Kids Outdoor Zone  

Smithville,  TX 
United States
http://www.KidsOutdoorZone.com

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Thank you DSC Family for checking out Kids Outdoor Zone

Brands: Today, over 40% of the boys in our nation do not have a father living at home. Additionally, the average kid spends 40 minutes a week outside and 70 hours in front of a screen.

 Videos

 Press Releases

• Talking with Kids Outdoor Zone Founder (Dec 14, 2021)

  Kids Outdoor Zone (KOZ) is a Boys Outdoor Ministry for your church and community

  KOZ provides men of the church with training and curriculum for an outdoor ministry with boys.  Once they are trained, the men host an event one half-Saturday a month that includes outdoor skills, biblical manhood, and mentoring.

  Today 40% of boys in our nation do not have a dad living at home and every spiritual, physical, and mental health statistic deteriorates when a kid doesn’t have a dad in the home.  

  Today the average kid spends 70 hours or more per week in front of a digital screen.  This compares to 40 minutes per week in the outdoors. The effects of digital dependences are decreased attention span, increased obesity, increased cases of mental health issues, depression, etc. Today recent studies show health issues in our boys from quarantine and seclusion that mirror PTSD symptoms.

  Mentoring matters!  Every socioeconomic and health statistic improves when a boy gets a mentor.  Substance abuse, school drop-out, teenage pregnancy, etc.  A Big Brothers/ Big Sisters study found that mentoring 4 hours per month improves a child’s decision making throughout adolescence.

  The boys are drawn in by the outdoor adventure which provides the men with the opportunity to train, mentor, and disciple them.

  This is a spiritual battle that requires God’s men to step in. Boys need men to show them biblical masculinity.

  A man’s love, knowledge, and skills of the outdoors and your Christian faith are a perfect combination to mentor this generation of boys.

  KOZ can help men turn their burden for the boys, into a life changing reach into their live

  CURRENTLY:

  Kids Outdoor Zone was launched nationally in 2013 at Wildfire Weekend in Lynchburg VA

  Since 2013, KOZ has trained over 550 men in over 100 churches in 22 states and Canada!

  Over 2,700 men have expressed an interest in learning more about KOZ

  (These stats are as of June 2020)

  AVAILIABLE: 
  TJ GREANEY Founder/Smithville, Texas     
  RICK MAGEE C.O.O./Lynchburg, VA

  Call 512-292-1113 
   

  BOOKS, GEAR, TOOLS: 

  Year 13: A wounded boy’s journey to manhood and ministry
  

  
  TJ Greaney was raised in Houston, Texas. In the early years, life seemed ideal for a young boy. The neighborhood bayous, woods, tall grass, and trees held endless adventures. Go-carts, BB guns, hammers, and camping seemed more the norm than not. 

  Brokenness crept into his life when his parents divorced when he was 13. His mom moved 1000 miles away and his father disappeared with a bottle of rum. 13-year-old TJ chose living on the streets. L

  ife became a dangerous game. Drugs, jail, and bad decisions pursued him at every turn. While wandering those streets, God placed a marker in his heart. 

  Eventually TJ was led to a 12-step program where he began a journey out of the darkest place he thought would be his legacy. It was then that Christ began to reveal to him how the broken pieces were t

  he exact things He would use for Kingdom work in his life. “All the hurts and hardships are the training ground,” Greaney explains. “Not every guy is designed to teach a Sunday school class. Men want to do something of significance, to be a part of a battle for Jesus—we just don’t always know how. I pray this book helps men launch into that place in their life.” 

  TJ is the past Pr

  esident of the Texas Outdoor Write

  rs Association, published a Texas lifestyle magazine for 20 years, and hosts the #1 outdoor radio show in Texas.TJ Greaney is founder of Kids Outdoor Zone, the fastest growing church ministry for boys. Leaders use hunting, fishing, and outdoor adventure as an outreach tool for the fatherless boys and fathers and sons in their community and church.

  
  
  Walking on Uneven Ground: Why Kids Outdoor Zone is a critical ministry for today. TJ Greaney/Rick Magee

  The Outdoor Ministry for Boys from a Man’s Heart. Often the men who love the outdoors and hear God there don’t know how or where that may fit into their walk with Jesus. The outdoo

  

  rs was where Jesus Himself went to be close to His Father. It is also where He trained His closest men. He mentored them on mountains, lakeside, by campfires, and walking dusty roads. KOZ came from the revelation that boys need Godly mentors, that boys long to know the ancient arts of the outdoors and the path to healthy manhood. We realized too that the time with the boys profoundly affected the men who chose to be a part of KOZ. They found meaning and purpose. They came alive. This book offers the elements of how and why KOZ works. Why men and boys grow in their relationship with Jesus and with each other -- Walking on Uneven Ground.

  Basecamp: A 7-week Bible study for men seeking His will for them.

  Men struggle today with so many things in our world today. They isolate, minimize the need for other men and Jesus in their lives. Many men don’t know how to love their wives well, train their kids, lead their families. They long for it in their hearts but struggle to tread the trail that leads to the summit. This Bible study is a simple study by two friends. Two guys who long to hear Jesus speak and teach them how to do this life the best they can. In the end, in every man’s heart he has the same question, “Did I live well? Did I love well? Did I honor Jesus and all He gave me?” Take a few weeks, ride this trail with TJ Greaney and Joe Don Mayes and see if God doesn’t help you find some trail markers that you long for.
  
  TJ Greaney is founder of Kids Outdoor Zone Boys Outdoor Adventure Ministry. Joe Don Mayes is a retired pastor of 40-years in Fort Worth, Texas, Denver, Colorado and Austin, Texas.

• Why Every Man Needs A Knife (Dec 14, 2021)

  My friend Morgan Snyder tells a story of one day driving with his pre-teen son. They were on their way to an adventure, I’m not sure what, a hunt, hike, fishing trip maybe. But he asked his son, “What are the top things a man needs to survive?” After a few moments his son replied, “A cell phone and a wallet.” Morgan was thrown off balance. In his son’s mind, and maybe in the world today, the basic survival tools begin with a cell phone and a wallet. Well, that is probably right in many ways. I think that when I travel, the two things I know will get me out of trouble and back home would be a cell phone and my wallet. But that wasn’t what he was looking for.

  Snyder has been on a mission to recover his own heart for years. He is driven to help other men do the same. He shared an idea a couple years ago that I loved. “What does a man need? What can a man have, buy, say, do that would get him on track to regain his heart. To rescue him from the cubical, rushed, screen time. A life surrendered.” I was amazed at his simple but profound first step: Buy a Knife.

  There is a newer movie out now starring actor Will Ferrell. He is a father and a husband who takes his family on vacation skiing. While at the ski resort a landslide roars down the mountain. The disturbing part is that he runs away, ahead of his family, leaving them. After discovering his family, his wife begins to question his cowardice. I could barely watch the movie. He was an untrained, beat down man who had no idea how to take care of himself or his family in a tough situation. The opposite of what a man was created to be, and he began to realize it. That was Snyder’s point too. What does a man need to truly be a man and how does he find it? Where does he go to get trained?

  You hear the stories of a man who lives through a horrific accident and something in him shifts. Maybe one day his wife comes in and says, “It’s over,” and files for divorce. A financial set back rocks his easy chair, football watching, 9 to 5 life. In that moment, as the future rolls out, he is faced with an awakening. He knows he can’t keep doing what he was doing. Life has got to be more. Prayerfully it is not on our death bed, in a last breath, “I wish I had done more,” we figure it out.
   

  For me it was late one December afternoon. I had built my construction business and that year was going to be the best financial year ever. But inside, I didn’t have it. I was unhappy, getting up was a chore, and God was speaking to me for months leading up to that day. I could not imagine what the future held in a lot of areas, but I knew that something had to happen. I took my tools out of my truck that day and turned the page. 

  I’m not going to council you on how you should go about finding your masculine heart. Too many brilliant men have written on that and I recommend you start that search with them. John Elderedge, Morgan Snyder, Robert Lewis of course. Those guys broke me wide open. But I will give you some tips on things you should and can be doing starting now.

  Go buy a knife. Buy a stone sharpener and learn how to use it if you don’t already know. Start a project, build something. Go fishing, hunting, hiking or camping, all things that will give your heart blood. 

  Go find some men and do something with them outside. Ask a man who possesses the qualities of manhood you respect to lunch. You might be older and have spent a little too much time in the easy chair. Get out and be around men, you don’t age out in the Jesus fight, you don’t. 

  Take a couple boys to the shooting range or fishing. Help them feel and learn who and what a man is. Learn with them. Heck, buy a boy, your son, grandson a knife. Teach them responsibility, safety and responsibility. It’s a powerful tool.
   

  Snyder has spent years searching for answers to our benefit. He lays it out in his new book, Becoming a King. Its masterful. We have also put together a great new Bible Study, Base Camp Men’s Bible Study. Joe Don Mayes and I have held a bible study for years in an old cabin, outside, raw, real. We put it together in a study you can use alone or with a group of men (best a group). You can order them on Amazon or from the KOZ office.

  Henry David Thoreau said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” 

  I feel more alive with a hammer, a chainsaw, a knife, a fishing pole or a rifle in my hand. I feel more alive looking back at the mountain I just hiked, while cleaning a deer, or over the project I just built. Snyder’s son was partially correct, a phone and a wallet are tools, but not life. Dig in deep, don’t wait. Ask Jesus to reveal your heart, it’s there for the asking.

  Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

• Campfires, Riots and Jesus (Dec 14, 2021)

  It was the beginning and the end of our deer season. The last for 2020 and the first for 2021. I had promised a mixture of boys to come and hunt with me during the year and I just didn't stop long enough to work out the details, until January 4, 2021. Almost the end of the season here in Texas. So, I text and called and emailed. All the boys replied and all of them wanted to go. Well, okay then.

  For the last few months I have been trying my best to minimize my intake on all the Corona and political and social unrest. I know what happened and even fear some of what the future may hold. I have my opinions and thoughts; most I do not share publicly. I don't need too; you can get that anywhere. But in prayer time over the last few months I heard God clearly say, "Keep going." "Stay focused." You have a mission and let me handle the other.

  My mission as a beleiver, defined in the simplest terms is rescue the fatherless boys, empower the men of the church with a mission, provide the tools and encouragement they both need. That is a big calling. I think many of us could do ourselves a big favor by making the effort to refocus on Gods calling in our lives and away from the hours of emersion in current events. Everyone, everything wants a piece of us and satan is top of that list. 

  I have seen many a ministry, business chase the newest in-the-moment topic and dilute themselves into a noneffective copy of the common. Then gone. We must remain centered and committed to core mission. Yes, we use the new tools, new innovations but carefully. Back in the 1930s, Goldman Sachs noted that Kellogg maintained its advertising through the Great Depression while Post did not — leading to Kellogg’s domination of the dry cereal market for the next half-century. So much for waiting “until things pick up again.” Stay the course. 

  Yes, I know what is going on in the world today. It effects the KOZ men and boys deeply. I know all families are affected. Yes, we have pivoted in some areas but not the core values and needs our KOZ men and boys, families need. Meeting face to face, fresh air, time together where the men are eye to eye, face to face with the boys. Suicide is up, drinking and drug use, pornography, domestic violence, up. Our boys are failing in school, struggling not being able to help their moms or families eats them up inside. So, if this is our mission field, we must stay laser focused on it. We have to be. 

  If we don't hug our KOZ boys, call and check on our KOZ leaders, thank the church and pastors for letting have a KOZ group, we lose the one thing many of us know or knew we were called too. It doesn't take much to remember the God moments in KOZ around a campfire or fishing hole and they were good, real good.

  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10: 24-25

  We killed a bunch of deer last week. Laughed a lot. Talked into the night. You could see the changes in the boys as the days passed. We left tired but stronger. We put a bunch of deer meat in their freezers. It was good. Good for our souls. Maybe best of all, we will retell the hunting stories around campfires all year. How Jesus showed up, So good.