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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 into the lives of others. Find out more at youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:I'm in force. I haven't been this excited about an episode in a long time. Today, we've got pastor Raymond Chang, the executive director of ten by ten collaboration out of Fuller Seminary. Ten by ten is a collaborative movement geared towards making faith matter more for 10,000,000 young people over ten years in the spirit of John ten ten. Ray is also the president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative, a pastor.
Speaker 2:He's a writer too. Before his role at Fuller, Raymond served as the associate chaplain for discipleship at Wheaton College out there in Illinois. He worked in the for profit and nonprofit sectors and has served in the Peace Corps in Panama. Ray coauthored Future Focused Church and has contributed chapters to several books, including Ministers of Reconciliation, Confronting Racial Injustice, and Preaching Romans From Here, with other books forthcoming. Raymond is currently pursuing his PhD on the intersection of spirituality and campus or organizational racial climates.
Speaker 2:He and his wife, Jessica Ming Chang, are proud parents of Sofia, and they reside in Chicago. He is a part of this thing called simplementoring.org, which is an offshoot of ten by ten. Today, we're we're gonna focus in on the three keys for simple mentoring. Little acts over grand gestures, authenticity over perfection, and questions over answers. Go to their website, simplementoring.org.
Speaker 2:There's all sorts of good stuff, all sorts of free stuff. They talk about the three reasons they believe in Simple Mentoring. One, it's good for young people. Two, it's good for adults. And three, it is good for faith communities.
Speaker 2:So check out 10 by 10. Check out simplementoring.org. Ray Chang. You guys are gonna enjoy this episode. It's gold.
Speaker 2:You can mentor. Alright. Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. This is your main mentoring friend, Zach, and I'm here with Ray Chang. Ray, say hello.
Speaker 2:Hello. Man, Ray, how do I put this eloquently, is the man, And I've only known him for a grand total of about eight minutes. But but, man, what what they're doing over there at this organization that's called ten by ten is absolutely amazing. So, Ray, I'm so excited to learn from you today. How's it going today?
Speaker 3:Well, there's probably more learning that can direction. So I feel like I can probably learn a lot more from you than you could from me. But things are going well, and and Zachary, it's really fun to be together.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, man. So so, like, it's not very often that you come across someone who's passionate about mentoring. And anytime I do, I feel like I just met, like, my soulmate. So I'm just like, oh my gosh. Ray and ten by ten, they've got this website.
Speaker 2:It's called simplementoring.org. And I went, and I almost cried because I was just like, this is it. Like, oh, thank you, Jesus.
Speaker 3:Like, you shed a single tear that wants us to see dramatic tear.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, man. But, man, we'll first and foremost, Ray, thanks so much for hopping on. But who who are you, and what is ten by ten?
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, my name is Ray Chang, and I help lead the 10x10 collaboration. It's a team effort. We have an incredible staff of 20 people that are working together to really galvanize and mobilize the church and the faith community to make faith matter more for 10,000,000 young people over the course of a ten year period. One of the things that we're seeing is that, you know, there's a rapid disaffiliation rate of young people from the Christian faith.
Speaker 3:They're not just leaving the church, they're actually leaving Christianity altogether. They're not just saying no to local church community, they're saying no to Jesus. And it's not because they don't like Jesus, they just don't like the expressions of Jesus that they see, or don't have meaningful opportunities to engage with people in terms of their faith. And so, we're trying to really catalyze the Church to be the Church and to call mature Christian adults to really embrace relational discipleship that's radically focused on Jesus and meet kids where they are, to answer the questions that they have, to sit in the pain with them, to embrace their struggles as their own, to walk with them through very confusing times, and to cry with them, to weep with them, to mourn with them, to laugh with them, to celebrate with them, and to celebrate them, and then to point them to Jesus. And so a part of the work that we're doing is working with a variety of organizations, and we're so glad for and grateful to You Can Mentor as being one of our over 175 partners, which we are actively working with to reach this 10,000,000 over the next ten years, and we're so thrilled that we can be in this conversation together.
Speaker 2:Man, there's so many words that you said that I just wanna be like, wait. Stop. Stop. Let's let's focus on this. And so, man, I just love this Let's engage the next generation.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, for so long, it seems like they were overlooked and just told, hey. You can sit on the sidelines. You can come on a Tuesday night, but, you know, we're gonna focus in on the old people. We're gonna focus in on the people who can tithe or the people who can do this and that.
Speaker 2:And just the fact that y'all are encouraging the church and anyone who has impact or, a spot at the table with these people, you're encouraging them, hey. Just just show up and be with them relationally. And the horizontal relationship will point them to the vertical relationship with God. And so, man, so so how did how did all this start? Like, how did you find out about ten by ten, or why are you so passionate about mentoring?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it started several years ago. There's a lot of kind of movements or initiatives began. It started in a small room with a few people, having a conversation on what needs to happen, especially as there's a rapid decline of faith among younger generations. And so, there was a study that was released by the Pinetops Report that said if that highlighted the fact that there is a million young people that were drifting away from the the Christian faith, that they were disaffiliating, that if nothing changed by 02/1950, that between thirty five and forty two million young people would have walked away from a meaningful life with God. And so, a small group of people got together and they said, What can we do?
Speaker 3:And those conversations started to emerge, and it became clear that one of the things that were essential and necessary were to call people back to what Jesus did. It was to look at Jesus' model of ministry, which was highly relational, highly embodied, highly in community, and to say, hey, how much of this are we actually seeing within the church? There were other studies that suggested that during the pandemic, which most of us lived through and experienced around the globe, and experienced lots of ramifications around, especially as marriages were tested, as friendships grew distant, as church communities were completely disrupted and rhythms were completely disrupted, and people found new ways of relating to each other, either in person or online, as it shifted the ways that people showed up or didn't show up to church, as people it shifted the ways that people engage with people, ways that people ate out or didn't eat out. You know? It it disrupted so much.
Speaker 3:And one of the studies showed that during the first year of the pandemic, according to Springtide, that only ten percent of all young people, all youth, heard from a religious leader, a religious leader of any sort. And then, if you broke it down to Christians, it was twelve percent. And so, two more out of every 100 than just a general religious population, but only 12% of youth heard from a religious leader, from a Christian religious leader, during the first year of the pandemic. And so, what that marked was that there wasn't a high emphasis on relationship and that kind of relational connectivity. And thankfully, you know, a post pandemic survey revealed that seventy percent of young people would not take relationships for granted by the same organization, Springtide.
Speaker 3:There was a deep hunger for it. But with all the disruption, people are wondering, where do they land, where do they go? And unless we can find ways to reach the one with the one, or reach the one with the many, or reach the one with the entire church community, it's going to be an uphill battle the longer we can't get this right. And so that's a part of what's driving the heart and the passion around this, especially because it's simply the model of Jesus to be in relationship and to walk with people, to show them what life with God looks like and what life with God looks like together. So And what we're feel what we're basically doing is calling people to live out a future that looks very ancient.
Speaker 2:That's good. A future that looks very ancient. And, you know, put that on a t shirt, dude. That's that's a good saying right there. Man, so, like so tell me what the perspective is from kind of the I don't wanna say the older generation, but what are some of the stereotypes that some people might think about our youth that simply aren't true?
Speaker 3:Oh, there's so many. And, you know, there are lots of good things that are out there. I mean, it ranges from, oh, young people don't care about what I have to say, or, you know, young people don't really want to engage with me. The hunger from young people for mentorship is out of this world. And yet, what we see is that the generational divides, both because, you know, in general, this kind of pervasive false narrative about how people don't care about, you know, the older generation pouring into the younger generation and vice versa, has been so cemented within so many of our imaginations, is real.
Speaker 3:The other piece is that, you know, many of us, sadly, have not been mentored ourselves, and so we don't feel the competency to mentor others. When you realize that, oh, mentorship is much more about just being present and meeting people where they are and listening deeply and caring deeply and showing up when, you know, there are good times and bad and establishing some regular form of communication and building trust, basic relational kind of principles. And then, you know, off of that, you bring in some of the guidance and the wisdom, which many of us have, especially if we've just lived a little bit longer. You know, a lot of people feel like they have to be experts at a variety of things in order to mentor effectively. The truth is, some of the best mentors are only like one or two steps ahead.
Speaker 3:They're not the experts in the field, they're oftentimes the ones that are fumbling forward, you know, just a few inches ahead of them, or a few feet ahead of them, a few years ahead of them, a few months ahead of them. I think that, you know, a big reason and a reasonable reason is that there's just a lack of time and space and natural opportunities to connect. There's a sense of awkwardness that exists and so people don't know how to get over the social awkwardness. You know, you just go down the list and a lot of them are just basic human realities, emotional realities, relational realities, internal realities that we haven't quite resolved ourselves even in our, you know, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. But yeah.
Speaker 3:So, I mean, you can go down the list.
Speaker 2:And it it is remarkable to me, Ray, the amount of hunger that these young people have. And what's so crazy is sometimes you would look at them in their posture or maybe it's how they look or maybe it's how they react. It looks like they don't care. But inside, they are like, yearning for it, and they can't get enough. And so this happens all the time.
Speaker 2:A mentor will walk away from a interaction with a mentee, and they're like, that kid doesn't like me. They didn't listen to a thing I said. And then the mentee goes home, and Miles is like, hey. How'd it go? And, like, it was the best time.
Speaker 2:I loved it. I had so much fun. So it is so important for us as mentors to trust the Lord, knows what he's doing when he says relationships matter, and trust that he knows that, hey. This whole relational discipleship, this whole showing up, eating dinner, not giving advice, but just being with and surrounding them with love and with acceptance and with affirmation and asking them a bunch of questions, it works. It works.
Speaker 2:So how can we as mentors take steps forwards towards our mentees believing the truth that whether they look like it or not, it's working? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean and what you just said is gold. I mean, if people just trusted the results, you know, up to God, and were committed more to being faithful than being concerned about being fruitful, there'd be so much more fruit that emerges, right? I'll give you a great example. So, I mean, we were talking about ADHD right before this, and, you know, I'm an adult diagnosee, so I did not know I had ADHD until just a few years ago.
Speaker 3:And there's a very famous Korean K pop band called BTS, right? They're hitting the world, the globe by storm, and, you know, they all went to mandatory military service, they're now coming back, you know, in Korea, and, you know, they're probably planning for their next kind of leg of their tours. Well, I didn't really know much about them, because I don't really listen to a lot of kind of pop music just in general. Most of the music I listen to is generally like worship music. And so, my friend who lives right by, you know, and I'm, you know, again, the time, I was in my late thirties, so this was a year, a few years ago.
Speaker 3:But my friend says, I couldn't sleep last night. I said, Why? And he's like, Oh, there was a concert that went on, it was really loud, he lived right next to Soldier Field in Chicago. And he said, yeah, don't know if you've heard of them, this band called BTS, I was like, I think I've heard of them. They were already like number one in 70 countries at the time, right?
Speaker 3:So, they were like huge, I just was ignorant. Like, you asked me to sing a Taylor Swift song and I would not know, right? And so I don't, like, that's how, like, kind of out of touch I am with the music scene. Anyway, so I'm like, we should just go to the concert, like, let's just check it out, see if they have tickets. Well, we ended up finding super cheap tickets last minute because it was supposed to rain in Chicago, and I wasn't paying attention to it.
Speaker 3:And so, we what I didn't realize was we got, like, $400 tickets for, like, $50 each, which was amazing.
Speaker 2:So I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 3:not that bad. Didn't think that they were gonna be that popular because the tickets were so cheap, which was again cheap because the rain was coming. Anyway, so me and my wife, my friend and his wife, I'm friends with both of them, Brian and Leslie, they're, my wife and I introduced them to each other. We went to the concert and at one point my wife looks at me and was like, Are you having fun? And she was like, I was like, yeah, I'm having a blast.
Speaker 3:Because we have ADHD, I have ADHD, I was so overstimulated that, I don't know if everyone's watching this or they're just listening in, my face looked like this. I was deadpan because I was so overstimulated. But internally, my mind was racing in a thousand different directions and I was having the best time of my life. I was like, literally dancing inside. Everyone thought I was bored out of my mind.
Speaker 3:And so, sometimes we don't have a good read, to your point, on how people are actually responding, because so much is going on internally within them and they could be having the best time of their life with you, but you don't know because you don't have an accurate read on their internal life. So, if you just show up, because it would not have been the same if I was not with my wife or with my friends, having them there made the experience so much better, right? And it probably wouldn't have been fun at all if I was there by myself, but having them there made all the difference in the world. And if they had just assessed me from the outside, they would have been like, This guy is like, We should not have come to this. But once I revealed to them what was going on inside, they were like, oh, I'm so glad we came with you.
Speaker 2:Man, I just love that story. Right? Because for so long, I thought mentoring was about me. You know? Hey.
Speaker 2:I gotta come. I gotta make it fun. I gotta take him to 6 Flags. I gotta do to these huge events. I gotta tell the jokes.
Speaker 2:I gotta look cool. I've gotta make sure that they're making good grades and me, me, me, me, me. And then over time, the Lord has completely shifted it and said, what if it's all about me, Zach? What if it's all about pursuing? What if it's all about doing the things that I do in my relationship with you?
Speaker 2:Like, God never gives up on me. God's always pursuing me. God's, you know, loves me just as I am, not as I should be. Right? And he is not concerned with my successes.
Speaker 2:He's not concerned with my accolades. He's concerned with my heart. And he knows that if we're connected on a heart level and if he's consistently pursuing me no matter what, then that's gonna give me the best chance for us to to live out what he has for me. And so, man, the job of a mentor is to pursue no matter what regardless of if it looks like it's working or not. So I just love that.
Speaker 3:I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Okay. Right. So you're you know, people might not know this, but you're a smart guy. Academia, Wheaton. Right?
Speaker 3:I used to work at Wheaton. Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I barely passed high school. So I mentor, and I'm just like, hey, guys.
Speaker 2:It works because it worked for me. But you've got all the all the data. You've got all the, hey. Like, here's actually scientifically why this works. And so can can you just tell me, like, as you guys have started 10 by 10 and as you've engaged with simple mentoring, what are some of the statistics that say that mentoring and discipleship actually moves the needle in a kid's life?
Speaker 3:I mean, all the studies show that the most effective and powerful thing in terms of cultivating faith, building trust, so on and so forth, is relationship. And you cannot have any form of mentorship without relationship, and you can't have any meaningful and substantive mentorship without a deep and substantive connection. And so, I mean, like, just based on that alone, and a lot of studies will show, like, actually, you know, relationships and this type of mentoring deepens faith, it helps build, you know, the faith of those around you and those that you pour into, And it actually helps transfer trust where, you know, it's through the relationship that you cultivate trust. Now, it's like, it feels like it's common sense, right? Because we're basically calling people to do something that I think everyone inherently understands.
Speaker 3:That's what you're trying to do, is to say, Hey, why don't you mentor someone, you know, surround them with and pursue them with the love of Christ, and surround them with the love of Christ, because that's essentially what God has done with you in God's pursuit of you. And then you're trying to take away the barriers that make it hard. And obviously, there are some internal barriers that we have to overcome. There's some interpersonal barriers, especially as it relates to the awkwardness, the chemistry, the compatibility, and the lack of trust. And then there are broader social barriers, like the lack of credibility with the church and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:And so, you know, at the end of the day, it really comes down to mentorship. Now, really comes down to relationship that really fuels kind of effective mentorship. Outside of that, you know, sometimes we're, like, we'll hear a voice from the sky, or we'll hear some still, small voice, but the most effective means, and the most consistent means by which God seems to be working is also through these relational connections. And so, both from a kind of scholastic approach and from a theological approach, and from a kind of approach that's rooted in the way of Jesus, what you see is the pursuit of God will lead us to pursue other people and to help them walk as Jesus walked.
Speaker 2:Man, that's so good. It's it's almost so simple. It's complicated. Right? You're like, no way this works.
Speaker 2:Like, this is too easy, but it does. It's nuts. So, man, as I so I highly encourage everyone to go to simplementoring.org. They've got all of these things that are free that you can access. And as I was taking taking a look in your Simple Mentoring Handbook, and then there's a doc that says, start here for next generation Simple Mentoring.
Speaker 2:You talk about some of the keys for simple mentoring, and I just wanted to know if we could kinda spend, the next couple minutes talking about what are those seeds.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, there's three primary keys that we found to be helpful in terms of overcoming some hurdles, especially, you know, in terms of like what you just said, like, some things are so simple that we that they're complicated. And some of those things are complicated because of broader realities that make things become more complicated. Right? I mean, more people feel like they have to work harder and longer, which limits their margin for actually investing time in other people.
Speaker 3:And so, one of the first keys that we highlight is the importance of doing small acts instead of thinking about big or grand gestures. A lot of people are like, well, I'm too busy, I don't have enough time to be a real mentor. You know, to be a mentor requires that I'm available 20 fourseven. And one of the things that we found is that, you know, it's actually the people that have full lives that often make the best and most interesting mentors for young people. No mentee wants to be mentored by someone that's sitting around on a couch all day long, right?
Speaker 3:There's just nothing really there that's inspiring for them. And so, you know, one of things that we encourage people to do is, like, focus on small acts. You know, it's that little thing to do together, you know, it could be, you know, Oh, I'm going to check-in for five minutes a day, You know? Like and that's a small act. Right?
Speaker 3:If you only are mentoring a small number of people, you can say at 6AM every day, I'm gonna call you for five minutes, and you're gonna download whatever you want me to download, and I'm gonna I I wanna hear your prayer request. You we could talk for three minutes, and then, you know, I'll pray for two minutes, or we can pray for two minutes, but every day we're gonna do that. It could be, you know, as simple as, like, you know, going for a little walk. You know? Like, okay, you know that you're both gonna be at church on Sunday.
Speaker 3:Well, how about you take a walk after church and just kind of have like a brief conversation? A simple act is also something like checking in. When you know the rhythms of your kind of, like, your week, and let's just use church as an example. Because you're not only mentoring at church and you're not only interacting with people at church, but sometimes church is an easy, you know, kind of place and format. Sometimes it's helpful to just say, I know that I'm going to be walking across a group of kids that I see regularly after, between, from after service on the way to the parking lot, or after service on the way to Sunday school.
Speaker 3:And during that time, I'm gonna identify one kid and then call my other friends to identify a different kid, and we're just going to stop them in the hall and just say, hey, like, how are things at home, how are things at school, how are things in your spiritual life? Are you reading your Bible? You know, something simple like that. You know, and obviously you're going want to remember those things, whatever they share with you. You can do small things like serving together in your faith community.
Speaker 3:And then, one of the things that we love, and you're Latino, I'm Asian American, many of our community faith discipleship, and I was a part of a think tank group where we brought together Latinos and Asian Americans and said, What is similar and what's different about our discipleship, our ministry? And both of our communities said, actually, so much of our discipleship took place in real life. It was when I invited the kids over, and I was painting the house, and invited them to paint with me. Or I was running an errand to pick up groceries for our event, and I would invite a few of them along with me. And it was in the car that we would have a faith conversation, or it was at the store when we were doing X, Y, and Z.
Speaker 3:That was a significant thing. Another thing that I think a lot of people feel pressure around is the sense of needing to have it all together, to basically pretend like you know what you're doing. And, you know, there is a sense that you can fake it till you make it, you know, some people believe that. But young people care much more about authenticity than you pretending, and that's the secondary key. A lot of adults say, I don't know what to do or say around young people, and that's okay, because people don't want a falsely performative version of you, they just want you.
Speaker 3:So, they want you to be you. And so, don't show up as someone else, don't wear a mask, show up as you. And you'll be surprised how often you being vulnerable will draw people towards you and give people a sense of your humanity and your personhood. And then the other thing that you know is how curiosity and your presence makes a difference. And so, being empathetic and kind of reflecting on what you hear, you know, and saying things like, Wow, that was really challenging, or Man, this is what I'm hearing you say, and demonstrating that you're listening deeply and with them is really going to be important.
Speaker 3:Which actually takes us to, you know, the third thing is, you know, a lot of people think that mentoring is about having all the right answers, it's about being the expert. What we consistently find, and this is what you're so great at, Zach, is like, the importance of asking questions over providing answers. People are thinking that they have to be spiritual experts on the book of Revelation and exegesis on the book of Acts in order to make a difference. And that in order to make a difference and have a deep conversation with young people, you basically need a PhD. But being spiritual isn't nearly as important as being a real human on a real journey towards faithfully following Jesus.
Speaker 3:And so, you know, people often say, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's true of just all people. So, we don't need Young people are not looking to be fixed, they're not looking to be told what to do, they're looking for someone to be interested in them, they're looking for someone to journey with them and to participate in life with them. And so, sometimes just, you know, it's this sense of just giving permission and letting people know that you are a safe person by asking them questions that genuinely show intrigue and interest in them. And it's also sometimes resisting the temptation to answer all the questions that they might ask, embrace kind of the silence and the awkwardness of that silence.
Speaker 3:Then, and even if you don't know, saying, like, actually, I don't know, like, I don't have an answer to this, but can I come back to you next week or next month with that? And then, of course, kind of bringing them into your life with God and saying, Hey, this is how I feel like God is working in me. Because it's oftentimes when people share their testimonies of present realities with Jesus, that they're like, Oh, I think God's working in a similar way to me. And so, those are a few things I'd share. Those are the three kind of keys.
Speaker 3:The first key is small acts or big gestures or grand gestures. The second is authenticity or pretending. And then third is leading with questions instead of leading with answers.
Speaker 2:And I think it's so interesting, Ray, how the enemy has lied to us and said, you have to do the big thing. You have to, you know, take them to the ballgame and, you know, do this this massive thing for them. You guys gotta go to the mall and go to the movies and go to 6 Flags and do all these things. And really, it's like, no. Just take them to the grocery store.
Speaker 2:But then here comes the lie. It it doesn't wanna go to the grocery store with them. But what I found is they're not doing anything else. You know? It's like they would actually be so excited to go to the grocery store with you.
Speaker 2:You know? So the next lie is I have to have it all figured out. Like, I have to be perfect. I have to give all the right answers. And they're like, no.
Speaker 2:Kids can spot the fake from a mile away. So you're so much better off just being yourself. And it takes humility to talk about your struggles. It takes humility to talk about your failures. And the lie is that those mess ups will push them away, but the truth is God uses that humility to to actually have them come in closer.
Speaker 2:And then who doesn't like being, paid attention to? Who doesn't like it when someone looks you in the eyes and says, oh my gosh, tell me all about your day. They ask questions. They're engaged. They're interested in you.
Speaker 2:Like, that is so important to a kid to feel important, to feel value, to feel worth, and you do that by shining the spotlight on them. Right? One of our favorite sayings is a good mentor shines the spotlight on others, and that's what we get to do whenever we ask questions. So, man, I I just think that that's so I mean, I say simple. It's called simple mentoring.
Speaker 2:Hello. But it's like small things. It's being truly yourself, being authentic, and it's asking questions and engaging them, being interested in them, and shining the spotlight on them. Yeah. So That's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I I mean, like, you're the expert, Zach. You know what mean? You're the one that's that's showing people how to do it well. And so I I really hope that people are paying attention to what you're calling them to, that that people can actually mentor, and that the barriers aren't as high, and that if you have an openness and a willingness to do it, there is someone out there that could really use your listening ear and your genuine care for them.
Speaker 3:Because so many people are lonely, and so many people are feeling a sense of a loss this because they don't know who they can turn to. And everyone is looking for a safe person to be around, and that's what mentors can offer. And so, really thankful for all that you're doing, Zach.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, Ray. I appreciate that. So alright, man. So, as people wanna learn more about simple mentoring, about 10 by 10, if there's a not for profit out there who's mentoring kids and they wanna get engaged with you and all the amazing work and all the amazing kinds of partners that you guys have, why don't you tell us how to do
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, I mean, we have a free resource that's for any senior leader, but it really can apply to any kind of caring Christian adult, right, which is, you know, simplementoring.org. What you'll see is that we partner with several great organizations to to really put this thing together. There's a whole toolkit that you can download and utilize. It's all free, to the generous some generous funding that we've received.
Speaker 3:And we really wanna kind of help you kind of navigate, you know, some of the challenges around mentoring, which, you know, again, You Can Mentor is really doing a phenomenal job of calling people to. And so go on simplementoring.org and you'll see everything. If you're interested in the broader kind of collaborative movement of 10x10, which Zachary and You Can Mentor is a part of, you can check out 10x10.org, or you can ten ten dot org, or 1010. You'll see all the different partners that are involved all throughout the country, and we're really excited about, you know, the large number of organizations that have been engaged with us. And we're hoping that we can really continue to catalyze movement and mobilization.
Speaker 3:And so if you are a organization, there's a partner form that you can fill out and then someone from our team will reach out to you to see how we can get you engaged. If you are an individual, there are a host of resources which include a relational discipleship inventory, an RDI. We also have a series of resources called the RDK, or the Relational Discipleship Kickstart, and it's worth kind of seeing. It's ten thirty minute lessons that are designed for bi vocational or volunteer kind of mentors or youth workers or youth leaders. We have a series of deep dives that we have created alongside or that some of our partners have created with 10x10, and so, you know, those are much more contextual.
Speaker 3:It's different kind of communities across racial and and ecclesial lines. And so, you know, all that's made available to to different communities, and and almost everything that we create is is made available for free.
Speaker 2:Oh. Love that, man. Sure do love the sound of that. But
Speaker 3:Yeah. Bring on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, baby. Alright. Ray with 10by10simplementoring.org, man. So grateful for you and for your time and for your expertise, and I I just love those three keys. Like, it's just gold.
Speaker 2:But you also have a conference coming up, potentially?
Speaker 3:We do. Yeah. So if this podcast releases before October Yeah. Eighth to tenth, and you are someone that is interested in the faith of the next generation or the emerging generation, we'd love to have you in Atlanta with us. We have our first, second, third summit coming up, which is in Atlanta, so this is officially the mark of year three, and so we're hoping that we can see a good number of people show up and to worship Jesus together, to collaborate, to connect, to network, to participate in getting some updates and and and and working together in collaboratively with other people.
Speaker 2:That's right, man. I'm gonna be there. It's gonna be awesome. So All six foot That's right, baby. All six foot eight to me.
Speaker 2:You know? Me and all my opinions and, you know, God God help me. Lord Jesus, please. But alright, Ray. Super thankful for you, guys.
Speaker 2:Please share this episode with your team, with your volunteers, with anyone you know who loves mentoring. Ray Chang, 10 by 10. And if you missed anything we heard, well, I'm sorry. But remember this, you can mentor.
Speaker 3:Yes, you can.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to the You Can Mentor podcast. Our vision is to raise up and invest in mentoring leaders who will launch and grow thriving mentoring ministries. We do that by equipping and encouraging faith based leaders through relational connection, Christ centered resources and collaborative gatherings. Check out our books, come to the National Christian Mentoring Gathering and engage with our network and cohorts. You can find all this at ucanmentor.com or on social media.
Speaker 1:Please share this episode with a mentoring friend and leave us that five star review. Thank you, You Can Mentor.