Iron Sharpens Iron: The FORGED Men’s Conference Comes to Monterey August 15

Iron Sharpens Iron: The FORGED Men’s Conference Comes to Monterey August 15

By Danny Cardwell · Allegheny Mountain Radio

Life Line Ministries will host the FORGED Men’s Conference on Saturday, August 15, at 13826 Jackson River Road in Monterey, starting at 2 PM. The afternoon opens with food and fellowship, then moves into praise and worship, the Word, and a live blacksmith demonstration running throughout the day. The guest speaker is evangelist and author Ryan Johnson of Tennessee.

Pastor Zach Royer, who leads Life Line Ministries stopped by Allegheny Mountain Radio ahead of the event to talk about how the conference came together — and about the kinds of conversations it’s meant to open up.

How the conference came about

The story starts with a friendship and a book. Ryan Johnson has authored a number of works over the years; his most recent is a 21-day devotional for men titled The Forge. Life Line Ministries’ monthly men’s group tried something new with it.

“We were just very intrigued by this idea of, instead of working through a month of devotions, taking one day’s devotion and using it as our theme for the month,” Royer said.

The result, he said, has been the most effective men’s group Life Line has had.

“It has opened up wide conversations that we just weren’t getting with some of the other opportunities that we tried,” he said.

That momentum turned into a bigger idea. Royer took it to the men in his group.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard of anything being hosted in the Allegheny Highlands specifically geared towards men and dealing with issues of life,” he recalled telling them. “Would you all be willing to pitch in and partner with me to make something happen, to give an opportunity at least? And they said yes.”

A friendship years in the making

Royer and Johnson go back years. They met at a minister summit in Tennessee, where Johnson wasn’t speaking — he’d come as a guest of the guest speaker — but the two hit it off.

“We found that we had some commonalities among us, particularly regions of the US that we both grew up in and then moved elsewhere,” Royer said.

Johnson has come to minister at Life Line Ministries a number of times since, and he’ll be at the church that weekend as well. The conference itself is off campus, since the live blacksmith demonstration calls for an open fire.

A blacksmith’s metaphor

The blacksmith imagery isn’t decoration. It’s the frame Johnson uses in his ministry, and it’s the frame Royer draws out with care.

“If you and I were in the position of that raw material and having to experience some of those implements, we would not find it most comfortable,” Royer said. “But the end result is what the blacksmith had in mind before he could see it with his natural eye. And so it is the way God works in our lives.”

He pointed to Romans 8:28 — all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

“Oftentimes what we find uncomfortable is often the implements that God is using in that very moment to build us into the men that he already had in mind for our lives to be.”

Mental health, plainly

The conversation moved to a subject that hasn’t always been easy for men in our region to talk about openly. Royer spoke from his own experience.

“For me, one of the hardest things was a few years ago when I had to come to my own reality that I was being as strong as I could for everybody else,” he said. “But I was absolutely crumbling on the inside.”

He reached out to a network he was part of, and they connected him with a Christian counselor in Georgia. He began making trips south to work through what he was carrying.

“I was at the place just in my own life, forget ministry, just in my own life, where I said, look, I’m gonna invest what I have to invest to get some things right.”

Royer was clear that faith and professional care are not in competition.

“We absolutely cannot ignore the professionals, those that have been trained,” he said. “And at the same time, the word of God does not set us apart from all that and say we don’t need it. The Word of God works hand in hand with those things to give us maybe a different point of view of how to go about our own recovery.”

Then he offered an analogy that summed up the whole conversation.

“We don’t condemn a person with a broken arm or a broken leg. It just so happens that the brain is a part of the body we cannot see. But it does not mean that mental health deserves less attention just because you can’t see it.”

More than a one-day event

The conference isn’t a one-off. Life Line Ministries’ regular men’s group meets the third Thursday of every month at 6:30 PM in the downstairs fellowship hall of the church on Fairview Lane. Everybody brings a snack or a dish. They eat, they talk, they open the Word.

Royer wanted to be clear about what the group is and what it isn’t.

“It’s not that our men’s group has become group therapy sessions or anything,” he said. “But in another way, it has been therapeutic. Nobody has shared anything personal that would be embarrassing or anything such as that. But it is just finding the commonalities that, man, we all do find life tough. It’s really been working to meld us together as a group of men.”

An open invitation

For any man on the fence about attending — the kind who might not normally show up to something like this — Royer’s invitation was direct.

“We love people. And we want to see God’s best for people in their lives,” he said. “So, hey, give it a shot.”

“I would invite you to come to the men’s conference and check it out. I’ll be there. Love to talk to you.”

If you go

The FORGED Men’s Conference is Saturday, August 15, 2026, at 13826 Jackson River Road in Monterey, Virginia. Doors open at 2 PM. Life Line Ministries hosts; guest speaker is evangelist and author Ryan Johnson of Tennessee.