BraveMen S4E160-Rawd Jones-Does Christianity have a future in America?

Hi, this is brave men. I'm Paul who is cold and with me today is my friend, Rod Jones. And we were talking a little bit ahead of time about America where you and I live, right? And I mentioned to you a stat when the Constitution was written, when America was founded, United States of America was founded. 83% of the people in America did not go to church. That's crazy. Yeah. That doesn't mean that they didn't have one. They were under attack or something. You know, they didn't go. 17% of America was church. So they had access to a church. Yeah. It wasn't like they were out on the prairie and they couldn't get their wagon far enough. Yeah. Yeah. It was like they opted not to attend. Yeah. And so we right now in our culture, we've got a lot of freaked out people that America is going to hell because we were a Christian nation. And now we've been decrystionized. So I want to talk about that today. You are an expert in this stuff. And even if you're not, we're going to treat you that way today because because you're in the podcast. So you have to be otherwise. It's like stuff on the internet. It must be true. I heard it on the inner web somewhere. Yeah. I heard it on that worldwide web. That's right. Yeah. I heard it on podcasts. So Rod Jones is with me. It's going to be a great time. I thank God you're here, Rod. And our friend is listening right now. You're listening to Brave Men. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Wisdom and courage for the journey. Rod Jones, you know, it's R-A-W-D. How come the Jones isn't like with a Z? Why don't you just go all out? I could have. I should have. Maybe put a number in there or something. Yeah. Like the E should have been a backwards three. You know why? It's easy because Elon Musk was not my father. That's why he was not your dad. Well, he's done pretty well in the dad compartment. I don't know if he's a father, but he's dad had a bunch of kids. He's got those weird names going. He's got all those names going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, there was Frank Zappa with Dweebull. Wasn't that his son's name? It was. It was a Dweebull. Yeah. One of those. And Moon Unit. Moon Unit. Yes. Yeah. Who ended up? She was a musician. She ended up doing a bunch of stuff with all the people from Sepulveda, Boulevard, all that crew. Crazy. What was that valley? You know what I'm talking about? San Fernando Valley? Yeah. San Fernando and then there was the valley that was Moe Hall and all that stuff. All those groups, the Eagles and all those guys all started at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know she was involved in that. Yeah. She was all in that stuff. Zappa was in there. He had a studio that I think Dylan used at one time. Yeah. So half the guys listening right now are going, we have no idea who you're talking about. Maybe the Eagles. My parents used to listen to the Eagles. Yeah. My grandparents. My grandfather used to have that all the time. Yeah. That kind of thing. So here's the stat. You know, are we losing America? I mean, we do know 40 million people have D-churched. Okay. Since the mid-90s. That's a stat that just came out. Kerry Newhoff can't what's his face? All these guys coming up, you know, it's a big study. Okay. And we've lost 40 million people out of the churches of America. And that's in general churches. So that's everything from Catholic, evangelical, Methodist, Pentecostal, the whole crew, right? Everything. Sure. So is America being decrystionized? Maybe. I maybe want to push back on some nomenclature. Okay. You know, like, are we being de-discipled? You know, I think that might be a conversation that would be a different one that we could maybe wrap our brains around or or theology around. Because what is a disciple? And if a disciple falls away, I think that would create some alarm. But if an attender, a church attender falls away, I mean, so that's what I'm saying. Like, what are the Christians? What are, you know, what are we, what are we classifying? So if we drop an attender, I mean, we don't want that. But, I mean, because I think of inoculization, I think of how many church attenders are not really being given the full gospel, but just an inoculation of the gospel. Yeah, that's a great point. It is have we, you know, here's another thing. And in Rod Jones, you've got replenished ministries. I've been on one of your retreats. And this is the same thing. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Is this that thing where you do that, uh, truth and advertising or something, and we go, I actually, if you listen to this, I'm actually doing this with somebody of, of which I enjoyed to retreat or something. Or I get to go on another one now because we're doing a podcast. Paul, anything I have is yours, man. I'll send you the schedule. You just say, I want to go here, here, here, and just done. And you've got an incredible ministry where you take dozens of men out on retreats. I mean, basically it's soul healing. We talked about that in a previous podcast, soul care, particularly for pastors and who desperately need that in the culture, which we are in. So, okay, so let's come back to this. So maybe, maybe, and I heard this phrase, I mentioned it to you, that maybe in order to kind of, you know, be relevant, maybe the church has moved a little bit to, you know, on Sundays or Saturday nights where cold play in a TED talk. That's so sad. It's fine. Yeah. But the fact is, maybe we did that and maybe what's unsticky now is that, right? I mean, and do we want, do we want to be a disciple? What does it truly mean to be a disciple or do we want to just be a moral therapeutic deist? Oh, Tim Keller. So here we go. So the deal is, is that are we providing life hacks or life change? That's good, right? That's really good. Well, then what, what does separate us from the YMCA or a concert or a lecture or a TED talk? Like, where's the power of the gospel? We're not just the gospel like of salvation, but where is, where's the power for you and I? What was the power of the church of the book of Acts? Okay. What was it? What they preach? What they preach? Christ resurrected. Resurrection. Boom. Resurrection. Nice scene, Creed. Like full on. Jesus Christ, bodily. Son of God. Messiah. Resurrected. Alive. I mean, that's power. Okay. There you go. And that's a demonstration, right? Power comes with, with a demonstration. I mean, are we supposed to rationalize people into being disciples? I mean, is that thing? Are we supposed to win a lecture or are we supposed to, you know, we're supposed to follow people around? Why aren't you at church? You're never going to see Jesus appear out here? Yeah, we're supposed to win on Facebook. Yes. Yeah, because I'm going to tell you what I'm against and you can come to my church. Wow. That's fascinating, man. You know, there was a church planter that I heard talking about the things. He said, if you want to grow a church fast, talk about the political stuff you're against. He said, now it may not last long time. It may have a 10 year shelf life, right? Because things change. He said, but, but right now, if you wanted to grow it, you just start blasting stuff. People go, yeah, yeah, man, I'm in with that. Interesting. Yeah. Like, like I go to a church, my pastor doesn't talk about any of that stuff. What's he talking about? Jesus, discipleship, you know, righteousness. I don't know. It's fascinating thing, doesn't it? It is. And I keep going back to disciple. Like, what is a true disciple and then thinking about, you know, world evangelization from that standpoint, like, we don't need to fill the churches with thousands of lukewarm, maybe Christians that would walk at a pandemic or walk at a pastor's, you know, stance on this or that. Because a disciple is a disciple of Christ, not a disciple of church. They're just in. Yes. Yeah. And so what would shake? They're still in. Yeah, right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Right? Like, your, your, your, Judy's not going anywhere. Like, you know, you get the car wreck. So what would the numbers be like? Instead of saying we have, you know, I don't know the stats on how many people are church attenders these days, you know, 100 million who knows? Yeah. So, you know, versus if we had 20 million disciples and each one of those disciples, 20 million, led one person to Christ in the following year, just one. Wow. And then we have 40 and then they do that again. And so in five years, what are the numbers? Yeah. It's exponential. Yeah. Well, you can't go five years because we can't, you and I can't do that. Just sitting here. Yeah. But you can go two years maybe. Yeah. But the fact is, is that it's, it's kind of like I remember when Gary Clark was pastoring the Hillsong church in London. And it turns, I think he, you know, when Gary took over and it was kind of, there had been a really great guy there. But nothing had really happened much. And then Gary took over. He, as he said himself a number of times, I'm the last guy anybody would have picked. He says, because I failed the pastoring twice. And, but it was like the, the presence of God just hit him and stuff started happening. The church doubled, tripled, quadrupled, like in four years. And I remember somebody introduced them at a conference. We were, we were in Peru. And he got introduced by a friend of his, not by Robert Barriger, the conference host. But the friend introduced him. He says Gary Clark, his church has grown from such and such and such. He said, in the next 10 years, all of us will be going to Gary's church. That's funny. That's funny. Just boom, boom, backspinential. You know, he had a great run and an incredible, incredible leader. But the fact is that's not what happened. You know, life happened, right? So, so should we be freaked out that churches aren't just blowing up and are some, I mean, you work with pastors, you work with hundreds of pastors every month. You get phone calls, you get in their lives, you help them at some of their worst moments, some of their best moments. You see great stuff happening. You see like flat lightning happening. Should we be freaked out or where's the hope? The hope is in the individual. Like, I think the, the pastors that we work with, I mean, everybody's got issues, but we work with some amazing humans. Yeah. And that's the hope for me. Like doing church, okay, fine. Like again, what is the disciple, right? And so if we can pour into, and that's the take on replenish, we're not trying to do best practices of church. We're not trying to do church growth and consulting. We just want to make sure that the pastor is healthy. Their soul is healthy and that they're leading from the overflow. And if they're doing that, you know, if your soul is healthy, then there will be growth. They're absolutely will be. So I think that's when the discipleship comes in because you see the power. Like, hey, Paul, I've seen you change. Like, man, you just, what are you doing? I was reading my Bible and praying and, you know, leaning into the power god. Like that will, that will grow. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's, it's, that stuff's fascinating at the cycle. So, you know, if, if I want to put it in terms that, that, you know, where we live in one sense is that did, did you know if you work out, what you do, I know, if you work out three hours a week. Okay. So I'm not saying it's easy. Okay. So with three hours in a week. Okay. Do you know you'll live 10 years longer than the average person? Isn't that crazy? Three hours a week. 10 years longer by working out and you'll have a better life. Right. In other words, you're, you're a little bit healthier. You don't have as many balance issues. You're not falling when you're 75 years old all the time because you, you know, you're unsteady. You got a strong core and all that kind of stuff. So did you know that, that we know that stat? Okay. So that stat's out there. If you work out three hours a week. Okay. You'll live 10 years longer than the average person. Now, you know, how many people do that that are in their 40s? Two out of 10. Wow. 20% is not good. No, think about that. Think about eight out of 10 people go, eh, eh, I don't know. That's a little hard. It's a little difficult. Did you, you know, you only have to walk around a few times, you know, at an outdoor mall or a mall or whatever, whether the gatherings of people, let's say, or to go, you know, if you really start looking and go, you know, I think there's a lot of overweight people. Okay. Now, I got friends of mine that have real issues with trying to lose weight. It's a difficult thing to metabolize them, whatever. So I understand that guy's struggle. But the vast majority of us that are a little bit overweight or slightly overweight or moving into the 30% overweight, which was obesity, which is half of America now. That's good. You know, all we need to do is just change a few things in our lifestyle. Now, think about this. You would live longer for your grandchildren. So I remember, in fact, it was Gary that the first said this to me and I, uh, Gary Clark, that same guy. And I remember we were sitting eating something and he had a really small portion of everybody's eating these proving steaks that came up probably from Argentina. I don't know. And so we, and I looked and he had a small portion thing and I go, dude, what's up? He goes, yeah, you know, he said, I'm really trying to take care of myself physically. I said, ah, that's fantastic. He says, yeah, it's a gift to my grandchildren. That's solid. Dude, I go, do you have grandchildren? He goes, I go, one now. So we're going to have more. I want to be around. I don't have any grandkids and I'm going to start using that. Yeah. Bishop Dale Bronner, who's our chairman of our board for Christmas network. He's talked about that. He's talked about it publicly and we've talked about it privately. He wants to be around a long time for his grandchildren because grandparents make a difference. And for his great grandchildren. And yet, we don't do it. So let's bring that back to discipleship. You know, seven percent of the churches in America have an articulated pathway for discipling men. Seven? Seven. Not seventy. Not seventy. Not one seven. Not seventeen. Seven. Dude, what are we doing? We're, so when we talk about should we be concerned? Yeah, I think we should be. Do I trust Jesus? Yeah, I trust Jesus. Do I trust God? Yeah, I trust God. Do I believe the end result is a powerful robust church? I believe when Jesus comes back, the bride, that's us, has put themselves in a place where they go, hey, here we are. And that's what's described in the revelation of Jesus Christ, a bride that is strong overcoming by the power of the Lamb and the blood of the Lamb and the power of their testimony. So if that's true, and we're not there yet, then I don't think Jesus is coming right now, right? So we can also think that we're not at the place where we need to be, and we will be, but where we're at right now? I don't think it's good, man. What do you think? You're the expert in this podcast. That's right. That's right. Let me give you my expert thought, opinion, which is like, you know, it's free. So that's what you're going to get. Yeah, there you go. It's worth. I think we have to do a lot of work to get ready, right? And if Jesus is coming back for a bride without spot or rink when he's coming back for a beautiful bride, I think we definitely got to get our stuff together because I don't think we're sad. I don't think we're going to get married. When I travel as you know, with Christmas network, and you're listening to a Brave Men podcast that's sponsored by the Christian Minnes Network and the Global Fatherhood Initiative for Tools and Resources for Disciple Men, cmn.men, Christian Minnes Network, cmn.men, and replenish is RPL-N-I-N-I-S-H, yeah. No ease. Those replenish. So you just dropped the ease. We tried to get val-free, but somebody already had it, so whatever. So you kept the eyes. You kept the eye. I remember when my professor, you know, in my doctorate program, Leonard Sweet, I remember when the Wii, you know, was a big thing with the game. Yeah, the nunchucks. So he said we're such a narcissistic culture. We can't spell Wii without two eyes. So a great line. So a great line. But anyway, replenish is RPL-I-N-I-S-H, replenish.org. And that is a great thing if you're a pastor, leader, something to be connected with, and to basically be there for a three-day soul care, you know, replenishing time, you know, just the time where you can just kind of take a deep breath. I know that's what you do. I think the one I was on, we went and shot some weapons. We did. Yeah, that was pretty cool. We did some fishing. That was pretty cool. Just getting off. Just getting off the regular routine is great. Get off the hedonic treadmill. Some might say, right? And just get out into like space and get out some other brothers. And it's not rocket surgery. I recently saw me. That's what they say in Canada. So tall or Canadian friends. So the fact is, is that, okay, so when I talk about you being an expert, you meet with hundreds of pastors. So now let's come back to this discipleship thing. And the articulation, like I said, 7% of American churches have an articulated pathway to disciple a man. What does that mean to be a disciple? What does that mean to you? Now you've been a pastor, church planter. Now you're leading dozens of pastors who get a large organization, have a lot of impact. What does it mean to be a disciple? That's a great question. I think, here's a problem. Most churches might say, you get a certificate of discipleship when you complete our growth path. Can you show up? Yeah. Show up. No, not just show up. You have to take growth path. So that's going to take four Sundays after service. So this literally will cost you four hours, three to five hours. True, four or one. Yes. Yes. So I think that's a lot of times. And whether it's the problem because we don't have specific men discipleship or we think discipleship is a program, I don't think discipleship is a program. I mean, you have a pro definition. It is a process. And I have a definition from a long time ago, feel free to push back. But I think it's recreating your life in the life of another. Okay. So if I disciple somebody, Jesus said a master will never be above his disciple. I mean, a disciple will never be above his master, right? So you have to disciple somebody. All I can give is you. I mean, it's me. All I can give you is me. If you want discipleship, I'm going to give you my, my spin, how I pray, how I worship my theology. I'm going to give you my life. Okay. That's a disciple. So they walked with Jesus. They became disciples because they hung out with them, spent time with them. He taught them, but he also lived life in front of them, right? Because I think I've seen some stats. It's anywhere from seven to 10 days is how many days we actually know of Jesus's life. Okay. So if that's the case, then there's this whole space. And then a lot of historians will tell us that when he chose the disciples, he already knew them. He's like, yeah, I know those guys. I've bought fish from them for the last 15 years, right? Or I know that guy. That's where I pay my taxes. Or I know that guy because he's been a, he's coming help my family as a doctor. Or why did he move to Capernaum? The minute his ministry started because he used to hang out there. He knew people there. He knew it was a place of peace. He knew that Nazareth was not going to be a good place to base his ministry out of, right? Makes sense. So yeah, if you've been to either one and been to the ruins of Nazareth and you know where all that stuff is, it's like, okay, well, that makes sense. Why would you not go live on a lake? Right. So now that being the case, they watched him live. I think that is a great point. So why don't we disciple as pastors because we don't want people watching us live? Do you think that's part of it? I can be proud of it. Or I think, you know, we just, we sell out to the big numbers game, right? Like, I mean, why disciple one? You know, we said earlier, we could see the US come to Christ in, you know, a couple of years. But we're like, I can't just do one. Only one. No, no, no, no. We have to disciple a whole roomful of people in our growth path. We have to disciple more than one. I'm discipling. I'm discipling a hundred people at a time. That's your service. Oh, okay. I don't know. Because we're driven by feelings. We are driven by feelings. Okay. So let's, let's bring this to a place where it helps all of us live, which is number one, number one, be concerned. But don't be freaked out with what's happening with the church in the Western world. Let's just say the Western world. Because I'm looking at stuff. I was just in Brazil. And I mean stuff is cranking. I was just in Indonesia, not not too long ago. And we've got a great teams there. It was in Vietnam. Indonesia used to be about 4% Christian today is over 30% followers of Christ. That was the largest muscle nation on earth. They still have that on like the Indonesia government website. Right? That's awesome. I'm looking at Brazil and I'm watching these churches just blow up. Incredible. We've got 9,000 Christian men's network men's groups meeting across the nation. And it's growing. It's like with a bullet, right? And so I look at that and so I'm not freaked. And at the same time, I look at what's happening in schools, education, politics, business ethics in America. It's like, dude, this is jacked up, man. Something's right? So we should be concerned, but not freaked out. We know Jesus wins. But how do we actually impact this? What do we do? You and I and my friend who's listening right now on Brave Men? What do we do, Rod? I would encourage men to take a stand to get off the sidelines. We get comfortably numb, right? We sell out to like, I'm going to watch the TV and, you know, Saturday's college football. And, dude, if our remote is not where it's supposed to be, yeah, we freak out. You know, Saturday's college football, Sunday's in FL. Like, where, I mean, really? That's your family time. Like, get off the sidelines or, you know, we're being lulled with everything like kids sports or video games or whatever extreme hobbies or travel or right now in the big hunting season. So, man, I mean, these are all great things and none of them are necessarily evil or wrong, but they keep us on the sidelines a little more than we should be. Yeah, we are a lot more preoccupied. Boy, that's a good way to put it. We've become numb to the fact that things are not the way they're supposed to be in our culture, right? Well, I mean, if we feel like the tide is so strong against us, we just go, yeah, we just check out, right? Yeah. So, when you say take a stand, that means if you've got a 12-year-old son, where's he going on Sunday? What's he doing? Unless he's got, you know, he might have travel sports. I understand that stuff. But I've got a friend of mine who he said he couldn't get his son at 13 to go to church. I go, wait a second, he's 13, bro. He has a choice. No, he doesn't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice. But that starts when he's five and six. That's where it has to start. But he also has to watch his parents. So now if his dad is like, yeah, you know, yeah, I'm going to check out this week. I mean, I'm talking about actually, I'm talking about real life going to an actual community, you know, where you've got a church, you know, where you've got community and you have friends and you dig in and you establish yourself. You know, when we talk about the D church, the church of America, those stats, I mentioned at the start, 10 million of those people, according to Kerry Newhoff and a couple of the guys have been on his recent leadership podcasts, you know, 10, 10 million of those people, if somebody invited him, would be back into church that fast. Because they miss the community, right? They miss the community. Yes. So when you talk about taking a stand, what that means is is in the little places, the small places. Like, yeah, we're not, we're actually not going to go do that. I got a friend of mine who, who, um, another friend of us talking to you the other day, we were talking about they want to take a trip as a family next summer. And he said, yeah, I'm kind of concerned that my 16 year old isn't going to want to go. You go, what? What do you mean? You're not going to want to go. Yeah, they get stuff or go, yeah, no, here's the deal. First of all, you make it something awesome. Yes. Like it's compelling, right? It's like, dude, we're, you know, it's going to be this and this. Huh? You so not visiting relatives and eating like stroganoff. Yeah, but if you are visiting relatives, maybe you're going and hiking in the mountain. Yes. Yes. You know, and staying overnight on the mountain somewhere, you know, or you're fishing this great stream that's nearby. You're still seeing the relatives, but you're doing something that's compelling. And that's what he and I talked about. And he said, yeah, I'm just, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make it that kind of trip. So when he's talking about stepping up, stand up. It's in those little things. And I also think it's, uh, praying with your kids about issue. Yes. Right? You know, keeping Christian relevant, keeping the spirituality relevant, not just something we compartmentalize on Sunday, right? Well, well, as an example, you've got a daughter that you guys that moved away just recently. Okay. You helped move her. Yeah. And, uh, and crushing it, doing well, you know, moving in on her career and stuff. It's really awesome. But if you hadn't set up a time of you guys over your life, you and your wife praying together, she would never call you and say, hey, can you pray over this with me? Yeah. That would never happen. Yeah. But it does happen because well, let's get practical. It's part of normal life, normative. It's normal. And what is, what is normal? Right? So what you said, take a stand, like, let's take a stand for what's normal? Like, is dinner with the family three nights? Three nights a week. Is that normal? Is that, is that okay? Can we do that? What about, what about a family, you know, worship time? Not just, not just where you, like, you know, elect to do church and your pajamas and not go on Sunday. But like, what if you just did a little podcast during the week and say, hey, we're going to sit down for 10 minutes, then we're going to get one little nugget and then we're going to talk about it. Like, those are great family times. Yeah. Or a purposeful road trip. You know, like, hey, Saturday, we're going to drive, you know, we're here in Dallas. We're going to drive down to Waco and see Chip and Joanna, right? Like, okay. So in one of my journals, you know, you just reminded me of something, one of my journals here. It's what you act on, you strengthen. What you act on, you strengthen. So when you act on it, your children see it. I'm taking my 13-year-old grandson on a road trip. He's going to be my associate evangelist. Go down to David Bindets and Corpus Christi with Colton or Fabian and all our friends on her. But he's fired up, man. He's been like, you know, calling me going, hey, what time are we leaving? I said, well, you're going to miss the day of school. Awesome. You know, and all that kind of thing, right? Yeah. So, so that's a thing where, you know, I'm looking at it going, okay, it doesn't sound like a big deal. But my prayer, because I remember my kids going with my dad, right? And they, they remember negative and positive. They remember the idea that was cool. And this was a blast. But overall, there's a high impact. Right? So to stand up for something, when you're talking about stepping up, standing up, it's this practical real world. We come home, let's say, let's say you're working, you know, in an Amazon warehouse and you're working 10-hour days, man. And you come home. You come home tired. Yeah, dude. And here's what I tell you guys, decompress before you walk into the door. That's good. You know, if you've got, if you're living in an apartment in your kids and it's a little bit crowded and so you kind of push them off going, hey, I'm going to chill chill before you get there. Chill before you get there. You know, stop for a minute, read a book for 15 minutes in your car or in your truck, just decompress. When you walk into the door, you belong to your children. And if you've got two children, bam, bam, they each got 10 minutes of stuff. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Oh, what if I don't feel like it? Yeah, well, it doesn't matter. Agreed. Right? Doesn't matter because you just suck it up, buttercup. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Right? I want to talk about the extended family because you brought it up with your dad. Yeah. So there's the extended family literally. And then there's the extended family, like metaphorically, like with neighbors and, you know, chosen family. Yeah. And there's also the extended family in terms of you only see your kids, you know, two weeks a month. That kind of thing. Yeah. But I still think that thing holds true. I think you have to live that in those moments. And what we have a tendency to do, you know, fortunately, my wife and I have stayed married all our marriage. We would need a one of us were married before. But we have many friends who were, many friends who were on a second marriage and whatever. And one of the things that I've seen is that if you'll stay consistent because what we have it, what we would have a tendency to do is try to make everything wonderful for those for that little boy, little girl that you're going to see, you know, for three days that week. And when you're with dad, man, we're going to make it awesome. It's going to be there still has to be this consistency of this is how I live my life, right? And sure you may have a awesome time. You go swimming in, you know, at a swim park or something. But then that night, you sit down for 20 minutes, like you talked about. And you go, this is what I do. We pray together. We pray together. And you know, that thing you told me about the kid at school, to beat you up. You know, I'm going to pray over that guy. Yeah. And then you can go, Dad, can you pray fire down? You know, I want him smoked. Yeah, I want him smoked him. You're like, well, I do too. But who's how we're going to pray? Right? I mean, isn't that real life? I mean, that's where we really live. And that's what we have to like you and I and those of our friends listening right now, there has to be a point in which and this is where I pull myself up. Because David said this in the Psalms, he said, I, I stir up my own heart. In other words, he said, I tell myself I stir up my own soul. I cause my soul to rise up and praise him. In other words, he said to himself, it's like Paul said to Timothy, he said, hey, stir up the gifts that's in you. He didn't say, I'm going to stir it up. He said, dude, you do this. You take it on you. So here's what I've had to do. Rod number of times that usually has to do with an extra dessert. Okay. Usually it has to do with with like, I'll be on the road and I'll buy some stuff for the hotel room. And I know I just bought some crap and I'll just go and I'll say to myself, I'll go, you know what, PC, somebody has to be the adult in this room right now. And it's going to have to be you. Seriously. And I'll take those melted milk balls that I bought. Oh, I love those. Oh, dude, that's my favorite. And I'll stick them off, put them in a drawer. I'll be like, you know what? I don't want to have to be the adult right now, but I'm going to have to be. So we have to do that with ourselves. In other words, if you're going to be the man that God designed you to be, you're going to have to make decisions against yourself. You're going to have to make some choices in which you are the recipient of the choice. Right? Right. That's what getting up. I mean, I got this sporting that I was like, I'm tired, man. We've had all these trips. I've traveled 19,000 miles. You know, it's like, okay. And it's like, but I know I should work out. No, I should work out. Let me hang on. I'm going to read this. Hang on. I don't think I did my Bible thing yet. I've got the Bible plan, you know, the you version. And I go, okay. And then I just reached over, grabbed my shoes, put on my shorts, went down to the gym. Good for you. And did it. And like, when I'm in it, and I was listening to some podcasts, you know, carrying you off, I think. This morning, I'm like, I've made the right choice. I've made the right choice. You got to make choices against yourself. Got to be willing to take the take the heat. And so you got to do the same thing with your children and your relationships and your business, you know, because you're going to have employees that are like, hey, can we do this in this? And you go, yeah, don't worry about it. But it's no, because we don't do that. That's not one of our core values. So when you take care of that guy's car, yes, you are going to watch the windshield and the back windshield and all the windows. And I know it takes an extra five minutes and we got an extra 10 cars in here at your lube place today. We're getting tires put on or whatever it is, right? But this is our core value. So yeah, you're going to watch all the windows. Yeah. It's a big difference to me. It's like retail and anything. You can tell the people that really give a room. You can tell. Well, you know, and with family business, you know, just in life, I think the best lessons are often caught and not taught. There you go. Right. We see him. And it just kind of becomes like sometimes I go, how do my kids do that? And my wife and I'll talk. We kind of model that. Oh, we did. It was kind of who we were. It wasn't like that we were intentional on that. It's like that's who we were. Yeah, but you were intentional. Yeah, but Rod, you were intentional in your own life. Yes. Like you and your wife made some decisions, even before you had children. Yes. That you said, yeah, you know, we're going to pray together over stuff. Yes. Uh, we're going to, uh, I don't know, you know, have favorite scriptures as a couple. You know, you're actually going to be Christians, right? You didn't like, okay, you know, we're going to chill. We're going to just screw around for the first five years of our marriage. And then when we have kids flip the switch. Yeah, well, I get to interact together. You know, and that's the way most of us live. We go, hey, when the crisis happens, then I'll get my act together. Just like the guy says, yeah, I'll be back pastor. I'll be back in church. You know, when, you know, time is right. What he really means is right now, I'm doing really well. I just bought a boat and everything's good. But when the crap happens, don't worry. I'll call you. Yeah. Just keep it on the back burner. Don't go and they'll get too crazy. It's just like what we talked about work, the workout thing. There's a certain point at which you will not be able to recover that 10 years. That's a word for somebody, right? Can you recover two of those years? And you're not doing it. You need to go because you won't get that time back. And Rod's pointing at you right now. He's pointing at you. And so yeah, so why wouldn't you do that for your grandchildren? Yeah. And let's say you're single and you don't have grandchildren. Or let's say that you're a couple like some like one of my nieces, you know, and they don't have children. They're going to travel. They're going to do their business and that kind of thing. But you know what they, I know they impact a lot of people in their church. Why wouldn't you do that for them? Why wouldn't you stay around longer? Just for your loved ones. The ones around you. Because like they're going to be, they just had a niece born or nephew, excuse me. And wouldn't they be, won't they be amazing as the uncle and aunt for that little nephew? And as he grows up, and the next ones they have, next ones they have, it's like, how cool will that be to be around for a long time? Except value of the extended family, right? Your kitchen, those lessons from uncle and from auntie and from next door neighbor. And I mean, my uncle Jim, my uncle Jim Corbett was like that just passed away in his 90s. And man, he taught karate in the local YMCA, the kids. There was a lot of stuff he did that people didn't even know. And as we got near the end of his life, he started singing karaoke in his 70s. He got with a group of people at a local place there in Massachusetts. They all used to hang out. I can't remember if it was every Friday night. How long would they ever be there? And dude, he could still nail, you know, sonatress stuff in his age. That's great. And so with the fact is, he poured his life into other people. And so as we arrived at the end of his life and as we stood there and the priest came up and did a thing and then I shared, and then there was a whole, everybody talking about him and stuff, there were all these really special memories. And there were people that you could talk about how many dozens and dozens and dozens of people's lives were impacted. Because it was a man of his work. Because when he worked in real estate, people trusted him. When he worked in IBM back in the day, when Boston was the center of, you know, when everything was starting with computerization, you know, he was a man of his word. He was a sales guy and people trusted him. And he was just that guy and he had that kind of reputation. Why wouldn't you want that? Rather than, yeah, the guy had a really cool car. It was kind of a jerk in business, or I couldn't trust him, or I wouldn't have him be the guy who taught my children anything. Yeah. Do you remember, I think it was two years ago when Dak Prescott broke the internet without doing a football? And it was a, it was a, just like they were getting ready to go to commercial, whatever. And they showed Dak and he's sitting on the sidelines and he's drinking something out of like a little cup, little paper cup. And he throws it and he misses the trash can. He went over and picked it up. And he went over and picked it up. Yeah. And like I remember seeing that going, oh, that's really cool. Like I think I called my son. I'm like, hey, buddy, come here and check this out. But then he that broke the internet because people like, look, it's that, look, man, he, this guy like is so intent. He's such a man of character. That's, and there's those little things that everybody's looking at. He didn't even know. He didn't know the camera was on him. But think about that. He goes, nah, we'll pick that up. Dude, you know what that reminds me? It's a little thing. And you know, it reminds me of, reminds me of I'll see guys and I'll watch guys in a grocery store parking lot. And they'll take the cart and then they'll walk over two aisles and up the aisle to get it into one of those little sleeves. You know, you're not watching me then. I'm getting convicted. But you know, where they can come with the little machine. Yes. Or like the other day, I was like, I'm closer to the front door. So I walked it up to the front door and in. I thought, you know, I didn't take anything. Or I think of my friend, Yurgen Mathesius, who has an amazing ministry to men at his church awake and out in San Diego. I remember he was convicted for the entire year. He cleaned every bathroom he went to, every public restroom. Goodness. He goes, I don't like it. He said, I'm doing something. He said, and God's teaching me something. He said, because when I really begin to analyze it, it only took a minute or two to pick up the little piece of the paper, pick up the stuff, pick up the paper towels, the guys drop. He said, you know, I'm protecting myself, you know, hygienically and whatever. But he said, you know, it's kind of wipe off a little thing, a little thing there, a little of this that. Make sure the toilet's refreshed. It's like, he said, it only takes me a couple minutes. It's no big deal. He says, no big deal. Or do I appreciate the guy who's cleaning him if you're in a big space like an airport or something? It's no big deal. He said, I realized he said, I realized that these character things really are not that big of a deal. We just let them go. Hey, thanks for being with me on this edition of Brave Men. It's been great. Talking about the Christianine of America. And really what it comes back to, Rod, for you and me, is that you and I as followers of Jesus Christ, and those men who are listening, who are. And if you're not, this is a great time to say, you know what? And another Tim Kellerism is that we would, that we as ministers would help you understand and see that your story, the end of your storyline, actually, if it comes into Christ, ends up being a positive experience. It's something like that. It's good. Anyway, Keller always said it's stuff better. But the fact is, is that if we're followers of Christ, it's the little thing. So pick up the little things. Do the stuff we know to do. Make decisions against yourself. Don't be freaked out by what's happening in the culture or politics or the elections and all that. Go do the character thing you know to do. And if that's voting, do voting, if it's being involved in your local government, be involved. If it's showing up at church a half hour early to make sure stuff's set up right for the pastor, do that. What does he need? You know, if you're, if you're not a pastor and you're listening right now, what does your pastor need? Do you actually know? If you asked him, dude, what do you need? Oh, you know, he's a part of guy. It's, he'll have a bunch of different little things. But what does he actually need? It might be good to ask the second question. What do you actually need? What would really help you be better at what you do? And it might be, hey, the, you know, the Tuesday morning prayer with the men, I really need a couple core guys who will make that thing crank. Okay, I'll be there 630 every Tuesday morning. I'll be that guy. You know, so, so I think it's, it's that. It's those actions. If we're going to be brave men, if we're going to be men of a word, if we're going to be the man that we desire to be, the man our culture needs us to be and the man that God designed us to be, it's those things. So, you know, cmn.men is our website cmn.men for tools and resources for discipleship, discipling your sons, discipling your daughters, and in your local church or parish wherever you may be, we have tools and resources in 36 languages. So we can get stuff to Ukrainian, got it, Russian, we got it, got it all sides fixed, you know, farcey, we got it, you know, Urdu, got it. So, and we're working on the Indian languages. Arabic, got that coming up in a couple weeks. So, fired up about that stuff. Thanks for being with us on Brave Men, which is sponsored by the Christian Men's Network and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. And thank you, El, when there's a Brave Men email comes out three times a week. It's a motivational email. So you can go and cmn.men sign up for that with Brave Men. Thanks for being with us, Rod Jones. My pleasure. Everything, yes. It's like normal Jones. But anyway, Rod Jones with Replenished Ministries, you guys are awesome. Love what you do and keep doing this stuff. Bless you man. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.men or write to him at Paul at cmn.men.