Warren Mainad: Hey guys, and welcome back to the IMPACT Players Linking Shields podcast, a podcast for men who want to grow to be better husbands, fathers, and leaders by equipping them to thrive in the relationships that matter most. And guys, you are in for an absolute treat. Today, I am so thrilled to have Dr. Chris Harper, AKA Harp, joining us today on the Linking Shields podcast. Dr. Harper is, the leader of an amazing organization that is absolutely in line with what IMPACT Players is all about: BetterMan. But before we talk about that, this is a brother who is, in our opinion, an IMPACT Player. He is a husband, he is a father, a leader, and a man who loves King Jesus with all of his heart. And you are gonna discover as soon as we get into this, that Harp has a little bit of a southern accent. And, we love that. We love having guests from all over the country. So, Harp, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining myself and, Jon Beazley for this podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, and what you're doing with BetterMan.
Chris Harper: Man, it's so good to be with you, Warren, and, and brother Jon. Thank you for that introduction. I, I'm just gonna bring you everywhere with me. That was so good. So kind, so encouraging and just grateful, grateful to be here. Yeah, so originally from Oklahoma, but then I grew up in central Kentucky, and now I've spent the last 10 plus years in Texas. So most people can't understand me. They're like, I'm not sure, you know where the accent's from or what it is, but yeah, that's kind of where I've been the last 30, 35 years. But, been married for...
Warren Mainard: I grew up in the Seattle area, but I moved to Florida when I was 16, and then I lived in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas for about 20 years. And Chris, I can remember the first time that I said the word 'y'all.' And it was a great feeling. Like it is just, I think y'all is a God word. I love the word y'all.
Chris Harper: That's it.
Warren Mainard: So, but tell us more about your family.
Chris Harper: So good, man. And, and sometimes I'll say the light is bright and white, and then you really know, you really know you in the country, then.
Jon Beazley: That's awesome.
Chris Harper: Yeah, I've been married for a little over, I think 16 years now, and we have, we have four kids. My oldest, my daughter, she's 12, and then I have 11-year-old son, a 5-year-old son, and a soon to be 4-year-old son. So, that means I haven't slept in about five years. And, it's always loud at my house. Like it's always turned up to 11, man. I've got three wild boys, and I let 'em be boys. And we absolutely love that. So, we've been in Texas for 10 years now, and man, just excited where the Lord has brought us. About two and a half years ago, he brought me to BetterMan. And, I had the privilege of taking over for Robert Lewis, who's just an absolute stud, you know, How to Raise a Modern Day Knight, Men's Fraternity. I mean, Robert's a, I mean, he's just killer. He's a stud. And, so I have the privileged man of learning from him and being in his ecosystem. And it's been, it is been such a blessing.
Warren Mainard: Well, tell us a little bit about BetterMan and you know, what it is that BetterMan's trying to accomplish in the lives of men today.
Chris Harper: Yeah, yeah. So, good. So, I have a saying, in the 1970s, culture said, "We don't need men." In the 1990s, they said, "We don't want men." And here we are in 2024, and the question is, "What is a man?" That's where we've come in 50, 60 years. To say it another way, two generations ago, men were confident in their manhood and masculinity a generation ago, we began to compromise it. And today we're just confused about it. So, most men live in what I call a masculinity fog, just this confusion. And it's because 41% of young men today grew up without a physical father. In the 1960s, that was 4%. Today it's 41%. That doesn't include what I call, 'functional orphans', guys like me who had a dad in the home, but he was emotionally, physically, spiritually distant right. And then as you get inside city centers, and as you get closer to urban centers, that number is sometimes 70 - 80% young men growing up without a dad. So we have a saying, at BetterMan, "You can't become what you can't define." You can't define it, you can't become it. So when you think about men's movements, right, think about the nineties, think about Promise Keepers. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of that, but the mantra was you had good men, you had bad men, and we're gonna take bad men and make 'em good men. Well, we don't believe that at all today. We believe there are good men, and there are men who want to be good. They just don't know how.
Warren Mainard: Right.
Chris Harper: They never had anybody show them how. They never had a guide. They didn't have a spiritual father. The majority of them didn't have physical fathers. So we had a whole generation grow up, without any guidance, without a definition. So what BetterMan does, that's super simple. We put a flag in the ground and we said, this is the definition. This is what it means to be a man in the 21st century and thrive. To be a good man, God's man. We call it the Four Ws. Obviously we can get into that, but we believe if you give men clarity and then you put community around them, you can change a man's life. And, man, the Lord's been doing it for five years. It's been pretty awesome to watch.
Jon Beazley: That's fantastic. Probably, I would think ,you said four Ws, so I'm very intrigued, but I'm sure the alliteration really helps with like, hey, I could remember these four, and like, really, you know, what is complex often is ignored. And what is simple is usually repeatable, right? And you can kind of think, if you're thinking about, like, making disciples that make disciples, and you're thinking about, particularly in the, the context of men, like keeping that simple, I'm sure is really awesome. Warren, I don't, I don't wanna hijack the direction you wanted to go, but I would love to hear the four, four Ws, that framework. Did you call 'em pillars? Is that what you called them?
Chris Harper: Yeah. We don't, we just call 'em the four Ws. Yeah. It's, it really is a framework. But, and to your point, Jon, this is what we've learned about men. And this is, I don't bash men. I think culture does that enough. So I'm here to encourage men, but this is the reality. Women, they don't need a reason to gather. Women will just get together. Men on the other hand, if men don't know how to win, they won't play the game.
Warren Mainard: That's right.
Chris Harper: If they don't know how to win, they'll just sit on the sidelines. And I don't, call it our wiring, call it human nature, call it a project of, or a, you know, the predicament of culture, whatever you want to call it. The reality is, if men don't know how to win, they won't play. So we've basically created a simple scorecard that shows men how to win. And, the video game manufacturers figured this out decades ago, is, which is why it's just open AI, and you just keep leveling up, right. Because they just keep winning and they'll keep playing, which is why they play, you know, games and things of that nature. But four W's, simple scorecard. A real man courageously follows God's word. A real man loves, serves and protects God's woman. A real man excels at the work he's been given, whether he's a CEO or a CPA or a college student. Whatever work is in front of him, you know he's gonna do it to the glory of the Lord. And then a real man betters God's world through his community, through his church, and through his children. So word, woman, work, world, four Ws alliteration, super sticky. And then, the BetterMan journey is unpacking those four Ws.
Warren Mainard: Yeah. That's so good. Because I think a lot of times, you know, guys, they at least in their minds, they think that they know what it means to win at work. They're like, okay, if I can make more money than I made last year, if I can keep getting promotions. And so there is that gamification of the career that keeps guys pushing forward. But then they get home and they don't know how to define the win. They don't know how to be a great husband or a great father. And so I love that simple definition. And then to go beyond, you know 'cause I think a lot of times we say winning at work and at home, but there's even more to it than that. We're supposed to be winning with the word of God in our lives, but also we're supposed to be winning the world to the Lord. And having that mission that is bigger than yourself and that it's a part of God's mission. I think that's what a lot of men are missing. So let's talk a little bit about this topic for today, which is the state of manhood. And Chris, you, you teed it up perfectly when you talked about that expression. In fact, it's one that I have repeated over the last year, about the 1970s. People were saying, "I don't need a man." The 1990s, they were saying, "I don't want a man." Now they're just saying, "What is a man?" Like, they're completely confused. So recently, BetterMan put out something called the State of Manhood report. So, share a little bit about what that is, like not just the statistics, but maybe kind of like the stories that represent the state of manhood today.
Chris Harper: Yeah. We wanted to paint a picture, you know, and non-bias, we're ecumenical better man's not associated with any denomination, we're not associated with any church. There's no necessarily political or doctrinal framework that we're using. We just like to report, you know, these are the facts. These are what people reported. This is what the world is experiencing. So we put together this report in partnership with Gospel Family Ministries, and we wanted to look at three areas of a man's life. We wanted to look at his faith. We wanted to look at his family and we wanted to look at his vocation, his work, and just ask the question, man, especially men in the West, where are they at? You know, how are they doing in these areas? And the data was the data. You know, we heard, countless stories. We took both quantitative and qualitative data. So when it comes to faith and really church, church in the west, men haven't been doing well for about three decades. Really the last 30 years, the church, and and I don't mean to paint with a broad brush, but I'm but I'm going to, the Big C church has been catering to children and women. And rightly so. It was the children and women who were carrying all the water. They were the ones showing up. They were the ones volunteering. Like, I get it. You wanna serve your base. And the base has been children and, and women. To this day, we spend $7 billion a year on children's ministry in the West. 7 billion, right. 80% of churches in America have a functioning women's ministry. Less than 10% have a functioning men's ministry. Think about that.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Chris Harper: Okay. And when I say functioning, it's anything beyond a, an ex-NFL kicker who comes and talks at a breakfast about faith in football. And listen, I love ex-NFL kickers. I got a couple that are friends. I'm not bashing on that. I'm just saying, there's gotta be something more, you know, for men. And, so what we discovered is, as children and as women began to be prioritized in the church, what did men do? They slowly quit. They didn't know how to win anymore. I had one guy tell me, he said, "Brother, it's not that I hate going to church, I just hate that my wife is better at it than me." I mean, bro, that's deep, right. So like, he didn't know how to win at church. And what happens is we just stop going, we stop participating. It stopped, it is not a part of our life. So go to the framework of family. Same thing, right. We know how to win in the workplace, or at least we used to, because of the promotions, because of the aspirations. Because everything was kind of quantitative. You made the sale, you got the commission. Men would come home from work, and they didn't know how to win in the home. You know, your teenage daughter isn't the same thing as a sales team. Your toddler son, you know, isn't, isn't the same as clocking in and clocking out. You never get to clock out at home. Like we didn't know how to win at home. So, we stopped doing family devotionals. We stopped being the spiritual leader of our home. You know, most men don't pray with their wives. And these are professing Christian men. Most men aren't leading their family. They're not serving as the prophet and priest of their home. They don't spend a lot of time at home, with, you know, the third place becomes the most important place. So we talk to a lot of men who spend more time in the gym than they do at their own families. 'Cause they know how to win at the gym, right. They can see gains. I used to bench 180, now I'm benching 205, like I can win here. So we started seeing men just not spend time at home. And then when you get into the workplace, dude, men used to find purpose at work. But today we discover that they're finding little meaning at work. The average millennial, the average millennial will have six different careers, not six different jobs, six different careers over the course of his work life because they've bought into this, really I think it's a lie, that somehow my job is supposed to bring ultimate fulfillment. Somehow my job is supposed to bring meaning, right. If you went back two generations ago and asked my grandfather or my great-grandfather, Hey, did, did working on the assembly line at Ford Co motor company bring you fulfillment? He would've said, absolutely. And if you would ask him why, he would've said, because it enabled me to feed my children and put shoes on their feet. That's why it brought fulfillment, right.So he went to work every day, and he worked on that assembly line because that was how he provided for his family. But today, we've kinda like, that's not enough. Like work has to be something greater than what God intended it. And I'll give you a great example of this, man. My AC went out in my house about six months ago, which is a problem in Texas, right. So my wife calls the AC guy, he gets to my house, he's working on my AC on the side of my house, and my wife says, "Chris, go out. Go out and see if he needs anything." So I come walking, it's true story. I come walking around the side of my house, and he pops up from behind my AC and he says, "Hey, you are the BetterMan guy." And I'm like, yeah, man, you know, I'm the guy. He's like, dude, our church watches your curriculum. Like, we watch you on Thursday night. And I said, "Man, that's awesome." You know and I high fived him, gave him a hug, and I said, "Can I help you?" And, you know, we're working on my AC. Well, we, I pack up his tools and I'm helping him load his tools in the truck. And he turns, and he looks at me and he says, "Dude," he says, "I wish I could be like you." And I said, "Wat do you mean?" He said, "Well, you know, you do these videos and you preach and you teach, and you help me, and I just wish I could do more for Jesus." He said, "I'm a believer. I wanna do more for Jesus." And I said, "Well, how long have you been an HVAC guy?" And he said, "20 years." I said, "Wow many homes have you been in?" He said, "I don't know, probably 25,000 homes." I said, "Brother, do you know if you work hard and bring Christ into every one of those homes, you have more influence than any mega church pastor in this country?" And he started to tear up in my driveway. And he's like, I've never thought about it like that. I said, "Well, today we start thinking about it like that. Man, what you do is infinitely valuable. Like God's not looking at me and looking at you and assigning me more value. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's all a holy work when we're doing it in the name of King Jesus, dude."
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: And it was like a revelation. So like, when we talk about winning at work, like that's the stuff we're talking about, but men don't see that today. There's a disconnect because of that sacred secular divide.
Jon Beazley: Yeah. I like that. I think the, like what you're doing too, is you're taking what might be considered the mundane. And you're really redeeming it in the fact of saying, Hey, this is actually sacred as well. And being able to go and say, doing this actually matters. Where I think, like my generation, the next generation would just say, I don't wanna be messing, doing things that just, they don't really matter. And it's actually, and you go traditional culture, a lot of times it was how are we actually helping advance the tribe or the group, you know. In an individualistic culture, like we're in now, it typically turns to like, how is this making me feel and how is it advancing my self brand? Which is why there's such a sensation for like, hey, maybe I could go viral. Like going viral is like at the top peak of like, so many people's interest, even if they kind of joke about it. Like, oh, hey, maybe this will go viral, you know, and I'll get really rich or be and you're getting almost viral for absurd things. And, but it's just kind of like, and the more and more that that gets highlighted, the more and more people are getting discontent with the mundane and the everyday. And I think redeeming that hard work is saying, Hey, this is just as much important in the eyes of God then stand, like, standing on a stage or being seen on the other end of a camera. I think that's really interesting. I like that.
Chris Harper: Yeah. And I, and we did it to ourselves. You know, I won't, I don't like to call people out, so I won't say his name, but I was recently with a fairly famous Christian author, and I just kind of questioned and said, "Hey, man, you know, have we created this culture and this idea that if we're not always doing the extraordinary, then we're not doing enough?" And I said, "Man, I'm tired of being told that, you know, I have to climb a mountain to become a king. I'm tired of being told..." like, you know, "I'm tired of every Sunday seeing in churches the financial planner that sold his business to go start an orphanage in Africa. Like, if that's all we ever talk about, guys like me who are not selling my business to go start an orphanage, feel like I'm less than. Feel like I'm not doing enough. Like at some point, we've gotta be able to tell men that like ordinary is powerful." You know, it was Eugene Peterson that said, "That discipleship is long obedience in the same direction."
Jon Beazley: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Harper: Like, we've gotta get back to that. And even this new wave of spiritual formation. And again, you know, I'm not calling this guy out. He's a friend of mine, John Mark Comer, guys like that practicing the way, all this stuff, this stuff is good. The danger in it is it will start to prioritize the individual's journey above the corporate journey. That's the danger. You know, this is not, this is Dallas Willard repackaged. This is, this is true reformation. When it went to the extreme and you weren't considered holy unless you were living in a monastery.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: You weren't considered holy unless you become a nun and lived in a, you know, a convent. Like we gotta be careful not to go that far because guys like me, dude, who, I mean, I was a social worker for four years, you know, a licensed social worker, and there's nobody that feels less than than a social worker. You wanna talk about feeling unappreciated.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: You know, and like, man, you're not making a difference, you're just dealing with people's problems over and over again. And I think we forget that 99% of people are never gonna have a large ministry platform, and that's okay. They probably don't need one.
Jon Beazley: Yes. It's kind of that...
Warren Mainard: And I love, I wanna just unpack that expression: 'feeling less than.' Because I think that sums up what most men battle with almost every single day, is that there's something in their life that's making them feel less than. Either they've kind of set some goals for their career, financially, and they're looking at another guy who's further down the road than they are. There's a position that they're, you know, aspiring to. And then you throw into the mix kind of that, the Christian component to that of like, okay, not only are you trying to make a lot of money, but also it's gotta have deep spiritual meaning. And it's also got to be something that people in your church admire and ooh and awe about. You know, of course like, that's like threading a needle that almost no one can accomplish. So like you said, it leaves guys feeling less than. So let's, like, speak to that like, you know, there's a passage of scripture, Harp, that is probably one of the most convicting and confusing ones for me in this day and age. And it's Paul, when he says, "Make it your ambition to live a simple life working with your hands." You know, and I thought about that verse when you were talking about your HVAC friend and what he's doing and the feelings of less than, what would you say to, to like the 99% of men out there that have those feelings that they're not quite living up to some expectation, whether it's the world or the church, their wife or their own expectations. What would you say to those guys that may be dealing with that, that less than insecurity?
Chris Harper: Absolutely, man. I would, so there's, this is my favorite topic, one of my favorite topics in all the world. there's two or three things I would say. I would say, first of all, God's economy in no way reflects our economy here on earth. What God values, what God prioritizes. You know, we have a lot of things backwards here. They asked me one time, "Wow do you know the Gospel's taken root in a church?" And I, and my answer was, "The gospel's taken root in a church when a janitor can disciple a CEO and no one thinks differently about it." You know, the greatest sin we do not talk about today is the sin of partiality that James speaks of. It's treating people differently based upon what they do, what they wear, the color of their skin, you name it. And there's no place, in my opinion, there's no place worse than this, than sometimes in the church. So I would just remind men that God's economy is not our economy. It was Charles Spurgeon who said, "The poorest plowman is as great as the greatest prince in the kingdom of God." And we need to remember that. And then secondly, man, I would just encourage those guys that, you know, the Lord has called us to be faithful right where we are. And there's beauty in that. And bro, there's freedom in that. Knowing that my worth and my identity is not tied into my production and my results, bro, is so freeing.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: So God is less concerned with what you're doing, and he is more concerned with who you're becoming.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: And if I could just drill that into the hearts and into the heads of men and just say, be faithful right where you are. Man, with the two kids you have, be faithful. With your marriage, be faithful. With the work that he's given you, be faithful. And here's the deal. Here's what's crazy, right. And this isn't prosperity gospel, but the Bible teaches, like if we're faithful with like that which is right in front of us, bro, he will slowly increase our lands.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Chris Harper: Like he will slowly, I say slowly, sometimes it's more rapidly, but he will tend to give us more influence. He will tend to give us more responsibility, right. I tell young men all the time, you know, God's not gonna give you dominion until you show him that you can control the dominion you have, right. I've got a 10-year-old son. I teach him your dominion is your bedroom. And when your bedroom is in disorder, your life is probably gonna be disorder, right. I was talking to a guy about this the other day, and he said, "Well, I don't have dominion." I said, "Do you have a pickup truck?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Is it clean?" He said, "Nope." I said, "That's a problem." I said, "That pickup truck, that 12 square feet of space inside that cab, that's your dominion. That's your dominion. Is there gas in the tank? Are the tires inflated? Has the oil been changed? Is the inside clean?" I said, "Exercise order and control over the cab of your truck. And then once you get that down, man, you'll see God will start to increase the responsibility and the reign that he'll give you." It's a 2000 year old plus problem, depending on if you're a young, old earth guy. Adam had dominion over the garden. Adam allowed a snake, a talking snake, which should have been the first sign. Animals don't, animals rarely talk in the Bible. Like, if you come across the talking snake, just kill it. Don't have a conversation with it. Kill it, right. So he allowed this snake to creep up next to his house, man, and he lost control of the garden. He lost dominion, man. And we've been dealing with that ever since. So I would just encourage men, like, I don't know what your churches are doing. I don't know what you're watching, et cetera, et cetera, but just be faithful with what's in front of you. Be faithful in the mundane, be faithful in the ordinary, redeem the ordinary. And it's, there's beauty in that. And there's power in that, man.
Jon Beazley: Yes. You know, you probably saw Warren and I both look at our calendars. We're like, oh man, let's, when can I schedule in cleaning my vehicle? Because I gotta get that in order. I'm just teasing. No, that was, that's so good though. What I like about what you're saying is that it's like, you were just talk, putting it in the context of men desire to win.
Chris Harper: That's right.
Jon Beazley: What you're doing is you're changing the scorecard.
Chris Harper: One hundred percent.
Jon Beazley: You're like, we need to change the scorecard. So good. And if we keep putting it out there as starting an orphanage in Africa, which again, the Lord may direct some people to, but that's the, that's the scorecard. Or becoming a Christian influencer rather than managing your domain, what God's given you. But to me, that gives me really clear actionable steps. And also, just to kind of tie in with what you were saying with like John Mark Comer, and I know we're trying to be careful about calling people out or anything like that. I actually really loved his book, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. It wrecked me in all the good ways. But I do think, and I don't think, I think John probably would agree with this, but there's this, the peril of the pendulum, right. Where you go from burnout culture to like, what we need is Sabbath, we need rest, we need to slow down. Culture is all about, you know, hustle and move and go. And I think that's, I think there's a way that, that is actually Gospel and healing. But then we go so far, and then it's like, oh, work. No, no, no, no, Sabbath. I just want a Sabbath all the time. I just wanna like, relax. I just feel kind of burnt out. And we learn what it's like to actually glorify God in just hard work in doing the thing like the factory line, like the HVAC guy. And just being able to do that, saying, Hey, you know what, getting home at the end of the day and saying, Hey, I did all day, I was serving Jesus to the best of my ability, and I'm tired. That's good, you know.
Chris Harper: That's it.
Jon Beazley: Not something that you're trying to escape. This is something that actually, that's beautiful. And of course, in the creation narrative, there is this rhythm of work and rest, but it's six days of work, and there's the one day of rest, and let's make sure that we have that in proportion. And, no, anyways, I was just commenting on that. But I like this idea of a, like changing the scorecard and that, and when we do that, we're creating a context where normal men, every single day, men could say, "Hey, I can do this." I can live for Jesus.
Chris Harper: Absolutely, man. And you know, think about another kind of kinda hot Christian commodity right now. It's this whole concept of true self, false self, right. That we all need to discover our true self. And I was telling a guy not too long ago, I was on another show, and I said, you know, if and when I find my true self, I'm gonna put a bullet in the back of his head. Because, because the Bible doesn't say, find your true self. The Bible says, die to self and live for Jesus and live for others, right So like that's another pendulum swing where we're telling all these guys that you've gotta go live in the woods, or you gotta go climb this mountain, or you've gotta go do this to discover who you truly are when the Bible is clear, man: die to who you are so that you can live for others. And that, from that perspective, bro, that makes working on the assembly line holy because I'm here with a good attitude, not complaining, not grumbling, not groaning. And I'm being a light to my coworkers. I'm honoring my employer, and I'm earning a wage and feeding my children, and I've got a roof over their head. Like I'm dying to self and living for all these people around me. And what happens is, as we do that, and again, I think the Bible's clear, we will start to discover that, man, this is what real joy is. This is what real purpose is. You know, Dallas Willard gave the best definition of love I've ever heard. He said, "Love is simply having somebody else's best interest at heart." And that is rooted in dying to self, that I'm gonna practice Philippians 2 and consider others' needs as more important than my own. And man, when we can get to that, it doesn't matter what we're doing, as long as it's ethical and moral, you know, the Lord will be pleased. But the purpose is, man, my work, my marriage right, my existence is for the glorification of God to glory God and to and to help and benefit others. And when you can get to that and you experience freedom.
Jon Beazley: I feel like. Sorry. And obviously... go ahead, Warren.
Warren Mainard: I wanna change gears and go back to something that you had talked about a few minutes ago because I just think it's so important, and I really want to hear your thoughts about this. But, you know, you talked about the connection between men and the church and how the church has really catered towards women and children. And as a result, men have kind of checked out. And being here in the Seattle area, Seattle Times put out an article a couple months ago saying that Seattle has now reclaimed the title of the least churched city in America. Somewhere around 4%. We had kind of seen a little bit of a bump a few years ago when Mars Hill and City Church with Judah Smith and Ryan Meeks with Eastside or Eastgate Church, whatever it was, East Lake Church. But now that has really regressed again. And, as a result, Chris, I work with a lot of men who, profess to be Christians, but have just made a decision for themselves and for their family that church is not going to be a part of their lives. So I'd love to just ask you to kind of maybe speak to that, like why do men and their families need the church to thrive? And then maybe the flip side, why do churches need men to thrive? Like that there's a synergy between a strong man and a strong church when those two are partnered well together. And it feels like our churches are struggling 'cause they don't have men, and our men are struggling because they don't have the church. So maybe you could just kinda speak to that if you can, for a little bit about that idea.
Chris Harper: Yeah. Yeah. It's so good, man. And you're right, it's a direct correlation. And it's also a bigger system because, you know, confused men make confused homes, confused homes make confused churches, confused churches make confused cities. Strong, clear men with clarity make strong clear homes; strong, clear churches. You get the picture. But what happened was, because churches began to cater towards women and children, and we did it in everything. So we did it in aesthetics. We did it in the songs we sing. You know, we went from singing about Christ as my captain and onward Christian soldier to singing about drowning in an ocean of his love. I mean, all that has a femininity to it. Like and I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just telling you what happened, right. The number one evangelical phrase today is 'have a personal relationship with Christ.' But that's not necessarily in the Bible. Now why do we say it? Well, we say it 'cause it appeals to women because women are looking for a personal relationship. They're looking for someone to go have coffee with at Starbucks, right. Men are looking for a captain to follow. They're looking for a heel to take. They're looking for an adventure to go on, right. So it's everything from the aesthetics to the verbiage started to shift towards women and children which it just wasn't very appealing, to men. So, I'm not shocked that 40 million people have left the church in the last 20 years according to The Great De-Churching, those guys out of Orlando that just wrote that phenomenal research. You know, 20, 40 million people have left in the last 20 years, and men have led in the leaving.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Chris Harper: So, I get it. I get why church isn't very appealing. I get why Jesus doesn't look like someone that you'd want to get behind and run into a burning building with, but that's on us. That's on Western culture for painting that type of picture of a ecclesiology and painting that type of picture of Christology and who Christ is. I would encourage men to find a church that paints Christ in the right picture, that paints the fellowship in the right picture. Because the Bible is clear, to neglect gathering and to neglect Jesus's bride is a problem. You're not going to grow as a Christian husband. You're not gonna grow as a Christian father. You're not gonna grow as a Christian apart from the bride of Christ. It's impossible. It's just impossible, right. And the bride of Christ has never hurt you. I meet so many men talking about, well, you know, the church hurt me or the church disowned me. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's King Jesus' bride, the only thing she does is help. The only thing she does is heal. Someone in the church might have hurt you or some people in the church might have disowned you, but King Jesus' bride can't hurt you. It's impossible. She can only help you and heal you. So, get plugged into a, to a good Bible preaching, good Bible teaching a church that's focused on fellowship, a church that's focused on reaching and winning men. Why is that? Well, because biblically men are called to lead in the church. Not that women can't lead or women shouldn't lead. We can do that another show. But men specifically are called to lead in the church. And, you know, here's what happens when men don't lead, women will naturally step up and fill that void. And that's what we're seeing all across the country. So it's this circle of men feeling like they don't belong in the church, so they're not engaging with the church. So now the church becomes obsolete. The church doesn't matter. You know, I can just do it on my own. Which the reality is most men aren't leading little house churches. What they do is they just stop doing it.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Chris Harper: They stop praying, they stop singing, they stop, you know, xyz and it's this pandemic. It's a problem today.
Warren Mainard: Yeah. You know, Chris, I was at a gathering with a group of leaders across Seattle, and of course, you know, the conversation is how do the leaders of Seattle reach Seattle? And one of the men was a pastor in Aurora, which is a very dark part of North Seattle. And it's known for homelessness, prostitutes, drugs, everything. And he started sharing, he said that over the last eight months, they've seen more salvations, more people come to Christ, than in any time during his, you know, 12 years of planting this church. And I went up to him afterwards and, and knowing a little bit of his backstory, I said, "Hey, when would you say this kind of new movement of growth began?" And he said, "It was probably around September." And I said, "Okay, Keith, like, if I remember correctly, that was the same time that you and I got together for coffee. And you told me I'm putting all of my emphasis on reaching and investing in men."
Chris Harper: A hundred percent.
Warren Mainard: And he kind of had this like a, you know, awakened look. And he goes, "That's right." He said, "You're absolutely right." I said, "What do you think the connection?" He said, "I think it's a direct connection. When I began to invest in men, then the church started to grow." Salvation started to happen, rededication began to take place, baptisms. Because of that emphasis that I almost believe, and Chris correct me if you think I'm wrong on this, but I believe that there is a spiritual principle there that when a church invests in men, that God is going to bless it and grow it because of that prioritization. Am I off in thinking that?
Chris Harper: I think it's a spiritual principle, and it is, it's practical. So spiritually, when God created the heavens and the earth, he put a man in the middle of the garden. When that man messed up, he sent another man to redeem it. And then he appointed 12 men to go tell that story. There's something about being a man in God's economy. There just is. Doesn't mean women are less than, as a matter of fact, we teach the opposite. But there's something unique about being a man. You know, I start every conference I speak at with the phrase 'I love being a man.' I don't think we say that enough. I think every man should wake up every day, look in the mirror and say, I love being a man. I really believe that. And then practically, bro, $7 billion a year on children's ministry, only to have 70% of high schoolers walk away from church when they graduate. Okay, that's the result. So every year we dump $7 billion in, and then every year on this end, 70% walk away from the church. Statistics, code statistics. If I told you, Jon, Warren, I've got this great idea, give me $7 billion every year, and then I'm gonna lose 70% of it every year. It's phenomenal. You would tell me I'm crazy. You would tell me I'm crazy. Yet that's exactly what we do every single year. The return, the ROI, we've already won the children, the whole children's ministry movement of the eighties, building the children's ministry wings. Put the giant tree house in the middle of your church, man, I don't care. Good on you. We need to have good children's ministries. We've already won 'em, we've already won the women the last 10 years, the number one author at Lifeway has been a woman. There's more women's curriculums and studies and meetings than you can shake a stick at. Like, we've won the women. The question I'm asking is, where has that gotten us? We've won all the children, we've won all the women. Where has it gotten us? You win the men, everything changes. Everything changes, right. And people may say, well, and they've told me, well, that's sexist or that's misogynistic, or that's a, you know, archaic. Well, no, it's biblical. And the reasons why we're not getting the ROI on our investment is because we're not investing in the right thing. We need to be investing more in the men. And it's simple. Every church can do this, right I was at a, I was at a pretty prominent church a couple months ago, and they don't have a men's ministry. So they asked me just to, hey, will you meet with our church leadership and let's talk about how we can reach the men in our community. So I did this whole multi-generational discipleship thing. We need the younger, the older reaching down and the younger and all this stuff. And they said, man, that's great, but we need something practical, something we could do tomorrow. And I said, do three things. No more dad jokes. Stop making fun of men. Stop. The world, makes fun of men: tv, music, culture, bashes on men. The church has to stop. You know our worship leader, we had a women's conference at our church, and most of the women were gone that day. So our worship leaders started the service by making this little joke, hey, you know, none of the women are here today. It's all men. You, you'll probably notice that a lot of the kids come and they were wearing, you know, clothes two sizes too small or two sizes too big. Dad got 'em ready this morning and everybody kind of laughed, and we just went on with this worship. Well, I told him after the service, I said, hey, bro, I don't appreciate that. He's like, what do you mean? I said, I'm a grown man, dude, I can dress my kids.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: Like heaven forbid if my wife dies tomorrow, my children are gonna be okay, because they've got their father. I'm not an idiot.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Jon Beazley: Yes.
Chris Harper: And I said, when you make little jokes like that at our expense, I said, all you're doing is just driving more and more men away. I said, so no more dad jokes. Stop. Secondly, no more guilt ridden sermons towards men. Like, we already feel inadequate. Like I'm already disappointed in myself that I don't spend enough time with my kids. I get it, bro. I get it, right.
Jon Beazley: Yeah.
Chris Harper: No more shameful guilt-ridden sermons aimed at men, especially on Father's Day. And then the third thing, I asked this particular church, I said, how many door greeters do you have on a Sunday morning, parking lot attendees? And he said, 300, we have 300 for every service. Massive church. I said, train every one of them. When they see a man walking his family across the parking lot, grab him by the shoulder and say, "We see you, brother. Well done." I said, just start encouraging the men as they walk in the church. I said, when you see a college student walking across the parking lot, holding his Bible, grab him by the arm and say, "Hey brother, I know how hard it is to stay pure in this culture. I want you to know we're proud of you, and we're here for you." I said, dude, just start boosting every man you see. And he looked at me basically in tears. He's like, bro, we're gonna start that tomorrow. I said, absolutely, man. Just start encouraging the men.
Jon Beazley: I love this because when you speak up to men, they typically rise to the occasion.
Chris Harper: That's it, bro. Yes.
Jon Beazley: You speak down to men, they may laugh, but they'll typically just kind of fade out. You know, I like this idea too, of like doing away with, like, actually, I really hate most pulpit humor across the board. I think most of it is just like, worn out. And it's like, just stop. It's like on repeat. But I love the emphasis of, hey, we're really going to encourage men. And you have this disparity between what Mother's Day looks like. You, you women are awesome. You're amazing. Which by the way, I'm like, keep doing that. That's awesome. But then it's Father's Day, where are you? You a bunch of men, lazy, good for nothing, you know. And obviously there's a context, as you said before, even like looking at identity. It's like, we do need to get down to what it looks like to die, you know, saying, I'm dying to myself, but you're doing so 'cause, but ultimately that death leads to a resurrection, a life, a newness of what is, Irenaeus say, he says, "The glory of God is man fully alive." And what you're leading towards is that, that fully alive. Yeah. So I love, I love the actionable steps. And actually you were, I was, in my head, I was like, okay, I wanna ask him, like, okay, if I gave you, what, 7 billion or whatever you said was invested in children's ministry, it's like, and if we turn that around, invested in men's ministry, what would it look like? So you gave us some, but what's a bigger picture saying, this is a great start. Do these three things. What's a bigger picture? You're saying this is where men's ministry needs to go 20, 24 and beyond.
Chris Harper: Absolutely so good, bro. So we have to stop, we have to stop feeding stereotypes. So I tell men's ministry leaders all the time, Kevin Hart and The Rock, are two different expressions of men, but they both starred in the same movie, okay. So like, like I don't really get down with the wild game feeds, right. I don't eat deer. Like I eat Chick-fil-A. I love Chick-fil-A, bro. So like I can appreciate the wild game stuff and the ax throwing and the flannel. Like, I can appreciate all that. But you're, when that's all you do, when all you do is bring in the Navy seal to talk about faith and freedom, you are excluding an entire portion of men.
Jon Beazley: It's the wrong scorecard.
Chris Harper: A hundred percent. And to your point, like most of these tricks have already been played out. My guess is if what you're doing today, you were still doing in the nineties, you should probably stop doing it, like I would offer that encouragement unless it's just teaching the word of God, which is timeless. But whatever ploys and tricks that, you know, golf scrambles, you can probably stop having golf scrambles. Most Gen Z men don't play golf. A lot of millennial men don't play golf, right. So we run these plays and we wonder why the same old men literally keep showing up. So we've gotta kill the stereotypes. The two things that most men need today are clarity around what it means to be a man, and then the community of other men to journey with. And in that, you know, I would really encourage churches, leaders of men, whoever, men watching the show. You know, we, we've gotten away, there was this move in the eighties in Evangelicalism where we moved from educational spaces to communal spaces. And this thing called life groups was born. It's a good thing. But for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. We even took pastors and called them age and stage pastors. And we started to segregate the church by age and stage. Marrieds, unmarrieds, young kids, old kids, 20 somethings over here, 60 year olds over here. And we thought by putting all the 20 year olds together in a corner, wisdom, and experience would just bloom. But that's not the case. Like, can men lead up? Absolutely. I've seen it. But more times than not, in, especially in scripture, wisdom and experience is transferred down. It's transferred down. We've gotta start, it's like an awkward eighth grade dance. You got a bunch of old guys over here, a bunch of young guys over here, and you're waiting for somebody to break the ice. Oh, no. We've gotta figure out a way to take these older men who are one step ahead, four steps ahead, whatever, pair them up with some younger men and they're willing to say, hey, come follow me. I'm not perfect, but I am progressing. I've screwed up three times. Maybe following me, you'll only mess up twice. We've gotta figure out how to reunite the generations because we have killed multi-generational discipleship in most of our churches. You
Jon Beazley: Would you say this model then really demands that older men be mature enough to say, hey, where the men in my generation form communities around these things, golfing as you used it, we actually need to meet the younger men where they're at and try to help form communities. Obviously the locus of these communities is a timeless thing, God's word, right. So that doesn't change. But I'm just trying to think of like, we're trying to bridge this gap, is the disparity of trying to bridge this gap because it's like, hey, come to what we like to do. And they're like, hey, that's not really our speed, old people. You're feeling this natural gap. Like, and maybe there's more to it 'cause you've been doing this more study. What would you think will help mature this dynamic of bringing together the generations?
Chris Harper: So I think we've gotta go back to more of those educational spaces. And I'll give you an example. I had an older man have breakfast with me. He was a men's leader complaining about how, you know, the younger generations aren't coming out. And, we were right by a college campus, big college campus. And he said, "Chris, how do I reach the younger generation?" I said, "Do you have a resume" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "I want you to take your resume and I want you to put at the top of it grandfather type looking for young men to grandfather. And then I just want you to list every skill you could teach him." Change his oil, how to frame a roof. I don't care. Just list 10 skills you could teach him. I said, print that out and put it on the college campus. I said, within two hours you'll have a hundred phone calls. And he looked at me and he said, "I can't do that." And I said, "No, you won't do it." I said, "There's a difference. There's a difference. You can, you can." This gen, so think about Gen Z. Gen Z, the research tells us they're the most, financially conservative generation. So if you tell a Gen Z kid, and really it's a Gen Z young man, okay. You tell a Gen Z young man, hey, you can go get your oil changed over here and pay 50 bucks or I can teach you how to do it in 45 minutes and it'll cost you $8 for a filter, bro. He is yours for 45 minutes. He is locked in. And guess what you get to do? Man, you get to share life and you get to share about Jesus, and you get to share wisdom and experience, right. I host, I host two events that are multi-generational. And I've seen multi-generational connections from these events. Not everybody agrees with them. Don't send me an email. I'm not saying you have to do this, but I host UFC watch parties because old men and young men love that. And then the last Thursday of the month, I host a group called Holy Smokes at a cigar club where we sit around and smoke a cigar. And guess what? Young men and old men love that too. And the beautiful thing about a cigar is a good one lasts about an hour and 15 minutes. So like, you've got that relational time and I get it. Not every church can do that. But my point is, you know, to your question, man, every older man, and I don't care. I don't care if you're on your second or third marriage, I don't care if your business has failed. I don't, like I understand life happens, but here's the deal. The Apostle Paul murdered Christians, but he walked into heaven to the applause of the people he had killed.
Jon Beazley: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Harper: Like everybody's qualified to some degree. You might not be qualified to be a pastor. You might not be qualified for this, but you are qualified to be a spiritual father. All you have to do is put your hand up and say, hey, listen, I did not get this right and I've learned a few things along the way. I'd love to teach you. Dude, I have never had, I don't know how many young men I've discipled, you know, and I'm a very intentional discipler. I have never had anyone tell me no. I said, hey, you know, would you like to do life? Would you like to? No one's ever said, no.
Jon Beazley: Warren, you wanted to say something?
Warren Mainard: Chris, this is so good. We do need to wrap this up. And so I'm gonna ask you in just a minute to maybe just share a little bit of how guys can follow you and what, you know, what their next steps might be to try to connect with the work of BetterMan. But, but I wanted to just kind of tie back to what you talked about there just a little while. You said two absolutely critical things for a man to really thrive in masculinity today. You said clarity and community. And I, you know, I just wanna say like, for us at IMPACT Players, like, we really believe that the secret sauce to what makes our IMPACT Players cohorts so powerful and effective is what we call audacious authenticity and the unadulterated word of God. We just really believe that when men can get into a community where they can be totally honest about everything that they're going through, and then bring the word of God into that conversation, that's what really captures and transforms men. We have so many men who tell me either, I've been a part of recovery groups or things like that where there's a lot of authenticity, or I've been a part of church Bible studies where there's a lot of scripture. But when you bring those two together, it just like sets, you know, flame to the fuel. It is just like a spark that blows up in men's lives. And I know that that's a big part of what BetterMan is doing with its groups and curriculum and those kind of things. So, as we wrap this up, tell us a little bit about how guys can follow you. How they can follow BetterMan, and keep growing as men. 'Cause it's a journey. They're not gonna wake up tomorrow and be all that they wanna be, but how do they keep growing using some of the resources that you are putting out personally and through BetterMan?
Chris Harper: Yeah. So, good man. And thanks for saying that and agree with you. I meet like-minded people all the time, but sometimes I meet like-hearted brothers, and you and Jon both are very like-hearted. So grateful for that. Super simple, BetterMan is a free resource. And there's no bait and switch there. Like it really is free. 80% of our launches, we don't even, we don't really have a lot of contact with. They just download the material, they download the videos right off of betterman.com and they launch their group. So you can go to betterman.com, you create a what we call a leader login, and then you have access to 31 weeks of content geared around what it means to be God's man today. And then that 31 weeks is best done in a community of other men. The idea is you're a step ahead and you're gonna grab six to eight other guys, and you're gonna go through it. It's not super deep. It's not what I call deep discipleship. We very much are the on-ramp to manhood and masculinity. So if you're looking and if you're confused about what it means to be a man today, this is gonna give you the clarity and community you need to figure that out. For the men that are a little further along, I've had some of them do BetterMan. And they'll shoot me an email and say, "Hey Chris, this was good, but it's not deep enough for me." My response is always, that's great. I didn't write it for you. I wrote it for the six guys you're gonna bring around a table like if you feel like you're a little further in the deep end, great. I'm not gonna argue with you. There are 4.2 billion men in the world that are not, go grab six of them and, and have 'em wait in the water with you. Like it's a free tool. It's frictionless.
Warren Mainard: Yeah.
Chris Harper: Download it and, and go. And then take it to your church. Take it to your community college, take it to your local sports team. Take it to your military base. You know, in the last 24 months, we've launched 7,200 studies, all 50 states, 80 countries. There's a BetterMan going on right now, you know, just about in every corner of the globe. And so it really is that easy to use. You know, get in there. We do have a podcast that drops every Monday, the BetterMan podcast. And then I have a blog called Good Trouble, the Chris Harper Good Trouble blog. It's on Substack, but I write twice a week there. And we're just talking about these things, man. We're talking about manhood in the 21st century. So we'd love to welcome and invite anyone and all into the community.
Warren Mainard: It's amazing. And I got, I just wanna say, I have looked at these materials. I've listened to them, watched 'em, check them out. They're fantastic. I get your Good Trouble email and really enjoy it. I get the daily devotionals that you guys are putting out, just always phenomenal and keep bringing you back to being God's man, you know, living out those four Ws that you talked about. So, Chris, it's so great to have you with us. I feel honored truly to be able to have you be a part of this podcast and for you to share, not only your time, but your wisdom and the treasure of the experience that you bring to this really important conversation. I hope that God will give us continued opportunities to bless and encourage each other and, the days ahead. But, for myself, for Jon, for every other man that is out there listening to this podcast, thank you. And guys, let's get after this together. Don't do it on your own. Isolation is the enemy's tactic. Get into a band of brothers and start fighting the right fight with other men who you can link shields with. If you have any questions about how to do that, reach out to us at impactplayers.org. Let us know. We would love to help you find your band of brothers and get started in your path and journey to become a great husband, a great father, and a great leader by being equipped to thrive in the relationships that matter most. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you again, Harp, for being a part of this, and we will catch you guys next time.
