This is the United States Champion. Leave me. My first stop. Ladies and gentlemen. The following contest is set for one flaw.
Introducing first from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kola.
Now, the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Vision, vision, vision. What's the vision? What vision do you have for your life?
Seeking the city. Today we're going to talk with Mark Taylor about seeking the city, his vision, what God has put on his heart, and see just where this conversation goes. I think you're going to be intrigued by what Mark has to say. Mark, welcome to the Man Up Show. I appreciate it.
Thanks, Nikita, for inviting me.
Well, it's great to have you here. Of course, you're the founder of Seeking the City. We're going to jump into and dive into that a little bit more here as the story unfolds. But before we get to there, talk about that specifically. I know you're a native of Louisiana, yeah, now living in Georgia, right?
That's right. What part of Louisiana do you come from? Yes, dead center, Alexandria, Louisiana. Most of my family's in Cajun country, central, south central Louisiana, but but right in the heart, Alexandria.
So 318 area code. I got it. I got that. I picked up on that.
So I have never wrestled there, but I have had. quite a number of friends over the years who back in the day when it was called Mid South, Cowboy Bill Watts, I know ran that city Pretty frequently, and some of my buddies, including Crusher Khrushchev and the million-dollar man Ted DiBiase, as well as Hacksaw Jim Dugan and Junkyard Dog, many others frequented the the the Civic Center uh there in Alexandria. That's right. Did you grow up a wrestling fan at all out of curiosity? I did.
And probably until the early 90s, wrestling was much different after that, as you know. But I was a fan. And I think as I got into my high school years and college years, I kind of put that as far as the viewing ship away. But I've always been intrigued by. that industry and that profession, that career.
And um Yeah, I was definitely a a f a fan.
Now, do you we would always go to Memphis. That was Mid South Wrestling. Oh, okay, Mid South, uh, as well. Yeah, well, Jerry Lawler, the King, right? That's right.
So you were close to so somewhat close to Memphis then? Yeah, we were in East Arkansas. My dad was in the military, and I was in junior high at that point. We'd go over to yep, to uh West Memphis and Memphis to watch Mid South Wrestling. And uh of course uh Lawler's made you know, quite a quite a name for himself and made Memphis Mem there's a couple of guys that kind of made Memphis famous.
Uh it's he I I'm trying to rack my brain the other guy's name there, uh uh he's got a big house there too. Um Oh, oh, uh Oh, Elvis, yeah, that's that's right. I was definitely a fan of Elvis. Got to see him when I was seven years old. Did you really?
Before he passed away. That was at That was in Alexandria at the Rapids Parish Coliseum, but five months before his passing in no way. I saw him in March 77. He did two shows. And uh And so, of course, Graceland is the house I'm making a reference to.
So, on that note, I've got to tell you this.
So, I was a senior in high school. And he was coming to Minneapolis that spring.
So, actually, you know what? If you saw him in March. I want to say he was scheduled in Minneapolis in April, I think.
Okay? And I don't know if I was just too cheap or the tickets cost too much or whatever, but for whatever reason, I didn't buy a ticket. I said, I'll catch him next time he's in town. One of those kind of deals. Right.
And so I didn't go. And ran into some folks who did go after the concept, and they said, oh my gosh, it was so good. I'm like, oh man, that's, I don't. I'm going next time no matter what. And then those tickets were $10, Nikita.
Ah. I don't know what it was. It might have been more in Minneapolis. It was $10. I'll show it to you sometimes.
Well, that was in Alexandria. In Minneapolis, it might have been $12, you know. That's right. Anyway, and then a couple, you know, then he passes away, and I'm like kicking myself, but still kicking myself for not going, you know.
Now, I've been to Grace. Have you been to Graceland then? Uh last time I went was several years back. Um my son wanted to go. He became an Elvis fan on his own, you know, with satellite radio and uh you know, Elvis is still influencing many.
not just music artists, but also in T V and movies and even cartoons. And so that's kind of where he was, I think, exposed to originally. Of course, then with Satellite Radio, Serious XM channel, Elvis. Shout out to them, but they've done a great job. And then, of course, now with the museum and how they've expanded with the hotel there and made a big deal out of Elvis Week and all that, it's still very much influenced.
Matter of fact, I saw some tours recently that are traveling around the United States, two different tours. different impersonators so even after all these years 50 plus years later Still being an explorer. It's crazy, right? I remember the very first time, so you might appreciate this: the very first time I toured Graceland. Was with a guy by the name of Duth Rose, the son of a plumber from Austin Tecteth, if you will.
I love it. Dusty die. For some reason, I don't know. We just like, we were, yeah, I think we maybe wrestled the night before or something in Memphis. I think we were doing a show with the king, Jerry Lawler, and said, hey, let's go see the real king of rock and roll.
Let's go tour Graceland. Can you imagine the Russian nightmare and the American Dream walking around Graceland? Oh my gosh.
Now, I have to ask, did he wear his flag bandana or what? Oh, yeah. No, he always, you know, sunglasses. I mean, you know, Dusty always had something funny. flashy or flamboyant, right?
And I don't know. I think we got as much as many autographs or and or pictures taken as as the Graceland itself. I'm not I'm not sure. But 'cause back in those days we were pretty recognizable, right?
So like you said, it was a different era of wrestling. And so, yeah.
So, all right.
So so you mentioned your son. T take a minute. Tell us about your family. Yeah, I'm proud daddy of uh son Mason, sixteen. and uh my daughter Ansley, who's twelve.
and two different kids, but both great. And I'm just so proud of being their dad and what God has done in their life. And is is Jesus' followers themselves. They've had their own paths.
So Well, and as they need to, right? And as they should. And for you. Uh a forty six year follower of Jesus? Yeah, nine years old.
I was in Stuttgart, Germany. My dad was in the military, and we were part of a church fellowship there, and mostly military families. But then there were some that had defected from the old uh Czechoslovakia and Romania and after the fall of communism in those countries and So it was a nice mix of military families and then locals that just lived in the city, mostly older senior adults. That were from these other countries, and so that we had a fellowship, and that's where I came to know the Lord and came to place my faith in the Lord. Began walking as a Jesus follower, baptized there, and then it's been a journey since.
And you just hit the key. It is a journey, isn't it, Mark? Yes, sir. It really is a journey. I want all the listeners out there to understand that because, you know, you're listening to Mark.
Taylor's story today, and you know, I realize not everybody that tunes into the Man-Up show. Is a Christ follower, and you just enjoy the conversations. But at the same time, I encourage you, if you're not, You know, to consider that, because it is certainly, I think I can speak for myself, the best decision I've ever made. For my life, and you just heard Mark say nine years old in Germany. That's pretty big.
What a great memory that is, Mark. Probably one of my favorite places that I lived was Germany because it's the size of the state of Ohio. You could travel across it and be in other countries. in a short period and now with railway systems and the Europass and all that and how inexpensive it is, you can be a lot of places quick. And if you're there, it's like it was every weekend was a vacation.
If you're there and don't enjoy Austria, Switzerland and all those France, everything that's around you, it's your own fault. But I tell friends, you know, when I was in college, you're probably always going to be paying on something.
So if you have to take out a personal loan to go to Europe before you die, it's worth it. It's just a unique place. I had I've been of course I've been I've been to Germany, been to France, um I've been to actually been to Romania. You mentioned Romania and Moldova, parts of Eastern Europe. But it is one of the things I've had on my list for a while now.
You mentioned the EuroPass. That was kind of my vision: get a EuroPass and travel for Europe for a month or two and just see everything I could see in however much time I was there.
So you just encouraged me to you just refired that up in me again. I have to revisit that and see when I can do that.
So So you're in Georgia now, but prior to Georgia, I know you were in vocational ministry. You've served on a couple church staffs. You've been involved in church planting. Take a moment. You talked about traveling, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia.
Where have you been? uh statewide state si aside and and enjoyed Was the church planting challenging? Was it fun? Talk to us about that for a moment. Yeah, I graduated high school my senior year.
My dad re retired from the military in North Dakota, close to where you're from. Originally and um we uh Retired mina in North Dakota. God brought us to Kentucky. My dad began pastoring there, pastored for 31 years after. In the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky after the military, and I started college there, graduated high school, started college.
I received a degree, bachelor's in uh Christian education. Pursued a calling to youth and children's ministry, and then I served in every role in the church except for. senior pastor, a lead pastor of a church, but I I was a part of some church planning teams and some of those grew tremendously and God bless in mighty, mighty ways. And then there was some that just have kind of stayed smaller congregations, but both very effective in their communities and important in their communities. And then when I came to Georgia, I was a part of a church planning team.
with uh the North American Mission Board. in Georgia Baptist and then I've got an organization now called Seeking the City. We're a a missions organization here in West Georgia. In nineteen ninety-three, i i if I recall, you you Really, kind of launched it.
So, you launched into ministry the same year I surrendered my life and my heart to the Lord.
So, that's right.
So comparable time timeline there.
So seeking the city, so what's the focus there with seeking? The city, take a minute and tell us about that. Yeah. Our aim is to identify people and places that need The good news of Jesus and his gospel, his salvation. that He offers a new life in Christ that they can experience And those that may be listening may not fully know what that means.
Maybe you've heard something, but you're not sure. or just never have heard, but um In that, we identify people and places that need Jesus the most, and here in West Georgia, particularly. Ticolese our mission field. That's really three counties. primarily to start.
and about five major communities. We've got about 120,000 people in just one county alone. Out of those three counties. And so we want to help churches be good neighbors again and be outwardly focused, do good for their neighbors. Awful God's glory in the good of the city, but in that They may then end up being part of our faith communities and our churches.
and their lives would be enhanced in that way. Right. We Basically, we are looking to help inspire and mobilize a gospel missionary movement. of um Again, sharing Jesus with every person, every city. every day in West Georgia.
That's pretty pretty Pretty Bold, pretty big vision there.
So when you say, you know, identify those, you know, I just kind of in my mind see identify those who have a need, or do you do outreaches? Or what what what way, how do you go about that? How do you go about reaching those folks? Specifically. Yes, our pathways for our mission is threefold.
It's One pathway, and this is kind of our what we call a gospel mission ecosystem. It's a network of a diverse coalition of churches and faith-based nonprofits. other organizations in the community and then individuals of course and um we in this ecosystem. I have three things. It's city outreach.
It's community transformation initiatives and then also multiplication which can include planting new churches. You're listening to The Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs. Adoration and declaration. for a gift of $50.
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Okay. Wow. And uh wha when did you launch Seek in the City? I officially launched that in November of 2021. Took a couple of years to develop.
Okay. And then, you know, Is a process, of course, with boards and all the stuff. The legal stuff, and then we began actually doing ministry first through prayer. We have some prayer initiative we call Unceasing. The Bible teaches us to, you know, in all things you do, do never stop ceasing to pray for others, for yourselves.
for needs of people. We began with prayer. We started with a large prayer network and we started just doing needs assessments in the community, whether that be the mayor of the city, that could be the police chief. uh different organizations, businesses, and find out what are the needs, what are what is the what's needed most in our city, what's happening at our University of West Georgia campuses, our high school campuses, wherever it may be, we were identifying needs so we know what to pray for. And then we had a large network of people that we would send out a weekly prayer guide that would know what to pray for.
That is involved now into what we call cover the campus, which started at the University of West Georgia in the fall of last year. That was the first Sunday of each month, getting on for 30 minutes and praying virtually in Zoom. In the Zoom room to begin praying for the university, and God's doing incredible things at universities all across our nation. And so we began praying for the University of West Georgia. And that kind of began to.
They were through social media, the power of social media. There were students at University of Mississippi State University, Shorter, other closer regional schools that began to pray as well. And now we've got regular prayer happening in different ways with collegiate ministries. And so we don't do the monthly But that was kind of the catalyst for it. And then now we also have part of that prayer ministry.
We also have under unceasing. I'll cover Carrollton.
So in Carrollton, Georgia, there's about 30,000 people, and so we have 1,108 streets. And so we're praying until all streets are covered. And that's praying just for our neighbors.
Well, prayer is powerful, as we know, and it's a great vision in implementing what you're doing, getting with church leaders or city leaders, I should say, getting with city leaders and just finding out what their needs are. I was down in Carrollton, Georgia, just a while back, and we had the opportunity to meet in person. And do I remember this right? Like, you were invited to something I was doing, but didn't fully know what it was when you came. Nikita, you had to point that out.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Anybody that's listening, I had no idea what I was getting into, but all I knew was that I thought I was invited to a private time to eat, a dinner, and I thought that's what I was, you know, and I knew of Nikita, of course, as a wrestler, his career, his profession, but I had no idea. I thought I was just going to meet you on a Saturday night before you were going to be speaking at this church. on Sunday morning and got ahead of the plans. And you were there actually as Part of doing a man-up event.
And that was a very intentional, intensive day of a nine to four event of. Really covering All things that we deal with in our life, mental, physical, spiritual. And uh, but you know, it was interesting, God was already doing some things in those areas of my life that I needed to grow in and wanted to grow in, and then you. It just uh happened to be that that's what the event was for. And I ended up staying most of that day and then of course getting to know you and then of course leading to some other things that we've done together.
As well, which I'm excited about. Yeah, so the timing of it all, so you came to the Man Up Conference and uh and you know, I do those uh for any pastors listening out there, I do those in just local communities. We do it uh do it on a Saturday, and then typically I will stay over and and preach on on Sunday, and and of course, down there in in Carrollton, Pastor Randy. Randy's church, and yeah, pretty amazing outreach. Of course, you know, and then, and we do, we cover it, we try to, you know, Lux Luger and I had a vision for these conferences and for these camps.
We'll talk about that in just a moment with the objective, the idea of being, you know, empowering men to be godly men and godly husbands and godly fathers and godly grandfathers and just giving them the tools, right? The tools to be able to go home and implement that. And so we get a lot of great feedback from the conference, the one-day conference. I kind of call that Mark the appetizer, even though it's a lot of information in a short period of time, right? But that's really like the appetizer because then you're introduced to the man camp.
that we launched a number of years ago. You came and experienced that. Take a minute or two and just highlight one or two things real quick on your man Camp experience. A year yeah, that was a week long this past April. I think you do it in April and then October.
Same camp, but two different times of the year, make it flexible or feasible for people to attend. But I was there for a week and literally we left our phones. We kind of have a way for people to get a hold of us, but just being out there with other men Who are pursuing God and growing in our knowledge of who we are as men. Who he should be, could be his men, being out there during that week and just kind of getting away from the daily grind and the responsibilities. And knowing we would go back to those, but we'd go back as better men.
If we embraced, I think. You know, the fullness of what you and Lex and the staff are trying to pour into us, invest into us. give us tools and foundation for. It really kind of gave me the ability to get away and really learn more about who I was. I think I'd kind of drifted in.
In some, you know, I think in some understanding of kind of what my future and some how I was leading in my organization, being a dad. being a church member, all that. It's a thing that it gave me the ability to step away. and to be get my head clear not have all of the communication and the things that are in our lives But just to be able to step back and say, who do I Who do I feel that I'm called to be? Who do I want to be?
Who who's What do I desire to be? And I think that the tools you gave us, I think you all had used a statement. We we just prepare the table. We can't force you to eat, but if you'll partake God can do extraordinary things any did.
So there were things that I got clarity on, there were things that I grew in, there were things that I was able to deal with that I think were. were necessary to help propel and to lead me to who I'm supposed to be going forward and came back as a totally different man. Mm-hmm. No, that's powerful. There were several things I was writing down as you were sharing, you know, really what you're alluding to with technology, et cetera, as distractions.
Right, whether it's setting the phone aside and putting the computers away or whatever other things we can be distracted by. And then the setting of, I wrote down the word reflection, right? And kind of heard that as you were kind of sharing your heart there, that you had the opportunity to just reflect on who you are. And then two words that came to mind too were embrace. And engage.
And so, for the guys, as you're fully aware, Mark, for the guys who Who will embrace the weak, engage while they're there? A good majority of those guys do walk away, as you mentioned, you know, different in different respects, different aspects. Like for some, God, like if you go on the website, and you'll see literally before and after pictures of guys of physical transformations, guys who came in out of shape, overweight, unhealthy, and God convicted them and said, look, that's my temple. Take care of it. And so you'll see some of those stories.
You'll see stories of how um marriages have been restored, relationships with dads and daughters and dads and sons. And the last thing I would say is Or or I wrote down is the word healing. Healing. We've seen so many men that have come into camp. you know, broken.
Hurting not everyone. I mean, some guys, Mark, you came in in a pretty good state of mind, but yet while you were there, God was able to hone some things, right? Sharpen some things while you were there, right?
So that's right. Pretty, pretty. Yeah, I think there were some things from my past that I think that were holding me back from being. uh in in living in the the full Fullness of maximized manhood. I really believe that.
And so dealing with that and being given the tools to be able to do that, giving the hope that that could actually happen. gave me so much more Clarity and hope to walk into a much brighter future. That's good. And that's been transferred into finances, health. different things, relationships surely.
Yeah. And that's part of the goal, part of the vision for the ladies out there listening. If you're a wife or you're a mom, or you got that significant other in your life, that man that you can encourage, don't pressure him, but just encourage him to consider man camp. Our goal is to equip these guys, empower these guys to be able to walk in the fullness of who they are to be in Christ, right?
So, I like to say it this way: a whole man. living a holy life, who makes himself wholly available Unto the Lord.
So, well, Mark, before we run out of time, where is there somewhere people can go to find out more about Seeking the City and more about Mark Taylor? Website Seeking the City, Seeking with the G, SeekingtheCity.org, and of course social media. Under the same name as well. And then the Seeking the City podcast. We're just wrapping up our first season and hope to have you on very soon.
I'm looking forward to it. We'll get a date scheduled. I'd certainly be honored to be on your podcast. And so, Seeking the City, check out Mark Taylor. And if you want more information, ladies out there, or guys, or guys, you know, you're listening and you're like, hey, man, I'm interested in this camp.
Where do I get more information? Go to Man, just simply Man Camp. Dot info I n f o mancamp.info, and you'll get all the information you need there. You can get registered. And it's intent.
Now, let me just say this to you: it's intentional. We don't put a ton of information up there. Mark, would you agree with what I'm about to say? When I say, you know, a lot of guys, you know, want to know, you know, they want to see a schedule. They want to, you know, what all we got to do there, right?
Everything, right? But I try to tell guys, like, you know, it's different. The experience, I tell you, it's not an event, it's an experience. And it's usually basically different for every single guy. Mark Taylor comes into man camp and God knows exactly what he needs, right?
Nikita Koloff comes into man camp and God knows what I need. You come into man camp, he's going to know what you need. And so we intentionally don't talk a whole lot about the mechanics of it. We just say, come and experience it for yourself. And just be ready to encounter God.
And man, by the time. Very purposeful. Everything is very purposeful there. It just. Yeah, it it is an intentional week.
It's just not it's intentionally designed to not give you all the details. Yeah, yes, that as a that is a great way to say it, you know, and and so mancamp.info, go uh get more information on that. One more time for s uh seeking the city, Mark. How can they find out more? Yes, just seekingthecity.org.
And then our podcast with Apple, Spotify, YouTube channel. All right. Mark Taylor, thank you for being a part of the Man Up Show today. I appreciate you, Nikita. Likewise, and for all of you out there, all you faithful listeners, week in and week out.
I just want to encourage you. I hope you were. encouraged by some of Mark's story today, something he said just maybe ignited something inside of you. How can you go out and make a difference for your community? For your city, what can you do?
to impact your city. impact your community. Till next time. Go out today and just have a God-filled and a God-blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God.
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