BraveMen S4E138: Soul-Care with Rawd Jones

Talking with Rod Jones, who has replenish, which is a ministry that helps people replenish, be whole, be healed, right? And you deal a lot with pastors and leaders and people in ministry, by and large, right? By and large, that's our target, but I mean everybody's got a soul, so we do a lot of ancillary stuff as well. And what would be one of the things that you ask the guys when you sit down in a group? Now one of the questions I think really gets people thinking is, let's be honest, what is your wife complaining about right now? Okay, this is going to be really good for someone, I don't need this. I do, whatever it is coming, I need it. Oh man, oh man, I hope my wife doesn't listen to this particular podcast, but she will. Anyway, so Rod Jones is here, we're going to do that thing today on Brave Men. And remember for all your needs, for discipling men, for things you need in your local church, your group, your parish, wherever you are, anywhere in the world, go to cmn.man, Christian Men's Network, cmn.man. And Rod's going to be great today on Brave Men. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for letting me come. Yeah. It's been fun so far chat with you, but I got to say, like what encourages my soul and blesses me is just to see guys like you and to be friends with you and like just knowing that we're doing things together and I'm better for it. Thanks for what you do. Yeah. Rod Jones, today on Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Hey Rod, so you asked a question right at the, in a little teaser at the front, which is, what's your spouse complaining about? Right? Okay, so let me give a practical example for me from our lives and it's something I actually, it was going to say I corrected it, but maybe I've been correcting it for about 30 years now. Okay, we're getting real now. Okay, and that is, in particular, this is a first world problem. Okay, so this is a little more sophisticated culture, everybody's got these dishwashers, little machine, right? It sits in the kitchen, wash your stuff, whatever, and I was always really good at, at kind of cleaning stuff off and setting it to the side of the sink. But not putting it in the dishwasher. Exactly, in my mind, because I come, you know, put it in. I go, well, I don't know, I got people who do that. That's a perfect answer. I come to find out. Yeah. Yeah, that was great. So she mentioned that. There was more to mention, but it was a, you know, and so I'm like, yeah, maybe I'm sorry. Okay, I should put it in. Well, then I realized what would even be like stronger, like this would be, like this is where you move into the area of getting points, would be that I would actually unload the dishwasher. Oh, man. Now you're really going. Now I'm messing with people's stuff. Yeah, I know. Or what about even just like the one before that, like maybe cooking dinner, not just that you're finding the restaurant, but like, cooking dinner, buying stuff, cooking stuff. No, I, you know, I, I barbecue. That's that. No, here's the deal. This is true though. You're probably a chef or something, but, but there's some things I can do, and I just don't get out of my lane. It's like, yeah, I don't do that. My wife would say that because I love to cook. Love it. I cook way too much. There's like four of us. Yeah, I cook. I love it. Really? Yeah. Food doesn't talk back. Food doesn't give me any lift. Food doesn't have a lot of problems. I just cut it and cook it and, you know, cook it and go. Yeah. But I grill too. And, you know, during the, the COVID series, I, uh, I went to smoking. So, yeah, I can smoke some meat as well. Spoke some meat. So, uh, Rod, you've got this, this thing replenish. Tell me where that came from in your own life. Like, you know, this thing, you, you take guys away on retreats and, you're helping men not burn out or recover from burnout or, you know, like right now, the whole world's dealing with PTSD, right? We're all in this post-traumatic syndrome from COVID and still sort of in the middle of it. How did this start in your own life? Where did this germination come from? Sure. I think if I look back in ministry, man, I had, had some great ministry opportunities being on staff at church, churches and, uh, working for amazing pastors, having great mentors in my life. So, I saw a reasonable amount of like, I don't know if I call it success, but just like really everything was great, right? And I didn't have a lot of like challenges, but, you know, it wasn't like, you know, over the top, you know, shoot for the moon kind of stuff, but it was solid. And, and I was healthy and my family was healthy. That was in California, yeah. And most in California. Yeah. Some, some time here in Texas, but. Some in Texas. California. Yes. And, uh, and so when I saw like real world problems, I'm going, whoa, what is this all about? And then, uh, you know, when I read the stats and, uh, at the time, we were doing a lot of aggressive networking here in Dallas. And I saw like pastors burn out, like just like of our groups, you know, we were doing, uh, we had 10 relational networks, you know, kind of lunch and learn things. Was that based out of the church in California? No, it was, it was here. It was, it was here. You were doing here. You were doing relational networks and pastors. We were trying to do, yeah, we were trying to do a healthy relational network within 20 minutes drive of every pastor in Dallas and Cohen County. Wow. So we were up to 10 at our peak. Yeah. And, uh, it was great. And, uh, you know, we were just kind of data mining and finding people and networking, word amount. Yeah. And, uh, and we would see like a 50% turnover rate every year. And I'm like, this is not a bar number. Like, these are friends that I have, you know, we start with 100 guys in a network group and then year two or eight months later, it was down to like, you know, 50 people. Now, when you say turnover, do you mean that those people just no longer came to the group or they actually had issues that caused them to no longer be in ministry or what? Yeah. So there was probably more people that actually were not part of the group, but we saw a 50% turnover. And it was good and bad, right? There was some transference. Yeah. There were transfer stuff. There was some, you know, I got a different church and a different part of town. I can't do this. I took a different staff position, but there was some stupid stuff. I messed up. I did this. I burnt out. I got out of ministry. And like, it was kind of crazy. I mean, 50%, some of the, some of the guys that were doing this with us at the time, they would say like, that's, that's an aggressive, I mean, not an aggressive number. They'd say probably closer to 60. That's a huge number. It blew our minds. It really impacted me hugely. That's huge. You and I were talking earlier about J. Robert Clinton's book, The Making of a Leader, in which he had studied when it first came out in 1988. He had studied, he had his class at Fuller University, Fuller Theological Seminary. Had studied the lives of 150 key leaders in the Bible, 150 contemporary leaders, and found that only 30% finished strong. Crazy. Right? So that number, and then he just came out with a revised version. I've got it sitting on my desk at my, at my home right now. I think the number was 5,000 leaders they looked at. And he was shocked because of the same stats. Help. Rod, this is huge stuff. And then you saw it right in front of you. And we didn't have a way to quantify it. And then finally I read some stats and went, this is not okay. It's not okay. So this is where replenish came from. Yes. I mean, if I can use this term, I think, you know, we started a ministry because we were pissed off. Yeah. Or if I need to say, we started a ministry because we were angry and mad and upset. Yeah. Well, so it's a bunch of guys here. I think we, I think we understand you. So in other words, out of, if you will, this turmoil in you. Hey, this is not okay. It's like when you, when you have friends that tip over, that's the way I, I kind of look at it. You know, when you have that, it's like, what do you do? You know, because it makes you mad. This should not have happened to his marriage, shouldn't have happened to him, shouldn't have happened to his church. Any of that, right? Well, it broke my heart. And it's a book that I think you and I have talked about before, um, called leading on empty. Mm-hmm. And, uh... Went cordero? Yes. Yeah. And I read the stats, you know, kind of started that off with the stats. And I'm like, what do you, wait, I spent every day of my life, literally, every day of my life with pastors. And 1500 pastors leave the church every month. And whether you, you know, you buy that stat and whatever. I'm just like, this is kind of making me upset. And that's where replenish came from. That's where it came from. And so I just started calling guys. Uh, we had access to a couple of locations. And so I said, just, just come with me. And so we'd take 10 guys and we're like, what are we going to do? I don't know, just meet me in LAX and we're going to love on each other and love Jesus and pray for each other and spend some time together. So you do like a three day, three, three night, four day? Correct. Yeah, four day, three nights. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, it's a, it's a retreat. We don't call it that. We call it an experience, whatever. Yeah. But, uh, but we really try to like... We don't have a, we, we have a, a big agenda, what we, we try to do. But you wouldn't know it by, you know, the guys that come on, they're like, man, you kind of shoot from the hip or whatever. And because the, the beauty of it is having like some battle buddies, right? You have people from different parts of the country that are in the same space as you. And you go, and you can just share life. So whether you get on a retreat or you just like, find a guy and you go to have coffee with, you need somebody to just take off the gloves and go, can we just have, have conversation? Like, you know, we had breakfast recently and it's therapeutic for me. I got to, you know, ask a couple questions. Yeah. Things are rolling around in my head. Yeah, man. You brought me some great coffees. So that was awesome. Enjoy, man. Yeah. Thank you. Hey, you know, what's interesting about, uh, you know, leading on the empty Wankard Eros book is that he tabbed a guy who's actually been on this podcast on Brave Men, named James Kraft. And he tabbed this young warrior hero guy that was just killing it within his nomination, traveling, speaking to all this stuff. And James was the next pastor of that church. You know, because Wayne had gone through the saying, okay, I need a successor, tabbed James Kraft, only to find out within six months it came out that James had his own issues. And he had relationships with people who were not his wife, women and not his wife, and he had a porn issue, which he's talked about very openly. And today, now James actually has a ministry that deals with that. He deals with, and he lives in Ventura. And has a great ministry, James Kraft, James and Terry Kraft. And I would recommend that to people dealing with stuff. And you go back and listen to that podcast, but it's fascinating, isn't it? Here's Wayne going through this. Yes. Write that book about that. And then right behind that comes a guy that looks like, dude, this guy's stud. We want to find that 30%. Right? Yeah. I spent my time with those 70%. But like, give me the 30%. Man, I want the people that's going long term. What are the biggest issues that you think that people face that are in leadership? I mean, we got a lot of guys. And I'm going to talk about just in church or church life. But I'm talking about, you know, you're running a store. You're running a business that you have. What are the things that tend to trip us up as men? That's a great question. And it probably takes two answers because there's a COVID answer and a post-COVID answer. Oh, well. I would say because, you know, in regards to pastors, there's probably 10 things that will split your church or that, you know, 50 things that you can't say from the pulpit that two years ago. We never even considered. We never even thought of. And so that makes things, makes you burden a little bit heavier. And you're always kind of looking over your shoulder and whatever. So when we do our replenish experiences and when I do some coaching or, you know, some other in-service stuff, we always talk about our soul. And we spend billions of dollars every year in health care. And we hook machines up to our bodies and we pull stuff outside of our bodies and analyze it. And then there's the church, takes care of our spirit, you know, maybe, so hopefully. But who watches that for the soul? And if we look at soul care, you can't really do a deep dive without coming up with a lot of scripture. You know, and we have examples of David talking to his soul. Soul, get up. Soul, why are you down? Get up. And so we go through this, you know, several exercises called the six domains of soul. And we feel like if you can be knowledgeable of something that kind of really weighs in on you and like can make you a better person, or if your soul is a really kind of second-air, make you not so much a good person. And so we really try to work with people and challenge them to say, you know, how is it with your soul? Like the old method of circuits, right? Yeah. They used to agree to each other. Exactly. Because it started with Wesley and his small groups. Yes. And then that's where they opened it up. How is it with your soul? And so there's all these issues that weigh on our soul more and more. And no matter who you are, pastor, you know, pastor, I doesn't matter. You got a soul. And if you can take care of your soul, I think. So that's been to answer your question. Like that's been a major thing is just dealing with soul care that we don't even know maybe sometimes it's happening. Talking with Rod Jones, who heads up replenish replenish dot org replenish dot org. And so. I know we're editing, but can I just direct that website? It's RPL in ISH. Oh sure is. Yeah. I'm looking right at it. We'll edit that. If we're live, I wouldn't have said anything. No, no, we are live. We'll just leave it in. I don't mind being corrected to my face in front of my friends. They'll bother me. I just want anybody to go to the wrong place. You know, if they need help, they want to be there for RPL in ISH. That's it. And that's our soul. Put it in the show notes in the show notes. Yeah, replenish dot org. So it's. So you got a cool logo. Thanks man. Yeah. We replenish R E. Why is that eat our backwards? Is this the art thing? Yeah. You know designers. There's not like a. Yeah. It's just a cool. Mr will look into the soul. I don't know. I heard of a certain friend that's taking a doctoral course on the kind of some similar stuff. Yeah. Well, there you go. Hey, so you talk about the pre-COVID and post-COVID. Okay. After-COVID. What's the difference? I think we just had a man. They call it the great reset or they call it a lot of other things. But like it gave us a new understanding and a new awareness that. Like I think it kind of sped us up into like you know 10 years forward or whatever. And so everything from political correctness to some injustice and some other things that we're rethinking that that just kind of hit us all at once. Right. So it's like we got out of the crock pot and into the microwave. It was amplified. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was amplified and everybody was looking at stuff. Everybody's watching the news and you know trying to find out what the daily stats are. You know, everybody had that world on meter. Yeah. You know, like all that stuff, right? Yeah. So it changed. It changed perspectives, if you will. And I think the way- Is that a good thing or bad thing? Hmm. I think yes. I think you got to figure it out, right? Like if it's a good thing, you could figure it out and leverage it. And if it's not, you know, like if you just, you know, like if COVID was the Titanic hitting the iceberg. And did you take a chance to like reevaluate and go, we probably need to like find a lifeboat right now. Or did you go, no, no, no, no. I'm going to pretend like nothing's happening. I'm going to still play the violin on the deck and watch everything go down. Yeah. It's Mike Tyson when he said everybody's got a plan till we get hit in the mouth. 100. So we all had a plan. We all had a plan. It was all perfectly lined out and then bang. We got hit. You know, it's fascinating during COVID, COVID produced the whole COVID thing, produced a new billionaire every 90 minutes. Holy cow. Yeah. Remember, isn't it? Wow. Yeah, that was Wall Street Journal, I think, or one of those, no, it might have been Bloomberg, but it was a fascinating when I read that a couple of weeks ago. Wow. And part of that is the compression of things and all those things accelerated. So the negative accelerated as well as the positive, right? Interesting. So the gap, the, the wealth gap actually increased, right? That gap between people who are able to find enough food for their family and the people who can't. Fascinating. And that gap has increased and the food deserts didn't go away, you know? So, so tell me what are the domains? Tell me about the domains. Domains, we have them kind of built around an acronym called MFresh. And so it's your, your mental domain of the soul. Okay. So mental MF fresh is financial, relational, emotional, as the spiritual and then age is health. Physical health. Physical health. Okay. Yeah, as opposed to like mental health. Right, right, right. So the first one, impression. So the first one, M is what? It's, it's mental. Mental. Okay. So what do you do there? Man, even that changed a lot. Like we used to think mental was like, you know, are you growing educationally or you're taking a fast? You learn in the language or you're doing a word or, you know, something just anything to do some kind of mental thing. But like one of the big things I think that came out of COVID is the phrase mental health. And like, what are we doing about that? Can we be intentional about talking about our mental health or the lack of mental health? Yeah. And so that created some, some huge content for us in regards to the mental domain. We really had to rethink that one. What do you think, what do you think tripped guys up most in mental health? I think isolation. I think a lot of people were isolated. Absolutely. You know, loneliness just does weird things to us. Yeah. You know, just watch Castaway, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wilson. We all needed a Wilson, right? Sometimes Wilson was our wife if we're going to be honest. Yeah. Best friend. You know, it's like that guy, it's like the guy that they found and he was on a desert island. And they rescued him. And there were three buildings he had built. And they said, what are those? He said, those are the three churches. And so this is one guy. It's just you. He says, well, he said, this is the church I go to. That's the one I used to go to. And that one over there is the one we think is going to help. I love it. Is that great? Yeah. You know, that's the way it's kind of the way we are. And we get these little slots. But mental health, I think for me, in dealing with the mental health, that's the way it's kind of the way we are. And we get these little slots. But mental health, I think for me, in dealing with the men's space, I think porn accelerated. It's fascinating. Isn't anything about this? I thought that because of COVID and the shutdowns, quarantines and all that sort of thing, that the birth rate would just skyrocket. You know, it went down. I didn't know that. Yeah, it actually went down. And the reason, I believe, is because they spent more time together. And realize what this podcast rated because we could really have some fun right here. Realize they weren't getting the time. No, be truthful. But realize they weren't getting along. And that absolutely just crushes romance. Because romance isn't about sexiness. You know, that's a promiscuity side of things, if you will. Okay? It's all flesh. Romance starts. I think it's Kevin Lehman who said sex starts in the kitchen. In other words, it's like you cooking or me putting stuff in the dishwasher. It's those serving each other, things. And his, I think it may have been a whole book that Kevin Lehman wrote, it starts in the kitchen. And it had to do with relationships and how we relate to each other. And how we do things to bless each other without an intended result. Right? There's a word right there. That's a word right there. Yes. And so now all of a sudden you realize as a guy, you were doing things the only reason you did things is because you're hoping that night your wife has sex with you. And so are your girlfriend or whoever it is. And all of a sudden, you're not doing those things because you don't have the same motivation. Everything begins to change. Your girlfriend went down. That's crazy. Isn't that something? You know, I know we keep this real. I know the voice rate went up. And 70% of the divorces that have been filed in the last 18 months were filed. 70% were initiated by women. Wow. That's amazing. I think she found out that he wasn't a grown-up. Yeah, more time together than I do that. Hey, I know we keep it real. And if we're okay to pause, I just feel like we're talking about porn and I know you deal with that. I just feel like there may be somebody listening right now. That's like super guilty and just feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. God can't use me. But I just want to speak life to you, sir. God can use you. You're forgiven. It doesn't question your salvation. It's just a little maintenance strategy that the enemy has. And so you need to release the guilt. Get away from that. Get closer to Jesus because there is healing. And there's life. Super life for you on the other side of that. We've got a podcast that's right around. It will be right around the same time that this will be broadcast with you, Rod. Talking with Rod Jones with Replenish. And it's repruleness.org. That's it. Replenish. It's R-P-A. What is it? R-P-L-N-I-S-H. Replenish without the E's. Okay. But talking with Rod. One of the things that has really struck me was not just the guilt, but the shame. And my son, Brandon, who passed her C-3 church in Fort Worth, C-3, Fort Worth, asked me to speak on John 21. It was part of the East for season. And John 21 is where Peter gets forgiven of shame. I believe he knew he was released from guilt, but he still felt a shame of having denied Christ. And Jesus, you read chapter 21 of John, and listen to the podcast about shame. You'll find that what Jesus did for him was releasing from the shame. And I'll give you a little quick thing on it. Guilt is knowing you made a mistake. Shame is believing you are the mistake. That's solid. So right there, that's one of our friends. What you spoke to right now for one of our friends listening was you spoke over that. Yeah. That, yeah, I made a mistake. And yeah, it's me. I'm the problem. And that's what replenishes about, right? True. When you talk about mental health, it's beginning to believe. It's beginning to rewrite your story. So your story lines up with Jesus' story. Is that supposed to be our story, right? Well, then Jesus restored Peter back into his sonship or how it would turn me when he used. But he replenished Peter at the end of the chapter or the middle of the chapter after the shame was white. What's the most important things about soul care? If I want to move into that, now you've got tools on your site. There's other people who are talking about it. So just right now, as I'm working out, listening to this podcast, driving my car, whatever it may be, give me a couple of things that, you know, do this. Don't do that. Sure. I'd say the first one is huge. Just realize you have a freaking soul. Wow. We don't realize it. If we do, we're like, oh, that's great. It's soul food. It's, you know, you know, that music's got soul. It's, you know, no, you have a soul. And so whether you're a dichotomous or a tricotomous, and you can go back to the beginning if you want to, but like, find out what soul is. And I just got a caution. If you go to the Google, you'll find a lot of metaphysical things. And so I'm not talking about that stuff. Well, there may be some truth to some, whatever it is. Everything we do is based on the word of God. On the word of God. Like go to scripture. And just do a word search and like soul or versus on soul. Realize that you have. And that's, that's how we end one of our talks on a replenished experience. It's like, you have a freaking soul. Mike Jobs, see ya. You know? And there's even, if somebody really wants to get really weird, there's a, there's a guy. There was an Austrian medical doctor in the early 1900s that didn't experiment on, on dying patients. And so he found patients that didn't, that we're going to experience death soon. Yeah. And he put them on scales and wait them at the point of death in a nonviolent death where they just kind of slipped into the afterlife. Yeah. He found out that the human soul weighs 21 grams because at the point of death, 21 grams left every human. Really? 21 grams of weight left every human. Wow. That's for another animal. No other animal animals. Yeah. Dude, that, that sounds like your next book. 21 grams. 21 grams. So you could check that out. I don't recommend that. I just give that to say like, there is, there is some substance here. But the point is, okay, number one, reality. Be present. Realize you have a soul. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Which means, because what you talked about King David, David said, I caused my soul to praise the Lord. Rise up, soul and praise him. Yes. You know, there's over and over. Paul told Timothy, stir up the gift. Yes. That's in you, right? Yes. Yeah, the spirit of God's alive is sometimes our soul can be, what, parched, dry? Yes. Yes. Dead or lifeless or... What do I do? What do I do? I got a soul now, what? Okay. So once you got a soul, you realize that. Then the next one is learn how to, learn some things about your soul and how to take care of your soul. And that's where we would introduce our acronym, MFresh. And just, if you realize that you have six domains to your soul, that can be like little gates to allow the good stuff in and the mad stuff out. Or, you know, like, keep your soul going. And like, for instance, one of the exercises we do is we challenge people to look at their soul as like a helium balloon. Not just one place to blow it up, but six. And if your helium balloon is up, we've all bought balloons for our kids, right? So the first day, man, it's bouncing off the ceiling. The next day, you know, it's midship and then it's on the ground. And day three, it's because it needs some more helium in it. And so if we realize we have these soul domains, six of them. And our, you know, if we look at our soul like a helium balloon, that can, like, interject, you know, like some good stuff to keep our balloon going up. Or, you know, like, if we have a leaky valve, you know, it's going to cause, you know, the opposite. Yeah, so this is where I could become a follower of Christ. I can be treating my wife right. I can be reading the word of God. But if I can't provide for my family. Boom. And we don't get to see that all right because it's like operating in the background. It's like having 20 Google references open. And you're like a bunch of tabs open. A bunch of tabs open. Yes. Yes. I think that's how I live my life. People go, what was that guy's name? Like, dude, I don't remember. I got too many tabs open. I can't access it right now. But it's great. So I'll give the example, like you kind of did. Like, you know, you get up in the morning, you know, you have six domains and once you realize, okay, so you're going, okay, man. So I had great devotional time, right? The men podcast, man. So Paul pumped me up for the day. Yeah. I read my scriptures. I had breakfast with my wife and kids. It's great. But then I jump on the freeway. And everybody driving faster than me is a maniac. And everybody driving solar me is an idiot. And why is my soul like a mess right now? Yeah. It's because you're $20,000 in debt. And you may not realize it. But your soul does. And your soul is leaking. There's this background thing rolling. Wow. So we have to start taking care of these things in reality. You have to. You know, we are so good as men. We're really experts at denial. And I think. No. Yeah. Well, I was really you just because we're sitting across from each other. And if you want to take that, then you can take it, Rod. I don't know what you're talking about. But. But I think one of the greatest denial phrases of all time is the Aussies. You know, when they raise a cup and they go, she'll be right, mate. That's like, have a pint. She'll be right. No, she won't be right. Yeah. Yeah, she won't be right. You actually have to deal with stuff. It takes work. Yeah, it takes work. And you got to call somebody and you got to make stuff happen. And. And we're at my. This is funny now. OK, this is vulnerable. So I have my birthday party here recently. I was we had a number of people there because it was a big birthday. And one of my friends, Glenn, who's on our board. I introduced them. I go, hey, here's Glenn. We first met when I got him out of jail. You know, it's joking around. And he stood up to say something because there were some people that didn't know him. He said, say something. And he said, well, you may not have gotten me out of jail, but I did get you out of jail. Like, dude, you're right. This goes back like, OK, this goes back to like 1986 or something. And there were parking tickets I hadn't taken care of. And downtown Dallas. And I'm one of like five people that got arrested. And had to like make bail. So I called Glenn at two in the morning, bro. The only person I knew had cash. They were probably need to come down. Yeah, it's for sure. He didn't know it wasn't the other guy that wasn't going to say anything. No. And so like they did it's about five guys. And the sixth guy was like a some lawyer here in Dallas. And he sued the heck out of the police department. They never did that again on parking tickets. But for no, it was $1 $10 parking ticket. I just hadn't taken care of it. And then they send you a thing that goes, OK, now you know, you get cost. I don't know what it is now, but you know, then it was like, now it's 80 bucks. OK, then it's 120 or something. They keep sending a little notes and he's going, yeah, whatever. They're a parking ticket, right? And we just don't take care of. And man, if you keep ignoring it, just because you're ignoring it. It doesn't mean they go away. Boom. So that's true of every part of our lives. Yes. So you could have, for instance, here I am. Let's say I'm a man. I'm in my mid 30s. And I've been in church for 20 years. I've been reading a Bible reading books doing this now, whatever. And I'm basically finally at like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I got it. It'd be like a journeyman carpenter who just knows this stuff. I know how to do a Christian thing. And you quit reading the word, which is what Jay Robert Clinton talked about in making the leaders. Quit reading the word. Or if you do read it, it's just because you're going to share something with somebody. Right? Or preach. Or preach. So all you do is you just go look for the scripture. So you stop that connection. And then it's like, then you get a couple other little things slide. And then there's a little slide here, a little thing there. Well, this won't really matter. And an extra glass of wine, that won't be a big deal. And now all of a sudden you're texting somebody inappropriately. Right? Because you've lost your base. I mean, these are real things that you and I know people who have had to walk through. The result of that. I mean, Sam Chan said something one time. And he's a great, great friend. And he's written some great books on leadership. Church consultant in Sam said one time he was up talking to a group of pastors. And he said, hey, he said, you know, if I, if I was to have an affair, he said, what I, what I ought to do as I'm having that affair, he says, just bring my keys, bring the mortgage to my car to my house, bring this, bring this, bring this, bring all these things and just hand it to her because I'm about to just blow all that up. Gosh. And then it was a funny line. He goes, you know, think about that for, you know, for 120 seconds of joy. Wow. That's everybody laughing. But he was right. I mean, you think about that and it's not a stretch to tip into that, particularly in the world in which we live. Right? That's so easy because it's just there. Maybe that's part of the difference. Then when you years ago, you know, you had to go travel to another village to find somebody you could have an affair with. Right? Yeah. Because everybody in your village knew you. And maybe this is part of the change that we have to deal with. Maybe we have to be even more vigilant, armed, dangerous. So through things like you're doing with replenish, then we ever did before. Right? I think that's the true right, the counter, because like we have more ways than ever to be naughty. So maybe we have to find more ways than ever to, you know, counteract that. Wow. I think that's a great phrase. There are more ways to screw up. We need, and so we have to find more ways to keep healthy. And I like the way you said it better, by the way. Oh. We'll write it down. No, it's not. No, it's okay. It's okay if you're talking to your son who's 13. Even he would look at you and go, what? Exactly. You talked to me like that when I was eight. So how are you doing this with your own son in fresh? You know, we stay purposeful because he's 13, and you know, it's like he's not that little kid anymore that loves his dad and like worship his dad. He's got a body odor now, man. He's got leg hair. Yeah, come on. So, you know, I try to be intentional in my relationship with him. And not everything's a lecture and not everything's this. It's just, you know, we've been going to the gym this summer. Like he's at that place where he's like, let's go work out. I'm like, okay. And so just those relational points, the specific strategic relational points, we just, it's while we're driving. And then we go get a smoothie, you know? Yeah. Like to make it a pleasurable experience. I don't go get a smoothie every time after, you know, I work out. But when he's with me, I'm like, let's go do this. Let's make this a thing. And maybe something comes up, maybe it doesn't. But I'm hoping to remember going to the gym with dad. Dr. Kevin Lehman, I did a number of TV shows with him years ago. And he called them teachable moments. He said, there are those teachable moments you can't force. Now, there are moments that arrive at which you have to deal with some things or whatever. But there have to be those teachable moments that come because you, everything grows or dies based on the atmosphere. So you have to build that atmosphere for conversation and then set up the atmosphere. Yes. And then, not force it into that atmosphere, right? Yes. Or not force the teachable moment, right? So just driving to school every day or driving to the gym or, you know, get just really whatever, that may not, I may really want to talk to him about something. But, you know, being a dad, knowing that I'm intentionally building these connecting times, the teachable moments will happen. My dad used to say, you can't mold dry clay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You got to have that something, that atmosphere. Yes. I think it's super important as you're raising children, sons and daughters. Okay, in fresh. And the last thing was, what was the age? The age is health. Yeah. That's tough. How important is that? Oh, my goodness. You know, every once in a while, we get into debates, like, which is the most important, you know, domain and whatever. You can make a case for all of them being important. But here's a deal. Like, if you don't have a body, then the other stuff matters. Right. So, I mean, there's been a lot of people that have prematurely left this earth with potential in them because, you know, of silly things, because of, you know, natural disasters, because of accidents. But also because of self sabotage, you know, your, you know, 50 pounds overweight. I mean, let's talk. Right. Well, there have been groups of people, and I'd come out of a stream of that, that they taught you sacrifice everything for the sake of the gospel. And in fact, they taught it. My dad bought into it early in, in our lives. We talked about it a lot later, was that you sacrifice everything, including your family. And health was one of them. I can, in fact, I can tell you it's still very prevalent that there is a kind of a badge of honor of your voice is no longer works, because you preach it out. That you, that you have issues because you work so hard that you, you know, there's all these little things. Man, just giving it all, putting it all out there, you know, burning out for God. But I think, I think that thing's just a lie from the pit. Absolutely. Yeah, or like the one that I always said, you know, the old guys, I'm going to die with my fingers on the pulpit. Really? Yeah, well. And that has happened. But I, I, I'll be with some friends, and they had a pastor who passed away at 50 years of age. Okay. I'll be with them, doing some men's conferences at the church. The guy built a great church. And I said, why, what happened to your pastor, man? What happened here? He said, well, he never took care of himself, ever. And he got on the circuit, traveled, got very overweight and had underlying issues that begin to rise up and just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And then didn't deal with us. It was like, hey, now God knows that I'm preaching. Yeah. And 50 years of age, bro. I mean, that's what happened to, it's in a wild one in Ames. But I've got three friends now that I know of. Who's either their father or their father figure died prematurely because of that. Obviously, we know people get in car wrecks and stuff happens to our physical body. You make a cancer or something else. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it actually just not maintaining. Well, stuff that we know, that's like clearly obvious. I mean, listen, if we don't die at an exercise, I mean, just exercise. Three times a week, 30 minutes a time. There's no excuse for us not doing that for real. Yeah. Can I say something? There's two things that I want. That's why you got the microphone over there. Oh, I love you. I got the little button over here. I do have a button over here. That's a little mute button. Yeah, just being... Two things among the health domain that really impacted me this year. There's the obvious stuff, right? It's just Google. You know, if you're overweight, you don't have an exercise, right? I get it. But I read a book on breathing. And it was called Breathe. Fascinating. Great book. Fascinating. I think maybe we talked about that. I mean, just something as simple as that can add years to your life just by breathing properly. Yeah. And another one is called Why We Sleep. I mean, if you're getting less than six hours of sleep, you're just probably not really good for you. No. Yeah. That's the number one... I've got where this fit bit. That's the number one thing I track. It's my sleep. Yeah. Well, you've got that. You're probably tracking other things like if you stand. Oh, yeah. I know I'm tracking my resting heart rate, you know, and all those sorts of things and trying to get my, you know, 10,000 steps in every day. Which we find out now was just some guy came up with that. Because it was a cool number when they were doing all these some guy in Silicon Valley who didn't never did that. And the actual number is like 7,200 or something you actually really need on a regular day. And four times a week. But it was a British study that just came out in one of the British medical journals that talked about people who walk four times a week. Live 15 years longer on average. Yes. Yeah. Was it 15 years longer? Yes. Yes. Fascinating. Isn't that amazing? Just walking. It didn't say you had to get your heart rate up. It didn't say, you know, like, I don't think it said how long. I think it said a number. I mean, like, it's a good time. Yeah, I did have a time. Yeah, it's like a half hour. It was like four times a week for a half hour each time. Walking. You can't do that. Walking. I mean, you can double dip, right? You can like walk and like bring your spouse and like, you know, you could like have meaningful conversation or one love again or talk about stuff. Judy and I started walking when COVID started. And she had never walked before. She'd always been a gymnasium person, you know, with the classes and all that stuff. Well, they shut all that down. So we went, started walking and she's never stopped. That's awesome. She's never stopped. Now I go, I went back to the gym, do the treadmill and stuff and whatever. But she's never stopped. She gets out early in the morning and does her three miles about four times a week. And she loves it. She loves being out. She's listening to the podcast. She's listening to, you know, whoever Bobby Houston or, you know, Lisa, you know, Bevere or somebody like that. You know, and it just comes back just energized, fired up. Days going well. It feels great. Wow. You know, that reminds me of another book that talked about was talking about rest. Yeah. And you recommended. It was called rest. And I can't remember the guy's name because it was definitely not Western. But one of the things he said, and it was a great, great read. Very, very scientific. And one of the things he was talking about rest, but he was talking about rest in your walking. And he made all these discoveries about people that had come across these elaborate epiphanies and life-changing things while they were walking. While walking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's important stuff. So talking with Rod Jones. And this is Brave Men. I'll reach a minister of Christmas and I'll work thanks for being with us today. But hey, a couple of summing points like, you know, with replenish. You guys are doing these retreats for pastors leaders. If we go on this website, replenish without the ease. Dot org. Dot org. RPL. And I. In ISH, okay. I'm looking at it. Can't even read it. It's odd. All the good stuff. You know, all the good stuff's taken. Yeah. And creative. No, but it worked. But on the other hand, if you just, if you just Google, you know, if you search or duck, duck, go or whatever you're using, replenish ministry. You'll find us. You're like, you're like number one up there. Come on. Something like, oh, bro, come on, man. Yeah. And so, um, so that's replenish. It's a, it's an incredible thing that you're doing and you've given your life to that now. It's been humbling. It's been amazing just to serve. You know, we, we started working out with a lot of pastors and we're reaching out into other areas with other business guys. And I mean, because everybody's got a soul, but, uh, yes, absolutely. And I don't know what God's all doing with it. A lot of times it's just like, he's like, we're going this direction and we're going. Oh, hey, God, you know, because we have some things down like our, our replenish experiences are really hitting, but we're moving into the thought space and doing some other things that are super creative. But again, all in the purpose of keeping pastors healthier and administer longer. And, you know, so you do the trips and then you develop cohorts. Correct. So the guys have abandoned brothers. Peer driven, if you will. Yes. Right. And, uh, you have resources. You have a community, the replenish community ongoing relationships. And so I would recommend it. And, uh, Rod, it's amazing what you're doing with us, man. Well done, bro. I love it. Love it. Thank you, Jesus, for letting us do it. Yeah. Shout out to your son and daughter. Absolutely. Sage and Sophia. Love you. Sage and Sophia. You make me happy every day. It's awesome. And your wife. And Genie. Yes. Come on. I would have those two without her. Yeah. Love you. Just don't ask her the question we talked about earlier. What's making you, you know, what you're planning about right now. I don't know. Open your door. Time on our podcast. Yeah. Exactly. Hey, thanks for being on Brave Men today, man. Thank you, Paul. We've been a blessing, Rod. God bless you, bro. Thanks. Love what you do. You've 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.