Dudes Without Dads Podcast

Terrence Sylvia grew up with a father he was afraid of. Meth, poverty, constant moving, and beatings no kid should survive. While other guys talked about not having a dad, Terrence thought: "You can have mine." The anger he swallowed as a boy turned into what he calls "the monster." By 18 he was in a maximum-security prison. He joined a prison gang just to belong somewhere. The...

Kyle Lee — better known as "Crazy Kyle" — walks Joshua through one of the wildest, most redemptive testimonies we've ever recorded. From childhood martial arts to Xanax addiction, MMA cage fights, a near-suicide, a friend's suicide, a mission trip to Haiti, and a moment at 2:30 in the morning outside a Catholic church when he heard the voice of God — Kyle's story is proof...

Pastor Jason grew up without his dad and once heard his own father say, "I don't have a son named Jason." On this episode of Dudes Without Dads, he shares how God rewrote his story — from a broken home to the pulpit — and how every fatherless son can go get the blessing. ⏱️ Chapters:  00:00 - Intro  01:48 - Meet Pastor Jason  03:05 - Before the Divorce  09:29 - "Who Would You R...

What it means to be Made to Win — and why the trophy isn't the point Why you don't need a pulpit to be in ministry The Westminster Abbey tomb inscription that changes how you think about impact The 6 SKILLS every man needs to live on purpose: Speak, Know, Invest, Lift, Live, Share How the meaning of your name can rewire your identity ("Charles" = free man) What "the blessi...

Dr. Wayne Chappelle ("Dr. C") is the psychologist trusted by NBA stars, Olympic gold medalists, and elite Special Operations — and co-author of Heal Your Hurting Mind with Craig Groeschel (#5 NYT Bestseller). In this episode, he brings that clinical wisdom to the men Joshua serves every week: guys who grew up without a dad, or with one who did more damage than good. Dr. C breaks down wha...

Pastor Brandon Petty returns to Dudes Without Dads for a raw, deeply honest conversation about his new book A Journey Through the Wilderness — releasing August 11. Brandon is the lead pastor of Generation Church, a fast-growing congregation in a small farming town north of Nashville, and founder of the Landmark Association, a network of churches committed to pastor and church health. Brandon opens...

This week on Dudes Without Dads, Joshua sits down with Carl Thomas — founder and executive director of Live Free Ministries and CEO of XXXchurch.com — for a straight-talking conversation about the one topic most men will never bring up in the lobby: pornography. Joshua brings the top 5 questions men are actually asking themselves — the ones typed into search bars at 2 a.m. — and Carl answers them...

This week on Dudes Without Dads, Joshua welcomes James Ludeman — a 36-year-old husband and father of two from St. Petersburg, Florida, now living outside Nashville, Tennessee. James has never met his biological father. He was raised by his grandmother, grew up surrounded by addiction and abandonment, and later found faith in Christ on a missions trip at 15. James opens up about the "why don&a...

August 2019. A warm Saturday night at a Spokane neighborhood fair. Ron Hauenstein is manning a booth alone when three 15-year-olds walk up. Before Ron can say a word, the girl asks him three questions in a row: "Is this where I come to get a dad?" "What do I have to do to get a dad?" "Will you be my dad?" Her father, she said, was "a druggie with seven kids who d...

What does it take to become the dad you never had — when the dad you did have was present but never really there? Scott Maudsley grew up as the second of four boys in southwest Michigan. His dad was a man of faith. He was in the house. He loved his kids. But when the business failed, bankruptcy hit, and the family moved into a tent on a campground just trying to survive — the emotional distance be...

This is a Father's Day special unlike anything the Dudes Without Dads podcast has ever released. Joshua Brown flips the script. In this live, unscripted episode, he's not the interviewer — he's the one in the chair. Alongside him is William, his half-brother. Same dad. Different moms. Two men who grew up without a father, found each other through God's providence, and are now w...

What do you do when your father gives you the keys to his brand new truck — and four days later takes his own life? Cory was 30 years old, had just celebrated his birthday five days earlier, and had an 8-month-old daughter at home when his father died by suicide on May 15, 2010. In this raw and unforgettable episode, Joshua Brown sits down with his friend Cory for one of the most honest conversati...

What is a father wound? How do you heal it? And what does the Bible actually say a man is supposed to be? In this episode, Joshua Brown sits down with Robert Lewis — founder of Men's Fraternity, author of the bestselling Raising a Modern Day Knight , and co-founder of BetterMan — for one of the most important conversations in the Dudes Without Dads catalog. Robert has spent four decades in ro...

What happens when broken men try to build healthy marriages? In this powerful episode of Dudes Without Dads, Joshua Brown sits down with pastors, entrepreneurs, former gang members, ministry leaders, and restored husbands for an honest conversation about masculinity, marriage, emotional healing, fatherlessness, pride, insecurity, and spiritual leadership. These men openly discuss the destructive b...

Some of the strongest men you'll ever meet didn't grow up strong — they grew up surviving. Danny Spano grew up watching his Marine veteran father — a NASA engineer for Apollo 11 — come home from work in a rage. Locking himself in bedrooms in fear. Getting drop-kicked by the head of the hair. Watching his mother get beaten until he was big enough to step in and take the beatings himself....

Most men aren't broken because they don't try hard enough — they're worn out trying to prove a worth that was never theirs to earn. In this conversation, Joshua Brown sits down with Eric Manly (founder of The Intentional Dad) to unpack the core lie that quietly wrecks men, marriages, and fatherhood: "My worth is something I have to prove." This isn't another how-to ep...

When Mark Koch"s father died at 26, he lost his moral compass. Without that anchor, everything spiraled into chaos. As a Hollywood producer, Mark achieved the dream — million-dollar deals, Lost in Space, a film that knocked Titanic out of first place. On the outside: success. On the inside: a double life fueled by cocaine, alcohol, and constant fear of exposure. This episode reveals what happ...

The affair happened. Now what? Five men sat down to answer that question — not with polished answers, but from the wreckage of real decisions that almost cost them everything. This is a roundtable conversation with men who caused betrayal, survived it, and came out the other side with something hard and honest to say about it. Antoine, Curtis, Gabriel, Mike, and Cody talked about what actually goe...

Most men in America are still fatherless on the inside.  And most won’t do the one thing that could change it. This is a raw, unfiltered conversation with Brian Doyle (Iron Sharpens Iron) about why men stay stuck—and why showing up to a men’s conference might be the turning point. If you’ve ever wondered:  Do I really need a men’s conference?  Is this just another church event?  Why would I give u...

What does it look like to trust God completely when everyone around you says stay put? Nick had 17 years with the United States Postal Service, a postmaster position in Gatlinburg Tennessee, full retirement benefits, and a large family counting on every dollar. He also had a calling he could not ignore. When the COVID vaccine mandate threatened his job, Nick faced the decision that would define hi...

What does a man do when he has been in charge of his own life and made a complete mess of it? For "Goose," a 20-year Air Force navigator, the answer involved infidelity, depression, and becoming a man he didn't recognize. On January 1st, 2015, he surrendered everything to God — and that moment started a process that eventually led him to build one of the most powerful men's mov...

What does a boy do with what he discovers when no father is there to explain it? In this raw and honest roundtable, Joshua Brown sits down with five men — Caleb, Gabriel, Antoine, Cody, and Jason — to answer a question most men have never said out loud: where were you the first time you were exposed to pornography, and who did you go to afterward? From the projects to the woods of Tennessee, from...

Brandon Petty grew up in a home most men would never recover from. Born to a teenage mother who was married six times by the age of 25, Brandon cycled through apartments, motel rooms, and relatives' couches throughout his childhood. He was raised primarily by women while the men in his life rotated in and out — most of them carrying their own unhealed wounds of addiction and abuse. Between th...

Dustin Lundy grew up faster than any kid should have to. His father — a former stockbroker born in 1934 — was financially brilliant and emotionally absent. His mother had affairs, abandoned the family for drugs, and left behind a household that 13-year-old Dustin quietly began running on his own. By the time his dad was dying of stage four colon cancer, Dustin was the one cleaning, caregiving, and...

What does it actually mean to be a godly father — especially if you never had one? In this episode, host Joshua sits down with Kris Langham , co-founder of the Through the Word Bible app , to explore what Scripture teaches about godly fatherhood, father wounds, and how God specializes in breaking generational cycles. Kris challenges listeners to find a truly "perfect dad" in the Bible (s...