Faith, Culture, And The Show Format

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Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the Wall Builder Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. WallBuilders.show, if you need to catch up on any of the programs that we've recorded over the last few weeks and months, it's all available right there at wallbuilders.show. Basically, what you get is Monday through Wednesday, typically interviews with special guests that are on the front lines out there. And then Thursdays, that's our Foundations of Freedom Thursday, where you get to send in the questions, which you can do right now, radio at wallbuilders.com, radio at wallbuilders.com. Send in any question about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, Declaration, Bills that are going through Congress right now or in your state or something that's happened at the local level, and you might have a question about the historical um you know references that would help to have a good perspective on that issue today, or maybe maybe the constitutional question of how that is to be applied in that particular issue, or perhaps a biblical perspective on that particular issue. Send in those questions to radio at wallboulders.com. We'll get to as many of those as we can on Thursdays. This week we're we're gonna have a little bit different uh Thursday. Oh, and by the way, Fridays are Good News Friday. That's of course when David and Tim rattle off all the pieces of good news that they've gathered, or as many as they can rattle off in our 30-minute program uh that they've gathered over the uh previous week or so. So interviews Monday through Wednesday, Thursdays Foundations Freedom Thursday, and then of course Good News Friday going into the

Why Thursday Becomes An Interview

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weekend. But this week we're gonna do something a little bit different. We'll we'll be using up our Thursday program in order to share a really cool interview that Tim just did with Josh McPherson. And uh we had Josh on, oh, I think it was about three weeks ago, maybe a month ago, talking about this incredible conference coming up where um just uh amazing gathering of Christian men from across the nation at the Gorge Amphitheater. It's uh Father's Day weekend. Man, it's gonna be amazing. Uh incredible. David and Tim will both be out there. I can't make it, I was already booked somewhere. But the lineups uh off the charts, man. I'm talking Eric Metaxis, John Lovell, Nick Freitas, I mean all these folks, Chad Robershaw. It's gonna be amazing. Anyway, um, so so Tim will be talking with Josh a little bit about that, but also just talking about men's ministry and stronger man nation and all of these cool things that uh that are being launched, tools that dads everywhere need to use. So let's jump into the interview of Tim Barton with Josh McPherson.

Josh McPherson’s Story And Family Trials

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Today I am joined by someone who has quickly become one of my favorite people. I I haven't even known him that long. I'm so excited to have Pastor Josh McPherson on the program with us today. He's a lead pastor at Gray City Church. Uh, God is doing so much in and through him right now. I was very privileged to be in Washington, D.C. with him not very long ago, doing a pastor's event at the White House with a faith office. Just incredible stuff. I want you to hear all about and hear some of the story and testimony. So join me welcoming Pastor Josh McPherson. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Huge, huge honor, Tim. Thanks for having me. And I already realized I said McPherson instead of McPherson. So I apologize. I'm not even saying your last name right. I know better. No, no. You you did good. You did good. I know your pastor's heart. You're gonna forgive me. Uh, and and we'll move on. So it's okay. So for for those that don't know, I I obviously just explained that you're a pastor, but I appreciate even some of your background because because I I've heard you tell some of your story, uh, homeschool life, uh growing up. So, so for everybody who doesn't know you, will you walk us through some of your own story? Absolutely. Uh born uh to Greg and Candy McPherson in the heart of Washington State, I have one brother and we were homeschooled. And my parents, oddly enough, they started homeschooling us right at the time when it was not quite legal, almost barely legal. I mean, it's hard to imagine, but in 1979, it like wasn't legal to homeschool kids. And so uh my mom had a very deep conviction that God gave her and her husband children to raise, not the state children to raise. And so uh they were very clear about that. So was raised by a very patriotic uh father and mother. And um, Fourth of July was a bigger deal than Christmas sometimes. I mean, just the decorations and and the radio shows we'd listen to and the books we'd read, and grew up reading uh World War II books that my mom would hand me. So had an incredible childhood, was raised in Leavenworth, Washington, an incredible place to grow up, up on the mountains in a cabin of my grandpa built the year before I was born. So, you know, four or five feet of snow a year, uh, bears in the front yard, hunting, fishing, uh hiking, just being outdoors as a boy should, had an incredible childhood. Um, went to college at George Fox University, met my wife Sharon, got married, came back, uh, did a few years in real estate. I sold real estate, did a few years in law enforcement, did a few years as a framer and builder, framing and building houses. Um, uh went to seminary to get my seminary degree and started doing youth conferences and then planted a church. We've done that for 18 years now, um, Grace City Church. Um, have four kids. Our oldest daughter, Ella May, you met Ella May, she was born uh with Spina bifida, which is a huge part of our story. She's in a wheelchair. Uh Levi, she's 20. Levi's 19 and married. You met uh Levi. Um Amelia is 16, and then Gideon is 13, and Gideon was also born with Spina bifida. It's not hereditary. Uh it was just lightning striking twice. Um, and so um between my wife's heart attack and my two children's spinal cord and brain surgeries, we've had like 22 surgeries in the family in the last 10 years, which has been crazy. So that's been a huge part of our story as well. Quick break, everybody. We're gonna take uh a quick break here, and uh, we'll be right back with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. You're listening to the Wallboarder Show. Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We're looking around for leaders of principle to step up, and too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They're crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit, and every area of the culture. They're leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation, and now's your chance to experience this life-changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit PatriotAcademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders, 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a Citizen Track for Adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at Patriotacademy.com.

From Building Houses To Planting A Church

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We're back on the Wallboard Show. Thanks for staying with us, jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. We're in Washington going strong, uh having fun, uh trying to stay alive and see if we can turn the state around and get it back on track so that it can actually be a place where families flourish, and uh, which is not exactly the case right now, but that's a whole other conversation. That's my story in a nutshell. And and and knowing some of the background, so part of the history nerd of me is going like Washington State exists because of a missionary named Marcus Whitman. And right, I mean, literally, and you talk about hearing your background as a as a pastor, knowing that you've been a builder, that you've been in law enforcement, you grew up hunting in the outdoors, that's not a typical pastor thing, but also like Marcus Whitman, he he was a frontiersman who goes as a missionary and a pastor. Knowing that that's some of the background, it's it's really interesting, Josh, to see where some of the places that were birthed specifically because of Christians, the influence of Christian leaders. When you look, for example, like Massachusetts, uh up in Boston, literally it was the pastors, it was the Christians, it was their influence that were part of the impetus that birthed America. And today, that's one of the most secular places in America today. It really is crazy how far some of that legacy has fallen in a wrong direction. So let me back you up. So before you go to seminary, it sounded like just in sequence, you were a builder, you're framing houses. So what happens in your life? You're like, you know what? I really need to build a church. And to do that, I got to go to seminary. What what is that progression? What in your mind click to make you go, I'm gonna not be a builder, I'm gonna be a pastor. Yeah. That's a great question. Um, there's a lot of ways to answer. I think uh the most honest answer, not honest, the the most simplest way to answer would be it's just it was in my family DNA and chemistry. So when I looked, I did two years in youth ministry, two years in real estate, two years in law enforcement, two years in in uh in building, and I was 27 going, I got a two-year pattern here of moving on and getting bored, and this is making me nervous. I am I gonna land on anything and do it consistently for more than 24 months. And what my wife helped me see was that the consistent thread through all of those activities had been building men in ministry. So whether I was selling real estate or in law enforcement or building homes, I was always involved in ministries, doing Bible studies, doing speaking at conferences, organizing youth events. Um, and so when I was 10 years old, I was at, I was, I haven't thought of this in years. This is wild. When I was 10 years old, Tim, I was at I was at a Warm Beach camp. My dad was preaching, talking about the cross, surrendering to the call of God in your life, and the Spirit of God just came on me. And I went out into the playground, crawled into this tube on the playground with communion, and was just weeping as a 10-year-old, Lord, I give you my life, I want to serve you, follow you. And the Lord just spoke so clear to me, Tim. Because I was like, should I be a fireman? Should I be a cop? All the things that, you know, should I be a soldier, all the things that 10-year-old boys want to do? And the Lord spoke for me very clearly, and he said, You're not gonna go into one profession for my name. I'm gonna put you in a profession where you can touch all the professions for my name. And so uh I didn't know what that meant at the time, but obviously I know now as a minister of the gospel, I get to pastor men and lead men and challenge men and build men and catalyze men and encourage men and strengthen men who are in every sphere of society, every every specter of society, doing all sorts of different things. And so that began to rise in my heart about 26, 27. And actually, I was I was in Minneapolis at a conference um for Desiring God Ministries, uh, listening to John Piper and John MacArthur and Randy Alcorn and all these great men. And I got invited to move back there and help run some of their conferences by the man who was running Desiring God and went back to our hotel room and I said, I said, honey, this is a chance of a lifetime. And she said, Um, when are you gonna do what God puts you on earth to do? And I said, What do you mean by that? And she said, You are meant to run conferences, you are meant to speak at conferences. And what she meant by that was God's put a call in your life to preach, not just organize. And so we went back and we planted Gray City Church, and that started with my dad and my brother and a couple of our close friends who've been mentored by my mom and dad, um, which by the way, I met your parents, adorable. They are so sweet. And I just, you know, you meet some people, you just instantly love them. It's like that was your mom and dad. And I'm like, they would be such good friends with my mom and dad. I bet they could finish each other's sentences, and so um we went back and planted the church and started literally the classic in our living room with with uh six couples and dear friends, and the rest of they say is history.

Why Reaching Men Rebuilds Families

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So one of the things you've said several times is that there's a ministry to men. And I'm picking up on that now. I already know you, but I I heard it several times. So where along the journey do you feel that God birthed something in you that you're not just you're not a standard pastor, and I don't mean to be disparaging to like the standard pastors, but we know that right? There's there's 380,000 whatever senior churches and pastors in America, and and so many of them it seems like, just statistically affirms this, they're far more comfortable to be teachers, they don't want to be offensive, there's a seeker-friendly gospel, or sometimes they even reject the Bible. There, there's this woke things. So much has happened inside the church, and yet we know that God is on the move, and part of God being on the move. There is an increase of Gen Z and millennial young men that are coming to faith that want to grow and be disciples. And so I I I think your heart was already there before we saw the transition, but I don't know. So did you see part of the transition in your heart change or did did God lead you there before culture shifted? How did that work for you? Um, I I I I don't it's just been on my heart. I don't know. I mean, I I don't want to say since I was a kid, but um whether it was how I was raised in my home uh or or the unique call of God my life, for me, it just has just made always made sense. If you win the men, you win the family. If you win the family, you win the community. If you win the community, you win the state, you win the state, you win the nation, you win the nation, win the world. It just worked itself out. If the man fails to do his job, then everything else suffers. And so um so my dad, this is interesting. These are things I haven't thought about or talked about, you're asking good questions. My dad spent like like something like 20,000 hours in crises counseling situations. And so he'd be in these crises counseling situations, he would come back and then he would dump everything that he had just been dealing with. That's the wrong way to say it. He would process all the things he had just talked with in these counseling situations with us at the dining room table. And so I grew up to him eight, nine, ten, twelve hearing about these dumpster fire marriages and these dumpster fire families. Uh and and and and and what it did, I think it grew at me a conviction as my dad would talk is if the man would do his job, and if the man would step up and pursue and win and love and protect and nurture and strengthen and build the heart of his wife, and the man would show up and protect his kids and provide for his kids and lead his kids and love them like Jesus, the statistics show, man. If a dude goes to church, 90% of the time his family gets saved. If the wife goes to church, 15% of the time they get saved. It's like there's something in how God has built the world to work that the men are supposed to go first. The men are called to lead. Another break today, guys. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show. This is Tim Barden from Wall Builders with another moment from American history. Many today wrongly claim our founding fathers were largely atheists, agnostics, and deists. Certainly some founders were less religious than others, but even they were not irreligious. Consider Benjamin Franklin. Definitely one of the least religious among them, yet when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention hit an impasse in their deliberations, it was Franklin who called them to prayer, invoking numerous scriptures to make his point. As he reminded them, God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. So even the least religious of America's founders urge public prayer and dependence on God. For more information about the faith of the Founding Fathers, go to wallbuilders.com.

Kill The Dragon Win The Girl

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Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Thanks for staying with us, jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. When one man failed, it required 10 men to replace him. Because it just made so much sense. It's like, what's better here? That my dad step in and try to love Johnny, whose dad's abandoned him, or Johnny's dad just stay and do his job? Well, of course it's better for Johnny if his dad does his job, because when my dad has to do Johnny's dad's job, both Johnny and me are suffering because Johnny's dad bailed. So it just made sense to me. Like if every guy just did his job, everything instantly gets stronger. And it's remarkable to me because in the plan of God, you don't have to be a rocket scientist, you don't have to be a wizard, you don't have to be exceptionally gifted. All you have to do to make a global impact for the kingdom of God is to do the job that God has assigned you. And so Strong Imagination, our motto is kill the dragon, win the girl. And in those six words, I think we have captured both um the story of the galaxy we live in and the job of every man when he wakes up in the morning. So so obviously Can I already say, like, I I haven't heard you use those words before. Again, for those listening, we haven't been friends all that long. No, like I just love getting to know you boys. It's so great. We're in single-digit days, bro. But literally, when you said those words, like something inside of me was like, Yes, kill a dragon win, like, yes. It resonates on such a deep level. Yes. And and and I feel like I I'm living that. I I literally am following God's call in my life. I I have a wife, and we have a great marriage, and we have like I'm there, and yet it still resonates. That's right. Kill the dragon win the girl. That's right. Okay, it's profound. Okay, so please keep going. That was amazing. So uh dude, I love you so much. So what what day is it today? Help me out. It's it's Tuesday. We met, we met uh Wednesday. Is that right? I think we met. Dude, this is a six-day friendship that's just so rich. I I just treasure our our our six-day friendship. This is awesome. So when I say killer dragon win the girl, there's two things happening. We're capturing the global story we the cosmic story we live in, and the calling on your life every day. And what what's beautiful about and what resonates with it is it will demand everything you have to accomplish today, and then you got to get up and do it again tomorrow. Like you've never arrived in the business of killing the dragon and winning the girl. What resonates in your heart, Tim, is that you know intuitively it will require you to be the best man you can possibly be to accomplish it. So let's talk the cosmic story. We know at the end of the day, this whole story that we're all wrapped up in is a it it is the fact that there is a dragon wreaking havoc on the king's people. And we need someone desperately to kill the dragon so they can win the girl. And thanks be to God, that story has an ending that's been promised in the King Jesus Christ, who's gonna come back and once and for all put the dragon down and win his bride and take her to heaven. So that that's exhilarating. But but on the local level, it's the duty of every man to wake up every morning and kill the dragon and win the girl, and the first dragon that he sees in the morning is in the bathroom mirror. Yep. And and so what I love about the focus of of Kill a Dragon Win the Girl for our movement of strong imagination is it doesn't put the first the focus out there. Go kill all the nasty D you know Democrat dragons. No, no, no. See if you're man enough to kill the dragon that rises up in the form of your flesh every morning when you're tired, when you're selfish, when you're run down, or whatever. And so when you focus there, it it builds into the movement a baseline humility that we all have a dragon to kill, and the first one we see is in the mirror. And then winning the girl, I tell my young boys is this it's like uh my my 19-year-old son's married, my 13-year-old son is not uh yet. But what I told my boys before they were married was this um you do not yet have a face or a name of the girl that God's gonna call you to win. But that doesn't mean that you can't start winning her right now with how you live your life and make your life decisions before you've even met her. So I tell you, young men is you're you're you're preparing to win the girl you haven't even met yet by how you're making decisions as a single man in your thought life when no one is looking, walking in integrity. So live in such a way as to be worthy of winning the girl God brings to you one day. And then to my son, who's been married to his sweet, precious wife for almost a year. The beauty he's finding out is to be the kind of man that can win the kind of girl that you'd want to marry requires you to be better today than you were yesterday. And here's the cool thing that you find out after you get married you don't win her once. Yeah, bro. God's called us to win her heart every day. And that requires, I think that requires that challenges the heart of a man that resonates with how God wired him. It taps into our fundamental wiring as a man that I was made and given the power and authority to kill the dragon in Jesus' name. And I was given the challenge of knowing how to woo and win the heart of a girl. Another break for today, folks. Stay with us. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show. Hey, this is Tim Barton with Wall Builders. And as you've had the opportunity to listen to Wall Builders Live, you've probably heard the wealthy. Information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the wall builders' guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a wall builder speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling. And if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers' bios to events that are already going on. And there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the wall builders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Motivating Passive Young Men To Grow

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Welcome back to the Wall Builders show. Thanks for staying with us. Jumping back in with Tim Barton and Josh McPherson. God has made this female species so complex and so intricate that it's not a one-dimensional winning. Because what would win her heart today may not be what will win her heart tomorrow, which means you got to be paying attention, you gotta be curious, you have to ask questions, you have to listen, you have to observe, and all of that makes a man better. And so, in even how God wired a woman to be, and the responsibility God gave a man to carry, by nature, if we live into that, it makes us better day by day. What a brilliant and beautiful design of God. So I I have so many thoughts and questions because I I want to go through these and we don't have time for all of them. So let me throw out three thoughts, and you pick the one you like the most. Okay. So I I actually, you know what? No, we we have two of them we have to do anyway. Cause I want to know when was Stronger Man Nation birthed. I want to know what is happening in your church right now, like from where you started to where you are. Yeah. But maybe so maybe let's knock this first one out real quick. So, what happens when we have a a culture and generation when so many young men, now God is moving young men, uh they're they're being drawn to the Lord, incredible. Revival's happening. Yes, but so many young men, I I I know young men and and they are comfortable living at home with their parents, they want to play their video games, they're not pursuing girls, they're not trying to kill the dragon. So, if, for example, there are parents maybe listening right now, or maybe there are some people listening and they got a friend, what can be done to maybe help encourage, challenge, motivate? Is this something we like? We just gotta pray for them. Yeah, what do you do to help reach people who haven't understood or embraced that concept? That's a huge topic. We could go a thousand different ways. Um our culture has become so safe that we don't need dangerous men, and that's not a good thing. Um, what a young man needs to feel immediately and as soon as humanly possible is that he's needed and he needs to carry his fair share. So when parents treat their sons as if they're not needed or necessary, or when parents do things for their sons that he should do for himself, they're they're neutering him, they're domesticating him. And and and and the thing about it is they're appealing to the flesh that wants to lazy way out. Look, let's be very clear. To be a stronger man means you have to die to yourself, die to your desire to be comfortable, die to your desire to be served. It is a sacrificial so we say like this as a stronger man, I will be as a choice of my will, ready, willing, and able to do my job in the service of others no matter the cost of myself. And so that that's that's like the strong imagination pledge. And so we unpack that as I will be as a choice of my will, ready of mind, I've thought it through, willing of heart, I want to, and able of hands, I am capable of. Doing my job as a soldier, farmer, athlete, son. These are these are categories that Paul gives us in Timothy, or protector, provider, leader, lover, doing my job in the service of others. So it's not about wielding my power for me, but wielding it for the good of others, and that's a huge part of our movement because we believe God made men powerful. So this whole Marxist kind of push in our culture where

Part One Wrap And What’s Next

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power is bad. No, no, power God's powerful. We've been made in his image. All right, folks, got to interrupt uh the interview with Josh McPherson in order to uh come back tomorrow and Thursday. So this is gonna be a three-part series, and so you'll be able to get it all at wallboarders.show. But for now, it's part one. Tomorrow, you get part two. Thanks for listening to the WallBulder Show.