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You Can Mentor is turning 200! That’s right, this week is our 200th episode, and we couldn’t have done it without all of you. From the bottom of everybody’s heart here at You Can Mentor, THANK YOU! With our 200th episode, we wanted to announce some major changes coming up at You Can Mentor and how we operate. Don’t worry, we’re still outputting content to encourage and equip mentors throughout the nation. Tune in this week to hear Zach and John discuss the future of the podcast, Zach’s vision for You Can Mentor as an entity, and some of Zach’s history behind the podcast and how he got involved in mentoring in the first place.
Connect with Zach:
zach@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
Connect with Zach:
zach@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:Hey, mentors. Just a reminder about the You Can Mentor book. It's titled You Can Mentor, How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses. The whole point of this book is to equip and encourage mentors with new tools and ideas on how to make the most of their mentor mentee relationship. If you're a mentor, hey, go pick it up.
Speaker 2:And if you're a mentoring organization, pick some up for all of your mentors. If you would like to order mass copies, like more than 20, send an email to me, zach@youcanmentor.com, and we will get you guys a special price. But go and pick up that book. It's good. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. I'm Zach. And I'm John. Guys, this is episode 200. Congratulations, Zach.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's it hasn't all been me. But, yes, thank you. It's you.
Speaker 3:It's mostly been you.
Speaker 2:Me and Steven. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And Steven. That's right. You and Steven, congrats to both of you. Yeah. And I'm so glad to be a part.
Speaker 2:You are a part. It's like Big part.
Speaker 3:It's like when you do all the work and then you throw the party, it's like the the the hymn who said, who's gonna help me gather this wheat? Who's gonna help me bake this cake? And then at the end, that dog and the cat come in later and like, Hey, I want to, I want to eat some of that cake.
Speaker 2:Man, I sure hope that people have read that book. Cause if not, we're going to sound like a bunch of fools. Okay. There's a couple of big things going on today, John. Number 1, 200th episode.
Speaker 2:We are terrible at celebrating. We're awful at it. So this is our attempt to celebrate.
Speaker 3:Right. Yay. You and me in the corner of this room together. Whoo. That sounds like a party.
Speaker 3:That's a big deal. With friends though.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The second big thing is we this is our first podcast that's on YouTube. That's on video. I I I'm feeling wildly insecure about staring at you, but knowing that there's a phone recording me
Speaker 3:Being stared at. Yes. Right.
Speaker 2:I I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3:How do you feel about people now kinda understanding knowing that we're as similar looking as we are in terms of just, like, our size as far as, like, what we can bench, how fast we can run?
Speaker 2:Bench press.
Speaker 3:You know? I think that's something that we need to take a moment for as well.
Speaker 2:We're basically identical twins. Twins. Yeah. Yeah. Which allow me to teaser you.
Speaker 2:If you wanna know what we look like, go to YouTube, follow the You Can Mentor channel, and you'll figure it out
Speaker 3:real quick. Like, which one's Zach and which one's John? I'm Zach. Right. You're John.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, a process of elimination. Right.
Speaker 2:Okay. The third thing that's big, episode 200, YouTube, is today we have some big news. We are introducing the new You Can Mentor, and we'll talk about what that means right now maybe.
Speaker 3:I mean, what's what's a better time than now to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess there's not.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We're all excited for that.
Speaker 2:Okay. So let's do it.
Speaker 3:So with our conversation today, Zach, what I'm going to do, I just wanna you know, I mentioned this a lot when I'm getting having the great opportunity to interview someone in mentoring is just say, this is how I want this to feel. We're just gonna man, this is Home Run Derby. Right? And what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna lob you. I'm just gonna lob 1 to you.
Speaker 3:This is baseball. This is a baseball analogy. Get this? I'm gonna I'm gonna pitch to you, but I'm not gonna try to get it past you. What I'm gonna do is put it right down the middle.
Speaker 3:And then I want what I want you to do, what do you think?
Speaker 2:I'll just swing for the fences.
Speaker 3:That's it, man. I mean, kill it. I'm gonna
Speaker 2:I'm gonna knock that puppy out of
Speaker 3:here. That's exactly right. So That's great. So with every prompt, every question, you just just crank them out.
Speaker 2:It's great.
Speaker 3:So let's start at the beginning. Let's do it. What is going on with You Can Mentor right now?
Speaker 2:Okay. So here's what's going on. Okay. So the short of it is I have gone all in on You Can Mentor, and I have made this my my new full time job. So for those of you guys who don't know the past of You Can Mentor, I used to work at a nonprofit in Dallas called 4 Runner Mentoring Program.
Speaker 2:I started that program in 2011, and we do after school programming, 1 on 1 mentoring. We serve the single mom. We do some summer camps. And if you have heard the podcast before, that's where I met Steven. So Steven worked for me.
Speaker 2:And in 2019, we started asking ourselves this question. Okay. Who is out there? Who is kind of the mentoring resource? Who do we go to if we have questions?
Speaker 2:Who is going to help me run a mentoring program if I don't know what to do? And we couldn't figure out the answer to those. So what we did is we just started a podcast, and we called it You Can Mentor because we believe that every single person out there has something to offer someone else in terms of mentoring and discipleship. That God can use you. If you just say yes, God can use you to advance his kingdom and to change someone's life, just like he changed my life.
Speaker 2:And kinda like on a whim, it was like we came up with the idea on a Tuesday, and on Wednesday afternoon, we started a podcast. We didn't have, like, any kind of strategic plan, or we didn't have anything. We just wanted to start talking about mentoring. Faith based mentoring, specifically for kids who come from hard places, kids who have experienced hardships. And so we are, as of today, 200 episodes in.
Speaker 2:And in the past, we have really just been hodgepodging this thing together. We might spend an hour a week on it. We have done zero marketing. We have just done this kinda as a side gig. But there's something inside my heart that believes that this is necessary, and that this can really help people mentor.
Speaker 2:And so that's why we started it, and that is why I have decided I say I have decided that that's a very strong term. I feel called into just trying this thing out, trying to give it a go, because I have experienced how difficult it is to mentor, how much the enemy wants to keep me from, you know, creating and investing into kids in the name of Jesus. And I wanna help people mentor. I wanna help people run mentoring nonprofits, whether it's through a 501c3, through a church, through a school. We just wanna help people mentor in whatever capacity they are mentoring in.
Speaker 3:Right. And that's kind of the beauty for me to think about what you can mentor is going to become is you're not really taking a hard nosed, like, this is exactly how it's going to be. And and I have to say no to all these other opportunities or whatever. I think what you're what I'm hearing you say is that you're really beginning with the purpose because of the difficulty and for the need of of mentors and for these people and organizations to be healthy. So it's almost as if you're saying, what does you can mentor need to be?
Speaker 3:Like, what directions do we need to take? What what what things do we need to offer in order to do the noble and the good work and the hard work of mentoring? Because it it is it is often a thankless task, but it is so it's so important and so valuable. So and by the way, you took you know, you said this was as a side job or maybe even a a passion project. Right?
Speaker 3:That's nice. Passion project. I mean, it's true. And I think that a lot of people can really identify with that of saying, you know, I love this thing. I don't you know, it's not part of my career.
Speaker 3:I'm just kind of a part of it over here. But when God calls you to take that passion project and to say, you know what? Now you're going to be committing every day to this thing, to doing the work, to building this thing. That's that's a big deal, and that's an important that's an important work.
Speaker 2:It is. So I guess kinda if I can just kinda share with you why a tiny bit more detail as to why I started You Can Mentor, And then we'll get into, like, the vision and, like, what's next. Right? Like, we do have big ideas for You Can Mentor. Like, we wanna see everyone in America, everyone in the world.
Speaker 2:Wow. That's that's big. That's audacious. Lord Jesus, make it happen. If you're mentoring in the name of Jesus, we want to know you.
Speaker 2:We wanna hear your story. We need your help because we need each other to stay in this game for the long haul. You have something if you're mentoring. I don't care if you are in charge of a mentoring nonprofit, if you're mentoring through your church, or if you're just mentoring 1 kid. You have experiences, you have stories, and you have something to offer everyone else who is mentoring.
Speaker 2:You know, John, like you mentor by skateboarding and through helping kids fix cars. Like that that is different from the guy who's mentoring through playing sports, or that's different that's different from how I did it. Like, I mentored through after school and summer camps. But it's all the same thing. It's all building relationships in the name of Jesus to help this kid fulfill his potential and to know Jesus.
Speaker 2:And so we we all have a story, and we all have something to offer. And so why I started this thing is because whenever I got into the mentoring game, I just wanted to help kids. Like, I just wanted to build relationships. And then just like we kinda fell into starting a 501c3, you know, and then I had to worry about these things that I had never heard of before, like strategic planning and vision and mission and how to recruit volunteers and how to onboard and how to train and how to encourage and what to do whenever a mentor feels like he's failing. Then I had to deal with a board.
Speaker 2:I had to deal with fundraising and how to market and just all of these things. And I looked up after doing it for, you know, 2 or 3 years, and I said to myself, I'm not mentoring any kids. I'm just doing lots of things to help other people mentor. And I'll be the first to say, I had no idea what I was doing. And I picked up some books and, you know, I picked up some podcasts, but, like, for the most part, I didn't have anyone who could mentor me in it.
Speaker 2:And and so whenever Steven and I started, you can mentor, kinda our hope is, hey, we have been doing this mentoring game now for a long time, over a decade. We feel like we've had some success. We feel like we've seen some mentoring relationships work. We feel like we've run an efficient and effective not for profit, and we just wanna help other people do the same thing. So we wanna be the mentors that mentor the mentors.
Speaker 2:We want to help not fix you or do anything like that. We just wanna guide you. We just wanna be alongside you as you mentor in your own context, in your own community. I believe that one of the things that God has really given me is an ability to be a lifelong learner. And so I I love to learn, and I love to figure out how to become the best mentor possible, how to run the best mentoring not for profit.
Speaker 2:And I I wanna share all that information with you so that I can support you so that you can mentor. You can impact your community in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 3:You know, going back, Zach, to that time when you kinda realized that there really was no national voice or resource in the world of mentoring, which I think still just boggles my mind at times because we know that it's so important.
Speaker 2:Well, there is no faith based.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And so so, like, there are people out there who are teaching people how to mentor. But but I haven't found I haven't found too many people who are who are teaching, who are guiding, who are facilitating opportunities to help people mentor in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Because it's different. Like, our main goal is, yes, to help this kid fulfill their potential, but it's also to introduce them to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And that's a big that's a big difference. And so, like, we we know that when we mentor in the name of Jesus that it's just different. That we are going to experience obstacles because the enemy does not want us to do that. Mhmm. And we say it is mentoring, but really, the second you talk about Jesus, it turns into discipleship.
Speaker 2:And so we wanna help you mentor. We wanna help you make a disciple in your own unique community. Because building a mentoring relationship in, you know, in Texas might be different than building 1 in New York. They might be different than building 1 in Montana. Right?
Speaker 2:And so we don't have all of the answers, but we wanna come alongside you and support you and help you figure out what works in your specific context, in your specific community.
Speaker 3:Sure. Sure. So, Zach, if there's somebody that's listening or watching now, and, man, this is their first time
Speaker 2:to
Speaker 3:get all of this. Can you just kinda take a step back to maybe just talk a little bit about your personal life and how mentoring kinda got on your radar? How did it affect you? You know, where what what are the what are the key points of your life that you can kinda now look at and say, the Lord was at work here, you know, showing me something, making me understand that that mentoring would be something that I would wanna work in later.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a great question, John. So I my story, short and sweet, is I grew up without my father in the home. So it's just me and my mom, and I didn't know how to be a man. My mom, you know, she worked as hard as she could just to help us survive.
Speaker 2:And but I I was kinda left to figure out this thing called life all on my own. And so growing up with without a father figure in the home, I didn't have that man instilling identity, instilling my purpose. Right? I surrounded myself with people who, you know, maybe weren't making the best the best decisions. And so I was I was just kinda on a bad path.
Speaker 2:Made some, you know, kinda some kinda some dumb choices, but god had something for my life. And whenever I was 21 years old, he introduced me to this older man named Bob. And Bob was really the first man in my life who I believe took time and gave me attention and accepted me for who I was and gave me affirmations. And I was kinda like, I didn't know how men worked. I didn't know what men did.
Speaker 2:I I didn't know much about what it looked like to carry myself as a man. I for sure didn't know what it looked like to, you know, be a godly man or a godly leader or a husband or a father, but so much more is hot than taught. And I just caught so much from just being around Bob. You know, Bob invited me over to his house. He spent time with me, and ultimately, after some time, he started talking to me about my father.
Speaker 2:And he knew that I was angry. He knew that I hadn't spoken to him, that I was carrying a lot carrying lots of bitterness. And Bob really was the one to say, hey, Zach. Look. I love you, and I'm here for you.
Speaker 2:But you have to deal with your father issues because they're killing you. And you won't become who god has. You won't become what god has for you if you don't face these issues. And that happened whenever I was 21 years old. And then for the next 7 years, god, in his kindness, put different men in my life to teach me how to become a become a godly man.
Speaker 2:And so I mean, he taught me how to do everything from how to shake a hand, to how to make eye contact, how to shave. And then some men taught me how to forgive my dad and how to deal with my pride and how to follow Jesus and how to do all of, you know, all of the things that it takes to have an intimate relationship with Jesus. And so I am who I am today because men saw a boy who was lost, and they said, yes. I'll invest something into this kid. And while I grew up without a father in my life, the lord filled in those gaps because mentors said yes.
Speaker 2:And so I'm super passionate about that because it has changed my life. And so With
Speaker 3:speaking about Bob being kind of the first, was that was that through a formal mentorship relationship, or was that just kinda organic?
Speaker 2:Super organic. Okay. So I would call Bob my first mentor. Bob would not call himself my first mentor.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:But he just spent time with me. I mean, it, like, wasn't anything serious. Mhmm. But he just took time out of his day to make me feel important, ask me, like, a bunch of questions.
Speaker 3:What was the context there? Was it was he a neighbor? I mean, how how did you get yourself around Bob? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so I was in college, and Bob was a professor, and I worked for him. Him. Gotcha. So that's kinda how it happened. Okay.
Speaker 2:But then, like, throughout the next, you know, 6 or 7 years, like, the Lord provided me mentors through an older man who I worked with. I was a teacher, so I taught and coached at a inner city school for almost a decade. And, you know, one of my mentors was a guy who he was in his sixties and he had been teaching for over 40 years. 1 of my mentors was the father of one of my friends. 1 of my mentors was a guy who I who I got introduced to a church.
Speaker 2:And then my main mentor is is a man named Steve, and I talk to Steve every week, and we met through a Discipleship School. And so just like God has used men in my life to teach me just a multitude of things, and I am who I am today as a leader, as a husband, as a father, all because of these men. And God used it to change my life, and I want to help other kids experience the same thing that I experienced.
Speaker 3:I think that it's so interesting that sometimes there's such kind of an apprehension from folks who truly want to invest in others, but sometimes I think feel a little bit, like, they're not qualified for, like, there's too heavy a responsibility to wear the the title of mentor. And something that I appreciate about what you do is and what we have the ability through YouCan Mentor to do is to encourage to say, don't feel like you need to be perfect. Don't feel like you need to have all of these things going on in your life before you can invest in someone in a healthy way to to share Christ and to share in your life. So, Zach, I'm curious when at what point in your life did you kinda realize that that you were gonna turn this corner that from being invested in by by these men of of such high quality that you said, you know what? It's time to give back.
Speaker 3:It's time to kinda look to see how I can invest in in the lives of others.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. And I would say that I I never made an intentional decision to where I said to myself, I am gonna start mentoring today. It just happened organically. So my mom, she worked at a school, and so, honestly, the only profession that I've ever really known about is being a teacher. And I've always kinda had had a gift of interacting with kids, and so I after college, I worked at a church for 2 years, but then I worked as a teacher.
Speaker 2:So I taught 8th grade, and I was single, and I saw a bunch of kids who were just like me. A bunch of kids who had a lot of potential, but they just had no man in their life teaching them how to fulfill that potential. And so I honestly didn't have I didn't have anything else to do. So I taught from 8 to 3, then I coached football until 5:30. And then I volunteered with a nonprofit, and it was called it was called Young Life.
Speaker 2:And I just started to volunteer with them, and that's how I got introduced to really doing ministry to kids. And so every day, I would teach them. I would coach them. Then afterwards, we would go out to dinner. We would go play, you know, we would go play basketball, and I just had compassion for these kids who were kinda lost.
Speaker 2:And so I did that for I did that for a decade. And in the community that I was in, my heart really, you know, was really I connected with kids who didn't have a dad around. And most of those kids came from a hard place. Most of those kids were poor, and I just said to myself, man, how can I help these kids out? How can I invest into them?
Speaker 2:Then I thought back, how did god change my life? Well, god changed my life because men and mentors showed up, and that's how I that's how I feel like I can I can support them?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So So Young Life is a really great way to get involved into mentoring. Right? Because It's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's college kids going and spending time with high school kids, investing in them, just being there for them. Did you now were you also, like, singing the Alan Jackson songs that you guys would perform, you know, during during club?
Speaker 2:I led songs at club. Did you did? My favorite was
Speaker 3:since you've been gone. Yeah. Yeah. I can breathe for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I rocked it
Speaker 3:hard. Did.
Speaker 2:So did Young Life, and I realized, like, hey. I can't serve all these kids. Like, I'm only one person. And then I started to recruit some of my friends. And as a teacher, I recruited some dads and I was like, Hey, there's kids on your kid's football team that don't have a dad around.
Speaker 2:Would you mind spending some time with them? And they said, yes. So that's how I started out of my teaching career a not for profit. So it was just super organic. It was kids on my team who I taught and who I coached.
Speaker 2:And I said, I don't have time to serve them. Dad, will you help this kid out? And we started with 2 mentors, then 2 turned into 4, and 4 turned into 8, 8 turned into 10. And then some men in the at the school saw what I was doing. And they took me out one day for lunch.
Speaker 2:And they said, Zach, we've been trying to figure out a way to serve these kids for a long time, and it looks like you're onto something. How can we help? I said, I don't know. I'm just, you know, trying to trying to help out these kids. And they said, have you ever thought of starting a not for profit?
Speaker 2:I said, I don't even know what that means. And so those men helped me start a 501c3, and they became my first board. And for the next 3 years, I taught and ran this not for profit on the side. We were probably meant to earn 30 kids, and one day, they came into me and said, Zach, I think it's time to take this thing to take it full time. And that's whenever I stopped teaching.
Speaker 2:That's whenever I stopped coaching and started to work full time for a nonprofit.
Speaker 3:So Awesome.
Speaker 2:And, like, our 1st year, our budget was $1,000. And then 2nd year, 5,000. 3rd year, 10,000. Whenever I went full time, our budget was a 150,000. And then over time, we continued to add mentors.
Speaker 2:We continued to serve more kids. We started in an after school program. We started summer camps. We started to serve moms. And whenever I left, we were stewarding, you know, we had a staff of probably 15.
Speaker 2:We were serving 100 of kids, and our budget was over 7 figures. And so and so I the odds are I have been where most mentors have been. I have, you know, invested into kids. I've started a not for profit. I know what it's like to work for one that has that has kind of a kind of a small budget, kind of a midsize budget, and then kind of a large budget.
Speaker 2:For the last, for the last couple of years, we came to Waco and we started a, we started a site here and I was working with a nonprofit and their budget was 7,000,000. And so I feel like I have experience as a teacher, as a coach. Me and my wife, we also did we also did we did, like, a little bit of foster care too. We had a kid stay with us for 3 years. And then I started my own, and then I've worked for a large 501c3.
Speaker 2:And so I I feel like that experience can help other people who might be experiencing some of the things
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That I've experienced.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It makes sense for those individuals and those organizations who are at a certain point where you can say, I've been there, and this this was helpful. And so you can relate just right off the bat, which I think is incredibly important and incredibly encouraging because when we think about the work of the mentor, you know, we call it the the slow development, but we call it the farming of that and say it can be a thankless job. And all the more reason why we need someone who who has the qualifications, really, and the ability to come in and and and be a help because so many are needing, equipping, and encouraging. Zach, you and I have talked about this.
Speaker 3:I think it was Richard Rohrer who said in one of his books that leaders there are 2 types of leaders. Right? There are those that stand in the spotlight, and there are those that hold the spotlight on others. And I just think that I think that mentors are spotlight holders. Right?
Speaker 3:But it sounds also like you want to lead this organization of you can mentor to be a spotlight holder on the mentors, right, and on the mentoring organizations as well.
Speaker 2:100%. So I feel like my call now is I just wanna help you mentor. I believe that you can mentor, and I wanna help you whether it's mentor in a small city, mentor through sports, mentor through summer camp, just whatever way you're building relationships, I wanna help you do that. And so, the two main things that we believe, and that we've seen that mentors and mentoring organizations need is equipping and encouraging. And so, our vision, the new vision of you can mentor is we are a network.
Speaker 2:So we wanna get together everyone who's mentoring, and we wanna get them in the same room, and we wanna get them to know each other, and we want to get us all on the same team so that we can learn from each other. So we're a network that equips and encourages. We equip with anything that you need, any tool that you need to help mentor or to run a mentoring organization. Whether that's strategic planning, whether that's vision, whether that's marketing, whether that's recruiting, whether that's dealing with a volunteer. We want to equip you with tools, and we want to encourage you.
Speaker 2:Because if you have been investing into the life of a kid, if you are a mentor, if you are in charge of a nonprofit, if you're trying to volunteer at a church, it can be so hard. Because the enemy wants to get you to stop doing it. The enemy wants to get you to quit. And the best way that he knows how to do that is to lie to you, and to make you feel like you're a failure. Make you feel like you don't have like, you are not making an impact.
Speaker 2:To make you feel like it's a waste of time. That this kid this kid doesn't appreciate me. This kid doesn't like me. This kid isn't and so we want to encourage you, and we wanna put our finger in your chest and say, hey. Keep on.
Speaker 2:We believe in you. It's working. He who called you is faithful. God is moving. Let's have faith.
Speaker 2:Let's have hope. Let let me help combat the lies that you might be hearing. And so we wanna equip and encourage mentors and mentoring organizations, whether you're a nonprofit, work for a church, work for a school, whether you're a camp, to and we wanna do that through resources and relationships. So we wanna create resources, like this podcast. We have a book.
Speaker 2:The book is called You Can Mentor. We're coming out we we hope to come out with a book every year, and then we hope to just provide you with any any resource that can help you mentor. But most importantly, it's about relationships. We want to be the person you call when you're feeling discouraged. We wanna be the person you call when you don't know what to do or when you have an issue.
Speaker 2:We just wanna get to know you because it's not good for man to be alone. And if you are in charge of a mentoring not for profit, if you are leading at any capacity, we know that it at the top, it's lonely. And you might not be able to talk about some of the things that you some of your issues with people on your team. And we just wanna be an objective safe place to help you process. And so we want we are a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring organizations by providing resources and creating relationships so that you can love God, love others, and make disciples in your own community.
Speaker 2:That's it. And so it's all about you loving God first. You can't give what you don't have, so the most important thing is that you are filled up and that you're not trying to do this out of your own strength, but that God is God's in charge. And and that it is his will, not our will. And once you're filled up, that's gonna give you everything that you need.
Speaker 2:All the love, all the joy, all the peace, all the patience to love other people. Once you're filled up, you can love other people, and then you can make disciples in your own community. Wherever God has has you, there's an opportunity to mentor. There's an opportunity to love on some kids. There's an opportunity to make disciples.
Speaker 2:We just wanna help you do that.
Speaker 3:I know lots of good things are coming in the future, Zach. But today, right now, how you know, if if I'm I'm a mentor or I'm considering mentoring, how what's my interface look like with You Can Mentor right now? Is there you know, talk about a little bit about those resources or just the opportunity through whether it's social media or whatever, but how how can I kinda interact with You Can Mentor?
Speaker 2:Yes. So all of all of that stuff is coming. Okay? So we're not there yet. Excuse me.
Speaker 2:I've only been I've only been doing this full time for 2 months, but this is what we hope to have. We hope to have a conference. And so we want to get in the same room with people who are mentoring, and we hope to do that next next spring. And so that is the first thing. The second thing is a cohort.
Speaker 2:So if you if you are running a mentoring nonprofit or anything like that, we want to get you in a small group that would be facilitated by me. And together, we would just figure out how to equip and encourage you. And so in a perfect world, you know, 10 or 12 people who are mentoring kinda in the same in the same way we would get together, and we would just talk about what's working, talk about what's not working, talk about ways to become more effective, talk about ways to be more sustainable. And then together, we would sharpen each other up. And those are the like, we we just want to build relationships to equip and encourage.
Speaker 2:The best way to get in touch with us is I mean, my full time job is to support you. And so connect with us on social media. Our name on Instagram is You Can Mentor. So you can follow us, go to our website. You can send me an email, zach, zach, you can mentor dot com.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of different ways to, you know, get ahold of us.
Speaker 3:And I know that with this podcast, you and I both really feel strongly about being able to equip and encourage just as specifically as possible knowing what the needs are out there. So just tell us, you know, how let's say I'm a I'm a mentor, and I've got something that I would I could really use some help in. What's the best way for that person to reach out to say, hey. Can you can you guys share something about this specific topic? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So just like,
Speaker 2:we wanna make this podcast for you. So there's a couple things there. Thanks, John. One, if you are a mentoring nonprofit, we wanna spotlight you. So we wanna get you on our podcast, and we want you to talk about what God is up to in your community.
Speaker 2:So because we believe whatever you're doing, someone else is either thinking about it, or someone else is is either someone else is actually doing it. So, like, hey. If you mentor by starting a baseball team, and you're in New Hampshire, Or maybe there's a guy or a gal in California, and she's like, I feel like God's calling me to mentor, you know, by starting a baseball team. Well, we want them to hear about you, but we also wanna introduce y'all. And so if you are a if you're mentoring in a specific way, contact us.
Speaker 2:Send me an email. DM us on Instagram. I think that's what the kids are saying.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:To DM.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:It stands for direct message, I think. Just get in touch with us, and we would love to spotlight you. If you're a mentor, ask us a question. If you're having an issue, I would love to take time to help you figure that out. And if I don't know the answer, I can encourage you, and we can pray together.
Speaker 2:So just this past week, I had a guy who was mentoring. I think he's in Maine, and he sent me an email, and he's just like, man, here is my kid. Here's my here's what I'm going through, and we hopped on a call for 15 minutes, and we just got to talk it out. And so I am here for you. And so anything that you want to discuss, tell us.
Speaker 2:And if there's anything that, you know, you would like to share, all our artists as well. Awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ministry of availability. Right?
Speaker 2:That's it. Yeah. For sure. I I am here to guide. I'm here to support.
Speaker 2:And if I don't know the answer, because I don't know everything, then together, we can figure it out. But I just wanna help you mentor, and I wanna help you lead. And I believe that God has given me experiences that I hope to share. There's power in our testimony. And so and I just wanna support you.
Speaker 2:I wanna encourage you, and I wanna help you advance the kingdom in whatever way the lord has asked you to. Mhmm. I wanna help you mentor for the long haul. I I wanna help you be filled up so that you can go make disciples.
Speaker 3:Zach, so I know that you're a a man of with a vibrant faith and vision. Mhmm. And you wanna talk just a little bit as we as we kinda draw to a close with this conversation, what what you feel like. You know, what what do you think you can mentor is gonna look like, say, in a decade from now? What do you think the years hold?
Speaker 3:Is there anything that you just kinda have an excitement about or that you'd love to see happen?
Speaker 2:Yes. And I'll start by saying that, like, I am very humbled by this vision. I do feel I'll say this. I feel like God has called me to this, but I just can't stop thinking about a national mentoring movement To where there is someone or some church or some nonprofit mentoring in every community in America. Where there are adults who love Jesus, who are investing into the lives of kids in their own neighborhood to advance the kingdom and help these kids know Jesus.
Speaker 2:I want if you're in charge of a not for profit, I want you to know other people who are in charge of different, not for profits so that y'all can share best practices. It's not about competition, but we are on the same team. We're all trying to do the same thing. Let's help each other out. Let's share stories of success.
Speaker 2:Whenever someone's having a hard time, let's support them. I wanna have different little small groups all across the nation of people who are mentoring, who are getting together to learn how to mentor better. I want a conference. I want there to be 100 upon 100 of mentors who are mentoring in the name of Jesus, who come together to experience him, so that they can get filled up, so that they can build relationships in their own community. I want people to build relationships.
Speaker 2:Like John, like we are we're friends. Why? Because of our love for mentoring, and I want people to experience that. I don't want you to be alone. So if you're alone out there, I want you to find community by way of what we are up to.
Speaker 2:And so I want resources. I want books. I want podcasts. Just if anyone has a question about mentoring, if anyone has an obstacle that's keeping them from mentoring, I want You Can Mentor to have created a resource to help them overcome that issue, to help answer that to help answer that answer that question. I want people on staff who are just there to encourage you, who are just there to support you.
Speaker 2:That is what it looks like in 10 years. Awesome. Love
Speaker 3:it. Well, listen. Whether this is your first time to have a conversation with us and be thinking these thoughts or you've been long for the ride since the inception of You Can Mentor. And I'm sure you've got listeners out there who have just been with you since the beginning. That's encouraging.
Speaker 2:I here's also one thing that I want. If you're a mentoring organization, we want you to use You Can Mentor to onboard volunteers to help train them up. We wanna support you because we've got some things to share. That's all I got, man.
Speaker 3:Well, Zach, I'm really glad we sat down and talked about this. What a great 200th episode.
Speaker 2:Man, I sure hope so.
Speaker 3:For sure. Alright. Gonna be an exciting time coming up.
Speaker 2:I just wanna pray for us. Can I do that? Absolutely. Dear god, we ask that you create a mentoring movement in our hearts, in communities throughout America, and throughout this nation. That every kid who's alone would have someone who loves you, who's investing into them and sharing with them you, Jesus.
Speaker 2:Sharing with them that they're not alone, that there's someone out there who loves them. And, god, I just pray that you use mentoring to make disciples to transform people's lives, to transform generations, lord. That every kid in America would have an adult who loves them and who's sharing with them about you. So, god, would you make it happen? It's all for you.
Speaker 2:In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Yes. And man, you can mentor.