A guest post by Ben Battaglia (Area Director – Champaign County, Illinois) & Justin Ryder (Metro Director – Rutgers Metro, New Jersey)
We’re excited to announce a brand new podcast about Young Life called “On The Frontier!”
We’ll unpack the latest Young Life news, explore innovation & creativity around the mission, and learn from the stories of our guests. This podcast is for volunteer leaders & staff people, but we hope that even if you didn’t know anything about Young Life this podcast will help you grow and push you towards Jesus. Don’t expect sermons or intense teaching: this isn’t a platform for us, it’s a platform for us all. We’re just two friends who want to talk about Young Life, and all of life, together with you. Please join us!
What is On The Frontier, and why are you starting a podcast?
First off, we love podcasts. Both of us (Ryder & Ben), grow a lot from the many podcasts we listen to. We felt like there was a huge opportunity for a podcast about Young Life. There are countless pioneers, creatives, and heroes around Young Life, and we wanted to give the world a platform to hear & learn from a very diverse group of champions that represent a variety of cultural perspectives, and Young Life perspectives.
We’ve talked about this podcast being like “cabin time on the record”. In cabin time, you debrief your day, you ask hard questions, you share vulnerable thoughts, you talk about real things, you challenge the status quo, and sometimes you even get off track. Cabin time is full of laughter, joy, honesty, tears, tensions, and encouragement. We hope that On The Frontier delves into all those emotions, and the topics/ issues that come with them.
Tell us a little about you.
We became friends on summer assignment at Timber Wolf Lake in 2014. We both work in areas with large Big 10 universities, and are a part of the team that thinks intentionally about Young Life’s social media presence. Through both those things, we’ve stayed in touch, and have been kicking around an idea like this for a while. Ryder loves biking, podcasts, great humor, and photography, while Ben is a big reader, loves presidential history, and studying leadership. As co-hosts of this podcast, we think we complement each other really well, and bring unique perspectives about Young Life to the table. Our greatest hope is to sculpt an intriguing and positive conversation.
What do you hope this podcast will become?
We believe that On The Frontier can be part of a revolution within the mission of Young Life. As our mission enters our 76th year, the challenges that a Young Life leader or staff person encounters are numerous. Our hope is that we can cultivate creativity within the mission, serve as a hub for real, vulnerable conversations, and that anyone who listens in would leave inspired and encouraged.
We’ve got some great guests for Season 1 and we’re excited about the conversations that we’ll be able to share with you in coming weeks! We’re looking forward to diving deeper with new guests and exciting topics as we continue the podcast into the future. See you on the frontier of the great mission of Young Life!
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or find out more at www.onthefrontierpodcast.com
