ARE YOU TIRED OF…

• Feeling like you are silenced in isolation?

• Quieting your own voice and wrestling with the feeling that the culture is promoting men to be silent on all issues while demanding you step back from your leadership position?

• Having a lack of leadership with your family, faith, or finances?

• Having the lack of discipline to actually carry out what God has called you to do? You want the will to stand against the cultural headwinds, commit to endure fully to the end and take the necessary steps to obey God’s direction for you, your family and the Kingdom.

• Not knowing where to begin and having no actionable plan? You are overwhelmed by the thoughts of standing against the culture, pursuing your true purpose and potentially changing your personal/family/professional direction.

• Living the Passive Passenger Role?

• Going through the day to day of just “being” and not feeling truly awake?

Meet Matt

Like all of you, I’ve got a life story; Florida boy moves to Arizona in the mid 1990’s (before iPhones and the wheel were invented). Life highlights consisted of Ministry school, the music industry, a beautiful marriage, a miracle son, leadership successes and failures, corporate America, launching a business & planting a church… just to name a few. 

My story is full of ups and downs… Both good times and deep wounds… Great joy and immeasurable pain… Moments of sheer elation and moments of utter devastation… 

Everyone has a story and all of them are messy. But, what are we going to do with that story? See, pain isn’t what makes us unique; it’s what makes us relatable. And there are some things that can only be learned through suffering. I can relate to that for sure. I went from a life of effectiveness and fun that my entire family loved, to a broken & wounded soul with no good explanation as to why everything literally fell apart. God used all of that suffering and disappointment to show me the truth about myself along with the many incorrect things I believed. I had no idea how much the culture left its imprint on me. The closer I got to Christ, the more I realized the extent the culture around me had shaped my beliefs instead of the God I professed to serve. As the revelation of that embarrassing truth increased, so did my detest for the culture. I watched, as have most of us, how a rebellious and wicked culture disfigured truth and drove a message of accepting the irrational as normal. 

Envy became a virtue. 

Hate was pronounced as noble. 

Emotion overruled actions. 

Feelings trumped truth. 

As the culture continued its downward spiral, most of the blame for all things negative was laid at the feet of men. The narrative grew so quickly, loudly and on so many different fronts, I wondered who could effectively refute it. And if we could formulate a good response, would anyone listen? I resigned myself to the fact that I was simply one imperfect man who just needed to keep my head down, work to provide for my family, hope those I loved wouldn’t fall for the culture’s nonsense, and mostly keep my thoughts to myself. But as the insanity of our current culture continued to press, I was reminded of the saying, “All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” I’m a mental picture person so as I thought about these things I visualized and compared 5 pictures:

Picture 1: The life & sacrifice of Jesus. Him enduring the brutal torture of crucifixion, hanging on the cross, and giving his life for all mankind. 

Picture 2: Christ’s disciples were boiled in oil, crucified upside down, imprisoned, beaten & martyred for the purpose of spreading the Gospel while speaking the truth to government officials & religious leaders alike. 

Picture 3: The men who sacrificed their lives, ran from religious leaders, lived under the threat of death, and were eventually executed just to preserve and translate the Bible so we could have the priceless, infallible, Word of God in our hands today.

Picture 4: The three Hebrew slaves who were thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to bow and worship the king’s idol.

Picture 5: A picture of me… sitting silently in a chair because people I don’t know yelled at me on the internet. 

I compared those 5 pictures and as the reality set in, I said out loud… “Nope. I won’t be the one who did nothing.” I wasn’t going to let the picture in Frame 5 be me or any other man I had any influence with if I could help it. Men, we probably won’t get publicity or praise from the culture for being true, God-fearing men. Honestly, we shouldn’t want it. We should wear the culture’s non-attention as a badge of honor and a confirmation we are doing something right. Someone has to stand against the culture, for the betterment of the culture and as an example of the Gospel to the world. 

Men defend and protect their families and the Gospel. 

Men honor their commitment as husbands & fathers, choosing to love and lead their wives & children with strength and courage. 

Men who are fathers deny their children anything they know will hurt them even if the children scream and throw a tantrum. 

Men do what is right and needed…. Not what is self-serving and feels good. 

We need men to be men. Men who kneel only to the cross of Christ and won’t give another inch to a corrupt culture.

You need it, your family needs it and the culture needs it; even if that culture screams like a child begging to touch a hot stove. 

I get it. Standing against the culture can seem like a daunting task. You’re not alone. I’m going to do my best to pour into you the wisdom and experience gained from 22 years of marriage, 20 years of fatherhood, starting a company from the ground up, two decades of ministry, spending a decade in corporate America, and planting a church. Let’s join together as a band of brothers to re-learn, re-commit, and re-establish the Biblical role of men in our world while standing for the truth, as one.

-Matt