0:00
(upbeat music)
0:02
- This is Undaunted Life, a Man's Podcast.
0:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:23
Let's get into it.
0:24
All right guys, today I've got a special guest
0:25
on the podcast.
0:26
His name is Bill Rapier.
0:27
So Bill is a United States Navy veteran.
0:29
He served 20 years in United States Navy Seals.
0:32
And the last 14 years of his service to this country
0:34
were spent with Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
0:37
otherwise known as Dev Group.
0:38
And during his career, he spent time as an Assaultor,
0:41
Breacher, Sniper, Team Leader, Troop Chief,
0:43
Military Working Dog, Department Senior,
0:45
enlisted advisor.
0:46
This guy did just about everything.
0:48
And even after retirement,
0:49
he didn't want to just stop doing that type of stuff.
0:51
He launched a firearms training company
0:53
called AMTAC Tactical Shooting Instruction,
0:56
or AMTAC for short.
0:57
And AMTAC courses they cover combative pistol and carbine
1:00
and also integration of other weapons like blades
1:02
and things like that.
1:03
And I actually missed out on going to a class.
1:05
He was going to be doing it here in my own neck of the woods,
1:08
here in Oklahoma City.
1:09
But I missed out because we had the birth of Squish
1:11
and we had a lot of stuff that we needed to do around that time.
1:13
So I wasn't able to peel off and do that,
1:15
but I will be doing that in the future.
1:16
But these classes are very well regarded,
1:18
very highly reviewed.
1:19
And obviously you're getting,
1:20
teaching from one of the greatest trained type of warrior
1:25
in this type of a setting.
1:27
So it's very hard press for you to be able to find training
1:30
that would be better for you than something like that.
1:33
But I want to go ahead and give a shout out to Chris Flemmer.
1:34
That's a listener of this podcast.
1:35
He actually got me and built together
1:37
because I wanted to have Bill in the show for a long time.
1:39
And one of the reasons I wanted to have Bill in the show
1:42
is because yes, I talk to people that are veterans.
1:44
I talk to people that are active duty military.
1:46
You know, I've talked to a lot of seals on the show,
1:48
but he's a very unique guy because not only did he make it
1:50
all the way to the development group with us,
1:52
which is the top tier of the Navy Seals.
1:54
He's also a guy that is a incredibly, incredibly devout Christian.
1:58
So what you'll notice about this interview today is, you know,
2:01
I kind of got my own way of doing things
2:03
and I kind of like to kind of put things together and okay,
2:05
let's talk about your early childhood and let's go here.
2:07
But probably for the first hour,
2:08
'cause this is a couple of hours long guys.
2:10
It's a great one.
2:11
You should listen to every last bit of it.
2:12
But we went on a tangent where I just kind of followed the thread.
2:16
I was like, okay, we started talking about, you know,
2:18
when his Navy Seal career kind of, you know,
2:21
ran head first into his belief as a Christian
2:24
and what it was like, you know, when he was killing people
2:26
because that's what he was doing.
2:27
That's why I named this podcast, "What I Did,"
2:28
because it's like, it's a unique thing to kill people
2:31
at the behest of a government,
2:33
but also to be an incredibly, incredibly devout Christian.
2:35
But those things aren't as opposed as what you might think.
2:38
So we get into a lot of that.
2:39
We get into, you know, Calvinism and reformed Baptist theology.
2:42
We get into, you know, denominational fights.
2:44
We talked about Christian worship music.
2:46
We talked about a lot of things, you know,
2:47
Christian manhood writes a passage
2:50
and we mainly talked about writes a passage
2:52
at the very, very end of the podcast.
2:53
But we did get into some of the missions that he did
2:56
while he was in the Navy Seals,
2:57
why he decided to get out, you know,
2:59
why he decided to, you know, create AMTAC
3:01
and go those different routes.
3:02
Guys, this was a great conversation.
3:03
And this is an example of, you know,
3:05
to any of you guys that do podcasts out there
3:07
that if you've got time with somebody, just let it ride.
3:10
If they're an interesting person like Bill is,
3:12
just kind of let it ride and ask questions, be curious.
3:15
Don't just, you know, stick to the rigid structure.
3:17
Guys, if you could see my notes,
3:19
the questions we didn't go over,
3:20
there were so many things that we wanted to talk about
3:22
that I wanted to make sure we talked about that we didn't,
3:24
which probably sets us up for another conversation
3:26
later on down the road.
3:27
But guys, I don't want to keep them from you any longer.
3:29
So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:31
- Bill rapier, welcome to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
3:36
- Thanks for having me on.
3:37
- So I got to be honest with you.
3:39
I've been wanting to have you on the show
3:40
for quite a long time.
3:42
And it was actually listener of the show.
3:43
I think I mentioned in the intro, Chris Flemmer,
3:45
that kind of got us together to make sure
3:47
that this could happen.
3:48
Because you have a very, very unique story
3:50
and a lot of the ways that you think about things
3:51
is different.
3:52
And I get a lot of hate from guys like,
3:54
why do you only have Navy SEALs on your show?
3:55
I'm like, they're the only ones that write books,
3:57
but it is kind of funny about that
3:59
because you don't have a book out there for everybody.
4:01
But just to kind of give people
4:02
a little bit of an introduction to who you are,
4:04
we'll get into the military stuff,
4:05
we'll expand onto a lot of topics today.
4:07
But just describe your upbringing,
4:09
because that has really kind of led you
4:11
into some of the decisions you made in your life
4:13
and kind of how you conduct yourself and your family.
4:15
So what was it like growing up Bill rapier?
4:18
So my folks were missionaries, actually still are.
4:22
So I moved to Germany when I was five years old.
4:24
I got thrown into a German kindergarten
4:27
at age five and a half or six.
4:30
I was the only English speaker there.
4:33
No one spoke, or well, some of the other people spoke English,
4:36
but I was the only native English speaker
4:39
in my school at the time.
4:41
And very quickly, my folks had studied German for years
4:46
before going to the missions field.
4:47
And within a couple months of being completely immersed in it,
4:51
I think I was speaking better German than they were.
4:55
So we lived two different spots in Germany.
4:57
We lived down in Bavaria in Spaya,
4:59
little town right on the Rhine.
5:01
And then we lived up in Langhagen,
5:04
up by Hanover in Northern Germany.
5:06
Lived there until I was maybe 12 or so.
5:10
And then we moved to the States for about six months.
5:13
So lived in San Jose area for about six months or so.
5:17
And then we moved to Swaziland in Southern Africa.
5:20
So Swaziland is a tiny little, it's a kingdom.
5:23
At the time it was the youngest monarch
5:25
that was in charge of the thing.
5:27
It's the country surrounded three quarters
5:30
by South Africa in one quarter by Mozambique.
5:33
I absolutely loved living in Africa.
5:35
It was a great time.
5:36
Love the people over there.
5:39
It was just a very cool place.
5:43
So we only lived there for about two years or so.
5:45
And then my dad got recalled to help back States side.
5:50
So we moved to Colorado Springs.
5:52
And that's where I ended up finishing up high school.
5:55
So I did the last three years of high school
5:57
in Colorado Springs and then joined the service
6:00
immediately, literally the day after graduating
6:04
from high school.
6:05
- Yeah, so we'll get a whole lot more into your service.
6:07
But overall, like growing up,
6:09
because everybody knows a preacher's kid, right?
6:12
And so, but growing up a missionaries kid
6:14
is a little bit more unique.
6:15
And so for you, how has growing,
6:18
has, you know, having grown up as a missionary
6:20
and spending all this time outside of the United States
6:22
kind of framed how you think about the world
6:24
or think about the United States in particular,
6:26
but also how it affects how you run your family now.
6:29
- So worldview wise,
6:32
it definitely living overseas
6:34
and specifically living in more of an expat-type community
6:38
overseas is a,
6:42
they used to say about the British that lived
6:44
in the colonies that they were more British
6:46
than the British were.
6:47
And I totally, from what I've seen, that's the case
6:51
because all the, you know, the ones that wanted adventure
6:54
and wanted rugged individualism, they moved on.
6:56
I mean, as is evidenced by our nation as well.
6:59
So in a sense, living overseas really established
7:04
that American identity within me,
7:06
because I recognize that, oh man,
7:09
here's all this, you know, German stuff going on
7:11
or African stuff going on, and I remember coming
7:15
to a point one time when I was in Germany still
7:18
where I was thinking in German, all my friends were German.
7:22
I was speaking German even at home with my parents.
7:25
I speak in German most of the time.
7:27
And I realized, well, I did the math and I'm like, man,
7:30
I've lived in Germany longer than I have in America.
7:33
And it really bothered me because I was like,
7:35
I'm an American.
7:37
And so I remember making a conscious decision
7:40
at that point that I'm going to start thinking in English.
7:43
I'm gonna try and speak English at home more.
7:46
And really, so there's, I mean, another example
7:49
that would be watching the Super Bowl in Swaziland
7:53
at two o'clock in the morning.
7:55
You know, that's, I mean, now I really don't even,
7:58
I don't ever watch football.
7:59
I really don't ever watch any organized sports.
8:02
I didn't even understand the rules of football at the time
8:05
when we were going and watching the Super Bowl,
8:08
but it was a cultural, hey, the Americans,
8:11
the crazy Americans get up at one o'clock in the morning
8:14
and they drive to their friend's house
8:16
and, you know, he'd chunk food and watch the Super Bowl.
8:19
And, you know, so just having that, you know,
8:23
that community of being American.
8:28
I mean, another cool example living in Swaziland,
8:32
as an American, I could ride my bike to the ambassador's house
8:36
and basically just say hi to the gate guard
8:38
and then go in and use this pool
8:40
and just swim, you know, go and swim laps.
8:42
And it's like, it was just, it was a really cool,
8:45
like, you know, I'm an American
8:46
and like there's certain privileges that come with that
8:49
and certain responsibilities that come with that.
8:51
And so it was very much living overseas
8:55
definitely gave me a lot of that identity,
8:58
of my American identity that I have today.
9:01
- We are live from Feddi's house.
9:03
- Guests are gathering around the TV,
9:05
even with a big storm outside.
9:06
- Are we worried about the fee?
9:07
- Nope, they have Xfinity Wi-Fi.
9:09
- Get reliable fiber power gig Wi-Fi
9:11
with Peacock included to stream
9:12
the beautiful game this summer.
9:13
Xfinity, imagine that.
9:14
Restrictions apply, new gig internet customers
9:16
only, actual speeds vary.
9:17
Offer for Peacock premium with ads currently
9:18
at $10.99 a month value and limited to Xfinity internet
9:20
members with newer upgraded gig speed
9:21
or faster service, activation required to access content.
9:23
Peacock must be activated within first 90 days.
9:25
Management of existing subscriptions may be required
9:27
to avoid multiple subscriptions and duplicate charges.
9:29
Third party built subscriptions continue until canceled.
9:31
- No, that's an important thing, Bill,
9:33
because with traveling, I encourage people
9:36
to travel all the time,
9:37
but even within the United States,
9:39
like I live in central Oklahoma,
9:40
but if you travel up to Minnesota,
9:41
things are gonna feel different and sound different.
9:43
If you travel all over the US,
9:45
and it's certainly true as you go across the globe.
9:47
And so my wife and I have been fortunate enough
9:49
and blessed enough to be able to do quite a bit
9:50
of international travel.
9:51
We haven't lived other places,
9:53
but it does kind of give you a wider perspective.
9:55
But for you, you mentioned this already.
9:57
So you graduate from high school
9:59
and you're going to the military.
10:00
And you seemingly knew that that was the next step.
10:02
This wasn't like, well, you know,
10:03
I don't have anything else to do.
10:04
So I'm either going to work at that gas station,
10:06
go to college, go to the military.
10:08
It seemed like you knew you were going to go that direction.
10:10
So what drew you to the United States military?
10:12
And then specifically, what drew you to the Navy
10:14
and then even before, you know, further than that,
10:16
what drew you to the Navy Seals.
10:18
- So really it's, this is how God made me.
10:22
That is really the only, you know,
10:26
I mean, it's cool watching Kit and watching my children now
10:28
and like they have certain bets or directions in life.
10:31
And some of it is, can be encouraged,
10:34
but some of it is they just have their own personalities.
10:37
They have their own desires,
10:38
their own things that they enjoy
10:40
and want to, you know, are interested and want to pursue.
10:43
So that's what I had with the military.
10:46
I mean, from age six, five or six,
10:49
I think I have pictures of me
10:51
with my dad's old military stuff on,
10:54
you know, holding an old inert single barrel shotgun.
10:57
It, you know, beards painted onto my face.
11:01
You know, it was very much this is what I wanted to do.
11:04
Then living in Germany, especially during the Cold War,
11:10
I mean, when we were up north,
11:12
we were only a few hours away from the Iron Curtain.
11:16
So there was definitely the appreciation of, you know,
11:21
the Soviets could be rolling through here at any point.
11:25
And then we did have, you know, we didn't spend a whole lot
11:28
of time with American soldiers,
11:30
but from time to time, we would meet
11:32
and hang out with American soldiers
11:34
and we could go on base everyone, you know,
11:36
like people would help us get on base
11:37
and, you know, maybe use the commissary
11:39
and like that was always a kind of a cool thing.
11:42
But man, I, yeah, I remember running around, you know,
11:46
it'd be miserable weather outside.
11:48
And I'd have, I'd have all my German army stuff on
11:51
or, you know, a mixed match of German and American stuff
11:54
and I'd be pouring down right now, I'd go knock
11:56
on the neighbor kid's door and be like,
11:58
does your son wanna come out and do,
11:59
you're by label entertaining,
12:01
which was like survival training, you know,
12:02
we're gonna go out into the woods
12:03
and make shelters and cook food and whatnot.
12:06
And yeah, so very early on, that's,
12:10
I knew that's what I wanted to do.
12:11
So my dad then was said, well,
12:13
if you wanna be in the military, you should go to West Point.
12:16
And so for a long time, that was my goal was to go
12:18
to West Point and then when we moved to the state,
12:23
so prior to moving to the States,
12:24
I was doing good in school and then we moved to the States
12:26
and for the first year, I was doing good in school.
12:28
And then my junior year, I started wrestling
12:30
and kind of started coming off the rails a little bit,
12:35
started partying a little bit.
12:36
And by the time I was the latter half of my senior year,
12:41
I wanted nothing to do with going to school,
12:43
still wanted to join the military.
12:45
And so that's when I really started researching and going,
12:48
what, what is going to be
12:52
the hardest organization to get into
12:55
that has the highest likelihood of seeing action?
12:57
Cause this is, you know, we're in between wars.
12:59
This is the early 90s as I'm researching this stuff.
13:03
So we haven't been in a real war in, you know,
13:06
really since Vietnam.
13:08
- Right.
13:09
- So I'm looking at it, I'm doing all the research.
13:11
I'm reading about Marine Corps reconnaissance.
13:13
I'm reading about SF and then I'm reading about SEAL teams.
13:18
And yeah, the, I was telling this to, to a guy the other day,
13:23
like the Marine Corps guy could have got me.
13:25
Cause I, I went in there for,
13:26
cause I didn't, I really didn't want to join the Navy.
13:29
You know, just the whole, you know, recognizing that,
13:32
that most guys don't make it through training.
13:34
And I really did not want to be on a ship.
13:37
So I went into the Marine Corps recruiters.
13:38
I was talking to him, I was asking him about Force Recon
13:40
and, and compared to Buds and what's the difficulty.
13:44
And he looks at me and he goes, he goes, man,
13:47
those five mile soft sand runs,
13:49
those aren't even good for you.
13:51
And I walked out and I'm like, I want to go do the hard stuff.
13:55
So ended up, you know, so joined the Navy, you know,
14:00
did the delayed enlistment program.
14:02
So I was actually signed up prior to graduating
14:04
from high school, graduated high school,
14:06
and joined, you know, shipped out the following day.
14:09
Went to Great Lakes, went to boot camp up there.
14:14
And then, yeah, thus started my career in the Navy.
14:18
- Right. So for you, 'cause it seemed like you're a guy
14:20
that's kind of drawn to action.
14:21
You mentioned it there.
14:22
You're drawn towards doing hard things.
14:24
I've heard people say this before,
14:26
'cause again, I told you all fear,
14:27
we're not gonna sit here and talk about Buds.
14:28
Yes, you were cold, wet, sandy.
14:30
It was hard, you know, we get it.
14:31
But some people get to Coronado and they,
14:36
and they're not sure if they're gonna make it.
14:38
That they're just kind of kind of field their way through it.
14:40
And then almost 100% of the time they end up
14:43
in the part of the class that doesn't continue, right?
14:45
Like they're the people that ring the bell
14:47
and set their helmet on the ground.
14:48
Did you show up knowing you were gonna get through?
14:52
Like, hey, these guys aren't gonna kill me.
14:53
They have to feed me.
14:54
Like, what was your mindset when you showed up?
14:57
- I wasn't sure I was gonna make it through.
14:59
I mean, that, yeah, I mean, that's the bottom line.
15:04
I wasn't sure I was gonna make it through.
15:06
I mean, I was, you know, take it one day at a time.
15:08
All right, let's just get through this one day.
15:10
I mean, there was,
15:13
many, many times I was, I was going through,
15:16
you know, I can do all things through Christ.
15:17
It gives me strength, like just quoting that,
15:19
you know, reviewing that verse over and over again,
15:22
when I was really cold and I really didn't want to do it.
15:25
But, you know, did keep going.
15:28
- It's an incredible thing.
15:29
'Cause that's the thing I try to tell people a lot of times
15:31
because you know, I'll leave people through workouts
15:32
and it's like, I have an idea of how many reps
15:34
we're gonna do, but they don't.
15:35
And that's what makes it worse,
15:37
is because like, you know, you're gonna be doing things
15:39
physically, but you don't know when you're gonna stop.
15:41
And I've heard people talk about this before.
15:43
Like during Hell Week,
15:44
whenever the sun's going down
15:45
and all the instructors are like,
15:47
oh, we're gonna kill you guys.
15:49
The moment the sun goes down
15:50
and it's the anticipation of what's gonna happen that week
15:53
that'll get a guy, you know, to ring the bell,
15:55
which is just kind of interesting.
15:56
But you've mentioned it here a couple of times.
15:58
So I think we should go ahead and get into this.
16:01
At some point, and I don't know at what points,
16:03
maybe you can answer that.
16:04
At what point did your chosen profession, you know,
16:06
of being a Navy SEAL run into your Christian worldview?
16:10
And yeah, I mean, we'll get into missions
16:11
and we'll get into all the stuff that you did
16:12
as a Navy SEAL, 'cause you did some really, really interesting
16:14
stuff and I'm gonna force you to not be so damn humble.
16:17
But like at what point did the fact that you believe
16:20
in, you know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ
16:22
run into the fact that your chosen profession
16:24
is probably gonna require you to kill people?
16:27
- So first off, I went going through buds
16:31
and I feel like it's only been recently
16:34
that I've gotten a little bit more clarity
16:36
or maybe just more perspective on this,
16:38
but I really think now as I was going through buds,
16:42
making it into the SEAL teams was probably niddle for me.
16:46
Like I probably valued it too highly
16:49
as I was going through training.
16:51
Also was not living for the Lord at the time.
16:53
It wasn't until a couple years of being in the SEAL teams
17:00
that I was driving back from Colorado one night.
17:03
I'd visited some friends out there driving back.
17:05
I'm driving through the desert someplace
17:07
and I was just, you know, looking at the stars,
17:08
just kind of contemplating life and I remember thinking
17:12
to myself, man, I, doctrinally, I don't believe
17:15
that you can lose your salvation.
17:16
You know, if you are the elect, you cannot lose your salvation.
17:21
But I was looking at my life.
17:24
I'm like, no one else could tell.
17:26
If you know, if you look at my life right now,
17:28
no one else could tell that I'm a Christian.
17:30
And so I really started praying and asking God
17:33
to give me a desire to wanna follow after him.
17:36
And that, you know, looking back on it now,
17:39
that was really a turning point in my life where, you know,
17:41
I got plugged into a church, started going to Bible study,
17:43
started actually reading my Bible and you know, wow,
17:46
this, you know, it was like it was speaking to me
17:47
for the first time, you know, like, man,
17:50
this is actually how I'm supposed to live my life.
17:52
Instead of just being a set of rules, it's like, okay,
17:55
this is, you know, this is kind of stuff that I'm,
17:57
that I'm supposed to do or have to do.
17:58
It was like, I was becoming hungry for God's word.
18:05
So, going back to, did it have any effect on, you know,
18:10
how do I reconcile the two with potentially having
18:14
to kill people?
18:15
I mean, going through our interview process
18:20
to go to dev group, that was one of the questions
18:26
that was asked of me, right?
18:27
So I'm sitting there, I've done the PT tests,
18:29
I've done this long battery of psych tests.
18:32
And now I'm sitting in a, you know, horseshoe of,
18:35
you know, in the middle of a horseshoe of tables
18:37
and it's all these senior operators and,
18:40
and then a couple of admin people and, you know,
18:42
the doctor or a psychologist,
18:44
a bunch of these people are sitting around
18:46
and the psychologist goes, oh, you say
18:50
that you're a really religious guy,
18:53
but you're, you know, you're, you're trying
18:56
to get to a command where you may be asked to kill people.
18:59
You know, how, how does that square up with the set of rules?
19:04
One of them says that I'll shout, not kill.
19:06
And my answer to him was, well, number one, it's,
19:11
well, I actually wasn't quite this deep
19:13
at the time, but I'll elaborate on it now.
19:15
The ancient Hebrews had different words for killing,
19:17
just like we have different words for killing
19:19
as far as manslaughter and different degrees of manslaughter.
19:22
David was a man after God's own heart
19:26
and he killed so many people that they wrote songs about him,
19:28
right? Saul has slain his thousands
19:30
and David has tens of thousands.
19:32
So I told him, I don't think God is going to have a problem
19:35
with me doing the same thing, right?
19:36
There's a massive difference between murdering someone
19:39
and killing them in battle, right?
19:40
Murdering, you know, the violence itself.
19:43
In a fallen world, the violence itself is neutral, right?
19:47
You can use violence if someone is torturing your family
19:50
to death and you come in and use violence
19:52
to stop that from happening,
19:53
that would be a righteous use of violence.
19:55
If you want your neighbor's wife or his car or whatever
19:58
and you go in and kill them in order to take that,
20:01
that would be an immoral, unrighteous use
20:04
of violence right there.
20:05
So the violence itself is just, you know, it is a tool
20:09
and it's, you know, part of living in a fallen world
20:11
is that it's something that we, you know,
20:13
we have to be able to do.
20:15
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20:45
- So when you get into the Navy Eye again,
20:47
we're just kind of fast forwarding through Buds
20:48
and all that.
20:49
So you're in the Navy now and we'll get into, you know,
20:51
Dev Guru here in a minute as well.
20:53
So you are here at a time where we're at war now, right?
20:57
So we had, you know, years where we weren't at war,
20:59
but now we're at war.
21:00
And so you are being synergies to go defend this country,
21:04
but also to execute missions, which would, you know,
21:06
result in the death of people
21:08
that are on the other side of the gun from you.
21:10
And so that is something that you did do.
21:12
You did kill people while you were over there.
21:13
I am curious, and I know you've talked about this before.
21:15
So did anyone think that this question is unfair?
21:18
You've answered it before, so I'm gonna ask it as well.
21:20
After the first person that you killed,
21:22
were you still assured of your positioning?
21:25
Because everybody understands like the difference
21:27
between murder and killing and manslaughter
21:30
and accidental death and all these different things.
21:32
But now the blood is almost literally on your hands, right?
21:36
And this is someone that was trying to kill you.
21:38
This is an evil person.
21:39
This is somebody that believes a worldview
21:41
that is outside of what jives with the Gino Christian ethic
21:44
or what we in the United States say
21:46
is a more a way of operating around the world.
21:48
Did you feel the same way?
21:49
Did you have the same conviction after that first life you took?
21:53
Yeah, there's no, yeah, no change.
21:57
In fact, as I've been retired from the Navy now
22:03
for eight years teaching or almost eight years,
22:05
teaching full-time since then.
22:08
So as part of my mindset talk,
22:10
I talk about killing and every time I do a two-day class,
22:15
that's one of the things that is gonna get talked about.
22:18
And looking back on it now,
22:22
I think I was probably too nonchalant about it.
22:25
I mean, it was, 'cause it was never a,
22:27
like growing up it was never a thing
22:29
that, oh, killing is, you know, killing in battle is bad.
22:32
It was, that was never, the lines were very clear.
22:36
There's murder and there's killing in battle.
22:39
And so now as I am speaking,
22:43
I guess somewhat from a position of authority
22:46
where I just, I know that the guys that come and train
22:49
with me are listening to what I'm saying.
22:52
I have really felt convicted of,
22:54
hey, I better make sure I get this right.
22:56
Because honestly, there was times where it was like,
23:00
let's just put it, two nonchalant about it.
23:04
Just, you know, like high fives, good job shooting that guy,
23:07
like, no, no big deal.
23:09
And as I look at it biblically now,
23:13
I'm like, well, it is a big deal.
23:16
It's not that it's bad, but it is a big deal.
23:19
The taking of human life, the shedding of blood
23:22
is a big deal.
23:23
So now I would just say, hey,
23:29
we should probably be a little bit more somber about that
23:32
because I mean, David was a man after God's own heart,
23:35
but David did not build the temple
23:37
because he had so much blood on his hands, right?
23:40
His son built the temple form.
23:42
So there is a,
23:43
yeah, so I've changed, you know,
23:47
I've changed my mindset a little bit there.
23:50
Not, you know, I don't,
23:52
I have no regrets of any of the shootings that I've been in.
23:57
But looking back on it now,
24:02
I would be maybe a little bit more somber about it, I think.
24:07
- I think that makes sense.
24:09
Yeah, when you said nonchalant,
24:10
it was like, no one assumed that y'all are just hooting
24:12
and hollering, but it's kind of the same thing.
24:14
This is obviously a little bit of a bastardization
24:16
from your main point, but like when people watch hunting shows
24:19
and, you know, they're watching a 30 minute hunting show
24:20
and then they see these people hooting and hollering
24:22
when they shoot a big elk or a deer or something like that.
24:24
People don't understand how you could be so happy
24:26
about, you know, an animal losing its life,
24:29
but they don't show the years of training
24:31
or all of the stuff they had to go through to get that.
24:34
And it's that to a crazy degree higher
24:37
when you're taking the life of an enemy combat.
24:39
And I would assume, obviously, I don't know for myself,
24:41
but I wouldn't think I am curious about
24:43
because, you know, you mentioned there that, you know,
24:44
there was that high-fiving like, yeah, I smoked that guy
24:46
like that, that type of a mindset.
24:48
And I think people can generally understand that.
24:51
Did your teammates knowing your worldview
24:53
because I'm going out of limb here
24:54
and saying that all your seal brothers
24:56
weren't maybe coming from the same Christian worldview as you,
24:59
but did it ever cause any issues?
25:01
Did it cause, did it lead you to some interesting conversations?
25:04
'Cause let's say there's an atheist or an agnostic
25:06
that was right next to you when you took a life.
25:08
Did that, you know, allow you to have a conversation later
25:11
where you could share the gospel with that person?
25:12
Did they ask you, hey, man, you're a Christian.
25:14
How could you be next to me killing people?
25:16
Did that ever come up?
25:18
Not really, I mean, like the questions about faith
25:21
came up all the time, but it was never,
25:24
yeah, guys never, guys knew where I stood
25:29
when it came to like getting after it.
25:31
So there was, there was not a question on that.
25:33
- Okay, so how did you deal with the questions
25:36
about your faith because that's going to come up with it's,
25:39
it's just as general as like, hey, where'd you grow up?
25:41
Or what sports did you play in school?
25:42
It's like, hey, what's your worldview?
25:43
Like origin, meaning, morality, destiny.
25:45
You know, where did we come from?
25:46
Why are we here? How do we tell between good and evil?
25:49
And where do you go when you die?
25:50
I'm sure those things came up.
25:51
How did you handle those conversations with your brothers?
25:54
- I try and share the gospel with people,
25:56
but I mean, ultimately there's, you know,
25:59
people have their own opinions on things.
26:01
And I firmly believe that you cannot come to saving faith
26:06
unless the Holy Spirit's working on, you know,
26:09
is drawing you to that understanding.
26:13
And so yeah, I have to do my part and share the gospel,
26:17
right, we're commanded to do that.
26:19
But then after that, it does not, you know,
26:22
and we should be wise, we should have an answer, you know,
26:25
for the faith that we believe in.
26:27
But also it's not, I don't have to convince people.
26:32
I mean, I'm going to try and do my best,
26:34
but I recognize now that it's not on me.
26:37
Like I'm not going to convince someone
26:39
to come to saving faith.
26:40
That is only, you know, I might be, you know,
26:45
God might be using me as part of His instrument, you know,
26:48
for that person's coming to saving faith.
26:53
But it is not a, it's not me.
26:58
Like it's only through the Holy Spirit.
27:01
And so I think understanding that takes a huge weight
27:04
off your shoulder, you know,
27:09
and then I guess is kind of came to mind like,
27:12
some of the regrets that I do have is thinking about,
27:17
thinking about guys that I served with that did die,
27:21
that I'm like, man, I don't,
27:22
I don't think I ever shared the gospel with this guy.
27:25
Like, 'cause there are guys out there that I can think of
27:27
that I was, you know, maybe running around drinking beers with,
27:31
not, you know, not being a good witness for Christ
27:35
and they're dead now.
27:36
Then like that, you know, if I, you know,
27:40
talk about regret, like that's a regret in my, you know,
27:44
as I look back on things.
27:47
- Right. Well, let's, let's signal that to a little bit further
27:50
because I'm getting the sense that you kind of come from,
27:53
you know, the Calvinist tradition or reform tradition
27:56
is that kind of a fair assessment of where you would,
27:57
you know, play your flag?
27:58
- For sure. Yeah.
28:00
- Okay. So with that, and again, and I've talked about this
28:02
on the show and I've talked about with other people,
28:04
that's, those are still things that I'm kind of working through
28:06
and trying to understand different systematic theologies.
28:08
Obviously understanding that for hundreds and hundreds of years,
28:11
people were Christians before John Calvin even existed.
28:13
But at the same time, I'm curious as to why you felt that guilt
28:18
over, I don't even know if you use the word guilt,
28:20
but that guilt's about not sharing with your brothers,
28:24
you know, about the love of Christ, about, you know,
28:27
sharing the gospel with them before they passed away
28:30
because to a degree, it's like, if you look at the elect status,
28:33
which you talked about earlier, whether or not you're elect,
28:35
if you look at that in black and white terms,
28:37
it's like they were either elect or they weren't.
28:40
So one thing that I've asked a lot of people
28:41
in the Calvinist sphere, and some people are like, you know,
28:44
very, very basic kid Calvinists and people are like,
28:46
other people died in the wool.
28:48
It's like, why would you feel this overwhelming sense
28:51
to go and be evangelical, to go and actually share
28:55
in these tremendous ways, 'cause to a certain degree,
28:57
it's like, they're either elect or they're not.
29:00
Like the Holy Spirit, you know,
29:01
God either chose them or they're not.
29:03
And so I know that, you know, people,
29:04
they're a Calvinist screaming right now at their speakers,
29:07
like, no, you don't understand.
29:08
But it's like, I feel like it's,
29:09
the systematic theology's gotten so complicated
29:12
that people are struggling to answer in one sentence,
29:15
how can I be saved?
29:16
So just kind of walk me through that a little bit.
29:18
- So first off, you don't have to,
29:22
you don't have to believe in election.
29:26
You don't have to believe in free.
29:27
All right, we can come to saving faith regardless.
29:30
I don't think anyone understands election
29:35
when they're first getting saved,
29:36
just because most people are not,
29:41
have not dug that deep before coming to saving faith.
29:44
The reason why we should be sharing the gospel
29:49
is because we're commanded to.
29:50
Like in that, and the opposite of that is,
29:54
my understanding would be hyper-Calvinism
29:55
and like, that's wrong.
29:58
If you go, well, you're either saved or not,
30:00
like, and I'm just not gonna share the gospel
30:02
because you're either elect or you're not,
30:04
that is, you're deciding to ignore God's word
30:10
if you take that approach.
30:12
And so, when I first started learning,
30:17
free will versus election and that whole,
30:20
the two schools of thought within Protestantism,
30:27
I asked my dad and my dad gave me the answer.
30:31
He says, you should share the gospel,
30:32
like you're a free will guy
30:33
and you should believe that God is sovereign,
30:35
like you're a Calvinist.
30:37
And at the time, I thought it was a cop-out.
30:40
Like I honestly, I was expecting something,
30:43
my dad's got his doctorate
30:44
and I was expecting something really, really deep
30:46
and the older I get now, the more I'm like,
30:51
that is how we're supposed to be living, right?
30:55
And I do firmly believe that we are,
30:59
that God has chose us from the beginning of time,
31:01
before the foundation of the earth,
31:04
before there even was time.
31:06
How that works out with God loving all of us
31:11
and not wanting any to perish, like, I don't know.
31:15
But if I understood every aspect of God,
31:18
I would say that that would be a lot lower level of God.
31:22
And we serve a mighty, mighty God, like, I don't believe
31:27
that I am going to be able to comprehend everything about him.
31:31
And I'm okay with that.
31:34
And I think in part, I'm okay with that,
31:36
just because, you know, being a military guy,
31:38
there's, hey, there's need to know,
31:41
like there's some stuff that it's just,
31:43
hey, this is your level and this is what you're read into.
31:47
And I get it, there's a bigger picture.
31:52
And so when I say regret, like, yeah,
31:54
that's actually the whole election
31:56
has been a comfort for me in looking back at those,
32:00
because I do, like, I can look at it logically and go,
32:03
you know what, even if I was unfaithful to God
32:07
by not sharing the gospel with them,
32:09
if that person was elect,
32:11
God was going, like someone else was going to do that.
32:14
So it has been very, very comforting to me to, you know,
32:18
to have that, but where I say I have regret is just,
32:23
man, that's like God allows us
32:27
to be a part of his redemptive plan for humanity.
32:31
I mean, like, what an amazing, you know,
32:34
my life will probably be over in the next 40 year.
32:37
I'm 45 right now.
32:38
If I may get, if I may get another 40 years,
32:40
so that'll be a long time.
32:42
But, you know, eternity and, man, I get to be a part of that.
32:47
I get to be a part of God's redemptive plan for humanity
32:49
for all time.
32:51
And what a blessing.
32:53
And so I just look at it as that was probably missing out
32:58
on blessing by not sharing the gospel with those guys.
33:02
I mean, then there, you know, there were friends, you know?
33:04
- So you don't feel like this overall?
33:06
Yeah, no, I really appreciate you going
33:08
into that level of detail because, like,
33:10
I think that's a very, very interesting point
33:13
that your dad made about, you know,
33:15
evangelize like it's free will, but like, you know,
33:18
just rest in an election.
33:19
I think that's an important thing.
33:20
And I'm sure a lot of people would quibble
33:22
with the right theology of that and all those different things,
33:24
which I guess is, and guys, we'll get back
33:26
to the military stuff, but I'm really enjoying this vein
33:28
that we're in.
33:29
I'm curious for a guy like you that believes the way
33:32
that you do, you know, planning your flag
33:33
and the reform, you know, Calvinist field,
33:35
is how do you study the Bible?
33:37
Because, like, literally, right here next to me,
33:39
I've got, you know, a Bible with no commentary.
33:42
I've got two different commentary Bibles, right?
33:45
So they got the scripture up top
33:46
and commentary on the bottom.
33:48
And then two, just straight up commentaries.
33:49
One, John MacArthur, the other by Moody.
33:51
And so I've got a plethora of ways to do this.
33:54
And I've got several, you know, apps here on my computer
33:56
and I've got several websites where I can,
33:58
I can access the scripture.
34:00
But there are times when I feel like,
34:02
if I'm just reading the Bible with just the verses there,
34:05
that, oh, I might be missing something.
34:06
Well, you know, what could John MacArthur teach me
34:08
about that or what does my Reformation Bible say about that?
34:10
What does my ESV Bible say about that?
34:12
And if I'm being honest, Bill,
34:13
sometimes that causes me to be paralyzed a little bit
34:16
to where it's like, if I'm just reading the scripture
34:18
by itself, I'm wondering if I'm reading it stupidly.
34:21
I'm wondering if I'm reading it wrongly.
34:23
And this is a me problem, this isn't,
34:25
but I'm assuming there are other people listening to this, Bill,
34:28
that struggle that same way.
34:29
Because there's no such thing, I guess,
34:31
as technically reading the Bible.
34:32
It's always studying the Bible.
34:34
And most guys don't have enough time, you know, they say,
34:37
to work out or to eat, ride or to spend time with the kids
34:39
or all that.
34:40
And so they just put into that category Bible study
34:43
because who has time to study?
34:45
I'm not in school anymore.
34:46
I don't have an hour set aside for study.
34:48
So I guess walk me through how you specifically study
34:52
the Bible, do you come at it through a theological lens
34:55
every time?
34:56
Do you read John Calvin's opinion or Charles Spurgeon's opinion
34:59
or these guys' opinion about everything?
35:00
Just kind of take me through that.
35:02
- Yeah, so I guess first off, I would say I'm still pretty
35:06
young in my, I mean, on my reading list right now
35:10
is London Baptist Confession, number two, 1689.
35:14
Like I'm working through that right now.
35:16
So there, you know, and part of that is,
35:22
I mean, just as I look back, you know,
35:25
very, very blessed to have godly, very godly parents
35:28
and you know, and to be raised in the faith.
35:32
But doctrine wasn't something that we got into a whole lot.
35:35
So now being in leadership and church, I'm like, man,
35:38
I've got a, like, I need to know a lot of this.
35:42
Like where do I stand on so many of these different positions?
35:45
And I really like, I'm seeing a, like,
35:49
I'm really hungry right now to learn more on,
35:52
hey, what exactly do I believe?
35:55
Why do I believe it?
35:56
How, 'cause if we don't, if we're not truly grounded in,
36:00
well, I believe this, this and this,
36:02
because it says this, this and this in the Bible,
36:04
then it's very, it's easy to start veering off course
36:08
and going down some of the roads of, you know,
36:12
the various cults that are out there because they're,
36:16
they're not taking God's word as a whole.
36:18
They're not, they're too surface level, right?
36:23
I mean, this is fascinating to me.
36:24
Like I've, I've always said, oh yeah,
36:26
I'm more non-denominational.
36:28
You know, that's kind of growing up.
36:31
I was always like, yeah, I'm non-denominational, right?
36:33
Went to a Lutheran church in Germany,
36:35
went to a Baptist church in Africa,
36:37
went to more non-denominational churches in Colorado.
36:42
And now that I'm, you know, that I'm reading through stuff,
36:46
I'm like, actually Baptist doctrine is probably about
36:48
where I like, that's where I line up the most,
36:52
not necessarily dispensational, you know,
36:56
modern dispensationalism, not there, you know,
36:59
eschatologically, but, you know, as I look at Baptist doctrine,
37:04
I think for the most part, I think they,
37:08
that most closely aligns with what I believe.
37:11
And in the past, I may have been too, too quick to go,
37:16
well, let's, you know, let's not worry about the things
37:19
that divide us, which I still would agree with, right?
37:22
We shouldn't break fellowship over, you know,
37:24
you believe in sprinkling babies,
37:26
and I believe in, you know, in free will, or not free will,
37:30
but in making--
37:31
Full immersion and all that.
37:32
Full immersion, yes.
37:34
Yeah.
37:35
Like I wouldn't break fellowship with someone over that,
37:37
but that is a, like, I, as I read the Bible,
37:41
I'm like, no, I think it's pretty clear.
37:42
I know I do see where the Presbyterians are coming from
37:45
with sprinkling babies, like, I see it,
37:48
I disagree with it, but I wouldn't,
37:50
I wouldn't break fellowship with someone over that.
37:52
Same thing with, you know, if you're a hymns-only kind of guy,
37:55
I love the hymns, in fact, we do probably two-thirds
38:03
of the songs that we do at our church, our hymns.
38:06
They're just done in a little bit more modern style,
38:08
you know, with guitar lead, vice a piano lead.
38:15
But it's still, it's a, like, I'll,
38:18
we'll throw a little bit more modern song in there
38:21
from time to time, like, and then, well, and shoot,
38:24
and then some of the, I mean, that, sorry,
38:26
that's another whole tangent right there with hymns.
38:30
Well, man, if you look at Luther's time, right,
38:34
he wanted to bring praise and worship back into the church,
38:38
and so he was taking bar songs, you know, drinking songs,
38:41
and putting gospel lyrics, Christian lyrics,
38:46
to those songs.
38:46
I was just reading a commentary on that.
38:49
He would say that sometimes the song was so deeply embedded
38:52
with drinking culture or with the bar scene,
38:55
that he said that he had to give that one back to the devil.
38:58
And I just think that's fascinating
39:00
because there's a school of thought now that's like,
39:03
man, if it doesn't, if it's not in a hymnal from,
39:06
I don't know, 50 years ago, it's horrible.
39:08
But man, there's so many good songs now that if you,
39:12
if you didn't grow up with the hymns,
39:14
you would look at that and go, this is absolutely a hymn.
39:18
You know, so having doctrinally sound worship music,
39:22
I think is, is, is very important.
39:26
Sorry, we kind of got some rabbit holes there.
39:28
No, no, no, no, like you opened up two cans of worms
39:30
and guys, like I'll set it up in the intro
39:32
where, you know, guys can kind of figure it all out,
39:34
but I do want to get back to music in a second,
39:36
but I want to talk about something else
39:37
that you brought up there.
39:38
So talking about denominations, talking about doctrines,
39:42
I think one of the easiest things for a non-Christian
39:45
that lives outside the church world to point to
39:48
as a reason why they wouldn't want to be any part of that
39:50
is because of the sheer number of denominations.
39:52
Like I live in Oklahoma, the belt buckle of the Bible bell.
39:55
And so on one street, you can have every denomination
39:58
you could possibly think of within a few hundred yards
40:01
of one another as you continue to make your way down the street.
40:04
And it could be like, how could we go
40:06
from the first century church to where we are today?
40:09
How could, how could in 2000 years we've created this?
40:12
And the thing about it is,
40:12
Satan is incredibly crafty and creating schism and problems.
40:17
I mean, you said, breaking fellowship with your brothers.
40:21
We do it all the time, Bill.
40:23
It's like, oh, you don't believe in a full immersion.
40:25
Oh, you don't believe in one saved, always saved.
40:27
Oh, you don't believe in, like I know people that have,
40:30
you know, like my wife and I broke up in college
40:32
because the tradition she grew up in,
40:34
they believe if you're not baptized, you can't go to heaven.
40:38
And I was like, wait a minute.
40:38
So if I get saved in, we're on our way to the church
40:41
to go dunk me in water or we're on the way to the bathtub
40:44
to dunk me in water and I have a heart attack and die
40:46
that I'm not going to make it to heaven.
40:47
Like we have these squabbles over mostly things
40:51
that are not foundational or cornerstone issues
40:53
to the Christian faith.
40:54
I would put that one in.
40:57
I would put that one in that that is a,
40:59
you're not saved by baptism.
41:00
Like, you know, if we're going to argue about dunking
41:03
or sprinkling, like that's a separate thing right there.
41:06
I mean, you just look at the guy that died next to Christ
41:10
on the cross, he was not baptized.
41:11
Exactly.
41:12
Right. No, and that was my, my number one argument is
41:14
they didn't take him down, like, you know, take the nails out.
41:16
All right, dunk in, then put them back up
41:18
and say, you can die now.
41:19
Like, like I'm totally with you on that.
41:21
But there are people that are vehement, right?
41:24
And these are well-meaning God-fearing gospel-centered people.
41:27
They are vehement about picking issue
41:30
out of the plethora of issues.
41:32
That's got to be Satan, like that working us
41:35
because we're not presenting ourselves
41:37
as a unified front.
41:38
You know what I mean?
41:39
Yes, there is the...
41:41
It really is a two-edged sword
41:46
because there is, like, I don't want to break fellowship
41:49
with people over, you know, minor doctrinal issues
41:53
that are not salvation-based issues.
41:56
But at the same time, if we're not going to stand on stuff,
42:00
then we end up just going, well, it's kind of whatever
42:03
you believe is true, which is not true, right?
42:06
There is truth.
42:07
There's only one interpretation for the gospel.
42:09
So there are some hills that we need to die on.
42:15
I just think what we need to do is go, okay,
42:17
these are your grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone,
42:20
the Trinity, those are some of the things that we say,
42:23
hey, if you're outside of this, you're not a Christian.
42:27
If you're inside of that, then you're a Christian,
42:31
but you know, you believe that we shouldn't use instruments
42:34
and during worship, okay, check.
42:36
Like, you can believe that, that's fine.
42:38
Like, if I go worship at your church, I won't bring my guitar.
42:42
You know, that is okay, but that is not a salvation.
42:46
I would say that's a style-based thing,
42:49
and I know some of the people are very well-meaning with that,
42:52
and they might say, hey, this is, like,
42:54
here's the biblical case for this, all right.
42:57
That's fine, you can believe that.
42:59
But it is not whether we use instruments or not,
43:03
whether we sing hymns or a little bit more modern songs,
43:06
that does not determine where you spend eternity, right?
43:11
What determines that is, you know,
43:13
whether you have made Christ's Lord of your life,
43:16
you've repented, you were following after him.
43:18
That is what determines where you spend eternity.
43:23
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43:51
- Yeah, I think we're in agreement there.
43:54
Let's go and get back to the music thing,
43:55
because I've talked about music quite a bit on this podcast.
43:57
It's been kind of a through point for me
43:59
that I cannot stand the overwhelming majority
44:02
of contemporary Christian music.
44:04
Now, to be fair, I'm a metalhead.
44:06
Like, that's always been the music that I've been into.
44:08
And so, when I was introduced to, like, living sacrifice
44:11
and the, you know, Zayo and, you know, striper,
44:15
like, and all that, like, whenever I was just going
44:17
to church on my own, that always agreed with my palate
44:19
way more than anything that is kind of being sung today.
44:22
But I did a podcast a while back.
44:23
I think it was episode, I can't remember what episode it was,
44:26
but it was contemporary Christian music
44:28
is for women and effeminate men.
44:30
And one of the main through points of that
44:33
is a lot of these songs, the lyrical content,
44:35
is very homoerotic.
44:37
They're written either by women or effeminate men.
44:40
The overwhelming majority of Christian music
44:43
is consumed by women.
44:44
It's marketed to women.
44:46
It's for women.
44:47
And a lot of guys, like, if you don't have that depth
44:50
of kind of personal understanding,
44:52
you'll be sitting there at church,
44:53
looking up at these words on the screen and being like,
44:55
okay, I don't know if I want to sing.
44:58
I want to embrace this man into my arms
45:01
and to bring him close to my bosom and to nuzzle into his grace.
45:04
For whatever reason, that seems weird to me.
45:07
My most guys, maybe they have to separate a little bit.
45:10
And that's not to say that, you know,
45:11
I'm painting with a broad brush here
45:12
just so we can get to the point of my question.
45:14
But I do find that as a major sticking point
45:16
for men specifically, is they go to church,
45:20
this music, is it like any other music?
45:22
There's not a genre of music that sounds like church music
45:24
aside from church music, right?
45:26
It's hard for them to get into.
45:28
And then they're surrounded by a bunch of guys
45:30
that are pretty soft, pretty doughy,
45:32
depending on the church that you're at.
45:34
And it's like, man, is this where I need to be?
45:37
But a lot of it can kind of come back to music.
45:39
And so I'm with you.
45:40
If you're into the Psalms and singing old school hymns,
45:43
freaking go for it.
45:44
Like if you're into singing, you know,
45:46
the new school Hillsong or Bethel songs
45:48
where it's the bridge 47 times and the course 82 times,
45:51
great, like whatever you're into.
45:53
But that does cause a lot of issues for men.
45:55
I mean, am I crazy?
45:57
Because a lot of guys emailed me after that episode.
45:58
They're like, yes, I never knew what it was
46:01
until you described it.
46:02
But yes, I have the same feeling.
46:04
- Yeah, well, I think to some extent there's a,
46:07
and I think this is something we need to teach towards
46:12
is there's a feeling, and I know I was solidly
46:15
in this camp for many, many years of, you know,
46:20
I'm like, you know, like having too much identity in,
46:23
you know, man, and I'm a, you know, in the military.
46:26
And is it like do men sing?
46:31
Like do men play in, like thinking about those things
46:33
more as kind of a feminine things.
46:36
And I'm trying to teach the opposite of that.
46:41
Now, I mean, David sang and danced before the Lord, right?
46:45
He was a man's man.
46:46
When we're doing, you know, when we're worshiping God,
46:52
we're doing adoration, we're praising, you know,
46:55
we're trying to give glory to our Creator.
46:58
Like there's nothing a feminine about that.
47:00
So I think we should be encouraging guys that, hey,
47:05
you should, right, you should be able to pour your heart out.
47:08
Now, in what fashion you do that, yeah, there is a lot of this.
47:13
I mean, you even just look at like the chords
47:14
that most modern stuff is done in.
47:18
It's a much higher pitch because it is sung by a lot more women.
47:26
Or a feminine guys.
47:28
And so I think there is a,
47:30
well, look at a lot of youth leaders now as well.
47:34
Like they're trying to be hipsters and, you know,
47:36
so there's, so I think we need to teach towards that
47:39
and say, look, no, this is like, let's reclaim this.
47:44
Let's reclaim this area and teach the man that, hey,
47:46
it's okay, you know, I don't care how you sound.
47:51
It doesn't matter.
47:52
But you're like, when we're praising God and worshiping God,
47:55
we're giving Him glory.
47:57
This is the person that knew us from before there was time.
48:01
And, you know, knows every hair on our head.
48:04
And so we're saying, God, thank you, you know,
48:07
thank you for all the things that you've done for us.
48:10
And we're praising Him when we're doing worship like that.
48:14
So a key thing that kind of I would stand on worship wise
48:21
is I think the songs need to be doctrinally sound.
48:26
Like I don't, the, I am a friend of God.
48:29
He calls me friend contemporary music song.
48:32
Like I cringe, even though like I know in the Bible,
48:35
it says that, but I feel like we're leaning too much
48:38
on friend Jesus and not, yes, He does call His friend.
48:42
However, He's also our sovereign creator.
48:45
Like there's a level of just, wow, like I am,
48:50
this is not like, hey, we're buddy's friend,
48:52
which is, which I feel like that song in particular conveys.
48:57
So I'm just looking, I pulled up our worship list
49:01
for this past Sunday.
49:03
And we have the mercy, my God, which is a Him,
49:06
yet not I, but Christ in me, which is a newer song,
49:10
but very, I would say Him like before the throne
49:13
of God above, another one that's very Him like,
49:15
He will hold me fast as a Him on Christ,
49:18
the solid rock I stand and then Christ, the shirt,
49:20
steady anchor.
49:21
So very like doctrinally sound and I think it's just,
49:26
it's important because especially as we're teaching people,
49:30
you know, the songs get, songs get stuck in your head, right?
49:34
The stuff that you're listening to,
49:35
it ends up being on repeat, you're doing whatever you're doing
49:38
throughout the day.
49:39
And so it's either, you know, back in my country music days,
49:44
yeah, I'm driving, driving my truck to the bonfire
49:47
and you know, like you can either listen to that,
49:50
you know, have that going through your head all the time,
49:52
which it's interesting looking, you know,
49:54
when I hear country music now, I'm like, oh my gosh,
49:57
like it's really no better than lyrically,
49:59
it's no better than rap music, it's just like the country,
50:02
it's like more like my culture flavor of rap music.
50:06
But like the lyrics are just as bad,
50:08
it's just as much about consuming large quantities
50:12
of alcohol and hooking up with girls.
50:14
That's, I mean, it's the same thing.
50:18
So it's like, what do I want to be meditating on
50:20
throughout the day?
50:21
And, you know, we're supposed to pray without ceasing, right?
50:25
And so if I'm thinking, you know, the lyrics of,
50:30
yet not I, but Christ in me, like, that's something that,
50:34
man, that's what I want to be meditating on.
50:36
So when I am, you know, if I start to get upset
50:39
about something or anxious about something,
50:41
it's like, man, no, it's not, it's not me.
50:43
It's Christ in me, and because he paid the penalty,
50:46
I can overcome this now.
50:48
- But one thing about that, Bill,
50:49
that I feel like is really important to say as well,
50:51
is contemporary Christian music as a genre
50:53
is not the only genre of Christian music.
50:56
Like I really, really like Christian metal.
50:58
Now there are people that, I mean,
51:00
I've gotten one star ratings on this podcast
51:01
'cause people think the intro-altrow music
51:03
to this show is satanic because it's loud,
51:06
gravelly screaming vocals, but they don't understand
51:08
that the guy that is doing those vocals
51:10
is a very devout, biblically based Christian.
51:13
And so it's like, same thing, if you're into hip hop,
51:15
there is Christian music out there for you.
51:17
If you're into bluegrass,
51:18
there is Christian music out there for you.
51:19
So I think that's a very important thing
51:21
for people to remember.
51:22
And like guys, if you could see behind the curtain right now
51:25
and look at my notes, you'd be like,
51:26
Kyle, you are all over the place right now,
51:28
but you're taking me on all these really, really fun roads,
51:30
but we will get back to some of the other stuff.
51:32
One thing I was gonna ask you at the end,
51:33
that I'll just ask you now
51:34
'cause we're already talking about Christianity
51:36
and manhood in general.
51:38
So you already talked about how, you know,
51:39
you kind of had this inner dissonance about being a man
51:42
versus being a Christian and all those different things.
51:44
But Bill, that's the reason why Undaunted Life is here.
51:46
Like our mission is equipping men to push back darkness.
51:49
But the whole reason why I started this was
51:50
because I felt like there were men
51:52
that were missing out on Christ,
51:54
men that were missing out on what the church could provide
51:57
to them and what they could provide to the church
51:59
because they walked in and they realized,
52:01
man, I feel like I gotta check my testicles out the door
52:03
when I walk in here.
52:04
That here's where all the godly men are,
52:06
but all the manly men are out doing other things.
52:08
They're on the range, they're at the gym,
52:10
they're in the garage, they're doing something else.
52:12
And I feel like that's a major, major issue.
52:14
I feel like most modern churches put off this vibe.
52:18
Some of it is subtle, but a lot of it's very overt.
52:21
Like, look, this isn't for you.
52:23
When we make sermons, we have the women in mind
52:26
and the children in mind.
52:27
When we pick what songs we're going to sing,
52:30
we have the women and children in mind.
52:32
You know, and then the churches are shocked
52:34
when 80% of their volunteers are women.
52:36
Whenever the men, they just can't get them excited
52:38
about whatever it is, about the latest, you know,
52:41
food driver, latest, you know, fundraiser,
52:44
the latest whatever.
52:45
And once a year they do a men's event
52:46
where they serve chili and have a guest speaker
52:48
and then they call it good.
52:50
They're worried about men's programming
52:52
and not about discipling men,
52:53
not about making their church man friendly.
52:56
So for you, you might have a little bit
52:58
of an interesting perspective
52:59
'cause you grew up with seemingly
53:00
a very discipleship-focused father,
53:02
your parents were missionaries,
53:04
perhaps the churches you've gone to are man-centric
53:06
and man-friendly.
53:07
But what are your overall thoughts
53:08
about how the modern church is getting wrong,
53:12
their ideas about how they can go after the hearts of men?
53:15
- I think for one, if you're coming at it
53:18
from the perspective of, hey, I'm doing worship
53:21
for women and kids, or I'm going to do a sermon
53:23
for women and kids, like I'd say that's probably
53:27
not very biblical.
53:28
I mean, just looking at, you know,
53:31
I think you should be coming at it from the,
53:35
hey, we need to present the gospel, right?
53:39
That we need to, what is worshipful?
53:42
Like, that's what we need to be doing,
53:45
not trying to cater to, you know,
53:49
one particular group or another.
53:51
I mean, I think with some of the children's church stuff
53:55
or youth church, like, I think that catering
53:57
has caused disasters within Christianity
54:01
because you have these, because people are trying
54:05
to cater specifically to one demographic,
54:09
instead of just saying, hey, you know what,
54:10
let's come together and let's worship
54:12
and study God's Word as a family.
54:14
Now, obviously there's, you know, the younger kids.
54:16
I'm good with, I'm not extreme on that position.
54:20
You know, we have a younger kids Sunday school,
54:23
but we don't have a youth church service, you know,
54:27
concurrent to the normal church service,
54:29
'cause I think there's an age where the kids get it
54:32
and they need to start learning.
54:34
You know, the gospel's being presented.
54:36
And I think sometimes people think,
54:38
oh, the kids can't pick up on this gospel,
54:41
but it's, you know, like, we have to somehow water it down
54:44
or dumb it down for 'em, but then there's a lot of stuff.
54:47
It's God's Word, right?
54:49
And so I think you can't approach any ministry
54:52
from a, hey, I'm only trying to reach this segment
54:55
or that segment.
54:56
Now, I think as men, we've done a horrible job
54:59
of just shirking responsibility, right?
55:04
If you are a Christian, if you're a Christ follower,
55:08
number one, that means that should be
55:11
the primary identity of your life, right?
55:14
Everything else should be after that.
55:17
Husband, father, whatever you do for work,
55:20
what, like all those other things should follow,
55:23
I am a Christian, I am a follower of Christ.
55:26
And so if you just getting guys to change that
55:31
and to go, man, to stop looking at yourself as, you know,
55:35
I am an electrician.
55:38
And that's where I take my main identity,
55:40
stop doing that or even like good things.
55:43
Like, I mean, not that being an electrician
55:45
is not a good thing, but like even husband or father,
55:47
like those are great things.
55:49
But being a Christ follower is so much more important.
55:51
We have to have our primary identity rooted in that.
55:56
And then as soon as we do that, then we go,
55:57
well, man, I'm spending all this time doing other things
56:01
at would I be better off spending more time
56:04
following after Christ?
56:06
Like one of the things I was really convicted on
56:08
was just Paul talks about, you know,
56:11
physical fitnesses or physical trainees of some value,
56:13
but spiritual training is of immense value.
56:15
I'm paraphrasing that a little bit.
56:17
I was super convicted.
56:18
I was like, man, how often do I sit down
56:21
and read the Bible for an hour and a half?
56:24
And the answer is very, very rare.
56:25
Like, unless I'm doing, unless I have to preach,
56:28
or not have to preach, unless I am privileged,
56:31
you know, to bring God's word to people
56:33
and therefore have to sit down here
56:35
and really get after it for a while.
56:38
Like it happens very, very rarely.
56:42
How often do I go out and run for an hour, hour and a half,
56:46
at least once a week?
56:47
Like I'll go put, you know, just go out and run for that long.
56:50
So I used to listen to techno music
56:54
or, you know, an audiobook or something like that,
56:56
generally like something with a beat,
56:58
'cause I'll run faster if I do that.
57:01
And then I started getting convicted about it.
57:04
I'm like, what can I do?
57:05
Well, I have for the last couple of years,
57:07
I've been listening to most of the time
57:09
MacArthur sermons while I'm running.
57:11
And I've been so hugely blessed by that.
57:14
Like my, yeah, just an incredible level of blessing,
57:19
just by going, okay, God, I'm gonna,
57:22
instead of like, you know, getting the few extra calories
57:26
and running just a little bit faster,
57:28
I'm going, you know, I wanna put you first in this area
57:31
and try and continue to, you know,
57:36
increase the depth of my faith while I'm on a run.
57:40
And so now with that, I think we need to,
57:44
first off as men, we need to recognize,
57:46
hey, this is not some effeminate thing, right?
57:50
Meekness is not, meekness is power under control, right?
57:54
Giant war horses were considered to be meek, right?
57:59
That would kick you and cave your face in
58:01
or bite your cheek off like that horse
58:04
was considered to be a meek horse if it was trained properly
58:08
because it would respond to its rider.
58:12
So we should be power under control, we should have that.
58:15
So we need to take as men, we need to take back
58:18
and get involved, whether it's, hey, get up there
58:22
and dust off the guitar and get up and help do worship
58:27
or Sunday school, like you don't need a heavy depth
58:32
of theology to be able, you know,
58:34
to share the gospel with children, right?
58:36
That the material is there for you, like,
58:40
but overwhelmingly Sunday schools are,
58:43
Sunday school classes are taught by women.
58:45
And it's like, so that's part of where this whole problem
58:49
comes from is when you're a kid,
58:52
yeah, yeah, it's my, you know, anti-so-and-so is teaching this
58:55
or, you know, but then as the kids hit the teenage years,
59:00
especially as the young men hit the teenage years,
59:03
they need that man to be able to go, hey, knock it off.
59:06
Like, you're, this is not, you're not on the right,
59:09
like that's not cool that you're out, you know,
59:11
smoking cigarettes or, you know, drinking or like,
59:13
that's not cool, like it's like they, you need a,
59:18
those kids need a man that will stand up
59:21
and for the gospel and say, this is really
59:24
what we're supposed to be doing.
59:25
So I don't know, it's something I've kind of felt convicted
59:32
about lately is just we should be more as men,
59:35
we should be more involved and we should be encouraging
59:38
each other to be more involved.
59:40
Like, you know, that's nice that you're coming to church,
59:43
but like, let's get in the fight, you know?
59:47
Like, let's, if this is really, if you're a follower of Christ,
59:51
this should be the most important thing for you.
59:54
So if you're segmenting and going, well,
59:56
I do Christian stuff Sunday mornings from 10 to new
59:59
and then the rest of my life, I just do whatever
1:00:02
and like maybe I'll say a prayer every once in a while.
1:00:04
Like, man, is, is, to some extent, you know,
1:00:11
and this is a, you know, people won't like hearing this,
1:00:13
but like, are you really saved?
1:00:15
Like, I mean, that would be another,
1:00:17
this thing that I've really been hitting on lately is,
1:00:24
you know, when I was raised, I remember being
1:00:27
in the backseat of a car before we left.
1:00:29
So I was probably five years old
1:00:30
before we left to go to Germany.
1:00:33
And I remember asking one of my friends,
1:00:36
next to me, hey, are you going to heaven?
1:00:38
And then I said, I'm gonna go to heaven.
1:00:40
And then I prayed the center's prayer.
1:00:42
And, you know, Lord, please forgive me of my sins,
1:00:46
come into my life.
1:00:48
And for a long time, I believe that, hey,
1:00:53
if you do that and you're sincere about that,
1:00:54
like you're good forever.
1:00:56
And now the analogy that I like to draw is, you know,
1:01:01
I've been do Jiu Jitsu for 20, 27 years now.
1:01:08
So you get a brand new guy, he wants to roll.
1:01:10
He's like, oh, that looks pretty cool.
1:01:12
So he goes, he buys himself a ghee, goes to the gym,
1:01:17
rolls, and it just has this amazing experience
1:01:20
doing Jiu Jitsu, comes home that night,
1:01:24
wadded up ghee, goes in the corner, next morning,
1:01:27
or next evening, it's time to train.
1:01:28
He looks over, he's like, oh, shoot, my ghee's
1:01:31
like a nasty, moldy, sweaty mess right there.
1:01:34
Like, I'll wash it tonight, I'll roll tomorrow.
1:01:37
The next day rolls around.
1:01:38
He's like, man, I just have this deep muscle soreness,
1:01:42
like I'll roll tomorrow.
1:01:44
This continues for the next five years.
1:01:47
Is that guy a Jiu Jitsu guy,
1:01:49
or did he have an emotional experience
1:01:51
doing Jiu Jitsu one time, right?
1:01:53
As a guy that trains, I'm like, no, you're not a Jiu Jitsu dude.
1:01:56
Like you're just, yeah, you trained one time.
1:01:59
Like that's nice, you know, you're not,
1:02:01
but guys will try and apply that to their faith.
1:02:04
They'll say, oh yeah, I said some words,
1:02:07
and then nothing in my life changed.
1:02:10
And so I'm very much of the belief now that this is,
1:02:15
you know, when you say those words,
1:02:19
that's you're making God Lord of your life, right?
1:02:21
It's not just, I say some words and now I'm forgiven.
1:02:25
And God, and I don't wanna be,
1:02:27
I don't wanna people to get the wrong thing
1:02:29
and go that, hey, I'm espousing a workspace righteousness,
1:02:32
which I am not, or workspace salvation,
1:02:34
which I'm definitely not.
1:02:36
But what I am saying is that if you are a Christian,
1:02:39
there will be fruit in your life.
1:02:40
There will be, like, right?
1:02:44
I mean, the treating about it in Matthew today,
1:02:48
like the, like a good tree bears good fruit,
1:02:52
a bad tree bears bad fruit.
1:02:54
And not to say that sometimes as a believer,
1:02:56
you're not gonna bear some bad fruit,
1:02:57
but there should be a pattern of love, joy, peace,
1:03:01
patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithless self,
1:03:04
like all those things, if you are a follower of Christ,
1:03:06
if you truly have made him Lord of your life,
1:03:09
then that is the direction that your life is going.
1:03:12
Go ahead.
1:03:13
- No, well, so I see where you're going with that.
1:03:17
And there's a lot of stuff in there
1:03:18
that I wanna refer to,
1:03:19
but let's just focus in on that last thing
1:03:21
because I've been listening to a lot of John MacArthur
1:03:23
here recently as well.
1:03:24
So every time I lift or do anything that's really difficult,
1:03:27
I usually have podcasts going.
1:03:28
So I almost don't listen to music anymore.
1:03:30
So here I was talking about music for forever.
1:03:33
I almost don't listen to it.
1:03:33
I listen to it about 5% of the time
1:03:35
I'm listening to something.
1:03:37
But I gotta tell you,
1:03:37
since I've been listening to MacArthur,
1:03:39
there are certain moments in my life
1:03:41
where I feel very, very encouraged
1:03:42
and very in awe of some of the things that he says
1:03:45
and does in his scriptural references,
1:03:48
but it does feel a little worksy to me
1:03:51
because it's that same thing you talked about
1:03:54
to where it's like, we're not seeing enough fruit
1:03:57
to think that little prayer.
1:03:59
And he says it all times to think
1:04:00
that you could just prayer a little prayer
1:04:02
and then be saved is just crazy.
1:04:04
I'm saying it in a real terrible way
1:04:07
compared to the way he says it.
1:04:08
But that does feel like works has to be this huge part of it.
1:04:12
And I think about the seven year old,
1:04:14
the seven year old that doesn't have a lot of bad habits.
1:04:17
It's not like they need to turn away from looking at porn
1:04:19
or turn away from smoking weed
1:04:20
or turn away from all these things.
1:04:22
Their life the day after they become a Christian
1:04:24
will probably look very similar to the day before.
1:04:26
When they were playing sports or watching cartoons
1:04:29
or just doing being a kid, right?
1:04:31
And so it opens up this can of words for me,
1:04:34
which gets back to the thing we were talking about earlier,
1:04:35
which is how in the world do we know for saved or not?
1:04:38
Because as soon as I started listening to MacArthur stuff
1:04:41
and started reading Calvinist theology,
1:04:43
there have been times I've never felt less saved.
1:04:46
Like because of the things that I'm reading and learning,
1:04:49
which is a hard thing for me to say out loud
1:04:51
and a hard thing for me to admit
1:04:52
because now I'm sitting here thinking like,
1:04:54
oh my gosh, I just stood up at a Baptist church
1:04:57
when I was in 10th grade.
1:04:58
And I raised my hand and I walked down to the front
1:05:00
and I prayed a prayer, did I do it, right?
1:05:03
Because like I started reading the Bible
1:05:05
and I started doing some different things
1:05:06
but I was a good kid.
1:05:08
I didn't have this crazy life that I needed to turn away from.
1:05:11
So I got to be honest with you, man,
1:05:12
that is terrifying to me because you get into the scripture
1:05:15
about there will be those that say Lord, Lord,
1:05:17
and they will not enter his kingdom, right?
1:05:19
They're gonna show you their spiritual resume.
1:05:21
They're gonna run down their veto
1:05:22
of all the Christian stuff that they did
1:05:24
and they're not gonna get into heaven.
1:05:25
But it's sermons like that
1:05:27
and it's ideologies like that that I'm like,
1:05:28
oh no, am I different enough?
1:05:31
Which leads me to I'm not doing enough works.
1:05:34
You know, does that make sense?
1:05:35
- Yeah, no, it absolutely does.
1:05:38
The, at one point, so I look back for myself
1:05:43
and was I saved at five years old
1:05:45
or was it at 20 or 21 years old?
1:05:49
Like when I came to that man,
1:05:51
like I'm not like God, give me a desire to follow after you.
1:05:54
Like where was that?
1:05:56
- Ultimately, I believe that, you know,
1:05:59
I was either, I was never a goat.
1:06:02
I was either a lost sheep or a found sheep, right?
1:06:05
Goats don't turn into sheep, right?
1:06:07
So we're, so the fact that you are questioning this
1:06:12
and going, man, God, I'm like, I'm not like,
1:06:17
I need to do more.
1:06:18
Like I'm not seeing enough fruit in my life.
1:06:20
I would say is one of the proofs of the fact
1:06:25
that you are saved, because the more we,
1:06:28
the more we follow after God,
1:06:31
the more we see the depravity of our own hearts,
1:06:34
the more we see, oh man, like I fall short
1:06:36
in so many different areas.
1:06:39
Whereas if you're very surface level Christian,
1:06:41
like you don't see that.
1:06:43
And the more you dig into God's words,
1:06:46
you're like, wow, like I,
1:06:48
and thank you God for dying on the cross
1:06:50
because like I, like I'm screwing this up still.
1:06:55
So I think that is one of the ways that we do see that.
1:07:01
And it is, we do have to be careful to never place,
1:07:06
to never put our faith in whatever works that we're doing.
1:07:11
You know, the works have to be an outpouring of God.
1:07:13
Thank you for doing, you know,
1:07:15
for making a way for me to be right with you.
1:07:17
And in response to that, I want to serve you.
1:07:20
I want to do these things for you.
1:07:22
And yeah, I'm going to work at those things
1:07:24
because they're not, you know,
1:07:26
following after Christ is naughty, right?
1:07:28
That the way is narrow, right?
1:07:30
You know, it's, it is a hard, it is a hard path.
1:07:35
And especially as a man, right?
1:07:36
There's so many things that are, you know, love,
1:07:40
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
1:07:41
general, stuff, like a lot of those things,
1:07:43
like you don't think of love and joy,
1:07:47
you don't think that is manly virtues.
1:07:50
We're really like, they are some of the most manly virtues.
1:07:54
I mean, our savior was, you know,
1:07:57
the best example of a man that we have, perfect man.
1:08:01
And he loved us so much that he bore our burden, right?
1:08:05
Took our, the penalty that you and I should pay,
1:08:08
but never could pay, he took it on himself, right?
1:08:11
And he did that because he loved us so much.
1:08:13
So love is an absolutely, it's a huge manly virtue.
1:08:17
If we take it outside of faith, right,
1:08:20
just the love that you have for your family
1:08:23
and that's what allows you to go and fight
1:08:28
and die for your family, to go, yeah, okay,
1:08:30
I'm gonna lose, like we're gonna lose here today.
1:08:34
And I'm good with that because my family
1:08:37
is either will survive because of this
1:08:39
or has a higher likelihood of surviving.
1:08:41
Yes, I think in part, we need to reclaim some of that
1:08:46
and just say, these are manly virtues to do this.
1:08:50
And those virtues though are,
1:08:52
they're flowing out of the love that Christ has for us, right?
1:08:57
That the transformed lives that we now have,
1:09:00
those, you know, works come out of that.
1:09:03
Those works do not save us.
1:09:05
If we're counting on those works to save us, we're lost, right?
1:09:08
If it's Christ and anything else,
1:09:11
but you might as well just, you know,
1:09:15
throw Christ out and only have the law.
1:09:17
If it's, you know, the finished work on the cross
1:09:20
plus something else, right?
1:09:22
So our faith has to be holy in the finished work
1:09:24
on the cross and then out of that comes,
1:09:28
man, hey, I'm like, sorry, God, I screwed this up again.
1:09:31
Like, help me to do better this next time.
1:09:33
Help me to love those people more.
1:09:35
Help me to, you know, help me to spend more time.
1:09:37
Help me to do like a sense of a mission.
1:09:39
Like, hey, forgive me for not being involved in my church
1:09:43
and stepping up and like being that guy,
1:09:46
like forgive me for not doing that
1:09:48
because I should be doing that.
1:09:51
- Yeah, I appreciate you going into all that detail.
1:09:52
And the way I set up that question,
1:09:54
some of you guys might be thinking,
1:09:55
oh my gosh, Kyle's having a crisis of faith.
1:09:57
I certainly would not say that.
1:09:59
But there are those times where you have those, you know,
1:10:02
those mountains and valleys in your life
1:10:03
or those sets and flows to where it's like,
1:10:05
okay, you're kind of questioning things,
1:10:06
but it's kind of like how I described to one
1:10:08
of our mutual buddies, Mike Ritland.
1:10:10
I look at Mike Ritland as a skeptic, not a cynic, right?
1:10:14
So a skeptic, so I'm looking at my own Christian life
1:10:16
skeptically.
1:10:17
So a skeptic is like, I need to see
1:10:20
some more evidence of that.
1:10:21
I'm not exactly sure I believe that.
1:10:22
Can you explain that again?
1:10:23
That's how a skeptic approaches something.
1:10:25
Whereas a cynic is like, yeah,
1:10:27
if you gave me a million reasons, I'd need a million in one,
1:10:30
whether they would say that or not.
1:10:31
And so I feel like I'm almost like internally kind of like
1:10:34
naval gazing and being very skeptical about kind of
1:10:38
where I'm at.
1:10:38
So like, no guys, I don't need you to come over to my house
1:10:41
and cover me in prayer.
1:10:42
Like, you know, I'm not about to, you know,
1:10:44
yeah, I'm not about to have this big intervention.
1:10:45
I'm not about to light anything on fire.
1:10:47
We're going to be good to go.
1:10:48
But I really appreciate us kind of going down.
1:10:50
I feel like we went through like a 45 minute rabbit trail
1:10:52
through a bunch of awesome stuff.
1:10:53
So I'm really, really glad that we discussed that
1:10:55
because I do want to come back to your military career now
1:10:57
because even just the stuff we've discussed
1:10:59
for the last hour will kind of inform some of those things.
1:11:02
But you get into the United States military,
1:11:06
you go towards the Navy, you go towards the Seals,
1:11:08
you make it into the Seals.
1:11:10
But I believe it was about five, six years into your career,
1:11:13
you actually became a member of a group called
1:11:15
Naval Special Warfare Development Group or Dev Group
1:11:18
or Dev Gruer or, you know, there are other names
1:11:19
for that as well.
1:11:21
But that is the elite of the elite
1:11:23
inside an already elite spec ops community, right?
1:11:27
And so I guess the thing I'm curious because you're,
1:11:29
I know several guys that were in Dev Group
1:11:32
and you know, they all kind of had their own unique experiences
1:11:34
and went on unique missions and things like that.
1:11:36
But you served, I think it was 14 years in development group.
1:11:40
And again, that is the tippy top of the top tier
1:11:44
of the United States military.
1:11:46
So I guess what kind of led you towards that
1:11:49
because there were a lot of people that, you know,
1:11:50
work a 20 year career in the Seals
1:11:52
but never go through the screening,
1:11:53
never tried to go through green team
1:11:55
or any of those types of things
1:11:56
or perhaps are never invited.
1:11:57
But you were and you did.
1:11:59
So how did you kind of first learn about Dev Gru
1:12:01
and what kind of took you that direction
1:12:03
and then we'll just kind of span out from there?
1:12:05
- So I really didn't have a clue
1:12:07
when I first joined the Navy about Dev Group.
1:12:09
I wanted to join the SEAL teams, got the SEAL team three
1:12:15
and then had a, you know,
1:12:18
started hearing whispers of this mystical place
1:12:22
on the East Coast and to start asking questions.
1:12:26
And at first as a new guy, like as soon as I started
1:12:29
hearing stories, I'm like, this is what I want to do.
1:12:32
But being a new guy, you can't even say that.
1:12:34
You just have to focus on being a good new guy, you know,
1:12:37
just being a good platoon guy.
1:12:39
But yeah, as soon as I started hearing stories about it,
1:12:42
I'm like, that's what I want to do.
1:12:43
I mean, I remember working out
1:12:44
and just thinking about, you know, like extra reps.
1:12:47
Yeah, you know, like thinking about doing that.
1:12:49
That's what I wanted to do.
1:12:51
So I screened together after my first deployment.
1:12:53
We talked a little bit about the, you know,
1:12:58
the interview process for that.
1:13:01
So screened got picked up and then left very shortly after.
1:13:05
I mean, you know, so some guys have great experiences
1:13:10
and, you know, in the SEAL teams.
1:13:12
And I had actually really wanted to go to SEAL team two,
1:13:15
which did, you know, I've skied my whole life.
1:13:19
I love skiing.
1:13:19
I love snowmobile and I, it's part of the reason
1:13:22
I live up in North Idaho now.
1:13:25
You know, almost native German speaker.
1:13:28
I wanted to go to SEAL team two really, really badly.
1:13:32
But I ended up going to the desert,
1:13:34
but it's all part of God's plan.
1:13:35
Like I think in part,
1:13:37
I probably would have enjoyed that too much.
1:13:39
Whereas, you know, we deployed to the Middle East twice
1:13:41
during non-war times and it was miserable.
1:13:44
And I couldn't leave there fast enough
1:13:46
to go out to dev group.
1:13:48
So I showed up there in 2000.
1:13:50
Went through our, you know, selection training
1:13:54
or at the time it was called Green Team
1:13:55
went through that program.
1:13:57
All right.
1:13:58
And then, yeah, got into a squadron
1:14:01
and got to do some really cool stuff.
1:14:05
- So I know you're kind of passing over that
1:14:07
because you're a really, really humble guy.
1:14:09
But kind of, and I'm just going to,
1:14:11
I'm just going to make it awkward.
1:14:12
I'm just going to force you into saying
1:14:13
some really cool things.
1:14:14
So for a generalized civilian populace,
1:14:19
they don't know the difference
1:14:20
between a green beret and a SEAL, right?
1:14:22
Like they just really don't get it.
1:14:23
They know, they don't know exactly
1:14:24
which branches they're in or kind of how they serve.
1:14:27
And what's Delta Force?
1:14:28
Like, is that kind of the same thing that they don't know?
1:14:32
But even people that do know a little bit,
1:14:33
maybe they've read some more memoirs
1:14:35
or watching documentaries or YouTube videos.
1:14:37
They don't even know the difference
1:14:39
between development group and between just a normal SEAL team.
1:14:44
I don't want to say just a regular SEAL team.
1:14:45
Like these aren't, you know, spectacular people.
1:14:48
But there are some fundamental differences
1:14:50
between what it is, you know, a guy that's on SEAL team two
1:14:53
versus development group.
1:14:55
So give us a little bit more insight
1:14:57
as opposed to having to go through another level of selection
1:14:59
and you know, close quarters battle, you know,
1:15:01
being more scrutinized or, you know,
1:15:03
needing to be a better shot
1:15:04
or being in extra good shape or all that.
1:15:06
What are the main differences between those groups?
1:15:08
- It ends up just coming down to mission.
1:15:10
You know, the missions are different.
1:15:12
I can't get into too much of that
1:15:14
'cause it's still like not supposed to talk about that stuff.
1:15:19
So the mission is different, but also like you end up,
1:15:22
so the guys that will even try to go to the command,
1:15:27
like you have to have a minimum of two deployments
1:15:30
at your normal SEAL teams.
1:15:34
And then there's gonna be a, you know,
1:15:36
then there's a selection process.
1:15:38
And then there's a peer review, a peer assessment,
1:15:41
which ends up being a phenomenal tool
1:15:44
because now you look at it and you go,
1:15:46
"Oh yeah, this guy's trying to come."
1:15:47
Like I just did two years ago,
1:15:49
I did a deployment with this guy.
1:15:51
So you've hung out with this dude for two years,
1:15:53
day in and day out.
1:15:54
And so you could say, "Yeah, this guy's a good worker."
1:15:57
Like he's heads up, like he's a good guy.
1:15:59
He'll be an asset or no, this guy's lazy.
1:16:01
Like we don't like this guy.
1:16:02
Like no, thumbs down.
1:16:05
And so like that, that peer review ends up being
1:16:08
a really, really good tool right there.
1:16:11
But then some of the other real benefits that you have,
1:16:13
well, so then you have guys that are good shooters,
1:16:18
they're in shape.
1:16:20
And then they go through another selection process
1:16:23
where you're gonna can 40 to 50% of the guys
1:16:26
that were already like, they're already good SEALs.
1:16:29
But they just don't quite have what it takes
1:16:32
to make it at the command.
1:16:34
Maybe they're not learning something fast enough
1:16:36
or, you know, they're not shooting hard enough
1:16:38
or whatever it is.
1:16:40
So we're starting with a really good group of guys
1:16:43
and then we're canning some of those guys
1:16:46
that are solid, good dudes.
1:16:48
And then I think one of the real benefits
1:16:51
is at a normal SEAL team, right?
1:16:54
You come together as a platoon or as a task unit
1:16:57
and you do a big workup together.
1:16:59
And then at the end of two years, it disbands
1:17:02
and then you start over again with all fresh leadership.
1:17:06
And at the command, you don't have that.
1:17:08
You have a different structure
1:17:11
and those guys will stay within that organization
1:17:15
for a long time.
1:17:16
So you have much better organizational knowledge.
1:17:18
So now if you get a brand, you know,
1:17:19
you get a new officer and he's like,
1:17:21
oh, I think we should do this.
1:17:23
You can look at him and go, well, sir,
1:17:25
we tried that eight years ago and this is,
1:17:28
you know, this is what happened and you know,
1:17:32
so no, we're not gonna do that, sir.
1:17:36
And I don't mean to be disrespectful towards officers.
1:17:38
We had some phenomenal officers,
1:17:40
but I mean, that is kind of the, you know,
1:17:42
that happened quite frequently where there would be,
1:17:45
you know, guys that are there for a shorter period of time
1:17:48
that have a great idea, but hey, you know,
1:17:51
your predecessor, three people removed from you,
1:17:54
had that same great idea and,
1:17:56
but that makes for a much better organization
1:17:58
is the fact that the guys are together for longer.
1:18:01
So now, and then multiply that with now combat tours
1:18:05
where we're going down range.
1:18:07
And, you know, I mean, I remember our first,
1:18:10
the first hits that we did were the classic, you know,
1:18:14
Hilo raid, landing, really landing on the axe.
1:18:17
So landing close, close to the target,
1:18:20
running off, giant explosive bridges,
1:18:23
you know, landing in rice patties.
1:18:24
I mean, all this stuff that, you know,
1:18:28
that's what we had trained to do for years.
1:18:30
And then we started looking and I go,
1:18:33
man, none of this is,
1:18:36
it's really not working, right?
1:18:38
We're trying to catch these guys and they're running away.
1:18:41
And so then we started finding sneakier ways to get in.
1:18:44
And, you know, maybe where there was more walking involved.
1:18:49
And, you know, where we're gonna land further away
1:18:52
and we're gonna walk in or maybe take vehicles someplace
1:18:56
or just come out with different ways of doing it.
1:19:00
And if you don't have that organizational knowledge,
1:19:04
then it's just, oh, yeah, we have this deployment
1:19:06
and then the next time we deploy,
1:19:08
it's all new people and we're just gonna go back
1:19:10
to whatever the doctrine said to do.
1:19:11
And we're gonna do that and we're gonna have the same results.
1:19:14
Whereas by having the same group of people,
1:19:17
you know, with little changes,
1:19:19
your slow changes within, you know,
1:19:21
the organizational structure,
1:19:23
you end up with a collective memory.
1:19:26
So that you can go, oh, yeah, I remember five years ago,
1:19:29
we worked in the same area and this was a sporty area.
1:19:32
Like they wanna fight in this area.
1:19:33
So maybe let's change this part of our tactic
1:19:37
or maybe let's plus up a little bit
1:19:39
or maybe let's make sure we only, you know, do this during,
1:19:42
you know, let's make sure that we have a lot of air assets
1:19:44
stacked, you know, maybe if we say, hey,
1:19:46
our men forces this number of air assets to support us,
1:19:50
maybe we're gonna go into this bad area now
1:19:52
that we know is a bad area.
1:19:54
And so we're gonna, we're gonna ask to double
1:19:56
that level of air support.
1:19:59
I mean, so there's all these things
1:20:00
and what that does is it just leads you
1:20:03
to win the fight more effectively, right?
1:20:07
I mean, we talk about it as I teach guys to fight now,
1:20:10
the it is way better if you just win
1:20:14
than if you have to counter and then win, right?
1:20:18
If I have to do any kind of counter, like it's good,
1:20:21
like you should, if you're into this,
1:20:22
you should know how to do counters.
1:20:24
But way better is that I just win.
1:20:26
I just, you know, whether it's pulling a pistol out,
1:20:28
blade smashing with elbow, like whatever it is,
1:20:31
like it's better for me if I just send it and win,
1:20:34
then if you do some stuff first
1:20:37
and I counter counter counter and then, and then win.
1:20:40
And so the more, you know, having that collective
1:20:42
organizational knowledge and then being able to look
1:20:47
at a target set and go, okay, now let's,
1:20:50
let's make sure that we go in with enough guys.
1:20:52
Right, let's, let's not put four dudes on a mountaintop
1:20:56
and Konaar and, you know, I mean,
1:21:01
that some of that stuff was, if, you know,
1:21:06
with a little bit more organizational knowledge
1:21:09
would not have happened, you know,
1:21:10
some of the disasters that have happened.
1:21:12
- Yeah, and I think it's hard, obviously looking back,
1:21:14
you can look and see all of the issues that have come
1:21:16
and there's been a lot of books and movies made
1:21:18
about some of those issues that came up
1:21:19
from, from poor mission planning.
1:21:21
And I know there's a lot of mission stuff
1:21:23
that you can't specifically talk about,
1:21:25
but I know you have talked about missions before
1:21:27
that left kind of an indolible impact on you.
1:21:29
And I have some in mind, but I don't really wanna influence
1:21:32
and say which one you should share, but, you know,
1:21:34
it would be remiss of me to not ask you share about something
1:21:37
that did happen while you were on mission,
1:21:39
whether it was when you were in dev group or without.
1:21:41
So let the Holy Spirit lead you
1:21:43
whatever story you wanna share, you go for it.
1:21:45
- So I remember one where it was a,
1:21:49
we had a particular sporty target, I think it was
1:21:51
at least a 10K offset.
1:21:53
So we were walking for at least 10 clicks
1:21:56
to get into the target, you know,
1:21:59
knew that the enemy knew we were in the area,
1:22:01
but they didn't know exactly where we were.
1:22:04
It was a pretty, pretty good route if I can say so.
1:22:08
It was a record team leader at the time.
1:22:10
So it was my art team's job to make sure
1:22:12
that we had a good route to get in
1:22:15
where we would remain stealthy the whole time.
1:22:18
And just got in there relatively uncontested.
1:22:23
Like we knew they were, we knew that like the Taliban
1:22:30
knew that we were somewhere in there,
1:22:31
but they didn't know exactly where we were.
1:22:33
And then once we hit the target, then they knew.
1:22:36
And so it got to a point where we were taking,
1:22:38
we were taking fire from three different cardinal directions.
1:22:41
AC-130 were shooting 105s close enough
1:22:46
to where it was hurting my ears.
1:22:47
This is prior to having the amplified hearing protection.
1:22:52
So I just had what we call phone phones on
1:22:55
'cause I didn't, you know, being upfront,
1:22:56
I was like, well, I'll lose some hearing.
1:22:59
I don't really care about that.
1:23:01
But the first sets of the amplified hearing protection,
1:23:04
they didn't, they couldn't really tell you
1:23:05
where the sound was coming from.
1:23:07
So I wasn't wearing them.
1:23:08
So these 105, right?
1:23:10
So AC-130 is a highly modified C-130
1:23:14
that has a howitzer sticking out of the side of it.
1:23:16
And they can just, so they can fly, you know,
1:23:18
a slow, with a slow left turn or right time for it.
1:23:23
Slow turn continuously, and they can just keep hammering.
1:23:27
So the 105s are landing so close
1:23:30
that it's hurting my ears.
1:23:32
I mean, there's a very, very exciting evening.
1:23:37
We left there and, you know,
1:23:39
walked until the sun was already coming up
1:23:43
and birds land were picking up
1:23:48
and there's just tracer fire, like ripping up.
1:23:51
I'm watching the tracer.
1:23:53
I couldn't tell if the tracer was going behind the hilo,
1:23:57
the dash two hilo or right through it.
1:24:00
I couldn't tell.
1:24:01
I remember praying at the time.
1:24:03
And then the minigun is just like the longest burst
1:24:06
of minigun, just wah, wah,
1:24:08
and they're just raking these compounds
1:24:11
where all the tracer fires coming out of.
1:24:14
So yeah, definitely some cool.
1:24:17
That was down in Southern Afghanistan.
1:24:20
I think that was pretty much, you knew,
1:24:22
I think of all the stuff I've done there,
1:24:24
there's only been one time where we didn't actually
1:24:27
get into a fight down in that part of the country.
1:24:30
They just, for whatever reason,
1:24:31
they like to fight down there.
1:24:33
So yeah, that was a good one.
1:24:39
Yeah, I mean, that sounds pretty hairy,
1:24:41
especially to me sitting here in my air-conditioned studio
1:24:43
as you're talking about that.
1:24:44
But real quick, 'cause I do wanna get into some other subjects,
1:24:47
but I am just curious, in those moments,
1:24:51
did you feel like you got into any type of a flow state?
1:24:54
Because obviously you knew every night you went out,
1:24:55
it could have been the last time that you went out.
1:24:57
You guys knew that whenever you signed up, right?
1:24:59
And you know, regardless of what some sensationalized books
1:25:02
or movies might say, you guys aren't going
1:25:03
on suicide missions for the most part.
1:25:05
Like, there's a plan for you getting back safely.
1:25:09
With all of your people and all of your equipment.
1:25:12
But tell me where you would go in your brain
1:25:15
and even in your soul.
1:25:16
Like, were you relaxing these moments?
1:25:19
Were you frenetic, but just under control,
1:25:21
kind of like the meekness of a war horse?
1:25:24
Like, kind of take me through whenever the bullets
1:25:26
started flying, whenever you were landing on a hot LZ
1:25:28
or something like that.
1:25:30
What happened to you specifically?
1:25:32
Not to the team, not to, okay, yeah, we were still moving
1:25:34
and we were still doing what we needed to do.
1:25:35
What happened inside a bill?
1:25:37
- Hey, there's definitely times when I was scared.
1:25:40
I mean, like, nervousness, you know, if you guys wrestle,
1:25:44
like, that pre-walking out on the mat butterflies.
1:25:48
You know, kind of that, that, but amplified by a lot.
1:25:53
So there's definitely times and, you know,
1:25:55
but generally they were pre, like, you know,
1:25:59
as you're flying in, like, that's, you know,
1:26:01
I would have some of that.
1:26:03
And then once you're on the ground,
1:26:03
it's like, hey, I've got work to do, like,
1:26:06
you're just focusing on the task at hand.
1:26:08
And that's the counsel that I give to you guys as well.
1:26:12
Like, if you are involved in something violent,
1:26:15
you need to just do the task at hand, right?
1:26:19
Focus on the current mission
1:26:22
because you can't be in two separate places.
1:26:25
You can't be thinking about family.
1:26:26
You can't be thinking about these other things.
1:26:28
You might think about your family before the mission,
1:26:31
but when it's time to actually go and do work,
1:26:33
like, you can't think about any of those other things
1:26:35
because thinking about those other things
1:26:37
will get you killed, right?
1:26:38
I mean, that's one of the things I talk about now
1:26:40
is persona, right?
1:26:41
We all have different personas if you're, say, you're a cop
1:26:45
and, right, you should be putting on
1:26:48
when you put your duty belt on.
1:26:50
The, hey, I am now the law persona should be coming on.
1:26:54
If you do that and then partway through your shift,
1:26:58
you're thinking about the fight that you had with your wife
1:27:01
or an issue that you're having at home,
1:27:03
like, you might not get to go back
1:27:05
to being the other persona of,
1:27:08
and you don't, we don't discard, right?
1:27:10
I don't mean this persona thing schizophrenically.
1:27:12
I just mean, like, we all have things, right?
1:27:15
Different identities.
1:27:17
And so it's important then when you're in a certain thing,
1:27:23
like you don't, it can't detract, right?
1:27:26
So Christ followers, my primary identity.
1:27:30
Me thinking about the mission on hand
1:27:31
does not detract from that.
1:27:33
But I, you know, or husband is an identity
1:27:38
that is higher to me than being a seal was.
1:27:41
But I can't allow when I'm on a mission,
1:27:45
I can't allow, I can't start thinking about husband things
1:27:49
because then I might not make it back to being a husband
1:27:53
if I do that, right?
1:27:55
So it's very important that in the moment,
1:27:58
you are just thinking about, hey, what do I need to do?
1:28:00
If it's a pre, you know, like the waiting round is generally
1:28:03
the worst, just think about what are the steps?
1:28:06
What am I gonna have to do?
1:28:07
Okay, I'm getting off the bird and I have to go laughter.
1:28:08
I'm getting off the bird and I'm going right.
1:28:10
And then I'm expecting this to happen.
1:28:12
I mean, shoot, talking about the Jessica Lynch thing
1:28:18
with, I just had a student in class
1:28:22
that was part of the air crew that was there,
1:28:26
like in, you know, at Talil Airfield there in Iraq.
1:28:31
And I told him, I'm like, man, when I landed on that,
1:28:35
I think I was on the second little bird going in there,
1:28:36
I'm like, I fully expect it as we ran up to the hospital
1:28:41
to like the Saddam Fedi, you would have a, you know,
1:28:44
sandbag positions and that they'd start machine gunning us
1:28:48
and that we should be trying to throw grenades in there.
1:28:50
Like that was my expectation.
1:28:52
So all I was thinking of like the whole time in is like,
1:28:55
okay, I bet like we're going to land,
1:28:56
I need to move up to here and then, and then, you know, go.
1:29:00
And now it ended up not being nearly, I mean, it was amazing,
1:29:03
but it wasn't nearly as sporty as like it was as it was,
1:29:07
as it was supposed to be.
1:29:09
But yeah, just thinking about, right?
1:29:13
You got to keep those emotions in check, right?
1:29:16
I mean, it's not being courageous is not the absence of fear.
1:29:19
It's being able to control your fear and work through it.
1:29:23
Right? Everyone's going to be the people that say they're not scared,
1:29:25
they're either lying or they're truly crazy.
1:29:28
Right? Almost everyone is scared when, when stuff is going on.
1:29:31
What you want to do is train to the level to where you don't have
1:29:35
to think about it anymore.
1:29:36
It just, it becomes that unconscious competence level of,
1:29:38
yeah, okay, I've thought about this enough.
1:29:41
Okay, I'm going to get off the bird and I'm going to step off,
1:29:43
you know, and I'm going to just start running.
1:29:45
And, and then go and do.
1:29:49
- Yeah. And I think I've heard that same exact thing
1:29:51
from guys that I know that are in this SpecOps community,
1:29:53
every single one of them said they're scared.
1:29:54
Not a single one of them has pretended like they weren't scared
1:29:57
whenever they were, you know, coming up to, to a mission or something
1:30:00
like that. And you mentioned Jiu Jitsu earlier, you know,
1:30:02
for a lot of guys, the closest we'll get to that might be a Jiu Jitsu
1:30:04
tournament or a wrestling tournament or something like that.
1:30:06
Cause I know, like, cause I just got my purple belt.
1:30:08
So I got some way harder competitions coming my way here very soon.
1:30:12
- Yeah. - But like, that's just
1:30:13
the thing is I'm a mess before the match starts.
1:30:16
And then while the match is going on,
1:30:17
I can't tell you exactly what I'm thinking
1:30:19
because I'm not really thinking I'm flowing, not like in flow state
1:30:22
exactly, but it's like, okay, this is what I'm seeing from my opponent.
1:30:26
So these are the takedowns that I feel like are available to me.
1:30:28
Here are the positions that I feel like I can get into, you know,
1:30:30
and you're just kind of breaking it all down.
1:30:32
And it's not until you're like, you know, driving home from the tournament
1:30:34
where you're like, okay, I can kind of start to unpack this a little bit
1:30:38
because beforehand you're just like, man, it's really, really cold in this gym.
1:30:41
Man, I really hope I don't get tapped out in front of my wife.
1:30:44
Man, I really hope my coaches don't look at me, you know, and discuss after this.
1:30:48
And you're worried about all these things, but then whenever the referee says go
1:30:51
and you slap bump, you know, you just kind of have to get after it from then.
1:30:54
But I think we go it, we need to go and fast forward.
1:30:57
Congrats on your purple belt, by the way.
1:30:59
Thank you very much. I do appreciate that.
1:31:01
I didn't slide that in there for the congrats, but I do appreciate it
1:31:04
because maybe, you know, for anyone that doesn't roll purple belt, it's a big deal.
1:31:07
I mean, that's five to eight years. Yeah, that's a good, yeah.
1:31:13
When you just stay on the journey, that's the thing for a lot of guys like,
1:31:16
I don't, I know a lot of guys in my life that have gotten their purple belt
1:31:19
and then have just kind of stayed there and had their purple belt for a long time.
1:31:22
And, you know, these are still bad dudes, but you know, I'm going to stay on the journey
1:31:25
and I'm going to keep working my way up.
1:31:27
It's not about the belt color.
1:31:28
It's about the, you know, progression you make as a man inside of sport.
1:31:31
That challenges you to be better and resilient all the time.
1:31:35
And so for you, go one more jiu-jitsu thing before we move on.
1:31:39
Yeah, I'm actually super excited.
1:31:40
My jiu-jitsu teacher is coming out.
1:31:43
You know, we have a, we're calling the Amtech Training Center at our place.
1:31:47
And he's coming out for a, we're just doing a straight jiu-jitsu and pistols course.
1:31:54
So I'm super excited that my, you know, now my kids, you know, I teach locally here
1:31:59
to our kids with with our father, son ministry program.
1:32:02
But yeah, I'm super excited, Gustavo Machado from Virginia Beach.
1:32:07
So really excited.
1:32:09
He's, he's coming out.
1:32:10
I haven't seen him in, in years now, so it's going to be super cool to have him out here
1:32:15
and get to roll.
1:32:16
Dude, that's going to be amazing.
1:32:18
Like, but here's the thing, I'm just going to blow up the question I was going to ask again,
1:32:21
because you made me think of something else with jiu-jitsu.
1:32:23
So one thing that I've been curious about, like for me specifically, there are certain
1:32:27
positions that I'm more comfortable in because I come from a wrestling background.
1:32:30
So obviously I don't like bottom position as much as I like top position.
1:32:33
I'd rather apply pressure as opposed to trying to redirect pressure and all those
1:32:36
different things, but coming from where, what you're going to do, and we'll get into
1:32:39
AMTAC here in a second as well, like obviously I'm assuming a lot of your jiu-jitsu game
1:32:45
is predicated on what I could actually use in real life to end a fight or to, you know,
1:32:50
separate myself from danger, because there are a lot of things in kind of modern sport
1:32:55
jiu-jitsu bill that are not terribly conducive to winning a street fight or terribly conducive
1:33:00
to, you know, protecting your family or all that.
1:33:02
Like some of the, like you're not going to bare them bolo on asphalt, right?
1:33:06
That's just not something that's probably going to be your best bet.
1:33:09
But I feel like for me, I don't, obviously I'm not good enough at jiu-jitsu and I'm not
1:33:13
experienced enough to tell my teachers or my professors what to teach or to suggest to
1:33:18
somebody, hey, you don't need to train that.
1:33:19
It's not real life.
1:33:20
But for me, everything that I do, and even when I'm rolling, I'm thinking, what if this
1:33:24
were real, like, and what if this was like bigger than rolling a class, bigger than a
1:33:29
competition, what if this was my life on the line?
1:33:32
Like, would I be, you know, jumping for a triangle, flying triangle?
1:33:36
Would I be, you know, trying to yank a guy down and try to do this perfect, you know,
1:33:39
judo trip to end up in top position?
1:33:42
Like kind of walk me through that.
1:33:43
Like what's your overall philosophy, having trained in the sport for two decades now?
1:33:48
Yeah.
1:33:48
So first off, I love doing jiu-jitsu, but it's not, it's not the most important thing.
1:33:54
Like when it, when we talk about the hierarchy of protecting yourself and your family,
1:33:59
awareness is number one, safety with, with your firearms is going to be number two,
1:34:05
making sure that you're that when you pull the gun out, it goes bang.
1:34:09
That would be number three, right?
1:34:11
We've watched that a ton of times guys pull the gun out and goes click.
1:34:14
And then the next one would be a clean draw stroke from concealment, combative
1:34:19
weapons retention shooting, and then other blade, other strong hand only blade
1:34:23
deployment and targeting after we have those things down, because those are the
1:34:27
biggest, biggest return on investment, right?
1:34:29
Think about, I can take a fairly weak woman and in about five minutes,
1:34:37
show her how to safely load the pistol and point at the door.
1:34:40
I don't want to have to come through that door after five minutes of training.
1:34:44
You can't do that with jiu-jitsu, right?
1:34:46
With a little bit more, if she uses surprise, that same girl can now hold a blade.
1:34:51
And now if you don't realize, if you don't realize that, she's going, no, no,
1:34:56
please, right, conceal the blade here and go, no, please, please, right?
1:35:00
And now you lay hands on her and right again, chance for her to win.
1:35:05
The jiu-jitsu piece is super important.
1:35:07
We need to be able to do that because we can win with a lower level of violence.
1:35:10
If we can control people also allows us to stay on our feet, which is super
1:35:14
important in dealing with multiple targets, right?
1:35:17
Fighting multiple people at a time.
1:35:19
So specifically with jiu-jitsu.
1:35:25
Number one, always dominate top position.
1:35:27
I, you know, I've been teaching our local kids for about seven and a half years.
1:35:32
Now I tell them, please do not shame me by pulling guard.
1:35:35
Like we are going to, we will start, we start in guard all the time.
1:35:39
But I'm like, you will never, ever pull guard.
1:35:41
Like don't shame.
1:35:42
And I'm serious.
1:35:43
Like don't, don't do that because it's not a, because we're not, because I don't
1:35:47
come at it from a sports jiu-jitsu perspective.
1:35:49
So that would, that would be number one.
1:35:50
Um, number two, if you're, if you're a big guy, do big guy moves.
1:35:55
Go like do, I honestly think it's disrespectful to just kind of like, if I'm,
1:36:00
if I'm a big guy, of course I'm going to, of course I'm going to use my
1:36:03
strength and my size.
1:36:04
Why would I not do that?
1:36:05
I mean, I'm not saying like on a 10 year old, but like, like, why would I, like,
1:36:09
I have like, that's my game.
1:36:11
I do, I do big guy moves.
1:36:13
My teacher, who was smaller than me, like crushes me still.
1:36:18
You know, and I'm like the last time we rolled, he taps me out.
1:36:22
I'm like, like, Google, I'm bigger and stronger than you.
1:36:25
And he goes, he goes, yes, but I taught you everything you know.
1:36:30
You know, he's just smiling, smiling at me.
1:36:32
Um, good morning, my son.
1:36:35
You need to go back upstairs.
1:36:38
Okay.
1:36:38
Hey, buddy.
1:36:39
Give me a hug first.
1:36:41
Can wave at the camera.
1:36:45
All right.
1:36:46
Good.
1:36:46
Hey, buddy.
1:36:47
Have a good morning.
1:36:49
Um, so.
1:36:56
Being able to, right, do, do, do big guy moves the whole flow role.
1:37:00
Let's keep it playful, bro.
1:37:02
Like my head wants to explode when I hear guys say that.
1:37:07
I, to me, it's, it's disrespectful.
1:37:10
Like if we're like, I can feed you stuff and like, okay, I'm just, like,
1:37:14
this is, this training is for you.
1:37:15
I'm going to, like, I'm going to give you my arms and we give you my neck.
1:37:19
Like I've got, you know, like I'll resist for a second to make sure that you do a
1:37:23
counter and then I'll let you get it.
1:37:24
Like I can do that, but it's not competitive.
1:37:27
It's just I'm feeding you and then you're going to feed me and do the same thing.
1:37:31
Like I'm, I'm good with doing that.
1:37:33
But this whole, Hey, we're just going to go 50%.
1:37:36
No, because we're competitive.
1:37:39
If someone's not injured, if someone's not injured at that moment,
1:37:41
that's probably not the best use of either of your time.
1:37:43
Yes.
1:37:44
Like if, if, because maybe then I think you're going 51%.
1:37:48
And then I have to apply 52.
1:37:51
So let's just, let's just dispense with that and go, Hey, you know what?
1:37:54
Don't, so when I teach our kids before we roll, I say, all right, what are rules?
1:37:58
Number one, don't hurt your training partner.
1:37:59
Why?
1:38:00
Because then you can't keep training if you hurt your training partner.
1:38:02
What's rule number two?
1:38:03
Don't be a spass.
1:38:04
Right.
1:38:05
I got to say that for myself.
1:38:06
I, I know that I roll hard.
1:38:08
There's been times when I was younger where like, I, I, yes, but not so much
1:38:14
in jujitsu, but in just general, like work stuff, like I did go too hard.
1:38:19
Um, you know, from a misplaced sense of, of urgency or of, of, of trying
1:38:25
to go hard in areas where I didn't need to, um, other technical things, neon
1:38:31
belly, hugely underappreciated in jujitsu.
1:38:35
Because if you think about, I know that if a guy is as good as me, I can
1:38:40
probably hold neon belly, maybe for a short period of time.
1:38:43
If he's better than me, I probably can't even hold neon belly.
1:38:46
Um, he's going to, he's going to be able to get out of it.
1:38:49
Cause it's not a stable, but who are we actually fighting?
1:38:51
Generally people that don't know jujitsu, neon belly is the position.
1:38:55
Cause I can access either tool, right?
1:38:58
I can do, uh, another really important concept.
1:39:01
Don't look at me concept, push on their fate, put specifically on their eyes,
1:39:05
push their head offline, not dig your hands into their eyes, but put your
1:39:08
hand across their ocular cavity and push on them.
1:39:11
Cause what does everyone do when you do that?
1:39:12
They reach up.
1:39:14
They don't like that.
1:39:14
They try and strip it off.
1:39:15
If you're stripping your hand off of my face, you're not pulling a tool out.
1:39:18
Cause I can pull a tool out with one hand, right?
1:39:21
I can draw with either hand.
1:39:22
Um, so if I'm doing that, you're not drawing, which again, goes back to you
1:39:27
that, you know, what we call logical order thought in regards to like, I'm
1:39:31
looking at all this from a, I'm fighting for real.
1:39:34
Um, another thing with mount being, or with neon belly being such a great
1:39:39
position is if I have neon belly on you and, you know, I smash you a few times
1:39:43
and now your buddies show up, I can disengage.
1:39:46
I have mount on you, I smash you a few times.
1:39:50
Now your buddies show up.
1:39:51
You have a vote in the matter, or I mean, you still have a vote in the matter,
1:39:54
even on, from neon belly, but it is way easier for you just to grab on to me
1:39:59
and go, well, all I have to do is hold you here another 10 seconds.
1:40:02
And then my buddy hits you in the head with his brick, right?
1:40:05
So being neon belly is huge.
1:40:08
Um, next Jiu Jitsu specific piece, Kimura, like I, I came up with
1:40:14
arm bars or King, like, all right, we're going to start class with 50
1:40:17
arm bars, each side from guard, like, and I'll still arm bar guys.
1:40:21
Because I'm teaching them Jiu Jitsu and like, you have to know how to do
1:40:25
arm bars and you have to be able to escape from arm bars, but tactically,
1:40:28
Kimura's are so much better because I can be, I can do kumura from top
1:40:33
visit, I can do kumura from all different positions, but really.
1:40:35
Where I want to be doing kumura from is I can do it from that neon belly.
1:40:41
I can control his hand, I can rip him up, ripped up shoulders or harder
1:40:45
for the guy to continue fighting from than popped elbows are.
1:40:48
And it keeps me in a dominant position and also it lines things up
1:40:52
for cuffing people as well.
1:40:54
If I did need to, you know, cuff the person afterwards, it is easier to do
1:41:00
from that position of kumura, especially kumura from the top, then
1:41:05
it's going to be from me pulling a triangle on the guy or arm bar in
1:41:09
the guy or anything else like that.
1:41:11
Um, another really important one every time I teach our kids at any time
1:41:17
you change positions, side control, situational awareness scan, neon
1:41:22
belly, situational awareness scan, like each time you change position,
1:41:26
that should be the first thing you do is situational awareness scan,
1:41:29
because we should always approach it as if, you know, fair fights, they
1:41:34
only happen with your, you know, drunk brother-in-law, right?
1:41:37
They don't or like a very specific, maybe you're, you're a firefighter
1:41:41
and it's at the firehouse.
1:41:42
And like there's a Christmas party, like, and there's a guy that you just,
1:41:45
you know, like that's the only time there's a fair fight.
1:41:48
The rest of the time we have to assume that there's going to be more
1:41:52
than one person attacking you and there are going to be weapons involved.
1:41:56
Therefore, situational awareness scan head on a head on a swivel.
1:42:00
Like that's another thing as I'm rolling with guys now, it's no longer
1:42:03
this focus on just on them.
1:42:05
It's okay, I can, you know, blind people grapple and grappled well, right?
1:42:09
So if they can grapple well blind as I'm working walks, like I'm trying
1:42:14
to look around and take in the environment around me because you
1:42:21
could be the best Jiu Jitsu guy on the planet and your head down.
1:42:24
And now you get the brick to the back of the head and not a whole
1:42:27
lot of skill involved in getting smashed in the head with a brick.
1:42:30
No, you're talking about a lot of things that I think are very
1:42:34
important in terms of Jiu Jitsu is thinking about what you're training for
1:42:38
because I know guys that are world champions and that is what they're
1:42:41
training for.
1:42:42
But obviously world championship level Jiu Jitsu is going to translate
1:42:45
well in the streets, but there may be some holes here or there.
1:42:48
But the same thing is true.
1:42:49
I know that some people have advocated for, you know, every now
1:42:52
and then at your gym, you should roll where guys are wearing 16 ounce
1:42:55
boxing gloves, but only one of the guys.
1:42:57
So a guy starts mounted in you.
1:42:59
He's got 16 ounce boxing gloves on.
1:43:00
And so your little like frame on their hip in here, let me take my time
1:43:04
and work this hip out.
1:43:05
And then I'll switch and then take my time.
1:43:07
Well, if the guy on top of you is throwing even 50% punches, that
1:43:11
that plane goes out the window pretty quick.
1:43:13
And so I think that that's a good thing to remind everybody about
1:43:16
with Jiu Jitsu.
1:43:16
And I mean, we could literally spend the rest of the day talking
1:43:19
about the two different things talk for hours about.
1:43:22
But I do need to get to a couple more things before we get you out of here.
1:43:25
So you can go hang out with your son.
1:43:26
Obviously you decide to get out of the military.
1:43:29
You did 20 years in the United States Navy as a seal, but you decided
1:43:32
that was it for you.
1:43:33
You weren't going to go any further than your 20 years.
1:43:35
Then you decided that you were going to start your own, you know,
1:43:38
self-defense training company.
1:43:40
And so firearms and blades and different things.
1:43:43
And that's an AMP tax shooting.
1:43:44
Yeah.
1:43:44
So I guess the thing that that why, like, why go this route?
1:43:49
Like why teach civilians like me and guys like me and gals that are kind
1:43:53
of wired like that, you know, teaching them the stuff that our tax dollars
1:43:57
paid you to learn while you were in the Navy.
1:43:59
Why not go do something else entirely?
1:44:01
Like some guys get out and they're like, I'm going to go sell insurance.
1:44:04
Like I'm going to try to start a watch company or like they're, they're
1:44:07
doing something completely different.
1:44:08
So why go that route?
1:44:09
Why was that the next step?
1:44:10
I mean, it's something I've always enjoyed.
1:44:13
I mean, and, and the, uh, there's, there's a lot of stuff that I learned at work.
1:44:20
But there's honestly, there's a lot of, I mean, for years and years, they, the
1:44:26
work was not paying for my jujitsu late, like a lot later on that we've, we got
1:44:31
it figured out and then they paid for jujitsu.
1:44:33
But for years and years, that was all like I was taking my own time to, to go
1:44:39
and do jujitsu training or go train with SIOC or, or show up early and shoot.
1:44:45
Like that was all, that was stuff that I just, I looked at and I'm like, Hey,
1:44:49
this is like, I want to be that I got like, I want to be good at this.
1:44:53
I don't want to be, you know, just good and, you know, I want to be really good at it.
1:44:58
Um, and so it's, it's, with anything, like if you want to be really good at, you
1:45:03
actually have to do it a lot and you have to do it on your own time.
1:45:06
So it was something that I already enjoyed doing.
1:45:09
The last, uh, kind of how I got to, to Antec shooting the last two years, I was
1:45:13
active duty.
1:45:14
I ran our canine program and I had a bunch of guys that worked for me that
1:45:17
weren't seals.
1:45:18
They were Navy mastered arms. Those guys have a significantly, um, less
1:45:25
intensive, uh, firearms and tactical training than, than the frog men do.
1:45:30
Uh, so with, with these guys, I started making them go to the range with me at
1:45:36
least once a week.
1:45:37
I started doing CQB with the guys and then we'd go on the road and, you know,
1:45:42
with the different law enforcement groups would host us.
1:45:45
And, you know, so I'm, I'm teaching, I've got my guys on the line teaching them.
1:45:49
And as a thank you, I'd always throw in one or two, one or two cops that were
1:45:52
standing around like safety guy, you know, they're, they're, they're
1:45:56
RSOs for, for their range.
1:45:58
And they're just hanging out and I'm like, Hey, come on up, man.
1:46:00
Like get on the line.
1:46:00
Do some shooting with us.
1:46:01
And those guys would come up to me afterwards and they'd go, man, that was
1:46:05
amazing.
1:46:05
Like you actually talked about and demoed and, um, and I'm like, what?
1:46:09
Doesn't everyone teach that way?
1:46:11
And they're like, no, um, so I was encouraged.
1:46:15
So, and then I had a bunch of retired cops that, that, that worked for me at
1:46:18
the time and they, they really encouraged me.
1:46:20
They're like, Hey, you could, you could crush this.
1:46:22
If you know, if you, if you wanted to go down this path and so I started
1:46:29
going down this path and didn't really know where I was going to, you know,
1:46:33
was I going to teach mostly mill guys, mostly cops, like really didn't know.
1:46:37
And, uh, had some, another good friend of mine called before.
1:46:42
Um, if you ever get a chance to definitely try and try and train with Kyle.
1:46:45
He's one of the top guys in industry right now.
1:46:48
Um, but I asked him and he gave me some great counsel.
1:46:51
I got to, got to help teach a class for him.
1:46:53
And, and, uh, man, I've just been so blessed with solid students.
1:46:58
Like, so my baseline student is a civilian.
1:47:00
There's just serious about protecting themselves and their family.
1:47:03
The guys can shoot.
1:47:05
Um, like when my former teammates asked me about some of my students, I'll be like,
1:47:11
I'll be like, yeah, they'll, they'll outrun you with, with their pistol.
1:47:15
Like a lot of my guys will outrun former teammates with pistols, not with carbines.
1:47:19
Um, but with pistols just because they're, they're into it.
1:47:22
Like that's, like that's what they do.
1:47:25
And so I really, I appreciate guys that want to learn.
1:47:28
So with the civilians, like you get a guy that had to buy his own pistol, had to buy his own
1:47:33
ammo, had to buy his own holster, like had to take time off from work to come train.
1:47:37
Like all it had to, you know, take time away from his family to come train.
1:47:39
Like, so those guys are, they're generally, they're really motivated, um, to do the training.
1:47:45
And I, like, when, when guys want to learn, like those are the guys that I want to teach.
1:47:49
So I, I, I've really enjoyed that.
1:47:51
I've enjoyed the kind of camaraderie that I, more than half the places where I go and
1:47:58
teach, I stay with friends.
1:47:59
Uh, you know, like they pick me up at the airport and I'm hanging out with friends.
1:48:03
So it's almost like little mini reunions every time I go someplace.
1:48:06
Um, the culture is guys aren't drinking overwhelmingly.
1:48:11
Guys aren't drinking.
1:48:12
Like, and, and I do try and invite guys out.
1:48:14
Hey, let's go out to eat dinner at, you know, after, after day one just because your relationships
1:48:19
are important and it's, it's cool just to hang out with guys and, and you know, and foster,
1:48:23
not just me getting to know these guys, but the guys getting to know each other as well.
1:48:27
Uh, overwhelmingly guys aren't consuming any alcohol or if they are, it's like they're having
1:48:33
one, one beverage. Um, so it's just like this very like, hey, if I'm, if I have to be gone for
1:48:39
my family, like that, that's a good, like those are good people to be hanging out with.
1:48:44
All, and then, you know, really most, most importantly, it's share the gospel now with
1:48:48
them. Like as part of mindset, I do a mindset talk every any time I do a two day class,
1:48:52
there's a mindset talk and we talk about a lot of things that will help you survive a violent
1:48:57
confrontation, but then we finish with a, you might do everything right and you might die.
1:49:01
And so therefore, like we can't talk about readiness without talking about readiness
1:49:05
for death and being right with God and how, hey, the only way that you're right with God is through
1:49:10
his son, Jesus. Um, and so it's really, it's, it's, it's awesome that, you know, and I, I did not,
1:49:15
like I've grown in my, you know, boldness, like my, my initial mindset talks were like,
1:49:20
they would end with like one sentence of be right with God. And now it's like a little mini,
1:49:25
mini sermon, like I'll talk about Peter and, you know, that's one of the really, um, you know,
1:49:30
just looking at the life of Peter and how he goes from kind of on, on again, off again,
1:49:34
faith to when it's time for, for him to die, right? You know, church tradition tells us this not,
1:49:41
not the Bible, but you know, he encourages his wife first, she's crucified. And then it's his
1:49:46
turn and he goes upside down, like not worthy to die the same way my savior dies or died. Um,
1:49:52
and it's like what makes a guy, what makes a guy like that go from, oh yeah, I'll fight for you and
1:49:59
die for you and then run away or I'll fight for you and die for you and then deny him. And then like,
1:50:03
the only answer to that is the resurrection. Peter saw the resurrection. Um, and then he,
1:50:08
his life was changed after that. Um, and so it's just, it's a huge privilege to be able to,
1:50:15
you know, yeah, I get to teach guys how to, how to shoot and fight and, you know, hopefully foster
1:50:20
some camaraderie and, and, and some friendships there, but then most importantly, I also get to
1:50:25
share the gospel with guys. It's an incredible thing. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend,
1:50:30
you were actually in my neck, the woods here recently, but timing didn't quite work out with
1:50:34
a newborn, but I got to pin in that because we will make sure that I'm out there in the future. But
1:50:39
I read enough reviews and talk to enough people that have gone to your events. And it's, it's a
1:50:43
different level of training than what a lot of people will experience. And there are those other
1:50:47
elements that you do bring in. So guys in the show notes, there will be a link to your website.
1:50:50
So you can see whenever you have a different classes coming up and everything else. But I
1:50:54
want to end today with something that I heard you talk about on another podcast that I didn't know
1:50:57
that you were actually dealing with in my understanding is you're still trying to figure out exactly
1:51:01
what to do with it. And it's something that I'm becoming more and more obsessed with because I
1:51:05
just had my second son. And that's right to passage. And so teaching young men ushering them
1:51:11
into manhood. And there are different organizations I've tried to do things like this. And maybe
1:51:16
just didn't work out well. I know that there's kind of a ground swell with fathers that, you know,
1:51:21
they know their church isn't going to teach their young boy to be a man. And so they're taking more
1:51:25
of a forward approach to how that those things are happening. And that's something that that
1:51:29
you're doing. So you're trying to figure out how can we make sure that these young men understand
1:51:34
what it means to be a man, not just, you know, checking boxes, but also the things that are
1:51:38
required of them. And the things are expected of them and the responsibilities that they will have
1:51:42
as they grow older. So talk to me a little bit about kind of why that's so important to you and
1:51:46
some of the things you're trying to do with it. So we have been doing a program now for
1:51:52
shoot about seven seven plus years now it's called father son ministry. I'm trying to
1:52:00
just a second trying to pull up my my notes on that just because it kind of will give a clear and
1:52:10
concise mission statement for it. There we go. So we started doing that. So, you know, I retired,
1:52:21
we came out here. I kind of had this on my heart that like I want to do something
1:52:25
for most I was thinking for the boys at the time, like I want them to grow up and no one
1:52:32
loved Jesus said is the most important thing. But also I want them to be capable men, right? And in
1:52:38
part, I got this from if any guys are familiar with Colonel Cooper, right? He's one of the, you know,
1:52:44
hardcore old school dude on he kind of one of the founders of competitive, you know,
1:52:49
Ipsack shooting started gun sight out in Arizona. And he used to have on the back page of guns and
1:52:55
ammo, you know, Cooper's corner, these ramplains, some of them good, some of them less good. But
1:53:00
one of them was, Hey, what should a young man know when he leaves, you know, in the whole, you know,
1:53:04
shoot, you know, speak the truth, ride ride and shoot hard, you know, like, so yeah, he had, and
1:53:10
then he had, he had a list of stuff. So I started looking at, what do I want my boys to know? Like,
1:53:15
what's important to me that they know? And number one, it is that they become committed followers of
1:53:22
Christ. But then after that, I want them to be capable. I want them to be able to, you know, to
1:53:26
protect themselves and their families. And then I want them to know a lot about a lot of different
1:53:30
things. So for father, son ministry, as we wrote it down, the purpose to glorify God by raising
1:53:38
our sons to know Jesus and be obedient to him. Proverbs 22, 6 has trained up a child in the way
1:53:44
he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. The number two was to encourage
1:53:49
fathers with their walk with the Lord. Proverbs 27, 17 says iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens
1:53:55
another. That point, I mean, I thought it was going to be mostly for the kids. And I think it's
1:54:01
every bit for the men as well. Like it's really morphed into like this Bible study for the men
1:54:08
and the boys now as part of it. Number three, to teach our boys to be men, to take care of their
1:54:13
families that are well rounded. Number four, to train fathers to be examples for their sons.
1:54:19
And number five, to create a community of godly men to go through life together. So core skills,
1:54:25
developing a relationship with Christ, this must be the foundation upon which we live our lives.
1:54:29
Number two, fighting as men, we have a duty to protect our families and to stand up for the
1:54:35
fatherless, knowing how to shoot and fight allows you to be God's instrument for protecting those
1:54:39
around you. And number three, life skills, men should know a lot about a wide variety of topics.
1:54:45
See the list below. So the list, fitness, right? Fatigue makes cowards of us all,
1:54:52
that's Vince Lombardi quote right there, which is phenomenal. And it's so true, right? The guy
1:54:58
that's like hardcore, when he gets tired, like, you know, makes cowards of us all. Fighting base art,
1:55:06
jiu jitsu mindset, mostly from Syak, and then incorporating Thai boxing, Western boxing wrestling,
1:55:15
shooting, primitive skills, how to make shelters, you know, shelter, water, fire food, animal
1:55:19
husbandry, preserving food, understanding engines, vehicle repair, like just changing your oil,
1:55:24
getting vehicles unstuck, basic plumbing, basic electrical, like all these things, I was super
1:55:30
deficient on like I didn't know how to do most of these things when I left home at 17. But I want
1:55:34
my boys to be better than me. So and then kind of as a, as a verse for the whole program,
1:55:41
Deuteronomy 31 six, be strong and courageous, do not be, do not fear or be in dread of them for
1:55:47
it is the Lord your God who goes with you, he will not leave you or forsake you. So that's just
1:55:54
been a really cool program. We're actually kind of praying about maybe making it a national level
1:55:59
program to try and be able to encourage guys we've already had a couple other we've got currently,
1:56:05
we've got a new Hampshire branch. It is one of my, one of my good friends is doing a branch there,
1:56:10
we've had Washington and we had Atlanta going for a while as well. But like, so we're kind of praying
1:56:15
through what is it? What would it look like to do this as a national organization, kind of a
1:56:20
resource for men that, that want to do something like this in their own backyards. And we do it
1:56:26
through our church. So we are under the authority of our church as, as we do this. I mean, we meet
1:56:33
at our local church, we got wrestling mats. And it's, so that's been a huge blessing. It's also
1:56:37
like just personal development. When I, when we started this, the, I remember talking to the old
1:56:44
pastor and I'm like, Hey, yeah, I'm good for the Bible lesson, like maybe every other month, but
1:56:49
you know, it's a lot, you know, it's because it took me hours to prep for a 20 minute Bible lesson.
1:56:53
And now it's like, man, if I'm in town, I'm generally the guy doing it. And it does not take me two
1:56:58
hours or three hours to prep for it anymore. So like it's, you know, getting reps in, you know,
1:57:04
preparing little mini sermons has been huge. I think it's an important thing.
1:57:10
Just for fathers to hear the extent to which you've gone into planning for this, because a lot of
1:57:14
guys try to do this haphazardly, you know, every now and then, oh, you know, do as I say, not as I do,
1:57:19
or hey, just kind of watch me and those different things. But there are a lot of great resources
1:57:23
out there. I know that you're going to continue to grow the stuff that you're doing. I've talked
1:57:25
to John Tyson before, the intentional father, they're, they're going to be putting out an entire,
1:57:30
you know, plethora of resources for folks. But I think that there's a lot of things that you can
1:57:34
build out that is going to be optimal for you and your family and the timing of your family.
1:57:38
Because obviously, if you have one son, you can put 18 years worth of focus into that one kid
1:57:43
becoming a man. But if you have multiple sons, like me and a lot of our listeners, it's going to go
1:57:47
further out from there. But hey, if I can add one more thing, because I just wanted to touch on it,
1:57:54
you mentioned it like rights of passage type things. I think those can be really good.
1:57:59
But I think it has to be an all and approach. It cannot just be a
1:58:06
rights of passage. Some of the stuff that I've read where guys are like kind of tracking on the
1:58:11
same line. Like, you know, they do like one big thing for them, you know, as their teenage years,
1:58:18
or maybe it's even multiple things. I think the guys that are doing multiple things like, hey,
1:58:22
at 10, we're doing something and at 13 and at 15, like, I think that's more online. But I think
1:58:28
really, you cannot get away from the day in and out, just logging through every week,
1:58:37
we go and do hard, you're going to do hard stuff together with other boys, right? I mean, I love it.
1:58:43
I've had boys crying. I mean, just rolling so hard that they're like, they're crying afterwards,
1:58:49
you know, boxing stuff where they're, you know, they're crying, they're scared getting in there,
1:58:55
like, but that's so good for young men. It's good for young men to lose sometimes,
1:59:00
right? It's good. Like we need to, and then we're doing it with their fathers there, with their
1:59:06
peers, their friends are there, right? So they get that and then they're also, they're getting the
1:59:11
gospel every single, every single weekday when we need to do this. Like, we're sharing the gospel
1:59:17
with them. I'm encouraging some of the, you know, from time to time, but like, I'll ask one of the
1:59:21
older boys, hey, share. What is, what is the gospel mean to you? Like, if, if I say, hey, give me,
1:59:26
like, tell me about this whole gospel business. Like, why, what, where's, where's the hope that
1:59:31
you have? Like, like, so, so now that we're doing leadership, we're encouraging them in their faith.
1:59:37
So like, you cannot get it. So I think it is good to have initiation type things where maybe,
1:59:43
you know, I've thought about as they get older, like, hey, you have to go into the woods, like,
1:59:48
by yourself for a couple days and like, you know, traverse a distant, you know, like, I think there's
1:59:53
some stuff like that that's really good. But you can't just do that. There has to be that day in,
1:59:59
day out, you know, where the, you know, the meat and potatoes of it is, is what they're getting on a
2:00:06
weekly basis. And then you have these culminating events that they can look back on and go, wow,
2:00:11
that was really cool. I did, I did that. But the only reason they were able to succeed on that
2:00:16
is because they have those years of, oh, yeah, it's raining or snowing. It doesn't matter. We're
2:00:21
still going out and we're hiking. We're still going to camp out or, you know, we're going to go
2:00:25
sleep in the snow or whatever it is. Yeah, I think it's, it's very good to not realize that you,
2:00:30
you don't have to put all your eggs in one basket. And it's the difference between taking your kid
2:00:33
to a church camp and they have the church camp experience versus discipling a child. Like those
2:00:37
are not the same thing. So like you've got this high coming out of church camp, but then Monday
2:00:42
rolls around, you got to go to class. You got to go to work. It's like, okay, you can't just
2:00:45
depend on those types of things. But Bill, we've gone everywhere in this conversation again.
2:00:49
Yes, we have absolutely light up with laughter. If you saw my notes versus what we actually ended
2:00:54
up talking about, but I think it, it warranted a much better conversation that we were able to
2:00:58
flow that way. But as for now, I'm sure we'll, we'll do this again at some point down the,
2:01:02
down the road. But as for now, that is all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off
2:01:05
your chest? No, thanks for having me on. Great being here. Good conversation.
2:01:09
All right. Bill rapier. Thank you for coming on a Daunton life of man's podcast.
2:01:13
Thank you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Bill rapier. But before we let you
2:01:18
go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life. Our mission is equipping men to
2:01:22
push back darkness with content that for just spiritual mental and physical resilience. So the
2:01:26
links I've got for you today is the AMTAC shooting website. So you can check out what classes are
2:01:30
going to be potentially coming to your area. Also, we didn't get to spend a lot of time talking about
2:01:33
this, but AMTAC blades, he makes his own, you know, fixed blades and different things like that.
2:01:38
They're just absolutely incredible, incredible knives. So I've got that website here and also
2:01:41
a link to the AMTAC shooting Instagram. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening to this podcast.
2:01:45
We do appreciate it. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,
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And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for
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2:02:17
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
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2:02:40
And the fight now, you'll be revived.