God's Great Outdoors

Adam: When God created men and women, he placed fathers in the home to lead and be an example of our Heavenly Father to the sons and daughters. Until recently, most homes had a father in the home, but today it is unfortunate that only about 50% of homes have a father in them. Many young boys are being raised without a father to show them what it means to be a man or a father.

On today’s program, we will hear from a man that was raised without a steady influence of a full-time father. We’ll see how other men came alongside him as a boy to point him towards Jesus Christ. They also spent time with him to show him what a man should be. Then we’ll hear how this same man is now working to gather men together to work with fatherless boys and other boys that God has put in his path. Please join us now on God’s Great Outdoors as we head down the trail to adventure, seeing men change the lives of boys and our country.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors, the Trail to Adventure. We are today in the Lynchburg area in Virginia. We are actually in Rustburg, Virginia, and tucked in the back behind some big buildings is the office of KOZ. We are with Rick McGee, the director of KOZ. Is that your title, Rick?

Rick McGee: Chief of Operations. That means I empty the trash and sweep the floor.

Dean Hulce: We've had a little bit of a chance to visit here just getting ready and getting set up. You've had an interesting lead through your life to get to where you're at today. I'd love for you to just give us a little background on how you got started in this direction.

Rick McGee: Thank you for this opportunity. I grew up with a single mom and was the middle of three boys. Dad was involved in our lives once or twice a year, but we were raised by Mom. That middle child syndrome, I have it clearly. I was the black sheep and the rebel.

Early in life, Mom had a drug problem. She drugged us to church every Sunday, every Wednesday, every time the doors opened. We mowed the grass and did it all. I grew up in a good home, but in poverty. Through that journey, there was a pastor that showed up when I was nine years old. He was a man's man. He was the middle linebacker for Mississippi College, and we were his first church.

He got a real country church experience from us, but my fatherless umbilical cord just attached to him. So many mannerisms and so many things I got from him. He had a genuine, authentic faith, and he was a soul winner and a go-getter. I just loved him. He would even take me hunting, and he wasn't a hunter. He invested in me as well.

In that journey, he really opened my eyes to the Gospel. I did a walk down the aisle in that time period in a vacation Bible school. A year or two later after he left that church, when I was 13, the Holy Spirit really convicted me that I was just playing the church game and that I had never surrendered my heart to Jesus Christ.

That night, laying in bed, it was my John chapter 3, born-again moment. I realized I was a sinner in need of a Savior. I repented and confessed my belief in him. The journey began. It was very imperfect, but God laid an anchor in my soul and made me his. It was the beginning of my real relationship with Jesus.

I played high school football, and hunted and fished as my escape. I went to college at Mississippi State and majored in forestry and forest products. I went into that industry and worked there for 14 years. I worked in Mississippi at a plywood mill and then moved here to Virginia, which began our relationships here. I worked at an OSB mill and then a paper mill. I moved to Alabama with the paper industry.

Fourteen years later, God called me into the ministry. It wasn't a planted seed thought. That did happen a long time before, but one morning I had been praying. I asked God if this was not it, what was it? I was in industry enjoying my work, but he clearly called me into ministry.

I called our pastor here in Virginia and told him about it. He told me later he was wiping chill bumps off because they were looking for an administrative pastor. I ended up coming back here and served at that church as the church administrator and men's pastor for 14 years. Seems like things are happening on the 14-year increments.

It's been a fascinating journey. My love for the outdoors has always been there. My wife and I met on the first-grade school bus. We dated off and on through high school and early college, and we both knew we were the ones. We married halfway through college. She put me through, and then I worked and put her through. We have three boys, and they're now men, ages 30, 28, and 26. We have a granddaughter. It is just a glorious journey into this.

My love for the outdoors has always been there. It started as an escape. It was my passion. I'd rather be spending money on shotgun shells and fishing equipment than drinking or partying. It helped me and protected me in a lot of ways. It was one of God's protections for me.

Dean Hulce: I have tons of questions. You said your pastor really mentored you and came alongside as a father figure at that point. He must have been fairly young.

Rick McGee: He was. He was 22 or 23 at the time.

Dean Hulce: He probably seemed older to you as a young boy. It's funny how that happens as we get old. But he wasn't a hunter. He wasn't an outdoorsman really, but he still put that time in. How did you go from not being an outdoors person to being one? Was it just self-taught, or did you have other men from church that came alongside?

Rick McGee: Great question. I remember learning to shoot a shotgun with my eyes closed and my head turned and wincing to pull the trigger the first time. No one was there. My grandfather was in our life, and my uncle, but they were just workers. It was about farm maintenance and mechanics.

My grandfather survived the Great Depression, so it was about work for them. They taught me a lot about work, as did my mother. But I had this affinity and love for the outdoors. The first shotgun I ever got was my grandfather's Iver Johnson double barrel. He gave it to me for Christmas among five grandchildren. I'm not sure how that shook out.

So, I was very much self-taught. But I will say, along the way in every stage of my life, it seems like men have shown up in my life at strategic moments giving counsel and advice. There were some moments I was alone and had to navigate things, but one of God's amazing graces to me has been mentors along the way. It still is. I have a propensity and a desire for older men with gray or no hair around me.

Dean Hulce: I have both. We're going to take a break because we want to go from there into how God used that to do what you're doing now and changing lives. We're changing lives day to day, but changing lives eternally. Adam is going to come on and share who it is that makes this program possible and let you know how you can come alongside us as well. Join us in just a minute on God's Great Outdoors as we head down the Trail to Adventure.

Adam: For over 30 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 for you to feel his blessings as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Mathews Archery, the leader in the archery industry; Mission Archery, with revolutionary crossbow technology; Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do; Center Shot Ministries, hit the mark with Center Shot; Wheelchair Whitetails, guided whitetail deer hunts for wheelchair-bound disabled hunters; and Hodgdon Powder Company, the gunpowder people, delivering reliable performance and precision you can trust every time.

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 on the Trail to Adventure in Rustburg, Virginia. We were talking about your dad and not having a strong relationship. It was a connection as a boy, but tell us about how that happened later on in life as you move forward.

Rick McGee: Dad stayed engaged in our lives throughout our childhood and adulthood. On the very rare occasion, when he was 62 years old, he went to church with us. It surprised us because normally when it was church time, if he came for a visit Sunday morning, he had to get home.

He agreed to go to church with us and the pastor had a beautiful message with the Gospel. At the invitation, I felt him shaking sitting next to me. I looked over and he was having a hard time keeping it together. I said, "Dad, if you want to go down there, I'd go with you." He said, "Come on."

He went down and he said, "Pastor, my son here is a pastor and I need to get saved." That pastor beautifully said, "Well, brother, I'd love to just be a part of this and watch you usher your dad into the kingdom." Dad surrendered his life to Christ right there and he changed.

Sometimes you have those experiences where you don't know what the heart is like. I called him the next week just to check on him. It was Wednesday or Thursday and very unlike him, there was a lot of noise in the background. It was a gym. I said, "Dad, what are you doing?"

He said, "Well, we saw there was a Vacation Bible School going on at the church down the road. We were looking for churches so we just came and told them we'd help out. We're serving Kool-Aid." This is a guy that would never do that.

He became deeply integrated in that church. That pastor became one of his best friends. He has since passed away and he's with Jesus now. One of the joys and rescues in many ways of our childhood is watching my dad come to Christ and then walk it out, even through some hard times at the end.

Dean Hulce: That's a story we don't hear that often. There's so many boys and girls, but boys need a dad. To regain even a much deeper relationship at the end is amazing. You can have a relationship with somebody, but when you're literally his son but also his brother at that point, that's a pretty amazing part of the story.

Your background from two years old on led you to exactly what you are doing now and who you are now. It goes from not having a full-time dad in the home and not knowing how to do the things that a man does or act the way a man should act. Luckily, God put that pastor in there to help direct you, but it's still not having a dad in the home.

Eventually, we talked about you going for 14 years into the church locally here. From there, you got called to another calling. Actually, we've got a friend of yours and a friend of mine sitting in with us, Dan Witt, who the listeners have heard just once on the radio. You guys got called together into men's ministry, which has gone into your Kids Outdoor Zone ministry. Tell us first of all how you got in and then tell us as much as you can about what you guys are doing.

Rick McGee: When God called me to come on staff up here, the church's name is Highland Heights Baptist Church just outside of Lynchburg. Dan Witt and I had been great friends before when we lived here and had been working in the timber industry.

I got back on staff and Dan and I would meet up. We would just kind of mention, wouldn't it be great if we had a way to get guys outside? There's a lot of outdoorsmen in our church. We decided we should have an outdoor ministry. We began this journey that started that very thing. That outdoor ministry still exists today, some 12 to 15 years later.

I had this bend and this preoccupation with getting outside. It is where I would hear God the best, in a morning bow stand or on the deck of a boat. We began the outdoor ministry and it grew. We acquired a 500-acre hunting lease and we developed that property, had events, and had men have amazing experiences and stories. God just started showing up in that ministry in a big way.

This guy showed up at a men's conference here locally. I was actually even sharing men's ministry in the outdoors as a breakout session based on what we had done at some conferences. This guy calls me. His name is TJ Greaney, the founder of Kids Outdoor Zone. He said, "Hey, I see you're doing this breakout for an outdoor ministry. I'm doing an outdoor ministry. I'd love to visit and chat about doing this. We're new and never done this before."

I went to that breakfast before the conference started. He was from Texas and had flown in with some guys. I called him that morning and said, "TJ, I've got a widow, a single mom in the church, with a toilet plugged and she needs help." Actually, it was broken. I said, "I've got a toilet in the back of my truck to go install. I can give you five minutes, but I've got to go."

I pulled in, we had coffee, and two hours later I left. TJ told me the story of taking boys one Saturday morning a month there at his local church fishing and shooting or doing archery. I was that boy. If I'd had that, I get chill bumps right now thinking of what life would have been like or different if I'd had a group of men focused on teaching skills, loving and caring for my soul, and using creation and the outdoors as a venue.

I left there and said, "I cannot not do this." We were busy. My wife, bless her heart, I can only imagine what she thought when she heard I was going to do one more thing. We started our KOZ chapter in September of 2013. I had a band of brothers buddies that were in. We probably had five or six men that jumped in. Our first KOZ, we had like 15 or 20 boys and we took them skeet shooting. A gunsmith came and broke down guns and taught the boys things and showed them the benefits of keeping your equipment up. It was about investing in the things that are transfer of knowledge.

One thing I heard years ago, and I think it was Robert Lewis that I credit this quote to, is "What men don't know, they get angry about." I was angry. There were things I didn't know how to do as a man. They were even in the spaces I enjoyed, like hunting and fishing. There are things I've learned from my good friend Dan, from others, and from men along the way, but there were gaps. Those spaces for a man create tension. "I'm not good enough." It creates an agreement from the enemy that you're not worthy of someone else's skill level or to be in the room or to be in a conversation with a guy that is so good at everything. That's the agreement Satan's whispering.

When you fill those gaps, it starts taking away things he can claim against you. We just began this incredible adventure. It came to a place that KOZ Saturday mornings became the most important and consequential thing I do in ministry. I'm administering a church of over a thousand, and we're having to manage a budget and manage a staff. I feel like what we were doing was consequential. But when I'm with those boys, I'm seeing even the men heal. The first group of men that we had as KOZ leaders, not one of them knew how to skin a deer. So we just added to their inventory and added to the boys, and it was just this beautiful journey.

Dean Hulce: Unfortunately for the radio, we're about out of time. But I want you to share before we get off how people learn about this and how they get ahold of you if they want to do a Kids Outdoor Zone chapter in their area or how they come alongside you.

Rick McGee: Truly, our website does it all. You can do everything from starting a group in your church to connecting with us as partners. However you want to deal with it, hit that "Start a Group" button for more information on starting a group. We give you a free ebook on why this is important for a time such as this. Just imagine what if a whole generation of boys were mentored and discipled. It would change the world. Kidsoutdoorzone.com is the way to connect with us. It's a full stop shop.

Dean Hulce: If our listeners have an interest, and all men should have an interest because this is a generational thing and it's not just the generation you're dealing with but it's many generations to come. If you're listening today, please consider this. Pray about it, but go to kidsoutdoorzone.com. Gather the information and consider with your guys at church or your hunting buddies that know Christ and want to share in this. Get ahold of kidsoutdoorzone.com and learn about it and consider jumping in because it'll not only change the lives of some kids but it'll change your life as well.

Thank you for joining us for the radio. We're going to jump to the podcast here. If our listeners can join us, we'd love that. If not, join us here on the radio next week in God's Great Outdoors as we head down the Trail to Adventure.

Adam: For over 30 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 for you to feel his blessings as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Mathews Archery, the leader in the archery industry; Mission Archery, with revolutionary crossbow technology; Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do; Center Shot Ministries, hit the mark with Center Shot; Wheelchair Whitetails, guided whitetail deer hunts for wheelchair-bound disabled hunters; and Hodgdon Powder Company, the gunpowder people, delivering reliable performance and precision you can trust every time.

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 to the Trail to Adventure podcast. Again, we are in Rustburg, Virginia, in central Virginia near Lynchburg. We are with Rick McGee, who is with Kids Outdoor Zone ministry. We just started talking about the ministry as we got done with the radio program, but I'd love for you to share more. First of all, we know why you got involved. You didn't have somebody there all the time growing up. But I'd love for you to talk a little bit more and tell us more about what the ministry does and why it does it. Then we're going to talk a little bit about some lives that have been changed.

Rick McGee: Thank you again, Dean. By the way, I do fall in the category where Dan Witt is much older than me. The ministry of Kids Outdoor Zone, we call it KOZ, using the acronym. We're an outdoor adventure ministry for men of the church, and their mission field are the boys in their community and church.

We provide training. We have five hours of video time for training for the men, and then we also provide curriculum. Over these years, we now have over 10 years of monthly curriculum. So the guy that's busy and just needs to know what a topic is can embrace it: archery, fishing, shooting, hunting, camping, hiking. Every month has a theme, a devotion laid out, and an "After the Adventure" portion where the two are wrapped together.

We offer that as part of our program. Our big objective is to share this with any man or any group of men that are willing to do it. What we found is that when boys just get friendship and relationships with men, it opens their eyes to what a man looks like.

The men don't have to be perfect. They don't have to have a theology degree. They don't have to be a Sunday school teacher. We've had men early in their Christian faith start a KOZ group. The men around them, their pastor, and whomever is mentoring them provide the content of relationships and pouring into these boys. Sometimes we even get raised by the boys a little bit. They challenge us and question us.

We have seen spiritual growth in men as much as we have boys. Matter of fact, truly, a common statement back to me is, "I think we were misled a little bit." And I'll say, "How is that?" They say, "This means more and is having an impact on me and my buddies as much as it's impacting the boys." It truly is a men's ministry where the mission field is the boys.

Dean Hulce: I think that's true in anytime we're serving. If we're really doing it for the Lord, we get as much out of it than the people who were serving. Christ himself came to serve, not to be served. That's the point of focus for us to follow as men in Christ.

Rick McGee: Something was said earlier about generations. You mentioned generations to come, and that is so true. Another idea that this provokes is where else in the church are we putting all the generations together? We are truly finding that here. We have 70-plus-year-old men leading a KOZ group with eight-year-old boys, ten-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and 18-year-olds, along with a 25-year-old leader, a 30-year-old leader, and a 50-year-old leader.

It's this incredible place where multiple generations come together, learn from each other, and serve together and grow from each other. We've just found that to be this incredible life-giving picture of the church outside the church.

Dean Hulce: That is what the church should be. Unfortunately, most churches aren't like that. But it's exactly what we should be. This is putting the generations not only the kids, but the men. Our Bible tells us older men lead these younger men, and we're missing that. I think a lot of people are retiring and they're saying, "I'm done now." People should be retiring as Christians in order to spend more time in ministry. My board is actually a great example of that. I've got three or four board members that retired early specifically to do ministry. What better place to do it than to care for the younger generations?

Rick McGee: Another Robert Lewis quote or belief is "There are few things an older man will do that will bring him more joy and contentment than investing in younger men or even boys." It speaks to what you just said. We were never intended biblically to retire and go to Florida and play golf. The quote you just made about investing in younger men is super practical and super powerful. I think it's part of God's plan.

Dean Hulce: As we're talking here, we mentioned Ray Howell a few minutes ago and Kicking Bear camps. He does an amazing ministry doing basically what you are talking about through archery. But he spoke at my church a few years ago and a young man came up to me with Ray. This young man was in his 20s, but he was shaking almost uncontrollably because the message had struck him to a point. He had just shared the message and Ray asked if I could come with them.

We went into the office and this young man made it clear he accepted Christ that day, but he said, "I've never had anybody to teach me what it is to be a man." I thought, what a sad thing in our society that nobody had taken the time. I think this, what you guys are doing, is a great thing. There's others out there that I've talked to that are doing similar things, but you guys have everything built for the guys that want to step up and change lives. It's not just all unselfish; there's a little bit of selfishness to it once you get into it because it's enjoyable and the men are changed.

Rick McGee: Maybe the selfish part draws a man, but the transformation that happens is just so observable. Over and over, we hear wives come back to us and say, "My husband is a different man because of this."

There is a vacuum of biblical masculinity. There's a vacuum in this country of a strong man. I took a call not too long ago of a guy who said, "Rick, I'm leading this KOZ group but there's not another guy that I know in our church that can or will take this and do hard things." That's one of our mottos or statements: Do hard things. Teach boys to do hard things.

We had a recent call and a pastor said, "What do you do during the winter months when it's too cold to go outside?" You put a coat on and build a fire. I'm not digging on men; it's a culture thing. We have evolved into this space of weakness. I enjoy my AC and I enjoy my soft bed, but we're moving indoors and increasing our comforts, and it's not serving us well.

Dean Hulce: It's not. I think when we learn to get through hard things individually as we do that, all of a sudden it grows us in tremendous ways. Now when we can share that with somebody younger, and sometimes we're getting through it together, that combination in a relationship is almost unbreakable at that point because you have something to share in there.

Rick McGee: We're literally seeing that over and over again. Guys just hiked the tallest peak. A bunch of KOZ men took their boys to the tallest peak in New Mexico and hiked it. You're exactly right. I just heard the story last night of a 15-year-old boy that looked at his brother who was soaking wet from a rain and his backpack was heavy. He said, "Buddy, are you okay?" He said, "I'm really struggling." He took his brother's pack and helped him down and took two packs because he was older and stronger. This young boy gets to see a brother be a brother.

I like to say that KOZ Saturday mornings, when a group of men commit to an 8:00 to 1:00 window of time once a month, we become the best version of ourselves and we give that to our boys. When that happens, we're dialed in and focused. We may not have every moment of our life being the best dad or being the best buddy to a kid, but on those mornings, we're really dialed in trying to show them things that we might otherwise be selfish about on a random fishing trip or a random outing. We're with buddies who can hold us accountable and come alongside us. If one of them yells, you can say, "Hey, you okay? Let me take this." It's just been this beautiful life-giving community.

So many of our men come back later and say, "This young man that was a KOZ boy, he's asked me to officiate his wedding. He's asked me to be at his high school graduation or his college graduation." It doesn't have to be this magical moment one time. The fact that it's once a month creates a relationship, a friendship, and it's just powerful.

Dean Hulce: I was just thinking of another situation. We had a men's retreat and we call it an Outdoorsman's Men's Retreat instead of just a men's retreat. We had some boys; guys brought their own boys. We should have gone out and got other boys I guess, but one friend of mine from church brought his two boys and one was probably about 12 or 13 years old. We shot bows and we shot shotguns and we did all kinds of stuff. We did men stuff, digging in snowbanks. I'm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; we get big snowbanks occasionally.

We got home from that and the pastor, my pastor at the time, came to me and he said one of Greg's boys had come to Christ a while before that but wanted to be baptized. So they just asked, "Well, why now?" He said, "I saw men being real men and loving the Lord." What a difference. That's another thing that comes out of this; these boys get to see men being men. Not what they're seeing on TV or what they're being told, but what they're seeing: real men being men and loving the Lord in it. So many kids are missing that. Not only with their own dads, but those that don't, as you grew up, without a dad there.

Rick McGee: Half the boys in the country are growing up without a dad in the home. I think the last number I saw was in the mid-40s percentage. A boy needs a man to become a man. Then you invoke what's happening in the digital world and our move indoors. It's horrifying. The statistics that come with those two things, fatherlessness and the move indoors, are staggering and it's happening right now. We're watching it play out real-time.

Dean Hulce: This is Satan laughing. He's destroying our nation from within because we don't have godly men.

Rick McGee: And when godly men don't know what to do, they're just as powerless. We like to say that a generation of boys are literally walking off a cliff and the men of the church are the answer. So our objective is, let's give those men a tool. When they step in, it is life-changing. Just an example: last year alone and in the last two years, we have had over 100 boys come to Christ nationwide in KOZ in just one year.

When a boy sees real men, if he's not born again or if he's not entertained the idea of Jesus, he's going to feel it and hear it from the KOZ curriculum and the men that are being real and authentic and engaged. Like I said, we're the best version of ourselves on a KOZ morning. The training really makes that clear and graspable. It's not hard. It's just showing up and being consistent. Boys respond to that, and the Holy Spirit uses that to pull their hearts in. We're seeing it every month. I'll get a text or an email saying we had two boys we baptized this month. I just got one last week.

Dean Hulce: The other thing is you get young boys and girls at Vacation Bible School, like you did. We went to every one in our area when we were kids, and kids come to Christ there. They do. But with what you're doing, not only are they coming to Christ, but they're being mentored and they're being discipled. Matthew 28 tells us we're called to go in and then to disciple. Go into all the world, but then to disciple them. That's what's happening in this as well. You get kids coming to Christ, but they have men around them to disciple them into what they need to be. Do you have a couple of stories of lives changed?

Rick McGee: We could be here all day. I keep them personal, the ones I've seen, unless I can go out. But there's some great stories. I would encourage any of our listeners to go to YouTube and do a search on Kids Outdoor Zone and check out the videos. We've actually grabbed probably one to two a year that we saw so much happen in a boy's life that we went and recorded the story and got testimony and interviewed people around him and him.

One story we've not recorded is a young man named Bobby here in the Lynchburg area. He grew up with his dad in the home, but Dad was not a believer. He brought him to KOZ. We became friends with Dad. Dad got cancer and passed away. He reached out to us and friends of ours, and he ended up giving his life to Christ through that journey and became a walking testimony. He was talking about Jesus in the hospital and everywhere along the journey.

Young Bobby suffered that loss and it was really, really hard to walk with him through that and to watch him struggle. He was a super quiet young man and just wasn't integrated into every part of the youth group in the church. He attended and was part of it, but his group of buddies was our KOZ group. He showed up at one of the first KOZs we had. I've got pictures of him as a maybe a ten-year-old shooting a bow.

A good friend, our good friend Dan Witt, was sitting with him when he killed his first turkey and when he killed his first deer. Great hunt stories, just this incredible journey. The men of KOZ and the boys of KOZ circled Bobby at 14 years old when his dad passed away. We just walked through that journey with him.

Again, it wasn't this theological lift. It wasn't something someone said in one moment. It was being present over time, just being there with him and for him and inviting him into their homes. Bobby is now in his 20s. In that time, school didn't drop off. He had a network of men that showed him and he's now a hunter and a fisherman. He is now an electrician or working towards that. Every at-risk factor that could have been put before him, God is overcoming in his life with this community we call KOZ. I just did his premarital counseling, my wife and I did, with his beautiful fiancée. She is a lovely, wonderful young lady.

That's what happens. Even when he went for his job interview, I had him over to my house and said, "Alright, what are you going to wear? Look me in the eye, shake my hand." We did all that stuff, and the guy called me back and said, "I don't know what you were worried about; he had the best interview we've had all year." He got that job and he's becoming an electrician. Those kind of things just happen.

Another story that happened in our group was a mom of seven kids. Her husband died overseas. She came back to live in Lynchburg, and she knew her boys needed men. Her husband was a man's man, a diesel engineer that worked in the oil fields or in the petroleum industry and was a great dad. But these boys were young when he died.

She put them in KOZ, and I'll never forget the story. Their first or second KOZ was a rabbit hunt. We took the boys to a buddy with beagles and said these boys ought to experience that. We put restrictions on; the men were carrying the guns and when the rabbit jumped, we did it all super safe. Well, those two boys said, "Can we bring our BB guns?" I said, "Sure," and I knew I could teach them about gun safety and how to handle it.

I'll never forget, we went up on a hill and we could see my truck. They had gotten to where those BB guns were more than they wanted to carry going through the thicket. They were probably eight and ten years old. They said, "Can we go put our BB guns up?" I said, "Sure." So I was watching them and they got to a fence, a barbed wire fence, a standard fence. They just stopped. Somehow from my childhood, I knew what their struggle was: how do I get over this?

Another group walked by me and I said, "You all going to the truck?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Jesse," that was a man in that group, "come here. Don't make a scene of it, but just go down there and cross that fence and tell the boys to come on." When they watched Jesse cross that fence, you would have thought you showed a squirrel where a limb was. They started climbing that fence and going back and forth, up and down, up and down.

It's those little things when you don't know what to do and you become a man, it creates these gaps. That's so simple and so silly, but they got a look at, "Oh, that's how you climb a barbed wire fence without getting cut." Over and over, the youngest of those two boys I've sat with, I think both of them when they killed their first deer. They've been a part of KOZ their entire childhood. My wife and I do premarital counseling and we did theirs and was at their wedding just this year for that younger boy. It's about relationships. We don't use the word mentoring a lot because men get scared of that and feel like, "I can't do it." I'm telling you, you can do this. It is so graspable. It's something you can do. If you don't know how to do some things in the outdoors, we find this circle of men get to do it together and learn together. There's so many things I've learned from KOZ men.

Dean Hulce: I think even Dan and I on our way here were talking, even going out and building a fire and teaching a kid how to build a fire from the stuff that's around them. I remember I had that as a son of an outdoorsman. My dad would lots of times explain something biblical as he's doing it. It's so easy to do that. God will give us that if we open our minds and our hearts to looking for those things. I write about them every day; my devotionals every day include what God shows me through the outdoors. If we're open to that, it's easy, but it's also fun and it's rewarding. I'm sure a lot of these guys go home and think, "What a great day that was."

I challenge our listeners to go to kidsoutdoorzone.com and look at it, pray about it, because I think that it's a great opportunity. Especially men, a lot of them their boys have grown or their kids have grown, or they've never had kids and they're looking for an opportunity. What a great opportunity.

Rick McGee: 100%.

Dean Hulce: Anything else you'd like to share?

Rick McGee: Another quick story, and it's right here in Lynchburg. I'll never forget it. A group started here in Lynchburg at Calvary Chapel and the leader called me after their first day. He almost apologized for how simple their KOZ was. I said, "Dude, you're doing it perfectly." But he said it was maintenance month, how to work on your equipment and keep it up.

He had a guy that very wisely brought his ten rod-reels and a bunch of fishing string and those boys relined his rod-reels. I have done that since and thought that was super cool. They gave each boy a knife to use for that day and they whittled, showed them how to sharpen knives and how to whittle a stick. The boys used their stick to cook their hot dog lunch.

It was their first KOZ, so they didn't come down with this Sunday school lesson. The devotions need to be boy-sized; they're super simple. They cooked their hot dogs on a cool morning. No one killed their first deer, it wasn't anything majestic or whatever, but the leader choked up telling me. He said, "Rick, we had two boys individually, two of our leaders put them in cars that their grandmother or aunt was picking them up and they said, 'This was the best day of my life.'"

I said, "What do you think provoked that statement?" He said, "I don't know, it was so simple. We didn't have this major moment." I said, "Dude, it was because men were there for those boys. The fruit is so low on the tree right now. All you have to do is be present, show up." We tell men in the training: don't commit to KOZ unless you can do it for 12 months. These boys in culture today, they have enough going on in their lives where men come and go and don't show up or quit showing up. Don't be that guy. Don't represent the Gospel that way. But if you can commit to a year, you can help stabilize that boy and change his life.

Another facet to this we haven't touched on is what happens to older boys as they've been in it. Your story of a fire reminded me of that. Over and over again, as the boys get older, we really coach hard, teach hard to have those boys invest in the younger boys. I don't know how many times I've seen a 15-year-old show an eight, nine, or 10-year-old how to start a fire.

In that example of deer, every November is deer and deer hunting. You don't have to hunt on that day, but you want to show them the facets of it and the beautiful skills and ways you men do it. We always give you lots of options and ideas of how to do that morning. We always had someone kill a deer the week before, put it in a cooler, and skin the deer out on KOZ morning. The first time I did that, I was showing the men how to do it and the boys. Then within three to four years, the older boys were showing the younger boys how to do it. There's so many things in life that that is a picture of.

Dean Hulce: We've got all day. I want lunch eventually, but until then we're going.

Rick McGee: On that front, we here locally in Virginia host a summer camp every year and invite KOZ groups from the whole region to come in. It's kind of become a jamboree of sorts. A few years ago, we had a young man show up, probably a 10 or 11-year-old, blond hair, son of a gun, tanned skin, just a good-looking joyful young man. I had junior leaders; I had my 16 and 17-year-olds kind of being the lieutenants of the younger boys and making sure they had what they needed and caring for them.

This young man was living in a world many boys live in. His mom and dad were divorced. He was delightful to us: responsive, respectful, but he was giving those junior leaders fits behind our back. He was disrespectful, questioning everything, pushing back, arguing. I had no idea.

One of my top junior leaders was a good friend of Bobby's, whom I told the story earlier. Bobby and Matthew both were there. Matthew, I saw him walking down the road with his hands up in the air on the gravel road on the farm on the camp. I looked at Matthew's dad and said, "Is Matthew okay?" He said, "Oh no, no, the little man," I’ll use the name Mark. "Little Mark's been giving them fits." I said, "No way." I said, "Well, tell me how I can help."

We brought Mark in, told both sides of the story, and we dealt with Mark and said these are your boundaries and so forth. The last night of camp, we always share the Gospel and talk about struggles and trials, and if you want one of us to pray with you over what's going on in your family or home, we'd love to do that. That night, it was late, we had done a bunch of that. We always seem like we see some boys come to Christ that night.

All the junior leaders, there's like four or five of them, and Mark came in together. It was late after lights out. In my heart, I was like, "Oh, Mark's causing trouble again." They sat Mark down in the corner and all these 15, 16, 17-year-old boys laid hands on him and prayed over him.

One of the older boys came to me later after they got up and left and said, "We found out what's going on with Mark." I asked what that was. He said his mom told him on the way to camp that she was going out on a date for the first time since Dad had left the home. His whole world was fixing to get turned upside down. He didn't know what to do with that. So those boys who had seen us men do that said this is how you handle that because they had seen it by other men. They did it themselves for a younger boy. Life-changing.

Dean Hulce: It reminds me of a story. I don't know if you're familiar with Blast and Cast Ministries out of Texas. It's a men's ministry, but they do some kids' events and a lot of stuff. They did a duck hunt in New Mexico this past winter. My grandson Micah was there, and another friend that knew the Lord. They had invited a young man who showed up. I don't know how he got there, but he showed up at this hunt.

The older guys were sharing with this younger guy that didn't know Christ. Then all of a sudden, a couple of younger guys that were just barely out of school themselves started sharing with this guy. The older guys said, "We just stepped back and we watched God work, and we were shocked by it because these guys just stepped up and did it." That younger guy came to Christ. He came to Christ standing on the bank while they were duck hunting that night before. He said, "I'm ready," and one of the older leaders then came down and prayed with them. But it was that the younger guys, his own peers, that poured into him that made a difference in his life.

I'm excited to hear what might happen from this. I'm going to challenge our listeners because I guarantee there's a lot of guys out there and some women that are listening who think their husband should be doing that. But I think there's guys that are saying, "I could do this." So often we hear the Holy Spirit saying, "You can do this, you should do this." Then tomorrow we think, "Ah, nah, it sounded like a good idea at the time."

I'm going to challenge our listeners to get on that website and to get ahold of you or TJ or whoever and look at doing it because you have no idea the difference it could make. We may be planting the seed with one kid that could go off the edge and he may change the world. That's not our call; our call is to do what the Holy Spirit calls us to do. I'm going to challenge the men and the women both. We have a lot of women listeners whose husbands could be out there and could be doing these things. Ladies, if you challenge your husbands, you're going to find a better husband in the end. Whenever men come together around Christ, we become better men. If we bring boys into that and bring them up, we are changing our world.

Rick McGee: Well, and we have in men's ministry, and you're in the middle of that, a world full of Bible studies. I love Bible studies. My men's group's about to do one, so don't hear this as a criticism. But I think one of the hard things about men's ministry is that we don't give them something to do. Men are doers and conquerors. It's in our DNA. We might have suppressed all that; we might be running from it because of our own insecurities. But when you step into something that you're changing, you're making a difference not just in a boy, but that changes his family. That will impact his future wife, his future employer. It will be generational for him.

I want us to get more solid in our relationship with Jesus. Bible studies are a great way to begin that, but being missional is a transformational way. It adds rubber to the tire of this thing called discipleship and growth, spiritual growth.

Dean Hulce: Since I was a little kid, my parents had missionaries come to our church. My mom and dad would have them over for dinner and I loved that. I wanted to be a missionary. I forgot about that for a long time. One day I was around a campfire when we started pastoral ministry in the mountains and someone said that we're missionaries and what we're doing. I literally cried because I had forgotten that, sitting around that campfire that night. It still impacts me because we send millions and millions of dollars overseas, and that's good because there's people that haven't heard. But there's literally millions of kids and adults in our country that don't have any clue what the word Jesus really means other than a curse to them. We have a mission field on our street. For men especially, men that love the Lord, love the outdoors, and our churches are full of them. You want to be a missionary? You want to feel a calling? Step up and do it because it'll change your life as well. Again, it's kidsoutdoorzone.com. Go there and if you can't do something but you want to help support it to reach more kids, I'm sure there's a place there they could do that as well.

Rick McGee: No doubt. That little red donate button in the top right.

Dean Hulce: One of our missions in our own is to help other missions with other ministries that are reaching because it's not a competition. We're all in the same place and we're trying to win people to Christ. When we make young boys into young men and older men that love the Lord, we will change our world.

Thank you for your time. It's been great. We went as long as you threatened. We've been on a while, but our listeners always say they want to hear more and I think this has been great.

Rick McGee: Thank you for this opportunity. We love God's Great Outdoors and what you're doing. I love your story of just God using men to do his work here on Earth. You have been one of those guys that surrendered in that regard and he's using that. I'm so grateful to know you.

Dean Hulce: When God calls you, if we just begin to answer, I say challenge the guys: don't walk away from this. When you feel the call, go to it. When you do that, I can't imagine doing anything else. It took 60 years to get me to this point and for God to do that. Our friend Dan just said today, "Dean, has anybody ever actually really interviewed you on what's your life, what has God done?" And they haven't. But it's an amazing story of what God has done. Like everybody else, I'm a failure at times too. Your men that you talked to said they're not a theologian, they don't get behind a pulpit. A lot of those guys had never stepped foot behind a pulpit. They don't need to. All they need to do is love somebody.

Thank you again. Thank you to our listeners for joining us. It's been a great time. I hope that you feel challenged. I hope that if you do, that you step up and do something with it because you will change not only your community, but you'll change families, you'll change our world, and not just for today but for all eternity. Thank you for listening. Please join us every week as we head down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.

Adam: We hope that today’s program has challenged men to a calling to help point boys towards a relationship with their Heavenly Father and to show them what it means to be a man of God. God has called us to care for the widows and orphans and a fatherless boy is one of those he’s talking about. As men, we are called to do that for boys in need. Here on God’s Great Outdoors, we have heard the testimonies of several men whose fathers were not there for them and because of other men that stepped in, they are now men working for the Lord. Please step in when you see a need. The men that do this work can make a change for many generations and for all of eternity.

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, 49874 or on the website, godsgreatoutdoors.org. Thank you for joining us each week on God’s Great Outdoors as we travel down the Trail to Adventure, sharing the testimonies of men and women in his beautiful creation.