Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys. We got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Tim Ross. He's a podcaster, author, and speaker. He's the host of the Basement podcast and he's the former lead pastor of Embassy City Church in Irving, Texas. And so I absolutely loved our conversation. I was so thrilled with it. I had a feeling we were going to have a good conversation cuz we connected for about 5 or 10 minutes before we got on. But we talked about his new book here that I've got right here, The Missing Piece. But I mean, it took us about 30 or 40 minutes to even get to it cuz we were just talking about how he got into ministry, like how he got saved growing up very close to gang culture out in Englewood, California. And you know, he and I had a lot of similar experiences with how we were brought up, but you know, how he became a Christian, just in the crazy story. I love the detail he gave about his conversion story, getting into full-time ministry. And guys, he ended up serving under Robert Morris at Gateway Church. So, obviously, I've talked a lot about Robert Morris on this show. And so we let him talk about what it felt like whenever he realized that, you know, what the world realized, which was that Robert Morris was a sexual deviant, a pedophile, and kind of how his name was always going to be attached to Robert Morris in a way. And so I loved hearing him talk about that. But then as a lead pastor of Embassy City Church, after about 7 years, he decided to go into full-time podcast ministry. And so even just hearing his story about how he got into podcasting, how he felt the call to leave as a senior pastor before podcasting was even on the table, that was very interesting. And then we got into the new book, The Missing Piece. We talk about how for a lot of ways, you know, people understand salvation as being this instantaneous thing, but then healing for a lot of people becomes this really long-term process and the prospect of doing that, especially for men, especially if anything like therapy or group accountability is suggested, it's just something that men have a natural aversion to. And so we talk specifically about that. He talks about how he was molested as an 8-year-old. And it was only after he got caught by his mom watching porn as a teenager that he finally came out with all of it. That he had been holding on to this this secret for like 11 years. And then he went first. And then there was other healing that came because of the fact that he went first and just talking about how he had been trying to self-medicate after experiencing the sin that was done to him. And so we just went in and out a lot of different conversations about about men's groups and accountability and what that should actually look like. And even specifically when we see these prominent pastors that, you know, they never sin, right? It's always a lass judgment or a you know, it was just a miscommunication or I didn't really live up to the standard of scripture and they won't just come out right and say, "No, I was sinning. It felt awesome and I just wanted to keep doing it. I never get caught." Right? So we spend a lot of time weaving in and out of a lot of different subject matters. So I don't want to keep them from you any longer. So, without further ado, let's get into it. Tim Ross, I would do my normal welcome to the podcast podcast thing, but I mean, we just kicked it off and like hit it off as friends uh for the last 5 minutes. I almost forgot to hit the record button, so I blame you for that. >> I'm glad to be here with you, Kyle. Thank you so much for having me. >> Well, and guys, just peek behind the curtain. He didn't have the yellow glasses on before this, so I wasn't actually sure if it was Tim Ross or not, but there they are. They are good to go. He actually has to have those to see. Uh, but man, I we're going to cover a lot of ground. We're going to cover a lot of ground on this podcast. I've been really looking forward to this. But you were actually born into a ministry family in California. And as I mentioned to you off air, I didn't grow up in church. I grew up in, you know, what I've kind of called country music theology. So you're born in Oklahoma. You know, you get baptized when you're a kid. You believe in God. You listen to country music and God's Pearl, all that stuff. And so, you know, you get to go to heaven when you die. And so, somebody being raised in a ministry context on the West Coast is like that's unfathom unfathomable to a lot of people. So, let's just start there. What was it like growing up in the Ross family? >> So, uh, the Ross family was euphoric. Um, obviously not perfect, but I want you to imagine Cliff and Claire Huxable from the Cosby Show. Uh, Spiritfilled Pentecostals. Those were my parents. My dad was all of Cliff Huxable, not Bill Cosby. all of Cliff Huxable and my mom was all of Clare Huxable. And so, uh, daddy worked for the US Postal Service for 33 years. Mom worked for, uh, the LAPD for 30 years. I was around a lot of law enforcement, even though my brother founded a gang. Um, and there was a there was there was a practical everyday lived out theology that I saw that um left no duplicity for my parents. Even though they pastored a church for 15 years, they weren't one way on on stage or platform and then another way off of it. So, I never saw duplicity in my home. my who my parents were the same >> at home as they were there and vice versa and then they never forced us even though they were PK's I had a very unique experience they were bocational the whole time you know the church never got over 100 people but you know my parents prayed for us before we went to clubs you know my parents were praying for us before we went to house parties and you know when my mom found condoms in our um bedrooms you know, she sat us down in the in the uh breakfast nook to have conversations with us about uh practicing safe sex if we were going to be fornicating. Um they came up with that King James Bible. So, uh so, so they knew how to hold tension and um it was a very uh uh communicative home. Um, and I I had a lot of peace and comfort there, even though I was sexually abused at 8 by a neighbor that lived across the street from me for about a 6-month period of time. And I never told them for 11 years. I didn't tell them anybody until I was 19. Um, outside of that, I felt like we were we our home was good. One of the thing, Tim, we're going to get into a lot of that, the duplicitous nature of some uh pastors and all that. You get into that in the new book and and certainly you talk about um you know, the stuff that you held in for over a decade and kind of what that can do to a young man. Like guys, we're going to get to all that. But something that's really interesting about your story is, you know, you mentioned, you know, growing up in California because you grew up in Englewood, is that correct? >> Yes, sir. Yep. >> Okay. So, so you're growing up in Englewood. There's a lot of gang violence, but but even okay, you leave gang violence and and and crime and drugs and all that aside, gang culture, right? So, I grew up in a town in L, Oklahoma. You were shocked to know that there were a bunch of of Hoovers in my city. And and the thing was is there was a lot of gang culture growing up and for whatever reason, well, it's in nature, that's the reason, there's a draw to gang culture, right? Uh now, now when it comes to doing gang stuff, right? uh the stuff that gangs have to do, getting jumped in and having to, you know, run your corners and run the streets. That's a little different. Not everybody has the stomach for that. But I remember you talking and I think that your last book talked about this, how you were just kind of drawn to the gang culture and kind of what that meant and what that did for you. A good buddy of mine named Jeff Elbert was previous on the show. He was a a Hoover growing up, but I knew him when he was like in sixth and seventh grade, right? And so I saw him as as a white guy, one of the only white guys in his set, being pulled towards the gang culture because there was something there that he didn't get from his home life. And so for you, Tim, I'm just wondering what was it about game culture that was so enticing for you? >> Um, it was the it was the community. Uh, it was the brotherhood. It it was the covenant. I always I always say um gang culture baseball football um theater, whoever gets to you first, that's how you're going to that's who you're going to become, >> man. >> Uh where where I grew up, um you you you were going to have to choose sides based on what neighborhood you lived in. >> Yeah. >> But the only way that you were going to be left alone by both OG's and BGs is if you played a sport or you were in theater. Yep. >> Which was almost a respected tip of the hat gang of its own. >> Yeah. >> It's like, "Okay, the coach got to you first. You're balling and we're going to give you a pass cuz you might you might actually be somebody." >> Yeah. >> Right. We don't want you over here with us cuz we don't want you to mess up your life like that. Right. And so, um, I think gangs and gang culture anywhere and everywhere, uh, has a draw because there's authentic community there and there is a there's a tribe that you get to be a part of and everyone wants to belong. >> Well, everybody wants to belong and everybody wants respect because that's one thing growing up in in my city, it was just kind of the air that I breathed. I knew which neighborhoods not to go into. I know I knew where I knew where to wear what colors and where I would probably get questioned, you know, if I was wearing a certain color. Like we that was just the air that we breathe. But then when somebody would come in from out of out of the city, they were like, "How did you even survive?" Uh, you know, there are people that think cuz I live in Oklahoma that I'm constantly dodging tornadoes. It's like, "Nah, just don't be a [ __ ] and watch the news." But the the thing about it, like I remember what what is more um who who is more vulnerable than a 91year-old 80 or 90 pound great grandmother? My great-grandmother Bonnie lived in the middle of a gang neighborhood, but when she bought her house, when the house was established there in like the 1960s, it was, you know, one of the nicer neighborhoods in in the entire city. >> They never messed with my grandma ever. >> Of course. And that's the thing. There's like, you know, people talk about honor among thieves. That's what happens because you would think, oh, if if we watch movies and bad TV shows, it's like, oh, the kid the kid that can really sing and could really kind of make it out of the neighborhood, they're going to try to like crabs in a bucket, pull them down. It's like, no. Because I think even even the OGs, even the guys that have been clicked up for a long time and guys that have been in prison and out of prison, all that, they know that if they had been dealt a different hand, they would have played it and they would have wanted everybody to just help them up. You know what I mean? >> That's correct. Absolutely correct. I was in uh I was only in a gang for seven days. Um when I when I used to do standup comedy, it's one of the bits that I that I talk about. Uh, I got because my brother was a founding member, I I got walked on, which means I didn't have to get jumped in. I didn't have to get blood in, blood out. >> Um, and I opted for that, right? It was like the concier of walking into a game, right? We'll take it. Right. So, but seven days later, they were like, "Hey, bro, you off the set. Like, get out." And I was in show choir. I was in theater. I wound up rapping. I almost got signed to a deal when I was 16 years old that ultimately became Death Row Records, which so I I dodged a bullet probably literally there. >> Yeah. >> Um but it's the truth. The the hood wants you to make it. Um and if you're not going to make it, you're going to have to take this oath to survive. >> And a lot of people so much like Kyle, it is so much like the apostolic. Uh, the reason why I'm fascinated with gang culture, especially when you get into organized crime like the mafia, I'm enamored with the mafia, enamored with cartels, because it's basically the aposto the apostolic inverted, right? The enemy is not a creator. He doesn't he he can't create anything new. So, when you look at the paradigm of how organized crime is set up, it's the same way the apostolic is set up. They're they're basically church planters but drug dealers, right? They take territory. They set up captains. They they uh they they they do provide a service for the community. >> Yeah. >> Right. Although it's illicit. And um where they where they uh lock down what they take over with fear and intimidation. We as men of God know that we take over with love and forgiveness. So it's not held up the same way, but it has the same pinnings because the enemy doesn't he's not a creator. He's he he was created just like everybody else. And so he has a blueprint and the only blueprint he has is the one that came from the kingdom. >> Well, and Satan's the greatest counterfeitter ever, right? He he takes something that seems good and seems positive and and shifts it. So let's let's go back to the '9s. Let's say, you know, I don't know if you were dealing with Sugar or who you were dealing with at Death Row or something like that, but let's I I'm assuming they that he wasn't holding you down and forcing you to sign something, right, whenever you're being signed on to the the record label. But it's afterwards when you're asking for a higher percentage of ticket sales, when you're asking for for more uh of, you know, more of a percentage within all the different deals on tour and on the records and everything like that, that he was going to have his boys hold you over a balcony and say, "Are you sure about that?" Right? And so it's like And that's what I talk about with a lot of people. I was like, you know, because I talk about AI. It's kind of helping us. You know, we're losing what it means to be human. There's so many things that are that are shiny. They're lures, Tim. But every lure has a hook. And so for some people, the lure is money. It's influence. It's sex. It's fame. It's followers. It's clicks. It's whatever. >> It all has a hook. And that's what Satan is best at because again, he's not living in the future. He doesn't know what we're going to do, but he has all of our game film. So, he knows what we've done all the other times, right? Right. And we'll get more into that with inner peace and everything else like that. But and so so you don't go the way death row and shook night and all that, but in the mid '90s you do become a follower of Christ. And so I'm always curious for for guys >> regardless of their theological language of how how they say it happened. But for you was it 90 1996 or whatever it's like no I I'm a follower of Jesus. So how do you even come to that point? >> So um on that day Kyle uh January 14th of 1996 uh I had come back from the club that morning. um got in around 4:30 a.m. and my parents to get us out of the the dangerous uh areas we were in um they moved us to Apple Valley, California, the in the middle of my junior and senior year. We we moved essentially 70 miles away from the city um that we were living at the time, which was 20 mi away from from LA proper. Okay. >> So, my parents were driving 90 miles one way to work. >> One way, bro. >> Man, >> and and the church was 70 miles from where we now lived. And they were going back and forth every week. Okay. So, I still lived in the house. So, I was like "Hey I don't care how much I clubbed last night. I'mma take a nap and I'mma drive my parents on Sunday to church." They need to they don't need to be behind the wheel at least one day a week, right? So, I I drive them down there and Sunday for me, Kyle, was to sit in the back of the church, which at the time was uh a banquet a rented banquet room in the bowling alley. Uh that's where my parents were having their services and they set up and tear down every week. I was sitting at the back of the church on the back row and every every week I just wrote raps and I laughed at the people that spoke in tongues because I thought that was kind of like strange. And then after service my parents would drive back home and I would go to Venice Beach and then hang out with my boys and we would cruise Craw Boulevard until 2:00 in the morning. So, um, I get there that morning. I'm sitting on the back row and as clear as I'm talking to you right now, okay? Um, the Holy Spirit says to me, uh, you're a sinner. That's all he said. >> And and and it was like saying like, "There's a silhouette of a lion behind you." Right? It it wasn't like there's a silhouette of a lion, right? It it wasn't it had no condemnation in the statement. the the statement was a matter of fact. And when he when I heard him say, "You're a sinner," it was the first time I felt my disconnect from God. I had never felt it before. >> Had you ever heard audibly from the Holy Spirit before before that? >> Never. Okay. Never. All right. >> You know what? I can't say that. I'm sure I had. I just ignored it. >> Sure. Yeah. And I and I pro and I'm sure that I called the Holy Spirit what most of h humans throughout history have called him it >> or something, right? Hey, something told me or man, I just felt this thing. So, but I heard it clearly. So, I'm on the back row. I I'm I realize my disconnect from God and I start balling, bro. >> Yeah. >> Like uncontrollably. I can't stop. Okay. So then I'm sitting in the back and I'm like, "Yo, I I got to give my life to Jesus." Like I I and I got to do it now. There was such an urgency I felt, but this is a Pentecostal church and sometimes I'm not going to categorize all of them, but sometimes Pentecostal churches go long. So in my mind, I was like, am I 2 hours away from salvation or three? Like when is the sermon and then when is the altter call? Cuz I'm ready now. Right? So, in the church I was in, uh, my dad gets up and he has what has was in old school Pentecostal churches something called testimony service. >> And testimony service is when you opened up the floor for anybody to testify of God's goodness, right? >> Yeah. >> This could go sideways. This why we don't do it now, right? But back in the day, >> be there till Tuesday. >> Exactly. Right. So, so five people got up in front of me. They were all hella long-winded. Like I was like, "Shut up already, like sit down." And my dad was going in order from front to back, right? So I'm I'm just kind of waiting in line now. And everybody's giving these testimonies. God did this for me. God did that. Whatever. So then they finally get to me and again, this is a small church, probably about maybe 40 42 people might be there. And my dad says, "I think Tim has something to say." So this is a small church, and small churches are nosy, right? So everybody kind of like turns around like that Tim standing up. >> Yeah, >> he he's he never says anything. So So my my dad looks at me and I go, "Man, I give up." And there was just silence cuz everybody was kind of like, "Give up what?" And then I said, "Hey, I got to give my life to Jesus right now." Like I I don't know what this does to the service. I don't even care, but I gotta give my life to Jesus now. So my mom lets out the biggest blackest Birmingham, Alabama hallelujah you have ever heard. The song Raise a Hallelujah is not louder than my mama's hallelujah on that day. Right. >> So I'm in tears. My dad's in tears. My mom's in tears. My uh my my my Sunday school teacher, Sister Beverly Walker, she was in tears. So I walk up to the front. I give my life to Jesus. I ball my eyes out and I just feel this peace I had never felt before. So when the service is over, my brother comes to pick me up. My younger brother, he came with my my my homie uh Steven. They came to pick me up so we could go to Venice cuz they they obviously didn't go to church that day. Now, this is where it gets this is where it gets crazy because both of them are deceased. Now they they've both died. Um, my brother was killed in a car accident in ' 04. Steven uh was shot in the neck in front of a club and bled out in 2 minutes. Um, man, I think five or six years ago. Uh, but they were the ones that came to get me. And my brother and I are 17 months apart. So, my eyes are still red from crying. I I go to I go to dap him up, give him a hug, and he looks at me and he goes, "Oh, you didn't." So, Steven's next to him and he goes, "What? What? What? What's What's going on?" And I look at Miles and I go, "Yeah, I did." >> And he goes, "You didn't." And I said, "Yes, I did." So, Stephen's still there like, "Dude, what are you talking about?" And so Miles looks at me and he looks at Stephen and he goes, "This [ __ ] just gave his life to Jesus." >> And both of them were like, "Oh dog." Like, "Oh, man. Oh, dude. Oh, dude. We respect that. We respect that." And after they hugged me up and showed me love, they said, "You're not going with us to Venice today, are you?" I said, "No, I'm not." >> Yeah. >> And they got in the car and they went to Venice Beach. And I got in the car with my parents and went back to the house. And that day, my whole life changed. I The only two friends I had were my mom and dad. I had a King James Thompson chain reference study Bible and a PS1. That was my Welcome to Jesus starter kit. And that was 30 years ago. Hey guys, real quick. You've probably heard the phrase ignorance is bliss, right? Well, some of you are ignorant about where the beef that you buy at the grocery store comes from and what it took to get to you. 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Man, I I love the detail cuz like sometimes I ask people about their conversion story and it's like a nice tight 30 seconds. And I was like, that's great, but we're not in an elevator. You could have expounded just a little bit. So, I love that. But you actually you actually brought something up that I wasn't planning on asking you about because I experienced this in my hometown as well. So all the guys that that were in gangs, >> there was always seemingly this respect for for Christians but no regard for Christianity, right? So it was like so I started going to church, you know, on my own as a, you know, 13, 14year-old and gave my life to Jesus as a 15-year-old, as a sophomore in high school. And so everybody knew that I was a Christian. They also knew that I liked metal music. They knew that I was an athlete. They knew that this, they knew that that like I class clown. They they knew all the stuff, right? So there was always regard or respect for it but no regard for it. So when I would invite these guys to come to church with me or would talk to them about Jesus and all that, it was always very respectful. It was never like, you know, this highly educated white liberal, you know, thing where it's like, oh, you believe in that stuff. It was just like it was like they they believed but they thought it couldn't be for them almost like and I don't know if that's a I don't know if that's Satan using their own depravity and their own awareness of their own sin to kind of keep them away but I I remember having so many conversations like that Tim to where it's like hey man that's good for you but it just for where I'm from what I got to do to to to scratch together rent what I got to do to to make this happen to keep this person happy to whatever it just can't be for me. Like did did you see that where there was respect for but no regard for >> you know what I saw respect for and I saw a hopelessness within themselves. >> Yeah. >> It was almost like wow you found a way to get out. I haven't heard that same call so I guess I got to stay over here. >> Yeah. I'm stuck. >> Yeah. I'm stuck. Um and they weren't stuck. you know, um, my brother actually gave his life to Jesus 2 years before he passed away in that car accident. And it happened for him the same way. It was 2:00 in the morning. He was drinking a 40 oz of beer and the Holy Spirit convicted him of of his sins. >> So, he called my father who was who worked nights for the post office on the cell phone and my dad answers the phone and he's like, "Hello." And my my brother who's drinking a 40 is like, "Dad, I I want to give my life to Jesus. Do I got to wait till Sunday?" And he was like, "No." Like, "If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead, you can be saved right now." It's Romans 10:9. He goes, >> "That's right." >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. You right. You right. Thank you. >> So, he hangs up the phone, confesses Christ as his savior, and finishes his 40. Like, that's the salvation story. It it's not it's not always at the end of a promiseke keepers meeting, right? It's not at the end of a eloquent sermon all the time or at a men's rally. It's the Holy Spirit will come get you out the bar, >> man. And sometimes for a lot of people, they don't realize it because you know the date. You know the exact circumstances. For some people, they don't. And I've talked to so many men time and time, Tim, that I've that time after time, I've counseledled them. I've tried to coach them. They're like, "My salvation story isn't special. So, it it's not going to be usable. And I'm like, time out. Hold up. Wait a minute. Just because you didn't have the heroin needle still in your arm with the belt wrapped around it and you'd hovered over your body and then God said, "Not yet, son." And tossed you back down into your body like th those are great for podcasts. They're they're great for keynotes and all that kind of stuff. But this one guy I was counseling, he was a PK >> and you know, he went to the military route. Very squared away guy. He's like, "I don't really have anything special uh in my story. I just got saved when I was a kid." And I I I remembered he had two granddaughters. And I said, "Hey, buddy, do you want your granddaughters to have a cool testimony or a boring one?" >> That one, Kyle. >> And he was like, "Dude, his eyes got as big as grapefruits." And he was like, "I want them to have a boring one." I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "Because there's probably a lot of bad stuff that would have to happen if they have an exciting one." I was like, "Exactly." So take your boring testimony and use it, brother. And that that's the reality cuz some people don't know the date. They don't know the time. They don't know the circumstances, but they know at some point they woke up spiritually and realized, "I'm a I'm a wretched, black-hearted sinner, and I can't clean myself up with the law. I can't clean myself up by stacking my good deeds over my bad deeds." That's Islam. That's all these other religions. No, we can't do it. It's the imputation of righteousness from God. But now I'm preaching. I need to get back to the interview because we're already going to go long here because we're we're having a great time. But for you, you didn't just go >> Can I just say Can I say something on this? I mean, Kyle, you just said something that I have been talking about for years and years and years, and I almost feel like offended. I'm just now meeting you. I feel like somebody gatekept me from you, and I'm like, "How come I didn't know? How come I haven't known Kyle for 10 years, right?" But no more. >> Um, there's only two testimonies in the entire earth. The subcategories of them are endless, but there's only two, and here they are. >> God God either saved you from something or he saved you through it. >> That's it. That's it. My wife gave her life to Jesus when she was 9 years old. She's been walking with Jesus ever since. God has saved her from a lot. >> Yep. >> I was saved through a lot. But that's the testimony. So whether it is the the the the the proverbial cardboard testimony that was like, I was on cocaine and now I'm on Christine. Right. Right. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Right. >> It works. It kind of works. It works. Right. It works. And I want the boring testimonies. >> Yep. >> I pray there's more of those. My sons, they're 18 and 16. I don't want them to have my experiences, >> right? >> The I grew up in the hood. These are upper middle class bougie kids that I'm raising. >> And I want them to have that story. So, it is it is um I just wanted to reiterate that because there's so many people that that we're we're being robbed of stories that we need to hear. Y >> because the enemy has made them feel like they haven't gone through enough, >> right? But here's the other thing. >> It is wild and it's working, right? And so let's look at Psalm 23. Everybody misunderstands Psalm 23 because they don't read it closely. People read Psalm 23 and they think that God delivers us from the valley. That's not what it says. It says that when we're in the valley, God is there with us, which implies we are either in the valley, about to come out of the valley, or about to go into the valley. And so you can understand Psalm 23 differently than your bride can because she was saved before the valley. Now, she's had her ups and downs. I'm sure she's had her dark nights of the soul. She's had her crying on her knees during prayer cuz she's confused moments. >> But you understand struggle differently than she does. And like for me, I've never we didn't grow up with a lot of money with a lot of stuff, but I I was never cold and I was never hungry. I never had to pray this day my daily bread. And so, don't you think someone else understands hungry hunger better than I do? Right. And so, it's just it's just the cards you were dealt, man. It doesn't change what truth is. It changes your it changes your uh your attachment to truth. The the the perspective that you're viewing it from, which you talk about in the new book as well. >> Um, and as as we get down to the new book, for you, it wasn't just growing up in in a preacher's household. It wasn't just giving your life to Christ. You did decide to eventually go into full-time ministry. And we're going to talk about your transition out of ministry here in a second, but obviously if somebody looks at the back of your baseball card, they're going to see that you served at Gateway Church under Robert Morris. And so obviously that that name is is radioactive. Now, I've talked about him a lot on the show. He was just released from prison after >> a pitiable sentencing of 6 months for raping a child, right? You know, this was decades ago, but it still happened. And so you understand this as as a public figure, as someone that said something. My buddy Matt Chandler said, "If you've ever said it, you've always said it." So even if you don't agree with you anymore, someone's like, "Well, you said this still." But also, you get the stain of someone else's sin depending upon how close you were to them, right? And so you were on staff under a guy like Robert Morris. Obviously, it's very >> it's very the public's been made aware of his duplicity, the life that he was leading. And so for you, how do you how do you deal with that? I'm not going to, you know, if you want to get into what it was like working there and how it helped you in ministry and then whenever you planted your church in 2015, sure that's fine. But the way you feel now knowing now what not only what he was capable of but what he has done and you know I think it calls into question his salvation which means we should be praying for his salvation that he could live in such sinful duplicity for for so long but again your name's always going to be attached to his. So I'm just wondering how you walk through that. >> Absolutely. So when the I remember this vividly, Kyle, so June of 24 is when this all came out. I think it was the first or second week uh week of June. >> And um I was sick as as a as a survivor of sexual trauma myself. This was like this was heavy on me, okay? Like heavy. And I I just remember processing the news as it came out. I think on Friday is when the Dallas Morning News put it out. And then we go all weekend and there hasn't been a response to anything there from the elders there. No one he he hadn't stepped down yet. And ironically uh the Gateway Student Conference was the next week. It started that Wednesday >> and my kids love the Gateway Student Conference. And if you've ever had a teenager who's uh on fire for God or even has a little ember burning, you want them in an environment of positive peer pressure that fan fans those flames. And I remember saying to the Holy Spirit on uh Monday night, I said, "If if Robert hasn't stepped down uh by the time the Gateway Student Conference starts, I I can't take my kids to the conference. Like, I'm not going to be able to do it." And um he stepped down that Tuesday. And so um it was a it was a lot to carry. And because I had a platform have a platform called the basement >> where we process things like this and we we do all things vulner vulner vulnerability. >> I had to speak on it. I couldn't I couldn't um I couldn't try to disregard it, dismiss it, which is not in my nature to do anyway. Um I am very comfortable with the uncomfortable. But I had to sit down and and I but I was so angry, Kyle. I was so angry that I didn't know the details that everybody was finding out at the at at at at the time. So, I just remember praying and and and asking the Holy Spirit like, "You're going to have to help me cuz I don't want to in my anger sin by saying something I'm not supposed to say." And what the Holy Spirit told me to do was to create a safe space for victims to talk. He said, "It's not time for you to address anything concerning Robert. This is a time for you to speak up as a survivor of sexual abuse and to create a safe space for other people to talk about their experiences as well and to contain and hold space for them. So that next um basement live taping that we had, that's exactly what we talked about. And um we were processing that in real time while the elders were still trying to process what to do >> with Robert with the church and all that kind of stuff. And so, um, what I'm grateful for is uh Robert's um admission of what he did. Um, you know, Oklahoma was able to do something that was unprecedented, >> right? um uh in in the nation's history, I believe, to be able to try him on this particular charge and indict him on this particular charge even though so much time has passed. >> Yeah. It was well past the statute of limitations. >> Absolutely. So to be able to uh not only indict, but to um try and and and then ultimately have him plead guilty was a thing. I'm grateful for Cindy. Cindy's been waiting for some semblance of closure for 40 years or so. Um, so I'm I'm grateful that she got something, right? You you talked about um the the sentence being as minimal as it was. Um, you can you know, my mother worked for the LAPD and so I was going to be a homicide detective. So the the law part of it is is I understand it, right? You can only convict somebody to the extent that the law allows, right? And so while many people may have wanted him to rot in jail for the rest of his life for what he could be charged with and what he plead guilty to, that's the terms that he got. And he has to live, you know, um the rest of his life um as a registered sex offender. He has to he has to live with this stigma um looming over the ministry that God gave him. And for people like me that um served under him, what I've always been able to do uh since reading the Bible um starting at age 20 as a believer is to hold the tension between uh God's divinity and man's humanity and how that has worked starting from Adam and Eve going all the way up uh through the New Testament. So, um, I still love Robert. I I still pray for Robert. I believe Robert has repented. I believe he is a believer in Jesus Christ. And there's nothing like full disclosure for a man to find true freedom and for him to have to live with this secret uh operate in this secret whether he whether he planned fully and nefariously to do this or whether he thought the council he was getting at the time before he was restored. I don't I don't know. There's a lot of people involved in that that I don't I don't have answers to. Um, but I'm grateful that he is a he is freer now than he's ever been in his entire life. >> Well, Tim, I appreciate you you speaking directly to it. And man, isn't that the scandal of the gospel that the gospel can save uh the wretched black-hearted sinners? Because there's only uh there's only shades of gray when it comes to someone's sin nature. And then we all have different flavors of sin. Some people like to lie. Some people like to murder people after they torture them and everything in between. It's all depravity. It's all sin soaked post Genesis 3 depravity. Correct. And for us that that is my caution because again I've been very open about what I think should happen to Robert Morris. But at the same time, >> you know, if your favorite political candidate is somebody that you feel like is unworthy of your or sorry, your least favorite political candidate that they're unworthy of your prayer, if the the the CEO of Planned Parenthood, if you feel like they are unworthy of your prayer, bro, how do you think the gospel penetrates the hearts of non-believers? Right? We see unbelievers in the Middle East uh converting from Islam to atheism then from atheism to Christianity because Jesus is visiting them and calling them home while they're sleeping. Right. >> Correct. >> And so for for us, >> we are not the ultimate judge in jury. Even if we're on the jury that sentences somebody to whatever sentence they get for a crime that they committed, we are not the ultimate judge. At best, we are penultimate. And so I think that we should continue to pray for for these folks. Now, uh to keep this this moving right along, >> you do go into full-time ministry. you eventually uh are part of a church plant in Irving, Texas in 2015 with Embassy City Church there. >> But interestingly, in 2022, you made the decision to leave the your your role as senior pastor. And it wasn't because of of anything bad you did. It was because you decided to go into a different kind of ministry that only makes sense if you were born, you know, I guess in the late 1900s, early 2000s, full-time podcast ministry, right? So you go from leading a specific flock of people, right, that the writer of Hebrews says you're going to have to give an account for to leading a more nebulous flock that is, you know, through the airwaves, through YouTube, through podcasting, through through bookw writing, things like that. And so I know there's a lot in there, but gosh, we eventually do have to get to the new book. >> What was that like for you and your wife? because I know that was a joint decision not only to plant the church but seven years later to to kind of shift from having a specific flock to having a more generic not generic but a more generalized ministry. >> Yeah. So um this this was one of the most um uh up and down emotional seasons of me and Juliet's life. um September of 2021 uh after during the the six month the six uh um sixyear anniversary of the church the Holy Spirit shares with me that my season as a lead pastor is coming to an end I automatically assume that I have done something wrong >> this lets you know where where where I see myself in relationship to God right that that's right >> I must have done something wrong if you want to end the season, right? So, there was a lot to work through there. I at the time that he told me to transition to church, I had no idea podcasting was on the horizon. I'm an introvert. I I would rather be left alone. Um I I have lamented my loss of anonymity and privacy every time God has given me more influence and given me greater platforms to speak on. But those were still relegated to the church. And so um once we we we we realized that the season as lead pastors was coming to an end, early 22, we knew who our successor was by March of 22. And in May of 22, that's when the Holy Spirit told me to start a podcast. My response, my verbal response, Kyle, to the Holy Spirit was, "I'd rather throw a penny in the ocean. >> There's 5 million podcasters, sir. I don't need to be out here." Right? Like, I I And who's going to listen? There's It's an ocean. I don't need to be out here. >> So, um, then I say, "Well, you want me to transition this church, so should I wait till the church is fully transitioned?" He says, "No, I need you to put the seed in the ground now because by the time you transition the church, I need there to be roots." >> So, our first pod was July 6th of 2022. And my last day as a lead pastor was December 31st of 2022. And by the time I by the time my last day of the senior pastor came around, we had already surpassed 100,000 subscriptions on YouTube alone from a from an account that never existed. So it wasn't like I had another channel and then I just started putting this content on it. This was brand new and a landscape that I was not prepared for at all. Had I known then what I know now, I would have aborted the mission and just disobeyed God. Which is why he doesn't tell us what's coming when he tells us to go. >> Hey Tim, that's why I tell people the word is a lamp unto our feet. We want it to be a flood light. It's like, bro, you wouldn't be able to handle a flood light. It's like correct the you just pretend like you've got a crappy headlamp with batteries that are going out. You can't see all the way up the trail. You can only point it down at your feet and see the next right step. I just tell people my life. Please take the next right step. You know, I I think it's cute. I think it's cute when people do their three to five year plans and they build out all this stuff for their business and their family and all that. And I'm like, don't you think God just thinks that is so cute? Like, you don't think you're going to get sick? You don't think you don't know that you're about to be betrayed by someone close to you. Hey, you you don't realize that I got something better for you that's going to make you nervous and make you cling to me even harder, son. And so, yeah, take your three to five year plan. That's fine, cute, put it up on the wall. Give it a name. >> But then take the next right step. You got to keep taking the next right step. And so for you, >> part of the next right step, Tim, was publishing a book. And so, actually, we're going to be talking about your second book, which if I can handle it with one hand here, The Missing Piece right here. There's the yellow glasses. How to be held together when you're falling apart. And so, we're going to get into some specifics of the book as you know, as we round out the the interview here. But just generically, 30,000 foot view. Why this book? Why now? Why you? Th this book was born out of uh 30 years of walking with Jesus and 28 of those 30 years Kyle in therapy. So before it was in vogue, before the collapse of 2020 and everybody's mental health health coming to the forefront, uh I was sitting down with therapists um at 22 years old trying to sort out the traumas and wounds of my life. And they were giving me language that I needed that I didn't have from listening to sermons. >> And they were making sense of things that had happened to my brain emotionally um and psychologically uh that I desperately needed answers to. And so I started uh therapy to deal with trauma. I've stayed in therapy to just manage my mental health. And this book was born out of that. >> Yeah, that's that's pretty obvious as you established here in the book because there's kind of like a big dividing line in the middle to where it's like, okay, we got to set it up and then we have to kind of get into to the why, but you know, you mentioned earlier and you kind of passed over it. So, we can get into as much detail as you want, but as a young man, you were sexually molested as a child. Um, yes. >> And maybe the most poignant part of the book, I typically don't go straight forward, but I'm just going to go straight forward. But you talk you talk about in the book the circumstances around you finally sharing what happened to you and you opened up for yourself and kind of said what had happened. >> But what happened was is you gave people around you and I love this language the gift of going second, right? And so, uh, that that's one of the amazing things that happened that it was it was through sin and it was through depravity and it was through kind of getting caught red-handed where you were given you were able to give other people the gift of of going second. Cuz I think everyone kind of understands the foxhole analogy where it's like, all right, first guy out of the foxhole, he's probably taking a bullet, right? Like he's probably about to get blown up. But it's that second or third person out. It's like, okay, I need to zig instead of zag here. Uh, we can see somebody over there in that horizon. if we go this way, we're going to be safer than we would have we gone otherwise. So, just talk about the circumstances around you being able to share and what that has helped you do for other people. >> Yeah. So, um uh uh just to give the sequence again, I'm I'm I'm sexually abused at the age of eight by an older teenage guy that lived across the street from me for about a six-month period of time. I find out when I'm 15 that my younger brother was abused by the same guy. Um, we actually planned to kill him and obviously that didn't happen, thank God, or I wouldn't be talking to you right now. Um, or maybe I would, but just under different circumstances. Yeah. >> When I'm when I'm I get exposed to pornography when I'm 12. Porn and masturbation become my drug of choice. It becomes my coping mechanism. When I'm 19 years old, Kyle, my mom catches me looking at porn at 2 o'clock in the morning. being the woman of God that she is, she makes a beline to her room, closes her door, hits her knees, and starts praying for me. >> After I clean up and feeling all this shame and guilt, um, I have a choice to make. If I make a left and go to my room, I'm going to go to sleep, but it's going to be awkward in the house for about 5 days. Uh, my mom's going to be looking at me funny. My dad's going my mom's going to tell my dad, and my dad's going to have a conversation with me, and it's going to be, "Don't look at porn." Right? or I can make a right, open this door and tell my mom what I've been wanting to tell her since I was eight. And it had to be her prayers and the Holy Spirit guiding me, moving me because I made it right. I went into her room and I remember saying, "Mom, I don't want you to think I'm nasty. I don't want I don't want you to think I'm a pervert, but I got abused when I was 8 years old." I knew why I was looking at porn, right? Porn is never the root of anything. It's the fruit. >> Yeah. >> Right. And so, um, my mom's weeping. We wake up my younger brother. My dad is called home from his job at night. And we're all sitting there. And Kyle, I got to share everything that happened to me. And I was contained. I was loved. I was seen. I was heard. And I remember going to sleep that night and when I woke up in the morning, it was like a 2,000 lb slab of concrete came off my chest. >> Yep. >> And I just remember thinking to myself, I will never have a secret again as long as I live. I wasn't saved yet. I didn't give my life to Jesus yet. But just unbburdening myself from that secret, my feet weren't touching the ground. And I just remember how euphoric and freeing that feeling felt. and thinking to myself, I'll be damned if I hold another secret. Like, I I will never get played into a secret again as long as I live. I don't care if it's at my demise. I I don't I don't care if if it makes my wife leave me. I don't care what if if if people are embarrassed of me forever. I would rather live in the truth of my reality and be free than a lie that I'm keeping to protect myself, but I'm not I'm not free. And the thing that happens for a lot of people is usually it just takes somebody going first because I have a lot of guys that try they're trying to establish a men's group of some kind, whatever they call Foxhole, Band of Brothers, King's Table, Matt Matt Carriers, whatever. I don't care what the language is, >> but typically what churches do is they will get a group of guys in a room and then they will try to force them like cattle into these groups. >> And it's like, hey, you don't really know these guys. You definitely don't trust them. You've never done anything hard with them. Men don't connect eyeball to eyeball. We default to shoulder toshoulder. But let's put your eyeball to eyeball and just start pouring your hearts out. Now, what I tell most guys to do is you got to do something hard first. Like I've started telling churches, I was like, "Hey, people don't get to join a men's group until they do XYZ. Maybe they got to go on a on a local mission to help clean up some limbs for for a widow or, you know, a single mom or something like they got to go do something first before they can earn the circle, right? They got to do something hard. My group, we circle up. We do jiu-jitsu. We do MMA. We talk about whatever book we're reading at the time." And you want to talk about guys pouring their hearts out. It's because if somebody quits in the middle of the workout, that tells me something about that guy. If a guy isn't really working hard as everybody else is busting their tails with chainsaws and all that, it tells you something about that guy. It tells you who you can trust. >> But let's say we've gotten past that. We've done we've done the shoulder-to-shoulder stuff. Now we're eyeball to eyeball. >> Now it's time to be the number one thing that men don't like being vulnerable. We have to say, "This is where I suck and I don't know why." Or, "This is where I suck. I know why, but I'm just trying to ignore it." It takes somebody saying, >> "I go first. This is what I've done." >> That's why I've been so open to him on my show about pornography and masturbation being my drug of choice. Right? Hasn't been a part of my life for about 15 or 16 years. Praise God. At this pointise, but man, I am one bad decision away from taking the exit ramp and going right back to it, right? It's always right there. And that leads me to a quote from the book because this is where Christians, man, it depends on your theology. It depends on if you actually read your Bible or not. And then it depends on if you read the Bible and actually do what it says. But here's a quote from the book. >> I need to be real clear here. Salvation is instant. Healing is not. Getting saved, that's instant. Confess, believe, done. That's the beauty of grace. >> But healing, that's a process. That's not a microwave. It's crockpot. And sometimes it's ICU. So Tim, I've been sitting there with young men and maybe they've got a pornography addiction, a sexual addiction of some kind, a literal one, not one that they just pretend so people will feel bad for them. Uh then you have people that have some sort of a chemical addiction of some kind. Like they're just called to the bottle or they're called to the substance or whatever the thing is, right? They're addicted to, you know, risky behavior and like whatever the thing is. Okay. >> And then they lament, Kyle, I'm a Christian now. Why am I still dealing with this? Because we all hear the story about the guy that was the heroin addict guy that gets radically saved and no longer has the desire to even sin in that way. It's like God just took it away. It just he clicked something off and it's not there anymore. But then for the rest of us, it's like, man, am I really going to have to struggle with this? And you know, I can give them all the examples. Hey, the Apostle Paul had a thorn in the flesh. We don't know exactly what it was. it was probably something wrong maybe with his eyesight. It was a physical ailment that was never taken away from him. It's because God needed to do something through his pain. And going back to what you said earlier, but just talk a little bit more about the consternation that Christians have about, man, why am I still dealing with this? We're we're still dealing with it and we wind up in a loop, Kyle, because we haven't broken the silence. There there there is a vertical way that we heal and there's a horizontal way that we heal. I talk about this in in 1 John chapter number one. It says if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. No man can do that for us. No man can offer us cleansing and no man can offer us forgiveness. Right? God alone does that. But in uh Jacob, which we also call James chapter number 5:1 16, it says, "Confess your sins or your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed." I believe forgiveness and cleansing is when we confess to God and healing is when we confess to one another. It's one thing for me to fall into porn and masturbation and go, "God, please forgive me." We know he's faithful and just to forgiveness. It's another thing for me to have to look you in the eye, Kyle, four times in three days and say, "Hey, buddy, I fell again." You're going to be like, "Dude, what the hell? What are you doing over there?" You know what I mean? Does Juliet know about this? Give me your phone. You You know, you need a You need a flip phone. You what? Tell me tell me where you're falling in the pit and let's get you to drive a different route home. >> Right. There's a huge pothole you keep falling into every time you come down the street. So, why don't we get you to get on the bus, right? You don't need to drive home right now. You can't be trusted to drive. If we don't have that face tof face interaction, if we don't have the ability to to confess to one another, healing does not actually happen in our lives. And there's enough empirical data that proves that. >> Well, yeah. And it's about being known because again as men, you know, I saw this guy. He went on, it was a great video. I wish I had saved it so I could give him credit. But he was just talking about all the things that men have to do. It's like, all right, I got to be tall. I got to be jacked. Got to be able to bench two plates, squat three plates, deadlift four plates. Got to be on TRT. Got to have peptides. Got to do date nights. Got to make sure I read uh to my kids. Got to make sure I go to church. Got to do the men's group. Got And he just ran off for like two minutes. That's the pressure that men feel, right? Yeah. >> And then when when men hear something like therapy, counseling, all that, they look at it as almost a last resort. But if I'm being honest, cuz you know, I can see both sides and I can argue both of them effectively. >> I think that the more time because we have data on this as well. The more time we spend focusing on ourselves, the harder it becomes to serve others. And I think there's a legitimate critique of therapy where it's literally just never ending. It's just people don't actually get better. They just waste a bunch of time and money. It's kind of like 501c3s. If you run a 501c3 to solve homelessness, if you do it, you you put yourself out of a job, right? And so, a lot of these people, they don't actually want to solve the thing they're raising money for because then they won't be able to raise money for it anymore. And so, there's a lot of men that just look a scant at therapy and they look at this person like they're, and some of them are, that they're a snake oil salesman. They don't actually want to help me because if they help me, I don't do this anymore. like like a normal doctor like the one that did surgery on my arm. If he did a crappy job, I'm going to go to another doctor. If he does a good job, that means he fixed it and I'm never going to see him again. And that is completely a-ok okay with me. But I guess part of the my my issue, Tim, is it's like >> some guys are just paying for therapy because they don't have friends. They don't have anyone to talk to. I get DMs and I get emails from guys that are in the worst possible situations. drug abuse uh infidelity getting uh losing their job, suicidal, and they're messaging their favorite podcaster. I'm a stranger, Tim, and I just want to be like, "Bro, do do you not have a pastor? Do you not have elders? Do you not have guys that will that will destroy someone's house to take you to the feet of Jesus?" Right? As we see in Mark 2. And man, so I, man, I can see both sides where guys are like, "Well, I don't want to do that, and if I do it, it says this about me." And then there's vulnerability wrapped all up in that. >> Yeah, dude. I am so grateful that you're bringing this up because you are absolutely correct. If therapy is treated as this ongoing thing because I have again I've been in for 28 years and I'm going to give you my context to it. I have I know people that have been in not as long but close. They've some of them are 20 plus years and there's a there's actually a terminology um for that type of client and it's how they justify staying in their behavior. So, so as with anything, you you can you can take a good thing and completely ruin it by using it or abnormally using it in in a way it's not supposed to be used. Right? I I see therapy as um the the analogy I have in my head is I take out my trash every week and if I don't take out my trash every week, I'm going to have maggots and flies and there's going to be a stench that starts to billow from my house because my stuff doesn't get out to the curb and get taken away by the the waste disposal. I don't even know where they take that trash, bro. I just want them to take it away from my house. I just want it gone. Right? And so that's how I've treated therapy over these 28 years. I haven't had to go once a week or uh sometimes there's there's a few months in between sessions. But when I know that there's a there's there's my emotional garbage is is piling up, I need to sort it with somebody that can give me a perspective that I can't give myself. And then it helps me to move on for the next several months. And so if if if if I can get men to see therapy in the same way they might see a haircut or going to get their oil change, right? Once every uh 3 months or 3,000 mi, whichever comes first, right? And and let's just go in there and spot check some stuff so that therapy is not just used as a break glass in case of emergency. If there's black thick smoke billowing from under the hood, it's too late to go get a oil change, right? You you screwed that over. So, so I want people to look at it from that that p perspective. >> Well, let's let's add on to that with some stuff that we've already kind of hinted at where we talk about accountability because I remember this. So, this would have been very early in my walk to get over masturbation and porn. So, this is 16 17 years ago. I I'm going I'm going whole hog because I'm type A. I'm a box checker. I'm going to do everything. I'm going to join every group. I'm going to read all the books. I'm going to do the super duper accountability program that costs a lot of money. I'm going to do all that. So, I go to this group. I walk in the door and there's maybe 40 men in there and they're in circles by the time I get there. And a guy goes, "Okay, just go on over to table three." And in my head, I'm thinking with a bunch of strangers and with with people that I don't know. And so, I'm just observing, right? I should have had a, you know, you know, clipboard sitting there taking notes. But I'm sitting there in this group and I hear this one guy say, "Hey, you know, I made it two days without masturbating and then I looked at porn and I fell." And then I see this guy pipe up. He's like, "Well, last week it was only one day, so great job. Let's see if we can do three days." And I'm sitting there like, "Okay." And then there was this other guy who was a pharmacist. And so he liked to do these little jump offs with women in the parking lot or whatever. Well, he gets an STD. He realizes he gets an STD. So he started spiking his wife's food with the medication because he knew he had given it to his wife as well. And so he's like spiking her food with all this. And the guy's kind of talked about it like he was casually ordering dinner. And I'm looking around and I'm like, are we just going to accept this? Like are we going to accept this level of of failure? Because the thing is is like the guys in my life, >> they are okay with grabbing me by the scruff of my shirt if I've done something inappropriate. Like I remember this one guy, I made an off-colored comment at dinner. It embarrassed my wife, but it got a laugh from everybody else except for my buddy. He pulled me aside in the parking lot and he was like, "Brother, you said a joke. I know you didn't look at your wife's eyes. She was very embarrassed by that. If you do that again in my presence, we're going to have more than words, right?" Yes, sir. >> And but let's talk about that a little bit because this is what I want you to to talk about. >> Yes, sir. >> We should be deputizing men in our life to keep us in check. Whether that's correct they look at our tax returns, they're on our accountability software, you know, they're they're checking our phone use, whatever. >> Right? >> But the moment you deputize a man to call you out and when he does, you cry like a baby or you start to get in your ego and in your feelings and say, "Bro, you don't understand. Like, I've had a bad week and if you know what she had done to me and if you had known what my dad had blah blah blah blah blah." Guess what? that man is never gonna risk relational chips ever again because especially with men, there's always the thought that this could come to blows, right? If I go too far, if I if I put my thumb into that nerve a little bit too hard, we're going to fight. And so, if you try to hold your brother accountable and he takes the risk of physical violence and you react like a child, he's never going to do it again. And that same man will lament the fact that he's dying as a lone wolf because he apparently has never watched Animal Planet and realize that the lone wolf freaking dies, right? We need the other wolves. We need the other guys around us. So, let's talk just a little bit more about accountability and how to make that even more I just just better for the man that wants to be known but maybe doesn't know how to do it. >> So, so um there was a model of accountability that um was a a massive leap for a generation that uh was parented by a generation that was literally called silent. Okay, so that was a long way to say this, but baby boomers parents were literally called the silent generation, >> right? >> Yep. >> So make make no mistake that baby boomers were a stay out of grown folks business type of uh entity. Right now, PromiseKeepers comes and we want accountability and this is the model of accountability. I'm going to call you Kyle on a Friday and I'm going to ask you five questions and hopefully you've you checked these five and you're a box checker anyway. So, you're ready to answer those five questions. And when I heard that, Kyle, coming from where I come from, I'm like, "Oh, so accountability is parole." Yeah, it sounds like >> this sounds like Yeah, this sounds like parole. Like I check in with my little parole officer on Fridays and he gets to ask me questions and um if I violate the terms of my probation, uh I could go back to the to the clink clink, right? I could go right right back to jail. >> And so I realized that accountability has to be desired by the person seeking it, not the person enforcing it. Amen. >> If I and this is part of going first again, right? I have to be able to call you on the day that I royally effed up and say to you, Kyle, hey dog, I don't even want to be on the phone with you right now cuz I'm embarrassed. I'm actually [inaudible] with myself. I've already repented. I already told Juliet. But I got to tell you, cuz you're my dog, man. Dude, I looked that porn last night. >> Yep. >> I was on the heater. like I ain't called you about this in months, bro. But the lie that I believed was this and it led to that. And um I I need some prayer. Um but I'm I'm also going to need your words and I'm I'm laying myself on the altar. Whatever you need to say to me, um uh I I'm here for it because I want to be held accountable. That's completely different right? >> That's right. than you having to hunt me down. Hey, brother. I've called you four times this week. You haven't got back to me, but I just wanted to check up on you. That's that nobody wants that, right? So, conversely, and I've been in this, even when I was a lead pastor, I had elders. I didn't have a I didn't have a a tribunal of yesmen. I had guys that would literally check me >> to the point that I would look them in the face and my nostrils would flare and I'd be like, "Dog, if we wasn't dog, >> if I wasn't being sanctified, we'd have problems." >> If I if I wasn't a lead pastor of this church, I'd throw punch you, right? And I was better because of once I checked my ego in, right? Once I killed that pride, >> wrestle down that flesh, they were right. I was wrong. I needed to repent. I needed to apologize. I needed to course correct. And I think the reason why my pastor was so successful is because I had guys like that in my life. And but but you have to Kyle, let me say this because we we we talked about this uh uh as a variation earlier. Um, but my elders who I knew were men of God, it was in the bylaws that if I committed adultery, they are now empowered to remove me from my position >> so that the church won't be harmed. >> Here's the thing. When you have that level of accountability, even if I was tempted to cheat on Juliet, you think once, twice, and thrice when you know you got that type of accountability >> in your life, the lower your accountability, the higher you raise your chances of actually stepping into foolish behavior. >> That's right. cuz you have no one to think about but yourself. >> Yep. >> But when you know there's real consequences on the other side of your actions, that's when you start saying, you know what, I'd rather talk about the temptation of what I want to do than deal with the consequences of what I've done. And that's where I want men's accountability to get to. >> Tim, I I love that so much. And the the way that I've said it, which is kind of a derivative of what you just said, is especially if you're successful, especially if you have a weird job, like we have weird jobs. We talk in the microphones and people listen. Why? Why do people still listen? No one knows. And so, but like let's say you're real successful. Like you're the one that always picks up the tab for dinner because you make the most amount of money. You got the fanciest degree. You have whatever. >> You need people in your life that are proud of you, but not that impressed by you. >> Right. That's right. they they will call you and say, "Kyle, man, what a milestone that you just hit uh on your podcast." Hey, man. Hey, Kyle, you absolutely knocked it out of the park with that last episode. Uh also, uh you're going to sit and listen to some things that I got to say, right? And the thing is is like, >> right, >> you need guys that are willing to interrupt you because especially when you have the weird job, don't you have people that laugh at your jokes that aren't funny? Don't you have people that will show you extra difference when you walk into the room? They give you the best seat in the house. They do all those different things. They try to lavish on to you things uh which which is a good thing to do to show people honor and all of that, but you need dudes that are fine with all that. They're polite, but they're willing to get scrappy, right? They're willing to say, "Oh, oh, oh, Kyle, yep, yep. You were about to get into an argument. This is not a podcast. This is a conversation. You're going to shut your mouth and you're going to listen." >> It's great. >> And then you just sit there and you take it. Now, Tim, we're already a little bit over time, so I I want to get to a section of the book and we'll make this the the last uh part of the podcast. I thought this was such a poignant section. It's where you're talking about the church's hidden wax. Okay. And now I'm going to read a long uh section here, but I think it's incredibly incredibly important. So, let's go to the the book here. >> In 2025, it felt like every couple of weeks another pastor stepped down. Another scandal, another press release. And what grieved me most wasn't the sin itself. It was the spin. I had a lapse in judgment. There was a miscommunication. I fell short of the high standard of scripture. Let's call it what it is. I had a lapse in judgment. Maybe that lapse was sexing someone who wasn't your spouse or using the church funds to finance your vacation. That's not a lapse. That's an ethical failure. There was a miscommunication. Maybe you said something wildly inappropriate, manipulative, or spiritually abusive. That wasn't a miscommunication. That was misconduct. I fell short of the high standard of scripture. Nah, you committed adultery. You crossed moral lines. You didn't just fall. You dove in and kept swimming. I wanted someone to say, "I was formed in a toxic environment that never dealt with its own misogyny. I hurt people. I broke trust and I'm stepping down because this cannot continue." Or, "I built my identity on a platform, not on character. I've been preaching truth. I haven't lived." And I'm sitting down not just to repent, but to recover. Or even, I manipulated people emotionally and spiritually in the name of ministry, and I'm finally seeing the harm. I'm not leading right now. I'm learning. I'm healing. I wish more leaders would confess like that because when we don't confess clearly, we confuse the people we're supposed to shepherd. Clear confession from leaders creates trust. Vague confession breeds suspicion. Authentic vulnerability isn't weakness. It's leadership integrity. There's a story, maybe legend, maybe fact, that the word sincere comes from the Latin roots sin s which is without and sarah which is wax. Back in ancient Rome, sculptors would use wax to cover flaws in their work. Cracks in the marble, chips and statues. Wax made it look perfect. So, here's what I love so much about this section. We've been circling the drain on it, Tim, on on vulnerability, on authenticity, on duplicity, on making sure we have accountability, deputizing other men to call us out on our crap, all those different things. And it's the spin that kills me when you hear someone say because look, we are not mistakers. We are sinners, right? It's not our mistakes that that put us in the position that we're in right now. It's our sin nature. And it's not like, oh, at a certain point, you know, we became a moral agent and started making bad making bad decisions. No, we were brought forth in iniquity. We were born into this game and there's one way out of this game, right? You want TO TALK ABOUT BLOOD IN, blood out. We are brought into this world through blood and it's only the blood of Christ that covers the cross at Calvary at Golgtha that can save us from this. But you have so many people that aren't willing to just say the thing. >> And when we see our shepherd who's supposed to protect us and lead us as dumb sheep with an inability to just say the thing, you know, I was talking to my buddy Josh How that's down there in your area and he he said he texted me the other day. is like, "Kyle, you and I had a phone conversation about 6 months ago, and it changed a lot of things for me because I was trying to figure out how to say this thing, and well, what are people going to think of?" Blah, blah, blah. And this is what you said. You said, "Well, sometimes you just have to say the thing, right? You just have to like just rip the band-aid off. This is what my sheep need to hear and just say it." So, you know, for a book about about therapy and healing, that seemed like a pretty rough indictment of some very specific people that you didn't name. But let's just talk about that section. Let's talk about the wax. So, um, I I despise the wax. I despise it. Um, I I I had to address the own wax in my life. So, I I don't despise the wax because I've never had wax. I've despised the wax cuz I put it on and realized it don't it don't it don't fit here. I got to get it off. Right. Here's here's the reason why I'm so passionate about this and why I could not even sit still, Kyle, while you even read that section because it's such a a an emotional um um uh vital part of what the work that I do for myself and all the people that are in my life in 2024 when the year of the falling pastors, right, if we could call it that, right? Or the summer of the falling pastors. >> Yep. Um, I oversee a church that went through a moral failure because the lead pastor committed adultery. I had to deal with this in April and May. And then all this stuff came out with these other pastors, Tony Evans, Robert Morris, several others in June of the same year. Okay. So what happened was um um this church that I oversee, the lead pastor committed adultery um in September of the previous year and then it wasn't found out till April of so previous year would have been uh 2023. I uh then it comes to light in in April of 2024. So I have a conversation with him and I'm um and and I'm the lead apostolic elder of this particular church. And so I have to take the lead on on navigating this. So I tell him, I assure him that I love him, that I'm heartbroken about by this. I'm going to be with him through this entire process, but he's going to have to step down as the lead pastor of the church. This is a oneanddone sport. We I don't understand how pastors don't understand that this is a oneanddone sport. If you dope at the Olympics, you're not sprinting in the Olympics anymore. >> It doesn't mean that you can't run again. You're not going to run on this track. >> That's right. Right. I believe in restoration. You can run at another game. You're not running on this one. Right. >> Yeah. It doesn't mean you get your job back if you say you're sorry. Right. >> Yeah. Exactly. Right. So, we got to we got to start walking through that. I I I got to fly back and forth to this to to the state. Uh talk to him, his wife, talk to the uh elders, talk to the staff, uh talk to key volunteers, whatever. So then uh the first weekend in May, the first Sunday in May of 2024, we had to address the congregation. Four or five days leading up to it, I sat down uh with my uh friend who has to step down from the church and I said, "Hey, on on on Sunday, um there's going to be full disclosure to the church." And I said, "There's two options. You can get up and tell the church or I can get up and tell the church. >> I said, "If you get up and tell the church, the only thing I need you to do is to confess to the sin of of adultery. You've already confess it to God. You've already confess it to your wife and children. Now, I need you to confess it to the church." And you would have to do it in all three services. And after you say that and you ask for their forgiveness, you can go sit down. Right? If you choose not to tell them, I have to tell them. And if I have to tell them, I have to use five times more details than you do >> because they're gonna think I'm I'm I'm ripping them away from their beloved pastor. What did he do? And we talked about not being vague, right? So, if I have to tell them now, I got to give them a timeline that you surely don't want >> uh uh uh out there. So, so it'll be better if I did it. >> Uh if you did it. >> Yeah. >> And and I gave him Thank you, Holy Spirit. Uh he just reminded me of the passage I gave, too, because this is very important as well. In Joshua chapter number 7, this is after they uh uh walk around Jericho, blow the trumpets, shout, the walls come crumbling down. In chapter number seven, when they go to the battle of Ai, they lose that battle because Achen steals some of the spoils. All of it was supposed to be burned up. Achin steals some of the spoils. He hides it. And when he hides it, they have to like line up all the tribes. And after they line up all the tribes, they go go through all the clans. And as they go through all the clans and they get down to Akin and like the first of all, for Achin to know this and not just out himself is crazy, right? You spend hours making people form these lines to figure out that it was you and you knew it all the time. But Joshua says something that was very important and this is what I said to my friend. Uh Joshua says to Achen, "I need you to glorify God by telling the truth." Kyle, telling the truth about our sin glorifies God. >> That's right. >> So, Achen had a a very horrific consequence. He lost his life. But Achen did not die a thief. He died a glorifier of God because he told the truth about what he did even though it cost him his life. So the most courageous thing that this guy did was stand up all three services and confess to the sin of adultery. >> Yeah. >> Let me tell you what happened in two of the three services. I said if there's anybody else that is currently involved in secret sin, you can come out now. your pastor in his final act has come out to say, "Hey, this is what I did and I know that there's consequences and I'm I'm going on a on a on a on a journey of restoration so that my heart can be healed." I said, "But if there's anybody else that needs to raise their hands, you should raise your hands." 53 people in those two and the three services raised their hands and said, "I I I'm currently involved in secret sin as well." He went first >> and and so he went first and 53 people went second, right? So there was a level of first of all, full disclosure, the glorification of God by telling the truth. And there was no ambiguity. There was not the church wasn't running around, oh my goodness, we don't know what's going on, blah blah blah. We left a static uh uh uh open letter uh when you when you clicked on the church website for seven days there was a static letter that that explained what has happened and that there's going to be a transition and to please pray for us. Do you know that church has grown? We we we we had an interim pastor step in. We came back. We set that interim pastor in as the um full-time pastor. And this church has grown since that happened, not shrank. And it's because we told the truth. >> Yep. >> The size of the church doesn't matter. When we take when we take these mega churches and we turn them into mega business, we start to become waxers because we're trying to take the bag more than we're trying to protect integrity. And so I am a I am an advocate against wax because I know what the truth does. And this doesn't go for anybody else but but me. This has happened in my life as well. The removal of wax has allowed me to be fully seen, fully heard, fully known, fully loved, even if I'm not fully agreed with. >> And Tim, do you know what can't survive a fire? wax. So, you put wax all over your marble statue, right? And you you cover up all the cracks and all the inconsistencies and all the different things. You can't be forged in fire. You can only be exposed by it. And so, >> that's correct. >> For for a lot of guys, you have to remember, you made your bed, you're going to have to lie in it, and you're going to have to walk through a fire that you set, right? You're the one that set this ablaze, but you're going to be forged through it. And it's better than having a light because imagine having a marble statue in your house made of only wax, right? Like that. It's just not something that's gonna stand over the long term. It's just not it's just not how it goes. And so, man, I absolutely am I'm so thankful uh for your book. I'm thankful for your ministry. I'm thankful for the time that you've given to my audience. Even off air, you said, "Hey, man. I'm here to serve your audience." I feel like you've done that. But uh for me, that that's all uh that's all the questions I got for now. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No, man. you you have uh allowed me to get a lot off and and bring context to some things that uh I was so grateful to write in the book. So, thank you so much for trusting me on your platform. Thank you for trusting my voice and I have thoroughly enjoyed this time with you. All right, man. We'll talk again soon. All right, there you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Tim Ross. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, I've got an Amazon link to where you can buy your copy of The Missing Piece: How to be held together when you're falling apart, and a link to The Basement with Tim Ross, so you can go to YouTube, check that out, become a subscriber to his show. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode, wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undant.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook. And check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.und undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Awaken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. Now heat.