GodMen: The Blog

GodMen - Blow The Horn!

2007-11-28T20:03:00.000-06:00

We have found a home for our GodMen movement. We are calling our core group of men together to experience the facility and to pray for God's direction for our future. This is an exciting and manly place where we will meet on a regular basis. We believe The national GodMen movement will emerge from this facility.

You must make plans to join us. We are sounding the call for everyone to join me and Brad along with our speakers Tuesday, Dec 4, 7:30PM at The Fortress. Directions are below.

Mike

Boromir sounds the Great Horn in the New Line film

Horn borne by the heirs of the Stewards of Gondor. Legend told that if the Great Horn was sounded in time of need within the ancient boundaries of Gondor, it would not go unheeded.

Boromir received the Great Horn from his father Denethor. It was his custom to sound the horn whenever he set out on a journey or to battle. He did so on December 25, 3018, when he left Rivendell as a member of the Fellowship. Elrond cautioned him not to sound the horn again unless he was in dire need.

Directions:

I-40 to downtown Nashville
Exit Church St. / Charlotte Ave.
Stay on General George L. Davis Blvd. (east side of I-40)
Cross Church and Charlotte
Follow to dead-end at Jo Johnston
Left on Jo Johnston
Right on 12th Ave. N.

Left on Clinton Street

THE FOUNDRY: 1419 Clinton Street (2nd building from end of street on left)

THE FORTRESS: 1500 Clinton Street (last building on right)

We will be meeting initially in the Fortress to let everyone get a feel for it and then moving to the foundry

GODMEN PRAYER

2007-11-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

GODMEN PRAYER

Father of the heavens and the night; stretch forth Your almighty arms to strengthen and protect us. Even as You gave Saint Michael, Your Angelic warrior, power to do spiritual battle in the heavens, so give us power to command the darkened skies.

Guide and direct us in the advancement of the Gospel. Give us the courage to face all obstacles that might keep us from finishing our race. Send Your holy Angels to protect the men around this country; those called to fight this spiritual battle. Sustain us in the hour of danger with knowledge of Your mercy.

Watch over our families when we cannot. May Your presence give them comfort, and Your love lend them the courage to face each day, confident in the knowledge that You will never leave them or forsake them. Protect them with Your unfailing mercy and grace.

Grant that wherever we serve, we may be loyal to Christ. Make us to choose the harder right over the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. May we ever embody the principles upon which the GODMEN are founded and serve proudly with the memory of those who have gone before. Give us the courage to fight, to win and the faith to die rather than quit,

AND ALL THE GODMEN SAID

AMEN!

2007-11-08T13:09:00.000-06:00

We just finished our GodMen event in Dayton last Saturday and the response from the men there was over the top. It is so encouraging to hear how our ministry has helped men with different issues and struggles in their life.

Our line up of speakers always seem to fit the needs of attendees and Daytona was no exception. What a great group of men!

Be sure to join the blog. We'd love to hear from everyone.

Pre Order Brads new DVD and CD

2007-08-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

Brad and Paul on the Breakpoint Blog!

2007-06-27T07:19:00.000-05:00

Read it here.

My Thoughts, My Life, My Wonderful Wife

2007-05-28T08:24:00.000-05:00

Godmen on Life at Lifted Blog

2007-04-19T12:52:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Life at Lifted Magazine blog for their coverage of Godmen and the upcoming events. You can check out their online version of Lifted magazine here.

Take a look at Godmen

2007-04-13T10:42:00.000-05:00

We've posted pictures from the March 10 Nashville event. Check the photos section of the blog.

If you have any pictures you would like to share please send them in!

New blog from Paul is up on Crosswalk

2007-04-04T20:07:00.000-05:00

Paul has a new blog up on Crosswalk.com titled Pain and Prejudice.

Brad Stine KTIS interview

2007-04-02T12:09:00.000-05:00

Brad spoke with KTIS the other day about Godmen. You can access the podcast here. His interview is in the second segment.

Brad Stine responds to the Albert Mohler radio show

2007-03-29T09:52:00.000-05:00

After having spent the last 5 years in the entertainment business as an out-of -the -closet Christian , I know full well the feeling of being attacked for having a Judeo/Christian worldview.

I have had my name and character libeled on a regular basis by secular relativists and bloggers of every ilk. I have accepted this fate as the cost of being in the public eye and as a Christian. Even Jesus said I should expect persecution.

That being said, it still isn't easy considering I am, after all, a human being. But nothing could prepare me for the amount of judgement and attacks from fellow Christians that I have received. This arrogance and Phariseeism in attacking our own is apparently the status quo for many believers in the blogosphere. People who don't know you personally still believe God Himself has entrusted them with the responsibility to malign and criticize fellow believers as though they have some insight that we don't ourselves possess.

This is why we, at Godmen, have made it a point to refuse legalism as an appropriate Christian character trait. We also believe that everyone in our "tribe" ( Christians ) should first be given the benefit of the doubt and then be pro-active in DEFENDING our own when they are under attack for a moral stance. When we heard of the hate-mail Dr. Mohler received based on erroneous information we felt a kinship in protecting a fellow brother but not, I might add, without some irony.
When we started Godmen it was to try to encourage men to blend their masculinity with their Christian spirituality. To show a balance that often men don't find in church and also to form some unorthodox ways to engage men to bond like brothers. The Los Angeles Times wrote an article about us and actually took the liberty to falsely accuse me of saying that Christian men SHOULD curse and then had me uttering a scatalogical word, bull####.
This was a LIE as they married a JOKE I used saying Christians don't have curse words but NEED something to say when we hurt ourselves. The word used was in reference to Phil.3:8 when Paul said his previous life he considers dung compared to Christ. The original word being much more "earthy".

I was talking to men about what God thinks of anything we hold more important than Him. Much to our chagrin we came across this radio program accusing us of being heretics and condemning our work as not of God. Now months later we see a Christian man in the same boat being ridiculed and attacked for a false news article. Why were we never once approached by your staff to first inquire if the story upon which you based your criticism was accurate? The biblical mandate is to approach a brother first and THEN if they do not receive council, we discipline.
We believe we are owed an apology and retraction. Whatever the outcome, let this be a lesson to all Christians out there. When Christians are accused of something why not get in the habit of approaching them personally first and in the meantime pray for them. THIS is why Jesus hated legalism so much. It teaches Christians to fight each other instead of fighting FOR each other.

Please feel free to count on us to defend you, as this is a Christian mans purpose and character. THAT is what Godmen is about.
Sincerely ,
Brad Stine - comedian/author/actor, co-founder GodMen

Friendly Fire and Media Spin

2007-03-26T19:14:00.000-05:00

A powerful media personality recently described my work and the work of my brothers who are part of GodMen “adolescent” and dismissed its impact. His source? One biased and inaccurate report from a national newspaper that has a reputation for besmirching Christians. Now the same person is crying foul, saying the media is misrepresenting him.

As actions truly say more than mere words (especially ones edited by someone who wasn’t present at the event in question)…

After GodMen, a man picked up a homeless young man. Gave him a place to stay. Got him back on his feet. Helped him receive free dental care. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t attended.

Men came clean with their addiction to porn. They have hope again.

Men became honest with the fear and passivity in their lives. They began the soulwork necessary to drive the sins of passivity from their lives.

Men took their fathering more seriously. They wept for their children and for the fathering they didn’t receive. They look to God for help now.

They learned that emotions properly displayed make you more manly, not less.

Men cultivated courage, without which no other virtue like love has a fighting chance.

A Vietnam vet opened up and shared the pain he has been carrying for nearly 40 years.

Soldiers were honored for their sacrifice and courage.

Men were encouraged to be both tender-hearted and tough-minded—absolute essentials for healthy leadership.

Men sought wisdom greater than their own regarding how to best love their wives.

Men were inspired to become warriors of light.

Does this sound “adolescent” to you?

Paul Coughlin

The Albert Mohler radio show and Godmen

2007-03-23T20:53:00.000-05:00

Listen to Dr. Albert Mohler comment on Godmen based primarily on the LA Times piece.

Please let us know your thoughts. We'll post some comments on this soon.

Godmen on The Christian Post

2007-03-22T15:02:00.000-05:00

There have been several recent blog links to The Christian Post article on Godmen so here is a direct link.

David Bunker - Community as Dowser (The Divine Diviner)

2007-03-21T13:01:00.000-05:00

In recent years my wife and I have worked with a large village in Kenya. The word village is really misnomer as the village is really a small city with nearly 20,000 people surrounding the center of the town. As it is with many villages in Africa, water is highly prized and wells are actually fought over (in terms of placement and location).

Christ's statement as to His status as the living water is a metaphor many of us in the West have highly spiritualized. In Africa, living water is a premium. Much of the water they have access to is full of bacteria and disease that either makes one tremendously ill or could at some point kill you. What a strange phenomenon that the very water your body thirsts for could actually kill you if it is not living water. Living in this sense would be considered life giving rather than death giving.

We in the Sates take water for granted. We do not need to think about what might come from quenching our thirst. We can drink up without fear. Ironically our access to unlimited sources of water is in some ways another metaphor for the over abundance we have in Western societies. We no longer grasp the conditions that many face throughout the world and in that lack of awareness a strange thing happens to the very water we drink. It begins to bring small doses of bacteria that begin to saturate our soul. These small organisms enter our soul and slowly over time alter the very way our bodies and souls engage the world.

Taking this metaphor further I offer up this scenario. Is it possible that because we take one of life’s most vital life sources for granted, we then take the provider of this gift for granted? What is the by-product of taking God for granted and how did we get here?

As I enter full-fledged middle age I find that discovering spiritual wells is getting harder and harder. Ironically it is not due to may lack of thirst but my awareness as to how I hunt for water. My water dowser (a term people in the backwoods use for one looking for a place to dig a well), has been taken for granted due to the culture in which I thirst. I have dug my well deep into this world and now my soul thirsts for water of a certain kind. My tongue thirsts for increase and growth. I have lived my life from an economic perspective that says I can sell the water that is a gift. My life is available to the highest bidder. This has all been unwitting as I did not know the God of success was enshrined in my heart, in my thirst. I discovered the source of my thirst when I began to discover that I saw myself through this lens of worth, merit and accomplishment. I am what I do. I am what I earn. I am where I live. I am what I have. I am who I know and I know people of power and prestige.

Of late my thirst has begun to change and the very refreshment my soul used to find refreshing now has a strange and even dis-settling taste. I have become to see that my ability to create wealth for myself and others is an elixir that no longer washes over my soul with any sense of refreshment. As I enter middle age I begin to see that life in indeed filled with mortality and limitation and that my thirst for unlimited access to water is indeed not the way the universe works. The water my soul has taken for granted is a myth. I can drink of this water but it is really sugary soda pop or some saccharine version of living water. My tongue did not know the difference but now my heart has begun to inform my bodily appetites and my thirst is changing. I can no longer satiate my thirst with liquids that indeed are filled with salt thus making my thirst a never ending retuning to the very things that are making my thirst unquenchable.

Lately I think I heard the Spirit say, “Dig here.” In my heart I am thinking, “What, dig here? There is no water to be found in this location.” As I reluctantly stopped my incessant search for water at the wrong well I began to discover something about the water the Spirit offers. His water is not just for me. He wants to build wells for the village. He desires that this water be accessible to anyone - the just and the unjust. He says the rain falls on all. He seems indiscriminant as to how He offers us this living water. Now my thirst is quenched in the shift in my intentionality as to my digging. Whereas in the past I may have dug for myself, for my own edification, my own personal wealth and thirst, now I have begun to dig with & for others. We are digging. We are dowsing together. We stop and pause and ask corporately, "Is there water here?”We acknowledge together our need of this living water. We are all thirsty beyond our ability to attain anything in this life. The thirst, the real deep down thirst comes in our common humanity. When we begin to see that under our clothes, past our accomplishments, past our marks we have made in this world, we are all the same. This search for water is a communal search and the place of the well must serve many. It is not for my personal private thirst.

I thirst along with others. I dig along with others. I am digging the well along with others. In Africa many of the wells get vandalized and then become inoperable. Our spiritual wells in the West get vandalized as well through our ignoring their maintenance and oversight. When we dig a well for the thirst of others we create a space in this world where people gather. We place the well in a community, hopefully at the center of town; we gather together and admit our thirst for living water. We admit who we are and why we were attempting to build our private little wells that allowed us to have access to water any time we wanted. In Africa, the rich often close off access to water wells to the poor for obvious reasons. They do not want to identity with these people. Even though the thirst is the same and in sense water is a gift from the creator, wealthy people close off the source of water and put up fences around the well.

We at Godmen want to offer access to the well to anyone and all. We want to coalesce our searching for water in isolation and bring the process under the community and make it a search together. Help us this day to be a good dowser. Help us as a community of men to be a place were people know they can get their deepest thirst quenched. Help us God dig deep into You for the sake of one another.

Paul Coughlin: New Male Spitituality II

2007-03-20T08:40:00.000-05:00

Friday, March 16, 2007
New Male Spirituality II

I have many letters from Christian women who find today’s ideal Christian man boring and even creepy. His lack of get-up-and-go sets off warning flares in their feminine souls. He’s so distasteful that some women say they do not want to get married. And those who are married to one wish they hadn’t said “I do.”

Writes the wife of a Christian man low on what history recognizes as gumption, assertiveness, and readiness: “I struggle to love my husband, but I no longer respect him. We’re separated and contemplating divorce. I’ve spent endless nights crying over what I’ve come to see as my sweet Christian husband who everyone else loves but who I can’t stand anymore. He is so unreliable and unmanly. He doesn’t know how to act like a man.”

Sometimes Christian men recognize this deficit in themselves: “Before getting married women told me how pleasant I was. Now that I’m married, my wife tells me that she wishes I were more alive and motivated. She says I’m not as assertive as a married man with two kids should be. She’s right. But something inside me tells me it’s wrong to stand up and behave like a man.” I know this sounds harsh, but I’m willing to bet that his “something” is sermons he hears at church.

Sometimes their cry for help is shorter and more haunting. “When am I going to feel like a man?” asked one husband after the latest GodMen conference, a man also on the verge of divorce.

read the rest at Crosswalk.com

Paul Coughlin's Crosswalk blog has been added to the Godmen blog links.

Nightline link

2007-03-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to the Nightline video.

Promise Keepers Nashville 2007 Blog

2007-03-19T11:07:00.000-05:00

The guys in Nashville have started a blog for the Promise Keepers event in Nashville July 20-21. Brad Stine will be appearing, among others. Please give their site a visit.

Godmen in Franklin by RC Lawrence

2007-03-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

Been to Franklin
Got Called Out

Heard some words
Heard some music
Heard some jokes
Got called out

Challenged to live like a man
Challenged to be a warrior
Challenged to be less passive
Got called out

Witnessed some things funny
Witnessed some pain
Witnessed some tears
Got called out

Asked to be a better man
Asked to step up as a man
Asked to be a better husband
Got called out

The Point

2007-03-16T14:09:00.000-05:00

The Point blogs on the GMA and Nightline features. Here's a quick excerpt:

Arguing that Christianity has become feminized, one of the speakers featured in the accompanying Good Morning America segment humorously laments that a lot of the music in contemporary Christian services these days is a little like "prom songs to God." Our own Chuck Colson has the same beef.

NIGHTLINE - Thursday March 15

2007-03-15T13:56:00.000-05:00

You can link to the story here.

Good Morning America News and Video

2007-03-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

Check out today's Good Morning America feature on Godmen. Read about it here and watch the video from GMA which includes an interview with Brad.

Message from Brad

2007-03-13T20:03:00.000-05:00

Godmen 2 is over! It seems to have been an amazing event and the guys in attendance were blown away. We had Good Morning America there as well as Nightline. I will be on Good Morning America this Thurs morning so tune in. We are also getting ready to launch this nationwide so hope to see you all there (if you're a guy) in the future. We'll have pictures up on our site Godmen.org soon. Later, brad

this is also posted at Brad Stine's Blog Nation

Good Morning America and Nightline

2007-03-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

Brad will be making an appearance on Good Morning America this Thursday, March 15.

Also on Thursday, Godmen will be featured on Nightline.

Check your local listings for stations and times.

More on last weekends Godmen event

2007-03-12T20:08:00.000-05:00

Last weekend saw more than double the attendance of the first Godmen event. Thank you to all the attendees as well as the speakers: Paul Coughlin, Dennis Rogers, John Renken, Steve Siler, Dave Bunker, Ken Sands, Joe Greene, and Michael Brewer.

The event was also covered by The BBC, Nightline and Good Morning America. Stay tuned for upcoming appearances, features and special announcements.