00:07:58.120Well, gentlemen, in this episode, we're going to be talking about exactly this, about how friendship shapes men, how it shapes women.
00:08:05.100But in particular, as we continue with this theme of fatherhood, we're going to be talking about how fathers are made to teach their children friendship.
00:08:14.440Now, unfortunately, Dan, as you mentioned in the cold open, it's rare for men to have male friendships anymore.
00:08:19.760So we're going to talk about why some of this is.
00:08:22.520I think it's an important question as we talk about how friendship can be given to our children.
00:08:27.600We need to understand it for ourselves.
00:08:31.220So we're going to unpack that in the problems of fatherhood, friendship, and passing that on to children.
00:08:38.300But it reminded me, by the way, of a meme.
00:08:42.940It was floating around a few years ago, and they said, everybody talks about the miracles of Jesus, but nobody talks about the real miracle.
00:08:49.740He was a man in his 30s, and he had 12 male friends.
00:08:57.300And then finally, gentlemen, this episode, we're going to be talking about how this friendship can be passed on to our children just practically, pragmatically.
00:09:06.520How do we actually teach them these things?
00:09:10.780So I want to start with the importance of friendship in general.
00:09:14.420One of the responses that we get so often to the King's Hall podcast is that people say, I really enjoy the friendship on the show.
00:09:23.600So, Dan, either we're really good actors or there's real friendship represented in the three of us.
00:13:21.120John Michael has an awesome system and program over there that's helped a ton of guys level up and go from being happily married to ecstatically married.
00:13:30.560Well, The Family Captain has a conference coming up in Nashville this September 14th, 15th, and 16th, where John Michael, who is also a pastor, is going to be speaking.
00:13:39.140Of course, but they've also got Ryan Frederick of Fierce Marriage.
00:13:42.740Ryan's been in the marriage ministry game for a while now.
00:13:45.440He's a solid brother, and they've got Pastor Dylan Davis as well,
00:13:48.700who happens to be one of the alumni of the Family Captain Program.
00:13:52.480So it's going to be an awesome weekend where husbands will be encouraged
00:13:55.340and equipped in practical self-leadership and family leadership.
00:13:59.340So you guys should definitely check that out.
00:14:01.220And John Michael wanted the listeners of the Kings Hall podcast
00:14:51.200And so even like digital fathers, like father-son, father-daughter relationships, digital friendships are now more common.
00:15:00.140There is a human relationship issue that we have right now.
00:15:04.860And so, I mean, friends are a massive part of that.
00:15:06.960Yeah, I think that's really important.
00:15:09.620We'll delve into, in just a moment, some of the more bigger issues of why people have a hard time making friends in our society, specifically our children.
00:15:18.680But, gentlemen, I want to ask you, why is friendship itself such a powerful force in the world?
00:15:24.560And as you're answering that question, I think a big part of it is, what is it?
00:16:04.340The way that they talk about each other.
00:16:05.920And even though they were like 90 years old when they were doing the documentary, they're like tears filling their eyes as they think about their brothers, both those who've fallen and those who made it through with them.
00:16:18.860So I just want to ask you, I guess, what is friendship, first of all?
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00:17:08.520You know, when I think about all of the passages in scripture about friendship, and it makes
00:17:14.600distinctions consistently between different types of things that might look like friendship,
00:17:19.340but aren't, like Proverbs 18, 24 says, a man of many companions may come to ruin,
00:17:25.360but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 27, 6, faithful are the wounds
00:17:31.160of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 10, two are better than one.
00:17:39.500For if one falls, he will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone if he falls. A lot of
00:17:44.640these things have to do with, you know, like a companion might be a group of people you're around,
00:17:50.480but friends are people who take a clear and even courageous interest in your ultimate good.
00:17:58.280They love you. And so they want your ultimate good. They don't just, it's not just a relationship
00:18:04.280of some mutual benefits. It's not just like, you know, we happen to be doing, co-workers are like
00:18:08.940this. You can feel like they're friends sometimes, you know, you think about, I worked at Starbucks
00:18:12.380And you kind of know the other people there, and you laugh together, and you have some inside jokes.
00:18:17.140But it's like, biblically speaking, it seems as if real true friendship is so focused on the good of the other that it's willing to even wound the other, take risk.
00:18:29.840It's like a linking of life to where you're saying, I want to see you built up in Christ and in every other way.
00:18:38.680I want to see your house, your legacy built.
00:18:40.920You want to see my house, my legacy built.
00:19:02.860It's kind of like the height of friendship.
00:19:04.900Yeah, Christ is a friend to sinners, meaning he's not going to just allow them to continue in that state, but he's also not going to crush them.
00:19:15.100There's a love there that is genuine and from the heart.
00:19:21.000I mean, those kinds of elements there, they can be built around lots of mutual goals, and there's lots of context where friendship can be built.
00:19:29.000But like the ideal friendship is that band of brothers where you're like, yeah, he would die for me and my people and I would die for him and his people.
00:19:37.200Yeah, I actually find it really interesting in the story of David and Jonathan.
00:19:41.460So many people want to turn it really gay when they say that they had a love that surpassed the love of women.
00:19:48.540but it's, it's such a different relationship than a, like a husband and wife, because it
00:19:54.860would be inappropriate for a wife to say, I'll give my life for my husband. Right. But for two0.54
00:20:02.340men that are closer than brothers, we look at the story of, of Damon and Pythias and say like,
00:20:08.900that is just, you know, that is good. Or a band of brothers saying like, I will give my life for
00:20:14.400yours. And it's the other way around. It's such a mutual, sacrificial sort of relationship that
00:20:21.300it is a different type of relationship than a husband and wife. And that's why I think that
00:20:26.960he says that is because they would give their lives for one another in a way that would be
00:20:32.260inappropriate in a married relationship. Yeah, that's really interesting. It also makes me
00:20:37.020think about, as we unpack something like what would be the keys to friendship, I was thinking
00:20:41.640about um how we've been aligned with each other here in ogden one of the things that has i think
00:20:48.240been a key to this friendship is we all have the attitude of burning the boats yeah like you come
00:20:53.580here you plant your roots we've worked through conflict very differently when you say to one
00:21:00.060another well we're here no matter what forever so i guess we better work through it it's sort
00:21:05.620of like in a marriage yeah when you say we don't even talk about divorce we know that we have to
00:21:10.840work through the issue. So we're committed to doing that, and that shapes the friendship.
00:21:14.840So as you guys think about friendship, what would be some other keys to friendship formation?
00:21:21.220You know, it's interesting that you bring that up about, like, burning the boats,
00:21:24.860because it makes me think of one of the keys. To the extent that we feel that way,
00:21:29.340and it's not even just about, like, New Christendom Press or making this kind of—at the
00:21:34.780core, really. It's that we're in a church community, and everything a church community
00:21:40.880should be, where we're saying, this is the place I'm going to give my life to these people,
00:21:47.620this place, this church, the name of Christ here in Utah and beyond as it grew, you know,
00:21:53.600Ogden and beyond as the Lord hopefully blesses and extends the network and roots of friendship
00:21:58.800and connection. But that to me is the key. It's not even just like a work relationship thing.
00:22:04.020everything we're doing with podcasts and whatnot could die tomorrow and we would still all be here
00:22:10.020trucking because what are what we're aligned around is the most fundamental central mission
00:22:16.020of the christian man and family that's where the roots of this friendship have been built
00:22:22.780like dan and i have been friends and pushing the plow together before any podcasting or whatever
00:22:29.640Like, we were here taking shots and building and fighting and doing all in the church.
00:22:38.180Well, and Brian, you bring up a really good point.
00:22:39.900I think mission, friends in mission, but particularly for men, men are – I've often heard this.
00:22:46.220Like, men are – rather than being face-to-face relationally as much, they want to be side-to-side.
00:22:51.360So side-to-side building things, fighting in the trenches, that sort of thing.
00:22:55.460It seems like mission would be really important.
00:22:57.780So, Dan, I want to get your thoughts on why mission?
00:23:00.660Like, could you have great friendships with no mission?
00:23:02.880Yeah, I think one of the keys to mission is having a similar vision and principles, right?
00:23:08.720Because if you don't have a similar principles to another person, it makes other things—
00:23:51.180That's not what I talk about principles.
00:23:53.220Theology is just kind of an outflow of some of your principles.
00:23:56.760That's a symptom, not an actual principle in itself.
00:24:00.560Like, being a Calvinist is not a principle.
00:24:03.280That is an outflow of your principles, wanting to understand, you know, how God operates in the world and with people, you know, specifically with Calvinism and soteriology and salvation.
00:24:14.620And so you can get along with a diverse theological, you know, background.
00:24:20.720but the aim has to be similar the aim has to be similar otherwise how are you supposed to spur
00:24:26.400your brother on how are you supposed to spur your friend on to success and to correct him
00:24:31.700if you're actually not even pointed at the same thing so i think that is one of the absolute keys
00:24:37.220you'll even see this in family dynamics it's kind of like a side note why do you look at some
00:24:42.840families and you're like you guys like get jacked to to like have game night yeah like family get
00:24:50.260togethers are like, you're like stoked for it. I'm excited. I'm going to go hang out with the
00:24:54.800family. And then other people are like, you know, it's like this monumental event of dread going
00:25:02.000to hang out with family, like Thanksgiving, Lord help me. I do not want to go, you know? And a lot
00:25:08.920of it comes down to shared values. What are they pointing at? They're pointing at something
00:25:14.700different, it becomes almost incompatible to have relationships with people that have such
00:25:20.480different values. So mission is a huge part of that. Mission is a huge part of it because
00:25:25.600by nature, so friends, I think, have to be loyal. That's one of the main virtues of a good friend
00:25:34.700is loyalty because you think about what an enemy would do is betray you. That would be the opposite
00:25:42.980of, of being loyal is betrayal. That's why it's, it's so hard when you're watching a movie and you
00:25:48.920see a friend, you know, turn on his friend. Like Robert the Bruce. Right. Yeah. That sense of
00:25:56.720betrayal. Like I thought you were for me, Judas, you know, I thought that you were, well, Jesus
00:26:02.800wasn't fooled, but the other disciples, you know, it must've been perplexing and like, uh, it was
00:26:08.680horrible you know to have this sense of betrayal yeah it's interesting too because one of the
00:26:13.460things that brian had mentioned from proverbs is uh that a friend sometimes wounds uh with his
00:26:18.940words he speaks the truth to his friends and a lot of times in the moment that can feel like
00:26:23.120disloyalty but it's actually the opposite yes highest loyalty so so one of the things i've
00:26:28.580noticed is um this particularly online but like you'll have uh groups of people who all want for
00:26:34.320one reason or another fighting together on some internet issue which makes you wonder how real
00:26:38.560it is um but then it's like you sort of have the like we won't correct our friends mentality yeah
00:26:45.680and so it's interesting i think it would be helpful for people to know this like
00:26:49.360that's something that we're doing all the time actually and even welcoming with each other of
00:26:54.260saying most of the time welcoming where are my eventually eventually welcoming yes that's right
00:27:01.000but why why is that such an important part of friendship brian well like when dan's talking
00:27:06.100about loyalty and principles. And this is such a key to this part, because when you have
00:27:12.540loyalty, your ultimate loyalty is to your friend's good. And so the principles are really
00:27:17.300important. How do we evaluate what is good and what is not in their life, my life, our shared
00:27:22.440mission, all that kind of thing? And a lot of times you can have surface disagreements and
00:27:27.540things about that. But if you share the same ultimate common good principles and that you're
00:27:33.800aiming for? What are we trying to do together? What are we aiming for? And it's not just like,
00:27:39.160you know, oh, we like to go mountain biking together because that's fun, or we hunt together
00:27:43.260or whatever. But it's like, no, what are we aiming for? Well, at the bottom, across all kinds of
00:27:47.780different disagreements and different wirings and gifts and different personalities, it's like,
00:27:53.220what are we aiming for? The kingdom and glory of Christ amidst this people, down through the
00:27:58.920generations, in our families, building one another up. That's what we're doing. And so if we're all
00:28:05.280loyal to that, and we know that that's in our friend's best interest, and he agrees with that,
00:28:11.300he's like, yeah, that is the best interest. Then when you come and you say, I think that you're
00:28:16.000not living in alignment with your principle here, and you bring correction or counsel or even
00:28:20.520wounding, then what are you doing? Well, you're actually saying, friend, we all agree on this
00:28:25.800shared glory that we're aiming for we're trying to win this glory together and i'm going to wound
00:28:32.220you now because you're going left off of that path and so let me let me wound you and like
00:28:38.340sometimes right away oh thanks man i needed to hear that and then sometimes three months later
00:28:42.040when you're like god dang it they were right it's always dan it's always like it's always dan when
00:28:48.020when eric and i six months later are like was he right again that dog how did he know this it's
00:29:05.060Actually, Proverbs 19 says wealth makes many friends.
00:29:08.580You'd mentioned mountain biking and hunting.
00:29:11.120I'm sure that if you're in hunting or fishing or something like that, and you're any good at it, you'll have a host of people that want to be your buddies all of a sudden.
00:29:21.680They see a picture of a really big fish or like a nice buck or something like that.
00:29:53.720Yeah, I think that's really important.
00:29:55.480One last thing I guess I want to talk about regarding friendship is, you know, it's good for women, but it's good for men especially because I think for men it doesn't happen anymore.
00:30:13.480I think it was on Harper's Bazaar, which is a bizarre place for me to read an article.
00:30:17.920But the lady was talking about how frustrated women are that men don't have friends because she said it turns men into emotional gold diggers, meaning they become draining to their women because the women are like, because he doesn't have male friends, he's always coming to me and dumping all of his problems and he doesn't do anything with other men.
00:30:41.600I think it was like this article is a little old, but it was I think kind of the beginning of people starting to see the nice guy syndrome was a problem.0.79
00:30:49.920Like this guy who just lives as a doormat to his wife or to his woman is actually not something that's desirable for women.0.58
00:30:57.260And so all the women in this article were like, yeah, actually, I want my guy.0.61
00:31:02.100I want my husband to have male friends and do male things together.1.00
00:31:07.160So talk to me about male spaces and as you're thinking about this, like, Brian, your boys, Dan, your boys, they're going to see you having male spaces or not.
00:31:18.780So spaces, male spaces, why is that so important?0.82
00:31:22.180And I think you need – we've lost both.
00:31:24.480We've lost both male-only spaces and female-only spaces because of this egalitarian lie that men and women are interchangeable.
00:31:32.140And so you – there's nothing really different.
00:31:35.100What's the difference between a group of men and women and a group of men only or a group of women only?
00:31:39.800It's a result of those principles being outworked, those bad principles being worked out culturally.0.79
00:31:45.420And what it does particularly for men is it ultimately makes them, I think, very weak, very weak, because women cannot – they're literally not designed to lead a man and sharpen him in the same way that other men are.0.80
00:32:03.060And it does the same thing for women.0.81
00:32:04.720Men are not designed to sharpen women in exactly the same way that women are.
00:32:10.960Like that's why Titus 2 is in the Bible.
00:32:13.120You need older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands, to be workers at home, all this glorious, rich sort of stuff.0.71
00:32:20.440So what happens when you put all of the ladies together and they're, again, principles, mission, loyalty, they're all working together to spur one another on to become the glory of man,0.77
00:32:30.840To become the most glorious, home-nurturing, child-rearing, husband-loving, fruitful vines that they can be.
00:32:39.220Glorious things happen that won't happen if you just had spaces where men were always there.
00:33:26.280I never tell my wife, like almost ever, do I like put any kind of like church leading, like any of the things we do together, it always involves we're fighting outside conflict.
00:33:37.420We're like always needing to make sure we're staying aligned.
00:33:39.780And there's always like that male sharpening happening.
00:33:43.680I never tell my wife about that stuff because it wouldn't help her.
00:34:27.960But for your wife to say that would be very disrespectful, really bad.
00:34:34.980That is why it is vital that men have other men to correct them because you can speak to one another in a way that it would be completely inappropriate in mixed company.
00:34:44.720what's interesting too i was thinking of uh the movie 1917 and uh you remember the scene where
00:34:50.900his his friend has just died and the other like commanding officer from the british troops he
00:34:55.380walks up to him and he sort of gives him a hug and he's like i'm sorry about the loss of your
00:34:59.160friend and he said you probably already know this but it doesn't do to dwell he's like get in the
00:35:04.460get in the truck and i think that's something men can also do for each other in the context of
00:35:09.820friendship is i'm really sorry this is really hard but you need to take the next step forward
00:35:15.720and that's what you need to do um one of the things i've noticed uh in a lot of the articles
00:35:20.820online you can find a lot of these that talk about why we don't have male friendships
00:35:23.660they're like well because men aren't emotionally available enough and they need to see therapists
00:35:28.700more and they need to be able to talk about their feelings together and they need to like have a
00:35:33.600It's a good small group time where they just talk.0.92
00:38:33.560That's another part of friendship that's really important is that you are known.
00:38:38.160Again, not in the way of husband and wife, but as a man to man because you have a similar perspective on life.
00:38:46.640You have similar ideas of what you're aiming for with masculinity. You have also similar perspectives on the struggles of being a man, such as the struggles of leadership in your home, the struggles of being able to provide for your family.
00:39:04.200Like those things, um, only, uh, another man is going to really be able to identify with.
00:39:10.900And then because they're going to know what the aims should be, what the virtues should
00:39:15.800be, they're going to be the ones, a friend will be the one to hit you in the soft underbelly
00:39:21.620of your weakness in order to strengthen you there, to harm you for your own good, uh,
00:39:27.280which is far more valuable than just going to somebody and just like offloading your
00:39:31.960emotions. I was going to say something really offensive, you know, really offensive, but
00:39:36.420just to offload your emotions. And then at the end say like, oh, that was really good.
00:39:40.760You know, actually it reminds me of a book that I read a long time ago. I don't even know if it's
00:39:44.560any good, but because it was been so long, it was called fight clubs and it was about
00:39:48.480masculine friendships specifically in defeating pornography. And the author talked about how
00:39:55.260often you'll get these groups of guys that get together that all struggle with pornography.
00:40:00.820And essentially, they do that same thing that you would with a therapist, which is to say, like, oh, I'm confessing this thing.
00:40:10.520And you just offload it onto the group.
00:40:12.760And he called it cheap grace because you never actually repent of your sins, meaning, like, you actually turn away and no longer walk in it.
00:40:22.420Oh, yeah, like, oh, yeah, I did the same thing, brother.
00:40:25.100Like, you know, we all stumble, like, and over and over again, you're getting this cheap grace without actually ever receiving the fullness of grace and repentance from your sins.
00:40:35.740And the thing is, like, a friend will know that.
00:40:39.020A friend will call you to a higher purpose, and a therapist is not motivated by that.
00:40:45.720He's going to say, no, do the hard thing.
00:40:47.780Do the hard thing now, not the long, much harder wrong thing that's easier up front.
00:40:53.460It's like – because, again, he's for you.
00:40:55.840He's loyal to the principles that hopefully are God-ordained principles for your good and glory, and he's going to love you enough to do that.
00:41:06.020So when you lose this, when you replace it with digital alternatives or ersatz friendship, like what you're losing is not an insignificant thing.
00:41:16.720Oh, in World War II, they would, in England, you know, they're an island, shipping's been disrupted by the U-boats and all that, so they're having a hard time getting food and supplies.
00:41:25.660So they would start making fake versions of food, like coffee that's chicory and sawdust.
00:41:32.300Literally, they would put sawdust in flour, and they call it ersatz food.
00:44:03.880There's a really craven way of providing the alternative in a way that is just cheaply monetizing you and actually not calling you up into good friendship.
00:44:15.280It's providing you with a false model, and it's providing you with like a drug alternative to the real thing.
00:45:47.760And then in addition to that, it's also presented in a way where it's like more and more YouTube channels, more and more videos, more and more content.
00:45:55.660And what happens is kids go, I don't need friends.
00:46:30.020It's caused psychological damage to our children.0.66
00:46:33.240Yeah. They're weaker than ever. Suicide rates are astronomical. All of this. The transgenderism movement in particular has been infiltrating kids' minds through primarily places like Snapchat. But even adults today are replacing friendships with online relationships.
00:46:51.780There's a number of times online where I've seen people ask really intimate questions on Twitter.
00:46:58.100Like, hey, what do you guys think about this?
00:48:44.140But if I, as a father, if I see my daughters or my sons getting into this kind of world and they're not actually doing it themselves, then I'm like, let's shut that down and let's go make some friends.
00:48:56.560Because one you need, the other one you don't.
00:48:59.160It can be a servant, right, of good friendship to give you some models in stories and video and film and whatnot.
00:49:40.840Yeah, I'm sure I'm getting ahead of us a little bit.
00:49:42.660But one of the main enemies, I think, that are preventing our children from having friends is that we're not setting them up in the context in which they can build friends.
00:49:56.620And we're not displaying what that looks like.
00:49:59.660Like, so I think one of the better ways that you can build friendship amongst your kids is by identifying another family, you know, in your church or something like that with similar age kids that you get along with.
00:50:27.060Because part of the reason that your children are going to be attracted to a Mr. Beast friendship or whatever the Twitch streamer or YouTube channel is, is that they haven't been inoculated against fake digital friendship by having the real thing.
00:50:43.640Yeah. You know, and so another way that I think that we're not winning our kids to friendship or that are enemies of friendship, and this might seem a little strange, is by not winning their hearts towards friendship.
00:50:58.100because the thing is as much as we want to define what a friend is you know it's loyalty shared
00:51:02.860mission you know vision uh being willing to harm one another for for their good you know we can
00:51:09.040define it but you'll notice like if you ask the question what is a friend the first thing that
00:51:16.460comes to most people's mind i think will be oh it's freddo and sam like that that it'll be that
00:51:23.960We think about it in story because that's going to be one of the best ways that you can see the example of friendship is that they need to be told the right stories.
00:51:36.240Your children need to be won by the right stories.
00:51:39.860That's why I really do think Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest examples of this, is by reading the right stories to your kids and by communicating to them and winning their hearts to this idea of friendship and training them to be good friends, they'll realize pretty quickly that the digital version is just a cheap substitute.
00:51:59.740It's like some artificial sugar substitute.
00:52:04.000And if they've never tasted it, if you're in World War I, World War II, and your fake coffee shows up or your fake flour and you've never had real bread, you don't know.
00:54:46.640Another aspect, enemies of friendship, we've kind of circled around it a lot, but just, like, the disintegration of life.
00:54:53.020A lot of what we're talking about comes back to this, that the industrial revolution and then the information technology revolution successfully disintegrated life by doing an easy button for everything so that you no longer had to go.
00:55:17.040You don't ever have to go to like have your favorite restaurant where you go and know the staff and the owners.
00:55:22.120Everything is hyper-optimized and hyper-digitalized, and what it's done is it's actually cut the root of the life together where before that, it would be common where you would have in a community, you'd have all of the basic needs of life would be connected to you'd have a butcher, you would have a grocer.
00:55:43.620You would have, and it would be walking distance in your community.
00:55:48.000You would have all these things together that you couldn't live without.
00:55:54.540You'd have, I mean, like all of these things shared together.
00:55:57.940So what you're saying is there is a secret cabal that is organizing every aspect of life to make every man an island so that when they enforce their tyrannical rule,
00:56:10.880There can be no uniting amongst the people to overthrow the tyrants.
00:56:17.400And they've given you the illusion that you have these connections, and they have the power button to all of them, meaning they can immediately shut off all of your communication, all of your access, all of your social media like that.
00:57:00.660Okay, bringing back that to the enemy's disintegration, one of the things then is to bring back integration where why do my kids have way better friends now than I had growing up?
00:57:10.080Ian, I mean, I grew up in the 90s. Part of it's because we lived a military life that's deeply unrooted. You're moving every two to three years, and you have friends, and then you don't anymore, and you don't learn how to make friends.
00:57:21.400But a lot of it has to do that their shared life grows out of the same social trunk, which is the church, the school, the social activities surrounding the church, school, family, friendships.
00:57:35.160That is 90-plus percent of their life experience.
00:57:38.880It grows out of Psalm Sing, St. Brendan's, church on Sundays, Sundays in the Park with friends.
00:57:48.600One of the other things I was thinking about as you guys were talking is the way society has changed in terms of even things like financial inflationary economy type issues.
00:57:59.780So because of an inflationary economy, and then especially in the 80s and afterwards, you really get into the acceleration of this.0.89
00:58:07.340And because of that, now moms have to go into the workforce.
00:58:09.760So moms and dads are both working twice as hard to bring home the same pay.1.00
00:58:13.920So that's going to change family life.
00:58:15.980Then you add in, I think, in America since at least probably about the same, the 80s.
00:58:21.520I mean, sports have been a big part of American culture, but generally they were recreational and family-centered.
00:58:26.640And then what happened is now everybody – you have four kids, and they're all in a competitive travel league, and there's only two parents.
00:58:33.900So those sorts of things divide the family as well.
00:58:37.080They really prohibit – everything is overscheduled.
00:58:39.340So it really prohibits the family from being together on a regular basis.
00:58:43.540that stuff is very very disruptive obviously we've talked about technology as you think about dan
00:58:50.420some of the other challenges one of them i think would be like safety and what what some authors
00:58:57.180have called safety ism and i want you to think back to our childhoods my mom didn't work my dad
00:59:03.600worked he made a good wage we owned a home we're in a neighborhood there were copious amounts of
00:59:08.760unscheduled downtime and my mom would say you boys go play and we would go out in the street
00:59:15.480with the neighborhood kids and we would play football get in fights yeah build forts this is
00:59:20.940like suburban denver i mean the outskirts of denver so this and this isn't that long ago build rickety
00:59:27.100bike jumps with but i mean i'm not even thinking about the the new neighborhood where i live
00:59:32.160you'd never even see kids outside they like never leave the house you know it's just like
00:59:38.260everything's well manicured and pretty much all the neighborhoods i've grown up in in the last 10
00:59:42.840years i never see people outside a lot of my neighborhood kid friend my kids friends in the
00:59:47.800neighborhood we make them come onto our property and play in our treehouse and blah blah blah
00:59:51.320but it's like the only thing they ever want to talk about is minecraft marvel movies and
00:59:56.920star wars bro i don't know what the handheld video game console thing is but they're always
01:00:01.880talking about it it's not allowed on our property the game boy i don't even think it's a game boy
01:00:28.880No, I was going to say my childhood was a little bit different because I grew up in a rural area in a town that was known as the second safest city per capita in the US.
01:00:36.520Yes. So my experiences were, yes, it was Chicago. Yep. Uh, no, it wasn't. So yeah,
01:00:43.480my experience was a little bit different because going outside and playing meant like there were
01:00:48.020no neighborhood kids. I've just, we just bummed around us, us boys. So anyway, so I'm probably
01:00:54.120not a good example. So you're saying you grew up in a white supremacist community is what you're
01:00:58.700saying well we were supremely white so wisconsin yeah but that those are some white people yeah
01:01:05.300yeah and yes also that but we have listeners who are rural people so i actually when i was eight
01:01:12.320we moved to denver just to be clear i think i think i was eight years old before that i lived
01:01:16.140in a town of a thousand people it was the same as what you're describing this is the shooting
01:01:20.100magpies was like our people would pay us to shoot oh yeah that's what we did what a job but even
01:01:25.500then okay like today everything is scheduled like if kids want to play together you gotta have a
01:01:30.380play date and everything's like are you wearing a seatbelt i remember going fishing with my dad
01:01:34.960when i was like five years old and you remember the trucks with the bench seat oh yeah old square
01:01:40.160body chevy my dad never made me buckle and like we'd be riding around in the truck and like we're
01:01:46.860not buckled in just cruising through the country there's fishing poles dad hands you a cigarette
01:01:51.860for the drive it's like here son and somehow we made it but today it's like you're like you see
01:02:00.300like 12 year old kids in a booster seat because he doesn't meet the quote-unquote weight regulations
01:02:04.600and you're like oh come on what is with the over safety ism all that stuff in our culture i think
01:02:10.940it's it's hard for kids then to experience friendship because everything's a play date
01:02:15.500everything's manicured yes the other thing i would tie to this uh as we kind of wrap up this section
01:02:21.360of of problems and then i want to get into the practical helpful things that we can be doing to
01:02:25.540teach friendship you remember this thing with the lady from full house right where they were like0.95
01:02:30.260they were like they got in trouble for trying to get their kids into these elite colleges
01:02:34.680okay you pair this with malcolm yeah malcolm gladwell yeah your kid has to be years you know
01:02:41.560years ahead so they're teaching them and getting them into the school sooner so they can be ahead
01:02:46.640of everybody else and there's like this fixation with academic success which actually doesn't mean
01:02:53.240that much anymore but because of that it's like every kid has to be like involved in a thousand
01:02:57.840activities so that his you know application letter looks amazing credentialism yeah essentially yeah
01:03:03.120they're obsessed with it right yeah is this a good activity you know you know one thing that um that
01:03:08.700you said that really reminds me of something that i'd read from esalen was the enemy of organized
01:03:14.500sports against friendship i think it was boyhood development and things like that but organized
01:03:20.960sports part of like your over organized life and your manicured life the play date life yeah having
01:03:27.440organized sports rule as the predominant you know fun activity for your children can be a big harm
01:03:34.820because they don't have to discover themselves to make the rules themselves to organize themselves
01:15:33.320Well, I think it's really important then, the examples you gave in the church and for family, is not to spoon feed, but actually to create context, which facilitates that.
01:15:44.500And so you set a context in which that happens.
01:15:46.460My parents were actually really good at this.
01:15:48.380I didn't realize this again until we were just talking.
01:15:50.420so my uncle had a had a cabin a lake home uh that we would visit frequently my dad would also take
01:15:56.860his camping on lakes i mean lakes everywhere in wisconsin one of the things that they would do
01:16:01.800they would allow me to bring a friend and then my uncle's cabin he had canoes but for some reason i
01:16:08.440didn't like the canoes so i would use a paddle boat paddle boat is the most efficient form of
01:16:16.200hydro travel oh yeah i mean that exists free yeah and so it is like the slowest vessel ever and i'm
01:16:23.720like 10 12 years old something like that me and my buddy just go out in the paddle boat on this huge
01:16:30.200lake there are boats around we would get swept by the wind and you're like trying to paddle against
01:16:35.980the wind and white caps and you're like bailing out the boat as you're going along awesome anyway
01:16:40.300you just get into some crazy trouble you know and it's just really fun i love it a lot of fun
01:16:44.960That's when the moms are like, oh, do you think he's okay?
01:16:47.660And the dad's like, oh, I'm sure he's fine.
01:17:21.440And anyway, so I had a blue station wagon, a 1985 Plymouth Reliant station wagon.
01:17:27.760And I would tow that boat around with my buddies, and we'd scrape together gas money, and we were free to do whatever, you know, just go to the lakes.
01:18:00.560And it's like, oh, my neighborhood's not safe.
01:18:02.420Okay, find a place that is relatively safe, quote unquote, and get enough people that are in their age category together and just let them loose and don't give them any activity.
01:18:14.160activity. Give them a boat, or a stick, or a ball, or a gun, or whatever it takes, or several guns.0.86
01:18:24.200One of the other things I think is interesting is we're thinking about how to teach this
01:18:29.020friendship to our kids. I think a lot about what Paul says in the New Testament about imitation.
01:18:35.460Follow me as I'm doing these things. You can watch my life, and you can learn from and model
01:18:40.860yourself after me one of the things i think is cool about our situation with the church
01:18:46.040is the men are actually people that my kids like to kind of hang around us they're not with us all
01:18:52.600the time yeah but they're able to hang around and listen to the conversation see how we interact
01:18:57.860again park days stuff like that they get to be a part of it why do you guys think it's important
01:19:03.420that we don't just say you know because some guys will say oh i have my guy friends like we go
01:19:07.780golfing by myself. I never include my kids in that. And I'm just trying to be away from my
01:19:13.640family as much as possible, or it's hunting or it's something else. So, so compare and contrast
01:19:18.640those. Why is it important for your kids to actually be called up into that male friendship
01:19:22.840culture? Well, part of it is that you're trying, one of the goals of parenting is to raise your
01:19:27.960kids into maturity, right? To raise them into maturity. And I'm not talking about just like,
01:19:33.000well they'll get older and they mature like physically but i mean like you're actually
01:19:38.040trying to train their affections you're trying to train their their values and their aims and
01:19:44.640their mission you're trying to trying to train their hearts to love the right things and to hate
01:19:50.140the right things and you can't do that effectively if they're if you're not around like if if and
01:19:57.100they don't see that modeled, you know, between other men. So, so like if my boys, uh, grew up
01:20:05.100and they never saw me interact with another man and never saw another man interact with me in the
01:20:11.220context of friendship, that would be something that they would walk into life, not having been
01:20:16.340matured in because they have never seen it modeled. They've never been corrected in context.
01:20:21.760Just like if your boys, Eric, are in a group of men and they say something really stupid, it gives you an opportunity.1.00
01:20:31.400It's a great opportunity for a father to say like, hey, son, what you said was incredibly stupid.1.00