little guys that are going to have an any fun. Well, and it's part of the difficulty of American Christianity. We have become so feminized. And what I mean by feminized, I'm not talking about, we allow women to be pastors and women to leave words. I'm not talking about that. I don't want to get into the logic of being on pro that. I'm personally pro women in leadership. Okay. What I'm talking about here is the entire veneer of our Christianity is feminine. 90% of all Christian books are bought by women. 90%. So you think about this. If you're a Christian publisher, whether you're a male or whether you're a female, what are you in business to do as a Christian publisher? What are you in business to do? You're in business to sell books to women. Right. To make money. That's why you're there. Oh, no, no, you're there to make money. That's right. And so where where are you going to put in your efforts? You're going to be putting your efforts into women because that is where the money is that starts there and it trickles down into every conference and every church. We just we speak women speak from our platforms. We we talk about things the way women want to hear and I don't think there's a I don't think men are or are toward church boards or are being you know like brainwashed about it. It's just in the culture. It's in the water. We just do these things. We're not speaking to normal men, which is why if your church is killing with men, if it's killing with men, you've got 30% men and 70% women. If you're killing it, most churches are not even that. I'm talking about who's actually showing up. Not who's on the roles. I'm talking about turn around, look in church, who we're speaking to is who we're reaching and we're doing a really good job at reaching women. I'm glad we are, but we got a real real outage with men. Yeah, I agree. So we got to go after men. We're fishers of men and thank God for women. Thank God for Luke's friend Lydia that kind of underwrote a bunch of the early church and all those sorts of things. But and and really the church of Jesus Christ, I mean when we talk about the book of Acts and Jesus and Christians, it's the first time women were liberated. I mean, it's the first time that women were called joint heirs. Yeah. That that didn't happen. That's why that word's in there. It didn't happen in that culture. They were never heirs of anything. And so Christianity is the thing is is the only faith that really takes women and helps them express who they are truly as as women. But it's also a place where Jesus needs to be exalted among men. And men have some stones. We have one of the guys on board. We're all called sons of God in the Bible. That means including including women. Right. We're called sons of God. We're talking to God, but there's verse in there about being sons of God because just what you said, the inheritance women that culturally it was the son who got the inheritance only. Now of course in the kingdom, it's men and women who are who are gaining inheritance. It's a wonderful thing. But what's not a wonderful thing is the average guy in America cannot relate to our Christian talk. One of the one of the men on our board, a close friend of mine for many years, Joel Brooks, pastors, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, Michigan. He just changed the name of his church about 18 months ago. It was something something Christian center Kalamazoo and he just changed the name to stones. And so once somebody asks somebody, he goes, he says, it's because you need to have stones if you're going to be a follower of Christ. That's good. That's why he changed it. He's got a couple thousand people to three thousand people. That's that's kind of our ethos. Our culture is that. I'm with you, Brian. I so appreciate your words and your stuff and the things you're doing. I want to go and guys make sure to get this book and five marks of a man. It's how you raised your son and it's the things you put into him and you put into him. And this is what's what's beautiful about it is it's an easy to read book. I know you've the one I have is one of the first ones that that came out. You've expanded and put some other things in it. But I love the way because it's for us as men, but it's also here's how we raise the next generation. And thank you for that, Brian. No, you're welcome. I appreciate the time to talk about it and people can always go to brantome.com. I'm brantome.com. I've got the books I've written and you can subscribe to an email I do and some other stuff. So it's been great talk with you Paul. Been a big huge fan of yours and your legacy. Yeah, it's awesome, man. You know, Paul, seeing a man that is all about action and moving, you know, the question that is in my brain is the fact is do we oftentimes miss out on the fun because of the complexities of life and not keep it simple? Yeah, you know, you know, you said that at the start, you know, we have a lot of fun. And that's not to see, I think Jesus had a great time with this guy. And if you read the original air make and look at some of the things he said, there's riddles he refers to certain things. Paul does the same thing when he's talking to people in Rome, particularly when he talked to people in Galatian when he was talking about circumcision. He says, hey, I hope those guys, you know, if they really believe in that, I hope the knife slips. You know, so, you know, so there is that. Yes. Okay. And yet it's like, you know, Brian's all about transformation. Yes. And transformation, the metamorphosis that that meta that whole part where it talks about, you know, that basically speaks of metamorphosis speaks of the the worm that comes a butterfly. Yeah. And that is, you know, when that cocoon starts going around you, that whole dark part of life. Yes. To bring out the beauty of stuff, there's some very difficult parts of life. Yeah. So when you talk about having fun, it is that there has to be an expression of joy. Yes. You know, hope, peace, love, joy. Yes. Joy is part of it. Yes. Peace. That's part of it. Hope. Hope is what we hope is where we is what builds faith. Yes. Right. And so all of that makes up life. Yeah. When we talk about the fun part, what happens is too often we get so serious about it. And if you will, the contrast you're drawing, I think Chris is that church, you're like, when I was growing up, the fun part was when when Mrs. Goss Chalk, sister Goss Chalk, as we talked called her and I would get really excited and start running around church. Now that was fun. Okay. Okay. But if you really think about it, I wouldn't invite a friend of mine from six or seventh grade. Hey, dude, church is fun, man. Yeah. You know, but I do remember, and actually that would have been Mrs. Goss Chalk. See, that would have been third and fourth grade. When I got into sixth and seventh grade, actually there was a science school teacher that took us a shooting. And I got my NRA National Raffle Association's Certificate of Safety and all that kind of stuff. And that was something I invited friends of mine to church to be a part of or friends of mine from school to come to church. And that's what Brian Tom is saying. Brian's saying, hey, what's attractive about sitting in a pew or if you're a charismatic, you know, sort of church, you know, standing up and clapping and or if you go all the way to jumping up and down. Yeah. What's attractive about that to a guy? Okay. Who's who's, you know, working in construction. Life's not easy. A lot of stuff going on. And you say to him, hey, man, why don't you go church with me? What do you guys do? We clap. We jump up and down. That's really cool. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And Brian's going, no. Yeah, that's part of it. That's where you learn to be disciple, but we also go out and we shoot stuff. Yeah. And we go fishing and we go camping. And, you know, we do, you know, battle games with each other on, you know, on headsets and video games and blah, blah, blah, blah. And in other words, the fun part is that life is meant to be an adventure. Yes. If you will, the sweet mystery of life. Yeah. And there has to be something that says, okay, this is fun and the midst of stuff. Or why don't we just take Jesus's approach? Like he said to his like, he is. Let's be friends. Yeah. Let's be friends. You know when some come into your house. Yeah. I'm coming to your house. I'm coming where you're at. Yeah. I'm doing what you like to do. Not even what I like to do. Let's just be friends. Yeah. So I think that that when we talk about that, I think you're absolutely right. And I know this is where Brian lives is you could tell in that our conversation. Is it's about transformation? Yes. And there is that serious part where your wife has cancer. Yes. And you've got a child that's in the hospital. And what do you do there? You've got to have an authentic face. Exactly. That's fully orbed. Exactly. That allows you to be everything you were designed to be. Exactly. Not just this, you know, kind of robot. Yes. Right? Exactly. It's stuck in a thing religious. Yeah. And now you've got to have a formula. Yeah. No. It's authentic following Christ. But see, that's why I love watching kids' faith though too. You know what I mean? And I you know, even when you were saying that last piece, the thing that just kept jumping out at me is when Jesus says he says, unless you come to me as a child, you won't enter the kingdom of heaven. It's the simplicity of the gospel that changes people live. I saw, you know, I've seen and you've been there too. I've seen I've been in a refugee camps of Northern Africa, different parts of the world. I've watched children play with barely any clothes on, playing a game with rocks. You know, maybe drawing a circle, throwing rocks in it. And another one tries to do, I've watched that. And you're right. Obviously, it is to us the church to help them move to a place where their where their life is better. Yes. But if we're going to do that, we have to do it authentically. Exactly. As fully transformed men, but as men. Real men. Yeah. Like who live life. Yes. And that's why I appreciate Ryan, Brian. And so, Brian, thanks for being with us today on brave men. That was a great conversation. Brian, Tom, T-O-M-E, and you can, we, we mentioned it while we were talking about finding his website and so forth. But you also mentioned at the mid-break about our social media. Yes. We're going in. We've got the Monday Night Men. Yes. Peace is a huge, blowing up. With that thousands of men go through that Monday Night Men Bible study. And you can watch it at any time. You don't just have to watch it on Monday, right? Go check our YouTube. It's on YouTube. Yes. So you type in all one word. Krishmins Network, all one word. We can type in Monday Night Men in the search bar of YouTube. Yes. And up comes the chief strong men tough times. Strong men tough times. Yep. Never quit. And now power, potential power of potential, which is following the dreams of Joseph. How did he hold onto his dreams? How did, how did he build a tenacious faith? The wouldn't let go in the middle of being in prison? Yes. It's pretty tough stuff, man. Well, when you have a dream and you know that that dream is meant to come to fruition. Yeah. You know, you hold on to it until it manifests. The way my dad used to tell us, he said, just think of a bulldog. When a bulldog gets his mouth on something. That's right. You can beat it. You can kill it. But it's still going to have that grip. And if we as men, we begin to look at our dreams like that. Yeah. Man, we would all walk in the fullness of what God has called us to be. So you can you can write to us at Paul at cmn.men. Chris mentioned that all of our materials for discipling men within the matrix of the local church are available at cmn.men. It's christian men's number CMN. Men. And then the majoring in men.com majoring in men.com is a 12 week course absolutely free because a number of our partners paid for that to be available to everyone now. So if you're a pastor leader church, that's available to you. Thanks Brian. Tom for being on today and thanks for Chris shields for being with me. And what a great time to just be able to just kind of dig into being a man who's running hard after God. Amen. Hey, thanks for being with us today. I'm brave men. Remember hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. Come on, man. Stay right with me. You just experienced brave man 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.