In this podcast conversation between Mike Henry and Todd Melby, Todd shares insights about his work at Leadership Edge, a Christian nonprofit focused on leadership development through one-on-one mentoring. Here are the key points discussed: Introduction to Leadership Edge: [01:00] Todd introduces Leadership Edge as a 30-year-old nonprofit dedicated to developing leaders of integrity through personalized mentoring. The organization's focus is on helping young people understand and embody leadership integrity in all aspects of life. Getting Connected with Leadership Edge:[02:09] Todd shares how he became involved with Leadership Edge when he was seeking guidance on living a faithful life in various areas. A mentor suggested that Todd become a mentor himself, leading him to engage with the organization. Mentoring Range: [04:44] Todd explains that Leadership Edge mentors a wide range of individuals based on their readiness for intentional developmental relationships. While the typical age range is 20 to 35, mentees can be as young as 17 or as old as 55. Personal Faith Journey:[06:01] Todd reflects on his Christian journey, emphasizing that his faith developed over time rather than through a single moment. He describes the progression from a good family upbringing to a deeper understanding of walking with Jesus in his thirties. First Mentoring Experience: [21:35] Todd shares his initial mentoring experience, acknowledging that he didn't invest enough intentionality into the relationship. He later learned to approach mentoring more effectively, with success measured by the growth and positive decisions of his mentees. Continuous Friendships: A key aspect of Leadership Edge's approach is maintaining friendships even after formal mentoring relationships conclude. This ensures ongoing support and connection. Success Stories: [20:40]Todd highlights success stories where individuals faced challenges and turned to the principles learned through Leadership Edge for guidance. One example is overcoming marital difficulties through open communication and faith. Mentor Training: [26:47] Todd discusses the rigorous mentor training provided by Leadership Edge, covering theology of leadership and mentoring, helping mentors effectively guide their mentees. Impactful Stories: Todd shares a story of a young man who found faith in college and later grew into an influential leader with the support of Leadership Edge, showcasing the organization's positive impact. Future Plans:[26:47] Todd mentions Leadership Edge's plans to expand by working with executive leadership teams in churches. The organization aims to mentor youth pastors to establish leadership development programs and provide resources for effective mentoring. Encouragement for Difficult Times: Todd concludes by encouraging listeners to maintain their focus on the Lord even in chaotic times, emphasizing that God's control can lead to miraculous outcomes. Connect with Todd on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddmelby/) Connect with Leadership Edge  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadership-edge-inc Website: https://lead-edge.com  Connect with Follower of One: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followerofone1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followerofone  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/follower-of-one  Community: https://community.followerofone.org

Do you ever think deeply about where your life came from?   "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser." John 15:1 ESV   Think about all the things leading up to today that you had no say in. You didn't get to choose to come to life - the day, the time, the parents, nationality, skin color, height. Our life comes from someone or somewhere else.   Jesus makes the vine analogy. He and the disciples had left the room where they had the last supper (see John 14:31). Jesus is saying this as they walk. I imagine they walked past a vine of some kind. Also, Israel was considered a vine in the old testament. Jesus is establishing a new idea. Jesus is the vine. Life comes from him. Let's focus on that today.   The vine is life. Have you ever thought about life? It came from outside of you. God, the vine dresser, gave you life. If all life comes from Jesus, which he seems to suggest here, people who don't want anything to do with him will eventually be thrown off and burned up.   If Jesus is the life, and that life is in us, we have a job to do: live. By living connected to Jesus, we help others see the benefits and joy of living connected to him. We're always loved. We're forgiven. We have a heavenly father who is always working for good.   So how does Jesus show up in your life today? What can you do to make him visible? Why not ask him for some direction? Our first daily activity on the Marketplace Mission Trip is to pray and we're starting one of those today. Ask Jesus to show you what he would have you do today. Step two: do it!   Let's spend a few days talking about the remainder of John 15 and see where Jesus takes us. In the meantime, ask God what he would have you do today and then do it.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., thanks for listening. Today we want to finish our three episodes on thankfulness.  If you hear this on the air date, it's the Friday after the U.S. holiday for Thanksgiving. And today I want to cover the verse in Ephesians 5:20 from the ESV, it says, "giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ."   Notice how the author words, this. This goes all the way back to verse 18. Paul seems to be saying that giving thanks for all things as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit. We're thankful in the name of Jesus.   I think of "in the name of" as being something like me saying, I want to express my gratitude on behalf of myself and my family. I'm sharing the gratitude that my family has. I want to share the gratitude that Jesus had. Jesus wasn't happy about having to go to the cross, but I believe he was grateful.   We're hearing here that he was thankful, and he saved us and he was thankful that he had the opportunity to do that. I never thought about that a whole lot until I was thinking about being thankful.   It's easy for us to think about being thankful. But what about being thankful for those hard things and being thankful to God, even in the middle of them. In this passage, we see that the Holy Spirit fills us, and we become grateful with the gratitude of Jesus.   We're thankful to God, the Father. The entire Trinity is involved. Today, let's remember which camp we're in. The holy spirit fills us. Therefore, we belong to Jesus, and we experience his gratitude. Even the negative things that happened to us will be used by God. Therefore, we can join in Jesus's gratitude to God, the Father. The end of everything is good for those who love God and who are called according to his purpose, it says in Romans 8:28. Let's keep the gratitude going. Let's remember what God has done for us and let that memory make us grateful so that others notice. I hope that your gratitude causes others to ask you, "Hey, what's different? What's going on?" And then you'll get an opportunity to speak for yourself to talk about how Jesus transformed you. That's what we talk about in Follower of One. We want to live our faith in such a way that others question what's going on in our lives. And we get to share with them a little bit about how Jesus has changed us.   Thanks very much.

Hey, welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry Sr. and I'm glad to be here. If you're in the U.S. and hearing this on-air date, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm recording this message to be aired on Thanksgiving Day. And today our passage is 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus." That's from the New American Standard. In everything we want to give thanks. We're talking now about expressing gratitude to God. We talked about expressing gratitude to others a little bit yesterday as well but expressing gratitude to God is worship.   And here Paul is exhorting us to give thanks to God for everything that happens "for this," and that word, "this" is not specific. Whatever's happening in our lives. What's going on in our lives. It's the will of God, for us. Notice that we give thanks in everything.   When good things happen, it's easy to give thanks. But when not-so-good things happen. Well, that's a different story. At least it is for me, I'm quick to complain when the not-so-good things happen. If I can break that habit and be grateful when those not-so-good things happen, I demonstrate my faith. Others will be prompted to ask because I'm acting so differently than I typically do.   Then I get an opportunity to explain how Jesus is the source of my ability to respond to everything with gratitude. Today, it's easy to think about being grateful, but I hope you can. Some days, some holidays are difficult for some of us as well. But I want to encourage each of us to express our gratitude to God today, for whatever our circumstances are.   Because of this grateful life puts us in touch with God. It's the avenue to receiving his peace and his joy, even in difficult circumstances. I hope that we can live as a way where others can see us as grateful to God and then they can know that he is the source of the good he's the source of the not-so-good too, but he makes everything right.   I want to challenge us today. Enjoy your day, wherever you are. I pray that you have a great holiday or a great workday if you're working in another country. But ask God to help you be more genuine in your gratitude to him, even in the things that you don't appreciate. He will do that. He will help us to be more grateful because it glorifies him.   Life is hard and we broke the world as humans. But God gives us the ability to cling to him, partly through being thankful and being grateful. We get to join him and experience his joy. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference with your faith. I pray that you have a great day and that you make a difference in the lives of others today.   Thank you very much.

Hey, welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry, your host and the founder of Follower of One. I love doing the podcast and today I want to talk about Colossians 3:15. If you hear this on-air date, this is the day before Thanksgiving in the US. The verse that I chose for today is, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. That's Colossians 3:15 from the New American Standard Bible.   In the U.S., as we celebrate Thanksgiving, which we will do tomorrow, many don't even understand, that the original thankfulness wasn't just to the Indians or just to each other, but it was to God for the provisions that he made. Thankfulness is worship. It's easy to be thankful to others and we need to be thankful to others.   It lubricates our relationships. When we're thankful to others. And when we appreciate others, they feel appreciated. And that feeling reduces the friction that typically happens when people interact. Friction is the force or the result of two objects coming into contact with each other. And friction causes heat.   When we interact with our fellow humans, we can cause friction. But a spirit of genuine appreciation, frees everything up. It's like it lubricates all the mechanisms. We look out for others, and we consider them more important than ourselves when we appreciate them. And it lubricates our relationships. So, thankfulness to others is key.   But also, thankfulness is to God. As Christ followers, all gratitude or thankfulness is aimed at him. We know he is in control. Our thankfulness reminds us, my thankfulness reminds me that I'm dependent upon God and not the other way around. It puts me in my proper place in the world.   So today and every day, I want to be thankful to God for the things that happen, even the good and the not so good things. We'll talk about that a little bit more tomorrow. Today, just thank God for what's going on today and tomorrow. Ask him to help you be thankful in everything that you do. We want thankful to be a word that others use to describe us.

Thanks for joining us on the Follower of One podcast again today. I'm Mike Henry, your host. And today I'm talking about 2 Timothy 2:2, "The things which you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." This is a great verse about discipleship and that translation that I read was the New American Standard version.   This is a great passage about discipleship, as I said, because it's challenging us to think about four (4) generations. If you see it here, we see Paul passing this on to Timothy, who is to entrust these to faithful men, that's generation three, who will be able to teach others also generation four. So it's like four degrees of separation from the apostle Paul to people who are teaching others about the scripture.   We want to be people who ship grace. I mentioned this yesterday. He challenges us to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. I believe we're all like little warehouses and God gives us his grace, not so that we would hang onto it, but so that we would distribute it to other people, to the people that we come in contact with.   I believe Jesus puts his people in every company, in every workplace situation, and in every life situation so that others can see what a Jesus follower does in that circumstance. And us having grace that's strong, that's available to be present and delivered to others that we can teach to others about the grace of Jesus Christ.   When we have that grace, we make a difference in the lives of the people that we interact with.  Today, let's ship the grace that we have received. What we have learned about Jesus Christ and his grace is what we pass along to others.   Yes, this is a verse about teaching, but it can also be a verse about showing. The things which we have heard from the people who taught us, let's trust those to faithful people. Let's deliver those things. We want to deliver those in speech to people who want to hear them, but we live them in action.   We put them to work. Let's put our faith to work by shipping this grace into the lives of the people around us today. We want to think about generation and generation and generation. Challenge a friend to be the kind of Christ follower that others might want to emulate. And let's pass that on to the people that we meet and the people that we know.   Yes, we're going to teach people that, but we need to teach with our lives too. So, let's not just be talkers. Let's entrust these things. Let's pass them along with our life, with our lifestyle and with the way that we speak and act. I'm guilty of this as much as anyone. There are times when I don't live like a good Christian, or I don't act like a good Christian.   So, I have to remind myself to be strong in the grace. That's the verse above this. To remember my relationship with Jesus Christ and the grace that he's given me, and then live according to that grace. Join us in this marketplace ministry that you have by taking the grace that you've been given and delivering that to the people around you. The faithful ones will be able to learn and teach others also.   Let's pass this along. Let's think about the four degrees of connection that we each have and take our faith and make a difference with it in our world today. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends. Invite people to join us at https://community.followerofone.org, where you can join other marketplace Christians and take place in the next Marketplace Mission Trip. Thanks very much.

Hey, thanks for joining us again on the Follower of One podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry Sr., and part of Follower of One. And we have a daily devotional to encourage believers as they head to work each day. Today, I want to talk about second Timothy chapter two, verse one. "You therefore, my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." It's believed that second Timothy is Paul's final letter. He's writing it to Timothy, a young pastor that he's trained up.   Many people interpret much of the book of Timothy as instruction to pastors. And maybe it is. I'm not a qualified to say exactly what Paul was intending to do, but I saw this challenge to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And I wanted to encourage us with that today, as we get ready to go to work, or as we're heading to wherever we're going.    What does it mean to be strong in grace? Christ Jesus is the model of grace for us. He came and died to pay for our sins. He came and did everything in his power to restore our relationship with him.   He is the definition of grace - unmerited favor at Christ's expense. I believe that God calls us to ship his grace into the world.   He asks us to be grace distributors. To be strong in the grace means that we have God's grace in the front of our mind. It's present with us all the time and we're available to bring that grace to bear in the lives of others. Part of the reason why I chose this first today, tomorrow, we will talk about 2 Timothy 2:2, which is about discipling other people.   It's about how we trust the message of Jesus from generation to generation to generation. But today we carry that message in our actions. We're strong in the grace. That means that we live being able to give grace to others. We're available to be patient and peaceful and give people a break, give others the benefit of the doubt.   I'm preaching to myself as I often do, because I don't believe I'm strong in grace, often. I want to be strong in grace more. I want to be present mentally with Jesus. In whatever situation I'm in, whether it's a workplace or if I'm in a store or a restaurant, wherever I am with my family at home, I want my relationship with Christ to be present in my mind so that I'm strong in that grace.   I've got the grace that comes from my relationship with Jesus, ready and available to insert into my relationships with any other person and any other activity. Today in your job and your workplace, I want to challenge you to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Ask God to show you what it means to be strong in grace, and then go deliver that into your workplace, into your work situation.   Let's ship Jesus's grace, to every person that we see today. Let's be people who have a little extra and who can give a little break. We can give an extra moment. We can ask someone to tell us more. We can take an extra second or two or moment or two to spend some time with a friend and just be available to them.   Let's be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, just as Paul reminded Timothy in this book. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you work with every day.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One, and today's devotional is a continuation a little bit of the previous episode. We're talking about Psalm 78. I want to read verses five through seven. We're talking about verse seven today. If you have questions, you can go back and catch the episode that I did on verses five and six.   For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandment.   Verse seven says that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments. How do we put our confidence in God? We don't forget what he's done, both in what we've learned in the Bible and in our own lives. And we obey him, and we want to remind our children and remind them to remind their children.   About these things of God, how he has done great things in our lives. And when we obey him, we get to see him work. We get to see what he's doing and the difference that he makes, and we get to experience the joy of following him. He's he gives us great joy when we obey him, and we see him accomplish cool things in our lives and in the lives of the people that we work with.   I want to challenge us. To live with confidence in God, that confidence in God is what gives us the ability to be calm and to make a difference in the lives of the people that we work with confidence in God is what challenges us to pray for others. Appreciate them, know what we believe, serve others and speak for ourselves.   That's our five daily activities with follower of one. We want to exercise those practices so that we can remain engaged with our faith on a daily basis, in the middle of our tasks. Even if things are crazy in your workplace today, you can be confident in God. You can remember what he has done and obey him.   That confidence makes a difference in everything that you do at work. In the ways that you relate to your coworkers, and it also can make a difference in the lives of your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren, and maybe even in the lives of the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of your coworkers and your peers.   Imagine that for a moment, set a 150 or a 200-year goal for the reputation and for the difference that your life makes. You can do things today that can impact people for generations by simply being confident in God, remembering what he's done and keeping his commandments. And that's our tip for today.   Our goal is to be confident in God, the way we do that is we don't forget the works of God and we keep his commandments. Let's find out how we can do that today. Let's challenge ourselves. Remember a Bible verse. Take a minute to get to work a little early and pray for the people that you're going to meet today, and then go out of your way to do something special for someone look for ways to serve others. Ask God to show you how you can make a difference in the lives of someone that you work with.   You have an opportunity today to practice this confidence and make a difference for generations. Your life matters. The difference that you make in the lives of the people that you work with matters. And you do that through this confidence in God. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for following Jesus and for making a difference in the lives of the people that you work with your actions matter, be confident in God.   Don't forget what he's done in your life. And let's obey him today. Thanks very much.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today I want to talk a little bit about praying for one another. 2 Daniel 17:18. Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends and Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah about the matter, so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men in battle.   Daniel and his friends are in trouble. The king has had this dream and the Wiseman and the conjurers of that time, couldn't tell the dream to the king and he was angry about it. And so, he was going to kill them all.  And Daniel and his three friends, the guys probably more well known as a Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.   Daniel and his three friends were among those who would be killed. And so this is a tense work situation.  Think you will agree. We face tense work situations every day, but we don't often face them where there's life and death involved. Some of us do, there are people who listen to this podcast who are first responders, and they face life and death on a regular basis.   I'm grateful for what they do. But today's point is about praying for one another. And about having friends who are praying for one another. Do you have people who pray for you?  Often? We tend to focus on what's not happening by someone else, not praying for us, but if we want more prayer in the world and I want to challenge us to pray for others, this story goes on because Daniel does receive a response from God and gives that response to the king. And it makes a difference in the King's life makes a difference in the lives of all these wise men in these conjurers, this story ends up being one where Daniel and his three friends become more important in the kingdom.   It's because of their relationship with God. The way prayer works is interesting because we spend most of our time. If you're like me, I spend most of my time asking God for things. God uses prayer to communicate with me.  And God uses prayer to communicate with us. He's putting us to work. He's working his plan.   What he wants to happen is what's going to happen in the world. Daniel and his three friends got in on it through prayer. We get to take part in the work of Jesus in the lives of every person that we know when we regularly pray. And I want to challenge each of us, our first daily activity as a follower of Jesus Christ is to pray.   We talk about three prayers on a regular basis. One of those is punching in. Here I am. The next one is praying for others. We want to pray for the people in our lives, and sometimes we need to pray and give thanks to God for the circumstances that we face. Even the ones that we don't like. And finally, there are the times like this, where there are situations going on in our life that are just so extreme that we need God to make a difference.   In all of these situations, I want to encourage you find people that you can pray with and pray for about what God's doing in your workplace. Ask God to show him who else around you, who else in your workplace might be someone who can pray for you, or if you need to, you can actually connect with those people in our online community at https://www.Followerofone.org.   Open to believers who want to integrate their faith in the workplace. I want to challenge you, find two or three or four friends who are praying with you and understand enough about each other's work situation, to where your prayers are making a difference where your prayers will make a difference in the things that happen inside that business.   Your prayers can make your employer more successful. You can make you be more successful in the workplace, those prayers can help you see God working and see the difference that he's making in the lives of every person there. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for being a part of what God's doing in the world.   That's what we're doing. We're checking in. We're punching in when we pray. And say, God, I want to be part of what you're doing in the world today. Show me what to do. Thanks for being a part of that. And thank you for listening to this podcast. If you get a chance, share it with a friend. Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., thank you so much for joining us. Today's devotional, I'm continuing this self-coaching, self-study on the word self-control, and I came to a verse in 2 Timothy 3:3. But realize this then in the last days, difficult times will come for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good." He goes on. But I want to share today some thoughts that crossed my mind as I was studying the term "self-control." There are a few episodes in the recent days that have been around that topic because I'm studying self-control for me.   I want to do a better job of controlling myself; of being in charge of my attitude and my temper and the way I eat and the way I think. And this word self-control here. I got to looking at the Greek and I was surprised because the Greek word was actually a little difficult to look up. The Greek word is actually, "power." It's a word translated power. And then the Greeks, they add an "a" to the beginning of it- "ah". When they add an "a" to the beginning of a word, it negates it. And so, it's "negative power" or "without power," "without self-control." I can't pronounce the Greek word, but you can look this up. It's interesting because it's often translated as, without self-control clearly.   However, in The Message, they talked about it being impulsively wild. And what's interesting is in the original King James, and this is what really caught my attention, in the original King James it is translated "incontinent." "Without natural affection, a truce breaker, false accusers incontinent for your despisers of those that are good."   That's the King James version. The word "incontinent" means something narrower now. It means unable to control our bowel movements or our digestive processes. It's not just generally unable to control ourselves. Self-control is an inability to behave in public and inability to choose proper manners or words, an inability to eat to moderation, which is my challenge.   I overeat, I eat too many sweets. But in many areas, it can be any kind of a habit we can let get out of control. The question today, the question for us as followers of Jesus, where do we surrender our power over ourselves? I wanted to challenge myself today and challenge you. Let's control ourselves.   Let's exercise control over ourselves let's bring our bodies and our minds and our spirits in line with what God would have us do. Our job is to glorify him. Our body exists and our resources exist so that we might bring him glory.   We might use those things to serve him. Our time is so that we can serve him. If we can make Jesus visible by giving away little bits of our life and little bits of our resources and our time and our energy to the people that we interact with. We are glorifying God. We're doing what he called us to do.   We're serving as ministers in the marketplace.  I'd like to challenge you today. Control yourself. Let's exercise power over ourselves and use our time and our resources and our spirits to glorify God at work. That's our challenge for today. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for being self-controlled and for using your time and resources to make Jesus visible and to help other people move one notch closer to Jesus.