The Act Like Men Podcast

Steve is on vacation, so Jack and Dillon try something new: reacting to Jubilee's What Makes a Real Man debate. Fifty men argued over whether society needs more tradwives or girlbosses, whether men should be watching porn, and who leads in a romantic relationship, and we talk through what Scripture actually says about each one. Jack lays out why the burden of provision sits on the man, Dillon unpacks how the culture defined girlboss in a way nobody would actually sign up for, and the porn prompt turns into an honest conversation about what it costs a man. We close on leadership: the difference between godly headship and the tyrant the critics are actually arguing against. First episode in our new react format; tell us what we should react to next. Original video: What Makes a Real Man? 50 Men Debate by Jubilee on YouTube.

This episode was not planned. All three of us were burnt out and tired, and instead of passing on recording, we hit record and worked it out live. Steve opens by naming the hardest season of his life: the business still struggling and layoffs on the table, a medication that nearly sent him to the ER, and an active investigation close to home that he cannot detail, one he says is harder to walk through than losing his mom and his dad. He admits he is not leaning on the Lord the way he should, that he is stuck in acceptance, and that inside he is seething at the injustice. Jack lays out the three responses to overwhelm: head in the sand, brute force, or walking through it with God, and Dillon adds a fourth, masking and toxic positivity. From there we get into awareness and acceptance before action, the difference between a sowing season and a harvest season, and why fighting the season you are actually in only wears you out. Dillon brings the conversation to Job and David, and the case for being raw with God instead of hiding behind sanitized Christianese prayers. We also work through the practical side: Dillon's text survey where nearly every man named rest, wife, brotherhood, and exercise. Jack shares mapping his life on a tree from John 15 and treating growth as subtraction and pruning. Dillon and Jack talk about protecting the family schedule, learning to say no even when it clashes with American culture, and running weekly family meetings. Steve lands on the question he keeps returning to: God, what are you trying to teach me in this moment. Dillon closes us in prayer.

We asked our wives one question: where do we fail to emotionally support you? The answers cost us. Steve got called out for his phone and his Apple Watch stealing moments with his wife and his son. Dillon got called out for turning Natalie's pain about her body into a three week diet and cardio plan. Jack got told he shows up fine, but only when he decides it is worth his time. From there we unpack the real problem: men default to fix it mode instead of presence. We talk about why empathy can feel like signing off on a lie, why active listening feels fake when you disagree with what she believes about herself, and why handing her a ladder never gets her out of the hole when what she wanted was for you to climb in and sit there. We take 1 Peter 3:7 seriously and ask what it actually means to live with your wife in an understanding way. It gets uncomfortable. Jack confesses three years of workaholism and hiding behind the shield of financial provision. Steve admits his wife has told him the same thing about her tears more than once and he still has not learned it. Dillon pushes back hard on the word commiserate and we work through whether sitting in someone's misery is godly. If your wife cannot bring you her feelings in real time without joking first, you need to hear this. This one is for the married man who leads well at work and runs out of tank at home, and for the guy who is dating or engaged and would rather learn this before he has to apologize for it. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

What does 20 years in law enforcement teach a man about walking with God? Joe Marks, founder of Battleground Faith, joins Steve, Jack and Dillon to share the testimony behind the badge: the calls that tested his faith, the prayers he prayed over the men he arrested, and what it took to stop performing and get honest before the Lord. Joe opens up about a hidden battle with lust and shame, the supernatural protection he walked through on dangerous calls, and the encounter at 53 years old that changed everything. You will hear why most men are living behind two facades, how Joe learned to stop being the hero of his own story, why most men freeze instead of rising to the occasion, and what training actually changes. We also get practical: how to make your home a hard target, what church security actually requires, what to do after defending yourself, and how to protect your family without living in fear. This one is for the man who wants to be dangerous for the right reasons, rooted in Christ, ready for a real fight, and done pretending. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

You think you're leading your home, but is your wife telling a different story... This one starts with Jack getting triggered at marriage group and turns into an honest look at what really drives a man. You will hear why the mindset of how you do one thing is how you do everything can trap you in performance instead of freeing you into excellence. If you feel like a failure every time you miss a spiritual discipline, that is not devotion, that is idolatry, and it needs to go. We walk through Ahab and Jezebel and Naboth's vineyard, and you find out that the absence of leadership is still leadership. If you are failing to lead, you are not being passive, you are leading your family in failure. We also define witchcraft in a way you may not expect, because doing certain actions to force a specific outcome, even in prayer, is manipulation, not faith. Then we get practical. Go ask your wife if you are leading well, being passive, or being lazy, and then close your mouth and listen. Do not overcorrect from doormat into dominance, because she does not need an overbearing tyrant and she does not need a passive man, she needs rooted strength. Real stories, real repentance, and real conviction about fear, control, and what it looks like to actually step into your role at home. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

Nearly half of this country is overweight, and the body of Christ is not exempt. You cannot out-train a bad diet, and you cannot pray away a pantry full of garbage. Most men have started over a dozen times: new plan on Monday, quit by Thursday. Disciplined at work, disciplined in your calling, then completely undone by a drive-thru and a bad night. Or you swing the other way and turn food labels into a religion until you are scared to eat anything at all. Both ditches are real. In this one Jack, Dillon and Steve take the discipline conversation into health, fitness and nutrition with zero fluff. Diet comes before the gym. Your environment beats your willpower. Your body is a stewardship, not a trophy. They get honest about their own histories, the shortcuts they took, what those shortcuts cost them, the shortcuts still being sold to men today, and why 60 percent of people who drop weight the easy way put it right back on. They talk fasting as a non negotiable for Christian men, the stomach as the mother of all appetites, and the simple daily practices that actually moved the needle for each of them: a gallon of water, walking, one hard thing a day, 100 pushups, sunlight, and cutting off food at night. Then they close with the warning nobody gives you, about how fast this pursuit turns into fear, anxiety and hyper legalism, and why grace has to lead. Pick two or three things. Start there. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

Steve has been writing his autobiography, and to get the dates right he pulled out the letter his dad wrote him from prison. Eight pages. Not one line that said I'm sorry for what I did to this family. He read it two days before we recorded this, and it wiped him out all over again. That letter is where this episode goes, but it isn't only Steve's story. Jack talks about the arrest that turned his life around and about the night Rachael told him she couldn't be with him anymore. Dillon talks about the Sunday he walked into church alone, bleeding out from ulcerative colitis, scared he had a cancer diagnosis coming, and asked his pastor to just come sit with him. Three men, three very different kinds of pain, and the same question underneath all of it: what is God actually doing when it hurts this much? Steve and Jack also get into it about halfway through, and we left it in. The argument is over whether sin you keep hidden really has no consequences, and neither of them backs down. You'll hear why your faith gets tested like fire tests gold, and what it means to be truly glad about that. The difference between white-knuckling your way through pain and actually walking through it. Why intellectualizing your childhood is not the same as processing it, no matter how well you can explain it. What rotting food left in a room has to do with strongholds. Why Steve once told God to break his leg if that's what it took, and what happened three weeks later. And the difference between being sorry you got caught and actually repenting, which is the whole distinction between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. If you're in a season right now where something hurts and you can't see the point of it, this one is for you. Pain is not wasted on a man God is building. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

You did everything the right way and the church still turned on you. Church hurt like that is far more common than anyone admits, and almost nobody talks honestly about what it does to a man. Somebody starts a rumor. Your closest friends get leaned on until they're reporting back on you. The pastor is too busy to meet, and anyway, you were never an official member. A listener wrote in carrying exactly that, and it kept going from there: cheated on by a girlfriend, cheated on again years later, and then losing the mentor who had finally shown him what walking with Jesus actually looks like. His name here is Jordan, and this whole conversation is addressed to him, which means it's addressed to you if you're carrying any of the same weight. What Matthew 18 actually requires of a church and why most of them either skip it or butcher it. Why manipulation dressed up as spiritual authority looks a lot more like witchcraft than leadership. Why betrayal tends to show up right as you start to rise. How to forgive when the same wound keeps surfacing. What to do when the person who fell is the one who led you to Christ. Plus straight answers on the friend who told him he was too much, why everything he buys keeps breaking, an identity built on pride and anger and lust, Christians who pass a man's struggles around like snacks, and whether to keep tithing while buried in student loan debt. You can act dishonorably. That does not make you dishonorable. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

Everybody wants to call you a good man. Almost nobody can tell you what that actually means. There's the man who keeps everyone comfortable, never rocks the boat, never says the hard thing, and there's the man you actually trust with your life. One of them is nice. Only one of them is good. This one pulls that apart piece by piece: what happens when the men you looked up to fail you, and what God builds out of that wreckage. The father figures who shaped us without ever preaching a word. Why the soft, harmless Jesus of Sunday school can't carry the weight of your real life, and what the Jesus of Scripture is actually like. When anger is sin and when it's righteous. A twenty-year-old apology in the middle of a Walmart. What it costs to get vulnerable, why forgiveness is the door to freedom, and the one statistic about unforgiveness that should stop you cold. Strong, not harsh. Humble, not insecure. Courageous, not reckless. That's the standard. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.

Every boy wants to be the hero. Then life happens, and most men quietly settle for watching other men be brave. This one is about the kind of courage nobody films: the reason Steve's family says he wears a cape (it is pulling over for a stranded car, not a war story), the movie that talked a suicidal seven-year-old into staying alive, the 17-year-olds who went up the beach anyway, and the largest sea rescue in history, on 9/11, that almost nobody has heard of. Then the harder half: where culture is quietly neutering men, why courage is almost never convenient, and what it looks like on a Tuesday. Taking your wife on a date. Getting to the gym. Opening your Bible before you open your phone. Courage stops being something you do and starts being who you are. Questions, or need prayer? Reach out to us anytime: [email protected]. Come honest. Leave lighter.