Gentleman's Purpose - July 2021 Edition by Gentleman's Purpose

Gentleman’s

Purpose JULY 2021

I’m Not Religious, I AM Spiritual: Spiritual Fatherhood Page 10 Toxic Vs. Healthy Relationships: Be Free Together Page 18 Discovering America: Statesville, North Carolina Page 62

Value and Challenges of CRM:

The Prequel Page 30

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FAITH

I’m Not Religious, I AM Spiritual: Spiritual Fatherhood Written by Justin Gaynor

When I first heard about being a ‘spiritual father’ to someone I was a little taken back. That sounded like some straight up cult stuff to me. Jesus told us that we shouldn’t call anyone on earth “Father”, since we only have one Father, and He is in heaven. I know that certain church leaders are addressed as “Father” sometimes, but the person is actually addressing the spirit of God our Father that is perceived to dwell in that person. Still, it can be confusing for those that are not familiar with spiritual things. So what does it actually mean to be spiritually fathered by someone, or to actually spiritually father someone else? The Initial Connection As we go through life God inevitably places people in our path in whom we see younger versions of ourselves. We observe their behaviors, nuances, talents, failures...and we perceive that they are walking a road that we have trod before. Something stirs within us and we are able to connect with that person. They perceive value in a relationship with us and communication begins. They become God’s field and we begin to till the soil, plant, water, and God causes the growth. Sometimes, early on, it may seem like you are going through labor pains with them, even if the two of you get along splendidly on most occasions. However, their potential and the joys of being a positive influence in someone’s life... love basically...compels you to continue building up and equipping them. Helping them to become the best they can be. You have become a spiritual father. It is a position of tremendous honor and responsibility. Consistent Communication You may have dozens of these types of relationships, but never thought of it in these terms. It is good that you are reading this then. As you begin to take a more aware, lively, and proactive role in the lives of those God trusts you with, you will want to focus on communication. What you are communicating, how you are communicating it, what the near and long-term fruit from your communications will be. This doesn’t mean that your communication should be forced or suddenly become overwhelming or overbearing.

The encouragement is to be intentional. Every word, idea, thought, and action that you impart to that spiritual child will produce fruit for life, or fruit for death. Your words have tremendous power. As a matter of fact, it has been said that the power of life and death are in the tongue. So then, sow well in the morning and in the evening, only God knows what will really take root and produce a good harvest. Rooted in Grace and Truth As someone that has been spiritually fathered and who has spiritually fathered others, I assure you that you will need God’s mercy and more grace to engage in these relationships well. Therefore, it is a good thing that God commands us to enter boldly into the Throneroom of Grace in order to obtain mercy and grace for the moment that we need it. That is to say, simply pray. Pray honestly, and pray continually. It is through prayer, and the rewards that come from it, that we have what we need to do anything we do well. Always remember that in spiritually fathering young men, you are not being asked to reinvent the wheel. Keep everything you do rooted in grace (God’s power to set things right, not your own or anyone else’s) and truth (God’s Word is Truth). Be intentional about doing that in your relationships and you will do well. Love is the Only Way Ultimately, as with any father and son relationship, it must be established that the substance of all that you and the one you are spiritually fathering are doing is aimed at developing love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. If that is not the target, then you have missed the mark before you even drew back your bowstring. Love is the only way to win battles, because it is love that has already won the war.

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Relationships

Toxic Vs. Healthy Relationships: Be Free Together Written by Justin Gaynor I’m not sure that declaring and labeling a person “toxic” has been helpful in moving our society toward a more unified and peaceful existence. It seems that a lot of females have become armchair psychologists. Their craft is so precise that they are able to render such significant diagnoses within a few seconds of the whines and gripes of their friends about their most recent love interests. Next thing I know I’m hearing around the whole dating scene that Dave is “toxic” and I should really be careful. Turns out Dave didn’t care too much for the brussel sprouts she cooked or something. I mean if my mom had a hard time getting Dave to eat those things when we were kids...well… “I’m sure it was his tone or something”. Anyway, I digress and summarize. There are behaviors within a relationship that are counterproductive and there are behaviors that have been known to be beneficial. So let’s explore a primary area where toxic or healthy behavior can either diminish the value of a relationship or increase the value of a relationship. We as men have a deep desire to be respected. Most of the time though, the people that we perceive to command a significant amount of respect are actually not commanding it. They are demanding it. From the rantings of Mike Tyson to the over the top personas of certain politicians, men for thousands of years have demanded respect through violence and abuse of power and authority. This fits in well with the Darwinian worldview that is couched in the survival of the fittest. 18

The Christian worldview, however, sees that, eventually, such evil will fall under its own weight. Jesus of Nazareth tells us that we should not be like people who don’t know God, who Lord their power and authority over others, why? Because the way things really work is that the one who desires to rule over others, will eventually find himself the servant of all... making license plates in a state penitentiary or something. Jesus’ encouragement is to simply not worry about power in that context and to actively look for ways to build up and serve others. Now, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for authority, hierarchy, chain of command, order, and all of that. But such things are meant to serve communal purposes rooted in the use of free-will, grace, and a sense of direction. A man is not the spiritual leader of his household to inflate his ego, but for the good of those under the umbrella of his love, guidance, and protection. In the same way, when a fire breaks out in a farmyard a mother hen will later be found charred to death with her chicks safely protected through the fire underneath the span and covering of her wings. The president of the United States is a public servant. Our nation was founded on the perceived God-given command to rebel against authority and power that is deemed to contradict popular opinion and the will of the people. Of course, it wasn’t the will of Pilate to crucify an innocent man, but the will of a mob with herd mentality and the reluctant, cowardly agreement of an unfit governor. So the wisdom of governing in accordance with the will of the people is called into question. That is why our system of government here in America is not a strict democracy, but rather a democratic republic. Of course, what we have now is “the worst form of human government, except for all the other ones we’ve tried.” (A tip of the hat to ‘ol Churchill). The point of all this is that toxic behaviors related to abuses of control, authority, and power are typically rooted in experiences of feeling out of control or helpless. The oppressed becomes the oppressor so that they don’t ever have to ever feel that way again. This is not always the case, but many times it is. The wounds can be healed in the same way a person can fully recover from any kind of trauma. It seems that our females are at many times not dealing with toxic snakes as diagnosed by their WebMD surfing, armchair psychologist friends, but rather they are dealing with real brothers that are broken and need more healing and discipleship amongst the brethren.

Style

How Do You Flow? Written by Justin Gaynor When it comes to style, we have to talk about the way we learn to flow. There are these unforced rhythms of grace echoing through every area of life. Yet, many of us seem to stumble through life like Steve Urkel in China Shop. (Ok, that one dated me as a 90’s kid). It’s true though. We can throw lipstick on a pig all day, but it’s still gonna be a pig. It could become bacon though...anyway… What I want to talk about here are things like body language, wit, and humor. A common sense understanding of how things actually are. An understanding that is flexible enough to allow us to wisely navigate the world, while not losing sight of the fact that things are not as they ought to be in the present age. Let’s consider the rap battles displayed in the movie “8 Mile” depicting the life of rap superstar, Eminem. When honest words are able flow from real life situations, from rendering right judgment on injustices, from celebrating deep and abiding friendships, and everything else that happens in real life...there is a surprising rhythm to it all. It becomes a dark symphony of struggle and either victory or failure...and for some...they simply decided at some point that failure is not an option. An internal decision that will in almost all cases be thoroughly tested at every level. ...but...that’s why my friend Pastor Joseph Trapani always says, “A faith that hasn’t been tested can’t be trusted. So, how do you flow? 24

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Business

The Value and Challenges of CRM in Business, The Prequel Written by Justin Gaynor

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is being peddled left and right by all sorts of software companies looking for ways to help us have more meaningful consumer / merchant relations. So many products have become commodified, and there are so many choices, that people are paying extra attention to how they are treated, and the consistency in which they are treated well. CRM is there to help overcome every business’s inability to truly engage with real people, on a consistent basis, on the scale necessary to avoid getting scathing reviews on some public board or other. I have a little bit of experience with this. When the company I started working for right out of college decided we needed to embrace a few paradigm shifts, CRM was introduced as the tool that was going to help us do “this sales stuff” well. You see, I worked for a very large online trading firm. Our founder had been a successful executive with Edward Jones that simply never liked sales. He loved the stock market. He was fascinated by it. He just didn’t like sales and since he didn’t like the situation he was in, his eyes were open to opportunity. That opportunity arrived in 1979, early 1980, as the domestic markets began de-regulating and stocks could be traded in a non-solicited fashion at a fraction of the cost of what it previously cost. For years, if you knew what you wanted, we could make it happen and save you a boatload of money compared to what traditional brokers were still charging. About sixteen years later, the internet revolutionized the industry and commissions to trade stocks were driven down further. Price wars went on amongst discount houses for a while. “They’re going from $10 a trade to $9, ok, what do we do? Well, based on the increased volume we’ve been doing, if it holds up, we can still be viable long-term if we take it to $7, but we’re going to have to adjust our salary and bonus structure…”, and many such war-room conversations. Now, you can trade most stocks and ETFs with $0 commission, it’s all based on what I call “behind the scenes” income. At a certain point, it was decided that we could no longer compete on price, we were damn near the lowest price point in the industry, certainly the lowest price with any reasonable amount of technology, redundancy, platform stability, and let’s not forget local presence. No matter how tech savvy the trader, it still feels good to know you can walk into an office and shake hands with the people that are holding the spoils from your life’s work.

So, to maintain a competitive edge, we had to tread lightly into adding significant value with something less than investment ‘advice’ or ‘management’ (we were not set up for or licensed for that), but “guidance”. This would include getting more involved in the lives of our customers. Asking deeper, more personal questions, and teaching about things like developing and re-balancing a portfolio. We were the smash & grab daytrading pirates of the age of irrational exuberance … and now, we were going to have to be domesticated … enough statistics had been gathered over a long enough period of time to show that the odds were strongly against the average active trader. The house always wins. The wild west had matured. (Deep, longing sigh) We had always led our industry, not only as a low-cost leader, but our level of customer service was pretty much untouchable by some of our largest competitors since we had more than 500 local branches all over the country and they were almost completely online only. I managed one of those branches with about 2500 active accounts (meaning they did at least one transaction within the last year), but probably 3500 to 4000 accounts on our books. There were only four of us. Managing that many relationships in any meaningful way would have been humanly impossible if the vast majority of them didn’t transact their business through our web trading platforms. There were times, early on, when the online platform would go down. At the end of the day you’d find me in our Fort Lauderdale office on the corner of Powerline and Cypress Creek, buried in piles of yellow and pink paper fighting to get a client an eighth here and a quarter there because they were on hold for 25 seconds longer than they would have been if they could have done the trade online. So, I perceived that being able to quickly note some bit of personal information about a client here or there, automating a few more well-worded emails than before, and various reminders to reach out to this person or that person would actually help me to connect with my trading community much better. I was right. There were some significant growing pains though...and we’ll continue that conversation next month...

Dining

MEZZALUNA II The first time I ate at Mezzaluna II in Downtown Statesville, the owner, Alex, came over and asked me if I liked Chicken after I had ordered the Chicken Parmesian. I said, “Sure”...thinking “What gives? That’s why I ordered Chicken Parm”. Then he asked about a few other ingredients and finally declared, “I’m gonna make you something special! Your gonna love it!” It wasn’t long after that I was down on my luck after traveling all the way from Florida to Statesville, NC and Alex gave me a job waiting tables. Alex is apparently used to helping out folks that are down on their luck. Early on, he got it in his head that I must be a crackhead or druggy or something like some of the other folks that he had tried to help. Perhaps I let myself go a little during that season. I had to pull him aside and set him straight. After that conversation he and I never had a problem again. Going through a divorce, yes, mom just died, yes, family and friends, nowhere to be found at the time, for the most part true. At the time, I had 99 problems whirling around me, but thanks be to God drug and alcohol abuse was not one of them. Alex is a very decent man, and a better cook. As I continued my journey to explore the east coast of America, having started in Lake Worth, Florida on Easter Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to see Alex sitting outside chatting with the beautiful and kind Andrea, owner of the ice cream store next door. I hadn’t seen either of them in more than three years. But once he recognized me he stood up and we gave each other a big hug and began getting caught up with one another regarding the last few years. I knew that before I left Statesville this time, I was going to get that Chicken Parm, so before I left town, I made sure to stop in for supper. Of course Alex was so glad to see me he refused to let me pay for my meal...which was spectacular of course...so I gave a big tip to the cute waitress he had helping me and I was on my way. So, if you get an opportunity to visit Stateville, make sure you stop in and have Alex make you something special! 115 S. Center St. Statesville, NC 28677

Books

Recommended Additions T Essential Lauri

If Donald Miller feels like the guy you met in day at work. The one who ended up being the and root for each other’s kids in flag football, t every business student wishes they grew up w in your library gentlemen. 42

To Your Library For July 2021: ie Beth Jones

the corporate campus cafeteria on your first e dude you grab a beer with on Friday nights then Laurie Beth Jones is the soccer mom with. Her books need to be read and included 43

Music

Gear

M 33

MORGAN 33 The Next Adventure Awaits 54

16,000 btu/h Marine Air Conditioner

Vitrifrigo DP2600i 12v/24v DC / 110/220v AC 8.1 Cu.Ft. Marine Fridge/Freezer 57

Personal Floatation Devices (PFDs)

A Mercury Dinghy will allow you flexibility in exploring as well as commuting back and forth from your anchorage to land.

Travel

A Journey Back to the Root 63

JAMES THE My Uncle James, Aunt Amy, and Cousin Courtney are always on my checklist when traveling in this part of the country. James is one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever known...and it has taken a toll on his body through the years. He and my Aunt care for their daughter who is now in her early twenties, and Uncle James was revved up to show me a few of his new toys!

JUST

The Porch family is one of the very few families that partnered with me financially in the Gospel as Johnny Cross and I were ministering at Brookdale Peachtree a few years ago. From an old pair of sneakers right when mine had worn out, to enough money to buy a printer to make handouts for our Bible studies, Josh Porch and his mom, Karen Porch, have tended to my needs on more than one occassion. It was a pleasure to stop in and visit with them. 67

The House Hous

se e That Johnny Cross Built A retired U.S. Navy Veteran that well into his seventies gave his heart to Jesus and was baptized into Christ, Johnny Cross is a man after my own heart. I don’t have too many people in my inner circle, but Johnny Cross is one of them. As I launched into this journey of exploring the east coast of America I knew that Johnny Cross’s house was going to be a destination. I don’t have too many friends that hand me a key to their home and tell me,”Next time you come through, come on in. If I’m not here, I won’t be too far behind ya.” Johnny is one of those friends for me. We’ve ministered the Gospel together, shared many meals, and even played a little chess.

Friday Fish Fry Friday brings folks from near and far to taste Grandma Doris’s Famous Friday Fish Special. Legend has it that my gunslingin’, poker playin’ late Grandfather, Tommy Evans Sr. won this restaurant in a hand of poker that went South real quick for the previous owner. Doris has been running the place ever since, though these days she has handed most of the normal operations over to my Aunt Tina (that’s her behind the grill). One thing about reconnecting with my family, we always seem to eat really good food...the kind of soul food you just can’t get anywhere, but home.

Lunch Box Cafe’ 2022 Shelton Ave. Statesville, NC 28677 (980) 223-8776 71