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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
In a culture that throws around terms like toxic masculinity, we're just asking, will the real men please stand up? Welcome to The Overflow, and I am totally blown away and excited to have dear, dear friend, pastor Pace Hartfield with us today. And we have the crowd going crazy. We know that. But truly awesome to have you here.
Speaker 1:Pastors, One Place Church, Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Incredible marriage, beautiful family. Just had a son who got married. I mean, life is happening. You planted the church.
Speaker 1:You didn't know anybody but like one family. You built the building. You're building a building right now. I mean, man, we're going to dive in and we will talk about topics like biblical masculinity. You have an incredible voice for men.
Speaker 1:I want to dive into that. Want to really hear your heart on that, but also want to talk about just off the top, big leaps of faith, like Joshua, Caleb, let's go cross the Jordan River. Everybody else says don't, big leap of faith. And, you know, just talk us a little bit, let's start out with your story. You know, you took a huge leap of faith just jumping in and going to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.
Speaker 1:Walk us through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were here in the Dallas Fort Worth area for, you know, serving in a great church for almost sixteen years and really had not thought about stepping out. That was a situation that I had really surrendered to God. I thought about seven years into my time at the church, I wanted to go and do something. And as I began to pray about it, it was almost like God was disciplining me. He's like, Hey, no, you stay here, you be faithful, you steward the vision here.
Speaker 2:And if I ever call you, if I ever invite you into that, you'll know it. And so nine years later, I was in Coeur Nine years later from the seven year
Speaker 1:mark. Wow.
Speaker 2:And so I was in Coeur D'Alene and my wife's sister and her husband moved out there from Pittsburgh just because he wanted to raise his kids somewhere he could shoot elk and And animal and that kind of so I would go out there to fish and just sort of like recover and rest a little bit. And long story short, I was out on one of those chain lakes, sun rising, 04:30AM, and God invited me to plant a church. And there was this release on the inside. And big step, and really in the moment, that invitation felt like release more than anything. And it's really hard to describe, but the way I try to describe it is, it's almost like if you had a toy and you wound it up real tight, but the toy didn't know it was wound up, and then you pushed it and it released all at once, that's what set off on the inside of me.
Speaker 2:And I knew it was an invitation from God of a step of faith. And so, we began to pray about that. Sarah and I began to take prayer walks after church on Sunday. It was a really hard time for me in the short season that we were still there at the church because I'm like, Man, am I disloyal? I didn't want to jump out there just too quickly on what we were going to do because we didn't know.
Speaker 2:And so Sarah and I wanted to get clear. And so we prayed and when we were clear, then we had the conversation and we stepped out. And leaving, you know, comfort and the church was very generous to us. And we knew one other couple and that was family. And
Speaker 1:then we started in a rental home. Man, you know, in church circles, we call that there's church planting and then we call that a parachute drop.
Speaker 2:True parachute drop.
Speaker 1:That's a true parachute. People don't know that term. But it's like you're literally parachuting in to the territory that you're going to occupy. And some other people, they'll go places where they grew up or they have a ton of friends there. They've had ministry exposure there.
Speaker 1:They've done a lot of speaking in an area and they're known. You walk up and you're like, Hi, I'm Pace Hartfield and you don't know me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a bit crazy because we were in this area for sixteen years. That's all our kids knew. Every one of our kids were born and raised here in the church. And we went there and like, to your point, no one knew us and no one knew where we came from or any type of ministry that we had done.
Speaker 2:And so it was starting literally ground zero, you know, step one, Hi, my name is Pace.
Speaker 1:I want to just lock in on that for somebody listening. I really want to unpack that because not everybody's a church planter, right? We're talking seventeen years sowing in, if I'm right, if I added that correctly. You're like seventeen years at that church.
Speaker 2:Sixteen, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sixteen years. You're sowing, you're leading. You're leading at the highest levels that you could lead at that church. On the executive leadership team, you have a network of relationships through that church and through your influence. And for you to then can you imagine to go halfway across America to a place that you don't know the people there except for just a sister-in-law and her husband.
Speaker 1:And, though you're tight with them, they're wonderful people. Mean that's not a strategy for planting a church in terms of having a good core group and all that. That's what I would call a big bold leap of faith. And I just, I can't overstate. I hope that maybe somebody listening can kind of translate that for their career.
Speaker 1:It's almost like you're a medical and you decide to be an attorney. It's like, Okay, I've got all these customers and clients here. And instead of going one town over and being able to overlap, I'm gonna go halfway across. Then nobody knows me. I'm building from scratch all over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you have kids. How old are your kids?
Speaker 2:Well, man, they range from 24 down to 13.
Speaker 1:Yeah. At the time.
Speaker 2:At time, all one year old to 12 year old.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One year old to 12 year old. And I mean that you're looking at the eyes of your little kids and you're like, I gotta provide. Because we're people, you gotta provide for your kids. You're thinking, I gotta provide for the kids, but yet you did it.
Speaker 1:Right. Wow. Yeah, just wild. That's just huge. And then you've grown the church, you've been in theater, right?
Speaker 2:We went from a theater where we started, we planted at Regal, you know, at Riverstone and bumped in and out, you know, morning on Sunday mornings and had all the different theaters. We were there for three and a half years. But all the while, we're looking for space into our building, you know, land into our building, and we got into a leased space. And so, that's where we are currently. But we're also in the middle of building our first campus, super excited about it.
Speaker 2:We call it the Good Land Building Project. It's 48 acres of unbelievable land. Pretty interesting in the space where it lands in our area is that our church is called 1 Place. It's out of Acts two, they gather together in one place. Anyway, this land is situated, and this is just a wink from God, it's the one place where the four cities of North Idaho converge.
Speaker 2:So it's a pretty special piece of property.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and from the property you can see the mountains. I mean, you can see all these homes everywhere around it. It really is a God thing.
Speaker 2:It's a God thing. And you know, that step of faith, you know, our posture really since the moment that I received my calling into ministry, 17 years old, the Mountains Of Tennessee, newly saved, radically saved, just, you know, didn't really grow up in church. Six months later, I'm in the Mountains Of Tennessee at a camp, and a guy was doing a talk on an old, now old song by Stephen Curtis Chapman For the Sake of the Call. And it was on calling, and it was a broad conversation or sermon on calling, and some are called to doctors and some are called to be lawyers and some are called into full time ministry. And that moment, you know, Brennan, I'm still genuinely not over my salvation.
Speaker 2:Amen. I just can't believe that He rescued me. Come on, man. It's a very humbling, crazy thing to know and to be embraced by grace. And then for me, then six months later, to be invited to extend kingdom, to bring heaven to earth and accepting a calling in that.
Speaker 2:And that's been my posture in ministry. Want to stay in a place of humility, but at the same time it's like, Are you kidding me? I get to do this. And so when the invitation came, and that's what I would describe it as, to go play in a church, there was a posture of that it was an invitation. And so, if He was inviting us, then we had faith to believe that He was going to direct it and provide for it, and we didn't know how, we just knew that there was an invitation.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of times when people think about big steps of faith, maybe you think it's kind of like blind faith, but it's really not because Sarah and I have history with the Lord. We personal history where He's done great things. He's done miraculous things. He's done just showing up in hard nights and being the strength in our marriage, being peace in our chaos. And so, we've got history.
Speaker 2:So, whenever the Lord invites us to take a step, or He invites a business person to take a step, maybe He invites a student, Hey, I want you to step away from this group of friends because they're hitting you. And it feels like, you know, it was one of the first big steps of faith I had to take in high school, was I had to step away from my party friends. I still kept them friends, but I just couldn't go to the spots I used to see.
Speaker 1:There was some there.
Speaker 2:But it's not like as if you're stepping out into nothing, and you know, there's one, the invitation from God, but then two, just history from God. So I would say to someone, Hey, as you're looking at maybe taking a big step of faith, remember what you know and what you've experienced about God. And let that build a faith and give you a little bit of momentum in taking that step. I think we want the clarity all at once, but it never comes
Speaker 1:that way. That is brilliant. What I hear you saying is, and I echo this 100%, is your walk with the Lord set the conditions that allowed you to have the confidence to take a big bold leap. It wasn't blind. It wasn't like all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:It was a journey of long walks with Sarah. It was the journey of you finding Christ and beginning to read the Bible and listen. And all of sudden God says, hey, you need some new friends. Or maybe you're attending a church service and somebody says, show me your friends, I'll show you your future. All of sudden you begin thinking about You're setting the conditions.
Speaker 1:And so the question would be, are we putting ourselves in a position for you to, you say, oh, I want to launch a new business. I to run for city council. I to do something big. I want to make a mark. Well, are you doing the small things every day that set the condition for you to have the boldness to take the big?
Speaker 2:Yeah, those big steps of faith are prepared in small steps of obedience. Yeah. So, you're like, Hey, man, if God ever asked me, could I? Well, how do you prepare for those moments? And I believe God wants big steps of faith for all of us.
Speaker 2:But they're going to be found. Your heart's going to be prepared. As you were saying, your posture is going to be made ready by small, consistent steps of obedience.
Speaker 1:So good. You know, it's like the ground from which you leap and the ground to which you are leaping need to be solid ground. Come on. Like, you're in the air here. Right?
Speaker 1:That decision to move to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. The decision for us to I'm very similar story. We started a church far from where our home church was and out in an area where we'd go to grocery stores, nobody knew who we were. And I had two little girls. And I'm thinking, man, what have we done?
Speaker 1:This is crazy. I was in the air. Right? But I leapt from a strong foundation and I landed on a strong foundation. And it was the word of God, the ways of God, the promises of God.
Speaker 1:And that's another thing is when you leap, one another thing I'm hearing from you, when you left, you didn't know that we'll be in Regal Theater. You didn't know when you were in the air, when you were jumping, oh, we're going to get 48 acres. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're going get 48 acres in a strategic area where all these towns come together and it's just this growth area. You didn't have the plan.
Speaker 2:No. We didn't know how we were going to make a living.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Mean, legitimate. We didn't have funding and we didn't plant with an organization. Legit parachute drop. And so, I know for us, our first four years in the history of our church, planting the church, I made more money when I was 25 years old. And now here I am, and I planted it when I was 40 years old.
Speaker 2:And I've got four kids, you know, making not much at all. We took what seems to be steps backwards, to take this giant big big step You
Speaker 1:know, and you didn't have that plan, but you had the promise. That's the deal is the same here. We were fueled by a promise and it almost made me crazy. Like it was like when I did crazy things just believing in the promise. Like I was willing to do this in a way that just sometimes I even look back and I say, Man, I think I was crazy.
Speaker 1:You know, I think I was a little bit crazy. Was I thinking about it? You know, was I but there was just this faith.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And there's a grace in those moments. I think when anyone goes through even, like, really difficult times and you see them stand strong, and you're looking, you're like, I can't believe he's still standing. That person, in hindsight, is gonna say, God graced me with power and strength to do it. And I think the same is true, it's like when you look back and you go, I've taken big steps of faith, you go, Well, graced me.
Speaker 2:Yes, I had to take a step, I had to trust, but He graced
Speaker 1:me to do it. You know, this falls into the category of something I'm passionate about that we talk about a lot from time to time here on The Overflow, and that is dominion. And what we're talking about is dominion. You know, God created us as Adam. God created us and also with Eve.
Speaker 1:But God created us to have dominion, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and govern it. Which means you grab the acre God has given you. And to be able to know for certain what God has given you, you got to walk with God. But the people who really I believe the kingdom of God let's say it positively. I believe the kingdom of God is advanced by people who in their dominion will take big leaps of faith and high risk and in doing so really advance the cause of crisis.
Speaker 1:They push the needle a little bit. And I think that's what you've done in Coeur D'Alene. And I think you'll continue, it's about to be amazing. Your new building is unbelievable. It's incredible design.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be incredible. Now, one of the things that you have done through the years and I've heard you enough to know, man, he has an incredible voice on this. And that is on the topic of biblical manhood. And I really want to, while I have you here, I really want to dive in because you have, first of all, where you minister, I mean, men are men. Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:They're bros,
Speaker 2:bunch of bros.
Speaker 1:Bunch of bros. And tell us about the guys that you minister to. Like you've done it with me and I know what you're about to say, but for everybody listening, especially us Texans, tell us about a good Idaho dude, a bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's an interesting spot. North Idaho is in the Pacific Northwest, but it is a pocket because a lot of times when you think about Northwest, you think, of course, that it would be liberal and maybe very left leaning. Coeur D'Alene, North Idaho, has a little pocket of conservative in the middle of that and very, very libertarian. So in other words, I don't care what you believe, but don't tell me what I should believe.
Speaker 2:So just libertarian, patriotic guys, that's the kind of hunters, outdoorsmen. And you've got all flavors.
Speaker 1:For
Speaker 2:sure. But the dominant guy up there is an outdoorsman, he's a patriot, he's highly independent, he's strong. That's the kind of guy, a little bit stubborn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, And you know, I feel like that, you know, when I think of Keystone, I see guys that are strong. I think I see guy that's a little different brand, but it's that Texas thing. Even if they're transplants, you know, they love, they're drawn to it. And there's a boldness and talking about the big bold, there's a boldness, there's a strength, there's a courage. And I feel like that there's a crisis of biblical manhood in our culture as a whole.
Speaker 1:And I want to continue to just reinforce what it's costing us. First of all, maybe what does the crisis look like and what's it costing us?
Speaker 2:I think it swings two ways on the crisis side. One way it swings to dominance.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:so it's, you know, it's this harsh, rugged, isolated man. Does not have the tender side, does not have, you know, his love, he would say, is exercised just in protecting and just being strong, and it can just be a dominance thing. And then the other side where it also swings is passivity. And so I think we have a crisis on both of this side of like, Oh, this is what a man is, and that's what they're calling toxic masculinity, some of that. And then on the other side, there's a swing to just it's neutered.
Speaker 2:Beta male. Beta male. And so it just goes neutral. And so, neither one of those are God's design for masculinity.
Speaker 1:Let's hit those. Let's start with the engine overheating over here. The guy that's not, he's not alpha male. He's like way off the charts. There's not a letter for him.
Speaker 1:When I hear you talking about that, I understand this. And it is helping him become tender. Love that word. Know men who they'll go hunting and hunting or they'll go golfing and golfing and golfing. They're working, they're working, they're working, they're golfing, they're golfing, they're hunting, hunting, they're fishing, fishing.
Speaker 1:And soon they're neglecting their family. They're neglecting their wife or they have money for a boat, but they don't have money for her to have manicures and pedicures. And they'll find money for their fun stuff, but she's over there just slaving away. And I think that's jacked up and we need to preach that off the cliff. I totally agree with you on that.
Speaker 1:And so, to that guy, maybe it's saying, Hey, how about the tenderness of the Holy Spirit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on.
Speaker 1:To that guy, it's the scripture that says, Men, live with your wives in an understanding way. I think that's first Peter. I don't think it's Ephesians. I don't know for sure. But anyway, but men live with your wives in an understanding way.
Speaker 1:I think that tenderness there. What else would you say to that guy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's first gotta come from a foundation of, you know, you use the word dominion, and it's gotta come from a foundation of a man surrendered, submitted to a God who has invited them in, who has charged them with dominion, and then in that surrender, then it's allowing the Lord to do the work of making the heart soft, you know, for a man to lead his home, to protect, to spiritually lead, to provide for. And I know within a couple that looks different for different couples and strengths, responsibility belongs ultimately first to the man in that. And so they've got to embrace what it means to serve if they're married, they've got to learn to embrace serving their wife. And that requires a tenderness. And so, you know, if you want to start with true manhood, it's got to be a man submitted to God, man submitted to the Lordship of Jesus, and then stewarding that God given dominion with the authority of Christ.
Speaker 1:That's so good. And you sparked a thought and that is one of the things that a message that God's given me I hadn't thought of until you were saying that. And that is I've seen a lot of fruit when I say to men, and I'll say this right now, that, hey, you should work just as hard on your marriage as you do on your career. Some of you have strategies. You'll stay up the night before thinking about a meeting that you're about to have or a strategy to conquer a new, a new field or a new opportunity.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or let's take it into pleasure. You know, I'm I'm guilty of this. I'll I'll man, I will work so hard to figure out how to tie a knot. Yeah. I'll watch videos on tying a knot or how to tie line to line or I'll figure that or I'll I'll I'll oh, let's look at this new lure.
Speaker 1:Hey, is this really gonna work? I'll go try it and I'll I'll throw it in the in the swimming pool and see how it goes. You know? And I'm I'm studying, studying, studying or or maybe for you, you're a, you're a deer hunter and you're in this deer season and you're getting ready. You'll go out to the lease and you'll set everything up, but it's not yet season.
Speaker 1:So you're out there and you don't even fire a shot. Right. And you'll do all this. How about approaching the affection and the romance in your marriage with the same intentionality and energy that you would those things that we would enjoy. I've seen men that's like that clicks on.
Speaker 2:Well, so what they're doing there is like, have to take up responsibility. And I think that's one of the ways that the enemy robs from men is they skirt responsibility because of the draw of comfort. There's a great book, and I forget the author, but it's called Comfort Crisis, and it talks about how everything in life now is built around our comfort and having things our way and at the touch of our fingertips, being able to get things. And so, there's an invitation always for men to take the easy way out and comfort and it can land in passivity. And not passivity, and sometimes people think passivity as being a weak, limp wrist man.
Speaker 2:No, passivity could be what you're describing. Passivity could be, I don't win the day with my wife. I don't win the driveway. And what I mean by that is when I pull up after a day of work, you know, what biblical manhood looks like is, man, I win the driveway. I get my mind right, my heart right, my mindset right before I walk in the door.
Speaker 2:Yes, I walked out of my workplace where I exercised dominion and I was strong and I did those things, but my wife needs me, my kids need me. So I don't want to be passive in that. A lot of times we come home from work, get on the couch, we're like, Oh man, I just gotta but your kids need you to be dad, your wife needs you, and so it's winning the driveway. So passivity can just look like comfort, and go, Well, you know, I've just had a hard day.
Speaker 1:I've earned
Speaker 2:it. I've earned it. Sit back on the recliner, watch ESPN three times in a row and just check out. That's passivity. That's real true passivity.
Speaker 1:It's so good. One the phrases in the last eighteen months that God has given me, and it applies exactly to what you're talking about. And that is we give ourselves permission to behaviors that are not our best. Wow. We give ourselves permission and the permission is I've worked really hard.
Speaker 1:You may or may not be, but maybe you would say I'm the lead income earner and I just did all this and I've worked really hard. So I'm going to go relax. I'm going to go chill. And you've given yourself permission to be passive by that definition. You've given yourself to be unintentional, to not take responsibility.
Speaker 1:And I would just say piggybacking on your point that man, when you get home, win the driveway, what a great phrase, win the driveway. When you're sitting there and you're about to get in before you pull that car into garage, just sit there assuming you're dialed in enough to have space in your garage. But when you pull into that garage, I'm challenging somebody right now, but that you are like, okay, I'm tired, but I'm gonna give them the next twenty minutes and I'm gonna be great. I'm gonna walk in. I'm gonna hug my wife.
Speaker 2:Come
Speaker 1:on. I'm gonna come in. I'm gonna get on my knees and play with the kids. That's it. They're little.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you go and you back out of like, Why do I do that? Well, it is part of biblical manhood, it is part of stewarding dominion. And you know, men oftentimes have vision for certain things, they have vision for their hobbies, they have vision for maybe their work, their career, their future. But what about your preferred future for your marriage? What about your preferred future for your finances?
Speaker 2:What about your preferred future for what are your kids going to remember you as, you know, as dad? So, all that is what gives you the passion and the desire, it's that vision, that preferred future. And then it's now let's steward it. And what's really amazing is I believe there's dominion and then there's creative dominion. So as you begin to exercise dominion of, Hey, I've got to start first with me and the Lord.
Speaker 2:Then if I'm married, it begins with my family. Of course, in that physical dominion, my body, my health, my mind. And then now I'm into my wife, my family. And now, you're talking like I have a thing I call the clarity stack. Dominion begins with the clarity stack with the foundation of my passionate pursuit of God, and then right after that is my physical, mental, spiritual health because that's foundational.
Speaker 2:And then moving into my relationships with my wife, my spouse, or my kids, and then my friendships, I'm not until four or five rugs up until I get into my actual assignment. And so, a preferred future and vision and all of those things and stacking them, a lot of times on masculinity for men, it broken because their lives are legit out of order. So they're starting at the foundation of career. Wow. And their self worth and their identity is all foundation and career, instead of foundation Who I am and Whose I am in Christ.
Speaker 2:And then of that, Body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of that, I have been invited to have dominion. I need to steward that. And that begins with my wife, my family. And then it stacks up and as we have clarity in those things, we can be true biblical men.
Speaker 1:So the goal that everybody just heard, okay, I want to frame what we just heard because I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying this, I'm taking a leap of faith. You coach a lot of leaders, You help a lot of leaders unlock their potential. I think we just got a freebie. I think you just gave us some of your coaching gold. Am I right or wrong?
Speaker 1:I knew it. I knew it. You were giving us a I just
Speaker 2:read that file.
Speaker 1:You were giving us a freebie right there. Thank you for that. No, that was gold. Stacking it and getting those priorities. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:And the word that you used that I could tell you've used it many times before, this is in your core and that is the actions and behaviors that will create a better future, a preferred future.
Speaker 2:What's your preferred future? Which is another way of saying what's
Speaker 1:your vision?
Speaker 2:What's your vision for these areas in your life?
Speaker 1:That's so good. Okay. So what about the other side of it? You've got the beta male, the passive on the other side where there's a lack of strength. And some of what I've seen there is it's guys that you're in a marriage and you don't want to rock the boat anymore.
Speaker 1:You just kind of want to come over here. You're tired of the fight. You're tired of really just kind of trying to push the needle. And so you're just done rocking the boat. You're happier this way.
Speaker 1:And so what happens is you have stepped back in your leadership role and you have just abdicated it and you just kind of get real quiet in your home. And I've seen this. I'm like, come on, man. Where are you? Where are you?
Speaker 1:And find your voice, find your vision. How else would that look like for you? What else are you seeing out there?
Speaker 2:I think primarily it's driven going back to just the side of comfort. To your point, I don't want to push in on this conversation because we've had it 15 times and it seems to go nowhere. I don't think a passive male is typically rebellion. It's not out of rebellion, I think it's out of a comfort. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, you know, the reality is, this is what's cool, is that one of the roles the Holy Spirit has for our lives is comforter. So as I live my life submitted, controlled by, filled with, continually filled with the Holy Spirit, He comforts me so that I can go do uncomfortable things. If you're not living under the power and the comfort of the comforter, then you're what happens is pride steps in and takes the place of the comforter, the Holy Spirit, and you begin to step back where you should be stepping up. And all the while, listen, God is going to invite you and charge you to step out and to lead. And yes, that will be uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:So we've got to push away from this idea of, I want to live my life in such a way that I'm comfortable. Well, let the Holy Spirit comfort the inside storms. Let the Holy Spirit help settle who you are and whose you are in Christ. And let's lead out of that. So then, when I have to go have a hard conversation, when I have to face the things in my life, you know, marriage is a mirror, right?
Speaker 2:And I'm looking in the mirror and I don't like what I'm seeing. And it always leads in, you know, conflict with my wife. Well, if I'm lead and submitted to the Holy Spirit, He's gonna give me the ability to go, the perseverance, the tenderness, the right words to step in to the uncomfortable situation and then lead.
Speaker 1:Okay. It's time to get raw on on this one point because I know about you and you know about me. We both married very strong women. Yes. And and truly, I'll just speak for myself.
Speaker 1:Susan is Italian right up to her knees, and she earns all of that real estate of what you would think of. No, she's very strong. She's a brilliant leader. She's a great, great convictional gal. She's a truth girl.
Speaker 1:And so we both, and you can talk about Sarah, but we both lead strong women. And I have my thoughts. But what's it like for you being a leader in a home where some men might just be like, go, you do it. You're strong. You're good.
Speaker 1:You're a great leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna I'm gonna kick it back over here and let you drive the train.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think this is probably true of Susan as well, but as strong as Sarah is, she also wants me to lead. Amen. Yep. And trust me to lead. But know this, know, God has created her to be my helper, to be my helpmate.
Speaker 2:And it's a gift. And what that means is I truly cannot be all that God designed me to be and do all that God designed me to do without my wife. Amen. So it is like equal but not equivalent, right? There's the, Hey, we have different roles, certainly, but both so necessary.
Speaker 2:So for me leading and walking alongside our family with Sarah, man, you know, it can be spicy conversations, you know, respectful pushback.
Speaker 1:I have actually been in your presence whenever I hear, Babe, she'll say, Babe, isn't
Speaker 2:that right? Yeah. Usually there's something coming after
Speaker 1:that. Same here. I mean, and for you and me, ministry never turns off. We're getting ready in the morning, we're talking about the church, we're talking about meetings that day, we're talking about vision. She's talking about, hey, have you seen this person lately?
Speaker 1:She has that heart as a leader as well. I know you guys live that way as well, but I agree. Susan and I did a podcast together on submission and just roles in marriage and talking about the equivalence, the equal, that there's no lack of leadership in our home. Our kids would say, yeah, Susan leads, leads, leads. But Susan would tell you that headship is a different topic.
Speaker 1:Leadership is one thing, but headship is another. Headship is a singular thing. Anything with two heads is a monster as we've always heard. And I'm the one who's gonna be responsible for the Lord for the ultimate spiritual direction, but the ultimate direction provision of the home. That doesn't mean a wife can't make more money than the husband.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, that's not her responsibility. That's your responsibility. So leading strong women. But a lot of guys, they're in the face of strong women like ours, they will shrivel, shrink, and move back.
Speaker 2:When sometimes that's got to do with how they were parented. And sadly, it's because they had a passive dad. And so they had a strong mom and mom stepped up because dad didn't step up. And he was passive and checked out and, you know, just career driven, wasn't a great father or great husband. And so it's been modeled.
Speaker 2:And so some men go and marry their mom. They look to find mom. They look to find who's just going to coddle me and, let me be passive and let me be weak and let me just do my thing.
Speaker 1:Well, that's so true. Okay, so what's the cost when men are not stepping into their God given role of strength, tenderness, voice, vision, headship, what's it costing us? And I'll get us started. I think there's a cost to the family. I think that it affects parenting.
Speaker 1:I think there's a cost and we can go each one, I think there's a cost to the family. I think there's a cost to our church and I think the world feels it. So kind of walk us through any of those for you, the cost. What's this doing, this crisis?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Certainly, the the fabric of any great community, country, any great nation is the family. The family is the microcosm of a nation. So the the great cost first to the family, because if it can break down in the family, it can break down the nation. And that's what we've seen here in America. Ultimately, you know, the cost can be losing a nation that has a heritage, you know, a Christian heritage, because we are not walking out the dominion that God has called us to walk out, to exercise, to steward.
Speaker 2:So it is crazy. It starts with, one, first your personal walk with God that cost you not being all God created you to be. Like what a miss, the full potential that the Creator of the universe has placed in you, the invitation to go and to have dominion, you lose that. But then yes, then that floods into every other relationship marriage, kids, friends, work, and then obviously works its way into society, community, state, a nation.
Speaker 1:Think you're so right because I think we take for granted the exceptional nature of our nation because it was founded on Judeo Christian principles and ethics and overtly Christian. If you've ever studied this, you cannot study this, the founding of our country. I mean, I'm talking read the original documents, read the original founders and no, not all of them were evangelical Christians as we would define it later. But there was a decided focus on the ways of faith and that DNA of men leading and men in the homes and certainly not perfect. And through culture and history, the church has been the voice and strong men in the church and strong women.
Speaker 1:We have moved the needle closer and closer to what we think it should look like, but we are losing something. With passive men, you're beginning to see a generation that doesn't respect leadership, doesn't embrace leadership. We have people that are stepping out of making a difference for comfort, for playtime, checking out instead of stepping up. Our nation, the moral fabric is starting to unravel. And we're seeing children raging because the fathers are not there.
Speaker 1:You see the statistics of if you have a father who comes to Christ first, the percentage of the rest of the family coming to Christ is exponentially higher than if anybody else in the home comes to Christ first. Wow. It's unusual. I mean, that's just cold stats. And that's not to say, Hey, if you're a mother and you're coming to Christ and you're praying for your lost husband and your kids to come to Christ, Hey, let's go.
Speaker 1:We will be with you. But there is power in these men stepping into that dominion. I do believe it impacts the social fabric of our country, 100%.
Speaker 2:100%. 100%.
Speaker 1:It's costing us, it's costing the church. For years, you and I came up in a ministry environment where women were the dominant doers. I saw some statistics recently and I wish I had this with me, but I didn't know we would go here. But I saw some statistics recently where actually there's a resurgence of church and word of God, interest in the word of God. And it's not being led by the women, it's being led by the men.
Speaker 1:Yes. Come on. That they're actually advancing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm just wondering, man, is God just preparing the church for a revival and for what's coming next?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I heard, I can't remember if it was something that I read, maybe it was a podcast that I'd heard. But it talked about in the history of America, through war and the loss of a lot of men, World War I, World War II, how you begin to see the decline of leadership in churches. Because you think about World War II and even into Vietnam, but the draft in men being called out and those that were left behind, for lack of better words, were maybe either too old or unable, and so maybe are not going to be in a place of strong leadership while all the other men are gone. And so the women were left to lead.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:And so a part of our history in the nation is then when some of these men came back and they have PTSD and now there's this dominance like everything in the church is now mauve and there's flowers everywhere.
Speaker 1:Like what just happened?
Speaker 2:What happened? You know, we went to war and whatnot. We used
Speaker 1:to have hard benches. That's what I want. I want to sit on a wood bench.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But anyway, all that just to say is part of, you know, a cost of war, and even in our nation, was we lost a lot of great men and we're still rebuilding, you know, that. So I think that's part of why we're seeing some of the moral fabric, as Hugh said, the unraveling, you know, in America.
Speaker 1:You know, Pace, it's not a zero sum game. It's not men or women, women or men. You don't have to have strong men at the expense of strong women. And you don't have strong women at the expense of strong men. I believe our marriages would scream this, Hey, God's great design is that we are all as strong as God would make us to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We'd be thriving in our gifts and then we would see great things happen.
Speaker 2:Come on. Yeah. I heard somebody say, you know, in biblical manhood and even in marriage, if you have the heart as a husband and wife to bless one another, you know, mutual submission, surrender, you know, then you have two blessers, and two blessers is going to be a great marriage. If I'm looking to Sarah, it's like, Hey, what do you want? How can I serve you?
Speaker 2:What do you need? And then she's doing that for me, it's great. But then lot a of times what you can have is you can have a taker and a blesser, and that ends in abuse typically, could be verbal abuse, could be physical abuse, but there's someone just kind of lording over, so it's a taker versus a blesser. Or you could have a taker and a taker, and that's just hell,
Speaker 1:that's
Speaker 2:conflict, that's fighting nonstop. And so biblical manhood, of course, is first founded in submission, surrender to God, understanding my role, who I am and whose I am in Him. And then that gives me a confidence, gives me a peace to then to it's found in real true surrender. And it's found in understanding, you know, my call. It's not in I think when we think about strong men, you know, it's about dominance.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's actually surrender. Right. Love your bride as Christ loved the church.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been an incredible conversation and like good friends, we're not done, but I'm seeing the clock and That's we're why it's called The Overflow. We love to just bring the conversation a little bit further, a little bit more than maybe we would have time on the weekend from a sermon or from a lobby conversation. And I just wanna say thank you, Pace, for joining us in The Overflow. We know that you've been blessed, and we pray that through this conversation, we will build stronger men, stronger marriages, stronger families. And God, would you build your church?
Speaker 1:So we'll see you next time on The Overflow.