Masculinity, Fatherhood, Spirituality, Creativity and Brotherhood with Phil Pringle

00:00 - Speaker 1
I would say the deepest need in most young men's lives is emotional bonding with a father. And it's not even whether he's much good at fathering, it's not much whether he's even, you know clever at anything, it's just that there's someone they feel connected with. So the scripture says we are joined and knitted together. That's how the church grows. And when emotional bonding ceases, like brothers together. And we've got so many distractions these days, yeah, that the time that it takes to bond with one another in prayer like you're talking about laughing together, doing life together, not just sitting in church together but a father is outside of the context of structures and there's little notes, there's little phone calls, yeah, there's all kinds of things, yeah, and he, like I, I would pray for maybe I don't know maybe 50 people by name most days and, and every time I do that, I'm feeling like a father.

01:07 - Speaker 4
Hey, I'm Paul Louis Cole and this is the Brave Med Podcast Just had Pastor Phil Pringle in the studio with my son, pastor Brandon Cole. We had a remarkable time and my son, bryce, was doing the shooting and producing and all that and we had a fantastic conversation. I called Bryce. I was taking Phil Pringle back to his hotel here in the Dallas area as he came through town and carved out some time for us, and I asked Bryce. I said, hey, how was that? You know, I mean, you're so into it, you don't know exactly. I mean, you kind of have a feel of it. He goes dad. That was unbelievable. So that was one of the most engaging conversations I've ever sat and listened to.

01:49
And, uh, so my son Brandon and, uh, phil Pringle uh, had a great time together, repartee together, and then, uh, man, I just had questions for him and we talk vision and leadership and family and fatherhood and what that and what that means and what it means to celebrate, profile and honor. I want you to write that down Celebrate, profile and honor. And he said something about that, but he's got. You know, phil Pringle. So if you look at, philpringlecom is his website, but also on the internet, I mean everywhere, there's all sorts of things, and one of them is there's, there's all sorts of things and and one of them is uh, there's a quote, uh website. You look up great quotes and pastor Phil Pringle has got like 25 of them here and I love this one because it's basically what we talked about. The leader feels the pulse of a burning passion and communicates that heat at every opportunity. He or she lives the dream, breathes the vision, sleeps the mission and eats the goals every day. The leader shares those goals all the time with everyone. It is a vibration the entire organization can feel. My good friend Phil Pringle has so deeply impacted my life and my family. I'm forever grateful to he and Chris, his wife and his family. They are a remarkable group of people.

03:15
But Phil has pastored one of the largest churches in basically in Australia and that whole part of the world has out of that church has launched about 700 other churches around the world. In fact, you can probably track another four or five hundred on top of that. Those are just the ones that are connected to C3 and C3. You'll hear it a number of times we talk about C3. Started as Christian City Church that was the name of his church started in a little surf station in DY. We don't get into all that background, but that's where it started for Phil and Chris years ago, coming out of New Zealand into Australia. And they just started with a few people and then 13 people and the thing just began to grow and God began to bless it and they moved with great strength and resilience into planting a couple other churches, and then another one, and then another one, then helping some people plant and helping another man plant, helping another couple, and pretty soon now there's over 700 churches that would be called c3, and one of those is pastored by my son, brandon, who's in this conversation brandon cole3, fort Worth. It is a great church, c3fortworthcom, and he is a, in fact, his, his messages, I listen to his stuff and and I'll pull things down from that he said something today I wrote down and I said I said I'll use that next week when I'm speaking in South America. Everybody will think I'm a genius. So so, pastor Brandon, great church, c3, fort Worth, and that's part of the C3 movement.

04:49
And it was Phil and Chris Pringle that started this. Great friends, we love the Pringles and we love their family. And his son, joseph, joe is starting a church called the C3, Orange County, c3oc, and they're down to have been in San Juan Capistrano for some time now getting setting up. You know, plowing the ground, planting seed, doing the things that you do. It's going to be a great church launches this week. Very excited to hear about that, and so having Phil Pringle on was something I've wanted to have for a long time, because I remember and I mentioned it when I first met him it was Lee Howard Smith, a friend that took me over to meet him, says you got to meet this guy and so I did. He handed me the book, you the Leader, he had just written it. It is a fantastic leadership book. So we talk about some of those things.

05:42
He wrote a book called Faith. I read it every year. The start of every year I read the book. Faith Just basically heightens my sense of the presence of God. And he's a man of prayer, rises every morning at 5 am, prays, and he's an artist, he's a sculptor. There's a lot of things. You can see all that at philpringlecom, but thanks for being on Brave Men today. I want to thank Pastor Phil for being here and taking time in his schedule as he flew through Dallas to be with some different people and awesome time.

06:19
Hey, pray for us. We'll be in Cairo, egypt, here, coming up in a few weeks. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. It's a big thing for us. It's been a dream for a long time. We've been there for a year on the ground. We have 42 maximized manhood groups going in Egypt and hoping to double and triple that at this conference in May, believing that what we do there will have a great impact in the days ahead on Arabic-speaking men in the cities from Marrakesh to Amman. So pray for that. How do we change the world? One man at a time. And so pray for us. Sponsor it. We've got a number of expense things that we have ahead of us, but we've got a number of expense things that we have ahead of us. So it is a move of faith, no doubt, but thank you for praying over that as we go into Cairo, egypt, coming up in a few weeks.

07:11
Hey, great podcast. Here is my good, close friend, Dr Phil Pringle on Brave Men Podcast. Pastor Phil, thanks for being here in our CMN studios. Yeah, beautiful to be here with you. Awesome, and with my son Brandon, yeah, hello. So, pastor, c3, pastor, yes, that's right, as you yourself. Yeah, c3. In the fam Pastor Paul yeah. Pastor Brandon, yeah, we were locked in man for a long time. The first time we ever met, um, it was uh, uh. We got, we got brought by your uh office and you had just written the book, you, the leader.

07:52
Wow, that's a long time ago, yeah and uh, and so, uh, one of the guys brought us by that was driving us around mike murphy and some guys and uh, I had about uh 45 and they said you got to meet this guy, you got to meet this guy and you had just written, you the Leader, and I read it on the book on the plane all the way home, right, and it really started something and we met. Turned out you had been reading my dad's books. Oh yeah.

08:22 - Speaker 1
Not just reading them, having my life shaped by them, and uh I I really worked hard at not letting my wife read any of them.

08:31 - Speaker 5
Yeah, underline.

08:33 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's going to be coming back to me. Highlighted underline.

08:37 - Speaker 4
You know arrows pointed at this, this and that, so yeah, yeah, brandon knows that with the ministry years ago, when my father was alive, there would always be somebody who would come up and tell him about, hey, your book Maximize Manhood just ruined me. He said. Really, you mean in a good way, no, no, no. My wife got it, underlined it and gave it to me.

09:00 - Speaker 1
So that's right. You know, I think I've been a pastor for over 50 years and you got to make sure that the ladies in the church don't make their husbands hate the pastor.

09:13 - Speaker 4
Well, but isn't that the thing, though? And this is something that Judy and I talk about a lot? When you take a man and grow him in his stones drop, and you grow him into like who he's supposed to be, as a disciple of Christ, you know then what happens, is there's a sense? That happens at times where a wife goes wait a minute.

09:33
I was in control, right, yeah, and and so Judy talks about that a lot. When she's discipling ladies, she goes hey, you wanted this guy to be strong, interesting, right, you wanted him to be a man, and now, when he starts living into his responsibility, you're upset with it. How do you walk that line?

09:54 - Speaker 1
Well, I think, if you really are convinced about who you are and your manhood, you're providing security for your wife, wouldn't you think?

10:05 - Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that was always what we talked about. Security is ultimately broad strokes, what a woman wants most. And, as a man, are you creating security or are you creating control? There's a difference and um yeah, I think that would be a significant? That would be a significant thing. Can I create an environment where my family can thrive and grow and walk into what they're called to do?

10:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, and the difference, yeah, like you mentioned, between control and security. I think if women see a man in their house who's got strong vision and he's not saying, do you think we should go to church this Sunday? But he says, hey, fam, we're all getting off to church, and for some guys that's a nervy moment because he's going to maybe ride some rough water where he gets pushed back. But if he can hold his ground he'll actually create more security. And there may be some troubled waters, but you've got to accept the fact that there's always going to be troubled waters. With a bit of leadership, so you're going to lead people, take them places they don't want to go, but they'll kiss you when you get them there. And I think that a man in his house, rather than just bellowing and controlling and manipulating, actually says, hey, let's say we pick up the kids and I'll help and we'll get ourselves to church. It's more like a suggested leadership than a domineering dictator.

11:35 - Speaker 4
It's a servant leadership right. Is that a word that goes together well for you, servant leadership, or is there?

11:42 - Speaker 2
a different phrase. I don't think there is another way of saying leadership. Yeah, okay.

11:53 - Speaker 1
Yeah, servant leadership or is there a different phrase, there is another way of saying yeah, okay, even, even, even, jesus, I didn't come to be, you know, to be, so I came here to serve. And he didn't hardly ever say I came here to be the leader. But he did definitely say and and good leadership, trusted leadership, reliable leadership, is based on servanthood. If, if a pastor is using the congregation to serve him and his mission, his vision, I think we've lost the actual true compass point of what we're there for yeah.

12:21 - Speaker 4
So uh, going back to the whole fatherhood piece, it you? One of the things we talk about at CMN a lot. My dad taught us is that one of the things a father provides for his family is identity, identity. So so you can say to your children hey, this is who we are right, this is this is we're doing this, because this is who we are. Yeah so the action comes out of identity rather than a declaration. Yeah, you know, hey, you know we're doing this because that's yeah, yeah, it's the law.

12:55 - Speaker 1
I would tend to think that kids are going to be what they see their parents are more than what they say. Sure, they see their parents are more than what they say. Sure, because I think, you know, sometimes dads are saying one thing but actually, in the privacy of the home, maybe living differently.

13:15
And I think, if there's consistency between action, environment, even what, we're looking at on the tv, the music we're playing, the places we go, the things we celebrate, profile and honor, those things are. It doesn't matter what you say, I think, uh, those things are what the kid picks up, and and that lasts for a life I.

13:39 - Speaker 4
You know, that's a huge thing right there, which you just said. That was great, and you're a master at this. You're a master at coupling words, celebrate, profile and honor. I just wrote it down. So when I'm in Peru this weekend, can?

13:52 - Speaker 1
I share that. Yeah, you just go ahead, you go right ahead, and say that Where'd you get that?

13:56 - Speaker 4
I don't know, just the Lord dropped it in my heart.

13:58 - Speaker 1
Because, whatever you do, celebrate profile and honor you're going to get more of. So who are? The heroes in your house. You know whose pictures are on the wall. Wow, what music are you celebrating?

14:12 - Speaker 4
Atmosphere. Everything lives or dies, based on the atmosphere. How do you practice that with your family? Bran, you've got two amazing young men I agree with that the laughter was not disagreement.

14:25 - Speaker 5
I practice it imperfectly, but we, yeah, we do our best. I think, even going back to this conversation, I think the idea that you lead with vision, I think, more often than not, the issue that I face personally and with guys that I meet with would be a lack of vision, a lack of where we're. So your instruction on going to church let's go to church isn't void of a purpose or void of a why. What is the reason? What's the rhythm and the pattern of going to church? Why does that matter for us ultimately? Or are you just doing it because that's what you've always done and that's what I feel like helps me? So, I think, for us one.

15:07
I think it's really great that I've got men in my family and in my house, uh, men that have uh led me, like my father, uh, as always, and present in my uncle, his, their uncle, who's sitting on the side, just raised his hand, um, uh, but men who are already close in proximity. I don't have to point them far. I don't, I truly don't have to point them to a TV show or a book to read. They've got, you know, grandfathers who will bring them donuts on Saturday, grandfathers who will show up after a 13 hour flight and get on the floor and wrestle. I think for us it's it's it's it's so close in proximity. I know that not every man has that, um, I know that not everybody is able to simply call a pawpaw or papa, and that's a hard thing to you know, always live with. But um, for us, that's where we, that's where we live, get around family and the people who really encourage.

15:58 - Speaker 4
You said something that that pastor Phil talks about a lot which is a rhythm and a pattern. Pastor Phil talks about a lot which is a rhythm and a pattern. You talk a lot about the rhythms of grace, rhythms of following Christ, and to me, that is part of what a father does, and it's not just in your family, but we've got to talk about men in their business, right, setting the rhythm and the pattern of here's how this thing rolls. And pastoring, which is what Brandon is doing now, is a C3 pastor. Yeah, right, and you've set that up. And how did you find that in your own life? How did you find the, you know? I mean you didn't have a lot, I mean, your father wasn't a role model on that pastoring side of things.

16:42 - Speaker 1
Yeah, unfortunately, my good old dad. He had his own set of troubles and difficulties and challenges and he mostly managed those areas reasonably well, but our house wasn't a peaceful zone. I left when I was 16. Right, there was just too much anger and yelling and stuff going on that and it was based in some really unfortunate mistakes that he made that that he had to live with and he had to deal with that yeah. And out of that that strife within became strife in the house.

17:23 - Speaker 4
So, but it's like Brandon said you know not everybody has that, so you had you in your own life had to find a model rhythm pattern.

17:33 - Speaker 1
And I think I think Brandon's statement is probably maybe more generous than reality. I think it's what you're talking about is rare.

17:43 - Speaker 3
Not everybody has it.

17:45 - Speaker 1
Very few actually have it in today's world, because everything from the media to examples all around us and the education system seems set in a position to break the family, fractured, to fracture father-son relationship. What father-son movie have you seen where there's a good relationship between the father and son? It's just like taken for granted. What mother-child movie have you seen where the kid isn't just yeah, a mother or smart mouthing her or whatever it's? It's like there's no shape of family in the whole public conversation. It's mocked almost. You know, I mean, if we were to have a mom and dad national day, let's just celebrate all the moms and dads who have stayed together. Who have stuck?

18:37
together.

18:38 - Speaker 4
Yeah, and who have made it?

18:39 - Speaker 1
through. I think you'd have a hard time.

18:42 - Speaker 4
Well, you wouldn't If you wanted to do a national day, you'd never get that law passed, right? That's what. I mean.

18:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah, but you'll get. You'll get every other kind that has actually fragmented the family. But then coming back to okay, so for my own personal, experience.

18:57 - Speaker 4
Where did?

18:58 - Speaker 1
I well. I ended up looking for role models, and your father was one such model for me, and so I sought these people out. They weren't going to seek me out, for goodness sake. I was a complete unknown. And so there was Ed Cole, who I could see every inch. He was a man, a masculine man, and living out masculinity, written books about it, talking about it, and I couldn't see like he was one in a million. Who else was doing that there? Were so few.

19:36
It was very rare back then, so he is like the father of that whole men's revival men feeling comfortable with men and his particular gift was that when he walked in a room, all the guys felt good about being with each other and about being around him without having to having to do all sorts of stupid manly stuff.

20:00 - Speaker 4
it just had a great gift and I, I don't know to walk around flexing just to kind of prove masculinity.

20:07 - Speaker 1
You could just be you, yeah, as a bloke, and I think that was a super unique gift that you have maximized and taken so much further in in terms of its reach around the world. Yeah, I mean, what you're doing, paul, is unbelievable in terms of maximizing your father's influence and carrying it on, and I think you've stepped into your own shoes and now got your own voice and saying like this is where men need to be headed and your world is a great example. Yeah, thanks.

20:41 - Speaker 4
You know, but I see that in you when you talk about and Brandon Brandon is a graphic artist. Most people would not know that. He's got an incredible eye in terms of how things go together. He's got a great eye on telling me what I'm not doing well, in terms of why do you guys do that? So, and then you're an artist and a sculptor and in fact, I've got some of your pieces. They were all supposed to be put out Is that one of yours right there yeah.

21:09
There's one right there. There's another one over there. Is that yours right there? Yeah, maybe.

21:14 - Speaker 1
No, I think that is yours. Yeah, that will be, that's yours.

21:18 - Speaker 4
And then Judy's is over there and then, so you're a couple over there and then. But you're an artist, you're a brilliant artist, a world-renowned artist. Right, you have your own name and brand and all that sort of thing, and then sculpture and all that. Yeah.

21:34
And that wouldn't necessarily, in the past, have been known as oh yeah, that's a masculine thing, right. Too often we think of bourbon and bullets yeah Right, yeah. Masculine thing right too often we think of bourbon and bullets yeah right, yeah. But what we find in in faith, in following christ, is it's it's a full expression of who we are totally right.

21:53 - Speaker 1
Well, I think david is your, your great example yeah, there you go of a warrior, leader, king, artist. I mean, he played a harp, for goodness sake, and he wrote poetry.

22:04 - Speaker 4
I think it was an electric guitar, but before electricity yeah of course it was.

22:08 - Speaker 1
But here's the guy, and so he was rejected or not even thought of by his father as a candidate for the next election.

22:16 - Speaker 4
Oh no, jesse goes. No, no, no.

22:18 - Speaker 1
This guy writes poetry. He plays a harp, sings songs. Hear him sing and praise the Lord out the back. I don't think he's a king, because their framework for what a king was was totally different, but God lives out of the box and I found it a little interesting starting to paint and be a preacher and a pastor and then a few other things I I do. I've written books of poetry and stuff.

22:48
Well, you've written, you've written, uh, well-known songs, yeah yeah, yeah over the years, 30 of them in the early days so I think you, you've just got to accept that this doesn't necessarily mean that you are a feminine or that you're not, because where does that concept come from? No, michelangelo painted the sistine chamber ceiling. For goodness, leonardo da vinci the last, yeah, the the great. I mean there are great women artists in history as well. But I'm just saying it doesn't need to compromise your masculinity to be artistic.

23:23 - Speaker 4
Yeah, Well, there you go. I you know my. My thing is that somebody will say well, that's your feminine side, I go, dude, feminine side was taken out in the garden. Boom, that's your beauty side, that's, that's that side of you. That's a full expression of who God is.

23:37 - Speaker 1
If I want to touch my feminine side, I can touch my wife.

23:42 - Speaker 4
That's right. You know, here's the okay's. Let's push well said, well said. Yeah, well said, yeah, there's a pushback on this one. Judy and I did at this marriage uh, uh podcast the other day with james and terry craft, and uh, I said let me push back and they said, so, you guys, are you married, your best friend? I said no, I didn't, because the one thing I never dreamed of growing up was making love to my best friend. So it's like it was not in the wheelhouse, yeah, making love to my best friend. But I met the sexiest girl in the room. I met the sexiest girl in the room, yeah, and then we became best friends Right Over time. She is my best friend. Yeah, bone of my bone, bone, flesh of my flesh, yeah, right.

24:25
So this whole thing about you know, we, we have a tendency to uh take all of these things whatever it is, in faith, okay, christianity, and we like little boxes and what you just said god's not in the box, he's, he's out of that yeah you know, and so it's like, it's like the building you have, brandon, you guys are you've got well, shoot, you have an art gallery right, and so it's like it's like the building you have, brandon, you guys are you've got Well, shoot, you have an art gallery.

24:48 - Speaker 5
Right. Yeah, it's out of the box a little bit. For sure. I think if you were to make a movie today about what's a manly man, you wouldn't put a donkey in it or a cross. And I think, at the end of the day, what Jesus did and what he always continues to do is flip our paradigms on their heads. And what he always continues to do is flip our paradigms on their heads.

25:05
And I think for many of us, the idea of Jesus riding in on a donkey, the animal of peace, with soldiers across town with swords on horses and saying the way I'm going to actually win the victory is by dying. I'm going to bring peace to you by giving my life, whereas the empire on the other side would bring peace to them by taking theirs. And I think, ultimately, whether it be fatherhood or leadership or any other avenue, it is the idea that I'm be willing to lay something down so the others can live. And it's not easy. A creative act isn't easy. You're laying part of who you are down and especially when you have to put it into the world, oh, you're fully exposed. You are putting yourself in a place where people get to see you as you, or the fake you, which only tears you up.

25:54
And so I think the idea of fatherhood, leadership, leading anything, is what part of me am I willing to lay down? Part of me am I willing to lay down I mean, we said this this past Sunday the idea that Jesus, the idea, the concept that we would have life, and life abundant, through God's death and mine, through us, sacrificing our life, we would have never made that plan, that would have never been our movie script, it would have never been the book we wrote, and I think. And yet what ultimately comes through every creative act, in every movie we watch, whether they try to do this or not, is that the hero is the one who lays down their life. And I think we, we, we just always betray ourselves in our creativity, because it is clear to all of us, whether we want to admit it or not, that the one who gives themselves fully is the one we want to follow. Lion King, that's not exactly where I was going, but yeah, that's I'm just saying you know it's the same plot, it is Right. Absolutely.

26:52 - Speaker 1
And the thing is the reality of laying down your life like we're all going to talk about it at Easter and it's a one moment in time thing, but actually, uh, to follow Christ it's a daily yeah. And in marriage he says you got to do that right there in that context for your wife all the time. So it was an agreement.

27:24 - Speaker 2
It was it came. Yeah, that's not. I'm sorry. I thought it was like it was an agreement.

27:27 - Speaker 3
It was it came out? It came out. You know, podcasts make you talk different.

27:33 - Speaker 1
I meant it to go All the time.

27:39 - Speaker 5
Yeah, it just went right there I just sat middle seat in an airplane on the way home today.

27:44 - Speaker 2
So you know, yeah, well, you know, yeah, well, that was you were giving your life, I was.

27:48 - Speaker 5
I laid it down. You were giving your life for your wife sitting in the middle seat of the three row.

27:52 - Speaker 1
And I think, uh, somebody's got to start it Like, uh, we love him because he first loved us, first loved us, wow. And I think that in all the cycles of relationships, somebody's got to go first. But if you get a cycle of hate, I hate you, yell, yell, yell, yell, yell, yell. Somebody else, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. It just keeps going back and forth and increasing. But one day somebody's got to say you know what? I'm going to stop this and I'm going to stop loving, I'm going to forgive, I'm going to forgive and bless and talk differently. And so I think in marriage and in relationships, the wife needs to accept what the Lord is asking her to do yeah and the husband accept that he's asking me to lay down my life, not to be some domineering, brutal thug.

28:56 - Speaker 4
Yeah, a dictator who just says demanding, and here's what we do. And I find a shallower man, the man who's weak on the inside, is very demanding on the outside. Yeah, and Jesus, because of his strength on the inside, was able to be loving, kind, compassionate on the outside, and that's where a gentleman comes from. So why are you? Both of you are pastoring, you are apostolic, in six, seven, eight hundred churches around the world, but you started as a local church pastor. Right, the thing blew up. People wanted to be a part of it and this thing grew and the Lord's blessed it on every continent. And now you're a C3 pastor. Why is it? Because what we see, what we hear in the news headlines church growth going down, churches closing, they're becoming restaurants, you know, they're using the buildings, attendance down, everything down. So there's this general sense of, well, yeah, faith is no longer part of the center point of what culture is. Why do you have such faith in the church, both of you? Why do you have such faith in the?

30:01 - Speaker 1
church I've got a bunch of reasons why I believe in the local church. I have actually put in a message called Seven Reasons I Believe in the Local Church and I will be preaching it in Singapore, probably on the first night there you go Because of this deconstruction mindset.

30:16 - Speaker 4
Yeah, that's exactly what it is About church and about.

30:18 - Speaker 1
But the interesting thing is it's not the case in China, in Africa or in South America. So it's only in our Western culture that we've become maybe a little too comfortable with a consumeristic gospel. I think that's number one. I think the idea that God is up there, willing to make you famous, happy, to fulfill your destiny, give you purpose and blah, blah, blah. You know all of that and it's going to be like Disneyland, it's just beautiful and I think that's the wrong gospel. I don't think that is the gospel. No, it's like a fake gospel that we're trying to win people.

30:54
But I hear a new generation who want to hear the sound of discipleship. That it's rough and it's tough, it's going to cost you everything and that put your teeth together, get ready, because if you wanted a comfortable following of jesus, you shouldn't have chosen jesus. Plenty of other religions in the world that I'm calling you to die to yourself, yeah, and calling you to go to go into spiritual battle for your family and to discipline yourself and to pick up your cross and lay down your life. So I think that message is missing and I think you know I don't have anything to do against femininity, but I think sometimes Christianity is too feminine. Yeah.

31:42
And I think it needs to recover masculinity.

31:44 - Speaker 4
What do you mean? It's soft in that sense. Is that right yeah?

31:47 - Speaker 1
maybe I think our worship songs are sometimes a little too precious, jesus kind of, you know, let's all hold hands. I mean, I've told our pastor, don't do that, don't make men hold hands with one another.

31:59 - Speaker 4
Dude, we don't do that. We don't hold hands with Christians.

32:02 - Speaker 1
Put your hand on our shoulder. Let's do this, like you know. I mean, there are just these little things.

32:07 - Speaker 4
Yeah, it's little things, man.

32:08 - Speaker 1
That make a guy feel like he's walked into Victoria's Secret and you know it's uncomfortable. The church shouldn't. Well, I don't know, the church is not going to be like that, but it's that level of uncomfortableness some guys, if there are, you know, chandeliers and things like this in the church, I think the sense of of the need for us to say, men, be comfortable in this environment, and I've found that ladies are not that quite comfortable no, no, because it provides a place of security.

32:42 - Speaker 4
It's what brand was saying it's a place of security. No, because then what Brandon was saying? It's a place of security? No, because then there's safety there, there's refuge, there's a place of security. Men are now protectors, not, you know, not protagonists, not going after somebody, not predators, they're protectors. And so I think one of my favorite quotes, pastor Phil, that you said was I want praise and worship with hair on it. Yes exactly. Exactly.

33:07 - Speaker 1
I've told plenty of our teams that and to not get too melancholic or reflective and to stay buoyant and strong and muscular.

33:21 - Speaker 4
Oh, muscular, that's good. And women like muscular Women are muscular Heck. Who's been taking care of stuff when most men lay down?

33:29 - Speaker 1
Exactly Right. And so, getting back to the vision complex, yeah, sure, if a man has a vision, I've found that women are quite happy to follow, but if he hasn't, she'll find one. Sure, because she'll say this is what we're gonna do she's gonna protect her kids.

33:44 - Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, like hey, my kids need a vision, right? Hey, I want to know what's going on here yeah.

33:49 - Speaker 1
So if, if we could say one thing in this, in this interview, paul, yeah, if we could just say to any guy listening what's your vision for your family, you're not married okay what's your vision for your family?

34:05
You're not married, okay. What's your vision for your life? You're married without kids. What's your vision for your marriage? Have you told it to your banker? Have you told it to your accountant? Because you'll fire them up when you say we're going to start a business, it's going to be like this, it's going to have that. We're going to build a house, it's going to be like this, it's going to have that. We're going to build a house.

34:26
We're going to go here. We're going to do this. I'm dreaming a dream and as you dream a dream, god gets involved, helps you shape it into a God's will kind of thing. But if you're not dreaming and envisioning something for your future and believing seeing it, putting a picture of it on the wall, and believing seeing it putting a picture of it on the wall, you know like and say this is where we're going. Sweetheart, she goes.

34:49 - Speaker 4
Yes, I'm with you all the way, talk about putting something on the wall. Brandon pastors, uh, c3 church, fort Worth, and they've had for I don't know a few months, these marks on the back wall of where they meet. Okay, so it's these black lines on the wall, and what it was was he said. One day we're going to that's going to be knocked out. It is knocked out now, and now it's out.

35:11 - Speaker 5
Yeah, I don't, I don't. I don't think you discipline your body to anything your eyes can't see. I don't think you ultimately, without a vision, will create a character that supports it. Wow.

35:21 - Speaker 3
And I think you, I think you try to force people into building character.

35:26 - Speaker 4
Again, I look like a genius.

35:32 - Speaker 5
You try to force people into building character without giving them a purpose for it and I don't think anybody wants to do that Then that becomes authoritarian, domineering, it becomes almost abuse to your own body, not support to your, your own vision. And I think I do think when with men, I think ultimately they've got to. They've got to be men of prayer, right, you've got to be people who will lay down your life to seek what the Lord is doing.

35:50
There is a reason that the that the Lord's prayer says let your kingdom come, your will be done, before it says your daily bread and ultimately, the church and the reason I believe in the church ultimately is, I think, through covid and through all the different things we're dealing with, including some of the misnomer around the world is no longer Christian, which is not true.

36:10
But I think what it does do is it causes every single one of us to recapture a vision or give it up, and so I know that it's hard to watch people give up a vision. It's painful, it's difficult and you don't want to see it ever happen. But what I think on the flip side of that is you're seeing a lot of pastors and leaders and people capture a vision again for what the church can look like, should look like, will look like, and it strips away you always say this prayer strips away the inconsequential. It creates a space in your life and even tragedy and difficulty and crisis when you walk through those things. It strips away the things that you were building that weren't necessary, the added rocks to the altar that weren't there for a purpose, and you begin to remove the things and remember who God really truly is and what he's about. And I think for us as a church, we're discovering, through all the pain and difficulty, everything's taken longer than it was supposed to.

36:59 - Speaker 4
We never arrived when we wanted to be there.

37:01 - Speaker 5
Yeah, that thing on the wall, that wall going down, that should have happened months ago, you know, but I do think I think what you've got to and I think maybe that's the part that's hard here is and even going all the way back to the beginning of how did you? How did you? How are you growing your kids and seeing heroes? I don't. I think part of this is how do you keep a vision for a long time? How do you keep keep going? How do you persevere? How do you continue to hold on to something that hasn't happened as quickly as you thought it would? And I think for us and with our boys even, how do I deal with my inconsistencies? How do I deal with the fact that I did let my vision go for a few weeks or a few months?

37:35
and I need to recapture that One of the things about dying to yourself is being honest with your family and realizing I haven't held up the bar the way I should have. And my kids will be just as endearing. Endeared to that and my willingness to say I haven't held, I haven't done it perfectly, but I'm going to, I'm going to do my best. Will you go with me, as they will to me, always, every day, saying I've done it all perfectly?

37:59 - Speaker 4
because they see it right. They know, yeah, they know it's interesting, we're talking about the church. I asked about the church. We keep coming back to family because the church is family For sure.

38:09
Yeah, it's the body of Christ, you know, and I ask men all the time. I say, hey, you'd take a bullet for your kids, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. So take a bullet anytime. Boom, I'm there, I. I said, well, I'll tell you what. Grabbing your kids, pulling them together on a Tuesday night, when it's inconvenient is taking a bullet and having prayer with them, pull them together having prayer, make everybody sit down, put your iPads down, all that kind of stuff, when you're tired from a long day your boss hasn't been treating you well.

38:38 - Speaker 5
That's called dying to self.

38:39 - Speaker 4
That's the same as taking a bullet. You're not doing porn anymore. That's the same as taking a bullet Right bullet. You're not doing porn anymore. That's the same as taking a bullet right. So you don't tell me you take a bullet if you won't discipline that part.

38:48 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think the notion is ideal.

38:51 - Speaker 3
It's an ideal in the head, but when it lands on planet earth, and you actually say this is how you do that.

38:58 - Speaker 1
No vision is going to be accomplished without the discipline. Sure, the scripture what you were talking about before is from one John, where he says he that has this hope in himself purifies himself. So he's got a reason to purify himself, and it's the vision. I've got a vision inside me, so I'm going to modify my behavior today so that I can accomplish that thing up there in the future.

39:24
And if you've got a clear vision, no matter what trials and difficulties you go through, modify my behavior today so that I can accomplish that thing up there in the future. Yeah, and if you've got a clear vision, no matter what trials and difficulties you go through, when you are melted and a little malleable, you're actually going to be molded into the person who fulfills that vision. And so that's that's the important part of having a vision. Without it, we perish. Families are perishing because of a lack of vision, organizations perish, businesses perish, governments perish.

39:51
When there is no vision, perishing starts happening and and that and. For an individual, if you've got hope in your heart that tomorrow is going to have this incredible picture of of in it, somehow that I'm being transformed from glory to glory, but it's for a purpose. Like you were saying before, god's the God of hope, he's the God of vision. So if you look to Him, he's got a picture in the future of what your life looks like, and once a guy gets that, a man is built to have a vision inside his soul.

40:24 - Speaker 3
When despair and hopelessness are in there he's gonna.

40:27 - Speaker 1
He's gonna take his life. He feels like there's no point, no purpose to everything I'm going through. But once you've seen the future and you've got that clear, like the bible says, write it down and stick it on a wall. You're then gonna actually keep building. So, talking about that related to the church, I think a lot of pastors have lost their vision for the future and that's why we're seeing a decline. But personally, I see thousands of churches, thousands of new young leaders, thousands of young men and women training for the ministry and like a swarm going out all over the earth. The harvest field is completely ready everywhere around the world right now and all it needs is workers, people who will go and share Christ with them on the internet, online, whatever, building churches, having conferences. I think we just need tons and tons of new young men and women rising up and saying we can overwhelm all this darkness in the earth.

41:31 - Speaker 4
I'm fired up over that, because what I see is I see a change and I want to come in to this part. I see a change in the way that the church is fathering the next generation in terms of leadership young men like Brandon, young men like my son, bryce, young men like your sons. When and I told this a number of years ago it was with a I won't mention his name, it was with a top leader and he said you know what, you know, I've done this conference and this thing, this thing. And he said what's the issue? I said the issue is what Paul said to the Church of Corinth when he said you have 10,000 instructors but not many fathers Right. An instructor tells you what he knows, but a father gives you who he is Right. And I said to this man I said doctor, his name. I said your generation told us what to do. You were instructors but you weren't fathers Right.

42:28
And what I see today and the reason that you know, I mean when we planted, you know, c3, fort Worth, when we first planted it, I brought Brandon and Bryce, my son-in-law, niles, we went to Atlanta, to the conference at Dean's Church, and I said I want you to see this. And we looked around at a couple different places and I said I want you to see the field of vibe and what do you want to be a part of. And you were speaking and Pastor Simon was speaking and other leaders and it was like, yeah, we like that vibe, we want that Because there was a spirit of fatherhood on it, right, yeah, you know, because a father really rejoices when his son does well, totally, you know, whereas an instructor says yeah, yeah, he screwed that up. Yeah, you guys didn't do that right. Let me give you some feedback.

43:09 - Speaker 1
Yeah, let me give you some feedback. Have you seen that as an issue, though I feel like At a deeper level, I would think that bonding, emotional bonding, hasn't taken place.

43:23
And I think a father bonds with sons Wow. And the people who are instructors. It's a job, it's mechanical and there's no need for bonding. And I would say the deepest need in most young men's lives is emotional bonding with a father Wow. And it's not even whether he's much good at fathering, it's not much whether he's even clever at anything, it's just that there's someone they feel connected with. So the scripture says we are joined and knitted together. That's how the church grows and when emotional bonding ceases, like brothers together. And we've got so many distractions these days that the time that it takes to bond with one another in prayer like you're talking about laughing together, doing life together, not just sitting in church together but a father is outside of the context of structures and there's little notes, there's little phone calls. Yeah.

44:23
There's all kinds of things and there's little notes, there's little phone calls, there's all kinds of things, and he, like I, would pray for maybe I don't know maybe 50 people by name most days, and every time I do that I'm feeling like a father. There's a connection I'm feeling. You can't pray for a person and hate them at the same time. You're praying for them.

44:45 - Speaker 3
It's really difficult.

44:46 - Speaker 1
You're just getting closer. And here's the thing Paul told everybody who he's praying for. He told them I'm praying for you, all the time, I'm praying for you. So I'm telling these guys and that bonds you when you're celebrating their victory.

44:59 - Speaker 4
Well, we live in this Western culture, if you will, that looks at the Instagram thing and we say, hey, this guy's built a network of X right, X number and so now we get this thing. Hey, I want to have a multi-campus, and that guy's got eight. I want to have 12, right? So now we're building things in a matrix. It's not based on relationship, it's based on performance.

45:27 - Speaker 1
Right, and that's not new right, I mean the whole idea of comparison. You know, this guy's got that going on in his church. I'm going to do it. That's an entirely different discussion in my view. But every man should be building on his revelation, not just on thinking oh, it's working there. I'll do that, Because while you're doing that, you're not growing who you are and what.

45:51 - Speaker 4
God's called you to do. Well, there you go. It's the airplane tank. Yeah, you know, when the mask comes down, they always say put your mask on first in order to help somebody else. So, if you're, if you're, you know. In fact, bryce and I were just talking about it this morning, about a particular person that he worked with years ago in Nashville. It ended up tipping over and going sideways. It had a massive church Right and Bryce said, yeah, he was really good at doing that, but his personal life was a wreck. Yeah, you know, see, he wasn't building this, but he was building that. Yeah, everybody's. Oh yeah, look at this guy. He wrote this book and that book and this thing. He spoke at this deal, but he had fully neglected his family and his own life.

46:34 - Speaker 1
So one of the reasons Brandon might have resonated with our vibe, in that it relates to what you're talking about, Because there is a model of church life, even even when it's got cell groups and everything else, but the model is it's being built from the stage, Right. So the guy is feeling like I'm the minister, I'm the kind of the guy and I tell everybody what to do, I present the vision, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. So the whole church is built from the stage, not from the pew, Whereas if he was empowering his people and wanting to get them more profiled rather than himself and he didn't talk about his ministry, but more his empowering of this crew that he's got in front of him, tapping into the potential of an entire army of people in front.

47:27
Wow, then that pressure that you're talking about on his personal life is not there. Wow, because that's a pyramid upside down.

47:35 - Speaker 4
But I think we've taught that. I think we've taught propulsion comes from the pulpit and what you're talking about is empowerment. Comes in is when we empower the pew. Yeah.

47:44 - Speaker 1
But to empower. Yeah, I think if a leader is feeling that it's all depending on him, then he's gonna be in a mess privately it's too much pressure.

47:55 - Speaker 4
Yeah, and frankly in the, in Western culture, in our Western way of doing church, we have put too much pressure in a star culture.

48:02 - Speaker 1
We are yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so, and I think when you can, when you can name a church by just the guy at the top and that's it. There's no other heroes. I think you've missed the point. It's too much on it.

48:22 - Speaker 4
That's true. On the other hand, somebody will say what about? Do you know a guy in such and such place? I'll go, yeah, yeah, there's a guy. I can't remember the name of his church, but I know the guy. Yes, because he's a friend of mine, yeah, you know, so there's that. Yeah yeah, yeah sure.

48:34 - Speaker 1
So I think, definitely it's a day when we talk about different structure for church that we empower everybody in the congregation. And here's another this is an interesting thing playing into the family and manhood. Yeah, because it all fits. Yeah, I think that very often women and I haven't been a pastor for a long time women are so willing to get involved, so willing to get engaged, and men, well, they're busy elsewhere, they're doing stuff, but to actually throw their heart and soul into helping out build the church is more rare. Yeah, it is with women and so. So sometimes the focus of the leaders, the pastor, might be to say, to get this lady to do that, to get her to do that, get her to do that, yeah, and and the whole thing kind of starts to feel like men don't want to get involved.

49:32 - Speaker 4
Yeah, we bypass them because it's hard to work. Yeah, you got to fight for a culture.

49:37 - Speaker 1
You got to fight for those men that is going to celebrate men and manhood Absolutely In church life and because the other comes easy.

49:44 - Speaker 4
But to actually say, well, we're going to but the other comes easy, but it doesn't have the same stability. How do you deal with comparison, Brent? How do you deal with that? Because I think in this culture, with the whole Instagram thing and people are all you know, I mean, what's the first thing people ask you, hey.

50:01 - Speaker 5
So how big's your church, how big's your church. Yeah, I mean one being in healthy environments. I think C3's done that for us. I think having good friends who don't ask me that very often has been another.

50:12 - Speaker 4
Not because they're not asking about health, but they're asking about fruit and what it's doing.

50:18 - Speaker 5
I think you deal with comparison. The way you deal with most other things is you have to. You either have to fix your eyes on something new and you have to remove your eyes from what you're looking at. I mean, I don't know. I don't know that there's a better answer for dealing with comparison than being strong in the identity that God's given you and removing the things that are chipping away at it.

50:35
And for many of us, whether it's whether we're trying to be a workout champion or the best CEO or whatever the case might be, as Pastor Phil just said, you've got to have a revelation of who you are, and even in the fatherhood and the environments of church and leadership, and who's empowering you. I think, ultimately, a dad is not. Listen. If I'm teaching my son how to ride a bike, he's five years old, his bike's two feet off the ground and every time he falls I go, take his bike and ride it down the street to show him how to ride it. He's not going to learn any faster and I think for a lot of us we had not. Me, I would say we. I think there's a lot of leaders who that's how they do leadership, whoever they're leading falls down and the leader goes and takes the bike and rides it down the street and says see, see, this is how you do it.

51:25
I think what we found at C3, and I think even in Pastor Phil's story and what I've seen throughout the years of doing this and the same with you. We want our church, 20 years down the line, for people to be able to look back and go. That's where I got my first chance and it's also where I got my second chance and my third one, and if the church isn't.

51:47
but I think, in the Western world maybe and I know it's always easy to say that in the Western church I get it whatever. We all got our imperfections. But I do also think, though, in the Western world, in our pursuit of certainty we've required perfection.

51:56
So in our desire to everything to be certain, and everything's per, then we then have to be perfect in that vacuum. We have to somehow be perfect at all times and in all things, and I don't think that's an environment where you grow. I don't think you grow into places where no resilience is required and you only do the things perfectly as they're laid out in the instruction manual. I think, when we're talking about artistic endeavors and creativity, the leader should be one who is on a creative endeavor of sorts to push past walls and hurdles and to think about their church and their community in its local context and go how do I reach this? About their church and their community in its local context, and go how do I reach this, how do I do this in a way that isn't maybe on. You know, for us in an urban center, some of the ways that church is being done now don't work the same way. Those catchphrases, those little, they just don't always work. Are they wrong? No, do they work? Is it fruitful? And I think for us comparison doesn't work because their context is different than mine.

52:55
Um, the primary goal is to make disciples. How does that happen? It's got to be unique to you and what you're trying to accomplish, and my curiosity, even as you guys, as you're leading this global movement. You're leading the global movement. What am I doing here? The the idea. The question is how do you keep that?

53:10 - Speaker 3
vision. You're the product of a global movement, but how do you keep that sharp?

53:13 - Speaker 5
edge. How do you keep that? How do you find the resilience to keep going? Because for me, that is always the question A couple of years into this building and some of these things is how do you keep going back to the well and finding water for the thing?

53:32 - Speaker 4
that is in front of you. That's a great question. Pastor Phil's got the perfect answer.

53:35 - Speaker 5
He's got certainty, because there's obviously a step one, two, three, you know.

53:39 - Speaker 2
I'm asking Noah the same question 120 years without a convert.

53:44 - Speaker 4
Oh my gosh, yeah right. Building a boat in the middle of a desert.

53:49 - Speaker 1
Every hammer stroke, I believe God. He just heard from God for 120 years, 120 years.

53:58 - Speaker 5
He would have been fired already, right.

53:59 - Speaker 4
And now I mean, he would have already been out of the board would have voted you out. The board would have voted him out. Yeah, not one convert not one.

54:07 - Speaker 1
And then even those who came along with him didn't see him.

54:11 - Speaker 4
I mean Abraham couldn't wait 25 years.

54:13 - Speaker 1
Yes, but 25 years is still a long time. Well, but on the other hand, he waited nine. Yeah, the point is to me how do you stay sharp? I wouldn't say that I've managed to stay sharp all the time, but I've managed to keep on going, wow.

54:28 - Speaker 4
That's a great point.

54:29 - Speaker 1
Yeah, because I mean, if you just keep walking, even when you're not feeling like walking, you just keep walking, keep walking, escalate a woman's voice and when you hear that and you think, look, I'm not feeling like. And that's the same with marriage, family relationships, the whole thing isn't it? Everything it's not going so well. Well, are you going to get off the train just because it's a dark in the tunnel right there? You will come out of it. So keep walking, keep walking, stay with your commitment, and I think that most of the time it isn't. I'm inspired to keep walking. It's that I have just made a commitment and I will keep my word are you always the one saying that to yourself, though?

55:13 - Speaker 5
Keep?

55:14 - Speaker 1
walking. Yeah, a lot of us. Yeah, no, not a lot. There's a few others who will come and say, hey, thanks for staying on the course so long.

55:22 - Speaker 5
Yeah Well, I'm just curious. I'm thinking about even coming full circle to the beginning of this, because I've got guys in my life who are called uncle by my boys, who are not blood, they are friends who stuck close, and they are the guys that have and Meredith has the same um who have, just not every day, but they know we always say like this and this will this will fall on deaf ears for some because they haven't seen the commercial, but I always say I need friends who will give me a snickers bar, you know someone who will tell me I'm not acting like myself, and uh, and I just wonder if, though, you know I yeah, I wonder cause I've.

55:55
I've watched you and I've watched you. In fact, I just told someone they were talking about this and I and they were an older gentleman and I said you know, the one thing I think that's kept my dad young is that he's kept good friends, and I can say the same about from Simon to Mark to Greg, to all the different names and different people. I think it's important to have friendships that last and people who can speak into your life and see you when you're not always at your best.

56:18 - Speaker 4
That's a. That's a great place to finish up our conversation. I want to talk about friendships, because it doesn't matter married, unmarried, whatever a man's dealing with One of the biggest issues is friendships. The latest stat I saw some time ago and it's still humorous to me is that the average man has 1.7 friends. And my joke is always everybody knows who the .7 guy is. He doesn't show up when you move. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. So it seems to me that's the critical issue that most men are dealing with right now is friendship and relationship. And and, in fact, uh, here in the United States, where, where I live, it's, it's, uh, the surgeon general said it's the biggest, uh, emotional issue in our culture today is friendships. So how do we build friends? How do we build friendships? How does that? How does a man do that in this fractured culture?

57:16 - Speaker 1
friendships. How does that? How does a man do that in this fractured culture?

57:19
Yeah, I wonder if the biggest problem on the other side of that is loneliness or isolation, right, and and I think England is appointed a minister for loneliness because it is such a problem A quarter of the inhabitants of Sydney, the city I live in, go home at night to no one. Wow, they live alone, wow. So loneliness is definitely a and isolation is definitely a serious problem, and it's unfortunate because when you go to Europe, amongst all those beautiful Grecian and Italian cultures, family get-togethers around the table, the timing in their day is structured for those bonds to be accomplished, like the meal time in the middle of the day and then a siesta, and then open up the business again at night, but the families together and the schools of the day, and then a siesta, and then open up the business again at night, but the family is together and the school structure themselves for it as well, whereas in our culture we barely eat breakfast together. I know plenty of families who do not ever eat breakfast together.

58:24 - Speaker 4
They don't have any meal together, they don't have a table, so now we're back to rhythms and patterns, yeah, so I'm taking a long route.

58:34 - Speaker 2
I love it, Bill. I'm going to get around to the idea of.

58:37 - Speaker 1
If you can't eat with people, you're never going to make friends and you need to eat together. You need to sit at a table, turn off the TV, put down your phones and eat and talk and having coffee together. Now, women do it easily, yeah. They say, let's have coffee. They talk their hearts out, men, we grunt we're not really that open and there's something that prevents us. It's an ego issue mostly, but we're not comfortable with actually getting to that or a wounded issue once we start eating right, yeah, wounded once we start eating and doing things together.

59:21
So another thing that will bond men together and make friends is go build houses for poor project. So we have. We're building a village in Fiji right now and we've built 14 homes.

59:36 - Speaker 3
So far that I know of.

59:38 - Speaker 1
And we get guys from Australia who get on a plane together yeah, they got their carpenter belts on and so I'm wanting to create C3 villages all around the world that's awesome With a church, a medical center and a school, come on. And if we can do that, I think that we can meet communities' needs Absolutely and win them into Christ. Yeah, but the fact is, the action of doing it is even more valuable in some ways than the result, because the bonding of it together and I'll just finish on this when Nehemiah is rebuilding that wall, there's a whole chapter.

01:00:19 - Speaker 3
I think it's almost two chapters of how it says and hish binob was building next to yeah and his family were building next to.

01:00:23 - Speaker 1
We're building next to. When you're doing things together. Men do stuff together to sit down and just talk together. It's like, hey, let's do coffee. Well, it's all right. It's kind of a bit.

01:00:34 - Speaker 4
Well, the men bonded under Nehemiah, he said they had a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other.

01:00:42
So they're building and fighting together. Yeah, because Jeff Gorsuch, a friend of mine years ago that said this. He said women bond face to face, he said, but men bond shoulder to shoulder, bond face to face, he said, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a child? Totally, yeah, I think that's. I think it's a brilliant piece. So brandon has a whole piece of coming out of c3. That that where you talk about the table. Give me the whole thing, the whole. Yeah. No, I think you're on your podcast.

01:01:11 - Speaker 5
Yeah, I think, yeah, the table's significant. I think you don't know people until you see how they use a fork. I don't think you really understand what a person's about until you see whether they let the last helping go to someone else or whether they eat it, whether they get up to help move the plates. You find out a lot about people sitting around a table with each other and I think for most people in church life that's not what you see. You see people who sit in a row and they look at someone on a stage and I think that's beautiful. I tell people all the time we're not trying to diminish Sunday, we're trying to elevate Wednesday.

01:01:44
We're trying to elevate you know, Josh Kelsey and some of those guys at dinner parties, the idea that the table is significant. Significant, I mean all of the statistics, every single one of them is if you had a child at a table for dinner three or four times a week with no TV on the, the amount of change that happens in that child and it's not just going home to loneliness.

01:02:06
It's not just being alone that is getting people. Because I can be alone in my own house with family in the room. Right, I it's. It's the things that I'm able to now take part in that have nothing to do with my family. I can take part in everyone else's life, right, and not deal with my own.

01:02:23
I can escape real quickly and I can live somewhere else or compare, and I think we then the pressure just gets compounded because you now you wake up from that and so and we make ourselves worn out. So now I don't want to go out with friends. I think uh, I think men do. Ultimately it's whether it's building a house or sitting at a table one we don't ask good enough questions. I think Jesus modeled a really good questions, not just great statements. And I think men don't ask enough questions. I think I heard you recently talk about this when you're dealing with your own anxiety and depression and worry, go ask someone else about theirs. Not because you want to commiserate, necessarily, but I think the willingness I had someone tell me, man, I'm just really always ungrateful and I said, well, maybe you should just start telling other people what you're thankful for them about or ask them what they're thankful for, the willingness to outwardly ask questions of others. And the other thing I think is being uncomfortable.

01:03:14
I think we don't often allow ourselves space to be uncomfortable and to not always get it right and, to be a little bit, I can't tell the story on this podcast, but I do remember one time where me and a couple of friends who were sort of friends, who were mostly- friends.

01:03:31 - Speaker 4
So there's Pastor Phil doing yes, he's getting-. So there's Pastor Phil doing social media he's getting video. Yeah, yeah, he's doing a little podcast.

01:03:35 - Speaker 5
It's fantastic so someone can look at it and they're late tonight To prove a point.

01:03:39 - Speaker 4
Yeah, to prove a point.

01:03:41 - Speaker 5
So, but I remember this story and I'll tell it off camera, but I remember I challenged these guys friends, we were probably friends, but we became best friends. When we started it was goofy, it wasn't challenging, it wasn't hard, but it required us to get vulnerable and that's a that can be a token word, right? But I think the idea is that you, you've got to be willing to put yourself out there, but we also have, as people have, to create an environment where people are allowed to do that and we don't always immediately jump on it. Oh yeah, well, let me tell you how I beat that. No, no, no, oh yeah, no, you know what? I've had to deal with that too, and just walk through some of those things. So I think the table. Jesus came to seek and save. I'm stealing this line from someone, but Jesus came to seek and save and he mostly did it by eating and drinking. He did.

01:04:32 - Speaker 4
And I think joy and hospitality and those things are necessary. And I think that's one of the things that I was telling Pastor Phil on the way over in a truck. In my truck I said you know, that's one of the things, hospitality we often think of setting things out, but hospitality really is about giving of oneself and something that I love about the whole C3 vibe has been the giving of gifts, the giving of environment, the giving of myself in order to create hospitality, not just oh yeah, everything was done right, but that atmosphere, you know that's created.

01:05:00
And what do you say? We don't do church in pews.

01:05:03 - Speaker 5
We don't do church in rows, we do church around tables. Yeah, we do church around tables.

01:05:08 - Speaker 1
My son's starting a new church in Southern California, san Juan Capistrano. Yeah, yeah, that's right in that area, c3oc. But he has called because Josh Kelsey has done incredible work with dinner parties in New York, which is a dinner party city. Yeah, but Joe thought you know what? In California they like breakfasts and I can't call them dinner parties, so he's calling it tables.

01:05:37 - Speaker 5
Yeah, no, Joe and I had a conversation about that right before he launched. We call ours tables as well, because the dynamic doesn't always work, and we talked a lot about that. Yeah, it means something.

01:05:49 - Speaker 1
I think I mean dinner parties has been a huge success all around the world and Josh has taught it to many, many judges and they've taken it away because of the value of exactly what you're saying that Jesus accomplished the same.

01:06:03 - Speaker 4
So, regardless of the, so basically what we do is we morph into the culture that we're in, with that sense of being at a table Right, whether it's breakfast or it's brunch or whatever it is. Whatever that culture is a cafe culture. You take Berlin with Steve Mack and that's and there's a C3 church. Isn't there a C3 church? So uh, yeah, and so that's a cafe culture. So that's a four in the afternoon culture.

01:06:28 - Speaker 1
Exactly, exactly. One of the churches in Berlin afternoon culture, exactly, exactly One of the churches in Berlin. You'd know Manfred and Martina Schwarzkopf. He found a lot of his guys would go off to the pub after church. He thought, well, that's ridiculous, I want them bonding here. So he built a pub.

01:06:50 - Speaker 4
He created a beer garden. That's it In Hanau, c3, hanau.

01:06:53 - Speaker 1
Hanau, c3, hanau. It's an awesome building, awesome church, but they all stick around yeah.

01:07:00 - Speaker 4
No, it's got a whole section. The guys all come in and they do what Germans do.

01:07:04 - Speaker 1
Yeah, you hang out with these guys oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so maybe you know there'd be some morals against that here, but in Germany definitely that.

01:07:15 - Speaker 4
Well, you do, you do what's cultural yes, exactly.

01:07:17 - Speaker 5
Okay, I would say full circle here is that I think ultimately, whether you're a dad leading your children or a man needing friends or a pastor leading a church, the strength of your table matters, and the stronger the table environment in your church, the stronger your table environment in your family. You don't do all of your life around the table. We're not saying that you have a work table and then you have a place where those things that you build have to go into the world. We're not saying that this is the only place, but there is something about, especially in our world where the table has been lost, and so the stronger your tables are in your church, in your family, in your friendships, you will have a healthier look in culture.

01:07:59 - Speaker 4
Well, the beauty of it is, in a sense, at the table conversation, the art of conversation truly is in listening. Yeah, absolutely, and that's where we find. Hey, pastor Phil Pringle, I actually, you know, we've just moved into our studio, so the only books I had of yours were Leadership 101. But I've got my faith book that I read all the time, you, the Leader, a number of books that you've written, and it really is an honor to have you in the Christian News Network studio.

01:08:25 - Speaker 1
It's a pleasure, and Brandon just broke the mic which is a perfect close.

01:08:28 - Speaker 5
Yeah To the whole thing. Let's start. I don't know. I could feel it going and I was trying to hold on to it I was trying to hold on to it.

01:08:36 - Speaker 3
It's still.

01:08:37 - Speaker 4
It's still recording it's hilarious, it's beautiful. It's still going.

01:08:42 - Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks very much for having us no, it's been always a delight to hang out and thanks, brandon always all you're doing.

01:08:47 - Speaker 5
Thank you so much. This is a blast we enjoyed it great admiration, same yeah and we're part of uh c3 churches.

01:08:55 - Speaker 4
That's where my license is brandon pastor c3 church, yeah, in fort worth, and your son c3oc, and great friends all across the country, and they're not all called c3 there's different names and things and expressions, but over six 700 churches around the world and you've got a big conference coming up in Singapore 15 to 17, 18.

01:09:17 - Speaker 1
It is in the Suntec city center. Yeah, it's going to be amazing and we will. We already have we're up getting close to 1500 registrations and that's global pastors from around the world and we've still got like 90 days to go.

01:09:34 - Speaker 4
You know and a lot of people don't know the backstory. There's a lot of places you can find this backstory. The stories of Pastor Phil and Chris are great friends that came out of really hippies in New Zealand radically saved. Yeah. Started like pastoring a youth group. Yeah, you don't have to fix it, we're done, let's go. But you got on camera. There's Bryce, you might want to.

01:09:58 - Speaker 5
That's definitely going to be an Instagram reel.

01:10:00 - Speaker 4
Yeah, outtakes. But that whole thing about it. It wasn't like I'm going to start this movement. No, it was. I'm going to follow Jesus. Yeah, for sure.

01:10:11 - Speaker 1
And that's everything that God has done with us is a surprise. Yeah, and any vision we had was too small.

01:10:19 - Speaker 4
Yeah, he's exceeded every one of them, and that's how. That's what we have to do Follow Christ every day, hey thanks for being on the Brave Men podcast. It's fantastic. All right, boom Done.

01:10:37 - Speaker 3
Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever your fine podcasts are downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.