Episode 9

Unedited [Men of Purpose: Rediscovering Masculinity Through The Forge]

In this special episode of Small Town Big God, host Michael Collins presents an unedited interview with Tom Calton, founder of The Forge, a men's ministry in Polk County emphasizing godly masculinity. The conversation covers the history and mission of The Forge, influenced by 'Wild at Heart' by John Eldredge, and its evolution since 2000. The episode delves into the significance of community and discipleship for men, touching on related ministries like New Wilderness Adventures. Key topics include the role of father-son relationships, the impact of modern conveniences on traditional masculinity, and the importance of mentorship. The discussion highlights various initiatives, including a new group for young men and the need for intergenerational mentorship. Viewers are also encouraged to engage with recommended resources and community events aimed at deepening their spiritual and masculine journeys.

00:00 Introduction to the Episode

01:36 Meet Tom Calton

02:40 The Forge: A Ministry for Men

03:33 Origins of The Forge

04:18 The Impact of 'Wild at Heart'

06:17 Personal Journey and Realizations

06:51 The Role of Small Groups and Bonfires

10:44 The Importance of Masculine Community

15:40 Challenges and Cultural Shifts

27:04 Transition to The Forge

46:21 Early Days and Activities

49:34 The Need for Masculine Community

55:17 The Call to Masculinity

58:10 The Forge: Origin and Symbolism

01:01:32 The Importance of Community

01:02:55 Learning from Different Generations

01:04:57 Facing Challenges and Growth

01:05:39 The Role of Mentorship

01:08:38 Counterfeit Masculinity

01:10:33 Spiritual Warfare and Masculinity

01:13:29 Encouragement and Resources

01:28:46 Future Plans and Expansion

Transcript
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Welcome to Small Town Big God.

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My name is Michael Collins, and this is not our typical episode.

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If this is the first time you've ever listened to Small Town Big God, I highly

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encourage you just pause this episode, go listen to one of the other ones,

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because this is not our typical show.

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What this is, is the unedited, or I should say lightly edited version of my

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interview with Tom Calton of The Forge, which is what the last episode was about.

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This is just the Less edited version of that so you won't hear any of my

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voiceovers or me cutting in It's I'm just gonna play the interview for you here

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because there was a lot more content than I was able to use In the last episode,

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but I still wanted to share it with you.

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So You're gonna hear all of our stumbling over the words and

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pauses, um, and ums like that.

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I'm gonna, it's gonna be a lot more raw of a conversation, but Tom shares

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a lot of wisdom, a lot of his heart for masculinity, and I wanted to give you

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guys a chance to hear the whole thing.

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So, I hope you enjoy it.

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And if you do, be sure to let me know, because I could start

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doing this more often, but I need to hear from you whether this is

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something that you would like or not.

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The only editing that I've done to this episode is cutting out a few sections

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where we were adjusting the microphone.

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But thank you guys for listening, and thanks for being

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a part of Small Town Friendly.

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So, Tom Calton, and I live actually in Polk, you know,

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right at the edge of Polk County.

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But been, um, kind of born and raised, you know, in, in this area, um, and

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have, you know, and, and, you know, I was born in 70 and have been, uh,

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living in this area most of my life.

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And, you know, of course, we have a lot of interaction with Rutherford County.

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That's kind of the way things are.

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But, you know, what we do at the Forge is, of course, not limited to, it's not sliced

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up county wise, but it's kind of a region, you know, an area that we, um, influence

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and are in, um, to provide a space for men to Connect and grow and be discipled by

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other men who are on a similar journey.

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So, yeah, um, but been, been in this area for a vast majority of my life

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and having lived in other places, I would say I'm very thankful to

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live in this part of the world.

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That's great.

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Um, so what is the Forge?

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The Forge is a men's, a group of men.

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It's a ministry for men, by men.

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Um, one of the, our taglines that we have continued to pick up and, and

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use is, uh, that we, we create spaces that are unapologetically godly.

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Unapologetically masculine for men to be discipled and that's a that's a unique

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space when we get into it and you you kind of feel what that's like when you enter

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in it is it's unique in many ways and something that's very needed in many ways.

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By the time I heard about the forge the first time, I think

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it had been around for a while.

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Um, how did it get started?

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So you can, you can kind of put a.

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An established time on there, about 2015, is when the forge culminated into

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the beginnings of what it is today.

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Um, really got to go back into about the year 2000 and maybe perhaps a little

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before I was a part of some groups that were beginning to get together as men.

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My brother invited me to his house to, uh, some small groups that were getting

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together around the themes of what we've talked about, you know, restored

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masculinity, biblical masculinity.

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Um, as if this conversation.

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with

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you know, uh, 200 other men like me around the world.

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Um, 180 of those guys would be pointing to the book wild at heart as some sort

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of impetus, a beginning of something.

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And I would say that it's true in this case that really that book changed the

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life of a friend of mine, Mark Folk.

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He, um, said I've got to do this and began a ministry to men were

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recovering about masculinity with this essential message that, um, Eldredge

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himself says, I feel like I found the treasure hidden in the field about,

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you know, recovering masculinity.

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So Wild at Heart was of such a breakthrough book for many Um, and it

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influenced that friend very significantly.

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And he began creating small groups or, you know, joining with the

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Holy Spirit to create small groups.

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And, uh, I was pulled into one of those.

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So that would have been my introduction to this message, if you will.

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Um,

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That would have

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that would have been 2000.

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2000

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right.

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2000, 2001.

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Um, following that, uh, that, that ministry grew

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significantly in the Shelby area.

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And it was kind of funny when we talk about the origins of the

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word, uh, of the forge that, um, I attended some of the bonfires that

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were, had been, uh, something, you know, original circles going on

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around this, in this, in this area.

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And I went there with the, the, you know, it was invited

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and I saw it and I liked it.

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And here's the funny thing.

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I came home and I said, I want to do this, you know, and we kind

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of do something like this here.

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And so we, we had, uh, we did a weekend around that sort of thing down at our

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family's lodge on the green river.

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And I was in the process of really trying to start that and restart that.

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And it's really interesting how the Holy Spirit led me to understand, it's not your

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job to start this, it's your job to help.

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And I remember that moment, Michael, of being like, a really breakthrough

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moment for me that I'm like, Oh.

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But my job, my role has been redefined and it was taking the low seat at the table.

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It was coming in and saying, I do not need to reinvent the wheel here.

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I need to go to the people who are doing this well.

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So, straightway after that, the next bonfire that was happening that was,

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uh, put together by Greg Sailors, um, over, through the, um, the, the

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ministry, uh, New Wilderness Adventures, uh, over in Shelby, and I, I, I go to

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that, and I remember coming to Greg and saying, what do I need to do to help?

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That was a pivotal moment, and I think, uh, Somewhat of my own personal

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journey and then this whole journey of men's ministry because it was so

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Important

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for me to come in and say even though I have some experience in student ministry

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and so on and I see the value of what you're doing and I see the value read

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the book And the book Has Wrecked me in so many ways I need to show up.

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I know something needs to happen.

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But the answer wasn't like, you go start your own thing.

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The answer was, you put yourself under someone else.

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Who has, um, stepped up into this role.

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And it was that way for a while.

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Quite some time I came into alignment with what they were doing and was getting

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people to the events and then we started doing more of them down at the the lodge

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on the river and You know, I understood and saw myself as a role there is that my

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job is to help what God is doing through these men and through this ministry At the

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times that I reflect on that, I begin to, uh, to understand a little more clearly.

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I think that that is, that was an essential step instead of me saying,

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you know, I'm going to do this because the, I'm going to do this.

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Pretty much has me in the middle of

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that.

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I, I would not say I was called.

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I was inspired by what I saw, but I wouldn't say that I was called at

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that point to step up into that role.

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And I had assumed, um, how much of that came from personal pride.

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I would say a good bit of that, but there, I think there's just this assumption that

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was unchecked in me that said, I've got to do this where I am with the people

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that I influence, but that wasn't right.

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You know, it was, I would, I would have been putting the cart before the horse.

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I would have been, um, getting ahead of the game, uh, by taking that role.

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And so the better thing for me to do at that moment is what the Lord led me to do.

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And I'm, you know, so I helped for many years and kind of caught the vision

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and saw what was going on until there was later on a transition that kind of

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wound up, you know, putting it in our

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hands at

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hands.

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That's awesome.

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So just so I'm getting the timeline and story correct here, around 2000,

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maybe right before you read Wild at

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Heart.

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Connect with Mark Folk about these small groups that he's doing.

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Start being a part of

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that.

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You're going to some bonfires, and you find out

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about

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about another ministry that's doing something similar,

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No, New Wilderness

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New Wilderness

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Adventures.

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That is what Mark Folk was doing.

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He started, okay, that's what I

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That was the non profit that he started around, around essentially the message

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of wild at heart, essentially the message of recovering and restoring

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masculinity, biblical masculinity.

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Greg Sailors was, you know, a right hand man to, to, uh, And that was

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where primarily my relationship with that team came into full play because

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at that time, Greg was working with my brother in, um, construction.

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And, um, Because of that relationship, then, you know, the small groups were

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started kind of out of their friendship.

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Gotcha.

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That's where I began to plug in.

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And Greg was the one that was doing the bonfires in Shelby, and,

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um, that's really where I began to see what does this look like.

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The small groups were very important.

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The bonfires were like, oh, I see the need being met.

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I see, uh, the messages and the themes that were being brought out were in

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a lot of ways, very new to me, very fresh and very coming from places, um,

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themes

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and, uh, just delivering truths that I had not grasped, even

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though, you know, have been.

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Undergraduate religious education studies, pastoral studies and

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masters and all that stuff.

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I'd been exposed to so much of that, but yet it's still was not What what I

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experienced and around those bonfires around those those Weekends that we were

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doing they were called the the hero boot camp and I I was really taken aback by the

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weightiness of what was being delivered and the impact it was making on others.

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And, you know, just like I couldn't get enough of the message.

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So, um, yeah, that was, that would, that would have been the

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time that those bonfires to kind of really began to envision what

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that this was very important.

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And it was really meeting a need and speaking into lives and hearts

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of men in such a way that it was.

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packaged for the masculine soul to be able to receive and not just receive,

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but, you know, I think of that scripture in the end of Isaiah 55, where it says,

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um, my word is like, uh, rain and snow that fall and water the earth, but it

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does not return heavenward after, but that it does the job that I sent it to do.

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Right.

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And I felt like those moments were Like that, that water coming into my

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soul in places that I never knew needed watering, that I never even knew were dry.

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And, uh, it was having an effect on me and it was going down deep in me and I

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could see it going down deep in others.

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And so that.

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You know, in a lot of ways, Michael was going to room for pause for

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me to say, what is this, you know, this is, this is a message that

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I'm a little on the unfamiliar side with, you know, even read the book.

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And yet this was going deeper and I'm seeing it worked out in practical ways.

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So it's like, um, you know, seeing men's lives change, men's lives be redirected.

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And of course it's not a magic bullet any more than planting a church in a community

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as a magic bullet for that community.

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But for those that have ears and will listen.

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The change was evident.

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The impact was evident.

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The influence was significant.

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And so I, you know, that, like I said, it kind of gave me,

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it drew me in Um, because of the effect of it.

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And the watering of the souls in ways that we didn't realize that we'd be watering.

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And how did so

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how did you

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How long were you helping out

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with,

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with

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this,

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this

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new wilderness um, I would say it went on for about ten years, around

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in that range of, uh, me, you know, helping and like I said, bringing guys

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and whenever we would have the, the hero, um, events down at the lodge.

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We would show up for that.

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And my, my brother would drive his deuce and a half military

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deuce and a half down there.

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And, uh, we haul guys around on the property and cross places that you

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wouldn't think you could cross in a vehicle and, you know, go up hills and

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down steep hills and stuff like that.

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And just everybody having a blast, you know, and there's fishing and

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then there's, uh, we would do archery.

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We would do.

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Shooting clinics, skeet shooting, you know, all kinds of fun stuff like that.

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But then, of course, in the course of the day, uh, you're getting

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deeper into the message of godly masculinity and what impact that has.

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So all that was really rich.

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Um, that was a lot of fun.

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That was a lot of fun to be able to get.

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And you know, these, these were small groups.

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I mean, there's, you're talking about, I say small, I mean, there's sometimes

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maybe you'd have 25 guys there.

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Sometimes you maybe have 10 guys there, but that didn't matter so much.

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It was like, We're going after the heart of what God wants for these men,

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and we're going to take whatever we can get, and it was just, uh, wonderful.

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We saw, like, baptisms, and, um, you know, just a lot of heart

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transformations, um, of these men.

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Uh, their, their, their lives being reset and reoriented to, you know, God's plan.

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Intent for them and the message reaching deeper and deeper

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layers down into their soul.

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So, uh, yeah, that was, that's kind of what it looked like.

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So you talk about the watering in, in ways that you didn't know you needed watered

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and re speaking to the hearts of men, specifically in biblical masculinity.

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I feel like I have a good understanding of, of the ministry and what you mean by

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the watering and these masculine messages.

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Um, but I'm curious,

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why,

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why do

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do you

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think you,

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You and other men don't realize, or didn't realize, that these

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areas even needed watering.

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Or didn't realize that they were missing out, or missing something that

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they

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needed.

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Well, you've heard me say, uh, one time before in another interview

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that, um, I was reminded of an interview I listened to on, uh, Dr.

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Dobson's Focus on the Family years ago.

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And he was interviewing a physician that was talking about the

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struggles of like modernity, right?

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How modernity has influenced the health of modern people.

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Americans, you know, for instance.

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And this physician was mentioning that when he was younger, he, Um, would

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talk to his patients and find out, you know, what kind of, what kind of things

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they use to supplement their health and, uh, various people would say,

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yeah, I take such and such supplements, you know, multivitamins and so on.

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And he would respond with, that's a waste of money.

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You know, you're wasting your money on multivitamins because you get that

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from your food when you eat well, then you get that stuff in there.

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So just eat, you know, vegetables and whatever, and you're going to be fine.

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And then he's later, he came to the revelation that.

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The food that he grew up with was not the food that he was, uh,

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addressing in his modern career.

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That it, you know, things had changed significantly in the food chain and, uh,

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that, you know, we've got now things are growing very fast and they're growing for

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appeal, like, uh, you know, the look of it instead of what's really inside it.

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Uh, the, and, and, you know, the, kind of the emphasis there, food's

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grown fast and it doesn't really, it doesn't have nutrients in it cause

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it hasn't had the time to be able to develop the nutrients and so on.

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So he began to realize, ah, I missed that.

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I've completely missed it.

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And he did a one 80 and started telling people, no, you need supplements.

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I encourage you to get supplements.

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Uh, well take that and then lay that scenario that I just described about

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supplements and nutrients and food.

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Lay that over the top of masculinity, lay that over the top of our culture today.

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Um, if you take the kind of a average life of the average man,

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And you roll back a hundred years.

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So think 1924, how many times would you, the majority of your

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day be lived around other men?

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Uh, I'm talking to the average guy, you know, and now there's

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definitely exceptions today, but.

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Think about the average cultural difference then versus now.

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And in today's world, there's a lot of, uh, co ed mixed environment.

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Back then you would have a lot of experience around other men.

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And then we're talking about, you know, pre industrial or

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entering into industrial age.

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And, uh, you know, even going back even to.

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1800s and so on.

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You see, men would be fathered by their fathers.

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Uh, you know, I would have my son beside me doing my work.

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I would have other men around me with whom I would be working.

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We might be raising a barn.

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We might be fencing in some pasture.

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We might, but it would be very common that you would be doing a job

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that required physical strength and required you to be around other men.

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And you would also require you, you're handling, uh, big equipment or big

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things or doing things together.

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It required your strength, my strength to work together well, that's going to

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force us to get to know and, and encourage each other and be in close proximity.

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And, and, uh, one of the things that's been repeated in this message is

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that masculinity has to be bestowed.

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Hmm.

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It cannot be.

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I can't sit you down and crack open a book and, and you get it that way, or I

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can't necessarily sit down in a classroom environment and, you know, someone

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teach me how to be, what masculinity is.

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Yes, you can get a lot.

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There's, there, I'm not, I'm not discounting those atmospheres

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or those settings or whatever, but really masculinity is

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bestowed from one man to another.

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Yeah.

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Um, I can remember clearly, and it brings tears to my eyes today,

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the first

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time I remembered my dad referring to me as a man.

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my brother and I were working in, um, in an area where we had purchased some

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steel and we were, um, putting this steel together and packaging it, you

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know, to be shipped or moved or whatever.

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And, uh, my dad had to be somewhere else and he was telling my brother

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and I, as he was leaving, he said, now you men be careful.

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Now that was just a happenstance kind of comment.

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But I picked up on the fact that my brother, who's five years

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older than me, I guess at that time, I guess I would have been

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27, 26, I think it was 26.

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But that was the first time I remembered my dad referring to me

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as a man, and it has stuck with me.

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It hit me.

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I never Lost that memory of my dad, just happenstance as he was walking

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away, referring to me in company of another man as a man, Michael, there

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was something in that, that, uh, that I received the Accreditation, if

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you will,

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from my own father, you're

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a

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man,

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right?

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He just assumed it in the conversation.

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And, uh, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

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You know, you don't really, um, You know, we, we joke around about, well, if you,

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you know, you drive a Prius and, uh, drink a frou frou coffee drink from Hope

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House, you're going to have to give up

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your man

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card or something like that.

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You know, whatever,

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uh, which I've

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done both by the way, but it's a full confession.

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Um, but

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you

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to think about,

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you know, that we, we talk about the man card, but it's interesting how,

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like, that's kind of fallen to the place of something we might refer to.

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In lieu of masculinity, in lieu of true biblical masculinity, and in lieu of that

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fact that I was, I was entrusted, or that masculinity was bestowed upon me by a man,

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my father, who I really saw as a true man.

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So that has been significantly lost in our culture.

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That is the atmosphere in which we're moving.

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That's the water in which we're swimming.

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And why it's so hard to grasp that is, uh, there's a Chinese proverb

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that says if you don't, if you want to know what water is, don't ask the

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fish.

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Because the

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fish is in that culture.

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That is its medium.

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That's its atmosphere.

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So, the fish would not, you know, If it had sentience, it wouldn't be

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able to, to convey, you know, it'd be like, what do you mean water?

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You know, it might be interested in the air that you

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breathe.

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Now that's different, you know, but for it, it swims in, you know, an

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atmosphere that it's just, it's what it lives and breathes and moves in.

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It's, it's, it's culture.

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Same way for us.

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It's

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difficult for us to have a good read on the fact that we

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have lost so much of our own.

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an essential understanding of masculinity, right?

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Um, we talk about how People can't be taught to do the right thing, they

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just have to know to do the right thing, you know, in that sense, so

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when you see the character in someone, uh, There's a, uh, with a friend of

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mine recently, and we were looking over this great, beautiful Vista.

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And he said, you could not buy a view like this, right?

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You know, that, that sense of, no, it is where it's there.

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You have to go to it.

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You know, you have to go to that location to be able to

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receive the beauty that's there.

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I think in a lot of the same ways we have to become, we have to become

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the people who are recovering.

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Masculinity and some of that is, uh, coming to the awareness of the fact

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that our culture has significantly lost that which other cultures

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before us, other years before us would have completely understood.

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They may not have been able to tell you why, you know, how they act the

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other way, why they act that way.

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They just got it.

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They just understood it because they had been shown And it had been demonstrated

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before them, this is what a godly man looks like, acts like, what he does,

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you know.

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Um, again, not saying that we, we can't

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teach to

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that.

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Not saying that we can't demonstrate that in many ways and talk

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about it like we're doing now.

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But the essence of it is we have to, it has to be bestowed.

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So there's a chain.

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That has to happen that, you know, an older man to a younger man,

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but it's not always that way.

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Obviously a younger man can bestow masculinity to an older man,

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but

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there are so many ways and spaces in a lot of that.

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A lot of that has to be with your hands on something doing some

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shared mission or a lot of that has to be around a small circle.

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of

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men

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who are pursuing deeper masculinity, you know, uh, God, godly understanding

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of what masculinity, the godly understanding of what God meant when

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he

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meant

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man.

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And, uh, you know, as they wrestle through that together.

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So nearly

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all of it requires a relationship, you know, with other men as we're,

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as the,

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you know, the scripture talks about iron sharpens iron and That's

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the way one man sharpens another.

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We're dependent upon that, you know, relationship.

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Yeah.

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relationship.

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Yeah.

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That's yeah.

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Very well put.

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Um,

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I understand I think

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now

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the

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heart

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you seem to that everything you just laid out sounds like

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the the reason for the forge

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Um,

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And I will ask you more questions about that in just a minute But I just want

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to get

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to

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you you were helping out with the

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wilderness

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no, it

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Was it Wilderness Adventures.

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Forge?

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New Wilderness

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Adventures

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Mm hmm.

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When

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did,

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when did you decide to transition into and begin the Forge?

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It was, it was interesting.

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Um, the part of the impetus there was, uh, we had put together a women's retreat.

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We called it the beautiful heart retreat and it was really.

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I can't say that in any other way, it just came from the Holy Spirit.

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I just knew we were supposed to do a women's retreat at the lodge.

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So we got some of these, you know, heavy hitters together.

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Um, Barry Strickland and his wife Gail.

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Um, also invited, um, my wife and my sister.

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And so it was kind of, it was so neat, Michael, that we, we invited,

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um, Several women had come down.

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I think there was like, um, 15 or 20 that had come for the weekend.

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And, um, our job was to, to clear the path for these women to encounter this message.

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You know, about, similar message to recovering godly, biblical masculinity.

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Well, of course, we, you know, that, it also leads us to the question, well,

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what is biblical godly femininity?

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Of course, in, you know, the

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Wild at Heart ministry, there's, they've written a captivating book and

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they have the captivating retreats.

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So similarly to that, we put together this retreat and my, it was so wonderful.

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There was so much revelation and goodness that came out of it.

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But one of the surprising, unexpected, um, movements from that

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moment was We're supposed to do

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this.

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And, uh, Greg and Greg sailors and I got, you know, we, we knew that it

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was kind of a moment that happened that like, this is, this is something

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that's supposed to happen here.

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And, uh, that would have been really the, the In a lot of ways, the beginning

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of that conversation, the seed of that conversation, that it needed,

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that it was time for it to begin to culminate around the relationships

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and the community and the godly leadership that the Lord had given to

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us, uh, through, uh, through Jesus.

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Business and ministry, nonprofit connections.

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There was, you know, kind of enough, uh, you know, we use the word quorum,

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you know, do we have a quorum?

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Well, there was a, it seemed in the spirit, there was a quorum of enough

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people to be able to come together, knowing that we were going to have to

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be interdependent and leaning on one another and co supporting and encouraging.

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And we had a lot of leadership and guidance to Greg.

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Um, a lot of anointing there and, you know, it really, um, just began to

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come together at that point, which, you know, was pointing to how unique and

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interesting that was surprising would have been that we followed the leading of

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the Holy Spirit to do a women's retreat.

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And at the women's retreat, it was just going so well and God did so many really

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neat things through that weekend and, uh, but there in the middle of that.

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It was like the nut was

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cracked

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open,

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you know, it was like, Oh, now something new has happened.

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And I love it because it wasn't our pursuit, you know, it wasn't like, Oh God,

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um, we need you to tell us to do this.

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Or, you know, we really want to do this and we want you, you

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know, to kind of rubber stamp it.

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No, it was as we, we, the whole women's retreat, the beautiful heart retreat that

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we went on was astonishing and wonderful.

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And God showed up in such power.

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And yet.

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There, he speaks to us about the beginnings, you know, this, and so, uh,

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at that point we, uh, I remember we were having a conversation with Neil Rogers,

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who is, uh, one of our co founders and like, what would it look like to do, you

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know, a small group or a little event or, and he, he just said, let's just

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try it, let's just do it, let's see what happens, you know, and that was, we were

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like, you know, that was like the clear bell ringing, okay, yeah, Let's do it.

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And so we did.

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And, uh, you know, thank God for small beginnings.

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And, you know, I'm reminded that, is it Zechariah that says, do not

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despise the day of small beginnings?

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And it was a little bit on the small beginning side.

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And there were some guys that showed up at that event that we put on.

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I remember thinking that.

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Yeah, this is probably not

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for them.

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And I never saw him again.

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You know, they came and kind of checked into it and they were like, you know,

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that these were some of the more straight laced, uh, you know, rather established,

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um, men that were, you know, pretty well, um, died in the, a bit more of

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an old school religion kind of thing.

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And they just, you know, and they had their, they, they love their space,

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have their space, and I know a lot of good comes out of their ministry.

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And, uh, but yeah.

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It was like, I, I expected that they would be there and kind of

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check this out and sniff it and like, Hmm, probably not for me.

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And that's kind of how that worked.

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But the majority of that, you know, so minor theme, but the major thing

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was that, um, that many, many guys were like, yeah, I want to do this.

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Let's do this again.

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You know,

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scratching an itch, I don't know how to say that it was, it was fulfilling

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a space, a need, a hunger again.

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Like that nutrient that we were missing, that we did not know we

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were missing, you know, it's, and I do think it takes time, right?

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I don't know if you're familiar, but, um, the, the, uh, disease of

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leprosy, it, it takes generations for that disease to manifest itself.

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And it is a deficiency of a certain mineral.

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That, you know, when people eat only like wheat product because it's, uh, or rice

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product and it's just the only thing they can eat and it's, uh, you know, because

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it's the only thing they can afford, well then for over generations, there's

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less and less of that particular, um, uh, development inside the human body

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to the point where maybe 10 generations in, um, Now it starts to show up as

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leprosy.

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Well, in the same way for, for our culture, I think we are experiencing

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the, you know, when we look at the, uh, the state of disoriented, confused,

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um, you know, big question mark on the chest when it comes to masculinity.

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I mean, we see it all the time.

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I mean, how many times have you seen?

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young guys that are just You look at them and my heart aches for these young guys

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because I know they've been in front of a

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screen

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they've been fed by screens and fed by video games and that's been their their

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Valuation that's been where they have lived Instead of living

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outside.

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I

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was just listening to a podcast by Eldridge Hall.

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He pointed to I think studies showed, and you know, don't quote me on this,

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but like 92 percent of our lives in today's world are lived indoors.

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It is

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just

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gut wrenchingly deplorable.

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I mean, that is, that is ridiculous that we in our modernity have

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chosen to castrate ourselves By staying inside that much, you

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know, we were not meant for that.

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And you know, if you really, you go back and look at the, uh, one of, one of the

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very powerful messages that I got from reading Wild at Heart was, you know,

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Adam

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was created outside the garden and then brought into the Garden.

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Eve was created inside the garden, and that is something very

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significant.

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We, as men, were meant to be, in many ways, outside.

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We're meant to be the ones that, you know, tame the wilderness.

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We were meant to be the ones who engage the ruggedness, and

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it feeds

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us.

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And bring it into alignment with God's purposes.

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You know, um, And of course, you know, the feminine nature often has its own role,

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you know, homemaker and nesting and, uh, you know, establishing, you know, not,

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not, these are not hard and fast rules.

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You know, there's a lot of women that are more outdoor oriented than I am

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or, um, and you are maybe, but it's just, you know, but I'm saying in, in

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the sense of how we were created and that, how that still flows through our

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DNA, it still flows through humanity.

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We, masculinity has been almost, um, phased out in a lot of ways, you know,

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the, the invitation to go outside and, you know, get up in that tree and, you

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know, play skin and cats in the trees or, you know, go fishing or, um, climb

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that mountain or, you know, things, things that just the boy's heart wants

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to

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do.

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That

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has been replaced.

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Well, instead of climbing that mountain, why don't you play a game that includes

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you getting to the top of the mountain?

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And that's the goal, right?

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You know, and it's on the screen and it's so easy and you can sit

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in your air conditioned room.

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And well, you know, a lot of that, quite honestly, is It goes down to

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laziness, you know, the laziness of the way that we raise our children,

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laziness of our own laziness.

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I mean, you know, if you ask me on any given day, would you rather, you know,

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go hike up Mount Kizuma or sit in my, uh, sit in my chair and just, you know,

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uh, have a nice cool drink and just kick back a little bit and, you know, relax?

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Uh, which one of those is going to be the easiest thing to do?

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Which one of them requires, you know, taking up your day?

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And which one of them requires sweat and effort and, you know, and the

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risk of

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failure, right?

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You know, all of this, uh, you know, it's a very big difference.

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But I think we have taken the easy route over and over and over again.

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And what that's done is that has removed a lot of nutrients.

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that our souls need, our masculine souls

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need.

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Uh, because, you know, we have, we have taken the fast food route, we've taken

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the mass, the microwave route, we've taken the, uh, you know, the, electronic

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route, you know, in a lot of ways.

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And we don't, you know, we just don't handle things with our

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hands nearly as much anymore.

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But, you know, we don't live as nearly as in a tactile world.

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And, you know, I'm all about

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air conditioning, man.

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I mean, you know, I absolutely appreciate it.

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Um, I'm all about.

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You know, things that work.

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I'm all about, you know, apps that I can turn on and get me somewhere.

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I don't have to look at a stinking map anymore.

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I can use my app to find out where to get, you know.

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And I think a lot of that is just so good.

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But we, in a lot of ways, we have to be very careful.

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We have to be exceptionally careful in our modern day that we don't let that happen.

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emasculate

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us, because it will.

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There, there's a, there's an insidious effect that the enemy, I

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think, multiplies or, um, you know, fertilizes the fact that we, we will

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convenience

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ourself out of a real journey towards what it means to be a

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godly man if we, if we just keep.

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Taking that route, you know, keep taking, you know, um, Oh, I can't

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remember who it was that said it, but, you know, Men are like water.

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They will take the easiest

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path

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whenever

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possible.

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You

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know, and that's, that's not a slam on men versus women or whatever.

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That's

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just a statement about, you know, Humanity in

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our fallen condition, you know, in our, in the fallen state of

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our world, you know, and, and, but it is the case, uh, in a way,

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truly the way that a lot of things have gotten easier in our world today,

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it means that we depend less on God.

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It means that we wind up depending less on developing our own.

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Abilities, our own character, our own, uh, can do list.

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You know, I, I hang out with a lot of guys that can do a lot

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of

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stuff.

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And it's very impressive to watch men who know what they're

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doing in all kinds of situations.

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I was telling my son yesterday, uh, we were chatting about things like

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this and saying, you know, I was telling him your grandfather, He

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could do a whole lot more than I can

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do.

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He could build a house.

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He could preach a sermon.

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He could, um, rebuild an engine.

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He could grow green beans.

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You know, all these different things.

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He could grade.

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He was really good at grading.

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You know, all the, uh, I'm, I said, I'm like grading like on a, uh,

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motor grader, not, not like grading

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papers

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a

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for clarity,

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man

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but, you know, he, he could do all these things.

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And one of my mentors refers that to that as a generalist,

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a man that can do everything.

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And that's, that's my dad.

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And honestly, that's my eldest brother, too.

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Um, and I'm in awe of that.

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And I was telling my son, who's almost 16, I was like, you know, I kind of feel bad.

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That I've not been able to give you everything that my father could do.

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Um, because you know, maybe I wasn't the kid that wanted to pick it up as much.

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Maybe I wasn't the kid that allowed myself to be challenged in

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those areas and welcomed into it.

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Um, so yeah, I mean, there's, I feel like there's been that diminishment and one of.

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You know, even in our own area, you think about how this used to be very much a

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rural farming community and, uh, not, you know, throwing rocks at anybody.

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But when the, uh, the textile mills moved in and, you know, men began

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to leave the fields and leave the farms and go into the textile mills

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after a few generations, they didn't have anything to hand to their sons

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either,

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except for come work in the mill with me.

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Right, because they had forgotten how to farm.

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They had forgotten how to fix the tractor.

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They didn't need to.

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They got the mill to go

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to.

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Alright?

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Well, what's happened to this area now that the mills have left?

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Yeah.

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I mean, this is one of the areas where drugs are the

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worst out of the whole state.

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And

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I've been to those places, Michael.

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I've been, I've driven down into those dark holes that

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used to be the mill villages.

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And I, before I worked for hospice, I was a hospice chaplain for two and a

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half years here at Rutherford hospice.

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Before I worked for hospice, I had no clue.

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I had no idea, but then as a hospice chaplain, I had to go to those places.

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You know, no problem going there.

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I'm happy to go there and serve my community, but I had

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no

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idea.

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I was clueless.

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As to the destitution and the brokenness and the poverty, and we're not just

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talking about poverty of what's in your wallet, I'm talking about

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poverty of being able to do anything.

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I mean, I just saw it everywhere.

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I mean, it was like you had seen people who had been gutted.

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And then when the mills left, they had nothing to fall back on.

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And it was just, gut wrenching to me to see the, the broken state

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of my community in those places.

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You know, what, where, and what, I just tell you what had been

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lost there, you could almost boil most of that down to masculinity.

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What the men could not do is what wound up putting him in

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those states of, of just poverty.

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It was a spirit of poverty, you know, that, and, and slavery, essentially.

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It was over these places, but, you know, I, I do think, and, you know,

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this is, you know, my main, the major theme of, you know, what I would

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like to deliver is not about, uh, you know, the deplorable state that

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we're in, but that is, you know, A necessary piece to

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understand where we are.

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Mm-Hmm.

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is the, the brokenness that, that I saw there.

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And, you know, we have continued to see that play out.

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You know, if a father doesn't have anything to hand to his son, I mean,

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we all want to give to our children the best that we can give to them.

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And if all the vi all I've got is, um, you know, come work in the mill, mill

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with me, that I'm gonna offer that to my son because I want my son to have,

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you know, some good chance at life.

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You know,

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maybe

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Mm-Hmm.

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. But what we, what we don't realize that we have lost has been, you know, so it's been

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one of the essential pieces of this story.

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The fact that we don't even, we don't even know, just like the water

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who can't, I mean, I'm sorry, the fish that can't describe the water.

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We don't even know what we've lost in so many

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ways.

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We're just, we're so destitute and we're so ignorant as to what we have lost

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that we can't even describe the fact

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describe the fact

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and?

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Uh, that

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would have been

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lost it.

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so the beginning of this time that you were with, doing

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these trainings and stuff.

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Right, it would have coincided.

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And then,

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Um, with the,

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the

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forge,

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you guys started with this, this women's ministry, this idea came

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out of that and then you decided to start with just a one time event and

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have some guys show up and then what,

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what

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was next?

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I mean, did you, why did you kept going even though you didn't have those

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several, a couple guys didn't come back?

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I kind of, you know, I kind of smile and laugh at that because we, we set

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ourselves up for burnout pretty quick.

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Um, You know, it was,

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we were like a bunch of 10 year olds with a big box of firecrackers.

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I mean, it was uh, it was messy and fun and loud and crazy.

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Um, we, we started off by doing a bonfire every year.

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And, uh, you know, we were doing things like, you know, kind of bacon cook off

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stuff where, you know, cook your favorite bacon meal or then we would, you know,

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uh, we would have like sometimes shooting clinics and we'd like, uh, uh, well, just

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a wide variety of things, you know, uh, find your way around with compasses we

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just kept on, you know, doing, you know, we're trying to do an event with some

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kind of theme and had some kind of draw.

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And, uh, we would always, you know, try to have some really

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good food, and we really did.

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We hit that mark very often, but, uh, man

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food,

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you know, specifically.

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Um, but then, after a while, we began to realize that, um, That we were just

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burning ourselves out and one of our friends who is one of our allies to the

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south and upstate South Carolina new formations is the name of their ministry

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and Tim McNamara was the Mentor to me in that place that came to me to said, you

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know, you guys are gonna burn yourself out You're working too hard doing this stuff.

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You're you're going to

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What is that?

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The, uh, line out of the Zorro movie with, um, Antonio, Antonio

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Banderas and, um, Anthony Hopkins.

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And, you know, he, the, the young, young guy.

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Future Zorro gets up and grabs a sword and he's gonna go kill this

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guy that's outside the cantina.

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And the old Zorro, you know, steps in his way and prevents him from

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attacking,

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right?

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You know, and, uh, just go ahead and, you know, disarms him and, you know, has him

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on the sword point within ten seconds.

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And, uh, the young Zorro is like, what did you stop me for?

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I wanted to go kill that man.

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You know, he killed my brother.

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And the old Zorro says to him, you would have fought bravely.

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And

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died

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quickly.

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So, uh, my, my friend kind of came to us and said, Hey, uh, you're, you're, uh,

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fighting bravely, but you're going to die quickly because, you know, you're,

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we were rushing the field with, you know, what we wanted, you know, we wanted to

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have a big vision and a big heart and big desire to go do a lot of good stuff.

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But thankfully the Holy Spirit used that moment to redirect us to say, you

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know, you need to work on relationship.

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You need to move this to, um, small groups and to, to the point where you're getting

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down into men's lives and you're, you're, you have weekly influence and you're

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having conversations and you're meeting consistently and you, you know, you

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can, and there's so much great material out there that we could go to to kind

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of use as our primer for conversations, you know, whether it be wild at heart

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or, you know, The, uh, King Me book by Michael Thompson or, uh, Becoming

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a King by, um, Morgan Snyder so we, we settled into shifting into that as being

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our primary, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, modus operandi as far as, you know, moving

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around, what does the forge look like when

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it's

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deployed, if

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you will, in action, and that has been a very good move to move into that space.

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Because, you know, men, there's a, I wish that I had this in recent

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memory, but there's, there's a, an epidemic of men being lonely.

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And studies show, I think I read that it was like, It's like eight years,

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like you lose eight years of your life, meaning that you die seven or

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eight years early if you don't have a

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good

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community.

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And it is exceptionally present with men.

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Uh, So,

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you know, in this, obviously it's not a conversation just about live

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the longest life that you can.

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Uh, but it is, it does show, I think it does point to the fact that if we

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don't have, Actively, intentionally place ourselves in atmospheres as men

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where we are in masculine community.

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It will never happen.

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It does not happen.

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If you don't have a plan, if you will, if you don't have a way to

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be able to put yourself into an atmosphere where there's other men.

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And again, remember earlier in the conversation we were talking about what we

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used to have 100 years ago, 150 years ago.

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We don't have any more.

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That's not our culture.

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We do not live in an agrarian culture.

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We do not live in a place where you and I are going to meet on

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Saturday and go raise, you know, Mr.

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Jones

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barn

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and hang out with, you know, 15 other men who are rough cut and

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getting things done and are strong and capable and they can do anything.

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That's

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not our world.

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That's not where we live right now.

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And, you know, that was, that was great for then.

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But that's not the world we live in.

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And in the same way, that's, that's why you see, you know, it, we, we

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are so independent, we're, and we've been enabled to be independent.

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You know, I don't even have to get out of my chair and drive

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down to Burger King to eat a meal that's probably not good for me.

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Um, I can have it door dashed

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over

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to

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me,

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right?

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And I can keep binging on Netflix while that's going on.

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How wonderful, right?

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Um, Except for the fact that, you know, I have, I have disen,

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I've

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taken myself out of a situation where I need to be around other people.

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I need other people, right?

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And I'm not, and I'm just not going to be around others,

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whatever, you know, uh, church.

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Hey, you can, and I'm not, I'm not bashing watching online.

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Um, if you need to do that because of some sort of extenuating circumstance,

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but we also pull ourselves out of that environment, it's with this

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assumption that, um, well, I can get the same thing I can get by being

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present in, in, you know, physically.

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No, you can't.

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Because you're not, you're not bringing yourself.

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What about the glory of God in you?

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That the church needs for you to be there in that space with other believers.

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And, you know, iron sharpening iron, and, and being present.

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And, you know, maybe we think, well, I don't have much to offer.

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So, you know, what difference does it make whether or not I

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watch online or whether I go?

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Well, that sounds like a really well crafted lie of the enemy to me.

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To be able to keep people out of where they need to be, right?

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So anyway, masculine loneliness is huge.

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That is a massive, massive problem.

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Pornography

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has probably been one of the most influential factors in that.

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I mean,

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honestly, if I don't think That I need a woman in my life to satisfy

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the things that God has put into me.

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Then now I don't need a woman.

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Now I don't need to change.

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Now I don't need to grow.

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Now I don't need to become.

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Right?

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Now I don't need to become the kind of person who can marry the kind of

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person that I would like to marry.

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So,

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inadvertently or in ways that we don't expect, pornography I think

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has taken men out of community.

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Because there's, there's just, you know, well, and there's also the

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embarrassment factor, like, you know, the, the enemy, um, accuses us, condemns

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us for, you know, stepping into sin, uh, you know, participating in, in sinful

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thoughts and actions and whatever, and then so like, well, you know, they

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wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't.

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I'm just going to not go there.

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I'm just not going to expose myself to an atmosphere where I'm

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going to get convicted, whatever.

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Or be around other people who will call me up out of that.

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It's just easier, right?

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It's almost like pornography is the fast food of marriage and relationship.

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You know, that kind of thing.

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And I'm not just focusing on that.

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I know that's kind of a hot button or a buzzword in a way.

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But look at the, just zoom out.

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Look at its effect.

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Zoom out and look at what it's doing to the person.

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It is creating an atmosphere where a man or a person.

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is disengaging from reality, disengaging from relationship, disengaging from

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bringing their strength, disengaging from learning what it means to

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interact with someone in a positive, loving, encouraging, building up

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kind of

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way.

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And, you know, marriage is

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hard.

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It's not easy.

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As wonderful as it is, as glorious as it is, you know, it's just, it's not easy.

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It requires so much more

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of

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you

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to step up into marriage, right?

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So it, it also requires so much more of you to prepare for marriage, to

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become the kind of person that can be the, the kind of man that can

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bring his best in marriage, you know?

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So it, and I, all of that is an example of what I think is happening in a lot of

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ways to masculinity that we are being.

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Enticed into

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a, a lazy heart, a lazy mindset, a, you know, a, a lazy half hearted,

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uh, bringing of, you know, any of our glory to situations or becoming,

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you know, being refined and being

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shaped and things

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like that.

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Because truly masculinity

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is

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a calling up.

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and a shaping and a, you know, a refining and that sort of thing.

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You know, you, you, um, would

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we be a better, uh, more protected nation if we told our, uh, soldiers,

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okay, go into the barracks and everybody pull out your iPhone and find something

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to do for the next, you know, several hours instead of, you know, sending

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them on runs or going out and, you know, training with your weapon or, you

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know, training for self defense, right?

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You know, is that Would we really be happy as taxpayers if that's

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what our military was aimed at?

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You know, because that's beginning to say, well, there's no real threats out there.

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What do we even need a military for?

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You know, if, if there's no real threats out there, if there's no real dangers

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out there, you know, and, and if, if our military gets lazy, then we have,

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you know, that affects our defense.

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That affects our ability to live our lives, right?

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You know, so there's a posture of readiness and a

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posture of, I will get better.

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I will get stronger.

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I will, you know, become more of the person that I can

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become in order to be stronger.

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And I think the same thing is happening, you know, in, in the story

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of masculinity in our world that we've gotten, we've gotten supremely

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lazy in a lot of ways.

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And, you know, I'm not.

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I'm not bashing any particular person or whatever, I'm just saying, you

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know, I, I look, you know, with broad eyes and see that, yeah, we, we've

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gotten, we, we we expect a lot

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less,

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and we, we call ourselves up to a lot less, and that means we become much less

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people, and we become isolated, and we become lonely, and then we get taken out.

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So you,

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you start these small groups, you get getting men into community with other

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men, encouraging them to not to be lazy, to go and, and take action and be more

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than they

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are

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today.

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Um, is this

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the point

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when you

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started calling it the forge?

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Where did the

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name,

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the

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forge come

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from?

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Yeah, well, um, we had a good friend that, uh, this is not Billy Salyers at the time.

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This is rolling back into the, um, more like, uh, 2015 era that, uh, we had a

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good friend who was kind of based at my place of business in a shop and he

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was, uh, building knives, handcrafting knives, and he was a bladesmith

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in Damascus, and we had a forge.

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There, like on the properties, we had a forge, we're like, oh, you know what

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we need to do is that one of these, we need to begin to kind of have some

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groups that come around this and, and, and so, and it of course works with just

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the sense of, you know, iron sharpening iron and it works with the sense of,

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you know, forge

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is

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hot.

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And it's laborious, and there's a lot of intentionality in crafting, and you

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know, especially, I mean, that's, that's just, I'm thinking just about the blade

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itself, but, you know, if you go over to the Yellow Rose Forge and you watch

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Billy Salyers hammered this stuff out.

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I mean, there's a lot of work just getting the steel to the place where

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they can make something out of it.

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Especially if you're talking Damascus, they even, I think they're even

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experimenting with stainless steel Damascus, which has a whole nother

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world of idiosyncrasies to it.

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So there's a lot of, Crafting that goes into that, you know, stuff that comes

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out of the forge and it's not easy work And it's uh, but it's beautiful and it's

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last time I'm carrying a knife on me right now that I got from them and you

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know We we have our own knife series that we made, you know in partnership

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with the yellow rose forge So, you know all of that just kind of fed into that's

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a

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really

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good

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name

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for you know What we want because we want to be men who are forged

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Forged into what we're meant to be.

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We kind of come a little bit blank in some ways, you know,

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like there, there's a shape.

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And, uh, and if you, I mean, I would, I would highly suggest anyone who's

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listening, um, jump in, uh, to do a class with Billy at the Yellow Rose Forge,

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because you'll experience, I mean, he'll hand it, he'll hand you a piece of steel.

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That's just a flat chunk of steel.

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And by the time you're done with that class, it's a knife.

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It has been made into something that's useful.

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It's durable.

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It, um, you know, you can use it in so many different ways and it's got

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your name on it and it's got your intentional, um, hand craftedness in,

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it.

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With the, with the idea around all of that intentional shaping, and I

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see that as like, God the father,

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fathering us as his beloved sons.

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And it's not all, it's often not easy, and it's often painful,

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and it's often a lot of work.

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But, when he's done with us, we're his.

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Right, and we have his marks on us, and when he's done with us,

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as he works with us, we become more user friendly, you know, we,

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we become more powerful, sharper.

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We become more tempered for the work, you know, as he works

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and, and he uses other men.

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To do that in our lives

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so much, you

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know, I want to riff for a second on just the fact that, um, around the

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fires of the forge, we've got guys that are in their teens, twenties,

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all the way up to seventies.

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And that is something that I really don't think that we

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get again, there's a nutrient.

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There's a, there is a class of nutrient right there.

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That we have been missing in a lot of ways that if you don't intentionally,

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if I don't intentionally churn in

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time,

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big word, time and listening

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with

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men who are older than me and younger than me, then I'm going to be missing

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something significant in my life.

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There is just something about, you know, even watching a boy play sometimes.

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I can be like, I want to

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be

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back

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like that,

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you know, I want to, and I just, you know, I saw a sign over here

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when I was, you know, in the, in the children's facility a couple of days

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ago and it said, don't forget to

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play.

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Right.

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Amen.

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Don't

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forget to play.

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And as men, we need to be those kind of guys that we don't forget to play.

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And we teach our kids and teach our family, teach other men

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around us, other people around us.

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It's okay

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to

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play.

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Right.

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And so there's, there's something about

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being around

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that young man.

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And in his world and seeing how he interacts and, and you, you pour in all

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you can, you know, but receive what, what God, our heavenly father is telling us,

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our loving beloved Abba, our daddy is training us right there and watching that

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little guy just have a blast, you know, whether it's digging a hole in the sand

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or, you know, splash around on the water or whatever.

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That's just glorious.

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And it's really good to engage that, get into that.

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And the same thing with older men, you know, men that are beyond you, men that

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are two, three decades beyond you, that they have, they have wisdom, discernment,

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perspective, they just have refinement sharpening that's happened to them.

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And, you know, in our culture, again, we don't, I think we don't realize how

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much that we discount older people.

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You know, they say you can sell a whole lot more product if you get that

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product in the hands of an 18 year old

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male.

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What

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about the 68 year old male?

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Well, I don't know they're gonna be selling too well.

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Maybe an AARP package or something like that, but no, we're, you

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really, we, there's so much value And being, um, on both ends

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of that,

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you know, where you get and you experience, but of course

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you have to be open to it.

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Of course, you have to be exhorted to take a look at the fact that who

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you are as a man right now, you need older men speaking into your heart and

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life, who you are as a man right now.

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You need younger men to be pouring into and to watch and encourage

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and to be encouraged by them.

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You know, there's.

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There's

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so much value in those kinds of things.

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And again, we, you know, that, that, that's a layer of that nutrient that

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we're typically not getting because of the

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flow

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of our culture that is in it.

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You know, it's just, it is where we live, right?

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In such a way so that our answer, a big part of our answer of what to do

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about masculinity, what to do about where we are, a big part of this is

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going to be, you have to get into the environments where that's happening.

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It may be that you, you join a, a biking club, you know, so you're going to be

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around guys that are, you know, pushing themselves physically or whatever, and,

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you know, becoming better in that way.

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Or maybe you get around, maybe you go on a mission trip with other men

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that are building houses in Guatemala and you don't know, you know, one

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end of a screwdriver from the other.

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Well, just walk up into that and say, I don't know

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what,

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but I'd love

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for you

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to

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teach

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me,

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you know, so again, submitting, taking that lower seat of the table,

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acknowledging, becoming vulnerable.

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You know, among other men and saying, I really need to be

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fathered here.

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I mean, uh, one of my buddies fathered me, uh, Greg Saylor, as I

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mentioned him earlier, fathered me in

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hunting.

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And if I didn't have him to teach me how to hunt, I wouldn't

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know half of what I know.

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I don't know a ton, but you know.

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I've

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killed

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some stuff.

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Okay.

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But, uh, but, but it, uh, I needed

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him.

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I needed him to father me.

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And it's weird, Michael.

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I had this kind of aversion to it.

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I didn't even want to think about it.

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I was kind of annoyed by the conversations about hunting until I

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admitted

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that I

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needed

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help.

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And I went

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to him and I'm like, I need you to

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father.

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me because my

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dad did not have that.

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His dad did not give that to him.

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Because my grandfather did not give that to my father.

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I did not get it because my dad did not have much there to be able to give me.

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I mean, we, we learned how to squirrel hunt and rabbit hunt

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a little bit and that was it.

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And we, he loved to fish and we, you know, we would go there every

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now and then whenever we could.

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But, and so I got from my dad what my dad

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could impart

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to

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me and I

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loved it.

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every minute of it.

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But there, you know, that was an area that I did not.

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really wanted to have or what I needed and it's been a blessing and

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I've been able to hand it to my son.

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He's already killed an eight pointer.

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The biggest thing I've gotten is a seven pointer, I have to say my, my 14 year

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old son

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smoked

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me on

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that

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one, which is, which is awesome.

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Um, but.

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But I think that to me, see, that's, that's got even

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more

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value

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now, same as almost 16 now, but when he was 14, he killed

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that beautiful eight pointer.

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And, um, that says something to me, like, no, no, I might not even have

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attained that,

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but he is.

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And I love being able to introduce my children into more.

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That way, you know, but it's only because it's been handed to me and only

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because I had the, um, the grace from the Holy Spirit to say, you just need to

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get humble take the low seat at the table and say, Greg, I need you to father me.

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And there's men out there who would adore

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doing that, who would love doing that, that are waiting.

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on someone of character to come to them and

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say, I need you to father me.

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Right there.

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And, but see, that goes against what the, the false self, what the, um, the

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poser part of masculinity, which, you know, is a very, very common thing that

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we, that we'll pick up some sort of something that, you know, I'm going to

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posture myself as if I got what it takes.

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You know, I'm a man.

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I'm good.

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I'm fine.

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I don't need anybody, whatever.

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I'll take that posture.

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Um, and what we don't realize is that actually prevents us, in a lot of

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ways, from receiving what we need.

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And you know, here I am talking about it.

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I'm sure I'm doing it in ways I'm not even

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aware of.

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But, um, The fact is that, you know, we, a lot of times in, in our

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culture today, because of the, a, a lack of good, true, healthy, holy

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masculinity, we have gone for a lot of

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counterfeits

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and that might mean that, you know, I, I bulk up and tried to be the

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baddest looking dude at the gym.

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It might be a ride around on a motorcycle with leather jackets and, you know,

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ink on every square inch of my body.

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It might be that I, you know, uh, just, you know, try to sleep

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with as many women as I can.

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You know, and it doesn't, I'm not saying that, you know, tasks are wrong.

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Not saying the motorcycle riding is wrong.

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I love riding my motorcycle and all, uh, but.

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At the same time, we're going for lesser versions, you know, we, we're

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struggling, you look at the ways that men are trying, trying desperately to be

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masculine, trying desperately to figure

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it

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out.

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Just, it is just heartbreaking.

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To see that, you know, the desperate attempts, it's like throwing

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somebody in the deep end of the pool and they have watched someone dog

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paddled on TV and they do the best

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they can, you know, and it's just struggling and splashing and just wasting

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all kinds of energy, freaking out.

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But, you know, what that looks like a lot of times is, you know, a lot

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of this posturing that goes on.

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And

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you know, bless our hearts.

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We all do it in one way or another, some version of it in some places,

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you know, I mean, yeah, we, we, we all know that there's places

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that we can't really come through.

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You put me on a basketball court and you, and I'll show you how little

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I

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can

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come

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through

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with the basketball.

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Right.

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Um, but you know, it's like, But, but obviously to be a secure man,

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we

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don't

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have

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to have

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everything together.

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We can't, you know, we don't have to know everything and be able to do

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everything perfectly by, by no means.

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Uh, so that's the, that's a fallacy in itself.

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But, uh, you know, what, what we're attempting to create is these

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atmospheres or unapologetically godly, unapologetically masculine,

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and we're coming around these themes

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and we're,

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we're trying to get settled in the sense of like, well, how does, how does God.

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Bring us up as beloved sons.

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What does that look like?

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One of my favorite examples of this is David keeping his

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father's sheep in the field.

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And God allowed a lion and a bear to come after David's father's sheep.

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I mean, I think in today's world, a lot of minds would read that and

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say, why would God ever do that?

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Like, it looks like God doesn't care.

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It looks like God's being kind of mean to this

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poor

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kid,

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you know?

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And what about David's dad?

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It would send him out there, you know, going to, you know, face a lion.

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Are you kidding me?

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He weighs 120 pounds.

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And he's supposed to face a full grown lion?

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I mean, that's like, child abuse right there, you know.

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Somebody needs to throw Jesse into DSS jail.

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No, but look at what God did with that.

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God allowed that to happen.

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And David, then when he faced the real giant, what did he tell King Saul?

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David says,

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your servant has faced the lion, your servant has faced the bear, And the same

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God that delivered me then, as I, you know, killed that animal, killed the

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lion and took the sheep out of its mouth.

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That same God that protected me there will protect me now.

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So, let me at him!

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You know?

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And that's what happened.

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And it's like, you know, so, our journey into recovering

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masculinity has to be something like

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that.

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We

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have to face things that we don't, we wouldn't normally want

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to necessarily face, you know.

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We have to become the kind of people who invite challenges or

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welcome the difficulties or, you know, are in communion with God to

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the point where we say, grow me in

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this, uh, teach me in this, lead me in this, help me become in this.

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You know, there's a posture of humility, but it's also a posture of confidence

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and strength that I am settled.

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I'm settled in my father's love for me.

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I'm settled in my father's identity in me that I am a stem of that victorious

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stock and I will walk that way and I will live that way and I will bring the

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kingdom the way that he leads me to do so.

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me to do so.

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That's

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good.

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That's

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Yeah.

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Um.

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If you,

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if, if there was one thing that you could, one message that you could speak to every

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person in Rutherford County, in Polk

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in

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this

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area, what would that

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be?

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Oh my, um, As, as

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the guy

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with the

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Forge hat on, I

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guess, I would, um, I would encourage an invitation to come

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to the spaces at the Forge.

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You can find us online, theforgefire.

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com, um, and check it out.

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And

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see, is this, you know, is this for you?

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Is this where you, if this is where God is calling you to be.

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I mean, we, we meet Monday mornings.

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There's a group that meets at open road coffee house, 7 a.

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m.

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That's in Columbus, North Carolina.

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Then there's, um, you know, a group that meets right here at hope house

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coffee, um, right across from element church, uh, on Broadway for city.

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That's a 6 45 a.

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m.

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In the back.

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And, um, That's, some have

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named that

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the

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too

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early group.

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And then, then there's another one at the flight deck.

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You can find that on Google.

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Uh, just look up the flight deck on Google Maps and that will be,

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um, There's a, there's a Bible study group that goes on there.

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And then Thursday evenings, uh, same location at the flight deck.

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At 6.

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30 PM.

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And there's other groups.

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There's groups that meet in upstate South Carolina.

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There's groups that meet in Rock Hill, South, uh, South Carolina, Charlotte.

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Uh, and there's some in Tennessee.

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There's, there's several that are around us and, and we

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really try to be, um, allies.

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And.

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Cover each other's back and love on each other and, and, uh, lift each

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other up and be there for each other and send, you know, someone will come

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from one group and move over here.

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Um, like that has happened recently.

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And one guy, you know, was deeply involved in Durham.

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Mm-Hmm.

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. And, uh, he moved out here to, uh, in the middle of nowhere and, uh, and here we

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are, you know?

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Mm-Hmm.

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So how did,

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I didn't realize that we, there were so many

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groups

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all over

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the

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place,

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how

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the,

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you go from, you got these, this, you're doing some small groups, you know,

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kind of here to, how did that start

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to

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spread?

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Right.

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Well, those, those allies that I just referred to in upstate South

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Carolina, Charlotte, and all of that, they, they, many of those were

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pre existing before the Fords came

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Gotcha.

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Okay.

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So

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they were their own

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groups and

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then

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you just

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connected.

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Exactly.

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Right, right, right, right, right.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I mean, if you're, if you have this shared mission that we have, and, and, well,

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one thing, a fun thing to do to come.

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She wanted to kind of see this in, um, full regalia, if you will.

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Um, every about the second or third Saturday after the new year, we will

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have a Christmas tree bonfire and it is a big, uh, 200 to 300 Christmas trees.

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Depending on, you know, how many ever we wound up wind up getting, but I mean,

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it's a big stinking pile with like.

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I don't know how many billion

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BTUs

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are

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in that

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pile,

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but we release them all with a lot of, uh, explosive, uh, chemical compounds

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and go really big boom and flame.

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And Billy Sawyer's comes and gets things going, you know, to

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get the fire established with the flame thrower that he built.

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And, uh, it's a lot of fun to just, you know, kind of watch that

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go on and participate in that.

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And we always, you know, blast some stuff off with tannerite.

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We, we have.

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T shirts that say, that are like forged BSU T shirts.

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So that

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stands

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for

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blow

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stuff up

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because we like to blow stuff

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up.

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All men like to blow stuff up.

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As a matter of fact, several of the women's groups are like,

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we want to blow stuff up too.

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Can we not do this for women?

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Uh, but you know, we, um, we're, we always try to, we, you know, throughout the year,

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we, we, have three

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or

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four events,

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uh, and, but our big one, kind of our flagship event is the, um, the

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Christmas

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tree bonfire.

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Uh, and, and that's, you know, always going to be about that time of the year.

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And at that point you could see all these groups.

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They all come.

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Gotcha.

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It is a family reunion of these guys we, we do some teaching, we

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do some leadership development.

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Uh, but most of it is just getting to hang out with people who, you know, are.

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Who have kind of understood the message and are pursuing it Um and and to that

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end i'll i'll further a little bit of you know towards your question Like if uh,

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what about if i'm talking to people, uh, you know, what would I want to encourage?

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I want to encourage you to to to listen in on some of the the spaces

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where these This message is going on.

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Uh Wild at heart has an amazing podcast with john eldredge You Just listen, you

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know, just plug in and listen to that.

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Um, one of his colleagues, Morgan Snyder,

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uh,

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Becoming Good Soil is the name of his podcast.

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Just listen to that.

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Um, you know, get your, get the men in your life to listen to that, you

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know, put it in front of them and, uh, listen to some of the, some

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of the things that are going on.

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This is a little bit like describing

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Something, something

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is ubiquitous as quantum mechanics or something.

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And it's like, it's everywhere.

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But it's so down deep in our culture and our existence that

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we just don't really see it.

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You know, it is, it is so, um, down in who we are and down in what we do.

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It's, it's very difficult to grab it.

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You know, one of the things I remember Eldridge teaching was,

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for instance, spiritual warfare.

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He's been a father to me in spiritual warfare.

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And I remember him talking about one time before, he's like, um, I

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never even had a category for this.

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Now, that phrase, really has meant something to me over the years.

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I never even had a category for that.

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And that Michael is so true.

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We don't

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have categories for the things that we've been talking about because we

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just, they're not in our perception.

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We don't see them.

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It's almost like there is a, um, part of the, you know, the light spectrum.

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That we don't even have anymore.

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We, our eyes can't even pick it up anymore.

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We don't even perceive it anymore, but it's there.

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And all of this, you know, our need for masculinity and our,

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our need for recovering what it means as biblical masculinity.

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How, how that works out, what that works out, what does it look like?

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How do you get there?

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Uh, what do you mean by that?

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You know, all of the, if you, if you start digging into those podcasts,

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another one is, um, Exploring more with Michael Thompson and Zoe Ministries.

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Uh, get those podcasts and start to digest what's being said.

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And you'll begin to understand, oh, I'm beginning to see I don't

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even have a category for that.

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I don't even have a shelf to put this on What do I do with this?

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You know Understanding and it's not you don't you I think it's easy to

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assume that this might be a bunch of chest beating or posturing or you know

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trying to Talk up men or whatever.

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It's it's not that it's just like wait.

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We're trying to recover What God meant when he meant as he created?

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Man and woman, he says, let us create man in our own image,

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male and female, he created them.

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So,

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and, um, if you, biblical scholars talk about, The law of first mention.

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So

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the first time you see a well in scripture, it means something.

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Look at what's going on around that moment.

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It will carry through the rest of scripture.

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The first time we have

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that

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definition of masculine that he created them, man and woman, male

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and female, that is first mention.

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And God is saying, I created my image

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in masculinity, in femininity.

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So you know, femininity has just as much equity at this table as

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masculinity does when we're talking about what does it mean when God

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made

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humanity.

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And of course we're talking, you know, the primary subject for this

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discussion is what did God mean when he meant men, masculinity?

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So, as we, as we wrestle with these things, as we, as we

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handle these, this is huge stuff.

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This is massive stuff.

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And the fact is, we probably, most of us, don't have categories for it.

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So it is, uh, in a lot of ways, our lack of even perceiving that it's there.

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That has,

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you know, that is evidence to the fact that we are so far off the mark.

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We're not even hitting the

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target.

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You know, we'd like to hit the bullseye.

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Great.

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It'd be nice if we could start hitting the edges of the target

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first so that we can walk it into

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the

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bullseye.

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Right.

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But the fact is we're so far off the target.

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We don't even have categories for this.

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We're so off the target.

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Like, you know, as I mentioned.

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John Eldridge really fathered me in spiritual warfare.

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I was nowhere near hitting the target of spiritual warfare and understanding

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what was going on spiritual warfare wise, until I started to listen to him.

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And then I began to start to at least get on the target and, and, you know,

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have walked it a little closer to the bullseye, hopefully since then.

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But, you know, dialing in where we are missing, we've got a lot

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of elementary stuff to go through.

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And that's why I say.

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Get into this podcast, read the book.

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Uh, John Eldridge's Wild at Heart is a keystone.

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Um, it is like the Rosetta Stone.

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You got to start there.

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That's what I'd say.

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Um, got another one.

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Very similar genre is, um, Heart of a Warrior by Michael Thompson.

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Um,

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then the Becoming a King by, um, Morgan Snyder and then just getting into

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those podcasts and begin to digest some of those things and or the books

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And there's also video series that you could go kind of digest a lot

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of this stuff It makes it it's very

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very accessible

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extremely accessible.

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So, uh, it's it's you know, it's no fault It is extremely uh

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At our

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fingertips.

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And so, you know, we got some windshield time, start to digest some of that

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stuff and that's going to help.

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And so, yeah, that's what I would encourage and encourage, uh, people

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to say, take ownership of, um, you know, cause one of the difficult

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things that could be, we hear this, you know, conversation that I'm

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bringing to the table is like, well,

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I

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think I'm doing pretty good.

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Right.

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Or I, I don't know that I need that.

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And I get that.

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I get that.

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But we do need it.

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And even if it's for the giving of it to others, we still

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need it.

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And so, um, I, and, and beginning to, you know, cause sometimes like, you

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know, Hey, if I'm a little overweight and someone mentions, you know, Hey,

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you can come with me to the gym.

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I might, I might get a little offended at that.

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Like, well, you think I need to come with you to the gym?

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You think I'm not, you know, not whatever.

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Yeah.

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Well,

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listen,

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it's

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true.

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We need

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to

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go to

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the

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gym,

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right?

Speaker:

We need, we need to change the way that we're consuming things.

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We need to change the way that we're living.

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We need to become, we need to wake up to this, uh, because it is a, an epidemic.

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In our world, and we all demonstrate some of the, um, presenting

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issues

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with this, we all have some symptoms when it comes to this, you know, whether

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it's women, uh, being disconnected from what God meant when he meant femininity,

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whether it's men being disconnected from what God meant when he meant

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masculinity, we all are sharing in that.

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need to grow up in these places.

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So instead of seeing it or receiving it as like, well, that's just

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one more thing I got to do now.

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No, just, you know, I would, I would encourage,

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just

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sit

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with it,

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begin to begin to digest.

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It takes a while to metabolize what's being said.

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Uh, I've heard many people say when they picked up wild at heart, they read

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through it and they're like, uh, that was

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amazing.

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but I feel like

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I only

Speaker:

got

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20 percent of

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it.

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So they go back again and maybe they, you know, show up with 40

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percent of what was, you know, what Eldridge is trying to convey.

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It's huge.

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I mean, it is, it is groundbreaking.

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It is blockbuster.

Speaker:

It is life transforming.

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And you know, if you get that message, then you're going to be

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able to get a whole lot more of what God's doing here, in my opinion.

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So, um, Yeah, I would, I would encourage, do that, um, you don't have to come, I

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wouldn't say you gotta come to the forge, um, although that's a great place where

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you can get some of that, uh, but it's not the magic bullet either, it's not

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like a fix all, uh, you know, my man is a mess, I need to send him to the forge,

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I don't know we're gonna be able to fix anything, you know, but we can, we're

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other, we're men that are coming around a message and we're getting better.

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You know, and, and, and there's a lot of hope in knowing that there's things you

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can do to get better and get, you know, some restoration and moving towards it.

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And it's a journey, right?

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It's, it's a, yeah, we, we got into this mess over generations of being disoriented

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from who we are and our father's identity.

Speaker:

Identity is huge.

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Identity is absolutely massive.

Speaker:

We

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got into this mess by losing our, our understanding of who our Heavenly

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Father is and how much He loves us and that our identity is completely

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and totally founded in that, you know, His love for us and His intent for us.

Speaker:

So we've got to go back to that.

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That's the keystone.

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That's the Rosetta Stone, uh, that we've got to go back to and just get the

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understanding of, like, who, who we were meant to be and why he created us and,

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you know, out of his image, he created us.

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What does all that mean?

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And then we can begin to really begin to recover.

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And then we can begin to see how much we have really been off.

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You know, we really have been off and you know, the ways that we've tried to

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treat the symptoms that are coming to the surface, you know, instead of the, you

Speaker:

know, we treat it with, with pornography, we've treated it with, you know, um, um,

Speaker:

just checking out and vegging out we've, we've treated it with just becoming

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less and expecting less, you know, we've treated it that way and that is all wrong.

Speaker:

And, uh, we, so it's going to require us to get.

Speaker:

back to the basics of what we really were meant to be.

Speaker:

And those avenues will help tremendously.

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Yeah,

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That's

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absolutely,

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great.

Speaker:

I

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feel

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like

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you've got

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plenty,

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of,

Speaker:

know,

Speaker:

I can,

Speaker:

I've

Speaker:

got

Speaker:

an idea of kind of where

Speaker:

it's going to be when the time I finish editing, I think.

Speaker:

Um, but if there are any, is there anything

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else

Speaker:

about the forge, about how it came to be, about what you guys are doing, about

Speaker:

future

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that

Speaker:

you

Speaker:

want

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to

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mention?

Speaker:

Yeah.

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Uh, I would say our future, our future is probably gonna be more about,

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you know, uh, extending, expanding into hopefully some more groups.

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We do have a, um, young man that's going to start leading a group for young men.

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Uh, that'll be like probably every other Thursday night

Speaker:

down at the River Barn site.

Speaker:

And, um, you know, that's come from partially because I've got a 15, almost

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16 year old, but I mean, he's, he's thoroughly well oriented, uh, but you

Speaker:

know, it's like there, I see a need in so many more young men and I know

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there's going to be a space for them to be encouraged and it's just, Even if

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someone is well oriented to be around other men and to be even more oriented

Speaker:

and get even more guidance and get even more anchoring and deepen the roots even

Speaker:

further, there's nothing wrong with that, and that happens in community and it

Speaker:

happens in small groups and it happens in spaces where young men can be young men.

Speaker:

You know, they can do the dangerous, crazy, fun, wild, silly things

Speaker:

that they, you know, uh, that,

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that is

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just wholesome for them to get into know, uh, the things for them

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to do and the discussions and the values and things that are going to

Speaker:

be, you know, stirred up in that.

Speaker:

Um, again, you know, talking about that, the fact that we have to,

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you know, Have bestowing has to go on, bestowing has to go on.

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Bestowing has to be imparted and given as a gift.

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And so we create, we want to create atmospheres for that

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to happen for young men.

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Um, I'm thinking like, you know, 13 to 18 in that, in that space in there.

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Um, so that, yeah, that's, that's going to be, that's going to be one of our

Speaker:

growing edges here in the next, in the, you know, various phases of life.

Speaker:

Short foreseeable future.

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Um, and then, you know, probably, um, we're, we're likely going to be

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putting on some of our own events.

Speaker:

Like I referred to the, you know, the heroes bootcamp or the wild at

Speaker:

heart bootcamp or the, um, what, um, Michael Thompson and Zoe do, uh, called

Speaker:

the heart of the warrior encounter.

Speaker:

Um, you know, to, to kind of take that and put it in like local, small

Speaker:

town, friendly atmosphere and just let God, you know, Do what he's going to

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do with that,

Speaker:

you know, because it's, it's not about, you know, um, executing it perfectly.

Speaker:

It's much more about just creating an atmosphere and letting the Holy Spirit do

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the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

It didn't have to be.

Speaker:

by any means.

Speaker:

So, yeah, those, those are some spaces that I can see us growing into and

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believing that there's more and then probably creating even more small

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groups and atmospheres where that, that just, you know, is a part of who we

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are.

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Right, right.

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Yeah.

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And I would want to encourage anyone who wants to do that kind of thing.

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Uh, you know, I'm happy to talk and I'm happy to even refer you to other people

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who could do a better job of that.

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Then I, uh, yet at the same time I would say be very, uh, wise about how

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you approach it because, um, you know, it's, it's exceptionally needed and it's

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exceptionally, um, uh, effective when done well, uh, and it is a magnet for

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warfare and it's a magnet for, um, you know, it, it, if, if you're not confident,

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deeply, uh, rooted in this message.

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And you, we put some time in serving along some of the men,

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then it's probably a recipe for

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disaster.

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Um,

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and a lot of hearts will get wrecked in the process.

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Potentially, you know, I would just say is the Holy Spirit's calling

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you to do it and you can't not do it, then you better put your hand to

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the

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plow.

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Um, and But I would also encourage coming around some of those atmospheres, whether

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it be the barn guys in Charlotte or, uh, the new wilderness, new wilderness guys

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or new formation guys, or, uh, you know, any of these, these small groups that

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are around, uh, that do these things, um, coming under their guidance for a season,

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uh, and letting them, you know, put you into some places where you can, uh, help

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and serve and engage and grow and learn.

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Uh, and then Then ask, you know, maybe maybe sit down in that circle

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for about two years and just kind of let it, you know And definitely I see

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this all the time and it's astonishing uh go to some of these uh larger

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events like wild at heart puts them on and Zoe, um, I think it's zoe.

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org.

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They put them they put these on and there's several of them that

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have gone on these weekends that they do do not engage until you've

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gone to one of those weekends.

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Now, I'm not saying don't engage in a small group.

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I'm not, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm talking about,

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I'm talking to the few men who are thinking perhaps I could do this.

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Maybe I should lead a small group.

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Maybe I should lead, you know, what would be one of these, um, you

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know, allies foxholes out there.

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Uh, great.

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Listen to the Holy Spirit.

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Do not do it unless you're led, but don't

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not do

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it

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if

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you're led.

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Um, but at the same time do not attempt that without going to one of

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these weekends because you you just As as lovingly as I can say this

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you don't get it Until you've been there until you've been to one of

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those weekends and zoe puts a one on

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Uh twice a year, I think and wild at heart.

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I don't know.

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I think they put them on You four times a year, uh, out in Colorado.

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And there's other, other people that you can plug into and

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get that kind of weekend, but.

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Definitely, um, make sure that's on the radar because that, that's just boot camp.

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I mean, it's just, it's just flat out, you know, don't try to lead a

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platoon until you've been to boot camp.

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You know, that's just a recipe for getting shot full of holes.

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So, um, anyway, um, yeah, so there, there's a

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a few pointers Sounds great.

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Thanks, Tom.

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Alright.

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Yeah, I think I think that's good.

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Thank

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Yeah, it's been, it's been fun.

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This is i'm excited.

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This is gonna be

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A

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Powerful episode I think it's something people need

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to

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hear,

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Right on.

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Right on.

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Well, if we want anything else we need to plug in later or do later, we,

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happy to even come back if I need to.

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Okay.

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Sounds good.

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Sounds

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Small Town Big God
Stories of God at work in Rutherford County

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Mikel Collins