Participants: Xavier Morales (Host), Gordon Fraser, Denry White
Series Code: AFH
Program Code: AFH000006A
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00:01 A good father takes time to play
00:05 He has strong integrity 00:07 He is someone that is truly dedicated 00:11 He is not afraid to show his love 00:15 He is a caring provider 00:20 And he's a kind, spiritual leader 00:22 These are just a few ways to describe a father's heart 00:30 Hi welcome to A Father's Heart. My name is Xavier and I'll be 00:33 your host. Today we're talking about fatherless men 00:36 when superman is missing, you know that father figure 00:39 the father with a big S on his chest that comes to the rescue 00:44 what if they're missing for whatever reason that might be? 00:46 and they never come, that father never comes 00:50 what does that look like when the child grows up 00:52 and becomes a man? What does his life look like afterwards 00:56 And with me to talk about that is Gordon and Denry. Welcome 01:00 How're you guys doing today? Thank you. 01:01 Doing well, doing well today 01:03 I'd like to go by a different name today 01:07 No, this is a subject that's close to home for me 01:13 because I left Jamaica, came to America and my dad was 01:20 when we were there he was not too much in my life, I mean 01:24 he was in and out but once we left, came here not too much 01:32 of a relationship. I'd speak to him maybe on the phone 01:35 once every couple of years and I look at life as a bank 01:41 if there's nothing that you put in, if there's nothing put in 01:45 then later on when you're in need of something to pull out 01:50 you know there's nothing to grab for. 01:52 So if the father is not in the child's life whether because of 01:57 disease or incarcerated whatever the case may be 01:59 as a child is growing up, you know he or she are looking for 02:04 things to put, examples, things to put in the bank 02:07 and so when you become an adult now 02:10 the man is looking, well I have a wife how do I love her? 02:14 how do I deal with these, her hormones or rages or whatever 02:21 and if he doesn't have anything to pick out of his bank 02:26 then he's confused or he has to find it from someone else's bank 02:31 so it's possible he has no direction. 02:33 Cause to me that's what it looks like. It looks like a man 02:38 grew up without direction, without purpose 02:40 and you're looking for a purpose because we are, we need to have 02:45 that relationship with a father a father figure and if we don't 02:51 have it in the father's absence then we're gonna look, we're 02:55 gonna try to find that or you just grow up without purpose 02:59 and it's not good to grow up without purpose, you need to 03:02 you know you want to be successful and you want to 03:05 instead of always looking for that person, you know my adopted 03:13 brother for example, I have an adopted brother 03:15 and he never really, his father wasn't in his life 03:20 and I can say, up to now he's still looking 03:24 for that bond, it's important for a father to be in the life 03:30 There are questions I would love to ask 03:33 even now when I pick up the phone and see, I'm thankful 03:38 at least I do have a father I can call, I mean I can have a 03:43 good conversation but I can call him so I can only imagine 03:46 for the men out there that don't have a father whether they're 03:50 deceased or what and so there are questions I have just about 03:55 life, life that when I call him it's like he's also still trying 04:04 to find and when you find his story, his father wasn't there 04:10 There's lots of times you know you have those instances where 04:12 fathers don't even sign off on the birth certificate 04:15 like they're literally non-existent 04:17 and you know you have the ones that are missing 04:20 but they come eventually. These are father that, you know, 04:24 these kids grow up without fathers, period. They never 04:26 see them from childhood to adulthood. 04:28 Non-existent. I mean what do we do? What can we do? 04:33 What is that you know, I grew up with a father. My mom and dad 04:37 married, I know what that looks like. But I've seen kids 04:41 who basically look like a compass without direction 04:44 just spinning. They have no identity they don't know where 04:48 they come from, they don't know who they are. I can only imagine 04:52 because a lot of our traits, our character traits are inherited 04:56 from our father, genetically. So I don't know for me it is 05:01 confusing because for me I can't understand that. 05:04 However, I've seen so many. I see them and it breaks my heart 05:09 because their father never existed. 05:12 This is not somebody that was here one minute gone the next 05:15 these are fathers that never existed and these kids 05:19 are hurting, they're hurting. And yes we can look to our 05:22 heavenly Father all day, every day but we also need the 05:26 physical, tangible father. What do we do with these kids? 05:31 We talked about it, the mentor. They need someone to mentor 05:36 someone to mentor when they're in this kind of a relationship 05:40 without the father what happens is that they become very violent 05:44 and they start to lash out, they start to misbehave in school 05:50 they misbehave at home, outbursts against the mother 05:54 I'm talkin about a real issue without sayin anything about 05:58 the issue. I mean all of this stuff starts to happen and then 06:02 what happens to the child, the child ends up from 06:07 one institution to the next. And so there's a huge problem 06:13 what's happened with that young man is that the young man 06:16 has found a mentor, a solid one that can go Sabbaths 06:23 and say I need to talk to you. And I need to have conversation 06:27 and that mentor sits down and says, ok let's talk 06:31 what's goin on? And fortunately that mentor is me. 06:34 So I know it's important to sit down and talk with the young man 06:40 and I can tell you any point in time when he's misbehaving 06:45 at home and I get a call and I get on the phone with him 06:48 attitude changes, he's totally different. 06:52 And one of his biggest complaints 06:55 complaints is I never knew my father 06:58 and I would love to know my father. So his aggression 07:02 is against his mother, against his family, school 07:08 he's acting up and he doesn't even know why 07:11 he's acting up because he never had that in his home 07:16 grew up with a lot of women, uncles and stuff like that 07:22 but some of them were positive role models in his life. So 07:26 one thing that is needed is good solid mentor relationship 07:32 That's what is needed for some of these men. Yeah 07:34 And now you know you have two sides. For example some who 07:40 unfortunately the father died. You know I talked to a young man 07:47 couple weeks ago. His father died when he was two 07:50 totally unfair in his mind. He asks God, why? 07:55 I didn't even get a chance. He was saying basically, I hear 08:00 people talkin about their father is out of town and so I can't do 08:06 do that. My father is in a cemetery. 08:09 And so for them it's like God this is so unfair. 08:12 I don't even have an excuse, my dad doesn't have an excuse 08:16 he's deceased. Then you have another situation where father 08:22 maybe incarcerated because of something they've done 08:24 whether innocent or guilty. And some of them are in prison for 08:30 the rest of their life and some times in another state 08:35 So now there's just can't because of the circumstance 08:41 And so once again the child says this is not fair 08:46 So how do we address them as mentors, as pastors, ministers 08:52 how do you address a young man like that even older men like 08:56 that who say God did this, it's not fair, it's not right 08:59 My dad didn't even have an opportunity 09:06 Before we go there and answer that question I think another 09:11 question, something that's turnin in my mind is 09:13 how can that family, that mother find that good mentor 09:22 what are some of the steps they can take to find a good mentor 09:24 to make sure their child is safe. I think the church is an 09:29 important part of making that happen. 09:31 I think you start with your pastors, you start with elders 09:35 who have been stable in the church for a while 09:40 so that you can talk to them about this is the situation 09:45 this is what's goin on. One of our big problems is that 09:48 we don't talk about real issues. 09:50 And so we're afraid to come to the pastor or an elder 09:57 someone senior in the church and say this is what I'm going 10:01 through. My son is acting up and this is the reason why 10:05 I think he's acting up or I don't know why he's behaving 10:09 the way he's behaving. Can you help me? Can you find a mentor 10:14 for him? So you put that responsibility on the pastor 10:20 or a group. I think the churches need to start having mentoring 10:25 programs where we spend time vetting the people 10:29 making sure their backgrounds are safe so that we can turn our 10:35 children over into their hands to mentor them, to spend some 10:40 time with them. Take them to a ball game, take them out to 10:43 lunch, those things so that they can have some kind of 10:48 a semblance of wholeness. Father or a mentor as a father 10:55 in their lives to help them become productive citizens 10:59 We can do something, the problem is real but we need to talk 11:04 about it, we need to put some solutions and one of the great 11:08 solutions I think is to have a mentoring system in our church 11:13 we need to do that and we don't do that effectively. 11:16 It's also knowing the resources too because as I think about 11:19 fatherless men, doesn't mean that they're motherless 11:22 Or perhaps the mothers have tried to reach out to fathers 11:26 over and over again to no avail. 11:28 You know we have programs out there in our communities 11:31 you know that are available for these kids as well. 11:35 Not just in our church, if like the church for some reason 11:39 is not able to come through, whatever reason it might be 11:44 sometimes it happens there's resources, there's programs 11:48 there's things available. You know being a father, to me 11:52 cause I'm a father of two, it's not just to my kids 11:56 being a father is also being a father to the fatherless 12:00 The Bible says that God is a father to the fatherless 12:04 And as Christians we're called to be those fathers that kids 12:09 may not have. I remember working in an inner city church 12:13 there were kids. I was being security cause they said 12:17 Ah you were a former police officer. Why don't you work 12:19 security, but I'm trying to be a pastor. 12:21 Ok I'll work security so I said OK God do something with this 12:23 and God blessed. Lots of kids started acting out in Sabbath 12:27 School so I took them out of the class and I would talk 12:30 to them and as I dialogued with them the general premise 12:34 was I never knew my father. 12:38 So I mentored these kids, I took them under my wing 12:41 not to be Father of the Year, nothing like that 12:43 but just to give them somebody to talk to 12:46 And that's important. We need to learn how to step up 12:50 as men to be able to be fathers even though they might not be 12:54 our blood. To be fathers to these kids that are aching 12:59 and being incarcerated and dying 13:01 without knowing The Heavenly Father. You know things of 13:05 that nature. And when they grow up without fathers 13:09 they become fathers and the same cycle repeats itself 13:16 Because they don't know how to be fathers, because they 13:19 never had that father. So it's something that we really need 13:23 to find solutions for, one of the great solutions is 13:28 being a mentor, just being able to mentor them, being able to 13:31 encourage them because again if they end up being fathers 13:38 same cycle. But I want to talk about another issue. 13:42 That is the same thing, the issue is we've got to tell our 13:46 fathers, no we have to tell our young men to stop having sex 13:51 outside of marriage because that is one of the big problems that 13:55 creates this problem. And so those are some issues that 13:59 we really need to address because it's almost like a 14:02 domino effect. The young men having children young and ladies 14:08 having sex outside of marriage of course it's not Biblical 14:13 and then you have these babies that's growin up without fathers 14:19 that's the base of the problem 14:23 And we kind of need to look at that first, encourage young 14:27 people. Abstinence is good, it's ok. You can wait because you 14:34 are not only thinking about yourself and your emotions 14:37 you have to think about the child. It's possible 14:42 the mother can be pregnant, the young lady can get pregnant 14:47 and boom! Here you've got a problem. 14:50 And I think that's our big problem. This whole cycle 14:55 break that cycle and we might be able to solve this issue 14:59 I think we need to start having men care. I like that. We don't 15:04 care. We can procreate like the Bible says like nobody else 15:09 but we don't care what happens afterwards. 15:11 We don't. We've gotten so numb 15:15 to emotions, to feelings that we literally leave our kids 15:19 fatherless because we just don't care. I have to fend for myself 15:24 you gotta do it too. That's just the way it works. World is hard 15:27 you gotta learn to fend for yourself. 15:28 We have these kids out there, no father to turn to, no identity 15:33 and we wonder why they run into problems with the law 15:37 problems with, you know, just catastrophic events 15:40 and even some of them, even some of them I was gonna put 15:44 it out there, even some of them joining terrorist groups 15:47 to find identity, joining ISIS to find identity 15:53 because there's something inherently wrong, inherently 15:57 wrong when these kids are joining gangs and violent groups 16:01 and us, men of God are just standing there with arms crossed 16:06 saying, we'll pray for you. 16:08 We like to do the reactive stuff but not the proactive stuff 16:14 and James as you mentioned before talked about that 16:17 true religion, you want to be religious here? 16:21 The only time the word is mentioned in Scripture 16:25 true religion, is a person who steps in when a widow has lost 16:30 her husband and when there's children without a father 16:36 Undefiled religion. True, pure religion and you know James 16:40 talks about faith and works. That you can't just pray 16:43 I'm praying for you. No, I need you to be involved. 16:47 and like you said, the mentoring you know our church is not just 16:51 to mentor the children of our church, children of our 16:57 community. We need spiritual men to mentor the children 17:04 young men and even other men in our communities 17:08 It's not too late to learn. You know they say you can't teach 17:11 an old dog new tricks? Biblically that's a lie because 17:15 when it comes to Jesus he can be 99 years old, He'll put you 17:20 correct. You see we need Biblical men, spiritual, loving 17:26 men to step in and say, Ok it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair 17:32 what happened to you but God has put me by His grace, I'm 17:39 here now to mentor you, to show you some of these things 17:43 and no, there's gonna be some things I may not be able to 17:46 show you but at least you'll have some kind of foundation 17:49 to build on. It's crazy because again fatherlessness is so 17:55 prevalent in the world today. You know a lot of these kids 17:59 that grow up without fathers they grow up to be like you said 18:01 to be fathers but the ironic thing is I see them having kids 18:07 or about to have a child and they get their spouse or 18:11 whoever significant other have an abortion. 18:14 cause they don't know, not because they don't want to 18:16 that's because they don't know how, they're afraid. 18:19 I never had a father, I don't know what to do. 18:21 Let's just kill this child. Mercy! 18:24 You know violence breeds violence and mess attracts mess 18:30 We need to step up as men of God and start helping through Jesus 18:34 to clean up this mess. Yes, we know the Bible says what it says 18:39 we know these things are to happen but do we as Christians 18:43 dedicated followers of Christ do we just watch with a bucket 18:47 of popcorn in our hands as the whole world caves in? 18:50 Or do we try our best to help these kids grow up, find Jesus 18:54 even before they grow up find Jesus and be able to at least 18:59 walk on the streets of gold rather than perish 19:02 live a life of nothing and die like nothing. 19:06 You know what do we do with these kids as men of God? 19:08 What if we started some ministries in our churches 19:12 and in our communities 'Adopt a Gangster' 19:19 Or 'Adopt a Thug' 19:22 We have men and some of the young ladies, I remember I was 19:25 preaching at one of your churches a while back and as 19:28 this lady was saying that, and she was bold, she said every 19:32 weekend she would take some muffins and go bring it out 19:38 to the gangsters in the community. 19:41 Now ok a woman is doing this a senior lady doing this 19:44 what if a man did that? 19:48 not just some muffins but some colognes, some things the young 19:53 men need, some deodorant. Adopt a Gangster 19:57 You know we get on them for not having their pants up 20:02 we get on them for being tattooed and all these things 20:04 you know we get on them for mistreating, how about adopting 20:08 a gangster? We're too busy. We don't have time. 20:12 We got our families, so why should I think of somebody else? 20:15 I mean that's what, that also happens. A lot of times I've got 20:21 work, I've got this goin on so I'm not adopting a gangster 20:25 No time for that. Matter of fact I'm not even goin in the hood 20:28 I can't go there. See it's a whole different world 20:32 But I wanna look at another angle also. 20:36 I think a lot of our men are incarcerated unfortunately 20:41 but I think if the father is not there the mother becomes that 20:48 father and that mother steps up and has to be stronger 20:54 than anything else. I look at my mom man and as my mom 20:59 we'd be down in the yard playing and she'd come right 21:03 downstairs and she'd start playing with us. 21:06 Kicking the ball with us and doing stuff like that 21:11 So I think because of that, and I did have my father 21:17 but again he wasn't always there so she took that slack 21:24 fill that void, so I think our mothers can still, I mean 21:29 step up but they cannot fill the role. 21:34 That's the difference. So that help is still needed. 21:37 Cause when I was going through puberty I had to ask my mother 21:43 I had to ask my mother the questions but it was awkward 21:45 for her, it was awkward for me too, so you know you don't have 21:49 that man to turn to like, hey there are changes going on 21:53 in my life what do I do? So yes they can minister to us, 22:00 help out, play with us but they will never fill that role 22:05 So we got to look at the fact that I know we're being called 22:10 to step up, you know even if you don't know how 22:14 you just work with something 22:16 even if you can't set anything up in the church 22:20 I just say it like that, even if you can't do anything in church 22:23 there are resources out there already in place where you can 22:25 volunteer time to be able to mentor these kids you know 22:31 even if you don't have, let's say time, there's 24 hours in 22:34 a day, I'm sure you can spare one hour just to listen 22:38 just to play a game with a child that doesn't have a father and 22:42 never grew with a father because our men now are suffering 22:46 these kids become men. You know I heard once that the church is 22:51 comprised of 82% women, our church. 22:57 And I'm like, where's the men? 23:00 Where are the men? The men are missing. 23:05 And I remember this because in my church even though I grew 23:10 up with a father and everything my family is in Florida 23:13 far away, I'm up here and I'm just like I need guidance. 23:20 And sometimes I pray, I turn to God, sometimes I need that 23:23 older male figure and it's me this is somebody that comes 23:27 from a family where mother and father are together they've been 23:31 married for a long time but I still need that guidance. 23:34 You know somebody like me needs that guidance and I turn to a 23:37 lot of the older gentlemen in the church for guidance. 23:41 So if this is me and I come from what you call a regular 23:46 background or whatever you want to call it I can only imagine 23:49 I can only fathom what these kids who grow up to be men feel 23:54 like without anyone there. It's being lost, it's like you know 24:01 hearing your own echo 24:06 I'm at a loss for words. What can we do, what else can we do 24:09 aside from mentorship. I think we need to call these men 24:15 back into action. There needs to be a place, if they're still 24:20 alive somehow we need to let men know, listen it's important 24:25 for you to be in your child's life. No matter what you're 24:30 dealin with try to be involved in your child's life. 24:34 we don't call 'em, just call 'em out, call them to action 24:37 we need to, maybe some men's group where we talk about these 24:41 issues so men step up and be the father God called you to be 24:47 You did the work, now put the time in and be that father. 24:52 I think we probably just need to call them out. 24:54 I think we also need to train some of these mentors and 25:00 fathers and some of these men. 25:03 Show them through Scripture how God the Father takes the place 25:09 of our missing fathers. You know not just send them out and say 25:16 be a father to some kid that doesn't have a father. No, they 25:19 need to know, some of them need to know, okay this is what you 25:23 should do. And you'd be surprised, it's interesting 25:27 when I play with my kids and spend time with them the things 25:30 that I wanted I now get. 25:34 From me being their father and bonding with them 25:38 the bonding that I once wanted I now get. 25:42 and so for some of these fatherless fathers or fatherless 25:46 men giving them an opportunity to mentor or minister to other 25:52 young men also fills that gap 25:58 There are programs out there too that a lot of Conferences 26:01 have to be able to screen, so to speak, and educate the men 26:06 in the church and to allocate the proper resources to the men 26:12 to make sure obviously that the men mentoring are appropriately 26:18 equipped and they have the right background to do so. 26:21 We know that this whole thing is a big ploy of the devil 26:25 he wants to destroy this relationship between fathers 26:30 and children because a father that that child sees in order 26:35 for them to see God as their heavenly Father they're looking 26:39 for an earthly father. And so when they can't find 26:43 that earthly father and that earthly father has abandoned 26:47 them you know you're trying to give them and teach them 26:50 with Christ and about God's love they're like wait a minute 26:53 Love? God's love? My earthly father was never there. 26:58 I don't even know who he is and you're gonna tell me of the love 27:01 of God? They can't see God because they don't see the 27:06 heavenly, they can't see much love, and so something that 27:10 we really need to address and try and let them see 27:13 and let them know that God still loves them. 27:15 I'm glad we talked about this. Like always we ran out of time 27:19 before we can go on, so for the viewers out there if you have 27:24 any questions, again I know you do. Or any comments. 27:28 Send them to AFH@3ABN.org 27:32 The kids out there that have no father 27:36 We're here for you in the church we're here for you. 27:39 You're not alone. The men that grew up without fathers 27:42 even though there's still a Father in Heaven who has always 27:46 loved you and made you with a purpose like the finest 27:49 masterpiece ever made, there's still men, elders in the church 27:53 that are wanting to talk to you and listen 27:55 Please don't stand alone, join us. Thank you for watching. |
Revised 2017-01-09