Zach Clinton

This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. This is the truth of God who is built different.

And that is not just a description of him. That's a description of the hottest new podcast out there by Zach Clinton, who just spoke a powerful message to a bunch of college basketball players. Zach, it's good to have you on Truth Talk, my friend. Thank you so much for having me, Stu.

I really appreciate it. And that was a blast with Carolina University men's basketball team. You know what just happened. We'll let Baller Nation, John Perry, one of our Truth Ambassadors. This guy's all over social media. You bumped into him at a big event. John, set the stage.

What happened today? How did you meet this wild man? And how did he, what happened when he walked in that room and just these young men were just captivated by this powerful message about Christ and about life and about peace? I met Zach at Ignite Men's Ministry and it was incredible to connect with him. And what an awesome experience to have him come speak to the Carolina basketball team and just the five P's.

Just a powerful thing to be patient in the process and have peace while you're playing basketball and also in your life. And there's a little background noise because we're in a loud restaurant. I mean, when you got heavy hitters like Zach Clinton, you got to just, you got to get them on the air.

You got to get a roll tape when you can. And it's just awesome to have him on the show today. I want to tell you, we're at a barbecue joint in North Carolina called Little Richard's and we just ordered some serious food. So when it comes out, we will, and this is our awesome server. What's your first name, young lady? Lexi. Lexi, you're on national radio. We're just giving you a heads up.

So Lexi, thank you. We love our servers, service industry. Don't forget my lemons.

I got a lemon. Yeah, I tell you what, but hey, we got to take care of these folks. They are working hard to feed all of us.

This whole COVID season has been nuts. Yes. But Zach, who is Zach Clinton? Man, Zach Clinton. My ultimate thing is I'm a child of the king. I've tried too many times to be a shepherd when I was created to be a sheep.

That's what I heard somebody tell me not too long ago. But ultimately, I am the son of Dr. Tim and Julie Clinton. Two people that I love more than anything in the world is my parents. I grew up in a home, very Christian based. Both my parents were heavily involved in ministry their entire life. And it has been a blessing just to learn and to grow and develop underneath them.

They're my best friends, right? I tell them that all the time. But with that comes a lot of different unique challenges, pressures, expectations that I feel like I was placing on myself. And then I feel like other people even every time I walked into a room, I felt like it was the white elephant in the room, right?

All these expectations on me. And sometimes that can become daunting. So what I've had to learn in my own personal life is that I've had to learn to step away from that and realize that my faith is not based on my parents. My identity is not based on my parents. But my faith is something I've had to personalize and realize that I don't have to be the next best version of Dr. Tim Clinton. I could be the next best version of who God made me to be, who Zach. And so that's a little bit about me and what God's been teaching me from a young age all the way up to now, 26 years old. Just trying to step into who God has called me to be.

Wow. And really getting into identity. I mean, John Perry, Baller Nation, you have a godly dad who's mentored me. He's been on the show before. I have an amazing dad who's been a mentor to me.

Your dad, Dr. Tim Clinton, has mentored all of us. I mean, he's the guy we call for counseling. He started the whole AACC, you know, Associated Christian Counseling. He was on the show recently. Everyone downloaded the podcast because we did a show called Council Culture versus Cancel Culture.

And he did a great job talking about his testimony, bragging about you, which he always does. But John Perry, these guys, the Carolina University, your assistant basketball coach there, and Coach Het, Coach Williams, they were all there. But I tell you, these guys are wound up, man. They're eighth in the country. And they're thinking about their next win.

They're thinking of winning a Natty. And then in walks Zach Clinton. And there's something powerful when a whole team has a sigh of relief and they feel connected deeper to Christ in his piece. What was it like for you to hear that message? It was so impactful to me because as Zach and I were talking before he spoke of just having a third party come in and speak to the team is so impactful because Coach says the same things that Zach said of just persevering, of being patient in the process. And so it's just so impactful for our team and our players to hear that from somebody else and also from somebody else who has some credibility and has met the most, you know, successful athletes.

And so that gives our players an ability to be like, wow, this Jesus can really impact me on the court and off the court. Zach Clinton, a national podcast producer, talk show host, man of God, Zach Clinton, you were on the mound. You were there where those guys you just spoke to were. You were throwing heat against Virginia Tech. You were pitching throwing heat literally for the Liberty Flames four year scholarship pitcher.

Amazing. I remember when you pitched in a playoff game in Winston-Salem, I went and hung out with your dad in the stands. We watched you throw, man.

I was like, wow, that I don't want to be that catcher's mitt when Zach brings that flaming heat for the Liberty Flames. But talk about being there and looking at these young men who are there on the rise. But the world is just throwing all this stuff out. You talked about a perfection and success and winning. But tell us how you got to where you are from being in the same spot. Absolutely. You know, I think growing up and playing sports my entire life and really just trying to be as involved as possible in athletics. We live in a very performance driven culture. And that's what I kind of always call a comparison culture and perceived perfection is what it's rooted in.

And so so often, you know, it's hard for us because we get lost in that entire idea and the entire concept of it. So playing. Yeah, it was fun just to be there to pour into these guys and to realize, yeah, they were in the exact same shoes that I've been in. I get what it means to try to perform and feel those pressures and do all this different stuff and live for the results.

Right. Because everybody at the end of the day, we just want to win. We want to have success. But finding our identity and our worth in something greater than a game and realizing that, yeah, baseball, basketball, football, whatever sport you're playing, it's supposed to be fun because it's not supposed to be who we are. We get lost too often, though, in what we do and forget that we aren't good because we earn that title.

We're good because God calls us good. Zach Clinton, talk about the Built Different podcast. This thing is you're on fire, man.

It's all over the place. But talk about how this all came about and what God's doing through this built different. Why the name? It all started a couple of years back. We've been running Ignite Men's Impact Weekend for quite some time now. And I started it with I wanted to give the guys that come to that event something more than just like a spiritual high a weekend a year. Right. Because I felt like we all we did was it was it was an event. That's all it was. And so I wanted to turn it into a ministry where it was like something more than, hey, guys, thanks for coming.

We'll see you next year or next March. Wanted to start a podcast that we could pour into their hearts, bring hope, encouragement, motivation into their life. Actually started during the covid pandemic because I wanted to just spark some encouragement in those in the leaders in the homes and stuff like that. But then eventually started working on a book that God placed on my heart. And the title and the guy that I'm co-authoring it with naturally came to both of us. And literally we had a phone call and we both said the exact same thing.

It was God's place it on my heart. He said the same thing. I said, what's your title built different? What's your title built different?

And so I said, wow, this is a God thing. And so as we keep writing it, I said, I want to switch the name of the podcast over to the built different podcast. And I don't want to just reach the lives of men. I want to expand and interview women. I want to not only interview them, but hopefully reach and touch the lives of just as many individuals as possible. When that book comes out, we're going to put you on Truth Talk. We're going to get it out there.

That's so needed. Zach, what is your passion? What do you say to people out there? People are struggling. You're also a Christian counselor.

You're working on a doctor degree. You're in front of young people all the time. You're in front of people struggling in their marriage. Can you give us some hope? Can you throw out a lifeline to people out there moving so fast? Life's coming at them fast. They're trying to fill that cup with everything but Jesus. Talk to us real quick.

Give us some hope. I think the most common trauma that I'm doing research on is that of failure and trauma has a way of retriggering itself. And what the trauma then leads to is to proneness is what we call it. There's guilt proneness, but then there's shame proneness.

And that's what I've been doing a lot of stuff in. And too often though, what guilt means is that we place the emphasis or the focus on the negative behavior. So I feel guilty for doing something wrong. I feel guilty that I just struck out in the bottom of the ninth inning.

I feel guilty that I made that mistake and it hurt my wife. Puts the emphasis on negative behavior. But what shame does is it places the emphasis on self. And so when you fail, when you make a mistake, when you slip up, what happens is that we tend to often identify with that failure and then we become the failure.

And that's what a lot of people, you know, when I sit across from them in sessions, they're living lives of quiet desperation and shame. Kind of my message is that time does not heal all wounds. Jesus does. We forget that we try to reach for anything to be abandoned in our life when Jesus is the great physician. He's the one that's there for us to really bring that truth and hope and healing into our lives. And so also that's what we're trying to do. ACC and my counseling career and Christian counseling is just point people back to the truth of God's word and understand that it is by his grace and his love and truth, that it's something that we could never earn. And that's the beautiful thing about is that when God, he'll meet us exactly where we're at. But then his love is so powerful that it won't let us stay there.

And so just jumping on God's train at the end of the day and letting him lead and guide our steps. We're super grateful for this Lynchburg boy to come down to North Carolina. We're giving him some good North Carolina barbecue, right, Baller Nation?

Oh, yeah. Some good. This is good stuff.

Some real stuff. They're about to bring more out. We're grateful. Tell us real quick, Zach, thanks for sharing with that basketball team. We know lives are changed.

I was so encouraged. And this podcast is going to touch a lot of people we're doing in the broadcast. So be sure you download and share this and then be sure you get Built Different, the podcast.

How can people find out more about you, about your ministry? So you can go actually to zachclinton.com. There's a lot of stuff, whether to connect. It shares all the stuff on the Built Different podcast. The podcast is out there wherever you can find podcasts.

You can just look it up. The Built Different podcast is what it is with Zach Clinton. And then Ignite Men's Impact Weekend is coming up for men March 11th and 12th. It's at Thomas Row Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. We have a killer lineup.

I'm talking about Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Wentz, Kurt Warner, Inky Johnson, Jason Romano, Clayton King, Dr. Rick Rigsby. It's going to be an amazing time. Workshops that are just built around things that men love. Fishing, hunting, sports. It's like everything you can imagine. Becoming a better dad, a better father, a better husband. All sorts of things. Becoming a man of God.

It's just a really fun time where we try to align men's everyday passions with God's eternal purpose for their life. So yeah, so many ways to stay connected. I'd love to stay connected with each and every one of the listeners. zachclinton.com.

We'll put all this up at truthnetwork.com too. You can link right there to his Built Different podcast. God bless you, man. Thanks for coming down and hanging out with us, man. Stu, John, thank you guys so much. Love you both. Appreciate you.