Boot Camp Remembered

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Welcome to Masculine Journey. We are excited to have you with us today. We are talking about our most recent weekend. We just got back from bootcamp weekend. It was this last weekend and if we have a little bit of tiredness in our voice. It was a great weekend but it is always a little tiring and exhilarating all at the same time, isn't it guys?

Somebody jump in. Yes, I agree. Yeah, I've never been to one even as a participant.

I didn't kind of come back as a tired soul a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It is an amazing weekend. It really is. But even if you're an attendee, you know, there's lots of information you're getting. As somebody that's working the event, so to speak, there's lots of information you're getting. There's just lots of stuff God's doing and no two are the same. No two bootcamps are the same.

Everyone's a little different. Which is, I think, why a lot of us kind of keep coming back and even a lot of participants. It was a great mixture this time of past participants and new people and it really, just seeing the men get to know each other over the weekend was really wonderful. But even on those guys that have been back, you have some that have been to several in a row now. Some that, well, I haven't been here for a few. They come back once and then they'll be maybe at a couple in a row.

Then have a few off and it's just schedules and stuff. But same theme. They're like, no, there's just a lot for me here and it's different every time. I get new stuff from God. I get new things out of the talks. Everybody's in a different place, things like that. It's a common theme.

One of the things that I thought was interesting is the range of age from teenage to me age. Yeah. Well, me being an octogenarian. Yeah. You had a challenge to run for your money, didn't you? Yeah, you had someone pushing close, pushing close to your age, but not quite.

I think you were, I think he's two years younger than you. Right. I'll talk about that later. Oh, okay. Okay.

I don't want to steal your thunder there, Harold. I was surprised Moses showed up like that. Yeah, it was.

Oh, we did have a guy that looked like Moses. We did. Yeah. Yeah. And he got the reversal.

He did. Yeah. Yeah. Moses got baptized. Yes. Yeah. Instead of doing the baptizing, he got baptized. Instead of parting the water, he actually got wet. Got in the water. Yeah. By Robby the Baptist. Yeah. Robonite. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So before we get going on some specifics and stuff, just any other general thoughts about the weekend? We couldn't ask for a better weather. It was an amazing weekend, a little chilly in the morning, which is fine, but it was a beautiful day throughout the day.

It was in the high 60s, every day, maybe even pushing low 70s one day. And it just was a beautiful weekend and I couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend for that. Technology seemed to work well. Things went well.

And the campers were all engaged, which is good. On the new laptop, too. Yeah, the new laptops work well. And no broken mice. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Staplers are fine.

Staplers are in good shape. Yeah, tempers were relatively in check. So it was good. It was really cool to see a guy I hadn't seen in several years who was part of our ministry in Ashboro. So that was kind of cool.

That's David. Oh, I'll tell you about from our group. I think I've been here pretty much except for last week because I was out of town.

Okay, fair enough. I've been coming back. He's a regular guest now.

Now I'm a regular guest. No, from Ashboro. Yeah, not from Welcome.

Yeah, it's not Welcome anyway. You were close. Close.

Midway. Welcome. Anyway, so let's get on with our first clip. So our first clip is yours, but not yours. Rodney, tell us about it. Well, I'm clipless in the studio, so Andy was so kind to make sure that we have an extra clip or two.

So I'm going to tag along with this one. And this one is Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. And it's one we use for the pose because he's trying to impress his future father-in-law. He's giving the prayer here, and you can see how it kind of gets to the point where the future mother-in-law asked if he would do it, and then the father-in-law who's on him the whole time, right, kind of calls out a little bit of a pose and stuff like that. But you've got Greg, oh, no, I can do this.

And he just feels that pressure that we all do to put on a persona, a fig leaf of who we really are, like, oh, no, I got this. And you can take this away from the prayer and apply it to so many things in our lives that we do, like, oh, yeah, I've been there, and I've done that, and I've sounded just this stupid. So, let's listen to Ben Stiller.

Okay. Oh, dear God, thank you. You are such a good God to us, a kind and gentle and accommodating God. And we thank you, oh, sweet, sweet Lord of hosts, for the smorgasbord you have so aptly lain at our table this day, and each day, by day, day by day by day. Oh, dear Lord, three things we pray, to love thee more dearly, to see thee more clearly, more clearly, to follow thee more nearly, day by day, by day. Amen.

Amen. Oh, Greg, that was lovely. Thank you, Greg. That was interesting, too.

By day by day. I had an incredible honor at the end of the boot camp. So, there are so many things about boot camp when I was thinking about this weekend, but for me, the most impactful by far is just having the honor of what Robby offered to the men at one point. And he said, we would like to offer the opportunity for all of you guys to receive the Father's blessing from one of us, you know, that are part of the team at the camp. And it was, you know, I was just thinking like, well, I'm not really sure what he means by a Father's blessing. I was like, I've got a concept. I, you know, we got like what happened in the Old Testament and the Father gave a blessing to the son and or the grandson of the family and things of that nature. And I'm like, I'm just not sure exactly what was in Robby's head. And I was like, well, because Tony was actually took him up on his offering one-to-one from him.

And then Sunday morning, Hunter came up and said, hey, Rodney, I was praying about this last night and I'd like you to give me a Father's blessing today. And I'm like, okay, now I got to actually think about this and what I'm going to do. Cause I'm thinking about this pose and this prayer of Greg, you know, I'm like day by day, I'm going to be making something up here. You know what I'm like, I was like, I can pull this off.

I could be just like Greg in the pose and this prayer right there. And I'm like, okay. So the way things worked out is that against the way this camp kind of went, there was something that started, we had a plan for what we're going to do that morning. Oh, we got plenty of time to get everything in. Then the next thing, you know, one thing's running a little longer because not only are we presenting or talking, but all the men in the camp are talking and we're talking with each other and we're blessing each other. And we had a wonderful prayer time, which we'll talk about later.

And that just led to us sharing, which kept things going on and on and on. And we're like, hey, we still got the blessings to do. We've got to go get some baptisms in and we were having all this going on. And I look up, I'm like, oh my gosh, these guys are going to have to leave by noon.

So Hunter had to leave by noon. I'm like, well, I better go find him before I go down to the baptism stuff. And just, he's got his best friend there, Michael.

And so those two are like two peas in a pod the whole weekend and really speak a lot into each other's lives and hold each other accountable. So like, or would you like to do this? Oh, we've got, you know, behind our cabin back here, the little, uh, I don't know what you call it, a little building there to kind of little structure to stand underneath gazebo gazebo would work.

Yeah. It's a shelter is more like it, but yeah, it's a little place where you can kind of sit and talk and do that in the, in the woods. And it's like, Hey, let's go back there. So we went back there and it was just the three of us. And I'm like, dude, I really don't know exactly what to do here, but I'm like, well, let's just pray together. So actually all three of us kind of hugged each other and got around each other and just kind of prayed into Hunter's life. And it, you know, and really since the two of them they're together, I said a lot about both of them together too, and just their heart that we could see there that weekend and what they meant for each other and how Hunter's actually really trying to help Michael out through a tough time that he's had recently and strengthen him. And that's one of the things that I saw coming out in Hunter was the more that Hunter helps others, the more the Hunter strength comes out and his longing and his possible calling into, you know, future, any type of pastoral ministry and other things that he would like to do, just speak into that as much as I could, not knowing him very well, but just felt really from the whole camp, just connected to these guys from the rescue mission that were just an incredible group that hung out together that, again, they were the most well-knit group we've ever, I think, had from the rescue mission. And again, you have to go back to the individual men and what they are and their walk with God and how strong that was. And we got to see and be a part of that was just, for me, an incredible weekend to get topped off with being able to do that right before we kind of do the last things before we kind of close up and have to leave everybody.

Yeah. One of the Sunday morning, and not to pose, you know, we knew that there was going to be a baptism, you know, with Robby's brother Mark wanted to get baptized. And so David and I were talking on the, before the session started and we're kind of like, oh, I hope he didn't pick me to help.

I don't want to get that water, you know? And so we'd been joking before that every time you say, God, don't pick me, God picks you, you know, it's kind of like when we do listening prayer, you know, at times you're like, oh, not my name, not my name. And that's usually what ends up happening is your name gets called.

Right. But so we'd both been joking and Andy stepped up and said, you know, Robby, do you need some help? And we're like, yeah, fist bumped each other and I'm out of it. I don't have to get that muddy, murky water and cold, cold, muddy, really, really muddy. And so, you know, does anyone else want to get baptized? And Alan says, I do. And I want Sam to do it. So I ended up getting the nice fishing lake, not as much a good wading lake.

Did you say that? But when we come back, we're going to talk more about bootcamp and we do have one coming up in the spring where we're not quite ready to talk about it now. We'll talk to you when we get back. What we have at our bootcamp is something that makes you stronger and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there.

How things been going since the last bootcamp? Doing good growing. I've got growing pains. I came up here as a little boy falling down, getting up, and now I'm a cowboy ranger going into adolescent hood.

It's a pleasure to be here. So you're speaking about cowboy rangers. Is that one of the talks that really came alive to you this weekend?

Yep. I don't want to grow up real fast. I had to do that a long time ago. I'm just taking baby steps along this journey and I can't think of any place or a group of guys I'd rather be with because you are appointed and accountable for me to learn and listen and I've got a notebook full of good tools that's going to help me grow.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. So that was something God put on my heart before bootcamp. I've heard that song, but I didn't really know the words or anything and I woke up Tuesday morning, you know, just pressing, preparing for bootcamp and getting talks ready and different stuff and, you know, I felt like God was saying, you know, you need to make room for me and I think there was part of that. But then as we went along and I started listening to the words a bit more, I was like, man, that is really the bootcamp of what we experience during covenants of silence. You know, after your heart has opened up and you're aware of some things and you're inviting God in, you, you know, you want to make room for him and that's how things happen. That's how things change. That's how things, people get victory and, you know, just breakthrough in their life. So that's by, um, the church will sing and, uh, that's become one of my favorite songs.

I think there's seasons for different things, but that's my song for the season. We're good. That's good. So Kenny, now you would tell us a little bit about, uh, your experience from this weekend. What's your favorite part of the weekend?

Anything there? It was such a special weekend for me because I brought two of my friends and, uh, the way the group, not just masculine's us, but the group there, the spirit there that reached out. I had, I had one young brother really hurt him and they picked up on that and they really loved on him, grouped around him.

I never, I don't think he ever had like a group prayer, these men coming in really praying for him. And I know, well, I just, when I talked to him after boot camp, he said, I want to come back to spring because he had to come in late because some doctors appointments. And he said, I won't come back spring.

I want to get it all. And that's what it's about. It's about, I know Ray, he came in from Raleigh. He said, this is what a lot of churches are missing is really discipleship, building a brotherhood that we were there for each other perfectly. No, but we're going to work through things. And that's what true brotherhood is, is working through the things and helping each other, bearing burdens and having your burdens bear and share. And that meant a lot to me. I know I talked to Leo and he's already talked to one of his friends.

He wants one of his friends to come in in April. So yeah, he said, I got another one too. And I said, okay, that's great.

That's great. That's what it's about is we got to energize each other, encourage each other. That's one thing is, I'll be honest, I see lacking in a lot of people's walk. They're not really encouraging the people around them to, hey, we got to stay focused and look for the opportunities God's given us to touch these lives because there's so many wounded.

Well, the whole world's wounded because of the break of God. And men are hungry for that. Women, and then to really be challenged to demand, you know, like you say, get that masculine heart going where we stand up for our families, our friends, our churches, our communities, our neighbors, and be in that true salt and light. And it was very encouraging to me and it just touched my heart in so many ways. And like you say, you always, this is my third, you know, full book camp. I've done some of the Mandy's all day, but it's like you say, every time you, you get refreshed and you get renewed in other areas and God keeps growing you, you know, because I don't think we ever stop growing.

I mean, Ray was 80 and he said, you know, that's when Moses really started his heart, most, most fantastic work. I said, you got the right attitude, right, right attitude right here. So, just something for you. I mean, you're faithful to bring these guys and, you know, Robby was talking the whole weekend about multiplication. Look at the multiplication that he just described right there. He brought two, they're breaking out there.

I mean, this is like five loads and two fish right here, you know. That's what you want. Yes. Thanks for bringing them. Oh, thanks for your guys loving on them and really showing them what it means to be a true disciple.

Yeah. I want to go back to something right before we went to break. You know, I joked around that I really didn't want to get in the water. And to be honest, I didn't want to get in the water, but I was very grateful that Allen picked me and gave me the honor of being able to do the baptism.

And it was very much worth getting in the water. And why did he pick you? I'll get to that with my clip later, but it had to do with, he just called me, he just, I thought he picked Robby initially. He said the rabbi. He said the rabbi. And I'm like, yes, he picked Robby. And he's like, the teacher. And he's like, oh no, that's me. But I thanked him later, you know, because it brought my total of people I've been able to be, that's the first person I've ever been able to do the baptism for.

I shared in the baptism, but my pastor did it for my sons, Caleb and Eli, and for my father-in-law, Dallas at the time, and was able to be a part of their baptism, which was awesome. And this was very awesome in a different way and felt, you know, very unqualified, which, but myself, I am unqualified. But because of Jesus, we're qualified. Right. You know, and that's the thing. It's not on our power, it's on his power. And he's a difference maker.

We're not, you know, I just got to be the vehicle that got to be a part of it. And just very grateful for that. And Allen, if you're listening, thank you for picking me. I enjoyed that. Hopefully it'll be a little warmer next time. But it was good. We're gonna have to start having COVID again, so we have summer camp.

Yeah, maybe use a pool up there. Anyway, so we're gonna get to another clip here in a second. But before we do that, I want to go over to Harold. Harold, you want to tell us a little bit about your experience from the weekend with boot camp? Well, there were several things.

I'll try to be quick. The first thing that stuck out to me was how much I enjoyed my brother Andy. His presentation went so smoothly. I remember back when he first started and the way he was so nervous with his stuttering.

Well, not stuttering so much, but hers was stammering. And yeah, but he did a superb job. And I was just thrilled to death with that. The other thing is, one of my favorite sessions was one that won't surprise anybody. It's rescuing the beauty. I got the opportunity to do a response to that. And I got to talk about the various ways that I try to rescue my beauty. But the really great thing is the being with everybody and seeing what's going on.

The lessons sometimes are things that we've seen before, but you can experience it differently. And that to me was great. Then the other thing I wanted to mention was Ray has been mentioned as coming from Raleigh. Interestingly enough, we were just chit-chatting. And I mentioned that I was from Alabama.

And he said, Oh, really? Are you familiar with Guin and Winfield? Those were two towns that were within about 25 to 30 miles of the town I was born in and lived in until I was around age 12.

And so not only did we find out that it later turned out that he was born in Childersburg, Alabama, which is Jan's birthplace and hometown. So we had several things there that we connected. And he was the guy that had called in to Robby's radio program and won the free weekend for boot camp.

So anyway, a lot of coinkydinkles right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Ray was excited about the weekend and it was an awesome time to get to know Ray. Yeah. And yeah, Andy's got to drop this pose as, Oh, I'm a guy I can't speak and I can't do this and all that stuff. You just got to drop that because you're knocking it out of the park, dude.

I mean, all that stuff that Pero was talking about, it's gone. I mean, you speak from your heart, which you've always done, but now you're just very comfortable out there. And it comes across very well. Well, I do appreciate it, guys.

I really do. I said in the beginning, I can, I'll probably have to clean this up a little bit, but I was like, the enemy was challenging me at the beginning. And I was like, no, I'm not, I'm going to, I'm going to keep on.

I don't care what I sound like. And, you know, Moses had the same problem and backed off, but I just believe that God has grown me so much in that area. And it's a lot, but I'm still a work in progress.

I'm a, I'm becoming like all of us of who we desire to be, but God has done a lot in that area. Yeah. You know, and, and, and honestly, you know, without God's help, the enemy would trip us all up, you know, because he, he hates these weekends. He hates the exposure that, uh, that he gets, you know, that people get to see him in a different light and the glory that God gets, you know? And so it's, there's every reason for him to hate the weekend. And, and we know it for a lot of reasons, uh, but we just, the warfare leading up to boot camp to warfare during boot camp to warfare after boot camp, it definitely dials it up a notch or two.

And it's a bit of a challenge. We're not going to have time to get David's clip in until the after hours. So we will have three clips in the after hours, but, uh, you know, we're wrapping up this, this segment of the shows or anything you guys like to add anyways, God came after your heart this weekend for those that's already talked that you'd like to share a little bit more. One thing that grabbed me was Dave. This is a young man that came in, drove in for Raleigh just to help us set up. Oh yeah.

And then, you know, when Ray came in, uh, you know, he, he was from Raleigh area and he said, yeah, I got a way up here, but I want one of you going to run me to the bus station or something so I can get back. I said, well, God will help us take care of that. So here come Dave. Yeah.

Sunday. Yeah. I mean, you know, that, that, that showed me God's had to plan for Ray and for Dave. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're confused, David, but we're talking about David Anthony. That's fine, Frederick.

I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Fred Nickerich. If you're going to do it, do it right. Use the right term. Yeah. Hey, I'm just saying, I sat there through that, that when you were telling that story and I was just looking at Andy, I was like, he's like, you've never heard this. I was like, oh, I've never heard this.

You never heard that story. That was the first time. It was like, yeah, whatever it can be, whatever it is.

I mean, it can be held against you again in a court of law, you know? Yeah, exactly. That's what he was doing.

Yeah. What Kenny was saying though, is we do have a friend of the ministry, David Anthony, that's from the Raleigh area. And he, he, he came to a couple of different boot camps. And then he's been making the trek over for the last three. I think he drives over from Raleigh and helps us set up and then drives back home. And, uh, at this time he drove over to help us set up and then drove back over to help us tear down and which is a huge help, particularly the tear down.

Well, I guess either since I never show up, everybody says it's more of the tear down, but you're, you're beat by the time you, you go to tear down and he's really a big help. Yeah. That's why the rest of us are tired at the beginning of boot camp and you're a little more refreshed.

Yeah. We do have a boot camp coming up in the spring. The reason we're not, and we know the dates, we're new and it is, but the reason we don't want to talk about it right now, one, we don't have our website up to where you can register.

So we don't want you to go in there right at the moment. But secondly, we're not quite sure yet until God tells us for sure, if we're going to do an advanced boot camp or a basic boot camp. And so as we know more, we'll unload that, you know, on the air and we'll talk about it and let you know what's going on, but we need to let God lead that. And so we should hopefully know that here in the next couple of weeks. And it's like any other boot camp, you're a bunch of guys out there. You're going to register about two days ahead. Anyway, no matter what we put it out, go to BascoJourney.org to download any content. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody well this week. This is the Truth Network.