Bootcamp Memories

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This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now.

Welcome to The Masculine Journey. We are glad that you're with us today, and I know I do say that every week, and I say that every week, and then I say that every week. So we've got that going on, but no, thank you for that. Groundhog Day?

It does. It feels like Groundhog Day, but this is an exciting show for us. We're all a little tired. We've still kind of got the boot camp hangover from the standpoint of it's just such action-packed fun time that you kind of get a little down after it, not necessarily spiritually down, just we're all getting a little older. So we get a little bit physically tired for the next few days, but it was an amazing boot camp, and today's show is going to be about just sharing our favorite boot camp memory with some clips, and so we're excited to talk about it. But it was, before we get going on a clip, it was just an amazing boot camp, wasn't it, Andy? It was.

Sorry, I'm fighting allergies today, but yeah, it really was. We had less attendees than we probably ever had, but quality was there. Quantity might not have been there, but definitely quality was, and it was really a different type of boot camp. We saw some things that we've never seen before, but God was faithful to bring what he always brings, as that's healing and restoration to men and setting men free. Yeah, and we've always believed that God will have at each boot camp who he wants at that boot camp, and it proved that way. Again, this time, I think that everybody was there, needed to be there, and I don't think we were necessarily missing anybody, at least at this one.

I think it's when the heart's ready, God will get you to one. It's pretty amazing. Shout out to Jim of getting half the group there. Yeah, all in the gym connection.

That's right. Anyway, Andy, you want to tell us a little bit about the first clip? We're going to go ahead. It's not yours, but you can tell us. No, it is yours.

Sure, the last will be first, and the first will be last, I guess. This is a clip that we typically, or at least part of the audio, for what we usually end boot camp with, and it really just goes into speaking about the importance of freedom. It's the last scene in Braveheart where William Wallace screams out freedom, but then it goes into kind of the rest of the story of Robert Bruce, who actually betrayed Wallace, and then how he almost is doing it to the Scottish people again, but then he thinks, and he changes his mind, and then the Scottish stand up to the English one last time, and the results of that.

The prisoner wishes to say a word. After the beheading, William Wallace's body was torn to pieces. His head was set on London Bridge. His arms and legs sent to the four corners of Britain as a warning. It did not have the effect that Longshanks planned, and I, Robert the Bruce, rode out to pay homage to the armies of the English king and accept his endorsement of my crown. My crown. You have bred with worse.

Now, breed with me. In the year of our Lord, 1314, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets.

They fought like Scotsmen, and won their freedom. So, Andy, that was pretty hard taking a six-minute clip and getting it down into two minutes. You did a pretty good job with that. It was chopped up.

A little bit, a little bit, but it's still continuity. Well, you usually start off with a laugh track. You can just laugh at my clipping business there. Yeah, clipping, you did a great job, man.

It worked well. I think you did a great job, but other than, you know, is this referring to you getting shot in Airsoft so many times? Is it you felt like war, or is it something else? No, this one wasn't as bad as normal. So, no, it's, I think usually I got shot up a little.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. I actually got to play this time instead of refereeing, but, you know, the thing about it is it really made me think when I heard, it made an impression on me. I always, always like to see that at the end of the camp. It's pretty consistent, and I pay more attention to it this time, and I, it just got me deeper, and I felt like, you know, that is the key message of what we're talking about here is freedom. I came into the masculine journey as a pretty bound up, pretty wounded man, and whenever you see, you know, that clip, a lot of people say, well, that's a somewhat fictitious story based on history, and it really doesn't apply. It applies to everything to do it if you believe that that's the kind of freedom that Jesus fought for us, and that we're continued to go on, and, you know, he's done his part like Wallace did his part.

It's our job to go on and not only free ourselves or allow him to free us, but to free others as well. The battle was on. It was just getting started good after William Wallace died, so. Yeah, I think the only difference is, you know, Wallace was pretty much once and done. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Jesus continues on in the midst of it, right?

A little bit. He's still fighting for your heart, but yeah. That is truly the victory is the resurrection. Yeah, the reason I wanted to start with that clip is at the end of the day, what we saw from the beginning of camp to the end of camp was freedom, right? We saw guys coming free from some woundedness, getting some identity that they didn't have or they had forgotten that had been stolen from them, you know, getting pieces of the gospel back.

You know, we've seen that, and not just for the campers, but for the team. The team also experienced those things, and so, you know, we go into these and people will say, well, how could you have done so many boot camps or attended so many boot camps? Every one of them are different from the other ones, and God's coming up after something new for each one of us each time. You know, and so it's just like when Jesus was healing the blind, you know, yeah, the end result, he healed the blind, but he did it differently every time, right?

And each one of these boot camps, yeah, the end result is some level of freedom, but how we get there, is it a journey? You know, it's just an adventure with him as we go. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you look at the gospels, there were so many varieties of way he did things, and I don't think there's hardly anything he did multiple. I mean, I guess feeding the 5,000, the 7,000 or whatever, you know, it's a consistent type of thing, but most of the time he did things differently. It's because he takes into account that we're individuals. We're going to need different things. There's going to be a different group dynamic, so the ministry he does, you know, to us and through us is going to be different. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Well, Rodney, I want to switch over to you and have you go ahead and get to your clip, and go ahead and set the clip up, if you would, and then we can come back and talk about it. Okay, the clip itself is from, what's that? Freedom Riders. Yeah, Freedom Riders.

Yeah, I know. So what we had is a bunch of kids that are kind of on a rough life. They're having a really hard time, and this English teacher takes them on and gives them wonderful writing assignments, and they grow and they grow and they grow, and what you have here is one of the kids presenting something from his journal that is very touching and inspiring. Ms. G, can I read something from my diary?

That'd be great. Who is he? Man, he's been with us since freshman year, fool. What's his name?

I don't know. The summer was the worst summer in my short 14 years of life. It all started with a phone call. My mother was crying and begging, asking for more time.

I said she were gasping for her last breath of air. She helped me as tight as she could and cried. Her tears hit my shirt like bullets and told me we were being evicted. She kept apologizing to me. I thought I have no home. I should have asked for something less expensive at Christmas. On the morning of the eviction, a heart knock on the door woke me up.

The sheriff was there to do his job. I looked up by the sky, waiting for something to happen. My mother has no family to lean on, no money coming in. Why bother coming to school or getting good grades if I'm homeless?

The bus stops in front of the school. I feel like throwing up. I'm wearing clothes from last year, some old shoes, and no new haircut. I kept thinking I could laugh then. Instead, I'm greeted by a couple of friends who were in my English class last year.

And it hits me. Mrs. Gerwa, my crazy English teacher from last year, is the only person that made me think of hope. Talking with friends about last year's English and our trips, I began to feel better. I received my schedule and the first teacher is Mrs. Gerwa in room 203. I walk into the room and feel as though all the problems in life are not so important anymore.

I am home. Well, I tell you, when you sit around a bunch of men that are willing to share, be open and honest about where they're at in their walk, where they're at in their life, and be very vulnerable to a bunch of other men, some that they know, some that they don't know, it gives you hope. It inspires you. And that sharing is something that really forms the brotherhood.

And they'll walk together where everybody can come together in Christ. And basically, when you're at camp, it's like you're just family. I know I've got to travel very soon for a funeral back home. And you know, it's sad that we have to go home for a funeral.

But it's going to be so awesome to see my cousins again and the family members. And every time we get united, whether it's been for weddings or funerals, it's just joyous because you're with family. And that's what it's like at a boot camp. You start sharing, you're going deeper. We've got guys that are going to maybe their second or third boot camp, and they're going deeper and sharing more and you're finding out more about them.

And you got first responders, and then you've got the first responders, and then you've got them. And you've got first timers that are there, and they're opening and sharing and talking. And it's just something that makes me want to share more and go deeper with Jesus as well, because I want to share more with you guys, and you guys keep sharing more. And the team, when we had our nightly prayers over the camp and the team, were just so—it's hard but it just brings us so much closer and brings you joy. It does.

I'm thinking it takes away the enemy's foothold for a lot of that. We've seen more vulnerability from the stage this time, just more in quiet time, more in individual conversations. It's been great. We will have a Masco & Journey boot camp coming up in November. Get the dates when we come back, but it is at the website, mascoandjourney.org. You could register now.

Go do that. What if one weekend wasn't up to you that you could go and God would orchestrate it all? Masco & Journey boot camp. Basic training designed to give men permission to be how God made them. Passionate warriors for the kingdom. Based on John Eldridge's Wild at Heart, experience four days purpose for God to come after and perhaps reawaken dreams and desires He uniquely placed in your masculine heart.

Fall boot camp coming up November 18th through the 21st. Go to masculinejourney.org and register today. Hi, this is Sam with Masco & Journey.

I'm here with my son Eli. We're going to talk about ways that you can help support the ministry. One way you can go to smile.amazon.com. Go to smile.amazon.com. There's information on our website there on how to do that. You go to facebook.com and click the donate button, or you can go to masculinejourney.org and find the donate button. Mascoandjourney.org.

Or if you want to mail something in, mail it to P.O. Box 550, Kernersville, North Carolina, 2-7-2-8-5. Welcome back to Masco & Journey. That is Jason Gray. It's Remember Who I Am. A great song. It's an amazing video. Probably one of the best videos I've ever seen, and so I'd encourage you to go to YouTube, watch it. It's obviously him talking to God, asking him to remind him of who he is to God, which is part of the boot camp. Something we do is go out and ask God about our name. So that's something that's been very powerful to a lot of us over the time that we've been there and continues to be at different boot camps.

He continues to come up with new stuff for us, which is pretty amazing. Danny, before I get to you, Danny, the boot camp coming up is November 18th through 21st, right? So it's just ahead of Thanksgiving, right? So you could just think of this. You take a couple days off. You get to spend it with us.

We have a lot of fun. You get some breakthrough. God does some amazing things for you. And then you come back, you have a short week at work. It doesn't get any better than that, right?

It's the perfect time to go to boot camp. And you're prepared for the relatives. Yes, because you have all these new tools to deal with them. Yeah. Yeah.

The good ones and the bad ones, right? With every tree, there's a few little nuts out there once in a while. So you get out on those branches.

You're going to have some of those nuts and loose rings. Cousin Eddie. Cousin Eddie. That's right. Thank you. Danny, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about your clip.

Do you want to set it up first or what do you want to do in a clip is from a movie called Invictus. Yep. I've never seen the movie, so I can't tell you whether it's good or bad, but the clip was pretty awesome. And Nelson Mandela has come back into power, evidently in this movie. And the clip is a scene from his office and he's trying to bring unity back from a racially torn country.

And he's evidently hired these soldiers to go in his, one of his chief officer and he's not happy about it. So, and they talk a lot about restoration, reconciliation and forgiveness. And that's kind of what the clip is about, what my memory is about. Yeah.

And partly what it is, the guys that Mandela played by whatever his name is, Morgan Freeman. Right. He's hired guys that had been, had been trying to kill him and his people. Right.

That sided with him as far as politically. Right. And so that's what the guy's upset about is that these guys were just hunting us down not that long ago and you've hired him.

And so we'll kind of pick up the clip now. You look agitated, Jason. Well, that's because there are four special branch cops in my office. Oh, what did you do?

Nothing. They say they're the presidential bodyguards and they have orders signed by you. Ah, yes.

Ah, yes. These men are special trained by SAS. They have lots of experience.

They're protected the club. Yes, sir, but it doesn't mean that they have to come. You asked for more men, didn't you? Yes, sir. I asked.

When people see me in public, they see my bodyguards. You will represent me directly. The rainbow nation starts here. Reconciliation starts here. Reconciliation, sir. Yes. Reconciliation, Jason. Comrade president. Not long ago, these guys tried to kill us.

Maybe even these four guys in my office tried and often succeeded. Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear.

That is why it is such a powerful weapon. So Danny, what was it about that clip that you wanted to talk about from boot camp? Well, this was my second boot camp. The first I was a camper and then you guys have adopted me since then.

I moved into the area and started hanging out masculine journey. And so going into this was my first boot camp as a team member. And I had to earn my rookie stripes.

I almost made lighting technical expert and then got demoted. So it's a rough camp. But I went into the camp thinking, we have a new neighborhood. We've moved up here and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing ministry-wise. I've always been involved in something, usually involved in too much. And so I'm going into this going, okay, I'm going to see the other side.

And so I was just getting validation after validation in my name, the new name talk. God did some things there. He showed me a deeper wound. Like we talk about Shrek and the onion. Well, the onion peeled up several times and I am psyched. And I'm going to do a response for the beauty talk. How'd that go? Really well.

I didn't mess up anything. You nailed it. I nailed it. It was about the nail. What happened was is that my dear friend Sam here, he moved some notes around. And when you're doing a talk, people don't understand sometimes things move and you go a different direction. And he in no way intentionally left me out.

There's no way. And so, yeah, I hear him say, and as we wrap up and we're going to code of silence and I'm thinking, it ain't happening. And so he comes off the stage and we're headed into code of silence. And I just simply say, so I guess we're not doing the response. And my heart is crushed because my wounds involve not being relevant.

Doesn't matter. And I use the phrase now that I have sacrificed myself on the altar of acceptance to fit in and change who I truly am. And one of the things God gave me back in his camp was I know who I am like I've never known before.

And it was like Satan hit me in the mouth. And so I walk out and I'm processing things and I go to the cabin and thoughts of all kinds of things. But I begin to, I think God really gave me the spirit of let's look at this thing in truth.

And so I'm trying to get past the motion of everything and it's flooding in and everything. And so I walk out to a picnic table and it wasn't long. I see Sam coming across the yard and I tried to act like I didn't see him. And I hear him say, you can tell me go away if you would like. And it was part of me that thought, yeah, you probably need to. And so to make a long story short, we talked about what happened.

And the beauty of it was, is that Sam came as a person of faith. He came as a as apologetic. And he says, I have to own what I did. So I know you didn't mean to.

So it doesn't matter. And we talked about it. And what we came away with was we reconciled the wound right then and there, let the enemy have no division and move on beyond that. But what that moment became was a notary stamp on everything God had shown me. And I was more pumped then than I ever was that I found a home in ministry.

I found a place just to be me. I'm noted as the Pentecostal of the bunch now for some reason or another. And praise Jesus. But in essence is a great boot camp and the one moment in time that should have been what the enemy meant for evil, God turned to good. Yeah. And it was very difficult on both of us, but God redeemed it on both sides for us.

And definitely I think we came out of there stronger. Danny, I'll make you feel better. You aren't the only one. My response on the poser talk also got skipped, but it's okay. Oh, I didn't know you were going to respond to that.

Well, Harold, since you have the mic, I actually was going to go to you next and ask. That's probably not your favorite memory from boot camp. It was fine.

It didn't really bother me much at all. I'll catch it another time. Yeah. I guess my favorite memory from this camp was a young man that lives a far piece from here had been listening to the podcast and he took it upon himself to drive alone to a place he'd never been, to be around guys that he had only known from the radio. And the interesting thing to me was after we were there, he looks at me and he says, oh, so you must be the guy they pick out all the time.

I'm the old man. But yeah, I was really impressed with Zachary. And that's sort of my favorite memory from this recent camp.

Yeah. It was, it was a fun group. Uh, just from all over the place, we had people and yeah, 19 years old, drove up from, uh, Athens, Georgia by himself, you know, pretty, pretty cool adventure to go on, you know, and I don't know that I would have been able to do it when I was 19. I actually, I'm posing, I wouldn't have been able to do it when I was 19. My car, a wouldn't have made it, but B, I just don't know that I would have the ability to do that. Wouldn't that be your car was posing? Yeah, it was.

It was. Well, Jim, you're actually next. Uh, we got time.

No, we don't. We're going to have to get to your clip in the after an hour segment as well as my clip. Um, so what do you want to talk about, Jim? Well, my actually one, this was, I don't even know how many boot camps I've been to, but somewhere in the 15 to 20 range. This was my fourth time of getting a new name. Wow. And I, I went home. I think I sort of hesitated, but finally admitted what it was to you, but it was, it had very special meaning and the new name was morning dove. I went home and before I even told my wife that she said, you'll never guess what I saw.

I've never noticed before, but there was a pair of morning doves out eating around the bird feeder and I'd never seen the colors on the mail before. And that was sort of another kiss from, I'd already got a kiss from my wife, but that was another kiss from God. So that was one of my favorite things, but that was sort of after action. And you have to stay tuned to get the rest of the story. Yeah, we got more. Yeah.

Yeah. You need to go to the podcast, which you can find at any of the podcast outlets. You can get it at I heart radio, Spotify, iTunes, you can go to our website, my skin journey.org to listen to it, or.org.

These guys like to say, I say.org, but yeah, you can get it from there. Lots of places you can get it and listen to the after hours podcast, where we continue on with the topic that we're talking about. And a lot of times go into a lot more deeper, intimate conversation, since it's not going out over the air. But this time we're going to continue some more of the same as we go through, uh, this bootcamp for me, honestly, I think had the most vulnerability of any that I've ever seen from, from the campers and the prayer cards that came in very early in camp and very detailed in camp, you know, the people opening up about just the horrible things that's going on in their lives, you know, that they need prayer for and, and watching them over the weekend progress and see God come after their heart. It was really pretty cool. But even from our team, we learned stuff about each other and we've walked together for a long time. And we, we learned stuff about each other that we didn't know, which is really pretty cool too, that God really called us to be even more vulnerable with one another, you know? And so I think it was really pretty neat. And again, from the talks from the stage, I think we had a lot more vulnerability than we've ever had. And I think that that's what God had in store.

I'm interested to see what he has in store for the next one. But in order to go to the next one, go to MasculineJourney.org, register for the upcoming bootcamp coming up November 18th through 21st. We'd love to have you there. If money's an issue, reach out to us. We can probably help with that a little bit, but we need to know, but we'll talk to you next week. Have a great week. This is the Truth Network.