About two years ago, our church board began talking about the need to train up the next generation of leaders in our church to one day, hopefully, be able to replace all of us! As individuals on the board, we recognized that we’re not going to be around forever, and we wanted to make sure that there were trained, capable leaders who could slowly start taking responsibility now so that, sometime down the road, they could lead and shepherd this church without us.
And so those conversations gave birth to a test program that we started last fall called the Emerging Leaders Team. And what we did, was we identified a handful of young adults who had displayed some good leadership qualities in their lives and we invited them to take take part in this program where we would train them to be effective leaders in their homes, in their church, or in any other realm of life where God may lead them.
But one of the cool things we did with them, is we had them form a shadow board – kinda like our church board, but without the weight of all the responsibilities. On this shadow board, they could discuss all the same real-life issues facing our current church board – and they could learn to make those decisions without any real risk of making a poor decision.
And so they held board meetings just like our church board does – and they used the same agenda and discussed all the same issues – and I think it was a great learning experience for them! However, we also gave them the freedom to bring up any other issues that they would like to discuss. We thought perhaps they would have concerns or see issues that our current board might not be aware of…. Well, they did!
And this is why I’m sharing all this with you today. One of the issues that they wanted to look at was the issue of mentorship. They identified that there were many people in our church (themselves being part of that group) who were really interested in having some older, wiser people in their lives who would be willing to share some of their wisdom and life experiences. They wanted a mentor who could share some Godly wisdom and advice – or at the very least, could encourage them and give them some practical support as someone who has “been there/done that” as they face the difficult issues of life.
And of course, this isn’t just a good idea – this is a Biblical idea! Actually, it’s many Biblical ideas! Biblical mentoring touches on many Biblical commands: things like encouragement, discipleship, fellowship, accountability, prayer, studying God’s Word, maturing together in the Lord. A mentoring relationship provides such a great framework for so many of these life-building activities that God commands us to do together!
So when the ELT shadow board identified this need for mentoring in our church, I was very happy to encourage them to put together a game-plan for how this might happen. And they did just that. They put together a committee to look at what mentoring might look like in our church and how people might become either a mentor or a mentee. They looked at what kind of training mentors might need and how to get people involved in the process. Overall, they did a really fantastic job and they presented this all to our church board. Well, our church board looked over everything they did and were totally excited to make this happen. In fact, everyone of our elders are planning to play a key role in the mentor-training process… But I’ll tell you more about that later!
Right now, I just want to tell you about the next few weeks. For the next few weeks, our Sunday morning messages will be revolving around some of the Biblical principles of mentoring. My message today will be a bit of an introduction and I’ll hope to define what exactly mentoring is and how that ties in with our call to make disciples!
And then our next two messages will be brought by a couple of different young guys who were on the Emerging Leaders Team and the mentorship committee who helped think through all these principles and processes. They’re going to share a bit of their own experiences with mentoring – along with some further Biblical foundations for mentoring.
And then after all that, we’re going to invite everyone of you to get involved in some way in a mentoring relationship! And of course, we’re going to explain all the details for all of this as we go along.
So let’s begin with this: What exactly is a mentor and what does a mentoring relationship look like?
Well, for some of you, perhaps what comes to mind is this passage from Psalm 71.
18 Now that I am old and gray,
do not abandon me, O God.
Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,
your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
Psalm 71:18
For a lot of us, we have this idea of mentoring that it’s some old, wise grey-haired person bestowing life-changing wisdom upon some young person. And there is SOME reality to that. There is certainly an element of mentoring where someone more experienced in life is able to speak into the life of someone less-experienced. But you don’t have to be “old and gray” to speak into someone’s life. You don’t have to be 83 years old to be a mentor.
The key part of this verse is not the “old and gray” part – but it’s the part about proclaiming God’s power to this new generation – His mighty miracles to all who come after us.
Another passage from the Psalms conveys the same idea – Psalm 78:4….
We will not hide these truths from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
about his power and his mighty wonders.
Psalm 78:4
The idea here is that we are to convey God’s truth to the next generation. The things that we have learned and experienced from God – his glorious deeds, his power, and his mighty wonders – those are the things that we are to tell the next generation!
We actually talked about this quite a bit in the final message from our BLESS series just a couple weeks ago. The final S in BLESS reminds us to tell our story to the people around us – specifically, telling the story of what God has done in our lives!
In that message, we looked briefly at the story of Peter & John sharing about Jesus in the temple – even though they were commanded not to by the religious leaders. They said (In Acts 4:19)
19 But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? 20 We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”
Acts 4:19-20
In a significant way, this is what mentorship is all about – it’s telling the next generation about everything we have seen and heard as we have learned to follow Jesus.
But mentoring isn’t just about conveying information. It’s almost more about applying information – specifically, it’s about applying God’s truth to everyday life. And this isn’t something you can easily teach in a classroom or even in a Sunday morning sermon. It’s something that’s better caught than taught. It’s more about showing someone by example how to do this.
In some ways it’s a lot like our modern-day apprenticeships.
Now most people are familiar with the concept of apprenticeships – where an expert in a certain field (also known as a journeyman) takes a young apprentice under his wing and teaches them everything they need to know about how to succeed in their given field.
For a few weeks each year, the apprentice takes some classes and learns the basic concepts – but then for the rest of the year, they work alongside the expert and he shows them by example, how to actually do everything that they have just learned.
Mentoring certainly has some similarities to this, but there are a few differences. For one, you don’t have to be an expert or a journeyman to be a mentor. As I touched on earlier, you don’t have to be “old and grey” to be a mentor. Anyone can be a mentor to someone.
Secondly, unlike an apprenticeship, mentoring isn’t a formal program of training and it’s not intended to pass along any particular skill set. Of course, mentoring may have some structure to it – perhaps even with clearly defined goals and objectives – but it’s not really a training program per se.
Mentoring is really more about the relationship between the mentor and the mentee – and how, through that relationship, the mentee learns to apply God’s truth to their lives.
There’s a Christian mentoring organization that defines mentoring like this:
“Mentoring is the initiative to join someone’s life journey and become one of God’s instruments to help that person become all that God wants them to become and do all that He wants them to do.” ~ Mentorlink
Now as far as definitions go, that’s quite a mouthful, I know, but it does capture the idea well. A more simplified version might be:
Mentoring is an intentional relationship with the purpose of helping the mentee apply God’s truth to the various issues of life.
I think that’s getting pretty close to the heart of mentoring. It’s not just telling someone about what God has done in your life. It’s not just conveying good, Biblical information. It’s not just teaching them principles from God’s Word. (Although it may include all of those things!)
The heart of mentoring is developing an intentional relationship with the purpose of helping the mentee apply God’s truth to all the various issues of their life.
And I think we see this in action many times through the Bible. Now, you actually won’t find the word “mentor” or “mentorship” in the Bible (at least not in the translations that I’ve seen), but the idea of mentorship is spread through the Scriptures.
For example, there’s Moses & Joshua. The Bible tells us that Joshua was Moses’ assistant from the time he was a youth. He spent the bulk of his life working alongside Moses – learning from him and seeing how God worked through him. Then when Joshua was somewhere between 70 & 90 years old, Moses died and Joshua took over as the leader of Israel – which means, that for maybe 50 to 70 years, Moses mentored Joshua – showing him by example how to obey God, how to repent, how to forgive, how to raise a family, how to lead a nation. There is SO MUCH that Joshua learned by observing and interacting with Moses over all those years that he never would have learned in a classroom or through some training program. Joshua learned through his relationship with Moses.
And that’s certainly not the only example. We see Elijah mentoring Elisha – teaching him and showing him how to be God’s prophet!
I think we see Naomi mentoring Ruth – showing her by example how to honour God with her life. Or we could talk about Paul & Timothy, or Barnabas & Mark, or perhaps the best example – Jesus & his 12 disciples.
In all of these stories, there was an intentional relationship where the mentor helped the mentee apply God’s truth the various issues of life.
And really, this is a big part of what discipleship looks like. These are not just a few “one-off” examples. This is really something that I believe God wants all of us to engage in. I think we all need a mentor and we all need to be mentoring someone else.
Or to put it another way, we all need someone to help us grow as a disciple of Jesus, and we all need to help someone else grow as a disciple of Jesus.
The Great Commission – as found in Matthew 28:18 – give us pretty clear marching orders:
18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
And it’s that verse 20 that is really what we’re trying to accomplish in the mentoring process. Making disciples goes far beyond just helping someone accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Making disciples involves helping others – showing them by example as we live in relationship with them – how to obey all the commands God has given us.
How do we obey God’s commands as we start a business? How do we obey God’s commands as we develop a relationship with the opposite sex? How do we obey God’s commands in regards to how we manage our finances? How do we obey God’s commands as we experience the painful stuff of life?
It’s helpful and important to hear some Biblical principles preached from the pulpit on Sunday – but when you have a relationship with someone who has already been putting those principles into practice in their life and you can talk to them and see what that looks like in their life, it’s so much easier to start applying those things in your own life.
Because then, it’s not just head knowledge. You have a living example before you showing you how it’s done. You can learn from their mistakes. You can benefit from their experience.
Whenever we do a child dedication here at the church, I always like to read from Deuteronomy chapter 6. And it talks specifically about parents talking to their kids about God’s commands throughout the day as they go through their everyday life. And I think that really sums up what mentoring is all about. Let me read that passage for you.
4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
The idea here is that if we want our kids to know and love the Lord, we have to show them by example and explain to them with our words, how God’s commands impact every area of our everyday life.
Mentoring is really just an extension of that. Mentoring is like having a spiritual parent showing us by example and explaining to us with their words, how God’s commands impact every area of our everyday life.
It really doesn’t matter how old we are or how young we are. We need to have people in our lives who can show us and help us understand how to apply God’s Word to our lives!
And at the same time, it doesn’t matter how old we are or how young we are, we all have the ability to show others and help them understand how to apply God’s Word to their lives!
All of us can be mentored, and all of us can be a mentor to someone else.
So what does that look like? Well, let me close by giving you two examples from my own life – one where I was the mentor and one when I was the mentee.
One of the most significant mentors in my life was a guy named Gord. As I worked out at camp – both as a camp counsellor during the summer and then later full-time as the discipleship director at the camp, Gord intentionally developed a relationship with me where I could see how God’s commands impacted his life – as he lead the camp, as he raised his daughters, as he loved his wife, as he served his church, and as he preached the Gospel wherever he went. He was very intentional about talking about God’s commands as we worked at the camp, or as we traveled to speak at Bible colleges or as we played the construction game or as we shared a Pepsi together. And not only did he talk about God’s commands, I could see how he himself applied those commands to his own life. I had a living example of what he was talking about.
And the impact of that relationship, which has now spanned over two decades, has dramatically helped shape the person that I’ve become today. I know first-hand the value of mentorship.
The other example that I would share from my life was as a mentor with a young guy named Greg. I believe I first met Greg when he was about six years old – and I have had a mentoring relationship with him to some degree or another since he was about 14 when I became his youth pastor.
I remember for a time, Tuesdays nights were “spaghetti & Pepsi with Greg nights” – where Greg would come over and just spend time with our family. I don’t think we did a Bible study or anything like that – but we talked about life and what God was teaching us. I tried to be intentional to talk about how I was applying God’s commands to my life – and hopefully, as Greg observed how I loved my wife and raised my kids and worked at the church and experienced the painful things of life, he could see some how I applied God’s commands to my own life.
Now I’m sure I didn’t do that perfectly – Jesus is the only perfect mentor – but I believe God was able to use me in some way and to some degree to help shape Greg into the person that he is today. And what’s super cool is that now, Greg has been doing that for my kids as they grow up, and to a certain extent, my kids have started doing that with his kids! It’s actually really awesome!
And I share all that with you, not to hold myself up as the model for mentoring or anything like that, but to show you how powerful mentoring can be!
And over the next couple of weeks as Darian and Greg bring the Sunday morning messages, we’re going to continue to look at how powerful mentoring can be in the process of making disciples!
But for today, I just want to leave you with one last challenge to think about.
All of us already have a variety of relationships in our lives. Maybe it’s our relationship with our spouse, or our relationship with our kids, maybe a relationship with a co-worker or a relationship with a good friend – maybe it’s a relationship with someone that you’ve connected with here at church.
But I would encourage you to try to be just a little bit more intentional in that relationship this week. Whether you’re doing some yard work with your kids or meeting up with a friend for coffee or just spending some time with your spouse – see if you can share with them a little bit about how you’re working to apply God’s commands to your own life. As Deuteronomy 6 says:
“Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.” Deuteronomy 6:7b
Talk about how God’s commands are impacting every part of your everyday life. Share with them the things that you’re learning about who God is and how you’re working to trust him more. And as you tell them about all that, they’ll be sure to watch and see what that looks like in your life. And again, you don’t have to be perfect! Nobody is. But just be honest.
It’s probably just as important (or maybe even more important) for someone to see how you deal with failure as it is to see how you do everything right!
But when you are intentional about using your relationships to show others how to apply God’s truth to their lives, even if we don’t do that perfectly, God works through that in some amazing ways!
So give it a try! See what God will do through you this week!