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Check out Story Connect:
https://www.storyconnect.love
Check out Mentoring Partnership:
https://www.mentoringpartnership.org
Purchase John's Book:
Mephibosheth! The Search for Identity, Purpose, and Community
https://www.storyconnect.love
Check out Mentoring Partnership:
https://www.mentoringpartnership.org
Purchase John's Book:
Mephibosheth! The Search for Identity, Purpose, and Community
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
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 network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring organizations through resources and relationships to love God, love others and make disciples. Learn more at you can mentor.com or follow us on social media. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Friends, fans, and followers of the You Can Mentor podcast. I'm Paul Heminger, the guest on today's show. I wanna take a quick moment and honor and affirm and thank our executive director, John Hagar, who is executing this vision for collective impact for youth mentoring so well. We have a vision that every kid who needs a mentor gets one, and we do this by binding together all of this collective energy of those who care for kids and then mobilizing and onboarding, healthy adults to care for those kids. So please track with us, watch what we're doing.
Speaker 2:If you're doing this in your county or city, please let us know. And as a community of youth mentoring collective impact people, we believe that we can get to this vision and that we can do so together. So enjoy the episode, enjoy our conversation, and, we would love to hear from you. Thanks.
Speaker 3:Yo. Yo. Yo. Yo. Yo.
Speaker 3:Mentors. Zach Garza here on the mic with my man, Paul Heminger. Paul, say hello.
Speaker 2:Hey, everybody.
Speaker 3:Guys, we got a great episode for you today. Paul is my friend. Paul, how the heck did we meet?
Speaker 2:You were doing cool stuff, and I started listening to your cool stuff. And then I started voice clipping you every other week.
Speaker 3:Voice clipping. Oh, man. You make me feel so famous. Alright. I'm gonna search my email and just be, like, when was the when was the first time me and Paul connected?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, I think I told you. So I ordered your book. I read it. Mhmm. And then your friend Peter Lewis Yes.
Speaker 2:Came and spoke at our church. And then I finished your book, and then I turned the book over, and I saw his name. And I said, no way. I saw him yesterday, and then I reached out to you.
Speaker 3:You're connected to Peter. I totally forgot. That's awesome. I love Peter Lewis. Anyone, if you guys want to know Jesus more, look at Peter Lewis.
Speaker 3:He's amazing. It was 2021, dude. So we've been friends for 3 years. And Paul is the king of voice text, voice memos. He just leaves me, like, I mean, a ton, and they're long, and they're so passionate.
Speaker 3:But Paul is I mean, he is into some super cool stuff. So, I mean, let's just see here, Paul. You are a social worker. You do foster care. You have experience with mentoring.
Speaker 3:You're a dad. You're married. You have experience as a social worker. I mean, you are just all up in just a ton of really cool stuff.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 3:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:That's good. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So I guess it was was it last year that you founded the mentoring partnership of Miami County?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we, I guess, officially launched in between August October, but the seeds were planted right around this time last year.
Speaker 3:Okay. Yeah. So so I guess Paul reached out to me, and, and he's just like, man, I I think that we have something cool going on here here in Ohio. And, so we started having conversation, and we wanted to share with you guys, what they're up to. And so the point of this podcast is to really talk about a collective impact model of youth mentoring.
Speaker 3:And so I think one thing that we ask ourselves often is how can we increase mentors? How can we get as many kids as many mentors as we possibly can? And that's kinda what we are here today to talk about. So Mhmm. So Paul, I will just stop talking, and I will let you explain who you are, 1st and foremost, and then what's going on in Ohio.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, Paul Heminger and I, I am a social worker who did kind of micro, macro social work, which means that I did direct care for a period of time. But I've been really interested in in systemic change. And since this is really church facing, I I think of the body of Christ, the church of whatever city or town you're in, is kind of like, the force for systemic change. Like, when we are all, healed and loved and known and on mission wherever we would live, work, and play, we end up healing society.
Speaker 2:So I think about all of these pin drops all across the region, and how do we help, uncover those those beautiful stories and assets and link them all together, to to care for each other and and for the world. And then with this focus on youth mentoring, I know that so many people already care and love kids well, parents, teachers, not for profit directors. And so how can we build and and link together that collective energy for collective impact, so that more kids are taken care of and get what they need?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So one thing that I really love about Paul is he is a mobilizer. I mean, this guy knows everybody. And so, like, anytime I call him up and I'm like, hey, man. Here's, you know, what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3:He's like, oh, dude. You have to meet this person and this person and check out this website and you've gotta hop on, you know, this and that. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. This guy. And so his his heart is to unite with other people to collectively make this world a better place.
Speaker 3:And so, and so yeah. So so just like for those of you guys who don't know what collective impact is, Paul, can you just kinda share what is a collective impact model?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the a really simple word for it is like really high quality collaboration. So collective impact is like a specific model that comes out of, kind of a think tank out of the Boston Harvard area, but there's other ways of thinking about high quality impact. There's, something called impact networks. There's associations that have big goals.
Speaker 2:It's working to get there's really foundational book, rooting for rivals, that Peter Greer wrote that talks about how the body of Christ, if we are thinking kingdom abundance rather than scarcity clan, which means that we have such high trust in God that we can lean in and love those who are most similar to us, whether that's pastor to pastor across the street or, you know, not for profit director to each other, then then we can love and care for each other. And that is is, it's kinda like our credibility to the outside world in in how we show up for each other is, if we're called to love our enemies, we're certainly called to love people who are, like, linked armed with us and running in the same direction. So yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And that is what we are here at You Can Mentor. We are an impact network. Our goal is to get to know as many mentors and meant as many mentoring not for profits or churches out there, as possible so that we can link arms and learn from each other to equip and encourage by way of relationship and resources. So Mhmm.
Speaker 3:We want to get to know anyone who mentors, and we wanna learn from them, and we want to encourage them. And so I actually got that idea because of Paul. So thank you, Paul.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One one thing that I maybe should also add is that the tagline for the organization that I started called Story Connect is that we don't to solve society's greatest issues and our most personal issues isn't a lack of resources that there's there's more than enough resources. What we don't have is the right connection. So we so we don't have a resource problem. We have a connection problem.
Speaker 2:So how do we use this connection craft to optimize the existing time, talent, and treasure, the love that's within any given area? So if you can mentor us trying to do that on the national level, this new organization, the mentoring partnership, is attempting to do that at the at the county level so that all kids who need a mentor get one.
Speaker 3:Let me say it again. We don't have a resource problem. We have a connection problem. Yeah. Man, Paul, do you think that you could just go just a tiny bit more into that quote?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah. Because I I, I I chew on this a lot. You know, the first and most important connection is to God. So that's the first connection problem.
Speaker 2:So that connection means that what are we looking at? Where are our eyes? Where are we? Are we are we abiding? Are we staring at the tender gaze of God?
Speaker 2:If we are allowing I've heard someone say our our friends over at True Face, Robbie Engle and and those guys said that the mission of the Christian life is to receive love. If we are able to let our feet get washed, if we are able to allow that healing love to heal us, then we can give what we then have, and then we let that overflow. And then and then we solve the next connection problem is with our closest relationships, our parents, our family, our spouses, our kids. And then that overflows out into the community, and then we solve that connection problem where we say, how God, how did you design me? What am I made to do?
Speaker 2:What is my calling? Who does my heart break for? And then how do I leverage the gifts, the talents, the strengths that you've given me to leverage both what I do at work and beyond work to be on mission with you and with others? And so, you know, when in John 17, it says, the world will know I have come when they love each other. It's sequential.
Speaker 2:Like, people will know Jesus' love when the body of Christ knows how to love each other well. And the only way to love each other really well is to know God's love for you, to trust that so that when we dip into scarcity plan, we can go back to the connection problem with God, abide, and then swim into kingdom abundance and partner really well.
Speaker 3:Man, Paul, I've never heard that before. But you just said, like, connection with God, connections to those who we are the closest to, and let that overflow into community. That that put into words something that I've been trying to say for a minute now. So thank you. That's succinct.
Speaker 2:So you're welcome. I mean, I received that probably, like, 15 years ago, pre Jesus from Karen Armstrong who, like, looked at the concentric circles of our life. And so if we think about water flowing into us and overflowing into the other ones, we it's only we can't we can't be missional and leave our family at the altar.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:That's a sacrifice. Right? We have to and the other thing that we say is that healing people heal people and hurt people hurt people. So if if if we have all these wounds and lies that we've connected, that we've collected over our life, then the first step is to connect with God. Look at those square in the eye with God, and then heal those so that we can be with other people.
Speaker 2:And to me, that's the most important part of stepping into this youth mentoring process is that, you know, with your life left foot, you seek to heal yourself. And then with your right foot, you give that full presence to another.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, man. For those of you guys who would like to learn more about this particular concept, go to storyconnect.love, and that's where, you guys will be able to find everything that we're chatting about so far. But that's actually not why we got on the pod. We got on the pod to talk about the, the mentoring partnership of Miami County and Yeah. Just some cool things that you guys are up to, in Ohio.
Speaker 3:If you would like to learn more about that, it is mentoring partnership.org. So that's a good website, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. We snagged that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You did. Okay, man. So talk to me about this new venture.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, a little bit of the origin story. You know, in our small county of about a 100000 people, I started my natural curiosity was going out and meeting folks with the after school program that has 70 kids from mostly hard places, like coming through the door and this other community center and and young life people and, and teachers and administrators. And I was like, do you know each other? And so that was the first step was curious about who they love, how many people do they care for?
Speaker 2:And then, I had, I had, the other co founder, his name is Bruce. And we sat down together. He kind of had this dream vision of caring for youth mentors. And and, I I shared with him kind of this hope and this perspective of of kinda like a county network transformation for kids. And, he's a doer.
Speaker 2:So he was like, let's do it. And so he said we started raising some funds. We started gathering those first, partner organizations sitting down together saying, what are your big needs? And then how can we help meet those needs to care for more kids? And then as we looked at kind of, you know, there's Mentor National, which which kind of lists out and has distilled down these big six elements of effective mentoring.
Speaker 2:We found that the needs that each one of these organizations had, related to these 6 elements to care for the kids that they had and and more kids. So I what we know is that one of their one of their huge needs is that they need more mentors, each one of them needs more volunteers and mentors. And and what I know is that I know that they're out there. So for us, what we're trying to do first thing is to create a pipeline to meet that need of of recruitment countywide. And if it's helpful, I can go through those 6 elements and kinda tease them out because that's each one of those is kind of a collective impact for each organization.
Speaker 3:Yes. I think that that would be helpful.
Speaker 2:Cool. Alright. So the 6 are the first is recruitment. The second is screening and background checks. The third is kinda training and equipping.
Speaker 2:The 4th is matching and initiating. The 5th is monitoring and support, and the 6th is closure. And I can send you the PDF, and you can put it in the show notes or Yeah. Or whatever you do. So what we know for for our county for recruitment is that we there's about 7,000 kids who might be considering in some ways at risk who need a youth mentor.
Speaker 2:There's at least 7,000 kids with in a single parent home, which doesn't always mean at risk, but, could you use another loving, caring adult in their life? Still, we wanna help satisfy that need. We wanna help be a voice and a pipeline. So in some ways, we're gonna be church facing. There's about a 100 congregations and about 30,000 followers of Christ.
Speaker 2:We wanna help engage those who God has already called to mentor and help activate them. And then community facing through civic organizations and businesses, we wanna recruit through those organizations as well. And then we wanna get a question.
Speaker 3:No. No. No. Please go. This is
Speaker 2:cool. And then the the second the second element is screening, which means that as we gather these 15 plus organizations, we're gonna do whatever screening they have and and and encourage them to do the right screening, background checks, whatever, because we want to make sure that our kids are safe and that the adults are safe. And then the third one is training, which is baseline training, but also kind of like advanced training. So we're gonna do kind of like a a small onboarding internally to help our, our mentors catch up to speed. And and, you know, one of the the big things is is mentors win by showing up, you know, consistency.
Speaker 2:Really, one of the tools that we hope to give a lot of them if they're if they're Christ followers is your book. You can mentor and to and to help, get that into their hands so that they can know what it's like to walk out trauma informed love, you know, left foot, right foot. And then and then a call out if anybody in the world of TBRI, trust based relational intervention, and trauma free world end up listening to this. I think that this whole world of youth mentoring really needs your evidence based course and training specifically for youth mentors, and we would love to use that. But always looking for kinda like the best training to feed, our youth mentors Yeah.
Speaker 2:That are coming in the door.
Speaker 3:So so most every single nonprofit that I talk to, one of the first questions that they have for me is how can we get more mentors? How can we recruit?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so, if you are a nonprofit, if you're a church, if you're trying to mentor kids and you just need more mentors, know that you are not alone. Yeah. That was just like we that is an issue that everyone is facing. And so, we hope to provide some support in that area in the in the next couple of months or so.
Speaker 2:Can I talk about that for real quick? Because that that is something that I failed to mention is that so in the past I would do, you know, foster parent recruitment and wraparound support teams for them. And the best tool that I found was this little video by Bishop Blake called Stand Sunday. So it's like a minute and a half. And it was the reason that Bruce and I got connected in the first place, like 4 years ago.
Speaker 2:And, the hope is that, you know, you put up that Stand Sunday video, it captures their heart, and then you throw up a QR code in a link and you say step in. And so we're looking for, and we're gonna be creating the equivalent for youth mentoring. So there's a minute and a half that any church and congregation can throw up. We can throw it out digitally, and there will be one that's church facing, and then there's there will be another one that's, that's community facing. And and my hope is that we can do it so that it's white labeled so that if if you're interested in kind of buying the rights, throwing your logo on that, it can if it's a high enough quality for you, it can spread around and you can use it to help your recruitment model to get more youth volunteers and mentors.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's awesome, man. Sounds sounds as if it's an awesome idea. Yeah. So alright.
Speaker 3:Matching. Initiating.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So matching and initiating. So when someone comes through the door of the mentoring partnership, we're gonna hopefully triage them, which means that we need to know, you know, which age are you interested in mentoring? Where do you live? Where do you want to hear?
Speaker 2:And then we show a menu of options, and they pick 1, and they start walking out mentoring with that organization that that best matches their personality availability. And then we rely on that organization to initiate that match. So if it's big brothers, big sisters, that's really easy. They do a lot of the matching. But if it's an after school program, you know, they come into the after school program.
Speaker 2:They kind of hang out. They develop some natural mentorship, and then the guidance of that executive director helps guide them to, like, a couple of kiddos that they start developing a mentoring relationship with.
Speaker 3:Okay. So tell me if I got this right. Okay. So the mentoring partnership of Miami County, you are looking to recruit mentors to help kids in your county. Yep.
Speaker 3:You will screen them. You will give them baseline training. And then what you'll do is you will be the connector between the church or the not for profit or the after school, and you will connect them to a to a separate organization that is serving kids. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:K. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We are not a mentoring program. We we help steward that energy to an existing champion in our county, and we say, hey. Here's someone that we think is amazing.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So even when we got started, there was this guy named Dennis who heard about us. He said, oh, I've been mentoring for a long time. I just moved up here. I would love to get involved. And now, kinda showed him the the menu of options.
Speaker 2:We weren't very systematic at the time, but now he's at this after school program every Monday, teaching these kids from hard places how to play pool, and he's got, you know, a variety of kids that he's in relationship with. And it's been a while since that after school program has had a consistent caring adult in that space. And so we just hope to do more and more and more of that with all of our partners.
Speaker 3:So what constitutes a quality partner?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a good that's a good question. So because we're like a rising tide lifts all boats, the partners that show up have a deep care for the kids that they that they serve. And so if there's if they say, hey. We need more equipping.
Speaker 2:We need more training. We wanna help steward that and provide that. We've identified, like, 15 to 20 ish partners in our county, and we think all of them are high quality. We think all of their souls are in the right place. And so we're just trying to help each of us take that next best step for even higher quality.
Speaker 3:It's awesome, man. Alright. Go on to, the next 2.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. So monitoring and support. So, I think you've said in your book, and we know that retention is just like a really, really important thing. So retention of youth mentors, I believe, is recruitment. It allows for stories to circulate.
Speaker 2:And when youth mentors are not retained, there's pain there for the youth, for the youth mentor, and for the kid. So what we need to monitor what's actually going on. So we're in the process of this back end app where every time someone mentors, they're gonna give some quantitative and qualitative feedback. How where were you? How long were you there?
Speaker 2:And, like, in some kind of way, like scale of 0 to 10 so that we can flag, oh, we need to have a conversation, whether us specifically or help make sure that that executive director and that mentor has a has a conversation so that we can be as supportive to them as possible. And then we wanna help support those mentors with whatever we can provide of training and gatherings and, you know, whatever they need, and also support those executive directors and school administrators with with whatever they need to best care for their youth mentors that's within their space.
Speaker 3:And then the last one,
Speaker 2:closure? Closure. Yeah. So closure is the last element. And the reason why it's in there is because, like, Stephen Covey said, like, always, you know, keep the end in mind.
Speaker 2:Eventually, our mentoring relationships are gonna, in some way, taper, come to a close. And a lot of kids that that need mentoring already have attachment wounds. We all kind of have attachment wounds, but it's if you ghost a kid or a kid is fight, flighting, and freezing on you, and they're pushing you back and you don't show up because of that, and that closure of that relationship is painful, then, like, how likely is that kid gonna reattach to the next caring adult in their life? And how likely is that youth mentor gonna continue to say, I wanna mentor another kid. Like, I have some I have some space to give.
Speaker 2:So closure is how can we most most healthfully close a mentoring relationship? And that might mean that they graduate high school, they leave the area, they go off to college, and this is what closure looks like. So that's one of the elements because they wanna help people understand that eventually mentoring relationships might never end, but they do shift and change.
Speaker 3:So Okay. So for me, super high level, the mentoring partnership of Miami County because the hope is that there's one of these in every city in America. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That would be awesome. I you know, part of this is like, hey. Is anybody else doing this?
Speaker 3:Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, we wanna hear from hear from those around the nation who might be doing this kind of project. And then 2 is that if your heart is in this place that where you see this model, this youth mentoring collective impact, we wanna, you know, eventually eventually figure out, can this be scalable?
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Whether it's peer to peer or actual chapters or whatever.
Speaker 3:So you don't actually mentor any kids. What you do is you recruit the mentors. You screen the mentors. You train the mentors. You then connect them to a organization that you trust.
Speaker 3:And then once they're actually mentoring, you give them support and you monitor them. And then when the relationship comes to a close, you make sure that that is done in the best way possible. It's awesome, man. Absolutely love it. That's I mean, in some ways, I'm like, man, our goal here at You Can Mentor is to equip and encourage mentors and mentoring nonprofits or churches or but then it's like you're the next step, and then the next step is the people who are on the ground actually building relationships with kiddos.
Speaker 3:So, that's great, dude. My mind's just going crazy over here. Okay. So so tell me how we can help you. Tell me what you need to take those next steps.
Speaker 2:Well, for our Miami County for our mentoring partnership of Miami County, for those who are listening that are residents of Miami County or the region, what how might you want to lean in? So you're you're helping me by giving me a platform to story tell so that those in Miami County can say, yes. I would love to give my time and talent in whatever way to help push this vision forward, whether I'm a a pastor or a missions and outreach leader or or a youth mentor or a teacher or who whoever or if or if you are an investor or if you are a kingdom investor and you want to invest in collective impact, you know, we we believe that that currency, that investment will pay you heavenly dividends. So, whether that's to us or you can international, we believe in that that model of collective impact. So, that would be helpful.
Speaker 2:For those around the country that are interested, I don't think that we have you know, this is kinda like the pre conversation. We hope it works. We're gonna prove concept. But we we we are interested in kinda like generating the list of folks who are, like, in the middle of pursuing this, who are interested eventually, and then just be a part of the tribe that tracks along. And then if you're if you're talented in any of those 6 elements nationally and you wanna contribute some of that, I think that would be that would be great too.
Speaker 3:So, Paul, I'm gonna go off track here for a second. But why do you care about this so much? Not not just this, but, like, how you're a you're a really unique guy. And you it seems like you're so selfless and you're so for collaboration. You're so for helping other people.
Speaker 3:You are so fast to connect and to just like you truly embody. It's not about me. I just wanna see more kids get mentors. And you're so fast to share resources, so fast to share connections. How did all that happen?
Speaker 2:Shoot, man.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:I mean, well, it should preface with everybody should go to counseling and therapy. And, you know, my wife's a counselor, and I provided some like, all of this stuff is embedded into the my origin story of looking and seeing disconnection. You know, didn't follow Jesus, read read Jesus' wild adventure and journey, and and saw how he collected these these beautiful souls into a into a gathering of 12 and then sent them out to 72, taking risks, and was just was just I'm so curious with the nature of kingdom versus clan. And then part of it too is just, like, strategic is is that we're gonna we really truly are gonna be better together when it's done well together. And that the messiness that comes with collective impact and working together really all has to do with people's own origin stories and anxieties.
Speaker 2:So, I think God God took me on a path. I was gonna do this macro work in the very beginning. My undergrad was in social business and social enterprise, And, I took this low, slow journey of just being with getting a worm's eye view, caring for kids in Columbus City Schools and otherwise. And then I just looked around at the body of Christ, and I was like, woah. There is so much love.
Speaker 2:So all this latency out here, I wonder how we can work together to get it moving. So in that brief overview, I mean, there's there's a 1,000 stories and insights embedded and I don't know. I mean, partially, it's just got designed me in a certain way too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, perhaps one reason why I think it's so fascinating, and this is coming from a guy who sees the value of collaboration. Like, I I want what we do here in the podcast and in the network and with the books. Like, my goal is to help other people mentor. You know?
Speaker 3:Mentors shine the spotlight, and it's we wanna shine the spotlight on anyone who's doing mentoring. We wanna help. We hope to support, but that's not my default setting. I mean, I'm a kid who is raised without a dad around. My mom worked all the time, and I am a go getter because I don't trust other people, because I don't like to work with other people, because whenever I had to have support the most, I couldn't find it.
Speaker 3:Right? And so I just learned. Well, I I can't rely on anyone, And so that has shown itself now where I'm entrepreneurial. I'm take action guy, you know, this, this, this. And so I think it's very wise to say, like, our stories help create what we're passionate about.
Speaker 3:And so I now while, like, there is a silver lining of how I was raised. Right? Like, I I am an entrepreneur, but there's also kind of a dark side. And so that's why I love seeing you, and I love the concept of, like, hey. It is not about me.
Speaker 3:Like, there is enough money in the kingdom for all of us. There's enough staff in the kingdom for all of us. Like, we all need each other. We all need support. We all need encouragement because it's hard out there.
Speaker 3:Like, it is hard to recruit mentors. It is hard to build a relationship with a kid from a hard place. It is hard to, you know, give your love over and over and over. And sometimes the kid, it seems like he just doesn't like you. Like, it is hard to keep showing up.
Speaker 3:But if we can surround ourselves with support and if we can push each other towards Jesus and if we can share testimonies, that's only gonna help. So Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. I mean, to me, it's yeah. That's right. I I am I am so grateful to be to grow up in a really secure and loving home that model connections and stories. And and and also I've also witnessed really wonderful levels of collaboration.
Speaker 2:Like, all through rooting for rivals book, there's these examples, and then I've collected so many, and I'm just kinda trailing in their wake. And and when I showed up to the Christian Alliance For Orphan Summit for the first time, I was just the CAFO summit. I was just undone, you know, and they're doing the same thing with their their network journey of trying to bring everybody together and catalyze impact networks. And and, yeah, it's messy work. And and just a shout out to Jed Menefin, you know, him and the way that he cares for the staff and the whole network and nation and globe, you know, his big thing is the strategic plan for thriving souls.
Speaker 2:And that strategic plan for thriving soils has everything to do with healing. So you even recognizing the the the healing that you've had, the healing that you want, healing that you wanna give. We can't give what we don't have. And we have so much of the blood of the lamb. We've got it all, you know, but we have less of the word of the testimony.
Speaker 2:So the more people that are living out this messy collaboration and then provide testimony of it, Think that's where we're gonna get and then I just have this holy discontent where I didn't follow Jesus, and I was in my hometown, and I drove around to all the churches. And I was like, hey. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 2:Do you know this person across the street? And I think through those experiences, you just realize that if you have a vision for how people can love each other and help intertwine their tribes, their clans for the kingdom, man, game over.
Speaker 3:Game over, man. That's great. Love it. Alright, man. Well, is there anything else that you would like to talk about?
Speaker 2:Well, I just I also made a note here that I just wanted to thank my my personal partners, my partners that support me and the creation of StoryConnect, which is the secular facing organization. And, you know, without without those partners, I wouldn't be able to do any of this. And and if there's a domestic missionary that, you know, shows up on your door and knocks on your door, like one of those 2 first that were sent out, that Jesus sent out and said, hey. Will you support? Will you, you know, just look in their eyes and thank them for taking that risk and see if there's any way that you can support them because it is a hard journey to to do that, which is which is part of this journey.
Speaker 2:So and then in another part, if God is calling you, listener, to drop your nets and go on a grand adventure that's similar, know that it's possible and that it's wonderful and hard and beautiful and all of that risk is, it creates an intimacy with God that you wouldn't you wouldn't guess. Yeah. So that's my, that's my last piece.
Speaker 3:It's awesome, man. I was just talking to Paul earlier and somehow, some way we came up with this, a goal for youth mentors to go from 1% of the Christian population, take it from 1% to 10%. Right? Like
Speaker 2:Yeah. How
Speaker 3:cool would it be if we could have 10% of people who are following Jesus Christ actively mentoring kids from our places? That would make a difference. Most definitely. So
Speaker 2:Yeah. Scream it from the rooftops. You can mentor.
Speaker 3:That's right, baby. Alright, man. Paul, you're great. Check out their websites again, storyconnect.loveandmentoringpartnership.org. You can find Paul on LinkedIn and where else, Paul?
Speaker 3:Where else can we find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's it.
Speaker 3:But he's a good dude, and they are up to some awesome things in Miami County near Dayton, Ohio. So isn't that right? Isn't it Yeah. Up there by Dayton?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just a county county north.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Great. Alright, man. Well, thanks so much for sharing all of this, and we appreciate you a listener.
Speaker 3:And remember, you can mentor.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to the You Can Mentor podcast. Please share this with other mentors and download our free resources on our website. You can also order Zach's book, You Can Mentor, or John's book, Mephibsheth, on Amazon. Lastly, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a 5 star rating on whatever listening platform you are tuning in on. If you'd like to connect with us further, please contact us through our website because we're always looking for new guests or connections.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And remember, you can mentor.