The Art of Mentoring

Many of us mentor all the time but we don’t recognize that we are doing it – when our children were young, I taught both Becky and Josh to cook. I encouraged them to read the recipes for me as we did each step, explain why I added each ingredient in a certain order, had the children stir the mixture, drop the cookies by spoonfuls on the cookie sheet, and much more. It was teaching by example, but it was also mentoring by involvement.

We are called to do the same thing in our churches – in Titus 2:3-5 it addresses the role of women – “The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

This is going to be a longer devotional, but I think you will find it insightful and a blessing as I take excerpts again from Karl Vaters book, “Small Church Essentials.”

“Mentoring was how Jesus, Paul, and the rest of the early church discipled new believers, because they knew that discipleship isn’t primarily about knowing theology and memorizing verses, as important as those are. The essence of discipleship is, as Paul put it, to ‘be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 11:1).”

Think back to previous cultures where apprenticeships were a fact of life. People learned a specific trade when a mentor would take an apprentice under wing – they learned the trade from the master and would live in their home. Even today, that same principle is used for those studying the trades in community colleges. The mentor shows the apprentice how to do specific tasks, then works independently and the cycle continues where he trains another individual after him.

Who was instrumental in influencing your Christian Walk? Was it someone who invested time and effort in you and mentored you outside the church walls? I’m sure that most of you will answer yes.

Let’s look at how Jesus interacted – was most of His time teaching the crowds? “He never discipled in large groups. The biggest group Jesus ever put serious time into was 72, but He focused on twelve … and even those twelve were often narrowed down to three. Jesus taught crowds, and He loved them; He even had pity on them. But He trained the disciples. He walked with them. He explained the “why” to them. That’s mentoring.”

“Jesus never gave us a point-by-point list of how His mentoring process worked. He didn’t need to- that had already been done thousands of years before He was born, by a man named Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law.”

START WITH ONE

“When Moses’s father-in-law Jethro saw Moses moderating all the disputes for the entire nation, he told him, ‘The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee: thou art not able to perform it thyself alone (Exodus 18:17, 18).”

“So Jethro proposed an ingenious plan. Find people who exhibit four key character traits (capable, fear God, trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain) and put them in charge of groups of 10, 50, 100, and 1000, leaving Moses to deal with issues above that (Exodus 18:17-26).”

We don’t need people in our churches with that large scale in mind, but we do need people in our churches that will mentor and lead others that can be placed under their wing in a personal manner. It’s a role for each of us that come to the church, not just the Pastor.

FIND A SERVANT

Take another look at the quality traits Jethro recommended for leaders. Do you think of servanthood? “Look for someone who walks humbly, serves willingly, steps up to fix problems instead of complaining about them, and wants to learn more.

People who want a leadership position for the title or the control will cause more problems than they’ll fix. But you can never go wrong if you start with someone who has the heart of a servant.

One of my favourite biblical examples of servanthood is Barnabas in the book of Acts. We know very little of him, but what we do know is extraordinary, and it speaks of his servant’s heart. We first hear of Barnabas selling a field he owned to lay the entire proceeds at the apostle’s feet (4:36-37). When he was sent to Antioch by the Jerusalem church ‘and had seen the grace of God, was glad, exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.’He is described as ‘a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.’ Through his influence, ‘much people was added unto the Lord.’ (See Acts 11:22-26).

His servanthood was even reflected in his name. Although his actual name was Joseph, the other apostles called him Barnabas, because it means ‘son of encouragement’ (4:36-27). Imagine how different the story of the early church might have been without the servant leadership of this man who asked for no title, but whose influence was so great."

MEET WITH EVERY NEW BELIEVER TO DETERMINE HOW THEY LEARN AND GROW

“People learn and grow in different ways. Let’s use the small church advantage of the personal touch to help people in the way that suits them best.

In the first interview with a new believer, I ask questions like this:

• What was their family like, growing up?

• How did they like school?

• Do they like to read?

• Are they a hands-on learner?

• Are they relationship-oriented?

• What do they do in their spare time?

• What was their best learning experience in the past? Their worst?

• Who was their favourite teacher and why?

Simply put, I get nosy until I feel like I have a handle on things, then I suggest an idea or two and ask if that sounds like something that might work for them. I also give them a guilt-free out. If the selected style of learning doesn’t fit, they can come to me at any time, and we’ll find another way to get it done.”

LISTEN – A LOT

“Helping someone become like Jesus doesn’t start by talking at them, but by listening to them. When we listen, we learn things, such as what gifts, skills, and personality traits God gave to people. After that, we can better utilize one of the primary advantages mentoring has over curriculum – personalization.”

DO MINISTRY WITH THEM, NOT FOR THEM

“Mentors don’t spend a lot of time alone. Jesus did this with the disciples. After teaching crowds in parables. He’d gather the Twelve, answer their questions, explain deeper truths, and tell them why He taught the way He did, then He’d go off to a private place to spend time with the Father.

Mentoring has no shortcuts. It takes relationships, and relationships take time – time spent together.”

TELL THEM WHY

“If all we want to do is teach people what they should know, we can keep relying solely on sermons and classes. But if we want to raise disciples, we can’t just tell them how to do things; they need to know why they’re doing it.

If I start mentoring someone and they follow me blindly without asking why, it makes me wonder if I’ve picked the right person to mentor. Remember, we’re training disciples of Jesus, not clones of ourselves.

If they don’t know why they’re doing things, they’ll never be able to adapt and improve on it when needed. But that’s exactly what the church needs. An army of believers who can adapt and do things better than we did them.”

TRUST THEM TO DO IT WITHOUT YOU

“At some point in our mentoring – and it needs to happen earlier rather than later – we have to send them off … and we need to trust. Trust them, trust our mentoring, and trust God that they can do it without us. They won’t do it exactly like you did it; they’re not supposed to.

But don’t end the mentoring here. Thinking we’re done at this stage is one of the great danger zones of mentoring. Instead, we need to do what Jesus did, send them off so they can come back for Step 8.”

GIVE THEM FEEDBACK

“Jesus sent off the 72 in pairs, but He didn’t leave them there. He had them report back, then He gave them further instruction on how to do it better the next time (please read Luke 10).

This is easier to do than you might think. Whenever we take a group to a conference, camp, or missions trip, we take some time afterward to hear what happened, celebrate their stories, and point out the lessons we learned. There’s often as much mentoring and discipleship happening in the van ride home as there is during the event itself.”

HELP THEM PLUG INTO AN ACTIVE MINISTRY THAT UTILIZES THEIR GIFTS

“This is the most-neglected step of most mentoring ministries. We fill people’s heads with Bible knowledge, but we wait too long to activate that knowledge within real-world ministry. That hurts the believer and the church.

The apostle Paul taught us that ‘Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth’ (1 Corinthians 8:1). That’s what happens when we cram Bible information into people’s heads without helping them activate it with their hands and feet.”

HELP THEM MENTOR THE NEXT PERSON

“In every step of this process, the student should be reminded that they will eventually be the mentor for someone else. Knowing this will help him or her focus on their own training but also keep their eyes open for the next potential mentee.

Don’t wait. We need to turn disciples into mentors, sometimes while they’re still in the middle of their own process. Disciples mentoring other disciples. That’s when you know it’s working.”