Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The world is looking to define us. Our social media feeds, the things we buy, and the places we gather are increasingly forming our sense of identity. Lifelong followers of Jesus must learn to process and understand the contrast between God's story and the stories we are fed about what it means to be human. Mentors make space to encourage their mentees to think counter culturally.
Show Notes
The world is looking to define us. Our social media feeds, the things we buy, and the places we gather are increasingly forming our sense of identity. Lifelong followers of Jesus must learn to process and understand the contrast between God's story and the stories we are fed about what it means to be human. Mentors make space to encourage their mentees to think counter culturally.
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
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 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:Welcome back to the You Can Mentor podcast. My name is Stephen Murray. I'm here with Zachary Garza.
Speaker 3:You just said your last name like a robot.
Speaker 2:Did I?
Speaker 3:You're like, I'm Stephen Murray. Maybe it was just me.
Speaker 2:Hello. I am Stephen Murray. Man, so grateful to be with you, Zach. It's just it's always an honor to to jump on these calls and record podcasts with Azeal. Today, we are returning for the 3rd episode of our Lifelong Followers of Jesus series, and, this one has been fun.
Speaker 2:The last couple weeks, we've talked about, you know, practices that help you cultivate a lifelong relationship with Jesus. We talked about people to help model and see others who are following Jesus and how that impacts your ability to do the same. Today, we are talking about perspectives. We're talking about how do we engage the culture counter culturally? How do we live in such a way that we we help our mentees question the way in which the world works and functions.
Speaker 2:I read a book recently. I I keep, you know, flexing that I read books, Zach. I'm sorry that I keep doing that on the podcast. But this book from the Barna Group, David Kinnaman wrote on Faith for Exiles, where he talks about how kids are growing up today in a what he calls a digital Babylon, where social media is I mean, I mean, a prevalent, thing within all of history that has changed the way people are relating with each other, the way they're relating with ideas and culture and influences. And, like, we're living in the age where nobody's looking to Plato and Socrates for wisdom.
Speaker 2:We are looking to TikTok and dance videos and rappers who don't make any sense. And I'm not throwing shade at any rappers, but they they're not Play Doh. So I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 3:Are you saying like Play Doh, like the the guy who wrote a bunch of books or Play Doh, what my son eats, whatever he should be playing with
Speaker 2:it. I I knew you were gonna say that. Play tog. Play tog.
Speaker 3:Just making sure. Yes. Just making sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's a it's a it's a crazy world out there, Steven. There is no doubt about it. And as much as I wanna believe that this world is kinda the same world that I grew up in, it's just not. It that there are there are so many things that have changed that have changed the course of just how human beings interact and how human beings grow up, and it is just crazy. So
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Well and and so we as mentors, we have to help our mentees process and walk through the landmines of the culture of today. And so I'm not just talking about, you know, watching a Disney movie and trying to capture, you know, what's the lie within this. But but in reality, that may be a great conversation for mentors to have.
Speaker 2:Like, what story are we being told through media and through the culture? And how does that relate back to what's true about God, what's true about us, and what's true about others? And so I I think for for us as believers, we have to find a way to live counterculturally, not not not I would say in a way that condemns or just critiques culture, but actually sees the redemptive thread through life that the the story that God is telling through these things, that maybe things in culture are pointing to the gospel that would be easy to point out. So, I mean, we're we're gonna walk through some things that that could be helpful for you as a mentor, you looking to provide perspective to your mentee. The the first one we wanna talk about is speaking truth.
Speaker 2:And and, I mean, really, like, living living in a world that tells you you can make your own truth. Like, we live in a world that says, hey, man, speak your truth. And this whole idea of we make our own reality is is is baseless. I mean, the whole idea of the Bible being one of the first books that was kind of put together by the people of God in their relationship with God, it's kind of become this, like, source of absolute truth. It's like you can bank on the things that are in this are are telling you this is how life works.
Speaker 2:I mean, like, God's kingdom is unshakable, and it's unchanging. It is the only thing that works. Everything else fails. I mean, you got, Stalin. You got Mao.
Speaker 2:You got Mussolini. All all these leaders who come forward with their form of, you know what? This is the best way to go and what happens? Societies crumble. Governments are overthrown.
Speaker 2:And I I think explaining that to our our kids of, like, throughout all of history, there's only been one thing that has never changed and has always been true, and that's God's word. And so when we look at a culture that tells you to make up what you think is right or live in a way that you think is true, we have opportunity to point back. You know what? There is a fault in our culture that leads us to believe we can go our own way and it'll work out. Like that scripture that says there is a way that man thinks is right, but it only leads to destruction.
Speaker 2:That that's the kind of conversations that that I I'd like our mentors to talk about. I mean, we've all case in point, I was talking to somebody. They were talking about how recreational cocaine usage is a thing. And that you can snort cocaine without it affecting anybody in your life. Well, that is objectively not true.
Speaker 2:If if you're snorting an illegal substance, I can only think of bad things that can happen if that were uncovered or if you're in a situation where yeah. I mean, I don't I don't think that's a healthy healthy way to live. And I don't think anybody in their right mind would believe that. But we can convince ourselves that what we think is true is true, and it's really not.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that there's a lot of things there, Steven. And I wanna pretend like you didn't just talk about snorting cocaine. But while I see where you're going with that, that's crazy, man. But yeah, like our kids live in a world today where they don't know what truth is. And not only do they not know what truth is, not only do they not have that wisdom and that, just that insight to be able to decipher, hey, this is this is coming from a good source, and this is coming from a bad source.
Speaker 3:But if they do follow the Bible, if they do speak truth, that is counter cultural. I mean, there's a lot of things that the Bible says that God says, Hey, do this and it'll go well for you. But if you say that out loud, you're gonna get persecuted. Like, you are going to get blasted, and it's gonna cost you some things. So us as a mentor, there's a number of things that we have to do here, but first off, we need to teach them the truth.
Speaker 3:And then second off, we need to teach them how to believe the truth and identify the lies and the things that they're hearing that are false, that maybe culture is speaking to them. And then thirdly, we have to encourage them and give them the strength to choose the truth over these lies. Because more times than not, they're surrounding themselves with people who are telling them things that just straight up aren't good for them. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And so it's like speaking the truth, believing the truth, following the truth in a culture today that really doesn't like any of those things. That's hard to do, especially when you're 13 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it's like in in everything that we're gonna talk about today, it's living countercultural. And if you live in a way that is counter to culture, you are going to get persecuted. And I believe that the persecution's only gonna get worse. Like, it is not going to get easier to be a follower of Jesus in America in the next 10, 15, 20 years. The Bible's pretty clear that this world is not our home, and it's evil.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so how do we as mentors prepare them for what the world's gonna be like when they're 20, 40, 80 years old? So speaking truth in a cancel culture, in a culture that doesn't follow the same values, that's for sure at the top of the list.
Speaker 2:What are
Speaker 3:some more things that can kinda help
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Help our mentees prepare to live countercultural, or to prepare for this persecution that could come?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, like practically speaking, our culture is rooted in, I mean, independence and pulling yourself up from your bootstraps and the American dream. And and all all of those things can kind of correlate to asking for help means that you're weak. It means that you don't have what it takes. It means that you're a failure.
Speaker 2:And and so, I mean, we see boys all the time who have this relational deficit of a father trying to make it on their own, when really the culture of the kingdom is all about us us acknowledging that we are weak, us acknowledging that we are not powerful, that we need and need to depend upon God and His people, need to ask for help, and need to be humble and not, give in to pride, and I I guess, like a a dependence upon self. And so having conversations where maybe you as a mentor recognize an area where your mentee is not asking for help. I think you can pinpoint those areas where maybe, hey, I feel like you you maybe think this is all on you. And I just wanna say, I'm here to help you. I'm here to be on your team and talk through the problems you're facing.
Speaker 2:I know so many times, my mentee's mom would be the one that would share the things that my mentee was struggling with. And so then that gave me access to go to him and be like, hey. I heard you're going through this, and I'd love to talk about it. And and and kind of normalize talking about failure. Normalize talking about weakness and not measuring up because that's what it means to be human.
Speaker 3:Boy, and, like, I I think that's a great point. I mean, I'm 40 years old almost, which I love to talk about. I love to talk about the fact I'm almost 40. I don't know why, I just like-
Speaker 2:You've been almost 40 for like 3 years.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited about it. I don't know why. There's just something about it that gets me popped up. But there's a lot of things, Stephen, that the world says is weak. Asking for help is one of them.
Speaker 3:I'm almost 40, and it's hard for me to ask for help sometimes. I have a hard time saying I'm sorry. Right? Like, how, how would the world perceive a man admitting failure and asking for forgiveness, right? Like that's not gonna win you a lot of friends on the playground, right?
Speaker 3:Like, oh, hey, there's Steven. He apologizes a ton. Let's all go hang out with him. Yeah, that's probably not gonna happen. Some more things that seem weak, right?
Speaker 3:Being compassionate, right? Like asking questions and kind of seeking first to listen instead of talking all of the time. Working together. Like, we live in a world that says, You gotta do what you gotta do to get ahead. And if you gotta step on your neighbor, and if you gotta put down your best friend, do it, because it's all about you.
Speaker 3:You have to look out for yourself and get yours. But that's not what the kingdom says. And working together, collaboration, asking for help, being compassionate, seeking first the needs of others, as opposed to seeking those first your needs, I mean, that's counter cultural. And that is the way of the kingdom, that is the way of the cross. And the world today is going to reject you if you do that.
Speaker 3:They are going to mock you. And more times than not, it's gonna cost you something. Yeah. It's a big deal. And like, this is such a great topic, Stephen.
Speaker 3:I think the main word that you used is perspective. Because the Lord calls us to live countercultural, and the Lord says persecution will come. But it's our job as mentors, it's our job as followers of Christ to know that, prepare for that, and yet still move forward and do what the Lord has called us to do. That's a big ask, right? So, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I just think that this is very important. So
Speaker 2:Well, when oh, so Zee was caught at I don't know if this is uncovering. Maybe it is. I'll just share it anyways. It's a fun story. Brahms.
Speaker 2:He worked at Brahms and he was found eating a chicken tender. Now, I mean, not a good move. He actually he got fired because of it. When when I found out about that, my initial reaction was like, dude, like, come on. Like you can eat at home.
Speaker 2:Like your mom, your mom cooks. Like, what are you doing? But then I thought back when I was in college and I was waiting tables at Cheddar's, I totally took food off of plates that I'm not proud of.
Speaker 3:Dude, so, so no lie. I worked at Cracker Barrel, and I would walk around with a biscuit in my apron and a jar of strawberry jelly. And when people weren't looking, I would grab that biscuit out of my apron, dip it in the jelly and eat it, on a consistent basis. Like, every time I worked, I probably had 15 biscuits. So zebra, I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:And so like, me walking into this conversation, I'm like, well, you know what? I need to confess, like, that I get it. And that that that's the most important thing for him to hear from me is like, hey, I walked through the same thing and felt the same way that you feel. And like normalizing failure rather than putting forward the standard of, like, following after Jesus is always about, you know, being perfect or always making the right choices. Really, as mentors, we get to restore our people by actually opening up ourselves about our own issues and our own failures that relate with our mentee's experiences in, in the world they live in.
Speaker 2:So thank you for confessing as well. I'm glad I made space for you, Zack, to, to share that. I know that was heavy on your heart.
Speaker 3:I've just been gnawed. I mean, that's been gnawed at my soul for 20 years. Every morning I take my kids to school, right? And we park and we walk to the front door of the school, and there's still, I mean, I have have a 1st grader and a kindergartner, so when they walk to school with that at school, and every day I, I say, all right, boys, repeat after me. Have fun.
Speaker 3:Be nice. Obey your teacher. Smile. And then the very last one is, don't forget to fail. And I always ask my kids, Hey, why do we fail?
Speaker 3:And they say, So we could learn from it. And like, what an amazing lesson that we all need to hear. Because no one likes to fail. But if you, as a mentor, can teach your mentee to look on the bright side. Hey, like, yeah, you might've fallen down, but when you get up, you're gonna know the course a little bit better, and you're gonna know what to do, and you're gonna learn from that, and you're gonna be better.
Speaker 3:Because failure is an event, it's not an identity. You're not a failure. So, man, I just love that stuff.
Speaker 2:That's powerful.
Speaker 3:The next thing that can help our mentees kinda live in a way that is countercultural is giving thanksgiving and praise in a culture that only focuses on the negative. I don't think we're very good here in America at celebrating. I think we're really good at pointing out where you can improve. But Thanksgiving, praise, focusing on the good stuff instead of the bad stuff, I mean, that takes some real intentionality. And if you wanna find the bad, just turn on the news.
Speaker 3:Just, I mean, it's out there and it's not hard to find. But I wanna teach my mentee, I wanna teach my kids, I wanna teach myself that we need to be intentional about looking out for the good, about being proactive to really look for what God is doing, right? And like, I just think that that's gonna help our mentees persevere, it's gonna help them live a life of joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength. And I think it's gonna help them, honestly, just make friends, because everyone wants to be around the optimistic person.
Speaker 3:Everyone likes the kid who's joyful, the one who laughs all the time. I also like to read, Stephen, you're not the only one who likes books. I think that you used the word flex, and I don't know what that means, but I do read. But I'm reading this book right now, and I can't tell you what it's about, or I can't tell you the title. It's like, it's the happiest man in the world or something like that.
Speaker 3:I could be way off, but hold on, let me-
Speaker 2:That's my autobiography.
Speaker 3:That's not true. It's called, yeah, it's called The Happiest Man on Earth, by this guy named Eddie Jaku. And he was in Auschwitz. Oh wow. And he survived.
Speaker 3:And so he was born in 1920, and this book is all about how like, he has able, he has been able to find joy in the midst of being in a concentration camp. And I'm just like, man, if that guy can find joy despite living a large portion of his life in a terrible situation, then I wanna find out how to do that because I know what I'm going through is hard, but it wasn't as hard as what he went through. And so how, how can we learn those skills? How can we learn to be thankful, and how can we learn to give praise, and how can we learn to not be resentful, and then not hold onto bitterness, and to truly forgive in a culture that honestly just doesn't do that stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, that is that is our culture. Our culture is, you do anything out of step with what we think is acceptable, you are happy.
Speaker 3:You get them blasted.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I mean, honestly, thanksgiving and gratitude and honor are are great things to give and model for your mentee. If your mentee is hearing the things that you're grateful for in your life, and they aren't just things, they are people, they are, things you're learning from, the experiences that you've had, things that God's teaching you. Sharing those things is is giving your mentee perspective to look back at his life and capture those things for himself. Like exactly what you just said.
Speaker 2:We all have something to be thankful for.
Speaker 3:So on the way to school, I play a game with my kids. It's called the thankful game. So if you have a mentee who's young, you can play the thankful game. If you have a mentee who's old, you can play the thankful game. It's a really simple game.
Speaker 3:We just take turns saying what we're thankful for. And yeah, most of the time it's like, I'm thankful for Sonic, I'm thankful for TV. But every once in a while, you'll get a, I'm thankful for the fact that we were able to serve a homeless person last week. Or, I'm thankful for our family. Or, I'm thankful for what I learned at church on Sunday.
Speaker 3:And I'm just like, what? Like, oh my gosh. Like, but playing this game with my kids on the way to school, it is simple and that's, sometimes it can seem dumb, but when I'm in a bad mood and we play the thankful game, what do you know? I get in a better mood because I'm fixing my eyes on the good instead of the bad.
Speaker 2:What does the Bible say about Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3:It enters gates with thanksgiving and praise. What else does it say? It says That's
Speaker 2:what I was getting at. I mean, there's
Speaker 3:a lot of stuff it says about it.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's the doorway in to God's presence.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite stories, I think I've shared this before, but whenever Jesus got the 3 fish and the 5 loaves, 2 fish, 5 loaves, oh man, I gotta read my Bible more. But he took those things and what did he do? He looked up to heaven and he gave thanks and he broke it. It was like giving thanks, like, was the starting point of the miracle. It's like the craziest thing.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:All right. I never thought about that.
Speaker 3:A couple other things. We gotta teach our mentees how to pick others up instead of pointing out their flaws. Especially teenagers, if your mentee's in junior high or anything like that, it's like sport to make fun of people. It's like, I'm gonna pick out how your haircut's messed up. I'm gonna pick out how your shirt stinks, and so on.
Speaker 3:But we gotta pick up our brothers. We gotta teach our mentees how to encourage and build up instead of tearing down. And that's just not super common in today's world, and it takes a lot of intentionality to kind of go against the flow, right? Like if you're hanging out with 12 guys and 11 of them are making fun of this one kid, it takes a lot of courage to be the one kid who stands up for that person and kind of lives counter cultural. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And then you wanna take that last one, Murdock?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think I think we've hit on on the the next two. But, I mean, I definitely think this last thing we wanna talk about of just when you face persecution, that is a great example of it. When you're standing up in a room with so much opposition, you're going to face persecution for standing up and doing the right thing in possibly what feels like the worst time. The worst time to do the right thing is actually the best time to do it. But, I I'd love for you to just unpack kind of when we feel that pressure, when when we're the one that speaks up and tries to do the right thing.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of things that we can feel in that moment to just get discouraged and and give up and give in to the culture. So I wondered if if you could just kinda unpack, you know, what happens what happens when when we get persecuted? What are we tempted to do?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there's there's a lot of ways that the enemy can kind of work through persecution and can get you to walk out in ways that just straight up aren't godly. And so I know for me, it's the most common feeling whenever I'm persecuted is fear. Like, what's gonna happen to me? Is this ever gonna stop?
Speaker 3:How is this going to impact my family and those that I love? And what is this, what is this gonna cost me? Right? So like fear, fear is a big one. But when you're getting persecuted, you can also feel kind of that like self pity, right?
Speaker 3:Like, oh my gosh, why is this happening to me? Like, why did the Lord put me in this position? Like, how unfair is this, right? And if you're not careful, you can kind of get mad at God, And you're like, Lord, I stood up for you and this is what's going on? Or just like, I stood up for you, that was a terrible decision.
Speaker 3:You walk out in shame, you walk out in guilt. I think that like anger, right? It's like, God, I tried to do what was right and this happened? Like, who are you? Like, what the heck?
Speaker 3:Right? And then there's, there is just this like, I think a big temptation is just feeling resigned to the fact that you can do nothing. Right? It's like, no matter how hard I try to live counter cultural, no matter how hard I try to honor you, God, there's nothing I can do. Like, I'm just gonna kind of give up, right?
Speaker 3:And so just like persecution, I mean, it's a big deal. Like it's, it is hard to be persecuted. And if it's hard to be persecuted as an adult, how much harder is it as a 13 year old, as a 6 year old, right? Yeah. So like, what a great opportunity we have as mentors to 1, prepare them for it, 2, teach them how to handle it as best as they can, but 3, like prepare them for what's coming.
Speaker 3:And when they do fall down, when they get persecuted, you can be the one to pick them back up. You can be the one to dust them off. You can be the one to encourage them. You can be the one to speak truth when all that they're believing is lies.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's good. I'm I'm reminded of a passage, I think it's in first Peter, where where he he shares that it is it's better to face consequence for doing what is right than for doing what is wrong. And I think that that is a that's a lesson that every man and woman needs to learn, that we all face consequences in all this life. Mostly, we face consequences for the bad decisions we make.
Speaker 2:But it is a more pleasant life to face consequence for the good decisions we make. The decisions that were a yes to God and a no to to culture in a way the ways of the world. And that's a life worth living. I mean, Jesus even tells the church to expect persecution. So it's it's not something that is is an if, it's a win if you follow Jesus.
Speaker 2:And and processing that and saying, you know what, Lord? I wanna I wanna face consequence for doing what is right. I wanna stand up. I mean, like, I mean, obviously, Martin Luther King Junior, he his whole pledge to the civil rights movement was to stand up to move the needle toward justice. And he knew that that was gonna come at great cost, standing up for what we would all believe is the dignity of all humans that are inalienable rights.
Speaker 2:But that came at great cost. And there's a reason that we celebrate his life. It's because he he accepted the cost, but not just the cost. He also received a reward within the cost that, that he paid.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Stephen, I, I totally agree with you on that. And I think we can kinda end on this, that the main thing here is resilience as a follower of Jesus. It's gotta be needed if you're gonna live counter culturally. It's that persecution, it's gonna come, but if if we're able to endure, then the persecution will mature us, and it will deepen our walk with with Christ.
Speaker 3:And Yeah. We have to believe. We have to trust that God is for us, that He is who He says He is. Because it's easy to forget that, especially in times of persecution, but we need to be reminded often. And what a great opportunity we have as mentors to remind our mentees about these things.
Speaker 3:So let's give our mentees the perspective to live counter culturally, to flourish through persecution, and to become a lifelong follower of Jesus. We have a great opportunity to do that today, mentors. So. That's what we got today. And, if you liked what we heard, give us a 5 star, share it with a friend, send us an email.
Speaker 3:What's email, Steven?
Speaker 2:You know, last week we mentioned Trinidad and Tobago. I got a message from someone in Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaker 3:Is it Tobago or Tobago?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know. We're probably gonna get another one. So I'm gonna I'm gonna just drop Croatia.
Speaker 3:Oh, my god. We'll see if
Speaker 2:we can get one from Croatia.
Speaker 3:Why don't you flex on Croatia? How does that sound? I'm just kidding. Hey. If y'all didn't hear anything, well, you missed out.
Speaker 3:But know this, you can mentor. You can.