Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you.

I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.

I'm Roger Marsh, and on today's program, we'll be continuing a conversation that really gets to the heart of what it means to be a man of God.

Not the macho stereotype the world offers, but the godly strength that flows from a deep relationship with

our Heavenly Father. Our guest today here on Family Talk is Gordon Dalby, author of the

groundbreaking book Healing the Masculent Soul. Reverend Dalby is a Harvard-educated pastor, a former

Peace Corps volunteer, and a conference speaker. He has spent decades helping men understand

the wounds they carry and showing them where true healing really begins. On the last edition of

Dr. James Dobson's family talk, Reverend Dalby showed how men struggled to connect with others

because of broken relationships with their own fathers. On today's Family Talk broadcast, he'll take us even deeper,

exploring what biblical masculinity really looks like

and how fathers can pass that legacy onto the next generation.

So let's rejoin the conversation right now on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Gordon, welcome back today, and let me start with this.

I know from your book and from our conversation last time that you believe that this

this difficulty in opening up, this difficulty in bonding with other men often results from a breakdown in the

relationship between those individuals when they were boys and their fathers, and they're looking

for a replacement for what should have taken place in the earlier years. And that masculine healing in that area

often occurs in small group settings with other men. Isn't that correct? Any men who will get together

where two or three men are gathered in the name of Jesus, he's there. And he's saying,

come on out, my son. The father, you see, the spirit of the Father God comes to the fellowship, to the body of Christ. And where men will gather, men who have been wounded by their fathers, who are lacking from their fathers, it is the small group. It's the fellowship of men where the Holy Spirit comes today to minister to men. I see it all the time. What do you say specifically to men who are searching for that father influence in their lives? I prayed with a guy one time like that. He said to me, Gordon, you say that my father, God, can give me anything that my earthly dad didn't. I said, absolutely. He says, all right, this guy is 35 years old. He says, my dad was a semi-pro baseball player, and he never taught me how to play baseball. I felt like a wimp on the

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