BraveMen S3E99: Tony Rorie - From Boys to Men

I was reading recently the statistics on fatherlessness and what it means to you and me and what it means in our culture. And today my guess is a very special friend Tony Rory and Tony is ahead of the men of honor, men and women of honor ministries. And it is remarkable, Chris is with me again today. And it's remarkable Chris, the stats that I read. Fatherlessness is the leading indicator poverty in every culture of the world. I mean no matter where you go we're dealing with fatherless issues. 220 million children will be abused, mistreated or neglected this year worldwide. That's why we started the Global Fatherhood Initiative. That's why I'm excited to have Tony on board with that and be a partner with him and the men of honor, men and ladies of honor, ministry. So this interview today with Tony, not always a great guy, a lot of fun to be around. But he's doing something really important. Yes, yes. And I just love seeing his interaction with his kids. Oh yeah. You know, you can tell that he admires his kids but they also admire him. Yeah. You know, and that's a beautiful thing and I love his son Daniel. Yeah, yeah, Daniel is great and he's working with that ministry now. Yes. Tony was a teacher and then became a principal of a school, public school. Yeah. And he had these, well, he's going to tell the story. We're going to tell the story. I tell the whole thing before we get there. And then everybody, all our friends listening would go, dude, I already heard this. Yeah, I don't know why you're telling this. And the Global Fatherhood Initiative is an initiative of the Christian men's network. Cmn.men. And we are a human justice mission focused on defeating fatherlessness and ending child abuse and stopping human trafficking. And the way you do that is by reaching the hearts of men. We had a guest recently who said to me, he said this. In fact, it was on the thing and I thought about it later. And he said, if we change the hearts of men, that doesn't stop necessarily police brutality. And I thought, no, I think it does. Yeah. Right? Yes. Because if we change the hearts of men, it changes the way they act. Yes. And I mean in the short term, obviously we've got issues in every parts of culture. But you're hitting a great point, Paul, mate. Because if you change the way you act, you also change the way you respond. Because oftentimes we find ourselves in reaction rather than response. Yeah. And God has called us to respond in love. Wow. That's really good. Because that's not love. Okay. So that's kind of like taking care of my son's dog this week. Mm-hmm. His name's Bruce. Okay. Okay. He's a great little dog. He's a rescue dog. Bryce rescued him. He's a, what does it call a French bulldog? Oh, okay. So it's a thick chested, mashed in face. But a great guy. And a lot of snoring. Oh. But I reached down to push something and he had been at our house for just a little bit. And I pushed him away from, he was eating the cat's food, you know. So I pushed him away. And he turned it to snap that. I mean, he just reacted. Wow. Okay. And snapped on my hand and drew some blood. Now, you know, I knew what was going on. You know, he was just reacting because he was in an unfamiliar environment. Mm-hmm. He's eating some calf, which maybe it tastes like gray. I don't know. And I'm pushing him away. Wow. He's a huge dog that still has, Bryce has done really great job with him over the last four or five months. But I think he still got some of that stuff in him. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. Of being really abused at two different places. He's got marks on his body from being abused. And he's just a great guy. But he turned, snapped at me. Right. And that is the difference between reacting and responding. Yes. Wow. That's so good, Chris. That's the thing that when we change the hearts of men, we change everything. Yes. And Tony Rory is what he's doing with men of honor. The reason for me, it's so important is as a businessman, which I was for most of my career in business. If you're selling Toyota's and you're looking at your, let's say, 20 years down the road. And you're looking at this next generation. And they're all jacked up. You know what? Your business is not going to be very good 20 years from now. Right? So you're thinking about, let's say passing it on or selling it. You may want to sell it in the next five years before these people who are jacked up and messed up. But if we can change them in junior high, and that's the thrust of Tony's deal. If we can change them in junior high, Chris. Yes. Do you still sell Toyota's? It's more important than that. Yes. But that's just a picture of where we're headed if we're not proactive. Yeah. But it also speaks to what you were talking about earlier, you know, the generational equity. What we were talking about before we got to show, you know. And it's like, that's why I love in the scripture where it says, honor thy father and thy mother. Yeah. So that your days may be long. Yes. Fifth commandments. First one with promise. Yeah. And it's the one I taped on my kids' dressers. Yeah. Installed that I remind myself about all the time. Yeah. Cause it's like parents, grandparents look to pass on to the next generation. Yeah. But our responsibility as the younger generation is to respond properly. Yeah. To respond properly. And I do think it's a heart of the father. Malachi said the heart of the father is turned towards the children. Yes. Then the heart of the children turns towards it. And we're wanting, we're wanting in our church, in the church in general. I think we want the youth to straighten up. Yes. The problem is we don't straighten up. And it's a harsh reality. I mean, it's a team thing. It's a team thing. It's what we preach in this ministry. It's brotherhood. Yeah. It is locking on. Yeah. You know, to each other and saying, hey, we're going to do this together and we're going to get that. Locked arms. Yeah. Hey, Tony Rory is on. Tony Rory is the executive director of the minimum ladies of honor based in Dallas, Texas area. They've won all sorts of awards in the schools. I don't know if we hit all that in our interview if we're going to be able to hit all that. But there's just so much that they do. It is absolutely amazing. And it is a great pleasure to have my great friend. And a man is doing an extremely important work that's gone through the nations today. Tony Rory on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Wisdom encouraged for the journey. I'm talking with Tony Rory who is the executive director of Men of Honor and in Men of Ladies of Honor. And Tony, you minister into the lives of young men and women and particularly at a formative age in junior highs. That's correct. Yeah. Most of the students that we work with are sixth grade through eighth grade. And we found that's the age we really need to reach on. And you started this. How did you end up in this kind of thing? Because you're in schools all over the nation. How did this start? Well, reluctantly. I was a principal in public school in inner city Dallas. Title one at risk school. So my job was discipline. So they had a student who could no longer be in the classroom. They sent them to Mr. Rory's office. So that's where we started. So you were that guy. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Now, I wasn't in a title one school, but I did meet that guy in most of the schools I attended. Me too, which is very ironic. So in other words, so here you are. You're the kid who ends up in the principal's office and now you are the principal. Exactly. Yeah. When they came in, they'd say, Mr. Rory, you just, you don't have any idea. And I was like, oh, you don't have any idea. Yeah. So you're at, you're at a junior high. And is this the Dallas independent school district? It's within the district. It was a charter school with about 1300 students. Wow. Second highest child mortality zip code in Dallas. Second highest child mortality. Goodness. And you're the principal of this school. And what happens that launches this thing? What's the shift? Because there you are trying to bring discipline. And then something must have shifted. What was that telling? So it was the perfect storm because I was actually picked up a book called Maximize Manhood and got engaged in the commissioning process where I'm reading through these books and getting all this strong word to men. And then I'm also a dad and I'm a believer. So as a principal, they're sitting in my office. As the kids come into my office, you know, the big common denominator with each of these students is they just don't have a dad. Wow. And being a dad, you know, and having a heart for these young people and loving on them, I just realized with just a little bit of love and a little bit of care, some big things can happen for fatherless kids. So I started working with, you know, the main knuckleheads on our campus. And I took four boys and, you know, just started teaching them the basics of, you know, yes sir and no sir and pull your pants up. Wow. When a teacher comes in the classroom, open the door for and watch what happens. And those four boys that were the worst on the campus quickly became the leaders on our campus. Really? Now, where did you took an interest in them and just begin to teach him what it is to be a man? Just stuff a good dad, you know, that would teach his son. I just said these boys don't have dads in their home. So we can't assume and expect things from them that they haven't been taught. Right. Just backed up with the basics and found out that the ones that you would think would be hard were really hungry and open for that kind of love and instruction because, you know, I think it was Dr. Dopson said that kids really don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Wow. And then what happens with that? So okay, so you get this four guys, their lives begin to change just through basic things. And frankly, by the power of the Holy Spirit, your love, your mercy, you didn't kick them out. And how does this start and what happens after that? So I developed a relationship with those four boys. And again, I wasn't trying to start a program. I was just dealing with my issues on the campus. Right. But I knew that the boys needed more than what I call home training. They needed like biblical instruction and Christ like manhood. So I asked for permission to do an after-school program with these four boys. And I started working with them and teaching them the principles that I, you know, I'm going through with maximized manhood and what I'm teaching my son. And the next thing I know, the group before I look up and it's 50 boys that are sitting there in the room with the saying, you know, teach us how to be men. And the impact on the campus was, it was surreal. It was not in day. And they said, what is it that you're doing? That's different than our other campuses because your discipline rights have cut in half. Your test scores are gone up. Your attendance is gone up. And we know you're not that smart. So what is it that you knew? Must be something. What are you doing? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Because, because a public school, public educators, everything they do is built on some sort of empirical factual statement. So your numbers, what do they call it? Disciplinary rates or what do they call them? It's disciplinary incident rates, but they do a calculation in Texas. It's called teams, public education, information management system. It collects, you know, what's the attendance? What's the test scores? How many discipline incidents you have in the school? So we had data that showed a huge impact. So you have actual data that you can point to from before you started this after school program to ask after in the same school year. Absolutely. Okay. And test scores go up. I mean, stuff begins to change. In other words, Jesus changes people's lives. He is the way, the truth and the life. Bottom line. I've read that somewhere. Yeah. That's good, Tony. Again. And so we need some scripture on Brave Men on this podcast. We need some scripture every so often. Just keep this straight. So then, man, this thing, they're asking you, how did you do this? Because your school, which was considered one of the least, what would be the designation, least efficient. Highest. Underperforming. What they call it. Yeah, performing. Yeah. Okay. Now that's beginning to change. And then what happens next? So, you know, I, they ask, what is it that you're doing that's different? I said, well, you're probably not going to want to hear this, but I'm teaching these boys how to be Christ like men. Kid out of here, man. And so they go, yeah, you're, you know, you're right. We don't want to hear that. But could you do that over multiple campuses? It's impacting the budget, you know? Yeah, because, okay, okay, let's get real. Let's get real right here. Because if kids are coming to school. Then in the public school system in the US, you get paid when kids are in school. Yeah, it's called ADA average daily attendance, which are butts in the seats. They call it as well. If you got things there, you get a certain amount. Okay, you get a certain. So if you got more kids, there are no words, more of your kids are attending on a regular basis. Your income goes up. Exactly. So now all of a sudden, everything begins to come into line. And they go, well, you don't want to hear how you do it. But could you do it about the multiple campuses? Exactly. That's insane. So that starts men and ladies of honor. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's the bottom line is they've tried everything in education and found out certain things are not working. And so when they see something that does work, that's why we're seeing open doors to be able to bring the gospel and public school campuses just because it impacts budget. Just because it causes metrics to go in the right direction and it works. There's a book called Redirect. I was just looking forward to hearing my library, but I don't see it off of him. It's called Redirect. I read it about four or five years ago, a friend of mine in New York recommended it to me, written by some scholars out of South Carolina. General culture scholars, and they were talking about the things that have been used in education in order to bring about changes in the lives of teenagers in particular. Basically, basically discovered is basically everything we thought was great and cool actually didn't work. In fact, one of them that they pointed to was scared straight. Remember that program? Scared straight. Now was bringing offenders into junior highs and places like that. Having them talk about how bad prison was and how bad they were and all that. They would scare kids away from going to prison. The data. These guys did the data. The data show there were more young men that were actually attracted into a life of crying. Because they thought, well, that's cool. They may be in prison, but wow, what a cool life they led until they got there. They found that the number one thing that was working. And this is a secular study. The book is called redirect. And I can find it somewhere to give you the person who wrote it, but. But you can find it if you wanted to. It's an academic study. You know, so it's not easy reading necessarily. But what was what they said was the thing that really worked was big brothers, big sisters. They said of all the programs and they didn't just talk about scared straight. They went through it must have been 40 or 50 different programs. Many of them of which the US government head sport had put in hundreds of millions of dollars. Because it sounded like a cool thing and they absolutely didn't work. And the thing they said worked was big brothers, big sisters. So what you did is essentially that same type of thing mentoring of young people. Of having them meet a woman like your wife Melissa. Other ladies who are godly women who are also real. They're not preaching to them. They're loving them. And they're, they're, they're fathering, they're mothering, they're mentoring. And then you started a camp program, right? You started taking kids to camps. Yeah, exactly. We had a friend who had an executive high ropes course challenge type element. He went up in broken bow and he said, you know, why don't you bring some of your boys up and let them check out the camp. And so I got about 20 boys and took them up to broken bow and this is over a weekend. And my friend that owned the course was with me, man. And after hearing what these kids were going through and seeing what God was doing in their lives. This guy cried all weekend. Wow. And he was the one who really encouraged me. And he took this, this model that you're doing. You need to put a border of directors around it. You need to multiply it and just take it, you know, all over because every kid needs to be able to experience this. Well, Tony, talking to Tony Rory, who's executive director of men and ladies of honor and founder. He and his wife Melissa of this amazing program in junior highs across the United States. And in about eight different countries now, 13, 13 different nations around the world. Amazing. I've seen the photos from Namibia from Republican South Africa and other places. Absolutely incredible. And you've had thousands of young men and women give their lives to Christ. And so I want to commend you for that. And you've also, you've just gutted it out, man. I've seen pictures of you driving a bus, a big old school bus loaded with kids, man, driving about to a camp. And for some of these young men, it's the first time they've been outside the city. Yeah, they stop and get mesmerized by trees and rock. You know, they never seen this before. That's funny, man. It's walking down a path in the woods. Hey, but tell me, so this must have come from, you know, your dad must have really poured a lot of these virtues into you. What do you remember is some of the first things your dad teaching you. You know, one of the first things that my dad taught me, you know, my dad was, he was not like a very godly man. I mean, he had his, you know, upbringing in church when he was a kid, but it was a very religious type of bringing. But my dad was, was a, was a rough guy. He was a bar fighter, hung out in the bars. And he was a roofer, worked with his hand, strong guy. But, you know, probably the biggest lessons that my dad taught me about masculinity were not very biblical. But some of the things were very valuable, like, you know, he taught me about how to stand up to bullies. That was one of the first things that he taught me, you know, never, never back down from a bully. And that lesson does have some spiritual benefits to it. And especially with what we're doing, you know, if we see, you know, what's attacking kids and what's attacking men and what's attacking families, we don't back down. So that was one of the most valuable things my dad taught me. You and I have been friends for a long time and I value our friendship. And I consider you one of my closest friends. And Tony, you told me what time, because I knew your dad and your dad passed away. Is it been four years now? It's been six years. Six years. Yeah. And your dad, you know, it's amazing to hear these stories about him being a fighter because he was such a gentleman and gentle man. You know, just kind, he loved these kids at your ministry too, but you told me what's that he taught you how to fight from the bottom. Tell me about that. Tell me about this lesson. I mean, this is amazing. This is a great story. You know, one of my favorite pictures is of my dad and his face is completely his eyes swollen shut. You got one eyes looking out of, he's got marks all over his face, but he's got a smile on his face. And his lesson was, the guy was on top of me and he was just pounding me. He was beating me fiercely. And I knew in any minute that he was going to get tired. And when he did, he was mine. Good. You know, there's spiritual parallels on that, man. How to fight back when you're down. Absolutely. And so you had to do that a few times. Yeah, I did. Growing up, I tried to follow in my dad's footsteps. And, you know, he was, he was just, just much of a man. And he could really fight and the things that he told me and the stories that I heard about him and the things that I saw made me want to be like him. And it wasn't a great road to go down. I'll tell you that. Yeah. So there you are learning how, you know, a fight, basically, I mean, and your dad wasn't like you're a lot larger than your dad was. Yeah, I think he was five, 10, I'm six, almost six, one. He was the smallest of five brothers, but all of his brothers were afraid of him. Yeah, yeah, because he could clear out a bar from, from the stories I've heard. And, you know, so there's, there's something there about, but your dad was there. And he did teach you that stuff and he did teach you how to stand up to bull and he did teach you how to shake a man's hand. Right. And he did teach you how to look a man in the eye. And so in one sense, Tony, your dad did prepare you in a circuitous way to be the guy who stands up for the, for the disenfranchised and the kids in the margins. 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.min. That's the Christian Men's Network at cmin.min. We have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website. Everything our church needs from A to Z to mentoring disciple men of all ages and backgrounds. And cmin has created a 12-part training course on how to create a successful ministry to men for pastors and leaders. Check it out. It will help us continue to reach the lives of many men around the world if you would like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram and subscribe to this podcast and share it. That's the Christian Men's Network in Paul Lewis Cole. Now let's get back to this powerful interview between Paul and Tony Roby. How many young people in your work? Let me just talk about young men in particular right now. How many young men you come in contact with in public schools? How many of them actually have a father in the home? I would say it's one out of ten Paul. What? Yeah, one out of ten. It's published that the national rate for the US, and this was 2010, it was 46 percent in the urban areas, 78 percent. But the real life situation that we're seeing today, it's become so bad that nine out of ten boys that we deal with don't have a dad in the home. Oh my goodness, man. Oh my gosh. So 90 percent of the young men in our public schools in junior high, junior high, have no father figure that's teaching them anything. So they're just learning from the older brother or the older kids in the street who learn from another older kid in the street. So we've really created generational, generational bad guys who have no moral center. That's it. They're such dysfunction and it's really not hard to figure out that the reason the boys are the way they are is because they have absolutely no masculine destruction in the home other than negative influences in most cases. So fatherlessness, which we know statistically, again, data tells us that fatherlessness is the leading indicator of poverty, drug abuse, youth suicide, unmarried pregnancies. And so we do know that, but you're watching it firsthand. And you're watching kids tip over when there are 11, 12 and 13. It's it and the teachers on the campuses that we come on, they are cheering, they're crying, they're celebrating the fact that men are coming on the campus to mentor these young men because they know that's the issue as well. You've got a dad in the home, you wouldn't act that way. So your website is honor changes everything got calm honor changes everything got calm the book you wrote is a great book passing the torch. Journey for fathers and sons really coming of age book for a father to be with his son in the biblical manhood and our friend Jeff kept it the forward. Tony, what you've done with men and ladies of honor. So what you're saying is you've got you've got guys who come into the local campuses who will do a mentoring program with men and ladies of honor. So if I wanted to be part of it, Sam and Phoenix or I'm in Waterloo, Iowa, I could actually get trained by you are going to a local school. Basically, I'd need like a master's in social work or what would I need to qualify to be able to, you know, mentor and love some kids. Preferably not. We like unqualified guys because those are the ones that God seems to use the best. You know, you think you need a hot shot youth pastor that would go on the campus, but we've got I've got a 80 year old man. The Danny Kellogg that goes on the campus and the kids just love him and making a huge impact because he loves those kids and the kids love him. So I would say the only prerequisite is that you got to have a heart for the next generation. Which means you get to have, in other words, you have to be a Christian. Yeah, there you go. If you're a follower of Christ, you love the next generation because that's who we are. And man, that's, that's powerful. So now what does this take about 20, what does he spend 20, 30 hours a week doing this? Not that much. It's one hour once a week that they go on the campus. And of course, you know, we want preparation. Let me go back on this. Okay. And I'll let you hit the other thing, but. So Tony, are you saying that I could, I could invest one hour a week on a school campus and actually change the future for a young man's life? Sounds incredible, but that's exactly what it takes. And you have statistics that back that up. Absolutely. I think, you know, the Lord's given us a real systematic way to disciple young people in a two year program, where they have a mentor that comes onto the campus, spends one hour once a week with a large group of students. And when I say large, it's not, it's not one on one instruction. You don't have to invest at that level. Because one guy getting up in front of as many as, you know, 200 boys and teaching them a manhood lesson and a principal and then giving them a curriculum that they'll use outside of the meeting. That coupled with that weekend camp that we do is enough to change the life of a young person. And, you know, our heart is that we want to go on to every public school campus. Because with this fabulous epidemic, if the church does not intervene in a quick way, we're going to lose our country. And with the church engaged, we can turn it around in one generation. We're talking to men in many nations. It might be 20, 25 different countries listening to us right now who speak English in particular, but you also have the materials in Spanish. And you also have them in other languages out of Africa, right? That's right. And then if we're in a country right now, we're listening, we speak English, but, but our nation speaks German or something else. Then, then translating added, we just get a hold of you and you're open to helping us or letting us translate that. Wide open. Yeah, honor changes everything.com. And this is incredible that I can invest an hour a week and actually change the future of the world. Because if we don't, you talk about our nation, we live in the United States, you and I. But no matter what country we're in, there's a true north and a place of morality that if we don't have that in a nation, we, perfect example is a nation of Venezuela that ended up with leadership that did not have a moral compass. And in one generation has gone from one of the most prosperous nations in the Western hemisphere to people having to scour through garbage cans to find food for their family. You know, so that's really what you're talking about that in one generation, you could actually reverse that. Yeah, the power of God transcends any, any boundaries and fatherlessness is also in every culture that we come into like places like South Africa, the fatherless right is not out of ten there. And, you know, the trouble that their country is going through right now could quickly be fixed with raising up the next generation. You know, we want to pull the weeds and deal with the, you know, the things that are at hand. But if we would drop back and just plant lots of fresh green grass in the next generation in one generation, it would turn. This has been the enemy strategy from day one. This is I love that picture, man, if we would just plant seeds and quit. You know, dinking around with trying to pull weeds. You know, because that sounds like the church I grew up in and they spend most of their time trying to pull weeds and and not the cycling kids. It was more like, hey, don't do this. Don't do that. Don't hang out with those people. And pretty soon the people they pointed at. Hey, don't hang out with those guys are the guys we were hanging out with. Because they look like they were having more fun. That's a powerful picture, Tony. Man, this is incredible. And so you can go on cmn.man. We'll point you to where Tony Rory is and his whole team. We're passing the torch father and son journey into biblical manhood. And then the website and your new website is fantastic and honor changes everything.com. And you've got stories on there. You've got videos. You got ways to engage way to learn. And then you've got guys who would coach us, right? Absolutely. We've got everything scripted. We've got everything kind of deduced down to what really works after trying, you know, many things that didn't work. We're leading up the Holy Spirit. We've developed something that can really, really change the heart of a young person. We turn youth into qualified leaders and world changers by training and principles of chivalry, honor, moral excellence and courageous leadership utilizing life changing camps and ongoing weekly, correctly and best meetings. And then it says it right there. And you basically are hitting ages 11 to 17, which is the ages that most churches are saying, we don't know what to do with them. So we'll do a climbing wall. Exactly. Yeah, that's the wet concrete right now. They're really forming their character. And if we can just, you know, with just a little bit of time and a little bit of effort. We've got forums on godly character character and principles that will help them avoid that aberrant behavior so much easier to build a boy than to mend a man. Wow. Hey, let me finish with a couple of things. I'm a dad. I've got kids. They're, they're, let's say 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. And the thing is that, you know, this is a Christian follower of Christ. And I'm wanting to do the right thing. You've seen guys a lot of situations where guys have done a wrong thing. What would be a couple of things that you'd give me? You know, that I should do for my kids. You know, one of the, one of the things that I've found out early that's really helped me and I don't want to come off and say that my family is perfect by any means because, you know, we've got issues just like any other guy that's listening. Yeah, everybody's human. But one of the things that has really helped us to connect as a family is to develop a family devotional. And what that looks like is every Sunday evening, we get together in our living room. And we have a time of worship and we have a time, you know, together of reading the word and praying for one another. And that's just been a centering point in my family that, you know, because you can get in the ministry, you can get busy with so many things and let your family just, you know, go in their own direction. So, you know, family devotion was really good. And you don't have to be a theologian. I mean, I just sat down and said, hey, you read this chapter and you read this chapter and then we'll pray. And just by doing that, putting God first in our family and having that family time together, we worship together. And they may not get a lot from it initially, but, you know, maybe my son, Daniel, when he gets married and has kids, they start going through a really rough time. He goes, you know, my dad's house, we used to get together on Sunday evenings and read the Bible and pray, we should do that as a family. So, that's one thing that I would highly recommend for any family because, you know, your kids don't always do what, you know, you tell them to do, but they will become who you are. So, if you model that kind of behavior that listen in our house, we're going to put God first, and we're going to spend time together as a family worship. And even if it's just a single dad with his child in the home, you know, that's something I've got one of my friends that that's his situation. But when his son is at his house, they spend time with the Lord together. Man, that's awesome. And it doesn't have to be, you know, we kind of have it, we do this. We go, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. So I'm not going to do it. And then finally, we go, okay, I'm going to do a family devotional. And then it's like, we all right, everybody get in here. Like, what are we doing? Everybody in here by the time you get everybody sat down like everybody's mad, what's dad doing? And you go, all right, forget it. I'm just going to pray. Everybody get the hell out of here. So, but you made it this party normal life. You know, and I think that's what we miss sometimes is you didn't create like a, well, first of all, you didn't just spring it on everybody. Everybody get in here. You know, turn your iPad off, shut the heck up. Yeah, so you made it normal life. And you actually have, I've seen you guys occasionally on, and you can put it on Facebook on Tony Rory. Is it, are you guys Tony? It's just Tony Rory, but it is. Yeah, R-O-R-I-E, R-O-R-I-E. And you can see you've, you've actually posted photos of you guys praying together and it's, it's a, it's a fantastic model. And I just think it's incredible. And what you're doing, Tony, about changing, I mean, we changed the world one man at a time. And that, sometimes when we think about that, we think of a 38 year old guy in an insurance business and building his career, we changed one. But we forget that that man, when, when God spoke about David, and Samuel was upset about Saul, Saul was a total screw up. And Samuel says, God, we've got to have somebody. And God said to Samuel, Samuel, don't worry about it. I've found a man after my own heart. Too often, Tony, we think of that as David, the king at 28. But when God spoke that over David, David was, if you study it chronologically, David was approximately nine years old. And over a nine year old, God said to Samuel, don't worry about it. I've found a man after my own heart. And I believe every single young man and woman born on this earth has a purpose placed in them by God, according to Ephesians 2.10, for them to become everything God designed them to be. So Tony Rory, Tony Melissa and men and ladies of honor, honor changes everything.com. This thing's amazing. There's so many stories that we could talk about. But give me one. This is we finish here. Give me just one story of a young man that you've seen now over time. And now you see them maybe they're in college or something like that. And nobody ever thought they would be. Now there's so many two real quick. I'll tell you one of them is Gabriel, Caronza. And Gabriel was a young man that, you know, young Hispanic man who was in a really impoverished neighborhood, had drugs all around him, gang stuff all around him. He lived actually in an area that intersection. It had it had killings and shootings every weekend. And, you know, we reached out. He was one of those original four boys that was in my office all the time that I talk about. And so at our 10 year anniversary, we reached out to him to see if he would come to the gala. And he wasn't able to, but he sent us a video because he was embedded embedded with the Marines in Afghanistan. And he sent a medal. And I remember just getting choked up watching it because here he is sitting there with these medals on his chest. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, what an amazing transformation he went through to be where he was to where he is. And then I think about, you know, Joe, the kid that I talk about probably the most of conferences that they got saved in one of our meetings and filled with the Holy Spirit. And, you know, he was his dad committed suicide. He said, I still remember hearing the shot when I was four, four years old. But he got saved in one of our groups and then started preaching on the school campus. And he's the one that told me said, Mr. Rory, there was a bunch of kids getting high out behind the school. And he said, I went out there and started preaching Jesus. And he said, I ran them all off the one kid stayed and got saved. He's also the one that called me and said, Mr. Rory, I baptized that kid in the bathtub. And he said his feet didn't go all the way under. Does that still count? It's still count. I said, yeah, Joe, that counts. So, you know, there's greatness in the next generation. And, you know, if we just this kind of like the principle of the, remember the fairy tale where the took the frogs and kissed them and they become the prince. These boys are frogs, man. And we kissed them with the power of God. They become princes. They become mighty world changers. You know, Tony, I pray that every place you put your feet becomes holy ground and everything you put your hands to will prosper. And that God will take you and Melissa and your family and your minister and keep you deep within the grip of his grace and favor. Thanks for being with us on Brave Man. You're an awesome man of God, man. Thank you, Paul. I just want to be like you when I grow up. So, Paul, speaking to Tony, you know, and just hearing his story, what are principles you can share with us about honor that can impact us right now practically? You know, I think the thing about honor to me, when he speaks of honor, the thing he's putting into those young men's lives in particular. And it's young ladies too. That's been what's really amazing to see what's happened. And we heard the story about how it happened. The whole, you know, the whole piece of honor, honor actually means in some languages means weight. Well, actually added weight to something. So when you honor someone, you've added weight or value, it speaks of scales. And I don't mean scales on the eyes. I mean, you know, like scales where you would put gold on one side and let on the other side and see how much gold you have. So that weight, okay, putting weight on something means it's got greater value, the greater the weight of the gold, the greater value. So when you add weight to someone, when you honor somebody, you actually increase their value. And to me, what Tony is doing is increasing the intrinsic value of a young man or a young lady in their own eyes. Wow. You know, I've got friends. I've got Judy and I were talking earlier this morning about some people we're praying for. And one of them, both of them in similar, very difficult and tragic situations, one of which has picked themselves up and said, you know, I'm just going to go with God where I'm at. The other one has kind of laid there and said, well, nothing good is ever going to happen. Okay. And it's sort of like, remember that story about the, where is that? Is that Kings or something? It's in the Bible. Hey, that's good. Yeah, it's in the Bible. So many hippies. One time I said, where is that? I don't know, dude, I'm not. It's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. You know, remember that the, the tack was coming against the city and outside the city were, were those guys that were sitting, you had the disease. What's that thing where stuff comes off? Oh, leprosy. Leprosy. Come on. And they had leprosy and the leprosy go, hey, you know, if we sit here, we die. And said they got up and they went and did something and they went after towards the enemy and they found out, man these guys are gone, God had confused them. And I think that's, that's part of the thing. When you add honor to somebody and they begin to honor themselves, they pick themselves up and move towards where they need to go. So the person that we've been praying for who's just kind of sat there, sat on a victim, I think we'll be okay eventually. But it's going to be a longer road because in our conversations with this person, ongoing conversations, over a long time, trying to get that understanding of your valuable and your worthwhile amount of the tragedy that's happened to you and the things that have happened to you, you didn't create them. It happened to you. Both these people had stuff happen to them, it was really tragic. And the one just said, you know what? If I sit here, I die. I got up and went. And what that person had was, was they begin to sense their own value. So the weight, the honor of their lives. When you honor someone and you can honor a young man simply by listening. Wow. Warren Farrell with the Boy Crisis. Yes. Remember what he said? He said one of the most important things you can say to a young man is tell me more. Wow. Yep. To a young lady, to your son, to your child, to your daughter, to your wife. Hey, tell me more. Judy and I, when the pandemic started, we started walking. Now she's never been an outdoor walking person. She's always gone to aerobics classes and dance stuff and goofy things, you know, where they all yell and all that stuff. That's what we got to be goofy. Yeah. That's what you were just saying. Workout stuff. Yeah. And I always just worked out and then ridden the body and been outside. And then we started walking outside when the pandemic started. Well, now she loves it. Wow. And so we take those times to talk to each other. Hey, what's up? And just random access of things. Things we're thinking about. Things we're praying for, pray together, all that sort of stuff. It's been an incredible time. You know, that conversation as a husband adds weight. Yes. Honor. I'm honoring her. I'm listening. I'm presenting value. So honor, when you talk about the whole thing, it's adding weight to somebody. And it's helping them create in themselves a sense that they have value. Yeah. And something that jumped me about the way you described that, and that's such a beautiful thing, the way that you described it in the picture you painted. Yeah. It just makes me think of the difference between having talent and gaining character too. Wow. Yeah. Because it's like, you're describing, you're walking, you're giving of yourself, Yeah. Walking with misjudity. But you're also allowing her to impart into you character. Yeah. Because you're hearing things that you may have done right or may have done wrong. Oh, yeah. Or, you know, Bob, we talked about everything. So it's also allowing that application of change to softly and gently be manifested too. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Anyway, Tony Rory. God bless, man. He's amazing. And also we got conferences coming up. We got stuff going on all the time. C-M-N. The tools that Tony's been using. Many of the tools can be found on the Christmas Network website. He used Maximized Manhood. We talked about that. And some of the other things. C-M-N. Thanks for listening today. We've had a little bit longer than the normal program. But, you know what? First of all, well, what's normal? We live in a ridiculous world, chaotic. So these interview shows, they're all about, you know, 40 minutes to an hour long. It's just what they are. They're long form podcasting. Yes. And then we're doing the Go 15 with John Arana, which is fantastic. That's 15 minutes. We set the clock, bang, answer something. And if we don't have it fully answered, that's just the way it goes. It's okay. Boom. Come back for more. And then starting in August 23rd of this year, 2021, if you're listening to it this year, we start the book Real Man every Monday night, which is fantastic. And then that week, we also start a new email, inspirational email program. You guys need to jump onto that. Be sure about probably about a 90 second read. And inspirational. Three times a week. Wisdom. Bam. Courage. Same stuff with us. So the Go 15, that's season four, with John Arana, which may or may not be on when somebody's listening to this. It's not on yet as we're sitting here, but we're producing the shows. It's going to be fantastic. And then upcoming data academy, some of the other things, dangerous nations. Yes. Dude, that thing's heating up, going to Iran, you know, live from our studios here, going into Iran, and then Thailand, Philippines, Northern India, where Christians are being killed every single day. So doing the stuff, man. Reaching men. Yep. That's awesome. Hey, thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. It is a great blessing. Remember, hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is. Jesus. Come on, man. Love you guys. Blessings. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian Men's Network, connect with Paul at C-A-M-N-D-Man, or write to him at Paul at C-A-M-N-D-Man.