Where are the Millennials? Part 2

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy.

Welcome to Man Talk Radio. It's so good to have you back with us. I'm Roy Jones.

And I'm Will Hardy. And we're just excited to have Dom back with us again from the crossing. Last week, we spoke about where are the Millennials and why are they missing in action. So we're going to pick a little bit of that conversation back up, and then we're going to get more into a little bit of the current affairs and what's going on in the world today and specifically what we're dealing with in the U.S. as with the temperature between the race relations and, you know, from all the things that have gone on and the unfortunate behaviors of some officers and that sort of thing.

So let's let's move on. Dom, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me. It's been fun.

It's really, really good. I know last week we we touched a little bit on one of the big issues is the fact that a lot of young people, they didn't have a father figure in their life. And I know on here, you guys talk about that a lot, right?

Like you talk all the time about, you know, the father missing at home and there's no one there. And I think that that's such a crucial aspect of the growth of a young individual. Right. For millennials, for anyone. Right. It doesn't matter.

Millennial, whatever. You need to have a father figure in your life. You have to have someone who's going to tell you, discipline you to do the right things like that. Just it just has to be a part of of our lives. And so, you know, one of the things that I wanted us to kind of shift in is to talk about the racial tension that's going on in America right now. I mean, there's, there's just a lot of it.

And, um, I think one of the main, one of the main difficulties and one of the things that we're not necessarily talking about is the black father in the home, you know, and, and I've, you know, I'm looking at Roy or not, not where I'm looking at. Well, I'm not folks. We're, we look so much alike. Dom can't figure out which one of us is wheel, which I really can. It's cause I got my hat on clothes.

In fact, I'm covering my bald head up. So I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent sure on the statistics. I can't, I can't give you a specific number, but I know that the number is high of, of men, black men who are not in the household.

And I think that that is such a huge part of one of the reasons why the black community is oppressed or has a sense of feeling oppressed, um, is because they don't have the role models in their lives to tell them, Hey, this is wrong. Hey, you shouldn't do this. Hey, you shouldn't do that. And I know for me personally, I've, I've, I've talked a lot about this issue over the past two months. I'm sure you guys have as well. I know on, on, on man talk, you guys have, um, I'm kind of, when it comes to all of this, I'm kind of in the middle, which is weird because you can't be in the middle, right? You have to be on one side or the other. And if you're not society makes you feel that way.

Right, right. And so I'm, I'm really in the middle and, and, and I've, I've had to kind of look at myself and ask myself a few questions in terms of what's going on right now. And, uh, one of the big things that I think that each and every individual needs to do, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, is that they need to begin to look in the mirror and ask themselves a few questions. And I think those questions be so, so a few of those questions, I think number one, and this is the, this is the, this is the most difficult question. Okay.

The most difficult question that I think anyone can ask. And that is how have I attributed to the oppression of other people? How have I contributed to the oppression of other people, whatever that may look like.

Right. So for, so for my white brothers and sisters, it may be, you know, I, there was someone said a joke and I, you know, I, I was laughing at it and I didn't stand up for, for a friend or maybe I've ignored, you know, the black community or whatever. The same question goes for the black community though. And that's where things get really, really tough, right?

That's where things get difficult. And I'll be honest, I've gotten a lot of backlash from just saying that, right? Like, Oh, how dare you say that, that, you know, that it's the black, it's the black man's fault or the black community's fault for, for being oppressed. And I, and I asked myself, I say, well, you got to ask yourself some questions. And one of those is the father question, you know, why is there so many black men who are, who don't have a father in their lives and have in that respect contributed to the oppression of young black men in America. When you look at crime, it's same thing.

When you look at education, why is it that there's an overwhelming majority of black men who are dropping out of school and not getting an education? Those are questions that we have to ask. And I'm not saying they're easy questions.

I'm saying that they're very difficult, but they're needed questions. If the black community wants to, wants to step up. All right.

So Dom you're right. People need to step up. And certainly both communities are all communities, black people, as well as based on what you're saying here. But you know, one of the things in all lives matter, black lives matter. And of course you guys know how I feel about each of you and the community.

You love black people. I do. I do. Absolutely. That's evident, Roy.

I do without question. And my brothers and sisters that don't look like me know that. Right.

Right. So, so what I say this is I'm going to ask is one of my friends who doesn't look like me, a black man has shared with me, he said, Roy, it's, it's true. You know, this police violence is an issue, you know, 250, 260 deaths a year that black men are being killed by officers. And I think there's 360, some of them white men. Then there's another group that's of various races. But he said, Roy, before we worry about that small number, he said, we certainly need to be worried about, but he said, but the bigger issue is black on black crime and we're killing each other.

And when he said that it kind of resonated with, and then just recently there was two, if I remember correctly, there were two black men killed in Tulsa or one of the cities this past week in a crime situation, but there was hardly nothing mentioned about their deaths. Yep. So I guess I, I want to know what's your take on that, Don, because I want them for the listeners to get better clarity. Yes.

And for me as a brother in Christ to get better clarity. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So, so I think, and this is again, you know, people who are listening, you may not like what I'm about to say. That's fine. Okay.

Email me. I'm okay with that. Racism is a problem. Racism is not, racism is not the problem. Racism is a problem. It is idiotic for someone to say that racism doesn't exist in America. That's an idiotic state. That is not, but, but again, I don't think it's the biggest problem plaguing black Americans today.

It's not the biggest problem. My brother is a detective in Atlanta and I talked to him this week and I asked him how he was doing. He works in homicide and he said that over the past, I think two to three weeks or so, he's had 28 shootings, eight deaths.

And out of all of those situations, 90% of them were black on black crimes. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking to myself, okay, w w what about that? Right? Like what, what, like, no one has said anything about what's going on. And I mean, Atlanta right now is, I mean, you want to talk about police force? I mean, it's going, I mean, it's just crazy right now. It's absolutely nuts. So a lot of people walking off the job too, aren't they? Yeah.

I mean, he said in one day he had 20, 30 officers resign. I mean, just absolutely crazy stuff. And so my, my, I'm, I'm trying to step back. And, and as, as someone who is looked at as a, as a black man in America, I'm trying to do my best to step back and say, okay, that the question that we need to ask is how can we, how can we empower the black community?

Right? How can we empower the black community? And I don't think the answer is by telling white people to stop being racist. I just don't think that that's the answer.

Okay. I think, I think you've got, again, you've got, you've have a small majority of people or a small minority of people who are downright do not like the black community. And then you've got a whole other cluster of people who, you know, my white brothers and sisters who I love dearly, who are saying, we don't really know what to do, right? Like we want to support, we want to help out, but, but we're stuck in this kind of, you know, this, this middle ground where I want to be careful with what I say. I don't want to offend anyone, but in the same breath, like I have to say something and I want to stand up and I want to fight. And so there's this really hard tension of trying to figure out this balance of trying to figure it out where I just want everyone to step back and say, Hey, like, we've got it. We've got to change a lot of things. It's not just calling, you know, white brothers and sisters racist.

That's not the answer. It's, it's, it's, it's not only empowering the black community in terms of educating them on what it looks like to raise a family on what it looks like to stay in school financially, how do you manage money, right? These are things that the black community, they've got to begin to learn. And I, for me, I want to do that. You know what I mean?

I want to be someone who stands up and says, look, y'all, we've got to change some things. Okay. I know that there's police brutality. I mean, my brother sees it, right? He's a cop. He sees these things happen, but it's not the biggest thing that's plaguing the black community. Well, no, because if you think about the deaths, I don't know what the actual number of deaths are. And that's the other thing we talked about in a few weeks back is that the number of crime incidents is much higher in the white population than it is in the black population in terms of total incidents. But it's the, I think it's the black on black crime and the number of deaths that's resulting from that. And then the fact that it just continues, it perpetuates itself year after year and gets worse and worse each year. So what I want to ask Pastor Dom is this, uh, what, what is it that, uh, the crossing, what conversations have you had in reference to what you're seeing and how are the millennials, because that's what we're talking about, right?

How are the millennials responding to some of the things that they're seeing within the body? Yeah. So, so the big thing, so we recently had a conversation, it was myself and Josh, who's our lead guy there. He's a white guy. I'm a, I'm a black guy. And so we sat down and we had probably an hour or so long conversation online for people to just watch and to just us to have a conversation.

Right. And so he brought up, you know, there's a lot of racial tension. How, how does the church, how do we step up in this area? And, you know, for me, one of the, one of the big things I, you know, I, I have to be biblical, right? I have to, you know, I can't just talk about race.

I have to, I have to talk about the Bible. And so, you know, one of the things that, that I said, and I, you know, we had a really good discussion on was, was the, the idea of injustice, right? Well, it was the idea of people there's, there's injustice, right? People are oppressed. People are discriminated against. And so as Josh, I said, I said, do you, do you believe that, that there's going to be a day on earth where we're going to have a perfect judicial system where no one is oppressed, no one is discriminated against. And, you know, there's perfect justice in our world. And he said, well, probably not.

No, I don't, I don't think so. And I said, I said, he's right. You know, and so as Christians, this is our opportunity to express the gospel to individuals who are hurting, right? Including myself. I mean, I was, when I heard about the George Floyd thing, I was a mess.

I was like, this is horrible. This is absolutely horrendous, but we've got to begin to shift the question and say, okay, if we're not going to be able to experience justice, perfect justice here, where can we find that? Where can we find someone who is going to be 100% just whose decisions are always right.

Who is, who is righteous, right? Absolutely. It's like, okay. Okay. So, so saying to the black community, okay, listen, you will never be able to find justice. Okay. And in any sort of situation. Okay.

And I know that there's men locked up right now who, you know, and so the only thing that we can do is point them back to Christ and say, look, because of what Jesus has done, you now have an opportunity to, to actually be with God. And he's going to be perfect in his verdict, perfect in everything that he does. Okay.

His, his verdict is always, always perfect. And so we've got to be able to express that message to the black community. That's a great, great segue for us to take a quick break. Don, hold that thought. We'll come right back to it.

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Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio. Dom, thank you so much. It's always good when you can sit down and have a reasonable conversation and listen to different insights, and that's so important. And folks, if you're listening, that's the key. Just because somebody thinks a little bit different than you or maybe doesn't have the experience you have doesn't mean they love you any less and doesn't mean they don't care about you. It just may be the way they were wired growing up.

They're trying to learn and they have to get through what they're asking questions about. And also their opinion may be different than yours, but that doesn't mean you can't love them and they can't love you. God will bring all that together. The key is you got to focus on God. I guess it's like a marriage for all intents and purposes, right, Dom, Will?

You know, you think about a relationship. If Christ is the center of the relationship of the people that you're involved with, then you can't help but grow closer to each other as you grow closer to him. And he'll work through those hurdles.

That's the beautiful part. The hurdles will come and he'll work through them. And you know, the thing about it is, Roy, is when you are not under, led under the direction of the Holy Spirit, then as Galatians chapter 5, talk about it, gives a whole list of things. If you're not walking in the direction of the Holy Spirit, then you're going to have hatred, jealousy, dissension, envy, discord. You're going to have conceit, rage, and you're going to have dishonesty. But if you're walking in the Spirit, and see, this is what Pastor Dom was talking about, about leading people to Christ, you're going to have love, joy, peace, all of the fruits of the Spirit.

Galatians 5, 22, 23, talk about love, joy, peace, goodness, patience, kindness, forgiveness, self-control, and gladness. And see, when you have those elements, you can disagree with me. It's okay. It's okay to disagree with me. Well, I've been meaning to tell you. You disagree with me right now.

For the last six months, we've been trying to figure out a way to tell you. I saw where you were going with that. But, you know, you can disagree. And it's okay because, again, it goes back to what you said. If we're letting love rule us, which it should be, and it's the foundation of what we're standing on, then, you know, when those individuals whom Pastor Dom was talking about leading them into Christ, and I would like him to finish up what he was saying there because it was good, you know, you lay it out there and you're saying, okay, you may not be getting the perfection out into the world, comments that are made to you, things that are happening to you, oppression, you know, that's happening to you. You may be unjustly treated, but there is a man from Galilee. Amen. Don't let me start preaching up in here. That's right.

That's right. And for me, that's been the key. The key is, and we don't like to talk about this a lot, and I don't like talking about it, but we've got to begin to see God as a judge, you know, and that's not a bad thing, right? Judges do good things. Judges, they tell the bad people that they need to go to jail, and they tell the innocent people that they're free to go, right? So we need judges, right?

We need judges in our lives. And so the more that the black community, I believe can understand that, right? Can understand the message of, look, oppression is just, it's not going to go away anytime soon. It's just not going to. The only thing that we can rest on is Christ.

That's the only thing that we can put our hope in. I opened up Ecclesiastes 5 and in verse 8, this was really hard for me to hear, but it said, it says, if you see in a nation, the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter. And I read that and I think to myself, whoa. Read that again, Dom.

Yeah. So this is out of Ecclesiastes 5, and this is in verse 8. It says, if you see in a nation, the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter.

So both of those elements are very apparent in our society right now, right now. And, and so I read that and I, and at first you think to yourself, well, why like what? And then you begin to realize that the whole book of Ecclesiastes is pointing towards the end where it says, all that matters is God. All that matters is God.

So if, if, and I'm again, I'm talking to Christ followers now. If, if we can, if we can read this, right. And if, and if the text can say, look, we shouldn't be surprised at the things that are going on in our nation right now, we shouldn't, these things shouldn't shock us as much as it is shocking. These things shouldn't shock us because our hope is put in something else.

That's right. And it's fulfilling prophecy of the Bible, right? It's stating that. And I think that's where we've, we expect perfection to exist. Like you mentioned earlier, it's not going to. And if we can recognize that and realize the only answer is following Christ.

And even then you're going to have struggles. We all know that it's not, it's not perfect. We, the three of us know that we've had our seasons in our lives, that it's not perfect, but the hope never goes away. He's always there. The Holy Spirit resides with you every day.

And you know that without a doubt, without a doubt, that he's got you undergirded no matter how bad the storm is. And that's, I mean, that's a difficult thing, you know, and, and again, you know, I've been talking with my dad, I've been talking with my brother, I've been talking with, you know, and, and it's, that's, that's the message. It's, man, as hard as it is for me to say that, that's the only thing that we can put our eyes on.

That's good, Don. And, you know, uh, when we were talking earlier about the millennials, and we're still talking about the millennials in particular, again, I listed a few things here. Um, they, they, they said to me, this was years ago, and of course the only thing changes when it comes to this list is time. That's the only thing that the heart and mind of individuals are the same, but I had a list here. Nobody listens to me.

That's what they were saying. You know, we, we don't sit on leadership boards and team, you know, and when we give our opinion, nobody wants to listen. We're, we're tired of hearing about value and mission statements. We want to see life being lived through our leadership. That was deep right there.

Helping the poor. Isn't a priority. We're tired of you blaming the culture. Wow. Wow. See, I just stepped on a bunch of toes. Exactly. And see, toes should be stepped on because again, we're talking about groups, uh, age groups from what, 20 to 30, 35. Yeah.

So, so these are, these are things and, and there's some other ones they want to feel valued. We talked about that. Uh, we, we want to talk about controversial issues. Whoa.

Whoa. There you go. But they say that that's something that they said, you know, because again, what, like we were saying last week, that if the millennials are not coming, then what is it that we need to do as leaders in order to bring them in? And this is not to say we're compromising our faith. We're just saying we are adjusting the way information is presented so that these millennials can be on the same level and then understand that we're not talking at you.

We're just talking to you. Well, I mean, that's a great point. We'll look at what's going on with the Bible, right?

I mean, the Bible translations have migrated through the years with some very top scholars to make it more relevant and easier to understand and still not lose the essence of the word. So the, the, the, we should be changing as well so that, that we're still speaking the same to the same needs that they have. Yeah. And I think a big thing for, for young people.

So, you know, we talked about, you know, beforehand we talked about connection. That's, that's the biggest thing for, for young folks is because, because they grew up, you know, feeling like, again, special technology didn't help because it makes you feel connected. It's a bad substitute for community. It doesn't, it doesn't bring people together really. And so I think that the heart cry of the, of millennials, of young people is community. That's the biggest thing that they are searching for. They're searching for people who they can be honest with, who they can be real with, who they can, who know them and who can be known by other people. They want, they want, they want to be known and they want to be known deeply, intimately, no matter how awkward or weird it may be, they want to be known. No, does that, do they know they need that or you, because we talk about the isolation, right?

And the self gratification, do they recognize that's really what's missing in their lifetime? That's a good question. And that's a good question. I don't, I don't know if they do. Cause I know you recognize it as a pastor and one who's investing in, in your peers and that younger age group quite a bit. Cause you're right in the middle of it. But I just wonder if they know it.

I don't know if they do. I think that they think that social media is, is a perfect connective point. And it's just a bad substitute. It's just a bad substitute for, for intimate relationships.

Which brings up a question. When is the last time you heard a pastor talk about social media and how it is negatively impacting your life? I know what we've talked about at some on the show here, but when's the last time you heard a sermon about the really, the true impacts of, of social media in your spiritual walk and your social networking?

Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think that's a great point. Now you got next week's sermon. I got it. I think we're good to go. I'll just, I think what I'll do is I'll just record this conversation. We'll just put it up on the screen.

That's, that's really, really good. But I mean, yeah, I think you're 100% right. I mean, that has to, that has to start being a part of the conversations that we're having and in churches, it's, it's that.

And then again, it's the instant gratification stuff. One thing we want to talk about too, the racism piece. I think you had started it earlier was that we need to make sure that we recognize that it's, it's multiple directions. It's within, within the race, it's outside the race and it's with not just, it's not just white on blacks or black on whites.

It's not just a black on blacks, not just white on whites. Everybody needs to do that mirror and look at themselves and ask, what have I contributed? How do I contribute to harming someone else or creating a sense of oppression on other people?

Few more questions real quick. So the next question is, is the fear question is, okay, what am I fearful of? Am I fearful of the black community, black community? What are you fearful of? Are you fearful of cops?

Are you fearful? We've got to name that after that. We got to ask, how can we change it?

Right? That's the last question. And then after we, after we do all that real quick, we take the mirror, we replace it with a window. We find someone else who doesn't look like us and we have that conversation. Same question. We asked the same question. And that's the very thing I did at, uh, at the summit was asked when I opened up, I said, when was the last time you had lunch with a person of color, which looks different than you, it looks different than yourself or when's the last time you had a social engagement with someone that looks different than yourself and you see that. And then we're asking you as a listening audience, when was the last time, if you can't remember to tell you something. That's right. It's been too long. It's been too long. So yeah, well, as we talk this through, then God knows what, what it is that we need and what we need to do about it.

Amen. Will, thank you so much. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on man talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.