The Men's Leadership Community

What actually is critical thinking — and why does the enemy work so hard to keep men from it? In Part 2 of The Godly Thinking Man, hosts Andy and Obie go deep (and own that it’s academic on purpose): most men today are reactive, knee-jerk, and distracted and as C.S. Lewis warned, the devil doesn’t need to destroy you if he can just distract you.

Here’s the gut-punch: the critical problem isn’t that people don’t think, it’s that everyone thinks, and left to itself, our thinking is biased, distorted, and self-serving. The quality of your life, the guys argue, rises and falls on the quality of your thinking. And real critical thinking isn’t about being the smartest guy in the room, it starts with humility (“of course I’m a hypocrite  - I’m a broken, sinful man”) and aims at something bigger: doing life well with other people, especially those who disagree with you.

In this episode we cover:

• Why men fear “thinking about their thinking” and make their opinions their identity
• The devil’s real strategy: distraction, the 15-second scroll, and letting AI think for you
• Everyone thinks, but biased, distorted thinking is the critical problem (James 3)
• Humility first: the disarming power of admitting “of course I’m a hypocrite”
• People aren’t projects - why Jesus asked questions instead of running a script
• The Bereans vs. the agitators: open-minded examination vs. rage-stirring
• A clear definition of critical thinking, and the sober mind Peter calls us to

Practical, funny, and convicting, this installment reframes critical thinking as spiritual maturity and whole-life wellness, solid food for mature men, not milk. You weren’t made to let a feed, a slogan, or an algorithm think for you.

The Men’s Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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Who’s actually doing your thinking for you? In the kickoff of an eight-week series, The Godly Thinking Man, hosts Andy and Obie make an uncomfortable case: most men have quietly outsourced their thinking to an algorithm, and the devil loves it that way. Because the one thing the enemy does not want is a godly man thinking godly thoughts.

This isn’t a politics episode (though it lands in a political season on purpose). It’s about metacognition, thinking about your thinking, and learning to ask the one question that breaks the spell: “Why do I actually believe that?” The guys dig into how curated feeds and AI are designed to wash over us so we react instead of reason, why Jesus stood in the tension between the extremes, and what it really means to have “the mind of Christ” in practical, simple-man terms.

In this episode we cover:

• Why the devil doesn’t want you thinking about your thinking
• Metacognition and the one question that starts real critical thinking: “Why do I think that?”
• Data dump vs. actual thinking and how propaganda comes with the decision pre-made
• Standing in the tension: how Jesus refused the “pick a side and hate the other” trap
• The echo chamber, where God’s voice starts to sound suspiciously like your own
• “Take every thought captive” processing your thinking through the cross and resurrection
• Conviction AND compassion: escaping the false choice the world forces on men

Honest, funny, and genuinely convicting, this opener is a call to stop being easily manipulated and start being a man who thinks for himself, so he can truly think of others. You weren’t made to let a feed think for you.

The Men’s Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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Even Moses couldn't do it alone. In this grand finale of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast's 12 Best Practices, hosts Andy and Obie land on the capstone that ties everything together: mentoring — what they call the Exodus 18 Principle, a movement of multiplication.

Here's the problem: if you learn everything about biblical manhood and then keep it to yourself, the whole thing stops. Drawing on the moment Moses' father-in-law Jethro looked at him burning out and said "What you are doing is not good," the guys make the case that the lone-wolf leader wears himself out — and everyone around him. Real leadership is inseparable from mentorship. Jesus modeled it: pour into a few, send them to reach more. Good men become great leaders who mentor other men to become great leaders.

In this episode we cover:

• The Exodus 18 Principle: why even Moses needed a mentor — and had to become one
• Why the lone-wolf leader burns out (and burns out everyone around him)
• "Iron sharpens iron" — the art of sharpening (Proverbs 27:17)
• The early church were "people of the Way" — and why "disciple" appears 260 times vs. "Christian" just 3
• The seven non-negotiables of disciple-making (a.k.a. faith-based leadership)
• Both-and: you're a follower AND a leader, always being poured into and pouring out
• How to actually find a mentor or mentee (hint: it's easier than you think)
• "Imitate me as I imitate Christ" — because more is caught than taught

Practical, honest, and encouraging, this finale is a call to stop hoarding what you've been given and start pouring into the next man. In a world lonelier than ever, you were made to be both a learner and a leader. Don't do life alone — and don't let the next guy, either.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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Can you remember the goals you set in January? If not, you're not alone — and that's exactly the problem. In this episode of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast, hosts Andy and Obie unpack one of their most important yearly practices: Reflect & Project — looking honestly back over the year that was, and intentionally setting Christ-centered goals for the year ahead.

At the heart of it is a word most men never use: metacognition — thinking about your thinking. The guys make the case that only 10–15% of people are truly self-aware, that just 23% of senior leaders reflect with any regularity, and that the #1 excuse ("I'm too busy") is really "I'm too busy to know myself." They get honest about personality blind spots (why "direct" can read as "angry" to your wife and kids), the danger of using prayer as a last resort, and why faithfulness — not worldly success — is its own reward.

In this episode we cover:

• Metacognition: thinking about your thinking, and why Jesus calls men to it
• Why only 10–15% of people are actually self-aware — and how to join them
• The 3 layers of self-awareness: your identity, your circumstances, and how others experience you
• Reflection as a proactive habit (not just looking back)
• SMART goals, and why writing them down beats "I'll remember"
• Christ-centered projection: leaning into the future God's prepared (Jeremiah 29:11)
• 10 questions for reflection + 10 questions for projection you can use today

Honest, funny, and practical, this is a blueprint any man can run — at year's end or right now — to stop drifting and start living with intention. Because God isn't looking for accidental, haphazard men. He's an intentional God, pouring into intentional men.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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What's the difference between an "influencer" and a leader who actually changes lives? In this episode of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast, hosts Andy and Obie open the book of Nehemiah — one of the Bible's greatest playbooks on faith-based leadership — and flip the modern idea of influence on its head.

Today's influencers point inward: more followers, more clicks, more attention on themselves. Nehemiah points outward. A wealthy, powerful man — cupbearer to the king, second-in-command of an empire — he leveraged every ounce of his position, resources, and courage for the good of others, so that (as his very name means) "Yahweh comforts" people through him. From the ruins of Jerusalem's broken walls, the guys trace how a real leader moves from grief to action.

In this episode we cover:

• Influencer vs. leader: inward clicks vs. outward comfort
• Nehemiah's 7 moves: asking good questions, listening, internalizing others' stories, weeping/mourning/fasting, prayer, owning the situation, and assessing your influence
• Why great leadership starts on your knees — not with a plan
• Taking inventory: have you ever written down the influence and resources God's actually given you?
• Risking action, setting a deadline, and asking for resources (the entrepreneurial spirit of faith)
• Handling the "hecklers" — opposition from outside and your own team from inside
• Resolve = grit: leading with tenacity when everything pushes back

Whether you lead a company, a classroom, a crew, or a family dinner table, this is a practical, honest look at how ordinary men leverage what they've been given for the good of others. You have more influence than you think — and it was given to you on purpose.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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What if the most heroic thing a man can do is give himself away? In this finale of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast series, hosts Andy and Obie close out "Heroic Manhood" and the Four G's with the last two: Generosity and Grit — and redefine strength as open-handed, joyful, and gutsy.

The world tells men to accumulate, protect, and armor up. Scripture flips it: a truly mature man is intentionally generous — open-handed with his money, time, talents, and attention, expecting nothing back. And the guys are blunt about the counterfeit: gratitude without generosity curdles into greed (picture the Dead Sea — good water with no outlet). Then they turn to grit — not lone-wolf toughness, but the deep-gut endurance the Greeks called splanchna: being disturbed in your core by someone's pain and actually doing something about it, the way Jesus did.

In this episode we cover:

• Why joy belongs at the center of biblical manhood (and "resting angry-face syndrome")
• Generosity as a learned trait — modeled at home so your kids and grandkids catch it
• "Gratitude without generosity turns to greed" — the Dead Sea picture of a closed hand
• Real freedom from the love of money (without pretending money itself is evil)
• Godly grit: guts, resilience, inner strength, and tenacity — for the long haul of manhood and parenting
• Splanchna — gut-level compassion that's "disturbed to act"
• Why grit isn't self-made: "you've got to have the guts of Jesus"

Honest, funny, and challenging — from a fork-in-the-hand childhood confession to real talk on victimhood and resilience — this is a call for men to trade the clenched fist for the open hand, and to find joy in the middle of the struggle. New every Friday.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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What if the manliest thing you could be is... hilarious? In this episode of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast, hosts Andy and Obie kick off "Heroic Manhood" with the first two of the Four G's — Gospel and Gratitude — and flip the script on what strong, faithful manhood actually looks like.

Most men are walking through life disoriented — lost, dizzy, hope fleeting, with no compass and no map. The gospel, the guys argue, is a man's true orientation: it tells you where you stand, where you're headed, and how to get there. And when Martin Luther finally understood it, he described the gospel with a word almost no one uses for faith: hilaritas — hilarity. Laughter. Joy. The world doesn't need more grim, self-serious men; it needs men marked by joy and gratitude that can't be shaken by their circumstances.

In this episode we cover:

• Gospel orientation: your compass and map in a dark, disoriented world
• True equality and true freedom — and why "doing whatever you want" isn't freedom at all
• Are you a slave to something you can't quit? (The social-media "frog in boiling water")
• Why the gospel should make you hilarious — laughter and joy as heroic manhood
• Gratitude as a paradigm shift: from bemoaning scarcity to living out of God's abundance
• How thankfulness improves mental health, and why it matters (September is Suicide Awareness Month)
• Showing up full instead of empty — at home, at work, and in the world

Honest and vulnerable throughout — including Obie's story of four years living in terror before Christ found him — this is a conversation for any man who's tired of grinding through a joyless, disoriented life. You were made for gratitude, for joy, and for a gospel that sets you free.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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"You have no friends." That's what one man's wife told him — and it's the sentence that started the entire Men's Leadership Community. In this episode, hosts Andy and Obie close out the whole-life wellness series with the one men neglect almost as much as their mental health: relationships.

A diminishing circle of friends, the poet David Whyte says, is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble. So the guys ask the question most men never stop to answer: How are your relationships — really? Not "who do you know," but "who actually knows you?" Drawing on the Hebrew idea of yada — to know and to be known — they unpack why real friendship takes time our culture refuses to give it, why social media hands us a counterfeit version of knowing, and why we were created by community, for community.

In this episode we cover:

• Why "a diminishing circle of friends" may be the warning sign your life is in trouble
• Yada — the difference between knowing about someone and truly knowing them
• How the fall fractured every relationship: with God, with others, with creation, and with ourselves
• The four loves — agape, eros, storge, and philia — and where men go shallow
• Being known by Jesus, your wife, your kids, and your brothers (and why it's worth asking them)
• Relationships at home, at church, at work, and with the neighbors we disagree with

With honest, vulnerable moments on marriage, past wounds, prejudice, and prejudging people we've never met, this is a conversation about trading the armored, isolated life for the risky, healing work of being fully known. Because you weren't made to do life alone.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

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https://themlc.life/

What if the most important work you do never shows up on your résumé? In this episode of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast, hosts Andy and Obie redefine what "work" even means — and challenge the lie that a man's worth is measured by his job title and paycheck.

Most men pigeonhole themselves into one vocation: "What do you do?" "I'm in IT." But God calls every man to many vocations — husband, father, friend, neighbor, worker, and yes, even at rest and play. Drawing on Martin Luther's radical idea that changing a diaper and shoeing a horse are just as much a "divine calling" as any pulpit, the guys walk through what Scripture actually says about work, purpose, and meaning — from the Garden of Eden, where work existed before the fall, to the "poetic shepherd-kings" we were created to be.

In this episode we cover:

• Why you have vocations (plural) — and why they start at home, not at the office
• Toxic work environments, and how they follow you home to your marriage and parenting
• Work before the fall vs. work after it — and why heaven isn't sitting on a cloud
• Finding your "why": where your deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger (Frederick Buechner)
• Why it's okay to want to be paid well — and why every hat you wear is an act of worship
• Real stories: a stroke survivor paying it forward, a trucker who lays hands on his 18-wheeler, and a pharmacist installing free heating for a stranger

If you've ever felt stuck, unfulfilled, or like your job is meaningless, this conversation will change how you see your Monday morning. You were created to work — with purpose, with meaning, and with Jesus at the center of it all.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through discipleship, leadership, and authentic friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend. 🎧 themlc.life

Get more information here...

https://themlc.life/

Why is it so hard for men to talk about their feelings? In this episode of the Men's Leadership Community Podcast, hosts Andy and Obie tackle men's emotional health and wellness head-on — the one area of a man's life that gets neglected and avoided the most.

We break the lie of the lone wolf: the idea that a real man shoves his emotions down, "mans up," and struggles alone. The truth is the opposite. God created you as an emotional being, and Jesus Himself experienced the full range of human emotion — sorrow, fear, anger, loneliness — yet without sin. In Gethsemane, He was "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," and He didn't hide it. He cried out for help. We have an emotional Savior who knows exactly what you're carrying.

In this conversation we cover:

• Where anxiety, shame, and fear actually began (hint: Genesis 3, not the 21st century)
• The false stigmas the world puts on men who struggle — and the false narratives the church repeats
• Why "God won't give you more than you can handle" is a misread of Scripture
• Why real men ask for help, and why healing only happens in community
• How to name what you're feeling so it becomes less overwhelming — and why that's biblical

If you're a man wrestling with anxiety, stress, loneliness, or just the pressure to have it all together, this one's for you. You are not weak, you are not alone, and you were never meant to do this by yourself.

The Men's Leadership Community (MLC) is a Christ-centered brotherhood helping men move from surviving to thriving through authentic discipleship, leadership, and friendship. New episodes every Friday. Bring a friend.

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