Navigating the complexities of today's culture is challenging for parents, educators, and anyone involved with young people!

We need all the help we can get, and the Axis organization is a great resource. Join the continued conversation I have with Kelli Rankin of Axis.org.

You can be proactive rather than reactive when discussing pressing issues such as mental health, school shootings, gender, and sexuality. With an emphasis on spiritual strength and emotional health, you'll be equipped with the tools necessary to foster meaningful connections with the younger generation.

Empower yourself and your family to engage fully in God’s grand story. Subscribe to Hi(Impact) at Stephanie Presents for insights, encouragement, and practical resources!

Book Stephanie to speak to your women, parents, Christian educators, and students.

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Do you ever feel at a loss for words when you have a difficult topic that you need to talk to a young person in your life about?

Whether you're a parent educator, youth pastor or caring adult, do you ever feel lost when it comes to the lingo, the music, the TV shows, What's going on in the culture that's relevant to young people today?

Well, stay tuned because you're going to find out that you have some phenomenal resources available right at your fingertips.

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.

Last week we met Kelly Rankin of the Axis Organization and heard about some phenomenal resources that they have.

They are like your full time research assistant that will help you understand and be able to relate to and have meaningful, informed conversations with the young people in your life, whether you're a parent, an educator, a youth pastor, or a caring adult.

Today we are going to continue that interview with Kelly Rankin and I encourage you to make sure to check out their website, axis.org and better yet, become a supporter.

Get ready.

As we wrap up the second part of my interview with Kelly Rankin of the Axis Organization, can you also go.

Ahead and tell us just a little bit about.

You also have a blog for parents and then there's a private Facebook group for parents.

Can you talk a little bit about those?

Yeah.

So the blog is a quick read as most blogs are and they're topical.

So again, very relevant to Gen Z.

What's going on in culture right now.

So as opposed to the Parent Guide PDF, the Parent Guide PDF will have those questions, discussion questions.

That type of thing can be downloaded and can be used in a variety of ways.

Blog is just that, you know, a few paragraphs on that topic.

It's a quick read and a really great resource.

If you really have something specific that you're needing some more information on, you can go to our website.

Right at the top it has blog.

You can click on those and just sort of see what we've got there.

Also, I mentioned earlier we have a search bar on our website.

So if there is a topic that a school or a church or a parent is really kind of wanting to focus in on, whether it's very specific like the enneagram, or a little bit broader like mental health, type that in.

See what we've got the blog articles will show up if we have them.

But it's a great resource to just sort of go to that page and see what we've got.

A Facebook page is also.

It's on Facebook and it's the Access.

We have a parenting group where I'm on that group.

And it's kind of fun and interesting to just see what parents are sort of dealing with.

It's, you know, they'll ask the question to the community and they get those responses.

All of the information that we've talked about, resources, whether they're the blog or the Facebook page or the email, all available on that website.

Stephanie.Access.org and I do think it's very user friendly to be able to find what one would need.

Okay, so you mentioned, you know, parents being able to go and not just parents, but anyone that is involved with or cares about young people and being able to go on and to look at specific topics.

What are some of the topics that you are seeing that are really coming up a lot now in this space?

And also what are some topics that you would say people need to be very proactive about, not just waiting, for example, until they find, oh, my gosh, my kid is involved in sexting.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

Right.

So do you have recommendations for particular age groups as to these are things that you would say, Parents, educators, pastors, you've got to be proactive and not just wait until you get into a reactive situation with your child.

Or maybe it's not your kid, maybe it's their friend.

Yeah, no, it's such a good question.

So some really hot topics right now are.

School shootings is a very hot topic right now, unfortunately.

I think we all sort of wish and hope that that will not be a hot topic at some point.

But it is right now.

Mental health is absolutely at the top of the list.

When we talk with parents, that's the subject.

And it's a huge subject because it can fall under so many things fall under that.

And then finally lgbtq.

Those are the top three currently right now.

And I would say school shootings always being a hot topic, but it goes in waves, as you can imagine.

Unfortunately, events happen in our nation where it'll kind of bring a surge and then it'll calm down.

But mental health and LGBTQ stay on the top, top of our list of what our readers, what our users want more of.

And when you say, what can parents do, maybe what's a proactive thing to consider for parents or teachers or pastors.

So one of the things that, in my role that I've really been trying to encourage churches and schools is let's not assume that the second grade parents don't need these resources.

In fact, it's a gift as a leader in that space to encourage parents to read up on these topics.

LGBTQ plus, you know, pornography.

Even though.

Yeah, your second grader may not know about it.

Be ready for when they do know about it and when they do want to talk about it or when you do see it on their phones.

For me, for me, that feels like the best win for every parent and every teacher and pastor is to be proactive.

Encourage those younger teachers and pastors of the younger ages to be aware of these things and to know about them in case a parent does come to them and say, I found out, you know, my fourth grader, whatever, whatever, they already know where to turn them to.

Instead of feeling lost, like, I can't help this parent.

It would be better not only for that teacher and that family to.

To be able to have those resources now.

It also, if you think about it, it kind of preps that parent four years down the line and those teachers, because the parent is already sort of aware of some things that would be.

That's always.

What I really love to encourage people to do is don't assume that your second and third grader are completely clueless, because they may not be.

And as you probably know, even if my child doesn't have a phone in second, third, fourth, fifth grade, somebody they know absolutely does, or they go to a friend's house and that friend's parent lets them use their phones all day long.

And there aren't any filters or anything going on on that phone.

So, I mean, it's everywhere.

So it's.

It's best to feel prepared before you need it.

I love the proactive versus reactive idea.

Yes.

And it's not just with phones and laptops.

I recently took a couple of my toddler grandchildren to the library.

And so we are in the young children's picture book section.

And there they have.

Not just stuck on the shelf somewhere, but there they have on their display.

Shelves, the LGBTQ books.

So these are kids that don't even know how to read yet.

And yet the books are there.

And so whether it's word, you know, pictures and different things.

So it's not just, well, the big bad evil phone, it's magazine covers that you're going to see standing in the line at the grocery store.

Right.

I mean, it's just, it's, it's everywhere with that.

Yeah.

I mean, even streaming channels.

Right.

You know, there are many, many shows for children that really should be previewed by parents before they just put their child in front of the tv.

So.

You're right.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kids, movies, you know, all of that.

So.

And, and just to be able to reiterate what you've said about, I think in football, there's the expression a good offense is the best defense.

And so being able to be proactive and to say that as believers that God has not given us a spirit of fear, and so we don't need to adopt one for ourselves, but being able to be prepared and to be knowledge is part of our calling to engage in the world in which we live now, maybe not the one that we wish that we lived in.

So you mentioned just even for very young children, parents who have very young children.

So it's not too early to start this.

This doesn't just all start when a child turns 13 or 14 or 15.

And the ages of introduction to some of these issues are becoming younger and younger.

So throughout all of this, we have talked about the fact that Axis does work from a Christian perspective.

Christian has become a very fluid term.

Right.

And so can you share a little bit when you use the term from a Christian perspective?

You don't have to go through like an entire statement of faith, but to be able to say, what does that mean in terms of how Axis is approaching things?

Yeah.

As you can imagine, you know, this comes up quite a bit.

And it, and it should so access it itself.

We are not affiliated with any denomination specifically what we do.

Everything that we do, our researchers create everything that comes, you know, out of the Access Creativity Lab, I guess, is really just from the Bible.

So we will take culture issues, culture fads, whatever they, whatever you want to call them, and, you know, we'll research that.

We'll come up with really good way of understanding that and making sure that we're accurate.

And then we go to the Bible and we say, we look up where in the Bible can this is this addressed?

Obviously, the Bible does not say tik tok or, you know, those words specifically, but they, it absolutely has something to say about everything.

And we, we do believe that.

So when a person becomes familiar with access resources, and I do think this is part of why we are so widely accepted within every denomination that we've worked with, if you believe the Bible, you're going to be on board with what access is doing and what we're saying and how we present.

I will say we have a conversation kit on violence.

And that I can think of, to me, it best represents how we represent ourselves as a Christian organization, a ministry, in that we have facts, we have stories, we have all these things that have happened, and then we pull stories and references from the Bible.

We don't say anything about it from an Access standpoint, but it is very hard to argue with what we're presenting as biblical statements.

If you believe in the Bible, and I hope that answers your question.

Yes.

And so I have definitely seen that in the resources that I have used.

So it's not a matter of.

It's very biblical, but it's not presented in an incredibly narrow framework that is tied to such a narrow frame of reference that if somebody differs on what I would say is not a core part of Christianity, then it's not like, well, you have to throw everything out.

Do you have other recommended resources that you would point parents to, either that are part of the Access ministry or other things that you would say, oh, while you're here, you know, while you're online looking at access and all of that, here are some other things that we would highly recommend that.

That you take a look at.

Yeah, well, as I mentioned, especially in our parent guides, we do recommend other resources outside of Access on those topics.

So we know that we're not the only place, you know, parents and educators and Christian leaders should go.

So we do specifically reference other books, articles, organizations that parents, our caring adults could go to on that topic.

So there are many, honestly, Stephanie.

But it kind of depends on what people are wanting more information on as a.

We oftentimes will have our sponsors, our partners kind of highlighted in a resource as well.

So those are great organizations for people to maybe explore, but again, they're on topic.

So we have a conversation kit on pornography, and our sponsor, our partner on that was Covenant Eyes, which most many people are familiar with.

So.

So we wouldn't refer every parent to Covenantize for no reason.

Right.

There's a reason to go there.

So as you're going through resources or as someone is going through our resources, we do reference other organizations, ministries that we feel like are a really great option outside of Access.

Obviously, we recommend access.org and oftentimes in our podcast, we'll interview people.

And of course, we wouldn't interview, you know, an organization or a person that we didn't feel like we're in line with.

Sort of what we're trying to do with our Mission here at Access.

Absolutely.

So say someone is listening today and they're a parent and they hear about Access and they get some information about it and they think, oh, this would be a great resource for my youth group pastor.

Perhaps they have a child who's part of a Christian school.

Is there a starting place that you would say for somebody who's just brand new and they don't necessarily have one particular topic that is driving them to come to Access to find out about?

Is there a place that you would say, here's where you need to get started.

Here's the first thing that you'd want to do?

Yeah, that's super.

That's super.

Great question.

I would start with that weekly email, the Culture Translator.

That's usually a great entry point.

It's simple, it's short, it's extremely relevant.

And you will connect with something in that email that's going to help you with your conversations with one or more children, depending on, you know, who you are and what you're, what you're reading it for.

That's the best point to start.

And from there, typically we see people sort of grow.

So from there we fall in love with the Culture translator.

And then we kind of move to that parent guide because we're, we're reading still.

And then we sort of maybe move into the conversation kit because then we realize we love Access and they have such great stuff.

Let's start watching their videos and diving a little deeper.

But that weekly email is the best place to start.

And again, it's go to the website access.org, very easy to sign up for that weekly email.

And it comes on Fridays.

Okay.

And again, I highly recommend that.

And so.

And you don't have to be a parent or an educator or a youth pastor.

Just being able to be a person who's engaged in the culture and wants to keep up with what's going on is something that's highly recommended.

So whether you're a grandparent, even if you have very young children, or you may not have any connection, maybe you're a single person and you're thinking, well, I don't really work too much with young people still being able to understand what is influencing the young people and also to be prepared because you never know what situation that you might be in that you're going to be able to strike up a conversation.

You can just be at a coffee shop with somebody and strike up a conversation.

And so to be able to engage in that, I think, is very, very meaningful.

And it's not much of an investment in your time every week.

You make a great point because we do have a lot of teachers and pastors who don't have kids or maybe don't even have a teenager.

But I think we've all been in a situation where maybe we sit down to watch tv, we turn on Netflix, for example, and we have no idea really what any of these shows are about.

Right.

But we know they're number one in Netflix this week.

Oftentimes our email will talk about that.

And so like you said, you don't even really have to be a parent, but it's very entertaining and you feel like you walk away after reading that you learned something, so.

Yeah, right, exactly.

And I have definitely gone and looked up songs and things and said, oh, I want to find out, you know, well, that's hot.

Okay, that might not be my genre, but I'd kind of like to be able to know, you know, what, what's going on here.

So anything that access in the works that we haven't already talked about, anything coming up on the horizon or anything that parents, educators, youth pastors, anybody who's concerned about the upcoming generations will want to make sure that they know about.

Yeah, you know, we, we always have resources, research going, resources being developed.

It's, it's a nonstop, it's a non stop machine here, as you can imagine, because things are changing quickly and developing and there's just always something to be created.

And so every month on the website, something new will appear.

We do update our resources because they are time sensitive.

We reference, as we've mentioned, movies, music, things that need to be updated.

So they're always being updated.

We do have on our website, if someone listening goes, you'll see books.

We actually have books now and they're very cute and small and so those have been a real win.

And we have a new, I don't know if I'll call it a category, but we have a new resource called a course which is very, very brand new, hot off the press, and we're really excited about that.

It's, it's a really new and innovative way to really take a look at, you know, a little bit harder topics to address with, with the next generation.

Okay, can you share a little bit more about that?

Who would that be for?

Who's the target?

Oh, perfect audience for that.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So honestly, you know, it can be for any caring adult, to be very honest, but it is a little deeper dive.

And when I was exploring this originally, I thought, oh, this would be so great.

I actually thought for a school, because they're all going to be formatted ever so slightly different.

But it's, it's steps and getting deeper and deeper into a topic.

So you have the first step where maybe we're just talking about it a little bit and then we're going deeper and deeper.

And the only, the first one and that we've just released is how to talk with Gen Z about gender and sexuality.

And as you can imagine, that's a deep topic.

It can go on for a very long time.

So we have these segments where it's, I think about seven sessions, we call them movements, where we go a little bit deeper and we really pull in a lot of scripture.

In this particular one, we're really going outside or going into different cultures, you know, specifically, and how we might look at things differently in different cultures here in our country.

So it's a little bit deeper.

It would fit really well into a scope and sequence for a church or a school.

And it's, like I said, very hot off the press.

So I'm really excited about seeing how this grows as a resource and how it's received.

And again on the website.

Okay, okay.

And that's a topic that is not going to go away.

And we cannot afford for ourselves or especially for our youth to stick our head in the sand and say, well, we can just address that very simplistically because as a culture, it's just, it's.

It's a very big issue.

Right.

And as, as so many of the, of these other things.

Well, Kelly, you have been a phenomenal resource and wealth of information today.

Anything.

I just want to leave the opportunity.

Anything that we haven't covered.

Any question that I didn't ask that is something about access that you really want to leave with our audience.

Yeah, I think, you know what, we really try to encourage people to know about us.

And for me, because I work with organizations and churches specifically, it's really important to understand we are your research assistant.

We are here to essentially work with you and on your team so that you don't have to do this research.

If you hear some slang or something about a song or a movie and you don't have time to research everything about that, but you know, you're going to need to, for whatever reason, we're here for you.

We've done it already.

And if you don't see it, we love feedback.

We love people sending an email saying, this is an issue that's really big in my Community.

Why don't you have anything on it?

So that is welcome.

As I said, we really consider us part of staff, part of a church team, and we love the feedback, we love the questions, and we just are here to make your jobs easier.

Okay.

And people can not only sign up for that newsletter as well as get some of these other resources, but they can also donate on the website.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, thank you again, so much.

You've been a wealth of information.

And again, I highly recommend looking into the Access organization.

Whether you are a parent, whether you're a home educator, you're a youth pastor or a pastor or a school principal, really, if you're just a person who cares about where our culture is going and cares about what's happening with our upcoming generations, and you want to be a person who is involved and doesn't decide that it's too overwhelming and you want to run away from it, I understand the feeling.

But sometimes, as it said, we have to talk to ourselves and not just listen to our feelings.

So I highly recommend going and checking out what Access has to offer.

And again, if you want a place to get started, sign up for that weekly email.

All right, Kelly, thank you so much for being here.

It's just been great to have a conversation with you, and I just look forward to people being able to find out more about Axis in the future.

Yeah.

Thank you for the invite.

I appreciate you and all that you're doing as well.

All right, my friend, make certain to visit the Axis website, sign up for the weekly email, the culture translator.

And while you're there, consider becoming a donor.

You're not just paying for information.

You are investing in upcoming generations.

And while you're online, hop over to my website, Stephanie presents.com Sign up for.

The weekly newsletter High Impact.

Also, make sure that you subscribe to this podcast and leave a rating and review.

That helps me to know whether I am meeting needs and also helps to let other people know.

This is a podcast that's worth listening to.

All right, that's going to wrap us up for today.

We will be back next week, next Thursday with more resources helping you raise kids ready for adulthood, and on Tuesday, with more information and encouragement so that you can grow in your spiritual strength, your emotional health, and your relational smarts and wisdom.

Remember this.

You have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal, and irreplaceable.

Thank you for listening.

Visit the website stephaniepresents.com and sign up for High Impact to join the mission of building spiritually strong, 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.