BraveMen S4E118: John Kelly Interview-03

It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. On Brave Men today, we have the unique and wonderful privilege of talking with Dr. John Kelly, who's the leading convener of the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders. And with actually this is actually the third of three programs we're doing together. We've talked about a lot of different things, but we're going to move right into fatherhood, fatherhood. What does it mean to be a dad? What are dads doing right? What are we not doing right? One of the things that I see in a lot of websites about being a dad is, you know, taking them to the park or taking them doing this. And it's a lot of activities, right? But I'm not sure we're dealing with the core issue of being a dad, which is a man's character. It's good. I don't think we are either, you know. And I'll tell you a little story. Yeah. I was when I wasn't really saved at this point. And my wife gave birth to our daughter, my wife, Lena gave birth to my, our daughter, Shana. And when I saw that little baby, something happened in me where I realized that I wasn't qualified to be a father. Wow. And, and I wasn't, and I wanted to be qualified to be a father. I think I was qualified maybe to be by what someone considered a strong man. I think I knew, I thought I knew stuff about fatherhood until she was born. I had confidence in being a father. But then when I saw her, I was like, there's a lot of things on me that have to change. And so over a three year period, I began to search for God because I had become very cold, non-emotional over a period of time in my, my younger, younger years beginning in 1967. And so I began to search and I looked at Rosa Crucions and you name it, you know, seven day of Venice. I mean, I was looking at it, everything. I was looking at Mormons. I was looking at everything. And eventually, you know, I came to faith there in Borden Town, New Jersey, which I explained earlier. And that began to be the beginning of me really being a father, you know, and, and wanted to maintain her innocence and her purity. And because how could I, how could I speak into that and how could I help her and guide her, you know, without me being on the right path. So the first thing I had to do had to happen was I had to change internally. So in coming to faith was not enough. I had to discover everything in me that was wrong that I had to change in order for that to happen. And so, and that was a process. And so by that time, she was probably about four years old. And, and then once I came to faith, her mother and I, and her mother was always praying with her and pouring into her. Her Lina was always like that with her and speaking Jesus to her. Right. I wasn't. And, and then the Lina and I became a team, you know, and speaking into Shannon's life and speaking into her life. But my first thing was always. And I think this is something that's really key was protection. You know, the Bible talks about protecting the innocent on the Old Testament. And, and I feel like the first role of a father is protection, you know, is love. Well, first, you have to have love in order to be a protector. And so, because out of that love, you want to, you want to care for them, you want to protect them, you know, you want to, you want to guard them against evil, you want to guard them against anything, anything that's going to harm them emotionally or physically. And so, it began with that. And I think that fatherhood, whether whether we're looking at natural fathers or spiritual fathers, it always begins with love. Yeah. Right. It always begins with love. You have to love that person, you know, and I believe in love at first sight. Now, that sounds crazy coming from guy like me, but, but I can remember I transferred from Ognesburg, New York. That's where I play football. My, my, in sports, my sophomore year, my freshman year was St. Ignis Michigan. My dad was building the Mackinac straights bridge. New York, my dad was building every bridge across the St. Lawrence River. So, I transferred back to Riverside, New Jersey, where I went to grade school my junior year. And when I, when I came back there, you know, I began to, how can I put it? I began to understand my role as being a protector of my sisters. Of my sisters who are now entering school and my dad told me, you know, you have to be a protector. Right. Of your sisters, because boys are going to try to take advantage of them. Of course, he was telling me everything from a secular point of view. Right. But then something happened. My, my, when I was in history class, my first day of school, all the kids already knew who I was because I was already a leader on the football team, you know, a couple weeks in training. So, I'm flirting with this one girl. And this red head walks in the classroom. And I was, I went numb. I mean, it was like I, I was like, I couldn't speak. All I could do was just stare at her. And she became my bride many years later, Helena. And that was love at first sight. That was love at first sight. In fact, the girl I was flirting with, she's one of my inner sisters. So, but, but anyway, and I think that even, even when it comes to, and even comes to spiritual fathering, you can't father somebody. You can, you can train somebody. You can educate somebody. You can mentor them. You can counsel them. But fathering requires you have to love them so much that you're committed to their success and all things. Here they will do greater works than you. Yeah. From your natural children to your spiritual children. Paul the Apostle said, you have 10,000 instructors, but not many fathers. He was talking to the church in Corinth and he was speaking to them about how much you love them. Right. So, I love you like a father. Now, that the thing is is that when Jesus taught us to pray, he said, pray this way, our father, because father was the highest manifestation of a, of an image he could put in our minds of who he is to us. He could have said, pray this way, oh great sovereign one, pray, oh great creator of the universe, whatever. But he said father because he wanted to make it personal, intimate, and then create an image for us. And most of us, because we have broken images of fathers, we don't know how to relate. But let me come at it from a different place also in terms of protection. If you're, if you're wanting to protect your children, it starts with your own heart. Here's why. The DNA of the kingdom always emanates from the DNA of the king. The spiritual atmosphere of a home always comes from the father. And the most important thing you do as a father is create an atmosphere because everything lives or dies based on the atmosphere in which it's right. So we talk about, you know, and I hear guys all the time, I'm going to protect my kids and protect them. So dude, it starts with you. Oh, I know, I'm going to stand up just and no, no, it starts with you who you are. It starts with the spiritual atmosphere of your life, your heart and spirit. That's why you get in the word. That's why you pray. That's why you don't do porn. That's why you don't don't over and do alcohol. Why? Because you love your kids. Right? Right. We don't even, we don't very often we don't equate those things because we look at I'm going to protect, I'm going to be there, but your spirit is what they're going to end up living in. Yeah, they only take that into the physical realm. Exactly. They don't take it into the spiritual emotional realm. And they do, and they don't understand, you know, that those inner behaviors that they have, those secret sins and all that they have, that that also creates a cause and effect. And it causes them to be even sometimes more liberal with their children than they should because of their own, their own messes inside of them, their own sins. And so it's, so that's, that's very important. Yeah, because we look at them, we say, well, I can't correct them because I'm dealing with my own stuff. Right. But, you know, regardless of your stuff, you're still called, your mission is to provide boundaries for them. Correct. Right? You know, when Paul said that, you have 10,000 instructors, but not many fathers, the way I have looked at it for some time is an instructor tells you what he knows, but a father gives you who he is. And when we love our children, we're, we're willing to discipline ourselves for their benefit. If you truly love, love is the expression of an inner desire to see the other one blessed, right? Even at your own expense. So self-discipline is at your own expense. You discipline your heart in yourself and your lifestyle so that your children will thrive. Yeah. And also when Paul said that, we have to look at the context in which he said it culturally and so forth. And so when he talks about, you know, fathers right there, you don't have many fathers, the word father there, he's talking about something that's, that's not only a natural father, but he's talking about something else about fathers. And that is like like Solomon, those fathers that had wisdom, those fathers that have leadership qualities. You know, in other words, you know, they they had fathers who everyone was a father that had children, but then there are those fathers that stand out in the community, you know, because of their wisdom, you know, not just their knowledge, but their wisdom. So it's kind of like when it's talking about elders, it's not talking about agent ones. It's talking about wise ones. Right. And so that they have wisdom to give you in order to live your life so that you don't, you know, and you don't make make mistakes. Some of us, our wisdom comes from our mistakes. You know, we learn more from our failures than we ever do from our success. What is that called? Is that called tactile learning? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I've learned almost every day. I'm feeling our way through to you know, following on my face and getting back up, right? You got to get back up. You know, I think that is such a key thing when we talk about fatherhood and fathering. I want to hit a couple things here. One, in talk about the pulpit, because you're a leader of leaders, and particularly within the spiritual, within the church around the world. And one of the things that I know we've talked about for some time is men who don't disciple the men in their church, because they weren't discipled. They were taught, they were instructed. We've got, we've got men who were taught how to preach sermons, but not how to disciple men. And just think about this, there are churches, let's say. Well, first of all, scripture is very clear, woe to the shepherds that lead the flockest right. Yeah. You know, in other words, and the reason why the shepherds are like that is because they don't have a fatherly patriarchal view of the church. Wow. You know, they don't see it as the family of God, you know, as their family of which, you know, they've been given the grace to, you know, to be that patriarch of that church, that fatherly person that has authority with the affairs of the church or the ecclesia. You know, but the thing is is that when you, when you look at that, you have to also see the fact that not only, not only, you know, woe to the shepherds, you know, because they scatter to the flock or whatever, you know, cause people to backslide, whatever they do. But basically it's talking about the fact is, is that they miss the mark because they're not leading them in the right directions. You know, because it's not a matter of just giving them, as you were saying, the knowledge, you have to give them the wisdom, you know, and you have to let them know what is their place in culture and society and so forth, you know, as a father. So, so here's a problem. When you have churches, let's say that are over 700. And especially a lot of, a lot of bigger churches, I mean, I know churches 10,000, 20,000 people. Right. Right. Now, this is not so, this is not true in Central America, South America. This is not true in Africa and other parts of the world. But, and like you were saying, you called it the more educated part of the world. So they, they begin to bring ministers and person now from other churches to be in their church, rather than raising up from within. I mean, you mean to tell me you got 10,000 people, and you can't raise somebody up 20 ministers on staff and 18 of them or 17 or 16 of them. They were hired from elsewhere because there's nobody out of 10,000 qualified to even be raised up to be that. There's something wrong. I mean, that church is not only lacking, you know, it's not only lacking, you know, you know, teaching on, on ministry and leadership, but it's lacking on discipleship. It's lacking, but it's also lacking on, on taking a group that they see as potential leaders in filling those positions, you know, as sons of the faith. And, and it's like, it's unbelievable. You got 10,000 people, 5,000 people, 1,000 people, and the majority of your ministerial staff has to be hired from elsewhere. I mean, there's a fatherhood issue. There's a real fatherhood issue. Exactly. And I think part of that is we don't see it that way. Right. We have trained pastors. And I'm a church planter. We're both church guys. I mean, we love the church. But I feel like we've trained pastors and trained them in our schools or however we've trained them. We've trained them in organizational leadership. We've trained them, well, we've trained them in leadership rather than than servanthood by and large. And so they learn how to do the hierarchy, they learn how to do all those things, but they haven't necessarily learned how to be a father. And that's, that's the issue right there. I believe that that the change that will happen in the future of the church is when the older men of the faith look at themselves as fathers in the faith, not just as instructors. Well, one of the problems we have is we have experts on topics and subjects that they have never done, you know, which wouldn't be true in secular, in secular society. So in other words, we have people teaching on wealth building, who who never built wealth, you know, all the money they get is from teaching on wealth building. You know, we have, you you understand what I'm saying? So all you have to know is like 80 scriptures on a particular topic and you're an expert. So we have all these people that are experts and one thing, that's one problem. But I'll tell you, raising and I am all for ministerial training. I'm all for double school on all fours, you know, training, anthropology, all of that. And because it is part of what qualifies you, you do have to have the knowledge. But what what I have a problem with is not raising up from within because still the family is the greatest educator of the children, correct? The nuclear family. But the church should be the greatest educator of the family of God that's in that particular locality, that particular assembly. And so there's a lack of that fathering. I mean, just a handful of, you know, you know, anywhere from four to 12, 14, 14 men or women that you're raising up for future positions, you know, within that congregation. And I understand, you know, wanting to bring in, you know, the experts. Yeah. Yeah. But you can also raise them up from within. And like you were saying, you know, I think the first thing is, is it all begins with, you know, we take people and in servanthood, that this is all about serving. It's like when it comes to the coalition, I serve as convener. Right. You know, I serve as convener. Yeah. You know, that's more important than me. I lead as convener. You know, leading, leading, leading is a subset. You know, the whole key or everything Paul was talking about was, you know, that the, that the puzzle does not lead from the top down. They lead from the bottom up. Jesus never taught leadership. He taught servanthood. Yeah. Because it comes over and over and over. It comes with a towel and a bowl. Sure. Yeah. It's Doug Stranger that says, when most men reach for positions, Jesus reached for a towel. Yeah. I love Doug. I mean, and his teaching on servanthood, he lives it out. Yeah. But his teaching on servanthood is so, so pungent and strong. Yeah. Because it goes against the grain of what a lot of what we've taught over the last 40 years, if you will, in church leadership. Well, how can you be a leader if you never served? Yeah. Well, there you go. Well, we got a lot of those though. Yeah. Because they've done it based on talent, charismatic appeal, positional authority. Right. And when it comes right down to it, there's a vacuum and because of that, there's not enough inner strength within them as far as internal integrity. Yeah. You know, it's like I'm sitting here with a glass. Yeah. I have my coffee here. Now, what would you rather be hit with? The coffee in the glass or the glass? The coffee in the glass, right? Yeah. Why? Because it doesn't have hardly any internal integrity. But the glass has internal integrity. Wow. And so it's like you want people to you want leaders within the church ministers, within the church to know your culture will raise them up within your culture. Right. Don't hire them and expect them to learn your culture over the next three years. You know, because a family has a culture. Right. You know, and it begins when their little children, well, a church has a culture and it begins when they first come in the door. Exactly. That's when it begins, you know, and culture is based on those things that you allow. Yes. And that you permit and that you promote or the things you don't allow. And that creates your culture. Yeah, your values, your principles, your truths. There's a non-negotiable to this we believe. Yeah. Exactly. How do you disciple man? How do I disciple? How do you disciple man? Like, if you take a guy and you say, Hey, show up. Yeah. And particularly, you know, in your particular in your pastoral roles, you know, how do you disciple man? Well, it's good that you use the term pastoral roles because I believe discipleship is a pastoral role. You know, it is, it's not a, it's not the role. It's not like now I'm the apostle, you know, we're on the prophet, you know, and I'm going to make you an apostle like me or a prophet like me. No, you're, you're to father them in the way they shall go. Right. Be they male or female. And so it's looking at, you know, it's being able to discern them, you know, and but you can't do that until you first develop a relationship. That's that's very, that's very key. And you have to have as I said earlier, there has to be this fact that you love them enough to be committed to their success. You know, I have spiritual sons and daughters that are leading churches 10, 20 times bigger than than the church I led, which was, which was a big church in leading networks 10, 20 times bigger than the network I had, even though I had a, what was considered a big network. I have sons and daughters can, but I think they can now preach me, they can now teach me that they're better at theology, church history, you know, but that's the way it's supposed to be. They don't start that way. They don't start that way. But why, why aren't we raising them up to go beyond us? Well, because that's the whole spirit of a father versus an instructor, and instructor gets jealous of those who do better than him. Yeah, because we're building pyramids and, you know, instead of families. Come on, somebody. And that's the problem. Because a father, it's like, it's like my, my boys, and my son and I was like, look at their little kids, you know, when they're five, six years old, playing soccer, and they're all the kids are clumped around the ball running around. And they'll point out their son or their daughter and they go, look at, she's great at that. Oh, look at him. He's going, no, he's in the middle of a clump. Why? Because a dad always thinks that my youngest son, Bryce, who ended up being a great basketball coach and a really tremendous basketball player. But I remember when Bryce was, I think he was about eight. And this is the age where you kind of have those basketball goals that you can move up and down. And so we had it sort of down. It's probably halfway. So I don't know what that is. Seven feet or something like that. And so, you know, they're out there shooting and playing. And so I put them into bed that night. And my little seven eight year old boy, Bryce kind of pops up looks at me as I'm praying over them. He goes, dad, think about how good my son is going to be a basketball. So really, why is that? He said, because think how much better I am than you are. True story. And of course, my first reaction was and putting the goal back up to 10 foot. We're going out there now and turning the lights on. Let's go. But then I looked at him and said, you know what, you're right. You're right. And I hope that's the case because because that's what a father wants in his child and for his grandchildren to live larger, live better, live stronger. That's the spirit of a father. Yes, a father leads the children, but a father also serves the children. Yeah, serving their dreams, right serving their dreams, serving their potential. One of the things my dad taught me is he said, don't talk to your children about God until you first talk to God about your children. That's great. Yeah. He said, let your children see you make your mistakes. Don't be perfect all the time and apologize when you have made a mistake. And I've set my kids down, even at older ages and said, hey, dad messed up I apologize. Let me share this point. This has to do with church leadership. Yeah, this has to do with the modern day apostolic movement. That's like especially huge in the middle third of the world is. And also there's many, there's many in the United States. And I don't believe you have to be calling the possible to be an apostle. I believe you'll know them by their fruit. Exactly. So it doesn't matter if they're called pastor, you know, shepherd, bishop, we know a lot of that a lot of guys have a apostle on their business card. It drives me nuts. So, so make a long story short. In second Corinthians chapter 10, verses three and four, you know, though we walk into flesh, we don't worry after the flesh for the weapons of our warfare and our carnival mighty through God for the tearing down a strong word. So the word warfare there is really stretteos, which is a, which is a, basically a title. And, and so it's talking about if you look it up in your vines or your strong, it'll say literal translation, a general ship. So, one of the problems is a lot of church leaders, whether, and no matter what their title is, they see themselves as generals and they exercise authority from the position of generals. But that's not what general ship is. General ship is about strategies for the winning of battles. Come on. So the role of a true apostolic leader is the lead the church to warfare. And if there's not a war to start one, that's, that's the role. But with strategies, methodologies and tactics in order to become the master builders that are called to be and the master influencers within, within not only that, that, that assembly, but also within the culture that they are the, the city, the town, the region or whatever. Now, so, so it's based upon strategy, methods, tactics, and all those things. So, here's what, here's what they're missing is that authority doesn't come from, from, from the general ship. Because generals, it's either life or death. That's like the end of Matthew 18. We're binding this one, you know, in heaven. And you know, we, and what we bind here on earth and will be bound in heaven and what we lose here will be loose. So Paul binds them in, in first Corinthians, loosens them in second Corinthians. All right. Now, that's a general. That's Paul is a general that's, but what you see is the apostles acting out the authority from a father look from a father's heart because it is always rest restorative restorative. It's always restorative where the general it's not restorative. And so it's the wrong model for leadership for authority and governance is the apostolic model is the, is the model of, of general. Okay. So it's a father, it's a father that has authority over the children authority comes from, from the father heart. And because it's restorative. And so that's a very, that's a very important distinction that has to be made. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. So because we have modeled it, if you will, uh, being a general, the, the, if you will, the Maxwellian, you know, philosophies of leadership, you're the general, you're in charge. Really, uh, it's fatherhood. Right. It's fatherhood. Yeah. So I'm not just using people to fit a spot. Mm-hmm. I love that guy. And I want him to be fulfilled and fulfill his role. I was on a recent video interview. And, um, I've been noticing, uh, that a lot of people that call themselves apostles, they teach on apostle this and apostle that and apostle dynamics and power and all this stuff once. And, um, and they teach a lot on fatherhood and all, and that's all good. But it's only good at the right place at the right time. So, so he said to me, well, when you go into churches and how do you get the people to, to believe in in apostles and believe in this and, you know, and so I said, I don't. Said you don't. I said, I have never, I have never, uh, and a congregational Sunday meeting ever even mentioned the word apostle. I said, because I am there to pass through that flock. I'm there as a shepherd. I'm there. I'm there to be as a father to them. And I have to treat them as a family. Yeah. Because I realize the problems, the sufferings, the trials that they're going through and I'm there to help them get through that. They could care less with, you know, with your church government, what your positional positional thing is. And so, so he said, well, do you, well, yeah, but you're known for teaching on, yes, I am known for teaching on it in seminars and conferences. You know, with leaders all over the world, that's who that's who I teach on it. That's who I instruct. You know, that's that's who I mentor. And but, but when I get in that pulpit, you know, to the flock, I must come there as a shepherd with a father's heart, not as a general. It's a spirit of a father. They're not going to be giving them strategies and tactics and methodologies. Yeah. You know, I'm going to be talking to them about life out of the scripture, about family, about marriage, about children, you know, about about healing, healing broken hearts. Yeah. You know, he'll, you know, you know, basically, you know, your identity in Christ and, and I'm going to talk to them about eternity. I'm going to talk to them about all these other issues. It's the restoration of the father. It's, it's Luke 15. It's protocol. And the father is waiting. It's such an amazing picture that Jesus gave us there. He said, that's who I am. And that's who the father is. And no matter where you've been or what you've done or whatever's happened to you, or even the position you put yourself into, I'm still here to embrace you, to love you, to affirm you and to put you back into your place. That was a tough guy. I mean, tough guy. And he made me work. You know, he was, he was, when he was home, I mean, I, I towed the line. But, you know, the one, the one thing, the one thing about it and, and he would correct me, he would discipline me. But it was restorative. Yeah. It was always restorative. It was only, I'm telling you this for your own good, you knucklehead. You know, you know, and, and so it was, it was always restorative. And you, you know, you look, you look at the father, you know, you look at the father and the protocol. You know, he's, he's given the son the second chance. God gave all, Jesus gave all of us a second chance. All of it because, and it came, it comes out of the father's heart of God. Been talking with John Kelly. It's been a great time and we've done three programs total. If you haven't listened to the other two, you need to do that. There's some great stories in there. John Kelly is the serves as a leading convener of the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders. And it's been a great time to be with you, John. The website, again, is I see a leaders and calm, I call leaders, calm, right? And, and then tools, materials, christian for the christian men's network, maximize manhood, the book courage, and the other tools we have, cmn.men. I would just like to end with this. And that is that I pray in my whole purpose and being here is the wash your feet so that you can all go that extra mile that God is calling you to. Yeah. And I also want to remind you, any of you that see yourselves with an apostolic type gifting that we're having a conference here at the Hyatt Regency in the middle of the DFWA airport. You're that every year. Yeah. Yeah. You're the end of, uh, yeah, November 14th and November 18th. Yeah. Every year. So you're always there. Yeah. I'm there. And then you'll be speaking there this year. Oh, I will. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, we got it on tape now. So it's crazy. You're committed to it, committed to what you confess. Yeah. We can give directions, you know, out out of the room. Yeah. No, you're going to be speaking. Thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. Remember, hope is alive. Hope has a name. Hope's name is Jesus. You just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmd.man or write to him at Paul at cmd.man.