Ever feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with the music, trends, movies, media, and lingo of the younger generations?

Want to have meaningful conversations with your kids and have at least some idea of what's going on in their world?

Fear no more! You have an amazing research assistant just waiting to help you?

The Axis organization is a storehouse of up-to-date research-based resources empowering parents, pastors, educators, and others to build a life-long faith in the young people they love, mentor, teach, and pastor.

How? One conversation at a time!

In the first episode of a two-part interview with Kelli Rankin of Axis, you'll hear about resources like:

• The Culture Translator -- a weekly newsletter keeping you up current on the music, movies, TV shows, and social media trends impacting youth

• Parent guides -- a powerful tool equipping adults with information and discussion aids on numerous topics including mental health, technology, bullying, and more

• The Culture Translator podcast -- an audio version of the weekly newsletter with additional roundtable conversation

• Conversation kits -- video series on subjects from Anxiety to World Religions to educate and inspire meaningful and ongoing dialogues

• Courses -- In-depth looks on significant and timely issues

You'll hear how innovative pastors, parents, and educators are using these resources to engage youth in substantive conversations on relevant topics from a Biblical perspective. If you want to help upcoming generations grow a vibrant, steadfast Christian faith, you'll find Axis a tremendous partner!

Empower yourself and your family to engage fully in God’s grand story! Get the weekly newsletter, Hi(Impact), packed with encouraging and empowering resources. Sign up at Stephanie Presents

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Do you ever feel like it's a little bit tough to keep up with all of the movies, the media, the language, the trends, the fads of today's younger generation?

What if you could have a research assistant to do all the work for you?

Well, you do.

Stay tuned.

If your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier, and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.

Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.

If you are a parent, you also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.

Let's get started.

Hey, if you are thinking it is a little difficult to keep up with everything that's going on in young people's generations today, well, you know what, you're right.

It absolutely is.

You know, once upon a time movies, for example, were released in theaters and, and this tied people to a geographical place and created a shared experience.

Now, there were other factors, but one thing that this pre Internet, pre streaming services and all of that, one of the impacts of that was that you didn't have the numbers of movies released with the frequency that they come out now.

And it was in fact easier to find out about a movie and what was going on in the culture.

And this is also the same thing that was true for music.

Music, there were more of a shared experience.

You know, people look back now at groups like the Beatles and think, oh, wow, the Beatles.

I, you know, I have to ask myself, would the Beatles have been as popular today?

Because some of you that might be Beatles fans are thinking, are you kidding me?

That sounds like blasphemy.

That's like music blasphemy.

I don't know.

It's just a legitimate question, though, you see, because at the time of the Beatles, people were still primarily limited to hearing music on the radio and attending concerts in person.

And those were limited numbers of musicians around the world that you could even find out about or have access to.

Now there are millions that our kids can follow and they can be from all over the world, and it is much more difficult.

It is exponentially more difficult for parents and grandparents and educators and youth ministers and any, anybody who's working with or cares about the upcoming generations to keep up with everything that is going on in the youth world.

Well, there is help and I am delighted to bring that to you today.

This is the first part of my interview with Kelly Rankin of the Access organization.

And if you are not already a member of Access, as you, if you don't already get there, email and you're not familiar with them and using their resources.

You are definitely going to want to do that.

This interview I originally recorded for my Key 3 Educators podcast, which has been on hiatus.

I don't know that I'm going to pick that one up so you can still find it there or I felt it was has so much value I wanted to bring it to the audience for this podcast.

I love bringing resources to my audience, both on the podcast and especially where you can get that information is if you sign up for my weekly newsletter, High Impact, every week I share at least one resource that you can that can help you as an individual, as a parent, to accomplish my mission of helping people become spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart.

So get ready for part one of a great interview with Kelly Rankin of the Axis Organization.

Kelly is the partner relationship manager at the Axis Organization and if you are not familiar with Access, I highly recommend them.

I actually came to know about them many years ago when they were still doing in school presentations.

And so I have been a follower of theirs for many years.

So, Kelly, welcome so much to the show today and if you'll just kind of introduce yourself and Access and tell us a little bit about your history and mission.

Thank you for having me.

It's always a pleasure to meet people, talk with people, and get to brag a little bit about Access.

So as you mentioned, yes, I work for Access.

I've been here for quite some time and I've had the pleasure of working with many schools and organizations and churches and just talking about how we can help those organizations and what they're doing in their ministry.

So Access, our mission is to build lifelong faith by helping parents and caring adults talk with their kids about what they otherwise would not, one conversation at a time.

So that's the mission that we have here.

And when we say parents and caring adults, as you can imagine, that does include teachers, it includes pastors, includes grandparents, anyone who might have a teenager or somebody 8 to 18 in their life that they see regularly, honestly.

And so it's really fascinating to think of how the journeys have gone side by side.

Smartphone and Access.

So that's quite a parallel because there's a lot that has changed since then and not just in terms of our perception, but I know Gene Twenge has done some remarkable research, you know, paralleling that and the changes of that.

One of the things that I really like And I want to emphasize this from the get go.

You mentioned the word conversation in your opening and that it is about having one conversation at a time.

And that's one of the things that I see.

This isn't just a one sided lecture.

That's not what Access is about.

It's about equipping people to be able to have those conversations so they're informed and productive.

Kelly, I know that recently Access changed from a membership site to a donation based ministry.

So can you talk to us about that and the purpose for that and also feel free to share how people can be supporters.

As you mentioned, you knew about Access when we were traveling and speaking at schools, which was fantastic.

That was sort of the early model of Access.

And then we moved into a resource filled ministry in addition to that.

And people could get to our resources by paying.

And we started to see this great need and this demand and the desire for churches and families to have our resources.

But the pay piece was sort of in the way.

And so part of what we wanted was to get more parents and reach more families and be able to expand our mission.

And the best way to do that was to take away the payment piece.

So as of March 1st of this year, we are free.

Everything at Access is accessible to anyone at no cost.

And it's a very easy, user friendly website, which is always helpful.

And so yeah, so we are donation based now.

And so to be able to continue to provide these resources to everyone at no cost, we, we love to see the donations come in.

So all of that is available to do and get information on from the website directly.

Okay.

And we will definitely have links to that in the show notes and be able to also have those verbally at the end.

So there are four main resources that Access offers.

And so if you can just kind of walk us through those one at a time if you want to introduce all of those together or however you best want to accomplish that.

But I want to make sure that people really understand the breadth of the resources that you have available.

Yeah.

First of all, thank you, Stephanie.

You're so knowledgeable of Access and I'm just flattered for the organization.

So thank you.

We do.

We have four primary resource categories, if you will.

One is called the Culture Translator.

And I feel like this is what we're mostly known for.

This is a weekly email.

So each week our team of researchers, they get all their research done within the culture of that Gen Z generation to help caring adults stay up to date on music, movies, TV shows and social media trends that will impact your kids world.

You can explore past editions.

You can, you know, just read them at your own convenience.

They will come to your email box every Friday if you sign up for those.

So again, as I mentioned, it's probably our most popular resource, I think, possibly because it does come to people's emails.

But the thing that's amazing about that resource is it is the top three things happening in Gen Z culture that week.

So there is nothing but this current week being discussed in this resource.

And we find that teachers and parents and pastors are really getting creative with the information in that email and it's really helping them in their ministry.

And it's extremely current and it's just really fun for them to see the reaction of their teens when they bring up topics that are happening right this second, typically on social media or like, like I said, on movies or music.

Our next category is our parent guides.

So these are documents to read and they're there to educate and prepare caring adults to have confident conversation with kids about big topics like mental health, technology use, bullying and more.

They're downloadable PDFs and they will answer any questions an adult may have to equip them to dive deeper with a teenager.

So some of these topics in the parent guide category are a little longer lasting.

For example, if you're not entirely sure you know what TikTok is, it's a great parent guide.

You can go read a few pages about TikTok and most of your questions will be answered and you'll be able to have a conversation about TikTok.

We get a little heavier into some topics as well, but we also get a bit lighter.

You know, we have some video game conversations and that type of thing.

And parent guides are a great resource, for example, for teachers to go to for the younger Gen Z audience because there's so many topics within that category.

There's over 100.

We also have podcasts, which, you know, podcasts are amazing.

They really become quite the resource and for so many organizations.

And our podcast network provides a learning environment for adults in a format that's easy to consume in busy life, much like any other podcast.

So each episode will invite you into the access parenting community and coach you through building those stronger conversations with kids and teens in your life.

And finally, our conversation kits are teen friendly videos that explore very deep topics.

So conversation kits are topical video series designed for caring adults and teens to watch and discuss together.

They're family friendly and they weave biblical principles with cultural relevant references.

Sorry to provide an engaging experience that's relevant to teens and they're trusted by parents.

The conversation starters for parenting teens includes a video series.

They're divided into consumable segments, so it's not like you have to sit there for two hours and watch a video.

And they also come with discussion guides.

So these are also very, very popular in that if I am a teacher or a pastor, I can take each segment, each series or episode and kind of make that into my scope and sequence over the next four weeks.

We can watch a segment of a video and we can discuss as well.

And those are a little heavier, by the way.

I should make note of two things.

Those are a little heavier in topics.

So if you have eight year olds, you might find one or two of those that are appropriate.

But we get into like pornography, you know, gender, that type of thing.

So it's a little more in the, you know, 15 to 17, maybe 14 to 18 year old age group.

The other thing I should mention is there is kind of a wide trend with those videos where adults are consuming that resource together and then presenting it to their teens just for discussion and confidence building as well.

I want to go back and start with the weekly email.

I know that many of us, you know, we could sign up for a million emails from everybody, right?

And everything from recipes to how to use mushrooms and our cleaner homes and our kids and.

Right.

There's no shortage of things.

Most of us aren't sitting around going, gosh, I need something else in my email box this week.

But I want to say that this is an email I highly recommend because this is not just a salesy email that throws in a few tidbits.

This has powerful information and yet it's written in a way that it's very consumable and understandable.

And it doesn't just throw a bunch of information at you like the news and then leaves you kind of going, now what do I do with this?

So having those discussion questions and points of things, it's not because at least I don't get the sense, I've never had the sense that it's like, well, you guys are so ignorant, we have to kind of tell you how to have a conversation.

But the reality is that sometimes it's difficult or what works with one kid definitely doesn't work with the other.

And so being able to provide those as resources and tools is something that I highly recommend.

And the fact that it's focused on things that are coming up right now, not just talking about topics that happened six months ago, but things that are relevant so even if a person misses a week or two, they can hop right back on.

They can pick up some things.

And also, I think it's important to point out there that if someone says, oh, well, my kid's not on TikTok, or well, my kid doesn't listen to that type of music or whatever, it's still being responsible to understand the culture in which everyone is growing up and living in, because they may or may not be on different things.

Sometimes kids surprise us, but they're going to have friends and they're going to be engaging in a culture that is very much influenced by all these different things that are happening.

So for any parents or teachers who are listening or pastors who are thinking, well, our kids aren't into blah, blah, blah, they're still being influenced by what goes on in the culture, as all of us are.

I like the fact that you pointed out on the parent guide and the conversation kits because you do get into some topics that are very relevant and meaningful.

What are some of that?

You mentioned that there are pastors and.

Teachers in schools that are making some very creative use of these things.

Can you kind of share with some people who might be in those roles as not just as a parent, but as a pastor, as a teacher, as a school administrator?

What are some of the ways that they are implementing these in their ministries and in their education?

Such a good question.

So we try to be really sensitive here at Access to our bivocational pastors, for example, or our teachers, you know, who are part time because they have another time, another job, whatever the case may be.

And so one of the things I've heard that is really quite smart and can really be a good time spent with teens is I have heard of youth pastors who will read that weekly email.

The Culture Translator read over those top three things happening this week.

And keep in mind, every weekly email of the Culture Translator has a segment of questions to discuss.

We bring in scripture, we bring in biblical references.

So they will read that weekly email, and that is what they're going to discuss in their youth group session that Wednesday.

So they don't dive any further.

They don't do research.

They bring that email on their phone.

They'll read it before and they'll ask their group the questions that we provide in that email.

And the discussion just goes.

Kids are loving talking about those things.

They're surprised that their youth pastor or teacher even know what that is.

And so it really creates a really good time of having a conversation, which is what we're all about here at Access.

So that's a great kind of a hack that I've heard of people using one of our resources, the parent guides.

Typically, one of the things I hear that I think is really amazing because we can't assume everyone is a parent.

As you mentioned, a lot of schools will use this as a professional development tool.

They'll have their teachers read our parent guides, maybe assign three or four and say, let's read up on these and they can discuss as a team.

Or just require that their teachers read those so that they're in the know on that topic.

You know, schools and churches, other groups, they have a pulse on what's happening in their community with teens.

So they may suddenly be very, very concerned that vaping has taken over the sixth grade or something.

And so what they'll say is, all right, team, we're going to need everyone to read this parent guide.

Come get up to speed on vaping.

Let's have some questions available in case a parent comes to you and says, oh no, my child's vaping.

Let's read some scripture that might be relevant to this topic.

So that's another really good one.

And then parent guides, because they're downloadable PDFs are great, great for caring adults who are in like the education and church space.

Because if a parent comes to them and says, I'm really, we're having a hard time in our home, found out my child is watching pornography.

We have no idea what to do, even how to start that conversation.

Having access to our PDF on that topic is a real gift because a teacher or a pastor can say, let me email you this document and then let me pray for you.

So be able to do what their role is, what their job is, which is to pray and be a minister and educator in that space.

And we are the research assistant.

We've already done the research on that topic.

We have questions that you can ask your child.

We have biblical references, other resources outside of access to turn to.

And then finally conversation kits, which are videos.

Those particularly in the school space, are used quite white, well, in a chapel.

They're also used in health class oftentimes.

So those are ways that I've seen schools use that resource.

Churches, they can, as I mentioned, they use those typically in a scope and sequence kind of a way.

So they'll say, well, this month we're going to go, we're going to focus on mental health.

And so they'll take our resources, they'll type in the search bar on the website, mental health all of our resources are pulled up and they'll take the four series, the four episodes in the conversation kit, that's four sessions with their, with their student where they're watching a video and discussing that topic.

So one of the things that you are bringing out here, and I love the fact that you use the phrase research assistant.

And so people thinking in terms of access as being okay, you're the people who can go out and get the research because we can all become very overwhelmed with the amount of data and content that we are constantly bombarded by.

So I think that's a wonderful way to, to think of access as providing that and then a parent or educator or pastor being able to take that and move that forward.

Are you finding any other.

In terms of movements or groups that are saying it's so overwhelming, there's so much out there right now that is undermining Christian values and our young people.

And I think historically when we see that people can feel that way, that there can be a tendency for people to just kind of want to isolate.

Like I just want to run away from everything that's out there in the world and maybe I'll just kind of pull my, my family or our students or whatever and we'll just kind of try to shelter in place because it's very scary out there.

So for anyone who, who may just have more of a fear based attitude, and I'm not at all saying that in a condemning way because I totally, totally understand that.

What would you say to them about the power that you see of actually engaging parents and educators and young people in these conversations as opposed to thinking we're just going to kind of shelter and we're just going to adopt this very rather isolationist mentality.

Such a, such a great question.

And I love, I love this whole idea, this whole question, and I love that you use shelter in place.

That's a great way to say it because it's real.

It's very real that there are parents out there who have, who have, you know, made that decision.

No social media, no phone, whatever it is, you know, out of love for their child, to protect them from just the unlimited vast world of the Internet and social media.

Absolutely has a lot of negative aspects to it.

One of the things that our CEO says, he has a couple phrases that I fit that I think will fit in really well to this question.

He will say oftentimes silent or violent.

So oftentimes as a parent, we can go silent like there's a problem.

There's so much.

It's overwhelming, like you said.

So we're just not going to do anything.

And then there is sort of the violent parent where this is overwhelming.

I need to do something.

So I'm going to take the phone away, I'm going to break it, throw it, whatever.

And that kind of goes to that space where you are just talking about just that whole, I'm going to shelter them from it.

Parents can shelter their kids by not giving them the phone or the social media by all means, but the realization that everyone they know or will meet will have all of that is something to consider.

So what we like to just, what we really like to encourage our caring adults to consider is just that compassion, that this is a generation that is not us.

And so getting to know Gen Z itself and a little bit about that generation is a really, really good first step.

Oftentimes we meet parents who really don't know anything about Gen Z.

They just feel like totally out of control as a human being.

And so we do.

We have a resource called Gen Z.

And it's such a popular resource because whether you're a grandparent, not a parent yet, or a parent, you really just kind of need to get to know a little bit about, you know, this generation and who they are, who they're surrounded by, how they compare maybe to other generations.

And I do think that it sort of takes that wall down a little bit and it will allow a caring adult to just consider.

Okay?

Yep, now I see.

I remember now.

This is not my generation.

This isn't my parents generation.

And I might need to try to work with this a little bit.

And so that's really what we encourage parents to consider first.

Okay.

And to be able to recognize that in some respects, people are people throughout all time in history.

But the culture and the technology and the environment and the even the work options and everything that we grow up in has a profound impact.

And one of the things that I have been able to see through the materials that access provides is the recognition that there's a difference.

In past generations, when you had technology that happened at the adult level and then it was a number of years before it kind of trickled down to the younger people.

And what we've had more recently is where you have technology that is exploding on the scene for the same time as adults as it is for the young people.

And so there's this learning curve of what we're going to do with this.

It's happening simultaneously.

And it's not a matter that you have this gap in years between one generation that has been able to kind of get a handle on the technology or the changes in culture, and then it kind of gets passed down.

So it's getting hit at the app at once.

So for anyone who's maybe still.

Because I think there's still a few.

People who kind of have the mindset, well, all of this dividing up of Gen X and Gen Z and millennials, oh, that's really just a bunch of nonsense because people are just people, really, if they take the time to dive into it, to recognize that there are external environmental factors that are different than what we have seen sometimes in the past.

Anything on that?

That's a little off of a rabbit trail for me, but anything that you would add to that?

Yeah, I would add that.

I think you're absolutely right.

One of the things that came to mind as you were talking is we've pointed out in several of our resources just the simple acknowledgement of for you as a caring adult or a parent.

As you mentioned, this is our first go around too, with the smartphones and the social media and just that, pure access to the world of information.

Where are you at?

Right.

So it's hard to have expectations of our children and how often and how they use that device if we are setting a different example.

So I do think it's something to take note of and consider.

And I think the other thing too is to remember that through all generations, I think we can all think back or watch movies or have conversations.

Right.

The teenager, they're always going to be different than we grew up.

And I think that that's important to remember as well.

Yes, absolutely.

And that's not just about rebellion or whatever.

There's actually a physiological element to that.

All right, my friend, we're going to pause there and we will continue the rest of this interview next Thursday on the Lives Key three Kids version of the podcast.

And I know by now you've either already gone to the Access Organization website or you are going to make a note to get over there and those links will be in our show notes.

Also, you know, when this episode airs originally, it will be in November and this is the time of year a lot of people start thinking about year end giving and charitable donations and Access is a donation based organization and I want to encourage you to think about adding them to your giving list.

Hey, while you are online and you are at their website signing up for their programs and their weekly newsletter, if you haven't already, you need to go over and sign up for the weekly newsletter High Impact on my website Stephanie presents.com every week I write a personal article that's only found in my newsletter of encouragement and connecting with you more on a personal level.

You get links to both podcast episodes.

You get a resource, at least one, sometimes more than one, to information that comes from other people in other places that can help you in your journey.

And the reason I do all of that and sometimes there's more.

I mean that's just the minimum.

Sometimes there's more than that as well.

The reason I do that is because you have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal and irreplaceable.

See you next time.

Thank you for listening.

Visit the website stephaniepresents.com and sign up for High Impact to join the mission of building spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart women and families.

You can also book Stephanie to speak at your event and check out additional resources.

Together we can invite and equip generations to engage fully in God's grand story.