Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What should our focus be in mentoring? Should we focus on fruitfulness, or faithfulness? Should we focus on giving, or receiving? Jordan Sutton shares on the importance of mentoring from a place of rest in Jesus, and how rhythms of sabbath and silence will lead to a healthier mentoring mindset. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." John 6:35 ESV Jordan serves as Lead Pastor of Clear Path Dallas.
Show Notes
_______________
WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
_______________
SHOW NOTES
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Alright. Hey. How's everyone doing today? Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. Zach Garza here.
Speaker 2:Stephen Murray is not here because he's sick. So it's just me today and our guest, mister Jordan Sutton. So, Jordan, why don't you say hi to the guest here?
Speaker 3:Glad to be here with you.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well, Jordan, hey. Can, you just kinda start us off just by kinda sharing a tad bit about you, about your family, about your job, and why you're here today, my friend?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I am a pastor of a church here locally in Dallas. It's actually in Mesquite, kinda where East Dallas and Mesquite meet. And, I have 3 kids, wife, and, we actually our kids go to the same school together Yeah. Which is which is good.
Speaker 3:That's right. And, yeah, I've also worked in the business world. My dad started a business when I was, like, 2 years old, and he, you know, built up this technology finance business. And so spent a lot of time working with him and, you know, also sell businesses for a living. And so I kinda find myself in between those two two worlds and but most of my time is spent pastoring and being family and, you know, doing doing the business stuff on the side.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure. That's awesome, man. Thanks. Could, you just kinda give us a picture of your church, give us a picture of, like, what a typical day looks like for you.
Speaker 3:Our church is, just a really beautiful, unique church. I mean, one of the things like, when people ask me about church, the first thing I say is my best friends in the world are in our community. There's a diversity of things that affect the expression that we're we sort of focus on. First of all, we were very communal oriented. We have what we call house churches that engage in different parts of the city.
Speaker 3:We do have a corporate gathering that we all come together, but those places in the home really lead our focus on formation. So when you look in scripture, you know, at all the significant covenants you have, And when God gives his covenant at Sinai, he has the the elders up there, 70 elders, eating at a table, and the glory of the Lord descends on the mountain, and they're they're eating there. They're sharing this meal. And then when Jesus Jesus comes, he leaves us what? He leaves us a table again in the Eucharist, in his body, in his blood.
Speaker 3:And what we're looking for as we look into his return is we're looking for a table, the marriage supper of the lamb. And so I think it's not insignificant that every all these major covenants, you have a table as this as a central motif of of the way God expressed himself. Because in a pulpit, and I'm I'm a preacher. I love to preach, but in a pulpit, there's one way communication. But fortunately with God, we sit at a table with him, and it's not just a one way.
Speaker 3:And so I feel like that our formation, formational focus as church should reflect this nature of God to exchange with us and not just talk to us. And so that really infuses sort of the philosophy behind all we do, and so there's there's, like, the charismatic component that we we love, like, expressive worship. We also take the Lord's supper every week and try to honor some of those sacramental things. And so, you know, there's a structure, the organic, the spontaneous, and the, you know, and the liturgy and all those things sort of influencing our church. For me, whenever I think about table, I think about family.
Speaker 2:Right? Yep. And kind of our main foundation of mentoring is family, is a place, a safe environment where you can build relationships. Right? And just like what you were saying, you know, that that is Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Jesus come to create an environment where people can come and know him, but also be known.
Speaker 3:We know more about what he said at dinner parties than what he said in synagogues. Yeah. So that says something. As far as my life, you know, I I'm always really I just really want to live an integrated life. And by that, I mean, I want my convictions to be deeply connected to my actions on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:When I talk about my rhythms or my daily habits, my daily life, like, I think I'm always integrating. So some days are better, some days are worse. You know? Like, ideally, on a day to day basis, my, you know, my wife and I are part of as you guys are a part of this school that's sort of hybrid between private school and homeschool, and so I helped participate that. You know, this morning, you know, I was doing the bible time with the kids, and we we try to wake up in the morning with our family, and it's not every day, but, you know, pretty good number of days we wake up and read the bible with them, you know, pray with them, and, you know, try to look for that time in the morning ourselves as well.
Speaker 3:And the way that the way that I think about, like, that as setting a rhythm for the day is I think I grew up thinking about it as, like, the time I get filled up. But really, like, those prayers in the morning are just opening a conversation with God that will go all day. And I think I think my goal in my daily life and and when it's business and it's ministry and it's homeschool and it's family and it's random people coming over because it's pastoring at night, like, we have we have a crazy just discombob like, we have there's a lot going on, and so we find ourselves really fighting for rest and slow and peace and presence. And and so for me, the way that I can walk with all those things is by recognizing that in all of them, there's a conversation with God going on. And so I look at look at those times in the morning as just the opening words to a day long conversation with God.
Speaker 3:So So, like, as a mentor
Speaker 2:or as someone who's building relationships, on a consistent basis, so often we find ourselves pouring out. Mhmm. Just giving, giving, giving, giving. But as you rest, and as you get filled back up with the things that you need so that you can go pour out, Tell me what that looks like for you. Tell me how you find rest and how you get filled back up.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I I think that this is about when I use the word integration, it's like I want everything like, I I want to be in encountering God in all of my life. I don't want to be there to be the holy part of my life and the common part of my life. An example of what I'm saying, like, the this idea of praying or being mindful of God and all and conscious of God and all. Like, as I really say that, that's one of the the significant marker markers of spiritual maturity is that you become conscious of God in every space and every part of time, and there's conversation with him.
Speaker 3:So I'll give you an example of what this looks like for me and how it could look like to not be getting exhausted is there was this guy that was a homeless guy that I met. And we act actually met him at a McDonald's. It's in the neighborhood that we lived in for 5 years. We moved out of the neighborhood. Very close to it now, but we moved out of it, like, maybe 6 months ago.
Speaker 3:And I'd met him just sharing Jesus. You know, I was with some guys, and I met him in a McDonald's, and, you know, we became friends. He became part of our church family. He became and my kids got to know him. He was a really good guy.
Speaker 3:He did he didn't have the capacity to function in our society, although he wasn't, like, doing a drug addict, nothing like that. Just just, you know, this guy. And so I remember we you know, our church had done lots of things to work and to help and do different things to help. I remember one day he was call he had called me, and I've, you know, driven him to jobs before, and he was like, hey. I need a ride to this job.
Speaker 3:I'm like, okay. And we get he gets to my house, and it's like he was 2 hours late, and I was driving him very frustrated because I thought, how like, why the heck am I driving you 2 hours late to job all that we've done to try to help you? And and I remember the Lord speaking to me. He said he said, don't you see that he's the gift to you, that I didn't put you into his life to fix him? Said I'm working on you through him.
Speaker 3:He is my generous gift to you, and it totally that moment totally changed my perspective because I realized when Jesus said when you clothe me, when you fed me, you encountered you encountered the face of Christ and the least of these. And so I think as long as we come with the mindset that we have something to give and not to receive, we'll always leave empty. But if I come with the least of these encountering Jesus, and I realize that I'm not just my I'm not just his gift to them, their gift his gift to me, then I I don't I don't walk away empty. So that that that moment really radically changed my life, and it really humbled me how arrogant of me to think that, you know, I was some godsend to him. He was really the godsend to me, teaching me patience and teaching me love and teaching me to not be so focused on fixing everyone.
Speaker 2:There's a saying that we have, and it's that people aren't projects. People are people.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And
Speaker 2:so often a trap that I personally fall into as a mentor is I just wanna fix this kid. Yeah. And but that's not typically how God does it. And God's ways are not our ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think that, like, this so there's 2 dimensions of it too. Right? I wanna answer the question as best I can. There is, like, Jesus found himself in isolated places, and it's a darn near, like, revolutionary thing in our culture to have 10 or 20 minutes of silence in your day.
Speaker 3:That's become one of the most important things in my life is just silence. And as an extroverted person, like, I've I've chosen to spend more of my time over the last few years and and just in silence and sitting with the Lord, not trying to figure out what he's saying, not trying to get filled up, not trying to pour out, just sitting in silence before him. And so that's been a real significant thing, and Sabbath has been a real significant thing. But I think also the shift is we have to un we have to see ourselves as a wellspring of life. I know there's a reality to pouring out and filling up, but I'm more like the understanding that in these moments, I'm receiving, you know, than than I'm just giving.
Speaker 3:And and and and I feel like for me, as my perspective have changed, I have now seen value in people that I did not see before. I'm just being honest, like, we have our value assessments, and and because of that, I actually get to glean and receive from God in these moments, and it and I don't walk away as empty.
Speaker 2:I think that's a challenge for most people who are extroverted, results oriented, doers is whenever I rest, whenever I am silent with the Lord, whenever I'm not productive, I feel unproductive.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't like to feel unproductive. But I was listening to a guy who was talking about that, and he said one thing that really helped me is to change my mindset. As in whenever I'm silent, whenever I'm resting, whenever I'm sabbathing, I'm actually not unproductive. I am being productive at being filled back up.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And just that little tiny shift in mindset can change change the song from I'm being unproductive to I'm actually am being productive. I'm receiving what I need to do what the lord has called me to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And and I and I always tell people too, even as a tweak on that, a little like, I don't rest for work, I rest for Jesus. And so I don't go, okay, I need to I need to get some rest. Like, when God set Sabbath as a part of the rhythm of creation in Genesis, it wasn't because he needed that to be able to do more. It's because he set a picture of what fullness looks like, and fullness looks like peace for him.
Speaker 3:I mean, like, remember, like, Hebrews 4, like, the promise that we're to enter into is rest. And so, like, that's like the like the final, you know, picture of the fullness of kingdom is is rest, covering every part of our lives. And so I think that there's this, been restructure for me of of thinking of it as just first worship. So anyway, yeah, I think it it in in that Sabbath starts filling your every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's say that there's a person who's tuned into our podcast, and they just have no clue what you're talking about in regards to the Sabbath. Yeah. Do you think that you could explain that in a way that can just make it as simple as possible?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we'll make it real simple. I have a day of the week, and I and I because I'm a pastor and business person, I'm pretty busy. I have a day of the week that I don't do anything that's productive. I mean, like, I spend time with my family.
Speaker 3:I spend time with the Lord. I, you know, watch a Mavs game. But there's the there, like, there are days when I'm not very deliberate with that day, but there are days that I'm more deliberate with that day. So on a good day, it might look like it's a Monday for me. I'm gonna drop my kids off.
Speaker 3:I'm going to you know, my wife is gonna have some time to herself to reflect and to pray, And, you know, I may, you know, grab some coffee, you know, read a little bit, journal a little bit, you know, write. It's not a day where I'm gonna try to read, like, 10 hours of the Bible. You know? It's more a day where I'm just putting my attention on a god. Just just not I'm not trying to work to engage him.
Speaker 3:I'm just trying to pause. And so we have a pretty intentional rhythm in the morning that some days we're good at, some days we're not, but drop our kids off. She will she will have this time of reflection. We'll get engaged back together at, like, 11 o'clock, you know, maybe grab lunch, talk, go hang you know, pick up our kids in the afternoon and hang out with them in the evening and maybe watch a show. Like, we we just deliberately don't do much on those days.
Speaker 3:And then the way that that fills, you know, all the days is that, like, there is the there's the rhythm and pattern of rest, which we try to have on Mondays and we try to have in really part of every day, but there's the posture of rest. And the posture of rest is that we don't just need silence tangibly, literally, we need silence to expand and increase in our souls and in our minds and our hearts. And so, like, one example of somebody, if you want to think, okay, am I living a restful life? Well, how often are you trying to figure out, are you good enough? Are you doing enough?
Speaker 3:Have you done this enough? Like, if your brain is constantly scanning with where you're stacking up, that would be an example of, I'm not living out Sabbath very well. And so there is the physical rest, but there's also the rest in our soul that's a posture thing. Yep. And I think all of this actually flows into mentoring because, you know, Jesus said in John 6, I believe, he said, whoever, you know, comes to me will not thirst.
Speaker 3:Whoever believes in me will no longer hunger or vice versa that. And I realized one day that all hunger and thirst was supposed to end with Jesus. And how much of our doing, our ministering, our mentoring, our pastoring, our businessing, or whatever we're doing, how much of that is because we still have a hunger and thirst left? And what would our mentoring look like if it really had ended with Jesus, if we didn't need the kid that we were mentoring to change, if it wasn't evoking all of our in securities, if I if there really was a rest in our soul, it would radically change the way we did everything, including mentoring.
Speaker 2:That's a great segue for what it is that we wanna talk about today, just the difference between fruitfulness and faithfulness, and especially in today's society. I mean, it is it is a results driven world.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We have to acknowledge that is not not necessarily negative, positive, but it's a it is like one of the seminal things that's in our culture. Yep. In the in this time that we've lived, that you've been born, you just have to understand that deep in your brain is embedded our cultural drive to results, And so that's just so there. We can't see how much it's there, but it's there.
Speaker 2:And it's almost like everything that we just talked about, Sabbath and silence and getting before the Lord. That's gonna give us an opportunity to be different than the world.
Speaker 3:100%. This conversation, you and I, you know, had talked about, like, you know, this faithfulness versus fruitfulness, like, at the core of how you live out a journey of of faithfulness is is silence. And so, and solitude and being with God and rest and peace.
Speaker 2:Jordan and I were grabbing coffee a couple months ago, and he just kinda went into this faithfulness versus fruitfulness. And for me, being a a type a, I mean, I'd love to get stuff done. This this just really spoke to my heart. And, I mean, I love to see results. It doesn't matter if it's in business or in my nonprofit or if I'm investing into a kid or if I'm trying to work out just I love seeing that I put in the hard work, and I did what I was supposed to do, and bam, I got what was supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, I I eat right, and I work out, and bam, I look better. Right? But that's not how it is in relationships.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what we were talking about specifically is that, you know, back up and say, in Psalms, it talks about the joy of the lord being our strength.
Speaker 3:And so there's this kind of way in which joy is a strength that propels us. And what I found as a pastor is that most people find joy from the significant portion of joy from fruitfulness happening in their life. So it's like, I can get fired up when something good happens with somebody I'm mentoring or something good happens to my business or something good happens to my church. And that and that's good. You know, John 15 even talks about that he got his you know, wants to make us fruitful so that our joy may be full, and so that that's a reality.
Speaker 3:But there's this picture in Jeremiah of a tree that's planted by a stream. You know, it doesn't rot. That's true. That's leaf doesn't wither no matter if it rains or doesn't rain. And that's because this tree is next to a river, and its water source is much is from a much further higher elevation.
Speaker 3:So when it doesn't rain for a couple months, the tree is fine. If you live solely on the joy of results or fruitfulness, you're like a tree that's gonna die when there's no rain. It's not a sustaining lifestyle. If if the entirety of my motivation and my joy comes from when I've created something, when I've done something good in ministry, when I've done something good in business, when I've like, you aren't like tree planted by the river. See, the the tree planted by the river is the is the tree is the person whose joy comes not from the fruitfulness from but from the faithfulness.
Speaker 3:In your life will just always look up and down. It will be up, down, up, down, up, down. If your excitement, your joy, your peace comes from the fruitfulness that God brings for through you rather than the patience to be faithful with what's in front of you. I've been pretty repetitive on some on topic like this the last couple of years as a pastor. I think a lot of this stems from there's been a lot of teaching in the church, and I'm super thankful.
Speaker 3:I have no I grew up in amazing churches. I have no hurt with the church. Church is amazing. But there's been a lot of teaching over the last 5 or 10 years in the church that you know, around our destiny. I'm very thankful for that.
Speaker 3:I'm very thankful a lot of people become awakened to their giftings and their destiny. Discipleship is not a trajectory to your destiny. Manifesting our destiny, like, I'm a pastor, and I get to interact with a lot of people, and there's a whole lot of people out there that are really disappointed, that are really frustrated, that are really down because they weren't they didn't get the joy of their fruitfulness. They didn't get to make happen their dream or their desire or whatever it is. And we have to come up with a better narrative, a more scriptural narrative, which is God is shaping you into a person who looks like Jesus.
Speaker 3:He's not shaping you into a filmmaker or a mentor or a business leader. All those things are secondary, and God can use them. But his aim is to make you a person like Jesus. And I think when we make our aim that way, we find our joy in the faithful approach to doing what God has set before us and not our joy from when God produces the result that comes from our labor.
Speaker 2:Yeah. For me, Jordan, like, this this topic hits home, man, because, if you guys tune into our podcast, you guys probably know my story. And I started to mentor a kid whenever he was in 8th grade and fantastic kid. I mean, such a stud. I did everything right.
Speaker 2:I loved him. I showed up. I taught him how to be successful in this and that. And at the end of his junior year, he got incarcerated. That just about broke me because I was finding my identity, I was finding my worth by how well he was performing.
Speaker 2:And I thought, man, as long as he was making straight a's, as long as he was doing awesome on the football field, as long as he was respectful, then I felt great about myself. But the second that those results stopped coming in, I got so discouraged. And it was a season of just me being down and me being sad and me really questioning whether I had the skills or whether whether I had the heart to continue to mentor. You can call it mentoring, but the bottom line is we are creating disciples. Right?
Speaker 2:And when and when what I thought should have happened didn't happen, that almost took me out. But I can look back now and I can actually be thankful for the process because I look back and I see how the Lord was using this trial to shape my character. And he was helping me turn into someone who looked more like him even though he went about it in a in a totally weird way. Right? And so yeah.
Speaker 2:So this whenever I started to first mentor, it was all about seeing fruit. But now that I've been doing it for a while, and now that the Lord has shown me what it really looks like,
Speaker 3:I mean, it is all about faithfulness. Yeah. It's like, I'm so thankful that the gospels have this picture that I had this conversation that this is me being maybe a little rude to my friend, but I had this conversation with my friend, my cousin, a few years ago. And this person was saying, you know, we were having a conversation about some something church ministry, and it's like, well, I think it was a leadership problem. I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3:And this person said, well, it's always a leadership problem. I was like, well, Jesus had Judas. And not only they have Judas, but, you know, pretty much all the disciples or most of them abandoned him, you know, and Peter denied him. And so I think it's a pretty amazing picture for us that the most equipped, the infinitely equipped one still had a one that he was mentoring completely walk away and do the worst possible thing. I mean I mean, God forbid any of us experience that in our in our discipleship.
Speaker 3:Somebody walk away and and do what you just did. But, like, even the one even Jesus had that. And so you cannot say that, well, Jesus just you know, it's like if we were to just put a results thing over Jesus' ministry, like, he he had a big following. You know, he tells them, you know, when he says, you'll have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, like, they all walk away. And then eventually, even the disciples walk away, and he has a disciple that kills himself, like, not too good results on the the outset, and, you know, we gloss over that.
Speaker 3:But really, like, I'm so thankful that Jesus gave us this example of what it means to be faithful even when it doesn't look like there's fruitfulness. Of course, we can see in hindsight there was fruitfulness, and I think that's that's a part of the problem. That's a big part of the problem with with our joy coming from our fruitfulness and not from our faithfulness is because we really don't have a very good vantage point in history. We don't we don't have a God sees from a bigger perspective, obviously. I mean, like, Abraham, his whole life, he is commended as being a hero of faith, and literally all the dude did was hear a promise from God and take a long walk.
Speaker 3:Like, his promise from God is one day, you're gonna have a people. They're gonna be, like, you know, stars in the sky and sand on there, and all this is gonna happen. And, you know, in 400 years, they're gonna go into slavery, and they're gonna do all this. None of the the profound things that God promised Abraham he would ever see in his life. Like, he had a son and took a walk.
Speaker 3:Like, none of the things that were these amazing things. Like, he was commended as being a man of faith, not because he manifested the promise, but because he received the promise. And so, like, that is when you look at God's friends in the scriptures, it's not about manifesting the promise. It's about those who can sit with the father and receive the promise. And so like how many of us would be super fired up about, all right, in a 1000 years, you're gonna have this awesome family.
Speaker 3:You know, we have, we just, we live in a time, and I think even as humans, where we just want to see the results and God is functioning in a different way than we're functioning. And so I it's part of it is we have to, like, radically shift. We have to radically shift the way we approach life of ministry and and and all of this. And so, I mean, like, some of this is our culture. Like, if you if you look, like, a 150 years ago, you know, 90% of people would have done what their father did, what their grandfather did, what their great grandfather did, what their great great grandfather did.
Speaker 3:And I remember going to France with my wife into wine country, and we met these different winemakers that were in homes where, you know, they were raising their kids in these homes. These weren't like these luxurious things. It's like a old home, you know, 500 year old home, and they're raising their kids, and they're like, yeah. We've got you know, our family's been growing grapes here for 700 years, and I I think, like, we live in a time where every kid has to figure out what their dream is. Every kid has to figure out, oh, do I wanna be an astronaut?
Speaker 3:Do I wanna be a business person? Do I wanna be a pastor? Do I wanna be and so there's so much existential pressure that exists on us to go out and manifest some destiny that we we live with this burden walking into life. And I'm thankful that we get all this creativity, that we've got all this liberty, that we have all this freedom to go do these beautiful things, but it can distract us from the simple daily faithfulness to God that that that he's really called us to more than just some career aspirations.
Speaker 2:It is so easy to fall into the trap of results oriented, being fruitful because literally every single thing in our culture is that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it's just so yes.
Speaker 2:So as someone who's investing into the life of a person, more specifically, a kid who has experienced some obstacles in their life, they've experienced hardships, they're not necessarily starting at the starting line. They're starting about 10 or 15, maybe even more than that. They're starting way behind the starting line. Yeah. Can you you just kinda give us, some encouragement on how to build up faithfulness in the lives and in the heart of a mentor.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that you it starts with your expectations. If you come in with expectations, even if they're not vocalized, they're felt. And I think that you have to first search your own soul and say, like, where where is this coming from? Because as soon as you take, you know, all of your results oriented stuff and you package it on on them, first of all, they can't live up to what you expect. And secondly, they're going to diss you you're gonna end up disappointed and burnt out because they're not gonna live up to what you expect.
Speaker 3:And I think the key is, like, starting with letting go of of those expectations. The second thing, I think, as a mentor, this is for me the way that I approach mentorship is maybe different. You know, obviously not, you know, writing your guys' curriculum, but my most the the proverb that really influenced my mentorship the most and I think helps me to not overlay my expectations on those that I'm pouring into is there's a proverb that says, the ways of a man's heart are deep waters and a man of understanding draws them out. And I think a lot of times, we think people need pouring into when they really only need drawing out of. Jesus, his creative substance is upon this person, this kid that you're mentoring.
Speaker 3:And if and if rather than I say, hey, look at all the value I have, all the wisdom I've gleaned and let me put it on you, let's assume that God's put something within them and look to draw that out. I think if we start in the drawing out before the pouring in, then what happens is is we allow their identity in him to manifest rather than our expectations on them to manifest. So I start with that. I start with the philosophy personally of how do I draw out what's within them then give them what I have.
Speaker 2:Give us some practical ways on how to draw that stuff out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think it it's it's a lot of lot of questions. Yeah. You know, it's a lot of, you know so let's take it from, like, the bad and the good. We you know, like, one of the things the Lord spoke to me about a couple months ago, and I haven't even preached on this, but this is just coming out it's coming to my mind.
Speaker 3:So we'll just go with this. That's great. Is, like, God's God's goal is not the suppression of evil. It's the deliverance from evil. And so a lot of times, there's things that brokenness and trauma, kids come to the table with, and we might be intuitively trying to help them manage those things.
Speaker 3:But but, actually, I think we wanna build the kind of relationship and ask them the kind of questions that rather than manage those things, we allow those things to manifest and come out because then I can be love in in the midst of their pain, their trauma, their wound. And we intuitively try to manage our own sin and manage our own brokenness. But so this is kind of an encounter intuitive thing, but one of the one of the good results of mentoring is when the trauma and when the sin and when the brokenness comes out with your kid, that actually might be a progression because then you get to be loved in the midst of their worst moments. Yeah. And that's exactly what they need.
Speaker 3:So Jesus at the woman at the well, he's interacting with her, and, you know, he he talks about her husband. He says, you the man you're now with is not your husband. You've had 5 husbands. Yeah. And he's talking to the woman directly about her biggest shame and loving her intensely, And that's what all of us need.
Speaker 3:We don't need the hiding of our brokenness. We need it to come out and to still be grace in graciousness loved. So I think, I try to put myself in situations with those who I'm mentoring where I allow the worst parts of them to come out, asking questions, talking with them. You know? I don't know how to say how to do that, but a lot of it is asking questions and not being afraid of that.
Speaker 3:Then, like, the second part of, like, what's the good in somebody? I think you just gotta, like, get to know somebody and listen to them and lay their store lay your stories behind a little bit, you know, and let their stories come out and start, like, you know, think about, like, you know, my kids. Like, I spend a lot of time observing them and watching what they're interested in and watching what fires them up and watching the little good, unique things about them and just trying to name them and see them. And some of that comes from just watching and listening more than telling and doing. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And and so I look. On both of those things, I'm I'm I'm asking questions. I'm observing. I want the bad and brokenness to come out, and I'm not scared of that, and I want the good to come out, and I wanna observe those things and highlight those things and speak into those things and honor those things about them and name them. I mean, you've probably experienced this, but when somebody when somebody who has genuinely observed you name something good about you and you know that it's right, boy, it lights you up.
Speaker 3:My parents used to tell me good game after football games that I didn't play good at, and I hated that. That's like an insult, you know? But when somebody genuinely see they observe something in you that's like so like the flattery doesn't do anything for anyone's soul, but when you actually observe somebody and you name something in them that they know is true, man, it it lights the world up. And so observing and naming good qualities and allowing bad things to manifest, I I don't know if that helps.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The common tendency for me is just to kinda do the thing do the thing that's easy. Right? Like, it is really easy to to tell a kid, dude, great job. You're a good kid.
Speaker 2:But what I'm taking away from you is, hey, let's let's go a little bit deeper there. Let's be more intentional, and let's really be specific about what it is that you're calling out about this kid and about who they are and about how god made them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And that's the ways of a man's heart are deep waters. Like, what that proverb, implies to me is it's not just on the surface. Yeah. There it's like in there, and it's a man of understanding that draws it out.
Speaker 3:And what we what we really teach kids when we mentor and we and we just we just use general affirmation is we kinda make them skeptical of all affirmation. But when you use genuine affirmation because you've actually taken the time to watch them and see them and name it, boy, it it's really powerful. And
Speaker 2:I also know for me, whenever I see the kid starting to starting to kinda turn on me, you know, whether he's starting to get angry or whether he's starting to go into a conversation that I don't really wanna get into. Right? The easy thing to do is to quickly turn the topic. Right? But, oh, hey.
Speaker 2:Why don't you tell me about math class? Why don't you tell me about, you know, what I hear from you is when the kid does start to get angry, when they do start to kinda be filled with emotion that can be scary. Right? Because you don't know what's gonna happen. But kinda stirring the waters and giving them a safe place to really get the stuff out that needs to needs to get out and then loving them despite that.
Speaker 3:Yes. That's gold. You're loving the whole person. Yeah. We can't marginalize parts of ourselves and parts of the person we're mentoring.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And if you marginalize the part of them that's broken and weak, you know, God says he actually works in brokenness and weakness. Most of us can look at our stories and realize that our weakness is where God came in. Yeah. And so if you hide that, you hide the most profound way that God can work.
Speaker 3:But if you if you put if you set an environment as a mentor where weakness and brokenness and trauma can come out, then you get to show them that the love of Christ is permanent, unending, never stopping even in the presence of the thing that they're scared that everyone will judge them for. Yeah. Now I don't know y'all's policies and everything. I I mean, I understand that we live in a real world, but I think that we intuitively, a lot of times, try to deescalate in those moments where anger or sadness or or frustration or deep hurt when those things are coming out, maybe see that as a progression, not a not a regression. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because that shows I'm trusting you even if, you know, they're projecting some of that stuff on you that shows that they're, you know Mhmm. That they're starting to open up, and and and it gives us the chance to not just suppress the bad, but to deliver us from the bad.
Speaker 2:There are so many kids who we see in our programs who they're just stonewalled. Like, you can't get an emotion out of them to save your life. Like, if something goes terribly wrong, there's no expression on their face. When things are awesome, there's no expression. They don't talk.
Speaker 2:They don't participate. If you stick around long enough and if you continue to show up and, you know, a a godly man falls down 7 times and gets back up. And if you don't quit, you'll win. And if you continue to be faithful, eventually, there will be an opportunity whenever he opens up that door. And because he trusts you and says, I'm just gonna see what happens here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Whenever he extends you that opportunity, whether it's through punching a hole in the wall, or whether it's through crying and tossing a fit, or screaming and cussing, Man, what an awesome opportunity we have to say, hey, I see that in you, and I'm still not going anywhere, and I still love you, and I'm in this with you. Man, I just think that that sounds like Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That that is Jesus. I I we have this this story comes to mind as a real practical. We have, I have some friends who run an organization that work in conflict zones. So they have schools that they work with in Syria, Iraq, and the Congo.
Speaker 3:The Congo's had the longest conflict and most deadly conflict since World War 2, and so they work in they have schools and villages that have been in and out of conflict for multiple generations. Yep. And, you know, so a lot of the there are a lot of kids in the Congo that are childhood, you know, soldiers, you know, carrying a rifle of 8, you know, a lot of a lot of girls and and sex slavery with these different rebel warlords. And so like when the Rwanda genocide happened, a lot of the instigators moved over to DRC, and so there's been instability there for just forever, really. One of the things they had a UK psychologist, they've done really, really incredible work, and what they had a UK psychologist come in and they built this, discipleship soccer league where basically people had to if they wanted to be a part of it, they had to lay down their arms and just some some really incredible stories.
Speaker 3:But they had this UK psychologist come in because you're talking about the most profound trauma. Like, you know, there are some of these families would go in the jungle and sleep in the jungle at night, not in their huts so that their kids wouldn't be kidnapped by rebels, so that gives you context. And so they would in the soccer league, they had this UK psychologist come and train all of their staff, and on the storytelling for healing of PTSD. So PTSD, you probably know it's like when something that should be in your long term memory is stuck in your short term memory. So you see this person with a red a person with a red shirt killed your family, and every time you see a person with a red shirt, you know, as a kid, you're immediately back into that trauma.
Speaker 3:And so they're not gonna have therapists to work with every kid, so they they taught them on the storytelling. And at soccer, the end of soccer, they would have to say, tell us one thing, tell us one good memory you have, and tell us one bad memory you have. And telling and that's so this is maybe something you can do in mentoring, but telling this one bad memory in front of a group of people was is part of, like, the psychological process of of changing those neuro synapses so that there is so that they actually heal from that PTSD, so that they bring so that they bring out that emotion, and they bring it to the surface, and they start to recognize it as something that was really painful, but it it's not happening right now. So I think that's another way. It's just don't be afraid of, hey.
Speaker 3:Is like, tell me something that's hard. Yeah. You know? And that really, like, scientifically, like, psychologically helps kids work through trauma. And if and you couch it in the frame of a story, may you know, maybe you share a story.
Speaker 3:Like, storytelling really helps us to heal, especially when somebody who's trusting and and loving is going to just be Jesus to the person as they share.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I think that that sounds a lot like take what's in the darkness and toss it into the light.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. So that's somewhere.
Speaker 2:It's written down somewhere. I think it's in the back of my note card. That's awesome. Jordan, well, thanks so much for I mean, there's there is so much here, man. I think the next time that I spend time with a kid that I mentor, I'm gonna say, hey, man.
Speaker 2:Why don't you tell me a good good memory? And why don't you tell me a bad memory? And I'll do the same. Just swap out some stories. Thank you so much for just sharing about silence and Sabbath and resting and being with the lord so that we can really have the mindset of being faithful instead of, the mindset of being fruitful.
Speaker 2:That's great, man. Hey. Well, if people would like to get a hold of you, can, you, by chance, tell them how to do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. You can go to our church website, clearpathdallas.com. You know, there there's information on there, and, you know, you can get a hold of us that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Alright. Well, thanks so much, Jordan. And if there's, there isn't one thing that you took away from this podcast, let it be this. You can mentor.