618. This Is The Way With Mark Oxer

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Ever notice how the gym makes your calendar but spiritual training keeps getting bumped? We sat down with performance coach and author Mark Oxer to flip that script and show how the same principles that build strong bodies can forge resilient, faithful men. Mark grew up in a structured church culture and found a living relationship with Jesus at camp; later, years in high-performance sport and ministry gave him a fresh lens for discipleship that actually multiplies.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Grainger (00:53):
Welcome to The Lion Within Us, a podcast
serving Christian men who arehungry to be the leaders God
intends you to be.
I'm your host, Chris Granger.
Let's jump in.
All right, fellas, it's yourmeetup sometime.
Let's get right into it, okay?
So the scripture of the weekthis week is in 1 Timothy, the
fourth chapter, the eighthverse.
It says, for physical training,it's of some value, but
godliness has value for allthings, holding promise for both

(01:16):
the present life and the lifeto come.
All right, guys.
So if you want to take thatverse and have a better
understanding on how to simplifyand apply it to your life, go
back in your podcast feed.
The last podcast, our spiritualkickoff episode for this week,
we'll have I took some time tounpack that, to share it with
you how you, again, you can takethis one little verse right

(01:36):
here and how we can actuallyapply it to our daily walk
because that's what it's allabout.
Again, if you enjoy thespiritual kickoff episodes each
week, guys, we do them Mondaythrough Friday in our Lion
Within is community.
It's a free way we try toencourage you just to help you
on your discipleship journey.
So head over tothelinewithin.us to get started
today, okay?
This is this guest is a funone.

(01:57):
We're all the way from theNetherlands.
We brought in Mark Oxer, okay?
So he is a a charteredprofessional coach out there.
He and he is really leaninginto this whole idea of sports,
uh strength, and discipleship.
I mean, it's a reallyinteresting conversation.

(02:18):
He has master degrees instrength and conditioning
training as well as leadershipand math and management.
And uh he he has a really goodway of practically bringing the
experience that he's learnedinto discipleship.
And that's what we talk abouttoday.
I mean, we really talk aboutthat.
I mean, he's served in avariety of different ministry
type positions.
Uh, he's worked with church,with parachurches, he's done all

(02:40):
this stuff for the last 25years.
He's pursuing a doctorate rightnow, and he's just an awesome
guy.
He has a couple of little kidsat home, he's got one on the
way, uh, living his life.
He's just really leaning in todo what God's called him to do.
And he shares with us somereally practical insights around
discipleship.
What does that look like?
Where the church has in manyways missed the mark, but that's

(03:01):
okay.
Where can we, as individuals,as Christian men, pick up the
pace and like and start doingthat course correction?
Okay.
So I think you're going toenjoy this conversation with my
friend Mark Oxer.
Mark, welcome to the linewithin us.
How are you doing today?
Yeah, I'm good.
Thanks for having me here.
I'm excited about this.
I'm super pumped to have youtoo, for sure.

(03:22):
And we we always like to startjust a little light, Mark.
Uh maybe share something funabout you that not many people
know about.

Mark Oxer (03:30):
Uh, well, if people Google me, they're gonna find
this out.
But if they're listening forthe first time and be like, who
is this guy?
Uh, one of the things that willcome up is that uh national
champion for Settlers of Catan,and uh have actually
participated in the Catan WorldChampionships in real life, the
Catan Digital WorldChampionships, uh, and then I've

(03:53):
won the Masters Championshipsas well for Settlers of Catan.
And then uh we'll get intolater, but uh the book that I
wrote is actually not the firstbook that I've written.
The first book that I everwrote and published was uh a
guide on how to win Settlers ofCatan.
Okay.

Chris Grainger (04:12):
So I've never played the Settlers of Catan.
So give me a give me aone-on-one brief run now.
How's the game work?

Mark Oxer (04:19):
It's uh it's a resource management game.
Okay.
So it's based on dice rolls,and on each dice roll you
collect different resources, andthen you utilize those
resources to build differentparts of the game, uh, and those
different pieces are all worthpoints.
The first person to get 10points wins.
Okay, fair enough.
Fair enough.
Sounds like you're really goodat it, though.

(04:41):
Last time I checked, I was thenumber five ranked masters
player in the world.

Chris Grainger (04:47):
So oh wow.
Okay, all right, all right.
So, guys, if if you get invitedover, don't play with Mark, you
will lose, you know.
Well, man, love love love that.
That's that's the most uniquetell me fun something fun about
you that we've ever had onAlliance.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
Well, maybe share with with ourlisteners just a little bit

(05:10):
about you too, your bio, justhow you came to know the Lord.
I obviously you're you'releaning into to your walk with
God in a meaningful way, but youknow, what what did it look
like for you growing up?
Did you always go to to churchor or or what does your personal
journey look like?

Mark Oxer (05:24):
Yeah, so uh I appreciate the question.
Uh and I outlined some of thosethings in the in the writing,
obviously, but uh I grew up uhin an Anglican church.
So both my parents wereimmigrants, they moved from
England to Canada.
Um so I grew up uh with parentswho were from England, so we
went to an Anglican church,Church of England.
Uh, but it was more for how youthat's a good that's what a

(05:49):
good Christian did.
Okay.
Right?
So you went to church on aSunday.
Um and so I went through theprocess of uh confirmation,
which is what in the Anglicanchurch.
I was baptized as a baby andthen went through confirmation
classes and then served in thechurch.
Um but uh I never really feltthat it was real.
Um, but I didn't know uh what Iwill say you don't know what

(06:13):
you don't know, and that appliesto lots of everything in life.
But I didn't know that itwasn't real until I spent the
time at a summer camp.
So I went to summer camp and itwas a Mennonite uh Christian
summer camp, and it was at thatsummer camp where uh I was
surrounded by people who hadreal active living relationships
with the real living God, and Iwas like, whoa, this is

(06:37):
different.
This isn't religious, this isrelationship, right?

Chris Grainger (06:41):
How old were you when you went to that camp?

Mark Oxer (06:44):
Uh so there's other experiences that I could tie
back to that.
So uh I went there in gradesthree and in grade five with my
school.
Uh we did they did what'scalled outdoor education in
grade when I was in grade threeand five.
And those opportunities are tolike learn how to like cook a
bread over a fire and like starta fire and like use a compass

(07:06):
and that kind of stuff.
Right.
And that you did that when wewhen I was in grade school, and
then when I was in, I believe itwas around grade eight, seven,
eight, nine, somewhere in there,uh, is when I went to camp
actually as a summer camper fora week at overnight camp, um,
when all the counselors are like20-year-old counseling staff
and that kind of stuff.

(07:26):
So uh that was around juniorhigh age, is when I went there.
Um I remember being in the Ithink it was like my second,
second night um there, thecounselor in the cabin, and
whose birthday was two days ago,actually, yesterday or two days
ago.
I still keep in touch with him.
This is my counselor from likeyears and years ago.

(07:48):
Really?
He was he was sharing us thegospel, and he just said, you
know what?
Like, if you go to church anddo all these things, it's great.
Uh, but that doesn't make you aChristian any more than being
in an airplane hangar makes youan airplane.
And I remember laying in my bedbeing like, what?
What is he talking about?
I didn't like sit up oranything, but I remember in my

(08:08):
mind this moment of like, whoa.
And he's like, if you want topray a prayer to ask Christ into
your life to make it likepersonal and meaningful and all
of that.
So I prayed that prayer thatnight in the cabin with him.
And then from there, myrelationship, uh, specifically
with regards to going to summercamp really grew.
So I spent time going through aleadership training program.
A lot of camps call it calledlike an LIT, a leadership in

(08:31):
training program.
Uh, so I went through that andthen went on staff and was on
staff for eight, probably atleast 10 years uh as a summer
camp staff working with kids.
And that was a really formativein my life with regards to uh
several things.
So I know that you have amaster class that is about

(08:53):
connecting men together, and Istill have friends from 1994
when I was summer camp, thoseare still some of my closest
friends in the world right now.
So I still text message withthose guys.
Like I live here in theNetherlands, those guys are back
in Canada, and we still textmessage almost daily back and

(09:14):
forth.
And those are guys that I metwhen I was my first year as
staff at summer camp in 1994.
So really, yeah.

Chris Grainger (09:22):
Wow, that's incredible.
So when you think back to likeyou said before the camp
experience, though, you were inchurch, but you felt like
something was just off.
There's a disconnect.
I mean, what reflecting back,what do you think was the
disconnect?

Mark Oxer (09:38):
Uh I think, and this is I don't want to come across
as putting down uh the Anglicanchurch because that's not my
perspective, because I do thinkuh with that said, there's a lot
of things that I gleaned fromgrowing up in the Anglican
church that I have very muchappreciated.
And I act, oh, that's one ofthe things I touched upon in the
book, like memorizing theApostles' Creed.

(09:58):
Like that was every week.
Apostles' Creed, Apostles'Creed, Apostles Creed.
I know some faiths uh use likethe Nicene Creed, but just
having that like that repetitionin sort of like a song form put
into your mind helps formateformation of your theology,
right?
So I'm very thankful for someof those things, reciting the
Lord's Prayer every week.

(10:19):
So some of those things I thinkwere really formative, and I'm
glad that I had thoseopportunities in the Anglican
church, but it was very um theyhave the the book the in the
Anglican church, it's the greenbook of services, right?
So on this day you do thisservice, on this day you do this

(10:40):
service, on this day you dothis service, and then the
homilies that are given are verylike seven to fifteen minute
kind of durations, not like whatwe'd think maybe in more of an
evangelical church, like asermon that could last half an
hour, 45 minutes or something,right?
So it was very, very structuredand like I'm gonna use the term

(11:01):
religious in that it was kindof everything was um, and then
being able to experience the thedichotomy of that in working a
camp and seeing this is veryrelational in that I don't have
to take my hat off to pray if Idon't want to, right?
Uh I can pray when I'm riding ahorse, I can pray when I'm in a

(11:24):
kayak, I can pray um out in thefield, I can pray when we're in
chapel, like we pray beforemeals, and I was just like, man,
like this is this is verydifferent than what I this the
structure, like the very uhdefined structure that I was
brought up with.
Sure.
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (11:42):
Yeah, it sounds like I mean that that freedom
and that relationship factor ofthe relationship with Christ was
kind of it sounds like that'swhere the counselors were were
really driving you guys at thatcamp.

Mark Oxer (11:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So yeah.

Chris Grainger (11:57):
Well that's that's awesome.
So I mean you you've you'vetaken that that on your
discipleship journey to thepoint now where you wrote the
book called This Is the Way.
I mean, what what led you to towanting to put this pen to
paper?
Because as someone who'swritten a book myself, I know
there's a lot of work that justeven goes through that process.
So what what do you feel likethe call was got that that God

(12:18):
was putting on your heart towrite this?

Mark Oxer (12:22):
Yeah, so uh been in the Netherlands now three years.
Uh we chose my wife and I choseto move here after having our
first uh son.
We were living in Canada.
At the time, I was working on amilitary base as a civilian,
uh, doing fitness training formil Canadian military personnel.
My wife was working helicopteremergency medical services.

(12:43):
So we both had pretty cool jobsthat we were like, hey, we'd be
fine doing these jobs for therest of our lives.
Yeah.
Um uh nice 10 acres of land,like rural, rural Canada.
We're like, oh, this is great.
Uh, but we were far away fromfamily.
And that was important uh forus to be close to family for the
raising of our son.
And so we're like, well, we'reprobably gonna end up having to

(13:08):
move to the Netherlands then.
Uh, because my family is myparents still live in Canada.
My one sister lives uh about ahalf an hour away from my
parents, my other sister livesin Atlanta, Georgia, and then my
cousins and other relatives arespread out throughout Canada,
and then a large portion of themstill in England.
So, whereas if my wife'sfamily, they all live close to

(13:29):
Rotterdam within like a half anhour of each other, and my
wife's in the middle of like 32cousins.

Chris Grainger (13:36):
Wow.

Mark Oxer (13:37):
So I was like, well, if we want to be close to
family, then it looks like we'regonna go to the Netherlands.

Chris Grainger (13:42):
So there you go.

Mark Oxer (13:43):
Uh we came here and a very different experience than
what we were expecting.
So there's a lot of um sharedhistory between Canada and
Netherlands uh from World War IIkind of onwards.
There's been traderelationships uh economically,
but then uh the Canadians arerespected for their what they

(14:05):
did during World War II to helpout in this part of the world.
And uh there's been uh sharedconnections between the
countries since the Second WorldWar.
And there is uh a lot of Dutchpeople speak English well, so
language was a little bit not asmuch of a problem as we thought
it might be.
But going to church was verydifferent than uh what I had

(14:26):
expected it was going to be.
So the Netherlandstraditionally being uh a
Protestant nation, uh, thenthey've obviously had major
battles, like what they had thebattles in the 1700s with Spain
versus Catholic andProtestantism, and so there was
some really significant uhhistory with Protestant faith
here in the Netherlands.
But when I got here, uh it wasuh very much Dutch Reformed

(14:51):
Calvinistic perspective, whichit wasn't the faith that I was
um brought up with orparticipating with, and it was a
little bit confrontational forme uh to be able to engage into
that, um, in that there'sminimal uh with the Dutch term
evangelical churches, we woulduh probably think of them more
as like um not, I don't want tosay charismatic Pentecostal, but

(15:16):
it's just it's a different,it's uh I'm gonna go more
relationship, less religiousagain, is how I would describe
them.
Um but finding such a churchthat had English language as
part of uh daily life within thechurch has been challenging.
And then uh as part of that,being like, yeah, I have friends

(15:37):
who I've been friends withsince the mid-90s, but they're
all the way back in Canada.
And so I'm like, I want to beable to have a deep relationship
with people here, connectmeaningfully with men here and
talk about the important thingsin life and how things are
going.
And really struggled with that.
Um, so I would do things like Ibought season tickets to uh a

(16:01):
local soccer team, and I wouldtake guys from the gym with me
to the game, and even there,just talking to them, be like,
hey, like what's it like?
Uh tell me about life, how'sthings going?
And there's very much uh adifferent culture here where you
don't it doesn't seem thatpeople really get deep into
relationships.
And I even questioned some guysfrom church about that, like,

(16:22):
hey, do people get deep intorelationships here?
Like, who do you talk to aboutif things that are going like
hard in your life, or if you'restruggling with something, who
do you talk to?
And people are like, Yeah,well, we don't like those kind
of things.
Uh even right now, the theNetherlands is going through an
election coming up at the end ofOctober.
People don't talk aboutpolitics here.

(16:44):
Like it's just a certain yeah.
Um, and I know that in NorthAmerica it's very common for
people to say, Oh, hey, what doyou do for like what do you do
for work?
And I honestly like it's not aquestion that gets asked here
because people don't identify bywhat they do for their job,
it's just like, oh yeah, so wewant to just and so I mean I had

(17:06):
a conversation with somebody Iworked with the other day, and
they had a group of friendsover, and these are friends that
they've had for years, and thepurpose of it was just to get to
know each other better, andthey sat down and all each
shared about their own jobs andwhat they do for work and those
kind of things.
And I thought that was greatthat they did that, but I also
find it a little bit strangebecause if you if I was back

(17:28):
home, I could tell you the jobthat all of my friends do,
because it's just something thatwe talk about as North
Americans, right?
So yeah, um, the book kind ofcame from a genesis of um,
again, like what yourmasterclass I think talks about
is not being isolated, not beingsolo, and then wanting to
connect meaningfully with men umwith regards to our

(17:49):
relationship with God and go andgoing deeper in that
relationship with Him.
And so partly a mental exercisefor myself, but then also
wanting to connect to others whomight be feeling the same thing
or feeling like they're stuckin that same place and being
like, hey, you're not alone.
Uh let's see if we I can eitherhelp you or the people in your

(18:10):
life that we can connect youwith to uh to form those
circles, that small circle, thattight circle, uh, and and grow
together in community.
So that's kind of where thatall came from.

Chris Grainger (18:22):
Okay.
Love it, love it.
Well, guys, I'm gonna take ourfirst break and we'll come back
and we'll keep digging in withMark.
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(19:53):
today.
Mark, one thing I was just reas reading through the book and
I was thinking through nowyou've mentioned this culture
difference in the Netherlands.
I'm just curious, what doesdiscipleship look like where
you're at right now?
I mean, I I I have this pictureof uh in America of what we
hope for it to be at times.

(20:13):
It doesn't always come out asas nice as we like, but I'm
super curious since things are alittle seems like there's a
different uh means ofcommunication.
What does it look like therefor discipleship?

Mark Oxer (20:24):
Uh so I'm gonna I'm gonna paint with a broad brush
stoke if you if that's okay.
So uh I'm in seminary rightnow.
I'm doing a doctoral program inseminary uh with my the the
program focus that I'm in istransformational leadership, and
I'm actually writing my majorpaper, my thesis document on

(20:45):
discipleship.
So okay, relevant question.
So I'm super glad you asked methis question.
And the reason that I'm gonnapaint with a broad brushstroke
is that I don't thinkdiscipleship is necessarily um
something that is I'm gonna saylost here.
I think that's actually it'ssomething lost globally.

(21:08):
100% uh as Capital C church, Ithink the Capital C church is
not doing a good job ofdiscipleship, and I'm not saying
that to put anybody down, I'mjust that's the experience that
I've had.
Now uh I've been able to be apart of different churches in
leadership roles, and I've beena part of uh Christian and

(21:28):
missionary alliance churches andMennonite churches and Baptist
churches and Pentecostalchurches, uh, with moving around
for different jobs.
I've had an opportunity toexperience a lot of those
different things.
And universally, I don't thinkwe're doing discipleship very
well as a church.
Um and so I don't think thatchanges whether I'm in Canada or
the United States or in theNetherlands.

(21:50):
Um so I've found it in someways I would say to be similar
in that uh it's not done wellhere, but that's not to put it
down here.
I think that's just a globalthing.
Now there is, I would say,extra complications to it in
that while Dutch people do speakEnglish well, it's not their

(22:14):
native tongue, and soarticulating themselves about
really deep inner personalthoughts, feelings, experiences
in a second language is nevergonna come across the same way
as in a native language, right?
So um there's a little bit ofuh disconnect maybe in that
respect from things.
Um and because the history ofthe country is very uh

(22:39):
Calvinistic, the Protestantfaith is very Calvinistic here,
it's not um I would say it's notoverly focused on discipleship
from that perspective.
It's like it's very theologicalfocused, um, but that doesn't
necessarily mean in training thenext generation who's gonna
train the next generation, who'sgonna train the next

(23:01):
generation.
And this is where I'm workingon my thesis document, is that
my background uh in addition tobeing involved in ministry is in
professional sport.
And so I'm looking at how wecan use practices from coaching
principles and coaching theoriesto apply to church from a

(23:22):
discipleship perspective andsay, hey, you know what?
We have we see a lot ofcoaches, training coaches, or
coach the coach, or train thetrainer models in sport who then
can go out and they so we havea coach that they get trot and
they go into their communitiesand they teach, and then they
they also go into their smallerschools and they just go into

(23:43):
their like and it kind ofdisseminates down, and that's
more I think what thatdiscipleship model is meant to
look like.
And how is there or if there'sa way that we can take some of
those sport coaching theories,principles, models, and possibly
apply them in a meaningful way,excuse me, yeah, in a ministry

(24:03):
leadership perspective.

Chris Grainger (24:04):
Right.
I'm sure I'm super curious fromthis.
So what when you when you startdigging into the the layers of
this onion, what what are youseeing?
Are are there any anypractices, anything that comes
up from that coaching elementthat you see there's a direct
impact to discipleship?

Mark Oxer (24:21):
How much time do you have?
Uh so there's a couple things.
Uh, when we look at uhobviously is Christ an example,
and that's part of the reasonwhy, again, the the book that I
wrote is using Christ as theexample and how he worked with
his disciples.
I think there's a lot of thingsthat we can unpack from how
Christ interacted with thepeople around him and those

(24:43):
close, that close group that hehad.
There's also a lot of writingfrom Paul, and Paul does a lot
of work uh in mentoring otherpeople.
So when you look at Timothy,for example, and how the
relationship that Paul had withTimothy, there's very specific
pieces and whether Paul knew hewas doing them intentionally or

(25:03):
not, um, and how he mentoredother individuals.
And there's a lot of things,even with how Paul lived his own
life uh in leading differentgroups that I think we can take
and apply into uh so there'sbiblical pieces from that side
that I think are reallyrelevant, right?
And even if we look at Paul, heused a lot of athletic
language, right?

(25:24):
Sure.
When he so there's, I thinkthere's a and uh a reason for
that because there's aconnection in the in those
pieces.
And then when you look at thesports side, there's personally
there's a few things that I'mreally interested uh in digging
into and learning more about.
For example, uh within sport,there's I was just talking, I

(25:45):
literally just came from the gymlike an hour ago, and I was
talking with this about some ofmy athletes, and we're talking
about different kinds ofconstraints and different kinds
of interference that we'llintentionally provide for
athletes.
So uh coaching today and formiddle of uh I coach it across
the gym, so it's uh a lot oflike 3, 2, 1, go, go fast, go
hard, music is playing loud.

(26:07):
In the middle of the workout,the power stopped, the room
music goes out, and everybodykind of like, whoa, whoa, hey,
this isn't normal, what's goingon?
And I was like, okay, I'm stillas a coach, I go over, I see if
I can get the music restartedand get going, finish the
workout.
And they were like, Coach, thatwas so weird when the music
went off.
And I was like, Oh, cool.
I'm glad that you brought thatup.

(26:28):
We can actually use this as atalking point about contextual
interference.
And so what happened was theyremoved the music, we removed
music, and now the environmentfeels strange for you, and
you're having to deal with yourown thoughts and you're dealing
with these own things, right?
Well, I flipped it on them andI said, Well, in different
sports like the sport ofweightlifting and powerlifting,

(26:49):
which I've competed in, there'sno music.
When you step on stage, you'rewearing a one-piece spandex
outfit, the whole room issilent, you've got three judges
and the entire audience staringat you to see if you're doing
this lift correctly, right?
No music.
That would just freak somepeople right out.
But part of it is that, well,if you never train with that
silence, and then you get putinto this environment where the

(27:11):
silence is, now you're gettingpushed to the boundaries of your
limits.
Your mouth, your mind is going,what is going on?
What is going on?
And you're not able to focus onthe task at hand.
So we can just something assimple as music we can use to
manipulate your environment andall of a sudden into change your
bandwidth and expand yourbandwidth, hopefully.
Right.
So I think what happens in thechurch oftentimes when we think

(27:36):
about discipleship, we don'tthink about a failure
perspective.
We always think of like, oh no,we're gonna make sure that they
can do this before they dothat.
We're gonna make sure that theycan do, then we're gonna give
them the next piece and givethem the next piece.
In sport, that doesn't happen.
We actually challenge you withthings that we know you can't do
or probably can't do onpurpose.
That's right.
Well, why aren't we doing thosesame things in ministry?

(27:59):
Why are we not allowing peopleto have be challenged in ways
where they're like, oh man,like, yeah, you might, as a
leader, you might not be able toaccomplish this, but that's
okay.
Now we're gonna be able tolearn from that and grow from
that.
Right.
Right.
And so there's some pieces tothat, like I said, with like
contextual interference is oneof the scientific concepts with
that.
Uh, constraints-led learning isa really interesting

(28:21):
perspective.
One of my peers is doing histhesis on constraints-led
learning.
He's using uh a sport base,he's a very high-level jujitsu
athlete, and then bringing someof that into his from his
jujitsu practice, into hisministry practice as well.
So, but the idea being, um,again, I'll use my wife's job as

(28:42):
an example, uh, being ahelicopter emergency medical uh
nurse.
The only time that she went towork, uh, not like to work, but
the only time she got called iswhen things got really bad.
So they would she would go tothe base, they'd be waiting, the
tones would go off, two pilots,nurse and paramedic get in the
helicopter and go.

(29:03):
But that doesn't happen if it'sa fender bender.
That happens when it's amulti-car crash.
That happens when the police inthe ambulance get there and go,
man, this is really bad.
We need the experts, right?
Right, right.
So they would run simulations.
They had big uh like RVs thatwas converted into being able to
run medical simulations.

(29:24):
And they would run medicalsimulations after medical
simulation after medicalsimulation, and they would they
would do sometimes simulationsthat weren't even medically
possible for the staff tocomplete because they wanted to
see how far they could push thestaff medically with their band
their bandwidth.
Because the reality is whenthose tones go off and my wife
gets dispatched to a call, it'sminus 40 degrees Celsius.

(29:46):
I'm not sure what that is in inuh Fahrenheit, but it's really
cold.
Yeah, it's really cold.
So you get out there and it'sit's you're in the Canadian
prairies and minus 40 degrees,and you've come up on a train
that's hit a car, and now you'redealing with firefighters who
are trying to cut somebody outof the vehicle.
You've got lights and sirensgoing from the police cars and

(30:07):
everything else.
You can't uh give a proper IVbecause the lines are so small
that they freeze in minus 40degrees weather.
You're not all of a suddengonna rock up and be like, Yep,
I got this.
So everything about researchtells us you do not rise to the
occasion, you actually sink toyour level of your foundation.
And that piece to me is reallyimportant.

(30:31):
So as coaches, we're alwaystrying to push athletes a little
bit further, a little bitfurther, a little bit further.
So we've built their foundationso big so that their foundation
is here.
But if they can, if their levelof competition is here, it
gives them a little bit ofbuffer zone that if things go
not quite right, they've gotsome mental capability to start
doing things.
To be comfortable.

(30:51):
Whereas if you train here andyou're trying to compete here,
there's a disconnect there,there's a gap there.
And I think in church, what weoften try to do is be like,
well, this is where you're at.
And so we're going to train youhere.
But then the growth isn'treally happening, right?
So even from research, uh,there's two researchers there,

(31:11):
guarding Noly and Lee, they didsomething called the Challenge
Point Framework, which is reallyfascinating for me, uh, where
they talk about how thechallenge has to be appropriate
for the learner.
So, for example, a really basicexample that I think people can
grasp.
If I put a garbage can on theground, ask you to stand over it
and drop a paper ball into thegarbage can, not a problem.

(31:34):
Really, really simple task,right?
So now you've matched the taskdifficulty relative to the
ability of the person to performthat task is really low.
So what happens is we find thatlearning doesn't occur in that
environment because the learnerperceives the task as bored of
boring, and so their mindswitches into a boredom mindset.

(31:54):
Learning doesn't occur.
Now, if I take that garbage canand put it 50 meters away, and
there's uh 50 mile an hour windsblowing, and tell them to put
that same paper ball into thegarbage can, what happens?
It probably never goes in if itdoes go in as pure luck.
That's right.
So what's happened now is thatI've moved the challenge so far

(32:15):
away that learning also doesn'toccur because generally at that
stage the athlete will either gointo boredom because they
realize it's ridiculous andcan't do it, or they'll reach a
state of anxiety because they'retrying so hard it can't do it.
So learning doesn't occur.
So where you need to find isthat sweet spot.
Where's the task challengingenough for the athlete?

(32:36):
The the difficulty of the skillrelative to the performer's
ability to perform that skill isso that they actually don't get
it in 100% of the time.
Right now, from a sportperspective, I think we can see
how that really easilytranslates, right?
But now we need to look atministry and how we're doing

(32:57):
ministry.
So, well, what about sharingyour testimony?
As something as simple assharing your testimony, right?
Well, if you never share yourtestimony, you're never gonna
actually get better at sharingyour testimony, right?
So I remember being one time Iwas on a church board and we
were sitting in the meeting, andI said, Look, guys, I like I
think one of the things we cando to really help change our

(33:19):
community is just get ourcongregation comfortable with
sharing our testimony.
So they were out at a localcoffee shop or at the arena,
soccer field, whatever, theyjust feel comfortable sharing
their testimony.
Said, but we first as leadershave to do that.
So, how many of you havepublicly shared your testimony?
So myself and the pastor put uptheir hands and I was like,

(33:39):
okay, do we see the problemhere?
That if we as the men who arelooking after this church, only
two out of the group of us haveever only publicly shared our
testimony, there's zero chanceor very minimal chances that our
congregation is going to bedoing the same thing.
Right.
So, how then can we be buildingour leaders so that their

(34:01):
leaders are teaching thosearound them to be able to teach
those around them to be able toteaching those around them?
And so I think there's somereally cool aspects from what's
being applied into sport andsport coaching theories and
methodologies that can beapplied to uh biblical
discipleship and ministryleadership.

Chris Grainger (34:21):
That is incredible, Mark.
That's awesome.
Look, we're gonna take a we'regonna take a quick break, let
these guys digest that, andwe'll come back and keep
unpacking it.
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(34:41):
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(35:10):
You can read this in a fewminutes and carry it with you
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So again, thelionwithin.usslash roar.
That's R-O-A-R, to get yourpersonal weekly roar every
Monday morning.
So uh Mark, one thing as you'reworking through that, obviously

(35:31):
the growth doesn't happen inthe moments of comfort, but
oftentimes people when they cometo church, they're not looking
to be challenged.
And I think that that that initself is the challenge.
So I mean, when you when youstart working with a guy in the
gym, obviously I can look atyou, you uh you know what you're
doing.
You're you're you're a fit guy.
You can go in, you can probablyassess pretty quickly by seeing

(35:52):
how a person's form or justwatching them, you know, do a
bench press, whatever it may be.
And then you can you can youcan uh you know make those those
adjustments from there.
How do you assess?
Like I think lots of guys, allright, how does the assessment
start from a self-reflection andawareness standpoint on my own
discipleship journey?
Because in order to be coached,you gotta know what the

(36:14):
starting point is.
So what what what do you lookfor there?

Mark Oxer (36:17):
Yeah, really, really good question.
So um I uh I can I'll share soI can share something with you
aside from this.
I made a YouTube videospecifically about reflective
practice, and I can share thatwith you if you will.
You want to take a peek atthat.
100%.
But it's really really takingan inventory of yourself.
So um one of the things that uhwe use is called an athlete

(36:40):
readiness questionnaire.
So we ask uh an athlete uhvarious questions on like, how
did you sleep?
How is your nutrition?
How did you eat today?
Did your like things in yourrelationship go well?
Did work go well, did things atschool go well?
So there's just like some ofthose basic questions and just
asking how they're doing uh inrelation to being specifically

(37:01):
performing for that actualworkout.
Right now, you can extrapolatethat out, and uh the best
performers in the world doextrapolate this out.
It's what's called theperformance wheel profile.
So you could actually take alook at uh, I would just start
with probably like six differentthings as a starting point, and
pick they could be whatever youchoose them to be within uh

(37:24):
from a faith-based perspective.
So it could be like it could behow how am I doing as uh as a
dad, how am I doing as uh ahusband, how am I doing as an
employee?
Like you can pick differentthings, and then what you're
gonna do, you fill that out on ait's uh done from a scale of
zero to ten, zero being theinside of the circle, ten being
the outside of the circle.

(37:44):
The further you fill it out,the better you're doing in that
area.
So uh it's called theperformance wheel profile.
Now, what's really uh effectiveabout these is if you partner
together with somebody.
So uh we would do somethinglike again, this is part of that
connection and havingmeaningful relationships with
other guys in your life, and itneeds to be guys that know you,

(38:06):
and you you guys are beingintimate with each other uh
relationally to be able to behonest with each other, right?
So I come alongside my buddyand he's like, hey, here's my
performance wheel, and he putsdown the things, the six things
that matter to him, and hescores himself on zero to ten on
each one of those areas bycoloring it in or marking it
off.
And then what I do is I takethat exact same one and I score

(38:30):
him how I see him living aboutin those areas.
And then we put those twopieces side by side and go, hey
man, you scored yourself a sixin uh being a dad.
I scored you as a seven inbeing a dad.
We're pretty close in thatarea.
You're probably you're probablysomewhere in a six to a seven
on and how you're doing in yourrelationship with being a dad.
He maybe looks at it and goes,as a husband, he scores himself

(38:54):
uh three, and I scored himselfas an eight.
Well, we've got a big gap here.
Okay, so what's happening?
Let's discuss this.
You're seeing yourself as athree, I'm seeing you as an
eight.
Looking at those two piecesside by side, where if the uh
one he said uh I'm a three anduh I say you're look like an
eight, uh, what does that looklike when we put them side by
side?
And he is going, well, you knowwhat, actually, Mark, you don't

(39:16):
see the times when I snap and Iyell at anger into my wife, and
I don't do these uh and thesethings that are happening in the
relationship.
And that's an opportunity togo, okay, great, let's dig into
that.
Let's lean into that withprayer, let's lean into that
with accountability, let's leaninto some of those pieces.
So I think there is uh againpieces that we can take from

(39:38):
that are used in a sportingcontext and use them within uh a
ministry practice.
Now I do believe that there'salso other pieces, like if we
look at some things frommindfulness practices that we
can incorporate as well uh intohow all those pieces work
together.
So I do think that there is umpieces to to look at those

(39:59):
things and how we can do it aswell.
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (40:02):
Right, right.
I think I think there's there'sa lot of power in that too,
just the conversation and thereflection.
I I've done those exerciseswhere I I grade, you grade, and
then we look and see where we'reat.
And I know lots of times thatthat can illuminate areas where
uh maybe I'm I'm blind, for one,or or some areas where where I

(40:22):
just, you know, maybe I'm alittle bit too confident in some
in my personal assessment, andthey can give me some
reflections that that arehelpful.
But in a in a faith setting,that can be challenging.
I mean, in a gym setting, forsure, I'm looking for that.
Like push me, iron sharpensiron.
We like to say iron sharpenersiron until we actually start
sharpening it, right?

(40:42):
In the church.
So how do we how would youcoach guys want to have that
truly meaningful conversation?
And it, I mean, I guess itstarts with the relationship,
right?

Mark Oxer (40:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and like I said, some ofthose pieces are like we talked
about, I talk a little bit aboutsome of those pieces in the
book as well.
But uh, yeah, being in thatmeaningful relationship uh with
that community, a part of it isuh is accountability as well,
right?
And I think that's a big partof why the gym is successful, is
that there's accountability.

(41:12):
And I think when we look atcommon discipleship practices,
there's a lack of accountabilityin a lot of those pieces,
right?
And again, that's not to puteverything down and be a Debbie
Downer about things, it's justtrying to be real about uh real
about some of these things.
So I like uh something it'scalled E3 Ministries.
I believe that's what it'sstill called.

(41:33):
They have what's called athree-thirds discipleship model.
And you can watch YouTubevideos on this and they have
some learning tools on it, butit's really interesting.
So the first third of your gettogether is what they call
looking, uh looking back.
So, how is your week?
How are you doing?
Uh, those kind of questions.
And one of the questions thatthey also ask is hey, you said

(41:56):
the week before you were goingto share the gospel with two
people at work.
How did that go?
And now there's anaccountability piece attached to
it, right?
So then what you do, the secondpart of the discipleship
training is what they calllooking up.
So that is doing your praiseand worship, your Bible study,
uh, those kind of pieces.
And then the third part of itis uh looking ahead.

(42:18):
So we're gonna do someforecasting and looking into
what are we gonna be doing intothis next coming week or two
weeks, how whatever the durationis of your time together, and
saying, you know what?
Okay, or the next two weeksbefore we meet, uh, I'm gonna
read my Bible, or I'm gonna readthis specific passage, or I'm
gonna pray with my wife thismany times, or I'm gonna share
the God, my 15-second testimonywith this many people.

(42:42):
Okay, those things get writtendown.
And then when you start backnext week at your next Bible
study meeting, your discipleshipmeeting, you've got these three
things.
I was gonna share the gospelwith this many people, I was
gonna do this, I was gonna dothis.
And there's an intentional,hey, how was your week?
How was your day?
How are things going?
And hey, here's your threethings.
How did they go?

(43:02):
And you can say, you know what,I didn't do any of them, and
that's fine, but there's anaccountability to those pieces
now.
Okay, you didn't do them?
That's right.
What happened?
Can we support you in doingsomething so that you can do
them next time?
You know what?
I was on vacation, it didn'twork out, or uh I really was as
stressed at work and it just Ididn't feel like it was the
appropriate time.
Great.
Let's keep leaning into it asprayer, as brothers with with

(43:24):
each other.
But we're not just gonna say,uh, you get a free pass on them.
They're gonna let's bring themforward again, and we're gonna
keep you accountable to thosepieces.
And I think that this is againsomething in sport that we do
well.
We track metrics in sport.
Are people getting bigger,faster, stronger?
Right?
Right.

(43:45):
And uh we're not we don't careif people are getting quote
unquote bigger, faster, strongerin uh in ministry per se, but
we do are they this goes toHebrews 5, right?
Look, man, you should be eatingmeat meat and you're drinking
milk.
Like, come on, guys, come on,right?

(44:05):
And part of that is is a tie toaccountability, right?
So if we have theseaccountabilities, we're gonna
there's that growth that's Idon't want to say force growth,
but encourage growth, right?

Chris Grainger (44:16):
Right.
So yeah.
Right.
I mean, I think when I when Italk with a lot of guys, man, uh
about accountability, most ofus want others to be
accountable.
Rarely do I find the guys thatwant to be accountable to
themselves, you know.
So that's what I'm saying.
I want you to be accountable,Mark, but don't you worry about
me.
Like I'm you know, I I don'twant that same level of of
pressure at times, but I thinkthat's where the rubber meets

(44:37):
the road at.
And in the world we live in,you know, guys are motivated to
go to the gym because you know,there's there's a uh a visible
outcome lots of times.
They can see it in the mirror,they can see it in you know the
way their wife responds to them,whatever it may be.
I mean, maybe it's a motivationfactor.
I I don't know.
I just think there's a justdefinitely a disconnect in you

(44:59):
know going to sitting on a pewon a Sunday or maybe being a
super Christian where you go onWednesday night too versus
actually walking out the gospelevery day of the week, right?

Mark Oxer (45:07):
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Well, and I think this is whereum this is where we have a
little bit of that disconnectbetween religion and
relationship, and that whenwe're walking in relationship,
we're walking in relationship ona daily basis.
Whereas when we see church aslike something you do or you go

(45:29):
to on a Sunday, then it's notit's not become a part of who
you are on a regular basis,right?
And I think it also has to dowith how we allocate time and
resources and and those kind ofthings mentally.
So um I know there's ministriesthat focus on like uh like it's
called like seize the 167.

(45:50):
So uh it's directed towardministry leaders.
So there's 168 hours in a week,and one hour of that is spent
preaching, or one hour of thatis sent sitting in a pew on a
Sunday morning.
Sure, sure.
What are you doing for the other167 hours of the week, right?
So um, yeah, so that idea oflike seize the 167, like what

(46:13):
are you doing with that otherparts?
Um, like you said, and so you Iknow you made the joke, and I
but I understand the joke thatlike if you go to church on
Wednesday as well, you're asuper Christian, right?
But it's it's making that anentire part of your life, right?
So um I was listening to one ofyour episodes, uh, I'm not sure

(46:36):
how recent it was, but we wereyou're in the episode you were
talking about rather than uhlike buying the gifts for the
kids that uh your kids that youwanted, give them the knowledge
that you wish they'd had.
And I was like, that is so uhso so important.
So I have my three-year-oldson, uh, and he's downstairs,

(46:56):
and he's like, Look, daddy, Imade a sling like uh like David.
And I was like, There you go.
I was like, dude, I didn't havethat same sort of knowledge
when I was three years old,right?
So we read we read our kids'Bible studies, uh Bible stories
multiple times a day.
When we sit down for meals, weusually go through a couple
different, like different Biblestories in the in their kids'

(47:18):
Bibles.
At nighttime, we always praywith them.
We do uh we sing the Arionicblessing with them, we we say
the Lord's Prayer with them, andthen we do a regular prayer
with them.
And I'm it's just trying toinstill these types of things.
But I said to my wife, um thispast weekend we were away at uh
a little vacation, just a minivacation, and I looked across

(47:38):
the table at my wife and I said,My son has way more Bible
knowledge than I did at his age.
Like he went to he was atchurch the other day and they
were telling a story, and he waslike, Oh yeah, this story.
And the teacher was like, Icannot believe how much of that
story that he knew.
He's only three.
And I was like, but like, yes,like that's the kind of stuff we

(48:00):
need to like be putting in,right?
Um and building that in to ourkids, but um more, but how much
more as a dad do I need to bethe one that's challenging
myself too, right?
So I enjoy going to the gym.
Uh it there's fellowship withother guys there.
I do, I do enjoy the workouts,those kind of things.

(48:21):
But I'm an old dad.
So I turn 50 in a couple ofyears.
I'm I turn 47 in December.
I'm obviously not far away from50.
I have a three-year-old, aone-year-old, and I have a baby
on the way, right?
Wow.
So I'm gonna be an old dad.
There's no getting around that.
But I don't want to use that asan excuse.

(48:43):
So I want to be able to runaround with my boys, I want to
be able to throw baseball, uh,play tag in the park.
I want to do all these things.
So if I want to be able to doall those things with him, I
need to be investing that timeinto myself so that I can be the
man that he needs and wants meto be as well.
And that doesn't just apply tobeing able to run and play

(49:05):
baseball with him, that appliesto how I am with him spiritually
as well.
I need to be investing intomyself, reading my Bible, doing
what uh like spiritual training,sure, so that I can be the man
that he needs and wants me to beas his as his father, right?
Right, right.
So, yeah.

Chris Grainger (49:27):
That's all to you there.
I mean, hats off.
And and you're you're you'releaning in, you're being
intentional.
Maybe talk to the guy realquick out there that's when
they're hearing this thing aboutdiscipleship accountability, a
lot of it comes down topriority, how we spend time.
The evil one has a great way ofkeeping us busy, making us
think well, we can get to thislater.
And and that's a lot what Ifind, what I'm fighting for is

(49:49):
just guys' attention becauseevery everybody's their
calendars are so full.
So, how do we prioritize?
I mean, what what have you seento be the most effective way
for guys to prioritize spendingthat time in the word, spending
that time with true ironsharpening iron type
conversation, relationship?
Because we'll find ways to yourpoint.
We'll show up to the gym everyday.
Yeah.
We make that a priority, butoften this falls off.

(50:12):
So, any tips for the guys who'sstruggling there?

Mark Oxer (50:15):
Well, uh so a couple things is I'm gonna tie this to
the discipleship piece that youasked about as well.
So you asked about discipleshipin the church.
My experience personally withdiscipleship is I've had a few
men come alongside me in mylife, uh, both from a
professional perspective whohave mentored me, but also from
a faith perspective who havementored me.
Um, I'm gonna term that thoseterms were accidental.

(50:38):
Uh, I've I do believe that theywere divinely inspired, but
when I say accidental in thatthere wasn't a specific like
path from the church or thesekind of things, like I was
working as a soccer coach andsomebody said, Hey, you should
check out this soccer coach, andthen we connected together and
um ended up being a Christianman, and we ended up uh

(50:59):
fellowshipping together and havegrown uh tremendously through
that.
But I would say it kind of cameacross accidentally.
If we leave our spiritualhealth to that same accidental
piece, we're not gonna getthere.
We're not leaving our ourphysical health accidentally.
We schedule, okay, I'm gonna goto the gym between seven to
eight o'clock, and I put it inmy calendar.

(51:20):
And like I can look in mycalendar now and I can see which
workouts I'm attending nextweek already because I've
scheduled them into my calendar,right?
My wife knows when they're inthere because it shows up.
We have a shared calendar, soit shows up in her calendar as
well.
Okay, Mark is gonna be at thegym at this time, uh, and it's
in the calendar.
Why don't we do those thingswith our spiritual health as

(51:41):
well?
Why don't we set aside, andmaybe it's not an hour.
Maybe an hour would frightenyou to death to be like, what am
I gonna do for an hour?
Okay, well, don't make it anhour.
So I uh again, that's somethingI asked the athletes at the gym
today.
We had uh a movement toes tobar where you're hanging from a
bar and you have to bring yourtoes up and touch the bar.
And there was a lot of them inthe workout.
And I said, Hi guys, how do youeat an airplane?

(52:03):
And they all look at me kind ofstrange.
I said, just so you're aware,somebody in the Guinness book
actually has eaten an airplane.
But the way he did it wasreally small pieces, breaks it
down into really small piecesand eats it.
When you look at something likethis and you're like, whoa,
that is a lot of toes to barmovements.
I can't do that many.
No, maybe you can't do thatmany in one big chunk.
Can you break that down intosmaller pieces and do those

(52:25):
smaller pieces?
Yeah, I can do that.
Perfect.
That's how you're gonna attackthis workout today.
And we do the same thing.
So don't look at it and go, Idon't know what I'm gonna do for
an hour.
Okay, well, don't schedule anhour right away.
Schedule five minutes, tenminutes, fifteen minutes.
And it's the same as going tothe gym.
I could go to the gym two,three times a day for an hour

(52:46):
each time, be totally fine withit.
But I've been doing this foryears now, right?
I didn't start there, and it'sunrealistic for me when somebody
new comes to expect them to belike, they're gonna come four to
five days a week, they're gonnacome for an hour every time,
and this, that, and the other,blah, blah, blah.
That's not a realisticexpectation for them.
And they're probably actuallygonna get hurt because they're
gonna experience pains and allkinds of stuff that they whoa

(53:08):
whoa, this is crazy, right?
So let's introduce them.
Come a couple times a week,come for the classes, we'll give
you some of the uh scaledversions of the movements, and
then we'll slowly progress youto like, okay, now you move from
you holding onto a medicineball, now you're gonna hold a
kettlebell, now you're gonnahold a barbell.
Instead of just hanging fromthe bar, now I want you to hang
from the bar, move your knees upand progress through.

(53:31):
Uh and now we've got now thatsame person is saying, Hey, you
know what?
I want to, I want to up mymembership.
I want to come four times aweek now.
I want to start uh trying to dodifferent movements, uh, the
more harder movements and thosekind of things.

Chris Grainger (53:44):
Perfect.

Mark Oxer (53:44):
And we do the same, let's do the same thing with
people.
Let's not just be like, youbetter be reading your Bible an
hour a day, have to be prayingan hour a day, and those kind of
things.
People are gonna be like, Whoa,can't do that.

Chris Grainger (53:56):
That's right.

Mark Oxer (53:57):
Okay, let's make it really simple for you.
How do you eat an airplane?
Small bites.
So, right, can you do atwo-minute prayer?
Perfect.
Can you do two minutes ofreading the Bible?
Perfect.
Can you do two minutes ofsomething else?
Now we've got six minutes puttogether.
We've broken it down intosmaller pieces.

(54:18):
Okay, let's start there.
Well, you know what?
Hey, your prayer drifted intothree or four minutes this next
time.
Or hey, you spend a little bitof time extra listening to God
and you're journaling, writingsome of these things down, and
it drifted into eight minutes,nine minutes.
Okay, great, right?
But setting aside itintentionally in your calendar
is going to be like fromwhatever time of the day it is.

(54:39):
I would suggest for mostpeople, do it earlier in the
day.
The earlier in the day you doit, the more chance there is
you're gonna be successful withit.
If you put it to later on inthe day, something at work might
happen, something with a familymight happen, this might
happen.
You get home, you're tired, andmake an excuse and go, you know
what?
I'm just not there for that.
Put it at the beginning of theday.

(55:00):
It has a higher chance of beingdone.
And then the other part aboutit is, and I'm gonna use a gym
joke here.
There was a picture of HalfThor Bjornsson, who's one of the
strongest men in the world.
Uh, it's a it's a picture ofhim running.
And it's like, running is theperfect way to start off your
day to know that it's not gonnaget any worse after this because
he's making a joke making ajoke that he doesn't want to
run, right?

(55:20):
But the flip side of that isput at the start of your day,
and you're starting your day offon a really positive foot, and
you started your day withscripture and prayer, and that's
going to lead you rather thanlag behind you at the end of the
day.

Chris Grainger (55:38):
100% great point, Mark.
Great point.
Well, at the end, when we gettowards the end of our
conversations, we always like tohave a little fun lightning
round with our guests.
So if you're willing to play,we'll jump right in and have
some fun.
Let's do it.
All right, all right.
What what about hobbies?
What do you enjoy doing forfun, Mark?
Disc golf.
Disc golf.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.

(55:59):
Been doing that for a longtime.

Mark Oxer (56:01):
Uh, so just before COVID, I started.
I was introduced to disc golfin 2013 uh by a roommate.
I was uh wasn't married at thetime.
Um 2013, and then in 2018, uh Ihad a significant knee injury
on my right knee and wanted tostill be physically active.
Uh, couldn't do the things Iwas used to, soccer, ultimate,
that kind of stuff.
And somebody was like, hey,what about disc golf?

(56:23):
There's a course just down theroad.
And I was like, I think I cando that.
So yeah, uh, I enjoy playingdisc golf.

Chris Grainger (56:30):
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Now you're super fit, you youcoach folks, but what's your
go-to food?
What where are you going towhen it's when it's time to get
down?

Mark Oxer (56:40):
Uh so the one of the things I really enjoy eating,
and I think it's beenaccentuated since moving here,
is uh I enjoy going to Five Guysand having a lettuce wrap
burger.
I I don't eat gluten myself, soI have a lettuce wrap burger.
I really enjoy the burger, alettuce wrap from Five Guys.
Um my ultimate go-to meal is mymom's homemade sweet and sour

(57:05):
meatballs.

Chris Grainger (57:07):
Okay, that's the go-to.
There you go.
You can't be mama's cooking.
I get it.
I get it.
I get it.
All right.
If you could have a superpower,Mark, what superpower would you
have and how would you use it?

Mark Oxer (57:18):
Oh my goodness.
A superpower.
Um I honestly don't know theanswer to that question.
A superpower.
I mean, selfishly, I think it'dbe fun to run real fast.
You're you're athletes.
I thought we could see that,right?
You know, let's go.

(57:39):
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (57:40):
What about what about music?
What what do you listen to?

Mark Oxer (57:43):
Uh so that's an interesting question.
It I think it really depends onuh the situation.
Uh, like when I'm at home withthe boys, I generally put on uh
like worship music.
Again, trying to have thatpositive influence for them.
Uh I did so I saw a memeyesterday, and I think it's
really sort of it wasinteresting.
Again, I was talking to thegym.

(58:04):
It was a picture of a dad,headphones on, doing like a
tricep press down, and it sayslike I'm listening to music
about like drinking and smokingand drugs and gangs and guns.
Meanwhile, I go to bed at eighto'clock and don't drink alcohol
and like all these other kindof things, right?
And it's just like this kind oflike weird dichotomy.

(58:24):
Uh, I do have an affinity for90s music, so like I think Dance
Mix 93 is one of the bestalbums ever made.
Uh, but I also really like umthe 90s sort of like Christian
rap, hip-hop um style music aswell.
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (58:44):
Cool.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
How about when you whatanything right now that that's
in your life that that you'restruggling with?
We always like to betransparent with our listeners
too, because somebody I'velistened to to our guests,
they're like, well, this guy'scrushing in life.
He never struggles withanything, but anything that
you're that you're battlingright now.

Mark Oxer (59:02):
Uh being a good dad.
Now, I know that might soundstrange, but uh uh I was bullied
quite significantly when I wasyounger.
Um and that has had a profoundimpact on my life, which is part
of the reason why I startedgoing to the gym and I started
doing myself, I did jujitsu andcombat sports and that kind of
stuff.
Uh I made an intentional choiceto say, I am not going to be

(59:26):
that person that walks into aroom and people go, hey, I want
to bully that guy.
I wanted the exact oppositeresponse.
I wanted to walk into a roomand people be like, that guy
over there, that's not the guythat I'm gonna, if that's the
last person in the room that I'mgonna choose to mess with if
I'm gonna choose to bugsomebody.
So I intentionally created thisuh personality, I would say.
In doing so, I also created avery negative part of myself

(59:51):
where is if somebody says ordoes something towards me, my
immediate response is fight as aprotection mechanism.
Being like, you know, you'renot gonna bully, I'm gonna
fight.
So now sometimes when mythree-year-old says no daddy, my
immediate response is like,What did you say?

Chris Grainger (01:00:10):
Right.

Mark Oxer (01:00:11):
Because it's a I've trained myself as a somebody,
somebody used a term that Ithink was it's worded well.
It says better to be uh awarrior in a garden than a
gardener in a war.
And so I trained myself to bethat warrior.
But the problem is now I have atr I have I struggle to be the
gardener.
I struggle to sometimes be thatvery peaceful, um calm.

(01:00:36):
And so when my son comes at meand he's not doing it to attack
me, he's not doing it tobullying me, he's just being a
three year old.

Chris Grainger (01:00:44):
That's right.

Mark Oxer (01:00:44):
And my response is like, Whoop.
And then I catch myself orsometimes.
My wife is like, babe, he he'snot trying to like attack you.
And I'm like, I know.
So then I find myself having togo to him and be like, hey, you
know what?
Daddy was a little bit harshwith that.
I'm sorry for that.
Um, so I struggle with my myinitial response uh in parenting

(01:01:07):
can is generally not I don'tknow if generally, but has a
probably a tendency towardsbeing a little bit harsher than
it needs to be.

Chris Grainger (01:01:16):
Fair enough.

Mark Oxer (01:01:16):
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (01:01:17):
Fair enough.
Thank you.
Thank you for the transparencywith that.
It's hard to find that withGod.
So I really appreciate youbeing open right there.

Mark Oxer (01:01:24):
Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Grainger (01:01:26):
What what about God?
When you think about God ingeneral, what's your favorite
thing about him?

Mark Oxer (01:01:31):
Hmm.
Right now, I would say grace.
Now that's gonna soundinteresting coming from somebody
who has arrived into theNetherlands, uh, has uh sort of
bucked against the Calvinismhere a little bit because grace
in the Calvinistic faith is verya very prominent part of the

(01:01:56):
Calvinistic faith is grace.
I don't mean it in the sameperspective, um I just mean it
in truly who God is as part ofhis being, not from like a um I
do say deep theological, but uhI want to, like I said, I want
to disconnect it from areligious piece to a

(01:02:17):
relationship piece in that uhone of the books that we I had
recently been assigned forreading for seminary was called
The Way of Grace, and it's aboutuh a gentleman who got
Parkinson's disease, and thenhe's experiencing what it's like
to have to go through life anddo things and experience things

(01:02:38):
that he didn't have toexperience previously because of
how the disease is nowaffecting him, and then he's
come to a place of grace as aresult of that.
And then uh even as far as thismorning, so my little guy uh
comes to the uh the gym inbetween classes.
I've got a break.
I was coaching this morning,and there's uh break in between

(01:02:58):
some of the classes, and he cameto the gym and he was swinging
some of the weights around in away that was a little bit
haphazardly and possibly couldhave hurt himself or hurt
somebody else.
And I just kind of like, hey,and then he like froze because
it was like, Whoa, that was areally strong hey from daddy,
right?
And then you could kind of seehim like slump over a little

(01:03:19):
bit, be sad, and I was like, Ohman, I did it again.
Crap.
And then I texted my wife and Iwas like, babe, I'm like, I'm
sorry, like I um like Ishouldn't have snapped at him.
There's no need to snap at himthat way.
I can just say, Hey buddy, youknow what?
That's probably not the bestway to be swinging those weights
around right now.
Let's try a different way.
Um and her response back to mewas like, How how awesome is it

(01:03:44):
though that we have God's graceto be able to like be hump, like
if we're humble enough that wecan have the walk into that
grace?
And now, so I came home, mythree-year-old runs to the door,
Daddy! It's like hey buddy,it's so good to see you.
And then after he kind ofcalmed down for a bit, I was
like, Was daddy a little bitharsh to the gym today?
Yeah, yeah, you were daddy.

(01:04:05):
So I'm sorry, buddy.
That's okay, Daddy.
And I was just like, man, thatjust that that that grace is um
is what I would say right now.

Chris Grainger (01:04:17):
Beautifully, beautiful picture.
Let's flip it 180.
What's your least favoritething about the evil one?

Mark Oxer (01:04:24):
Um I think so I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna not
quote this correctly, but I theessentially the the greatest lie
that the devil ever achievedwas convincing people that he
didn't exist, right?
Uh I like there's a quotethat's somewhere in that for I
paraphrase it a little bit.

(01:04:45):
But I think we are experiencingspiritual warfare um right now,
not I mean globally, I thinkwe're really truly seeing
spiritual warfare played outglobally.
And the deceit that ishappening that people are not

(01:05:05):
believing one that it'sspiritual warfare, and then
partly as a result of that, butalso partly because of how uh
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith C.S.
Lewis, the screw tape letters.
Um right.
So I think we're seeing a lotof those things play out in like
people being distracted bythings, and then not only is

(01:05:29):
there distraction, but there'sdivision.
And so the thing that's what Ireally hate is the amount of
division and distraction that isgoing on.
Uh, it's just it's tearingeverything to pieces.
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (01:05:43):
It really is.

Mark Oxer (01:05:44):
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (01:05:45):
It really is.
Well, Mark, the last questionfor you in this lightning round.
What what do you hope thelisteners remember the most from
our conversation today?

Mark Oxer (01:05:54):
Uh not to play me in a game of Settlers of Catan.
Notice.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
I really enjoy playing uh a lota lot of it.
Um uh that the the path isnarrow, um, and not everybody's
going to agree with you on that.

(01:06:16):
Uh but to get men around you tohelp you, encourage you to walk
on that path, but not just toget men around you to encourage
you to be on your journey, butalso encouraging people to be
the one that's supporting men ontheir journey as well.
And I think that that's acyclical piece is to let's walk

(01:06:38):
together on this.
You're not alone, you don'thave to be alone.
Yes, obviously, God is with us,but there is other people,
human men that God has placed onthis earth with the mandate,
with the intention, with thepurpose to walk side by side
with each other.

Chris Grainger (01:06:56):
Right.

Mark Oxer (01:06:56):
Yeah.

Chris Grainger (01:06:56):
Right.
Amen, brother.
Amen.
Where do you want to send thelisteners out there?
If they want to connect withyou, get the book, following any
of the stuff that you're doing,where's the best place to go?

Mark Oxer (01:07:05):
Uh, if people are interested in buying the book,
uh, the best place to get thatis on Amazon.
Uh so they can uh get that fromAmazon.
Uh just search for This Is TheWay uh by Mark Oxer should show
up on there.
Uh and if people would do me ahuge favor and leave a review,
that'd be greatly appreciated.
So that it helps other peoplefind the book.
It doesn't do anything for mefrom a financial perspective,

(01:07:26):
but it just helps other peoplefind the book.
So if people leave a review,that'd be great.
Uh and if they want to connectwith me, they can do that on
social media.
Uh Mark.oxer on Instagram, uhMarkOxer on Facebook.
Uh I do have, they can followmy Faith and Fitness project on
Instagram as well.
Um I do have a YouTube channeland not not a lot of content on

(01:07:50):
it, but they can check that outas well, or they can come to my
website, just markoxer.com.

Chris Grainger (01:07:55):
Okay, awesome.
Well, we'll make sure we try toget that out for you guys.
Mark, this has been I'vethoroughly enjoyed it.
Enjoyed it and spending timewith you.
Anything else you'd like toshare?

Mark Oxer (01:08:05):
Uh no, I really appreciated this.
This has been uh this has beenreally enjoyable, and I very
much appreciate you uh takingthe opportunity for me to be a
guest on the show.

Chris Grainger (01:08:15):
Amen, brother.
Well, you have a great day.
Thank you for your time.

Mark Oxer (01:08:18):
Thank you too.

Chris Grainger (01:08:22):
All right, guys.
I told you that was gonna be agood one.
So hopefully you enjoyed thatconversation with Mark.
Thank him again for for comingon the show.
Question of the week this weekis how much time do you give
daily to spiritual training?
And we've spent a lot of timetalking with Mark about time in
the gym, prioritizing time withfamily.
But what are we doing to reallyprioritize that spiritual

(01:08:42):
training that we so desperatelyneed, each and every one of us
in our lives?
And if you're not, if you'restruggling with that, I would
just encourage you, reach out tothe lion within us.
We have resources, we havetools, we have abilities to help
you with your spiritualjourney, whether it be you know
reading plans on the Bible app,obviously we have tons and tons
of those.
But from the community elementof the Lion Within Us, we have

(01:09:06):
intentional conversations allthroughout the week.
We have Lion Lunch, we haveBible studies, we have Friday
Forge, we give you opportunitiesto further your discipleship
journey.
So if you're trying to do thisthing alone, or maybe you just
don't have a big men's group, wehave hundreds of guys in this
thing, fellas.
It's incredible to see what Godis doing.
So head over to thelionwithin.us, start your

(01:09:27):
membership, go ahead and go intothe community, start that
30-day free trial of thecommunity, see what that's all
about.
I mean, we're talking aboutminimal investments here,
fellas, but this stuff is big,big impact.
So go check it out.
Get that started.
If you want to talk aboutleadership masterminds, if you
think you're to that point inyour discipleship journey where
you want to really truly lean inharder, that's what our

(01:09:48):
leadership masterminds are allabout.
Okay, so go check that out.
All the resources, everything,the Lion Within.
Don't forget to thethhelionwithin.us is where you
find it, guys.
Okay.
All right, we'll come back onFriday.
We'll have a good fun Fridayepisode 40.
Look forward to hanging outwith you guys.
Have a great day.
Give us a rating and review.
Again, thelionwithin.us,connect with us over there.
Have a good one.

(01:10:09):
Keep on leashing the lionwithin.
If you've ever opened the Bibleand had the thought, where do I
even start?
Brother, you're not alone.
I've had those moments all toooften.
And I found that having a guidewas helpful.
And that's why we created theI'm Just a Guy series on the

(01:10:31):
Bible app.
They're short, they're honest,and they help you read scripture
and walk it out.
And these plans speak to thereal stuff that we're wrestling
with as men, like marriage,anxiety, loneliness, shame,
pornography, and so much more.
Do this all without pretendingor piling on a bunch of

(01:10:52):
self-help nonsense.
And lots of guys are using themin their small groups, and
they're helping to spark honestconversations and take simple
next steps in their discipleshipjourney.
So if that sounds helpful,check them out at
thelinewithin.us slash youversions.
That's Y-O-U-D-E-R-S-I-O-N.

(01:11:14):
Or just open up your Bible appand search for the Lion Within
Us.
And it's my hope that thesereflections will encourage you
in just a few minutes and helpyou walk with him all day long.