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086 - The Problem With Effeminate Pastors

July 11, 2019 1h 1m Full transcript available
086 - The Problem With Effeminate Pastors
0:00 / 1h 1m
In this episode, I tackle the issue of effeminate pastors and how their presence is driving men away from the church. We need strong, biblical manhood modeled in our churches, not soft, compliant leaders who fail to challenge their congregations.
Transcript
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0:33 This is Undaunted Life, a Man's Podcast, I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into
0:45 it.
0:46 All right, guys, today, we're going to be talking about the problem with effeminate
0:49 pastors.
0:50 Right?
0:51 I've got some other thoughts in terms of what I would title this episode, but some
0:54 of y'all got a little offended at episode number four, so just use your imagination
1:00 and try to think of what I wanted to call this episode.
1:02 But anyway, let's go ahead and get into the reason for this week's episode.
1:05 So, I had a bunch of podcasts that came up all around the same time, but I was actually
1:09 on Instagram, and one of the Instagram accounts that I follow is called Doc and Devo.
1:15 And so, that's short for doctrine and devotion.
1:17 Okay?
1:18 So, this is apparently a, it's two guys that are pastors at the same church and, you know,
1:24 they're, they're reform Baptist stuff.
1:26 They put some really cool stuff out there.
1:28 So, as following, I'm just kind of flipping through Instagram one day, and I see this
1:31 like pink picture, and it has the words, are you effeminate on there with the question
1:36 mark?
1:37 Right?
1:38 And I was like, oh, okay, that's kind of interesting.
1:39 And so, I go to the caption and the caption said, Jimmy and Joel revisit the subject of
1:43 effeminate men seeking to offer some thoughts and a bit of clarity on the issue.
1:48 And then there was some other stuff and it said link in the bio bio.
1:50 And so, I go to their podcast, I don't listen to podcasts regularly, but I did pick up
1:53 that episode.
1:55 And this was the episode that was from June 20th of 2019, and they were talking specifically
1:59 about this guy named David Miller.
2:01 And David Miller is a guy that's well known in a lot of Baptist circles.
2:05 He apparently got Dr. Albert Moller as kind of like the president of the Southern Baptist
2:09 Convention.
2:10 Or if I don't have my details right, you know, you can just email me later and let me know.
2:14 But David Miller was talking on a panel, apparently at the founders conference, okay, founders
2:20 is a Baptist ministry and they had a bunch of, you know, old crotchety dudes up there
2:24 talking about manhood and all that.
2:25 And so, I'm being a little bit ridiculous, but it seemed like it was pretty good stuff
2:29 that they were putting out there.
2:30 So, I'm definitely not dogging on them or anything about that.
2:32 But he made a comment David Miller did apparently on this panel discussion, which I'm sorry,
2:38 I can't find the audio.
2:39 I tried to find the audio of it.
2:40 I tried to get it to where I could plug it in here.
2:42 But the summary I guess is that he was kind of made this off color comment about pastors
2:46 wearing skinny jeans.
2:47 And he's like, yeah, I kind of want to lift up their pants to see if they were in pantyhose
2:50 and stuff like that, basically making this all-encompassing statement about effeminate
2:55 pastors, right?
2:56 And so, the guys on the Doc and Devo podcast, they weren't really too happy with how he
3:02 said it.
3:03 They were complimentary.
3:04 The guy said he's a really, really smart guy.
3:05 He just said a really dumb thing.
3:06 But the thing that they were talking about specifically is what we see in 1 Corinthians
3:11 6, verses 9 and 10.
3:13 And so, this is in the King James version or the NASB, but I'm going to be reading from
3:17 the NASB.
3:18 But I'm going to go ahead and read this here to you.
3:21 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
3:25 Do not be deceived.
3:27 Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves,
3:34 nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of
3:39 God.
3:40 And so, if you look at a bunch of different translations like I'm normally in the ESV,
3:46 you don't see the word effeminate used.
3:48 You see other words that are used, okay?
3:50 So I did as much digging as I could without my MDiv and I just kind of looked at the Greek
3:55 word that was used there and the Greek word that was used there to describe effeminate
3:59 was a word malikos, okay?
4:02 And that translates in a lot of different ways.
4:04 But mainly it's soft, softy, squishy, smooth, compliant, delicate, and yes, I said squashy
4:12 and not squishy.
4:13 I guess squashy is a word.
4:14 So that's a thing that happened.
4:16 But the thing is, is that word is used throughout scripture.
4:19 And so if you do a little research on malikos in the Bible by yourself, you'll find a lot
4:22 of different instances where that was used in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
4:26 But it was used in the context in 1 Corinthians 6, 10, it basically means describing men as
4:32 soft as opposed to strong, okay?
4:35 And this is seen in a negative way, obviously, and it's visibly so they are visibly soft.
4:42 And one who is, I guess susceptible to selfish indulgence would be a good summary of that.
4:48 But there was some other definitions throughout the internet that I was able to find, kind
4:51 of related to this passage.
4:53 It's that the word is also used to describe the passive male partner in a homosexual
4:57 act.
4:58 So there you go.
4:59 I just put that in your brain.
5:00 What describes being passive in a same sex relationship, but not necessarily sexually,
5:07 but not not necessarily sexually.
5:09 And so it's, but again, it's just kind of being dainty, being soft.
5:13 That's kind of what it looks like.
5:14 So it doesn't necessarily refer to physical strength or weakness.
5:20 And it doesn't necessarily align with the how we would use the word of feminine and modern
5:25 English.
5:26 But the thing about it is, is it's not completely unrelated either, okay?
5:30 So specifically on the physical strength part, and this is not something that I'm going to
5:33 kind of go too far into because we got a lot to cover here today.
5:37 It's kind of one of those things that there's a lot of people that look at that passage
5:39 and are like, oh, well, they're not talking about guys that look soft, you know, guys
5:42 that are pudgy or out of shape or fat or whatever those things are.
5:45 But at the same time, it's talking about men that are visibly soft and not just in their
5:52 character, although it does also include their character.
5:55 Again, the Greek language was so incredible.
5:57 There's so much meaning even in a single word.
6:00 But that's something when you see these guys that tend to ignore their bodies, but they
6:03 don't ignore the Bible and they, they kind of use that as their crutch.
6:06 But all that kind of got me thinking, it got me thinking about soft and effeminate men
6:12 inside the church today.
6:14 That's obviously something that I spend a lot of time thinking about because it absolutely
6:17 drives me insane, drives me insane in my personal church, basically every church I've
6:20 ever been in since I started going to church and high school, right?
6:23 And then my thoughts almost immediately took me to soft and effeminate pastors and leaders
6:29 inside the church specifically because a lot of times that's who the other guys in the
6:35 church are looking to for their models, right?
6:38 And whenever I'm talking about effeminacy, which is going to kind of be a big part of
6:42 what we're talking about today, I'm mainly talking in terms of what we take soft and
6:47 effeminate to mean in modern day English, right?
6:49 So for the rest of today, I'm going to be kind of using that as a little bit of an explanatory
6:54 term in terms of what we're looking at.
6:57 But then it also got me thinking back to episode four of this podcast, right?
7:00 It's still to this day that the most listened to podcast episode that we've put out none.
7:04 And it's kind of due in large part to the name.
7:07 It's called Pussies in the pews.
7:08 And a lot of you guys, pretty much everyone that has listened to my podcast, any episode
7:12 has found their way to episode number four.
7:15 But one thing that was very interesting in that episode is I talked about two separate
7:20 epidemics.
7:21 And so I was going to go ahead and just summarize it here, but I kind of went back and listened
7:24 to it and it was a pretty good breakdown of kind of where we're going to be going or
7:28 where I was going there in that podcast.
7:31 But even for today's purposes, I think it would be very beneficial to you.
7:34 And one thing just kind of point out, the audio is going to be a little bit different
7:37 because in my first dozen or so podcast, I wasn't really sure how the computer and the
7:42 mic all worked in tandem with one another in the best way possible.
7:45 And so I was basically right on top of the microphone, right?
7:48 And so to keep it from going like, like I've talked about this before, to keep it from
7:52 popping, I would talk a little bit softer.
7:55 I didn't have my level, my levels really kind of evened out guys.
7:58 I'm not an engineer when it comes to sound and all this stuff, like it's just not something
8:02 that I'm great at.
8:03 So I'm just doing my best so I can give you guys the highest quality.
8:05 But just so you know, whenever we go back to clips from that episode, it will sound a
8:08 little bit different.
8:09 Don't at me.
8:10 But here we go.
8:11 I'm pulling a clip from episode four of this podcast.
8:13 Here we go.
8:16 So first, let's go into what is the problem?
8:18 So let's get right into it.
8:19 And I frame the problem in the, from the perspective of that, there are two epidemics going on
8:24 right now.
8:26 The first epidemic is of men leaving the church.
8:30 And the second epidemic is of effeminate men inside the church, okay?
8:36 So let's go back to the first epidemic of men leaving the church.
8:39 So if you look at any stats, I mean, there's some stats are that haven't been updated in
8:43 a while, but we can pretty much assume and that most of the trends are still going in
8:47 that direction.
8:48 But there's a huge chunk of women that attend church without their husbands.
8:52 So they, they are in a marriage relationship and a covenant relationship with a husband,
8:56 but that husband does not actually attend church with them.
8:59 So obviously if that is a family where there are children involved, that mean that there
9:03 are children that are going to church without their fathers as well.
9:06 So in really, whenever you look at this, I guess the best case scenario is that the
9:11 men don't go because they're bored.
9:13 So so that's the thing is when they've gone to church, they've been bored.
9:16 So they're just like, I don't want to go.
9:18 I don't want to do that anymore.
9:19 But I guess the worst case scenario would be that they're actually being repelled that
9:23 it's not really something that maybe they do want to go to church, but they're actually
9:27 being repelled away from it.
9:29 And so there's a great quote by David Morrow in his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church.
9:34 And I love this quote.
9:35 It says, the real tragedy is not just that we're losing boys.
9:39 We are losing the most competitive, aggressive boys.
9:43 I testosterone boys destined to be leaders and innovators are checking out of the church
9:47 at a young age.
9:49 And so we look at what's happening with with young people.
9:52 And then we look at how it's manifesting with husbands and aren't going to church even with
9:56 their wives.
9:57 And you kind of come to this thing where this thought process may be that there's there's
10:00 a binary choice that some guys, whether this is correct or incorrect, they feel as if they
10:05 have a binary choice between number one, I can be a good church guy, whatever that means,
10:11 or number two, I can be a real man that I mean, either choose to check my balls at the door
10:15 and then walk inside and do my church thing.
10:18 Or I keep my balls and I go do something that a real man would do.
10:21 So I mean, the thing is, is you may look at that as like a very neater, tallish way of
10:25 looking at the situation, but you talk to any number of guys, especially guys that are
10:29 no longer in the church.
10:30 I mean, you're going to see that to be the case.
10:33 And really the problem is we're losing our leaders.
10:36 A lot of these young boys that were in that David Morrow quote that are leaving the church
10:40 at a young age or leaving as soon as they get to college and get out of their parents'
10:43 house.
10:44 These are these are the future leaders of the church.
10:46 These are the future thought leaders within communities.
10:49 And really the horrible thing is that the church is doing them no favors because everything
10:53 within the modern Christian church is telling these men, this is not for you, like everything
11:00 we're doing.
11:01 This is not for you.
11:02 We are repelling you.
11:04 And you know, we'll get more to some specifics into that later.
11:06 So moving on to the second epidemic and that's the epidemic of a feminine men inside the
11:11 church.
11:13 The thing about it is men are not being shown a real life version of strong biblical manhood.
11:20 I mean, even just as a challenge to you, like if you had to think of a strong biblical manly
11:25 man, could you immediately come up with somebody?
11:28 I mean, maybe for some of you, you're, oh, yeah, think about somebody and maybe someone
11:32 will come to mind that's in your local community, maybe someone that's actually within your
11:36 church.
11:37 Hopefully, you think you look in popular culture and you're just not going to find people just
11:41 readily available.
11:43 But that's the thing for men is that's what we want.
11:46 We want to follow strong men.
11:48 I mean, you just look back in history, you have, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Winston
11:52 Churchill, George Washington, General Patton, Ernst Hemingway, you know, Jack London, just
11:58 guys like that.
11:59 And I mean, guess those are older examples, but even look at modern examples, you got
12:02 Jacko Willink and Pat Tillman, Chris Kyle, Adam Brown, one of my favorite characters of
12:07 anything ever of Navy Seal and the subject matter of the Fearless book, which I've recommended
12:12 before.
12:13 But that's, we want to follow men like that.
12:16 We want to follow men that have accomplished things.
12:18 We want to follow men that are changing things for the better.
12:23 But the problem is, is when you look around the church, you don't see men like that.
12:26 Like when's the last time you saw someone in the church that was like Jacko Willink,
12:30 that biblically based, like was like Teddy Roosevelt that had that robust manly leadership,
12:37 but had like that strong Christian basis for their lives.
12:41 And here's the thing, and before anyone gets mad, I obviously am not talking about all
12:46 of these people.
12:47 It is a case by case basis, but I am saying that a lot of church staff tends to be more
12:52 effeminate.
12:53 These are softer types of people, people that are drawn into ministry kind of tend to
12:59 be more on the softer side.
13:01 And I even talked to people that are in seminary school, and a lot of people in seminary schools
13:05 ping softer, more effeminate, they're more emotive.
13:09 And again, just so no one misquotes me, I'm not saying that all people are that way.
13:14 It's just they have a tendency to ping in that direction, and it'd be really hard for
13:18 you to prove me wrong on that.
13:20 And just the church is a place where men that struggle with same sex attraction, and that's
13:26 exactly how we're going to be wording it, men that struggle with same sex attraction,
13:31 they can come in and feel unchallenged.
13:35 So again, I feel like men that struggle with same sex attraction should always feel welcome,
13:39 like 100% of the time feel welcome, but a lot of these men just feel really unchallenged
13:44 to change their point of view or the way that they're living their lives.
13:47 And there's another good quote here by by David Moro.
13:50 And here it is, it's why do so many effeminate and gay men attend church?
13:55 See because the church is one of the few institutions in society where there's no pressure to act
14:01 like a man.
14:02 In fact, men are encouraged not to where else can a man express his feminine side and be
14:09 applauded for it?
14:11 End quote.
14:12 I mean, and that's just that's it right there.
14:14 And if you think back on some of the people that you've dealt with in the church or some
14:17 of the people that you've run across that you would say that that tends to be true for
14:21 you.
14:22 So there you go again guys, sorry for the old audio like drives me insane trying to listen
14:28 to the old audio there.
14:29 But again, the main point there is the two epidemics, the first being the epidemic of
14:33 men leaving the church.
14:34 And the second is the epidemic of effeminate men inside the church.
14:36 And again, I want to read that quote again from David Moro and it says, why do so many
14:40 effeminate and gay men attend church?
14:42 Maybe because a church is one of the few institutions in society where there's no pressure to act
14:47 like a man.
14:48 In fact, men are encouraged not to where else can a man express his feminine side and be
14:52 applauded for it.
14:54 So that's the end of the quote there.
14:55 But again, it kind of got me thinking through a lot of those different things.
14:58 But what one of the big things and one of the big reasons why I was able to kind of think
15:02 through that and kind of go back to that is because I've been looking at this for a long
15:06 time.
15:07 I've been noting this noting this in my mind and noticing it around me for a very long
15:11 period of time.
15:12 And again, I've talked to a lot of guys since I released that episode, not necessarily about
15:16 that episode, about what they've seen and what they've experienced in the church.
15:20 And these guys aren't having a different experience, regardless of wherever they grew up, regardless
15:24 of the denomination they went to, whether they were, you know, Protestant or Catholic
15:27 or whatever the thing was, they're having this, these same types of thoughts, right?
15:32 Like why is this happening?
15:33 I got to want this to be happening, but, but it's definitely happening.
15:38 And one of the reasons when you start kind of thinking through this and understanding why
15:41 it, why goes that way is you do have to think about seminaries.
15:45 Because that is where these pastors are being trained up and sent out, right?
15:51 Because there's not a whole lot of groups outside of seminaries that are training up
15:54 pastors and then sending them out, right?
15:56 Now, now typically if you have a group that is sending out pastors and doing church plans
16:00 and stuff like that, these people already have their ministry training, right?
16:04 They've already got their divinity designations and they've already got those things.
16:09 They've been to seminary.
16:10 They've gone through all of those, those hoops, right?
16:13 And then they get sent out.
16:14 But then you have to start really thinking, who's training them up?
16:19 Who are the people that are in charge of training them up in order to send them out?
16:23 And so again, around the same time that this Doc and Divo podcast came out where they were
16:27 talking about that, I got another clip from the cross-politik podcast.
16:31 And so it's called the, they're on like something called the fight laugh feast network.
16:36 It's just super confusing how they're doing it.
16:38 Like I have no idea why they're doing it that way, but they're trying to set up, you know,
16:40 half a dozen or 10 or so different shows on this one feed, right?
16:45 And so you have all these podcasts on there and like for a guy like me, there's only one
16:49 of them that I like.
16:50 And so I'm having to like kind of sift through and whatever.
16:52 But there's two shows a week from just the cross-politik guys.
16:54 So those are the main three guys that started this whole thing.
16:57 So they do a show that I think comes out on Sunday and one that's kind of like a midweek
17:00 fix.
17:01 And so on the midweek fix for the same week that I was listening to the Doc and Divo one,
17:05 they kind of went into this.
17:07 You wouldn't get it from the title of this podcast.
17:08 I'll give you the title later when we do the quick resilience boost.
17:12 But there's a nice quote, a nice little chunk in there where all three guys were talking
17:16 through something.
17:18 And I want you to especially pay attention to the third guy that you hear talking, right?
17:22 So his nickname is chocolate knocks.
17:23 And so they just call him chalk knocks.
17:25 So that's how I will be referring to him as he refers to himself as chalk knocks.
17:29 But let me go ahead and get into a clip from the cross-politik podcast here.
17:32 I've been thinking about this a lot recently about just how little compromises in my own
17:39 life lead to bigger things.
17:41 Oh, do tell.
17:42 And lead the bigger sense lead the bigger sense or whatever.
17:46 But it actually starts with how we're reading the scriptures and little little ways we compromise
17:51 when we read the scriptures versus we kind of just ignore a little bit.
17:55 But this, but you know, this this Bible first, we can't say it's viable.
17:58 We get trans theology out of the Bible first before we get trans theology in the church,
18:02 and it starts with little compromises in our lives, right?
18:05 Well, yeah.
18:06 Yeah, I mean, we've had, you know, I think I think it's Doug Wilson in his, in his, he's
18:10 got a little great little booklet on why ministers must be men.
18:13 And I'm pretty sure it's in that little book letter.
18:15 He said it elsewhere.
18:16 Where is this at?
18:17 You can probably find this.
18:18 Can and I know.
18:19 I want that.
18:20 Just it's a little booklet.
18:21 It's like 30 pages long.
18:22 Why ministers must be men?
18:23 But he said that it was actually men acting like women in the pulpit that granted granted
18:30 the world the argument.
18:32 If men are not men in the pulpit, then why can't women do it?
18:35 Yeah.
18:36 Because women are better at being women than men, right?
18:38 Yeah.
18:39 Well, I don't know.
18:40 Transmen are beating them in sports, but if the, you know, whatever, but the, you know,
18:44 if it basically comes down to being relatable and having good personnel skills and being
18:50 good administrators, having a great jawline, whatever, then, then a woman is generally better
18:57 at that than most men, but because we don't have a masculine job description for pastor
19:02 anymore.
19:03 Yeah.
19:04 But it's men who were cross dressing first and they were intending to, but they started
19:10 acting.
19:11 And this is, you know, goes back to me.
19:12 There's an old.
19:13 I mean, the feminization of the church by Ann Douglas is a great study on this.
19:19 Back in the 1800s, you had even there in the more solidly orthodox Calvinist churches
19:27 already the shift towards pastors being more relatable, right, being more into poetry and
19:34 not that pastors can't be into poetry, but like literary pursuits, beauty pursuits.
19:39 But it was this sort of like a conscious shift away from being men and particularly being
19:45 warriors, being protectors, being shepherds, being defenders.
19:49 Okay.
19:50 I know, I know we want to move on, but that's a lot and I want to work through that a little
19:53 bit.
19:54 But I think there's a lot of guys who are coming up in the modern seminaries who love
19:58 the Lord, who are who are furious about sin want to come against this, but they're being
20:03 trained by guys who are not men, you know, and so they're being taught kind of how not
20:08 to react to this and how to be that softer, gentler type of preacher, the kind of preacher
20:12 who you can relate to, but not the kind that can get you in line, get you to love Jesus
20:17 more by the way he swings the sword.
20:18 So how.
20:19 So a lot of those guys are listening right now and how do you know when you've kind of
20:23 like, because compromise, like we were talking about this earlier with this whole cross dressing
20:28 story hour, the PCA, PCUSA is already there.
20:32 We see revoys happening in the PCA and I said, I never thought 10 years ago that I would
20:37 ever see revoys happen in the PCA.
20:39 Yeah, right.
20:40 It's not cross dressing story hour yet, but get it 15 years.
20:45 Absolutely.
20:46 Yeah.
20:47 So, but at the same time, they don't see that this a gradual change is happening.
20:50 So if a young man is entering to the ministry and he's like, okay, I want to be that kind
20:54 of man that'll stand up and fight.
20:57 But he's being trained by guys who don't know what a real fight looks like.
21:00 Yeah.
21:01 How to take a bullet.
21:02 And he's been taught actually how to pull his punches and hoping that the relationship
21:05 will develop people who will engage culture.
21:08 How does he fight that?
21:10 Yeah.
21:11 Because he's almost a fish and water that doesn't know he has, you know what I mean?
21:13 The culture is so permeated inside of seminaries.
21:16 Yeah.
21:17 There's so many, there's so many things here that I don't know that there's an easy answer
21:20 that other than I would just say, I think that the effeminacy begins by valuing relationships
21:26 over truth.
21:27 Yeah.
21:28 So I would just, I would just say your job as a man is to value truth first.
21:33 Yeah.
21:34 And that's hard and that doesn't mean you shouldn't be kind or you shouldn't be patient.
21:38 But I would say basically, you know, all on the, on the key issues, the revoiced stuff,
21:42 the sexual identity issues, the gender issues, women deacon issues, all that kind of stuff.
21:47 Basically anybody who says, let's form a committee or have consensus basically is trying to make
21:53 you effeminate.
21:54 Yeah.
21:55 You know, they're, they're valuing relationships.
21:56 They're trying to work out this in harmony and trying to value relationships over truth.
21:59 I think the only hope for the PCA and re-voice is for a bunch of people to just get really
22:03 mad.
22:04 Yeah.
22:05 Like righteously indignant.
22:06 Yeah.
22:07 And say no, we're not going to, we're not going to talk about this anymore.
22:09 You're done.
22:10 You're done.
22:13 So there's really a lot of things that you can engage with there and kind of talk through
22:17 and I'll talk through a few of them, but I really want to pull out a chalk knocks is quote
22:20 here.
22:21 And so it's broken up into two different areas, but I'll just read it as if it's one quote.
22:24 But here's the quote from him.
22:25 So quote, so I think there's a lot of guys who are coming up in the modern seminaries
22:29 who love the Lord, who are furious about sin, want to come against this, but they're being
22:34 trained by guys who are not men.
22:37 So they're being taught how to not react to this and how to be the softer, gentler type
22:42 of preacher, the kind of preacher that you can relate to, but not the kind that can get
22:46 you in line and get you to love Jesus more by the way he swings his sword.
22:51 They don't see that a gradual change is happening.
22:54 So if a young man is entering into the ministry and he's like, okay, I want to be the kind
22:58 of man that will stand up and fight, but he's being trained by guys who don't know what
23:03 a real fight looks like.
23:05 And he's being taught actually how to pull his punches and hope that the relationship
23:09 will develop people who will engage culture.
23:12 How does he fight that?
23:14 End quote, again, my favorite part of that is whenever, you know, how can you have these
23:18 guys, but you need that guy that can get you to love Jesus more by the way he swings his
23:24 sword.
23:25 So just think about that in the context of where we live now or even think about it in
23:28 kind of an olden day context.
23:30 When you're when you have these warrior cultures, where did the boys learn from?
23:34 They typically learn from their fathers, their uncles, their older brothers, these men that
23:40 were in their life that were actually moving them in a particular direction and helping
23:44 them understand what it's like to be a man by how they swung their sword, by how they
23:48 use their spear, by how they use their shield, those types of things.
23:52 And so in our context, imagine being surrounded by men that are teaching you how to love Jesus
23:57 more ferociously, right, and be more dedicated to your discipleship to him in that way by
24:02 the way that they're swinging their sword.
24:05 And so I thought that that was a great point.
24:06 I didn't really like the one guy.
24:07 I can't remember his name, but he was basically like, Hey, you know, a feminist starts with
24:11 focusing on relationships, as opposed to truth.
24:14 I was with him there, but then he was just basically like, yeah, you need to focus on
24:17 truth first.
24:18 Again, if Jesus came full of grace and truth being both grace would you would consider
24:23 to be maybe more on the, the emotive relational feminine side, right?
24:28 You can't really put one above the other because Jesus didn't really put one above the other.
24:32 So I think if he went back, he would probably take that back considering what I've heard
24:36 him say before.
24:37 I don't know that he necessarily meant it in that way.
24:40 But that's the only thing that I really was against here.
24:42 But I think that's a big point here.
24:44 And again, it goes back to these seminaries and those guys that were there, they're pastors.
24:48 And so I think at least one or two of the three have been through, you know, these seminaries
24:53 before and they kind of know what they're talking about.
24:56 Because for me, I've never been through seminary.
24:58 I've got a lot of friends that have gone through seminary and I've talked to them about their
25:01 experience and I've talked to them about what they're seeing.
25:03 And they're like, yeah, it's pretty much like that.
25:05 Even if they would self select as kind of one of those guys at, yeah, you know, I'm probably
25:09 a little bit more feminine on the, you know, feminine masculine scale or any of those types
25:12 of things.
25:13 But the thing about it is, is a lot of people like to pick on guys that are thinking this
25:18 way or that are even willing to say things like this.
25:21 But the thing is, is can you prove them wrong?
25:24 I mean, the little interaction that just happened between those three guys on the cross
25:27 politics podcast, where did they go wrong?
25:29 Again, I kind of pointed out the one that was glaring to me where they were kind of trying
25:32 to put truth above relationships and I don't know that they necessarily meant to do it
25:36 that way.
25:37 But where else?
25:39 Because again, I think chalk knocks is completely on whenever he's talking about these things.
25:44 It's what do we expect of these guys coming out of seminary when the people that are teaching
25:48 them are the way that they are.
25:52 And so this kind of gives me some concern about where Christianity is going to go in
25:55 the West specifically the United States because there's a lot of liberalization and feminization
26:00 that has crept its way into these seminaries, a lot of kind of this woke culture, a lot of
26:06 kind of this, oh my gosh, we don't want to offend anybody type of thing.
26:10 And I really like whenever they were talking at the end, there was another, the quote going
26:14 back to chalk knocks is quote, and he's being taught actually how to pull his punches and
26:18 hope that the relationship will develop people who will engage culture.
26:23 How does he fight that?
26:24 Because that's the thing we talk about all the time.
26:26 I mean, you can go back to the episode I did on Andy Stanley, Jeff Durbin.
26:28 I mean, Jeff Durbin was basically saying everyone is walking around as if we can't say something
26:33 like, well, God says, God says that we shouldn't do it that way.
26:38 God says that we shouldn't treat people that way.
26:40 God says that we shouldn't murder babies in the womb.
26:42 It's because God says, and I understand the argument, it's hard to fight against.
26:48 But another person that was kind of picked on in the Doc and Devo podcast that we were
26:51 talking about was Mark Driscoll.
26:53 So you can kind of tell that these guys, they were not big fans of Mark Driscoll or wild
26:57 at hard or any of those type of kind of manly type things.
27:00 And here's the thing, guys, I know that Mark Driscoll has done some really shady crap,
27:05 right?
27:06 I mean, as far as I know, he was, you know, he was under church discipline for how he's
27:10 treating people that he was pastoring, right?
27:13 I don't think there was any abuse, like sexually, but I think there was some mental abuse, some
27:17 bullying going on that he was doing.
27:19 He inflated some of the numbers of some of his books that were selling, like the sales
27:23 numbers and things like that is something that I heard that I know that he had one point
27:27 and created this like separate screen name on some blog to basically get on on in rail
27:31 on people.
27:32 But the thing about it is is Driscoll's gotten a lot of crap before for how he goes at men.
27:39 And you know, Driscoll has done some things where he basically is trying to categorize,
27:43 you know, Western American cultural masculinity with biblical masculinity and maybe it's it's
27:49 at best a very strained connection.
27:52 But he did a sermon a while back and let me get the name of the sermon here because he's
27:55 got a lot of crap for it before, but it's called men and marriage.
27:58 So he was doing, I think that was in concert with one of his books, oddly enough, I think
28:02 it was the book that he was lying about how many sales he was getting.
28:05 But anyway, he's got a lot of crap for this one, like four minute section of one of these
28:11 talks.
28:12 And it was over an hour in, I mean, the clip that I watched were over an hour and five
28:17 minutes in whenever he kind of gets into this thing.
28:20 But he's gotten a lot of crap for some of the things that he's done and that's well-deserved.
28:24 And then there's things like this that I don't think it's deserved that he's gotten a lot
28:28 of heat for it.
28:29 But let me go ahead and play this clip for you from this, this sermon series that he did
28:33 that coincided with his book.
28:35 And again, this is Mark Driscoll and it's from his men and marriage sermon.
28:39 So here we go.
28:43 Some of you guys, it's just, it's so frustrating.
28:51 Some of you guys have been coming here for years.
28:54 You still got your hands all over your girlfriend.
29:02 Some of you guys have been coming here for years.
29:05 You're still not praying with your wife.
29:08 Some of you guys have been coming here for years.
29:13 You're still single and having sex.
29:20 Some of you guys will even, even as I'm preaching this sermon, some of you will be sitting next
29:24 to your girlfriend or your fiance or your wife.
29:29 Some of you guys have already given her that look.
29:31 Don't cry.
29:32 Don't let them know they're talking about me.
29:34 Just hold it together.
29:37 You've already intimidated her right here.
29:39 Some of you guys have already whispered in her ear.
29:44 I don't want to hear it.
29:46 You're not talking about this in the car on the way home.
29:51 Some of you have already whispered in her ear.
29:53 I'm sorry, I'll do better.
29:55 Trust me.
29:56 Let's just move on real quickly.
29:57 How dare you?
29:59 Who the hell do you think you are?
30:05 Abusing a woman, neglecting a woman, being a coward, a fool, being like your father,
30:13 Adam.
30:14 Who do you think you are?
30:18 You are not God.
30:19 You are just a man.
30:21 You're not an impressive man.
30:23 You're not a responsible man.
30:25 You're not a noble man.
30:27 You're not a respectable man.
30:29 You're not a responsible man in any regard.
30:32 I don't care how successful you are in this area.
30:37 If you are a failure, it clouds all of your dignity.
30:41 It robs all of your masculinity.
30:45 There is no excuse for any man who claims the name of Christ to treat a woman in a dishonorable,
30:55 disrespectful way.
30:58 Some of you right now, you guys will get all angle how dare you yell at me.
31:03 That's the Holy Spirit telling you it's you.
31:07 I didn't name you, he did.
31:12 You change now, little boy.
31:16 You change right now.
31:19 You shut up, you put your pants on, you get a job, you grow up, and maybe one day you
31:26 can love a woman.
31:28 It's for men, not for boys.
31:31 And those of you men who are here and your wives are suffering under your folly and failure
31:37 shame on you.
31:39 And shame on you if you say you're a Christian.
31:42 And shame on you if you've been attending Mars Hill.
31:44 And shame on you if you've been surrounded by good men and have pursued none of them.
31:49 And shame on you if you've not become a member of Submitted to Spiritual Authority.
31:53 And shame on you if you've not joined a community group so you can walk in darkness.
31:57 And shame on you if you show up to put communion in your hands representing the body and blood
32:02 of your murdered savior and then go put them on your girlfriend or download porn from the
32:08 internet or raise your hand in a threat to your wife.
32:14 Shame on you.
32:17 You guys are a joke.
32:20 And there's a handful of good men that are tired of picking up your mess.
32:25 So you step up, you shut up, you man up, and you use all of that anger you have toward
32:30 me right now to repent.
32:33 You do business with God.
32:36 I'm going to let you sit in this for a while.
32:40 You don't go get your kids.
32:42 You don't get up and leave.
32:46 And then he kind of goes on from there a little bit.
32:48 But hey, hey, I know not all of you are in for that style, but gosh darn it.
32:54 If that wasn't a breath of fresh air.
32:56 I know that was a sermon from a long time ago.
32:59 He's lost Mars Hill since then.
33:00 He's opened up his own church, his new church and like Arizona or something since then.
33:05 But again, different style going to be hard to call a guy like that, effeminate, right?
33:12 It's just different.
33:13 But the thing about it is you could even see in the caption for the YouTube link for that
33:17 whenever I send it to you later is like, Hey, at about the, you know, 105 106 mark.
33:21 That's where, you know, when guys have gotten really offended, it's like, it's like, what
33:26 do you think you're preparing me for?
33:27 Like, are you my personal lifeguard walking around, making sure that I'm not offended
33:30 by things that I hear?
33:32 But here's the thing.
33:33 There are plenty of people that are offended by what Driscoll said there.
33:37 They're offended by what the guys with cross cross politics said.
33:40 They're offended from John Eldridge with wild a heart.
33:42 They're offended by me.
33:43 Like the conversation I've had with some people that have been offended, it hasn't been a
33:47 lot of conversations, but there are people that get offended.
33:51 The thing that's interesting about people that are offended by people like us that I
33:55 just put in one big, you know, macro category is that they are soft.
34:00 They're Malachos.
34:01 They're soft.
34:02 They're dainty.
34:03 They're smooth.
34:07 And should we be the ones to apologize for that?
34:12 Because I've been asked several times in my life, you know, whenever I've offended somebody
34:15 to apologize and whenever I recognize, Oh my gosh, I shouldn't have said that.
34:19 I shouldn't have done that.
34:20 I shouldn't have said it in that tone.
34:21 Whatever thing is sure.
34:22 I'm completely okay with acknowledging my wrong and trying to write it, right?
34:25 Sometimes there's some pride that gets in the way.
34:27 I'm certainly not perfect at it and I don't have a 1000 batting average when it comes
34:31 to that.
34:32 But at the same time, when I recognize it, I try to write the wrong, but then there are
34:35 people that are saying, well, you have offended me with what you've said.
34:39 And I would like for you to apologize.
34:42 And then I will ask them something like, well, was something that I said inaccurate?
34:46 Well, no.
34:47 Okay, what was something that I said, was it taken out of context?
34:53 I don't think so.
34:55 Okay.
34:57 So what exactly is your complaint?
35:00 Well, I just didn't like it.
35:02 Oh, okay.
35:03 Okay.
35:04 So you just didn't want to hear it.
35:06 It just didn't agree with your, your sensibilities.
35:09 It was maybe going to push you and change you, right?
35:13 That's kind of what we get into.
35:15 And so I take all of this and I've thought through all of this and kind of have these
35:18 different quotes and these different, you know, sound bites and all these different
35:21 things.
35:22 And it kind of brings up three big questions for me.
35:25 And these are questions that you should wrestle with, wrestle with as well.
35:27 And for my pastors out there that are listening to this, this is kind of on you guys, and
35:31 we'll talk more about that here in a second.
35:33 But the three big questions that it begs is number one, how did we get here?
35:37 Number two, why do some people seem to prefer this style, right?
35:42 And third, can we make it stop?
35:45 And so in terms of the, how did we get here, I've actually already addressed that before.
35:49 So again, on the post season, the pews podcast, episode number four of this podcast, about
35:52 nine minutes and 40 seconds in or so, I kind of specifically address the, how did we get
35:58 here thing?
35:59 So we're going to go back to the bad audio just for a little bit, uh, for a few minutes
36:02 here, actually about six or seven minutes here, and we'll kind of get into the, how did we
36:06 get here?
36:07 How did we get into this predicament?
36:08 So here we go, um, and the, the second thing I want to talk about today, again, we kind
36:13 of looked at what is the problem.
36:15 The second thing is how did we get here?
36:17 And this is very, very important.
36:19 So it's not just look at where we're at right now, but how do we get to this point?
36:22 So really when you look back on the history of the church of 2000 years over 2000 years,
36:27 the church was a place where real men were in where real men wanted to be.
36:34 And the examples we see from that is really from the early church, you see, uh, leaders
36:39 of local communities, they are actually leading spiritually for their local communities.
36:43 You see, you know, Jesus is, uh, you know, his disciples.
36:46 So his, his immediate 12 and then became 11 and kind of on from there, um, you, you look
36:52 at all the other disciples that were immediately there and converted when they saw him about
36:56 500 people that saw him resurrected, uh, and then we look at the martyrs as well.
37:00 Like these were some of the most manly and of course there were female martyrs that were
37:04 incredibly brave as well, but the men were, were so manly and so robust in their testosterone
37:09 filled ways of manhood.
37:12 And that's just really where, where those people wanted to be.
37:14 And the interesting thing about the early church is it was very fundamentalist.
37:19 I mean, the church had a very fundamentalist, uh, literal view of the triune God and specifically
37:26 Jesus.
37:27 People really questions about Jesus's manhood or the things that Jesus does.
37:30 Uh, but the thing that we see is as time war on the church kind of strayed from that fundamentalism.
37:38 Um, and when you look back on history and church history, it looks like there are two
37:42 key periods that were really damaging for men overall.
37:47 And, uh, the first period was the industrial revolution, uh, and the second were that were
37:52 both of the world war.
37:53 So industrial revolution think, you know, late 18th century, early 19th century in the
37:58 world wars were obviously the early 20th century.
38:01 Um, but the thing about it is when you think about, um, the industrial revolution at that
38:07 time, where were all the strong able body masculine men during the industrial revolution?
38:14 I mean, all of those men were working.
38:16 Those men were in the factories.
38:18 Maybe they were underground working in coal mines or doing things with oil and gas industry,
38:22 whatever that may be.
38:24 And that's where all those men, all those very strong virile men were.
38:28 And, and then also if you think about it, where were during World War two and, and World
38:32 War one, where were all the strong able body masculine men during that time?
38:35 I mean, they were all fighting like they were all out there fighting and you never really
38:42 thought of these people as being highly involved in their churches or in, in local ministry
38:46 during that time because they were either working or fighting.
38:50 Um, and then we see what I guess I'll call the turn for lack of a better expression.
38:56 But many of the manly men, I guess who would have otherwise gone into ministry or had a
39:01 very, very robust, um, attachment to local ministry and to the church, they, they died
39:08 in war or they died in industrial revolution related type accidents, mechanical accidents,
39:15 or maybe they sought other means of employment.
39:17 Um, they, they struggled mentally coming back from the war, having experienced shell shock,
39:22 like it just what ministry wasn't on the top of their, uh, list of things that they wanted
39:25 to go after.
39:27 And then we look at what happened is if these men are off at war or if these men are working,
39:33 what's left inside the church?
39:35 I mean, the only males left inside the church or the young, the weak or the sickly, right
39:42 or the old.
39:43 Um, so you're having these, uh, these places, these churches that are becoming very overwhelmed
39:51 with a female presence.
39:52 I mean, the, you might have 85, 90% female.
39:55 And so when you look at these types of places, um, you're, you're looking at a turn in the
40:01 types of content that was happening because again, the manly men aren't there, the men
40:06 that are left or tend to be a little bit more feminine or they're weak or old.
40:09 So the sermon focus and the content of the sermon started to change the, the music started
40:15 to change, the decoration started to change as the different types of missional focuses.
40:20 They all seem to become a little bit more feminine, right?
40:23 I mean, because that's the thing is if you look at it from a marketing perspective, obviously
40:27 if the majority of your target audience is of a particular, uh, gender or race or age
40:33 or persuasion or worldview, you're going to start marketing and catering to those needs.
40:38 And so the turn that we see, it was, it was gradual, but I'm not sure that it's ever stopped.
40:45 And so let's look at sermon content.
40:47 So what sermon content tended to be, especially in the early church, it was very truth and
40:52 justice oriented or, and you could look at those as more masculine type qualities and
40:58 then it moved into more of a grace and forgiveness type of content, which tends to be a little
41:04 bit more effeminate.
41:05 And then also look at the music.
41:09 So, uh, I'm going to actually dedicate an entire future podcast, uh, episode to the subject
41:13 of praise and worship music and what that's done, uh, to men within the church.
41:17 But when you, when you look at the musical content, we were once singing about, singing
41:21 the praises of the conquering just God.
41:24 And now we're just singing about Jesus like he's our boyfriend that we like want to cuddle
41:28 with them.
41:29 And even if you look at some of the lyrical content, and again, I'm going to break this
41:31 down on future podcasts, some of it even comes off as homo erotic.
41:35 So for some of you guys out there that listen to praise and worship music and for whatever
41:38 reason, you're just like, I am not down with this.
41:41 I don't understand.
41:42 I feel like I'm supposed to like this, but I don't, uh, don't feel bad and we'll get
41:47 in, get into why, but, but then we look at modern society.
41:50 We live in maybe one of the most pluralistic, uh, relativistic feminist cultures that we've
41:55 ever seen.
41:56 And that is really exacerbated some of the issues within the modern church.
42:00 And so when we combine everything that I've talked about in terms of how we got here,
42:04 we have men leaving the church and droves, uh, there's rampant fatherlessness all over
42:10 the United States and really all over the West.
42:12 And it's at the same exact correlation time in terms of when men are leaving the church.
42:17 Christianity overall is losing its standing in the West and, and Christians, uh, along
42:22 with that.
42:23 And so we just get where we have scores of pussies and the pews, just tons of cowardly
42:27 dudes sitting in the pews, wasting away.
42:30 And I know for a lot of you that that's hard to hear, but again, I think you know it's
42:35 true.
42:36 If, if you really get down to the core of it, you do know that that is true.
42:42 So spoiler alert, I don't have any updates for you on that.
42:45 I still feel the exact same way that I felt before in terms of all of those things.
42:50 And I think it's important, uh, to revisit those things, but there's not really anything
42:53 that I would mainly update for you or change that, that is basically how we got here.
42:58 There hasn't been anything else that I've, that I've learned on that, but, but again,
43:02 I've had people get mad at me specifically for that section of that podcast, but they
43:06 can't elucidate why they can't explain to me why exactly it bothered them so much.
43:12 And this kind of gets into the second big question, which is why do some people seem
43:16 to prefer it?
43:18 Why do they prefer the softer approach?
43:20 Why do they prefer the effeminate pastor?
43:24 And this is the main reason why I think so is because it typically keeps you from having
43:28 to look at yourself in the mirror because if you're pastor up there in front of you on
43:35 Sunday mornings or your worship leader or your Sunday school pastor or the person that helps
43:40 with volunteers or the person that helps with whatever events going on.
43:44 If they're just soft and cuddly and fun and understanding and sensitive, do you ever expect
43:52 to be challenged by that person?
43:54 I mean, they might challenge you to read a book, which is obviously a good thing.
43:56 They might challenge you to come to an event, which could be a good thing as well.
44:00 But again, these people aren't going to do anything to you because that's one thing
44:06 that I thought was interesting going back to the doc and devo guys when they were talking
44:09 about it.
44:10 Like I looked at pictures of these guys and the thing is is they look like pretty soft
44:14 guys.
44:15 And I mean, just physically, right?
44:17 I talk about spiritual, mental and physical resilience all the time.
44:20 And the thing about those three resiliences is you can't really tell on the first two,
44:23 but you can tell on the last one, physical, you can pretty much tell if somebody's taking
44:27 care of themselves or not.
44:29 And so those guys aren't unique.
44:30 There's a lot of guys that would consider themselves to be deep theological thinkers,
44:35 but they're physically soft.
44:38 And those guys are the ones that come to their own defense the most often.
44:42 They're just like, ah, you know, it's, you know, you're just focusing on the wrong things.
44:47 Like you're, you're focusing on, you know, Western manhood and you're focusing on caricature
44:51 manhood.
44:52 And you're focusing on those things.
44:53 You're not really focusing on biblical manhood guys.
44:55 This is exactly why we talk about spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
45:02 All of them, again, if you've never heard me talk about this before, the thing is, is
45:06 if you cultivate resilience in those three main areas, it will spill over into every
45:11 other area of your life, emotional, relational, financial, everything, it'll, it'll spill over.
45:16 And the thing is, is all of us crush it typically at one of those things, maybe.
45:22 But it's usually one or two of those that you don't even pay any attention to.
45:27 And it's typically what you're typically good at, right?
45:30 So if you're a good athlete, you've always been a good athlete, put muscle on without
45:33 having to do much.
45:34 You can gain weight.
45:35 You can lose weight sis or whatever the thing is.
45:36 You're great, potentially a physical resilience, but maybe you haven't prayed like ever, right?
45:42 Then, then you have the other people that are, are super mentally resilient.
45:45 They were, they read a hundred books a year, but if they needed to run a mile to save everyone
45:49 in their town's life, everyone would be dead within a hundred meters, right?
45:53 I use those examples all the time, but, but that's kind of the thing is that's what we're
45:57 talking about.
45:58 A lot of people prefer these types of pastors because they're easy.
46:03 They're not going to make you move.
46:05 They're not going to challenge you every now and then.
46:09 They might almost raise their voice during a sermon.
46:14 They might take you aside to try and correct you, but, but then they typically come back
46:19 to the, the midline, the, the through line, which is, hey, I'm a nice guy.
46:24 Aren't I a nice guy?
46:25 And I've said this before, guys, if the best compliments someone can give you is that you're
46:30 a nice guy, you need to change.
46:33 I'm not saying you don't, you need to be mean.
46:34 I'm not saying you need to be a jerk.
46:36 What I'm saying is that, that can't be the number one thing that people think of when
46:40 they think of you is, gosh, you know, that dude, he's just a really nice guy.
46:44 He's so nice.
46:46 He's so cute.
46:47 He's so cuddly.
46:48 I just want to wrap them up and put them in my shirt pocket with my other pins and move
46:52 on with my day.
46:54 But, but again, that's why people prefer it is because they're easy.
46:57 That's why you have these people that have, you know, these, just, if they look back in
47:01 their paths, they just have all the wreckage of busted up relationships and it's typically
47:06 with a bunch of people that they got comfortable with at a certain point.
47:10 And then the first time they tried to challenge them, they're out, they're popping smoke,
47:14 they're out and they're looking back and they're wondering what's wrong with all these people
47:19 I was dating.
47:20 It's like, well, there's one common theme in all the people you were dating and that's
47:23 you, buddy.
47:25 That's you.
47:27 You were the person.
47:28 You didn't want to be challenged.
47:30 You just wanted that subservient wife that was going to be barefoot and pregnant, bringing
47:33 you a sandwich and there's nothing wrong with getting a girl pregnant that you're married
47:37 to and that you love under a covenantal relationship before God and having to bring you a sandwich.
47:41 Don't at me if that's what you're going to think about here in just a second.
47:44 But that's the thing that I want you guys to understand is why do you seem to prefer
47:48 that?
47:49 I'm talking about you now.
47:50 Why do you seem to prefer these effeminate pastors?
47:53 Because some of you will notice it and you're like, oh, I don't really like my, you know,
47:57 guys wearing skinny jeans while you sing in these songs.
48:01 And that's as far as you go.
48:03 But are you doing anything about it?
48:06 Are you trying to actively make sure that the next generation of young boys inside your
48:10 church doesn't act in an effeminate way?
48:13 And again, I don't necessarily mean cultural femininity.
48:17 But at the same time, like, are you doing things to instill real biblical masculinity
48:21 in them?
48:22 Like, what are you doing?
48:23 You got plenty of oxygen to complain about it.
48:26 How much are you putting into changing it?
48:29 So again, there's three big questions here.
48:31 The first is how did we get here?
48:32 The second is why do some people seem to prefer this style?
48:35 And the third is, can we make it stop?
48:40 And guys, to be honest with you, I don't know.
48:43 I don't know if we can make it stop.
48:47 So a question I get fairly often is, hey, Kyle, is your ministry affiliated with any
48:53 church or any denomination or are you under any anyone's authority with some sort of like
48:58 a regional group or are you planning on parking your ministry inside of a church or denomination
49:03 someday, and my answer is pretty quick to the point that's, no, we're not affiliated
49:09 with any particular church.
49:11 We're not affiliated with any particular denomination.
49:14 We're not affiliated with any particular network.
49:15 We're not affiliated with any of those things.
49:17 And we're not looking to do that.
49:20 And part of the reason why is because I think what's going to actually stop this to stop
49:25 the feminization of the things that we're seeing inside the church is it's going to
49:29 take a parachurch revolution.
49:31 Like it's going to take something that's outside of the church.
49:35 I mean, like a real one, not like, you know, promised keepers were, hey, we're going to
49:39 fill up stadiums for a few years and then call it good or, you know, people are going
49:43 to stop coming, right?
49:45 I think promised keepers is trying to make their way back, but it seems like it's going
49:48 to be the same model, try to get a bunch of dudes in a room at the same time.
49:51 And it's not going to be, hey, go read wild at heart.
49:55 Good luck.
49:56 You know, it's not going to be, hey, our church does one big men's event per year.
50:00 And that's good enough for me.
50:01 It's not going to be stuff like that.
50:02 That's not a revolution.
50:03 That's programming.
50:04 That's come to this big event where we got this, you know, guy who used to play football,
50:08 he's going to talk and we have this guy that used to be in the military.
50:10 He's going to talk and then Bob, or here's this book again.
50:13 I'm not hating a lot of heart.
50:14 I think a lot of hearts, potentially the most important men's ministry book that's ever
50:17 been written, right?
50:19 But at the same time, how are we calling that change in all of this?
50:25 Everything that we've talked about for the last 50 minutes or so is kind of boiling down
50:29 to this one thing.
50:30 The timing was providential because all these podcasts that I'm referring to, except for
50:35 Pussies and the pews, the, the, the cross-politic podcasts, um, the doc and devotion.
50:40 And then this one by Stephen Mansfield, these all came in like the same week.
50:44 Okay.
50:45 So there was a big suggestion that Stephen Mansfield made on his great man.tv podcast
50:51 on the June 25th, 2019 episode.
50:54 So if you're not familiar with his podcast, he's got the Stephen Mansfield podcast and
50:58 then he's got the great man.tv podcast.
51:00 And on the great man.tv podcast, these are 10, 15 minute long episodes on a myriad of
51:04 different issues with those are specifically manliness related.
51:08 And so Stephen Mansfield made a great recommendation and it's something that I've been talking
51:12 about for a long time, but this is another guy that can make the recommendation for you.
51:16 And unfortunately, I don't have the audio for it.
51:18 So if you would anywhere that you get podcasts, look for the great man.tv podcast for June
51:23 25th, 2019, but his big suggestion was senior pastors have to model manliness.
51:32 The senior pastors and what's funny is, is I don't know, cause Stephen and I, you know,
51:37 we know each other decently well, like, you know, we're, we're at least, I guess we can
51:41 call ourselves friends.
51:42 We haven't had too many interactions with one another, but he made a comment that I thought
51:45 was pretty funny.
51:46 He goes, you know, typically in most churches, they give the quote unquote men's ministry
51:50 to some 32 year old guy with muscles and they say, Hey, you go and do it and it's kind of
51:55 funny.
51:56 Like I consider myself to be in pretty good shape.
51:57 And I'm 32 years old.
51:58 So Steve Mansfield, if you're thinking to me, I understand what you're talking about.
52:02 But at the end of the day, there are things that I'm lacking.
52:05 There's things that that 30 something your whole pastor with muscles is lacking, whether
52:10 they have a, you know, a wife or not, or whether they have kids or not, or whether they've had
52:13 a business installed or not, whether any of those things that come into the situation,
52:16 they're limited, but typically your senior pastors are more seasoned like they've gone
52:24 through life.
52:25 They've held the hands of dying people.
52:27 They've walked people through, you know, mourning the loss of that person.
52:31 They've walked people through fixing their marriages.
52:33 They've walked men through, you know, maturity and becoming a man and all those things.
52:39 But how many of you guys know of a senior pastor that you're like, man, I would follow
52:46 that guy into battle.
52:47 I would follow him into fire.
52:51 I don't know a lot of those guys.
52:54 The churches I've been to, the churches that I've watched, there's not a whole lot of those
52:57 guys that you see them modeling spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
53:03 And so the senior pastors need to step up.
53:05 They need to nut up.
53:06 They need to actually get in the game because the senior pastors are the worst offenders
53:12 when it comes to looking at the church, typically on Father's Day, and they look around.
53:15 They basically say, where are the men at?
53:18 Where are all the men at?
53:19 I see a bunch of women here by themselves.
53:21 You know, the men aren't acting like men and blah, blah, blah, blah.
53:23 But for the other 364 days a year, they're not doing a thing to cultivate the men and
53:29 to bring them into manhood in any point whatsoever inside that church, none, nothing.
53:36 So where's the disconnect, bro?
53:40 Because you have a role to play here because guess what?
53:42 I'm not going to have to give an account someday for the other men inside my church and how
53:47 I cultivated them.
53:49 He is, it's in the book.
53:52 He's going to have to give an account for how he shepherded his flock.
53:57 And again, who's underneath the senior pastor?
54:01 Who are the, you know, the second or third guy in line of the senior pastors out of the
54:04 country are sick.
54:06 The guy that's going to talk on Sundays.
54:07 Who's the guy that's running the programs?
54:09 Who's the guy that's running the volunteers?
54:10 Who's the guys that's running this or the, whatever the situation is, they're looking
54:14 to the senior pastor as well.
54:16 And they're going to take on a lot of his mannerisms.
54:18 They're going to take on a lot of his style.
54:19 They're going to take on a lot of things that he thinks are good.
54:23 And if he's not modeling manhood there, you're basically spreading your non-manliness, you're
54:28 a femininity out to other people that are trying to also equip individuals.
54:34 And don't get it twisted here.
54:35 I'm not just nailing these guys saying, oh, they're soaking their job, they're blah, blah,
54:39 and whatever the situation is, like the thing is, is a lot of these guys don't even realize
54:43 it.
54:44 They don't realize how bad of a job that they're doing, which is where guys like us should
54:51 be able to lovingly and sternly take them aside and say, look, I respect what you're
54:57 trying to do in this church.
54:58 I respect what you're trying to do in this youth mystery.
55:00 I respect what you're trying to do in this music ministry.
55:02 I respect what you're trying to do.
55:04 However, I think you might be missing the mark.
55:08 And I'm just one guy's opinion, but let me give you some feedback.
55:11 Hey, I'm a young man inside your church.
55:14 I'm 16 years old.
55:15 I want to learn how to become a man, but whenever I look around the church, I don't see a lot
55:19 of guys that I want to be like when I grow up senior pastor.
55:22 Can you help me?
55:23 Hey, I'm 40 something years old.
55:25 I got a couple of young kids and my marriage is going okay.
55:28 And I'm looking around the church and you know what?
55:30 There's a lot of guys that are kind of my age range that have the same amount of kids
55:33 that I do.
55:34 But gosh, I just don't really have a whole lot in common with them.
55:36 I feel like I'm the black sheep.
55:38 I feel like there's just something happening inside my soul that I don't understand senior
55:42 pastor.
55:43 Can you help me?
55:44 Hey, I'm 65 years old and I'm kind of getting into that sage stage of my life like I'm winding
55:49 down my career and I'm kind of winding up what I think I'm going to do with the rest
55:52 of my days, which I know now more than any time is more limited than I could have ever
55:56 imagined.
55:57 Gosh, and I'm just not sure how I could pass on some of this wisdom, some of the nuggets
56:02 that I've gotten over time, some of the things that I've learned, some of the things that
56:05 I would love to pass on to other people so they can start ahead of where I was and finish
56:09 farther away than what I ever could have possibly done and that they can avoid the pitfalls
56:13 that brought me to this point.
56:15 Senior pastor, can you help me?
56:19 And a lot of our senior pastors are completely ill equipped to deal with that.
56:24 They don't have the foggiest idea what to do with those situations.
56:29 And so for us, we need to be able to encourage them to lift them up to defend them because
56:36 guys, let's just say that whether they find it on their own, whether God, you know, yanks
56:41 them up by their shirt, whether it's you, something that you've said to them and they
56:45 get super motivated and they start getting a little bit more aggressive.
56:48 They start putting their fingers in a few more chests.
56:50 They start like letting guys know what they need to be doing and not doing.
56:54 Guess what they're going to need?
56:56 They're going to need your defense.
56:59 They're going to need you behind them.
57:01 They're going to need you to guard their six.
57:02 They're going to need you to back them up.
57:05 They're going to need you to say, Amen, pastor, even if you're in a church that doesn't really
57:09 like to, you know, scream out, Amen, very much, right?
57:12 They're going to need you.
57:14 Are you equipped to be that person?
57:17 Are you equipped?
57:18 Are you ready?
57:19 Are you ready to say Amen?
57:21 Are you ready to say, I got you?
57:24 Are you ready to say I'm with you, pastor?
57:27 And for my pastor's listening, are you the type of guy that can actually do that?
57:32 Can you put your finger in some dude's chest and tell him he's not doing it right?
57:36 Can you snatch a guy up and correct him in front of people?
57:41 Can you embarrass somebody for the sake of the gospel?
57:45 Can you make them feel small so that you can build them up later?
57:49 Do you have it in you?
57:50 Because if you don't, you might think of another profession.
57:54 All right, guys, thanks so much for sticking in with us here today.
57:57 Before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
58:00 As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience
58:03 and specifically we do that by providing content like this podcast that forge a spiritual mental
58:08 and physical toughness.
58:09 So today on the mental resilience part, we are going to give you all the resources we
58:12 talked about today.
58:13 So the cross politic episode was called this.
58:15 It was called Anderson Cooper, bread line, burning promises, student loans and Mexico
58:19 sins, troops to the border.
58:21 So, yeah, that wasn't really what they were talking about during the section.
58:24 I obviously played, but that is the name of it.
58:26 So I got the YouTube link for you there.
58:28 I've got the link to Mark Driscoll, men and marriage to that series.
58:32 Just that will actually, I just have it to that one individual episode or a podcast or
58:35 whatever the presentation that he did.
58:37 You can find more information of that online.
58:39 Again, I'm just drawing your attention back to episode four of this podcast.
58:42 So wherever you get your podcast, wherever you're listening to this right now, just scroll,
58:45 scroll, scroll episode four, we'll get you back to Pussy's and the pews.
58:48 And then also the great man dot TV podcast, a word to churches.
58:52 So what I provided here is just a link to Apple I iTunes podcast.
58:57 So anywhere that you can find podcasts, just go search for great man dot TV.
59:01 But the name of the episode is a word to churches.
59:04 Guys, thanks so much for sticking in with us.
59:06 We really do appreciate it.
59:07 Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen
59:10 and share this on social media.
59:12 Guys, if you use the hashtag on Daunted Life on your post, we'll be sure to find it and
59:15 give it a thumbs up.
59:16 Guys, if we deserve a five star review, please leave us a five star review.
59:19 We're currently still five star reviewed, but leave us five stars and a few sentences
59:22 letting us know what about the content it is that you like currently booking speaking
59:26 engagements for the end of 2019 in the beginning of 2020.
59:30 So if you want me to come speak on your podcast, to your men's event, to your business, whatever
59:34 the case may be, hit me up info at undaunted.life.
59:37 That's I N F O at undaunted.life.
59:40 The website is www dot undaunted.life and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter
59:44 at undaunted life or Facebook.com backslash undaunted life.
59:48 Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app.
59:50 Just search undaunted life under plans.
59:51 And as always, we want to thank the band, August Burns read for allowing us to use their
59:55 music library for our content.
59:57 The intro outro track on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest
1:00:00 record entitled Phantom Anthem.
1:00:02 The links are in the description.
1:00:04 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:00:06 Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual mental and physical
1:00:12 toughness, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
Key quotes
3
Kyle Thompson
We need strong, biblical manhood modeled in our churches, not soft, compliant leaders.
Chalk Knocks
They're being taught how to not react to this and how to be the softer, gentler type of preacher.
David Morrow
The real tragedy is not just that we're losing boys. We are losing the most competitive, aggressive boys.
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