CHAPTER ONE
MENTORING IS NOT OPTIONAL
Through supernatural provision in each major season of my life, God placed just the right women who would mentor and help me throughâduring my teen years, in my single adult/dating years, and as a young wife and mom. It was a process to finally soar on my own and seek him with all my heart. All the mentors God has blessed me with are still a part of my life.
âShelly
What does it take to pour into the life of another? The mention of it overwhelms us. We think we have to have it all figured out before we dare to think we have anything to offer. All the while, there are women who hunger for the mentor/discipleship friendships that offer a safe space to grow.
âKaren Trigg1
You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.
â2 Timothy 2:2 NLT
What Is a Christian Mentor?
The term mentor is familiar in the business world: a guide, counselor, teacher, and instructor. Mentors provide experience, knowledge, achievements, position, and, most importantly, willingness to share with someone else. They encourage mentees to aspire to the mentor role themselves someday. Emmie, from the Introduction, asked me to mentor her because I was successful in our insurance company, but Emmie also wanted a Christian mentor, who was
- Wise and knowledgeable in the Word of God
- A trusted confidant
- Willing to counsel, instruct, and guide her in how to live in a Christlike way
Wisdom comes from God speaking and working through the Christian mentor. God inspires her thoughts when she prays and allows God to teach her through her life experiences. She discovers that with Christâs help, we learn from our mistakes, as well as our good decisions, and we can share these life lessons with another woman going through something similar. âMy mouth will speak words of wisdom; the meditation of my heart will give you understandingâ (Ps. 49:3).
Trusted implies confidence to share our innermost feelings with someone and the assurance they will keep it confidential. We also trust their counsel because we know their wisdom is God inspired. âListen, for I have trustworthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is rightâ (Prov. 8:6).
A counselor and advisor is someone who helps us learn how to go to the one true Counselor: the Lord and his Word, the Bible. âBut the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to youâ (John 14:26).
Mentor Julie experienced how easy it really is to be a Christian mentor:
My pastor asked me to mentor a young woman at our church. I didnât really know what a mentor did, but this beautiful gal and I got together for tea once a week while my kids were at karate. We just sat and talked. Iâd ask her questions about how life was going in various arenas of her world: spiritual, friends, work, and family. Sometimes, sheâd ask me a question about how I handled things. I guess thatâs mentoring.
What Is a Mentee?
Since our discussion is about Christian mentoring, our answer to What is a mentee? will differ from the secular or business worldâs definition. Regardless of age, any woman in a new season of lifeâwhether or not sheâs a Christianâneeds a godly role model. She needs someone who will help her understand how to live as a woman, mother, wife, daughter, sister, single parent, divorcĂ©e, dating single, widow, grandmother, career woman, neighbor . . . maybe even new believer.
A woman could be a mentee at any stage, age, or season of life. Maybe she didnât experience a Christian home environment or didnât have healthy parenting or marriage role models. Perhaps she has no one to go to for Christian advice and wise counsel. Her original decision for Christ may have alienated her from family and friends. Perhaps, like me, she accepted Christ at an early age, later backslid, and then rededicated her life to Christ and now needs help staying on track with the Lord. Or sheâs having trouble relying on God during tragedies and chaos, or just the everyday challenges of her life.
Every woman experiences new seasons of life in which she needs someone who will help her live out her faith. Throughout life, we navigate between being a mentor and needing a mentor, because life is never static. We come out of one season, only to go straight into the next unknown season. We should always have a mentor and be a mentor: âFollow my example, as I follow the example of Christâ (1 Cor. 11:1). You can do that . . . right?
What Is Intentional Mentoring?
You may have heard the buzzword âorganic mentoring.â Proponents champion the idea of mentoring happening naturally, as women encounter each other in daily life. They tout that spiritually older women will organically seek out spiritually younger women and vice versa. But Iâm sure you would agree that in our fast-paced lives, even if we know we should mentor, how many actually do take a spiritually younger woman under our wing? Or how many women are brave enough to ask another woman to mentor them? Iâm thrilled to share stories in Section Two from M&Mâs who have enjoyed the blessings of Titus 2 mentoring relationships. Tragically, for every one of these uplifting true stories, thousands of women are alone and struggling through a season of lifeâdepressed, discouraged, distraught, discontent, and disengaged from the church and the Lord.
If Christian women were organically mentoring other women on a regular basis, I guarantee the number of women experiencing divorces, drug overuse, alcoholism, eating disorders, addictions, depression, illnesses, and suicides would decrease . . . maybe even diminish all together. The multitudes of women struggling in daily life and floundering in their faith are evidence that organic mentoring isnât working. Women need intentional mentoring.
Every Christian is in a continual process of learning and growing in the knowledge of Christ until we meet him face-to-face. But until that day, we who are further along in our walk with the Lord, or have navigated through a life season, must be willing to intentionally share with another woman what we do know and what the Lord has done in our lives.
Often people ask, âWouldnât it be better to call the Woman to Woman Mentoring Ministry a friendship or discipleship ministry?â God spoke clearly to me. He wanted âfeeding,â or mentoring, to
- Be more than a typical friendship
- Include discipling when appropriate
- Always focus on spiritual maturity
- Address the numerous mentoring needs during the multitude of seasons in a womanâs life
For example, a woman may have been a Christian since childhood, but now sheâs in a season of life sheâs never been in before (perhaps as a college student, military wife, career woman, or mother), so she doesnât need discipleship; she needs a Christian mentor who has lived through this experience and can help her navigate her new life season. A friendship might also be formed, but mentoring goes beyond a friendship. M&Mâs are two womenâmentor and menteeâlooking at Godâs plan for their lives in a specific season. Klaus Issler offers a good summation of spiritual mentoring:
Spiritual mentoring is different from pastoral counseling or psychological therapy in which problem solving, decision making and âfixingâ the person are the major concerns. Furthermore, it is not purely a theological discussion of Christian doctrine or the nature of God. Rather, it is a dialogue about our relationship with God as evident in the experiences of our life. The mentor helps us learn how to discern Godâs movement within our life experiences. To what extent in this experience are we moving toward God or away from him? Where is God in this experience? What might God be saying in this experience? Or are we mostly self-absorbed about the matter? Mentoring involves a voluntary relationship of confidentiality and accountability, rather than one of authority over another.2
What Does Scripture Instruct about Mentoring?
There are numerous verses in both the Old and New Testament where God clearly says we are to mentor each other: One generation should teach and train the next generation. We will look at many in this book, but here are just a few Old Testament verses: Deut. 4:9, 6:6â9; Ps. 71:18, 78:4, 79:13, 145:4â7; Joel 1:2â3.
The most familiar verses cited for mentoring are Titus 2:1â8 from the New Testament, where Paul tells Titus, the young pastor of a new church in Crete, what the role is for spiritually older men and women. I like The Message translation. Notice what Paul says is the âjobâ of every Christian:
Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We donât want anyone looking down on Godâs Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.
But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around. (Titus 2:1â8 The Messageâemphasis added)
Each generation has a predisposition to look at God as the God of the past who doesnât understand the current culture with its issues. Thatâs why Iâm such a passionate proponent of mentoring and living out Titus 2:1â8, where spiritually older men and women receive the charge to teach, train, and model the Christian life to all generations so they wonât be deceived and dissuaded from their faith. To understand the full impact of Titus 2:1â8, we need to read the issues Paul was addressing in the previous verses. It sounds a lot like our world today:
Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good. (Titus 1:15â16 NLT)
Titus 2:1â8 was Paulâs antidote for guiding the next generation of believers to discern between corrupt, detestable, disobedient mistruths of deceivers and the true teachings of obedient followers of Jesus Christ and his Word, the Bible.
Mentors arenât always chronologically older, but they are always spiritually older. Maybe not by very much, but they should have a little more experience walking with the Lord than their mentee. God will always put someone in your path needing to hear how he worked in and through your life experiences and that heâll be there in the same way for her too. The verses in Titus are enhanced by 1 Thessalonians 2:7â8, 12, which emphasizes the nurturing, encouraging characteristic of mentoring:
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. . . . encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
Paul closes out Titus 2 with this admonition, which could apply to mentors: âYou must teach these things and encourage the believers to do them. You have the authority to correct them when necessary, so donât let anyone disregard what you sayâ (Titus 2:15 NLTâemphasis added).
Sixty-eight-year-old Paulette, a mother of five and grandmother of eight, and married for forty-nine years, explains why she mentors in obedience to Titus 2:
My initial motivation to be a mentor in our church mentoring ministry was a concern for todayâs young women. If the church doesnât teach them, the world willâârealityâ TV offers unreal role models like a soft-spoken, stay-at-home mom who homeschools her many well-behaved children and smiles adoringly at her loving husband, or the unreal âReal Housewivesâ who are outwardly beautiful but inwardly immature, petty, self-absorbed, ungrateful, and often immoral. Where are the real-life Christian role models?
I saw the mentoring ministry as an opportunity for the church to show women a better way, Godâs way. Titus 2:3â5 calls the older women to teach the younger women. What I hadnât considered, and have now learned, is each womanâregardless of ageâneeds at least one other woman to listen to her, pray for her, encourage her, and, when needed, speak truth to her. I encourage the mentees after their mentoring relationships to come alongside a woman the Lord puts in their paths and be there for her as their mentors w...