Hosts And Guests Of This Episode
Jared Sparks, Bo Hutches, Brian Sauvé
Intro And Overview
The men address the increasingly popular and vital topic of “owned space,” as well as the directly related topics of localized culture creation and men taking dominion across many spheres, rather than being recruited to become pastors. This episode was sparked by an article from The Masculinist, by Aaron Renn, titled the same as this episode, “The Importance Of Owned Space.”
In a world which continues to push for more subscriptions, more rentals, and less responsibility, men who work now to own property and start business will be who can stand against evil and tyrannical regimes. We will have the means of livelihood and ability to love our neighbors. We will form communities of refuge for Christians and examples for a society that must rebuild after secularism has finished its reign of destruction.
Video Recording Of Show
Transcript Of This Episode
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[00:01:06] Jared Sparks: Welcome to the Majesty’s main show. I’m excited to be back with you guys today. I think this is episode three now, so we’re plugging along and I’m back with Brian. Solvay Brian, how you doing?
[00:01:19] Brian Sauvé: Doing great. Jared, how about you?
[00:01:20] Jared Sparks: Fantastic. I mean, you guys just saw this, but I just knocked over. I’m sitting in Jordan’s sewing room and I just knocked over on the way in here about a million buttons.
[00:01:30] So they’re staring at me in the face and I’m going to have to clean those up here in a little bit. But other than that, I’m doing really good. Good, good. And we’re also here with Bo hutches today. Bo, how you doing man?
[00:01:39] Bo Hutches: Doing excellent.
[00:01:41] Jared Sparks: Good deal. Here’s the deal. You’re new to this show. You’re going to be a co-host with us and be here.
[00:01:46] Everyone wants to, while on the show, just like the. So I want people to get to know you a little bit, both. So you’re going to actually introduce what we’re talking about today, but before we do that, I want people to get to know you a bit. So why don’t you just go ahead and tell us about, you know, just tell us about yourself and what you do.
[00:01:59] And I know you’ve got your side hustle with construction as well. And so tell us kind of just, I mean, all things about you and your family. And then once you just go ahead, after that, I want you to introduce the Aaron Renn article and then what we’re going to be talking about today, which is the importance of owned space.
[00:02:14] So just introduce that topic and, uh, but tell us who you are and what you’re about for you to do that.
[00:02:19] Bo Hutches: You got it. All right. So my name is Bo hutches. I’m an associate pastor in a small town. Uh, kind of smallish town, small city in south central, Colorado called Alamosa associate pastor do a lot of stuff with discipleship and assimilating new members and getting people plugged into discipleship groups and community groups and all that good stuff.
[00:02:39] Uh, so I am a pastor, but more importantly, I’m a husband to Jenna and a father to Charles, which it is his first birthday today. So it’s kind of fun. We’re going to hang out a little bit later today. So got one child, uh, out of the womb and one in the womb, right? Uh, due to be born in January. Um, so we’re having a good time with that, you know, learning the whole fatherhood thing, learning to be a better husband every day and trying to, uh, pastor and shepherd the flock that God has allowed me to do that here in Alamosa.
[00:03:08] So, um, so yeah, do that. And I also have some, some stuff on the side, you know, always kind of working on stuff on the side. I got a little bit of a background in construction, which I never really utilized during COVID, you know, when the church was kind of really slow. Um, so to have done that in the past and, um, also as well for equivalent full quiver woodworking, where it kind of makes them cradles.
[00:03:28] I made one for myself, not for myself, for myself. That’d be kind of a big cradle for myself, but for my son a made also one for Jared and for a couple of other friends. Um, so yeah, that’s kinda what I am about, like to kind of do the, the life of the mind, you know, um, and, you know, study through the, through the scriptures and theology, but also wife with the hands, you know, through hands-on building and crafting and things like that.
[00:03:50] So, um, that’s.
[00:03:52] Jared Sparks: Yeah. And I’ll give a plug for full quiver woodworking. We did have that cradle. We got it sent to us in the big, like the biggest shipping packages I’ve ever seen, but that worked really, really well for us. It’s just pretty cool to see what you’ve done. So if you guys would check that out, check out full quiver.
[00:04:07] It’s on, I mean, you got an Instagram page, I think go check Instagram. Yep. Yep. But, um, okay, so Brian’s out in, in, uh, Ogden, I’m hearing co in Carbondale, I almost said Colorado, your Colorado, uh, Yeah, we talked last week or a couple of weeks ago about building institutions and wanting to, you know, we were on with Scott and talking about the importance of that.
[00:04:29] And so we talked with Brian about St. Brendan’s the school and why he’s doing that, why they’re doing that as a church. And, you know, you send us this article and I want you to introduce it here, Bo, and talk about this a little bit, but wanting to build something for the long haul and to do that, it requires people invested in a place and then actually owning some space.
[00:04:47] So why don’t you just set that up? Aaron Renn. The importance of owned space. Why did that get ahold of you and why you want to talk about it?
[00:04:52] Bo Hutches: Totally, totally. So this is actually, if you, if you guys listening head over to the masculinist.com, Aaron has all the archives of his newsletters.
[00:05:01] He sends those out once a month, and this is the, the main article we’re going to be looking at today is number 43, the importance of owned space, but it’s actually kind of the second article. And a little series and basically the two articles are all about, uh, Christians going on offense, you know? So in the first article, uh, masculinity, number 42, why you should be on the vans and not the retreat, he just talks about how Christians need to be involved in offense.
[00:05:26] And then the second one that we’re looking at the importance of own space, he kind of gives some, some in fleshed ideas about how to go about that. And he zooms in on Moscow items. Kind of as a case study to, or as a model for Christians who are interested in going on the advance. And I think the thing that drew me to this is first of all, it’s, it’s, it’s practical.
[00:05:47] So actually it’s not just pie in the sky, abstract ideals, uh, it’s practical. So we have actually, you know, he gives us some advice, some really interesting observations cause he’s been there a few times. You know, he’s interacted with the culture around, you know, us, at least myself, I haven’t been to Moscow, so it looks pristine.
[00:06:04] It looks like a utopia, but Aaron in this article gives some practical ideas. But the first really thing that caught my attention was really one of the first opening lines. He said, um, right when he gets into, he says this month’s issue is a follow-up to last month installment about going on offense. And I mean, quite frankly, we just don’t hear that in our Christian culture today.
[00:06:25] It’s all about retreat. It’s all about doom and gloom. The worst it gets out there, the better for us. So even the idea of going on offense, pique my interest, it was okay. You know, we’re here to fight. We’re here to do battle. And this is a, this is a way to do that. So I guess that was one of the first things that piqued my interest.
[00:06:42] Um, you know, the, the idea of going on offense and basically he kind of starts the article talking about the importance of own space. He quotes from this guy, Brian. Bronze age perverts, who I’m not too familiar with. And, you know, he gives some, some qualifications. He doesn’t, you know, And advocate to read everything, but he does have a longer section here about the importance of owning something, um, the importance of the importance of having something real, having something tangible in a particular place.
[00:07:10] Um, so that you can go on offense.
[00:07:16] Jared Sparks: yeah. Let me interrupt right there. And let’s just, let’s let’s throw that around a little bit about. Uh, I would like your Brian’s thoughts on this as well, but this, honestly, that, that point about four years ago, three or four years ago, for me, uh, so disconnected from this article, but the idea of offensive, not offensive, but being on the offensive.
[00:07:34] Grabbed hold of me. It was almost like my red pill moment of it was at the end of this in 2018, I think. And it was at the same time that, uh, no, the first no quarter November happened, um, basically the last 12 years of men or 14 years of ministry for me had been a lot of posturing and, you know, trying to speak clearly with the scriptures, but a lot of, a lot of defense.
[00:07:57] And that’s a lot of what I’d caught from reformed evangelicalism and specifically. You know, Baptistic evangelicalism, which is defense, defense, defense, defense not take the hill, take the ground. And I think there is some eschatology that’s wrapped up into that, but I, Brian, I’m interested to know if you’ve seen that as well or experienced that, or if you know, I’m clearly you guys are on the offense out there.
[00:08:19] So, I mean, it, was there any moments that really switched you theologically from, from kind of like. Pedaling almost, or even just staying in one particular, uh, uh, place, not really an offense or defense into, okay. We’re going to build something here.
[00:08:33] Brian Sauvé: Yeah. You know, I think some of the language that was important in that transition and it’s really a lot similar to that.
[00:08:41] Exactly what you described. It started to take root for me when, um, I noticed more and more just the length of God’s perspective on the mission on what he’d given us to do. Just how far out that mission was. It needed to be like we’re talking. It’s not a mission that’s easily measurable in months, right?
[00:09:05] When you talk about discipling the nations, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded it’s something that’s measurable in, in, I mean, yours is probably the shortest increment that it can be helpfully measured in. And that’s like the equivalent of a second on the, on the game clock you could say. So that, I mean, that really got the ball rolling for us.
[00:09:25] Just a long. View when I think it was something, I can’t remember if it was Doug or if it was someone else who, who pointed out. Symbolic numbers and scripture often mean more than the literal, you know, equivalent. So when it says that the Lord, the Lord he’s, you know, faithful to the thousandth generation of those who trust them and keep his commands, I think it was Doug probably pointed out that’s 40,000 years, right.
[00:09:53] By the most standard definition of a generation. And, and if you pair that with the reality that for God. Thousand that number, that big round number, you know, it kind of means bigger. So not to press that too far, but it just got me thinking, okay. We are not only. Do we have this great mission. It’s going to play out over a long period of time, but it started to change sort of our strategy to think.
[00:10:18] Well, what that means is that we have to equip our soldiers and we have to equip them over that long, you know, with long thinking. So, okay man, it’s, it’s not about. A six-week discipleship course, even though that’s, those things are important. We need to think longer, bigger, more durable, slower, more plodding, and play a kind of offense that, that fits in with the scale of the game.
[00:10:40] So we’re not just going from thing to thing. And it’s the thing to evangelist strategy to evangelistic strategy. We’re we’re doing these kinds of where you might think, oh, maybe we’ll take a. Right. That’s going to take some time. You wouldn’t do that unless you were playing a long, long kind of offense.
[00:10:58] So that was some of the mild. Intellectual philosophical, theological background, where I was started to make some of those similar connections. Yeah. And that’s
[00:11:07] Jared Sparks: interesting. Cause I think for, for a lot of people and I think a lot of people are still there. The posture is almost it’s like defend the ground we have and then retreat, when it’s.
[00:11:17] So the expectation is at some point it is going to be taken so defendant as long as we can for our kids and the grandkids, but then eventually it’s inevitable that ground is going to be taken by somebody else. And I think that the corner that so many guys need to turn, and that’s what I want to really encourage guys to do is take that corner and just, I mean, make the turn and say, no, we’re not going to be defending the ground that somebody else won.
[00:11:40] And one through the blood of Christ. Jesus purchased the world. So we’re going to go take it. And that, that posture, that mindset changes so many different things. And I think, you know what you’re talking about with, you know, not just decades, but you know, if Christ returned and he tarries for, you know, 200 years, even 300 years, 2000 years, then there’s a lot of work to be done up to that.
[00:12:01] And we want to be taking ground and using the gifts that God has given us to do it, not just the expectations. Somebody else is going to pump a loss and take everything that we have, or that we’ve gained. So
[00:12:12] Brian Sauvé: I like that, that brought to mind. This might actually go back to Martin. And mark Driscoll days, but you know, the air war, ground war illustration, where a lot of evangelicalism is air war with no ground war.
[00:12:24] It’s just, it’s lobbing bombs over enemy territory, but there’s never any, you know, conquer colonize, occupy, invade own. And Canaan is our, you know, we’re the anti type of Canaan, the conquest of Canaan. And so we should be not. Like, we’re not just Cain and we’re more than Canaan. We were to go and advance and invade and take and own.
[00:12:46] And that means roots. I mean, cities, that means culture. That means art, vocation, all those things, you know, require occupation. Like you’re saying that was really good. Yeah. So
[00:12:57] Jared Sparks: Bo, was that for you, like, as you, as you’re going to talk, like, was this article that crucial pump moment for you? Or was there something else that had been playing or several factors that played into, you know, this shifting.
[00:13:09] Bo Hutches: Yeah. So the article, um, it wasn’t that, but it just kind of affirmed a lot of the stuff I’d already been thinking for me, it was definitely wrapped up in eschatology coming to understand the post-millennial vision, you know, and the fact that Christ is the Lord over all, and he has claim over all and then we should be working for all those things.
[00:13:27] So that was, that’s been ingrained in my thinking for quite a while. Um, but this was just another thing that kind of just dovetailed into that. Um, but also, like I said, is going to give some practical. How tos. Um, and that’s, that’s what he’s talking about, right? In order for us to exert the Lordship of Christ everywhere, we do need own space, you know, and he talks about how, you know, some more conservative minded people have tried to make a living on platforms like YouTube.
[00:13:53] You know, these places, they, these businesses and organizations, they have no control over. Um, and the CEOs who do not care about them and want to censor them and trying to make a living on somebody else’s space. You’re not going to make a whole lot of. And now of course, you know, there, there are YouTube is conservative and Christian alike and on different various platforms besides YouTube who have made good headway, but he’s, he’s just pointing out the reality that, you know, at any moment they could cut the cord at any moment.
[00:14:20] They could say, you know what? You know, and that, you know, loses influence that could potentially cut someone’s livelihood out. So that’s why he’s talking about the importance of own space. If you’re going to go on offense, you can’t just have a good, you know, whiteboard plan, you know, you actually have to implement it on the field.
[00:14:33] And I think that’s kind of what he’s talking about here with the, with the idea of own space, you have to own your own stuff, institutions, land, um, platforms, whatever the case is. Now you might be able to make some headway, like I said, on other peoples, but the goal should be, um, ownership of space. Um, So, yeah.
[00:14:51] I mean, that’s really what it gets into and then he gets into a Moscow Idaho. Now, have you guys, have you guys been to Moscow before? I’ve never been, have you guys been there before and been to a conference or anything? We’ve actually been there to get. That’s right. Oh, nice. Yeah.
[00:15:05] Jared Sparks: Yeah. What was that? Was that 2018 or was that 2019 Brian?
[00:15:08] Brian Sauvé: It was, I think it was the 2018 missions conference there in the winter.
[00:15:13] Jared Sparks: Yeah. Brian displayed superhuman strength on, on that trip because, or like superhuman stamina. I get to the airport. Forty-five minutes.
[00:15:24] Brian Sauvé: We lost your audio right? When you were extolling my strengths. Oh man.
[00:15:27] Jared Sparks: Okay. Hopefully we’re back at it talking about the spring of Brian, uh, 45 minutes of sleep, and then he drives us 10 hours straight with no sleep.
[00:15:38] Other than that 45 minute cat nap or, or that 45 minute power nap, 45 minutes up to Moscow and did not fall asleep and did not kill us. So that was the mercy of God on display.
[00:15:48] Bo Hutches: Nice. Yeah. So like for me, who haven’t been to Moscow, it just seems like the promised land. Right. You know, you hear about the Logan school, you hear about the businesses and you know, a few folks here, here in my church, we’ve kind of talked a longingly about Moscow.
[00:16:04] You know, the grass is greener up there. You know, if we, if we just moved, everything would be okay. Um, of course, you know, that’s a foolish thing to think, but the thought occurred to me eventually like, well, why don’t we just build our own model? You know, instead of moving and transporting and building and taking the routes we have here and the networks and the life lived here, instead of doing that, why don’t we just build our own Moscow and I’ve thought that for awhile, and then this article comes along and here we are a case study in Moscow, Idaho.
[00:16:31] So it was really good timing for me to see all that stuff come to, come to fruition through Aaron’s article.
[00:16:36] Jared Sparks: Yeah. And it’s interesting because I think, and it gets go, oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:16:40] Brian Sauvé: No, no, no, no. You go ahead, Jared. You probably had much better insight than me,
[00:16:45] Jared Sparks: so we get up to Moscow and I think from afar, you’re right there.
[00:16:48] It’s kind of a duplicitous. I mean, you, you, you look at one on one side of the things in Moscow and you see that own space. You see. You know, a really neat brewery. That’s owned by people from the church. You see the old theater in town, that’s now converted into a location for Christ church. You see really neat things and you know, that real physical own space, but you really do see the, you know, the church really is the tip of the spear that that’s absorbing so much in that community.
[00:17:13] And there is hostility. I mean, there there’s hostility in that community where. It’s also a highly liberal town. And there are people in that town that are not conscientious at all about what’s happening at a national level, or that the fact that people like us are looking to Moscow and saying, man, there’s some really neat things happening there.
[00:17:30] They have no idea about the homeschool movement. They have no idea. You know, people really want to learn it and, and see what’s happening in Moscow and other places, because for them, this is like the liberal bastion. This is the place that, you know, they, they, you know, can do their gay pride parade. No, probably the only place in the only place in all of Idaho where that’s welcomed.
[00:17:50] I mean, that place in probably Boise. And so there is this it’s interesting. It’s almost like there’s a city within a city, you know, you know, we’ve heard that from, from, uh, you know, be the city within the city in Babylon. You know, build your houses and live there and be for the good of the city. And so you see that happening in Moscow, but it is.
[00:18:07] I mean, there’s definitely hostility there. I think. I mean, unless I misread it, I mean, Brian, I mean, you’ve been there too, obviously, so, I mean, what’s your thoughts?
[00:18:14] Brian Sauvé: Yeah, I’ve been up there a couple of times. They’ve been for a few conferences, the one with you. Um, we went up for grace agenda. I went to a Presbytery meeting there, um, last year, 20.
[00:18:27] October. And there there’s certainly two towns and where it comes into the sharpest contrast was in the, uh, the very public political fight over the masking mandates for, for sure is where you see that. I mean, it’s kind of under the surface, but as soon as Christ church shows up in the city, you know, the town square singing, Psalms unmasked in the midst of the most masky totalitarian.
[00:18:54] Light area in the entire state of Idaho. All of a sudden you’ve got. Hordes of pink haired feminists bashing on their drums and playing whap, you know, as loudly as they can, which is hilarious that that’s the best cultural artifact they can bring to the fight. And, and, you know, the, the, the Muscovites are bringing they’re, they’re bringing, oh, sing a new song to the Lord.
[00:19:19] It’s like you brought a knife to a gunfight, but it’s definitely in an undercurrent. You know, Aaron ran brings up there’s two coffee shops. There’s. Sorts of businesses. There’s and what’s cool is that he says, oh yeah, busers is the better coffee shop than the liberal one. Uh, and, and so it’s visible, it’s visible in the structure of the commerce.
[00:19:42] There certainly are people who aren’t aware of it and are less aware of it, but they have a big enough, I mean, they’ve played on offense enough that the residents have had to react to them. You know, they’re like, if you, if you, if you’ll allow me a chess metaphor, they’re playing a fried liver attack and they’ve made their opponent defend and, and, and not just ignore them and continue their own defense.
[00:20:06] Jared Sparks: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And I’ve seen that, you know, that very good description of that. So, so Bo, when you’re thinking about owned space, okay. Build your own. I, you know, Moscow, Idaho, obviously that includes all right, I’ve got to be out of debt. I’ve got to be in a financial position to actually.
[00:20:22] Set the example here, because if I’m wanting to build this, I’ve got to set the example and I’ve got to get people around me. That’s already here that also shares this, this vision of our, of our community, what it could be. And if we’re going to replicate something like that, then there’s some real physical barriers.
[00:20:37] Like for instance, You know how this looks in a city and how it looks in a rural area, it’s going to be completely different. You know, we talked last week about how for Brian and in our place, you know, if you move like right now, I’m looking at some property, 11 acres for $35,000. Okay. 11 acres, 35 grand and unbelievable.
[00:20:56] Right. I know. And then there’s another piece of property. It’s 30 plus. And it’s for sale for $70,000. Okay. So, I mean, this is, this is, uh, a totally different area where you’re at boa kids kind of more rural, I think as well. So I mean, shared space is going to look different, our own space, excuse me, is going to look different than in urban context.
[00:21:17] And in, in a rural context, it’s going to be, it’s going to be difficult practically. Then just walk us through what is talking about, and then how have you been thinking about it? Cause if you want to build something like this, I mean, they had Douglas. You know, Bo you’re a sharp guy, but God’s using you.
[00:21:29] You’re you’re not Doug Wilson, not Doug Wilson. Brian’s not Doug Wilson. So how does it practically get implemented in like, you know, the guys who were like, yeah, let’s build this. I don’t, I don’t want to move, have to move somewhere. I want to build it. All right. Well, how are we going to do it?
[00:21:41] Bo Hutches: Yeah. Well, let me.
[00:21:43] The article will Erin lays down. And let me talk about kind of some of the things that I’m doing and then you guys can riff off that. So what’s interesting, you know, we, we do, when we think about Moscow, we think about Doug Wilson, but you know, Aaron points out the whole men, the whole Wilson ministry up in Moscow was started by his father, Jim.
[00:21:59] Right. So Doug’s kind of just inherit. But it was a strategic point. Um, Jim Wilson wrote a book about evangelism, you know, the principles of war applied to evangelism. He talks about this strategic point in a place that’s feasible to win, but also that takes ground from the enemy. And, you know, so that’s what he talks about.
[00:22:15] You know, you can’t go to New York, but that’s going to be a hard place to win. Um, but you can go to a really small town and that’d be an easy place to win, but it may not, you know, seed ground or take ground from the enemy. So it talks about how Jim Wilson Doug’s dad. Took this strategic point and intentionally chose Moscow for this reason.
[00:22:32] And he chose it because there was a college, you know, a university it’s a university town, but there’s also another university close to it. So he intentionally chose it and essentially started this process of, um, being around for the long haul, you know, burning the boats, being around, um, through thicker for thin.
[00:22:49] Um, so that’s really important. And then he just goes on to talk about how, uh, the church has been incredible institution builders. And let me say upfront, I saw a Doug Wilson response to the article and it almost sounds like, you know, Doug, Wilson’s kind of the man behind the curtain, pulling all the levers, telling people, you know, you need to start this business, you need to do this thing.
[00:23:09] But really Wilson just kind of said in response to this article that he just kind of preached and it was faithful. And then this thing gets kind of grew up with. Uh, but, but Aaron Wren says, you know, in addition to building the church, they have been incredible institution builders. Uh, Doug Wilson was the inventor or co-inventor of classical Christian education with the logo school there.
[00:23:28] They have also been, they also have a liberal arts college called new St. Andrew’s a pastors training program, a media company called Canon press. That’s very plugged in. So they have their very own institutions and have a nationwide impact through. And he talks about how the church members have real estate and scalable wealth businesses and consumer oriented businesses, you know, so this is not, um, a church that is, you know, so heavy, so heavily on the spiritual, um, where they, you know, prize the spiritual over, uh, the, the, the physical, uh, but they’ve gone out into the community and actually.
[00:24:02] You know, have a presence. And let me, let me just give you kind of what I thought was the best, uh, you know, sentence here. And then I’ll give you errands kind of bullet pointed things, things for us to think about when we, if we want to build our own Moscow, uh, Aaron says, so they have physical ownership of a space and economic and social ownership of their own businesses.
[00:24:23] This allows them to observe a powerful cultural presence in the town. They may be the minority. They may not be liked, but they are there, they are visible. They bring a lot of attention to Moscow of the type many locals might not prefer, and they are very difficult to get rid of or intimidate. And that’s a really, really huge, so we have physical ownership, economic social, so that they may have a cultural presence in the town.
[00:24:47] You know, we may, we may want to be about the culture and, you know, confronting the culture. Uh, but we actually have to have our own culture if we’re going to do that. And then Erin basically just ends, you know, so, uh, Moscow. Uh, the, the Moscow owned space stack, thus looks something like this. Uh, so point number one had the community confidence to be cultural and even visibly distinct from the surrounding community.
[00:25:08] Build a cultural mass of people relative to the overall community size, develop a method of a attracting like-minded people while be filtering out differently. Minded. Uh, next, uh, create scalable businesses that generate wealth, employ community members and otherwise contribute to the community through taxes, through create top quality consumer oriented businesses, acquire strategic commercial and residential real estate in historic town or neighborhood.
[00:25:34] Center. So there’s a lot there, but I thought that those kind of two things, that statement and the bullet points was the flesh, you know, was the practical things about how to do these things. Um, so you guys want to riff off that for a second and then maybe after I can give what I’m doing and then we can share what you guys are doing too.
[00:25:51] Um, any thoughts about what Erin said there?
[00:25:54] Brian Sauvé: I, I highlighted that section to where he, the, the own space stack. That was the highlight of the article for me. Uh, There’s a lot in there. One of the things that really jumped out though that I think quite a few pastors miss out on, um, which is very important and absolutely key to what they’ve built up in Moscow and also.
[00:26:16] Places. And in, for example, I would go to apology, uh, in Arizona as a community that is doing similar things. You might look at them and say, they’re in the larval stage of Moscow. That’s 40, 50 years in. And it was the filtering out differently minded people. So they’ve developed a method of attracting the like-minded while filtering out the differently.
[00:26:37] You can’t have this illusion that you will maintain the largest mass of people that you could possibly attract and have cultural potency, because you’ll have to do that necessarily at the expense of specificity and cultural idea. So you, I mean, you always are going to be preaching people in and out of the community.
[00:26:58] As you preach doctrinal, distinctive cultural distinctives, you just have to be willing to develop a thick hide for rejection, hatred, reviling, slander in the community. You can bet that there’s a whole vocal sub sub culture in any community like this that is known like their PR you know, like the meme, you know, your personality.
[00:27:18] Can’t just be hating Doug Wilson, but they try it anyway. If you are attempting something like that, you just have to steal yourself from the beginning. Well, you have to a preach distinctively enough and lead distinctly enough that people can identify something they hate and are offended by and you have to be ready for, you know, rejection and hatred.
[00:27:41] Jared Sparks: Yeah, that’s really good. I think a couple of things that you had said tying in some comments that you made earlier, Brian, and tying it in with the apology, a comment, this, all of this, you know, implementing these that this plan takes a long time and a commitment to decades. You know, the life that God has given us, if God wills we’ll leave, we’ll live 70 to 80 years, maybe, maybe longer.
[00:28:02] And I hope that I get to see a lot of years and hope God gives me many years. I want to be able to see my kids, my grandkids, great grandkids, all of that. But one of the things that has been a staple of Moscow has been that consistency and has been consistency over the decades. And so if we want everything right now, you know, I think about like the book, a lot of people want the book of acts, especially charismatic folks.
[00:28:23] They want all of the book of acts every single week. And I miss that the book of acts is a 30 year. Yeah. So if you try to, you try to get all of the book of acts and every single service and every single gathering and every single small group, you, you actually end up getting something. That’s not very much like the book of acts because it’s a 30 year book and you see, you see this growth and you see, you know, uh, signs and wonders over 30 years.
[00:28:45] Same thing with, with what Aaron Wren is talking about. And what we’ve seen with the case study in Moscow is this is a commitment to the decades. And so for us, Faithfulness weekend and week out and a commitment to build, build long, to build slow and to be faithful and then look around. And it sounds like the way Doug describes it as it’s almost like he looked around and it’s kind of like, look what God has done here.
[00:29:08] Like, this is amazing what God is continuing to do, but it’s been through decision after decision of saying, okay, we need a school, so we’re going to start one. Okay. We need to be. To put out this material that we’re writing. So we’re going to start a publishing company. And in that moment, they probably did not imagine what Canon press would be.
[00:29:24] They probably didn’t imagine what law school would be and what the Christian school movement. The classical Christian school movement would be. They didn’t recognize that it just started around a table around a cup of coffee, around a group of guys just being faithful in that moment. And then you add decades to that of consistency and that that’s what you get.
[00:29:45] And so I think any, you know, any of these plans that the Aaron rent rent puts down any of the things that we. We go toward, we have to be consistent and trust that over the long haul, you know, that God is going to bless this and it may bless. He may bless it in different ways than he’s blessed. You know, you know, what’s going on in OD dinner, what’s going on in at apology or Christ church or at where you’re at both.
[00:30:06] Being faithful and then just kind of look around and say, okay, look what God has done
[00:30:09] Brian Sauvé: to me. One of the keys to this kind of community also would have to be just the great success in, uh, imparting a certain culture to men and creating a certain kind of man. Um, we talk quite a bit in our context here in Ogden that, uh, particularly pastor Dan and I talk a lot about this, that.
[00:30:32] You can’t just have pastors who are doing. You have to have men who are differently gifted, who are doing completely other things like just entrepreneurially gifted, and you have to impart this robust cultural reformed Christian identity into them in such a way that they don’t think well, if I want to be a good man, I have to be a pastor.
[00:30:55] I have to aspire to ministry, but they take that. And then they say, I’m going to go be, I’m going to build a scalable tech business that can employ thousands of people in Podunk, Moscow, Idaho, that doesn’t, it’s scalable. You know, that kind of thing. You have to have guys who go start a coffee shop. You have to have guys who are able to manage and promote and do online marketing for Canon press, which they do tremendous job at.
[00:31:21] So. I think that’s such a key is that Doug was like a catalyst there in a lot of ways. And he, he, he is a very much a gifted leader that very few people are going to be able to match his he’s a 10 talent guy. Um, but, but he did not. Doug. Doesn’t do everything there. Like, like we, we were talking about Doug, doesn’t just go do this.
[00:31:39] He doesn’t do the, he doesn’t deploy everybody like Hitler, like a top-down sort of power thing. No, no, no. Doug has preached and through his preaching made an army of men who get this reformed, Christian robust, culturally assertive, joyful, happy satirically biting Christianity. And then they go and they do that everywhere they go.
[00:32:02] This is like that to me is such a, such a key to the secret sauce of Moscow, Idaho. That’s easy to overlook just by looking at.
[00:32:12] Bo Hutches: Yeah. And I think, uh, one of the things that I’ve always worked against in the ministry, and I’m sure you guys have experienced this, you know, if you preach a sermon, it may be your best sermon.
[00:32:22] It may be your worst sermon, but there’s probably at least one person in the congregation who comes up and says that was a great sermon. Even if you know, in your mind, That was terrible. That was like one of the worst sermons I’ve ever preached, but someone’s going to say, oh, I really enjoyed that. Really encouraged by that.
[00:32:36] But you know, the guy, the men in our, in our congregation, they don’t get that type of encouragement in our day-to-day, you know, they’re not the ones getting encouragement. They’re not the ones feeling, uh, you know, like they’re contributing to the kingdom or whatever. Um, so I think we have this view of, uh, you know, cause the other mechanic, he gets his job done and then he’s just encouraged to go into the next.
[00:32:55] You know? Um, so yeah, I guess what I was saying was that that sacred versus spiritual divide, you know, trying to build up men who see that they are contributing to the kingdom, to the mission of the church that is not necessarily tied directly to pastoral ministry. So that’s what I was saying to kind of riff.
[00:33:12] Brian’s comment earlier.
[00:33:14] Jared Sparks: Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And to plug Scott Tanguay, Scott’s got some really good things to say about this as well, where he, he encourages guys where he talks about how the little lights made up a 12th. You know what, you know, one 12th of the people of God. And so you look at a small minority of people are doing, doing the work in the temple and he talks about.
[00:33:33] You know, within the church, the, your best guys, you typically think, oh, great man. Get them on the elder track, get them on the deacon track. And it, that may actually be really miserable for them. And instead, you know, you’ve got to get them in a place where they’re going to, as he, as he says it, they’re going to go crush and the.
[00:33:49] You know, you know, it ended up being a landlord or, you know, own properties, 50 properties in the city, and they’re going to love that and they’re going to steward what God has given them well, but they’re not going to be in pastoral ministry. Okay. So here’s, here’s the question I get to ramble in. What, what, uh, bow are you doing then?
[00:34:05] And, uh, and then I’ll give a couple of things that we’re doing here and then we’ll pass it back to Brian. And then, uh, we’ll, we’ll give it to you to finish things up though, but.
[00:34:16] Bo Hutches: Yeah. So we are just kind of in the beginning stages of this. And the thing that I’m doing is focusing on men. And right now over the summer, we are reading through a couple of men in the church about 10 of us, 10 to 20, depending on who shows up.
[00:34:30] Um, but we are reading through CR Wiley’s man of the house. You know, I think a lot of this really does come back to the idea of repentance, you know, not necessarily repenting from sin, but changing our minds when it comes to, you know, our responsibility and engagement. Um, what it means to be a Christian in all spheres of life.
[00:34:48] And I think that C R Wiley’s book for me opened my eyes to a lot of these things about productive property, about becoming, you know, antifragile and durable. So that’s one thing we’re doing, you know, I’m focusing on the men in my church, reading a practical, um, manual on how to build a household. And then next week we are going to start meeting about how to, you know, start a crit classical Christian school.
[00:35:11] Um, so that’s what we’ve got going on. Oh, so that’s what we’re going to be doing. Um, so yeah, I’m kind of just in the beginning stages, but we’re, we’re starting,
[00:35:18] Jared Sparks: so, all right. So here’s, uh, here’s something that I’m doing to encourage our guys with. And I think man of the house is a great, it’s a great place.
[00:35:25] Um, we’re talking about again, productive property. You see our wildly, I think has been an influence in all three of us in a really, really good way, but I had a guy come to me. Uh, he owned a window. Washington still does a window washing business and he was seeking counsel new guy and just become a Christian within the last year and just landed at our church.
[00:35:43] He and his wife. He’s one of those guys where you kind of feel like you knew him forever. You meet them and you just hit it off. He’s become a really good friend. And he was sitting in my office and just asking for counsel about what to do because his window washing business, he did both commercial and residential was in an okay spot, but he.
[00:36:01] Was not making the kind of money that he needed to make and was asking if he should go work for this factory. And because of some of the principles we’re talking about today, some of the principles that are in Aaron Ron’s article, I was able to talk to him and say, Hey, listen, JT. Instead of that, you got to think with your kids and grandkids and.
[00:36:20] And think about the opportunities you could have for your children. If you commit to this and go out and really just kill it with your window washing business, what would it look like for you to take six months to really just go out and build this thing up, both commercial and residential, and think about what, what this could mean for your son and your daughter, you know, specifically for your son in.
[00:36:41] When you’ve got a route for him and he’s going and taking, taking responsibility for all the residential houses and you’re washing windows for, you know, 50 houses and you’ve got a full-time job for him to step into. And you’ve got a full-time job that you’ve got and you’re able to make these routes.
[00:36:56] And instead of going and working for somebody else, you be the man that somebody else works for. And these are just basic principles of things that we’ve been learning over the years. And I’ve been learning over the years and helping him think with his grandchildren in mind. Well, he took that advice.
[00:37:10] And he is, I mean, he’s doing great. I mean his business, since then he’s gotten new accounts, he’s built it up and he’s thinking about how, okay, this is going to work for his family. His wife is doing some of the books for him. So this is becoming a family business where, you know, this is something they’re all doing together.
[00:37:26] So not only is it going to end up being where he’s not working for somebody else, but this is going to be something here, his whole family to do. And what, what ends up happening is 20 years from now, 30 years from now, JT becomes a guy. That’s able to look at another, uh, young guy in our church and he’s able to find.
[00:37:43] This young guy’s idea to build a business in our city, because he’s really been crushing it for the last 30 years and built up this window business. And now he’s a multi-millionaire and can say, yeah, I can give you the first hundred grand to get this thing going. And it builds over the years and over the decades.
[00:37:59] And so it really, I mean, it comes, you know, some of this stuff comes and I don’t know how this is going to turn out, you know, JT and Andrea May end up. Uh, way or something like that. I have no idea, but when we’re thinking through these things, you can think through how you give counsel to people and the men in particular, within your church.
[00:38:15] When they’re talking about man, I would love to, I would love to build I’d love to just be a builder. And, you know, you say, okay, well start doing that on the weekends. And then when you get to the point that you can’t do both, because you’re just, I mean, burning the wick at both ends, quit your job at the bank or quit your job wherever.
[00:38:33] And open your own, you know, do that full time. And so that’s one way that you can start thinking through how the calculus built over the decades. And again, this is just one example with one guy, but it started. Conversations with one person at a time. And then 30 years from now by God’s grace. JT is the guy that can fund this idea to start the coffee shop in our community.
[00:38:55] Brian Sauvé: Man, that’s so good. That just, it’s such a good snapshot of how one conversation where a guy’s humbled to come talk to his pastor. What should I do? And then you not say. Become an elder or not say, Hey, you know, let me just talk about theology. Say let’s apply your theology in wisdom and practice to your life.
[00:39:12] And that, I mean, that, that could change generations of his family, man. That’s awesome. Get fired up, thinking
[00:39:18] Jared Sparks: about that. Okay. So, Brian, what are you doing then? We’re on the edge of our seat wanting to know, okay, what you’re doing the school, but how are you encouraging the guys to,
[00:39:25] Brian Sauvé: yeah. So the way I’m the way that I’m trying to think right now as a pastor is, you know, to unashamedly inflame.
[00:39:35] A longing for glory. Yeah. My people and particularly in the men and the women to a glory of their verbal cage, like the glory of a thing is, um, glorious brightness. It’s it is the, uh, it’s the, the weighty goodness of a thing that is at peace with what. It was designed to be and do that’s how I think about glory.
[00:39:57] And so a man is glorious when he’s being what God made him to do. A woman is glorious when she’s being and doing what she’s made to do. Uh, and so from the pulpit, thinking about that, like the pulpit is the problem, the ship Moby Dick reference, kind of that idea. My goal is to, to make them want proper glory, to glorify God by being what God made them to be and do, and not have disordered loves and how, and see how that affects everything in their life with the, with the talents that God has given them.
[00:40:28] And so out of that, it’s kind of like a, you preach that and then encourage the men and the women in doing what they find with their hands to do. So, um, we’ve got St George’s Guild starting up, which is like a. Pastoral training program. We’ve got some business incubation going on with some of our guys had master.
[00:40:50] Kevin Love is doing a lot of that with our guys. We’ve got, uh, this school coming up, uh, in a lot of work there. Um, we’ve got a lot of small little businesses starting with some young ones. We’ve got older, at least one older man in the Congress, a couple actually, who are taking some younger men under their wing, hiring them.
[00:41:09] You know, one guys particularly has just transformed a younger man’s life and help them. So it’s just kind of that. And I didn’t do most of that. It’s just this. Here’s what you are. So go and be that to the glory of God and want to win and want to, you know, have the weighty goodness, the self forgetful, humble, courageous, weighty, goodness of being what you are and not self-consciously worrying about being what you’re not.
[00:41:39] So it’s kind of hard to, it’s almost hard to keep up, but at the same time, it’s like, I feel most weeks like. It’s just normal pulling weeds, preaching the Bible, doing some counseling, and then you do start to look out and go, man, that guy’s, that guy’s the last year. The Lord’s really transformed his life.
[00:41:58] And, um, at the same time, Fighting wolves, keeping, keeping wolves out, making that differentiation, trying to be even more aggressive at the front of telling people when they come to join, like, this is what we are. Let me tell you everything that would offend you about us here in the first conversation so that you can not be surprised six months down the road.
[00:42:18] When we S you know, for example, say the word patriarchy positively, or, you know, something like that. So, but it’s, it’s been good. God has been so good. We’re thankful. And, uh, I’m encouraged to hear you guys, man. It’s just so cool to see the Lord doing a lot of these similar things in so many places and men right now in churches and communities.
[00:42:40] Jared Sparks: Yeah, man, I bought what he got, man.
[00:42:42] Bo Hutches: Take his home. Yeah. So that’s the goal, right? Um, wouldn’t it be great instead of everyone, you know, transplanting and moving up to Moscow, if we just, you know, built mosque where we were at, if we had a Moscow sanctuary type of city, Geneva type of city in Carbondale and Ogden in Alamo, And you know, all across this land, you know, if it wasn’t, you know, let’s look to Moscow, let’s see the faithfulness of the people at see what God has done there.
[00:43:08] Uh, but let’s build the Moscow ourselves. Let’s start where we’re at. Um, take the long-term view, be intentional and do it with other other brothers and sisters. I think that’s kind of the main, main couple of things that I’m getting from, uh, from our conversation. So, um, but let’s do it. Let’s go Moscow.
[00:43:24] Jared Sparks: That’s good. And guys, just as a surprise here, next month, Bo and Brian and myself will be on talking with Doug about this. And so we’re going to be able to have a conversation with him, just asking him about what God has done over the last 30, 40 years should be a lot of fun. And, uh, you know, he’s always fun to talk to.
[00:43:40] I think we’ve all got a chance. I don’t know if Bo has yet been and Brian and I’ve got a chance to talk with him and he just so, so much fun to learn from and to be around and just talk to, and I think you guys are going to really enjoy that conversation. That’s going to be a lot of fun to have him on, and it’s probably how many of you are gonna get introduced to this show is just somebody passed that show along because Doug was on there.
[00:43:59] And so, uh, be on the lookout. But, uh, guys, anything else before we jump off here? It’s fun. All right. One final plug. Go by Brian’s album, go check it out. Albums. Definitely go get them, go buy them right now and sign up for his Patreon. And thank you. Thank you. You’re welcome. And for everybody else, guys, thanks so much for being here and tuning in.
[00:44:22] Listen to them. You wouldn’t subscribe, share this, spread the word, leave a rating in iTunes rating and review that kind of stuff. All the things that podcasts would tell you to do, please do that for us. We’re so thankful that you listened and we’re excited to. And have you keep coming back, we’re going to have a lot of other great things that we’re going to talk about.
[00:44:38] And so we’ll, we’ll come to you guys.
[00:44:44] Manly Voice: Thanks for joining us on the mission with The Majesty’s Men for show notes, go to TheMajestysMen.com/show/. There you can also submit questions and suggestions for the hosts. If you’re interested in joining the HNR.GD Network type in H N R dot G D into your browser to learn more and apply.
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