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#199 A Needed Movement Among Men - The BetterMan Initiative · The OneCry Podcast

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  Everything that our world's not known for, right, are the things where God is
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  just saying, no, we're going to go right there.
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  That's where we're going. And we're going to bring revival there,
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  and we're going to bring restoration there.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Welcome to the One Cry podcast. We're so excited to have you.
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  I'm Bill Elofis, Kyle Reno, who you know.
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  And we want to give a little special report today.
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  So much is happening, Kyle, around the country. and you've had a little something,
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  you had a front row seat on something here recently.
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  And it's a little bit of preparation for a series here on our podcast that we're
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  about to do, a little journey that we're going to go on with Moses into the presence of God.
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  But Kyle, tell us about the Better Man, just tell us a little bit about the
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  Better Man movement and then about this most recent thing that's happened in your city.
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  Yeah. Yeah, I think, man, and Bill, we can banter back and forth about just
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  things that are popping up around our country right now like that.
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  I mean, you've talked about, I think that we're going to look back and that
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  this was the start or maybe even beyond the start of a move of God that's exploding
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  and that's going to shape history.
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  I have so much faith because I'm watching what's happening in the lives of people.
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  And one little part, a sliver of that, is what God is doing among men.
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  And in our nation right now, there is a movement among men.
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  One, there's a hunger. And I think that men are embracing desperation right now in a unique way.
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  I think there's some manipulations in that, that men are gravitating toward
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  voices. And there's a lot of bad voices out there. There's a lot of bravado and masculine.
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  But it's because they're in search of truth.
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  They're in search of what does it truly mean to be a man.
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  And so one of our friends, Robert Lewis, greatly used of God in the 90s,
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  specifically men's fraternity, got a renewed passion years ago to help give
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  men a biblical definition of manhood that actually works.
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  And I got the privilege of being a part of that our days there in Arkansas.
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  And what ended up becoming what's now known as Better Man, which is a 31 weeks
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  worth of resources over five journeys, really two years worth of here's men's
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  ministry that you can give to a church, a disciple maker.
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  That's not it's not holistic, meaning it's not everything there is to the Christian life.
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  But what is here is a biblical definition that men can come to know,
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  give them clarity, and then help them get that clarity in the midst of community,
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  that they have other men that they're going on this journey with.
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  Since 2019, man, there have been Better Man groups launched in every state in the United States,
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  87 countries of the world at this point, over a million something men that have
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  been on these journeys. That's free resources.
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  Betterman.com. It's out there. It's awesome.
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  Awesome, awesome. The heart behind it is awesome. But what's happened recent
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  is in light of being catalytic, a desire like,
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  We don't want to just start throwing these events, but these events kept coming
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  to Better Man or I would get invited to come preach things, but it didn't have
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  a lot of strategy behind it.
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  It was more of just another men's conference, another men's thing, which are great.
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  And then promise keepers, things like that in the past were phenomenal.
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  Rally as many men as possible.
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  But what God put in our hearts here in Jackson, we're using the resources.
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  But what if we would believe together to rally thousands of men into the presence
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  of God on one day to, at the very least,
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  give them the biblical definition of manhood, which is based out of Genesis,
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  that a man courageously follows God's word, loves and protects God's woman,
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  excels at God's work, and betters God's world.
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  That's all based out of Genesis. Like, hey, what if we give thousands of men
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  that definition in the presence of God, but also give them the tools to go and
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  launch groups in their church, in their city,
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  across our state, a moment that can become a movement.
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  Well, what happened, Bill, was the breath of God. So I'm going to tell you one
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  of the coolest stories, right? So we rallied.
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  This happened March 1st, 2025. The event did, and I'll tell you about that.
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  But about nine months before that, we rallied a group of leaders to cast vision for it.
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  And there was about 80 leaders in the room at that point that we bridged all
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  of our relationships to say hey to believe for.
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  And painted a picture of like what would happen if a move of God happened in
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  such a way, almost like a manhood Pentecost, where the Spirit of God so fell
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  among men that men would go and reproduce this to bring change everywhere.
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  And I was sharing with them, but right now we need to pray and have our upper room moment.
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  We need to have our upper room. We pray like crazy. And so 80-something men
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  start praying. Bill, no lie now.
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  We start praying. On the other side of this place that we're gathering at this
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  lunch is railroad tracks, which I was not aware of.
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  When the men start praying, this train comes through and starts shaking the building.
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  And listen, we got Baptists and Charismatics and Presbyterians and everybody,
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  but everybody's eyes are wide open going like, is the Lord shaking the room?
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  Yeah, right, right. Are we having our upper room? But let me tell you this,
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  once it passed, we laugh, all those things.
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  All the men in the room looked at each other going, But why wouldn't we believe
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  for something that shook the ground, shook the ground of our city?
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  And we entered this journey where, and here's a few things that you,
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  Bill, have shared so many times.
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  If you want to be a part of a real move of God, it's going to be marked with
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  some things. And one was humility.
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  Like nobody, we made a decision together in that room that this is not going
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  to be about any one church.
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  It's not going to be about any denomination. It's not going to be about any leader.
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  This thing's not going to have a face other than Jesus.
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  It's not going to have a name other than the kingdom.
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  And so we we laid all that down, set all that down.
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  So radical humility, as much as possible, we're going to get low,
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  get low, get low. We don't want to be known. We do want to be used. Right.
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  We'll keep it pure. We decided from the front that this is going to be a free event.
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  And that way that's a Jackson Convention Center. That's a lunch for every man.
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  This is Jackson, Mississippi.
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  Yeah, right, right. So this is, which means it's free for you to attend.
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  It's not free for us to pull off.
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  We're going to have to faith it. We're going to have to believe our church,
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  other churches contribute to.
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  But from the front side, we're going to keep it pure.
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  That we wanted, I'm not saying you got to do that every time.
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  That's what we felt like we needed to do this time.
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  And that we're also going to, we're going to bring unity to this.
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  That we're going to make as many steps as possible to step across lines to build diversity.
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  And what I found, Bill, was one in Jackson, which is known for a lot of things.
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  A lot of them are not good.
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  Racially, that's for sure the case, that there's been a lot of pain.
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  But we intentionally took steps, African-American pastors, white pastors,
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  toward each other in this.
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  Toward each other in this, toward each other in this. And I did a lot of that,
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  but a lot of others did that as well.
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  And what happened was a miracle.
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  It was a miracle that God gave us instant trust because here's the – and,
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  Bill, man, you've seen – I praise God for racial reconciliation efforts toward
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  that and bridging those relationships.
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  But a lot of times those conversations just seem circular. You know,
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  and we're just we're having the conversation, but are we really growing in unity?
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  And what happened in this moment was we focused on mission together.
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  And the mission was let's go reach men as many as possible to experience God's
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  presence and give them a work in definition.
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  And because the mission was clear, what happened was unity.
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  But what happened was relationship. What happens now we're in this thing together.
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  So we worked hard months ahead, built toward it.
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  And then it was like any moment that becomes a movement.
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  It's like we worked, we labored, we prayed. Here's the other side.
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  40-day journeys. We had 100 days of prayer to the event where we had multiple
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  men signed up to pray every day, a hundred days toward the event for what God
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  was doing, but also for what would happen beyond that.
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  And men prayed. Men saw God's face. People fasted and prayed, like a lot around it all.
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  So to say all that, to get to the moment.
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  And people thought we were crazy, like, man, you're going one to Jackson,
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  to Jackson Convention Center. You're going downtown.
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  You know, all these different things. A lot of hurdles, obstacles like that.
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  But then the Lord breathed.
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  And on March 1st, 3,185 men, you know, gather in the Jackson Convention Center
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  under the banner of Jesus.
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  And it it for the first guy, the guy was Chris Gilliard, his name,
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  who was the colonel for the Mississippi State Troopers,
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  who became a big part of a better man and serves at an awesome church here in the area.
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  But he was a chairman. He stood up, Bill.
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  Golly, I can cry now. He stood up to open it up. 60-something-year-old,
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  40 years in police force, tears flowing down his face.
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  He said one of the worst days that ever happened in the state of Mississippi
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  is when the movie Mississippi Burning happened.
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  It was aired, he said, because it painted a picture of what life is like here
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  in Mississippi. And he goes, and in many ways, it set us on fire.
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  It revealed brokenness. It even exasperated it in ways that was bad.
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  Like, it divided us, he said. It divided us.
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  He said, but I'm here today to tell you that Mississippi's on fire again, but it's a holy fire.
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  And you talk like the room was crazy
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  crazy yeah crazy so the beauty of
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  and then the lord's presence showed up and and every man that i have encountered
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  since march 1st it said the same it said the same thing i've never been in a
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  moment like that i've never been in a moment like that he said there was yeah
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  it's the presence of god there's such unity there's such clarity around While we're here,
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  there was anointing and worship and teaching.
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  And we ended the day a cappella with 3,000 plus men singing,
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  our God is an awesome God.
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  And it was unbelievable.
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  But the beauty of it, and this is what happened when revival happens,
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  a real move of God, it's not just a moment.
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  Coming out of that, the last 395 men,
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  churches, than individual men leaders have signed up and are moving toward launching
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  groups now with other men.
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  So you had 3,000 men in the room. You had 395 of those that have signed up saying,
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  I'm going to go take a group of these guys and other men and you'll walk into
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  God's presence and learn how to be a kingdom man. It was the beginning of something.
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  It was the beginning of something special. You know, Kyle, one of the reasons
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  we wanted to take a moment and kind of talk about this is there are so many
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  things we need to learn about how to cooperate with God in a movement.
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  And you all have just experienced it there in Jackson, Mississippi.
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  And just from my little vantage point, and it's a little vantage point,
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  but it's a little broader than a sum,
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  I'm seeing this happen all over the nation.
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  For instance, leading up to the Collegiate Day of Prayer in Texas A&M,
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  there were thousands, I'm telling you, thousands of college students who had
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  been fasting and praying, many of them for 20, 30, 40 days.
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  Wow. And they didn't care.
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  Nobody, it's what's happening right now among Gen Z.
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  So we have this movement that we began to see happening among men.
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  And this movement that's happening right now, very dramatically among Gen Z,
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  is these Gen Z, they don't care who gets the credit.
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  They don't care about names.
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  In fact, they're kind of adverse to it. They don't, they don't,
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  you see, so-and-so is going to preach.
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  Well, we don't, you know, we just want the word.
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  We want the word. We want God. We want his presence, right?
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  And so these, these marks that you just mentioned of moving in humility, moving in unity.
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  Moving across cultural and racial and ethnic lines, all of that kind of stuff.
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  I mean, everything that our world's not known for, right, are the things where
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  God is just saying, no, we're going to go right there.
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  That's where we're going. And we're going to bring revival there.
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  And we're going to bring restoration there.
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  And I'm telling you, it's beautiful and it's happening across the country. And now you had a...
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  You know, a formal event that culminated in this that took planning and all
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  that kind of stuff. But here's the deal.
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  It was a God initiated moment.
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  It was just something that the Lord said, I want to do this right there.
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  I want to do it right in a place that has been known for everything else.
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  But that kind of unity, that kind of presence, that kind of glory.
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  And I love this about what you just said.
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  Is this is not, we're going to come together and set up some kind of separate deal to do something.
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  We're coming to bless the church, the body of Christ and the men in the city,
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  and then go back into the churches.
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  We're just trying to ignite, let the Lord ignite something that will go into
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  the churches and spread to every church. And by the way, here are tools.
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  They're all free. Here's these tools to help you go into your church and see
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  the same thing happen in your church. What a beautiful thing.
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  And I think we're going to just see it more and more and more, don't you, Kyle?
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  Yeah, and that's what I would say to our listeners, just to wrap this up in faith.
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  Belief. I believe that the wind is blowing.
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  If you see any way or sense or somebody else is starting to share some things
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  that ways to get the sale up in your community,
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  in your region to believe for
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  igniting prayer at another level or a way of evangelizing your community.
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  I mean, like I'm hearing these things like evangelistic crusades and things
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  that are happening like, man, people's lives are just being changed.
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  Like, you're hearing things on college campuses and regions that's happening. Like, don't.
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  Be a spectator to it. Like, get in it. Like, at this moment,
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  have faith for what God is doing.
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  It builds mind. Every time I hear a story, it just builds my faith.
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  I hear a story of what God's doing somewhere way out here.
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  It builds my faith for right where I'm at. Let me tell you one of the cool things
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  this year that God did to help my faith was the weekend before we had the event
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  here, I got the privilege to go preach.
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  At a men's conference with several other Better Man speakers in Salem, Oregon, with 700 men.
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  Wow. Yeah, in Salem, Oregon. And it sort of happened to them in a similar way.
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  You know, it's like they labored, they prayed, and then men just started coming.
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  And they were like shocked in many ways by the amount of men that were ready
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  to be a part of something. And I sat that Saturday in Salem,
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  Oregon, before the next Saturday going to be in Jackson, Mississippi.
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  And it just reminded me, and the Lord kindly reminded me like,
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  hey, you didn't start any of these things.
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  I'm doing this stuff, Kyle, everywhere.
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  You can't, you can't. And it is, all it does for me is, man,
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  I just want to be any part, any part of what it is.
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  You know, we we often say and guys who've been in revival thinking often say,
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  well, we can't we can't make it happen, but we can set the sails.
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  You know, we can just set the sails. And when the wind blows. That's right.
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  And I remember Samuel Davies of the First Great Awakening, who was the president
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  of Princeton, and he was a young man, died young.
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  But he they called him the Apostle of Virginia. Can you imagine the president
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  of Princeton being called the Apostle of Virginia?
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  Davies said there's sometimes in a nation when only a revival,
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  a spiritual awakening can cause reformation in the nation.
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  And he said before he said, I watched pastors for years preaching with very little results.
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  He's talking about the first great awakening. And he said, and then the revival
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  came and I watched the same men preach the same messages and 200 people would be saved in a day.
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  Now, you got to ask, what is that? What's going on there?
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  And here's the statement he gave, and that was the gospel became almighty and
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  carried everything before it. What a statement.
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  And I think that's, you know, we're entering into a moment that's just it's
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  it's a moment of God's favor.
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  It's a moment where millions of people have been praying for his mercy.
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  And all of a sudden it's coming and it's time to put the sails up.
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  It's time to to really move with God. And and that means to our listeners,
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  if God is stirring on your heart, follow his promptings. That's right.
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  Call some other guys, get together, pray about it. I had a guy the other day
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  said, man, we need to do this prayer.
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  I said, well, go for it.
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  If ever there's a moment where you're going to have God's favor, it's right now.
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  Right. And and so cooperate with him.
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  So, Kyle, it's just so beautiful. We just wanted to kind of slip this report in.
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  It illustrates so many things that are indicative of what God is doing right
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  now across the nation. And would you pray for that?
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  I want you to pray specifically for the Better Man movement.
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  I mean, it's an amazing thing that's happening.
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  It's a supernatural thing that's happening that we want our listeners,
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  and they can find out about that just going to betterman.com, I guess. That's it.
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  And but pray for that, but just pray for this same God initiated, faith filled,
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  humble cooperation on a part of God's people.
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  Would you would you pray for that for us? And we'll join you. That'd be great.
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  So as we enter in, I would encourage each of us to just ask the Holy Spirit
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  to help us to hear how you can be a part of His work where you are.
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  So, Lord, I'm asking for each of us, show us how to stretch out our soul that
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  we might catch the wind of what you're wanting to do.
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  That you would fill us with your spirit, each listener, in such a way that in
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  the region you've placed us from rural parts of America and the world to city centers,
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  God, would you give us faith to believe for a real move of God?
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  And, Lord, to know how to see you at work and join you in it.
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  And so, Lord, I thank you that your activity is awesome right now. Awesome.
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  And we believe that you are sending a wave. So, Lord, let it build and glorify your name.
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  Bring as many people into your kingdom as possible. shape as many future families.
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  Lord, future men, women, next generation, college students, children.
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  God, I pray for a holistic movement of God among every demographic of people
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  in our nation and the nations, Lord.
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  And so, Lord, let it be. Let it be because you're worthy of it and we need it.
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  And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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  Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much, Kyle. Alan, thank you, OneCry listeners,
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  for hanging with us today.
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  And don't miss next week as we begin this fresh series.
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  We're going to see something really beautiful about what's going on right now,
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  about what went on thousands of years ago.
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  And how you can join in with the activity of God right where you are.
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  So we'll look forward to seeing you next time.
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  Music.