Episode 267 (Tony Rorie)Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:38] Gentlemen, welcome back to dadAWESOME. My name is Jeff Zaugg, and today on episode 267, I have Tony Rorie joining the conversation. I actually met Tony, I believe it was three years ago in Dallas, Texas, at a a men's leadership event and he runs Honor Ministries. So Honor Ministries, Men and Ladies of Honor is an incredible organization that resources these incredible groups around the country and now around the world helping fifth graders through ninth graders learn about honor. They just believe that honor changes everything. It's all throughout the Bible. And he is going to share stories about how this ministry has just impacted so many young leaders who have, because of principles of honor, it's gone on to change their entire trajectory. So so in these principles, man, in our marriages, in our parenting, there is so much to take away. And his story, he's got adult kids now and his stories, he's got so many practical nuggets of wisdom for us. So, guys, this conversation lean in, take notes, God has something for you today in this conversation, episode 267 with Tony Rorie. Would you introduce your family, Tony? If you'd introduce your family, what chapter of fatherhood you're in today and maybe something that's caused your eyes to shine a little more brightly on the home front recently?Tony Rorie: [00:02:11] I'm excited and it makes me sound older than I feel like I am, but I have four grown children 36, 31, 27 and 24, and I have three girls and one boy. And my my oldest, she lives in Pueblo, Colorado. My son Daniel, he's regional director for the ministry and kind of works with me with the cabin stuff that we do. Then my daughter, Lauren, she's married and lives in the Metroplex as well. And then my youngest, Rachel and, yeah, Daniel, just got married in November. So we've got a new daughter in love and he's happy. You know, what's really cool is, is he he I'm so proud of him because he saved himself for marriage. And so it's like he's 27 years old and he says, Dad, the drought has ended.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:01] Yes. Yes.Tony Rorie: [00:03:03] So that's exciting.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:05] Amazing. And your wife's name is Melissa. How long have you guys been married?Tony Rorie: [00:03:09] 32 years. Yeah. Be 33 in November. And she is the sweetest woman I ever met in my life, so she still loves me.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:17] Well, congratulations. And you wrote a list of 100 reasons that you love her. Is this correct? Just like last week, right? For Valentine's Day.Tony Rorie: [00:03:25] For Valentine's Day. I did it a post. I thought, you know, I'm going to sit down and do 100 reasons why, 100 Things I love about Melissa. And then after I started, you know, before I started writing, as I was thinking about it, I thought, man, this is going to be hard. But bro, I cranked out the first 86 just nonstop without stopping, just thinking about all the awesome things about her. And had that done just in a couple of minutes, I was like, Wow, that went quick, so I must like her.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:52] Well, that's a really tangible example of something that all of us dads who are married can do, or for dating somebody do it then. That that's going to win her heart even more if you're dating somebody. But the exercise made you fall more in love with your wife. I'm certain it would do that.Tony Rorie: [00:04:08] It did. It made me realize just just how awesome she is, how much she puts up with.Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:14] Hey, that's that's amazing. And and to go practical on the on the fatherhood side, so that's a practical marriage idea. I read through some of the just things that you've posted on social media and there's some dares. There is some like, I dare you to do this, I dare you to do that. I'm curious, is there anything that you would like so you could dare all of us guys to write a hundred things that we love about our spouse? That'd be amazing. Any other things on the fatherhood side, though, that you're like, I would dare dads to do this? Anything top of mind that you would want to dare us dads?Tony Rorie: [00:04:45] You know, the most important thing that I would dare you to do is have a have a weekly devotional with your family, separate from your church experience, where you get together and read the word of God and pray for one another and worship together. And I know for for many men, praying even with their wives, seems like a daunting task, and they feel intimidated with doing it. But man, I dare you just to just start a family devotional, be the spiritual architect and leader in your home and start out simple. You know, it doesn't you don't have to have like a master plan. I know we didn't when we started, but that will transform your life and it'll transform your family because, you know, being in ministry, I thought, well, just taking my family to church and, you know, praying over our meals and stuff like that was enough. But then somebody challenged me to have a family devotional every week. And it has taken our spiritual level as a family, you know, in our closeness and our intimacy and relationship just to a whole other level. So I would I would first dare you to do that.Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:52] That that's amazing. Got another one? Any other ones?Tony Rorie: [00:05:56] You know, I dare you to go go overboard in your affirmation of your kids, you know, of the great things that you see and want to see. You know, the Bible says that that God inhabits the praises of His people. So as we praise our kids and praise our wife and just spend time just giving them affirmation, I promise you, you cannot give them enough affirmation from what the world will take out of them. So I dare you just to go over the top in affirmation.Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:23] Those are those are both amazing dares and challenges. And I don't know if I've ever asked that question before, so thank you. You created a experience called Passing the Torch, a book that's 13 week experience for fathers and sons into key elements of manhood, and it'll be linked in the show notes for the guys to go get a hold of this. But maybe without talking all the elements of the 13 weeks, are there some kind of like maybe it's an extension of the dare question, like, hey, these are some building blocks when it comes to fathers and sons and some of those key elements. What are some of the top of mind things you'd want to want to share with us?Tony Rorie: [00:06:59] You know, I think, probably the biggest one is spiritual courage, because there's a difference between physical courage and spiritual courage. You know, we think about, you know, Peter that walked with Jesus, I mean, he had he had physical courage. I mean, he was the first one that whipped out the sword and cut the guy's ear off, but when it came to making a stand for Jesus, he had to he had to fail in front of a little girl, we're told. So, you know, just one of those aspects of manhood that I always wanted to share with my son is courage. You know, and courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyways. And so for dads, I mean, even taking this journey with your son might take a little bit of courage to do, but that's one of the things that I want to stress to my kids, is it really takes courage to admit need, takes the courage to hold the convictions, it takes courage to stand up for what's right. But it's always the right thing to do. And, you know, the book is not like an exhaustive list of manhood, but it's kind of meant to get dads and sons or grandsons into a conversation about manhood that can turn into great things because as you share who you are with your son, God begins to use those experiences to show that, you know, dad may not be perfect because it's not it's not Dad's job to make his son's decisions for him, but to show his son how he made his decisions. And so hopefully, through the failures and through the victories, dads can really help their sons become good men and to pass the torch.Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:31] Yeah. Is it designed to be like a 13 week experience or is it just like, hey, these are tools over the course of years and years you could kind of scatter in? How's it, how's it designed?Tony Rorie: [00:08:41] It is designed and set up so that fathers and sons can use it over a 13 week period, because it is like a key verse study that they go through, then it has a topic, has some stories they can read. But even at the end of it, it has like little missions that they can do together. And some of it's like, do something special for mom type deal, you know, So so you get points for being a great husband and being a great dad and making it visible, you know? So, yeah, it's just it's just meant to give conversation, starting points and then give them something they can do together.Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:14] And I know you you lived this before you wrote it down or sharing it with others with with your own, with your own son. Or you've got two boys, two girls? Tell me that, what was the breakdown again?Tony Rorie: [00:09:25] I have three girls.Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:26] That's right. Okay. So you want to do it with your son? What what are some examples, maybe even stories, of like that mission for mom, any other examples of, Hey, these are some ways that we lived it?Tony Rorie: [00:09:39] Yeah. I think, you know, with with the book, I wanted to be very transparent with him because I was raised by a father who was, you know, an alcoholic. And he was a I guess he was a bar fighter who was what you would call him. You know, he was like a rough and tumble kind of, He was a roofer, but he spent most of his time in the bars and stuff. And so the example of manhood that I got from him was not not always the greatest example. And it kind of led me down a bad path. So I shared some of those stories in there, too. And I even shared fight stories, you know, like this is, you know, one of the ways that my dad taught me courage, you know, specifically, was I had a bully that chased me home from school one day, and I was running from him. And when I got to the front porch, there was my dad on the front porch. So he made me turn around and face the bully and then I ended up winning the fight. And so practically, he taught me, Hey, you're you're stronger than you think you are and you can go through more than you think you are if you face it with courage. So yeah, that was one good practical thing that my dad taught me that I put into the book and then put some practical steps in there for how to build spiritual courage to stand up for what's right. Do the thing each day that you're afraid to do. Do the thing that's really in the back of your mind. We've all got something that we're afraid of dealing with, you know, we don't want to deal with it. So first thing in the morning, do the thing each day that you're most afraid of.Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:07] Yeah. Oh, my goodness. My mind is jumping all over the place to what have I been afraid personally to do today? Cause like, I mean, that's such a good challenge and easy to move past without actually stopping and pondering. Thank you. You recently read a book, I believe, if I got this right, The Power of Positive Thinking. Who read that book together? Was it your family or was it a group, a group from church? Who was that?Tony Rorie: [00:11:36] Yeah, it's my family. We, in addition to that family devotional, I also wanted to take them through some practical books that would give them some stuff, you know, because, you know, obviously we study the Bible and we worship, but I also wanted to give them some leadership development stuff. So one of the books that we read was I Dare You, which was kind of where that dare came from. We read that actually each year together and The Power of Positive Thinking, just how to rewire your thinking so that you think positive from a biblical standpoint, because that will transform everything. But we also read like How to Manage Your Finances, you know, The Richest Man in Babylon, it's a great book that I always recommend. But I just try to do some some practical things to help my kids be successful in life, because I know I didn't always get the best information as a kid, but I want to prepare them for what they're going to be dealing with and now, especially as adults.Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:29] So you're inviting, right now, your adult children into a book study. We're going to read a book together like what does it look like practically, right now, as far as gathering and discussing and having how many or how many per year, what does the structure look like?Tony Rorie: [00:12:43] So so we try to go through multiple books a year, but what we try to do is in between each devotional we meet, like we go to church together on Sunday. The kids that live with me or in the same area, and after church we'll get lunch and we'll either do it there at the restaurant or we'll do it at home when we get back. But we'll read two chapters a week and then just highlight different points. And then after we have worship and prayer time, then we'll have some discussion. And what stood out to you too? And the kids love it. I mean, they're like they come up with book book ideas, hey, Dad, I saw this book, we ought to check into that. But it's it's really, really made, you know, some just good discussions in our home and kept us on a track of reading because readers are leaders, you know, it's just one of our individual goals and then now family goals.Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:29] Did that start, were your kids in high school or were they adults when you started the reading rhythm?Tony Rorie: [00:13:34] They were they were fairly young. I would say they're probably junior high age when we got into the book studies, they were elementary age when we began the devotionals. And usually it was with young children, we did object lessons and things straight out of the Bible that that would help them, you know, be engaged and have fun with it. And then when they got old enough, we started looking at different books that we'd read together. So that's how it started.Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:00] That's so practical. And I love that you guys are still, this rhythm of together, but not just together time, it's like, No, we're learning together and we're actually going after like the under the surface type topics that are going to grow us. And even you've mentioned before, you mentioned earlier in this conversation that you're your daughter and son in law are leading a ministry, founded a ministry, and someone else is on a board for an amazing ministry. Like your your kids are doing incredible things. No doubt. It's it goes back to some of these learnings, Hey, we're a family that grows and leads and reads together.Tony Rorie: [00:14:33] That's been helpful. And and I don't want everybody to think that, you know, we're the perfect family or anything like that because we have our struggles just like everyone else. And, you know, we've had, you know, some of my kids go prodigal for a while that we had to pray back in. So it's not like we've been perfect. But that's just one thing that's really helped us, you know, to bring it all back together.Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:53] Yeah. There's a there's a picture that I believe your son DJ texted you of a father and a son. It's like a block picture of blocks are missing from the father and we'll it will include this this image. I don't think it was an original that he drew or anything, but he found a picture, and then he's adding blocks to his son, one block at a time. Could you describe the picture a little further and then kind of what you felt when you saw that image?Tony Rorie: [00:15:18] Yeah, it's it's a it's a picture of a dad and there's blocks that are missing out of the dad. And then you can see that there's voids in the son and the dad is handing him it to fill those voids because, you know, more than just imparting information, it's actually impartation of who we are. So we pass our DNA from one generation to the next, you know, things that were passed to us that are valuable, things that are passed to us, that, you know, that are spiritual, things that really matter. We want to put those in to our kids and give them everything that maybe some areas that we missed, we can fill those voids in their life as well.Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:55] Yeah, that that is just so like and prayerfully what's the block that I can give? For me,,I've got four daughters, so like what's the block this week, this month, this year that I can make sure I hand over and they can kind of grow into? And it's just, it's a powerful visual. So we'll make sure to yeah, I'll make sure to include that in the show notes. Another thing before we go into kind of some of the discipleship in the men and women of honor side. Reading the Bible together with your wife. My wife and I reading it together right now, but we don't have a it's like we did that now we've read it together. You have a ongoing kind of rhythm. Can you talk about that with you and Melissa?Tony Rorie: [00:16:35] Absolutely. So we do this, it's called the, I think it's pronounced McShane Bible plan. A guy back in the 1800s, but basically it's it's a plan to read through the entire Old Testament, once, New Testament, twice in one year. And so Melissa's reading the same thing that I'm reading each morning. And it's just it started off at first it was kind of hit or miss and we started this, I think this is our 19th year to read the entire Bible together. Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:04] In a row? You've just done 19 years?Tony Rorie: [00:17:05] Yeah. And at first it was hit or miss. But now, bro, it's the most important thing we do every day. I mean, we just we don't we don't do anything unless we do that. You know? And one thing that I've added, last year, that was very meaningful was I, I because, you know, at first I would do it on, on my phone. You know, everybody reads on their phone now. But I felt really impressed to get a hard copy Bible. And just as I'm going along, mark it up with different things, the Lord speaking to me, different verses that stand out and kind of color code some things and just handwrite notes in the margin. And it does two things, first of all, it makes me really look for nuggets each day. And secondly, at the end of the year, I give that Bible as a gift to one of my children so that they'll have, you know, this something that the dad thought was important or this is, you know, some writing that he wrote that they could even pass down. Who knows? But I got to perform my son's wedding in November. And I used that Bible that I've been reading through. And so I put the, I taped, my sermon, my notes for what I was speaking during the deal. So as I finished it at the end of this year, end of December, I got to hand him that Bible and I said, Son, this is something that I went through and studied this year. Plus it has the notes from your wedding in it. So and I wrote a little letter in the front of it, something special for him as I dedicated that to him.Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:34] Wow. Wow. What a gift.Tony Rorie: [00:18:36] Yeah.Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:37] So it's a it's a lot more than just notes from the wedding day because it's wrapped in a whole year of study in a What had God showed to you in His Word. So, well, thank you for living it, but then sharing that practically again, something we can all step into. Because you didn't step into that your first year of marriage. You've been married for 30, almost 33 years and you've done it 19 times. So, so that's an invite for all of us. We can step into it. So helpful. You you wrote or your team wrote this "honor changes everything from distant to present, from indifference to significance, from passivity to passion." And before I jump back 20 years ago to where this thing start, on the home front, how have you seen that to be true of honor changing everything and some of those even, you know, just to present, indifference to significance, passivity to passion? Where did you see that with your own with your own kids?Tony Rorie: [00:19:32] Well, I have to remember that my wife and and even my children, they're all created in the image of God. So they have greatness in them already. But when I honor that in them, they begin to to respond to that. They begin to live in that. They begin to walk into that. And when they see me honoring them, then they begin to believe that about themselves. And of course, that changes everything. When my wife begins to see that, oh, you're a daughter of the King, you know, so I'm going to honor you and treat you like the, you know, the elevated queen that she should be in the home. And when I do that, bro, it makes my life so much easier. It changes everything, right? So somebody said, happy wife, happy life. If you honor your wife, great dividends, if you honor your children, great dividends.Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:20] I just reread through those three points of, just with marriage in mind, with my wife, Michelle. Of me moving from distant to being really present with her, me moving from kind of indifference, whatever she wants, whatever she's doing, that's fine to like, I'm bringing like, this is I'm going to show that she is significant. I want to bring like I like significant attention and then passivity to I'm just like whatever to like, I'm passionately pursuing her. If I just use even those three lines, it's it's amazing how it changes my heart.Tony Rorie: [00:20:50] Amen. That's good, bro. Do it.Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:53] Exactly. Let's go, I dare you. To all of us, but me, start, let's start with me. Let's go. So, 20 years ago, you're a principal, maybe 20, maybe a little longer than that. 20 years ago, you're principal in a junior high in the inner city of Dallas. What happened? Will you take us back to kind of the Genesis of what you started?Tony Rorie: [00:21:12] Sure. I was on the campus of what they call a title one or an at risk school. So it was rough, you know, and it was a fairly large school and I was an administrator and then I became a principal on a different campus. But as I was, you know, performing as principal, my job is discipline. So if a kid comes to my office, this this is something that's gone past the classroom and it's teacher can no longer deal with them. And I had these four little guys that were frequent fliers that were in my office, I called them my little knuckleheads. And, you know, being a dad and being a follower of Christ, you know, I just began to, from a father's heart, love on these these little boys realized that the difference was they just didn't have a dad. So I would correct them when they'd come to my office, but I would tell them to do stuff. I'd give them a little mission. I said, Hey, challenge you first of all, first of all, slow your role, when you talk to me, you say, Yes sir, and you say, No, sir. When you go back to your classroom, here's what I want you to do. When your teacher is walking into the room, I want you to open the door for if she's carrying something, I want you to offer to carry it for her. If somebody is acting up in class, I want you be the one that does the correction and just be a man. And then suddenly, the four worst students on the campus became the four best students on the campus. So I asked for permission to do an after school program because I knew these boys needed more than just the home training. They needed biblical instruction and Christlike manhood. And you can't do that on a public school campus. So I got permission to do an after school program. And I looked up one day and the group of four boys, Jeff, had turned it into 50 boys that were all saying, you know, teach us how to be men. So at the end of that school year, the district called me in and, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing. I wasn't trying to start a program, I was just dealing with my issues. And they called the district called me, and they said, well, what is it that you're doing? Because low performing campus has gone to a recognized campus, your discipline rates cut in half, test scores gone up, attendance has gone up. And as I always say, they said, and we know you're not that smart. So what are you doing? And I said, you're probably not going to want to hear this, but I'm teaching these boys to be Christlike men. And they said, You're right, we don't want to hear that. But could you do that on a couple more campuses, because it's impacting the budget. Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:44] Their like, do it more. Do it more.Tony Rorie: [00:23:45] Yeah, yeah. We want you to expand it. So, you know, that's how we started. You know, it transformed the campus and it was just it was minimal at first. We were just dealing with the boys and I was just teaching stuff that good dads, what I was teaching my son about chivalry and honor and integrity and I mean everything from etiquette to hygiene and just stuff like that. But the girls started saying, Well, what about us? So then we started doing all the stuff that we were doing with Men of Honor did a mirror program called Ladies of Honor, and my wife helped with that and just taught biblical femininity. And it just that's how we got started. But since that time, we've expanded all over the U.S. and in 14 countries and continue to grow because the need right now is so great. I mean, Jeff, you know, as much as anyone does, because you're a champion for the fatherless, that in our, I think the national statistics says 46% of kids come from a fatherless home, in the urban areas is 78%, but what we see globally is nine out of ten homes don't have an engaged Godly father in the home. And then, you know, the statistics of that brings I mean, that's five times more likely to commit suicide, 17 times more likely to have a behavioral disorder, 275% more likely to do drugs, carry guns. I mean, fatherlessness is the epidemic of our time. So, yeah, that's how we started and we just keep growing.Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:16] And when you when you said, well, first I'm just like, I have to look at what, I'm like this started four boys, they were your high fliers, your knuckleheads, you called them, and but they were hungry for what you taught. They didn't have it. It was missing. It was totally missing. Game changing when they started opening doors, offer to carry, say yes, no sir, yes, ma'am. I mean, then the school district takes notice because budgets, if I understand correct, that budgets are about attendance and if there's consistent attendance, you know, discipline can cause kids get expelled, then they don't have the money coming from budget. Is that kind of how the budget system works?Tony Rorie: [00:25:56] Yeah, they call it ADA. It's average daily attendance or as principals call it, butts in the seats. And if the kids are there, the schools just don't get money. And if the schools are not performing, you know, it just it gets worse.Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:08] So it's it's worth even going beyond a little bit of like, oh, we're not we're not for Jesus teaching. They're like, well, it's working enough that we're going to say, Go for it. And do you find that even in states that are maybe less conservative will still have your programs because of the benefits?Tony Rorie: [00:26:24] Absolutely. That's what it is. Because, you know, educators tell you they've tried everything. You know, they've thrown money at the problem. And everything that's happening right now, it's not working. And we know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. So when you introduce Jesus on a public school campus, it transforms everything. And we say that the the characteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the King, you know. So when you bring Jesus onto a campus, honor changes everything. Honor emanates from from our Father. We know that. So yeah, it impacts budgets and schools are open from a budget perspective to say, if you can impact the metrics that most matter to us, which are discipline, attendance, test scores, teacher satisfaction, come on in, you know. I don't care if you teach Buddhism, just come help us.Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:19] And there's just enough years of proof that it's just it's just really expanding. And if I understand right, it's a it's a program, but it's also some getting these young, young ladies, young men away to camp type settings. Could you explain kind of the aspects of the program?Tony Rorie: [00:27:36] Sure. It's we go on a campus and we meet for one hour once a week to have our meeting, but we try to have a weekend camp as close to the beginning of the launch as we can. And we rent facilities that are within, you know, certain distance from a from a district. But that camp is, as you know, camps are incredible, but the Holy Spirit has given us a strategy to turn a kid's heart in one weekend. It goes from salvation to rites of passage. It goes in to the father's blessing, it goes into leadership development, definitions of real manhood and authentic femininity for ladies. And then once they've had that camp experience, we plug them into a two year discipleship process that takes place on the public school campus one hour, once a week, that kind of reinforces what happened at camp.Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:28] Okay, So it's the it's the moment away or the extended weekend plus the ongoing to maybe bring some of the follow through the accountability the the ongoing training. And and anyone can kind of apply to start one of these these, do called chapters, or what do you call them as they as they expand?Tony Rorie: [00:28:46] Just groups and yes, anybody can. And the great thing about it, well, first of all, the need is so great, you know, and you don't necessarily have to be a hotshot youth pastor. You don't have to be an educator. I mean, I've got an 86 year old man on one campus. I've got elderly, elderly ladies that are going on the campus and have never even spoke in front of a group, they're nervous, but they're like, I really want to do something great, you know? And our process is very simple because it's very scripted. I mean, you open the book up and it says, Ask this, read this, say this, do this, and we have some training and stuff that we can do that's pretty simple that to let people get started. But we say just start because kids don't don't what's the what's the saying? Kids don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:37] Care. That's it. Tony Rorie: [00:29:39] I's all about just getting started.Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:41] Well, I'll make sure not only links and resources, but also there's a there's a video you guys created that just brings imagery to the great need and the way you so that that video that I found, I'll make sure it's linked as well to super short but easy to kind of understand and visualize the steps to launch a group. How how did leading over these past, almost two decades, I believe it's about 20 years, in all the learnings from men and ladies of of of honor. How did that affect your parenting the last couple of decades? How has there been transferable the other direction?Tony Rorie: [00:30:18] Well, it's been incredible because it kind of started even the Passing the Torch book, it all was distilled out of things that we actually tried. You know what works? Okay, let's do that stuff. Let's stop doing the stuff that doesn't work. Let's do the stuff that does work. And then also involving my family in the ministry, you know, we say my son had a drug problem because he got drug to every men's meaning, every training we did, every camp, you know. And and the result was, is he's an incredible young man because he got to experience that. And, you know, they still talk about it. The fact that they got to share their parents with thousands of other kids, you know, on the campus and got to be involved with ministry and they still are to this day. But it really helps when you got your family working alongside you and helping you out. That was that was a big deal.Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:09] Well, and the idea of your kids got to share their parents with thousands of other kids and most in many cases, fatherless kids. I think that that's powerful because we have these 600 plus alumni of our Fathers for the Fatherless events, and in some ways, these kids have shared their parents with a cause. I'm going to go, I'm going to train, I'm going to fundraise. But there's a next step that's not event driven. It's ongoing discipleship. It's one on one. It's I'm helping actually life on life. And that's what we're praying for, is that more of our community at dadAWESOME and Fathers for the Fatherless will see opportunities to to be in it, to be a parent type role, a dad type role beyond our own. Because I believe our kids, they benefit greatly when we actually are on mission beyond just the home front. Would you would that resonate?Tony Rorie: [00:31:57] Absolutely. And we've mentioned it before we got on this that, you know, Billy Graham said that if you focus on souls, God will focus on you. And when you begin to pour yourself out on behalf of the lost and you begin to reach out to other men or young men or whatever it is that your ministry is, then that that that force from God begins to flow through you, and I I get so excited when I see guys that, you know, have been sitting on the sideline for a while and then you get them all up and, you know, sometimes I just bring guys and I tell them, okay, your job is to stand by the door and fist bump boys when they come in and tell them, Hey, you're awesome. And then watch that coaching gift that's inside of every man come out when they begin to share the gospel, I mean, then it just flows through them and then they experience greatness, and then they tell me I don't ever want to do anything else but share the gospel. I don't want to do anything else but reach the next generation, you know? So it's exciting to see people come alive when they use their gifts.Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:56] Wow. Just a simple fist bump and your awesome is where it starts. We can do that. We can do that. Tony, was there anything else, as you were thinking about our conversation today, that you're like, Man, I'd love to share this with the dadAWESOME community? Any, any last words?Tony Rorie: [00:33:11] Yeah. I just want to encourage men to know that, you know, you're greater than you think you are. You're a bigger deal than you think you are. For your fam, for your family and for the community that surrounds you. God wants to use you in a big way. And though you may feel like you've been a failure in some areas in your life, or maybe in the past, just know that God can redeem it and right where you're at. Just start doing something, man, just start doing something and and watch God show up and transform your life and the lives that everyone everyone around you. So I just want to encourage you to do that. If I could do one thing, just encourage you today, you do are greater than you think.Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:51] Thank you. Thank you. Would you say a short prayer over all of us?Tony Rorie: [00:33:55] Absolutely. Father, I just want to thank you for Jeff and Lord, for for dadAWESOME and for this great mission, Lord, that is impacting lives and transforming lives. Lord, thank you, God, that the Jeff had the courage to say Yes, Lord, and step up and so Father, I just pray for him and his family. I pray your blessing around them. Father, I pray that you would speak through him to his family, Lord. Words of transformation in life. God, I just pray for each man that's listening to this program right now. Father, I prayed that his his heart would be filled with courage and strength. Lord, to take the steps that you were inspiring him to do and God that the rest of his life would be the best of his life because he chose to serve you. Lord, I pray your blessing on each one that's listening today, God. And I thank you, Lord, for this opportunity and for my friend Jeff. In Jesus name. Amen.Jeff Zaugg: [00:34:54] Thank you so much for joining us this week for dadAWESOME, Episode 267. All the conversation notes, the links to Honor Ministries and all of the incredible work, and even direct opportunities for you to start a local group in a school near you, you can learn all of this at dadAWESOME.org/267. All the show notes, it's also right in your podcast app. Guys, thank you for listening this week. Thank you for choosing to be dadAWESOME for your family. Not perfect, but man, you're choosing to be a dad who loves and pursues the hearts of your kids. So, I'm cheering for you, praying for you. Have a great week.