BraveMen S4E116: John Kelly Interview-01

Today on Brave Men, we have Dr. John Kelly, who's the leading convener of the International Coalition of the Apostolic Leaders, the largest Apostolic Leadership Group in the world. And John is great to have you here. You're a mentor to me and a big brother in the faith, close friend of my fathers. And you warned me that you were not going to be politically correct, is that right? That's totally right. And I want to get into some things. You said, let's break open first Corinthian 1613. Yes. And the core of that is be a man. That's right. We're going to define that, right? Yes, we are. A man has stones. This man has cajonis. cajonis, come on somebody. And you've taught martial arts, played professional football, worked as an iron worker with James Braddock years ago, which is an amazing story. And then been in ministry in one of my favorite stories. You've got to tell it at some point, one of the programs we do about the man who hit you in the face when you were preaching. I think it's a great one. You're going to be one of the most amazing men in the world, one of the most interesting men in the world today on Brave Man. It's Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole. Wisdom encouraged for the journey. So you got to hit in the face while you were preaching? Yeah. It was probably about the third or fourth sermon I've ever preached in my life. Really? Oh, yeah. I was in prison. I was preaching. I was in a prison ministry at the time. Okay. You weren't in prison. No, it was called the bridge ministries. I had started it. So I was in this prison in New Jersey called Borden. It was actually called the Borden Town Reformatory and it was for young offenders. So I'm preaching and it's a Catholic chapel. So I'm standing behind the altar rail and then behind me is the altar. Okay. And so I'm ministering on one John 316 about loving the brothers and giving your life and so forth. And so there was a row of bikers sitting on the front row. So this one guy gets up right in the middle of my message and he hauls off and hits me. I mean, I mean, and I saw stars and I go backwards. But to say, I started boxing in July prior to entering the fifth grade. And I boxed all the way through eighth grade. I boxed my junior and senior year in high school. I mean, you were this is gold gloves? That kind of thing. Yeah, gold, gold, gold gloves, palping, you know, probably your martial art is your boxer. This guy doesn't know that. He just thinks you're this. Yeah, he just thinks sort of preacher cam. There's a sweet preacher. Yeah, yeah. You know, so so he hits me and I go, I go backwards. The only thing kept me from falling was I hit the altar. Hit the altar. So it was like hitting the ropes, you know, where I went into automatic. So I hit and bounced off, came back, hitting with an overhand right, then hitting with a left upper cut, you know, and then came across again with the right and then then hitting again in the left temple, hitting again in the right as he's going down, hitting him about three more times before somebody could jump in. Yeah, his name was Scooby-Doo and he's laying across the altar rail, you know, and he's bleeding, you know, out his nose, out his mouth. And and I don't know what to do. So and the guards, they run out and lock the door. Okay. And so I'm in there with with this whole room full of inmates. Oh, they think there's going to be a riot. They think there's a riot out. Yeah, because yeah, so they think there's going to be a riot, you know, between different ones and me and all that. Yeah. And they figure, you know, the preacher's going to get get beat up down the bed. And so what happened was I said, listen, I'm sorry. Let's let me find my notes here and go back to what I was saying about loving the brothers, you know, and I didn't, you know, and I just started again. Next thing I know this guy gets this guy gets up. And he gets up and he's kind of like dizzy for a little bit and he's got his arms out, you know, like he's going to grab me. And then he steps over the altar rail and I'm thinking, you know what, I got to do it. This is it. I got it, you know, seven times seven, you know, you got to hit, you know, and I figure now I'm going to just be a martyr and I'm going to, I'm going to let this guy beat me up in front of everybody, you know, and and so he comes and the next thing I know he grabs me and he was shorter than me. I was about six two at the time and he was probably about five, 10 and he got his arms around me. Big stocky guy and put his head in my chest and started crying and I want Jesus. I want Jesus. And you know what revival broke out. Wow. It's a crazy story. I wouldn't use that as a method. No, I wouldn't use that as a message. We're going to do a breakout session at ARC, you know, on how to how revival break out getting a big fight. But that actually led to a revival and renewal in the lives of all those men and, you know, and and, you know, it also caused a long-term respect. Yes, they're the ministry. And it I actually had a meeting with the warden and the psychologists there. And they were concerned because all of these and these were fairly violent guys. Yeah, you know, we're all of a sudden hug him one another praying. They're like, they want to know how long you think this could last. You know, this is good. Do you think it'll last a while? It's kind of real or what? And so, but they were really actually those officials were actually very respectful and very good. They were just being more inquisitive than anything. They weren't trying to stop anything or put anything down. Yeah. You know, you've had a remarkable career if you want to call it that. But I mean, your life's mission to see men come to Christ. And where did that start for you? Well, I got when I was when I was saved and I came to faith, I broke into a chapel. It was about three in the morning and it was a Catholic retreat. And it was called Crescio. And to this day, I don't know what they were talking about. But my roommate was a guy I never met before. And he had brought a case of beer. Yeah. And he had a hidden under the bed and when he met me, we got talking at the end of the night after first couple sessions. But I had bought two bottles of scotch with me. So we started drinking and we got drunk and we talked one another into getting saved because our wives were what you call charismatic, you know. And so now all of a sudden, we're married to these these gals that are Jesus freaks. And we're talking to tongues and raising their hands and all this. And we're so so that we talk one another into, you know, we talk about Billy Graham, about three in the morning, we're inebriated. And so we go down to this chapel. So you figure if we're going to get saved, you got to do it at a chapel. Well, we're good Catholics. We got to go in the chapel. Yeah, because Jesus is in the chapel and he's in the sacristy and he's in the chalice and he's the monstrance. So so this was Joseph Bonaparte's estate at one time. The brother of Napoleon, he was a general in the Revolutionary War. And he donated his property, one part of his property became a military academy. And the other part of his property, he donated to the divine word father. Was this in New Jersey, New York, New Jersey, New Jersey? Yeah. So so then so then we go down to in his in his mansion, which was really big. Yeah. There was a ballroom. They converted it into a chapel. Okay. So we go in the doors lock. And he goes, well, the doors lock, we got to go back to our rooms. You know, and of course I don't even know we can make it back to our rooms. You know, we're kind of, we're not we're not too stable. So so I said, nah, you know, Jesus is in there and we must. We might as well get in there. So so it kind of broke the door in, you know, and they talk about salvation being free, but mine cost me about 180 some dollars to repair the door. And so we go in there and it was a powerful experience. I mean, just a one of these powerful experiences and and came out saved, delivered. I mean, really? Oh, it was crazy. Yeah. And never and haven't been the same since. So then they've been the same. How old were you then? I was 29 29 years old and I and I and I and that was in November. And I turned 30 in December. So I just so and then you know, for about three years, I just studied the word fed fed on the word. I started in the you know, went to the carousel mag movement for about six months and then wound up in a kind of a pentecostal holiness type church because I needed that kind of. You needed something. Then after that, I went to a assembly guy more charismatic type church. And it was a great church in brought to New Jersey. And and things just began to happen over three year period. And then I started this ministry called the bridge ministries, which was strictly to men. It was inmates prison inmates and military. Wow. Is is where my aim was because that's where I could meet with gatherings of men. And you would by this point taught boxing hand-to-hand combat two military people. Yeah. Two others. Not right. I wasn't I was never in the military. Right. But I mean, you would taught that. Yeah. To people. Yeah. And and because you told me a lunch one day. And I did a little bit of football coaching. Right. Track coaching. You told me at lunch one day. This is fairly recently when I when I said net, you really could you you can take somebody down. You said, I can do this. I got what was it? 72 moves that can put a man on the ground or something like that. I wish it was 72. Whatever it is. I'm like, yeah, whatever. Well, like 14 for this. You only need 14. And so I said, really, you think you could take me down. And we're looking at each other for a second. And you said, yeah, I could. Mm-hmm. So how long would it take it? You said, I don't know. Seconds. Yeah. Five seconds. Yeah. And it was one that we're sitting at a restaurant. And there's this little pause, right? Mm-hmm. And I look back at you and I go, all right, I'm good. I'm good with that. Take your word. I'm not going to I'm not going to test that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you see it in your eyes. I'm not going to test that. The older I get the closer that gets the lying. Well, the stories get better. I'm 78 now. I'm in my 79th year. Yeah. You know, it's like Rob Carmen said years ago, he would always say, all my stories are true or they contain truth. You know. And so that's the same with me. But when you talk about when we talk about this and I want to go to first Corinthians 1613. And it reads this way in my translation, the amplified says, be alert and on guard, stand firm in your faith, your conviction, respecting man's relationship to God, divine things, keeping the trust and holy forever born of faith and part of it. Act like men, be courageous, grow in strength. Now, the quick translation is this, be on guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, act like a man, be strong. And then the next verse adds on her and do everything with love. Right. So it seems like in our culture today, manhood is in crisis. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I would agree totally with that because manhood goes through goes through a series of generations. And so when you look at say our, my father's generation, yeah, which was considered the great, you know, the great generation. World War Two. Yeah. And my father and my uncles, my uncles, they fought through Europe, my father throughout, fought through the islands. And my father was a highly decorated CB. He was an under, he was a hard, how helmet diver and wound up as a UTD diver as well. And let a that's underwater demolition, a lot of men. So that was the beginning. That's where the seals were from. And but you have to realize these men were, these men were in combat for almost three years. I mean, they didn't come back. They went over and they were there for, yeah, there was no like six months deployment or whatever. They were over there the whole time. Yeah. When my dad was in the battle of Lady Golf, he was on his ship. He said for 14 months straight. Yeah. That's a year and two months. That's a year and two months, right? Yeah. That's amazing when we think about the sacrifices. But right. So when they came back, there was a strength there. Yeah. And the thing, the amazing thing was, I mean, they went, they, they immediately went to work. You know, they, they, they went into factories. They went in my father went into the shipyard and began working in the shipyard. And then he heard they were building this bridge and between New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware. And he found out that they made two bucks an hour more climbing steel. So he went and got a job there. And by the end, and he went up as a, as basically a common iron worker. Yeah. And within by the time the job was over, he was a foreman. He was a foreman. Yeah. Because he was, he was just kind of a, he was a big, strong, tough, really tough guy. But a very, very smart guy and had just natural leadership. So you ended up working in the steel. Yes. Climbing, climbing, climbing steel, walking steel. Building big buildings bridges. Yes. The first time I did that, I was 16 years old. Wow. And I was a summer of my junior year in high school. And I was working on the, my first job was the football field house at Syracuse University. Wow. For that summer. And so I would do it in the summers. Yeah. Or over holidays. And you ended up working on, on one project or met with James Braddock. That was the virus. The virus on the bridge. Yes. I'll tell you a funny story about that. So James Braddock, as some of you may or may not know, was a heavyweight champion of the world. They made a great movie. Cinderella man. You send a real man. Great movie also watch. Yeah. And it's a very, very accurate story. And he was friends of my, of my grandfather and his two brothers, because they all boxed out of the same gym. Okay. And he also, he worked, I believe, also in the shipyard. My grandfather worked in the shipyard, but his two brothers were iron workers. He's still iron workers. So we're working on the virus on a virus bridge. And now I'm, now I'm 19. And no, I think, yeah, I was 19. I was going into my fresh, I was after my, between my freshman year of college. And so we'd finished hanging the cables and all that. Now we were rising up to steal for the roadway. And so we, so me and my two cousins, we were, we were what you call connectors. We were the guys that would go out and the iron would come into us. We connected. And then the boulder ups would come in behind us and bolt it up. And, but we always worked with this. So at lunch and breaks, we would go back to the crane. And we would have our snack at break in mid morning break. And then we would, at lunch, we'd be there. And there was an oiler on the crane by a name of James by a name of James. All we knew was James. And he was this real stocky guy. Talk like this, you know. And, and we would, we would talk with him at lunch and just really a nice guy. And so, so on Friday, we would get in the car. And the three of us, we would sit in the back seat and my dad and my uncle, we would be driving from Staten Island all the way down to Riverside, New Jersey on the Jersey Terminal. And so my dad says, hey, what do you think of James? And we're like, oh, yeah, he's really a nice guy and all that. And my, and my also, my two cousins, they also did amateur boxing as well. So my dad goes, well, y'all know who he is. Yep. Well, we only know him as James. And my dad goes, my uncle goes, you're more on such James Braddock. And we're going like, so, so whose James Braddock? You know, we don't have a clue. He says, he said, you know, you dumb head, you know, you're talking, you've been talking all week, the heavyweight champion of the world. And he was, yeah, because in the movie, he went back to work on the crane. Yeah, he went back to work on the crane. And that was his first love. Yeah. And he was good. And he was just a great guy. And he was, and he just was kind of like James. And he had a lot of wisdom. And so he was just sharing stuff with us because, you know, we were young and dumb. So, so it was, it was just a shock to us. So now we go back to following Monday. And we're like, we're going to be seeing James. Yeah, now you're all, we're like, how we going to talk? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't know what to say. Man, that's, that's amazing. He was a very humble guy. I'll tell you that. So when we talk about 1st Corinthians 1613 about being a man, there was no question about what that definition meant in that era to those men. You know, one of the things, one of the things that I learned is that strong men build stronger, strong sons. You know, now, so let me put it this way. Very strong men. I'm talking about very strong and, and, you know, in their, just their whole, their whole being. Yeah. You know, their world view, you know, the way they go about things, their yea is yea, their name is a, you know, their truth, their true speakers. And they're willing, and they're willing to fight, willing to fight, they're willing to fight physically for what they believe. You know, that's what we're seeing with the Ukrainians, Ukrainians. And, and then their sons tend to be strong, but the sons of the sons tend not to be as strong. And then the sons of the sons become even more like what you would call softer weak. Yeah, it's a softer generation. And it's that, that thing we're strong men. Right. Make a peaceful world. And a peaceful world creates the ability to just to be soft. Yeah. And then everything begins to fall apart. And then there all of a sudden becomes a need for stronger, stronger men again. Yeah. Because evil men come in. For the evil men come in. Yeah. Exactly. They take advantage of the weak men. Right. Yeah. Which is why we have to raise strong men. Strong men make strong families, and strong families make strong churches. And the churches, the hope of the world. Talking about John Kelly, who's the leading convener of the International Coalition of Apostolic Leadership. And you have, it's a global organization, largest one like it in the world. And, and you meet with leaders from all over the world. And they all, I, I've heard the conversations and we've had the conversations. How do we raise strong men? Right. How do we raise up strong men? And I think that's the call in the cry right now because we live in a fatherless generation, a fatherless world. How do we raise up strong men? What's your take on that, John, as we kind of wrap up this particular podcast, this particular broadcast? I don't, I don't think that we raise strong men basically through teaching. I think we, we have to build, we have to raise up strong men through relationship. Wow. And, and so, and so when I talk about, there's a big difference, I believe, between teaching and discipleship. Discipleship is relationship, you know, it's, you walk with them, you talk with them, you eat with them, you take them with you, those kinds of things. And, and I think that, you know, if we think that, you know, through our teachings, through, through all of this that we're going to build strong men, that's pretty rare. There has to be somebody in their life that's willing to invest in their life. And, and be more like a, more like a, either a, a father or a strong brother, you know, to them. And, and also has to, has to model, you know, we need, they need models. And in the church today, you know, we, we, I think we're producing in the church very weak men. I think we're producing men that are spiritual, which, which I totally, totally support 100%. Yeah. But, but they're more likely, let's say to, to, uh, uh, want to sing and dance and, and run banners around. And these are the, these are the, these are the young guys that we celebrate in church, you know, and they may have a hair, dude, looks like it's church wise. But, but William, and let me explain something. Yeah. But, but we're not celebrating, you know, the, the kids that are on the track team, the football team, the best team boys and girls. And we're not celebrating those that are getting good grades and everything. So, so what happens is, you know, we, we are creating even in church, you know, we talk about, well, public schools doing this and so forth. But I don't know if the church is doing any much better as far as raising strong men because you start raising strong men when they're weak boys. That's when you start raising them, you know, you start raising them before they're 13 years of age. Right. You know, you have to start when they're, you know, why, why, why is it that a six year old cannot do chores? You know, they have to, you have to be able to put rules and regulations and make them strong. Okay. You're speaking about something right now that hits me strong. And I said it in our one of our Monday night Monday night men broadcasts is that our addiction to skinny jeans is led to an addiction to skinny faith. And what we've done is we've we've been really good on affirmation. Hey, you're great. You can do this. But we've been terrible on correction. It's like we're just trying to be nice. So we're trying to be nice. We've created nice guys. You know what? Nice guys get done nothing. And it's just noise. You know, they can talk all the right stuff. I'm just tired of it, man. I've had it. Well, to be really frank with you, I think we have too many nice guys in the pulpit. Yeah, there you go. You know, we need to have people that that speak biblically. You know, we, you know, we're afraid to speak up against say everybody says politics, right? Well, I don't believe we should speak politics from the pulpit. Well, we should speak Bible to politics. Yes. And Bible to politicians. And we need to be able to understand something that's speaking about legislation and things like that from the pulpit. That's that's what that's what strong leaders do. For instance, all laws are either moral or immoral righteous or unrighteous. Every law you can think of. Wow. And so yeah, therefore that they they are all biblical issues. You can find either a direct scripture or indirect or a story within the Bible that can give support to what you're saying about that unrighteous or unjust law, you know, or or that immoral law. You know, and so I think that's that's very important. So so basically what you're saying begins in always in leadership. So if you have leadership in the church that is liberal, that's leaning left, that's woki, you know, that's more interested in wanting everybody to love them. You know, you know, wanting everybody to come see them, them trying to be as cool as they can be, you know, they're trying to be as fashionable as they can be all of these things, you know, to be to be as be more of an attraction model. Then you know, just think about that. That's actually more feminine than it is masculine. Yeah, very much so. Very much so, you know, and bringing correction doesn't always see and I'm you look, let's go back and talk about fatherhood in that sense and undiscipline. You show me an undisciplined child. I'll show you a child that's unloved because love always produces correction. And it's just like if we love our brother, we'll send him down at some point privately, go, hey bro, you know the stuff you said, you know, to Jamal or the stuff you said to Bill. Dude, that was that was a little harsh. I think you're a little little strong on that. And you know, let's think about what it means to be gracious in our words. Now that's iron sharpens iron. And that's what a brother does, right? And it also produces that when you talk about discipleship comes out of relationship. I think this one of the issues we have is that we're unwilling to get our hands dirty. And if I'm going to disciple this guy and be in relationship, that means I actually have to be connected and be involved in their lives, right? And we've made the pulpit professional rather than prophetic. And we've not spoken into people's lives and we've tried to just make it safe, you know? And what it's led to now is the anxiety, pastors dealing with issues in their own personal lives, instability in their character. And see, my thing is I believe in the local church. I'm a local church guy. You are too. That's basically what you do. That's what the apostolic leadership by Cal does. Build strong churches. We're of like mind with that. But if we're going to do that, we have to have men of character and a pulpit, not just men of great charismatic appeal. Totally agree. Totally agree. I was at a table. It was round table meeting. And it was put on by a brother that was fairly influential within the body of Christ. And he was working with, and at the table, we had pastors there. And probably the one with the smallest church may have had a thousand. Some of them had churches of 10,000 or so. And the subject came up about discipleship. And so they all started talking about what programs they use, what teaching programs they use. And so I was one of the last, I was called on to speak there at the end. And by the leader of the group. And I came out with the fact is it's not a program. You know, it's a personal, it's a person to person relationship. Right. And it's relational. You know, I'm not against those programs, but those programs are good programs for teaching purposes, you know, for doctrine purposes, and maybe theological purposes. And even teaching on character and so forth. But it's one thing to teach on character. It's another thing to walk with somebody and help them work out their character. You know, and so we have to have that. And it has to be a personal relationship. So that's why like the International Christian men's network is so critical because after men go through the basic program, now they are prepared to be able to speak to their sons, you know, all the male relationships because they go through that. It's about engaging their hearts, equipping their hands and powering their feet. That's what we do with Christian men's network to raise up strong men. And I'm committed to the process because the process is committed to Christ. Correct. And when that's the center, and it's not just too often what we look at within our church life, as we look at the usability of a person, like, oh, hey, this guy's got a gift we can use him for this. He can do that. Rather than, hey, let's build this man. Let's build him strong so that whatever it is that God's going to use out of him gets used, gets fulfilled. He's got a fulfilled life. Yeah. Talking about John Kelly, leading convener of the International Coalition to Abstolic Leaders. And John, thanks for being with us on Brave Men today. We're going to do a couple more. And we're going to just launch them all at the same time. So parts one, two, and three, whatever that looks like, be on guard, stand firm, be a man, be strong. And I want to, I want to keep going on that predication, but I also want to talk about some of the things we're dealing with in our world today in terms of some of the core issues that we deal with as men. And thank you for being with us, John. This is a blessing. My pleasure. Yeah. It's awesome. You just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.