You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast

John Mosley Jr is the the men's basketball head coach at East Los Angeles College, which was recently featured on Netflix's Last Chance U. He is full-time faculty member for the Kinesiology Department and work with The Male Leadership Academy at ELAC, a program that supports the vision of underrepresented Men of Color and supports their success at the Community College. Coach Mosley has found succ...

Conversations are a crucial life skill.  They are literally the way in which we communicate with one another, relate to each other, and feel seen, valued, and heard.  It’s something we start practicing as soon as we begin to talk.  Even so, we struggle to be able to have deep, meaningful conversations with others; especially with strangers.  But what could happen if we were able to change that?  W...

Purchase the You Can Mentor book: You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses youcanmentor.com  

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things there is no law.”  -  Galatians 5:22-23 When we walk in the Spirit, we can’t help but model the affect the Holy Spirit has on our lives.  The Spirit fills us up and guides us.  He counsels us and convicts us of the things that are not of God.  It’s literal...

At Forerunner Mentoring, they help boys meet their potential and become Men of God through implementing after school mentoring programs in the local public schools and matching students who don’t have father figures with a one-on-one mentor.  To facilitate those programs, they employ “coaches” in their after school programs.  The job of these coaches is to mentor the students in group settings, ea...

Purchase the You Can Mentor book: You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses youcanmentor.com  

Purchase the You Can Mentor book: You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses youcanmentor.com  

When someone thinks about mentoring, they think about the child.  They think about the benefit they’re receiving of having somebody guide them and show them the way.  They think about the growth of the child and the potential they have.  They may even think about the experiences the mentee may have.  Rarely, however, do they think about the relationship from the perspective of the mentor.  They ma...

Mentoring boys without father figures means playing the role of the father in that boy’s life, while simultaneously acknowledging that you are NOT their father.  With that unique position is an ability to have hard conversations with them and to lead them in the path of righteousness.  But in order to be effective in doing those things, you first need to be modeling them in your own life.  Leading...

One of the coolest moments in a mentoring relationship is to see the fruit of your labors start to flourish.  When you get dragged down by the details of the current situation or start to think that you haven’t made an impact on your mentee, it can be hard to focus on the positive or to wonder why you’re doing it in the first place.  In those moments, looking back at where your relationship starte...

Sometimes, God does something in your life that just doesn’t make any sense.  He may take something away or put you in a new position that you don’t feel like you’re qualified for.  He may move you across the country, or change the demographic of the people you thought you were called to minister to.  But at the end of the day, God’s plan supersedes yours, and that’s something Ryan Raleigh has lea...

Mentoring in a group setting takes on a whole new set of challenges compared to individual mentoring.  You show up and pour into multiple kids all at the same time.  You need to be able to see not just the needs of one person, but multiple kids simultaneously and meet those needs all at the same time.  You get pulled in multiple directions and need to be able to handle that all with grace and pois...

Mentoring can look like many different things.  Sometimes you’re pouring into a single relationship with a child.  Sometimes it’s multiple kids at the same time in a group setting.  Sometimes you’re not even mentoring a child; you’re mentoring an adult.  At the end of the day, the demographic of your mentee is irrelevant, because mentoring isn’t about WHO your mentee is.  It’s about the relationsh...

If you are currently in a mentoring relationship, stop right now and think about this question:  Why?  Why are you mentoring?  Why do you choose to wake up and poor into one or more kids and lead them into adulthood?  What is the benefit to you?  Chances are, you have some kind of personal story that answers those questions.  Maybe you grew up in a family that was abusive and you didn’t have anybo...

If you are currently in a mentoring relationship, stop right now and think about this question:  Why?  Why are you mentoring?  Why do you choose to wake up and poor into one or more kids and lead them into adulthood?  What is the benefit to you?  Chances are, you have some kind of personal story that answers those questions.  Maybe you grew up in a family that was abusive and you didn’t have anybo...

Then he said to them, "Go your way.  Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord.  And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."  - Nehemiah 8:10 The second fruit of the Spirit listed in Paul's letter to the Galatians is joy.  We know we're abiding in the Holy Spirit if we're experiencing a level of joy th...

The most amazing thing about books is their versatility.  They have been used to record history, communicate new ideas, spark controversy, and promote peace.  They have the ability to teach you a new line of thinking or to transport you to an entirely new realm.  They are fundamental to human communication.  And yet, only roughly 4% of the world’s population actually takes the time to read a physi...

“Mentorship is amazing; it’s discipleship at it’s finest.”  More true words could not be spoken.  If you look at Jesus’ ministry, it WAS mentorship with his disciples.  He was teaching them a new way of life.  He taught them new ways to approach old situations.  He changed their perspective.  When that’s done well, it impacts both people in a mentoring relationship.  Gabriel Prusmack, a local arti...

70% of men and a third of women say they are currently struggling with unwanted sexual behavior.  According to the Matrimonial Lawyers Association, in 56% of divorce cases a major contributing factor is one spouse's obsessive use of pornography.  Even more sobering, the average age of first exposure to hard core pornography for a child is 11-12 years old, which means on average a child has been ex...

Stop right now and think about the most influential person in your life.  Who is it?  How did they impact you?  What did they teach you?  How long were you in a relationship with them?  Do you still talk to them?  Do they know how much of an impact they had on your life?  Now think about the people you’re impacting now.  Who are you guiding through life?  How are you impacting them?  Do you even r...

One day, your mentee is going to turn 18 and graduate high school.  Chances are, they’re going to go through a period as a new adult where they will have no idea what to do.  There will be so many questions coming at them that they feel they need to have an answer for.  Where are you going to college?  What are you going to major in?  How will you pay for that?  What happens if it’s too difficult?...

Who is the most influential person in your life?  For most people, the answer is one of their parents.  For some people, it's a mentor who spent countless hours pouring into them and teaching them how to be the person that they are today.  Maybe it's a friend.  Everybody has somebody who's impacted their life in a significant way.  It's inevitable given that we are by nature relational beings.  So...

Who is the most influential person in your life?  For most people, the answer is one of their parents.  For some people, it's a mentor who spent countless hours pouring into them and teaching them how to be the person that they are today.  Maybe it's a friend.  Everybody has somebody who's impacted their life in a significant way.  It's inevitable given that we are by nature relational beings.  So...

Have you ever thought about writing a book?  Do you ever wonder if somebody is going to want to read what you have to say?  Do you feel like you're not eloquent enough to communicate your ideas?  Believe it or not, so do most authors.  Writing books, though, has been a primary form of communicating ideas for thousands of years.  Anybody can write a book, but coming up with the idea can be the chal...

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8. There are eight different greek words for love, and we experi...