MATTIE MONTGOMERY | Something Worth Screaming About (Ep. 244)

0:00 [Music]

0:18 This is on Daunted Life, a Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.

0:23 All right, guys, I've got a special interview for you today is with Maddie Montgomery, so

0:26 I really, really enjoyed this conversation. I'm so excited to get into you, but he is the founder

0:30 and pastor of the Alter Fellowship in Johnson City, Tennessee. So he's also the author of a

0:34 couple of books, Scary God, which is fantastic and lovely things in ugly places. Now I, and most

0:39 of you listening to this, you know of him because of his almost decade-long run where he was the lead

0:44 singer of a legitimately Christian and brutally heavy metalcore band that I've talked about a lot

0:50 on this podcast before, and that's for today. Okay, so if you go back to episode 176 of this

0:54 podcast, which we talked about on this episode, that's a podcast called contemporary worship music

0:58 is for women and effeminate men. I actually took the time to read the lyrics to the for today song

1:03 Devastator, and I did this to show you that, you know, worship music, quote unquote worship music

1:09 can and should be aggressive in a lot of ways. But guys, we don't just talk about the music here,

1:13 so if you're not a metalhead, if you're not a for today fan or whatever, there's a there's a nice

1:17 section of this podcast that is for you guys, but we get into a lot of things about men in general,

1:22 about the culture around men, about the culture within the church and how it's not really calling

1:27 men up to to be better or be more. And really how the church has lost its ability to be aggressive

1:33 and how we're basically just being called to be nice and non confrontational, but also

1:37 guys towards the end of this episode. So you're gonna make sure you stick around to the end of this

1:40 episode. We're talking about a conference that he has coming up that he's helping put on in April

1:44 in Las Vegas in April 2022. And guys, this could be something that is transformational,

1:50 not just for the men that attend, but potentially for our country for the United States of America.

1:54 And I don't think I'm overselling it. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic at all. But guys,

1:57 without further ado, I'm not going to keep them from you any longer. Let's get into it.

2:01 Maddie Montgomery, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

2:04 Hey, thank you, Carl. Glad to be here, man.

2:06 Hey, I've been excited to talk to you for a while, but I'm glad we were able to finally

2:10 get this squared away. And guys, as I told you in the introduction, we are going to get all into

2:13 the stuff about for today into some of the books and some other things that you've got going on.

2:17 But I do want to kind of start with an interesting transition, because I've been listening to metal.

2:21 I've been kind of in the scene since I was a kid, don't worry. I never wore the makeup or any of

2:25 that nonsense or anything like that. I never drew Xs on my chest or whatever. But the interesting

2:30 thing is that you decided at some point that you didn't want to be a front man for one of the

2:35 dopest metal bands ever anymore. But you wanted to start a church. And that wasn't an immediate

2:39 transition. It was kind of an eventual transition. But I guess the why go into full-time ministry,

2:44 why start a church? And I guess specifically why in the tiny town of Johnson City, Tennessee,

2:49 which admittedly, I only knew existed because of the song wagon wheel. So thank you, Darius Rucker,

2:54 for letting me know it is a great song. It's one of my favorite songs ever. So I guess there's a

2:58 bunch of questions in there. So go with it wherever you want. Yeah, so you know, the short answer to

3:04 why I walked away from the band is the Lord called me to. And you know, through the we had almost an

3:10 entire year of prep time and our long farewell tour was like three months, 71 shows in like 15

3:18 different countries. So I saw it in Oklahoma City. So I appreciate it. And I saw the farewell tour.

3:23 That's awesome. Yeah, it was an amazing tour. And you know, I got asked a lot on that tour.

3:29 Why, why are you leaving? You know, what's what's wrong with the band or what else is going on?

3:34 People thought I got some kind of better job offer or that we didn't get along. And there was nothing

3:39 like that. In all seriousness, we left for tour at the beginning of 2016, like I had done a hundred

3:45 other times. And it just felt off. It wasn't bad. People's lives were still getting touched. The

3:53 shows were going great. We're making good enough money to, you know, keep our families fed and

3:59 clothed. And so I and I wrestled with it for about a month, really. And I brought it to my pastor

4:06 and to my wife and said, I'm not sure what the deal is. I just it just feels like it doesn't fit

4:11 anymore. And so I spent about a month in prayer and saying, God, I want you to give me passion for

4:17 this. I want to love this. I don't want to feel like I'm having fun, but I feel a little guilty,

4:23 like I'm not supposed to be here for some reason. And it was a toward the end of that tour about

4:27 a month later that I sort of had this moment of clarity and heard the Lord speak and say,

4:32 you know, Maddy, there's nothing wrong. You have just done everything I called you to do. You know,

4:37 I joined the band in 2007, thinking I'll put out one album and do a couple tours. I get some life

4:43 experience under my belt and then it'll be time to grow up, you know, and we ended up being in

4:47 the band for almost 10 years, putting out seven studio albums, recording a DVD, touring the world,

4:53 preaching the gospel to millions of people, getting to go all over the place and do I mean more than

4:57 I ever could have dreamed. And so, you know, when it was time to leave, it sort of didn't make sense.

5:06 It's kind of, you know, all I had done for the vast majority of my adult life. And then to hear

5:14 the Lord say, you have just, you finished what I called you to do. It felt like, man, okay, well,

5:20 then I want to trust God in transition. I mean, all of us, I think too many men, especially,

5:28 we find a niche and we stick to it. You know, this is my job, this is my sport, this is my hobby,

5:36 and I'm nothing's going to change that. And so, what happens is that God in his infinite grace

5:41 makes sure that we have to leave that job or we have to leave that sport or we have to leave that

5:46 hobby because he's jealous. And, you know, for some guys, that can be a really painful transition.

5:53 They don't want to let go. That's my identity is my work for so many guys. And so for me,

5:59 that was a, I'm glad that I had a year to really, or that month to really prepare my heart to hear

6:05 that and to say, you know what, I'm thankful for my work. I'm thankful for the lives that were impacted

6:10 by it, but it's time to transition away from it. And that's not my identity. It's not who I am.

6:15 It's just what I did. And so I talked to the guys and they were so gracious and understanding.

6:21 And so in, we then at that point started scheduling the farewell tour and at the end of 2016,

6:27 went all over the world and played one last time for just about every city we'd ever been to,

6:31 felt like. And then people asked me, what are you going to do after the band? And I said,

6:37 I'm going to go home and I'm going to take my kids to the park. And then I'm going to take my

6:41 wife on a date. And then, and only then will I start praying about what's next. All of my energy

6:47 is focused on finishing this well. And man, we had an incredible farewell tour. Many, many people

6:54 came to faith in Christ during that time. And we just had an amazing time. I got to

7:00 really go home and spend a few weeks and months with my wife and kids after that and just begin to

7:07 dream again, sort of back from square one, you know, what do we want to be? What do we want our

7:13 lives to look like as a family moving forward? And that was a beautiful season for us. And that's

7:19 a big part of the reason that we ended up here in Johnson City is we took that time. You know,

7:24 the end of 2016 has been for today ended. And then in the summer, sorry, in the in the fall of 2017,

7:33 about a year later, because when we filed for to form our nonprofit ministry, which is now the

7:41 Alter Fellowship. And then in the spring of 20, sorry, in the summer of 2018, is when the

7:52 Lord began to speak to us about launching the church in the, and then in the summer of 2019,

8:01 we moved here and and launched it. So it was it was a slow process. And we're I'm grateful for the

8:09 time that I got to prepare and, you know, really posture my heart for what we're doing. But we

8:15 we launched out here to Johnson City. And funny, you would bring up wagon wheel. So when I first

8:19 gave my life to the Lord in 2006, it was before Darius Rucker, he was still in a hoodie in the

8:25 blowfish. So it was a long, long, long ago. Hey, there you go. So what's funny about that song

8:31 specifically is I was working in New York. This would have been back in 2012. And Darius Rucker

8:36 came by our work, because I did kind of this multimedia thing for Major League Baseball.

8:40 And he's like, Hey, you guys want to hear a song that I just recorded? And so he hooks into the

8:44 Bluetooth speaker and plays us wagon wheel. So we were we were like the 14th and 15th people to

8:50 hear the song went around the world. And so in my mom's like obsessed with that dude. And so it's

8:55 like, you know, it worked out really, really well for us. But you know, and we'll get more into the

8:58 music here in a second, because you kind of teed up quite a bit of stuff with for today. But

9:02 I'm not always interested in the good things that happen in the ministries. I'm kind of more

9:05 interested in the darker stuff. Maybe that's why I was in the L's music so much, even though there

9:08 was light in the lyrics. But I guess for you, even with the time you spent in preparation,

9:13 the time you spent in prayer, the time you spent with your wife who seems to be down for the cause

9:17 from what I can tell from afar would have been the hardest. And I guess least satisfying parts

9:23 about being a pastor about leading a young church. Well, there's something I have told my staff for

9:29 years now. And it is that people are stupider than you think. And I don't mean that to insult my

9:36 people. It's all people everywhere are just generally speaking, they're stupider than you think. And

9:41 this, you know, this this goes from everything from, you know, communicating spiritual principles to

9:48 people to like marketing. If you think you're a flyer, the poster that you're going to hang up

9:54 has enough information on it, it doesn't. Nope, it doesn't look like if you think your website has

9:59 enough information on it, it doesn't people. And if you thought think that that critical piece of

10:05 information that you put on every page of your website and the poster that everybody's going to

10:09 read and understand that they want, people are still going to, you know, we're going to have women

10:14 show up to our men's conference. It says men's conference on all of our advertisement, and they're

10:18 going to be stunned that they can't get in. And so there's, I think that whatever you do, whether it's

10:26 business, you know, a hobby, raising kids, raising a church, that you're going to run into just this

10:35 stunning capacity that that humans have for being just as dumb as a box of rocks sometimes. And I

10:42 think we have all, we have all been sort of the example somebody would use of how stupid people can

10:48 be at one point or another. So I think, you know, just walking people through life in Christian

10:55 community, you recognize that a lot of what we do as people is irrational. You know, we know

11:03 what is right, and we choose not to do it. And there's just, what do you do with somebody like

11:09 that? You know, how do you help them? I can't, I can't give you as, as my grandpa used to say,

11:16 any want to, you know, there's, you got to have some want to. And I can't give that to you. That's

11:22 got to, that's got to come from you. And if you don't want to, I can't, I can't help you. So I think,

11:26 you know, I think that's probably the biggest struggle for me and probably every pastor I've ever

11:31 met is that if you find somebody with passion, if you find somebody who's determined to be everything

11:37 Jesus died for them to be, nothing can stop them. But if you, if you find somebody that just doesn't

11:42 really care, doesn't care about success or failure, they're just going to go with the flow and

11:48 whatever happens happened and whatever feels good, I'm just going to do that.

11:51 That no amount of preaching is ever going to change that. Yeah, I mean, you kind of brought up

11:57 something it's called the curse of knowledge that people talk about to where you get up and you

12:00 speak in front of a group of people and you assume they know more than they do. And the problem is,

12:05 is that person listening is burning so many calories, the brain burns more calories in any

12:09 muscle group in your body. And they're trying to burn calories to keep up with you. And at some

12:13 point, their body's like, Hey, we can't give you any more calories to this. And so they just start

12:17 doing this. They start pecking corn and staring at you, but they're not paying attention anymore.

12:21 So it's always good to assume that they don't know anything. It's not talking down to them. It's

12:25 it's kind of bringing them up to the level that you need them to be at. But let's go ahead and

12:29 transition out into the music and the way I like to start with guys like you, because we've talked

12:32 with, you know, Matt Griner, and we talked with Michael Felker of convictions. And I'm always

12:37 interested in how you kind of got into music. Because again, being a front man, you don't necessarily

12:42 need to know how to read music. You don't necessarily need to know about any of that kind of specific

12:46 down and dirty stuff. So I guess what kind of got you interested in music and I want to know the bands

12:51 that got you into this style. Because I've told the people a lot on this podcast,

12:55 Living Sacrifice, the reborn album in Zayo where Blood and Fire bring rest. That is why I'm a

13:00 metalhead. Those two albums, I can point to the day that it happened, right? So I want to kind of

13:04 know what kind of got you into this heavy aggressive music. Yeah, so I grew up playing

13:10 listening to bands like the Ramones, the Clash, and wanted to play drums in a punk band and wanted

13:20 to fight the power and tear down the establishment and stuff. And so, you know, I was playing drums

13:30 and punk bands. And then we started to kind of hear these bands screaming a little bit in their

13:37 music. You know, you had bands like Thursday, you know, even, I always felt like they were too

13:44 girly for me. But my friends were listening to Hawthorne Heights, you know, bands like Senses

13:48 Fail. It was another one that we loved a lot. And so we're sort of discovering, okay, well,

13:52 maybe there's a little like another dimension that we can add to our music. Maybe we transition

13:59 a little bit. And so I remember the moment I was probably 15 years old sitting on my high school

14:04 girlfriend's front porch with the other two guys in my three piece punk band. And we all sort of

14:11 take term screaming. We all think, well, who's the best screamer in our band? And I guess they

14:18 they decided that it was me. And so from then on, we sort of just sprinkled some background

14:23 screaming into the into the songs. And I would play drums and scream. In fact, if you know where

14:28 to look, there's videos of it on the internet of me. All right. Yeah. But then as things progressed,

14:38 we started sort of writing songs more around the screaming elements of things, just my random

14:43 high school band. And then we, you know, eventually decided, hey, why don't why don't I just transition

14:53 to only vocals and then we'll have bringing another guy to play drums. So I think it was a

14:59 gradual progression in terms of screaming. But I at that point, I had been playing drums and

15:04 writing music on the guitar. And so I sort of had a at least a general understanding of all the

15:10 instruments that went into the band and was helping the guys write songs, lyrics and things like that.

15:15 And then, you know, what what changed my life was there were a couple albums.

15:28 Oh gosh, I got to remember what they're called. There's the Hace the Day album with Burning Bridges.

15:36 What is that one? Oh gosh, you would say that here. You keep going. I'll look at it. I know exactly

15:42 which one you're talking about. There's a today. And then there's the the Azaleid dying album

15:46 for a words collage. Of course. Yeah. And and then there's a

15:54 then there was the Zao album. It's got a long title. The splinter shards, the birth of the separation.

16:02 Nope. Man, the name of that album was Burning Bridges. Oh, Burning Bridges for Hace the Day.

16:10 Okay, yeah. Hace the Day, Burning Bridges for a words collapse as I lay dying. And then there was

16:15 the Zao album. So so I had a friend when I was into punk music when I was playing punk, I had a friend

16:22 give me where blood and fire brings rest. And I heard Ravage Ritual. Oh boy. And I thought

16:28 this this is too scary for me. Like I remember I remember sitting in my friend's car sweating,

16:36 listening to this music, thinking I don't understand what I'm hearing. It freaks me out.

16:42 I don't think I like this one bit. Since then, Zao has become one of my all-time favorite bands,

16:48 have loved them for years and years. But but yeah, I can't I can't say that I loved it the

16:56 first time I heard it. It was an acquired taste for sure. Yeah, I mean, that's the weird thing

17:01 about about metal is because and we'll get more into kind of the screaming vocals and how that's

17:04 kind of a hang up for people a little bit later. But for whatever reason, because it was the reborn

17:08 album by living sacrifice, that was the first one that I put in. It just agreed with my palette

17:13 because up to that date, the the heaviest thing I'd ever heard was Metallica or whatever was being

17:17 played on the radio and I like wasn't allowed to listen to Metallica because my mom thought they

17:21 were satanic and all the you know, the normal stuff like, you know, she didn't know any better.

17:24 And so she just said, you can't listen to that band. They're terrible. And it was like, you know,

17:28 you're listening to like, lit biscuit and corn and, you know, maybe Chevelle was around that

17:32 time and Chevelle's still good. But it's just like, then you go to something like that. And it's like,

17:36 what is this in like the darker side of that music? I didn't have that reaction. For me,

17:41 personally, the reaction was like, yeah, yeah, I think I like that. And we'll get more into that

17:46 here in a second. But I do want to get into to for today because as you mentioned earlier,

17:50 I think you mentioned it, you were not the original frontman for that band. Okay. So you came on

17:54 came on board in 2007. But this is the rumor that I heard and you see it some places online is that

18:00 you agreed to join the band on two conditions. Well, and the first was that the band was going to

18:04 have a Bible study every day, all the band members, and that you were from the stage,

18:09 you were going to minister to the audience. So true or false? True. Okay. Yeah. So what was

18:15 kind of the impetus behind that? Because you know, you don't really hear that from people. You don't

18:19 really hear be like, I'll come in the band, but you got to do this. It's usually has something to do

18:22 with money and time off. So why those things? Well, I just, I at that season in my life was

18:30 struggling to discover what it meant to be a man of God. I had been really touched by the

18:37 presence of the Lord and I wanted to be faithful. And I just knew I can't do it alone. I am at that

18:46 point, we're sort of surrounded by friends who were just full of compromise and who were weak and

18:52 deceived and self centered and self destructive. And I would just sort of go along with it because I

18:57 knew in my spirit, there was more to life with God than this. But I knew also that I just wasn't

19:04 strong enough to stand on my own. And so I said to those guys, like I'll join your band. And that's

19:10 fine. But the highest priority to me is that I would have purpose and community. You know, and

19:17 I feel like if I can preach every night and we can approach this thing like a ministry,

19:22 that's purpose. And if we can all commit ourselves to growing together as brothers in Christ,

19:28 that's community. And if I can have those two things, I feel like nothing's impossible for me. So

19:34 I just wanted to, I wanted to make what we did matter, even if it was only for a few months.

19:39 The new LinkedIn Hiring Pro can't undo your last hire. The lone wolf. Who you thought was

19:44 a good collaborator because you didn't have the right candidate insights. But once you hire them,

19:48 it was all hoarding info, declining meetings and howling at the full moon.

19:52 But LinkedIn Hiring Pro can go deeper than just the resume to find you a perfect fit.

19:58 By using insights from the LinkedIn network to give you a short list of best fit candidates.

20:03 Hire right the first time with LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Post a free job today at linkedin.com/quality.

20:09 Well, the, the odd thing about that is perhaps the most disappointing thing being adult,

20:14 an adult now in my mid thirties and going back and looking on all those bands that were in the

20:18 scene is you've seen almost every single one of those members of every single one of those bands

20:23 deconstruct their faith. Okay. Or you found out that they didn't have faith at all to begin with.

20:28 And so I remember hearing this about the band embodiment. So the members of embodiment, this

20:33 was a few years ago, they said, yeah, we just said we were a Christian band because we didn't

20:36 cuss in our lyrics and we kept our drinking and smoking, you know, outside the doors. But it was

20:40 like, we could have played a bar show and made two or three hundred bucks, or we could play a

20:45 church show and make 1200 bucks. And so it was like, for us, you know, we're trying to pay the bills.

20:49 And you know, this is a, you know, a small band that's not going to be touring arenas.

20:53 And so I guess that's, that's been the most disappointing thing for me. But for you and for today,

20:58 that was a legitimately Christian band where the members were legitimately Christians and they

21:03 weren't just playing, you know, they were just playing around. Like, even go, you mentioned

21:07 as like dying earlier and we've, we've seen kind of what happened with him and the, you know, him

21:11 going to jail and all those different things. But he's deconstructed his faith. And he said, yeah,

21:14 you know, when kids wanted to pray for me after shows, I would just close my eyes and, you know,

21:18 wait for it to be over. But it's just like, it's so disappointing to hear that. But for you, is it

21:22 different? Because maybe you toured with some of these, these Christian bands and they were,

21:27 they were, you know, part of your confidential inner circle or something like that. What's kind

21:31 of your thought process behind that? Well, I'll tell you a story. Recently, I was in maybe a

21:44 couple years ago, I was in Maine and I was hunting a bear. Actually, that bear, look at that thing.

21:50 Nicely done. How did he taste or she? Oh, delicious. Yeah, it's good. All right. Very good. So I was

21:57 hunting that bear. And we, so we put the dogs on, on this bear at seven in the morning.

22:04 And we kept thinking that the dogs had the bear treat and we were going to hike in and, and get it.

22:11 But then the bear would start moving again. And so this bear never climbed a tree. 350 pound

22:18 bore, I mean, just monster of a black bear. And, and it never climbed a tree for seven straight

22:25 hours. This bear just ran straight lines across mountains and the on the northern tip of the

22:31 Appalachian Mountains up there in Maine. And so for seven straight hours, we had to chase this bear

22:37 through the woods. And I mean, I don't think I've ever been more exhausted in my life. I at one

22:42 point stopped because I thought it was about to throw up. It was, I mean, just everything,

22:48 everything in me, I shot this bear and then sat down next to him and could have slept for a week.

22:53 It felt like it was just, I mean, chasing the bear up the side of a mountain through some of the

22:58 thickest brush I have ever seen in my life, let alone had to run through just thorns everywhere.

23:05 You know, when I took a shower afterwards, there were open cuts from, from, from a thorns and,

23:11 and sticks that I'd run through. And at one point, one of the, the guys that's with me,

23:17 he was there from there in Maine. And he said, he said, you know, they, that the old timers used

23:22 to say about the trees in Maine that they grow so thick that when you're in the woods, you couldn't

23:26 fall over if you wanted to. And, and that has always sort of stuck with me as this amazing

23:33 illustration that it was actually true. I was in these woods. And there were times that I'm pushing

23:38 to tree to to a tree sort of, yeah, to I'm pushing two trees apart so that I can sort of squeeze

23:49 between them. And it's really true that if I would have gotten so exhausted, that I couldn't

23:53 stand anymore, these trees were so tight together, they would have held me up. And, and the truth is,

23:59 I think all of us get like that sometimes. But the ones that are wise, we make decisions before we

24:05 get exhausted to surround ourselves with trees, to surround ourselves with people that have deep roots.

24:13 And, and strong branches, people that are going to stay strong for the long run. So that when,

24:22 not if, but when we begin to falter or to fail, that we can actually lean on the strength of

24:29 somebody else. But when you are a guy in a hardcore band, you're living life on an island.

24:36 You know, if the guys in your, if you're lucky enough to have guys in your band like I did,

24:42 they can, they can be a big help. But even, you know, you get to the point where you're also close

24:47 that you kind of know what each other are thinking. So you don't ask for their advice or help anymore,

24:52 because you already know what they're going to say. And so what happens is, you know, a lot of these

24:56 guys, they, they start touring and their band when they're 18 years old, they just graduated

25:02 from high school and they leave on tour and their band takes off. And then suddenly they're 25 and

25:07 they haven't been in church ever in their life. They went from youth group to touring full time.

25:12 And maybe at the beginning, they said stuff about God, because they were in youth group and they

25:17 wanted their mom to be proud of them. And, and you know, they wanted their youth pastor to think

25:21 they were cool in their band. But then the world gets bigger and they realize not everybody agrees

25:26 with that. And it's maybe not always the smartest business decision. And there's no foundation and

25:31 there's no community around them. There's no accountability. And so I mean, after seven years

25:37 of living on an island like that, I don't think that anybody can stay strong forever. And so I,

25:42 you know, I'm not surprised by Tim Lambes' story. It could have very easily been my story.

25:51 You know, I think there are a lot of people that you take sort of little steps away from the

25:56 foundation of your faith, you make little compromises. And, you know, the next thing you know, you're

26:02 miles and miles and miles away from where you started and you don't know how you got there.

26:06 So I think that the universal issue is that, is that men, you know, whether they're guys in hardcore

26:16 bands or, you know, lawyers or doctors or soldiers in the military, you know, whatever their

26:22 occupation is. I think that we feel this pressure to do it ourselves, to man up and get it done and

26:30 be an island. But the truth is, man, that all of us need trees around us that can hold us up

26:34 one more week. Yeah, we talk about it in our ministry in terms of a foxhole. And we have a whole

26:40 series called how to build a godly and manly foxhole. And the reason is, is because if your lives

26:43 fall into party three o'clock in the morning, most guys don't have anyone that they can call. If it's

26:47 not their wife or if their dad lives down the road or something like that. So we got a bunch of 6pm

26:51 friends right there, they're down with us and they're down to help until about 6pm. But if it's 3am,

26:55 they're not available to you. And men, they do get isolated, they get on the island. That's why we

26:59 see issues with suicide or issues with substance abuse or, you know, guys have an extramarital

27:04 affairs, because they don't have people around them that are consequential to them. And so I think

27:08 the, the, the point is well founded with some of these guys are in these bands. It's, and this was

27:13 the issue I had back in the day when look Ray released the album called, or I think it was a,

27:17 a mixtape or a song is called church clothes. And he's basically talking about how he didn't need

27:21 the church. And I've got a lot of issues with the cray, but that one specifically, it's like,

27:24 you're calling these men that already don't like the church to distance themselves even further.

27:30 Right. And so, and that doesn't mean that the church building is, is anything in particular. And I'm

27:34 sure you would agree with that, like the Eklaia model didn't have anything to do with a building.

27:38 And, you know, cushy chairs and a nice PA system. But I think the other thing as well as you can

27:44 kind of see the D evolution of lyrical content over time, because you said, you know, they would

27:48 talk about things on stage. And then it would kind of devolve over time to be more secular,

27:52 more dark, more just personal. And that was the thing that was refreshing with for today is that

27:57 your lyrical content, I don't know if you know, you wrote it all or if the band kind of came together

28:01 and all wrote it. So maybe you can give us some insight on that. But the lyrical content was

28:04 incredibly brutal and aggressive and raw and even violent and in a good way. But it was all very

28:12 God honoring at the same time. So it was weird. It was like weird to listen to because it was all

28:17 happening at the same time. So I'm wondering specifically, if you ran into problems with that,

28:21 since you were trying specifically to appeal to a Christian audience, right? And be sold in

28:26 Christian bookstores and those types of things. And we'll get into the the band you toured with

28:30 here in just a second. But was that an issue for you? Because it didn't sound like a Michael W. Smith

28:34 song. It didn't sound like a news boy song. It was so aggressive. Yeah, well, I would I would

28:39 disagree with one point. I don't think we were trying to appeal to a Christian audience. Okay.

28:43 Here's here's my here was my thesis that really drove for today. It was the idea that what even

28:51 secular subculture kids wanted hardcore and metal kids were really looking for. If they could get

28:58 to the core of it was authenticity, they wanted something real. And whether whether it was

29:06 you know, to declare that they don't have to be afraid anymore that there's hope in Christ,

29:14 or whether it was, you know, somebody singing about drinking and drugs and alcohol that what

29:18 they really were looking for was just something authentic. And, you know, not a sort of pre-packaged

29:27 cookie cookie cutter album that that works on paper, but they wanted to hear somebody's heart.

29:32 And I think that's what drew people to for today is that, you know, maybe we didn't have the most,

29:38 you know, gifted musicians in the world or or whatever, but, you know, or the best marketing

29:46 team in the world. But when people would come to our shows, there's a real possibility that I might

29:50 stand in an alley and cry, you know, with you about the abuse that you suffered as a kid at the

29:56 end of the show, you know, I might get down on my knees and plead with you to come out of your sin

30:02 and self destruction and to give your life to Jesus right there in the bar that your mom didn't

30:07 want you to go to. And so I think it was the authenticity that drew people. And I think, you

30:14 know, that that when I was writing, I just thought I want to write what moves me, you know, I don't

30:20 want to write what other bands are writing. It's it's not about competing or keeping up. I want to

30:24 write something that is worth screaming about. And that's why our lyrics are biblical. That's

30:31 why our lyrics are prophetic. That's why our lyrics are declarative, not only over my life,

30:36 the life of our band, but over our generation things. I wanted to see a room full of kids whose lives

30:42 were defined in many ways by fear jumping over each other to sing, we are fearless with me.

30:48 I feel like, man, what an amazing opportunity to invite kids into declaring something that might be

30:54 transformational or at least encouraging for their life. And so that was really my strategy and my

31:02 perspective was I just wanted to give kids something real, something that wasn't just a show, but was

31:07 really an overflow of my heart and my captivation with the Lord. Well, Mattie, I could just got to

31:12 tell you as an aside here, I normally struggle with what to call my podcast episodes. And normally

31:17 the person I'm interviewing doesn't help me with that. But I just wrote down something we're screaming

31:21 about. I don't know, maybe that's the title of the next book or something like that. But I love it.

31:25 Thank you for your help on that. But you kind of talked about this a little bit. And I remember

31:29 first having this kind of inner dissonance when POD, right, the Christian band, you know, fundamental

31:35 elements of Southtown, when they went on tour with corn, I was like, no, no, they're gonna be

31:40 sacrificing babies in the mosh, but you can't do that. What are you gonna do? Like, again, I'm just a

31:44 young Christian at that point. But you guys didn't just play festivals with bands like this. You toured

31:50 with bands that were openly satanic or just atheists or really anti Christ bands. They belittled you

31:56 from the stage. They would make funny all from the stage. The crowds were hostile towards you.

32:02 And again, I don't see you as a guy that would be too terribly intimidated by that. But if you're

32:07 just getting peppered with that night after night after night on tour, it's got a way on you, right?

32:13 You know, I think in some ways, I would I would take that 10 times out of 10 over

32:20 fickle congratulations. You know, I like I'll take people cussing me out over my faith over

32:29 people golf clapping me and dismissing me, right? I would hatred is easily more valuable than in

32:38 difference. And so I think we sort of settle for the self congratulatory accolades that we get

32:46 preaching to the choir on Twitter or Instagram, preaching to people that we know agree with our

32:53 opinions. But the truth is, man, those were the people we were there for, the bands that hated

33:01 what we stood for, the kids in the crowd that had their pentagram shirt on and their middle

33:06 fingers in the air while I was preaching the gospel to them. Like, that's the reason that we

33:10 were there. That's the whole perfect point of it. And so, you know, frankly, man, the gospel,

33:14 it offended me before it saved me. You know, it confronted me with my own need. And that was an

33:21 insult to my pride. And I think I think that's the sort of universal struggle that many of us have

33:29 with the gospel is that it's it's Jesus doesn't demand that doesn't ask to be an accessory in your

33:34 otherwise full life. He demands to be the Lord of your life. That's crazy. What a high price to pay.

33:41 I mean, that's serious. And so for people to get offended by the gospel, it must mean I'm doing a

33:46 good job preaching it. Because because for every person, you know, with the pentagram on their shirt

33:52 and their middle fingers in the air, there's a guy standing right next to him with tears running

33:55 down his cheeks as he realizes this is what I've been waiting for. And so, yeah, it was, it was

34:02 brutal. I mean, the opposition sometimes was crazy. And we had people threaten us and spit on me and

34:06 cuss me out. And, you know, you name it. But that's the reason that we were there. And it just, it

34:12 means that they're hearing what I'm saying. And obviously, I'm not going for persecution. I'm just

34:17 going to release the truth and let the truth do what it does. But, you know, truth demands that

34:24 we deal with it. And some people deal with it with anger. And that's just kind of a fact of life.

34:31 When if someone is lashing out like that, they pay 15 bucks to go to a show and a sweaty little

34:36 die bar or something like that. And then they come in and want to do that. They're not speaking

34:41 out of their strength. They're speaking out of their weakness and out of their anguish and their

34:44 their turmoil. And again, they're probably never, I say never, they're likely never going to just

34:50 transition from seeing you guys on a Saturday night and into a church building the next day.

34:54 And that person in, you know, their $2,000 suit and their shined up shoes and all that preaching about,

35:00 you know, health, iron, brimstone, that's probably not going to have the same effect.

35:03 And so it's a very, it's a very first century church way of kind of passing the gospel on. So,

35:08 so I commend you for that. But now that I'm, you know, telling you all these great things

35:11 about you, I always like making people a little bit uncomfortable with my questions, especially

35:15 artists. So what I'm going to make you do right now, Maddy, is I'm going to make you pick your

35:18 favorite kid. Okay. So I'm going to make you not your actual kicks. I know you got three boys and,

35:22 you know, you don't have to tell me which one's your favorite. But if you could only leave one

35:27 for today album, right? And one for today's song for the world, which would, which album

35:34 would it be and which song would it be? And they don't, that song doesn't have to be on that album,

35:37 but you get one album to leave and one song. Okay. Which doesn't make sense because an album

35:41 has a bunch of songs on it. But you know, I appreciate it. That's right. Yeah. The album would be

35:45 Fight the Silence. I just felt like that one came together. Great. And the song would be

35:56 King. It's a song off of it's it's a song at the end of breaker that I felt like never got the

36:03 respect it deserves. I feel like that's probably our most either that one or dead to rights,

36:09 which is one off of Fight the Silence, I think, both just sort of flew under the radar. And I

36:15 felt like there were really six songs that nobody ever really cared about. Well, what's funny about

36:18 that is if somebody asks me, Hey, man, I can't listen to the whole discography, give me the one

36:23 for today album that, you know, kind of gives you a sense of this band. You know, breaker was the

36:28 album that got me interested in your band. That was the first one that I saw. But I feel like

36:32 all of y'all's talents and just I feel like everything came together with Fight the Silence,

36:37 right? And so even the prevailing, the prevailing EP that that was a really, really strong EP

36:42 for me. But yeah, the Fight the Silence there was just something about that album. It felt super

36:46 complete, not that the other ones didn't feel complete. It's just like, if you would just want to

36:50 nip, pick individual songs, like that was a good album to do that on. If you wanted to just hit play

36:55 and go from track one all the way to the end, it was going to be a good album as well. So I

36:58 appreciate you getting into that. But I do want to kind of spread out a little bit from for today

37:02 a little bit and just talk about Christian music in general. So one of the most popular episodes

37:07 that we've ever done of our podcast is episode 176, which is called contemporary worship music is

37:12 for women and a feminine men. And so I sent, I was thinking about sending your assistant

37:18 that episode, but that episode doesn't strike everybody the exact same. But I can say the,

37:22 the response has been overwhelming to that particular episode. Now in that episode,

37:27 I took the time to read the lyrics to your song Devastator. And I read it from beginning to end.

37:33 And I read it as an example of this is what I feel like a lot of men would want in their lyrical

37:38 content. It's way more Psalms than it is, you know, meek and mild Jesus kissing people in the tips of

37:44 their noses saying how cute they look that day. And the thing about it is is that that song does

37:50 something different to me when I listen to it than when I listen to any other type of worship music,

37:54 right? And like I even at your show in Oklahoma City on your farewell tour, I turned to my friend

37:59 and I said, if they play Devastator, I am not responsible for what I do inside this room. And

38:03 then like literally the very next song was that I was like, clear the room. And so it was like,

38:08 it's just a different type of song. But do you feel like contemporary worship music, the radio

38:14 worship music is pushing men away from the church or keeping men away from the church? Because that

38:21 was one of my things I talked about in that episode is men are there at worship. And they don't understand

38:26 why it's not landing. But the lyrical content is effeminate. The musicianship isn't good. Maybe

38:31 they just don't really like that type of music. And they're being told, as I was told, hey, man,

38:36 if you don't like Christian worship music, you might not be saved. Do you feel like that's

38:40 that's something that you deal with? Yeah, well, you know, I think the maybe the broader

38:44 conversation is essentially you can only appeal to people in one of two ways. That is in by way

38:50 of action or emotion. And all of Christian entertainment is aimed at your emotion. I mean,

38:57 try watching any Christian movie and not crying at the end of it. You know, and they're great

39:02 movies. And I watch them and I cry. And I'm like, I want to be a better dad, right? It touches my

39:07 heart. I'm grateful for that. Now, I'll sit and cry with you over the emotional song or the

39:14 emotional movie. But at some point, we've got to do more than just sit around and cry. And I think

39:21 that's where kingdom men are sort of left to their own devices. What does it really look like

39:30 to do something for my family, right? If my kids, if I find out that my son is addicted to drugs,

39:37 if I find out that my wife had an affair, if I find out that one of the kids in my son's

39:49 school has been beating him up and stealing his lunch money, what am I going to do? Sit around

39:54 and cry about it? Like, at some point, there's got to be more than just emotion. There's got to be

40:00 action as well. And when it comes to action or to move, and I think that's why songs like Devastator

40:06 move people because because it gives us sort of an anthem for when it's time to take a stand.

40:14 Because sometimes we can't, we've got to do more than than be just sentimental, right? And we've got

40:21 we've got to demand more from the church than just moral victories, right? It's like, well,

40:26 you, yeah, sure, you've got to divorce your kid killed himself, but you know, God works in mysterious

40:34 ways and you're going to learn some valuable lessons from this tough time. No, I think, I think

40:38 we've got to, we've got to do something about the brokenness in our world. We can't just endure it

40:44 and try to keep faith in spite of it. I think God established the church to bless the world.

40:50 That's what John 3 16 teaches us, that God's is after the church because he's intending for the

40:58 entire planet to feel the impact of it. And so we've got to do more than sort of sit isolated in our

41:05 own little Christian bubbles and pat ourselves on the back for not falling into the same temptation

41:12 as the world and, you know, making tear jerker songs and movies for each other. We have got to

41:18 begin to produce content and release messages and challenge the world to do, sorry, challenge the

41:28 church to do something with the gospel that we claim to believe. And I think that's where you get

41:33 songs like Devastator. I think that's why even your podcast seems to, you know, really hit on this

41:38 that, you know, it's fine to sit around and cry when it's time to sit around and cry, but sometimes

41:43 you got a standard fight. And, um, and when that time comes, you know, there's going to be a lot,

41:49 a lot more, a lot fewer people standing in that moment than, than we're there in church for the

41:56 Kumbaya session. Right. And, and some of the best emails I've ever gotten because of this ministry

42:01 were worship leaders that listened that episode and then emailed me and said, Oh my goodness,

42:07 the entire time I've been doing this, I've never considered the men when thinking about what songs

42:12 to choose. I've never considered the men because they're more right brain, they're more artistic.

42:16 And so they're not considering the lyrical content and the bridge that they're singing for the 17th

42:21 time. They're, they're just thinking we want to get this through and the more hands in the air they

42:25 see and the more closed eyes and tears, they think they're nailing it, but they're not paying attention

42:29 to the guys that are sitting there with their hands in their pocket going like, Oh my gosh,

42:33 this is so awkward. And so I think, yeah, absolutely. And then that's the thing is you're not giving

42:38 them any incentive to not want to do that. Right. And it's partially because we've

42:41 declawed the line of Judah in a lot of ways. And so when we're singing these songs that just

42:46 depict Jesus as our boyfriend, as this guy that we should just, you know, nuzzle up against us,

42:50 like, no, no, no, no, no, he's coming back and he's bringing a sword out of his mouth. He's got a

42:54 tattoo on his leg and his robe is dipped in blood. Can we pretend like this guy isn't just our buddy?

42:59 And you know, I'm getting my card ahead of the horse a little bit here because you talk about

43:03 this a lot in your latest book. So your latest book is called Scary God Introducing the Fear of

43:07 the Lord to the postmodern church. Yeah. And so you were really speaking my language a lot in this

43:11 book. And we'll get into some specific quotes that kind of elucidate some of the main points of

43:15 the book. But I always like to hear in the author's own words, what is this book about? Right? And

43:20 why do you think that reader or I guess what would you want readers to walk away with when they

43:24 finish reading the book? Well, you know, the, the, and it's interesting to rewind a little bit.

43:31 It's interesting because there's sort of this dichotomy between, you know,

43:35 the, the fierceness of God, you know, you talked about, he's coming back with a sword in his mouth

43:38 and a road-drenched and drenched in blood. And there's this, you know, he's a warrior. This,

43:44 the fierceness of God is, it's important. And so what do we do with that? You know,

43:48 we have these songs about nuzzling up, cuddling up to, to Jesus and it's this like sort of sweet

43:54 relationship. And the interesting thing is I think that those two revelations can coexist.

44:00 Sure. They have to. Right. They have to. And I think if we recognize the fierceness of God,

44:06 then then we understand why intimacy with God is possible.

44:11 Why, and I would even take it further and say, then if we understand the fierceness of God,

44:16 we can understand why rest, why peace, why joy is possible, that we don't have to,

44:26 we don't have to live our lives as sort of soldiers who are always looking over our shoulder for the

44:31 next, you know, knock down, drag out bloody brutal fight that we can actually rest in the

44:38 sufficiency of the brutality of God. So I wrote a book about it, 80,000 words on the fear of the

44:43 Lord, you read it in a weekend. That's unbelievable. So I, I, I wrote this book and really the,

44:52 the thesis is in the title, God is scary. That's called scary God. You know, I think

44:57 we have in our evangelistic efforts, we've done everything we can to sell God to an

45:04 unbelieving world. And we've painted a picture of God as being this sort of sappy, codependent

45:09 old man that sits by the phone and heaven waiting for you to give him a little attention, you know,

45:13 Jesus, I choose today to accept you into my heart, you know, that, that concept isn't even in the

45:21 Bible. There's, I think a more appropriate salvation prayer would be Jesus, would you please accept

45:27 me? I'm broken and I'm rebellious. And, and I postured myself as your enemy, would you, would

45:34 you have compassion on me, have mercy on me? I think, and so anyway, I, I, so I wrote this,

45:41 this book where I really take a deep dive into the nature of God. And, and there are a couple themes

45:49 in scripture that I focus on. There's, there's one theme that is that every time anybody has an

45:54 encounter with God himself or with a heavenly being, their first instinct is to bury their face in

46:01 the ground and to start screaming because they think they're about to die. You see it in Isaiah,

46:07 he sees the Lord and he falls down and begins to scream, woe is me, I'm undone from a man of

46:13 unclean lips and I live among the people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the Lord, the King of glory.

46:19 He's, that's, that's sort of King James language for, oh my gosh, I am impure and he is pure,

46:27 I'm done. I'm going to die. There's no way I can survive this. And then, you know, flash forward

46:32 a thousand years and you have John in the book of Revelation, he sees, he sees an angel and he

46:40 falls down on his face. He says, as dead. And so there's, there's this sort of consistent theme

46:45 through scripture of people having encounters with the holiness of God. And they think it might

46:51 kill them. The, the word in the Bible for fear is the Hebrew word yare, which we, we have all heard,

46:58 do we've been to churches and we've heard salesmen talk about how the fear of the Lord, you know,

47:05 when the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord, it doesn't really mean fear. It means respect or

47:10 reverence. Here's the problem though. The word yare, it's the word that Adam uses when he says

47:16 to the Lord, I heard you walking in the garden and I knew I was naked. So I was afraid and I went

47:20 and hid myself. Now, if you remember, Adam had a promise that, that if he ate from the, the, the

47:28 tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he would die. So he thinks God's coming to kill him

47:32 and he uses the word yare. It's the word also that Jacob uses when he finds out that Esau and Esau's

47:38 army are looking for him. He says, I'm, I'm deeply afraid. And so the word used for the fear of the

47:46 Lord is the word yare. It's the word that people use to describe the feeling they have when somebody's

47:51 coming to murder them. And, and to diminish that word as just respect or reverence is I think an

47:57 insult not only to the word, but I think it's an insult to the seriousness of God. It's why Paul

48:03 implores us to consider both the kindness and severity of God. Because there is a, a serious,

48:11 I think, lack of, frankly, I would, I would even say, I think there's a lack of respect for God.

48:20 And it's not because we don't respect him enough. It's because we don't fear him enough,

48:24 because we honor God as our buddy, we honor God as our friend, even our, even our God or our leader

48:34 or king, but we don't honor God as deity, supreme ruler, you know, majesty, the sovereign Lord of

48:43 all creation. And I think if we see God, and this would be the one thing I'd hope that people would

48:48 take away if we see that God is infinitely more terrifying than the devil, then cancer, then sexual

48:56 perversion, then liberals, then then whatever the news is telling you you should be afraid of,

49:04 then COVID, right? If we understand that God is infinitely more terrifying than these things,

49:11 we can, we can actually begin to contemplate how profound it is that God is for us.

49:18 But I think he stands up for us and he fights for us and if God is for us, who can be against us?

49:23 Well, absolutely. And I think, I think you said it in your book, but you talked about the one half

49:28 of pen and teller, Penn Gillette, who is a very, very famous atheist. And he basically said,

49:32 I'm summarizing here, but he's like, if you actually believe in this, if you believe in heaven and hell,

49:37 and you don't tell people about it, that means you hate them, right? Like there's nothing that

49:41 you could do that's more evil than that. And the thing is, is I feel like we don't fear God enough

49:46 to get through the awkward conversation of sharing his gospel, which man, that if there is a better

49:52 ploy to keep the gospel from being spread, Satan hasn't come up with it yet, because that is a

49:58 tremendous ploy that we're worried about, you know, getting some mean comments on Facebook or

50:02 someone giving us a weird look at a restaurant. But I do want to kind of get into a couple of

50:05 specific quotes from the book that I again, I think really kind of drive home some of the points

50:09 you're trying to make. So there's a quote from chapter two, then that's chapter called the two

50:12 sites of fear. So I'll read it here. The subtle danger in all of this is that we settle for the idea

50:17 that the church should just be nice. We end up believing that being godly means being non confrontational.

50:23 God's people are no longer bold as a lion, as said in Proverbs 28 one. Instead, we're non threatening

50:29 yes people who have been duped by the spirit of religion into thinking that we can flatter people

50:34 into the kingdom. So give us some more insight as to that because I love that quote, but I know

50:39 there's a lot more behind it. Yeah, man, I mean, I think, you know, we I have been around a lot of

50:44 ministries that consider themselves prophetic. And most of what we hear in common prophetic

50:51 ministry, it's just spiritual flattery. It's, you know, I mean, I as a musician had a lot of people

50:56 come to me and say, Hey, the Lord says that he's going to give you a new song with all your worship

51:01 leader followers are going to say, Oh, I've heard that a thousand times, Lord is going to give you a

51:05 new song and it's going to shake the nations. And you know what I see you standing in stadiums

51:10 and saying in this new song for stadiums full of people, it's just it's just spiritual flattery,

51:15 you know, the truth is, man, like I said earlier, the gospel offended me before it saved me. I'm not

51:20 saying that we need to be picketing soldiers funerals with signs that say God hates facts,

51:25 right? Like that's counterproductive. It's that's not the heart of God. But I think we've got to be

51:30 honest with the world. And I think that the start of being honest with the world is at least acknowledging

51:36 the need of the people we're talking to. You know, if I met a guy that didn't have any shoes on

51:42 and was clearly starving to death, would it be polite for me to not bring up the fact that he

51:47 doesn't have any shoes or that he desperately needs food? No, I mean, indifference is the highest

51:53 form of hatred. And so for me to refuse to acknowledge somebody's need for fear of embarrassing them,

52:01 is I think for me to really fail to love them. And now I don't run around pointing out everybody's

52:08 need. I think that, you know, we say love the sinner hate the sin. And frankly, I think we

52:14 we love to hate the sin and we're real willing to take to Facebook and tell everybody all about

52:19 the sins that we're against. But when it comes to actually and practically and tangibly loving

52:25 sinners where we just don't know where to start. And so I think, you know, if you want to

52:29 get into somebody's business and confront them about their own need, I think you should first

52:34 take the time to see their potential to invest in them to make sure they feel your love as a

52:39 prerequisite to calling them to repentance. But man, we can't we can't shy away from messages about

52:45 repentance. We can't shy away from the fact that that the world needs reminded that God is God and

52:52 we are his creation that we answer to him. And that all of us someday are going to have to

52:59 stand alone before the throne of judgment and answer for the choices that we made.

53:03 Like that's a serious message. The Bible's abundantly clear about it. And yet the church

53:09 often is not. Yeah, I mean, the church, again, in a lot of ways is more concerned about putting

53:15 on a good show, which actually does dovetail nicely into a quote that I wanted to read from

53:19 chapter nine called the throne room. It's a little bit longer. But I really think that it drives

53:22 this point home. When Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion finally got their

53:27 audience with the ruler of the land of Oz, flames burst into the air and a voice boomed out do not

53:31 arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz. Dorothy and her friends quaked in fear. But then

53:36 Dorothy's little dog Toto tugged at the curtain in the corner of the ruler's audience room and

53:40 pulled it to one side. Behind it was not a fierce formidable figure of people's imaginations, but a

53:46 little old man pulling levers. Sad to say, but I believe this climactic scene in the famous movie

53:51 version of Frank L. bombs classic the Wizard of Oz is played out in every Sunday in too many

53:56 churches, but in reverse using gadgets and special effects. Some churches present God as a kindly

54:02 well-meaning grandfather, as you mentioned earlier, while keeping people from his from experiencing

54:07 the full magnitude and all inducing intensity of his true nature. Rather than make him seem

54:12 more than he really is, they make him seem less than he really is. Now, Matty, there's a there's

54:18 a church in my backyard that I'll relieve nameless because I have a lot of friends that are still

54:21 still there, but they are the production church and and they they are they are the candy as you

54:26 talked about in the book. They are the candy of church. You can go in there and you can get your

54:30 skittles and it tastes good, but then it kind of fades away before you even get out of the parking

54:34 lot. But man, do they put on a good show? Like man, is it a good sermon? Man, like professional

54:39 musicians, there's some, you know, these these are it's a tight band and it just it feels good and

54:44 looks good. But then when you get past it and you get into whether or not these churches are

54:50 discipling their followers and whether they're actually driving the point home, there's not a

54:54 whole lot there, right? It's great. The buildings are big. It's spread out all over the country,

55:00 but there just seems to be this reduction of who God is even though the production is huge

55:07 and magnificent. Is that kind of the point that you were driving home? Not necessarily pointing

55:11 your finger at certain churches and how they do things, but about how they do diminish who God

55:16 is. Yeah, you know, I think certainly God, Jesus died for more than, you know, lattes and donuts

55:26 in the lobby and a 25 minute sermon from a stand up comedian at the end of a you two concert, right?

55:36 There's got to be there's got to be more than that. Now, I will say that that I have been harsh

55:45 in my life on on some mega churches and there are some that are doing phenomenal things for the

55:50 kingdom and ensure you can hide in that room if you want to as a as a congregate, but you can also

55:57 get connected and join a small group and get discipled and really growing your faith in some

56:01 great ways. So I think I want to make sure that I make the disclaimer that this isn't a universal

56:07 if you have a big church or your church has good production that you should leave it.

56:12 Some of those churches that do great production are just phenomenal and they do a great job.

56:16 But the truth is you can build a huge church without any substance with only production.

56:21 And I think that's that's the problem is that people can't tell the difference between

56:29 people can't tell the difference between to throw it back to the earlier part of our conversation.

56:35 The the band that hasn't set foot inside a church in seven years and they don't read the Bible,

56:41 they haven't read the Bible since their youth pastor read it to them when they were 18 years old.

56:44 Now they're 26, 27, 28 years old. And they say God loves you between songs because they just

56:50 don't want to go to hell when they die. And the guys that are studying their Bible every day

56:55 and spending an hour in in weeping prayer for the kids that are in the room and that are

57:00 pleading on stage for people to come out of their sin and to come into saving faith in Christ.

57:05 They just we can't tell the difference between something substantial and something spectacular.

57:10 And I think that that the problem is probably less with the church,

57:13 church leadership. The problem is probably more with the discernment of the church that we are we

57:18 are buying, you know, empty spiritual calories by the truckload because we just don't know the

57:27 difference. Frankly, you know, a pastor with nothing to say shouldn't be able to to build a big church.

57:33 No matter how many professional musicians he hires or how big his building is or how good his

57:37 marketing team might be. And I think the fact that you can that you can be cheating on your

57:43 wife and stealing money and and still have a successful ministry and people can't feel the

57:48 the fact that the spirit of the living God doesn't have anything to do with this church.

57:53 I think that's a problem in a real indictment against our church culture as a as a whole.

58:00 Well, you said there it's church culture, right? And so we look at this and we have all these

58:04 different denominations. People think they have to play for this team or play for that team. And

58:07 we we stop, you know, we fail to remember, you know, john 133435 it's by our love for one another

58:14 that we will people will know who we are. Right. And so it's it's that it's an nefarious thing

58:18 that a lot of people play games and they're they're perfectly content. Just joining a church like

58:23 they're joining a team. It's almost like you're joining. You're being a fan of the team after they

58:27 win the World Series. It's like, but were you really a fan like you're just putting a sticker on your

58:31 car? You're not actually doing anything for the kingdom. You're just coming in and getting your

58:34 skittles. But there there's one quote at the end, which I won't get it get your feedback on. It's

58:38 just I feel like it really sums up your entire book. Like if I could just grab a couple of sentences

58:42 from chapter 11 fear and delight. And it's this, there's a time to get angry. Failure to embrace

58:47 this is one reason the church is so weak. We end up ignoring or accepting things that we shouldn't

58:52 because we think it's wrong to ever get aggressive. I have even heard preachers say that God's not

58:58 angry. And this is one of those things that even as a pastor, so many pastors are very, very hesitant

59:04 to get into real issues. And the problem is is parachurch guys like me, we have to get behind a

59:09 microphone and talk about real issues, right? Because these churches, they avoid talking

59:13 about Black Lives Matter. They avoid talking about, you know, marks in the marks in the avoid talking

59:18 about critical race theory, partially because they don't want to do the work to figure out what

59:21 those things even are. But the other part of it is is you're you're looking at a flock and they're

59:26 worried about what they need to tell their son about this quote unquote trans kid in their fourth

59:30 grade class. And here you are, you know, basically sprinkling a sprinkle in a couple of Bible verses

59:35 on top of a TED talk trying to entertain everybody. And so it's the flow. Well, you know, actually,

59:39 I do want to get your feedback on that as a quote, because that's a problem for me personally,

59:44 is when you have pastors that they, this is going to sound really rude. Hide behind the gospel,

59:50 right? Where it's like, I want the gospel to be preached every Sunday. I'm all for that.

59:54 But when the, when the church is like, okay, I got it. I understand the message of the gospel.

59:58 Like, yeah, I'm sure. Thank you for reminding me every week. I'm down with that. I'm 100% down

1:00:03 with that. But what do I do at my school board meeting whenever they're, they're putting this

1:00:08 basically pedophilic porn in the library at my kids elementary school? Like, how do I push back

1:00:13 against that? Because if I just bust open the Bible, I'm talking to a room full of people that

1:00:18 aren't that they don't hear those types of arguments. That's not going to cause them to change.

1:00:22 Or maybe I'm wrong. I would just like to hear your overall opinion on that.

1:00:25 Yeah. You know, like the Bible says in Psalm seven, it says that God is angry with the wicked every day.

1:00:31 And there's a problem. I understand the salesmanship. God's not angry.

1:00:36 But I would just say God doesn't have to be angry. You know, you don't have to be

1:00:42 in the crosshairs of God's anger. Like that's the gospel is that you don't have to be God's enemy.

1:00:50 God's fury can be turned against the things that are turned against you. If you would walk in his

1:00:55 way, you can be assured that the fierceness and the fire of God is going to make straight the

1:01:04 path before you and move the mountains and part the oceans to make it possible for you to step

1:01:10 into what God has prepared for you. But I think that, you know, our issue is that we are building

1:01:18 ministries. We're making ministries not disciples. We have decided to build a brand to

1:01:27 you know, make ourselves recognizable and replicatable and marketable.

1:01:33 The truth is, man, I think it's a fundamental issue with our understanding of the way the

1:01:40 kingdom is supposed to interact with the world. We have taught that the kingdom is sort of the

1:01:47 remnant. It's the small collection of people who are doing their best to to stay sheltered from

1:01:53 the the influence of the outside world, but the kingdom, the first, the first picture, the first

1:02:00 glimpse that we see of the kingdom is in the book of Daniel, where the king of Babylon,

1:02:04 Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that a rock that was unhewn by human hands rolls into a statue that

1:02:10 represents the kingdoms of the world and it topples the statue over. And then that rock grows in size

1:02:16 and it consumes the rubble of the statues and it consumes the whole world and it becomes a giant

1:02:21 mountain. That's that's the first image that we have in scripture of this idea of the kingdom

1:02:29 that Jesus spoke about quite a lot. And so the kingdom is actually essentially and foundationally

1:02:38 political. In fact, I just read an awesome quote just yesterday, John Knox, the great Presbyterian

1:02:45 Scottish minister said that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. You can't you cannot obey God

1:02:54 and and also submit to another king. So there's this there's this sort of radical transformation,

1:03:01 I think happening in the lives of a lot of men in the United States, where we're saying, hey,

1:03:05 the church, the church has been calling us to settle for moral victories. We've been

1:03:10 settling for sort of sentimental breakthroughs. You know, we like we're not the family that's

1:03:16 starving in the church. They don't have enough money to buy food for their kids. We are going to

1:03:20 pray over them and we're going to give them some handwritten cards that are going to make them

1:03:23 feel good. And we're going to tell them, Hey, we really love you guys and they're going to cry

1:03:26 because it feels good. They're going to go home and actually starve to death because nobody did

1:03:30 anything for them. And so there there has to be, and this comes back to action versus emotion,

1:03:36 there has to be an opportunity for action. And I think we have been implored by spiritual leaders

1:03:44 to stay out of the political conversation for so long, because they think that that's what faith

1:03:50 does. And you just, you know, you pray for your leaders and you, you know, you hope that they

1:03:54 are okay. But frankly, you know, some of the fathers of our faith prayed for the political

1:04:00 leaders of their time to die. Bonhoeffer. Look at that guy trying to take out Hitler.

1:04:05 Some guy he did more than just pray for it. Right. And so I think there's a, there's some,

1:04:10 some soul searching that we need to do is King to men. And to say, you know what, it's,

1:04:17 we've got to be willing to lead on these issues, because frankly, the school board isn't afraid to,

1:04:24 and an Instagram and Twitter, they're not afraid to. We've got to be willing to lead and we've got

1:04:30 to be willing to, to set and establish God's standard. And here's the thing, truth is on our

1:04:37 side. It's not just, we're not just Bible thumpers that are coming to the school board meeting and

1:04:41 reading Bible verses about, about stuff, that, that, that human psychology bears out what the Bible

1:04:47 teaches, human history, political history, it bears out what the Bible teaches. And so as we use God's

1:04:53 word as our foundation, we actually also have thousands of years of world history that we can

1:04:59 look at and say, no, actually, what God's standards are, that's also what's best for our culture,

1:05:04 you know, that it's, we don't just need fathers and houses because it's what God wants.

1:05:08 We had fathers and houses because it's been proven to be the primary catalyst to, to upending

1:05:15 teen suicide and drug addiction and homelessness and poverty. It's been, it's been proven to diminish

1:05:22 crime in, in regions that there's a direct correlation between increases in crime and decreases in

1:05:27 fatherhood. You know, so we don't, we don't go after the stuff just because the Bible tells us to,

1:05:32 we go after the stuff because it's right. And that's why the Bible tells us, because this is the way

1:05:36 that God's designed the universe. And so we can use the Bible as our roadmap. It may not be our only,

1:05:42 the only weapon in our arsenal, thankfully. But I think we've got to, we've got to begin to lead

1:05:48 on these issues and step into the, into the arena, because that's where stuff, that's where change

1:05:54 really happens. Yeah. And Maddy, the way that I tell it to people is that Christians or conservatives

1:05:59 or whatever people want to call themselves, they, they never look at a hill as worth dying on,

1:06:04 right? So it's like, ah, that's not really the hill worth dying on. Or I don't really,

1:06:07 when we're off of the feathers, they just want to be left alone. They're too polite. And then one

1:06:11 day they wake up in the wars over and they never even put on their helmet or grab their sword,

1:06:16 right? And so when guys reach out to me and they're like, Hey, what do I do with these vaccine

1:06:20 mandates coming down from these companies? What do I do with these, you know, transgender policies

1:06:24 that are going to be put out in the public schools and all these things? And all these people,

1:06:27 I tell the same thing, I was like, look, I can't tell you exactly what to do, but I can give you

1:06:31 some guidelines as to kind of what you should do. But I always tell them, I was like, I can't tell

1:06:35 you whether or not this hill is we're dying on. That's a personal opinion and a personal decision.

1:06:39 But here we are now, right? Because the cultural revolution is going faster than anybody ever

1:06:44 assumed possible just last, you know, Friday, you know, whenever I don't know when we're going to

1:06:47 be releasing this, the House of Representatives in the United States Congress, they passed the most

1:06:52 pro-abortion bill in the history of the planet, not just America. They would basically every

1:06:57 single Democrat voted for it except one, no Republicans voted for it. But basically it would

1:07:01 disallow all states rights in terms of abortion. And it would codify Roe v. Wade into law, which

1:07:07 it is not law and basically allow for abortion for any reason up to the moment for birth across the

1:07:12 country, right? So it's like, is that a hill we're dying on guys? Is that the hill? Babies being

1:07:18 slaughtered in the womb? We've sat by and let 70 million be slaughtered since Roe v. Wade. Is that

1:07:22 we're talking about? But frankly, I think what we're not talking about is the fact that there's 70

1:07:27 70 million mothers that are living with the blood of their unborn child on their hands. And there

1:07:33 are, you know, actual psychological designations for the classification of post-traumatic stress

1:07:38 disorder that women deal with after having killed their own child because they know in their soul,

1:07:44 they know what they've done. And despite what politicians have done to convince them otherwise,

1:07:50 I think I think that they know what they've done and they know that they've ended the life of their

1:07:55 child that there was nobody else that could protect this child except you and you chose not to because

1:08:02 it was in many cases because it was just inconvenient, you know, because it was going to mess up your

1:08:07 lifestyle. And frankly, I think another thing we fail to consider, especially as men, especially

1:08:14 as kingdom men, is that there are is additionally that that much of what drives women to abortion

1:08:23 is that they have been convinced they're too weak to do what they have in their heart to do

1:08:28 with a baby on their their hip. I here's the thing, we've not done a good enough job

1:08:34 championing women in the United States as kingdom men, we've not done a good enough job that the

1:08:40 girls in our churches, the girl in our high school, she should be convinced that she may not know how

1:08:46 she's going to pay for this baby, but the Christians in her city are going to stick up for her. They're

1:08:52 going to help make sure that she does it. I frankly, you know, whether abortion is legal or illegal

1:08:59 shouldn't make a difference to us. Our goal should make it unthinkable. Our goal should be to make

1:09:05 it unthinkable to have such a sweeping transformation in the priorities and the passions of our culture

1:09:12 that no woman could ever imagine betraying the trust of her unborn child in taking its life.

1:09:18 And every woman should be aware of her own power. Sorry about that. Every woman should be

1:09:25 should be aware of her own power to be able to pull off the impossible and to graduate from high

1:09:30 school with with a baby that she didn't plan on having to go get her master's degree with a baby

1:09:35 she didn't plan on having to be able to get the job as the CEO as the mother of a child that she

1:09:40 didn't expect to have that she had out of wedlock. These are things that people can pull off and

1:09:45 they have. And there's tons of stories of people that have done it. And I think the problem is that

1:09:49 we're that everybody is sort of living isolated from everybody else that the church isn't being

1:09:54 the church and that the world doesn't feel the love of the people of God nearly as much as they

1:09:59 need to. I think that's true. And that speaks into any of these larger issues, whether we're

1:10:03 talking about, you know, cultural Marxism, we're talking about immigration, we're talking about

1:10:07 taxation. Is it theft? Is it not? Do we need to give what to Caesar if Caesar sucks? Like I get

1:10:11 it like we get into all these different debates. But part of it is that men just aren't prepared.

1:10:16 And again, that's why we do what we do. Our mission at Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back

1:10:20 darkness. Part of the thing about being able to push back darkness is if you don't know what it is

1:10:24 and if you don't know where it's living, you can't push it back. And so the thing that I love and

1:10:28 this is kind of a through point of this entire conversation, which I've enjoyed, is you you're

1:10:32 concerned about King to men and King to men being able to do do the things that they need to in

1:10:37 order to be able to push back darkness. And you kind of put your money where your mouth is because

1:10:41 you've got the Alter Men's Conference. So this is something that I definitely wanted to tee you up

1:10:44 to talk about. So April 8th and 9th of 2022 at the Thomas and Max Center in Las Vegas,

1:10:50 you were doing the Alter Men's Conference. So kind of give us an idea about what this

1:10:53 conference is kind of how it came to be. But also interesting choice of location,

1:10:58 putting a bunch of men in Sin City. So you're going to have to talk about that as well.

1:11:01 We're going, we're going right into the, uh, right into the, the, the

1:11:06 Valley of the Beast, man. The Valley of the Beast. That's right. So, um,

1:11:09 we partnered with Derek Carr, uh, the quarterback for the Raiders to make this thing happen. Um,

1:11:16 he's been a guy that I've been walking with mentoring for years now since he was in college and, uh,

1:11:22 he called me a few years ago and he said, man, I've just been having this dream with the Lord.

1:11:26 He said, I want to do a conference. I brought him with me to do a men's conference in Michigan

1:11:30 several years ago. And he said, I want to do, I want to do one of these. I want this to be my

1:11:35 contribution to the world. I want to, I want to get in the arena. I want to put my, I want to get

1:11:40 in the fight, you know, and so we, we did one in Vegas, sorry, in Fresno a few years ago,

1:11:44 um, before COVID or any of that crazy stuff happened and, um, it was phenomenal. Amazing time.

1:11:49 But, but just as we've seen things unfold, man, I've seen kids rioting in the streets

1:11:56 and throwing Molotov cocktails into police stations and spitting on police officers and, and, uh,

1:12:01 you know, robbing department stores and their own neighborhood to fight police brutality,

1:12:06 you know, just, uh, just destroying everything. And frankly, while any idiot can tear something

1:12:12 down, I think it takes a real son to build. Uh, I think it takes fathers to teach children to

1:12:18 build something beautiful. Um, and I couldn't help but watch these things happen in the street

1:12:23 and, and think where are their dads? If, if there were fathers in American homes, this wouldn't be

1:12:29 happening. Uh, if there were fathers in American homes, these kids, instead of spitting the face

1:12:34 of policemen, they'd, they'd be home studying, uh, to, to pass the bar exam and to help make an

1:12:40 actual change, right? They'd be at home studying so that they can, um, they can graduate with their

1:12:46 master's degree in political science and they can move to Washington D.C. and make an actual

1:12:50 change, but instead they're just tearing everything down. Um, and so we, we thought, you know what,

1:12:56 if we're going to do, if we're going to make change, I think, I think frankly, if we're going to make

1:13:01 more substantial change than, you know, a change in party or a change in, uh, um, legal policy, uh,

1:13:08 we've got to go after the men in the United States. If, if we can get American men to say yes,

1:13:14 to, to biblical manhood, to, to fierce and faithful, uh, radical, uh, obedience to the Lord for the

1:13:24 sake of their marriages, for the sake of their kids, for the sake of their communities and their

1:13:28 churches, I think that that will change American culture more dramatically than a change in,

1:13:33 from one political party to another or one president to another. Uh, and so, or one administration

1:13:39 to another. And so, uh, we are on April 8th and 9th, we're calling men from all around the United

1:13:44 States. We've got men bringing a bus, uh, from Florida. There's churches coming together on a

1:13:50 bus from Florida. There's people coming down from Canada. There's people coming from all over the

1:13:54 United States to come and join us, uh, for, for this weekend, we're going to worship together. We're

1:13:58 going to, um, learn together. We're going to grow together. But I think more than just, uh, having a

1:14:05 conference, we're going to take a stamp and, and say, we're not, this, this ship isn't going to

1:14:11 sink on our watch. We're going to take for the heart of America. Well, I think that's obviously a

1:14:17 very important message, but it kind of has, here's the thing with, with conferences or church camps

1:14:22 and you obviously knew, knew that this was coming is you get super jacked up for two days and you're

1:14:27 ready. Like you're ready to be the guy that shares the gospel and then they're going to share it with

1:14:31 two more people and they're going to share with five more people than all of a sudden the world's

1:14:34 in revival. Like, but then these guys get home and it's Monday and you're, you're back in your normal

1:14:39 routine and your, your wife's mad at you about something and your kids are stupid and your boss

1:14:43 is dumb and like all these things just kind of happen, right? I think the thing that needs to happen

1:14:48 as an offshoot of something like this conference, which sounds amazing, is man-friendly churches

1:14:54 to gather these men with nets with no holes in it, right? Where they can gather these men and

1:14:59 grab them. The problem that we've been talking about this entire time and as you talk about in

1:15:04 your book, there's almost no such thing, Maddie, as a man-friendly church because men, like these

1:15:09 churches, they'll, they'll put on a men's breakfast a few times a year and they'll bring in a, you know,

1:15:13 some speaker to come and talk about how he used to chase women to do drugs, but God saved him and

1:15:17 that's not an in a legitimate story, but it's like that doesn't get the guy moving in the direction

1:15:23 that he needs to to save his family, to save his community, to save himself, right? Even though we

1:15:28 can't actually do that without the gospel, but how is it that we can create a tidal wave of

1:15:33 churches that are like, hey, we don't need men's ministry because that's just programming, but we

1:15:37 need to make a church that is man-friendly. Yeah, well, you could just send, just send all your

1:15:42 guys to the Alter Fellowship out here in East Tennessee. Well, that's right. Yeah, you're gonna

1:15:46 have to get some more, some more real statements. We'll talk about that. That's right. Well, listen,

1:15:50 here's the, there's, I think two points that I would make on that. First, I agree with you.

1:15:58 I see the, I see the same issue with, with conferences and we do have some programs in place for men

1:16:03 to be able to connect with each other. We partnered with an awesome ministry called BraveCo that

1:16:08 it's like an app and a website, a website and what they do is they, they, they have already a lot of

1:16:15 content, discipleship content for men that, that they can go take. So there's online classes and

1:16:22 stuff like that that men can take that are awesome, but there's, there's also, they're sort of exploding

1:16:27 in events that they put on. So they're having BraveCo hunting trips and fishing trips and

1:16:32 bonfires and things all over the country and, and even the world where guys are just starting

1:16:37 small groups and getting together and they're walking through some of this stuff in fellowship

1:16:40 and in community. And so I see the problem and, and as far as much as we can as just a one-weekend

1:16:48 a year conference, we're addressing the problem. However, I as a pastor meet people all the time

1:16:56 who say, you know, I just want to connect in church more and I just feel like my need isn't being met

1:17:03 and I see something in the church that, you know, that the church doesn't have that we probably should

1:17:08 have and I feel like this is really important and it seems like the pastor isn't doing it.

1:17:13 And since I'm not your pastor, I get to say to you what I wish I could say to people in my office,

1:17:20 why don't you suck it up and, and like just go take what you need. If, you know, if, if you as a man

1:17:26 need a church where men are free to dance and worship, why don't you show up to church on Sunday

1:17:30 and dance like a crazy person? You know, if, if you need a church where men are praying for each other

1:17:36 and confessing to one another, why don't you walk into church on Sunday and start confessing your

1:17:40 dirt to another guy and ask him to pray for you. Just see what happens. If you, one of the things

1:17:45 that we do at our church is we have a, a weekly, every week, all the men in our church, 50 or 60

1:17:49 guys will get together and pray for an hour from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. every Sunday. And then we go home

1:17:55 and we get our kids and wives together and we come back for church at 10. But, but in that context,

1:18:00 we have, there's, there's kids in our community who don't have dads and they're getting mentored

1:18:06 by some of the guys in the church. And so we'll have four or five high school kids that are there

1:18:11 learning from husbands and fathers and experienced dads, businessmen, these kids have all the opportunities

1:18:15 in the world because they're getting around kingdom men. They're getting prayed for and loved on kids

1:18:20 in, you know, freshmen in high school who've never been around a man a day in their life

1:18:25 are coming into prayer at 7 a.m. on Sundays and they're experiencing God and growing in kingdom

1:18:31 fellowship with other guys. And so at our church, like I, I tell the men, you are going to be the

1:18:37 engine that drives this church. You're going to be the standard that could set in this church.

1:18:41 And frankly, I think that women have become the standard that has been said in the church,

1:18:46 not because they want to be, but because they have to be. We've abdicated our responsibility as men

1:18:51 and they fill the gap. That's exactly right. They have been keeping this thing afloat for too long.

1:18:56 And so my message to your men, if they feel like, you know, oh, my church isn't friendly toward men's

1:19:01 issues and you know, we're singing songs that aren't conducive to men and the culture isn't

1:19:05 manly enough, I think you need to start contributing to that culture more. I think that you need to

1:19:10 start stepping into a position of leadership. I think you need to start serving more consistently

1:19:16 that your voice needs to be one that other men here in their ear constantly bringing encouragement

1:19:20 and affirmation and even accountability to them. I think that men need to quit sitting around waiting

1:19:25 for churches to cater to them and men need to begin building the church in their own image

1:19:29 in a way that I think would glorify God in the long run.

1:19:35 Can I say amen, even though you're not behind the pulpit, because amen and amen and amen,

1:19:39 like that is, that is exactly what men need to hear. But Maddie, we've talked about so many things

1:19:43 and we could go into a lot more subjects, but we're going to kind of start winding this thing

1:19:46 to a close here. So there's something that I'd like to do at the end of a lot of my interviews.

1:19:49 It's segment called, what would you say to someone that said, okay? So I'm going to say that and

1:19:54 then I'm going to fill in the blank with something random, but here's a deal. It's lightning round.

1:19:59 You got 30 seconds or less to get into whatever the topic is. You can't blow the

1:20:03 eight can't go off script. You got to go right into the issue. So you up for it. Let's do it.

1:20:08 Okay, first one here. What would you say to someone that said metal music in all forms is satanic?

1:20:14 Well, then I would say that everything that a pagan person has ever done is satanic, like

1:20:20 celebrating Christmas, using an iPhone, drinking Starbucks, you know, we're going to have to throw

1:20:26 away just about every part of our life. If we start throwing away things that godless people

1:20:31 have, have capitalized on, I think God owns music. And I think that God deserves to be the

1:20:36 center of attention, even at heavy metal concerts. All right, you're doing great.

1:20:40 Doing great so far. Here we go. Next one. What would you say to someone that said,

1:20:43 the infiltration of wokeness into American congregations will spell the end of the church

1:20:48 in America? I think your definition of the church is wrong. It may spell the end of mainstream

1:20:56 Christianity in America. And that might be the best thing that ever happened for the church.

1:21:01 God's people are going to stay faithful. God's word, no matter what, you know, whoa, culture

1:21:07 tries to do. All right. Next one here. What would you say to someone that said, I just can't get

1:21:12 past the screaming vocals in metal music? You don't have to listen to something else.

1:21:17 That's right. It's if it's not your bag, then I understand. All right. Next one here band here

1:21:22 is a bluegrass band at the altar. I'm writing music with them. Bluegrass, we got fiddles and

1:21:28 uh, uh, banjos and mandolins and stuff. Like it's a different take on things. It's not for today.

1:21:36 Hey, it's Johnson City, Tennessee. If there wasn't a bluegrass band, like, what are you doing wrong?

1:21:40 I mean, I mean, all right. All right. Next one here. What would you say to someone that said,

1:21:44 God just wants you to be nice?

1:21:50 You know, I think God wants you to be right. Uh, and most of the time that's wrapped in

1:21:59 niceness, uh, wrapped in kindness. Um, but I think kindness, uh, doesn't compromise truth.

1:22:06 And, um, people won't always consider that nice. All right. Next one here. What would you say to

1:22:13 someone that said pastors shouldn't have tattoos? Uh, sorry. I don't want to be the poster boy

1:22:22 for tattoos. You know, I want to be the poster boy for Jesus. I can't take him off. So like,

1:22:27 you can go to another church. If it's a problem for you. All right. Just a few left here. What

1:22:32 would you say to someone that said most churches and pastors are too focused on being culturally

1:22:37 relevant? Oh, totally agree. I think we've, we have, um, made our churches man centered and not

1:22:44 God centered. Uh, if, if we make Jesus the center of attention, um, we might be become

1:22:51 increasingly culturally irrelevant, but we'll stay righteous. And that's the point. All right.

1:22:56 Here we go. Next one. What would you say to someone that said telling men to be more masculine is

1:23:01 inherently toxic. Uh, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what masculinity really is.

1:23:08 Um, you know, we, uh, I like guns, but I don't like people who misuse guns. I like masculinity,

1:23:15 and I don't like people who misuse masculinity. God has made men unique and, uh, and special.

1:23:21 He's given us, uh, significant, uh, abilities, unique abilities and talents and strengths that

1:23:27 we are supposed to bring to bear to help protect and provide for, uh, and serve and, um, and bless

1:23:33 the women and children around us, not to dominate control or, or, uh, abuse them. And so, uh, I think

1:23:39 if, if toxic, if masculinity seems toxic to you, it's because you don't understand what masculinity

1:23:44 really is. All right. Last question of the day, Maddie, what would you say to someone that said

1:23:48 for today needs to make one more album and go on one more tour? I would say they are

1:23:55 totally welcome to do that while I stay here in Johnson city, because I'm having too much fun

1:24:00 on my little farm with my little family. Okay, Maddie, I am going to make one request here.

1:24:04 Okay. So just something for you to consider. I'm going to pitch you on an idea here. Okay. So I'm

1:24:08 going like internet salesman. So just here recently furnace fest went down in Birmingham, Alabama.

1:24:14 So I'll know if you're going to ask us to play. All right. Well, hey, hey, I'm getting there. Okay.

1:24:17 I'm getting there. All right. All right. But this, this band, I mean, there was about 10,000 people

1:24:21 there, you know, dozens and dozens of bands. So we're talking Zao living sacrifice every time I

1:24:26 die 18 visions under oath, you know, August burns red, you know, everybody beloved played their first

1:24:32 show, Maddie in 16 years. Okay, beloved play. Yeah. Okay. So you don't have to dust off, you know,

1:24:40 the the vest and the cool sunglasses or any of that stuff that you used to wear on stage.

1:24:44 But September the 23rd through 25th of 2022, they have announced that they are doing furnace

1:24:49 fest again. And if we can get the right people involved, will you get that microphone out of storage

1:24:57 and do a one time showing? Yeah, I'm not even asking for a full album. I'm not asking for a world tour.

1:25:03 Furnace Fest 2022. Are you in? No, man. Just want to know. I just don't know if I have it in me,

1:25:13 man. I'm too I'm too happy to act that man. Okay, I will say this. It's only about a five hour drive

1:25:18 from your front door. I did I didn't look at it this morning, but you've got a few months to think

1:25:22 through it. Just just keep it on your heart. Perhaps perhaps God really, really wants that to happen.

1:25:27 Yeah, you pray about it real hard. But hey, man, we've gone everywhere in this conversation. I

1:25:31 really appreciate all the time. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off

1:25:34 your chest? No, I just really thankful for the opportunity. And I'd love to hear from your from

1:25:40 your guys. Absolutely. We'll make it happen. Maddie Montgomery. Thank you for coming on

1:25:43 on Daunted Life, a man's podcast. Thank you, man. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with

1:25:48 Maddie Montgomery. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.

1:25:51 At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness. And specifically,

1:25:55 we do that by providing content like this podcast that helps you forge spiritual,

1:25:58 mental and physical resilience. I've got a lot of links for you today. I've got a link to Maddie's

1:26:01 website, his Instagram and his books on Amazon. But also I've got a link to his church, the

1:26:05 ultra fellowship. And then the Alter Men's conference definitely go to that link and check that out.

1:26:10 And then also for those of you that do want to listen to this band, maybe you haven't listened to

1:26:12 them before, I've got links to the Apple music and Spotify pages for for today. All right, guys,

1:26:17 thanks so much for listening to this podcast. We do appreciate it. Wherever you're listening to this,

1:26:20 please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive review. If you want me to come speak live at your

1:26:24 event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. That's just i-n-f-o @undaunted.life.

1:26:30 You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok and like us on Facebook. You can also check out our website

1:26:34 for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.

1:26:38 Just go to www.undaunted.life. We also want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to

1:26:42 use their music for our content. The Interacho track on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Ties,"

1:26:47 which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording of their album Leveler. The links are in the

1:26:50 description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,

1:26:56 keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:27:08 Where all you want is our side, based in, as our first note. You will be removed.