A Circle of Support: What Does a Mentor Do for Your Child?

0:00 [Music] hey friends welcome back I'm Stacy belward the host of the connected families podcast Welcome to our community we are people committed to pursuing God's grace and truth for ourselves and then daily working to pass that Grace and Truth onto our children I'm so glad that you're here with us today well I have a fun guest with me today Ben beevis Ben is the founder of an organization that's called encircled which presents a clear way for Faith

0:30 communities to encircle our kids and launch them with their faith intact I love the concept and I think that no matter what age your kids are you will leave this podcast with some ideas about how you can encircle your kids no matter what season of life you're in grandparents you have a role youth workers you have a role we all have a role to play before I invite Ben onto the show I just wanted to take a quick

1:00 and let you know that the discipline that connects with your child's heart online course is in full swing hundreds are going through the course and learning to take hard parenting moments and think about how to approach them through the framework one mom recently told me about how her and her husband sat down with the framework because they were working through how to invite their middle school son to join a family meeting which was something that he had

1:29 had typically resisted after they sat down their plan involved his favorite restaurant and meeting in the park the family meeting was not a 10 out of 10 but she said it was big progress I love that you know the connected family's framework is just that it's a framework we teach it to you then you get to apply it in your own unique way you know you're probably wondering why am I talking about this because discipline that connects course is now closed well

1:59 the reason is because small groups are always open right you can get a few people together and Bam you have a small group leading is really as easy as just pressing play okay you guys you can tap down to the show notes and check out all the information about the discipline that connect small group and all of our online courses you can do a small group with all of them well I just love the name en circled and Ben welcome to the

2:28 podcast we're glad to have you here thank you I'm super excited to be here thanks for inviting me you are a longtime friend of connected families I know that Jim and ly Jackson are co-founders were good friends of yours and I don't know mentored you maybe as you started the organization en circled yeah yeah I actually worked for connected families with their restorative division for oh I was it eight to 10 years as a therapist and and

2:57 worked with them I even did one weekend retreat at covenant Pines Bible camp with a bunch of dads with their kids and used your framework which was a blast so awesome yeah I know we're really like Kindred Spirits with you and encircled for sure well why don't we start with you just introducing yourself yeah my name is Ben bevas and I am the current executive director of encircled and I am married to my wife Sarah 20 years we

3:26 just celebrated and we have three wonderful kids we have Sophia who's 17 we have Reed who is 15 and Samuel who is 12 so we're busy in the middle of it all I'm also a licensed therapist and uh got my degree a while back after working with teens for a while I just felt God was calling me to to be more equipped to work with the parents those are kind of some of my my my backgrounds so yeah

3:52 we're GNA get into all of what in circled is but I just kind of want to hit the ground running and ask you the question um why the need to be intentional about our kids Faith Journey there is all sorts of research that's been done Fuller youth Institute and Bara has written books on this stuff unfortunately the statistics aren't great for our high school Christian Youth that live in the US 60% of of high

4:22 schoolers that have a faith that are part of a youth group when they leave they end up leaving their faith um by the time they're 30 60% so that's where deeper into that research there's also some hope um what they found was when youth have five or more intentional adults around them that are investing in them around Faith purpose and calling they're more likely to sustain Faith through those years of early adulthood so that's where intentional you know

4:51 adults investing in them and and those can be parents those can be grandparents Aunts Uncles neighbors youth pastors small group leaders and coaches so there's a whole variety of intentional adults but that's kind of the importance of having intentional adults in in youth's lives around faith and around other things obviously too so five adults that are all concentrated around feeding into our kids around the three areas of Faith purpose and calling and so I'm guessing

5:21 some of this research is kind of the the foundational work around en circled and how you set it up and I know you have sort of different tracks some for youth testers or youth workers and then also for parents and we're going to get to a lot more about the parents but just tell us what is encircled so my work for the last 30 years has been invested in Youth and what I what I did working with a

5:47 place called Treehouse which is where Jim and Chad we all worked there together from connected families what I experienced was I was a mentor I was speaking into these these atrisk youth lives and and I found that it became overwhelming because I I felt it was all on my shoulders many of these didn't have have fathers involved and so kind of through those years of speaking into the youth what I discovered was the youth that were doing really well were

6:14 the ones that had more of a community outside of just me as I shared I you know started en circled under connected fames umbrella about four years ago and I had all these experiences working in some social service Realm where we got to get networks around families that were that were struggling and so thought of the idea of of really taking some of the core things of of working with with youth and children in the system to

6:44 working in faith communities and it started for me with some of my good friends who had Youth and Adolescent age kids and I said hey I have this really cool New Concept that I've created would you mind if I started to create Circles of support around your Youth and help them live out who God created them to be and they're like yeah so just had a few of those and I remember the first one that I helped get a circle of support

7:10 around was was over four years ago and I left that meeting and was just so charged up and could tell I I remember praying I said God this was powerful I want to do more of this yeah will you will you show me the way and so then it kind of started to to organically grow where we started toate create a model eventually a few years ago launched with my own board over the last few years

7:34 I've been really creating key resources to equip people that are on the battle lines right are on the on the front end of of Youth workers and parents and mentors so that they can do what they do best and that's build relationship and speak into the Next Generation around Faith that's where encircled kind of started so now you have different tracks and just before we go that I just want to cast The Vision for the parent that's

7:59 at home listening on their walk or in the car whatever and you told me that you have a ninth grader and that you started you know as a parent you've started to think about how to build an encircled Community around your son did I get that right correct can yeah so cast that Vision like how did you do it and how could a parent start thinking about this yeah for sure so yeah so I have a ninth grader his name is Reed I

8:27 always laugh because he's he's a our young man that doesn't have much of a filter he says what he thinks throws it out there but he's an amazing young man and so he was just confirmed this last spring and I just came to this realization like wow my kids are growing up I need to start to do the things that I've created with my own children and so literally a week after confirmation I gathered together three other fathers of

8:53 kids of of Reed's friends I just said hey I've been reading this book called The intentional father I gave them copies and I said I would really love to start to get other intentional adults around my son would you want to do this together and kind of cast it a vision for maybe we could meet once a month or once a quarter and just have some both fun Milestone experiences where we could go on a hike together and talk about

9:20 something that's important maybe it's around relationships or faith or career and we could bring in other people that have other perspectives so that our sons see this modeled with these intentional adults and the hope is that by junior year or so which is a great time to really gather a youth circle around them to start to get them ready to launch is that we'll already have a circle in place that my son hopefully sees as people that have his back and want to

9:48 encourage him so what I'm hearing is you pick some some specific adults that you felt like you know we were're great people to feed into your son and in this case you chose other dads Who had who had children Sons the same age is that what I'm hearing Y correct and you set it up so this is a long-term regular relationship with them yeah that's good and so does in circle have curriculum that will help parents think through you

10:19 know what they might want to do as far as conversations with their kids throughout the seasons yeah so we have some curriculum we're just we're launching a whole new subscription B based model that I'll talk more about later but one thing that we've created is we've created something called parent Essentials grandparent Essentials and Mentor Essentials and these are quick resources that really walk through this idea of the importance of getting a circle getting mentors and helping them

10:46 think through what are their god-given gifts where is their identity in Christ lie versus their identity in things of this world helping them think of a vision for their future and so it's going to give parents grandparents and mentors some t ible activities questions and things that they can do to start to kind of plant this and to bring this up with their children all the way from Early Childhood through young adulthood so that's something that we're really

11:12 excited about and then our two kind of book ends of our Key Programs is called our group Journey en circle group Journey and this is a great curriculum for those of you that have are part of a faith community with a youth group or maybe you have a a smaller community of house churches together or or uh whatever but it's a great 4-week curriculum that has everything that you need to really launch and circled in your faith community so that the youth

11:37 can really get grounded in their identity in Christ their gifts that God's given them creating them a vision for living those gifts out and then inviting their actual circle around them so that's the group Journey and then our last book end is that Milestone experience called the personal journey and that's what I told you is a good time junior year is a great time to do this where the the youth has a guide an encircle guide that walks them through

12:04 these two meetings to culminate and gather in their Circle in person to speak into their strengths gifts and to commit to ways they're going to Journey with them so those are our products and our offerings that's good I wasn't very aware of everything that you have done over the years but I did know of it and and and so I took the concept just this year Well actually did a both years with both my girls and so as they were

12:31 graduating from high school what I did was this is how I adapted all that you do excited to hear I had been kind of behind the ball I guess I they were already almost graduated when when I really started thinking about it but when they were graduating I invited people that cared about them Aunts Uncles youth workers just various people and I invited them to write a letter to each one of my girls and I put it into a

12:57 book and it was a gift at their grad ation party and then some of those people got to read to them so it was a similar idea but it wasn't over time it was just a one-time thing and it was so meaningful to them it was very it was it was a beautiful moment what what did you notice in kind of your your daughter's responses to those experiences what did you see in them that told you it was

13:21 meaningful well they just first of all felt so loved so launched it's like it just feeds a kid's Soul doesn't it when adults speak into them and say I see this in you you know and then when they wrote their prayers for the girls and to launch them into the future too so that's cool and that leads me to a question that I want to ask you though thanks for sharing that's exciting yeah when caring adults have come around a

13:49 child with this encircled way yeah what have you seen as a result oh man I have so many stories so I would say what's really fun about each of these especially this personal Journey right it's this amazing similar to what you did right you brought like it's very real and in person and that's where I see the Holy Spirit work the most yeah we have great resources but the power is through this the mentor Circle right

14:16 that's where God uses these intentional people that want to love on their youth and so I would say I have seen there was a a young man who was a part of he had a smaller Circle he had three adults they invited and one of them was his mom and what was so powerful not just for the Youth cuz he lit up you could just see his disposition went from kind of like uh I don't know how this is going to go

14:40 to like engaging and like wow thank you and you could just tell you appreciated but his mom also you could tell she just felt this absolute Joy knowing that it wasn't all on her shoulders so there's other intentional adults that are that are going to have conversations with my son they're not going away they're speaking life into him and for these young people I've Heard lots of young people that have shared that have gone through in circled I know that I have a

15:10 circle now I'm not on my own I know I can reach out to people uh when I'm feeling lonely or scared at college or in my first job I know that I have people praying for me and uh we had a young man Bill one of my first young men that went through and circled and literally his parents said after the encircled meeting they're like Bill's teacher emailed us and she said what happened in the last week with Bill and

15:37 she's like well he went through this encircled thing and she's like he's a different kid he's more talkative he's asking questions in class and this is the same kid that also loved music and playing music he played his guitar at the encircle Gathering and these people are like who we didn't know you were this good and so he started to play it like open mics and all these different things and joined a band so you just see

16:01 these kids just come out of their shell and they step into who God created them to be because they know they have people that are cheering them on and walking with them so those are just a few examples but well I have this little burning question and then I want to get to the encircled thing that you just referred to like the meeting or what what is that thing yeah and I you know we have a lot of parents that have

16:23 smaller kids yeah maybe even preschoolers but certainly Elementary at what age age can a parent start thinking about putting this together I think you can start as early as as um when they're born like with your with your spouse to be praying for who are those people that God's putting on your heart that could be intentional Mentor Circle members with this child's future I would say be be praying for that also start to notice as they're a small child what are some

16:54 of the gifts I know connected fames you call it sometimes in misbehavior there's the gift garai right but starting to notice what are their god-given gifts what are the characteristics that are coming out and start to call that out we love to talk about the verse 1 Peter 4:10 which says use whatever gifts you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in various forms so the more that us as parents can call out the gifts that we

17:20 see in our in our children in our youth and start to give them opportunities to use those to bless others but we can also do some and model that right so how can we as parents model the gifts that God's given us to bless others and to and to have our our kids join in on those experiences to bless a neighbor you know I remember taking my actually my now ninth grader who was six there's a big snowstorm and he said Dad we

17:47 should go we should go shovel our neighbors driveway I'm like well I got to get to work but okay so we went and shoveled and then my son got to experience this like gratitude from a neighbor and I said wow Reed thanks so much for using your gift of service to others and calling me into that so I I would say the more we can speak into their gifts be praying and starting to get those intentional people around them

18:12 maybe that's your life group or small groups at church and then helping them create a vision for the future a lot of times we talk about this Ephesians 2:10 verse about we are God's handiwork creating Christ Jesus to do good work right which God prepared in advance for us to do so the more that we can help them start to dream and imagine and vision how God might use them in the world and you can start that at a really

18:37 early age so so and that's part of our parent Essentials where there's some possible questions and things that they can use to look into some of these ideas so then as a parent my child's just born and they're growing and it's getting to a stage where I really do want to kind of try to facilitate a more formal relationship with mentor and ask someone if they would Mentor my child tell us about that how do you do that and how

19:05 old did you did you say your child would be I don't know may you know maybe they're eight maybe they're 12 I'm not sure yeah yeah well I think obviously you want to do it in a safe sort of way you want it to be somebody that you feel safe with you would trust with your child and I would say initially it might be doing things as a group at a younger age unless it's a grandparent or

19:26 somebody that's really connected what I would encourage them to do is is as I think of what it means even to be a mentor right and I was just doing some thinking about that and I put down someone that is prayerfully modeling Faith through how they live and inviting the Mente to join in that journey through support ad uh being an advocate and a trusted adviser so I would say you know inviting people that your your son

19:54 or daughter gravitates towards feels comfortable with and maybe doing some some shared experiences together to go serve together and see if it seems like a good fit and then if they're open and willing as that child gets older I love when my son or daughter gets invited by our youth pastor or a small group leader to go grab coffee and to talk about relationships or whatever it is but to kind of working slowly into the onetoone

20:22 situations outside of parents or grandparents and just making sure your child is comfortable with that that's good okay so then back to that question you you told the story of the the boy who did the first meeting you said something like that and then he he just came out of his shell he just became more confident and was able to play the guitar and all of that explain to us what is that first meeting through a

20:47 personal Journey which is that Milestone experience that I talked about and usually it's good for a youth that's around 16 to 18 to go through that so there's two different meetings and a guide can lead that that we can equip them with all the tools to do that through your church or it could be you as a parent and in the first meeting it's really about discovering their gifts we encourage them to take a gift inventory that we found a great gift

21:12 inventory it's called via it's free which I love so they take the gift inventory and then they process what were some of those their top five gifts their character traits and then the guide walks through the process of encircled why we go through encircled what what is important about having a mentor Circle and then helps them create this Vision which is the importance of creating some dreams and goals for how they want to live out their gifts in the

21:38 future and then the last thing in that first meeting is really just culminating all doing all the things that they need to do to prepare for their encircle your life meeting and that's that that meeting with their Mentor Circle so they help that youth develop what are their key life areas hopefully one of their key life areas is Faith one might be school education one might be workc career one might be relationships one might be video

22:04 games we we try yeah I know I know I might get in trouble for that one but but the reality is we want it to be something that the youth or the child feels like they're driving the bus this is their life so we want to give them choices we want to let them choose what are those areas and then they also get to choose who do they want to be a part of their Mentor Circle right so that

22:28 that se second meeting then their Mentor Circle comes together where the guide leads this time and it specifically walks through different key steps to help the the circle better understand the youth's gifts what's their vision and then it gives them opportunity to speak into this youth's life around their key life areas of faith of career of school relationships and that's where they where they give tangible support for what they're going to do moving

22:59 forward and maybe that's Grandpa wants to take Johnny out fishing once a month and have conversations about faith maybe uncle wants to have breakfast with his his nephew once a quarter because that's what works with his schedule and just have intentional conversations around career or whatever he might be passionate about and it culminates in this time of blessing which is really powerful where the circle literally in circles or surrounds this youth and praise prayers of faith of biblical

23:32 verses that they've brought that are meaningful to them and to the youth and then the youth gets a recording of that an audio recording of This blessing and it's super powerful because then that youth can listen to it later in life I just love this because you know some of us struggle with being intentional and then struggle with okay but now what like you know I would love some more meaningful deep conversations I'm the mom this is my son

23:58 do I need you know find men it can be mixed so we've kind of covered all of that and what I love about what you're doing in encircled is that you you create these Pathways for people to grab this curriculum and to think through some of these you know conversations and topics and areas of their children's life where they do want to be intentional and bring people in and that starts from when your child is born and

24:24 the relationships will change over the years with our kids but it's just it's a beautiful time to launch our kids with intentionality and and think about their faith Journey like this it's so good yeah yeah exactly then how parents get in contact with you or start to access encircled resources yeah great question so we're super excited because we've launched this new subscription based model so for you parents that are

24:56 involved in a church Community or faith community that might have a youth pastor volunteer full-time you can initially send them to en circle.org and they can check out our our great subscription model that gives all the resources for that church to use and we're actually giving a a great promo code for you all and it's cf50 so 50% off this big launch and so pretty reasonable but if you're not a part of a faith community and you're

25:24 just really excited and interested in this you can also go to circle.org SLP parents with an S at the end and there will be a parent kind of page that you can check out uh you can buy this resource for your your family or maybe your small group and to be able to to utilize and equip you all with some of the tools to to make it your own because I I know that not everyone works the

25:51 same but we just want to provide as many resources as we can to creatively make it your own as a parent as you're figuring out what it means to to launch your child or your youth into adulthood with faith intact so with faith intact that's great well those are are generous coupon codes the code that you mentioned and we'll have that in the show notes everyone the website address and the coupon code and all that you need to tap

26:17 through and connect with Ben at incircle Ben thanks for being on the show today it was great to thanks for having me it was amazing I'm yeah I'm excited be a part of what you're doing with connected families we're great to have Kindred Spirits with you yeah thank you so much thanks for tuning in today friends we are a listener supported organization over 46,000 parents like you listen to this podcast every month individual donations make the work to equip and

26:49 encourage families possible for more information about connected families follow us on Instagram or Facebook or go to connected families.org or I will see you next [Music] time