00:05 - Speaker 1
Hi, this is Paul Louis Cole. This is the Brave Men Podcast. Thanks for coming along with us today. Great friend and a man who has made a huge impact in nations around the world, Robert Barringer. He was a surfer in Southern California, santa Monica. He was one of those guys in the 70s that was well-known up and down the coast. Then Christ got a hold of his life. He met Jesus. Christ in a radical way, said okay, what do we do now? So well, you go to Bible college. So he went to Bible college, berean Bible college. And what do you do now? Well, you go do something difficult. And so he and his wife, karen were on a missions trip in the early 80s to Peru and they said God, if you send us back here, we will give our life to this nation. And they have, but God's used them in a powerful way as they built a church called Camino de Vida. They've done albums you know worship albums that have gone around the world. They've got he and his son, taylor. Taylor have a podcast that's been downloaded by millions.
01:12
He wrote a book called La Iglesia Relevante, which means the relevant church, which has been used as a catalyst to help churches and pastors level up all over Latin America. They do roundtables over and over, and it's about serving, it's about leading. So I asked Robert, I said, would you sit down with me and just talk about what it means to lead? Well, to lead in your personal life, to lead in a church setting. How do you lead in business, how do you lead and serve, and what are the tensions and how do you overcome those? And so this conversation is that he's also on the board of our sponsor and the organization that leads this, which is the Christian Men's Network. And the Christian Men's Network is a resource center in over 100 nations around the world, 52 languages, to help churches disciple men. Go to cmnmen, that's cmnmen, for the resources and tools you need to disciple men. This conversation, I believe, will help unlock some things for you and I, help us become more expressive in what we do as men who desire to see a difference happen in our world and to raise up the next generation of men and women who follow Christ with reckless abandon.
02:27
Here's Robert Barringer today on the Brave Men podcast. So, here, with my close friend Robert Barringer and Camino De Vida Churs, that started how many years ago? 36 years ago. 36 years ago, yeah, in Lima, peru. You've been on Brave Men before and we've talked about things, but one of my favorite stories and then we'll get into some things we're going to talk about this session today on Brave Men is particularly for leaders and pastors talking about raising up strong men, because you've done that not only in your local church, but you have helped churches do this across latin america and across the united states and really around the world. You've gone to many different countries, but my one of my favorite stories about the starting of camino de vida was you had gotten radically saved. You were a surfer, dogtown and z boys, all that stuff, right, santa monica yeah okay, big time surfer love surfing.
03:28 - Speaker 2
I skateboarded a little bit. I know dog town got known for the skateboarding.
03:32 - Speaker 1
Yeah but uh well, you taught a lot of those guys how to surf.
03:36 - Speaker 2
No, they were just there they were just, they were small kids carrying their boards sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
03:42 - Speaker 1
So then you get radically saved. Go to a bible college, meet your wife karen uh, have two little children, and uh, what do you do then? Go to the amazon jungle. I mean, what does one do?
03:54 - Speaker 2
yeah, well, you went to the amazon we were part of that whole jesus revolution, right literally in the tent at times at calvary Chapel. Yeah, when Love Song and your friend Chuck Terard and those guys were around. And I mean, if you get a hippie surfer saved and challenge him to be a missionary, give me a dime a cup of coffee.
04:15 - Speaker 1
I'll go. Where do you want me to go? Yeah, and I want to do something difficult, and so one of the things you knew about Peru is they have waves. I didn't know, I found out when you didn't know they had waves seriously I didn't know it was peru's got some of the best in the world. This is part of your testimony. How many did you go to three high schools?
04:36 - Speaker 2
well, uh yeah, fourth was the one I graduated. They invited you to go to that one. Yeah, it wasn't because I was bad, it was surf was up, surf was up. And when?
04:47 - Speaker 1
surf's up, we're just kind of absent. Yeah, that's kind of why I ended up. A couple different Bible colleges, that's bad.
04:56 - Speaker 2
At least I was not saved, thank you. Thank you for the affirmation yeah.
05:04 - Speaker 3
Thank you for the affirmation.
05:04 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so you end up, you go to the jungle and then you had a radio show in Lima, Peru, and you started playing music, started talking to young people about Christ and essentially took the Jesus movement to Peru and you ended up with a lady came to you and wanted you to talk to her son, right, yeah, yeah, basically, uh, to fine-tune that story, we moved to Lima, traveled to the Amazon, okay, and did missions there no, hey, don't fix my story. I can tell your story better than you remember I can make it larger.
05:44 - Speaker 2
It's either true or it has some truth in it.
05:48 - Speaker 1
Yeah, my stories are true or they contain truth.
05:50 - Speaker 2
Anyway, we did a lot of missions up the Amazon and in the rivers, in the mountains as well, but we were part. We've been in Prunell 42 years, so we were part of another organization. It was a little old school and conservative, very conservative.
06:09
A beautiful church, phenomenal work um, and still going today and friends of yours very close friends of ours today but in the those days, uh, I had been a part of the jesus movement and I began to notice, as violence came in we had civil war in the country, terrorism, and the youth weren't going to church and I started thinking, well, this isn't a culture thing, this is kind of just a legalism thing.
06:41 - Speaker 1
A church culture. Church culture, the wrong culture.
06:45 - Speaker 2
And I can bring kids in the church. So I started telling people I can get kids in the church, I know how to do it. Well, how I said? Well, I came out of this Jesus movement and a lot of kids are getting saved. And well, what do you do? Music? Oh, we don't do that here. Oh, wow, I said, well, the kids like it, excuse me.
07:03
The kids like it and they no, that won't work here, that only works there. So in that time a friend had a friend who owned one of the top rock and roll radio stations in Lima and it took me to have lunch with the owner of this rock and roll radio station and in a casual conversation I said you know, there's another kind of rock music out there and it's got a message and with all this violence and civil war and the desperation of youth, no hope for the future, we can give them hope through this music. He says, let me listen to it. So I let him listen to a couple in those days, tapes, yeah, tapes of Christian rock music. And he ended up giving me an hour of free airtime every day, seven days a week.
07:55 - Speaker 1
On a local rock station.
07:56 - Speaker 2
On the local rock station to put what we called. We called it heartbeat music with a message.
08:03
We called it Heartbeat. You know music with a message, and he liked it so much he ended up with seven hours of free airtime Wow, just to put this music on and carry a message to the youth, wow. Well, the story you're talking about a mom called one day there was a local underground punk rock group called Vomit yeah, and that's just what they were, because they're against the society. That was the punk rock group called Vomit yeah, and that's just what they were.
08:28 - Speaker 1
Because they're against the society. That was the punk rock era. Those were the names. I don't know if anybody's ever looked back. I never knew anything about that culture.
08:35 - Speaker 2
But anyway, this group had a. They were against government, against the violence with terrorism, against everything, yeah. And this mom called me one day and said my son is the lead singer in Vomit. Would you talk to him? Wow, I said I'd love to. Yeah, you know. So his name was Ricardo, brilliant, philosophical, university-type guy and, you know, very intellectual, but against everything. I said why don't you become part of a solution? And he goes, what's that? And I told him my story how I got saved the hippies and how god used that to basically change a nation.
09:15
wow, um, you know how we were protesting against the vietnam war on the streets and now we're getting saved and this nation changed. So anyway, Ricardo received the Lord Within a week.
09:30 - Speaker 1
I had all of vomit sitting in my living room and I looked at these kids and I said I can't send these kids to any church out there that I know the colors, the piercings, the Everything, Just the way they looked the way they were the way they dressed, so our church began with Vomit, so Camino de Vida was founded.
09:51 - Speaker 2
Camino de Vida was founded with Vomit. We changed the name to Hosanna.
09:56 - Speaker 1
Oh, you changed the name of the group to Hosanna and it became a praise and worship band. Well, no, they never got to praise and worship. We tried, they. They never got to praise and worship.
10:02 - Speaker 2
They never got that part, but we did take them to the different schools and let them tell their story.
10:08 - Speaker 3
Jesus, People music type stuff.
10:09 - Speaker 2
yeah, yeah and kids started getting saved, and that's where our church began.
10:14 - Speaker 1
That is just crazy and I love that. Now you said something there. That is where I want to head today, and I wanted to get that story done because I you like it.
10:25
I love the story and it also, for me, provides context of who you are as a pastor and leader. Now, 40 years later, with still that same driving desire to reach people that are outside the church walls, right, that are in culture, and what has, I think, been part of the church for many years is that our culture has been diametrically opposed to the culture of the world, not only philosophically, but in style, right, and what we, because culture is basically based on what you accept and what you affirm and what you don't. And so here we are, not accepting certain people into our churches and building cultures that are not accepting to a lot of people in culture right yeah, the world culture is not your enemy, it's your mission field, oh wow.
11:26 - Speaker 2
So we often look at the world culture and say, your enemy, it's your mission field, oh wow. So we often look at the world culture and say, oh, that's terrible. How could they do that? Well, they do that because they walk in darkness. They don't walk in the light of.
11:38
Jesus. So they're not your enemy, it's a mission field. We can actually reach into that culture and present them something better, present jesus to them. So, um, yeah, we came out of that with our culture. I mean, if you look back to paul, the days you and I were young and in that culture with the jesus movement, the world was a mess.
12:04
You know, we were on the streets protesting the vietnam war I remember, not understanding why, but walking in those protests singing better red than dead. Yeah, I remember, um, when the police came to break up concerts that we were in and we threw rocks at them. Yeah, um, and I didn't know why people talk about how divided.
12:24 - Speaker 1
Maybe if you're living in America, they talk about how divided America is today and I say, yeah, you know, you forget. You forget what's happened before. It was 1964 riots in Detroit, 67, vietnam, kent State, watts. You go right on down the line. There was difficult and so there have been difficult times.
12:48 - Speaker 2
And those times I mean not only that, the drug culture, the free sex culture. It was different and in many ways worse than what we're seeing today. It's different, maybe it's not worse, it's the same.
13:04 - Speaker 1
Yeah, in some ways it's the same, just in a different way. But what it?
13:07 - Speaker 2
took because the church had a culture that was basically us, them tribal, wow, wow, it's us, and them, those kids out there on the street that.
13:19
But there was a couple churches that was saying, no, let's receive them into us, let's bring them in, let's invite them in. And their culture was such that the music which defines culture, we can put that kind of music in and we can uh, you know, not put dress codes. Hippies aren't going to wear a suit and tie. They're going to come probably barefoot and they're going to come in dirty jeans and bells on their belts or whatever else they have. Wearing a hat.
13:54 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I remember we had this conversation Bishop Brawner, who's our chairman with Christian Men's Network, and his Dale too, and there was a time where in their church they had to actually help the ushers understand that some of the young men coming wearing a hat or cap, whatever it may be, weren't doing it out of disrespect because they were stopping them in the lobby, going take your hat off. Well, it was actually part of their culture and they changed that and they began to receive people no matter. Yeah.
14:28 - Speaker 2
Well, the culture, if you remember Calvary Chapel in the early days and I remember the tent, I remember we'd go to a concert and then there would be an afterglow in the church, yeah, and we'd go in there and people were just having a super deep experience with the Holy Spirit and people being healed.
14:49 - Speaker 1
Miracles happening, yeah, miracles.
14:51 - Speaker 2
Hippies were leaving drugs at the altar without anybody telling them to Right. But when Chuck Smith built the new building, the ushers put on the dedication a ceremony. They put a little note on the door Basically, you can't enter if you don't have shoes on. Well, Chuck Smith saw that, knew where it came from, went to the elders and showed them the sign, because all the kids were staying outside, they weren't walking in the church. And they said, Pastor, it's time we taught these young people to respect the house of God. It's time this carpet cost us a lot of money. The fabric on those pews was imported and they're going to get it dirty and it's time they learn how to respect the house of God. And Chuck Smith came back and said the day this carpet stops one person from coming through the doors, we tear the carpet up and worship on cement.
15:50
So what is the culture you want? Sometimes we think it's the respect for the house of God, but it's really souls, it's people. God loves people.
16:05 - Speaker 1
Now you have built. Comunidad Vida is one of the larger churches, more significant churches in Latin America. You live in Lima, peru, and you know you've oh, I just hit the microphone Operator error on the part of PC and anyway, so and, by the way, we're in the studios of Christian Men's Network, the Wesleyan Callahan Media Center studios. Thank you, pretty exciting. Thank you to everybody who's been a part of building this. This is amazing, and Robert you sit on the board.
16:42 - Speaker 2
Kingdom stuff happens here.
16:44 - Speaker 1
Close friend, closest friend, and sit on the board of Christian Men's Network. You and Karen have been amazing blessings and you have been a man who's inspired me and encouraged me in different ways. I remember after my father passed away and there was a little gap of time and we relaunched Christian Men's Network in November of 2007. I remember you said, hey, come to Lima, I'll put you on the stage. And we relaunched Christian Men's Network in November of 2007. Remember you said, hey, come to Lima, I'll put you on the stage and we'll just get this thing cranking again. And you did and the Lord has blessed it. It's been absolutely remarkable. Now, over 100 nations.
17:22 - Speaker 2
The work you have done, paul, since your father's death has been astounding. It's been amazing. I know your father is proud of you in heaven. Yeah, yeah, because you just told me a little while ago that you are selling more Maximize Manhood books now than when he was alive.
17:40 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?
17:42 - Speaker 2
And this is going into nations. That is making a difference the Middle East.
17:46 - Speaker 1
Okay, so let's hit this. Yeah, we just, we just, uh, we're in the middle east, uh, it's growing, going into america, amman other places and uh yeah, we look at the news and see bad news, but there's good things happen in bad news places, oh man guys, man, let me write that down there's good news happening in bad news places.
18:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and it's CMN.
18:09 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I like that. So how do you do that? How do you build a culture in which men become mature? How do you do that? Because the issue in our world today the number one. Here's some interesting things.
18:24
I live in the United States. You live in Lima, peru. You've got a church you've planted in Orlando. You're from the US, you're Peruvian, but the thing is is that 12 men a day in the United States commit suicide. They self-inflicted death. Four of those men are under the age of 25.
18:45
We live in a chaotic culture. We live in a culture full of anxiety and stress. 68% of the young people in high schools today could be clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder. So when you deal with all of these stresses and all these things and it seems like the internet is not necessarily the cause but is the amplification, if you will, of all of that, and the number one leading cause of poverty in every culture of the world is fatherlessness I think media has allowed men, if you will, given them permission to stay immature in a lot of ways, through the modeling and so forth. But how do you build a culture in which men mature? Because you've done that at Camino de Vida. You've built a strong masculine culture that honors women, that champions marriage between a man and a woman. How do you do that, how do you build that in a local church where men I mean you've got guys bringing their friends Men are bringing other men.
19:57 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you have to redefine what the world is trying to define. The world is trying to define men as that immature adolescent adult adolescence. They're trying to define men as weak and we bring it back to. Manhood and Christlikeness are synonymous and we bring back the model of what a healthy man looks like. We bring back the model of what a healthy man looks like, for example, talking about manhood and Christlikeness are synonymous. The world wants to put a feminine. That's what Christianity is, that it's a woman's faith.
20:41
Let women take your kids to church. But where is the man when, right now, like in the garden, when the serpent was attacking the family, where was Adam? And it's the same thing today. Where are men when the world is and that family's under attack, when manhood is under attack, when women are going through?
21:08 - Speaker 3
issues of having to do everything themselves and abuse we say it this way, redefine it.
21:16 - Speaker 2
God gave men strength not to hurt the family or abuse the family. God gave men strength to bring protection to the family. It's a shame when men go home and the kids are afraid because dad just came home, wow. It's a shame when you know the kids are afraid of dad. Yeah, and it's because of what the world has portrayed men are. It's a blessing when dad comes home and kids run out to greet him and they're thankful.
21:53
Home is a place of peace. It's a place of security. Just redefine it. And when men understand their role, it's like that's the kind of guy I want to be.
22:06
So, we don't have to just teach it, just show it, just model it and pretty soon guys are saying that's what I want. You know, I remember talking to some guys in the Middle East about this. Eddie Leo told me this story about how this is the same with Muslim men in Indonesia. That Muslim men, when they go through maximized manhood, the light comes on because they have been taught that women are worth half of what a man is. Wow, they've been taught that women are just objects to have sex with and they've been taught that women are just out there. But when they realize, no, we should actually value women and and treasure them and protect them and be that protection. Muslim men actually want that. It's just they've never been taught that. Wow, and I remember when eddie leo told that story, you just present what the christian view of manhood is, what the Bible view of manhood is. They actually want that.
23:12 - Speaker 1
Wow. So then in a local church. So here you are, and I don't think it matters whether the church has 50 people, 500, or 5,000. Right, yeah.
23:23 - Speaker 2
I'm thinking in Spanish. Sorry about that. That happens to me. Yeah, I bet it does. To model manhood. What was the question again? Well, how?
23:39 - Speaker 1
do you model that in the local church setting? And again, I'm saying right now to my brother who's listening pastor in particular, or somebody that's taking responsibility in their local church, it doesn't matter if there's 50 men or 5,000. Excuse me, 50 people in the church or 5,000. There still has to be a model for manhood. How do you do that in a local church? How?
24:04 - Speaker 2
do you model that what we do in church? If it's not reproducible, then why are we doing it? Oh wow, because we're called to make disciples.
24:14 - Speaker 1
You mean if it's not reproducible in daily life, in a daily life or in others.
24:19 - Speaker 2
Okay, okay. We've seen it in Christianity, where we went through a time and we're talking to pastors, so I'm going to the heart of the pastor. There was a generation where the pastor was special. And because he's special, he's the one that talks to God, he's the anointed one. Because he's special, then we look to him and we follow him. If you're special, you don't create disciples, you create followers okay okay and we're not called to create followers.
24:55
We're called to create disciples. So I don't want to be special, I want to be reproducible as a man, as a pastor, as a man as a pastor, as a Christian. So don't look to be special, look to be reproducible. Special is not reproducible because you can't reproduce special there's only we call a unicorn, there's only a few of those.
25:20
He's a unicorn. There's special and there's special, so it needs to be reproducible and scalable. For me, church, if it's not reproducible and scalable, I won't do it. So what do you mean? Scalable, In other words, it works in a church of 50, it works in a church of 10,000. So discipling men works in a small church and it works in a large church. In fact, our testimony, and you know this, Paul, when your dad visited us, we had 500 people in our church. We went from 500 to 5,005 years because we were discipling men. Discipling men Because that freed the heart Changed the atmosphere.
26:07
It changed the atmosphere. It also, wherever we disciple men and we're doing this literally in thousands of churches in South America the women come to me saying thank you, yes.
26:20 - Speaker 1
That is a phenomenon that happens over and, over and over and I have pastors all the time come up to me and say hey, you'd never believe what happened. Last week I had two wives come up to me in between services you might have two and said thank you, I don't know what you did with my husband in that Tuesday night group, but it is different.
26:40 - Speaker 2
Well, what did your mom put in the back of Max Manhood?
26:43 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a ministry to men, for women, for women.
26:47 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and the women are the one that first. They hear the term maximized manhood, it sounds like what are you going to be teaching my husband it sounds like another macho group of men.
26:56
Yeah, but when they understand the message of what a maximized manhood is. You're more of a man, not when you're less feminine, but when you're less childish. Wow, manhood is. You're more of a man, not when you're less feminine, but when you're less childish. And the problem in society today are the childish men that are 30, 40, 50, up to 70 in some cases.
27:16 - Speaker 1
Well, duane piggin and I talking about, you know, in jackson, mississippi, where he pastors a great church, new jerusalem yeah, remember him talking about said part of the issues that they're having in their culture in Jackson is that there's no grandfathers on the front porches anymore. There's no grandfathers keeping order. And he said grandfathers now think they're players. Yeah, that little blue pill, it's the Viagra syndrome. So the fact is and it's it in a sense, it's, it's the media and and this uh, hype of who you're supposed to be and what, what a man really is. And I think that's, you know, the powerful thing you're talking about, robert, is redefining what culture defines. Yeah, I think it's so powerful because what is a real man? Manhood and Christlikeness are synonymous. To be more like Christ, be Christlike in what we do. What that means is you're strong when strength is called for, but you're compassionate when somebody's in trouble. You're the guy who people can talk to because you're willing to listen, but you're also willing to be the guy that protects people or tips the tables over, right, you're that guy.
28:31 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I still remember your dad when he did a little simple teaching to a group of pastors in Lima, peru, that it's God's plan for pastors pastor men, men, pastor your family. When I understood that message and it took me a little bit to get it I stood up in my church one day and I said I don't want to pastor women anymore. And all the women got offended I want to pastor men. But then I explained it when I looked at the men and I said why do I have to listen to your wife complain about you? Wow, so women? You know women are more spiritual than men. They're better looking than men. So when you got a church full of women, it's spiritual, it's a good looking church.
29:19 - Speaker 1
It's a spiritual, good looking spiritual church, but it won't be strong until men take the position, god called them man.
29:24 - Speaker 2
And when women understand you know that they understand that they go to the pastor for counseling, and when he's counseling with them, 95% of their problem is they're talking about their marriage.
29:37 - Speaker 1
Talking about a marriage. Talking about a guy.
29:38 - Speaker 2
Talking about the guy at the house and when they're talking about him, I tell the guys why do I have to listen to your wife complain about you? Women, send me the man and we'll take care of this. Let's disciple them and not in a condemning way that they feel like, oh man, I blew it, I messed up. No, this is something that gives you a model, saying oh, I can do that, it's simple, know it's.
30:07 - Speaker 1
Uh, that's a interesting phrase because, uh, people talk about men, they go. Oh, men are simple. You know paycheck and sex, right money and sex we're good and football, yeah well, you know unless you're a chargers fan or a cowboys fan, right how boys are having a rough year. Rough year We've had a rough three decades. It's been Because you're a Chargers fan.
30:35 - Speaker 2
Right, I am a die-hard Chargers fan. Pray for me.
30:38 - Speaker 1
Where are they at now?
30:40 - Speaker 2
They're in.
30:41 - Speaker 1
LA. Oh, they're in LA now they're not San Diego Chargers anymore.
30:47 - Speaker 2
Enemy territory yeah, exactly. Anyway, let's get back to men. No, no, no, this is part of men.
30:54 - Speaker 1
You know, and so the thing is, is that because we identify with things like that, we identify with games and scores, we keep score. You know, guys, men in particular, rail against this whole feminization of youth sports in which everybody gets a little trophy. I, I would say that's one of the top memes among men is uh yeah, he's got a participation trophy. Uh, forget that man, we want to keep score. Why do men keep score? Because there's something about victory that raises up a man's heart and no man wakes up in the morning hoping today's the day he messes his life up yeah it's not in a man's life, even a man who's who might be displaced, he's, he.
31:43
He's in a difficult place, he's between jobs, whatever the case may be. He's not waking up in the morning going, yeah, I hope today things really go to hell. He's waking up saying today could be better, something could be better. So the call of Christ really in a man's life is that what culture's done is say victory is always at the expense of somebody else. Victory, I win because you lose. I win because I beat you up. So what young men learn early is that violence solves a lot of their issues, because they can be king of the playground in third grade by beating the other kid up. So we learn I win if you lose. And the beauty of the culture of Christ is we give our lives and in giving our lives we actually win.
32:43 - Speaker 2
Yeah.
32:44 - Speaker 1
Right. So now, if you win, I win. Yeah, right. So now, if you win, I win, and you win because I gave in order to help you. So when we talk about Christlike, manhood.
32:56 - Speaker 2
So that's what the Chargers have been doing for 40 years Giving, giving, okay yeah, making other teams feel good.
33:03 - Speaker 1
They got a great coach. They got a good coach. No, we're going to turn it around.
33:08 - Speaker 2
We'll see. Yeah, I still got the same ownership. You got a new owner.
33:11 - Speaker 1
So the fact is is that when I give, when I give to help another, win, I win. That's the beauty of the culture of Christ. So now we're redefining masculinity. We're redefining masculinity. So when we talk about maximized manhood, maximized manhood is the giving of my life that others may live.
33:36 - Speaker 2
Right. Well, in doing that, life takes meaning. There you go. Now my life has meaning. Now I'm actually not just waking up in the morning and doing the eight hour work day, not living for bread alone. And living for bread alone is sad because, okay, the 15th came, I got paid. 16th I'm out of money. End of the month came I got paid, I'm out of money. What a sad life to go through your whole life living just for bread, for a paycheck, for a paycheck, yeah. But how awesome is life when it has meaning, when you get up out of the bed in the morning and say I know I was born for this and you help other people succeed, and in doing that, this magical thing or this amazing thing happens that our life begins to take meaning and it's actually more enjoyable.
34:34 - Speaker 1
I think that's strong. Now, when you talk to local pastors and you are with your organization, with Comunidad Vida and with the different— what are your roundtables called Haciendo?
34:51 - Speaker 2
Iglesia, which means let's do church or doing church doing church.
34:56 - Speaker 1
Okay, yeah, church is as a house. Is that hacienda kind of haciendo is doing haciendo?
35:02 - Speaker 2
or making, making. Okay, I'm doing church my uh, my uh.
35:06 - Speaker 1
Great limited spanish that I'm very good at, so I get in trouble, man, you know trying to do it, but uh, so it's doing church. So when you talk to pastors and you're mentoring hundreds of pastors across latin america in particular, and pastors here in the united states, when you talk to them about the ministry to men, what is it that you that basically turns on the light, what kind of flips it for them?
35:37 - Speaker 2
Oh gosh, so many things. We start with the roundtable, always with what I call shakana, and that is quit defending what doesn't work. If it's not working, don't defend it. Yeah.
35:52
Because, pastors if their church isn't growing, they'll get into this thing. Well, we're not growing, but we're deep, yeah, we're deep. The other churches that are growing. They must be doing something wrong because they're growing. That's right, which is not what the Bible teaches. And then I shock them again God isn't obligated to keep your church open. Wow, if you go to Europe, you can find the church where Wesley spoke and Spurgeon spoke. You and I, paul, went to the church that Martin Luther put the letter on the door.
36:30 - Speaker 1
Today it's a museum.
36:31 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it is. And I tell pastors, would you like, 30 years from now, for this building that you sacrificed for brick by brick, and in South America that's the way it is Would you want that to be a restaurant?
36:45 - Speaker 3
30 years from now, wow.
36:47 - Speaker 1
Or do you want a legacy that sons will come in and take this that's what most of the churches in London have become Restaurants and spas.
36:54 - Speaker 2
Bars, restaurants, spas yeah, do you want that? I mean, I look at all the little grandmas that brought their little envelope in in those churches in. Europe. Yeah, to see today it's just a restaurant. Yeah, and what we do is important. You told me something recently, paul, that's profound the goal of a father isn't to raise a son. What we do is important. You told me something recently, paul, that's profound the goal of a father isn't to raise a son, you told me, the goal of a father is to raise another father.
37:23 - Speaker 1
Yeah, the role of a good father is not to raise a great son, because that's how most guys think.
37:27 - Speaker 2
Yeah.
37:28 - Speaker 1
The role of a good father is to raise another good father.
37:31 - Speaker 2
To call that out of them. It's the same with a pastor a good father to call that out of them, and it's the same with a pastor it's. We've got to think beyond my group, my age group, my generation. We've got to have a legacy that carries generations so how?
37:46 - Speaker 1
and we do that by raising, by discipling discipling men um you. If you said then the men disciple the family, which then takes us generationally. Yeah, so we don't have a generation that comes along. There's this story in the First Covenant, the Old Testament, about Israel goes in and they take Canaan land. They have these great victories, they raise up this monument of stones towards that, and then there came a generation that didn't know what the stones meant, because the fathers didn't teach their sons. Here's where the victory was.
38:23 - Speaker 2
Here's what happened. Yeah, my son says this and there's an interesting statistic on this, a beautiful statistic. But the reason why the generation after Joshua didn't know God is there was no grandfathers there. They all died in the wilderness. Yeah, they did. One Hope did a study on Gen Z and it's an amazing study. But this study on Gen Z, first of all, it's shocking. It's the first generation that doesn't believe in evangelism. To them, evangelism is invasive and it's offensive, but they want to change the world. Yeah, okay.
39:12 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I've actually had people say to me that, uh, that I'm a colonialist, that I'm trying to, uh, uh, change somebody's culture. That's their culture.
39:24 - Speaker 2
I said, no, I'm trying to bring christ to them no, and they've told me that in peru I had a pastor call me one day saying you're changing my culture, and I said what? What do you mean? He said, well, I have a right to discipline my wife, and I described discipline. Well, no, I'll take the belt to her sometimes. I said, no, you're right, I'm changing your culture. That's what the gospel does.
39:45 - Speaker 1
That's what the gospel does exactly, you know that's what we do.
39:51 - Speaker 2
Anyway, this whole thing about there was no grandfathers there, that's huge, wow, anyway this whole thing about, there was no grandfathers there.
39:56
That's interesting statistic gen z has the highest suicide rate of any generation in the last 50 years, for reasons you were talking about the internet. Um, they're more connected and more alone. Uh, going through these ridiculous comparisons that they see on the internet, so it's the highest suicide rate in 50 years. But when a grandfather a healthy grandfather is involved in the life of his grandkids, that suicide rate drops to zero, wow, zero. The importance of generations and the importance of making healthy men, healthy men that are there for the family, that are there for their grandkids.
40:43 - Speaker 1
Wow, that's an amazing stat. You know, in studying this death by your own hand, self-death one of the things I discovered this was some time ago actually, I saw this and it's just been. It came out again in another study. I just read the highest percentage of suicide among men in any state in the United States. You know, I always have men. Guess, guess what state has the highest percentage suicide rate? No, guess, california, because of because of what you talked about people comparing each other or to measure up. Or New York, maybe because it's busy and it's stressful. Number one percentage per population suicide rate of any state in America is Montana. And people go Montana. It's beautiful, you're out in the wilds, you're, you're up there.
41:39
But the but, the culture, is that yourself, you take care of yourself, you are a personal, you're, uh, an army of one, you're the guy on the bit on the horse and the riding off into the sunset like the lone ranger. And so you, you have to be self. Wow, you know you have to take care of yourself by yourself, and you don't share your stuff. You're stoic, you know. You don't share things with other guys, you just are you good, yeah, I'm good man, I'm good doing great. And so you end up with this sense of aloneness, when what you were after was you're after. You know, I'm going to be self-reflective, I'm going to be self-strong, I'm going to do all these things, I can take care of myself, and you end up being an island. And all of a sudden, you're on an island by yourself and it becomes internalized yeah and pretty soon.
42:34
you have no place, nobody to lean on. You need a band of brothers. How sad Isn't that amazing.
42:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah well, it's the book of Genesis. It's not good for man to be alone. Yeah, true, it wasn't good in the garden. And that's amazing because the context that that was set in God had fellowship with Adam every day, walked with Adam every day, and in that context God said to Adam it's not good that man is alone. What God was saying was I'm not enough, he needs a family.
43:11 - Speaker 1
You need a family. You need a family, yeah.
43:13 - Speaker 2
You need brothers, you need brothers. You can't. I mean, he had god every day to himself, yeah, and god was saying no. God has created the father, the son, the holy spirit and the community.
43:24 - Speaker 1
We need community we're created for it, so that's why the the enemy attacks the family, because the family is the image of God, because before God was anything else, he was God in family or God in community, father, son, holy Spirit. So we see family, community. That's the image of God. So if you're going to destroy the image of God, you want to destroy the family, which is why you then redefine it as the nuclear family, which wasn't the definition until 1986, came up in a university paper in 1968, and then got adopted into APA in the mid to late 80s. The nuclear family and the reason you call it the nuclear family is because then you can redefine it, because now you can talk about other types of family, when in fact originally family, everybody knew what family meant. Right, family means the actual definition is father's house. I think that's part of the issue. Is when you're talking about redefining what culture is defined. I think that's part of the issues. Culture continually tries to bring new definitions on what it is to be a man.
44:38 - Speaker 2
It takes us away from God. Yeah, culture attacks the family, the world culture, and we get the youth today and men, even women, leave me alone, I don't need anybody.
44:50 - Speaker 1
That's Satan's prayer. Satan's prayer, satan's prayer. Leave me alone.
44:54 - Speaker 2
Wow, I don't want anybody. Well, you're not meant to be alone. It's not healthy to be alone. We're meant for community.
45:02 - Speaker 1
We're meant for a family. That's the beauty of the local church, Dude. That's the beauty of the local church. That is the local church. That is the local church.
45:10 - Speaker 2
It's a family. It's a family, it's a family. I say our church is just a group of people going to heaven together and I love that there's all these families doing the same thing. Yeah, we're a community.
45:20 - Speaker 1
Don't do life alone. If you're going to destroy the family, you have to attack what covers that family, which is the father. Yeah, if you attack the father.
45:31 - Speaker 2
And the father, instead of protecting, is now the one that hurts the family or he's not there, which means now the wife has to work extra, uh to get an income. It creates poverty, yeah, it creates kids that grew up, uh, with surrogate parents, um, not really knowing their parents, because both of them are out there working yeah, yeah, and with an attitude, yeah, disruptive attitude.
45:58 - Speaker 1
Man, I'll tell you so. I've been talking with Robert Barringer on Brave Men today, the founding pastor of Camino de Vida and the lead pastor now is your son, taylor we have transitioned to Taylor.
46:11 - Speaker 2
It's doing amazing. Yeah, he's awesome man and uh, it was a natural transition.
46:17 - Speaker 1
He's a much better pastor, yeah, yeah, well, that's like brandon for me. Uh, you know, when we planted our church, uh, c3 church in fort worth, my son brandon, who pastors c3 fort worth, he's just a better pastor, you know, and, uh, we got it going but you're a great pastor. You really have that thing on you. But now you pastor pastors, now you help mentor pastors and you're helping pastors learn what it is to do church by building strong men. And then, with Dale O'Shields and a number of other friends Joe Champion, a number of others, dino Rizzo you've been doing roundtables, right, chris Hodges, doing roundtables across Latin America Helping men grow churches, helping pastors grow churches. It's awesome. Thanks for being on. Brave Men Enjoyed hanging again. It's always great.
47:09 - Speaker 2
Let's go get coffee now.
47:10 - Speaker 1
Yeah, let's go get coffee. Blessings. Thanks for being with us today. On Brave Men. Remember all the tools and resources for discipling men you can find at cmnmen. Don't go to cnnmen CNN's not going to help you but CMN, christian Men's Network, cmnmen, and you'll find the resources for discipling men, you'll find the tools and also it's an environment to find other men who are doing this around the world in over 100 nations where the Lord's using Christian Men's Network and Maximize Manhood. Hombre Maxima.
47:44 - Speaker 2
No, you just said it. It's not only in English, but if you have, friends in Germany, if you have friends in. Vietnam. If you have friends in the Middle East, they can get it in their dialect. True, in Spanish. All right, thanks for being here, robert.
47:58 - 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 cmnmen. That's cmnmen. That's cmnmen. 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 you find podcasts are downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men. You.