 that you are a winner and all we do is win, win, win. And God has an incredible plan for your life. I'm Amy Schaefer, I almost started singing. I'm with Tom Hollis and we have an incredible program today. We do, my football, I love the Steelers, I grew up in the 70s and grew up with all those Super Bowl wins. It was a great time, Amy. It was a great time to be a fan, believe me. I mean, it couldn't be better. I mean, I was spoiled. But we have Bill Stern, John Colve and Larry Brown are going to be with us. There's eight Super Bowl rings in there and it's, but they're going to be talking about for men only and about this event that's coming up. We're going to be talking about men, we're going to talk about their stories, but also about men and the challenges we face. And listen, it's going to be great. It's going to be a powerful time of understanding what God wants to do in the lives of men. And we are here in Holy Week and it's Monday, Thursday and this is the time of a Passover meal that Jesus is going to have with his disciples. And what Jesus intentionally did was to raise up and develop and pour into disciples, men of God, women of God. And we know the scripture that in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters. So it is time right now for the manifestation of the sons and the daughters of God. It's time for men to rise up. It's time for the women to rise up. It's time for the church to rise up. It's time for Cornerstone television network to rise up because it really is bottom line all about Jesus. Well, listen, we've got a life that we were called to. We've all met Jesus. We've all had our lives transformed by him. We've all had our wrong ideas about God. We were talking about that yesterday, the wrong ideas about God that he has changed in us and we see him as he is. Now, where does he launch us from that? Okay, because we're not saved just to be saved. We're saved to know him, but we're saved to tell others about him in events, Amy events like this, they really matter because let's face it in our culture now, men are kind of emasculated a bit and it kind of put down on what we have here are strong men, not just strong physically, but strong in the spirit. That's what really matters. Absolutely, you know, and you're gonna be strong. And I'm thinking, you know, all of these Super Bowl rings in the room right now, maybe you don't feel like a champion today. Maybe you feel like everything you touch goes south. Maybe you're feeling like you're really struggling, like I don't feel like I'm victorious with anything, but can I say to you today, you're absolutely wrong just because you were born, just because you are you, Christ died for you, you are that valuable and that important and you are victorious in Christ. So today, know deep in your heart, have it tattooed deep in your spirit that you are a champion in Christ because of what Jesus did. Absolutely, we are champions in him. Right now, let's hear what's going on with Sydney and the glory hour. I got a panel of psychiatrists, all Christian, psychiatrists and psychologists to help me unpack this and to help understand what happened. And I was proud of the stories. And as I told the stories to this panel, they were just sad and they said, Michael, this isn't fun, this is nothing, you know, yeah, be proud of your survival, but this was complex childhood trauma at the highest level. So you need treatment. And I said, well, excuse me, maybe I do, but I don't think I do, but I know that when I think about the 14, it's a spectrum of overachievers, which may be a part of an addiction in itself, right? I've worked, I've been very successful and I'm very thankful to the Lord for everything that I have. But part of that is trying to make sure I never run out of what I have. And I still, it's kind of a joke, but I still order the large pizza when I don't need the large pizza. It makes me feel better. Well, if you watch the show very much, you know I'm a huge sports fan. In fact, in the 70s, two things happened to me. I got saved and I started rooting for the Steelers. Both of those things have stayed with me all this time. So, you know, when it comes to rooting for the black and gold, I'm there every Sunday and I absolutely love hearing people's personal stories of faith too. And the only thing that can beat that is when you combine those two. So joining us now are four-time Super Bowl champion, Pittsburgh Steelers, John Colvin, Larry Brown, along with Bill Stern from the Covenant Church of Pittsburgh and a founder of For Men Only. Gentlemen, welcome to Hope Today. This is a power-packed group of guys over here. Let me tell you, and you know, I'm excited to have you and I'm a fanboy of it actually. So let me ask you, Bill, about the event for Men Only. I mean, what led you to start this and how did you get, you know, the Steelers involved? Well, you know, we started this back in the early 90s. We are very first for Men Only. We had John Colb, Tom Chilkin, and Rosie Greer. You might have remembered him. New York Giants, right? Yeah, Rosie Greer. And we had it actually at Al Monzo's Palace in Auden, Monerova, where the UPMC East is now. They tore it down, but we've had them every, probably four years since then. And we got guys like Larry Brown and John. And we have, this year, we have 20 Super Bowl rings represented. We just added JT Thomas. He's a four-time, Donny Schell, John Stallworth. Can we put that graphic up? We have a graphic of the for Men Only. There it is. I mean, you got a lot of guys on there. A lot of guys coming, a lot of guys. Plus, we've got, I'm excited about Harrison Hayes. He plays for Liberty University. And he's gonna be a starter. He's only gonna be a junior. He's from Pine, Richland area. Offensive tackle. Great man of God, a young kid. I've heard him minister to the kids and he's a beautiful spirit, you know? Great guy. And plus, well, it's twofold for Men Only. The first one is evangelism. Get guys right with God. That's the main thing. The second one for this for Men Only is we're gonna have a tribute to Tante Yolkin. Okay. What a, what a disciple maker he's been through the years. You know, it was so great to get to no touch a little bit. He come right up to me. He, you know, like, he's like, tell me what's the latest mission trip you've been on? You know, he's just like so interested in what I was doing. And here I'm like, Hey, you're a stealer. I'm supposed to be interested in you, but I love that. So I just wanna ask you, John, tell me just a little bit about your story. How did you come to faith in Christ? Well, yeah, there was a guy that played actually for the Cleveland Browns. His name was Bill Glass. And I read a book, I was in the ninth grade, and I read a book by Bill Glass. And in the book he talks about, he grew up in Texas. And so people don't understand in Texas and Oklahoma, if you don't become a football player, by the time you're in the ninth grade, your parents will put you up for adoption to find a kid that can play. And he's from Oklahoma, by the way. Am I right? Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what you, yeah. So I was a ninth grader and I did not get a football uniform that year. They had one that had 89 on the front and 98 on the back. I would have wore that one, but I didn't even get that one. And so I was reading this Bill Glass book and he prayed that in the book he talks about, he prayed that if the Lord would make him an all-American, he would become a minister. So that's a decent trade. So I prayed and I started growing. I actually grew 30 pounds a year, you know, and for the next, so I went from 120 to 210, ninth grade. And I got the football scholarship. And then I began to think, oh my gosh, God kept his part of the deal, what's my part? And I remember at church, all the pastors, now this, I shouldn't say this, not political, but they had these big wives and I was going, I don't want to do, I mean, you know, this doesn't look like it's fun. Uh-oh. And so I was really struggling. And this went on and we played in Miami Dolphins. And the speaker talked about what really being a Christian was. And I really don't know if I'd not heard or had not stopped to think about what the gospel message is, it's not what I do, but what has been done for me and who I am following. And it's a following thing. And so Larry and I are linemen. So it takes us a while to figure that out. But once that happened, the light switched on. Yeah, that's great. Offensive linemen, come on, they're the smartest guys on the field, aren't they? I mean, they got to work together and everything. And yeah. Tom, my son is 16 years old, John. So I've got to let him hear how you prayed to gain weight. He's wanting to bulk so bad. He thinks he's going to be a famous soccer player right now, but how do you keep your faith fresh and alive, you know, decades later? Okay, I guess the first thing I wasn't, how do we introduce Christ? And maybe I'm sure a lot of people are going to disagree with me. But I know we sometimes say, I hear it all the time, with every head bow and every eye closed, slip up your hand. Okay, now you're going to heaven. Okay, we've got a lot of Christians running around with our head bow and our eyes closed. We need to open our eyes and get our heads up and start following and leading. And so, when I open my eyes and in first Corinthians, yeah, it talks about, and also in, there's two places in the Bible, where Paul writes, everybody has been given a gift. And do you know what your gift is? I mean, obviously you do, you're using your gift for this TV thing. But I think one of the scariest things is, we were standing before Jesus, and he said, what was the gift that I gave you? I don't know. I don't know, I just, with every head bow and every eye, I slipped up my hand and I knew I was going to heaven. But I didn't figure out what God had put me here for. And when we pray about that, he'll start to reveal that. And I don't, I know God's an Oklahoma State Cowboy fan. Boomer Sooners, he's really not. Well, that's, he's from the other part of Oklahoma. Oh! I had to get that in. Yeah. But, but he has, you know, we work, we have a non-profit and we work with a lot of veterans that have come back, I mean, I'm talking about people with bullet holes in their head and stuff still. And sometimes I think, and we talk about, did God save you from something or for something in that combat? And I don't think we have to have a bullet hole in our head to ask that question. What did God save me for? You know, and so when I go up in front of that church or I slip my hand up, he's saving me, not just from hell, but he's saving me for something here. Now, figure out what that is. I have to tell you, you said, well, obviously we're using our gifts. I would have not, the teenage Tom Hollis would not have thought he would have been sitting in this seat doing this kind of thing, but God matures us, he grows us, he opens up doors for us, it's amazing. I do want to say Larry had some done a work, so we're having him here because we honor him, but he's not gonna be talking today in case you're wondering, but just let me ask you, Bill, what you see men need right now in this world and again, why you're doing the event. Well, I think sports in general, I think lays a foundation for a lot of men, discipline, responsibility, teamwork, and that sort of thing. That's why I like sports so much, because it leads men to gather together, be on a team, team effort. And I'll always remember this way back in the 90s when Promise Keepers was alive. You know, they have a statistic that if you reach the man, 97% of the time, you reach the whole family. And that's our goal, that's our goal, to reach the man with Christ and to put him on the right track. Not only have like John says, hit, raise your hand, but disciple them after. Get them into disciple groups. We have across Pittsburgh area, locking arms, man, different groups. You have a five o'clock in the morning prayer time, don't you? Yeah, we do. We get people to come out. We get 30 guys to come out. You know that's gone, that ain't me. Wow. What I like about Bill now, because he's of course a friend of Quarterstone and he's been here for years, but if you ever wonder what a North East Pittsburgh guy sounds like, it's Bill. He just sounds like a yinzer. I mean, like we bleed black and yellow. It's like that's who we are. What are you most excited about the men's event coming up? Like what is making your heart pound for this particular timing, this particular event? Well, I always look for the harvest of men, you know? I went men to come. We got, we have different colleges and high schools bringing players to this event. Geneva, Gino de Margo just told me that there are two bus loads of young men. Nice. And what really makes me happy to see is that guys pressing into God and start, put away their old self and start anew. Start afresh, you know? It's, you know, Tom, you gotta give me time for John to tell a story about Larry since Larry's. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stories. We want, okay. Listen to this. All right, go ahead John, the floor is yours. Well, it's scriptural. It's scriptural. One of my favorite, you know, I love Bible verses like Jeremiah 29 was, no, no, not, 12. I'm an offensive lineman. We only go on a snap count of one or two, so I'm too high. But it says if you've run with men and they wore you out, how do you expect to outrun horses? And if you fall down in a time of peace, how will you stand up in the middle of the lions? Man, that's a go-get-em, that's a sick-em Bible verse. And there's another one, and it's a no-testament, and it talks about where David is being wronged. And he says, he says, Lord, take the battleaxe after him. So Larry is a battleaxe guy. So, so we're, so this is scriptural. So you gotta understand, yeah. So we're playing the Philadelphia Eagles, and they got this guy that's, he scares everybody in the league. He's got these sliddy eyes, and you just, like Ernie Holmes scared everybody, you know, cause he could stare you, and Claude Humphrey could do the same thing. And at that time, the head slap was legal, but you really, it wasn't a thing, you know, it's not a good thing to do. And so Claude kept head slapping Larry, and Larry, he goes, Claude, would you please stop head slapping me? So what's that gonna do? That's just gonna invite, you know. Yeah, and so he did it the next play, and Larry goes, Claude, please, would you stop head slapping me? And so then the third time it happened, Larry goes, now Claude, I've asked you three times. So the fourth time, Larry got him and he's holding him up, he takes the battle axe, and he's got him up in the air. And Claude's going, can't breathe, and this official, everybody knew him, Tommy Bell, he's going, Mr. Round, would you put him down? And Larry's, I told you not to hit him, he's got the battle axe going. Mr. Brown, please put him down. I mean, he did warn him, Larry, you warned him, I'll have to tell you. He warned him, he warned him three times. He asked for it. Yeah, yeah, and I, you know what? There's a time that you bring the battle axe out, that, you know, and when it's, causing going to hurt the team or going to hurt you, yeah. I love that story. Amy, let me ask you to ask them about what a wife and a mother and a woman, what she is so happy about when the man gets himself right with God. I mean, all women, they want a strong, powerful man of God, that will lift a guy up off the field with his bare hand, you know, and like, we're going to serve the Lord in our house. As for me and my house, we're going to like lead the family, not only on the field, but spiritually speaking. So I just think, you know, what would you say to the women out there? They're like, oh no, like, I don't know. I need to spend time with him. Just stay home with me or just be with the Lord. Stay home with me or just be with the kids. What is the vision for that woman out there that's like he needs to be in the room? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, I think all men are called to lead, okay? Along with that leading, got to be a servant, serve the Lord, and you got to be protection for your family. You got to protect your family from all evil. Anything that comes by. So if you're looking, if a woman's out there looking for a man, first, she got to make sure he's serving the Lord because if he's not serving the Lord, he's serving himself. Oh. So I know that's hard to take, but you got to serve your family. You got to serve God first, then family, and then whatever happens after that, your church, your job, whatever. But that's the order that God has placed in us as men. You know, a covering, a covering over our family. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so important. And really, it attracts a woman because she can do, she has freedom in that because she knows a man got her back. Well, John is chomping at the bit to respond, I can tell. Bill's Vince called for men only. And at first glance, she'd say, well, why men? Why not? Well, there's several places, Hebrews 12 is one of my favorite. And it uses the word discipline, I think seven times, and I'm holding up eight fingers, but this one doesn't count. It uses the word discipline like seven or eight times. And it says, and it relates a man and a father, a father and a God. And it says, so what man is there who doesn't discipline his son? So God has given us fathers to discipline us, not moms, but fathers. Yeah, early on, you know, mom tells you to make sure you go straight to school and look both ways when you cross the street. But when you get older, it becomes the man's job to discipline his son. And he relates that discipline, how God disciplines us as men and then how we then, in turn, discipline our sons. And I don't think, that's a man's job. I don't think, and I remember growing up, when my dad, when he looked, my mom, she had several octaves, she would go up. And it really usually wasn't until I'm telling your dad that I, yeah, but I think that is. Yeah, I understand that completely. My dad was a great and loving Christian man, but I didn't want to cross them. I didn't want to, you know. But where is the young man gonna learn that from? The discipline. Well, let me ask you guys, and John, maybe you can speak into the camera there for someone who doesn't know the Lord, okay? And what would you tell them right now? They're watching, maybe they saw that Steelers are on. What would you say to that person who doesn't know the Lord? Yeah, this is really, right now, I have a friend, he's a Vietnam vet. He's a black man. There was a lot of things that went on with him in Vietnam, where he was asked to do things that the white guys didn't have to do. And I don't even think I've had a chance to tell you, but as a result, there were some Muslim guys around him, and they brought him to Islam. And he's come in, and he's gonna be at our thing because he is a Donnie Shell fan. So pray for him, man, pray, you know. But he just found out he has some kidney failure. And I keep trying to talk about Jesus and Jesus, not that you're guaranteed healing, but so you asked me the question, what would you, I look at the difference between what he's going through with Allah and Muhammad and what I see as the emptiness there and what Jesus provides with that, you know, Psalm 139, he encloses me behind him before and lays his hand upon me. And so that, how many, I think, I don't know, I didn't count them, because again, we count three and that's pretty much it. But I think the most often used term in the Bible is fear not. And many of us have things that we're afraid of. And who do we give it to? I love in Job, where God is asking to Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? And then he keeps relating it and he relates it to a horse in battle. Man, I'm a guy, in Sunday school, I thought we sang kumbaya and made little flower baskets, but he's talking about a horse in battle and he says, fear not, fear not. That's the thing is we need to know that God has called men to be men in this situation. And I just wanna, we've just got about a minute left. Bill, tell us real quick again, where is the event and how do people get involved? The event happens at Covenant Church of Pittsburgh. And... For men only. For men only. And we have Steelers coming from the 70s. We have a young guy from Liberty University speaking. Also, Kent Chevalier, the Steeler chapter. Yeah, we've had him here. And that's Saturday, April 27th. 27th. What time does it start? Starts at 10 a.m., there's a tailgate after. Okay. And now, raise your hand. Are we excited about Russell Wilson? That's what we really wanted to know. John, Larry, thumbs up. Thumbs up for that. You'll be watching the games. There's a couple of things we love around here. God, country, and football. And so, the fact is though, we as the church, we've gotta get off of the benches and we've gotta get into the game. We've gotta get on the field. We've gotta act out our faith. We've gotta walk out our faith. We've gotta tackle and we've gotta gain yards in life. And guess what? We can because of the victory that we have in Jesus. So we're praying for you to have the victory today. Let it never be said that you are not one of the greatest champions that has ever been born. We'll see you tomorrow on Hope Today. On tomorrow's Hope Today, giving God all the praise and glory he deserves. Join the Hope Today team and prepare your hearts this Good Friday for a powerful time of prayer and worship that will uplift and inspire you to experience God's presence. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.