The Russian Nightmare Turns To God

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 the show tonight, folks. We're honored to have Nikita Koloff with us here this evening.

Those of you may recognize his name, former WWE wrestler and five-time world champion, but we're not here to talk about wrestling tonight. We're here to talk about what it means to be a man of Christ and a follower of Christ. And with that, Nikita, welcome. I've got my co-host here with me, Will Hardy, and we're going to start up with Nikita, and Will's going to ask Nikita a few questions along the way, and we'll kind of go back and forth as we go through the night. But thank you for joining us. We're excited to have you here with us. This is our second show together, and we're honored to have Nikita. Nikita, why don't you say hello to everybody?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Roy. Thank you, Will, for having me tonight.

Just excited to be with you guys. You know, you said, Roy, we're not going to talk about wrestling, but if we're going to talk about manhood and being a man, we may end up talking about wrestling there a little bit. Every man wrestles with manhood. Amen.

That's for sure, Nikita. You know, I've always said that Roy is my Christian brother from different mothers, so we just love the Lord. We love the fact that you are with us here on Man Talk. And subjects that we talk about on Man Talk, it varies, and tonight we just want to know about what it is with the organization that you have started with Man Camp, and what it is to be a man, what's Man Camp, and how did God give you that vision in order to start that Man Camp journey?

Well, I appreciate the question. Yeah, I'm super excited to be able to kind of expose our listening audience with what we're doing with men. I've had a real passion for men, for men's ministry for many, many years now. I've been, about 13 years, facilitating, coordinating men's types of events. In fact, I've been involved with some of Roy's men's conferences up there in the Winston-Salem, Greensboro area.

And about four years ago, a dear friend of mine, some may recognize the name Lex Luger, known as the total package in professional wrestling days. He is a born-again, blood-washed believer in Jesus since April 23, 2006. And God just gave him and I a vision four years ago to put together a camp for men. I'd like to say, you know, we want to get men out of their man cave, get them into the Man Camp, and really just share with them our experience. Lex and I have a combined, quite a number of years of experience when it comes to physical health, mental, emotional health, in terms of developing a championship mentality, and our spiritual health, our spiritual journeys. And so, yeah, just excited. We had our first one a week ago with 19 men from six different states, and it was amazing.

Well, that's great, Nikita. Just a quick question about Man Camp. What are the multiple facets that you're dealing with? Is it just strictly a man's spirituality, where he's walking or not walking with God, or are there other facets of a man's life that you're dealing with while you've got him there? Well, I appreciate that.

Again, great question. Because, you know, we really dive in. I like to call it, if you will, kind of the entree or a deep dive into the things of God that include everything, but not excluding anything the way God would direct us, but specifically physical health. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what that looks like and have a few physical activities at the camp itself, some challenges, nothing that any man is excluded from, no matter what your age.

All men can participate in our outdoor activities. So we're going to talk about physical health, what it looks like to eat healthy, exercise, what the Bibles say about the mandate to take care of this temple, this body. We're going to talk about mental health and emotional health.

People's hearts get broken, but also so do our minds, so do our emotions over the years. And what does it look like to have a healed soul? Healing the wounded soul, which comprises the mind, the will, and the emotions. So we'll include that in the conversation throughout the five days. And then, of course, you said spirituality. Certainly the foundation of it all, the salvation of our lives, and our lives being placed on the rock, and what's that look like to be healthy spiritually. It's based off of First Thessalonians 5.23, being whole in spirit, soul, and body. That was the original vision for Man Camp.

That's wonderful. After the first camp that you've had, what were some of the difficulties or challenges that men had that you saw coming into the camp? And after they left, what were some of the things, perhaps, that they overcame as a result of having the camp experience?

You know, it's interesting. Again, I have been a part of, in the neighborhood, 50 or 60 men's conferences, actually probably closer to 100 now, between conferences and camps, type settings, and ministering to men. And I don't know what the exact percentage would be, Will, but I can about tell you this. I think it's maybe single-digit percentage of men who have not been wounded by their father. So I'm going to say men come into this event and to some degree, some way, shape, or form, have been wounded in the past by their dad.

Whether it's verbally, physically, you know, whatever that abuse looks like, or just ignored or abandoned or rejected, there's a lot that goes into that. But that's a very common thread among men. And so we want to address that. We want to talk about that, what it looks like to, again, heal the wounded heart, right, when it comes to daddy wounds.

And so that's one focus, certainly. I'll give you one quick testimony. This gentleman from Virginia came down, and he's in his 60s, and he said this.

He actually posted this on social media. He said, Blessed, restored spiritually, set on fire again as a man of God. Thank you to Keith and Les for ministering to me this past week at Man Camp. That's one testimony as they're starting to roll in now.

That's awesome. You know, because men, as men, I think society put undue and unnecessary stress on us as men. And if we're not following the norm of society, then we are viewed, you know, in some respect as a man who is weak and not being able to overcome certain challenges. And we know that that's, you know, a facade.

That's just an objection or a statement that is made by society. But as men, we are overcome as according to 1 John 4 and verse 4, that we are more than conquerors. And greater is he that is within us than he that is within the world. So we thank God from the fact that what you're doing and how men are coming and changing lives. So if we have someone out there that's listening right now, what is it that you could tell them that they could come away from Man Camp experiencing, if you were to talk to that one heart?

Sure. I mean, if there's a genuine desire at all just to grow and mature, if they already have a walk with Jesus. Now we had four men last week who God revealed to them. At best they had a form of religion, but they had no personal relationship with Jesus.

And these four men established that relationship. And so they're, you know, not what we would term, right, faith in Christ. So they're going to need a lot of nurturing and guys rallying around them to help them grow and mature in their walk. But regardless of how long they've been serving the Lord, you know, my challenge to men is, how healthy are you now? And how healthy do you want to be?

And or, can you be even healthier as a man? And so there's someone out there that just says, you know what, I need to pull away from all of life's distractions. And let's face it, we are inundated with distractions in today's world.

Yes, we are. And, and here's, here's an opportunity to draw away James 4-8, but to draw close to me, and I will draw close to you. So Lex and I provide an opportunity to remove ourselves from all of the distractions of life for just a handful of days. Step the phone cell aside, put it in the car, leave it at home.

We didn't live with that guy, leave it at home, didn't even bring their cell phone. And just unplug from the world and all of it, its system and distractions. And just center your focus for a few days on the heart of God. And be, if you will, be merry and sit at his feet, as opposed to Martha being busy, being busy.

That's a great illustration, Nick. I want to go back to something you mentioned just a few moments ago, related to the role of the man and just the healing from the wounds of a child into manhood. One of the things that we as a ministry are trying to do is get men moving forward and leading in proper alignment with God, because God created Adam first, which means we own everything that's going on around us, whether we're responsible or not. So what I would ask you is, what role do you see the man playing in their family and in their home and in their community? And then how can this man camp impact that role?

Again, that's a great question. To Will's comments earlier, I think it's evident, anyone who's paying attention, to just say that, anybody who's paying attention would probably agree that men and manhood has been greatly under attack in our country the last maybe couple decades, however long. I remember the show Married with Children, it just made the dad look like an absolute idiot on the show.

And men have been so emasculated, and the attack on masculinity as a whole, but even sexual identity, just the overall attack on sexual identity, and not understanding, the Bible's pretty clear, male and female, he made them in his image. Several men testified to leaving the camp, better understanding, they said, I feel like I've done well as a pastor, I feel like I've done well ministering to the congregation. I feel like I'm a good dad, and not a bad husband, but what I've learned here this week, I recognize that nobody builds me, I have not been the proper priest of my home. Right. Hey, Nick, can you hold that thought one second? We need to take a quick break.

Sure. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious host church, First Christian Church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville. They have a hard start at seven o'clock and a hard stop at eight o'clock. First time visitors eat for free.

Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Okay, welcome back. So Nikita, you were talking about priesthood, and this gentleman said he wasn't the priest of his home.

Why don't you pick back up there with us? Yeah, well, I know, I mean, one, it was several. I just get one example, the pastor who may rep, but there were several who that really jumped out at them, you know, what we were talking about being the servant leader, you know, being, you know, leading the family, not just, you know, providing for the family, but also leading the family, you know, praying with your wife, not just praying for your wife, praying with your wife, praying with your children, not just praying for your children, but, you know, as Deuteronomy talks about, teaching the ways, you know, when you get up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, when you walk along the road, you know, when you're sitting at the dinner table, that's just a matter of praying over your food. It's having a discussion about who is our provider. So there's a lot lacking in the way of men leading the family as servant, servant leadership, meaning I'm going to teach you how to serve, I'm going to teach you what it looks like to serve by serving you, and in turn then hopefully leading the family, leading the family well.

That's good. So one other thing that came up through your earlier conversation, or when you were sharing this a little bit earlier, that came to mind, I want to ask you about. Can you tell me, and this is a challenge for, I think, our whole nation, especially with all the reality shows that are on these days, that basically, what would you say, exploiting slash making it look like it's a great thing to be a single mom, teenage mom, because, you know, we're putting these folks on TV and we're, but the flip side of that is the role that the male plays. Could you explain the difference in your heart, Nikita, the difference between malehood and manhood as we're trying to get men to step up and become kingdom men of God? Well, there's, I mean, there's, we probably don't have enough time to talk fully about the difference between the two, but I can certainly give, you know, a couple different highlights there and differentiating between what I would call the world view of manhood versus the view of manhood, right? I've testified that I was personally, for 46 years, I was a male at the age of 47, I stepped into manhood for the very first time, because for the very first time at age 47, you know, I saw a teaching on biblical manhood, it just opened my eyes to what was lacking in my own life. I mean, we're male by birth, we're a man by choice. Just because you have certain functioning lower unit doesn't make you a man, that only simply makes you a male. Even the fact that you can produce children doesn't make you a man. A man takes responsibility for raising those children, not just producing children. Amen.

Amen. And so, and the world, you know, just real quick, I mean, the world view, you know, at birth, it comes out in the old days, you just say it was either a girl or it's a boy, right? It's a man, that it's a boy. Growing up into manhood is the process of being taught what manhood looks like, and the Bible is the best teacher. But you know, there's different, in society, right? Sometimes, you know, health industry is probably going to say, you know, he's a man, and when, you know, when he turns 13, right, with puberty, right? Or, you know, when, you know, the law has a different view of manhood, right?

You get licensed, 18, you can vote, 21, you can drink, depending on, you know, what, you know, what, you know, what state you're in, or how about the marketplace? Hey, if you've got the corner office, you know, with the big view, the big house, the big bank account, you're a man, or, or you can probably all identify with this, the locker room, right? How do they view manhood? The number of conquests, right? The number of notches in your belt, how many women you could, you know, you can shack up, you know, sleep with. But yeah, and those are all kinds of summarize the worldview, right?

You've got the right plumbing, your legal age, and you've got the right social status, the world thinks you're a man. But that is not how God looks at it, right? 1 Samuel 16, 7.

What did God say? He said, he said, man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at what? The heart. The heart. The heart of the manhood.

At the heart. So God judges manhood, I would submit to you guys, God, God judges manhood by character, not, not by age, or not by what, how much success he's had. He judges it by character, how much character you have. You know, Nikita, that's, that's a blessing indeed, because, you know, what I think what's, what makes a man and what defines a man's character is when no one is looking. How are you responding?

How are you acting? How are you producing any fruit for the kingdom of God if we say that we are born again and true representatives of the kingdom? So it's when no one is looking. And I think that tells a person of your spiritual integrity.

So we have to look deeper. And those things that you say were right on point in reference to what a man and how society views manhood and malehood. It's, don't you agree, Roy?

Yeah, very much so. One of the things that comes to mind as he was sharing that was that we often think that either it's the passage of time that we become a man or something that we've conquered in the world. But actually, biblically speaking, it's doing the things, like you said, that nobody sees you're doing, and not for the acknowledgement of the world, but for the acknowledgement of Christ and the honoring of Christ. And one of the things that came to mind as we were talking is it's never too late if someone out here is listening to us today that it's never too late.

It doesn't matter what you've done in the past or where you're at or if you've got that child that you haven't taken responsibility for, it's never too late to step back in and become the man that God intended you to be. And if you don't have someone around you to help you with that, get connected to us and we'll get you to somebody and we'll get someone there for you. Exactly, because I'm sure, Nikita, that you have seen in your many years being out and being a part of various ministries that when a man is alone, it's a very dangerous thing because so much can happen mentally and undue thoughts which produce all these actions that are illegitimate.

Oh, 100%. Listen, there's a real enemy. The enemy loves nothing better than to isolate someone. So isolation, whether it's not being plugged into a corporate church body, not being plugged into a men's Bible study, or just connecting with others and doing life with others, the enemy loves that, isolating others. And then in turn, once he gets you isolated, he can really kind of hammer your manhood or hammer your character. And I would say this too, I would just want a little other caveat towards talking about manhood, that if I were to say manhood, Christ's likeness and character are all synonymous. So if someone really wants to step into manhood, then he should be exemplifying Christ's likeness and with that his character comes along with that.

The man without character, I would summarize by saying, is only a male. You know, we might have someone listening right now who says, you know, guys, I've tried this. I've gone to the church house.

I've interacted with the people there. You know, I'm still faced with some of the same problems. I'm on this hamster wheel that's turning and turning and turning.

And for me, I just can't seem to get off. What do you say to that person, Nikita? Well, I mean, the first thought comes to mind is, let's go back to man camp again for a second. You know, sometimes we need to do something out of the norm.

We need to get outside of the comfort zone, outside of what we're familiar with. Jesus brought the blind man outside of the city, outside of the village, took him outside of the comfort zone, and it was there that he was able to pray for him and open his eyes to, you know, from the blindness that he was subject to. Sometimes it takes something like a man camp, again, where you just say, you know what, I'm going to do something out of the norm, not normal, it's not normal for guys to draw away for just a few days, in this case five days, to draw away, to run after the heart of God, and to put yourself in a setting where God can really minister to your heart. And if there are some, let's say, habitual sins, or some secret sins, or some skeletons in your closet, or some things that just keep hindering you, and drawing you back into, as you said, that proverbial island called the merry-go-round, then perhaps it's an experience like man camp that will really bring healing, will bring deliverance, and will bring true freedom for you over whatever it is that has you in bondage or stronghold in your life. Sometimes it takes something as drastic as that to set you free. Well, that's a great point, Nikita, and I wanted to share from personal experience right quick that I've had the pleasure of being on a man's conference, men's week away with Nikita on a different venue, and I was walking with the Lord at the time of this event, but it tuned me up to another level. And I got closer to God and had an experience I had never had in my lifetime on that journey. And I think if you're listening, it doesn't matter where you are in your walk, or if you're not on the walk and you want to get on the walk with the Lord, that there's a place for you. And this is a great opportunity to make this happen.

And let this be a fresh start. I think Nikita's got a camp coming up in the fall. We can get you to his website. Nick, why don't you give your website information right quick as we're closing this up, and let folks know where they can get more information, how to get in touch with you. I appreciate it, Roy. And both of you guys will. Thank you guys for having me on and just excited about ministering to men. Yeah, just remember mancamp.info, not.com, not.org, mancamp.info, I-N-F-O, that will take you to the website.

Russ Luger and I are full facilitators of this event, come spend five days with the total package, and Nikita Golovka, Russian Nightmare, but most important, come spend five days, and we just try to stay out of his way as we full facilitate this event, mancamp.info. And you can email me right through the website as well if you need financial assistance or help. We have scholarships available, so if you have a desire to draw closer to the Lord, then man, I would love to see you in October at mancamp. Get out of your man cave and come over to the man camp, and let's set you just a little bit closer in your relationship with the Lord than you are now.

Great. Thank you, Nikita. It's been a pleasure having you tonight with us, Nikita, and I'd just like to tell you, if you're listening to the program and you haven't accepted the Lord into your heart, it's a real simple process. Just admit being a sinner.

Recognize that Jesus died for your sins and died to yourself and start following Christ and get into a body of fellowship. We thank you for joining us tonight on Man Talk. I'm Roy Jones Jr., the white guy. And I'm Will Hardy, the black guy.

And we are two brothers from different mothers. Have a great evening. Thank you. 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.