Call to Duty

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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I'm actually in one right now. This is crazy. There's noise, there's people talking, there's men over there praying, they're actually playing Christian music in this restaurant. We're in Dario and I'm with a guy by the name of Michael who's calling men to duty, called to duty, but there's a big event you need to know about. But Michael, God bless you, man.

Thanks for being here and sharing all this good stuff with us. Well, what do you want to know, Stu? I want to know, who are you?

Tell everyone, you know, who is Michael? Like that, you know, because a lot of what you do is that identity thing. Let's go into yours a little bit.

I mean, I'm a nobody, I'm nothing, especially without Christ. But if you want to know my past, I can give you my story. Your testimony. My testimony. So, all right, so where do we want to start?

So I find it hard not to start in the beginning, right? So my mom and dad met when they were like 19 years old. They got pregnant at a Led Zeppelin concert. So I'm a combination of an unwanted pregnancy and LSD.

That's where I came from. My dad told me early on if I was a girl, I would have been an abortion. Earliest childhood memory was my dad beating my mom. They got divorced when I was two. My dad was troubled. He grew up in a rough home. And he basically kind of brought that in to me. Generational sin is definitely real, but those chains can be broken.

So my dad started showing me porn when I was three years old, which ended up creating an addiction that lasted well into my late 20s, probably right around 28, 29 is when I started realizing that it was a problem. Because when you grow up looking at stuff like that, it's normal to you. It's normalized. You don't think anything different. Because I mean, the way I grew up in my childhood isn't like most people, but as a child, you don't know that. You just think, this is life. So, you know, my mom was addicted to cocaine for 12 years for 12 years of my childhood, back and forth dating hell's angels.

Highlight, I broke the first man's nose when I was 12 years old defending my mom. You know, life kind of got crazy after that. I didn't know Christ, didn't know the Lord, had no clue. You know, I heard people talk about God.

I didn't know God. So from there, I moved out of my mom's house when I was around 15. I actually left North Carolina, went all the way to Texas on my own.

So no, I can't say on my own. I had a mentor that recruited me, gave me a job out there and I was just ready to go. You know, I mean, there's a lot of other things I've done between then and there.

There was a point where I was bigger than my britches, if that makes sense, when I was young. I was mentored by this wonderful man, Christian. And yeah, but I was so hungry for everything he had to give me and he taught me everything I knew about business. I got to a point where once I left him, I just, I thought, I mean, like any 19, 20 year old man, you think you know everything. There's no one was going to tell me what's what and where's where. So I actually got fired from a job.

And so I did the next logical thing that any man does, I became a male stripper. Right, so. Wow, I'm just gonna throw a wow in there and keep going. Stu Epperson, this is Truth Talk. Michael's got quite a testimony and quite an amazing event coming up.

I want everyone to know about and go to, but Michael, go back to that now. Somewhere we left off about stripper or something. Yeah, so I danced up and down the East Coast for three years of my life.

I'm traveling anywhere from Washington, D.C. all the way down to Miami, dancing for men, dancing for women. Just if the money was green, I was taking it. That's a whole other story in a whole different talk there. But I will tell you the the night that kind of changed my life. So I actually was dating a girl and we got pregnant. And then when the day we found out that it was a girl, I walked off stage and never looked back. So and I made a huge decision, life changing decision.

I went to work for Wal-Mart for seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour. Wow. So completely just I can't even say I was a Christian at that point in time. I just knew that there was something in my heart that says I cannot bring a little girl into this world of sex, drugs and violence.

That's all. So I stepped up, became a dad. God was working in my life well before I ever knew. There are things he protected me from, things that just I had no clue.

You know, I'm I'm ignorant. So at that point in time, from there, I was blessed enough to buy my own business about eight months after that complete walk of faith. And God made it flourish. So I started going to church thinking I'm a Christian. And for a long time, I sat on a church pew, going to church every Sunday, doing what was expected of me. And I knew I had knowledge of God, but there was zero relationship.

Absolutely nothing. I was absolutely my own God in everything I did. Michael was the most important, although I had other motivations to make me look good. It was all about me and stroking my ego.

That was really where it is. About four years ago, God just crushed me in just the best way. I got to the point where I was in financial ruins. I lost. I was on the verge of losing my businesses. My marriage crumbled.

Another story, another time. And then the final straw is he broke me down. Literally, I went from being able to lift 300 pounds one day to something popped in my neck. And I couldn't even do a push up the next day. All this happened within a matter of about six months done. And I was to the point where I was just ready to call it quits.

Done. And there was a time where I was going to take my life, and no one knew about it. And I don't know.

I don't know how. I prayed to God for about four or five hours. I had it all planned out.

And then someone walked in where they should have never been and stopped it. And so from that day forward, I honestly surrendered everything just to be a vessel in his kingdom. If that means scrubbing a toilet, I'll scrub a toilet. If that means being blessed to teach men, I'll do it.

Wherever God wants me, I'm all in. You know, it's interesting. I kind of met you backwards because I hear about this amazing call to duty men's event. I'm like, wow, that's like something we need to let everyone know about it. And we're promoting another Truth Network. And so I'm like, well, I got to interview the guy that's behind all this that's putting it on and promoting it. And so now I'm hearing your story. Connect that to your passion to get a bunch of men in a room and me with food and speakers and, you know, and get away and in a safe place.

Can you connect that with what's going on with this event and how that ties into your story? So all right, if we're being real, let's look at some statistics, okay? So in the homes in America, roughly 40% of homes in America are fatherless. Now I'm part of that statistic. I grew up seeing my dad once a month.

And the crazy thing is, if you look at the profound impact that one day had on my life, because remember, he introduced me to porn at three years old. I'm not saying it was positive, but this is the kind of impact that men have on their children's lives. All right, so right now we have 40, actually, I think it's 44% of homes in America are fatherless. Now, from that point, with at least 56% of homes that actually have men in them, all right? That doesn't mean they're good men. That doesn't mean they're doing what's right.

That just means they're there showing up. When you look at the statistics of those men, somewhere around 20% of those men are abusing their children or their spouses. So we've got domestic violence in roughly 20% of those. So that roughly leaves a little over a third of homes in America have men that aren't violent to their own families. That's it. So we're talking about men.

Guys, all of us, myself included, we're failing, and we're failing miserably. And that's where this heart comes from. Because if I look at, I have six children. I'm blessed to have six amazing kids. They've grown up, and they've seen their dad living life one way, and they've seen the transformation after Christ got a hold of me.

And I will tell you, and it's funny because I'm actually able to watch my kids and the transformations they're making as well, giving their lives to the Lord as well. I want to say there's a statistic out there. Whereas if you bring a child to the Lord, the family follows, I think it's like 7% somewhere around there. I can't remember that.

It's just remembering off the head. And then if a mother comes, it's like 19%. Does that sound right? And then the father brings 93%. So when we go, when we look at the Bible, when we look at what God has to say about it, God ordains men to be leaders. And our first position is leaders in our home.

So that's where my passion is. Because I'm one of those statistics. I am the failure. I am the father that failed. And even now, you've got to think my kids, we have split custody.

They're fatherless half the week. So I mean, and I watch, and if there's like, I know obviously marriage is another thing that's heavy on my heart because I was from a divorced family. I'm now a father. I was from a divorced family.

I'm now divorced. And I watched the degradation that has happened to my kids. And then I watch what Christ can do in their hearts as well. So yeah.

And that's how, I mean, honestly, I would love to just, so the conference came, I mean, honestly, yeah. I mean, cause all the failure, we're all failing. I mean like really this, and there's a lot of us that sit there and we put on this mask, we put on this guys and we pretend to be something or not. And the first time I realized that I was posing all the time, and that's not, it's not a pleasant conversation when another man brings this to you and he says, hey, look, what's the deal?

I see this, I hear this, but I watched this. And so I've been blessed. I've had two men in my lives for about the last three years discipling me. I mean, and they hit me with the hard truths and they challenged me to go above and to be what I say I want to be.

Yeah. Authenticity, leveraging your test. You know, you could have sat at home, beat yourself up, not done anything, but now you're inviting a bunch of messed up guys, just like you and me to get in a room, love each other, seek Jesus, promote, give us a shameless plug for the event real quick. How can folks find out more about it?

Whether they come online or whether they can make the trip to North Carolina, or maybe have you come and speak to their group. What's the best website? Call to duty.world is the website where you can actually go online and you can give if you want to give, or you can actually go ahead and register for the conference. Call to duty.world.

That's the best way. Call to number two in the word. Call to, call T-O. Call T-O-D-U-T-Y duty dot world. W-O-R-L-D. Meet Michael there.

Get involved in this event. Thank you for sharing this, man. What a blessing. What an encouragement. And thank you for taking your mess and letting it be God's message. I mean, all the glory to him. I mean, you don't need to thank me for that. That's all. Praise the Lord.

I am nothing without him. Here we are with a bunch of crazy men in a Dario after Wednesday in the Word hanging out and hearing your story on a national radio show and what encouragement. Everyone, go to this event.

The date again? The date is May 6th and 7th. So it's not too late to sign up, right? No, not too late. We've got about a month, five weeks left before we go. This is the Truth Network.