Jesse Boulden, Director of the ALERT Academy in Big Sandy, Texas, argues that courage is less a gift some men are born with than a capacity that has to be used. Scripture keeps telling people to be courageous, he says, and his own father’s hard years in the Navy made the point concrete. At ALERT, a gap-year program of discipleship, emergency training, and service, young men practice that muscle in small reps before they fight fires, dive, or deploy.

Boulden distinguishes real courage from the fake kind that talks big online and then refuses a face-to-face cost. He also warns that well-meant parental protection can bubble-wrap sons until they will not take a risk. Freedom and safety do not travel together. The conversation moves through public speaking, a broken obstacle course at officer candidate school, the leadership tests of 2020, and the fear of man that makes God look small. Boulden says a culture survives only if it has children and a pipeline that turns boys into men of self-control. Fathers do most of that work. ALERT tries to stand in the gap Ron Fuhrman opened in 1994: nine weeks of boot camp, emergency skills, a specialty, and a bias for service.

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:03:09 – How Jesse Came to ALERT
00:05:20 – Can Courage Be Trained
00:06:02 – Courage Like a Muscle
00:08:36 – False Courage Online
00:10:25 – Parents and Bubble Wrap
00:13:06 – Boys in the Creek
00:14:19 – Freedom Versus Safety
00:16:00 – Public Speaking Reps
00:18:31 – A Broken Obstacle Course
00:20:05 – 2020 Exposed the Cracks
00:21:11 – Courage Must Be Renewed
00:23:28 – Fear of Man
00:25:04 – Calls Based on Truth
00:27:16 – Harder Days Ahead
00:28:49 – Apathy Is Not Inevitable
00:30:22 – Boys Must Become Men
00:33:25 – Fathers Do the Forming
00:36:22 – What ALERT Actually Is
00:41:26 – Why He Stayed
00:42:06 – The Men Are the Mission

Find out more about Jesse and his work at ALERT Academy here: https://alertacademy.com/

You can follow Chase Spears on X @DrChaseSpears. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your favorite episodes to keep the conversation going.

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