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How To Solve The Male Leadership Crisis In Our Young Men · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  We desperately need tools to level up men right now. If we do not have this, if we don't do this, it's this crisis, this Isaiah three crisis Bryce is talking about. This is super serious. Hi, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family.
• 0:30
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, I am joined today by Bryce Bashard. Bryce recently moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, and I really wanted to connect with Bryce. Some of you guys know my daughter, Elisa. She's down in Florida working with the NAVs and trying to figure out discipleship. And our family's obviously been very involved in that. Bryce was part of the Navigators. Now he's a part of Oaks International. But he started a literally kind of a discipleship process or a ministry called Nobleman.
• 0:57
  And I was listening to some of the insights Bryce had on just masculinity and kind of how that intersects with culture and within our Christian context. And really wanted to drill into some of those things that Bryce is learning from his ministry. So Bryce, thanks for jumping on the podcast today. Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. Good to be with you. Yeah. So yeah, Bryce, take me, just maybe give us a quick overview of what you do, a little bit about Noblemen and also kind of the broader ministry you're involved in there.
• 1:26
  Yeah. So, as you mentioned, I was with the Navigators for about 28 great years, learned how to disciple people through the Navigators. I was a natural evangelist. When I came to Christ, I couldn't help but tell everybody I knew about Jesus. And I would lead folks to Christ and have no idea what to do with them. So, in college, I knocked on every door in my dorm room and...
• 1:50
  I had all these folks come into Bible study. I just had no, I was growing, but I didn't know how to help them. And I got connected to the Navigators, and they not only helped me with how to disciple someone, but they really, Jeremy, instilled in me the vision and gave me the how-to of the idea of reaching the nations through spiritual generations, through spiritual multiplication.
• 2:15
  And I like to say that before I got connected to the Navigators, I was, uh, picking apples and the Navigators taught me how to plant apple trees. And so that, that really, um, was, was a life changing connection for me to make with those guys. Of course, the Navigators didn't invent, uh, spiritual, uh, multiplication, but they're really good at it. And so, yeah, so I spent 28 years with the Navs working to, um,
• 2:44
  on college campuses that entire time. So unlike most folks, I stayed in the field that entire 28 years and specifically stayed with college students that whole time. So I remember when I was 26, the first guy I went to train under was 48. And I remember thinking, he's had a good life.
• 3:05
  You know, if I went at 48, it's kind of done. And I thought, Lord, if I could be 48 sleeping on a concrete floor at a spring break trip with college students, that'd be amazing. You know, and so ironically, around 48, COVID hit. And I remember thinking, I don't want to sleep on a concrete floor anymore for a spring break trip. I don't want to sleep.
• 3:23
  So the dorms closed and I had started Nobleman 20 years ago and the dorms closed during COVID. And my wife said, hey, I wonder if you should spend some of your effort in getting Nobleman to where it's more scalable. A few thousand guys had gone through it at that point.
• 3:42
  But they were mostly men that had come out of my ministry. And so said, yeah, really since the Lord leading us to start scaling it and make some videos and workbooks and leaders guides. And so, and yeah, then just a couple of years ago, about 125 people.
• 4:00
  of us from the navigators launched out and started a new organization called Oaks International and very similar values and vision to the navigators and a little bit more narrow focus. So we're just collegiate.
• 4:15
  Okay. Military and world missions. Okay. So that's the sole focus is those three things, but still that vision of reaching the nations through spiritual generations, spiritual multiplication and discipleship. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And so walk me through a little bit about how Noblemen started. Why did you decide to focus on that? What was the gap you saw there? Yeah. And it cashed me up to today what it's doing. Okay.
• 4:44
  Yeah, you bet. So 27 years ago, I started to recognize a difference in my college students. And you see different trends among college students every few years. And what I noticed was that many of my natural leading men didn't want to lead. And so those who had influence among their peers, there was a real sense of, hey, don't ask me to lead. Or I don't want you to feel like I'm judging you or I'm better than you.
• 5:13
  And so it was an interesting dynamic because in any ministry, you need leaders. But our leaders didn't want to lead. And around the same time, I was starting to do a study through the scriptures on the topic of manhood. There wasn't a whole lot of biblical manhood material out there. Wild at Heart hadn't come out or...
• 5:33
  any of that. And so I started studying the topic of biblical manhood. And do we have, can we go to the scriptures real quick? I'll share, share with you. Yeah, Isaiah three, yeah, is like, like tomorrow's headlines from 2900 years ago. So this is pretty amazing. And it really captures what, what I was seeing this phenomena where guys didn't want to step up. And
• 5:57
  Or those who did were immature. So yeah, I began to see something's happening among our men and they don't have a healthy and clear picture of manhood or a path of how to get there. Hmm.
• 6:15
  And so as I was studying this topic of manhood, it really began laying the foundations for creating a course that we called Nobleman. But yeah, we'll do a quick flyover on Isaiah three. You know, when God judges a people or punishes or disciplines a people,
• 6:35
  he will often start by removing healthy male headship. And that's what I was beginning to see in our culture was that men were not aspiring to be men. And so, yeah, we'll do just some highlights here. So Isaiah 3, you see now the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support.
• 7:04
  All supplies of food and all supplies of water. The hero and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the diviner, diviner, and the elder. The captain of 50 and the man of rank. The counselor, skilled craftsman, and clever enchanter. So the Jeremies...
• 7:23
  Of the world, they're going to be gone. These men who are the leaders in your community, God's going to discipline Israel by having them either die in the battlefield or they're going to be exiled. They're going to be taken into exile. And that was the discipline. So then as a result, in verse 4, I'll make mere youths to their officials. Children will rule over them.
• 7:48
  And we, we probably all agree today. Yes. Even, even our national leaders, many are acting like children. Yeah. You know, you go really, you're, you are a grown man and, and this is what you're resorting to, you know? And so I'll make mere children use their officials. Children will rule over them. People will oppress each other, man against man, neighbor against neighbor. The young will rise up against the old, the nobody against the honored.
• 8:16
  So it's interesting, this culture that you see when healthy male leaders are extracted from a community, it has an impact. And then verse six is interesting. And I think this is part of what I had started to see with men not wanting to step up. Verse six, a man will seize one of his brothers in his father's house and say, you have a cloak. You be our leader. Take charge of this heap of ruins.
• 8:42
  Another version, I forget which version, maybe NLT or Message says, hey, you look like you know what you're doing. Why don't you lead us? And the guy says, hey, don't ask me to lead. I don't know what I'm doing. So I was seeing these men who were growing spiritually.
• 9:00
  But they didn't want to lead. And as their friends are going, hey, you lead us. It's like, hey, don't ask me to lead. I don't want to. And even as you see, Jeremy, like the TV shows that they've grown up on. Like, let's take, for instance, The Office. Are you familiar with The Office? Oh, yeah. Yep. Who would all the guys want to be in the show The Office? The guys? Probably Jim. Yeah. Yeah. They all want to be Jim. He's witty. Yeah. Right? He's clever. Yeah.
• 9:27
  He didn't do much. Right. He just points it. So, uh, who's mocked
• 9:33
  In the office. Yeah, Michael Scott. The leader. Right. Yeah, the last thing you'd want to be is this leader, Michael Scott, who it's funny. I mean, it's comical. But if you grow up and your picture of leadership is Michael Scott, then you'd rather be Jim and just sit back and be clever and witty, right? And so it began to really... Yeah, and so it's like, wow, leadership is either...
• 10:00
  A dirty word that men don't want to pursue or men are pursuing leadership for the purpose just of power and influence. And so, yeah, so that guy in verse seven, he says, he cries out, I have no remedy. I have no food or clothing in your house. Don't make me the leader of the people.
• 10:21
  So you go on, verse 9, again, so much of this is similar to our culture today. The look on their faces testifies against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it. So, and woe to them, they brought disaster on themselves. So we see a culture that is unashamed and that has a male problem.
• 10:46
  and can't fix it. Even from within, the youth are going, well, I don't know what to do. Insert the iPhone, however many years ago that was, and now you have pornography in every guy's pocket. And we began to see men who are trying to walk with God becoming increasingly addicted to porn.
• 11:10
  And their walk with God was, and their ministry was significantly impacted. So Proverbs 28.1 says, the wicked man flees, though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
• 11:29
  So if a guy is looking at porn and he's this, you know, kid in a ministry and he's really trying to walk with God, but he keeps looking at porn and, you know, they've got a neuroscientist whose job is to help him get addicted. And he's likely seen it before he's even hit puberty. He's been going back to it regularly for years. Yeah.
• 11:50
  And the Lord prompts this guy, hey, go share the gospel with somebody on your floor. And immediately the enemy goes, who are you? Yeah, shame. So the wicked man flees. Nobody's even pursuing. The enemy's like, I've got him. But the righteous are as bold as a lion. Yeah, that's...
• 12:12
  Yeah, so there's like a series of traps you're describing. So you're getting closer to, it sounds like a root issue. So sort of the symptom is these guys don't want to lead. They're abandoning leadership. And so we're trying to understand, well, what happened? Where did that come from? You're saying, well, we've introduced to these young men
• 12:33
  like all this technology, all of these traps. And so they end up going down these paths oftentimes in like in hidden ways. And so there's this like buildup of shame that creates this. Yeah. I, you know, the sort of gym personality, like I'm just like, and I'm going to be in the background making fun of things. I, why would I want to like,
• 12:49
  Be bold and take control of it. Take risks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's good. Good description. So we'll hit a few more verses. 12, Isaiah 3, 12. You suppress my people. Women rule over them. My people, your guides, lead you astray. They turn you from the path.
• 13:08
  So you see, even as you think of today in the church, if there's anywhere a young man should see a bullseye picture of what it means to be a man, right? Like in 1 Corinthians, it says, act like men. So young man should go, what's that look like? Well, look at the church and they're gonna tell you clear as day, here's what it looks like in your community, which you guys are doing with family teams,
• 13:29
  Your community should say, hey, son, this is what it looks like to be a man. This is what it looks like to be a dad, to be a husband. Here's these virtues that we're sharing with you.
• 13:40
  Many churches are silent or they're afraid of looking overly macho or being accused of being misogynistic or God forbid, they say there's a difference between a man and a woman in different roles. And some would be embarrassed to read this chapter in Isaiah three, because it's saying, Hey, here's some things that aren't good, right? You jump to the end of the chapter. And then this spills into a chapter four, again, 2900 year old, uh,
• 14:09
  front pages of tomorrow. Chapter four, verse one. In that day, seven women will take hold of one man and say, we'll eat our own food and provide our own clothes. Only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace. So really what they're describing is a need for a sperm donor. Oh, wow. Aren't they? Because take away our disgrace in that culture. If you were barren and didn't have children, it was disgraceful.
• 14:38
  So they're saying, hey, we don't need you. We have no need of you. We'll provide for ourselves. We don't need you. You do have one thing that we need.
• 14:47
  Isn't that crazy how similar that is to today, right? And so, yeah, so in a nutshell, Jeremy, I realized I need to study this topic myself. So I started doing a deep dive into the scriptures, and I didn't grow up in a believing home. And so for me, I was newly married and married a wife with a family and a father that was incredibly godly in ministry, worked for the Navigators.
• 15:14
  and realized I need to figure out what it means to be a husband. And so I started studying this topic. And one of my conclusions was,
• 15:25
  Men need a clear picture, but they also need a path of how to get there. There's got to be application. So we need an application-rich theology. And especially for young men, they need a vehicle to practice, to put into practice what they're learning. They need to learn to assume responsibility is huge for them. They need to learn to cultivate faithfulness.
• 15:50
  And they need older men to come around them in the community and encourage and strengthen and equip and train and for them to look up to. Right. And so, yeah, so I essentially created a course and really kind of made it up on the fly. The first meeting, I had a newborn in the first meeting. I put it 5.50 in the morning.
• 16:18
  And I thought, I don't know if we even have anybody show up. We had a brand new ministry at Arizona we had planted with the Navigators.
• 16:24
  And we had about 30 men in our ministry at the time. They were hanging around. 28 men showed up. So I had my son and a couple boxes of Pop-Tarts, and I thought it might just be the two of us. 28 guys showed up, and 24 men finished the course. And so it had daily assignments, chapter a day of the scriptures every day for 90 days, and it had weekly assignments. Wow.
• 16:51
  One of the things I noticed was as manhood, biblical manhood focus began to emerge, you know, books like Wild at Hard or Robert Lewis's biblical manhood courses, really good. One of the things I started to notice was a trend to get angry at your dad and to blame your parents for things. Well, there's a good chance there were some good reason for that. You know, your dad probably did drop the ball or your parents weren't perfect.
• 17:20
  But it struck me that the last verse of the Old Testament, God says that when he comes, he'll turn the hearts of fathers to their sons and sons to their fathers.
• 17:30
  And I start praying and trying to shape the course to go, how could we have noblemen do that? If a guy's got a good relationship with his dad, how do we take him from a boy and a man relationship to two men, father, son, and transition into that? How do you go from mommy to mother in your relationship with your mom as a college student? And so they have weekly assignments. One example would be write a letter to your dad. Two parts. First is, dad, here's what I'm thankful for.
• 18:00
  Some guys have a really hard time with coming up with anything. Yeah. You can come up with something. And it's usually very healing to do that. And then the second part, Dad, here's how I look forward to our relationship deepening.
• 18:12
  Well, that might be risky for a guy whose dad is not reciprocated and may not again, but usually it really gets the ball rolling. And those relationships take on a new chapter in their relationship between father and son. So then just over the years, we kept scaling it and building it and testing it and seeing what we should put in there, what we should take out and...
• 18:38
  So, yeah, we've had about, I don't know, four or five thousand guys now go through it and it's primarily collegiate. Okay. But yeah, I'll pause there and let you, any observations or comments you would say as you've seen that within your realms?
• 18:55
  Yeah, there's a few things you I'd love to kind of drill into, Bryce. Hey, it's Jeremy. I've had the privilege of walking with a lot of families over the years. And one pattern I've seen is how many people feel stuck. They want to be present at home to work with their kids, to build something of value. They don't know where to start. That's exactly why we created Family Inc. It's not a crash course or a pitch. It's a path.
• 19:14
  One that helps you start and grow a business as a family with coaching tools and a community of people doing the same thing. We've packed in everything we wish we had in our early years, and it's been beautiful to watch what's happening inside. If you're ready to explore that kind of future, I'd love to invite you to go to familyteams.com slash family inc to learn more.
• 19:38
  So one of them is, so you described the man's, uh, reticence or need to learn to take on responsibility and that this has been kind of denigrated. Um, what, what, what have you found? What works, what helps dads or I should say, you know, uh, men, collegiate men, obviously become fathers, like decide to embrace taking on responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:05
  What was the last part? Yeah. Have you seen that transition happen in the life of young men? I have. And it doesn't, I'll tell you this, it doesn't happen unintentionally. You don't stumble upon healthy men's ministries in churches and ministries. I like to say, if a men's ministry is being done well in a church, men should be begging God to get to be a part of the leadership of that.
• 20:30
  But think of most churches, men's ministries, they're begging and bribing men with bacon to show up to a breakfast where they get entertained once a month. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think as men, we're not made for that. And it's why so few men show up. And you have to keep doing more things to entertain them and get them to show up.
• 20:48
  If you put a challenge out to a man of, hey, we want to change the world. We want to change our local culture. We want to build strong families. We want to see you make an impact and know Jesus intimately. It's going to be hard. It's going to require work. Men show up. And it needs to have some intentionality and some structure.
• 21:12
  You need to think through on the, so I'll speak out of two sides of my mouth here. It needs to be intentional and intense, I think, make it worth it. If it's too hard, you're setting men up for failure more than you are for success. So if you set the bar, the call can be high and the cost can be high. But if you set them up for failure, they quit showing up.
• 21:38
  And so that's where with noblemen, so we have collegiate noblemen, and then we've got a high school version that's in beta, and a nobleman life is a post-college version for churches. And with those two especially, we really try to set them up for...
• 21:54
  success early on and have kind of a slow on-ramp where they're learning to be consistent in their daily time in the word, assume responsibility, develop relationships with other men where they feel comfortable, and then they start really working on cultivating faithfulness. But
• 22:14
  I think for most men, there's got to be something compelling that's not just sit around and share your feelings, which we do. But if all you do is share your feelings or if all your men's group is, is accountability, people quit showing up. I don't know if you've noticed, but accountability groups usually have a pretty limited shelf life. Yeah. Because guys are either lying or it feels like they're showing up to be put back under the law again. Yeah.
• 22:42
  So the first, yeah, go ahead. You have this high bar, like, hey guys, we're going to try to, we're going to do something. You can do it. We're going to be right there with you. This is going to be challenging. So you create like a high challenge and then surround them with a community and a clear pathway to get there. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good summary. Yeah. And the other thing is it's for a limited time. So they say this is the generation that wants the summit without climbing the mountain. Yeah.
• 23:07
  But what we found is they'll climb the mountain for 12 weeks, especially if they see their friends who've climbed that mountain are drastically different men. They're intimately enjoying Jesus. They're respected in their community. They are knowledgeable in the Word. They're memorizing Scripture. They're sharing their faiths. They've led people to Christ. They're discipling people. And they go...
• 23:29
  Hey, what do you have to do to like, man, I knew you a semester ago and you're a different man. What did you, well, I climbed that mountain for 12 weeks. You should climb it too. And so, yeah. So this is kind of like, this is, we want to help transition you guys into kind of like full manhood. How do you describe to somebody who's interested in jumping into 12? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:54
  Well, we've got a few different things that we do that help. We've got just a simple promo video. So we designed Nobleman to integrate into other ministries. So Nobleman is its own 501c3, but our goal is to come alongside. If your ministry were a gear, we want to kind of come alongside as another gear and add momentum to your ministry.
• 24:18
  Big gear, if you will. And so we want to integrate into what that church or campus ministry does. And so, yeah, we've got promotional materials, videos. Folks will purchase the course. We'll interview them now. So we've gotten to where we've what we've learned is we don't want just anyone to lead noblemen.
• 24:39
  We want to make sure it's someone who's going to lead it well and put forth the effort. So what you get with your leaders is usually gets reproduced. You teach what you know, you reproduce who you are. So we want highly committed leaders that have been selected, and then we want to train them and give them input. So our mantra in Nobleman is select carefully, train thoroughly, trust deeply.
• 25:05
  So once a group becomes selected for nobleman, we interview them and feel like it's a good fit. And they want to do nobleman, then we turn them loose, give them some training, and then they help train other groups to do nobleman. And so, yeah. So teach what you know, reproduce who you are.
• 25:24
  Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's an old guy named Skip Gray that's going to be with the Lord used to say that all the time. Teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. And so you want the men in your ministry, you want more of them. You know, that I would say, hey, I want more Jeremy's. Well, then you want to select those as your leaders because that's what you're going to get is more Jeremy's. Don't just get anyone who's willing to volunteer. Yeah.
• 25:49
  let them know this is a high commitment. Usually the men that you want, they're already involved in five other things. You don't want the guy to sit around and no one's asked him to do anything, right? But he needs to hear it's for a short period and here's why it's worth it. You're going to have nations and generations that you'll reach through the men that you're going to be teaching them and giving them a vision and the know-how to walk with God and make disciples that reproduce and...
• 26:16
  Usually those men go right on. Okay, where do we do this?
• 26:21
  So there's a few steps in this process. And I was like, one of them you described was the, and the relationship with her dad, like writing that letter, um, and I'm thinking through, maybe I'd love just kind of go one layer deeper into that, because I think that that, like you said, there is a, such a growing trend of sort of dishing on, you know, on our parents. Yeah. Yeah. Um, why is that dangerous? Uh, and what have you found happens when, um, a man starts to honor his father?
• 26:51
  Yeah, great questions. Well, one of the reasons it's dangerous is one day you're going to be a dad and you're going to realize, oh, it's a little harder than I thought it was, right? Yes. So we have a session in Nobleman called The Question That Haunts Every Man. And the question is, am I enough?
• 27:10
  And the answer is no. You can be enough in some areas, but you'll never be enough in every area. And that's meant to have you throw yourself on the mercy of God and be dependent on Him and have your identity come from Him, not from what you do, right? So I tell the guys, no dad ever holds a baby and goes, man, how could I really screw you up? Yeah.
• 27:30
  If you know, I mean, it just happens. And there's a reason as men are living under the fall and the curse, which we look at in the first couple sessions of Nobleman, how that affects men, passivity and abusing and abandoning their responsibility. We look at that and go, hey, this explains why your dad might have been absent. Or this explains why your dad may have been a control freak. Or why your dad, whatever. Now it doesn't excuse it, but it explains it.
• 28:00
  And now you've got a responsibility to decide, are you going to, you've probably heard the phrase, bitterness is the poison you drink in hopes that the other person dies. Yeah. So do you want to continue to hold your dad hostage by this or at bay? Or would you want to extend forgiveness like you've received forgiveness and take the first step? And that's part of what that letter does. Yeah.
• 28:23
  But we found that a lot of dads, they just don't know. They've gotten stuck in ruts. They don't know how to initiate with their kids. They don't understand them. And just that simple letter, oftentimes it does really kind of release things. And we encourage them, this is not a time to accuse your dad. That's why you're starting off with, here's what you're thankful for. And it's a time to release your dad and affirm him. And then, man, a dad hears that.
• 28:49
  And again, we were wanting to set them up for success, not for failure. So a dad hears that and goes, wow.
• 28:55
  you notice that I did those things, that I made those sacrifices, and you're not pointing out everything I did wrong. And so, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Man. I watched a bar mitzvah, you know, and it was like, it shocked me. I was like, I just walked into a synagogue once and there was about a three-hour service, maybe 150 people were there. It was all dedicated, this one 13-year-old boy who's like uncles and dad, they're all in the staff. Rabbi, spent, you know, six months working on this thing. And,
• 29:25
  It was just like, you know, they were just pouring into this boy. I think, and I feel like part of, you mentioned this, you know,
• 29:34
  Isaiah 3 has that line that I think really troubles our culture. You know, this sort of, you know, women are ruling over them. And then what you described in chapter 4 about the tension of these women who were just sort of using men to avoid their shame because masculinity had been so depleted in their culture. And there is a reality that when...
• 29:59
  that men's men and women both need to understand their unique role based on how God's designed their gender. And this gives a lot of clarity, um, to what it means to be a man or a woman to understand the differences. And so it's, how much do you think just, um, sort of blurring those lines is confusing men? Like, I think, I think that's, we, we oftentimes feel like, and I remember, um, a few years ago I was watching when I was watching the Superbowl.
• 30:30
  I just, I like every single commercial was essentially designed to just to show how a daughter was becoming a son. Like it was, there was like this, this almost like you have this young girl and it was like, cause it was the one thing it felt like.
• 30:45
  all of our society could say, this is, this is so good. This is what we want to see. Yeah. We want to turn, you know, um, every daughter into a son. And, and, and like, and that's, there is something of like, that's fun to watch about a daughter, like, you know, really achieving things. And I think that the, um, the narrative around, you know, kind of,
• 31:06
  women feeling oppressed and therefore a need to really, uh, you know, make sure that there's no area that they feel like is, um, off limits for them. And so there's just this, this endless celebration, encouragement of her strength, her courage, like all these things that are oftentimes traditionally, uh, could seen as, as sort of, uh, masculine, uh, virtues or values. Um,
• 31:30
  And so there's, I think there's a lot of things in that, that, that are positive for girls, but it's how much has that you think affected or confused boys, men? Cause this blurring, I think we feel like it only is positive for girls, but it doesn't have a negative effect on boys. How do, how do you think about it? Yeah.
• 31:53
  Yeah, well, I think it's a tension for both the boys and the girls and for young women and men. And I often tell ministries, if you're not giving your young men and women a clear biblical picture and definition of manhood and womanhood,
• 32:10
  Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Joe Rogan, and whoever else, Andrew Tate, they will give a picture of it for you. So the culture, even if kids are homeschooled and you protect them as much as you can, the culture, everything, everywhere now, they can't escape it. And they are being given signals or clear messages that say...
• 32:34
  Hey, if you're a man, you've probably been cursed with a Y chromosome. And so you need to get out of the way. And the best thing that you can do is champion women and uplift them. And if you're a woman, it would be so beneath you for you to submit yourself to a man. Yeah.
• 32:53
  And for you to, God forbid, want to be married and be a wife and mom, oh man, you are a violence to the cause. And does everyone believe that? No, but it would be easy for a young man or woman to grow up and hear that.
• 33:16
  messaging and go, I guess I should get out of the way. Or what we often are seeing now with the young men is a hyper swing to the right, where they think whatever looks macho that I'm gonna do, I'm gonna become a train and become an MMA fighter. I'm gonna learn to work on a car. I'm gonna cuss. I'm gonna do all this stuff that seems like hyper macho. Then I'll feel like a man and you go, oh man, you know more manly than this guy over here.
• 33:44
  who is afraid to express his masculinity. Can you describe the difference? So I'm actually meeting with a young man this evening who's at college age and has, I think, imbibed a good...
• 34:00
  Two years worth of Andrew Tate ideas of masculinity. And it's like, it's really hard to know because there's, you're just getting all of those definitions. Yeah. So how do you, how do you, is there like, how do you distinguish between the biblical man and this, you know, like macho. Yeah. Yeah. Chismo virgin that's being. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:24
  Well, I mean, just as you said, we essentially go to the scriptures and say, you think the Lord has anything to say about manhood and womanhood? Let's look to the word and allow that to drive. So we say it's a biblical discipleship course. They spend a ton of time in the word and we want them drawing. So the Nobleman Creed is, I think, a summary of 110 verses on what it means to be a man, but it's all easy to remember in this paragraph form of things they're committing to.
• 34:49
  They're going to this timeless book of the one who's created them and they're learning what it means. And within that, you know, we've got, I've got two sons. One of them has had 15 cars by the time he's 21 and loves to be under an engine. The other is a first chair bassoon in the state of Colorado and hates working on cars.
• 35:12
  They're both manly. And it's just a different expression of that. If you have a worldly picture of manhood, there's no room for somebody to not have a stereotypical macho. You know, yeah, if you can work on a car, that's great. That doesn't make you a man, right? And so, yeah, so I think getting them into the scriptures so much becomes clear.
• 35:36
  As they connect with the Lord and the Word and the Spirit, confirming to them, hey, this is what makes you a man, it starts to become pretty clear, oh, okay, this is what it means. We have a phrase in Nobleman, Tementes Sida Agite. It's Latin for we do it scared. Part of being manly is doing scary stuff. So every week you come and share, what did you do scared last week? And it's like, oh, it's part of being a man is do scary stuff. Like, you know, move into it. And the Lord will make it clear what I move into you.
• 36:06
  Yeah, man. Yeah, that's one of the really interesting components of courage. It's courage when you choose to do it, even when you're afraid. It's not the absence of fear, which is, I think for a lot of guys, a lot of that machismo is an attempt to, it's like a bravado to say, I'm not feeling any fear as opposed to...
• 36:29
  I do what I am afraid to do because it's the right thing to do. That's a very different approach to what it means to, that's why I think it's so important when we see Jesus, he was, you know, struggling a lot leading up to the cross. It wasn't something he was, uh,
• 36:47
  attempting to be um have a lot of bravado around he was he yeah yeah the the struggle and still the decision to set his face towards jerusalem and and that's right father that's those are those are different groups yeah and so compelling as a man you you know you read that you go whoa that's manhood right there um but yeah i think for the for the young women too though
• 37:16
  But you then see, to read about, what was it, in Peter, where it's like, hey, don't be afraid.
• 37:26
  For you to submit yourself to a man, that would be folly for you to submit yourself to a man who's not putting himself under God's headship. You know, if a man just says, submit to me, which this is what we're seeing, this hyper swing where guys think, hey, I'm the man. My daughter's ministry at Oklahoma State last year, she said, dad, some of the guys were literally asking if women should be allowed to vote.
• 37:50
  And I said, oh, they'll get past that. You know, they'll grow up. She said, these were the senior leaders in the ministry. I thought, wow. So it's this extreme. We think macho is women should just be barefoot pregnant in the kitchen, never have a thought in their head. But when you see a godly woman and you look at Proverbs 31 and you go, oh, this woman is far from weak. And there's a reason her husband has full confidence in her. You know, she is a powerhouse.
• 38:20
  And for young women to aspire to that and not just aspire to being bitter and suspicious of men. And, you know, they keep dating, you know, like poor Taylor Swift. She keeps dating these guys and then gets angry at the next one, writes a song. It's like, you might want to change who you're dating, you know. But the young women are listening to these Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift and all these songs that are a terrible picture of men.
• 38:48
  And then embittered hurt women. And so it's not a compelling picture of manhood or womanhood. So, yeah, as they get into the scriptures, I think you just see this beautiful picture of men and women, totally equal and distinct in their nature, their character, their roles. But for me personally, Jeremy, I love for my daughters to learn all kinds of stuff. One daughter's mowing the lawn right now because the son's out of town.
• 39:15
  That's fine. She knows how to change her own oil. She knows how to work on parts of her car because she was interested, you know, and she likes spending time with dad. Another one doesn't care. You know, to me, those stereotypical things, it's like, it's, it's very shallow to make that. To me, manhood and womanhood and full bloom is you abiding deeply in Jesus, enjoying him and in his word. And usually stuff becomes clear as you're in the scriptures and not letting the world define things.
• 39:44
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• 40:12
  FamilyTeams.com slash accelerator.
• 40:20
  I'm curious since you guys are doing collegiate ministry. Yeah. So people are putting off getting married more and more these days. Yeah. Yeah. And it's odd in the, like you just mentioned Taylor Swift. I think that, you know, a lot of these, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the famous or younger podcasters online who are in there now mid thirties or late thirties.
• 40:45
  Um, they'll say very openly, like I'm not married and I don't intend to get married. When you drill into their personal life, which a lot of times they don't like, uh, they've got lots and lots of relationships. They're just in and out of lots of relationships. And they're really promoting this idea that a high value man can just go from relationship to relationship. And then you've got women who.
• 41:04
  Our kids who went away to a lot of different kind of college ministries like Navigators or YOM or different groups, one of the things they came back and reported often is very few of the women are excited about being moms. And so there's just this delay. What are you seeing? And is that a problem? How do we as kids?
• 41:27
  In sort of the Christian community, when we're especially addressing college age students, do we need to talk directly about marriage and this trend that is growing about getting married later, having fewer or no children? Like, how do you think about those trends?
• 41:44
  Yeah, they're to me just reflective of the culture. To me, when you see church done well, a local church, and to me, any parachurch campus ministry, my hope is that they're not functioning solely as a church, practically. My hope is that they're integrating within a local church and their students are a part of local bodies.
• 42:05
  I always try to get every one of my students adopted by a family in the church. Right? The very first week, we have an adopt-a-student. And I want them to see the multi-generational components of the body of Christ. And to me, when you get students, you know, if my students are only hanging out with a demographic of four-year, you know, freshman to 18 to 22 to senior, it's not healthy, right?
• 42:30
  And it's easy for them to just mimic what they're seeing and hearing around them. Yeah, I don't know if I want kids or whatever, but when they get around a godly couple from church who has two kids and five kids or this loving relationship where she goes...
• 42:47
  Wow, that lady's husband, I don't know if I want to be married, but if I could be married to a guy like that, I would absolutely want that. Or you see, you know, a guy that sees this just godly, strong woman who has a reverence for her husband. He's like, hey, everything I see around me right now, that's not pointing that direction. I want a woman like that.
• 43:08
  It's training, it's mentoring, and it's giving them a picture of something that they don't have. So I think as they get around the beautiful picture, you know, that idea, they train folks. I don't know who the people are that find fraud, but they don't study the counterfeits. They study the real thing, right? I think as you get them around, you can point out all the things wrong or you should get married or whatever, right?
• 43:35
  That's fine. But if you get them around the real thing and they see beautiful, godly pictures of men and women working in complementary relationships, something in them goes, yeah, I want that. Yeah, that's really. Is what I think. Would you agree? Yeah. What would be some ways to. I think that that's a great point that if you don't want to get married, it's probably evidence that you just haven't seen a model that was compelling to you.
• 44:03
  you couldn't see yourself in that position. Or if you saw yourself in that position, you weren't excited about what you saw. Yeah, that was a terrible picture. When you see something like, when a guy's like, wow, I'd love to be the starting quarterback. That looks amazing. I've seen that. But when they're like, why would I want to be a dad? Like you mentioned, the office. Yeah, when we see this position being denigrated, there's, by the way, like...
• 44:27
  When you were describing that, there's a podcast called The Oral History of the Office, which is the guy who plays Kevin. He's kind of the curator of conversations with the entire cast. And they were trying to figure out why it was so popular. And they were asking, why were people so comforted? People literally-
• 44:49
  Yeah, yeah.
• 45:04
  And their ultimate conclusion was that the office was a family. And that what it represented was it was a symbolic family. And that it didn't trigger people's normal family revulsions because it wasn't trying to play out a family literally. It was a figurative family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Dwight are, you know, sons and, you know, Michael Scott's the dad and a different, you know, kind of. Uh-huh.
• 45:31
  symbols of motherhood or daughterhood and to your point um yeah when you see why something like that resonates so deeply it's because uh and i think this is the most difficult element yeah we we don't know what sonship really is we don't know what fatherhood really is we see we see these archetypes as as really flawed and just unappealing aesthetically like we don't want to we don't want to be part of it we're
• 45:56
  So yeah, I love what you're saying. Get involved in the church. Make sure that the church that you're connected to has families that can demonstrate some compelling models for what a thriving family looks like, what amazing marriage looks like. And there's so much failure. There's so much. And I think that, yeah, that's a great point. We have to connect young. Because one of the things that's really difficult about all of our stories is that we tend to only have
• 46:26
  tend to really only know the one model of family that we grew up in. Like that is so powerful. It's like when you start having kids, you become your mom or your dad because it's such an ingrained part of your life. And so if that was a really tough experience and it didn't demonstrate for you something that you find exciting, then the only way it does seem to overcome that is
• 46:52
  families, Christian families have to open their doors and let people come inside and see a different model, a different way of doing it and say, no, I could, you know, maybe I would struggle trying to replicate what my dad or mom did. But man, I think I could, I could really get, become like that. And it would be a compelling and exciting life to live. That's, yeah, that's, man, that's a strong tension. But I think that's a great point.
• 47:20
  Cool. Well, Bryce, thanks so much for jumping on here today. I'd love for people to hear, where can they find noblemen? How could they, like, yeah, anything that people wanted to learn more about what you're doing?
• 47:31
  Sure, sure. Yeah. Noblemen, plural, noblemenministries.com. And so, yeah, that's probably the easiest place is noblemenministries.com. We, as I said, we've got our collegiate version out right now as the primary one. We have a female version of it as well that's just called Noble. Okay. And that we're doing, we're rebuilding.
• 47:56
  We're in a rebuilding phase as we've kind of launched out and decided we really, since the Lord asked us to keep spreading this, what we're calling the noble network. So we've got all these different pieces and...
• 48:09
  So, yeah, there is a new version called Nobleman Life for post-college age that I mentioned. There's a book that just anyone will be able to buy on Amazon. It's about a 14-week devotional with...
• 48:27
  70 friends of mine that have all written a devotional on these 12 different areas of life that every man's responsible for. And so, yeah, they could actually, it's in beta form, but if they want, they can go on to Amazon and just type noblemen realms, R-E-A-L-M-S. So the realms that you're responsible for and...
• 48:47
  That's a real low bar, low, low commitment. You just would go through with a few friends and you talk every week about those things. That's the entrance into Nobleman Life, which then is a four course. And that'll be hopefully in the next year. That'll be out. Yeah.
• 49:03
  that any church can use. And then we've got high school nobleman groups popping up around the country. If anybody would like to lead a Nobleman High group, you can reach out to us at info at noblemanministries.com and say, hey, I'd be interested in doing that beta version of Nobleman High, and we'll set you up and love to. We've got a lot of groups around the country that have been using our beta version of Nobleman High, and my sons have gone through it and
• 49:31
  We have seven area high schools back in Oklahoma where we just moved from that are going strong. It's all led by students that are leading that too. So, yeah. Well, thanks, Bryce. Yeah, as you guys are listening to this, we desperately need tools to level up men right now. If we do not have this, if we don't do this...
• 49:49
  This is crisis, this Isaiah three crisis Bryce is talking about. This is, this is super serious. So like get involved, figure out, get these tools. So I love that you have it in the high school. We got to get them earlier. Unfortunately, a lot of times by the time our sons get to college, it's like, it's already kind of crisis time. So yeah, started in high school, you know, help, you know, lead these in college. And then we also need these for, for men as we are entering into our lives post-college. So.
• 50:16
  Love your job, Bryce. I wanted to talk to you and really promote this tool because I think this is a massive gap right now that I think you're describing the problem really well. And I'm so excited you guys have a tool to address it. So I appreciate you. Thanks, Jeremy. Yeah, it's great to connect with you guys and love what you're doing as well. Awesome.
• 50:37
  Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.