A good father takes time to play 00:00:01.36\00:00:03.43 He has strong integrity 00:00:05.30\00:00:07.37 He is someone that is truly dedicated 00:00:07.97\00:00:09.97 He is not afraid to show his love 00:00:11.91\00:00:13.91 He is a caring provider 00:00:15.71\00:00:17.91 And he's a kind, spiritual leader 00:00:20.08\00:00:22.62 These are just a few ways to describe a father's heart 00:00:22.65\00:00:26.22 Hi welcome to A Father's Heart. My name is Xavier and I'll be 00:00:30.23\00:00:33.36 your host. Today we're talking about fatherless men 00:00:33.40\00:00:36.70 when superman is missing, you know that father figure 00:00:36.73\00:00:39.70 the father with a big S on his chest that comes to the rescue 00:00:39.73\00:00:44.07 what if they're missing for whatever reason that might be? 00:00:44.11\00:00:46.84 and they never come, that father never comes 00:00:46.88\00:00:50.08 what does that look like when the child grows up 00:00:50.11\00:00:52.51 and becomes a man? What does his life look like afterwards 00:00:52.55\00:00:56.08 And with me to talk about that is Gordon and Denry. Welcome 00:00:56.12\00:01:00.06 How're you guys doing today? Thank you. 00:01:00.09\00:01:01.42 Doing well, doing well today 00:01:01.46\00:01:03.69 I'd like to go by a different name today 00:01:03.73\00:01:06.16 No, this is a subject that's close to home for me 00:01:07.26\00:01:13.80 because I left Jamaica, came to America and my dad was 00:01:13.84\00:01:20.91 when we were there he was not too much in my life, I mean 00:01:20.94\00:01:24.65 he was in and out but once we left, came here not too much 00:01:24.68\00:01:32.55 of a relationship. I'd speak to him maybe on the phone 00:01:32.59\00:01:35.09 once every couple of years and I look at life as a bank 00:01:35.12\00:01:41.63 if there's nothing that you put in, if there's nothing put in 00:01:41.66\00:01:45.83 then later on when you're in need of something to pull out 00:01:45.87\00:01:50.14 you know there's nothing to grab for. 00:01:50.17\00:01:52.37 So if the father is not in the child's life whether because of 00:01:52.41\00:01:57.08 disease or incarcerated whatever the case may be 00:01:57.11\00:01:59.45 as a child is growing up, you know he or she are looking for 00:01:59.48\00:02:04.09 things to put, examples, things to put in the bank 00:02:04.12\00:02:07.66 and so when you become an adult now 00:02:07.69\00:02:09.99 the man is looking, well I have a wife how do I love her? 00:02:10.03\00:02:14.66 how do I deal with these, her hormones or rages or whatever 00:02:14.70\00:02:21.57 and if he doesn't have anything to pick out of his bank 00:02:21.60\00:02:25.11 then he's confused or he has to find it from someone else's bank 00:02:26.57\00:02:31.05 so it's possible he has no direction. 00:02:31.08\00:02:33.62 Cause to me that's what it looks like. It looks like a man 00:02:33.65\00:02:38.39 grew up without direction, without purpose 00:02:38.42\00:02:40.69 and you're looking for a purpose because we are, we need to have 00:02:40.72\00:02:45.89 that relationship with a father a father figure and if we don't 00:02:45.93\00:02:51.43 have it in the father's absence then we're gonna look, we're 00:02:51.47\00:02:55.14 gonna try to find that or you just grow up without purpose 00:02:55.17\00:02:59.47 and it's not good to grow up without purpose, you need to 00:02:59.51\00:03:02.44 you know you want to be successful and you want to 00:03:02.48\00:03:05.61 instead of always looking for that person, you know my adopted 00:03:05.65\00:03:13.25 brother for example, I have an adopted brother 00:03:13.29\00:03:15.52 and he never really, his father wasn't in his life 00:03:15.56\00:03:20.30 and I can say, up to now he's still looking 00:03:20.33\00:03:24.60 for that bond, it's important for a father to be in the life 00:03:24.63\00:03:30.87 There are questions I would love to ask 00:03:30.91\00:03:33.74 even now when I pick up the phone and see, I'm thankful 00:03:33.78\00:03:38.15 at least I do have a father I can call, I mean I can have a 00:03:38.18\00:03:43.28 good conversation but I can call him so I can only imagine 00:03:43.32\00:03:46.32 for the men out there that don't have a father whether they're 00:03:46.35\00:03:50.69 deceased or what and so there are questions I have just about 00:03:50.73\00:03:55.13 life, life that when I call him it's like he's also still trying 00:03:55.16\00:04:04.87 to find and when you find his story, his father wasn't there 00:04:04.91\00:04:08.34 There's lots of times you know you have those instances where 00:04:10.25\00:04:12.88 fathers don't even sign off on the birth certificate 00:04:12.91\00:04:15.12 like they're literally non-existent 00:04:15.15\00:04:17.79 and you know you have the ones that are missing 00:04:17.82\00:04:20.89 but they come eventually. These are father that, you know, 00:04:20.92\00:04:24.23 these kids grow up without fathers, period. They never 00:04:24.26\00:04:26.83 see them from childhood to adulthood. 00:04:26.86\00:04:28.83 Non-existent. I mean what do we do? What can we do? 00:04:28.86\00:04:33.84 What is that you know, I grew up with a father. My mom and dad 00:04:33.87\00:04:37.44 married, I know what that looks like. But I've seen kids 00:04:37.47\00:04:41.34 who basically look like a compass without direction 00:04:41.38\00:04:44.88 just spinning. They have no identity they don't know where 00:04:44.91\00:04:48.58 they come from, they don't know who they are. I can only imagine 00:04:48.62\00:04:51.99 because a lot of our traits, our character traits are inherited 00:04:52.02\00:04:56.39 from our father, genetically. So I don't know for me it is 00:04:56.42\00:05:01.26 confusing because for me I can't understand that. 00:05:01.30\00:05:04.03 However, I've seen so many. I see them and it breaks my heart 00:05:04.07\00:05:09.47 because their father never existed. 00:05:09.50\00:05:12.81 This is not somebody that was here one minute gone the next 00:05:12.84\00:05:15.94 these are fathers that never existed and these kids 00:05:15.98\00:05:19.61 are hurting, they're hurting. And yes we can look to our 00:05:19.65\00:05:22.95 heavenly Father all day, every day but we also need the 00:05:22.98\00:05:26.69 physical, tangible father. What do we do with these kids? 00:05:26.72\00:05:30.79 We talked about it, the mentor. They need someone to mentor 00:05:31.86\00:05:36.40 someone to mentor when they're in this kind of a relationship 00:05:36.43\00:05:40.14 without the father what happens is that they become very violent 00:05:40.17\00:05:44.51 and they start to lash out, they start to misbehave in school 00:05:44.54\00:05:50.05 they misbehave at home, outbursts against the mother 00:05:50.08\00:05:54.32 I'm talkin about a real issue without sayin anything about 00:05:54.35\00:05:58.39 the issue. I mean all of this stuff starts to happen and then 00:05:58.42\00:06:02.06 what happens to the child, the child ends up from 00:06:02.09\00:06:05.53 one institution to the next. And so there's a huge problem 00:06:07.13\00:06:13.37 what's happened with that young man is that the young man 00:06:13.40\00:06:16.87 has found a mentor, a solid one that can go Sabbaths 00:06:16.91\00:06:23.95 and say I need to talk to you. And I need to have conversation 00:06:23.98\00:06:27.78 and that mentor sits down and says, ok let's talk 00:06:27.82\00:06:31.55 what's goin on? And fortunately that mentor is me. 00:06:31.59\00:06:34.66 So I know it's important to sit down and talk with the young man 00:06:34.69\00:06:40.90 and I can tell you any point in time when he's misbehaving 00:06:40.93\00:06:45.23 at home and I get a call and I get on the phone with him 00:06:45.27\00:06:48.30 attitude changes, he's totally different. 00:06:48.34\00:06:52.57 And one of his biggest complaints 00:06:52.61\00:06:55.84 complaints is I never knew my father 00:06:55.88\00:06:57.98 and I would love to know my father. So his aggression 00:06:58.01\00:07:02.28 is against his mother, against his family, school 00:07:02.32\00:07:08.59 he's acting up and he doesn't even know why 00:07:08.62\00:07:11.69 he's acting up because he never had that in his home 00:07:11.73\00:07:16.56 grew up with a lot of women, uncles and stuff like that 00:07:16.60\00:07:22.17 but some of them were positive role models in his life. So 00:07:22.20\00:07:26.88 one thing that is needed is good solid mentor relationship 00:07:26.91\00:07:32.41 That's what is needed for some of these men. Yeah 00:07:32.45\00:07:34.68 And now you know you have two sides. For example some who 00:07:34.72\00:07:40.76 unfortunately the father died. You know I talked to a young man 00:07:40.79\00:07:47.00 couple weeks ago. His father died when he was two 00:07:47.03\00:07:49.96 totally unfair in his mind. He asks God, why? 00:07:50.00\00:07:54.90 I didn't even get a chance. He was saying basically, I hear 00:07:55.94\00:08:00.88 people talkin about their father is out of town and so I can't do 00:08:00.91\00:08:06.28 do that. My father is in a cemetery. 00:08:06.31\00:08:08.72 And so for them it's like God this is so unfair. 00:08:09.75\00:08:12.65 I don't even have an excuse, my dad doesn't have an excuse 00:08:12.69\00:08:16.39 he's deceased. Then you have another situation where father 00:08:16.42\00:08:22.26 maybe incarcerated because of something they've done 00:08:22.30\00:08:24.70 whether innocent or guilty. And some of them are in prison for 00:08:24.73\00:08:30.11 the rest of their life and some times in another state 00:08:30.14\00:08:35.24 So now there's just can't because of the circumstance 00:08:35.28\00:08:41.78 And so once again the child says this is not fair 00:08:41.82\00:08:45.62 So how do we address them as mentors, as pastors, ministers 00:08:46.96\00:08:52.03 how do you address a young man like that even older men like 00:08:52.06\00:08:56.10 that who say God did this, it's not fair, it's not right 00:08:56.13\00:08:59.33 My dad didn't even have an opportunity 00:08:59.37\00:09:04.64 Before we go there and answer that question I think another 00:09:06.51\00:09:10.98 question, something that's turnin in my mind is 00:09:11.01\00:09:13.15 how can that family, that mother find that good mentor 00:09:13.18\00:09:22.22 what are some of the steps they can take to find a good mentor 00:09:22.26\00:09:24.89 to make sure their child is safe. I think the church is an 00:09:24.93\00:09:29.13 important part of making that happen. 00:09:29.16\00:09:31.13 I think you start with your pastors, you start with elders 00:09:31.17\00:09:35.44 who have been stable in the church for a while 00:09:35.47\00:09:40.28 so that you can talk to them about this is the situation 00:09:40.31\00:09:45.11 this is what's goin on. One of our big problems is that 00:09:45.15\00:09:48.15 we don't talk about real issues. 00:09:48.18\00:09:50.95 And so we're afraid to come to the pastor or an elder 00:09:50.99\00:09:57.96 someone senior in the church and say this is what I'm going 00:09:57.99\00:10:01.16 through. My son is acting up and this is the reason why 00:10:01.20\00:10:05.77 I think he's acting up or I don't know why he's behaving 00:10:05.80\00:10:09.37 the way he's behaving. Can you help me? Can you find a mentor 00:10:09.40\00:10:14.88 for him? So you put that responsibility on the pastor 00:10:14.91\00:10:20.72 or a group. I think the churches need to start having mentoring 00:10:20.75\00:10:25.19 programs where we spend time vetting the people 00:10:25.22\00:10:29.76 making sure their backgrounds are safe so that we can turn our 00:10:29.79\00:10:35.83 children over into their hands to mentor them, to spend some 00:10:35.86\00:10:40.67 time with them. Take them to a ball game, take them out to 00:10:40.70\00:10:43.57 lunch, those things so that they can have some kind of 00:10:43.61\00:10:48.68 a semblance of wholeness. Father or a mentor as a father 00:10:48.71\00:10:55.92 in their lives to help them become productive citizens 00:10:55.95\00:10:59.92 We can do something, the problem is real but we need to talk 00:10:59.95\00:11:04.59 about it, we need to put some solutions and one of the great 00:11:04.63\00:11:08.56 solutions I think is to have a mentoring system in our church 00:11:08.60\00:11:13.13 we need to do that and we don't do that effectively. 00:11:13.17\00:11:16.00 It's also knowing the resources too because as I think about 00:11:16.04\00:11:19.31 fatherless men, doesn't mean that they're motherless 00:11:19.34\00:11:22.01 Or perhaps the mothers have tried to reach out to fathers 00:11:22.88\00:11:26.51 over and over again to no avail. 00:11:26.55\00:11:28.65 You know we have programs out there in our communities 00:11:28.68\00:11:31.59 you know that are available for these kids as well. 00:11:31.62\00:11:35.59 Not just in our church, if like the church for some reason 00:11:35.62\00:11:39.59 is not able to come through, whatever reason it might be 00:11:39.63\00:11:44.37 sometimes it happens there's resources, there's programs 00:11:44.40\00:11:48.04 there's things available. You know being a father, to me 00:11:48.07\00:11:52.87 cause I'm a father of two, it's not just to my kids 00:11:52.91\00:11:56.71 being a father is also being a father to the fatherless 00:11:56.75\00:12:00.62 The Bible says that God is a father to the fatherless 00:12:00.65\00:12:04.95 And as Christians we're called to be those fathers that kids 00:12:04.99\00:12:09.42 may not have. I remember working in an inner city church 00:12:09.46\00:12:12.36 there were kids. I was being security cause they said 00:12:13.09\00:12:17.07 Ah you were a former police officer. Why don't you work 00:12:17.10\00:12:19.13 security, but I'm trying to be a pastor. 00:12:19.17\00:12:21.00 Ok I'll work security so I said OK God do something with this 00:12:21.04\00:12:23.81 and God blessed. Lots of kids started acting out in Sabbath 00:12:23.84\00:12:27.91 School so I took them out of the class and I would talk 00:12:27.94\00:12:30.85 to them and as I dialogued with them the general premise 00:12:30.88\00:12:34.88 was I never knew my father. 00:12:34.92\00:12:38.05 So I mentored these kids, I took them under my wing 00:12:38.09\00:12:40.99 not to be Father of the Year, nothing like that 00:12:41.02\00:12:43.76 but just to give them somebody to talk to 00:12:43.79\00:12:46.80 And that's important. We need to learn how to step up 00:12:46.83\00:12:50.60 as men to be able to be fathers even though they might not be 00:12:50.63\00:12:54.17 our blood. To be fathers to these kids that are aching 00:12:54.20\00:12:59.07 and being incarcerated and dying 00:12:59.11\00:13:01.54 without knowing The Heavenly Father. You know things of 00:13:01.58\00:13:04.98 that nature. And when they grow up without fathers 00:13:05.01\00:13:09.08 they become fathers and the same cycle repeats itself 00:13:09.12\00:13:16.83 Because they don't know how to be fathers, because they 00:13:16.86\00:13:19.69 never had that father. So it's something that we really need 00:13:19.73\00:13:23.43 to find solutions for, one of the great solutions is 00:13:23.47\00:13:28.04 being a mentor, just being able to mentor them, being able to 00:13:28.07\00:13:31.91 encourage them because again if they end up being fathers 00:13:31.94\00:13:38.28 same cycle. But I want to talk about another issue. 00:13:38.31\00:13:42.08 That is the same thing, the issue is we've got to tell our 00:13:42.12\00:13:46.55 fathers, no we have to tell our young men to stop having sex 00:13:46.59\00:13:51.43 outside of marriage because that is one of the big problems that 00:13:51.46\00:13:55.70 creates this problem. And so those are some issues that 00:13:55.73\00:13:59.73 we really need to address because it's almost like a 00:13:59.77\00:14:02.84 domino effect. The young men having children young and ladies 00:14:02.87\00:14:08.04 having sex outside of marriage of course it's not Biblical 00:14:08.08\00:14:13.15 and then you have these babies that's growin up without fathers 00:14:13.18\00:14:19.92 that's the base of the problem 00:14:19.95\00:14:23.73 And we kind of need to look at that first, encourage young 00:14:23.76\00:14:27.43 people. Abstinence is good, it's ok. You can wait because you 00:14:27.46\00:14:34.50 are not only thinking about yourself and your emotions 00:14:34.54\00:14:37.37 you have to think about the child. It's possible 00:14:37.41\00:14:42.28 the mother can be pregnant, the young lady can get pregnant 00:14:42.31\00:14:47.25 and boom! Here you've got a problem. 00:14:47.28\00:14:49.78 And I think that's our big problem. This whole cycle 00:14:50.79\00:14:55.19 break that cycle and we might be able to solve this issue 00:14:55.22\00:14:59.29 I think we need to start having men care. I like that. We don't 00:14:59.33\00:15:04.60 care. We can procreate like the Bible says like nobody else 00:15:04.63\00:15:09.27 but we don't care what happens afterwards. 00:15:09.30\00:15:11.67 We don't. We've gotten so numb 00:15:11.71\00:15:15.48 to emotions, to feelings that we literally leave our kids 00:15:15.51\00:15:19.78 fatherless because we just don't care. I have to fend for myself 00:15:19.81\00:15:24.15 you gotta do it too. That's just the way it works. World is hard 00:15:24.19\00:15:27.19 you gotta learn to fend for yourself. 00:15:27.22\00:15:28.62 We have these kids out there, no father to turn to, no identity 00:15:28.66\00:15:33.50 and we wonder why they run into problems with the law 00:15:33.53\00:15:37.57 problems with, you know, just catastrophic events 00:15:37.60\00:15:40.54 and even some of them, even some of them I was gonna put 00:15:40.57\00:15:44.77 it out there, even some of them joining terrorist groups 00:15:44.81\00:15:47.84 to find identity, joining ISIS to find identity 00:15:47.88\00:15:53.35 because there's something inherently wrong, inherently 00:15:53.95\00:15:57.75 wrong when these kids are joining gangs and violent groups 00:15:57.79\00:16:01.66 and us, men of God are just standing there with arms crossed 00:16:01.69\00:16:06.26 saying, we'll pray for you. 00:16:06.29\00:16:08.26 We like to do the reactive stuff but not the proactive stuff 00:16:08.76\00:16:14.40 and James as you mentioned before talked about that 00:16:14.44\00:16:17.87 true religion, you want to be religious here? 00:16:17.91\00:16:21.88 The only time the word is mentioned in Scripture 00:16:21.91\00:16:24.58 true religion, is a person who steps in when a widow has lost 00:16:25.08\00:16:30.32 her husband and when there's children without a father 00:16:30.35\00:16:34.89 Undefiled religion. True, pure religion and you know James 00:16:36.02\00:16:40.46 talks about faith and works. That you can't just pray 00:16:40.50\00:16:43.43 I'm praying for you. No, I need you to be involved. 00:16:43.47\00:16:47.27 and like you said, the mentoring you know our church is not just 00:16:47.97\00:16:51.51 to mentor the children of our church, children of our 00:16:51.54\00:16:57.28 community. We need spiritual men to mentor the children 00:16:57.31\00:17:04.02 young men and even other men in our communities 00:17:04.05\00:17:07.66 It's not too late to learn. You know they say you can't teach 00:17:08.66\00:17:11.59 an old dog new tricks? Biblically that's a lie because 00:17:11.63\00:17:14.30 when it comes to Jesus he can be 99 years old, He'll put you 00:17:15.50\00:17:20.14 correct. You see we need Biblical men, spiritual, loving 00:17:20.17\00:17:26.11 men to step in and say, Ok it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair 00:17:26.14\00:17:32.05 what happened to you but God has put me by His grace, I'm 00:17:32.08\00:17:39.55 here now to mentor you, to show you some of these things 00:17:39.59\00:17:43.73 and no, there's gonna be some things I may not be able to 00:17:43.76\00:17:45.99 show you but at least you'll have some kind of foundation 00:17:46.03\00:17:49.06 to build on. It's crazy because again fatherlessness is so 00:17:49.10\00:17:55.04 prevalent in the world today. You know a lot of these kids 00:17:55.07\00:17:59.27 that grow up without fathers they grow up to be like you said 00:17:59.31\00:18:01.84 to be fathers but the ironic thing is I see them having kids 00:18:01.88\00:18:07.88 or about to have a child and they get their spouse or 00:18:07.92\00:18:11.15 whoever significant other have an abortion. 00:18:11.19\00:18:13.46 cause they don't know, not because they don't want to 00:18:14.79\00:18:16.66 that's because they don't know how, they're afraid. 00:18:16.69\00:18:18.69 I never had a father, I don't know what to do. 00:18:19.59\00:18:20.96 Let's just kill this child. Mercy! 00:18:21.00\00:18:23.23 You know violence breeds violence and mess attracts mess 00:18:24.17\00:18:29.64 We need to step up as men of God and start helping through Jesus 00:18:30.41\00:18:34.58 to clean up this mess. Yes, we know the Bible says what it says 00:18:34.61\00:18:39.28 we know these things are to happen but do we as Christians 00:18:39.31\00:18:43.42 dedicated followers of Christ do we just watch with a bucket 00:18:43.45\00:18:47.06 of popcorn in our hands as the whole world caves in? 00:18:47.09\00:18:50.03 Or do we try our best to help these kids grow up, find Jesus 00:18:50.06\00:18:54.53 even before they grow up find Jesus and be able to at least 00:18:54.56\00:18:59.03 walk on the streets of gold rather than perish 00:18:59.07\00:19:02.27 live a life of nothing and die like nothing. 00:19:02.30\00:19:05.11 You know what do we do with these kids as men of God? 00:19:06.01\00:19:08.91 What if we started some ministries in our churches 00:19:08.94\00:19:12.35 and in our communities 'Adopt a Gangster' 00:19:12.38\00:19:15.08 Or 'Adopt a Thug' 00:19:19.15\00:19:22.06 We have men and some of the young ladies, I remember I was 00:19:22.09\00:19:25.56 preaching at one of your churches a while back and as 00:19:25.59\00:19:28.56 this lady was saying that, and she was bold, she said every 00:19:28.60\00:19:32.50 weekend she would take some muffins and go bring it out 00:19:32.53\00:19:38.07 to the gangsters in the community. 00:19:38.11\00:19:41.24 Now ok a woman is doing this a senior lady doing this 00:19:41.28\00:19:44.95 what if a man did that? 00:19:44.98\00:19:48.35 not just some muffins but some colognes, some things the young 00:19:48.88\00:19:53.96 men need, some deodorant. Adopt a Gangster 00:19:53.99\00:19:57.86 You know we get on them for not having their pants up 00:19:57.89\00:20:01.50 we get on them for being tattooed and all these things 00:20:02.00\00:20:04.77 you know we get on them for mistreating, how about adopting 00:20:04.80\00:20:08.40 a gangster? We're too busy. We don't have time. 00:20:08.44\00:20:12.77 We got our families, so why should I think of somebody else? 00:20:12.81\00:20:15.48 I mean that's what, that also happens. A lot of times I've got 00:20:15.51\00:20:21.15 work, I've got this goin on so I'm not adopting a gangster 00:20:21.18\00:20:25.35 No time for that. Matter of fact I'm not even goin in the hood 00:20:25.39\00:20:28.32 I can't go there. See it's a whole different world 00:20:28.36\00:20:32.89 But I wanna look at another angle also. 00:20:32.93\00:20:36.67 I think a lot of our men are incarcerated unfortunately 00:20:36.70\00:20:41.60 but I think if the father is not there the mother becomes that 00:20:41.64\00:20:48.94 father and that mother steps up and has to be stronger 00:20:48.98\00:20:54.88 than anything else. I look at my mom man and as my mom 00:20:54.92\00:20:59.62 we'd be down in the yard playing and she'd come right 00:20:59.65\00:21:03.83 downstairs and she'd start playing with us. 00:21:03.86\00:21:06.46 Kicking the ball with us and doing stuff like that 00:21:06.49\00:21:11.50 So I think because of that, and I did have my father 00:21:11.53\00:21:17.41 but again he wasn't always there so she took that slack 00:21:17.44\00:21:24.25 fill that void, so I think our mothers can still, I mean 00:21:24.28\00:21:28.98 step up but they cannot fill the role. 00:21:29.02\00:21:33.15 That's the difference. So that help is still needed. 00:21:34.09\00:21:37.89 Cause when I was going through puberty I had to ask my mother 00:21:37.93\00:21:43.20 I had to ask my mother the questions but it was awkward 00:21:43.23\00:21:45.40 for her, it was awkward for me too, so you know you don't have 00:21:45.43\00:21:49.44 that man to turn to like, hey there are changes going on 00:21:49.47\00:21:53.61 in my life what do I do? So yes they can minister to us, 00:21:53.64\00:22:00.32 help out, play with us but they will never fill that role 00:22:00.35\00:22:05.69 So we got to look at the fact that I know we're being called 00:22:05.72\00:22:10.06 to step up, you know even if you don't know how 00:22:10.09\00:22:13.80 you just work with something 00:22:14.43\00:22:16.83 even if you can't set anything up in the church 00:22:16.87\00:22:20.24 I just say it like that, even if you can't do anything in church 00:22:20.27\00:22:23.07 there are resources out there already in place where you can 00:22:23.10\00:22:25.87 volunteer time to be able to mentor these kids you know 00:22:25.91\00:22:31.48 even if you don't have, let's say time, there's 24 hours in 00:22:31.51\00:22:34.92 a day, I'm sure you can spare one hour just to listen 00:22:34.95\00:22:38.15 just to play a game with a child that doesn't have a father and 00:22:38.19\00:22:42.89 never grew with a father because our men now are suffering 00:22:42.92\00:22:46.59 these kids become men. You know I heard once that the church is 00:22:46.63\00:22:51.70 comprised of 82% women, our church. 00:22:51.73\00:22:57.31 And I'm like, where's the men? 00:22:57.34\00:23:00.28 Where are the men? The men are missing. 00:23:00.31\00:23:04.21 And I remember this because in my church even though I grew 00:23:05.55\00:23:09.98 up with a father and everything my family is in Florida 00:23:10.02\00:23:13.05 far away, I'm up here and I'm just like I need guidance. 00:23:13.09\00:23:20.06 And sometimes I pray, I turn to God, sometimes I need that 00:23:20.10\00:23:23.57 older male figure and it's me this is somebody that comes 00:23:23.60\00:23:27.74 from a family where mother and father are together they've been 00:23:27.77\00:23:30.97 married for a long time but I still need that guidance. 00:23:31.01\00:23:34.14 You know somebody like me needs that guidance and I turn to a 00:23:34.18\00:23:37.25 lot of the older gentlemen in the church for guidance. 00:23:37.28\00:23:41.02 So if this is me and I come from what you call a regular 00:23:41.05\00:23:46.09 background or whatever you want to call it I can only imagine 00:23:46.12\00:23:49.76 I can only fathom what these kids who grow up to be men feel 00:23:49.79\00:23:54.46 like without anyone there. It's being lost, it's like you know 00:23:54.50\00:24:01.37 hearing your own echo 00:24:01.40\00:24:03.20 I'm at a loss for words. What can we do, what else can we do 00:24:06.37\00:24:09.48 aside from mentorship. I think we need to call these men 00:24:09.51\00:24:15.38 back into action. There needs to be a place, if they're still 00:24:15.42\00:24:20.49 alive somehow we need to let men know, listen it's important 00:24:20.52\00:24:25.93 for you to be in your child's life. No matter what you're 00:24:25.96\00:24:29.96 dealin with try to be involved in your child's life. 00:24:30.00\00:24:34.30 we don't call 'em, just call 'em out, call them to action 00:24:34.34\00:24:37.91 we need to, maybe some men's group where we talk about these 00:24:37.94\00:24:41.38 issues so men step up and be the father God called you to be 00:24:41.41\00:24:47.05 You did the work, now put the time in and be that father. 00:24:47.08\00:24:52.45 I think we probably just need to call them out. 00:24:52.49\00:24:54.62 I think we also need to train some of these mentors and 00:24:54.66\00:25:00.33 fathers and some of these men. 00:25:00.36\00:25:03.37 Show them through Scripture how God the Father takes the place 00:25:03.40\00:25:09.50 of our missing fathers. You know not just send them out and say 00:25:09.54\00:25:16.08 be a father to some kid that doesn't have a father. No, they 00:25:16.11\00:25:19.41 need to know, some of them need to know, okay this is what you 00:25:19.45\00:25:23.59 should do. And you'd be surprised, it's interesting 00:25:23.62\00:25:27.36 when I play with my kids and spend time with them the things 00:25:27.39\00:25:30.79 that I wanted I now get. 00:25:30.83\00:25:34.76 From me being their father and bonding with them 00:25:34.80\00:25:38.73 the bonding that I once wanted I now get. 00:25:38.77\00:25:42.90 and so for some of these fatherless fathers or fatherless 00:25:42.94\00:25:46.88 men giving them an opportunity to mentor or minister to other 00:25:46.91\00:25:52.25 young men also fills that gap 00:25:52.28\00:25:56.92 There are programs out there too that a lot of Conferences 00:25:58.62\00:26:01.52 have to be able to screen, so to speak, and educate the men 00:26:01.56\00:26:06.59 in the church and to allocate the proper resources to the men 00:26:06.63\00:26:12.33 to make sure obviously that the men mentoring are appropriately 00:26:12.37\00:26:18.54 equipped and they have the right background to do so. 00:26:18.57\00:26:21.21 We know that this whole thing is a big ploy of the devil 00:26:21.24\00:26:25.11 he wants to destroy this relationship between fathers 00:26:25.15\00:26:30.39 and children because a father that that child sees in order 00:26:30.42\00:26:35.86 for them to see God as their heavenly Father they're looking 00:26:35.89\00:26:39.06 for an earthly father. And so when they can't find 00:26:39.09\00:26:43.83 that earthly father and that earthly father has abandoned 00:26:43.87\00:26:47.17 them you know you're trying to give them and teach them 00:26:47.20\00:26:50.11 with Christ and about God's love they're like wait a minute 00:26:50.14\00:26:53.84 Love? God's love? My earthly father was never there. 00:26:53.88\00:26:58.65 I don't even know who he is and you're gonna tell me of the love 00:26:58.68\00:27:01.42 of God? They can't see God because they don't see the 00:27:01.45\00:27:06.42 heavenly, they can't see much love, and so something that 00:27:06.45\00:27:10.26 we really need to address and try and let them see 00:27:10.29\00:27:13.26 and let them know that God still loves them. 00:27:13.29\00:27:15.80 I'm glad we talked about this. Like always we ran out of time 00:27:15.83\00:27:19.30 before we can go on, so for the viewers out there if you have 00:27:19.33\00:27:24.21 any questions, again I know you do. Or any comments. 00:27:24.24\00:27:28.04 Send them to AFH@3ABN.org 00:27:28.08\00:27:31.38 The kids out there that have no father 00:27:32.71\00:27:35.28 We're here for you in the church we're here for you. 00:27:36.48\00:27:39.55 You're not alone. The men that grew up without fathers 00:27:39.59\00:27:42.82 even though there's still a Father in Heaven who has always 00:27:42.86\00:27:46.39 loved you and made you with a purpose like the finest 00:27:46.43\00:27:49.36 masterpiece ever made, there's still men, elders in the church 00:27:49.40\00:27:53.84 that are wanting to talk to you and listen 00:27:53.87\00:27:55.84 Please don't stand alone, join us. Thank you for watching. 00:27:55.87\00:28:00.71