God's Great Outdoors

Guest (Male): No man is an island. You probably already know this phrase. The words are universally known and often quoted by men and women all over the world, an expression of the idea that men do badly when isolated from others and need to be part of a community in order to thrive. Connection is important for the well-being and the survival of any man. No one can stand alone like an island that is surrounded by only a sea of temptation and pain.

On today's program, we'll hear from a man that was once in the beginning thoughts and planning of a ministry when Jerry Calyway of God's Great Outdoors encouraged him to keep moving forward with his calling. You'll hear of relationships built stronger through the outdoors and through commitments to care for each other and accountabilities. Join us now as we head out together in God's Great Outdoors as we head down the trail to adventure.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors on the trail to adventure. We are in Blythewood, South Carolina, which is just north of Columbia, South Carolina, and we are with Patrick Tyndall. I had to question that, and I did realize that that was the same as the Bible translator, but good to have you.

Patrick Tyndall: Thanks. Happy to be here and so grateful that you and your wife came down to visit.

Dean Hulce: Yeah, it was interesting because I didn't realize that you had any connection with Jerry Calyway, which wasn't a big connection, but it was an encouragement for you. First of all, let's talk about your ministry and what you guys do here at your ministry, and then we'll go back into history a little bit.

Patrick Tyndall: The Lord has given us a ministry called IronMan Outdoors, and we take groups of men on hunting and fishing retreats with the goal of connecting men to Christ in the outdoors. Started in 2007 in my Sunday school class and has just grown. I met Jerry in 2008 at a conference, and he was so encouraging. He said, "Hey, this is going to work, and this is what men need, and you taking them away for a weekend and getting them to take their camo off—that's exactly what we need." We were just figuring things out, and the Lord was just getting us started, so I'm forever grateful to Jerry for that.

Dean Hulce: The encouragement is always good to hear, especially someone that was already in the ministry, working in the outdoors. Why don't you give us a little bit of really how you felt God's calling because you were teaching Sunday school, but you were working on a secular job.

Patrick Tyndall: I was teaching a married couples Sunday school class, which is a very intimidating place for a guy maybe that didn't grow up in church. And we wondered why we don't have more men in our Sunday school class. Well, while I'm teaching that class, I'm also sensing a call. I met a perfect stranger one day, and we had about a five-minute conversation. At the end of that conversation, he said, "Hey, there's a book called The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, and you ought to read it." This was before it was a bestseller. This book had just come out.

First page, first paragraph, first sentence, it says, "It's not about you." And that hit me—it hit me hard, right between the eyes. My whole life up until that point, I was a Christian, but my whole life was about Patrick. "Can I get a better job? Can I get a bigger house? Can I drive the nicest truck on the cul-de-sac?" Everything was just about me, and it flipped that paradigm on its head, and it became about what did God call me to do.

So I talked to my pastor—that's the first place you go—and he said a call to ministry is a call to prepare. And I said, "Okay, and I don't even know what I'm preparing for. Am I going to be a pastor, a missionary, or what am I going to do?" I don't know. But I told my wife and she was supportive, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to take one class at the seminary." Columbia International University is right here close to us. I loved it. It was an Old Testament class. Loved it. Of course, being a Sunday school teacher for a long time, that helped.

But as I began to do this, going to seminary at nights and the weekends—they had an intensive program where you could go for two weeks in the summertime and you could knock out two classes. It took me a long time to get through all of that. But one of my seminary professors, he was my evangelism professor, and he kind of stared into my soul one day, and he said, "Patrick, that could be a lot bigger than just your Sunday school class."

Fast forward, I graduated seminary in 2006. In 2007, that was weighing heavy on me that he had told me that. 2007, I get a group of guys together from my Sunday school class, and I said, "Hey, would y'all serve as a board of directors for a new ministry we're going to start called IronMan Outdoors? We want to take guys on hunting retreats." We had already done that with our Sunday school class. We knew that it worked. We stumbled upon this idea of a manhood discussion. Not a sermon, not a Bible study, a manhood discussion.

So every night on these retreats, we would have a manhood discussion after dinner. And these guys—we didn't ambush anybody with the gospel. We said, "Hey, this is what this weekend's about. If you want to come, we'd love to have you, but every night we're going to have a manhood discussion." So we went fishing at Santee, which is a couple of big lakes here in South Carolina. We went shrimping in the Charleston Harbor, which is something kind of unique to South Carolina; we can do shrimp baiting.

We went hog hunting down in Georgetown, South Carolina, and with every trip, those guys would come back and they got fired up. They were like, "Hey, where are we going next?" I had one particular neighbor named Greg. I had invited Greg and his wife to church ten times, and it was always, "Well, let me see what we got going on this weekend. I'll let you know," which is really a polite way of saying no.

He found out about this hog hunting trip that I took a group of guys on and he said, "Man, I have always wanted to kill a wild hog." I said, "Well, you come with us on this retreat." We had that manhood discussion, and I had a drill sergeant from Fort Jackson with the army. He came with us, and he was a part of our Sunday school class. I said, "Hey, can you share your testimony after dinner that night, and we'll spin that into a manhood discussion?"

Well, we had a great weekend. I think we killed nine hogs. We had just a lot of fun. My neighbor had a great time. So we're in his yard—it was Thursday to Saturday—Saturday afternoon, I had a little bitty John boat, and I'm borrowing his pressure washer because he had all the tools and I had none. And we're pressure washing the blood out of the John boat, and he said, "You think me and my wife could come to your church tomorrow?"

And I said, "Yes." I said, "Not only come to our church, come to our Sunday school class." And Greg showed up, and he walked in the door of a very scary place—a couples Sunday school class—he walked in the door, he was immediately greeted with eight other guys who had all been on that retreat with him that weekend. And we're telling stories about how he actually didn't kill a hog because his gun wasn't loaded.

Dean Hulce: He had the opportunity.

Patrick Tyndall: He had the opportunity but it went click, so we laughed about that. And then about six months later, after several conversations in the yard between his house and my house, Greg prayed to receive Christ as his savior. And my pastor gave me at the time an unbelievable honor: "Hey, you baptize him." And that's when we knew this ministry can work. And so 2007, we formed that 501(c)(3), and God's just blessed it.

Dean Hulce: And then 2008 is when you met Jerry, and he encouraged you.

Patrick Tyndall: That's right. 2008 was Jerry.

Dean Hulce: Well, I love that connection. Even though it wasn't very deep at the time, it's interesting we're back here. I actually met a friend of yours and one of the guys I think that helps you with some stuff here at the ATA show through one of our board members. It's very interesting how God did this. And I got a hold of Todd Steen, right?

Patrick Tyndall: That's right.

Dean Hulce: I got a hold of Todd, and he said, "I'm going to be out of town, but here's the guy you really need to talk to." So it worked out really well there. Tell me, basically, is this still go the same way where you're talking manhood in the evenings then? Are you putting some scripture to that as well?

Patrick Tyndall: Absolutely. So what I tell our guys—and I train our guys on how to—we have 114 volunteer pro-staffers in about 14 states, and they lead these retreats. It all started with just the guys in my Sunday school class, but one of my seminary professors, he said multiplication is better than addition. And addition is Patrick doing more and more retreats. Multiplication is Patrick training other guys on how to do these things.

So the four key parts of a manhood discussion: number one, it's got to be something relevant to you. If it's something that you struggle with as a man, guess what—everybody else does. We like to say that all men struggle with the same things and pretend that we don't. The second thing is give them a good key question. Like what's a good key question?

If we were going to do a manhood discussion on marriage, I would have the guys go around the room—I might even text it to them in the stand that afternoon—"Hey, on a scale of one to ten, how's your marriage?" Ooh, that makes you think, doesn't it?

Dean Hulce: Some of them might even be texting their wife, "What number should I give them?"

Patrick Tyndall: Or counting on their fingers all the things that they fail at. And then we come back that evening, and we go around the room. Everybody's got to participate; everybody's got to have an answer. You have to talk. And we spin that into a conversation.

The third thing after the key question is biblical truth, right? What are some key verses about how a man should love his wife as Christ loved the church? What are some key scripture verses? Because this isn't Dr. Phil and this isn't Oprah. We want God's truth to apply to our lives. And then the fourth part of a manhood discussion is a challenge. What are you going to do differently when you get home after this weekend retreat to sharpen or improve your marriage? What are you going to do? And then give them a chance to answer that, to challenge them.

Dean Hulce: That's awesome. It's actually very similar to our men's breakfast. We started trying to go through books, Act Like a Man—and great things. But what we learned in the end was we just bring some scripture in, and someone will say, "I'm dealing with this" or "I see this in that," and pretty soon we're in that same circle that you're talking about. And it really is, if you just let men talk, and if they start talking their heart, everybody gets involved.

And lots of times we have guys—as you do, I'm sure—that don't say much, but all of a sudden they'll come up with something, and I'm amazed at what they've been listening to and their mind's been going the whole time. It's exciting. I want to hear more, but we have to take a break real quick. Adam will come on and tell everybody who made this show possible by their donations and also how they can come alongside us and help support this ministry. We'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors on the trail to adventure.

Guest (Male): For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors' Trail to Adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls, to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you, and we pray that you feel His blessing as well.

Additionally, underwriting support has been provided by Matthews Archery, the leader in the archery industry; Mission Archery, with revolutionary crossbow technology; Three Rivers Archery, supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment; Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do; and Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives, and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracts, DVDs, and books to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. That's godsgreatoutdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors. We are on the trail to adventure in Blythewood, South Carolina, which probably wasn't very big too many years ago. It's just a Columbia northern suburb kind of thing, but nice little town there. Linda and I are just—actually, I should say we're not just passing through because we were heading to Florida one way or the other, and we looked at different routes we could take, and then after I talked to you, we found our route.

Patrick Tyndall: It's amazing that God would call you out of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in February to Florida. That wasn't hard to answer that call, was it?

Dean Hulce: Not many go and do it for ministry. Most people say, "Oh, you're going on vacation." I say, "You know what? I do very little vacationing." We'll be gone six to eight weeks. I'm usually interviewing; Linda gets to go on vacation. We have a friend in Florida, and they drop me off in a room at the church where I've got my equipment setting up, and I just have—they send one or two guys into me every couple of hours, and they're off getting manicures and pedicures and things like that.

So we're glad to be here. We had a great lunch today and just getting to know each other and our ministries and our hearts. You've got a lot of things coming up. You're doing about 40 events this year. I don't know if that's continually growing.

Patrick Tyndall: It is. When we first started this ministry, it was just in my Sunday school class, and that first year, like 2007, we did three hunting retreats. And I looked around the room and I'm like, "Guys, you all think we can really pull this off? I mean, it was crazy, right?" And now 19 years later, we will have 45—over the next calendar year, we'll have 45 different retreats in about 10 different states.

The ministry has leases in different—we have different pieces of property that God opens those doors. I cannot tell you—people have come to me, "How did you find this property, man? How'd you do it?" I said, "Well, we knew the pastor, and the pastor knew the church organist, and the church organist was this little old lady and she's got these farms and she wanted it to be used for ministry." And that's how we got it. We didn't look on the internet and find a lease; God opened up those doors.

So same thing with Christian landowners. We got two ranches in Texas in the hill country—beautiful property, great deer hunting. We've got nine different farms in Western Kentucky that equals about 1,800 acres. We've got seven different farms that equal about 900 acres in Ohio. We've got four farms that equal 900 acres here in South Carolina. We've got one big farm in Alabama that's about 1,500 acres where we do retreats. So God has opened up these doors, not overnight, but over the years.

Coming up on March 23rd, the week of March 23rd, we call it Deer Week. And that is when each day we will publish a different state where we're doing retreats. And we'll have all those retreats hit the website at about 8:00 that morning. And as you know, there's high demand. Some of those retreats—a lot of those retreats will book either that day, some of them book within an hour of when we put it on the website. We're not outfitters; we're volunteers, but we're pretty serious about deer hunting. We like to see and kill big deer, so we go where big deer are. Deer Week will come up on March 23rd; that'll be on our website, which is ironmanoutdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: As long as we're there talking about that, that's how people get involved on the hunting end. If somebody's listening and they say, "Man, I'd love to host something to share what they have," can they go to the website and just email you or how do they do that?

Patrick Tyndall: Yeah, all of my contact information is on the website. Patrick@ironmanoutdoors.org. My phone number's on there. And that's how this ministry grew from day one. We had Christian landowners who want their property to be used for the kingdom. I had one landowner tell me one time, he said, "Patrick, I've offered to have my church come out here and do stuff on this property." He's got 800 acres on the river and a cabin.

And he said, "You're the first person who's ever taken advantage of it." And he said, "This is why I bought this property." So there are Christian landowners who want their property to be used for kingdom purposes. Reach out to us. We've got the ability. Retreats are what we do, and so we've got the insurance in place, we've got the stands, the buggies, and everything we need to be able to host a retreat.

Dean Hulce: Awesome. I would love one of these days, I should join just to kind of get a feel for what you're doing, because we are doing some things with God's Great Outdoors. And I've done a lot of these type things over the years, but never as an overall ministry. One of the things I've done is a lot with pastors.

When I first started this, I started with—I'd ask a pastor, "The only thing it's going to cost you is to do a devotional one night." And then I realized I just wanted them there to just be one of the guys. They're always going to do ministry if they're really good at what they do, if they're answering the call. But all I want them to do is come and just be one of the men because, as you and I talked, a lot of pastors are in a situation at their church where they can't do that. They can never just be one of the guys, and that's a shame. So that's the guys that we're trying to build up when we do it. Tell us a story—maybe a story of where a life's been changed through this.

Patrick Tyndall: We had a guy reach out to us a couple years ago, and it was the brother-in-law. And he said, "Hey, is there any way I can get my brother-in-law on one of your retreats?" And I told him, I said, "We've got a hog hunt coming up in Alabama, but it's full." And he said, "Man, I really need to get my brother-in-law on this retreat." I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Man, their marriage is in trouble. Like big trouble."

So I called one of my volunteers, and I said, "Hey, I know there's only 13 beds in that cabin, and all 13 of them are full." I said, "But I got one more guy that needs to come." He said, "Man, I'll sleep on the front porch if that's what it takes." So we scholarshiped that guy. Some other people gave some money so that it didn't cost a thing for him to come. He drove all the way from Ohio to Alabama. When he got there, his eyes were red. They thought he'd been drinking. He'd been crying the whole way as he drove down to Alabama.

And during that first manhood discussion, he opened up about unfaithfulness on both sides of the marriage. And it was just like somebody had—the devil had dropped an atomic bomb in his marriage, and he couldn't see straight, he didn't know what was right and what was wrong, he just didn't know what to do. Our guys came around him. We had a lot of conversations about marriage. Those manhood discussions really focused on marriage that weekend.

He was an over-the-road truck driver. And that's how they make good money if they can go long-haul. Well, that was keeping him away from home too. And so the guys on the retreat said, "Hey man, I think you need to—why don't you sell that truck and get you a dump truck and just do local deliveries, local hauling?"

When he got back home to Ohio, he wasn't even sure if his wife was even going to be there because she had already indicated she may be gone. He said, "Hey, I want to try to work things out." He put his truck up for sale, sold that one, bought a local delivery truck. He's home every night. And now—this has been about two years ago—they are still together today. And I ask guys, I said, "Well, what's a marriage worth?" It's worth a lot.

The devil goes to great lengths to try to rip those marriages apart. And one little weekend retreat in Alabama—it really didn't have anything to do with the pig hunting, they enjoyed that—but that weekend it was all about Jim. And we're thankful that God let us be a small part of that story.

Dean Hulce: We have that through our camp. Linda and I have for several years thought, "Should we stop?" It's a lot of work, and it really doesn't make anything. It's ministry. And every year, God sends somebody that comes to Christ. And every year we thought, "That's our reason to keep going."

And we have those. We've had guys that—had one friend that called me one time, and he didn't know the Lord at the time, and he just said, "I can't come this year." And it was because of divorce papers that were filed from his wife. I said, "First of all, don't ever stay home because of that." I said, "If it's financial or whatever, just come. Doesn't matter. God'll take care of it."

And we prayed for him and his marriage, and it worked back out. And there's been other things he's gone through over the years, and just about two years ago, he accepted Christ after 20 years of hunting with us. And I got to baptize him, which was, again, just an awesome thing to be able to do. But those are the type things—if we pour into men and show them what God can do for them, it's more than eternal life. It's a quality of life here.

And I'm sure as you guys are going through these things with Christian guys, we need it as much as the guy that doesn't know Christ. We really do. Give me just a little bit more of the heart of the things, maybe one or two of the other things that you guys work on. You mentioned marriage, but there's a lot more to being real men.

Patrick Tyndall: Dean, these guys get out of the pickup truck. And most of the guys—these are out-of-state hunts; they're not free. It costs money to go do this kind of thing. Most of these are guys that have been successful in one way or another. And they get out of their pickup truck looking like they have got it all together. I mean, we're talking Sitka from head to toe. More money than I've ever spent on camouflage, and they're wearing it all in one outfit.

But on the inside, they're crumbling. On the inside, they're dealing with pride, lust, anger, alcohol—you fill in the blank with whatever sin you want, and these guys are struggling. They're crumbling on the inside, and their marriages are falling apart. Their children are not turning out the way that they thought they should turn out. And "What do I do about this? And I've got all this success in life, but yet there's something missing."

And we know exactly what it is that's missing—it's the gospel of Jesus Christ and a relationship with His Son. And until you have that right relationship, none of these other relationships are going to work. And so that's what we're doing. We're connecting men to Christ, and we're just using the outdoors as a vehicle.

Dean Hulce: And I've found—and we're just about out of time—but one of the things I found long, long time ago, if you want to reach a man that doesn't know the Lord, if you want to reach him for Christ, and he's got a passion for the outdoors, you're halfway there. Because Christ is going to show himself through the creation. And when you can tie those two together, you're halfway there. They're willing to talk in that way.

Patrick Tyndall: We are without excuse. Romans chapter one.

Dean Hulce: Absolutely. Well, listen, we're out of time on the radio. We're going to jump to the podcast. So for our listeners, if you're on the radio right now, go to wherever you can get a podcast from, basically any podcast app, and you can join in with us on the second half. But if you're only on radio, we appreciate you joining us. Thank you for joining us.

Patrick Tyndall: Thank you so much for having me.

Dean Hulce: We're going to jump into the podcast here in a second, but join us each week on God's Great Outdoors as we head down the trail to adventure.

Guest (Male): In the Bible, Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." In life, we're called to hold each other up and to have someone alongside us for accountability. When we think about iron sharpening iron, we think about a dull knife being slid across a surface of a sharpening steel. With each swipe, that knife becomes sharper and sharper, as well as becoming more and more useful.

We have to make sure that the knife has to touch the steel in order to make it become useful. You wave the knife around within a fraction of an inch, but if it never touches, it doesn't do anything at all. It's the same of men as well. If we aren't close to one another, we'll never become what God has designed us to be. We challenge you to find some men that love God and make ourselves accountable and available to one another.

Become all that God wants you to be and help build other men in the same way. If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by and can be contacted at God's Great Outdoors, PO Box 414, Powers, Michigan, or on the website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. Thank you for joining us again this week. We look forward to meeting up with you each week as we together travel down the trail to adventure in God's Great Outdoors.