Life audio. Hi from the Salvation Army, and you're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Welcome back to Words of Life.
I am so excited for you to meet our guest for the next six weeks if you don't already know him. Doctor Zach Clinton. He is a resident counselor at Light Counseling. He serves as the vice president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. He hosts the Built Different podcast and is president and host of Ignite Men's Impact Weekend that gathers nearly 10,000 men each year.
Throughout this series, we spend a good bit of time discussing topics from his latest book, Even If. And so, check out the show notes. We'll have links to his website, where to purchase this book, his podcast, and more.
So, be sure to subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store to check out those links or visit wordsoflifepodcast.org. Ladies and gentlemen, we are very excited to have with us for the next few weeks Dr. Zach Clinton. I'm just going to shoot it to him and we're just going to learn about who he is, where he comes from, his salvation story. Just, Zach, introduce yourself to our listeners.
Absolutely. First and foremost, Chris and Chris, what a blessing it is to join you guys today. I'm so excited just to sit down with you guys to have this conversation that I know will be spirit-led and spirit-driven, but also just to say everything that God is doing through the Salvation Army and more, it's amazing. And we're just blessed at the American Association of Christian Counselors and all of our other affiliated ministries just to be in partnership and in tandem with what God is doing in and throughout you guys and what you are doing and what you've been called to.
So thankful for this opportunity. A little bit about me. Man, you guys, I was born and raised in a Christian home. I was so honored, blessed, and privileged to have had that opportunity. I know that not many others might have had the great upbringing that I did.
Raised by two God-fearing Christian parents, I always say I was blessed because my parents loved God, they loved each other, and they loved my sister and I with every fiber of their being.
So growing up, man, I was rooted in safe and secure attachment, which I'm sure we may dive into further in the conversation. But with my parents, you know, growing up around them, ministry leaders, as well as going to a Christian school, I think sometimes I place a lot of pressure. on myself. That I had to know all the answers, that I had to be that kid that was the good kid labeled, and I'm doing quotation marks for those that can't see me, good kid. And the one thing I could do is, man, I could speak Christianese, right?
I had the knowledge of Jesus, I knew about him, but I just didn't know him quite personally yet. Until I would say the formative years of my life as I got into middle school, I'll never forget Clayton King came to one of our LCA chapels. We host the chapel every Thursday at Thomas Hard Baptist Church. He got up there, he posted kind of two chairs on each side. And what he began talking about was those that are ice cold for the Lord and those that are on fire for Jesus.
And man, I felt convicted in my spirit at the age of 14. To say, man, I just feel like I've just been cruising through life. I can quote all the verses in Bible class, I can get 100s on those exams, but man, it wasn't personal. Yeah, and I remember coming across a quote that said, God has no grandchildren. At that point in my life, I was living off of the faith of my parents, but I needed to personalize it for myself.
That was when. I really confessed with my mouth that Jesus was Lord. I believed in my heart that God raised him from the dead, as Romans 10:9 says. I believe I was saved, but obviously the journey never ends. Right at that beginning stage.
And so as I continue to grow. Continue to have a lot of different challenges that we can unpack together today and more that I just navigated through. And God taught me more and more about himself. And that's really what's gotten me into this space now of walking alongside of others, the hurting, the broken, getting to do what I get to do with my dad and my brother-in-law here at the American Association of Christian Counselors, serving as a licensed professional counselor in Virginia and more. It's just been a blessing to say that I get to be in partner with the Holy Spirit and what God has called me to, just like the things he's called you guys to.
As we help and serve, and hopefully, point others to the hope and the peace and the power of Christ. Right. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. We're going to take a quick ad break and we'll be right back. You know, the Bible tells us: I will bless those who bless you.
That's not just a nice sentiment, it's biblical prophecy. and it's a commandment from God, it's a calling, and right now we're called to act. The teachings of the New Testament are deeply intertwined with the Hebrew scriptures. As Christians, we are called to honor and respect this shared heritage. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 11:18, Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches.
If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. Supporting the people of Israel is more than a belief. It's a biblical mandate. By partnering with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, IFCJ, we can live out this calling together. Just as the fellowship blesses God's children, we know that you will be blessed too.
Learn more about the fellowship and how you can live out your faith, bless Israel, and be blessed in return. Visit ifcj.org today. Again, that's ifcj.org. Be the blessing. Live the word.
Answer the call. I first discovered your ministry through your podcast, Built Different, which I can't recommend enough. There will be links to that as well as Zach's website, books, and all of that in the show notes. Can you tell me first, how did you start this podcast? What was the heart behind that?
I mean, that's obviously one of your current passions today. Yeah, so in 2020, right around that 2020-21 time space, I also am the president of our Ignite Men's Ministry. And we host an Ignite Men's Impact weekend every year at Thomas Road Baptist Church locally here in Lynchburg, Virginia. And I just thought about, you know, in the middle of COVID, when there was all of those lockdowns and the loneliness and the isolation, that a lot of individuals, specifically men, were probably craving something more on a day-to-day, on a weekly basis, just as a way to educate them, equip them, empower them, encourage them. To continually be the leaders within their homes and more.
And so I actually started this out of. This idea for men, and I called it the Ignite Men's Battle Cry Series. And it was a podcast I started literally four or five years ago. And eventually, as God continued to grab a hold of it, shape me, form me into I believe who I'm still in this process of becoming, it then turned into. Build different because I wanted to reach not just men, but men and women, and specifically today's generations, the next generation coming up through.
So it turned into Build Different. And man, my idea behind it was just the power of testimony. Romans 12, 11 talks about that we are overcomers because of the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
So I just wanted to bring people on that were friends, that were ministry leaders, motivational speakers, mental health experts, athletes, and more, just to share. what God has done in and through their life. And again, even in the midst of hardship, even in the midst of suffering, how God is the great repurposer and can take broken things and make them beautiful again.
So that's really the heart behind every conversation. Everyone kind of has a mental health niche to them because that's kind of what God has called me to. And I always really want to focus on the power of perspective. That's kind of the heart behind Built Different. What I love about the guests that you have on that show, too, is like I know I have a lot of conversations with people who say, you know, I don't know how much of an impact I can make because I'm not in full-time ministry and this and this.
And I'm like, it's too. To be argued that if you're in more of a secular environment as far as your career goes, that you're making a bigger impact than I can. Yes, yes, because ministry is not about the pulpit. Ministry is not about being on a stage. That's never what ministry was about.
I think our Western civilization and our Western church here in the United States, in North America, we have made it about, again, the platform. But in reality, the stage where a pastor typically spoke from, it wasn't a stage, it was an altar. It wasn't a place you came to be healed or to perform. It was a place that you actually went to to be broken and powerless and surrendered to the Lord. And so that's this entire idea of, man, you guys, if we can get that right, right, and we can begin to posture our hearts.
Toward that of surrender to Jesus, even in the midst of hardship, even in the midst of suffering, whatever that looks like. That is what the church should be, and that's what the church should be. Doing and putting at the forefront of our minds, and so man, that's why I love what you guys have going on and.
So many other ministries. It's a blast to be a part of. We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation. We're gonna take one more ad wake and we'll be right back. You know, the Bible tells us, I will bless those who bless you.
That's not just a nice sentiment, it's biblical prophecy. and it's a commandment from God, it's a calling, and right now we're called to act. The teachings of the New Testament are deeply intertwined with the Hebrew scriptures. As Christians, we are called to honor and respect this shared heritage. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 11.18.
Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Supporting the people of Israel is more than a belief. It's a biblical mandate. By partnering with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, IFCJ, we can live out this calling together.
Just as the fellowship blesses God's children, we know that you will be blessed too. Learn more about the fellowship and how you can live out your faith, bless Israel, and be blessed in return. Visit ifcj.org today. Again, that's ifcj.org. Be the blessing.
Live the word. Answer the call. So on Words of Life, on this show, we haven't had the opportunity to have too many men focused series for one reason or another. And so I'm really excited to have you on with being the founder of Ignite What do men in our society today struggle with? What are the pressures, temptations as just a man, even if they maybe don't have a relationship with God?
There's so many that come to my mind. The first is actually, I think of like multiple words that begin with the letter P. I like to teach in that way. That's the pastoral heart inside of me, I think. Make it easy to remember.
The first one that men are really struggling with, Chris, is pressure. pressure to perform. Pressure to provide. Pressure to protect and more. And so there's a lot of men out there who just feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders.
And that then makes them feel like, well, because they're always taking care of other people, they're always trying to do more things, do more, more, more. We live in that kind of culture and society that preaches, you know, individualized kind of living, where it's like, hey, you can go and do this in a spirit of independence. You have to do this on your own. What I'm trying to help men understand is when they're facing all of the pressures of the world, that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of wisdom. And so that pressure.
Then I think it can bleed into what we would identify as preoccupation. A lot of men struggle. You talk about like phones and more and technology, that then just pulls them away. In the culture we live in. we always are seeking a dopamine hit or dopamine rush of some way, shape or form because we're always, again, preached instant gratification.
Get what you want, how you want it, whenever you want it, which is often right now. And so, being able to be able to pick up a phone, scroll through, do whatever you need to do, that's a lot of men's outlets. such a time as this. But that then pulls them away from the third P that guys really struggle with is people. Right, where you're very lonely.
There was an old quote that talks about that we're really living in a loneliness epidemic in culture and society today, especially as men. And we have to remember that if loneliness is the invisible illness of our day and age, that it's always the undiagnosed illnesses that are the most dangerous and deadly. There have been a lot of different surveys and assessments that have been given by Cigna Research, and they have found astoundingly. That there's probably well over 35, upwards, potentially of 50% specifically of men that would argue and say that they don't have one person in their life that they feel safe enough to open up to or to talk about, in a sense, heartfelt things. That's not just a problem, man.
That's a disaster. When you don't have one person that you can identify to go and be vulnerable with, to be authentic with, to be yourself around. That's a real issue. And then I think that then pulls men specifically into different vices. And I've talked about Alex in certain ways.
Where one of the leading issues that I think men struggle with nowadays is pornography. And as I have sat down and worked with a lot of men through this particular issue, something that I struggled with as a kid growing up for a little bit as I was seeking affirmation in the wrong places, even though as I mentioned, I grew up in a God-fearing home with great parents and more. It was something that I was seeking because of the pressure I felt I was placing on myself, the unnecessary expectations to be that perfect child, that perfect kid, and more. And so it became. The silent killer in my life, if you would put it that way, until I was able to bring it out into the open, confess those things to my parents, ask for help and more.
But pornography, why is it such an issue in the lives of men? A dear friend of mine who serves on our board here at the American Association of Christian Counselors, Jim Kress, he talks about that there's a lot of different reasons for this, but number one, it's accessible. Right, you can find it anywhere. Number two, it's affordable, it's free online. Number three, it allows you to remain anonymous.
That's often why it's the chosen, in a sense, sin of the church, because there's so many people in the pews who can live private or quiet lives, right? And there's that Henry David Thoreau quote: the mass of men lead but quiet lives of desperation. A lot of men are silently dying because of the things they're unable or unwilling to bring to the surface to ask for help. Beyond that, it's airbrushed. AI is now involved.
It is accelerated, right? Technology, as it accelerates, it actually begins to. In a sense, push it further and further and further onto you and into your life, then ultimately, the seventh day that Jim talks about is it can become very addicting. And so when all of those different things, the pressures, Again, the Phones are being preoccupied, the loss of people, and then obviously turning to other vices such as pornography and more, it leads to a disaster. And that's why I.
I believe you're seeing such an uptick in anxiety, depression, addiction, suicidality, not just in the human population, but specifically as it relates to men. And it's sad, man. There were some stats that were released last year that I wanted to ask. Mm-hmm. Hey, that's all the time we have for today.
Thank you so much for listening. Please join us next week as we continue this conversation with Dr. Zach Clinton. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army.
Visit SalvationArmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Uh These are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life.
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