Chris Grainger: 0:53

Welcome to The Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, Chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas, it's your meetup sometime. Let's get right into it, okay? So the scripture of the week this week is in 1 Timothy, the fourth chapter, the eighth verse. It says, for physical training, it's of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. All right, guys. So if you want to take that verse and have a better understanding on how to simplify and apply it to your life, go back in your podcast feed. The last podcast, our spiritual kickoff episode for this week, we'll have I took some time to unpack that, to share it with you how you, again, you can take this one little verse right here and how we can actually apply it to our daily walk because that's what it's all about. Again, if you enjoy the spiritual kickoff episodes each week, guys, we do them Monday through Friday in our Lion Within is community. It's a free way we try to encourage you just to help you on your discipleship journey. So head over to thelinewithin.us to get started today, okay? This is this guest is a fun one. We're all the way from the Netherlands. We brought in Mark Oxer, okay? So he is a a chartered professional coach out there. He and he is really leaning into this whole idea of sports, uh strength, and discipleship. I mean, it's a really interesting conversation. He has master degrees in strength and conditioning training as well as leadership and math and management. And uh he he has a really good way of practically bringing the experience that he's learned into discipleship. And that's what we talk about today. I mean, we really talk about that. I mean, he's served in a variety of different ministry type positions. Uh, he's worked with church, with parachurches, he's done all this stuff for the last 25 years. He's pursuing a doctorate right now, and he's just an awesome guy. He has a couple of little kids at home, he's got one on the way, uh, living his life. He's just really leaning in to do what God's called him to do. And he shares with us some really practical insights around discipleship. What does that look like? Where the church has in many ways missed the mark, but that's okay. Where can we, as individuals, as Christian men, pick up the pace and like and start doing that course correction? Okay. So I think you're going to enjoy this conversation with my friend Mark Oxer. Mark, welcome to the line within us. How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for having me here. I'm excited about this. I'm super pumped to have you too, for sure. And we we always like to start just a little light, Mark. Uh maybe share something fun about you that not many people know about.

Mark Oxer: 3:30

Uh, well, if people Google me, they're gonna find this out. But if they're listening for the first time and be like, who is this guy? Uh, one of the things that will come up is that uh national champion for Settlers of Catan, and uh have actually participated in the Catan World Championships in real life, the Catan Digital World Championships, uh, and then I've won the Masters Championships as well for Settlers of Catan. And then uh we'll get into later, but uh the book that I wrote is actually not the first book that I've written. The first book that I ever wrote and published was uh a guide on how to win Settlers of Catan. Okay.

Chris Grainger: 4:12

So I've never played the Settlers of Catan. So give me a give me a one-on-one brief run now. How's the game work?

Mark Oxer: 4:19

It's uh it's a resource management game. Okay. So it's based on dice rolls, and on each dice roll you collect different resources, and then you utilize those resources to build different parts of the game, uh, and those different pieces are all worth points. The first person to get 10 points wins. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Sounds like you're really good at it, though. Last time I checked, I was the number five ranked masters player in the world.

Chris Grainger: 4:47

So oh wow. Okay, all right, all right. So, guys, if if you get invited over, don't play with Mark, you will lose, you know. Well, man, love love love that. That's that's the most unique tell me fun something fun about you that we've ever had on Alliance. Yeah. Thank you for that. Well, maybe share with with our listeners just a little bit about you too, your bio, just how you came to know the Lord. I obviously you're you're leaning into to your walk with God in a meaningful way, but you know, what what did it look like for you growing up? Did you always go to to church or or or what does your personal journey look like?

Mark Oxer: 5:24

Yeah, so uh I appreciate the question. Uh and I outlined some of those things in the in the writing, obviously, but uh I grew up uh in an Anglican church. So both my parents were immigrants, they moved from England to Canada. Um so I grew up uh with parents who were from England, so we went to an Anglican church, Church of England. Uh, but it was more for how you that's a good that's what a good Christian did. Okay. Right? So you went to church on a Sunday. Um and so I went through the process of uh confirmation, which is what in the Anglican church. I was baptized as a baby and then went through confirmation classes and then served in the church. Um but uh I never really felt that it was real. Um, but I didn't know uh what I will say you don't know what you don't know, and that applies to lots of everything in life. But I didn't know that it wasn't real until I spent the time at a summer camp. So I went to summer camp and it was a Mennonite uh Christian summer camp, and it was at that summer camp where uh I was surrounded by people who had real active living relationships with the real living God, and I was like, whoa, this is different. This isn't religious, this is relationship, right?

Chris Grainger: 6:41

How old were you when you went to that camp?

Mark Oxer: 6:44

Uh so there's other experiences that I could tie back to that. So uh I went there in grades three and in grade five with my school. Uh we did they did what's called outdoor education in grade when I was in grade three and five. And those opportunities are to like learn how to like cook a bread over a fire and like start a fire and like use a compass and that kind of stuff. Right. And that you did that when we when I was in grade school, and then when I was in, I believe it was around grade eight, seven, eight, nine, somewhere in there, uh, is when I went to camp actually as a summer camper for a week at overnight camp, um, when all the counselors are like 20-year-old counseling staff and that kind of stuff. So uh that was around junior high age, is when I went there. Um I remember being in the I think it was like my second, second night um there, the counselor in the cabin, and whose birthday was two days ago, actually, yesterday or two days ago. I still keep in touch with him. This is my counselor from like years and years ago. Really? He was he was sharing us the gospel, and he just said, you know what? Like, if you go to church and do all these things, it's great. Uh, but that doesn't make you a Christian any more than being in an airplane hangar makes you an airplane. And I remember laying in my bed being like, what? What is he talking about? I didn't like sit up or anything, but I remember in my mind this moment of like, whoa. And he's like, if you want to pray a prayer to ask Christ into your life to make it like personal and meaningful and all of that. So I prayed that prayer that night in the cabin with him. And then from there, my relationship, uh, specifically with regards to going to summer camp really grew. So I spent time going through a leadership training program. A lot of camps call it called like an LIT, a leadership in training program. Uh, so I went through that and then went on staff and was on staff for eight, probably at least 10 years uh as a summer camp staff working with kids. And that was a really formative in my life with regards to uh several things. So I know that you have a master class that is about connecting men together, and I still have friends from 1994 when I was summer camp, those are still some of my closest friends in the world right now. So I still text message with those guys. Like I live here in the Netherlands, those guys are back in Canada, and we still text message almost daily back and forth. And those are guys that I met when I was my first year as staff at summer camp in 1994. So really, yeah.

Chris Grainger: 9:22

Wow, that's incredible. So when you think back to like you said before the camp experience, though, you were in church, but you felt like something was just off. There's a disconnect. I mean, what reflecting back, what do you think was the disconnect?

Mark Oxer: 9:38

Uh I think, and this is I don't want to come across as putting down uh the Anglican church because that's not my perspective, because I do think uh with that said, there's a lot of things that I gleaned from growing up in the Anglican church that I have very much appreciated. And I act, oh, that's one of the things I touched upon in the book, like memorizing the Apostles' Creed. Like that was every week. Apostles' Creed, Apostles' Creed, Apostles Creed. I know some faiths uh use like the Nicene Creed, but just having that like that repetition in sort of like a song form put into your mind helps formate formation of your theology, right? So I'm very thankful for some of those things, reciting the Lord's Prayer every week. So some of those things I think were really formative, and I'm glad that I had those opportunities in the Anglican church, but it was very um they have the the book the in the Anglican church, it's the green book of services, right? So on this day you do this service, on this day you do this service, on this day you do this service, and then the homilies that are given are very like seven to fifteen minute kind of durations, not like what we'd think maybe in more of an evangelical church, like a sermon that could last half an hour, 45 minutes or something, right? So it was very, very structured and like I'm gonna use the term religious in that it was kind of everything was um, and then being able to experience the the dichotomy of that in working a camp and seeing this is very relational in that I don't have to take my hat off to pray if I don't want to, right? Uh I can pray when I'm riding a horse, I can pray when I'm in a kayak, I can pray um out in the field, I can pray when we're in chapel, like we pray before meals, and I was just like, man, like this is this is very different than what I this the structure, like the very uh defined structure that I was brought up with. Sure. Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 11:42

Yeah, it sounds like I mean that that freedom and that relationship factor of the relationship with Christ was kind of it sounds like that's where the counselors were were really driving you guys at that camp.

Mark Oxer: 11:53

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah.

Chris Grainger: 11:57

Well that's that's awesome. So I mean you you've you've taken that that on your discipleship journey to the point now where you wrote the book called This Is the Way. I mean, what what led you to to wanting to put this pen to paper? Because as someone who's written a book myself, I know there's a lot of work that just even goes through that process. So what what do you feel like the call was got that that God was putting on your heart to write this?

Mark Oxer: 12:22

Yeah, so uh been in the Netherlands now three years. Uh we chose my wife and I chose to move here after having our first uh son. We were living in Canada. At the time, I was working on a military base as a civilian, uh, doing fitness training for mil Canadian military personnel. My wife was working helicopter emergency medical services. So we both had pretty cool jobs that we were like, hey, we'd be fine doing these jobs for the rest of our lives. Yeah. Um uh nice 10 acres of land, like rural, rural Canada. We're like, oh, this is great. Uh, but we were far away from family. And that was important uh for us to be close to family for the raising of our son. And so we're like, well, we're probably gonna end up having to move to the Netherlands then. Uh, because my family is my parents still live in Canada. My one sister lives uh about a half an hour away from my parents, my other sister lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and then my cousins and other relatives are spread out throughout Canada, and then a large portion of them still in England. So, whereas if my wife's family, they all live close to Rotterdam within like a half an hour of each other, and my wife's in the middle of like 32 cousins.

Chris Grainger: 13:36

Wow.

Mark Oxer: 13:37

So I was like, well, if we want to be close to family, then it looks like we're gonna go to the Netherlands.

Chris Grainger: 13:42

So there you go.

Mark Oxer: 13:43

Uh we came here and a very different experience than what we were expecting. So there's a lot of um shared history between Canada and Netherlands uh from World War II kind of onwards. There's been trade relationships uh economically, but then uh the Canadians are respected for their what they did during World War II to help out in this part of the world. And uh there's been uh shared connections between the countries since the Second World War. And there is uh a lot of Dutch people speak English well, so language was a little bit not as much of a problem as we thought it might be. But going to church was very different than uh what I had expected it was going to be. So the Netherlands traditionally being uh a Protestant nation, uh, then they've obviously had major battles, like what they had the battles in the 1700s with Spain versus Catholic and Protestantism, and so there was some really significant uh history with Protestant faith here in the Netherlands. But when I got here, uh it was uh very much Dutch Reformed Calvinistic perspective, which it wasn't the faith that I was um brought up with or participating with, and it was a little bit confrontational for me uh to be able to engage into that, um, in that there's minimal uh with the Dutch term evangelical churches, we would uh probably think of them more as like um not, I don't want to say charismatic Pentecostal, but it's just it's a different, it's uh I'm gonna go more relationship, less religious again, is how I would describe them. Um but finding such a church that had English language as part of uh daily life within the church has been challenging. And then uh as part of that, being like, yeah, I have friends who I've been friends with since the mid-90s, but they're all the way back in Canada. And so I'm like, I want to be able to have a deep relationship with people here, connect meaningfully with men here and talk about the important things in life and how things are going. And really struggled with that. Um, so I would do things like I bought season tickets to uh a local soccer team, and I would take guys from the gym with me to the game, and even there, just talking to them, be like, hey, like what's it like? Uh tell me about life, how's things going? And there's very much uh a different culture here where you don't it doesn't seem that people really get deep into relationships. And I even questioned some guys from church about that, like, hey, do people get deep into relationships here? Like, who do you talk to about if things that are going like hard in your life, or if you're struggling with something, who do you talk to? And people are like, Yeah, well, we don't like those kind of things. Uh even right now, the the Netherlands is going through an election coming up at the end of October. People don't talk about politics here. Like it's just a certain yeah. Um, and I know that in North America it's very common for people to say, Oh, hey, what do you do for like what do you do for work? And I honestly like it's not a question that gets asked here because people don't identify by what they do for their job, it's just like, oh yeah, so we want to just and so I mean I had a conversation with somebody I worked with the other day, and they had a group of friends over, and these are friends that they've had for years, and the purpose of it was just to get to know each other better, and they sat down and all each shared about their own jobs and what they do for work and those kind of things. And I thought that was great that they did that, but I also find it a little bit strange because if you if I was back home, I could tell you the job that all of my friends do, because it's just something that we talk about as North Americans, right? So yeah, um, the book kind of came from a genesis of um, again, like what your masterclass I think talks about is not being isolated, not being solo, and then wanting to connect meaningfully with men um with regards to our relationship with God and go and going deeper in that relationship with Him. And so partly a mental exercise for myself, but then also wanting to connect to others who might be feeling the same thing or feeling like they're stuck in that same place and being like, hey, you're not alone. Uh let's see if we I can either help you or the people in your life that we can connect you with to uh to form those circles, that small circle, that tight circle, uh, and and grow together in community. So that's kind of where that all came from.

Chris Grainger: 18:22

Okay. Love it, love it. Well, guys, I'm gonna take our first break and we'll come back and we'll keep digging in with Mark. If you're tired of going at it alone, we understand every man needs wise counsel, but finding it can be quite the challenge. That's why we build our leadership masterminds. This isn't just more content, guys. It's real discipleship with a consistent rhythm, small cohorts of no more than seven guys, honest hot seat sessions, and biblical counsel that turns good intentions into action. You'll get accountability, clarity, and a circle of brothers who will challenge you and cheer you on. We open up new options regularly so there's room to find the right fit. It's not always easy, but it is worth it. The first step is simple. Take the leadership mastermind assessment. No pressure, no hype, just thoughtful questions to help you see where you are, where God is leading you, and whether this is a good option for your next step. Hey, if it's a fit, we're gonna follow up with details. And if it's not, we'll point you to resources to help you keep growing. Either way, you move forward. So if you're ready to take the assessment, head over to the lionwithin.us slash mastermind. So that's thelionwithin.us slash mastermind to get moving today. Mark, one thing I was just re as reading through the book and I was thinking through now you've mentioned this culture difference in the Netherlands. I'm just curious, what does discipleship look like where you're at right now? I mean, I I I have this picture of uh in America of what we hope for it to be at times. It doesn't always come out as as nice as we like, but I'm super curious since things are a little seems like there's a different uh means of communication. What does it look like there for discipleship?

Mark Oxer: 20:24

Uh so I'm gonna I'm gonna paint with a broad brush stoke if you if that's okay. So uh I'm in seminary right now. I'm doing a doctoral program in seminary uh with my the the program focus that I'm in is transformational leadership, and I'm actually writing my major paper, my thesis document on discipleship. So okay, relevant question. So I'm super glad you asked me this question. And the reason that I'm gonna paint with a broad brushstroke is that I don't think discipleship is necessarily um something that is I'm gonna say lost here. I think that's actually it's something lost globally. 100% uh as Capital C church, I think the Capital C church is not doing a good job of discipleship, and I'm not saying that to put anybody down, I'm just that's the experience that I've had. Now uh I've been able to be a part of different churches in leadership roles, and I've been a part of uh Christian and missionary alliance churches and Mennonite churches and Baptist churches and Pentecostal churches, uh, with moving around for different jobs. I've had an opportunity to experience a lot of those different things. And universally, I don't think we're doing discipleship very well as a church. Um and so I don't think that changes whether I'm in Canada or the United States or in the Netherlands. Um so I've found it in some ways I would say to be similar in that uh it's not done well here, but that's not to put it down here. I think that's just a global thing. Now there is, I would say, extra complications to it in that while Dutch people do speak English well, it's not their native tongue, and so articulating themselves about really deep inner personal thoughts, feelings, experiences in a second language is never gonna come across the same way as in a native language, right? So um there's a little bit of uh disconnect maybe in that respect from things. Um and because the history of the country is very uh Calvinistic, the Protestant faith is very Calvinistic here, it's not um I would say it's not overly focused on discipleship from that perspective. It's like it's very theological focused, um, but that doesn't necessarily mean in training the next generation who's gonna train the next generation, who's gonna train the next generation. And this is where I'm working on my thesis document, is that my background uh in addition to being involved in ministry is in professional sport. And so I'm looking at how we can use practices from coaching principles and coaching theories to apply to church from a discipleship perspective and say, hey, you know what? We have we see a lot of coaches, training coaches, or coach the coach, or train the trainer models in sport who then can go out and they so we have a coach that they get trot and they go into their communities and they teach, and then they they also go into their smaller schools and they just go into their like and it kind of disseminates down, and that's more I think what that discipleship model is meant to look like. And how is there or if there's a way that we can take some of those sport coaching theories, principles, models, and possibly apply them in a meaningful way, excuse me, yeah, in a ministry leadership perspective.

Chris Grainger: 24:04

Right. I'm sure I'm super curious from this. So what when you when you start digging into the the layers of this onion, what what are you seeing? Are are there any any practices, anything that comes up from that coaching element that you see there's a direct impact to discipleship?

Mark Oxer: 24:21

How much time do you have? Uh so there's a couple things. Uh, when we look at uh obviously is Christ an example, and that's part of the reason why, again, the the book that I wrote is using Christ as the example and how he worked with his disciples. I think there's a lot of things that we can unpack from how Christ interacted with the people around him and those close, that close group that he had. There's also a lot of writing from Paul, and Paul does a lot of work uh in mentoring other people. So when you look at Timothy, for example, and how the relationship that Paul had with Timothy, there's very specific pieces and whether Paul knew he was doing them intentionally or not, um, and how he mentored other individuals. And there's a lot of things, even with how Paul lived his own life uh in leading different groups that I think we can take and apply into uh so there's biblical pieces from that side that I think are really relevant, right? And even if we look at Paul, he used a lot of athletic language, right? Sure. When he so there's, I think there's a and uh a reason for that because there's a connection in the in those pieces. And then when you look at the sports side, there's personally there's a few things that I'm really interested uh in digging into and learning more about. For example, uh within sport, there's I was just talking, I literally just came from the gym like an hour ago, and I was talking with this about some of my athletes, and we're talking about different kinds of constraints and different kinds of interference that we'll intentionally provide for athletes. So uh coaching today and for middle of uh I coach it across the gym, so it's uh a lot of like 3, 2, 1, go, go fast, go hard, music is playing loud. In the middle of the workout, the power stopped, the room music goes out, and everybody kind of like, whoa, whoa, hey, this isn't normal, what's going on? And I was like, okay, I'm still as a coach, I go over, I see if I can get the music restarted and get going, finish the workout. And they were like, Coach, that was so weird when the music went off. And I was like, Oh, cool. I'm glad that you brought that up. We can actually use this as a talking point about contextual interference. And so what happened was they removed the music, we removed music, and now the environment feels strange for you, and you're having to deal with your own thoughts and you're dealing with these own things, right? Well, I flipped it on them and I said, Well, in different sports like the sport of weightlifting and powerlifting, which I've competed in, there's no music. When you step on stage, you're wearing a one-piece spandex outfit, the whole room is silent, you've got three judges and the entire audience staring at you to see if you're doing this lift correctly, right? No music. That would just freak some people right out. But part of it is that, well, if you never train with that silence, and then you get put into this environment where the silence is, now you're getting pushed to the boundaries of your limits. Your mouth, your mind is going, what is going on? What is going on? And you're not able to focus on the task at hand. So we can just something as simple as music we can use to manipulate your environment and all of a sudden into change your bandwidth and expand your bandwidth, hopefully. Right. So I think what happens in the church oftentimes when we think about discipleship, we don't think about a failure perspective. We always think of like, oh no, we're gonna make sure that they can do this before they do that. We're gonna make sure that they can do, then we're gonna give them the next piece and give them the next piece. In sport, that doesn't happen. We actually challenge you with things that we know you can't do or probably can't do on purpose. That's right. Well, why aren't we doing those same things in ministry? Why are we not allowing people to have be challenged in ways where they're like, oh man, like, yeah, you might, as a leader, you might not be able to accomplish this, but that's okay. Now we're gonna be able to learn from that and grow from that. Right. Right. And so there's some pieces to that, like I said, with like contextual interference is one of the scientific concepts with that. Uh, constraints-led learning is a really interesting perspective. One of my peers is doing his thesis on constraints-led learning. He's using uh a sport base, he's a very high-level jujitsu athlete, and then bringing some of that into his from his jujitsu practice, into his ministry practice as well. So, but the idea being, um, again, I'll use my wife's job as an example, uh, being a helicopter emergency medical uh nurse. The only time that she went to work, uh, not like to work, but the only time she got called is when things got really bad. So they would she would go to the base, they'd be waiting, the tones would go off, two pilots, nurse and paramedic get in the helicopter and go. But that doesn't happen if it's a fender bender. That happens when it's a multi-car crash. That happens when the police in the ambulance get there and go, man, this is really bad. We need the experts, right? Right, right. So they would run simulations. They had big uh like RVs that was converted into being able to run medical simulations. And they would run medical simulations after medical simulation after medical simulation, and they would they would do sometimes simulations that weren't even medically possible for the staff to complete because they wanted to see how far they could push the staff medically with their band their bandwidth. Because the reality is when those tones go off and my wife gets dispatched to a call, it's minus 40 degrees Celsius. I'm not sure what that is in in uh Fahrenheit, but it's really cold. Yeah, it's really cold. So you get out there and it's it's you're in the Canadian prairies and minus 40 degrees, and you've come up on a train that's hit a car, and now you're dealing with firefighters who are trying to cut somebody out of the vehicle. You've got lights and sirens going from the police cars and everything else. You can't uh give a proper IV because the lines are so small that they freeze in minus 40 degrees weather. You're not all of a sudden gonna rock up and be like, Yep, I got this. So everything about research tells us you do not rise to the occasion, you actually sink to your level of your foundation. And that piece to me is really important. So as coaches, we're always trying to push athletes a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further. So we've built their foundation so big so that their foundation is here. But if they can, if their level of competition is here, it gives them a little bit of buffer zone that if things go not quite right, they've got some mental capability to start doing things. To be comfortable. Whereas if you train here and you're trying to compete here, there's a disconnect there, there's a gap there. And I think in church, what we often try to do is be like, well, this is where you're at. And so we're going to train you here. But then the growth isn't really happening, right? So even from research, uh, there's two researchers there, guarding Noly and Lee, they did something called the Challenge Point Framework, which is really fascinating for me, uh, where they talk about how the challenge has to be appropriate for the learner. So, for example, a really basic example that I think people can grasp. If I put a garbage can on the ground, ask you to stand over it and drop a paper ball into the garbage can, not a problem. Really, really simple task, right? So now you've matched the task difficulty relative to the ability of the person to perform that task is really low. So what happens is we find that learning doesn't occur in that environment because the learner perceives the task as bored of boring, and so their mind switches into a boredom mindset. Learning doesn't occur. Now, if I take that garbage can and put it 50 meters away, and there's uh 50 mile an hour winds blowing, and tell them to put that same paper ball into the garbage can, what happens? It probably never goes in if it does go in as pure luck. That's right. So what's happened now is that I've moved the challenge so far away that learning also doesn't occur because generally at that stage the athlete will either go into boredom because they realize it's ridiculous and can't do it, or they'll reach a state of anxiety because they're trying so hard it can't do it. So learning doesn't occur. So where you need to find is that sweet spot. Where's the task challenging enough for the athlete? The the difficulty of the skill relative to the performer's ability to perform that skill is so that they actually don't get it in 100% of the time. Right now, from a sport perspective, I think we can see how that really easily translates, right? But now we need to look at ministry and how we're doing ministry. So, well, what about sharing your testimony? As something as simple as sharing your testimony, right? Well, if you never share your testimony, you're never gonna actually get better at sharing your testimony, right? So I remember being one time I was on a church board and we were sitting in the meeting, and I said, Look, guys, I like I think one of the things we can do to really help change our community is just get our congregation comfortable with sharing our testimony. So they were out at a local coffee shop or at the arena, soccer field, whatever, they just feel comfortable sharing their testimony. Said, but we first as leaders have to do that. So, how many of you have publicly shared your testimony? So myself and the pastor put up their hands and I was like, okay, do we see the problem here? That if we as the men who are looking after this church, only two out of the group of us have ever only publicly shared our testimony, there's zero chance or very minimal chances that our congregation is going to be doing the same thing. Right. So, how then can we be building our leaders so that their leaders are teaching those around them to be able to teach those around them to be able to teaching those around them? And so I think there's some really cool aspects from what's being applied into sport and sport coaching theories and methodologies that can be applied to uh biblical discipleship and ministry leadership.

Chris Grainger: 34:21

That is incredible, Mark. That's awesome. Look, we're gonna take a we're gonna take a quick break, let these guys digest that, and we'll come back and keep unpacking it. If you're looking for a simple way to get your week started right, the weekly roar is for you. So every week, I'll share a short reflection on scripture and a couple practical steps to help you walk it out. It's all about being clear, honest, and staying rooted in God's word. And here's the deal: there's gonna be no inbox games, there's no hype. It's just an encouraging and quite often a challenging word to help you steady your week and strengthen in leadership. So if that sounds interesting, sign up for free at thelionwithin.us slash roar. And here's the cool part. You can read this in a few minutes and carry it with you the rest of the day. So again, thelionwithin.us slash roar. That's R-O-A-R, to get your personal weekly roar every Monday morning. So uh Mark, one thing as you're working through that, obviously the growth doesn't happen in the moments of comfort, but oftentimes people when they come to church, they're not looking to be challenged. And I think that that that in itself is the challenge. So I mean, when you when you start working with a guy in the gym, obviously I can look at you, you uh you know what you're doing. You're you're you're a fit guy. You can go in, you can probably assess pretty quickly by seeing how a person's form or just watching them, you know, do a bench press, whatever it may be. And then you can you can you can uh you know make those those adjustments from there. How do you assess? Like I think lots of guys, all right, how does the assessment start from a self-reflection and awareness standpoint on my own discipleship journey? Because in order to be coached, you gotta know what the starting point is. So what what what do you look for there?

Mark Oxer: 36:17

Yeah, really, really good question. So um I uh I can I'll share so I can share something with you aside from this. I made a YouTube video specifically about reflective practice, and I can share that with you if you will. You want to take a peek at that. 100%. But it's really really taking an inventory of yourself. So um one of the things that uh we use is called an athlete readiness questionnaire. So we ask uh an athlete uh various questions on like, how did you sleep? How is your nutrition? How did you eat today? Did your like things in your relationship go well? Did work go well, did things at school go well? So there's just like some of those basic questions and just asking how they're doing uh in relation to being specifically performing for that actual workout. Right now, you can extrapolate that out, and uh the best performers in the world do extrapolate this out. It's what's called the performance wheel profile. So you could actually take a look at uh, I would just start with probably like six different things as a starting point, and pick they could be whatever you choose them to be within uh from a faith-based perspective. So it could be like it could be how how am I doing as uh as a dad, how am I doing as uh a husband, how am I doing as an employee? Like you can pick different things, and then what you're gonna do, you fill that out on a it's uh done from a scale of zero to ten, zero being the inside of the circle, ten being the outside of the circle. The further you fill it out, the better you're doing in that area. So uh it's called the performance wheel profile. Now, what's really uh effective about these is if you partner together with somebody. So uh we would do something like again, this is part of that connection and having meaningful relationships with other guys in your life, and it needs to be guys that know you, and you you guys are being intimate with each other uh relationally to be able to be honest with each other, right? So I come alongside my buddy and he's like, hey, here's my performance wheel, and he puts down the things, the six things that matter to him, and he scores himself on zero to ten on each one of those areas by coloring it in or marking it off. And then what I do is I take that exact same one and I score him how I see him living about in those areas. And then we put those two pieces side by side and go, hey man, you scored yourself a six in uh being a dad. I scored you as a seven in being a dad. We're pretty close in that area. You're probably you're probably somewhere in a six to a seven on and how you're doing in your relationship with being a dad. He maybe looks at it and goes, as a husband, he scores himself uh three, and I scored himself as an eight. Well, we've got a big gap here. Okay, so what's happening? Let's discuss this. You're seeing yourself as a three, I'm seeing you as an eight. Looking at those two pieces side by side, where if the uh one he said uh I'm a three and uh I say you're look like an eight, uh, what does that look like when we put them side by side? And he is going, well, you know what, actually, Mark, you don't see the times when I snap and I yell at anger into my wife, and I don't do these uh and these things that are happening in the relationship. And that's an opportunity to go, okay, great, let's dig into that. Let's lean into that with prayer, let's lean into that with accountability, let's lean into some of those pieces. So I think there is uh again pieces that we can take from that are used in a sporting context and use them within uh a ministry practice. Now I do believe that there's also other pieces, like if we look at some things from mindfulness practices that we can incorporate as well uh into how all those pieces work together. So I do think that there is um pieces to to look at those things and how we can do it as well. Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 40:02

Right, right. I think I think there's there's a lot of power in that too, just the conversation and the reflection. I I've done those exercises where I I grade, you grade, and then we look and see where we're at. And I know lots of times that that can illuminate areas where uh maybe I'm I'm blind, for one, or or some areas where where I just, you know, maybe I'm a little bit too confident in some in my personal assessment, and they can give me some reflections that that are helpful. But in a in a faith setting, that can be challenging. I mean, in a gym setting, for sure, I'm looking for that. Like push me, iron sharpens iron. We like to say iron sharpeners iron until we actually start sharpening it, right? In the church. So how do we how would you coach guys want to have that truly meaningful conversation? And it, I mean, I guess it starts with the relationship, right?

Mark Oxer: 40:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, and like I said, some of those pieces are like we talked about, I talk a little bit about some of those pieces in the book as well. But uh, yeah, being in that meaningful relationship uh with that community, a part of it is uh is accountability as well, right? And I think that's a big part of why the gym is successful, is that there's accountability. And I think when we look at common discipleship practices, there's a lack of accountability in a lot of those pieces, right? And again, that's not to put everything down and be a Debbie Downer about things, it's just trying to be real about uh real about some of these things. So I like uh something it's called E3 Ministries. I believe that's what it's still called. They have what's called a three-thirds discipleship model. And you can watch YouTube videos on this and they have some learning tools on it, but it's really interesting. So the first third of your get together is what they call looking, uh looking back. So, how is your week? How are you doing? Uh, those kind of questions. And one of the questions that they also ask is hey, you said the week before you were going to share the gospel with two people at work. How did that go? And now there's an accountability piece attached to it, right? So then what you do, the second part of the discipleship training is what they call looking up. So that is doing your praise and worship, your Bible study, uh, those kind of pieces. And then the third part of it is uh looking ahead. So we're gonna do some forecasting and looking into what are we gonna be doing into this next coming week or two weeks, how whatever the duration is of your time together, and saying, you know what? Okay, or the next two weeks before we meet, uh, I'm gonna read my Bible, or I'm gonna read this specific passage, or I'm gonna pray with my wife this many times, or I'm gonna share the God, my 15-second testimony with this many people. Okay, those things get written down. And then when you start back next week at your next Bible study meeting, your discipleship meeting, you've got these three things. I was gonna share the gospel with this many people, I was gonna do this, I was gonna do this. And there's an intentional, hey, how was your week? How was your day? How are things going? And hey, here's your three things. How did they go? And you can say, you know what, I didn't do any of them, and that's fine, but there's an accountability to those pieces now. Okay, you didn't do them? That's right. What happened? Can we support you in doing something so that you can do them next time? You know what? I was on vacation, it didn't work out, or uh I really was as stressed at work and it just I didn't feel like it was the appropriate time. Great. Let's keep leaning into it as prayer, as brothers with with each other. But we're not just gonna say, uh, you get a free pass on them. They're gonna let's bring them forward again, and we're gonna keep you accountable to those pieces. And I think that this is again something in sport that we do well. We track metrics in sport. Are people getting bigger, faster, stronger? Right? Right. And uh we're not we don't care if people are getting quote unquote bigger, faster, stronger in uh in ministry per se, but we do are they this goes to Hebrews 5, right? Look, man, you should be eating meat meat and you're drinking milk. Like, come on, guys, come on, right? And part of that is is a tie to accountability, right? So if we have these accountabilities, we're gonna there's that growth that's I don't want to say force growth, but encourage growth, right?

Chris Grainger: 44:16

Right. So yeah. Right. I mean, I think when I when I talk with a lot of guys, man, uh about accountability, most of us want others to be accountable. Rarely do I find the guys that want to be accountable to themselves, you know. So that's what I'm saying. I want you to be accountable, Mark, but don't you worry about me. Like I'm you know, I I don't want that same level of of pressure at times, but I think that's where the rubber meets the road at. And in the world we live in, you know, guys are motivated to go to the gym because you know, there's there's a uh a visible outcome lots of times. They can see it in the mirror, they can see it in you know the way their wife responds to them, whatever it may be. I mean, maybe it's a motivation factor. I I don't know. I just think there's a just definitely a disconnect in you know going to sitting on a pew on a Sunday or maybe being a super Christian where you go on Wednesday night too versus actually walking out the gospel every day of the week, right?

Mark Oxer: 45:07

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. Well, and I think this is where um this is where we have a little bit of that disconnect between religion and relationship, and that when we're walking in relationship, we're walking in relationship on a daily basis. Whereas when we see church as like something you do or you go to on a Sunday, then it's not it's not become a part of who you are on a regular basis, right? And I think it also has to do with how we allocate time and resources and and those kind of things mentally. So um I know there's ministries that focus on like uh like it's called like seize the 167. So uh it's directed toward ministry leaders. So there's 168 hours in a week, and one hour of that is spent preaching, or one hour of that is sent sitting in a pew on a Sunday morning. Sure, sure. What are you doing for the other 167 hours of the week, right? So um, yeah, so that idea of like seize the 167, like what are you doing with that other parts? Um, like you said, and so you I know you made the joke, and I but I understand the joke that like if you go to church on Wednesday as well, you're a super Christian, right? But it's it's making that an entire part of your life, right? So um I was listening to one of your episodes, uh, I'm not sure how recent it was, but we were you're in the episode you were talking about rather than uh like buying the gifts for the kids that uh your kids that you wanted, give them the knowledge that you wish they'd had. And I was like, that is so uh so so important. So I have my three-year-old son, uh, and he's downstairs, and he's like, Look, daddy, I made a sling like uh like David. And I was like, There you go. I was like, dude, I didn't have that same sort of knowledge when I was three years old, right? So we read we read our kids' Bible studies, uh Bible stories multiple times a day. When we sit down for meals, we usually go through a couple different, like different Bible stories in the in their kids' Bibles. At nighttime, we always pray with them. We do uh we sing the Arionic blessing with them, we we say the Lord's Prayer with them, and then we do a regular prayer with them. And I'm it's just trying to instill these types of things. But I said to my wife, um this past weekend we were away at uh a little vacation, just a mini vacation, and I looked across the table at my wife and I said, My son has way more Bible knowledge than I did at his age. Like he went to he was at church the other day and they were telling a story, and he was like, Oh yeah, this story. And the teacher was like, I cannot believe how much of that story that he knew. He's only three. And I was like, but like, yes, like that's the kind of stuff we need to like be putting in, right? Um and building that in to our kids, but um more, but how much more as a dad do I need to be the one that's challenging myself too, right? So I enjoy going to the gym. Uh it there's fellowship with other guys there. I do, I do enjoy the workouts, those kind of things. But I'm an old dad. So I turn 50 in a couple of years. I'm I turn 47 in December. I'm obviously not far away from 50. I have a three-year-old, a one-year-old, and I have a baby on the way, right? Wow. So I'm gonna be an old dad. There's no getting around that. But I don't want to use that as an excuse. So I want to be able to run around with my boys, I want to be able to throw baseball, uh, play tag in the park. I want to do all these things. So if I want to be able to do all those things with him, I need to be investing that time into myself so that I can be the man that he needs and wants me to be as well. And that doesn't just apply to being able to run and play baseball with him, that applies to how I am with him spiritually as well. I need to be investing into myself, reading my Bible, doing what uh like spiritual training, sure, so that I can be the man that he needs and wants me to be as his as his father, right? Right, right. So, yeah.

Chris Grainger: 49:27

That's all to you there. I mean, hats off. And and you're you're you're leaning in, you're being intentional. Maybe talk to the guy real quick out there that's when they're hearing this thing about discipleship accountability, a lot of it comes down to priority, how we spend time. The evil one has a great way of keeping us busy, making us think well, we can get to this later. And and that's a lot what I find, what I'm fighting for is just guys' attention because every everybody's their calendars are so full. So, how do we prioritize? I mean, what what have you seen to be the most effective way for guys to prioritize spending that time in the word, spending that time with true iron sharpening iron type conversation, relationship? Because we'll find ways to your point. We'll show up to the gym every day. Yeah. We make that a priority, but often this falls off. So, any tips for the guys who's struggling there?

Mark Oxer: 50:15

Well, uh so a couple things is I'm gonna tie this to the discipleship piece that you asked about as well. So you asked about discipleship in the church. My experience personally with discipleship is I've had a few men come alongside me in my life, uh, both from a professional perspective who have mentored me, but also from a faith perspective who have mentored me. Um, I'm gonna term that those terms were accidental. Uh, I've I do believe that they were divinely inspired, but when I say accidental in that there wasn't a specific like path from the church or these kind of things, like I was working as a soccer coach and somebody said, Hey, you should check out this soccer coach, and then we connected together and um ended up being a Christian man, and we ended up uh fellowshipping together and have grown uh tremendously through that. But I would say it kind of came across accidentally. If we leave our spiritual health to that same accidental piece, we're not gonna get there. We're not leaving our our physical health accidentally. We schedule, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym between seven to eight o'clock, and I put it in my calendar. And like I can look in my calendar now and I can see which workouts I'm attending next week already because I've scheduled them into my calendar, right? My wife knows when they're in there because it shows up. We have a shared calendar, so it shows up in her calendar as well. Okay, Mark is gonna be at the gym at this time, uh, and it's in the calendar. Why don't we do those things with our spiritual health as well? Why don't we set aside, and maybe it's not an hour. Maybe an hour would frighten you to death to be like, what am I gonna do for an hour? Okay, well, don't make it an hour. So I uh again, that's something I asked the athletes at the gym today. We had uh a movement toes to bar where you're hanging from a bar and you have to bring your toes up and touch the bar. And there was a lot of them in the workout. And I said, Hi guys, how do you eat an airplane? And they all look at me kind of strange. I said, just so you're aware, somebody in the Guinness book actually has eaten an airplane. But the way he did it was really small pieces, breaks it down into really small pieces and eats it. When you look at something like this and you're like, whoa, that is a lot of toes to bar movements. I can't do that many. No, maybe you can't do that many in one big chunk. Can you break that down into smaller pieces and do those smaller pieces? Yeah, I can do that. Perfect. That's how you're gonna attack this workout today. And we do the same thing. So don't look at it and go, I don't know what I'm gonna do for an hour. Okay, well, don't schedule an hour right away. Schedule five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. And it's the same as going to the gym. I could go to the gym two, three times a day for an hour each time, be totally fine with it. But I've been doing this for years now, right? I didn't start there, and it's unrealistic for me when somebody new comes to expect them to be like, they're gonna come four to five days a week, they're gonna come for an hour every time, and this, that, and the other, blah, blah, blah. That's not a realistic expectation for them. And they're probably actually gonna get hurt because they're gonna experience pains and all kinds of stuff that they whoa whoa, this is crazy, right? So let's introduce them. Come a couple times a week, come for the classes, we'll give you some of the uh scaled versions of the movements, and then we'll slowly progress you to like, okay, now you move from you holding onto a medicine ball, now you're gonna hold a kettlebell, now you're gonna hold a barbell. Instead of just hanging from the bar, now I want you to hang from the bar, move your knees up and progress through. Uh and now we've got now that same person is saying, Hey, you know what? I want to, I want to up my membership. I want to come four times a week now. I want to start uh trying to do different movements, uh, the more harder movements and those kind of things.

Chris Grainger: 53:44

Perfect.

Mark Oxer: 53:44

And we do the same, let's do the same thing with people. Let's not just be like, you better be reading your Bible an hour a day, have to be praying an hour a day, and those kind of things. People are gonna be like, Whoa, can't do that.

Chris Grainger: 53:56

That's right.

Mark Oxer: 53:57

Okay, let's make it really simple for you. How do you eat an airplane? Small bites. So, right, can you do a two-minute prayer? Perfect. Can you do two minutes of reading the Bible? Perfect. Can you do two minutes of something else? Now we've got six minutes put together. We've broken it down into smaller pieces. Okay, let's start there. Well, you know what? Hey, your prayer drifted into three or four minutes this next time. Or hey, you spend a little bit of time extra listening to God and you're journaling, writing some of these things down, and it drifted into eight minutes, nine minutes. Okay, great, right? But setting aside it intentionally in your calendar is going to be like from whatever time of the day it is. I would suggest for most people, do it earlier in the day. The earlier in the day you do it, the more chance there is you're gonna be successful with it. If you put it to later on in the day, something at work might happen, something with a family might happen, this might happen. You get home, you're tired, and make an excuse and go, you know what? I'm just not there for that. Put it at the beginning of the day. It has a higher chance of being done. And then the other part about it is, and I'm gonna use a gym joke here. There was a picture of Half Thor Bjornsson, who's one of the strongest men in the world. Uh, it's a it's a picture of him running. And it's like, running is the perfect way to start off your day to know that it's not gonna get any worse after this because he's making a joke making a joke that he doesn't want to run, right? But the flip side of that is put at the start of your day, and you're starting your day off on a really positive foot, and you started your day with scripture and prayer, and that's going to lead you rather than lag behind you at the end of the day.

Chris Grainger: 55:38

100% great point, Mark. Great point. Well, at the end, when we get towards the end of our conversations, we always like to have a little fun lightning round with our guests. So if you're willing to play, we'll jump right in and have some fun. Let's do it. All right, all right. What what about hobbies? What do you enjoy doing for fun, Mark? Disc golf. Disc golf. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Been doing that for a long time.

Mark Oxer: 56:01

Uh, so just before COVID, I started. I was introduced to disc golf in 2013 uh by a roommate. I was uh wasn't married at the time. Um 2013, and then in 2018, uh I had a significant knee injury on my right knee and wanted to still be physically active. Uh, couldn't do the things I was used to, soccer, ultimate, that kind of stuff. And somebody was like, hey, what about disc golf? There's a course just down the road. And I was like, I think I can do that. So yeah, uh, I enjoy playing disc golf.

Chris Grainger: 56:30

That's awesome. That's awesome. Now you're super fit, you you coach folks, but what's your go-to food? What where are you going to when it's when it's time to get down?

Mark Oxer: 56:40

Uh so the one of the things I really enjoy eating, and I think it's been accentuated since moving here, is uh I enjoy going to Five Guys and having a lettuce wrap burger. I I don't eat gluten myself, so I have a lettuce wrap burger. I really enjoy the burger, a lettuce wrap from Five Guys. Um my ultimate go-to meal is my mom's homemade sweet and sour meatballs.

Chris Grainger: 57:07

Okay, that's the go-to. There you go. You can't be mama's cooking. I get it. I get it. I get it. All right. If you could have a superpower, Mark, what superpower would you have and how would you use it?

Mark Oxer: 57:18

Oh my goodness. A superpower. Um I honestly don't know the answer to that question. A superpower. I mean, selfishly, I think it'd be fun to run real fast. You're you're athletes. I thought we could see that, right? You know, let's go. Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 57:40

What about what about music? What what do you listen to?

Mark Oxer: 57:43

Uh so that's an interesting question. It I think it really depends on uh the situation. Uh, like when I'm at home with the boys, I generally put on uh like worship music. Again, trying to have that positive influence for them. Uh I did so I saw a meme yesterday, and I think it's really sort of it was interesting. Again, I was talking to the gym. It was a picture of a dad, headphones on, doing like a tricep press down, and it says like I'm listening to music about like drinking and smoking and drugs and gangs and guns. Meanwhile, I go to bed at eight o'clock and don't drink alcohol and like all these other kind of things, right? And it's just like this kind of like weird dichotomy. Uh, I do have an affinity for 90s music, so like I think Dance Mix 93 is one of the best albums ever made. Uh, but I also really like um the 90s sort of like Christian rap, hip-hop um style music as well. Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 58:44

Cool. That's awesome. That's awesome. How about when you what anything right now that that's in your life that that you're struggling with? We always like to be transparent with our listeners too, because somebody I've listened to to our guests, they're like, well, this guy's crushing in life. He never struggles with anything, but anything that you're that you're battling right now.

Mark Oxer: 59:02

Uh being a good dad. Now, I know that might sound strange, but uh uh I was bullied quite significantly when I was younger. Um and that has had a profound impact on my life, which is part of the reason why I started going to the gym and I started doing myself, I did jujitsu and combat sports and that kind of stuff. Uh I made an intentional choice to say, I am not going to be that person that walks into a room and people go, hey, I want to bully that guy. I wanted the exact opposite response. I wanted to walk into a room and people be like, that guy over there, that's not the guy that I'm gonna, if that's the last person in the room that I'm gonna choose to mess with if I'm gonna choose to bug somebody. So I intentionally created this uh personality, I would say. In doing so, I also created a very negative part of myself where is if somebody says or does something towards me, my immediate response is fight as a protection mechanism. Being like, you know, you're not gonna bully, I'm gonna fight. So now sometimes when my three-year-old says no daddy, my immediate response is like, What did you say?

Chris Grainger: 1:00:10

Right.

Mark Oxer: 1:00:11

Because it's a I've trained myself as a somebody, somebody used a term that I think was it's worded well. It says better to be uh a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. And so I trained myself to be that warrior. But the problem is now I have a tr I have I struggle to be the gardener. I struggle to sometimes be that very peaceful, um calm. And so when my son comes at me and he's not doing it to attack me, he's not doing it to bullying me, he's just being a three year old.

Chris Grainger: 1:00:44

That's right.

Mark Oxer: 1:00:44

And my response is like, Whoop. And then I catch myself or sometimes. My wife is like, babe, he he's not trying to like attack you. And I'm like, I know. So then I find myself having to go to him and be like, hey, you know what? Daddy was a little bit harsh with that. I'm sorry for that. Um, so I struggle with my my initial response uh in parenting can is generally not I don't know if generally, but has a probably a tendency towards being a little bit harsher than it needs to be.

Chris Grainger: 1:01:16

Fair enough.

Mark Oxer: 1:01:16

Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 1:01:17

Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you for the transparency with that. It's hard to find that with God. So I really appreciate you being open right there.

Mark Oxer: 1:01:24

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Grainger: 1:01:26

What what about God? When you think about God in general, what's your favorite thing about him?

Mark Oxer: 1:01:31

Hmm. Right now, I would say grace. Now that's gonna sound interesting coming from somebody who has arrived into the Netherlands, uh, has uh sort of bucked against the Calvinism here a little bit because grace in the Calvinistic faith is very a very prominent part of the Calvinistic faith is grace. I don't mean it in the same perspective, um I just mean it in truly who God is as part of his being, not from like a um I do say deep theological, but uh I want to, like I said, I want to disconnect it from a religious piece to a relationship piece in that uh one of the books that we I had recently been assigned for reading for seminary was called The Way of Grace, and it's about uh a gentleman who got Parkinson's disease, and then he's experiencing what it's like to have to go through life and do things and experience things that he didn't have to experience previously because of how the disease is now affecting him, and then he's come to a place of grace as a result of that. And then uh even as far as this morning, so my little guy uh comes to the uh the gym in between classes. I've got a break. I was coaching this morning, and there's uh break in between some of the classes, and he came to the gym and he was swinging some of the weights around in a way that was a little bit haphazardly and possibly could have hurt himself or hurt somebody else. And I just kind of like, hey, and then he like froze because it was like, Whoa, that was a really strong hey from daddy, right? And then you could kind of see him like slump over a little bit, be sad, and I was like, Oh man, I did it again. Crap. And then I texted my wife and I was like, babe, I'm like, I'm sorry, like I um like I shouldn't have snapped at him. There's no need to snap at him that way. I can just say, Hey buddy, you know what? That's probably not the best way to be swinging those weights around right now. Let's try a different way. Um and her response back to me was like, How how awesome is it though that we have God's grace to be able to like be hump, like if we're humble enough that we can have the walk into that grace? And now, so I came home, my three-year-old runs to the door, Daddy! It's like hey buddy, it's so good to see you. And then after he kind of calmed down for a bit, I was like, Was daddy a little bit harsh to the gym today? Yeah, yeah, you were daddy. So I'm sorry, buddy. That's okay, Daddy. And I was just like, man, that just that that that grace is um is what I would say right now.

Chris Grainger: 1:04:17

Beautifully, beautiful picture. Let's flip it 180. What's your least favorite thing about the evil one?

Mark Oxer: 1:04:24

Um I think so I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna not quote this correctly, but I the essentially the the greatest lie that the devil ever achieved was convincing people that he didn't exist, right? Uh I like there's a quote that's somewhere in that for I paraphrase it a little bit. But I think we are experiencing spiritual warfare um right now, not I mean globally, I think we're really truly seeing spiritual warfare played out globally. And the deceit that is happening that people are not believing one that it's spiritual warfare, and then partly as a result of that, but also partly because of how uh I'm not sure if you're familiar with C.S. Lewis, the screw tape letters. Um right. So I think we're seeing a lot of those things play out in like people being distracted by things, and then not only is there distraction, but there's division. And so the thing that's what I really hate is the amount of division and distraction that is going on. Uh, it's just it's tearing everything to pieces. Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 1:05:43

It really is.

Mark Oxer: 1:05:44

Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 1:05:45

It really is. Well, Mark, the last question for you in this lightning round. What what do you hope the listeners remember the most from our conversation today?

Mark Oxer: 1:05:54

Uh not to play me in a game of Settlers of Catan. Notice. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I really enjoy playing uh a lot a lot of it. Um uh that the the path is narrow, um, and not everybody's going to agree with you on that. Uh but to get men around you to help you, encourage you to walk on that path, but not just to get men around you to encourage you to be on your journey, but also encouraging people to be the one that's supporting men on their journey as well. And I think that that's a cyclical piece is to let's walk together on this. You're not alone, you don't have to be alone. Yes, obviously, God is with us, but there is other people, human men that God has placed on this earth with the mandate, with the intention, with the purpose to walk side by side with each other.

Chris Grainger: 1:06:56

Right.

Mark Oxer: 1:06:56

Yeah.

Chris Grainger: 1:06:56

Right. Amen, brother. Amen. Where do you want to send the listeners out there? If they want to connect with you, get the book, following any of the stuff that you're doing, where's the best place to go?

Mark Oxer: 1:07:05

Uh, if people are interested in buying the book, uh, the best place to get that is on Amazon. Uh so they can uh get that from Amazon. Uh just search for This Is The Way uh by Mark Oxer should show up on there. Uh and if people would do me a huge favor and leave a review, that'd be greatly appreciated. So that it helps other people find the book. It doesn't do anything for me from a financial perspective, but it just helps other people find the book. So if people leave a review, that'd be great. Uh and if they want to connect with me, they can do that on social media. Uh Mark.oxer on Instagram, uh MarkOxer on Facebook. Uh I do have, they can follow my Faith and Fitness project on Instagram as well. Um I do have a YouTube channel and not not a lot of content on it, but they can check that out as well, or they can come to my website, just markoxer.com.

Chris Grainger: 1:07:55

Okay, awesome. Well, we'll make sure we try to get that out for you guys. Mark, this has been I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Enjoyed it and spending time with you. Anything else you'd like to share?

Mark Oxer: 1:08:05

Uh no, I really appreciated this. This has been uh this has been really enjoyable, and I very much appreciate you uh taking the opportunity for me to be a guest on the show.

Chris Grainger: 1:08:15

Amen, brother. Well, you have a great day. Thank you for your time.

Mark Oxer: 1:08:18

Thank you too.

Chris Grainger: 1:08:22

All right, guys. I told you that was gonna be a good one. So hopefully you enjoyed that conversation with Mark. Thank him again for for coming on the show. Question of the week this week is how much time do you give daily to spiritual training? And we've spent a lot of time talking with Mark about time in the gym, prioritizing time with family. But what are we doing to really prioritize that spiritual training that we so desperately need, each and every one of us in our lives? And if you're not, if you're struggling with that, I would just encourage you, reach out to the lion within us. We have resources, we have tools, we have abilities to help you with your spiritual journey, whether it be you know reading plans on the Bible app, obviously we have tons and tons of those. But from the community element of the Lion Within Us, we have intentional conversations all throughout the week. We have Lion Lunch, we have Bible studies, we have Friday Forge, we give you opportunities to further your discipleship journey. So if you're trying to do this thing alone, or maybe you just don't have a big men's group, we have hundreds of guys in this thing, fellas. It's incredible to see what God is doing. So head over to the lionwithin.us, start your membership, go ahead and go into the community, start that 30-day free trial of the community, see what that's all about. I mean, we're talking about minimal investments here, fellas, but this stuff is big, big impact. So go check it out. Get that started. If you want to talk about leadership masterminds, if you think you're to that point in your discipleship journey where you want to really truly lean in harder, that's what our leadership masterminds are all about. Okay, so go check that out. All the resources, everything, the Lion Within. Don't forget to the thhelionwithin.us is where you find it, guys. Okay. All right, we'll come back on Friday. We'll have a good fun Friday episode 40. Look forward to hanging out with you guys. Have a great day. Give us a rating and review. Again, thelionwithin.us, connect with us over there. Have a good one. Keep on leashing the lion within. If you've ever opened the Bible and had the thought, where do I even start? Brother, you're not alone. I've had those moments all too often. And I found that having a guide was helpful. And that's why we created the I'm Just a Guy series on the Bible app. They're short, they're honest, and they help you read scripture and walk it out. And these plans speak to the real stuff that we're wrestling with as men, like marriage, anxiety, loneliness, shame, pornography, and so much more. Do this all without pretending or piling on a bunch of self-help nonsense. And lots of guys are using them in their small groups, and they're helping to spark honest conversations and take simple next steps in their discipleship journey. So if that sounds helpful, check them out at thelinewithin.us slash you versions. That's Y-O-U-D-E-R-S-I-O-N. Or just open up your Bible app and search for the Lion Within Us. And it's my hope that these reflections will encourage you in just a few minutes and help you walk with him all day long.