Andrea Beem: Welcome everybody to another episode of Kingdom Warrior podcast. Today's guest is Tony Jacobson, but definitely better known as T or coach T as I'm learning. And I'm super stoked to have him on here and get to share his story with you guys today. Just a little background. So you guys kind of know a few things about where Tony's come from, but we're going to obviously. This is Kingdom Warrior. I'm your host Andrea Behm and every episode we bring you powerful conversations with bold business owners, passionate young adults and overcomers who have turned their toughest battles into breakthrough moments. We dive into practical business strategies, leadership insights and the mindset that fuels resilience.
TonyJacobsen: Tony comes out.
Andrea Beem: dig deeper into this in our interview here in our discussion. He grew up in Alaska, which totally jumped out at me just because I have a sibling that lives in Alaska and I love Alaska, but you guys, was born and raised there in Juneau and he owned T's Strength Gym for, how long did you say? 11 years? 11 years? Yeah, yeah. so that you can overcome obstacles and scale your calling with confidence. If this speaks to you, hit subscribe now on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs a shot of bold faith and courage today.
TonyJacobsen: years here in Albany.
Andrea Beem: And you guys, he's taught CPR for nine years. He runs the fitness gym at ATI. He drove semis for 15 years. you guys, what does he not do? He knows how to do it all. And we're going to share his testimony today. We're going to share his story. And I know that this is going to help so many people that get to listen today. Tony, welcome.
TonyJacobsen: Andrew Beam, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I've listened to some of your podcasts before and I know some of the folks that you've interviewed. So, no, it's an honor to be here. So thank you very much for having me.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ absolutely. I love this. Well, we're going to jump right into your story. got to talk to you a little bit beforehand. And so now I'm really excited to jump in and just start peeling back the onion layers of coach T. We're going to start peeling back the onion layers. So well, let's start with this. Let's start with ⁓ one of the things you mentioned when we were talking earlier is You kind of got this nickname wherever you went of the Christian guy. Let's start with that. How did that nickname blossom? How did it begin and then how did it stick? tell me about that.
TonyJacobsen: Whether it was a nickname or not, what happened was ⁓ when I got saved at nineteen. ⁓ I became in my hometown, I got to be pretty well known. First of all, ⁓ I was a pretty successful motorcycle racer as a young person. So people knew me in Juneau, Alaska. My dad owned a Honda dealership there. And so I raced motocross for a long time. So I did know a lot of people. ⁓ But after I got saved, ⁓ I had started playing a lot more music. ⁓ bought my first base when I was a sophomore in high school. So I was into music a little bit. ⁓ And so as I was racing and playing music, I was getting covered a lot for what I would do. So racing, the city of Juneau would cover my racing and there'd always be a newspaper that I would say, guess who won this race or up and coming, know, stuff like this. And I had a, there was a guy that was a believer that worked there, ⁓ doing the newspaper and he'd take my story and I'd always have a chance to be able to minister through, through, you know, ⁓ through the newspaper and some of the new paper clippings that I had. And also, I also played in a band that was a Christian metal band. Yeah, I used to have hair. It was down here. Yeah. There's some great pictures one day I could show you. ⁓ they're awesome. People like, that's you. But anyways, while I played that as well, I always, there was always articles. They would do articles about this Christian metal band and, ⁓ and they would write big articles on me and we got to know. people saw me as like, Hey, that's that.
Andrea Beem: Is there a video of this somewhere? I'm sure we're gonna have to find video of this.
TonyJacobsen: Christian guy. And then I worked for the church. I was involved with youth ministry. I worked for youth for Christ. ⁓ and so people always say that's Tony and in a small town, since my dad owned that and I grew up, everybody kind of knew me. And so, but I was known as there's Tony. He's a Christian guy. He goes to church. He ministers through his music, you know, his athletics. He's always, you know, giving God glory. And so that's how I kind of, you know, just, that was just the way I lived. My life was just.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: for Christ. I think people, of course, you always want to see the glory of God shine through me. That's what I always wanted to see. yeah, so I was never shy about my faith. But yeah, that's, guess, how they saw it, just because there was always clippings of me in the paper. I was, yeah, I've got to be well known there.
Andrea Beem: love that. You mentioned when we were talking to that. So you actually got saved at what I would consider a fairly young age when you think about today's society, and at a really critical age as well. think for a lot of ⁓ Christians that grew up in the church, which you did, I did, we kind of grew up in that environment. And I think a lot of us realize that it's not just about checking the boxes. There's actually a lot more to a relationship with God than just checking boxes at a church. And that's not to put a church down in any way. It's just that relationship, that one-to-one relationship tends to ⁓ get missed sometimes in our younger years. And so you were saved when you were 19 years old. I ⁓ want to have you share the story of this because it's such an imperative age.
TonyJacobsen: sorry. Right.
Andrea Beem: 19 years old, think, and I don't, don't quote me on these statistics, but I do know that there's some pretty high statistics about when kids go off to college. So that 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, that range, a lot of people end up straying from God because they don't have that personal relationship during that particular age range, but that's not what happened for you. So tell us your story a little bit about when you got saved.
TonyJacobsen: was probably a blessing that I didn't go off to college because the universities now aren't, there's no unity in diversity anymore, which a university should be. It's all one-sided liberal aspects. So a lot of our young people that go off might get not taught ⁓ conservative biblical things. So unless you go to a ⁓ Bible school. So yes, I grew up in church. ⁓ And the interesting thing is that we're talking about as I think about this.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: I grew up in church, so I did spend a lot of time. knew a of people at church, but I wasn't saved. And in Alaska, just before I got saved, I'll tell you the story. In Alaska, when I was younger, 19 was the drinking age, not 21. So I wasn't walking with God before then. I turned 19, all my friends took me out and went to the bars, which was probably the best thing for me because they were all buying me shots. I wasn't a big drinker.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ interesting.
TonyJacobsen: at all. They were all buying me shots. I found myself the next morning outside. I had wandered out of the bar and was outside and a friend of mine picked me up, took me home. It was after that I said, this is not the life that God wants for me. I was very sick and I did this drinking. So yeah. Yep. Well, you know, Alaska in Juneau, can be a lot like, ⁓ the summers there can be a lot like the falls here. It's just wet. It's not always cold.
Andrea Beem: It's a good thing you didn't get frostbite. I mean, you were in Alaska. ⁓ okay, okay.
TonyJacobsen: So yeah, so I had this little binge of drinking and, and, and I thought this is not what God has called me to do. So it was shortly after that. Then I have always had Christian friends, but you know, again, we can have Christian friends and still not walk the walk, you know, I just wasn't, I just wasn't mature. And then after I said, Lord, that's not the kind of walk that I want to have. It was when it was then when, like I said, I was working for my dad and I was wrenching on this car. Cause I had gone to Honda school.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: Before I was even at a high school, went when I was 17, my dad sent me to Honda school in LA. So I spent a couple of weeks down there just to get some information about working on cars. And so I was, I was working on this particular car one day. And as I told you earlier, I just felt like at the time I wasn't sure, but it was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was like, you're, it was putting something in my heart. And I said this, said, Lord, not that I had a relationship with him, but I said, Lord. Um, okay. I'm feeling this. don't know what you're doing, but I'll go see my pastor at the end of the day. I'll just work through the day. It's fine. As I, and as I told you earlier to the pastor, that was the pastor of the church. Not that I was always there on Sundays, but when I was, I wasn't there, you know, was, but I wasn't, um, I didn't like the guy. Cause I felt like you yelled and screamed at everybody. I just didn't like him personally. I was just one of those things, but the Lord called me to go see him funny enough. Um, but I was wrenching on this car and I said, okay, I'll, I'm to put this off until after work. And then pretty soon I just felt this deep conviction and I said, okay, I'll go at noon. I'll go at noon. know this. And then pretty soon I was weeping over this car. I was just crying and I knew that God was calling me. So I put my tools down. I told my dad, my boss, said, Hey, I've got to go. And I went over to my pastor's house, knocked on the door and he knew exactly why I was there. You know, when somebody's crying, asking for repentance at the pastor's door, that's an easy job for the pastor to lead someone to Christ. ⁓ yeah, I, confess my sins and accept that Jesus is my savior. And yeah, from there, it's been a, it's been a joy, ⁓ to serve him. I've had ups, I've had downs. ⁓ but from that moment on, I knew that his words were true when he says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. So, yeah, that's how, that's how I got saved. So is that time for you?
Andrea Beem: So in that time period when you were wrenching on the cars and you were like, okay, I know I need to go see my pastor. One of the words you had said when we were talking before was you felt this immense amount of conviction. For you, what was that conviction around? What was the convicting around? ⁓ think conviction is ⁓ such a blessing. I know that's probably not the word that people would maybe use to describe conviction. ⁓ But if you're feeling conviction, then you know there's some connection there. You know that God's speaking to you in some way or you wouldn't feel it at all, right? So for you, what was that conviction around?
TonyJacobsen: Right. Yeah. Well, I think for me, since I had grown up in church and I knew some of the word and everything, but wasn't walking it, think, and I knew some people that were pretty strong Christian young people that were about my age. But there were some things I was doing in life that was not honoring to God. And I think I knew that. You know, I think there was a time when I, I owned my own house when I was very young. ⁓ But I had, and you know, we all have girlfriends and so we do things with the, with the opposite sex. You know, we have pre-medical sex and things like that. didn't feel good about it at the time. ⁓ so, and I, you know, I didn't drink much, but I wasn't walking the walk that should have. My mouth was not always clean. ⁓ I was cursed. wasn't a bad kid. I always grew up as a pretty good kid, fairly humble and never, you know, ⁓ but there were some things that I just felt like, your life is not right. And I think the Lord just said, I've got something better for you. And so he began to convict me saying, you can't live the life. that you want to live and still call yourself this Christian. can't go to church and do all these things and have peace. So I thank the Lord for his conviction and I, and everybody that's convicted. The thing is nice is he didn't come into the world to condemn the world, but to convict the world. And so when he, when we're convicted, if we give into that's great, he doesn't condemn us or we do. He loves us. And so I just, appreciated the conviction. And in that time, I didn't get it all right after that. You know, I accepted Jesus and my walk of schools are in, but I knew it was like he put that stamp on me. You know, you're mine now and understanding what Christ did on the cross for me. And then, yeah, I had to learn and grow and kind of work out my salvation with fear and trembling, so to speak. I knew I was saved. I knew that, you know, heaven was mine and that Christ was not going to, you know, I was in his hand. But I also had to learn to walk the way Jesus walked and and be his disciple. So, yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. There was something you said reminded me of, so I made a post earlier today about being able to, you can't walk in obedience and rebellion at the exact same time. And I feel like that's kind of similar to what you're talking about, right? Like you can't live that lifestyle, you know, but then you feel convicted at the same time. it's like, well, you know, again, it's for a reason, like you're being convicted for a reason. God's trying to speak to you. He's trying to get your attention.
TonyJacobsen: you can walk in a room.
Andrea Beem: And I know like when I've been in church sometimes and you're worshiping or you're listening to a sermon and I've had this happen many times. And at first I hated it. Like I hated when I would cry or you felt like the Holy Spirit was getting a hold of you or you'd get goosebumps or whatever. But and at first I hated it and I was like, no, I don't want to come back to church because I hate this feeling. I want to cry in front of people. And then when I realized what it was. you know, at first I think maybe I was in denial. And then when I realized what it was, it was like, okay, maybe I should actually lean into this more. Maybe I should actually be okay with feeling this more. And ⁓ so I just, I love that you said that. I love that you brought that up. So not that long after you were saved, ⁓ you went into ministry, right? How long of a period from the time you got saved at 19 till the time you went into
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: working with the church and I think you said you were a youth pastor for a couple years. How much time was in there?
TonyJacobsen: I think there was, if I think about it, ⁓ it was probably about five or six years later ⁓ when I actually went into youth ministry. Like I said, I had worked for Youth for Christ. I started working for Youth for Christ shortly after I got saved. And I don't remember how I hooked up with the ⁓ director for Youth for Christ. ⁓ he was a cyclist. And so that's what I did. I used to train a lot as a cyclist. And he was a cyclist and somehow we hooked up and he just said, Hey, I'm looking for some staff members for to work with teens. And, ⁓ so I did that for awhile. And then, ⁓ yeah, I think, ⁓ there was an opening at the church. I had grown up in the church. I was more invested, so to speak, going to church. started leading worship at our church now at that time, after I got saved. and, ⁓ it just kind of fell into this thing. It's like, Hey, we're in need of a youth pastor. The youth pastor is moving on. Would you be interested in stepping into this role? I said, sure. And at the time I had three, three small kids, you know, and so I was married, had three small kids. Um, but I felt like, yeah, I think I'd, I'd like to do that. Um, because I was working not only I was playing music, but I wasn't working for my dad anymore. I had gone to work for a hardware store. And so I just felt like, think there's something more again, Lord, what do you have? And so, yeah, the church hired me and I did, uh, I was a associate pastor. Youth pastor for about three and half years there for. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Wow. And so one of the other jobs and I am going to bounce around here just a little bit, but I have a point to this. So you also worked for the state of Alaska ⁓ in their juvenile detention ⁓ department or division. ⁓ What was that? How long did you do that? How long did you work in the juvenile detention?
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, sure. Yeah. About five years. So I went from the youth pastor, because as a youth pastor, I would go to the juvenile detention center on, on Sundays or Saturdays. can't remember what day. And I'd actually go in and I would teach Bible and I would do worship songs. So I take my guitar in there, me and a couple of guys and we'd go in there. And so I knew the staff at the, at the detention center. And so, but, I had done that for a few years. And then after the job went away for the youth pastorship. there was ⁓ a job opening as a counselor at the state of Alaska for a youth counselor. so, yeah, so I went in there and applied and it was interesting that ⁓ when I went in there, I said, hey, I'd like to apply. And they said, we've been wanting you for a long time. And I said, you have. And they said, yeah, the kids appreciate you when you come in, you have a good rapport with them. And, but as I told you earlier, I said, when I actually went in, the supervisor pulled me aside and he said, listen, I know that you come in on Sundays. And I know that you pull the Bible out and you sing songs, but this is a state run facility. What if I told you, you cannot bring the Bible out. And I looked at him and I said, Francis of Assisi once said, go out and spread the gospel and use words if you have to. And he, he just paused for a moment. said, Okay, and I went to work. I went to work for him and I spent five years there. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: God finds a way. God finds a way. Always. ⁓ my gosh. So where did you go from there? You've now got youth pastor under your belt. You've worked at a juvenile detention center under your belt. You've been in a band, a Christian rock band under your belt. Now what? Then what happens?
TonyJacobsen: He does. Always. Always. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. So, ⁓ I did that for about five years and just felt like, you know, ⁓ the institutional setting wasn't, you know, I wasn't feeling the vibe, so to speak. I mean, I was able to touch some kids, I think, ⁓ as far as, know, their interaction, trying to lead them to Christ and different things, but the institutional setting, I just felt like, you know, maybe this isn't what I need to do. So interesting thing I went from, I went from doing that to, ⁓ working at, ⁓ a Marine lines, which is a barge lines. And they had trucks, right? So they would deliver trucks and they would bring the barge lines in because it's Alaska. You have to barge everything in, not very much as trucked in there. And so you'd unload the barges, put them on trucks, and then, you know, you would truck all the containers to the different facilities. So I went and worked there. I got a job there. I got my CDO and ⁓ went to work at this place ⁓ and drove trucks for quite a while. actually
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: offloaded the barges, you know, I worked with the forklifts and delivered all that kind of stuff. And I did that for quite a few years there. Um, that that's what I did after that. And then I, when I came to Oregon, I don't even remember what year it was about 20 years ago. Um, when I came to Oregon, you have a CDL, you can go to work. I just continued to, to work as a driver when I got here to Oregon, but yeah.
Andrea Beem: So when you were driving for what, maybe 15 years or so in Alaska, do you feel like you had the opportunity to continue your ministry in that line of work? mean, that's not your typical, it's not like you're around a ton of people when you're driving all the time. ⁓ So do you feel like your ministry took a back seat during that time or do feel like you were still able to minister to people in that environment?
TonyJacobsen: Well, so as far as I looked at when I first started driving, ⁓ you know, I would work a regular nine to five. So when I was off, I'd still go to my Bible studies. went to, I went to ⁓ Bible college. I took some Bible college courses ⁓ that really helped me, you know, ⁓ to grow and, you know, always wanted to be given account for the faith that I have, you know, given account for that. ⁓ and so I would just work by, it was just like a regular job, but afterwards I'd still have Wednesday night services. I still led worship on Sundays and things like that. Now that changed a little bit when I started driving here in Oregon, because are my days were longer because you drive longer when I'd have to drive to Olympia or I'd have to drive to Seattle or to Medford. Yes. I often wonder, Lord, what am I doing in this truck?
Andrea Beem: Uh-huh.
TonyJacobsen: I can listen to Christian radio, you know, back in the day when Rush Limbaugh, all these conservative guys, and I could, I could, you know, listen to worship music, but for many years I kept saying, okay, Lord, you know, I can try and solve all the world problems because I get a lot of windshield time here. Um, but you know, what, what would you have for me? And again, I wouldn't work on the weekends unless they called me in.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ gosh.
TonyJacobsen: So I would still play worship. would on Sundays, I've played worship on worship teams for 30 years. And so I had a local church when I got back downtown, ⁓ I led worship or helped lead worship and was the bass player for at the Orpheum Theater down there. You know, it was there, was, I had a church there. And my son was involved with worship there. And so on the weekends I would still, I would still try and minister. And then the interesting thing was as I was driving, when I got to Oregon, that's when I started building the gym. So I was driving, doing worship on the weekends and trying to build my, so I felt like as I'm building my gym, have a, I have a ministry. So there's always, I cannot go without ministering to someone. Otherwise I feel like what am I doing? You know?
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: I got to have it coming in and going out. Otherwise it's the dead sea. You know, like, ah, here I am. What am I going to do with this information? You learn things to share them. If you learn it all, it doesn't matter if you can't share them with people. So I was still busy, even though I was driving all the time. Yeah, there was hours, 12 hours, 14 hours in a truck. I'm like, is what's, what am I doing? But the Lord led me into a, I went from the truck into full-time doing the gym and CPR. So, and from there it was just, it was just really, I felt like it was a ministry.
Andrea Beem: Amen. And your gym, so tell about your gym a little bit because when you owned your gym, like you were telling me like, man, you had Christian like metal music playing. had, I mean, it was geared towards, it sounded like more like the bodybuilding atmosphere a little bit. And so I just, love that you, obviously you owned it. So you had control over that. Not every thing that you've done, you've had that complete control over, but when you got your gym, you did.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: So do you feel like you went like a little, ⁓ a little like, and I mean this in a good way, but like a little crazy where you like, ⁓ my gosh, like these are all the things I'm going to do now that I have control over my gym. Do you feel like you were able to do more?
TonyJacobsen: Well, I felt like I was free to. know, obviously when you first start a business, you know, I was kind of new to it. My dad had a business, but I wasn't involved in the business aspect of it because his brother's the one that was really the brains behind it. My dad kind of started it was the mechanic aspect. So as I'm starting it, I started very small and was learning as I went. But I also realized, well, this is my this is my business so I can pray with people. But I was a little sensitive to people when they first come in just because, you know,
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: You have to be sensitive where people are at. Jesus always met people where they were at. You know, notice that Jesus was harder on the religious people. Yeah. So, and again, like we say, we don't know people's stories. So when they come in, I would say, this is my gym, is where I run it. We supply chalk. Not a lot of gyms do. We have the music. This is a lifter's gym. And so not all people would like it. You know, not everybody comes in there like, oh, they want a super clean gym.
Andrea Beem: Amen. Yes, yes, he was. Yes, he was. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And they don't want noise. This is not the gym for you. And so it got to be known as this, um, Oh, this like, what did they call it? Somebody's would call it, Oh, that's for, that's for the big guys. You know, that's for the, that's for the heavy duty gym. I'm like, well, it's just a gym, but it just so happened that a lot of guys that worked out there were big, strong. had music going, you could hear the rattle of the, of the, of the weights and the, know, and everything like that. So that's how, and we had more young people coming in powerlifting and
Andrea Beem: Yeah
TonyJacobsen: And some bodybuilders. so it just became that, Hey, we love this atmosphere. There's no gyms like this. And so, and yeah, so it got to be known as this hardcore gym. was getting my hair cut one time and the person didn't know me. they said, Oh, I said, yeah, well, I got to go back to the gym. They go, what gym is I said, it's T-strengths, uh, studio donor. goes, Oh, that's the hardcore gym. I'm like, why do you, why do people call it the hardcore gym? says, cause all the big guys work out there. And I said, well, I'm the owner. they go, Oh, okay. So.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: That's, think how we got to know I could do it myself. The thing that was nice is I just felt like, and we'd have a lot of people that would come in there that were going through hard times. And I would just say, can we pray? And everyone's like, have another guy, okay, hey, come over here. And so we would just stop in the middle of our workout and we would just pray. And nobody's going to say boo about it because it's my gym. You know, if they did, I would just say, Hey, it's okay. Don't mean if anybody, but we're praying. And I haven't talked to too many people that, didn't want me to pray for them.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: know, somebody says, can I pray for you, whether they believe us or not. They'll say, yeah, that'd be great. Cause a lot of people are in a very difficult time. And so, yeah, we would stop a lot of times and we pray and I'd minister to people, know, you know, somebody started me on something or, you know, I'd start a conversation and then I start going. Sometimes I go, sorry guys, I know I get rolling here and I know it's been more than two minutes between your sets. So, but I said, let's have this conversation somewhere else. So yeah, you know, I felt really free.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: to be able to have the kind of atmosphere that I wanted and to be able to minister when I felt that the Spirit was allowing me to do that to a particular person.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. I think that's such an important, I have actually have a dream to own a faith-based gym one day. Like if God sees fit, that's dream that I have if it's his will. But that being said, I think a lot of, you hit on something really important. A lot of broken people go to the gym, right? And we're all broken, don't get me wrong. But when people are ⁓ in that healing mode, right? The gym is something that,
TonyJacobsen: Thank you.
Andrea Beem: a lot of people will latch on to ⁓ in that process, in ⁓ that journey of healing. And like you said, know, being able to meet people where they're at, ⁓ that's so much of what Jesus did all the time, all the time that's what he was doing. it's not, can people meet God in church? Absolutely, they can. And more often than not, they're
TonyJacobsen: Yes.
Andrea Beem: they're meeting God in their truck in a field, in sitting on the side of a river fishing or ⁓ outside of a bar. There's no limitations on where God can meet you at. And to be able to create that environment where people can come in and like you said, it doesn't matter if they believe or not, just to be able to offer to pray for them. I have a similar scenario in the real estate world because I also own a real estate company where I've been in a home, you know, to, list a home for someone and they've lost their job or they've lost their spouse or, ⁓ you know, someone has passed away and they're going through, you know, a poop storm and to have that courage to just say, you know, I don't know what your faith is, but can I pray with you is huge, right? It's just, it's huge. And just to be able to say, you know what, God use me wherever I'm at, just, just use me. And it's such a, I don't know, I can't even put words to it, but the feeling you get is very humbling. ⁓ So I love that you were able to do that for so many, for so many years with your gym and throughout every ministry you've been in. This is what I love. And this is what I wanted to kind of tie.
TonyJacobsen: You speak, it's such a...
Andrea Beem: tie it all around a little bit. We haven't even gotten to all of them because we haven't even gotten to like, you you teach CPR, you are the director for the fitness out at ATI. Like, there's so many other platforms that we haven't even touched on yet, but you have this theme that God's using you wherever you are. Like, I think a lot of times people think ministry has to be a youth pastor, a pastor, an associate pastor, right? Like these official titles and you don't, you don't need a title at all. You're living proof, right? Like.
TonyJacobsen: Mm-hmm. Right. No, no, we're all called. We're all called to make disciples. We're disciples. And it says go into all the world. He didn't say the church. If you think about it, we are the church, you know, the Holy Spirit lives in us. So our calling is to minister to people. don't have to wait and be a minister. I don't have to go theology school. I don't have to go to seminary to start ministering to people just because God begins to, you you know, lot of you've probably seen Christians, people got saved. They didn't know anything, but just because of their testimony and what God has done, people like I'm interested.
Andrea Beem: Amen. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes? Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: They might not know how to give an account for their faith. Why do you believe what you believe? And you know, what is it? Why? How does the Bible? Why is the Bible different? Why is Jesus different from these other religions? And so, you know, I think just to be able to be open to let the Holy Spirit work in you and just move. And so that's the way I always felt. I don't need to be inside a church. I've been there. I've ministered from church. I've been involved that. But our ministry is outside the church. If we can bring people in to hear the word that a pastor has been called to give.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And we do corporate worship. That's great. But all of us, when we go into the world, that's when we shine his light. said, you you need to shine my light into the world so that people will look and say, what's the deal? And so we can have an opportunity to be able to share that and be sensitive to where people are at and to know how to be able to approach them. You know, we do that. So yeah, it's a great opportunity, a blessing to be able to do so.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. creating that curiosity or just that phrase of like, when someone says, tell me more. their heart to me has transferred from being hard to being open. It's transferred to at least being willing to listen, right? Which is very different than, ⁓ you know, like cramming it down someone's throat, you know, in almost like a defensive manner, you know, this is why you should believe this is why you should, this is why you need to become a Christian. This is why you need and, and can people get safe through that too? Yes, you know, but I love when people's hearts become open through that when they they see or they hear what you're sharing. And then someone comes up to you in the gym and says, you know, something you said piqued my interest and now I want to hear about it. And it's just coming from such a different place, right? In their heart to being willing to hear what you have to share or say. And you don't have to be a pastor to do that.
TonyJacobsen: No, no. You know, interesting is we're talking about it. I've had many people when I started telling you about church, they weren't offended by it, but they said, ⁓ well, I had a bad experience at church. And if they're willing to tell me that, then I go, well, tell me what happened if you feel like it. And then I always say, you know, it's not people that we look at. The people are not the example. Christ was the only perfect one and he's our example. And I always tell people, I say, listen, I know maybe you haven't found the perfect church.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: But when you do, don't go there because you'll ruin it. ⁓ Because there's no perfect person. And so you have to able to say, what was it that happened in the church? And let's not focus on someone that's imperfect, that's trying to work their way in, but let's focus on Christ who was perfect. What did Jesus say? Not what this other person did to you, because we're always going to. It was the believers that put Jesus on the cross. So if we can have a moment to discern where the person is coming from.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: and then be able to show them the love of Jesus, not because they were hurt by a person, but we want to show them the love of Jesus and then maybe they can begin to think, okay, don't think about the church at this point. I don't care if you go to church on Sunday at this point. I'm worried. I care about your soul. Let's start there and get them to start thinking about, well, why am I not looking for God anymore? If I was going to church, I was doing that for a reason, but I let someone hurt me and that bitterness separated me.
Andrea Beem: Yes. Amen. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And so yeah, there's so many different ways that you can approach a person to try and minister to them and get their spirits open up a little bit.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, just, just to clarify, just so somebody doesn't take this the wrong way, but like, I have nothing against the church, right? Like we absolutely should be, you know, going to church, we should be getting poured into, we should be worshiping, we should be doing all of those things. ⁓ And like you said, it's, it, that's almost like it's putting the cart before the horse, because have we even like,
TonyJacobsen: Yes.
Andrea Beem: being able to address where their soul is at before we address even the church topic is so much more important. so I love that you brought up that particular piece. Earlier at the very beginning when we were talking, you mentioned having Christian friends. You were talking about when you were 19 and you had Christian friends. ⁓ As an adult now, and you've got all this life history behind you, Talk me through a little bit about your stance on your friendships and the people that you surround yourself with.
TonyJacobsen: Okay. That's an interesting story for me because that's kind of a tough one for me because I never had close friends. It's only been in the last few years that I've realized the importance of having men, strong believers to be accountable to. And people that you have a grow group with or you get together. was never really, I never really got into that. I was a part of the church.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: I knew a lot of people, but I didn't do small groups. I would do Bible studies, but I never had a really strong relationship with it. And I think that caused me some problems trying to be that lone ranger, like, ⁓ me and God, we got this and I don't need that. But I realized ⁓ probably two years ago, three years ago, which is took me long enough to do it, that the Lord said, and my wife helped me. She says, you know what, you need to find some guys. And the Lord led me to a A guy, in fact, Justin, he's the physical therapist. Yeah, I met him a couple of years ago and he was just such a blessing to me. Um, and he had gone through some things that I'd gone through and he just ministered to my heart. And so I started meeting with him. Um, I started meeting with a couple of the guys I opened up. finally opened up and I said, Hey guys, you know, I'm, I'm not an Island man. I need some help. Um, and so, yeah, it's been so cool. The last couple of years, I have these.
Andrea Beem: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: grow groups that I go to with. have men that I can call at any moment for prayer. They know they can call me. And so yeah, it took me a long time because I just felt like, I'm T. I'm T. People look to me. I don't, I'm not going to look to anybody else. I'm good. God's got me and I'm learning. I'm growing. Well, I realized, no, God calls us to have, you know, iron sharpens iron. And when iron sharpens iron, that's not
Andrea Beem: ⁓ man, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: rubbing two fluffy things together. That's caused the sparks. It's rough when you do that. And sometimes we need someone to say, dude, where are you at? And we need to call you out on these things. And so, yeah, so my relationships now with men has been great. I've got a few guys now that I call and I even call them. If I haven't heard from them, I go, how are you doing, bro? You know, that accountability has helped me tremendously. So yeah, now I've got real strong friends and my wife and I go with couples and we do certain things and it's all around. talking about ministry and how we can help each other and different things like that. So yeah, the last couple of years I've really learned it well before. I was kind of doing it on my own. It wasn't always successful.
Andrea Beem: That you have no idea how much that speaks to me personally, because when I look at the last several years of my life, I definitely was in that, ⁓ gosh, I don't know, for lack of a better word, maybe like survival mode. And it was that survival mode was, well, I'm tough. the survival mode wasn't, it wasn't just survival mode. It was the same mentality that you just described of, well, God and I, like, we've got this. I'm the strong one, right? Like I'm holding a lot of different plates. I'm ⁓ holding a lot of different people. I'm responsible for a lot of different things, a lot of different people and a lot of different outcomes. And so there was, and I've been learning this recently. So I find it really funny that you just brought that up. I feel like that is like, you know, speaking a message to me right now, but it's definitely that feeling of like, I'm strong. And if you look at a lot of my social media, so much of that. is my message. It is about ⁓ strength and it's about showing up even when you don't feel like showing up. I'm not saying that's super bad. Being strong is not a bad thing. But there is, I think, a lot of times that missing component where God goes, actually here, I'm giving you this in your life to give you something to lean on to or to give you a resource or to give you help. And he's putting those
TonyJacobsen: you feel like showing up.
Andrea Beem: whether that's a friendship or a group or whatever, trying to do it on your own was not God's design. Like that wasn't his design to just be on your own and here you just, yeah.
TonyJacobsen: Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, and it's hard for us sometimes to be transparent or to be vulnerable because we think that's weakness. But it's not. I heard a pastor say the other day that sometimes the world today seems like everybody is hard-hearted and soft-skinned in that, ⁓ you hurt my feelings and do this, but their heart's not open to it. For we as Christians, we can have harder skin and softer hearts.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm. Very, very much so. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: So sometimes I need someone to see the softness of my heart, even though I I can, I'm not going to be offended by everything you say, but I also have to be vulnerable enough to my brothers and sisters in Christ to be able to learn from them and be somewhat transparent. If I'm not transparent, God knows I can't help but be transparent to him. I can confess my sins and he's faithful and just forgives our sins. But he also says, confess your sins one to another. And that's where peace and that comes in. And that's hard for us to do that, you know, sometimes. So yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And having that discernment of finding those close friends that, he doesn't necessarily always say like, go spew that out to the world, right? Like, he's not necessarily saying that, right? Like, you find those close friendships that are in Christ and can minister to you. And that was something else that you said that I think it's the willingness to have candor.
TonyJacobsen: Right, no, right.
Andrea Beem: that's the iron sharpens iron. If you're not willing to have candor with someone, if you're not willing to have a hard conversation with someone, there's a cowardness about that. The event that we're doing next week is all about courage over comfort. ⁓ I think a lot of times it's that you get those friendships that are the quote unquote, yes, yes people or yes men or whatever they call that.
TonyJacobsen: Yes. Right. Yeah, I hear you.
Andrea Beem: But that's not the iron sharpens iron, right? Like the iron sharpens iron has to be someone that's willing to have the candor to speak to you in love around something they see you doing or not doing and being able to shine a light on that. It's not because they're judging you. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: When the Bible says speak the truth in love, and I've learned this in the last couple of years, when there's something going on that I don't agree with someone as a brother, sister, and Christ, when I speak the truth to you, it's in love. I'm not gonna speak, I might speak to you directly. It's not because I don't love you, it's because I love you and I want your life to go. So, so many times we don't wanna say anything to someone, but that doesn't help them. If we say to someone that's like, man, that needs to be changed in someone, if we don't tell them, so I go, listen, I love you.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. No.
TonyJacobsen: but I'm going to tell you something about what I see in your life. And sometimes, ⁓ and when somebody does that to me, I always have to understand the criticism. There's always a little bit of truth in it. It might always all be true, but I have to take it go, ⁓ I want to learn more. So tell me what you see in me so that I can change it. But speaking the truth in love is not always easy. And it doesn't mean I dislike you. It just means I love you enough to, know, God doesn't let us be free to do everything we want to. He loved us enough.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: that he's going to sometimes we are disciplined. The Bible says he disciplines those he loves. So sometimes we, he lets us stray a certain amount of time, a certain amount before we come back.
Andrea Beem: Yeah? Yeah. Well, and on the flip side of that, so, you know, we're talking about the person being willing to have candor and speak truth, but, and on the flip side of that, I think that spiritual growth piece for us is that being able to receive it part, being able to be open enough to say, okay, I know they're speaking to me in love and you know, where, where is the truth in what they're saying to me and not hitting that instant defense mechanism, right? Of like, ⁓ that's that can't be, I don't do that or that's not right or that's not true. We become instantly defensive. That is just human nature. I think that spiritual growth, so much of that involves us being able to receive that as well. Yeah. I know I've done that in work atmospheres where it's like, I can't make something better. I can't grow as a person if I don't know. And I try to be very open about
TonyJacobsen: Yeah. It is. Yes, absolutely.
Andrea Beem: you having an open door policy. If you see something, come talk to me, right? Like come, come have a discussion with me and same thing with my friends, you know, like, and I'm not going to say that I've always been the greatest at receiving stuff. You know, sometimes I do go into that defensive mode. so, ⁓ one of the things you've also mentioned in the course of this is kind of, ⁓ kind of like seasons. You've, you've talked about the different seasons in your life.
TonyJacobsen: about you having a Absolutely. I hear you. Right? hear you. Yep.
Andrea Beem: Where do you think your toughest season was and what was the biggest lesson you feel like maybe God has? Maybe there's more than one, but talk to me about a lesson that you feel like God has taught you through and maybe a tougher period of your life.
TonyJacobsen: Ooh, ⁓ I, yeah, well, there was a couple tough seasons that I went through. ⁓ I think one more recently is probably what I've learned the most. ⁓ But I was married for 26 years. Then I was ⁓ not, I guess you could say that, ⁓ before I met my wife now, Asher. And that was always kind of a tough thing, you know, to go through divorces is never, ⁓ easy to do. And so I was single for about six years and I was really involved with the gym. So the Lord kind of gave me that. was just really, I spent a lot of time just working. But I did go through a very rough time after. And now of course this gets very personal. But I had some relationship issues, but you know, in between the time that I got remarried and stuff about the time I got married. And I went through some really difficult, difficult, ⁓ relationship stuff. And even after I got married, I was still learning how to be the best husband I can be. How can I be the spiritual leader? How can I keep my, ⁓ how can I be that strong man? And I faltered, really, I, I faltered at one point and, ⁓ it was just a, it probably the worst time of my life. I spent about a year. Not that I wasn't ministering to people, but I was in a dark time with where I was at. I was having a difficult time. I put my wife through some difficult times. ⁓ But the Lord during that dark time, and this is what I've always learned, it was a very, very difficult time. And maybe one time I'll get into a deeper, but it was a very difficult time for me. But I learned through that time that the richest soil for growth is in the valley. that's where things are going to grow. You don't grow always on the mountaintop. We enjoy the mountaintops. But when I was in the valley, God broke me and I cried out to him and he was faithful. Now, I had because of what I had caused, ⁓ it took me a long time to kind of climb back out of that. But the Lord was faithful in that. And through that, he helped me to build these new relationships with men that I needed so much to be accountable. ⁓ He helped me.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: learn how to speak the truth in love and not be afraid to speak it. So there was many things through this one time and it was a dark time. I was actually separated from my wife for almost a year and I just felt from the beginning, from about midway through it doing some various counseling with people, I knew that God was going to restore stronger. At the time you feel ashamed,
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: You feel like, my gosh, can I come back with this? But I know the Lord could do all things. so, but again, what we see is we find that the hardest things we go through in life are the things that we learned the most out of. So that's why don't be afraid when you're in a dark spot. Let God minister to you there. And if you continue to look to him, he will bring you through stronger and more able to learn and grow. And plus anything that I go through that's difficult.
Andrea Beem: Amen.
TonyJacobsen: I usually have an opportunity to share that trial with someone else that might be going through the same thing. So I don't look back and go, I wish I'd never gone through that. I went through it. I put it upon myself. We usually do. We bring up this on ourselves. We bring a sin on ourselves. But because my heart was towards God, you know, and my heart is, it created me a new heart, ⁓ God, and renew a right spirit within me, says in Psalms 51. ⁓
Andrea Beem: Yep. Yep.
TonyJacobsen: And that's what I kept praying, Lord, renew my spirit in me and help me to learn and grow through this. What is it that I can learn during this time? And through those dark times, man, I was praying a lot. I was crying out to God a lot. And I also realized that when things get better, I would remember, don't stop crying out to God just because things are good and he heard your prayer. So I make sure I take that time and do what I used to do. And I would step outside and I would give him glory and I would give him praise. said, Lord, I remember before I was screaming out to you. saying, oh Lord help me through this and now that you have, I'm gonna give you a glory and praise because of what you brought me through. And now I have a testimony to share. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah, you do. Praise God. ⁓ my gosh. So much of what you're saying is resonating so much. I know if it's resonating with me, it's going to resonate with everybody that gets the opportunity to hear this. It's just it's so powerful because ⁓ at least I know for me personally, I know a ton of people ⁓ through my line of work. get to meet amazing people all the time. And I also get to have
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: deep conversations with people a lot of times. And the amount of people where I feel like I have these conversations where they're struggling and they're in really dark places like what you're talking about right now is it's kind of crazy to me. Like I don't remember another period of time in life. Either I just was not that perceptive or something, but I don't remember another period of time in life in which I've had as many conversations as I currently have with people that are in dark places that are struggling immensely, immensely. ⁓ And one of the things that has honestly helped me the most has been hearing stories of people that went through things that I look at and I'm like, okay, I feel like I've been through a lot lately. And I'm looking at your story going I ain't trading.
TonyJacobsen: Right? No, right. I thought it was hard. I thought what I was going through, but I look at you and I go, ⁓ my gosh, you know what? That's a much more difficult situation that I went in. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Right? Right? Yeah, I know that there's some analogy where they're like, you know, if we all put our piles, if we all circled up around a pile and like put our problems in the pile, like, you would take your own problems back like you wouldn't want to trade for anybody else's. That's for sure.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Andrea Beem: That's so what would you give as advice to somebody right now that's maybe in that really dark valley? ⁓ You know, I'm not even going to pretend to to know some of the things that people are going through because there's it just it seems like there's just a lot of different stuff. But for someone that's in the thick of that, what would you speak into them right now?
TonyJacobsen: Mm-hmm. Well, the first scripture that comes to mind, and I don't want to be cliche as a Christian, but the scripture that comes to mind is Micah 6, 8, which says, ⁓ do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. We need to humble ourselves before God, ⁓ and that's what I've learned to do. We need to be justly towards other people ⁓ and have mercy on others because we don't know what they're going through. Because I loved that the people had mercy on me and to walk humbly before God. But I have learned that if somebody's going through a hard time, please, pray that you'll find someone to come into your life that will come alongside you to be a person that you can bounce things off of or ask someone about counseling. We had found a great counselor. went to a counselor, couple of different counselors just to say, Hey, I'm counselor. was always too strong for that. I don't need this, but they held me tremendously. And so if someone is in the midst of a dark time, you can't do this on your own. You think you can, but
Andrea Beem: ⁓ yeah.
TonyJacobsen: reach out to someone, pray for it, reach out to someone that might be able come alongside you and pray for someone that might have gone through the same thing you have gone through. If someone hasn't gone through it, they might be able to come for you, but not in the way that someone else has. And I guarantee you, there's a lot of people going through dark things. But counseling would be very good. And I would suggest a Christian-based, a faith-based counselor so they can go from the word of God. But also it's not just reading scripture.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: It's how we look at psychologically as people, how we're made biologically. There's a lot of things that go on in us that we need to understand that sometimes we don't. And so I would suggest, ⁓ find a good counselor. I have a couple of great counselors that I go to and I've sent people to and it's helped them tremendously. That's their calling. God has had them there so that they can touch people and reach them. So I found that to be very important. yes, finding ⁓ accountability partners that I can...
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: be with, pray with that will call me and I can call them and I'll be afraid to, but find some counseling that's going to help you understand where you're at and to help you do the right things to pull yourself out of the darkness. Cause the Lord doesn't want us in the darkness. My joy I have given to you, my peace I want to give to you. You know, we want the joy of the Lord to be our strength. And when we're in a dark place, it's hard. He can give us joy in that time, but we're not at the peace that we should have. And, and he said, ⁓ you know, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And when we go through a dark thing, it's not. So yeah, my suggestion would be if we can find someone that we can pray with, be accountable to, because sometimes if we just confess, confession in itself can relieve a lot of stress here. So not only confess to God, but confess to that will help us understand why we feel and why we got to where we were so we don't do it again, and then how we can overcome this, not only for ourselves, but so that we can help others along the way. So that's my suggestion.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. You know, it goes straight back to what we talked about earlier in this conversation, which was you feel like you just have to be stronger, right? And ⁓ so I'm glad you brought up the counseling thing. I was that person. I was absolutely that person ⁓ up until just a few weeks ago, honestly. It was definitely... ⁓ Well, I just have to be stronger to get through this. Like, I'm not going to break. Like, you're not going to break me. This the world's not going to break me. Like, it's just not going to happen. I'm just I'm strong. I'm going to make it right. Like and then it's funny because then things keep happening. You're just like, ⁓ my gosh, like, I don't know how much more I can really actually take, you know, and and a friend had said to me, you know, you probably should get a counselor. And I was like, I don't need a counselor. I don't.
TonyJacobsen: Right, right. Yeah, that's the way I was. I'm good. okay.
Andrea Beem: right? Yeah, like, I'm fine. I'm, I'm strong. I will make this through. Right. And anyway, long story short, I did break down one day, completely broke down, and was like, what in the world? And, and they said, you know, well, getting a counselor probably is would be a really good idea. I'm just gonna, it's not an I told you. So it's just, I'm going to mention it again, you know, and, ⁓ and I did, and I did go go get that person. And for me, like, that was, it was an amazing thing that God put this person my life. I've actually known her since I was a baby, which is crazy. We've been friends since we were babies, but then distanced ourselves for some different reasons. It didn't have anything to do with the two of us. ⁓ I just picked up the phone and I called her or maybe I texted her. can't remember. I just said, hey, so this is what's going on. ⁓ I'd really like to just talk to you. She's a counselor. That was why I reached out to her. She's done it for many years and she's good at what she does. And the response I got back was, I've been waiting for this text for 15 years.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, see? Yeah, all right. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: And it's been such a blessing, right? know, getting to talk with her. It's kind of like having a coach, right? Like it's somebody that can shine a light in your blind spots or give you different perspectives that you haven't thought of. It's I wouldn't I I'm so glad that I picked up the phone and texted her because this whole philosophy of like, I'm strong enough. I got it like there's been so many blessings I've gotten from just getting to talk with her. It's
TonyJacobsen: Absolutely. Well, they help us. A lot of times we know what it is, but we don't know how to apply it. And they'll help us not only, this is what you're thinking, I know that, but how do I apply it? And they will kind of say, this is how you apply it. Cause that's their, that's the realm of what they do. They're good at it. you go, ⁓ now if I apply this and I do have to give kudos to my wife, my wife is the one that can continue to push me. You should go see counseling. I know some guys that went through counseling. I've been through counseling, go to counseling. And so she's the one. So like your friend, your friend's like, Hey, you should go see this counselor.
Andrea Beem: Right. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: I don't know if I would have done it on my own. I'm like, nah, nah, but because my wife loved me enough, she said, you know what, I think you should do this. And because I love her, I'm like, I'm going to do this. And it was a total blessing. Yeah. Right move. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Man. ⁓ this is so good. feel like I feel like we could probably keep this conversation going for a long time. And you've had some amazing insights on here. I know that people are going to be so blessed by hearing your story. ⁓ you know, hopefully we get to continue this conversation more. I know when I get to see you at the gym and stuff like that, and ⁓ such good stuff that you've shared so many good nuggets in here. And I trust people walk away with some some really good advice and really good ahas. ⁓ T, I hope that you'll be willing to come back at some point and maybe we can go into deeper discussion on some topics. I just am so blessed and honored that you agreed to come on here. So thank you for being willing to share.
TonyJacobsen: So. Absolutely. Yeah, well, Andrea, thank you for having me. And I think what you're doing, this is great. The reason we do this is so we can minister to other people. You you have a calling to be able to do this. And if there's anything that I say or can be shed a light, you know, again, we don't know how many people or how we're going to touch them until we go through those gates and we meet Jesus. And hopefully when we go through those gates, all those people's lives that we've touched, we will see them when we walk the door and we don't know how many we are. so that's why we do this. We share this. And I thank you for the platform to be able to do this. And I would come back anytime.
Andrea Beem: I love it. Well, the extension is out there. The offer is out there. We'll figure that out at some point and circle back around to this for sure. Tony, thank you so much. I will see you soon. Everybody else out there until next time. Thanks for joining us.
TonyJacobsen: God bless things everyone. Bye.
TonyJacobsen: Tony comes out.
Andrea Beem: dig deeper into this in our interview here in our discussion. He grew up in Alaska, which totally jumped out at me just because I have a sibling that lives in Alaska and I love Alaska, but you guys, was born and raised there in Juneau and he owned T's Strength Gym for, how long did you say? 11 years? 11 years? Yeah, yeah. so that you can overcome obstacles and scale your calling with confidence. If this speaks to you, hit subscribe now on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs a shot of bold faith and courage today.
TonyJacobsen: years here in Albany.
Andrea Beem: And you guys, he's taught CPR for nine years. He runs the fitness gym at ATI. He drove semis for 15 years. you guys, what does he not do? He knows how to do it all. And we're going to share his testimony today. We're going to share his story. And I know that this is going to help so many people that get to listen today. Tony, welcome.
TonyJacobsen: Andrew Beam, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I've listened to some of your podcasts before and I know some of the folks that you've interviewed. So, no, it's an honor to be here. So thank you very much for having me.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ absolutely. I love this. Well, we're going to jump right into your story. got to talk to you a little bit beforehand. And so now I'm really excited to jump in and just start peeling back the onion layers of coach T. We're going to start peeling back the onion layers. So well, let's start with this. Let's start with ⁓ one of the things you mentioned when we were talking earlier is You kind of got this nickname wherever you went of the Christian guy. Let's start with that. How did that nickname blossom? How did it begin and then how did it stick? tell me about that.
TonyJacobsen: Whether it was a nickname or not, what happened was ⁓ when I got saved at nineteen. ⁓ I became in my hometown, I got to be pretty well known. First of all, ⁓ I was a pretty successful motorcycle racer as a young person. So people knew me in Juneau, Alaska. My dad owned a Honda dealership there. And so I raced motocross for a long time. So I did know a lot of people. ⁓ But after I got saved, ⁓ I had started playing a lot more music. ⁓ bought my first base when I was a sophomore in high school. So I was into music a little bit. ⁓ And so as I was racing and playing music, I was getting covered a lot for what I would do. So racing, the city of Juneau would cover my racing and there'd always be a newspaper that I would say, guess who won this race or up and coming, know, stuff like this. And I had a, there was a guy that was a believer that worked there, ⁓ doing the newspaper and he'd take my story and I'd always have a chance to be able to minister through, through, you know, ⁓ through the newspaper and some of the new paper clippings that I had. And also, I also played in a band that was a Christian metal band. Yeah, I used to have hair. It was down here. Yeah. There's some great pictures one day I could show you. ⁓ they're awesome. People like, that's you. But anyways, while I played that as well, I always, there was always articles. They would do articles about this Christian metal band and, ⁓ and they would write big articles on me and we got to know. people saw me as like, Hey, that's that.
Andrea Beem: Is there a video of this somewhere? I'm sure we're gonna have to find video of this.
TonyJacobsen: Christian guy. And then I worked for the church. I was involved with youth ministry. I worked for youth for Christ. ⁓ and so people always say that's Tony and in a small town, since my dad owned that and I grew up, everybody kind of knew me. And so, but I was known as there's Tony. He's a Christian guy. He goes to church. He ministers through his music, you know, his athletics. He's always, you know, giving God glory. And so that's how I kind of, you know, just, that was just the way I lived. My life was just.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: for Christ. I think people, of course, you always want to see the glory of God shine through me. That's what I always wanted to see. yeah, so I was never shy about my faith. But yeah, that's, guess, how they saw it, just because there was always clippings of me in the paper. I was, yeah, I've got to be well known there.
Andrea Beem: love that. You mentioned when we were talking to that. So you actually got saved at what I would consider a fairly young age when you think about today's society, and at a really critical age as well. think for a lot of ⁓ Christians that grew up in the church, which you did, I did, we kind of grew up in that environment. And I think a lot of us realize that it's not just about checking the boxes. There's actually a lot more to a relationship with God than just checking boxes at a church. And that's not to put a church down in any way. It's just that relationship, that one-to-one relationship tends to ⁓ get missed sometimes in our younger years. And so you were saved when you were 19 years old. I ⁓ want to have you share the story of this because it's such an imperative age.
TonyJacobsen: sorry. Right.
Andrea Beem: 19 years old, think, and I don't, don't quote me on these statistics, but I do know that there's some pretty high statistics about when kids go off to college. So that 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, that range, a lot of people end up straying from God because they don't have that personal relationship during that particular age range, but that's not what happened for you. So tell us your story a little bit about when you got saved.
TonyJacobsen: was probably a blessing that I didn't go off to college because the universities now aren't, there's no unity in diversity anymore, which a university should be. It's all one-sided liberal aspects. So a lot of our young people that go off might get not taught ⁓ conservative biblical things. So unless you go to a ⁓ Bible school. So yes, I grew up in church. ⁓ And the interesting thing is that we're talking about as I think about this.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: I grew up in church, so I did spend a lot of time. knew a of people at church, but I wasn't saved. And in Alaska, just before I got saved, I'll tell you the story. In Alaska, when I was younger, 19 was the drinking age, not 21. So I wasn't walking with God before then. I turned 19, all my friends took me out and went to the bars, which was probably the best thing for me because they were all buying me shots. I wasn't a big drinker.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ interesting.
TonyJacobsen: at all. They were all buying me shots. I found myself the next morning outside. I had wandered out of the bar and was outside and a friend of mine picked me up, took me home. It was after that I said, this is not the life that God wants for me. I was very sick and I did this drinking. So yeah. Yep. Well, you know, Alaska in Juneau, can be a lot like, ⁓ the summers there can be a lot like the falls here. It's just wet. It's not always cold.
Andrea Beem: It's a good thing you didn't get frostbite. I mean, you were in Alaska. ⁓ okay, okay.
TonyJacobsen: So yeah, so I had this little binge of drinking and, and, and I thought this is not what God has called me to do. So it was shortly after that. Then I have always had Christian friends, but you know, again, we can have Christian friends and still not walk the walk, you know, I just wasn't, I just wasn't mature. And then after I said, Lord, that's not the kind of walk that I want to have. It was when it was then when, like I said, I was working for my dad and I was wrenching on this car. Cause I had gone to Honda school.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: Before I was even at a high school, went when I was 17, my dad sent me to Honda school in LA. So I spent a couple of weeks down there just to get some information about working on cars. And so I was, I was working on this particular car one day. And as I told you earlier, I just felt like at the time I wasn't sure, but it was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was like, you're, it was putting something in my heart. And I said this, said, Lord, not that I had a relationship with him, but I said, Lord. Um, okay. I'm feeling this. don't know what you're doing, but I'll go see my pastor at the end of the day. I'll just work through the day. It's fine. As I, and as I told you earlier to the pastor, that was the pastor of the church. Not that I was always there on Sundays, but when I was, I wasn't there, you know, was, but I wasn't, um, I didn't like the guy. Cause I felt like you yelled and screamed at everybody. I just didn't like him personally. I was just one of those things, but the Lord called me to go see him funny enough. Um, but I was wrenching on this car and I said, okay, I'll, I'm to put this off until after work. And then pretty soon I just felt this deep conviction and I said, okay, I'll go at noon. I'll go at noon. know this. And then pretty soon I was weeping over this car. I was just crying and I knew that God was calling me. So I put my tools down. I told my dad, my boss, said, Hey, I've got to go. And I went over to my pastor's house, knocked on the door and he knew exactly why I was there. You know, when somebody's crying, asking for repentance at the pastor's door, that's an easy job for the pastor to lead someone to Christ. ⁓ yeah, I, confess my sins and accept that Jesus is my savior. And yeah, from there, it's been a, it's been a joy, ⁓ to serve him. I've had ups, I've had downs. ⁓ but from that moment on, I knew that his words were true when he says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. So, yeah, that's how, that's how I got saved. So is that time for you?
Andrea Beem: So in that time period when you were wrenching on the cars and you were like, okay, I know I need to go see my pastor. One of the words you had said when we were talking before was you felt this immense amount of conviction. For you, what was that conviction around? What was the convicting around? ⁓ think conviction is ⁓ such a blessing. I know that's probably not the word that people would maybe use to describe conviction. ⁓ But if you're feeling conviction, then you know there's some connection there. You know that God's speaking to you in some way or you wouldn't feel it at all, right? So for you, what was that conviction around?
TonyJacobsen: Right. Yeah. Well, I think for me, since I had grown up in church and I knew some of the word and everything, but wasn't walking it, think, and I knew some people that were pretty strong Christian young people that were about my age. But there were some things I was doing in life that was not honoring to God. And I think I knew that. You know, I think there was a time when I, I owned my own house when I was very young. ⁓ But I had, and you know, we all have girlfriends and so we do things with the, with the opposite sex. You know, we have pre-medical sex and things like that. didn't feel good about it at the time. ⁓ so, and I, you know, I didn't drink much, but I wasn't walking the walk that should have. My mouth was not always clean. ⁓ I was cursed. wasn't a bad kid. I always grew up as a pretty good kid, fairly humble and never, you know, ⁓ but there were some things that I just felt like, your life is not right. And I think the Lord just said, I've got something better for you. And so he began to convict me saying, you can't live the life. that you want to live and still call yourself this Christian. can't go to church and do all these things and have peace. So I thank the Lord for his conviction and I, and everybody that's convicted. The thing is nice is he didn't come into the world to condemn the world, but to convict the world. And so when he, when we're convicted, if we give into that's great, he doesn't condemn us or we do. He loves us. And so I just, appreciated the conviction. And in that time, I didn't get it all right after that. You know, I accepted Jesus and my walk of schools are in, but I knew it was like he put that stamp on me. You know, you're mine now and understanding what Christ did on the cross for me. And then, yeah, I had to learn and grow and kind of work out my salvation with fear and trembling, so to speak. I knew I was saved. I knew that, you know, heaven was mine and that Christ was not going to, you know, I was in his hand. But I also had to learn to walk the way Jesus walked and and be his disciple. So, yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. There was something you said reminded me of, so I made a post earlier today about being able to, you can't walk in obedience and rebellion at the exact same time. And I feel like that's kind of similar to what you're talking about, right? Like you can't live that lifestyle, you know, but then you feel convicted at the same time. it's like, well, you know, again, it's for a reason, like you're being convicted for a reason. God's trying to speak to you. He's trying to get your attention.
TonyJacobsen: you can walk in a room.
Andrea Beem: And I know like when I've been in church sometimes and you're worshiping or you're listening to a sermon and I've had this happen many times. And at first I hated it. Like I hated when I would cry or you felt like the Holy Spirit was getting a hold of you or you'd get goosebumps or whatever. But and at first I hated it and I was like, no, I don't want to come back to church because I hate this feeling. I want to cry in front of people. And then when I realized what it was. you know, at first I think maybe I was in denial. And then when I realized what it was, it was like, okay, maybe I should actually lean into this more. Maybe I should actually be okay with feeling this more. And ⁓ so I just, I love that you said that. I love that you brought that up. So not that long after you were saved, ⁓ you went into ministry, right? How long of a period from the time you got saved at 19 till the time you went into
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: working with the church and I think you said you were a youth pastor for a couple years. How much time was in there?
TonyJacobsen: I think there was, if I think about it, ⁓ it was probably about five or six years later ⁓ when I actually went into youth ministry. Like I said, I had worked for Youth for Christ. I started working for Youth for Christ shortly after I got saved. And I don't remember how I hooked up with the ⁓ director for Youth for Christ. ⁓ he was a cyclist. And so that's what I did. I used to train a lot as a cyclist. And he was a cyclist and somehow we hooked up and he just said, Hey, I'm looking for some staff members for to work with teens. And, ⁓ so I did that for awhile. And then, ⁓ yeah, I think, ⁓ there was an opening at the church. I had grown up in the church. I was more invested, so to speak, going to church. started leading worship at our church now at that time, after I got saved. and, ⁓ it just kind of fell into this thing. It's like, Hey, we're in need of a youth pastor. The youth pastor is moving on. Would you be interested in stepping into this role? I said, sure. And at the time I had three, three small kids, you know, and so I was married, had three small kids. Um, but I felt like, yeah, I think I'd, I'd like to do that. Um, because I was working not only I was playing music, but I wasn't working for my dad anymore. I had gone to work for a hardware store. And so I just felt like, think there's something more again, Lord, what do you have? And so, yeah, the church hired me and I did, uh, I was a associate pastor. Youth pastor for about three and half years there for. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Wow. And so one of the other jobs and I am going to bounce around here just a little bit, but I have a point to this. So you also worked for the state of Alaska ⁓ in their juvenile detention ⁓ department or division. ⁓ What was that? How long did you do that? How long did you work in the juvenile detention?
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, sure. Yeah. About five years. So I went from the youth pastor, because as a youth pastor, I would go to the juvenile detention center on, on Sundays or Saturdays. can't remember what day. And I'd actually go in and I would teach Bible and I would do worship songs. So I take my guitar in there, me and a couple of guys and we'd go in there. And so I knew the staff at the, at the detention center. And so, but, I had done that for a few years. And then after the job went away for the youth pastorship. there was ⁓ a job opening as a counselor at the state of Alaska for a youth counselor. so, yeah, so I went in there and applied and it was interesting that ⁓ when I went in there, I said, hey, I'd like to apply. And they said, we've been wanting you for a long time. And I said, you have. And they said, yeah, the kids appreciate you when you come in, you have a good rapport with them. And, but as I told you earlier, I said, when I actually went in, the supervisor pulled me aside and he said, listen, I know that you come in on Sundays. And I know that you pull the Bible out and you sing songs, but this is a state run facility. What if I told you, you cannot bring the Bible out. And I looked at him and I said, Francis of Assisi once said, go out and spread the gospel and use words if you have to. And he, he just paused for a moment. said, Okay, and I went to work. I went to work for him and I spent five years there. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: God finds a way. God finds a way. Always. ⁓ my gosh. So where did you go from there? You've now got youth pastor under your belt. You've worked at a juvenile detention center under your belt. You've been in a band, a Christian rock band under your belt. Now what? Then what happens?
TonyJacobsen: He does. Always. Always. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. So, ⁓ I did that for about five years and just felt like, you know, ⁓ the institutional setting wasn't, you know, I wasn't feeling the vibe, so to speak. I mean, I was able to touch some kids, I think, ⁓ as far as, know, their interaction, trying to lead them to Christ and different things, but the institutional setting, I just felt like, you know, maybe this isn't what I need to do. So interesting thing I went from, I went from doing that to, ⁓ working at, ⁓ a Marine lines, which is a barge lines. And they had trucks, right? So they would deliver trucks and they would bring the barge lines in because it's Alaska. You have to barge everything in, not very much as trucked in there. And so you'd unload the barges, put them on trucks, and then, you know, you would truck all the containers to the different facilities. So I went and worked there. I got a job there. I got my CDO and ⁓ went to work at this place ⁓ and drove trucks for quite a while. actually
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: offloaded the barges, you know, I worked with the forklifts and delivered all that kind of stuff. And I did that for quite a few years there. Um, that that's what I did after that. And then I, when I came to Oregon, I don't even remember what year it was about 20 years ago. Um, when I came to Oregon, you have a CDL, you can go to work. I just continued to, to work as a driver when I got here to Oregon, but yeah.
Andrea Beem: So when you were driving for what, maybe 15 years or so in Alaska, do you feel like you had the opportunity to continue your ministry in that line of work? mean, that's not your typical, it's not like you're around a ton of people when you're driving all the time. ⁓ So do you feel like your ministry took a back seat during that time or do feel like you were still able to minister to people in that environment?
TonyJacobsen: Well, so as far as I looked at when I first started driving, ⁓ you know, I would work a regular nine to five. So when I was off, I'd still go to my Bible studies. went to, I went to ⁓ Bible college. I took some Bible college courses ⁓ that really helped me, you know, ⁓ to grow and, you know, always wanted to be given account for the faith that I have, you know, given account for that. ⁓ and so I would just work by, it was just like a regular job, but afterwards I'd still have Wednesday night services. I still led worship on Sundays and things like that. Now that changed a little bit when I started driving here in Oregon, because are my days were longer because you drive longer when I'd have to drive to Olympia or I'd have to drive to Seattle or to Medford. Yes. I often wonder, Lord, what am I doing in this truck?
Andrea Beem: Uh-huh.
TonyJacobsen: I can listen to Christian radio, you know, back in the day when Rush Limbaugh, all these conservative guys, and I could, I could, you know, listen to worship music, but for many years I kept saying, okay, Lord, you know, I can try and solve all the world problems because I get a lot of windshield time here. Um, but you know, what, what would you have for me? And again, I wouldn't work on the weekends unless they called me in.
Andrea Beem: ⁓ gosh.
TonyJacobsen: So I would still play worship. would on Sundays, I've played worship on worship teams for 30 years. And so I had a local church when I got back downtown, ⁓ I led worship or helped lead worship and was the bass player for at the Orpheum Theater down there. You know, it was there, was, I had a church there. And my son was involved with worship there. And so on the weekends I would still, I would still try and minister. And then the interesting thing was as I was driving, when I got to Oregon, that's when I started building the gym. So I was driving, doing worship on the weekends and trying to build my, so I felt like as I'm building my gym, have a, I have a ministry. So there's always, I cannot go without ministering to someone. Otherwise I feel like what am I doing? You know?
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: I got to have it coming in and going out. Otherwise it's the dead sea. You know, like, ah, here I am. What am I going to do with this information? You learn things to share them. If you learn it all, it doesn't matter if you can't share them with people. So I was still busy, even though I was driving all the time. Yeah, there was hours, 12 hours, 14 hours in a truck. I'm like, is what's, what am I doing? But the Lord led me into a, I went from the truck into full-time doing the gym and CPR. So, and from there it was just, it was just really, I felt like it was a ministry.
Andrea Beem: Amen. And your gym, so tell about your gym a little bit because when you owned your gym, like you were telling me like, man, you had Christian like metal music playing. had, I mean, it was geared towards, it sounded like more like the bodybuilding atmosphere a little bit. And so I just, love that you, obviously you owned it. So you had control over that. Not every thing that you've done, you've had that complete control over, but when you got your gym, you did.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: So do you feel like you went like a little, ⁓ a little like, and I mean this in a good way, but like a little crazy where you like, ⁓ my gosh, like these are all the things I'm going to do now that I have control over my gym. Do you feel like you were able to do more?
TonyJacobsen: Well, I felt like I was free to. know, obviously when you first start a business, you know, I was kind of new to it. My dad had a business, but I wasn't involved in the business aspect of it because his brother's the one that was really the brains behind it. My dad kind of started it was the mechanic aspect. So as I'm starting it, I started very small and was learning as I went. But I also realized, well, this is my this is my business so I can pray with people. But I was a little sensitive to people when they first come in just because, you know,
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: You have to be sensitive where people are at. Jesus always met people where they were at. You know, notice that Jesus was harder on the religious people. Yeah. So, and again, like we say, we don't know people's stories. So when they come in, I would say, this is my gym, is where I run it. We supply chalk. Not a lot of gyms do. We have the music. This is a lifter's gym. And so not all people would like it. You know, not everybody comes in there like, oh, they want a super clean gym.
Andrea Beem: Amen. Yes, yes, he was. Yes, he was. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And they don't want noise. This is not the gym for you. And so it got to be known as this, um, Oh, this like, what did they call it? Somebody's would call it, Oh, that's for, that's for the big guys. You know, that's for the, that's for the heavy duty gym. I'm like, well, it's just a gym, but it just so happened that a lot of guys that worked out there were big, strong. had music going, you could hear the rattle of the, of the, of the weights and the, know, and everything like that. So that's how, and we had more young people coming in powerlifting and
Andrea Beem: Yeah
TonyJacobsen: And some bodybuilders. so it just became that, Hey, we love this atmosphere. There's no gyms like this. And so, and yeah, so it got to be known as this hardcore gym. was getting my hair cut one time and the person didn't know me. they said, Oh, I said, yeah, well, I got to go back to the gym. They go, what gym is I said, it's T-strengths, uh, studio donor. goes, Oh, that's the hardcore gym. I'm like, why do you, why do people call it the hardcore gym? says, cause all the big guys work out there. And I said, well, I'm the owner. they go, Oh, okay. So.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: That's, think how we got to know I could do it myself. The thing that was nice is I just felt like, and we'd have a lot of people that would come in there that were going through hard times. And I would just say, can we pray? And everyone's like, have another guy, okay, hey, come over here. And so we would just stop in the middle of our workout and we would just pray. And nobody's going to say boo about it because it's my gym. You know, if they did, I would just say, Hey, it's okay. Don't mean if anybody, but we're praying. And I haven't talked to too many people that, didn't want me to pray for them.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: know, somebody says, can I pray for you, whether they believe us or not. They'll say, yeah, that'd be great. Cause a lot of people are in a very difficult time. And so, yeah, we would stop a lot of times and we pray and I'd minister to people, know, you know, somebody started me on something or, you know, I'd start a conversation and then I start going. Sometimes I go, sorry guys, I know I get rolling here and I know it's been more than two minutes between your sets. So, but I said, let's have this conversation somewhere else. So yeah, you know, I felt really free.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: to be able to have the kind of atmosphere that I wanted and to be able to minister when I felt that the Spirit was allowing me to do that to a particular person.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. I think that's such an important, I have actually have a dream to own a faith-based gym one day. Like if God sees fit, that's dream that I have if it's his will. But that being said, I think a lot of, you hit on something really important. A lot of broken people go to the gym, right? And we're all broken, don't get me wrong. But when people are ⁓ in that healing mode, right? The gym is something that,
TonyJacobsen: Thank you.
Andrea Beem: a lot of people will latch on to ⁓ in that process, in ⁓ that journey of healing. And like you said, know, being able to meet people where they're at, ⁓ that's so much of what Jesus did all the time, all the time that's what he was doing. it's not, can people meet God in church? Absolutely, they can. And more often than not, they're
TonyJacobsen: Yes.
Andrea Beem: they're meeting God in their truck in a field, in sitting on the side of a river fishing or ⁓ outside of a bar. There's no limitations on where God can meet you at. And to be able to create that environment where people can come in and like you said, it doesn't matter if they believe or not, just to be able to offer to pray for them. I have a similar scenario in the real estate world because I also own a real estate company where I've been in a home, you know, to, list a home for someone and they've lost their job or they've lost their spouse or, ⁓ you know, someone has passed away and they're going through, you know, a poop storm and to have that courage to just say, you know, I don't know what your faith is, but can I pray with you is huge, right? It's just, it's huge. And just to be able to say, you know what, God use me wherever I'm at, just, just use me. And it's such a, I don't know, I can't even put words to it, but the feeling you get is very humbling. ⁓ So I love that you were able to do that for so many, for so many years with your gym and throughout every ministry you've been in. This is what I love. And this is what I wanted to kind of tie.
TonyJacobsen: You speak, it's such a...
Andrea Beem: tie it all around a little bit. We haven't even gotten to all of them because we haven't even gotten to like, you you teach CPR, you are the director for the fitness out at ATI. Like, there's so many other platforms that we haven't even touched on yet, but you have this theme that God's using you wherever you are. Like, I think a lot of times people think ministry has to be a youth pastor, a pastor, an associate pastor, right? Like these official titles and you don't, you don't need a title at all. You're living proof, right? Like.
TonyJacobsen: Mm-hmm. Right. No, no, we're all called. We're all called to make disciples. We're disciples. And it says go into all the world. He didn't say the church. If you think about it, we are the church, you know, the Holy Spirit lives in us. So our calling is to minister to people. don't have to wait and be a minister. I don't have to go theology school. I don't have to go to seminary to start ministering to people just because God begins to, you you know, lot of you've probably seen Christians, people got saved. They didn't know anything, but just because of their testimony and what God has done, people like I'm interested.
Andrea Beem: Amen. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes? Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: They might not know how to give an account for their faith. Why do you believe what you believe? And you know, what is it? Why? How does the Bible? Why is the Bible different? Why is Jesus different from these other religions? And so, you know, I think just to be able to be open to let the Holy Spirit work in you and just move. And so that's the way I always felt. I don't need to be inside a church. I've been there. I've ministered from church. I've been involved that. But our ministry is outside the church. If we can bring people in to hear the word that a pastor has been called to give.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And we do corporate worship. That's great. But all of us, when we go into the world, that's when we shine his light. said, you you need to shine my light into the world so that people will look and say, what's the deal? And so we can have an opportunity to be able to share that and be sensitive to where people are at and to know how to be able to approach them. You know, we do that. So yeah, it's a great opportunity, a blessing to be able to do so.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. creating that curiosity or just that phrase of like, when someone says, tell me more. their heart to me has transferred from being hard to being open. It's transferred to at least being willing to listen, right? Which is very different than, ⁓ you know, like cramming it down someone's throat, you know, in almost like a defensive manner, you know, this is why you should believe this is why you should, this is why you need to become a Christian. This is why you need and, and can people get safe through that too? Yes, you know, but I love when people's hearts become open through that when they they see or they hear what you're sharing. And then someone comes up to you in the gym and says, you know, something you said piqued my interest and now I want to hear about it. And it's just coming from such a different place, right? In their heart to being willing to hear what you have to share or say. And you don't have to be a pastor to do that.
TonyJacobsen: No, no. You know, interesting is we're talking about it. I've had many people when I started telling you about church, they weren't offended by it, but they said, ⁓ well, I had a bad experience at church. And if they're willing to tell me that, then I go, well, tell me what happened if you feel like it. And then I always say, you know, it's not people that we look at. The people are not the example. Christ was the only perfect one and he's our example. And I always tell people, I say, listen, I know maybe you haven't found the perfect church.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: But when you do, don't go there because you'll ruin it. ⁓ Because there's no perfect person. And so you have to able to say, what was it that happened in the church? And let's not focus on someone that's imperfect, that's trying to work their way in, but let's focus on Christ who was perfect. What did Jesus say? Not what this other person did to you, because we're always going to. It was the believers that put Jesus on the cross. So if we can have a moment to discern where the person is coming from.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: and then be able to show them the love of Jesus, not because they were hurt by a person, but we want to show them the love of Jesus and then maybe they can begin to think, okay, don't think about the church at this point. I don't care if you go to church on Sunday at this point. I'm worried. I care about your soul. Let's start there and get them to start thinking about, well, why am I not looking for God anymore? If I was going to church, I was doing that for a reason, but I let someone hurt me and that bitterness separated me.
Andrea Beem: Yes. Amen. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: And so yeah, there's so many different ways that you can approach a person to try and minister to them and get their spirits open up a little bit.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, just, just to clarify, just so somebody doesn't take this the wrong way, but like, I have nothing against the church, right? Like we absolutely should be, you know, going to church, we should be getting poured into, we should be worshiping, we should be doing all of those things. ⁓ And like you said, it's, it, that's almost like it's putting the cart before the horse, because have we even like,
TonyJacobsen: Yes.
Andrea Beem: being able to address where their soul is at before we address even the church topic is so much more important. so I love that you brought up that particular piece. Earlier at the very beginning when we were talking, you mentioned having Christian friends. You were talking about when you were 19 and you had Christian friends. ⁓ As an adult now, and you've got all this life history behind you, Talk me through a little bit about your stance on your friendships and the people that you surround yourself with.
TonyJacobsen: Okay. That's an interesting story for me because that's kind of a tough one for me because I never had close friends. It's only been in the last few years that I've realized the importance of having men, strong believers to be accountable to. And people that you have a grow group with or you get together. was never really, I never really got into that. I was a part of the church.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: I knew a lot of people, but I didn't do small groups. I would do Bible studies, but I never had a really strong relationship with it. And I think that caused me some problems trying to be that lone ranger, like, ⁓ me and God, we got this and I don't need that. But I realized ⁓ probably two years ago, three years ago, which is took me long enough to do it, that the Lord said, and my wife helped me. She says, you know what, you need to find some guys. And the Lord led me to a A guy, in fact, Justin, he's the physical therapist. Yeah, I met him a couple of years ago and he was just such a blessing to me. Um, and he had gone through some things that I'd gone through and he just ministered to my heart. And so I started meeting with him. Um, I started meeting with a couple of the guys I opened up. finally opened up and I said, Hey guys, you know, I'm, I'm not an Island man. I need some help. Um, and so, yeah, it's been so cool. The last couple of years, I have these.
Andrea Beem: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: grow groups that I go to with. have men that I can call at any moment for prayer. They know they can call me. And so yeah, it took me a long time because I just felt like, I'm T. I'm T. People look to me. I don't, I'm not going to look to anybody else. I'm good. God's got me and I'm learning. I'm growing. Well, I realized, no, God calls us to have, you know, iron sharpens iron. And when iron sharpens iron, that's not
Andrea Beem: ⁓ man, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: rubbing two fluffy things together. That's caused the sparks. It's rough when you do that. And sometimes we need someone to say, dude, where are you at? And we need to call you out on these things. And so, yeah, so my relationships now with men has been great. I've got a few guys now that I call and I even call them. If I haven't heard from them, I go, how are you doing, bro? You know, that accountability has helped me tremendously. So yeah, now I've got real strong friends and my wife and I go with couples and we do certain things and it's all around. talking about ministry and how we can help each other and different things like that. So yeah, the last couple of years I've really learned it well before. I was kind of doing it on my own. It wasn't always successful.
Andrea Beem: That you have no idea how much that speaks to me personally, because when I look at the last several years of my life, I definitely was in that, ⁓ gosh, I don't know, for lack of a better word, maybe like survival mode. And it was that survival mode was, well, I'm tough. the survival mode wasn't, it wasn't just survival mode. It was the same mentality that you just described of, well, God and I, like, we've got this. I'm the strong one, right? Like I'm holding a lot of different plates. I'm ⁓ holding a lot of different people. I'm responsible for a lot of different things, a lot of different people and a lot of different outcomes. And so there was, and I've been learning this recently. So I find it really funny that you just brought that up. I feel like that is like, you know, speaking a message to me right now, but it's definitely that feeling of like, I'm strong. And if you look at a lot of my social media, so much of that. is my message. It is about ⁓ strength and it's about showing up even when you don't feel like showing up. I'm not saying that's super bad. Being strong is not a bad thing. But there is, I think, a lot of times that missing component where God goes, actually here, I'm giving you this in your life to give you something to lean on to or to give you a resource or to give you help. And he's putting those
TonyJacobsen: you feel like showing up.
Andrea Beem: whether that's a friendship or a group or whatever, trying to do it on your own was not God's design. Like that wasn't his design to just be on your own and here you just, yeah.
TonyJacobsen: Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, and it's hard for us sometimes to be transparent or to be vulnerable because we think that's weakness. But it's not. I heard a pastor say the other day that sometimes the world today seems like everybody is hard-hearted and soft-skinned in that, ⁓ you hurt my feelings and do this, but their heart's not open to it. For we as Christians, we can have harder skin and softer hearts.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm. Very, very much so. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: So sometimes I need someone to see the softness of my heart, even though I I can, I'm not going to be offended by everything you say, but I also have to be vulnerable enough to my brothers and sisters in Christ to be able to learn from them and be somewhat transparent. If I'm not transparent, God knows I can't help but be transparent to him. I can confess my sins and he's faithful and just forgives our sins. But he also says, confess your sins one to another. And that's where peace and that comes in. And that's hard for us to do that, you know, sometimes. So yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And having that discernment of finding those close friends that, he doesn't necessarily always say like, go spew that out to the world, right? Like, he's not necessarily saying that, right? Like, you find those close friendships that are in Christ and can minister to you. And that was something else that you said that I think it's the willingness to have candor.
TonyJacobsen: Right, no, right.
Andrea Beem: that's the iron sharpens iron. If you're not willing to have candor with someone, if you're not willing to have a hard conversation with someone, there's a cowardness about that. The event that we're doing next week is all about courage over comfort. ⁓ I think a lot of times it's that you get those friendships that are the quote unquote, yes, yes people or yes men or whatever they call that.
TonyJacobsen: Yes. Right. Yeah, I hear you.
Andrea Beem: But that's not the iron sharpens iron, right? Like the iron sharpens iron has to be someone that's willing to have the candor to speak to you in love around something they see you doing or not doing and being able to shine a light on that. It's not because they're judging you. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: When the Bible says speak the truth in love, and I've learned this in the last couple of years, when there's something going on that I don't agree with someone as a brother, sister, and Christ, when I speak the truth to you, it's in love. I'm not gonna speak, I might speak to you directly. It's not because I don't love you, it's because I love you and I want your life to go. So, so many times we don't wanna say anything to someone, but that doesn't help them. If we say to someone that's like, man, that needs to be changed in someone, if we don't tell them, so I go, listen, I love you.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. No.
TonyJacobsen: but I'm going to tell you something about what I see in your life. And sometimes, ⁓ and when somebody does that to me, I always have to understand the criticism. There's always a little bit of truth in it. It might always all be true, but I have to take it go, ⁓ I want to learn more. So tell me what you see in me so that I can change it. But speaking the truth in love is not always easy. And it doesn't mean I dislike you. It just means I love you enough to, know, God doesn't let us be free to do everything we want to. He loved us enough.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: that he's going to sometimes we are disciplined. The Bible says he disciplines those he loves. So sometimes we, he lets us stray a certain amount of time, a certain amount before we come back.
Andrea Beem: Yeah? Yeah. Well, and on the flip side of that, so, you know, we're talking about the person being willing to have candor and speak truth, but, and on the flip side of that, I think that spiritual growth piece for us is that being able to receive it part, being able to be open enough to say, okay, I know they're speaking to me in love and you know, where, where is the truth in what they're saying to me and not hitting that instant defense mechanism, right? Of like, ⁓ that's that can't be, I don't do that or that's not right or that's not true. We become instantly defensive. That is just human nature. I think that spiritual growth, so much of that involves us being able to receive that as well. Yeah. I know I've done that in work atmospheres where it's like, I can't make something better. I can't grow as a person if I don't know. And I try to be very open about
TonyJacobsen: Yeah. It is. Yes, absolutely.
Andrea Beem: you having an open door policy. If you see something, come talk to me, right? Like come, come have a discussion with me and same thing with my friends, you know, like, and I'm not going to say that I've always been the greatest at receiving stuff. You know, sometimes I do go into that defensive mode. so, ⁓ one of the things you've also mentioned in the course of this is kind of, ⁓ kind of like seasons. You've, you've talked about the different seasons in your life.
TonyJacobsen: about you having a Absolutely. I hear you. Right? hear you. Yep.
Andrea Beem: Where do you think your toughest season was and what was the biggest lesson you feel like maybe God has? Maybe there's more than one, but talk to me about a lesson that you feel like God has taught you through and maybe a tougher period of your life.
TonyJacobsen: Ooh, ⁓ I, yeah, well, there was a couple tough seasons that I went through. ⁓ I think one more recently is probably what I've learned the most. ⁓ But I was married for 26 years. Then I was ⁓ not, I guess you could say that, ⁓ before I met my wife now, Asher. And that was always kind of a tough thing, you know, to go through divorces is never, ⁓ easy to do. And so I was single for about six years and I was really involved with the gym. So the Lord kind of gave me that. was just really, I spent a lot of time just working. But I did go through a very rough time after. And now of course this gets very personal. But I had some relationship issues, but you know, in between the time that I got remarried and stuff about the time I got married. And I went through some really difficult, difficult, ⁓ relationship stuff. And even after I got married, I was still learning how to be the best husband I can be. How can I be the spiritual leader? How can I keep my, ⁓ how can I be that strong man? And I faltered, really, I, I faltered at one point and, ⁓ it was just a, it probably the worst time of my life. I spent about a year. Not that I wasn't ministering to people, but I was in a dark time with where I was at. I was having a difficult time. I put my wife through some difficult times. ⁓ But the Lord during that dark time, and this is what I've always learned, it was a very, very difficult time. And maybe one time I'll get into a deeper, but it was a very difficult time for me. But I learned through that time that the richest soil for growth is in the valley. that's where things are going to grow. You don't grow always on the mountaintop. We enjoy the mountaintops. But when I was in the valley, God broke me and I cried out to him and he was faithful. Now, I had because of what I had caused, ⁓ it took me a long time to kind of climb back out of that. But the Lord was faithful in that. And through that, he helped me to build these new relationships with men that I needed so much to be accountable. ⁓ He helped me.
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: learn how to speak the truth in love and not be afraid to speak it. So there was many things through this one time and it was a dark time. I was actually separated from my wife for almost a year and I just felt from the beginning, from about midway through it doing some various counseling with people, I knew that God was going to restore stronger. At the time you feel ashamed,
Andrea Beem: Mm-hmm.
TonyJacobsen: You feel like, my gosh, can I come back with this? But I know the Lord could do all things. so, but again, what we see is we find that the hardest things we go through in life are the things that we learned the most out of. So that's why don't be afraid when you're in a dark spot. Let God minister to you there. And if you continue to look to him, he will bring you through stronger and more able to learn and grow. And plus anything that I go through that's difficult.
Andrea Beem: Amen.
TonyJacobsen: I usually have an opportunity to share that trial with someone else that might be going through the same thing. So I don't look back and go, I wish I'd never gone through that. I went through it. I put it upon myself. We usually do. We bring up this on ourselves. We bring a sin on ourselves. But because my heart was towards God, you know, and my heart is, it created me a new heart, ⁓ God, and renew a right spirit within me, says in Psalms 51. ⁓
Andrea Beem: Yep. Yep.
TonyJacobsen: And that's what I kept praying, Lord, renew my spirit in me and help me to learn and grow through this. What is it that I can learn during this time? And through those dark times, man, I was praying a lot. I was crying out to God a lot. And I also realized that when things get better, I would remember, don't stop crying out to God just because things are good and he heard your prayer. So I make sure I take that time and do what I used to do. And I would step outside and I would give him glory and I would give him praise. said, Lord, I remember before I was screaming out to you. saying, oh Lord help me through this and now that you have, I'm gonna give you a glory and praise because of what you brought me through. And now I have a testimony to share. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah, you do. Praise God. ⁓ my gosh. So much of what you're saying is resonating so much. I know if it's resonating with me, it's going to resonate with everybody that gets the opportunity to hear this. It's just it's so powerful because ⁓ at least I know for me personally, I know a ton of people ⁓ through my line of work. get to meet amazing people all the time. And I also get to have
TonyJacobsen: Yeah.
Andrea Beem: deep conversations with people a lot of times. And the amount of people where I feel like I have these conversations where they're struggling and they're in really dark places like what you're talking about right now is it's kind of crazy to me. Like I don't remember another period of time in life. Either I just was not that perceptive or something, but I don't remember another period of time in life in which I've had as many conversations as I currently have with people that are in dark places that are struggling immensely, immensely. ⁓ And one of the things that has honestly helped me the most has been hearing stories of people that went through things that I look at and I'm like, okay, I feel like I've been through a lot lately. And I'm looking at your story going I ain't trading.
TonyJacobsen: Right? No, right. I thought it was hard. I thought what I was going through, but I look at you and I go, ⁓ my gosh, you know what? That's a much more difficult situation that I went in. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Right? Right? Yeah, I know that there's some analogy where they're like, you know, if we all put our piles, if we all circled up around a pile and like put our problems in the pile, like, you would take your own problems back like you wouldn't want to trade for anybody else's. That's for sure.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Andrea Beem: That's so what would you give as advice to somebody right now that's maybe in that really dark valley? ⁓ You know, I'm not even going to pretend to to know some of the things that people are going through because there's it just it seems like there's just a lot of different stuff. But for someone that's in the thick of that, what would you speak into them right now?
TonyJacobsen: Mm-hmm. Well, the first scripture that comes to mind, and I don't want to be cliche as a Christian, but the scripture that comes to mind is Micah 6, 8, which says, ⁓ do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. We need to humble ourselves before God, ⁓ and that's what I've learned to do. We need to be justly towards other people ⁓ and have mercy on others because we don't know what they're going through. Because I loved that the people had mercy on me and to walk humbly before God. But I have learned that if somebody's going through a hard time, please, pray that you'll find someone to come into your life that will come alongside you to be a person that you can bounce things off of or ask someone about counseling. We had found a great counselor. went to a counselor, couple of different counselors just to say, Hey, I'm counselor. was always too strong for that. I don't need this, but they held me tremendously. And so if someone is in the midst of a dark time, you can't do this on your own. You think you can, but
Andrea Beem: ⁓ yeah.
TonyJacobsen: reach out to someone, pray for it, reach out to someone that might be able come alongside you and pray for someone that might have gone through the same thing you have gone through. If someone hasn't gone through it, they might be able to come for you, but not in the way that someone else has. And I guarantee you, there's a lot of people going through dark things. But counseling would be very good. And I would suggest a Christian-based, a faith-based counselor so they can go from the word of God. But also it's not just reading scripture.
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: It's how we look at psychologically as people, how we're made biologically. There's a lot of things that go on in us that we need to understand that sometimes we don't. And so I would suggest, ⁓ find a good counselor. I have a couple of great counselors that I go to and I've sent people to and it's helped them tremendously. That's their calling. God has had them there so that they can touch people and reach them. So I found that to be very important. yes, finding ⁓ accountability partners that I can...
Andrea Beem: Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: be with, pray with that will call me and I can call them and I'll be afraid to, but find some counseling that's going to help you understand where you're at and to help you do the right things to pull yourself out of the darkness. Cause the Lord doesn't want us in the darkness. My joy I have given to you, my peace I want to give to you. You know, we want the joy of the Lord to be our strength. And when we're in a dark place, it's hard. He can give us joy in that time, but we're not at the peace that we should have. And, and he said, ⁓ you know, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And when we go through a dark thing, it's not. So yeah, my suggestion would be if we can find someone that we can pray with, be accountable to, because sometimes if we just confess, confession in itself can relieve a lot of stress here. So not only confess to God, but confess to that will help us understand why we feel and why we got to where we were so we don't do it again, and then how we can overcome this, not only for ourselves, but so that we can help others along the way. So that's my suggestion.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. You know, it goes straight back to what we talked about earlier in this conversation, which was you feel like you just have to be stronger, right? And ⁓ so I'm glad you brought up the counseling thing. I was that person. I was absolutely that person ⁓ up until just a few weeks ago, honestly. It was definitely... ⁓ Well, I just have to be stronger to get through this. Like, I'm not going to break. Like, you're not going to break me. This the world's not going to break me. Like, it's just not going to happen. I'm just I'm strong. I'm going to make it right. Like and then it's funny because then things keep happening. You're just like, ⁓ my gosh, like, I don't know how much more I can really actually take, you know, and and a friend had said to me, you know, you probably should get a counselor. And I was like, I don't need a counselor. I don't.
TonyJacobsen: Right, right. Yeah, that's the way I was. I'm good. okay.
Andrea Beem: right? Yeah, like, I'm fine. I'm, I'm strong. I will make this through. Right. And anyway, long story short, I did break down one day, completely broke down, and was like, what in the world? And, and they said, you know, well, getting a counselor probably is would be a really good idea. I'm just gonna, it's not an I told you. So it's just, I'm going to mention it again, you know, and, ⁓ and I did, and I did go go get that person. And for me, like, that was, it was an amazing thing that God put this person my life. I've actually known her since I was a baby, which is crazy. We've been friends since we were babies, but then distanced ourselves for some different reasons. It didn't have anything to do with the two of us. ⁓ I just picked up the phone and I called her or maybe I texted her. can't remember. I just said, hey, so this is what's going on. ⁓ I'd really like to just talk to you. She's a counselor. That was why I reached out to her. She's done it for many years and she's good at what she does. And the response I got back was, I've been waiting for this text for 15 years.
TonyJacobsen: Yeah, see? Yeah, all right. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: And it's been such a blessing, right? know, getting to talk with her. It's kind of like having a coach, right? Like it's somebody that can shine a light in your blind spots or give you different perspectives that you haven't thought of. It's I wouldn't I I'm so glad that I picked up the phone and texted her because this whole philosophy of like, I'm strong enough. I got it like there's been so many blessings I've gotten from just getting to talk with her. It's
TonyJacobsen: Absolutely. Well, they help us. A lot of times we know what it is, but we don't know how to apply it. And they'll help us not only, this is what you're thinking, I know that, but how do I apply it? And they will kind of say, this is how you apply it. Cause that's their, that's the realm of what they do. They're good at it. you go, ⁓ now if I apply this and I do have to give kudos to my wife, my wife is the one that can continue to push me. You should go see counseling. I know some guys that went through counseling. I've been through counseling, go to counseling. And so she's the one. So like your friend, your friend's like, Hey, you should go see this counselor.
Andrea Beem: Right. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.
TonyJacobsen: I don't know if I would have done it on my own. I'm like, nah, nah, but because my wife loved me enough, she said, you know what, I think you should do this. And because I love her, I'm like, I'm going to do this. And it was a total blessing. Yeah. Right move. Yeah.
Andrea Beem: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Man. ⁓ this is so good. feel like I feel like we could probably keep this conversation going for a long time. And you've had some amazing insights on here. I know that people are going to be so blessed by hearing your story. ⁓ you know, hopefully we get to continue this conversation more. I know when I get to see you at the gym and stuff like that, and ⁓ such good stuff that you've shared so many good nuggets in here. And I trust people walk away with some some really good advice and really good ahas. ⁓ T, I hope that you'll be willing to come back at some point and maybe we can go into deeper discussion on some topics. I just am so blessed and honored that you agreed to come on here. So thank you for being willing to share.
TonyJacobsen: So. Absolutely. Yeah, well, Andrea, thank you for having me. And I think what you're doing, this is great. The reason we do this is so we can minister to other people. You you have a calling to be able to do this. And if there's anything that I say or can be shed a light, you know, again, we don't know how many people or how we're going to touch them until we go through those gates and we meet Jesus. And hopefully when we go through those gates, all those people's lives that we've touched, we will see them when we walk the door and we don't know how many we are. so that's why we do this. We share this. And I thank you for the platform to be able to do this. And I would come back anytime.
Andrea Beem: I love it. Well, the extension is out there. The offer is out there. We'll figure that out at some point and circle back around to this for sure. Tony, thank you so much. I will see you soon. Everybody else out there until next time. Thanks for joining us.
TonyJacobsen: God bless things everyone. Bye.
