Made For Relationship (Guests: Jasmine & Tyler Fortenberry) | 08/24/25

So thanks for being here. Hopefully y'all are a little

louder than the last bunch. Every time we like say

something, we go. We like, we like to laugh.

Yeah, we like to laugh. We like to have fun.

Yeah, we just want to start with giving you a little insight who

we are, because you've probably heard for the 50th time that we

are Curtain Jace's kids and I grew up in Michigan.

I'm a Michigander. I still think of myself as a

Michigander. This is a Tennesseer.

Tennessee and something like that.

That's the best because then you get to do you're the only 10.

I see joke all the time, but we both felt like God put on our

hearts to go to Texas. I went to Texas for CF and I

it's a Bible institute in Dallas.

I went to CF and I, I went to, to Dallas to go to CF and I but

she, she went and I did not. He got convinced by a Best Buy

employee. Or who was it that?

You know it was a pastor of another church.

Even worse, OK, he got convinced not to go to the school, even

though he literally went to Texas for the school.

And then he started working just different jobs.

And I went to school. And then we both found ourselves

at a church in Rockwall, TX called Lakeshore, which is where

we're at now. We work on staff there as the

worship covering the bottom of that microphone.

And I go silent. So if that happens, just say,

Jasmine, move your hand up. We both work there now.

We've been at that church since 2017.

So I got there in February of 2017 and he got there in March.

So tell me that's not a God thing.

Then the next two years was a little bit of like.

It was a friend zone. We were.

It wasn't my choice. I'm just, I'm just letting that

be known. It was the friend zone zone for

two years and then in 2019 we started dating.

Literally the real story is that I came home to Gaylord for

Christmas and my mom made me watch a Hallmark movie.

I hate homework. I just, it's the most

predictable movies I've ever seen my whole life and everyone

is the same. And I love watching those reels

on like, Instagram where they just mock them and they go to

like, Home Depot and the girl, like, acts like something falls

and bumps into the guy, like the whole thing.

So I can't stand it. I barely watch movies.

I usually watch National Geographic.

I just like, like informative stuff.

So Hallmark is like the end of me.

And she convinced me to watch one.

And sure enough, it was about a girl and a guy who were just

best friends falling in love. And that night, never had had

this happen, never thought about Tyler that way until I got home.

Watch that movie. I laid in my bed that night and

I prayed. I was like, what am I saying out

loud right now? But I said, God, if you ever

want me to end up with Tyler, you'll have to do it because I

burned that bridge a long time ago.

She did. And and and so literally one

tear, I feel it still to the state.

It literally rolled down my cheek.

I was like, why am I crying? And moved on with my life.

When I got home, Tyler's sister who lived in Texas at the time,

she texted me this was like right after and she texted me

and said, I have to tell you, I had a really weird dream about

you. And I said, Oh no, what was it?

And she said, we were on a porch and you were crying.

And I said, why was I crying? And she said, because Tyler

moved on and he had another girlfriend in this dream and it

wasn't you. And you were weeping to me on a

porch. And I was like, that's so weird

that you just said that because I just had a moment where I

prayed and that was it, that after that dream.

And that that lie, which was that text message cost me 200

bucks, but it worked. And here we and here we are, and

we're married and we have kids, so there's no turning back, you

know? He did make that joke and I was

like, did you really do that? Sure.

We'll never know. So yeah, we started dating 2019.

We had a COVID wedding. We had 38 people at our wedding.

The parting gift was COVID to 30 people.

But we're still here. We're.

Doing good we actually had what they called it's it's literally

a term now called a micro wedding and they came out during

COVID. So we had this dream to have our

wedding in the backyard of mom and Kurt's house and it didn't

happen. But Tyler, to my surprise, did

end up proposing in that backyard.

So there's a little. Different than Texas.

Texas is a free for all. You know, they think that we're

our own country for some odd reason and all those good

things, so. Yeah, I do, actually.

This is so random. I do say this joke all the time

to people in Texas. I say Michigan and Texas are

kind of the same. We both have a lot of state

pride. The only difference is Michigan,

we put our pride on cups and T-shirts and our driver's

license plates and our cars in Texas, where's their pride in

their heart? And they just, like, do this to

every state and go if if you mess with us, we'll become our

own country. Yeah, that's.

True. So that's the only difference.

So they're both very pride filled States and we love it.

We're thankful for Michigan and it's been 2 years since we've

been here, but we've been coming here since we were dating and

singing together here. And we love it.

This is a beautiful church. I love, I love what's happening

here. It's it's so family.

It feels like family even from the outside, just just coming

here multiple times. So we love it.

We love and we love the weather here.

We really do. Like Kurt said, it was 110

before we left and then we got off the plane and it was 70 and

it's it's a really magical place.

So today we wanted to speak on relationships.

You're probably thinking marriage or dating.

We're kind of going to go a little different way.

We truly believe both my life and Tyler's life have been

utterly changed by the right relationships in our life and

can be a spouse can be family. But a lot of the times God uses

the people around us, other people to dramatically change

where we're headed. And so today our kind of like

the title, if you're taking notes is going to be made for

relationship. And we're going to take you

through three types of relationships that we truly

believe are going to change your life if you're not already in

them. And if you have some of these

already, that's awesome. We'll probably give you a couple

tools on how to invest in them. And then also maybe it's time to

take up a new one in one of the categories that we're going to

give to you. So if you're taking notes, we

want you to write three types of relationships.

The first one's going to be mentor, the second one is going

to be peer, and the third one is going to be mentee.

Or what is it Protege. Protege.

Yeah, it's one of those French words.

OK, protege, We, we can say whatever.

OK, disciple Apprentice. Apprentice Disciple.

Disciple. That's Mark Krishna's.

Yeah. OK, so those three

relationships, we're going to jump in first.

The scripture talks about it. Yeah, so.

So we were, we were made, we were made for a relationship.

We're not made to be isolated. I'm an introvert and I like to

recharge by myself. This past week has been hard.

But no, we're super thankful. We love you guys.

Seriously, kids just make things a lot complicated.

I don't want to talk about that. Let's move on.

So you can literally say whatever you want.

Apparently, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so we're we're we are made

for relationship. You see, in the Bible, like

Genesis, we think of the first problem actually being when Eve

takes the fruit and now all of a sudden it sends into the world

and that's the that's a big problem.

But actually the Bible says in Genesis 2 that God looked down,

he saw Adam and he said, he said it's not good.

The first not good thing was that man was alone, so he

created him a helper. And so, so in all throughout

Scripture you see this this reoccurring theme, even the

Great Commission that says that we're sorry, not the Great

Commission. When Jesus is questioned and he

says, hey, what's what's the greatest commandment?

He says love your Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind

and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law can be summed up in these things.

So we're not designed to walk in alone.

So we're going to challenge you today with with these three

things. If you are frustrated with

anything we say because it may come off offensive, that's fine.

Just e-mail us at [email protected] and we'll

make sure that you, I mean, go, go ham, do what you want to do,

and we'll make sure that we get back.

To you, the more emails the better.

Yeah, yeah. So and you, I mean, you see it.

Jesus had many followers, many, many followers.

Just had many followers. He went into towns and hilled

everyone. Of course people would follow

him. And then there's he had his 12

disciples and he had his, he had his inner 3.

So it's important to have relationships.

Jesus modeled it for us. So we're going to jump into the

first one mentor. So Proverbs 1320 it says whoever

walks with the wise becomes wise but the companion of fools will

suffer harm. Proverbs 11/14 it says where

there is no guidance a people falls but in an abundance of

counselors there is safety. So what are what are these

mentor relationships look like? They look like coaches, they

look like pastors, they look like teachers, they look like

parents, spiritual parents, anybody who really has something

that they've succeeded in life that really you want in your own

life, that could be your mentor. But there are some, there are

some qualities that you definitely want in these

mentors. A very, very important thing is

to have a same, the same value system.

If you guys don't don't have the same basic set of principles in

your life, it's not going to work out because we can go.

I mean, we've seen it in the past several years where

everybody's truth is different, right?

So those people's your truths have to line up.

That's all what, what is the Bible like in our relationship?

What the Bible says, that's what goes.

It's not, it's not how we were raised, how this, this is what

does the Bible say about it? So pastors mentor, mentor life,

church life coach, parents, spiritual parents, lots of

options, but they need to be trustworthy.

They need to have integrity. I'm going to say they need to be

a Christian. There's someone that can help

you grow into all that God's called you to be and is, is

succeeding in life and something that you hope to be succeeding

in. And there's so many benefits to

having a mentor in your life. And you're never, you're never

too old. You're never too young to have

these people. You never age out of this.

You don't, you never arrive, right?

God has made relationships for you throughout your entire life.

So some benefits are you're going to grow beyond your own

capabilities. We have a lid.

We reach a capacity on our own, but we have other people to come

alongside and point out blind spots, things that we don't see

in our own lives, though they can help us work through that.

Another thing is we don't have to learn from our own mistakes.

We learn from other people's mistakes.

So that's huge wisdom beyond our own intellect and our own

experience. And the last, last thing that's

huge, huge, huge is accountability.

We need accountability. We need someone not just calling

us out, but calling us up to what God has for us and, and

telling us what, where, where we're failing and things that we

can improve on. What that means is 1.

We have to have thick skin. We can't say, hey, I want you to

be my mentor. And then when they say, hey,

you're not doing great in this area, get offended and stop in

in that relationship. That's not how this works.

So be aware that when you do ask that person to be your mentor,

and I want to let you know that is something that you have to

do. You do need to let them know.

You need to define that relationship and let them know

that you would like them to pour into you.

At that point, you signed up to be criticized.

So in a good way, in a good way, but be aware that you do need to

have thick skin for that. And the last thing I want to say

about this specifically being, having a, having a mentor.

Too often we, we see these people and, and we think of them

as just like incredible, incredible people.

And they are, they're incredible people.

God's made them. They're, they're incredible

people. But too often we idolize these

human beings, OK. And what ends up happening is

when your pastor or your teacher or whoever fails, you just

leave. You give up, you give up hope.

It's too often we see people's pastors fail and they leave the

they leave Christianity all together.

Who's who is your God? Who were you idolizing?

Were you idolize? Were you chasing Jesus?

Were you chasing, chasing the pastor?

So this is something that you do need to hold up in every

relationship that we're going to cover today.

You're going to have to be able to forgive, see past it, see

people for people, they're going to fail.

They're going to mess up, but these mentors, they're going to

change your life and call you up and call you to more than more

than you could ever do on your own.

That's also going to make finding a mentor a lot easier

because you need to lower the standards.

Sometimes that's not sometimes when people are dating, they're

like, you need to lift your standards, You need to lift your

standards. Mentors like just find someone

who has one thing that they're doing right and you're not doing

it as good as them. That's all it takes it.

If they become like this life mentor to you and you guys click

and you bond and you develop a deeper relationship and they can

give you advice on multiple areas of your life.

Cool. But really the goal is just to

say, what's an area in my life I'm struggling in and who's

someone around me who's doing it better?

And guess what? They don't have to be your

mentor for life. You can maybe connect with them.

Maybe you grow on some things and then you move on.

Like have him over for dinner a few times if you feel like

you're bonding. Well, if you're clicking, invite

him to give opinions on another area of your life, 1 outside of

the one that you kind of, you know, propose them being a

mentor in the 1st place for you. But I think the more clear you

are about what your expectation is, the easier it is to do.

And if you're not putting so much pressure on this person to

be all these things to you like God already is to you, then it's

really easy to find them. And I think one of the best

parts about someone that asked me to be their mentor is they

just took me to lunch one day and said, hey, I'd love to learn

this, this and this from you. Can you teach me that?

That was it. I was like, sure, what does that

look like to you? Oh, do you have like a day,

maybe an hour in the week where we could just connect every

week? And I was like, you know what?

That's hard. That's a sacrifice.

But that's what God's called us to love people, right?

And so I think like that, that whole dynamic can seem scary,

but we always say this is you just take people into your

everyday life. And if you keep loving God,

people are going to see something in you.

And you're, if you're in this room and you're the one looking

for a mentor, take that step. Ask him out to coffee, ask him

to lunch and ask him if they'll kind of help you in the area

that you're struggling in. It's so easy and doesn't have to

be scary, doesn't have to be lifelong, you can just take it

day by day and if it becomes more cool.

But that's not necessarily the case all the time.

Yeah, the, I think the, the hardest 2 in this list is the

mentor in the, the protege, because there has to be a

conversation at some point where it's hey, will you be this or

hey, can can, you know, you define that relationship.

And, and the other thing, the last thing I'll say on that was

a wise man once told me, he said, just because someone is,

is struggling in one area of their life doesn't mean you ride

off that person as a whole, right.

Just because people have failed in certain areas or whatever the

case is, that doesn't mean that they don't have wisdom in, in

that other area. So, so be aware that we have

mentors in our own life. I mean, just Curt and Jace,

amazing mentors, especially people who have been in doing

what we've done for a way longer than us.

It's so nice to have them ask. Them questions about ministry

all the time. Every, every time that they come

into town, we stay up the first night or the second night up

until like midnight and I'll let Jasmine take care of the kids.

So it's fine. We're going to talk about

marriage in a little bit, but I'm not, I'm not speaking on

that. There's there's another group of

people in our lives. There are actually our executive

pastors back home, Nick and Liz to cold.

They're Canadians, but they're good people and they have

become, they have become just just, they've taken us in.

They've loved on us. I remember the first year we had

Mila, we were struggling like, what do we do?

How do we both work full time? And Liz, she's like, well, let

me watch Mila on Tuesdays and Thursdays for you.

And and she didn't charge us at all.

She just loved our kid. Then I remember one night

Jasmine and I got in this huge blow up argument.

This is what we like to call maybe like a three day or a

three day fight. You know what I'm doing?

Yeah, we're still, we're still recovering from it.

That's a three-year fight. So, so, so we're on the way over

to their house because we're picking up Mila, our, our, our,

our daughter and, and we get in the parking lot or we get in

their driveway and we're there for an hour just like duking it

out, like, you know, just going to going out.

Always when you have to be somewhere.

Yep. Like when you have a time that

you told someone you're going to be.

Or like every single time that we've ever gotten in a big fight

in the car. It's always when his family's in

town and when we're meeting at a rest.

We're going to lunch. Like don't ever meet at always

dinner at the home always. Because if we ever choose to eat

out, it's. Someone else?

'S home that happens. Yep.

So there we are, we're in the we're in their driveway and

we're just for for an hour. We're supposed to pick up mile

like an hour and a half. And we're before this and and I

look at Jasmine, I was like, Hey, we got to go pick up.

We got to go get mile out of the out of there like this.

We shouldn't have done this. So they're they're in the house

waiting for us to come pick up the child.

They have three other kids, They have their own life.

And here we are just yelling at each other.

We need to at least go get our kid and then we can yell at each

other in front of our kid. You know, that sounds like

wisdom. So so we I look at Jasmine, she

goes that's fine, but I'm not faking it.

And that was. You know when you're in a fight

and then someone comes by and you're like, hi, I was like, we

can go in there, but I'm not putting on a smile just because

it's Nick and Liz. Like I'm going to tell them

what's really happening. And so we walked in and that's

exactly what we did. We're like, we sat on opposite

sides of the living room. And this isn't our first year of

marriage after transitioning into ministry. 2 full time jobs

at the same time, a new baby and then managing we had family come

in for. I'm just letting you know this

is not the best idea. We lived out of state, so we had

each of our moms back-to-back stay with us for three weeks

straight. Each each.

It doesn't matter how much you love someone, that is too long.

So they came and back-to-back, both our moms and we were just

at it. I had a list for his mom, He had

a list for my mom. And actually that was really the

main cause of the fights was like family boundaries, like

what we were going to do, what our moms could do, what they

couldn't do, all these things. So just navigate.

We walked in, we said we're so upset right now.

I'm mad at him. This is why he's like, I don't

appreciate this from her. We just went off and they just

with ease. We're like, we've been in your

shoes. It's OK.

You're going to get through this.

We're going to help you develop a couple boundaries that we

think would would help you guys. And like pretty much don't

stress. As as crucial as all of this

feels right now, it's not a big deal.

You're going to look back and it's going to be funny.

And I was like, it will never be funny.

It's not funny. It's still not funny, but they

stayed dying. We stayed at their house.

We got there at 9:00. We stayed.

We stayed. Yeah.

Midnight or 1:00 and they have three kids.

They have their own life, they have their own problems.

And and they said, yeah, they loved on us and they cared for

us. And it wasn't they didn't just

leave it there. Every Monday, every first Monday

of the month, I meet with Pastor Nick and and he sits down and he

doesn't just say, how's your department doing?

How's the worship team doing? He says, how's your marriage?

How's your walk with Jesus going?

And he holds me accountable. And even when I and I'm honest

with them, right? I don't know, we're struggling

right now and you've been on a date night.

Do we need to watch your kids? What do we need to do to make

this happen? So he's not just going, hey, you

have a problem. He's going hey here's a solution

for your problem. And a lot of us have bad deja vu

from like 15 years ago when people encourage mentors, they

would sit you down and ask you like a list of things that you

had told them you were struggling with.

And it was like this checklist where they're like, did you do

this? Did you do this, Ron, did you do

this? Did you do this?

You can't do that. You need to read the Bible more.

It was just so like, tense. And so this has really taught us

that it's just living life with people that simple, Like just

live your life with other people.

And what? And we are better people because

of it, right? Like when you have someone in

your corner that you know is for you and is pulling you up and

going, hey, here's a blind spot, here's something.

How are you doing in that? Your life is going to be better,

your marriage is going to be better, your friendships are

going to be better, your work's going to be better.

Everything about your life is going to be better, so.

Yeah. And we, we're, we're joking, but

we always attribute the like, the love, the joy and the peace

that we have in our marriage on a day-to-day basis comes from

standing on their shoulders. These people who didn't have it

good all the time, that walked through a lot of marriage

turmoil, that have fought through struggles with every

area of marriage or every, every relationship in their family and

are able to help us say, don't make the same mistakes we did.

Don't do that. Take it to the next level.

Do this instead. And so because of that, we

always say like, man, we never fight over big scenario things

anymore. The first year of marriage, our

biggest fights were always family boundaries, like trying

to navigate that. And then overall we we

completely stand on the shoulders of people who go

before us and people who have learned the hard way that we

don't have to learn the hard way.

And so it's just so beneficial if you listen, it's hard

sometimes. So first one is that mentorship.

So if you don't already have someone pouring into you or

giving you some insight, giving you coaching, calling out a

blind spot in your life, it's time to look for one.

The next one is Pier, which is just like someone on the same

level as you, someone walking in same stage of life.

This can be a friend. This can even be a good

category. Like if you're dating, this is

that realm marriage is in. Peers and possibly even

siblings. Even if they're younger, older

than you, most of the times they kind of end up in that same

realm as you, walking through life the way you are.

Two verses that we really love are Proverbs 2717.

It says iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.

Ecclesiastes 4/9 through 12 says 2 are better than one because

they have a good reward for their toil.

For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him

who's alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up

again. If two lie together, they're

warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

And it just kind of helps us, you know, gain clarity that we

were never created to do life alone.

Like Tyler said, that first problem was God noticing that

Adam didn't have like a counterpart and one thing that

you didn't say last service we when you look at the word

helper, it actually means it the way they say it in the.

Bible, I think it's. Easier.

Easier. Or we don't.

Do we look like scholars? I don't know.

We're we're worship people, so we don't get invited to these

very much. But so I think it's like ezer

easier. Yeah.

So it's, it's oftentimes referred to in the Bible.

That same word is used to refer to the Holy Spirit and it's

helper and so a lot of people think that the s s they designed

him a helper and so that means that that helper submissive.

That's not what it's not secondary.

They're on the same playing field that says to come

alongside and to make up for what's lacking because we need

people, right. Like I'm not perfect.

Jasmine is she tells me everyday, but but the things

that like we, we make up for each other's lacking, right.

So it's just a beautiful. Thing, I mean, you guys know

this. If you are married, you know,

it's never 5050, it's 4060 or 7030 or you know, like you some,

usually some person's a little off and one person is help

compensating, carrying the family or carrying dinner that

day or helping with family stuff.

So it's just like, and that's kind of the case for every

relationship. It's never, you're never going

to find a friendship where it's always a hundred, a hundred.

You guys are both on top. It's just they won't exist. 5050

is just this concept that whatever you don't have, I will

make up for, and whatever you have, sometimes I need you to

make up mine, you know? And it's the willingness to do

that. I think something I struggle

with was fairness. I have four brothers and

sisters. So it's like you have to get

your part. You know what I mean?

If you don't, someone else is going to get it.

So in our marriage, it was like, I want what's fair, but it's

never fair. It's never going to be fair.

That's not that's not how relationships work.

Sometimes it's it's you're tired and you need help.

And sometimes it's the opposite. And sometimes both of you tired

and you just got to you got to put those kids to sleep or

something. And I'm an only child so I don't

even know how to spell fair. That's fair you.

Learned that the hard way. Now I I feel like the benefits

of this friendship relationship, this marriage, a dating

relationship when healthy, is that you get to be yourself

completely. It's usually a judgement free

zone. You get equal playing field just

like it's fair not fair. Sorry, I'm not listening.

You're not trying to impress that person and you're not

trying to give it. The same field we're we're both

going for the same goal. Hopefully it's fun.

And one of the biggest benefits is that when it's healthy,

you're not keeping score on who's wrong.

And I think that that's important for friendships, for

anybody that you're trying to do life with, that you are not

keeping the tally. The pain points in this

friendship usually has to do. One of the number one biggest

ones is shared values. And if you've ever had a friend

that was not a Christian and you're a Christian, you felt the

pain and the tension in that. And the frustrating part is that

sometimes you click with people chemistry wise, whether that's a

friendship or a dating relationship or even your

spouse. You may have really great

chemistry with your spouse. Some of you guys know that

chemistry had nothing to do with the equation that you're in and

none of your friendships have chemistry.

And so you already know what it's like to feel that like that

tension. But shared values bring a

chemistry that can't be made-up. If you are two different people,

but you share the same values, you both believe the Bible is

the truth. You both believe God.

There's only one God and it's Jesus.

It helps formulate the rest of the relationship, even if all

these different parts are different and there's different

gears. And you, you function one way

and your husband functions another or the guy you're dating

or the girl you're dating has these quirky things to them.

If they truly believe that God, God is Jesus, the, the, the

Bible's real and, and you guys are bull chasing after that.

A lot of those little things iron out.

But the problem is, is that we always go for chemistry.

We go for clickiness, we go for. Personality, it's way.

Easier at the beginning, way harder at the end.

When things really get hard, it is so much harder.

And just while we're on that, Tyler and I always say choose

your heart. Choose your heart because

everything's everything in life can be hard.

Everything worthwhile in life, John Maxwell says.

Everything worthwhile in life is uphill.

It's a climb. It's not.

It's not handed to you. And so you get to choose what's

hard. It may be harder to engage in a

relationship where you don't have a ton of chemistry at 1st

and create a peer relationship that's healthy for your life.

But long term it's going to be harder if you go with the

cliquey person who's got bad habits, bad influences, treats

their spouse badly. The things that don't seem like

a big deal in the moment, they rub off on you because you are

like the top five people that you connect with.

Top five. So whether that's your parents,

your friendships, your siblings, your coworkers, whoever it is

that you surround yourself with, you become.

And so it's super important that you choose some people in your

circle that are intentional, that have the same values as

you, that the second point for this one is just that forgive

freely. Just always forgive.

It's you're going to have a million reasons to hold a

grudge. Just be an unoffendable person.

Life is so much easier. We always try to ask ourselves

like, how can we make life a little easier?

Just forgive a lot. Like don't, don't hold it

tightly. It's OK.

People are going to mess up every single day and if you have

that expectation, you don't hold people to this psycho standard

that they can't do. I would say the I've heard it

said that we see ourselves through our own intentions.

We see ourselves through our intentions.

We see other people through their actions, right?

We give ourselves all the grace in the world because we know the

kids were up crying all last night and we didn't get any

sleep and, and the IT was hard at work this week and, and this

person said this and this and this, but but we never give the,

the people the same amount or I'll say this about me.

I never give the same amount of grace to that.

I give myself to other people. That's a problem.

So something that I've started doing is just thinking about

Jasmine situation. Be like, it's probably hard.

It was probably hard being with the kids today.

They're they're terrorists sometime, you know, they're good

kids. They're good kids, but seeing

them through the same lens as you see yourself, that's what

that's wild. It's it's, it'll change your

life or even praying that God will open, praying that God will

open your eyes to see those people the way that God sees

them. That'll change your life, change

your life. So just to wrap up the peer

category, I remember when I went to school and up until that

point, I had chosen friends completely off of who I clicked

with, who is out as outgoing as I was.

I picked people to date off that same metric.

It was like if they were fun, if they like to be the life of the

party, like I would just hang out with them.

And I never looked for people that had things that I didn't.

I always look for people who were similar.

And when I got to college, I got a roommate.

We got assigned randomly to rooms and I walked in the room.

Now I get to shoot. Like you get to choose your

dorms everywhere. For some reason at CF and I,

they were not that high tech. So I walked in.

I didn't get to choose who I was with.

And when I saw this girl, I was like, we will never be friends.

Like just by the way that she had decorated her side of the

room. I was like, this is if you know

my mom, does anybody know my mom?

That decoration is a big deal. So I walk in and it's just

absolute chaos. Like the girl, literally, she

had like prophetic artwork everywhere and it was like the

most crazy messy, like just totally not my aesthetic.

Then I walked in and I remember thinking to myself, we'll never

be friends. And I just made that decision in

the moment. I was so wrong.

She is my very best friend that I've ever had in my entire life.

We've been friends in January for 10 years.

Nothing has changed. She was my maid of honor.

Hers like so much life came from that relationship.

So much growth came from that relationship.

And I would say the first three years were the hardest and then

the next 7 have been nothing but a breeze and a joy.

The first three years took intentionality.

It took a lot of hard conversations.

Like he was saying relationships, anything good is

uphill. So the the reason why it was

hard is because I had a lot of flaws and she had a lot of

flaws. But if we were going to pursue a

godly friendship, we were just going to keep working at it.

And we did. And now I'm so thankful that we

did because she's Tyler's friend and she's my family's aunt.

Like all our kids, like they just love them.

Now. We wouldn't have that today if

my mindset in that moment would have been, we're so different.

I don't think this would work. So now I'm just a firm believer

that find some friends that have the things that you just don't

have. Every time that we leave the

kids with Bianca, the kids throw up.

Twice. She cleans it.

And she does one of the times I thought I was in labor and so we

left. It turns out I just had a

stomach bug. But if you Google labor side of

what's it called symptoms online, they tell you throwing

up is one of them. So I just thought we had it.

And when we got to the hospital, my kids are throwing up with

Bianca at home. And the lady said, so no one

else in your house is throwing up.

This is you think this is just labor?

And I was like, no, my daughter is at home right now throwing

up. And she said, honey, you have a,

you have a stomach bug. She sent me back.

I was very mad about that. We only had one more week to go.

So yeah, just look for look for someone out of your comfort

zone, out of your normal friend pics.

Don't be afraid to ask them out to coffee, ask them how they're

doing, DM them. Just whatever it takes to

initiate and then just get to know someone.

If it doesn't work, again, no hard feelings, just slowly back

up and go your own way, yeah? Yeah, so so mentor pier and the

last one is protege or mincey. It's a disciple.

Whatever it is that it's this is I love what you talked about

with baptism, how it's it's a commandment and God gives us

commandments throughout Scripture and relationships are

one of them. The Great Commission in Matthew

28. We think that it's always about

says therefore go and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit.

And we think of that and we're like, yeah, missions.

Let's send people overseas and let's, let's do, let's convert

people to Christianity. And that's beautiful.

It's amazing and it's a necessity.

Discipleship does not mean convert and leave them alone.

Discipleship is intentional that the word disciple.

It means if someone is a disciple, they're a learner,

they're a follower or they're an apprentice.

So what are what are these types of relationships look like?

They look like your kids, your grandkids.

If you're a teacher, it maybe it may look like a student.

If you're a coach, it looks like a, a, a player in team.

If you're, if you have employees, maybe that's what

that looks like. Maybe it's just someone younger

in your life that goes, you have something that I want.

Can you help me get there? So, so those are those are so

big. And, and so again, this is not a

this is not a, hey, you're here on earth.

God created you, and he's had other people pour into your

life, and then now you're a Christian and now you're good.

God calls you to do it. It's a commandment.

You look in, I think it's Matthew 25.

Yeah. You see the parable of the

talents, and you see this master, he gives talents to

these, to three servants. And the first two servants that

he gives it to, they double what they were given.

The last servant takes it and buries it in the ground when the

master comes back and he says, hey, what's going on?

That last servant that buried in the ground that gave it back to

him, it wasn't favorable for him.

It didn't end well. But to the two that took that

took that talent and and multiplied it, he said, well

done, my good and faithful servant, God has given you

relationships, ships in your life that you are to pour into,

to invest in. And these are hard because it's

it means that you have to do some difficult things.

You have to have integrity now, you have to be trustworthy, you

have to have good character. So it's, it's not something

that's easy because you have to have people that trust you

enough to, to, to speak into your life.

And, and one thing I will say about this, you're never too

young and you're never too old. You're, there's not an age that

goes, oh, now you're qualified and now you're not.

God doesn't call. God qualifies you.

His grace is sufficient. God qualifies you and he calls

you to do this. So it's not an easy thing to do.

I think one thing that's that's, that's crazy and it's, it's a

cultural thing in America. I, I believe, but we, we cling

so tightly to our rights, even our biblical rights, We go, this

is I, I can do this. I should be able to do this.

I should be able to whatever. And we're, we're, because of

that, we're, we're not taking up our responsibility.

God calls us to take our rights and lay them down and take up

responsibility for other people. And you see that Jesus didn't go

to the cross with his own sins. Jesus didn't go to the cross

with his own shame and guilt. He went to it for us.

He didn't die, just he died in place of us, right?

Like that was our cross. But Jesus said, no, I'm going

to, I'm going to take care of this.

And he calls the city the same. I think I'll just say a couple

of the benefits of having a someone you're mentoring is when

you're answering God's call on your life, that's part of his

call for your life. Two, it's that he's given us

something that he doesn't want us to hide.

And that's I'm going to refer that more to like a gifting or a

passion that you have. You know, maybe you love to read

and that is to you, it seems like that's nothing that you can

use. But maybe there's a younger

person around you who also loves to read but has never said it

out loud. And maybe both of you would

benefit so much from leading it, you know, reading a a leadership

book that you never read before and meeting once a week at a

coffee shop to talk about it, you know, or I, I think like we

just get so in in a route when it comes to that.

But I always try to think like the conversations that I've had

in the last month with people on our team.

I am so unaware of how many young, you know, single people

want to be pastored, want to be mentored, have a desire to grow

a gifting inside of them. And you know, that might be you

in the room today. And I just want to speak to

people who can be mentors. You have gifts and passions that

people want to learn from and it's so important that you don't

hide it. It's so important that you use

it and you may swing a couple times and miss.

You may ask someone and they're like, I have no interest in

that. That's totally fine.

I think that God is so thankful for our effort and for trying

and taking steps of faith. We may not always hit it on the

mark and that's OK, but I think that making sure that you leave

a legacy, not just with your family because you're already

going to pour into your kids. You already have a desire to

spend time with them, to do the things they love to do and to

teach them. But carry those desires for

other people as well. Look at people and and notice

gifting in them and ask God to give you his eyes to see things

in other people that you don't see everyday so that you can

help build his Kingdom. Because someone's going to

benefit just from your relationship, just the way that

you see the world, your encouragement, the way you might

laugh with them. It you don't realize how big of

an impact it really makes. And so when it comes to, you

know, finding someone to to mentor, hopefully if you're in

this room and you realized you need a mentor, you're going to

take a step of action to ask. But if nobody asks you.

Look around you see who, who it is.

It may be your niece, it may be a nephew, it may be a sibling.

It doesn't always have to fall, you know, outside your family.

It could be in your family. And maybe just that perspective

will help you pour into your, you know, extended family in a

way you haven't in a really long time.

So just kind of start asking the Lord, we believe that he's going

to show you, but our our challenge today for you is that

you're going to look at these three relationships and find one

that you can pursue, whether it's maybe you need to be

someone's mentor and someone's going to come up to you and

they're going to ask you. And the first thing you're going

to think is that I don't have time for this.

And I think that in that moment, just give it to the Lord, say

God like you really do you know how to make all things work

together for the good of those who love you.

And if someone comes up to me, make a decision today in your

head that you're going to try your best to make a little bit

of time because a little bit of time is going to make a very big

difference. Or maybe, you know, you realize

that you need a peer or friend, or you've been in the dating

zone and you haven't been dating people who with the same values

as you. You've kind of been lowering

your values to, to make your market wider.

And maybe today you just realized that it's time to raise

that standard and, and to hold your values true for every

relationship that you encounter from here on out.

And like I said, last service, don't cut off the people who

don't meet those standards for you.

Love them, speak life over them, but maybe you just don't receive

so much what's an influence from them.

Maybe it's just time to look for some friends who are going to be

able to speak into your life and you can actually use what they

say. And then lastly, that you're

looking for someone who may need a mentor and you might be the

person that they've been looking for for a long time.

That's so good. Thank you for sharing that.

Can we just pray for you? Jesus?

We just thank you so much for these wonderful people, God,

that I've gathered here just just to meet with you.

God, thank you so much that you've put that in their hearts.

God, that you're drawing them to you.

Jesus, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for wisdom. We thank you for people around

us. We thank you for relationships.

God, we just pray for clarity. We pray for wisdom, we pray for

direction, we pray for guidance, we pray for confidence in

boldness to approach people and and ask them to be our mentors

or ask them if they want to come along the journey with us.

God, we pray. We pray that you give us a great

day, great weather. God, we pray for more of you in

our lives. Jesus, we love you.

Open our eyes to the people around us and help us to see

them the way that you do. Jesus, we love you.

We're here for you. Amen.