The Versus 22 Men’s Conference was an awesome time! In today’s episode, Jeff sits down with Grammy-Award Winning artist, Shay Mooney, to recap the evening. Plus, Shay shares his story of small-town beginnings and a lifelong walk with Christ. Shay’s insights on fatherhood, the challenges of being a man, and the insufficiency of money and status are full of wisdom and built from experience. Whether or not you were able to attend Versus 22, this episode is for you.

Shay identifies a whole host of challenges men experience in life, whether they know it or not. Comparison. Criticism. Sexual immorality. Anxiety. Stress. A big step toward improving ourselves as men is recognizing these problems and being vulnerable enough to share them with others. Being a man doesn’t mean that you will never struggle. Being a man means acknowledging the difficulties we face and addressing them and bringing them to God and to the people God’s put in our lives. Because when men handle troubles well, it helps their marriages, kids, and community.

A fantastic opportunity to start to build a fellowship of guys is to get together for our five-week post-Versus Bible Study. You don’t need to have been to the conference to participate, because our curriculum is designed to stand alone. This is a chance to build on the ideas we introduced at Versus 22 and reach out to any men in your life who couldn’t attend. We’ll provide all the materials you need — you just need to ask other men to join you. It’s no big deal to ask a group of guys to watch sports or go fishing. Why not ask them to come together to grow in faith? As Shay suggests, if you just ask, they’ll probably say yes… Although some coffee and food could really seal the deal!

As the episode wraps up, you’ll hear Shay’s main takeaways he wants to share with you. Hear about what happens when you surrender to yourself and give things over to God. Shay tells us how things change in our lives when we choose to serve others and follow God even when we don’t feel like it. The things you like to do don’t have to be done on purpose. But, doing the things you need to do — even when it’s not easy — is what makes a man faithful.

Lastly, hear Shay’s answer to the question that’s become a tradition for the MLN podcast: what do you want your legacy to be? It’s an important question for us all to answer, and we hope you’re forming your answer and building that legacy as you continue to follow our monthly podcast.