Nothing actually worked until I began to learn

how to have healthy friendships.

A, I had to relearn how to relate with my wife, right?

That's a given.

But also, I really needed to relearn how to relate with men.

And that's been core to my healing.

Um, uh,

What if there was a movement that could transform

the epidemic of loneliness into a brotherhood of resilience and support?

Today on Seek, Go Create the Leadership Journey, we had the

pleasure of speaking with Berk.

Atkerson, an entrepreneur, author, and the driving force behind Fire

Knights, a men's movement that's changing lives across the nation.

Burke uses his expertise to create impact driven real estate investments while

dedicating himself to building communities where men can share their struggles

and triumphs openly and authentically.

Join us as Burke shares insights from his book, Fire Knights, a transformative

guide that is part memoir, part manifesto, and a call to action for men

everywhere to embrace vulnerability, seek meaningful connections, and

rediscover their strength through unity.

Let's dive into how Burke's personal journey and professional expertise

converge to foster a revolution in masculinity and mental health.

Burke, welcome to Seek, Go Create.

Wow.

Tim, thank you so much.

I can't believe how eloquently you described my entire life in one minute.

I'm so impressed.

That was phenomenal.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna take notes.

good.

I gathered some of your info.

I got AI to help me a little bit, just so you know.

And so we're, we are, let me just go ahead and let the audience know.

These are two real guys.

We actually, so we're, this is not AI generated stuff here.

anyway, yeah, enjoyed reading the book and we're going to have a great

conversation here, Bert, but, similar.

we've just met.

I met from a connection from a good friend of mine, Caleb said,

you got to talk to this guy.

It'd be a great fit for you.

So let's just pretend you weren't on a plane.

We're out and about, we bump into each other and I say, Burke, what do you do?

What kind of answer do you have?

And you can't just repeat what I just said.

You got to come up with something fresh here.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let me ask GPT real quick.

What do I do?

I love that.

I love that question.

but I hate the answers 'cause it's too complicated.

Usually depends who I'm talking to, right?

Where did I meet them?

Did I meet them in a space with real estate investors?

Did I meet them in a space with ministers?

Did I meet them in a space at, at the park, with my wife and kids?

it's really quite complex because I'm spinning 10 plates at the same time.

And, somebody asked me the other day, if I was a hundred percent an author,

cause I've written two books, if that's all I did, would I, would I be content?

That'd be, and I'm like, no.

I've got to be doing five other things at the same time.

And, I want to keep writing cause it's a, it's an escape.

it's a creative outlet and it's a place where I could actually use my voice.

But what I do, I help real estate investors.

I am a real estate investor and, I've got a construction company.

I've got a turnkey fix and flip company, and I've got a multifamily investment,

partnership as well, that we're building up stuff all over the U S.

however.

I'm also a soul care coach.

Some would, I called my work spiritual direction for a long time, for a few

years, but I realized that I lean a lot more on the somatic side of things

when I'm working with men, checking in with their bodies a lot more than

just their minds, or just their hearts.

And cause I think it's a beautiful triad.

I'm also checking in with the relationships cause

that's key to everything.

And that probably in some, in the book.

Talk about those four spheres of our lives or of our souls.

And, yeah, so spiritual or, sorry.

Soul care coaching is what I do as a hobby.

It's not a big income stream.

It's a chance to bring other men to connection and move them

towards mental health and towards connecting deeply with the father.

I think.

The biggest gap is the gap between our heads and our hearts.

And so I want to help man close that gap.

It's going to be an odd question, follow up, but

this is fresh on my mind.

This morning I did an odd mashup of reading the end of the book of

Revelation and then I jumped back to mid Matthew and read through the Olivet

Discourse and I'm doing a deeper dive into end times and eschatology than any

person should right now.

Don't please, I don't

want, I don't want to get started on that.

I do not want to go down that

path, but.

I had this

let's call in my buddy Kurt Cameron for this conversation

oh, that'd be awesome.

I've got a lot of thoughts on that, especially from actually reading

the Bible, not listening to what other people say about is in the

Bible, this is a thought I had.

So I'm going to ask it of you, cause I know you've got

a deep spiritual background.

You got a deep ministry background.

And you mentioned there's audiences that if you are asked that question, what

you do, you might give it differently.

But I'm sitting here reading in Matthew and I'm reading in John and I'm thinking

to myself, what if I was having a conversation with one of them or with

Jesus and they asked me what I do.

Because we are going to be judged by our works and it, I don't think it's

the same works that we define works as, but we don't have to get into that.

But if we're in a deep spiritual mindset and someone says, what do you do?

if we were able to sit here and have conversations with Jesus

or Peter or Matthew, and they said, Burke, what do you do?

What would your response be to them?

That's a tough question.

Sorry, man.

We're diving into deep into the pool right out of the gate here.

you know Just checking in with my body as you asked that

question, I, I sense shame flaring up in me, Matthew, when he said, get

away from me, I'm a sinner, and what I do, I feel like is not enough because

there, there is a lot of need, right?

But I'm also torn in a lot of directions and I've got to take care of my family.

And so that is part of what I do, just whatever it takes.

But there's something in me that flares up and it's an old message

that says I'm not good enough.

Not I'm not enough.

It's that I'm not good enough.

It's almost a moral paradigm.

and what I mean by that is I'm not, accomplishing enough.

And for years, for decades, I tried to win the Father's approval

by the ministry that I did.

And it's been, almost seven years now of realizing

and just sitting in the fact that he loves me because I'm Burke, not because

of what I do, not because of what I've accomplished, not because of the lives

I've changed or the impact I've made.

so if I were in that conversation with them, that part of me is

exposed, Okay, let's talk about ministry because I am doing ministry.

I'm in full time ministry, even though I haven't had a title for seven years.

that was stripped away from me when I effed things up, when we're on

the mission field and in a way we're kicked off the field and in a way we're

invited into a restoration process.

And I write about that in the book, but.

Yeah.

To this day, I'm leading men to the father.

I'm leading men to each other, which those are the two commandments, right?

I'm leading men to their hearts above all else guard that.

Yeah.

So that's my mission.

And I do that in the real estate space.

I do that with real estate investors.

I have a real estate client here that I helped him buy his first house.

And.

Then he came to the faith over time.

We started smoking cigars together once every two or three months.

And then he bought a real estate investment property and now he's in

the investing space and I'm helping him in all these spheres, but we're

still getting together over cigars and just saying, man, how's your heart?

How are you connecting with the father?

I love the guy.

I have a few friendships like that, but that's just an example of, ministry

isn't this thing that happens on Sunday mornings, as you know, Tim,

but ministry also isn't this thing that only happens if you have a

title or a role that you're playing.

And I think that's probably how I'd have the conversation with these guys.

We may back up in just a minute here and I

want to learn more about a little bit, a little bit of growing up

and a little bit how you, how and why you got into ministry.

But the question that I think a lot of men struggle with.

I think a lot of people in our modern culture.

So I'll mention this and I think I want to preface this with, I realize

no one really knows the answer.

This is part of a journey that we go on.

And that is how do we, how do we operate in the kingdom of God?

And Babylon at the same time and you brought it up You said you're you know

You got to provide for the family and there's scriptures for that I think

some men were beating over the head with that scripture of you're worse

than an infidel and blah blah blah I think that's taken out of context by

the way, but let's we don't have to get into that here How have you reconciled?

And I know you've been around a lot of other men sitting around fires and stuff

like that, but how have you reconciled and how do you see other people reconcile,

uh, being in the world, but not of the world being citizens of the kingdom of

God, passport stamped, everything we're good, but yet we're still in, in this

earth where we, we got some bills to pay.

We want our kids and our, Wives and all to be taken care of.

And anyway, how's that

working out for you and what can you share?

Man, that's a broad question.

it almost seems like the way I was raised in West Texas, which

is the Bible Belt, there were it's like a hierarchy of importance.

There's like the laymen who, they own businesses or they're blue collar workers

and they provide money for the actual ministers, like they're down here.

This is a way I understood it as a kid, whether or not it was communicated.

and maybe that's the way, valued it, but they didn't talk

about it explicitly that way.

then there's the next tier of actual, people who are helping at the church,

the elders, the guy shaking hands at the front door, welcoming people into the

church and, volunteers they're cooking for the potlucks or whatever, they're

going to Wednesday nights and the Bible studies and it's that's the next year.

Those are people who are actively involved.

They're important.

Oh, even more important than them is people are in staff, youth pastor.

It's like this whole pyramid.

And as a kid, I saw this hierarchy subconsciously.

And I There was a missionary, that was introduced to the church and the way the

pastor talked about this missionary made me realize he was superior to the pastor.

like he is of most importance way up there.

Like this guy is a value.

and the way, the same way they talked about the apostles, right?

Like those guys, geez, like we'll never compare to that.

We're not that important.

we're not that valuable.

And I grew up with that little pyramid, and maybe it goes up to Jesus at the top.

I don't know, but my life has been unraveling that pyramid because when I was

seven years old, and we could, this may be a different conversation, but when I was

seven years old, I know the voice of God.

I'm familiar.

And I respond to it, when I realize I'm hearing it, I'm like, Oh, that's what

I want to do, and it's always through filtered through the scripture, right?

So for me, I was coloring a coloring sheet.

In second grade, and the Lord spoke to me at the bottom of it, there was a verse,

March 16, 15, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature

or whatever it was King James version.

And I know that he was speaking to me.

It resonated deep in me.

I was 7 years old in this Hans class, second grade, and I

went home and I said, mom, dad.

I'm going to be a missionary when I grow up.

And my parents didn't understand me.

I found out years later, they were praying for how to raise me the night before.

So God was answering their prayer.

There's so many things happening in this story, but at the same

time, subconsciously, I remembered.

That the missionary is important

from, church experiences.

And my ego immediately began to cling onto it.

So I feel like your question is too, is multifaceted because you've

got this spiritual secular divide.

tension or a gap.

And then you also have this inner world issue that ministers struggle with.

I'm important because I'm in ministry.

God loves me.

Or, sometimes they'll even say that somebody who teaches the word is held

to a higher standard, like Moses, and they'll give those verses and you can

tell they're setting themselves up on a higher level of importance, which is okay.

it's biblically backed, but what I'm talking about is the ego,

because there's two things that are, I feel like the battleground

happens in the space of our heart.

Sorry, the battleground happens in the space of our heart

and the space of our ego.

And so we look at behaviors all the time.

Behaviors are top of the iceberg, above the surface level.

everything under the water, the rest of the iceberg, that's where you

talk about ego, that's where you talk about dysfunction, that's where

you talk about struggles, that's where All the vulnerability lies.

but ego's in there.

It's such a big battleground.

And so as a child, my ego clung onto it.

And what I found is it was the only place in my life where I found

value, respect, and affirmation.

From my family, from extended family, from people at church, from people at my

little Christian school, I went to, they admired me because someday, say on hero

day or career day, I would dress up as a missionary, and brooch co is my favorite

book, little missionary book, right?

these are my heroes, but at the same time, it was forming my identity around.

Oh, then I'll have purpose.

Then I'll have meaning and significance.

And so the last seven years we've been, we got.

thrown off the mission field in a way it was the most painful thing for my

ego I ever could have experienced.

And yet, it's the most healthy thing for my marriage.

It's been the biggest blessing for me, for my inner world, for

my relationship with the Father.

Just to know at a heart level, oh, my Father's not disappointed in me.

He's proud of me.

And I'm not even doing anything, quote unquote.

I'm not even, baptizing X amount of people or whatever.

and so a lot of my healing journey has been just unraveling that pyramid and that

divide and realizing, I'm sure you've read Practicing the Presence, Brother Lawrence.

Yeah, no.

it's, it was written 500 years ago by a monk, and he's

washing dishes in a monastery, and he's recognizing that God's present with him,

and what he's doing is important, simply because he's doing it with the Father.

How holy and sanctified is that?

and that's what we miss.

And I, you're, we're tracking real well here.

I grew up pursuing business because I was going to make me some money.

I popped in and out of church every once in a while.

And so I was business guy.

I actually got saved in a business setting.

So my paradigm is a little different.

And as you were talking, I'm sitting here going, your seven

year old prophecy has come true.

You are a missionary.

It just doesn't look like that paradigm you thought the missionary

was supposed to look like.

we talk about redefining success here, and I think that's a weird

thing, but what we really look at do is busting tradition and paradigms.

And the paradigm that you had was accurate, but in the little world we

lived in, you lived in West Texas, the only thing you knew was that

one missionary that came in that one Sunday and everybody bowed down

to him and all that kind of stuff.

So you are a missionary, that's been very prophetic and

you're walking in that calling.

And so that's cool, it's just, not what we originally thought.

Growing up in

West Texas, sorry, I need a question or two from that.

So here's my question.

And it's going to relate to some things we're going to

talk about in a little while.

Do you think that you grew up easy or hard?

that's a really good question.

I've never thought about it.

While you're thinking, here's my theory.

Here's my theory on it while you're thinking.

I

have this theory that some of us that grow up easy will have a

hard at some point in our life.

making a theology out of that.

I'm not going to build a doctrine around it, but some people that have

had it hard early on, they can move into easier, even though they've

got to deal with some of that hard.

And so, I don't, just, and don't overthink, but do you, would you say you

were easy or hard growing up?

In West Texas.

my answer is going to set myself up for failure then.

or a lot of suffering.

I had

you go.

It's a trick question.

I had an easy childhood.

my, my parents remained married.

They're still married to this day.

which is increasingly uncommon.

And in hindsight, I don't know how they stayed together, and I think any marriage

that does stay together is a miracle.

honestly, the traumas and the wounds I experienced as a kid were minor.

And there were little t traumas that accumulated over time.

And my parents loved me deeply.

And they were first generation believers.

they had us in the church.

So if anything, one of my wounds is being overchurched as a kid, and.

But what a first world problem, what a incredible set of issues to have.

so I'm really grateful for my story, for my childhood experience.

And, yeah, there were a few low hard times, but even deaths, there

hadn't been a lot throughout my life.

everybody I know knows somebody who's committed suicide.

And actually I do know a handful of people, but none of them were dear.

None of them were close.

friends, I felt loss over it, if that makes sense.

And I don't mean for that sound cold, or too detached.

but yeah, pretty freaking easy actually now in hindsight, and that

stirs up gratitude in me on the other hand, there's still suffering.

And I used to fear that I used to see time after time, big pastors who,

got brain cancer or their wife got cancer and died a severe mercy kind

of stories, if you read that book.

And it seemed like all these big hitters in the world were going through

tremendous suffering at some point.

And I always viewed that as, wow, they were targets for the enemy.

maybe I over spiritualized it a little bit.

What I've realized over time is that it rains on the just and the unjust alike.

That's

That everybody experiences blessings that we could be grateful for.

Everybody experiences sufferings and the Father's with us.

Yeah.

the pain, the father's with us in the suffering.

And so I have experienced some hardships in my marriage, just

hanging on by a thread for years.

And, what I've found is the nearness of the father.

That's so good.

You brought up something that triggered something in me for the longest.

All during COVID, during my kind of quiet, I guess we'll call it meditation time.

I would listen to the Audie audio of the Sermon on the Mount.

It's right at 15 minutes, by the way, so it's really cool.

And right at the end there, there's teaching that Jesus does.

He says, you could, this is Tim's paraphrase, you can have your house

built on a rock or you could not have your house built on the rock.

And of course the rock being the foundation of faith and things like that.

What's interesting is the rains, the storms and the winds come to both houses.

It's just a matter of which foundation is it built upon.

And the reason I'm going to go back to some ego and some

things you brought up earlier.

I realized that I was fairly ego driven and.

When I hear people say They grew up or they were had a not good enough mindset.

Not this Hope this comes across.

Okay.

I had the opposite problem.

Maybe we'll call it delusional.

I thought I was more than good enough and I think there's

issues with both, by the way.

Okay.

There's

obviously problems there and all that kind of stuff.

I think, but I believe people that had it easy.

I believe I had an easy growing up.

My parents were together, good home.

we did the holiday church thing, not necessarily the every,

and all that kind of stuff.

But later in life, Things got hard and when I picked up fire knights and started

reading it Um for my friend recommended and I was reading the beginning of it

And I was kind of i'm sure you're this way when you read books You're kind of

reading it going is this something i'm going to keep reading whatever like

that, we didn't know each other But then I got to your story And I went, okay,

this is a guy I got to talk to more.

So there was a period of time in your life where it got hard either

by your own doing or whatever.

To me, I don't want to say it's irrelevant.

Some people will try to make things like, Oh, it was his fault or whatever.

I don't buy that.

I think it's just part of the

journey.

So, so give us a little bit of.

Kind of how we got into that stage and this will set us up to move into Kind

of the second half of our interview here, which is going to be around fire

nights and all that But this is our bridge that we're going over here.

And it's probably Got a lot to it, but let's maybe hit I don't want to say the

high points, that sounds superficial.

Let's hit the low points.

Let's let the, let's let the Holy Spirit just guide you.

How about that, Bert?

Just, what do we need to do as we transition into this deeper,

this conversation of how it, how this impacts men in general?

Yeah.

if any kids are listening, you may want to press pause.

I struggled with, I saw a stat recently that 98 percent of men

have looked at pornography in the last six months at some point.

so that doesn't mean addiction.

That doesn't mean, compulsively, whatever it could have been, they

came across, I don't know, but it's a staggering statistic and

that's in the book, I believe.

so it, it might be a year old now,

but.

And I think it's 65 percent of women.

So this is a very human issue.

This isn't just men and it's not just me, which is what I thought as a kid.

I think I first found porn on the internet when I was nine years

old, cause I was just old enough.

Google had just coming out, had just, come out or whatever it was like Google.

And, And I had enough unsupervised access to a computer and my parents,

it wasn't even on their radar that something like that could exist.

I don't think, it wasn't an error of theirs necessarily.

It's just life, it's at rain.

And, I, it ended up being my escapism of choice, my weapon of

choice for decades and, When I was 21, everyone found out about it.

It was my first big D day discovery day where shit hit the fan and I

didn't have anything to hide anymore.

that was 2008, 2007, actually it was 2007 and

I tried everything since then.

So up till then, I.

I did what I could to hold the beach ball under the water, but now everything's out.

And I love, it was my first taste of grace, actually, when everybody

found out and I had a two or three guys that didn't abandon me in it.

And they said, Hey, that's okay.

And they stayed friends.

One guy actually ended up discipling me from that.

conversation where everything just came out and it was freedom and life

for me not to be hiding anymore.

And since then i've not lived in any kind of hiddenness.

I love Staying in the light if anything happens where I feel like I crossed

a line it's not 24 hours later till i'm in conversation with somebody and

that could be any kind of line, right?

Not just acting out with pornography but from 21 until My big crash seven

years ago, so it was over a decade.

I think it was 12 years I tried everything.

I listened to every sermon on the topic I could find.

I listened to every podcast.

I read every book I could on, on the topic of, men's issues, pornography,

addiction, name it, went to workshops, went to retreats, and none of it actually,

changed anything at a heart level for me.

I was still stuck.

I was still finding myself making compulsive decisions, around pornography.

And so all of it cumulated to where when we were on the field, we'd

been missionaries for almost seven years in South America, in Uruguay.

And we were burned out, and my marriage was dysfunctional, and my ministry team

was dysfunctional, and I was traveling.

I was jet lagged.

It was like this perfect storm of all these events collided.

And I met this girl that responded to every word I said.

And she's beautiful, British accent.

and she treated me like she hung on to every word and it was a drug for me.

I couldn't walk away from her.

I crossed lines with her that evening.

and it nearly cost my marriage, but

it all stems from that same loneliness issue.

and escapism issue that the pornography addiction was born in.

So it was the same compulsive reaction to So for example, when I look at When I

had looked at pornography, I would look for eye contact with women for years.

or for hours.

I would literally search for a woman gazing into a guy's eyes.

Because I wanted to feel seen, I didn't have that language around it yet.

but there was something in me that needed to feel desired, that

needed to feel loved, that wasn't being met in these other places, A,

because my heart couldn't hold love.

And that's where addiction comes from.

But, B because I, all these dysfunctional relationships in my life,

chicken or the egg.

all this, so the same thing I found in this woman who is paying

attention to me, look in me in the eyes, Hanging on to every word.

I hadn't gotten that kind of treatment from my wife because of our own

dysfunction, which, my dysfunction was adding to her issues and her

dysfunction was adding to mine.

It was just that whole thing.

What I say is our wounds bleed in to each other's wounds in marriage.

And, that was very much happening.

All of this cumulated to getting pulled off the field, actually, I

called the navigators and confessed.

I said, Hey, I crossed some lines.

I talked to my wife.

Also, I said, Hey, this is what I did.

Detailed description, way too many details.

This is what happened and broke her heart.

And we had a week to move from Uruguay, and to move to Colorado.

I don't remember the original question, but I think, this whole issue of

loneliness and pornography and addiction couldn't be met with all the tools.

It couldn't be fixed with all the tools I found.

I memorized all the verses I could around it over and over.

Shame.

I'd cover myself in shame.

Friends would cover me in shame.

I had accountability groups for decades.

nothing actually worked until I began to learn how to have healthy friendships.

A, I had to relearn how to relate with my wife, right?

That's a given.

But also, I really needed to relearn how to relate with men.

And that's been core to my healing.

So these fire nights has been the context for that to happen where I'll just light

a fire and invite some guys into it.

I'll open up my heart and it's safe there.

My heart was never safe with men before, or if it was, I didn't feel safe.

And now all of a sudden I have that capacity and it's it's been the most

healing thing in my life and the most healing thing from addiction.

So how does, all right, so the great lead into, cause I've been

waiting, I've been about to interrupt you a couple of times to go back to something

you brought up at the beginning, which is that you had felt as if you were not good

enough And I think it's difficult to have relationships with anyone spouse other

men fathers mothers Whatever if one thinks they're not good enough I also think it's

difficult to have a relationship with people if you think you're too good, too.

that's my story We won't go there But if you're not good enough And

you and I are attempting to have conversation and all of that.

How does that, I know you were probably trying to prove something

with this missionary thing that you were going through that process.

And, and I don't want to leave.

I want to ask a question about your wife in just a second.

Talk about how the not good enough, which has come up a number of times.

We just recently had an

interview with Alan Morris, extremely successful real estate developer

out of Miami at the age of 47.

He said, we were all living this dream, this thought that we're not good enough.

So talk about not good enough and how it feeds into the story.

You just told

Yeah, absolutely.

It's core.

the fuel behind any kind of addiction is shame, and so there's things that

will get you to that addiction, right?

But the fuel that keeps it spiraling is shame.

it is the most Amazing tactic of the enemy.

It's the most covert because a lot of times shame is wrapped up in scripture.

Shame is disguised.

It's really the sheep and it's the wolf and sheep's clothing of.

All of the enemy's tactics.

It's the most, what's that word?

It's covert.

I don't know the other word to use.

somebody would act out and then instantly they're feeling it in their body.

They're feeling shame.

They also have that dopamine drop, and it feels physically like shame,

or they stayed up late and they wake up the next day tired and

they're just covered in shame.

Or they woke up and they have, they're doing this, the walk of shame.

They literally call that the walk of shame.

So it's a big part of it, but it's, I would say it's at the root of it.

So there's two parts of it, relationships and shame that have

to do with, porn addiction or sex addiction, because sex addiction is

categorically an intimacy disorder.

So we have to learn how to relate.

What shame ever since day one and this isn't a theological argument

I'm not talking about arguing about Genesis, but ever since day

one Adam and Eve ate the fruit

they were covered in shame and they did three things they hid they blamed

And they covered up so they put masks on And so they use fig leaves.

We use masks.

We use, I use humor.

I use,

social media,

social media, expertise, competency.

Competency has been a big mask of mine.

Look at me.

I am important because I'm competent at something.

these three things are what shame induces in us as humans across the board.

So throughout my life, the hiding.

involved in anything negative I did.

I was raising a Bible belt, culture where, you can talk about the good

things about yourself even, and that's totally fine because pride isn't one

of the bad things in the Bible belt.

but you can't talk about anything negative or weak.

or addiction or struggles or that just doesn't exist for

the most part in the culture.

So I would hide.

isn't that because primarily religion, I'm going to, I'm

going to separate something out here.

Religions primary goal is shame and control, shame and control.

We don't see that on their billboards.

That's not what they, Put out in front of churches or anything somewhat.

I actually saw one earlier talking about sin and I went, that's not

what that means, but whatever.

Okay.

But so you are in an environment.

I would say this Bert that probably Had you not been in that church environment?

I don't want to say you would have been fine.

I think we also have to deal with that stuff.

But I think you had a double whammy because not only in that bible belt You

had it baked in but then you went out on the mission Oh And you were, we're going

to talk about fire in a little while.

You were just pouring gasoline on that fire.

Weren't you,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And it was amazing.

I felt like I'd prepared my whole life to be a missionary and I

got overseas and I sucked at it

and it's exact, it was like just covered in shame.

After a year and a half, I experienced a season of depression for a few months,

which I've never experienced in my life.

But what was happening is that the two year mark, we were going to come back

on furlough and do some fundraising.

And I was covered in shame, which led me to depression and isolation I didn't

have all these amazing, miraculous stories that I hoped to have to share

with our supporters to tell them I was important and worth their money.

hadn't raised the dead or anything like that.

I tried.

I

what else can you say about how your marriage was saved and

how you are still together after that?

I didn't even use the word transgression that just you screwed up, man.

You messed up.

Okay.

Can we say that you screwed

up?

All right.

So after that you messed up, you said you, you were Upfront

with your wife and y'all are

still together.

I'm struggling with processing that truthfully.

So what can you tell me about that?

I'm amazed with my wife.

she had an out and I told her you have an out, this is it.

this is the most biblical out you could find.

And she didn't take it.

And more than that,

I claim full responsibility.

This is my doing, I got us here.

Yeah, it was a perfect storm of events, but these are my decisions.

I'll own that.

She owned it too.

And that saved our marriage.

Because she said, I had a part to play with, in this.

And I, what I don't mean is she didn't have enough sex with me.

That's not what I mean.

And that's what we were taught.

And that's what's taught from the pulpit a lot.

And even overseas, somebody said, we've been overseas for 40 years and

the secret to having a successful ministry is just have sex with

your husband as often as he wants.

We literally heard those messages as if that fixes issues.

Did they have a scripture for that,

Was it, did they have a scripture for that?

I can't find it.

I've read through the Bible.

I cannot find that scripture.

yeah, I've looked for it, but I fully, I had subscribed to

that side of things and we had counselors that kind of pushed us down that path,

but she claimed responsibility for her, baggage that she brought into the

marriage that had nothing to do with sex.

But it did have to do with hearts and it had to do with the way we're relating.

we came back and we met with Mike, Michael Cusick.

he wrote surfing for God, phenomenal book on the topic of sex addiction.

It's from a Christian lens.

and.

he's a phenomenally skilled counselor.

So we met with him for two weeks for an intensive and at the end of

the two weeks, he gave us feedback.

He gave me, two hours of all my dysfunction and he drew it on a

whiteboard so I could actually see it.

And that gave me a roadmap for what to work on over the next several years.

he also did that for my wife.

And then he did it for our marriage and he, it was a whole hour session just

talking about our marriage and he drew it out for us, and explained, seven different

layers of dysfunction, not of a team, but of that, that our marriage had brought

or that our marriage contained and she owned all of it from the beginning of.

when I broke her heart and she didn't talk to me for a week to today, she still

claims responsibility for, she had, I'm not, I don't want to tell her story, but,

she had some stuff from her childhood and the way she was raised that was

continuing to keep her heart from mine.

And so if you're familiar with attachment styles, she hadn't avoided

an attachment style throughout her life saying emotions are scary.

Emotions are used as manipulation.

So I'm very emotional.

I'm a feeler.

so I, I would share my emotions and she would feel like I'm manipulating

her, so stuff like that, we're able to actually work through and connect

and build healthy attachments.

And so after about 3 years, we actually took a 2 year pause from sex.

And, we didn't want it to be two years.

I didn't want it to be two days, but, it, that's how much time it took for her to

feel safe in relationship with me again.

And

she, she said over and over, she said, I didn't, you didn't lose my trust, Burke.

You never had my trust.

And I remember three years into the process, we're cuddling, not

too close, but just laying in bed, touching it, skin on skin a little bit.

And she whispered to me, she said, Burke, I trust you now.

And that's huge because literally that never existed in our marriage.

So we're not just rebuilding something broken.

We're building something new.

What's

she's.

Amazing.

What just came to mind was this question, and I don't know

why I asked this question, but I asked you if you grew up easy or hard.

Sounds like she grew up a little bit harder than you did.

My wife and I are very similar.

I grew up easy.

She grew up hard.

Family, younger brother died of leukemia, all that kind of stuff.

and I realized that has, she may answer something similar to what

your wife said about, trust thing.

She didn't trust men is what it was.

And I was just lumped into that category.

So I've spent most of our time together attempting to build trust.

You had a situation where you obviously

Broke it.

broke it or, and it wasn't there, but whatever.

But,

I don't know.

yeah.

so one thing I'm excited about, I'm gonna go back to this cause I'm going to hammer

Thank you.

You're now in the mission field that you saw at seven years old.

It's been an

interesting winding path, but you see, I've always considered

business to be one of the most powerful mission fields because it's

biblical because it's in the Bible.

And I'm not against any of these that are full time ministry, but I'm getting

a little bit fatigued with some of the stuff I see there, and I'm trying not to

bash things and all that, but I see it.

Being part of the problem instead of the solution with

some of these things we're doing.

Because if things were happening in those buildings that we call small c

churches, then there wouldn't be the need for someone like you to go in

your backyard, light a fire, and invite

three, four, five guys to sit around.

And finally, Get some soul healing and interaction.

We should be able to do that in an atmosphere that we would call church.

So how's that

for a transition into

let's talk about how, you were in ministry, you were the guy, you were

at the top of the food chain and

Food

missions.

You were the.

I I don't

agree with

apostle.

let's call it a super apostle.

the Bible school we went to, it wasn't like they put

the chart up and said, okay, all you people are down here, real estate

investors, you're right above lawyers.

But then everybody else is above you.

and up

to that point.

That's a bad word.

yeah.

That's bad too.

So, so what, talk about that transition.

You came back seven years ago, obviously your turmoil, financial probably is a

mess, your relationship, you're working on healing there, all of that stuff.

And then somewhere along the way.

You said, okay, I need to work on some relationships.

And I do want to say all this is in the book.

So we're going to drive people to the book, but we've got about 15 minutes max.

So let's, uh, let's keep an eye on our time.

And I want us to mention the book a little bit before we finish up.

Let's do it.

Tim.

I feel like we're cut from the same cloth.

I love these conversations.

We have the same mentality and, I guess value system and maybe even theology.

we're so aligned with this, man, really ministry.

That's the question, right?

What's ministry look like?

Is that kind of what I'm hearing you say if I were to summarize it so crudely?

when this thing we call ministry that people think it looks

a certain way You go off to another country you find out maybe it doesn't

you come back home and you find out It's in your backyard around a fire

yeah, and it's with me, if I'm listing a house, or if I'm renting

out a house, or if I'm meeting with the tenant, or if I'm meeting with the client,

there, the Father is present with me, just like Brother Lawrence washing dishes.

The Father's right there with me and this is holy work.

There's another phrase I love, talking about fire nights is that safe places

are, actually I just forgot the phrase, safe places are holy places.

Safe places are holy places.

I want to create safe places for men and that is ministry.

So I love C.

S.

Lewis.

I'm sure every sermon you've heard quotes him at some point,

but I disagree with him on one.

Point in the Narnia series where he talks about Aslan.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

He says, he is, he's not safe, but he's good, and God is wild

and he's capable of anything.

He is phenomenally powerful and meek at the same time.

Balanced with wisdom.

what that is, that's a description of masculinity right there.

Power, meek, balanced with wisdom.

so that means it's not abusive.

Which means.

He's safe

and he creates such a safe place for me.

So when I mess up or when I've messed up, what I, what shame was telling me,

the father was doing, was saying is, Oh, Burke, how could you not again?

When are you going to get past this?

When are you going to man up?

When are you going to figure it out?

I'm at the end of my rope.

that's what shame wants me to think God's saying.

he's right here next to me, wraps his arm around me, and he's Of course, Burke.

Look at your marriage, or look at your friendships.

Look at, the stress you had throughout the day, and this is

the only coping mechanism you have.

what else would you expect?

And so I don't mean to lighten that or to say it, it doesn't matter because our

actions are, our decisions do matter, but his arm is just right there around us.

Sorry.

This is really roundabout answer, isn't it?

So what I find is he's with us all the time and that's where ministry happens.

We could be alone, we could be with somebody, we could be filling out an Excel

spreadsheet alone, sitting in the office and the father's right there with us.

And he's saying, man, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.

I can be putting the kids down to bed at night and I could be aware of his

nearness and I could be unaware of it.

If I'm aware of it, it helps me return to the present.

Or maybe I have to return to the present in order to be aware of it.

Chicken and the egg, but it also becomes ministry.

Cause his presence ministers to me and it overflows from there.

so then when I'm with my kids, if I'm aware of the father's nearness

and all of a sudden this isn't just putting the kids to sleep, this

is a chance to love on him deeply.

and that's discipleship.

That's life changing stuff.

same thing if I'm meeting with a client.

I don't mean to oversimplify it,

but ministry really is, there's two parts.

where the Father's, you know, cause Jesus said, I'm doing what the Father's doing.

I'm saying what the father's saying.

So that required Jesus to be attentive to what the father was doing.

So if we're not aware of his presence, how are we going to

be aware of what he's saying?

If we're not present with ourself, how are we going to be present with him?

So really, so much of it starts in the body.

And that's what I do in, in, with soul care coaching with men.

I help them return to the body.

And then presence expands from that space.

How am I going to do ministry?

Unless it's just ego and just head.

How am I going to do ministry if I'm not fully present?

And I'm not present with the Father?

Then it's this overflow thing.

It's this thing where I could just show up and be present

with men, and ministry happens.

I could just show up and be present with a client, and ministry happens.

But if I'm trying to do something, which I did for years, And i'm

trying to teach a verse or i'm trying to teach a concept i'm trying to

challenge a guy because that's what god wants me to do and that's ministry.

then nothing actually happens nothing substantial

Or you're just copying somebody else or you're

doing a program or I love one of the things you said in the book.

It's Hey, when you're sitting around the fire, don't do a teaching.

This is not a Bible study.

This is

Yeah

Hey man, which scripture let's go.

Let's pick a part of scripture, man.

What do you think?

And, I'm beginning to get to the place where I think that people

have shared enough sermons and teachings out there that maybe

everybody should stop for a while.

Amen, we don't have a knowledge issue.

No.

So we've

a relationship issue

we got, or going back to what you said and awareness to

be aware that should the father is in your presence at all time.

And I'll take it one more word that helps with my personality.

Be aware that 24 seven.

The father is in your presence.

You're in the father's presence and then allow the father to operate and work

through your life with whatever you're doing, if it's washing dishes, if it's

a real estate deal, if you're, whatever it is, allow, I did a big kingdom of

God study for a couple of years when I was coming out of Bible school.

And I wanted to understand the kingdom of God for me personally, and after

going through 104 scriptures and picking them apart, everything that referenced

kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, Bert, my definition is it's mine.

Okay.

I'm not, you don't have to take this if you don't want to, but for

me, the kingdom of God is wherever God is allowed to rule and reign.

Now, some

people get really uncomfortable with that and I'm okay with that.

Again, it's my definition, not yours, because I know

my personality will, would not allow him at times,

This is my definition.

That's what i'm talking about.

We are cut from the same cloth the way i've always described it is it's wherever

Someone is submitted to the father

And that's exactly what you're saying.

He's allowed to reign

period.

that submission we're on the same page here.

It's amazing.

cool.

All right.

Well, tell me.

the kingdom of God.

so somewhere along the way, you started gathering

with guys around a fire.

I do want to make reference.

I think the week before this episode releases, I interviewed a guy

by the name of Leroy Height, who owns a company called Cutting Edge

Firewood out of Atlanta, Georgia.

He's got a 30, 000 foot warehouse and they do firewood.

And he spoke about fire.

He's a spiritual guy too, but we spoke about physical

fire in such a spiritual way.

So we're going to I'm going to, these episodes are going to come back to back.

So we've got cutting edge firewood, Leroy, people should have already listened to

that, and then we've got the the beauty of what can happen around a fire, because he

talked about just, you can't be in a rush when you got around a fire, there's the

smells, there's the, he spoke about, cause he, they sell high end firewood, that's

kiln dry, they bring it in from Africa, all this kind of stuff.

so talk about.

That presence of what goes on around the fire here in our

last few minutes that we've got.

there's a million things I could say about this.

We as humans, we need to be seen, safe, soothed.

And secure.

And so you've heard attachment theory unpacked neurologically.

There's a lot of research developmentally.

There's a lot of research and they'll do brain scans and anywhere from babies to

grown adults and these 3, these 4 things are the building blocks for healthy.

emotions for us to be healthy humans.

It's absolutely required across the board and all of our relationships

that are going to thrive.

what happens around a fire is a deep soothing that allows

us to return to the present.

and actually the whole act of soothing, or.

Regulating or co regulating if there's another person involved in this case.

We're around a fire We're co regulating together around a fire and the fire's

helping usher it So even from a counseling or psychological perspective, there's a

lot of science that backs this up john eldridge he said there's three things

that a man can stare indefinitely into and one is a body of water One's a

fire and one's a baby's face but what happens Is serotonin is being released,

in our brain and it soothes out the stress in our brains, the stress in our

bodies is soothed when we experience serotonin or a higher level of serotonin

receptors responding in our brains.

so fire does that.

We get to sit around and it's so sensory.

you're listening to the crackle and I just have a freaking gas fireplace right now.

So all we get is the dance, right?

the flames dance.

but it's so beautiful.

it still brings you in, even though it's not nearly as good as a wood fireplace.

with wood, you see the transformation of the logs, and that's such

a symbol in and of itself, as we're together, what's happening.

And the other thing is, when somebody shares the crap going

on in their life, shame wants to say, nobody wants to hear that.

Keep that hidden.

Shame wants to say, that's ugly.

And they're going to reject you if you open up too much.

and so what I like to think about is these ashes are like that shame thing,

because the guy's sitting around the fire, what are they looking at?

Yeah.

They might notice the ashes occasionally, but they're actually looking at the

light, the darkness doesn't define you.

The light in you does the ashes of your story.

Don't define you.

But the light does, and that's the Spirit of God in you.

the other thing that I love about fire is throughout scripture, so Jew, a lot of

the Jewish tradition, when they see fire, they equate it with the presence of God.

that's a deep, culturally rich symbol for them.

And that goes back, the pillar of fire.

It goes to, Elisha or Elijah, with, against the gods of Baal or whatever

the prophets of Baal and the flame comes down and just consumes.

And it's so many times throughout scripture, but it's so symbolic of

the father being present with them and leading them and with them.

So it's presence.

what I love too, is that picture of Jesus cooking fish.

By the fire for Peter after Peter had this huge failure denied him three times

and gave up on ministry and went back to fishing and Jesus invites him to a meal

over a fire and I think symbolically Peter would have taken that a it's

phenomenal because his best friends back.

His savior's back.

But there's also this culturally rich symbol of the father

being present with them.

It was this re welcoming, and saying, you haven't screwed things up too bad.

You're still welcome here on the fire.

You're still welcome here in my presence.

And it's just so all throughout scripture, you see it.

but the fire is a phenomenal symbol and it's this thing

that's also deeply masculine.

I have three daughters and I have two sons and I have a third son on the way.

My daughters never care about the fire unless there's marshmallows.

My sons are drawn to it like bugs to a light.

They cannot.

Like they're captivated by the fire and there's something deeply

masculine in there genetically.

That's calling out something in us.

the thing I love about the fire analogy is that you

really, especially if it's wood, we actually have a gas fire here

where we're at in the Black Hills, because you can't, we can't burn.

and I need to connect you with Leroy.

I think the two of y'all need to have a communication because he's

anyway, it'd be really cool.

So I did talk to him about the

upcoming interview here.

You can't.

Quickly build a fire.

You can't be impatient.

It's one of the reasons I like RVing.

I can't get in a hurry Which a lot of things in my life I get in a hurry

on and so I love the thought of that We're butting up against our time here

berk But what i'd love for you to do is real quick Tell people about the

book fire knights who needs to get it and where they could find it And then

i've got one more question before we wrap up in and jump off here We may

need to do a part two at some point.

But you know Tell us about the book real quick, Fire Knights,

Forging Brotherhood That Heals.

I

the book really is a call towards connection because the

path of least resistance is isolation.

So if we don't actually move towards connection, it doesn't happen.

so fire nights is giving a model for that, but I'm sure there's.

There's a dozen of you men that are already meeting around fires

or already meeting around with men and somewhere or another that's

rich and full of connections.

So just keep doing that.

If you're meeting around fires, this can be something

supplemental to what you're doing.

This can be something that adds richness to how you guys meet.

it's almost the art of meeting around fire with other men.

But what I'm most concerned about is that people aren't

just sitting alone in isolation.

And so the dedication of the book is to the men who struggle,

you're not alone anymore.

And that phrase, you're not alone anymore, almost makes me want to cry.

Cause most of my life I've been popular and surrounded by people at

times on stage in front of thousands.

And I've lived a very lonely life and I've found I need rich,

deep friendships around me.

So the book is really about that.

and sure there's some of my story.

Sure.

There's a model for it.

but just be moving towards relationship.

If you don't have that kind of stuff in your life, that's where the fire

nights community online comes in.

I think it costs a dollar a month.

and it's a video based app right now.

you can send audios or text messages.

you can send it individually or to the whole group.

and you can do check ins daily or weekly.

And just say, hey, this is where I'm at in my body this week.

Or this is where I'm at in my marriage.

or I'm just feeling really lonely and wish I was dating someone, or whatever.

And it could just be a place to check in.

It could also be a place to celebrate.

but it's about connection.

So if you don't have that going on in your life, start a fire night, or join

the fire nights group, and I would love to get to know you and hear your story,

think, uh, and

get the book, get the book,

nights.

net

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Fireknights.

net.

And,

um, the reason I think the book is valuable is it, I

don't want to say it's a guide.

It's not like a how to or anything, but I think it gives the heart.

Of what one should do in this, it's not a start with this, light the fire

and make sure there's, you know, it's, it's not that it is the heart of it.

And I appreciate that.

And, just get the book.

If it definitely a man, I don't, women probably not for them maybe,

but women maybe buy it for your man, get a copy for your man.

Right.

I've seen that, over half of my sales have been

therapists buying it for their clients.

interesting.

I could definitely see that.

Hey, Burke, we're sick.

Go create those three words.

Pick one.

don't overthink it.

Seek, go or create and wise.

My final question and quick wrap up here.

I am, at the core of me, a creator and an artisan.

I don't even think I'm an author.

I'm, I don't think I'm a musician.

Although I was touring, living in a tour bus for a while.

I was, I traveled the world.

I've done photography, productions in the fashion world for about a decade.

on five continents.

so there's a lot of stuff that I've been doing, but ultimately

it comes down to create.

And I realized, Oh, there's something in that's actually a reflection

of the creator who is my father.

and so I just, that stirs something so deep in me.

Thank you, Tim.

Yeah, create.

Thank you, Burke.

Make sure you get ahold of fire nights and connect with Burke.

Find him.

maybe even check out the real estate.

I think that book just came out.

I think fire nights was almost a year ago or something like that.

I love this conversation because it fits So well with what we're attempting to

do here, have people just transform, think differently, not be caught

up in dogma and things like that.

So I appreciate you, Bert.

Thanks for listening in here.

We've got new episodes on YouTube or your podcast platform every Monday.

Support us.

If you'd like to go to seek, go create.

com forward slash support.

You can throw some money our way.

We will accept it and receive it and, love to get that.

And, I'll just say this until next time, continue being all

that you were created to be.