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He's hosted almost every episode of the podcast, but how much do you really know about Stephen Murray? Tune in this week to hear the humorous, the heart wrenching, and the God-driven stories in Stephen's life that shaped who he is today and how he ended up as the Executive Director of Forerunner Mentoring.
Show Notes
He's hosted almost every episode of the podcast, but how much do you really know about Stephen Murray? Tune in this week to hear the humorous, the heart wrenching, and the God-driven stories in Stephen's life that shaped who he is today and how he ended up as the Executive Director of Forerunner Mentoring.
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
Email Stephen:
stephen@youcanmentor.com
youcanmentor.com
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
Email Stephen:
stephen@youcanmentor.com
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 You Can Mentor. My name is Beth Winter, and I'm here with my boss and co host, Stephen Murray.
Speaker 3:Darn right, your boss. Hi, Beth.
Speaker 2:Hi, Stephen. How's work today?
Speaker 3:Well, I guess I'm not I'm not your boss when it comes to You Can Mentor. We're peers when it comes to You Can Mentor. At this table
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 3:The playing ground is level.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's gonna make things a lot easier. I'll just wait to talk about anything I have issues with until we're peers.
Speaker 3:Also, I also look to embody a servant leadership style. So I hope that in 4 Runner mentoring, you don't feel like I'm unapproachable.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's something anyone has ever described you as.
Speaker 3:Unapproachable? Yeah. I don't know. Katie probably has with my if I forgot deodorant
Speaker 2:Okay. She would
Speaker 3:probably say unapproachable.
Speaker 2:That's that's a separate issue, I think. Oh goodness. Alright. We are starting a series on who are we, why should you be listening to us, why we are doing this podcast. We've just realized that we're over a 100 episodes in.
Speaker 3:Haven't talked about why we do this?
Speaker 2:Haven't ever really introduced, ourselves to the audience. And especially, Steven over here has been on almost every podcast episode, and we've never really taken the time to get to know him. So
Speaker 3:Thank you, Beth.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we're just the next couple weeks, we're going to introduce you to these voices that you've been listening to. Thank you for listening. And kind of explain more about why we do what we do, why we are passionate about this, and how mentoring what is our You Can Mentor story?
Speaker 3:It's really good. I I think it's a miss that we haven't stopped every once in a while and said, hey. This is why we're doing this podcast, and we're glad you're listening. And just wanna let you know, this is this is what we're up to here. It's not just a bunch of interviews and us talking talking gas.
Speaker 3:What did they say? It's not that. Blowing smoke. There we go.
Speaker 2:They're yeah.
Speaker 3:Talking gas.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. Okay. Steven, why don't you just give the listeners a little bit of the highlights of maybe just the fun facts of Steven Murray before we talk about your experience with mentoring?
Speaker 3:It's great. Well, I, recently got my 23 andMe results back. I am 99% white from Northern Scotland. I I know. It's
Speaker 2:Very unexpected.
Speaker 3:Speaking of unapproachable, my family, our name is Murray. I think we've we've talked about this before, Beth, on staff. Mhmm. Someone asked me what my wife's name was, and I thought they said, what's your last name what your last name was. And I went into an entire history of the Murray clan Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Which I've I've visited the Murray Castle. There is still a King Murray. Wow. He has an army. The only private army that I can think of in in Scotland.
Speaker 3:And so King Murray has an army. They they lead the Blair of Atholl, a little section in in Scotland. And our true history is that William Wallace and the Murray clan were in alliance.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:William Wallace was the king of the South, and Andrew Murray was the king of the North. Fought for Scottish independence, and Andrew Murray died in one of the first major battles fighting for Scottish independence. And so it's the reason why William Wallace is the main character of Braveheart and not Andrew Murray. Because my family lays our lays our lives down for freedom. And so, yeah, I I I choose to live a lifestyle as, the king of the North who lays his life down for others.
Speaker 3:Our our family crest says tout pressed, which means always ready. And so that is a way I want to live my life. I do not have this as a tattoo. I actually don't have any tattoos. But
Speaker 2:You should get that.
Speaker 3:It is of a bare chested mermaid, and it just says tout pressed. And it's most of the men in my family have it, but it's probably, you know
Speaker 2:I regret saying you should get that before letting you finish what it was.
Speaker 3:So yeah. Always ready. Ready for battle, ready for the day. Is that what you wanted to know?
Speaker 2:I mean, that was really informative. I wouldn't say it's necessarily, like, a fun fact. That was a that was pretty intense. Like, that's not just a light. Like, I like the color blue.
Speaker 3:Also, generally speaking, the first the first Murray, the guy who started the Murray clan, he actually was Flemish, and he moved to Scotland. And he erected a castle, and he named it Dufus Castle. So you can look this up on Wikipedia. The Murray clan started in Scotland via this guy who built Dufus Castles Castle. That's my that's my family background.
Speaker 2:That
Speaker 3:Super proud of that.
Speaker 2:Steven was recently, referred to as a nerd, which I am not sure if this way this started is helping combat that identity.
Speaker 3:I receive it. I receive it gladly.
Speaker 2:Great. Is there anything anything else other than that that you want the listeners to know?
Speaker 3:I grew up shooting shotguns. I actually paid for college based off of winnings. And my first job was at a snow cone stand in College Station called Shivers, which was built out of an abandoned McDonald's. It's a pretty fascinating building. I in that job, the 2nd week, I was promoted to a manager Wow.
Speaker 3:Because the the owner of Shivers found a government grant to hire kids that were in juvie for free to work. And so it was a incentive to give juvie kids work. So the government paid for them to be managed by me at the snow cone stand. And so these kids were regularly stealing money from the cash register, taking syrup home, the two primary things that happened at a snow cone stand. I do recall one night, I left the door unlocked, and the owner of the establishment found out.
Speaker 3:He came to me and he said, Steven, I have 100 of 1,000 of dollars of snow cone equipment in this store. You've you've created a lot of liability for me. And I said, sir, you do not have 100 of 1,000 of dollars of Snowcone equipment, but I'm sorry. And, shortly after, left and worked at Cheddar's for a while. Cheddar's is another restaurant in College Station.
Speaker 3:That was a great place.
Speaker 2:Those other places too.
Speaker 3:Great place to work. Got my degree in marketing and moved to Dallas, got married, and started working at The Dallas Morning News. While I was at the Dallas Morning News, I befriended many guys experiencing homelessness. That was a fun experience. I actually challenged myself to share the gospel one day on the way to work and the one one way on the way back.
Speaker 3:I probably never actually did both of those, but I know I shared the gospel more than I would have if I didn't commit to that. Mhmm. And, in the process of doing that, ended up at SMU discipling a bunch of college students. Is this what is this what you want me to share?
Speaker 2:This is great. I mean, you really ran with it. So
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I went from homeless people experiencing homelessness to SMU, kind of a big a big jump. Yeah. Started a college ministry out of discipling some guys. When I went to college, I didn't know Jesus. And so I just assumed when I moved up here that there were other college students going to college that didn't know Jesus.
Speaker 3:So that's why I started going. Most people do know Jesus at SMU, Southern Methodist University. But some didn't, and I was drawn to international students. I was drawn to the people on the fringes, like the kids that didn't belong. And so if you weren't a fratty, I don't know, guy wearing what are those boat shoes?
Speaker 3:Oh. I guess boat shoes. Sperrys.
Speaker 2:Sperrys. Yes. Those were
Speaker 3:the guys that I went after. The the non SMU kind of student. Mhmm. And many of those guys, that I mentored did not have a dad in their life. Either their dad had passed away, their dad wasn't in the picture.
Speaker 3:Their dad was there, but not really there. And so just everything you hear about, yeah, people's father wound, it drew me to wanna know who was who was mentoring these kids when they were in high school. Made me think about myself when I was in high school. I remember there was a girl that I wanted to date because she was a Christian because my former girlfriend cheated on me. And so I had this idea that if she's Christian, she's not gonna cheat on me.
Speaker 3:She inevitably did. So that sucked. But I remember I hope she doesn't listen to this. Good Lord. I remember her father being a a father figure to me.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. When I would come over, he would have us eat dinner together. Mhmm. That was a foreign concept for me at the time. And that wasn't because my family was overtly dysfunctional.
Speaker 3:It was just my dad was working overseas a lot. We would primarily hang out over the weekend shooting shotgun sports. And and so really meals were kind of everyone fend for yourself. There's a microwave. Make your own meal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Hang out. And it wasn't even, I think, perpetuated by my parents. It was probably more of us as kids wanting to just do our own thing and want freedom, and so they didn't fight us on it. But I was really challenged by this dad being like, hey. We're going to sit down, eat a meal together, and talk about our day.
Speaker 3:And I was like, what? That that was foreign to me. Yeah. He he was the band director. I played the tuba.
Speaker 3:Nice. This is so much information. He he was just a genuinely nice guy. There was a a new band director that had come in, and he was like he was like destroying fun and wanting it to be about all all we're gonna do is win the UIL tournament and and all of these things. And I was just like, I'm just I just wanna have fun.
Speaker 3:And I I think he helped me walk through that process of of the change in in the band. And, anyways, the relationship didn't work out, but I always thought back to that experience. And I was like, who was Morris Vollts to these guys? And eventually, Zach Garza, the guy that started 4 Runner, he came and spoke at our church and told us about what he does. And I was like, oh, that's that's the guy.
Speaker 3:Like, he's raising up guys to be Morris Voultses to to boys. And And yeah, and so that kind of led me to where I'm at today, where Zach was mentoring me Yeah. And mentoring others and raising up other people to mentor. And there are so many other stories, but my desire to mentor others led me into a lot of relationships that were probably unhealthy. Like, we've been talking about boundaries, which apparently you're good at.
Speaker 3:I was not good at. So I would I would find individuals who needed help, who needed a mentor, and kind of insert myself into their life in order to help them and to fix them. Yeah. And so, if I ever met someone who had any significant need, I thought it was my job to help them get back on their feet, to heal them, to restore them. And I I just thought that that was what I wanted to pour my life into, was helping others and to always be ready, no matter what what comes my way.
Speaker 3:So I remember there was a kid that someone had told me, hey, my friend wants to commit suicide. Will you go meet with him to help him consider otherwise? Yeah. And I'd be like, sure. Let's go.
Speaker 3:And so met this kid, convinced him not to kill himself, which is great. Yeah. That's good.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 3:He he moved in with me and was in and out of jail probably three times. So he was living with me or living at jail. Mhmm. And this relationship, I just wanted to help and and be be a rock for Yeah. For someone else.
Speaker 3:And I think I eventually realized when he was bringing pimps and prostitutes to my house that I hadn't figured out how to do this whole thing. But, anyway, like, I was I was creating unhealth and, like, a really unsafe environment for my family. And that was a rude awakening for me in in thinking, okay. I really want to mentor well, to mentor effectively, to figure out how to really help people and not just go through the motions thinking that I'm the savior, that I can fix every situation, that I could just finance my way out of someone's problems, deep seated character issues, or fill in the blank. This is probably too much information.
Speaker 2:Great. Keep going. Which I will just point out that this story started about a snow cone stand, and somehow he, without me saying anything, has, like, gone all the way into his entire life mentoring story, which is a very Stephen Murray thing to do.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. That shivers guy. There was one night I dropped the money off to the shivers guy, and he he answered the doors at his house. So I used to pick up the ice from his house Oh, wow. Take it to the store.
Speaker 3:I knock on his door. He opens the door. He has porn. Oh, jeez. And he didn't even pause it.
Speaker 3:And I just threw the money at him, and I walked away. And that was around the time that I started working at Cheddar's and and walked away from that, but sorry. That was dysfunctional.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's really messed up.
Speaker 3:Sorry. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that on this podcast.
Speaker 2:It's part of your story.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It's my truth. But yeah. I and so I I think I really wanted to figure out how do you do this well. How do you be a rock in somebody's life without destroying your own life?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I have not figured out everything, but I have figured out ways to make it sustainable and to not just insert myself to be the solution to every problem. I think mentoring creates an environment where you'll insert yourself into every problem someone's facing, and that's not necessarily what's most healthy for you or for them. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow. That was a lot, Steven. That's great. I I just am impressed that you can succinctly tell your story so easily like that.
Speaker 3:Here here's the one thing that brought me to forerunner that kinda sealed the deal on me taking this job. I was at a park. I was with my college students do had a mission trip near the border, and this little boy was tugging on my shirt while I was leading, vision casting for an evangelism outreach. This little kid was tugging on my shirt, and he was saying, which I guess means look watch me. Like and he ran away and just kept kept motioning for me to follow him.
Speaker 3:And I I just felt like I was supposed to capture the moment and not Mhmm. Not just stay with my team and dis disregard him. And so I put someone else in charge, and I I turned around and walked with this boy. And he was so excited when he saw me, like, walk away from the group. And he sat me down on this bench, and he just ran up onto this playground.
Speaker 3:And he was just playing, running up the stairs, coming down the slide, and and just checking every 5 seconds if I was still watching him. Mhmm. And he just kept playing. And
Speaker 2:in
Speaker 3:the moment, I was like, okay. Like, he just wants me to watch him. And so I watched him, and then I stood up to leave to go join my team again. He chased me down, and he was screaming, and he tugged my shirt again. He was like, please.
Speaker 3:Please. Mhmm. And he pulled me back to the same chair, like like, took my arm and made me sit down and, like, went back up and kept playing again. And my heart just broke because I couldn't I finally figured it out that this kid just wanted an adult to sit down and watch him play while he's out at the park. He wanted what I assume he saw other kids experience was their parents sitting on the bench watching them play, and he wanted that same experience of being watched, being secure.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, just the safety of being seen. And I could not speak Spanish for the life of me, but I could sit there and just watch him and enjoy him playing. After after that, I didn't know what to do. I just I walked away. I did see a mom sitting in her car in the parking lot.
Speaker 3:I just asked her if that was her boy, and she said that they come they come there all the time. And he just sits there and waits for someone to watch him play. And I could just tell that she was kind of overwhelmed, and she shared that his dad wasn't in his life, and she didn't know what to do. And so that story replays in my mind every time I think about our boys and how much they wanna be seen, how much they wanna be known and and loved. And there are so many different reasons why boys end up in that spot where there's a a deficit or, something in their life that's missing.
Speaker 3:But I know I know there's something I can I can do to meet needs in in a very practical and simple way? So
Speaker 2:It's really good. In your story, a thing that stands out to me and this thought just came to my mind of I feel like at some point, every mentor has to accept, like, the identity of seeing themselves as a mentor, like someone who has something to mentor someone else in. And so I'm just even in the experience with the shady shivers guy, like, you clearly you had kind of a spectrum of experiences of here's this type of man, and then with your ex girlfriend's dad, like, here's this type of man. And so was there a conscious kind of thought of, like, you deciding the kind of man you wanted to be looking at these different types of men, and how did that shape your identity as being a mentor who is perpetuating that identity you're trying to become?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I don't know if I've ever come to terms with that. I think the the primary influence in my life has been my own dad. And the main revelation I'm seeing in my life is what he's taught me and how that's influenced who I am. So my dad my dad's the guy that walks twice as fast when he's in the airport than when he's in normal life.
Speaker 3:My dad's the the guy who, if he can mow his lawn at 30 miles an hour, like, he's gonna do it. Mhmm. And so, like, speed, efficiency, getting things done, that's a very PG way of saying it. Like, my my dad really works hard. And he never looks for people to tell him good job.
Speaker 3:He just does it. And I I can just see all of his own work ethic reflected within my own life of wanting to get things done, wanting to not waste time. Like any any time Katie takes a wrong turn and we have to u-turn, it's like the death of me. I'm like, we could be going that way right now. Now we have to turn around.
Speaker 3:And and I don't know if that's just impatience, but I think there's a restlessness with inefficiency or I I don't know. I I I think that stuff is very visceral, very like, I can feel it, and I'm recognizing it. Even in in parenting, like, I'm recognizing that of the way I give my attention to my son or I don't. And how I can convince myself, well, this is a good use of my time or this is not a good use of my time. And completely be disconnected from character or like who am I looking up to, who am I wanting to emulate, who whose influence made me who I am today.
Speaker 3:Like, though like those people, I wish they would carry more influence. But I think what I realized is that my dad was in my life for all of it. Yeah. And so he is going to carry most of the influence of who I am as a man. Right.
Speaker 3:And that's through things that he verbally taught me. That's non verbally. That's how he showed up, how he didn't show up. It's what he prioritized and what he disentivized me from doing. And all of those things are what I think of.
Speaker 3:I I know I've had men in my community group that have been an influence. I know I've had bosses that have been an influence, but no one for that extended period of time. It's always a season. Yeah. And so I can look at all these mentors and see what what they taught me and how it influenced me in a way, but everything really kinda, like, I guess the the coil or the spring of my life always goes back to, like, the foundation of what my dad built in me.
Speaker 3:And and so, I I mean, I do think about that of if if I didn't have that foundational relationship, I would really feel like I'm pulling all of these different ingredients and and people from people that have influenced me and try to, like, make myself whole through all these little ways that people have invested in me. Like, this guy taught me about marriage, and this guy taught me about finances, and this guy taught me about forgiveness. And I wanna say that that could be beneficial and beautiful, but part of me still feels like, I guess, all of the mentors that have been in my life, like, I can't I can't pinpoint one more valuable than my dad, if that makes sense. Even though my dad didn't grow up in the church, even though my dad did not teach me about Jesus, like, he still influenced me more than anybody else. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I don't know what that says.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's even truth. Like, if your dad was absent, I think that would still be true. Like, his absence or presence is still going to have the greatest influence on your life. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's good. I mean, it's real.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's a better way.
Speaker 2:Not good. It's real. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so in that that process, what was it like?
Speaker 2:Because you had to, at some point, have made a decision to say, like, I'm the guy for the job. I can't mentor. I'm going to do this. So what was that like?
Speaker 3:Jumping into 4 Runner mentoring and and being a father figure to others and yeah. I I I do think, in my own experience, it wasn't only, I think, feeling equipped, but also feeling called. I mean, one of the things Katie and I experienced for an extended period of our our marriage was I longed to be a father, but we faced health issues that kept us from having kids.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And so we waffled back and forth on pursuing foster care, adoption, I mean, other treatments to to make that happen. But I just knew that I was supposed to be a father, and and so I think becoming a mentor with 4 Runner, I can't say that I didn't come in with my own desires and needs to feel fulfilled as a father figure. Because when you don't have kids and you want kids so bad, I don't have anything to point to to show people that I'd be a great dad Mhmm. Or I'm a great I'm a great mentor, or it's like it's hard for me to articulate that to people without actually showing them. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like a kid that I've raised. Like, I'm good at this. Mhmm. Look at my kid. And so I'd look at kids in our church that were born around the time Katie and I got married, and I'd be like, our marriage is this old, and I have nothing to show for it.
Speaker 3:Like, I I can't point to a child and and see the the growth of my own my marriage or my life. And and so in a way, jumping into forerunner was a way for me to become a father figure Mhmm. When it wasn't in the cards in the other areas. And I remember I mean, this was this was probably 3 years ago. I heard God speak to me in a still fall small voice, and he said, Steven, it seems like you're living your life to prove to others that you're you're a father.
Speaker 3:It's like you want others to see you as a father. And and he just he just said, do you wanna know what I see? And it's like I was living my life wanting wanting people to validate this deepest calling I've I had felt about being a father, and all Yeah. I needed to hear was that god saw me as one. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And so it's very fitting that in the 1st year, I jumped on to the staff at forerunner that we experienced breakthrough and had a child Mhmm. And got to experience fatherhood as I stepped into kind of this father figure role in the organization for boys and the mentors of the boys. And so I I can't say that I've naturally arrived or I arrived beforehand, but I think in the process of that, in stepping out and in just receiving a word from god, I think I think has helped me see myself as a father figure. Mhmm. And I I mean, Zamari was in 7th grade when I met him.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I feel more like a peer to Zamari than than a father figure. But to him Mhmm. To him, I I am I am not just an older brother. Yeah.
Speaker 3:To him, I'm so much more. And me growing to understand it's not about what I think about it. It's what it's what they think about it, how they see me, and really tapping into just receiving that as a responsibility that other people are looking up to me in this moment, and my mentees see me for more than I feel, maybe, in in the relationship.
Speaker 2:And Ben's here. Yay, Ben.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:It's good, Steven. I'm curious, I guess, of how
Speaker 3:The pimps and prostitutes?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We'll go back to that. I literally never know where you're gonna end the story, like, truly. You used a personal story the other day with Laurie in the office that turned into, like, a life lesson of in business. I don't know.
Speaker 2:You just you just do that. I wanna
Speaker 3:keep you on your toes, Beth.
Speaker 2:It's great. I don't know how much more you wanna record.
Speaker 3:I don't know either.
Speaker 2:K. So how long have you mentored, Steven? How many years of mentoring experience have you had?
Speaker 3:When I came to faith in Jesus
Speaker 2:It is never just a number with you. It's gonna be a whole story.
Speaker 3:Sophomore year of college, gave my life to Jesus, was baptized in a in Rudder fountain by a crazy pastor named Butch Smith who I mean, most pastors that are preaching in fountains, you probably should avoid, but he was actually a great guy. He he baptized me and sent me to a church plant of a taxidermist that he had discipled into church planting. And so my first church experience was leading a youth group with a couple other college students at a church plant. And so we would pick up kids from downtown Bryan and bring them to church, and I would say that was my first mentoring experience of pouring my life into younger people.
Speaker 2:So that's, like, how many years ago?
Speaker 3:That would have been 2,008.
Speaker 2:So Oh, it's quite a bit of time.
Speaker 3:Is that 13 years? 13 years? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just thinking as a listener, what I think I think before I would have wanted to jump into mentoring, I I like to know what I'm getting into. And so I'm wondering if you have any stories that would kind of help maybe some of our listeners who aren't mentors yet, but are considering becoming mentors? What are some of the highs and maybe some of the lows to just prepare for as a mentor?
Speaker 3:I mean, the the best place to start is where there is structure, like in like a vine that needs a trellis in order to grow. I think as mentors, if you don't have much experience, it's best to go to places that make it simple for you, tell you what to do, show you where to go, and give you training. And so case in point, I maybe this is too graphic of a story.
Speaker 2:Oh, boy.
Speaker 3:I was mentoring an Iraqi refugee, and I had a moment where someone someone attending our church needed help. They had emotional issues, psychological issues, and I I just decided, hey. I wanna show you what it looks like to love people. And so we took this person out to lunch. We listened to them.
Speaker 3:We prayed for them and just built relationship with them. And my my friend that I was mentoring, he was very challenged by this experience. He was he was saying, when when I meet people who are not like me, I do not do what we just did. I go the other way. Like, I only spend time with people that are like me, that like the same things as me.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And so it was really like a reorienting of what it means to be human is to bridge gaps between people's experiences, to to learn from one another, and to to serve in areas that we might otherwise walk away. I don't I don't know if everybody's like that. That's what I'm like. That's what I like, I guess.
Speaker 3:He came back to me the next week and said that he had a horrible experience. He was driving down the road, and he saw someone with a a sign asking for money and for help. And so his thought was, well, I'll just do what Steven does.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So
Speaker 3:he offered this guy to come into his car. Mhmm. And I think, initially, this person with the sign thought that he was propositioning him for services.
Speaker 2:Oh, dear.
Speaker 3:And so the situation got very awkward because, culturally, he didn't understand what was going on. He just assumed we were gonna go get lunch and talk about our problems and and become friends. So it became a very awkward situation for him, and he had to kick him out of the car. And he said, Steven, I'm never doing this again.
Speaker 2:Oh, just doing what Steven does.
Speaker 3:So in a way, it doesn't always work when you just do what other people do. And and I think having having a context of training and support and structure really does help prevent opportunities for things to go away you don't want them to go. That's just a random example that I can think of. Also a fail.
Speaker 2:Okay. That's one of the lows. Somebody out there is empathizing with you right now on that story.
Speaker 3:Well and
Speaker 2:Maybe not that specific situation. But
Speaker 3:But I I do think that sometimes we try to do whatever's been taught to us, and sometimes it's not appropriate for the situation because every situation is different.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So there are principles, but how you how you utilize the things you've been taught really does require wisdom and discernment. And oh, yeah. I'm trying to think of some other other things. Oh, wow. Can you say the question again?
Speaker 3:What are good things to do and bad things to do?
Speaker 2:No. That wasn't. I think it was highs and the highs and lows
Speaker 3:of the time. People that are starting. Yes. I I would say one of the highs is just listening and and learning how to accept silence. Any conversation that I've been in where I've talked too much, I know I've missed something important.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And so my challenge obviously, this is a podcast I'm talking a ton. But the moments that I'm quiet, I ask a question, and I let people process.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And don't let them get out of it, but appreciate the silence because it means that they're probably thinking about things that they don't usually think about. Those are the moments that are really treasured as a mentor. And I would have students tell me that one of their favorite things about me was that I listened to them. And I I think for for a mentor, I don't think there's a a higher gift than to hear that your mentee felt listened to. How how many relationships do we have where we really feel heard?
Speaker 3:And and so for you to offer that, I think, is is huge. Yeah. We've had some kids in our program that will talk your ear off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And if you don't realize why they're doing that, you're gonna miss out on a huge opportunity. Yeah. Maybe this kid hasn't felt heard. Maybe he has never been able to process his daily experiences. Maybe he just wants to see if you'll listen and pick up on something that he said that he's hidden within a laundry list of things that he's he's mentioned
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And just to see if he'll pick it up. Right. So That's good.
Speaker 2:Steven, you've been doing this podcast for a while. Do you feel like there's
Speaker 3:any taken from me, Zach Garza. You do this series about how to start a nonprofit, and you take the podcast over.
Speaker 2:We love you, Zach.
Speaker 3:We love you, Zach. I'm joking.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like there's any specific area that I'm kinda wondering. It almost sounds like just the desire and love of fatherhood might be kind of your niche area of what influences the things you say on the podcast the most. Would you say that's true, or would you say there's kinda something else that you feel like you're most passionate about sharing on the podcast?
Speaker 3:Probably, yeah, probably nerdy father. Maybe that would be the specific niche niche. Yeah. I I'll accept that. Also, I mean, I I like making connections between thoughts.
Speaker 3:And so I think I think there's a level of depth that I sometimes have to recognize as just out there, and I guess you could call that nerdy. Mhmm. But I I wanna make connections between the things people say and how they say them and how it relates to my own experience and pull out the gold of the the stories people share. So I would love to continue doing that in interviews with leaders of really synthesizing the things that they say to help others recognize ways they can grow as mentors. And one of the I'll say, this is a prophetic word that's been spoken over my life, and so I can say it with boldness is that is that in in the past, I have felt like my responsibility was to be the best hitter, which anytime a prophet shares with me prophecies about sports, I don't know if they really understand who I am.
Speaker 2:Is this really from God? Because God wouldn't talk to me about sports.
Speaker 3:Yes. But he just he just said, which this this guy is actually from Scotland, so I'll listen to him. His name is Joe Yuen. He's he's legit. Anyways, he said he said, you felt like your your role was being the best guy up to bat that any ball that came your way, you'd hit it out of the park.
Speaker 3:And what God's calling you to do is not see yourself as the best hitter, but the best pitcher.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:That your responsibility is to get other people up to bat, to be the ones that make runs and get your team the lead. And so how I interpreted that word was that I've always seen myself as a great mentor, a mentor to look up to. And really, what God's called me to do is raise up the best mentors, to be the one that's training and equipping the mentors that can stand on my shoulders and and mentor kids from hard places better than I ever have. And so that's why I wanna be a part of this podcast is to see that word come into fruition. That's why I wanna be on staff at 400 Mentoring, Not to just be the best mentor I can be, but to raise up mentors of kids that I'll never meet.
Speaker 3:So yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Steven, we're wrapping up. You are a voice of mentoring in the world. You might not have intended to end up here, but your voice is famous in the podcast world. So what is the one thing that you would wanna say?
Speaker 2:What is your hill to die on? What is the thing that all mentors listening need to hold close and think of frequently?
Speaker 3:Okay. But very simple, you can mentor.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 3:But for real.
Speaker 2:But for real.
Speaker 3:You can mentor. The lie that you have nothing to give, that you've learned nothing, and that you can't listen and help a kid process their pain, their trauma that maybe you've never experienced before, all of those lies are not. They are the dross that is sifted away from everything meaningful god has in your life for others. He's made you for relationship. He's made you in his image for others.
Speaker 3:And there's favor on your life for others. Mhmm. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Alright. That is our episode. That is Stephen Murray in a nutshell. I feel like that it's not even scratching the surface of all of who you are and the stories that you have and the wealth of information you have in the mentoring world. If you wanna ask Steven more questions, he is not so high and lofty that he's unreachable.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 3:please Unapproachable.
Speaker 2:Yes. He's actually not unapproachable whatsoever. I might actually need to screen his emails to make sure he's not too approachable so we can focus on forerunner. But, really, if you have any questions, reach out to Steven. We'll put his info in the show notes, and that's it.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned for more.
Speaker 3:Well, we're we're going to have to interview you, Beth, let people know about the genius of hiring you at 4 Runner Mentoring, of dragging you into this this podcast project, and gleaning everything we can from the brain that god has graciously given you. You can mentor. You can mentor.