{"id":14740,"date":"2007-07-12T08:43:44","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T08:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2007\/07\/12\/le-2000-002-5-36\/"},"modified":"2007-07-12T08:43:44","modified_gmt":"2007-07-12T08:43:44","slug":"le-2000-002-5-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/le-2000-002-5-36\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Be an Effective Mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

E<\/strong>ven\nthough Rodger and Lynne Schmidt were planning to go to Africa as missionaries,\nthey found themselves asking, “Is this really something we should be doing?”<\/p>

At the same time in the\nsame city, another couple was also wrestling with their call, though from the\nother end of a missionary career. Now retired, this couple was asking, “After\n41 years as missionaries in Africa, who are we? Our home and life work are on\nanother continent. What is our life all about?”<\/p>

God (through a mentoring\nprogram at Denver Seminary) brought these two couples together. It was a great\nmatch. The Schmidts’ call was confirmed, and the retired couple discovered significance\nin their new role as mentors.<\/p>

“We felt encouraged,\nthey felt validated,” Schmidt says. Both couples experienced the benefits\nof mentoring.<\/p>

Why do the trades have\napprenticeships and medical professions require internships? Because personal\nattention from experienced practitioners helps learners master essential skills,\nattitudes, and knowledge. This, of course, is no surprise to Christians familiar\nwith the mentoring relationships of Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Naomi\nand Ruth, Paul and Timothy, and Jesus and the disciples.<\/p>

What\nis a mentor, really?<\/h2>

\nA mentor is “a brain\nto pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction,” according\nto The Uncommon Individual Foundation, an organization devoted to mentoring\nresearch and training. It reports that mentoring is the third most powerful\nrelationship for influencing human behavior, after marriage and the extended\nfamily.<\/p>

Randy MacFarland, who helps\ntrain mentors as vice president of training and mentoring at Denver Seminary,\nsays, “When we consider the fragmentation of the family, the speed of change\ndemanding the constant learning of new skills, and our mobile society separating\nextended family members, the need for mentoring increases.”<\/p>

The Uncommon Individual\nFoundation identifies three things people need to succeed: a dream, someone\nwho believes in them, and determination. MacFarland says, “Now, we certainly\nadd the whole matter of God’s call and empowerment. But we often forget how\npowerful it is when someone believes in us.” That’s what mentors do, and\nit shapes lives.<\/p>

“I started thinking\nabout mentoring relationships in our church when young parents of infants asked\nme, ‘Who can we talk to? We don’t know what we’re doing!’ ” says Don Payne,\nwho was pastoring at Southern Gables Church in Littleton, Colorado, at the time.\n“Or I’d hear from a young family, ‘We’re not doing well with our finances\nand we really need some help.’ Networking my contacts in the church, I did some\nmatchmaking—younger couples with more seasoned veterans.”<\/p>

How the\nmentor benefits<\/h2>

\nLots of people would like\nto be mentored<\/em>, but those willing to mentor<\/em> are harder to find.\nWhat are the benefits of being a mentor?<\/p>

One advantage of mentoring\nis the sense of significance you receive. As Don Payne says, “In vocational\nministry you often wonder if what you’re doing is making a difference, or if\nyour efforts are just being dumped into a black hole. But in a mentoring relationship,\nwe’re usually dealing with people hungry to grow, eager to learn, and there\nis a more visible return on our investment.”<\/p>

A second benefit is personal\ngrowth. As a mentor discusses character issues with a mentoree, both are forced\nto look at their own character issues.<\/p>

Rodger Schmidt, who not\nonly continues to be mentored but also mentors others in a student ministry\nat Galilee Baptist Church in Denver, says, “I can’t look at someone else’s\nlife without evaluating my own. I have people looking to me for answers. It\nholds me to a different level of accountability. They’re evaluating my life.\nIt is very beneficial.<\/p>

“For example, I often\ntell my mentorees, ‘Ministry is not about me; it’s not about me.’ Well, one\nday I was under a lot of pressure, and I was frustrated, distant, and grumpy.\nAs I began to share my frustrations about the ministry and how I was not able\nto concentrate at home because of all the things that needed to get done, my\nmentoree looked me square in the face and said, ‘Is it about you or is it not?’\n<\/p>

“I was not modeling\nmy philosophy very well and he felt free enough in our relationship to say,\n‘This is where I thought we were headed. Is it true or is it not?’ He became\nvery honest with me. I had to learn the lesson I was trying to instill in others!”\n<\/p>

In the\nbeginning<\/h2>

\nWhat does a mentor actually\ndo? At first, the tasks are:<\/p>

1. Set the tone.<\/em><\/strong>\nOnce contact is made between mentor and mentoree, it is up to the mentor to\ncreate an environment where trust blossoms. One way to deepen that trust is\nsimply to tell your story. This opens doors and generates discussion. Sharing\nsome of your struggles has a way of taking the relationship to a deeper level.\n<\/p>

The setting is usually\ninformal. Some mentorees become like another member of the mentor’s family.\nThey spend time at their home playing with their kids and eating meals. Other\ntimes a mentor will simply invite a mentoree along on ministry occasions.<\/p>

“One of my mentors\ntook me on pastoral visits,” says Randy MacFarland. “I learned important\nthings just by going along.<\/p>

“Another mentor was\na model of servant leadership. As I was church planting, I could call him any\ntime I was facing a new challenge. Whether it was asking him where to stand\nwhen officiating a funeral or seeing him pray through the church directory,\nby watching his life I experienced whole new dimensions of ministry.<\/p>

“I believe every child\nneeds to hear the words that Jesus heard at his baptism ‘This is my beloved\nSon in whom I am well pleased.’ David was one of those individuals who communicated\nthat to me on numerous occasions. He was a male figure who verbalized his love\nfor me. This made a huge difference in my life.”<\/p>

2. Clarify expectations.<\/em><\/strong>\nA safe place for this kind of learning requires three things: openness, hospitality,\nand boundaries.<\/p>

Mentors do not want mentorees\nto expect too much or too little. Both problems can be avoided if expectations\nare discussed openly. Everything from “Is there homework?” to “Who\npays for coffee?” should be agreed upon ahead of time so there will be\nmutual understanding. Unrealistic or unexplored expectations can come back to\nhaunt you later.<\/p>

Then agree on meeting length,\nfrequency, time, place, purpose, and level of accountability. Pray together\nand commit to praying for the relationship between meetings.<\/p>

“A mentoree may expect\nyou to be empathetic and offer a shoulder to cry whenever they feel the need.\nWell, that may not be your best contribution as a mentor,” says Don Payne,\nwho now trains mentors in suburban and rural churches. “Or the mentor may\nexpect something that the mentoree is unwilling or unable to give. In the beginning,\nboth need to say, ‘This is what I think I can give, this is my gift mix, this\nis my experience range. My life is like a box—there’s a lot of stuff that’s\noutside this box, but you’re welcome to whatever is inside.'”<\/p>

Sharpening\nyour mentoring skills<\/h2>

\nOnce the relationship is\nestablished, the mentor does several things.<\/p>

1. Maintain trust.<\/em><\/strong>\nAfter trust is established, it must be maintained. This means being honest,\nopen, and transparent. In addition, mentors should keep to the point, follow\nthrough with commitments, be available and flexible.<\/p>

It also means appropriate\nconfidentiality; private information stays private. It may take months for mentorees\nto open up, but it takes only a minute to shut them up with inappropriate sharing.\n<\/p>

At the outset mentors and\nmentorees should discuss the kinds of information that would be appropriate\nto share (1) with anyone, (2) with other mentors, and (3) with each other only.\n<\/p>

“Trust,” says\nDon Payne, “grows out of humility. When a person does not presume to know\nwhat’s in my head and is willing to hear me out, that engenders trust in me.\nI tend to hold at a distance people who seem to make prejudgments about what\nI need or what I need to hear.” Attentive listening is the key.<\/p>

In addition, mentors learn\nas well as teach. Mentoring relationships are not one-way, hierarchical relationships.\nWhile it’s true that one has more experience than the other, the “life\nsharing” goes both ways. Thus, an additional responsibility of a mentor\nis to “accept the mentoree’s influence.” This too builds trust.<\/p>

2. Have an agenda.<\/em><\/strong>\nAt the top should be the mentoree’s questions. But be flexible enough to recognize\nteachable moments. Jesus engaged his mentorees in hours of “debriefing”\nafter healings and miracles and public debates. If mentors today send mentorees\non risk-taking, faith-stretching, kingdom-building adventures, there will be\nplenty to talk about!<\/p>

“When I was at Southern\nGables Church,” says Don Payne, “I mentored an incredibly bright seminary\nstudent. He had been an intelligence officer in the military before becoming\na student, and ‘openness’ was very difficult for him. Life was tightly measured.\nThough he had the right theology of grace, he found it difficult to live by\ngrace. The slightest mistake devastated him.<\/p>

“We were reflecting\non this one day, and I said, ‘In ministry you will do stupid things, and the\nonly response to doing stupid things is, “Hey, that was stupid. Now I know\nnot to do that again.” ‘<\/p>

“For some reason that\nbrief interchange was liberating for him. In God’s providence, what is ordinary\nto one person can be pivotal to another.”<\/p>

3. Offer your network.<\/em><\/strong>\nMuch of effective ministry is not what you know but who you know. If the mentoree\nasks, “Who knows something about this?” and you don’t, then your assignment\nis “Who knows somebody who knows something about that?”<\/p>

4. Offer perspective.<\/em><\/strong>\nBy virtue of their extra years, mentors have something mentorees do not: experience.\nA mentor should therefore offer mentorees the gift of perspective.<\/p>

A student once told Janet\nMcCormack, chaplaincy training center director, “What I really like about\nyou, Chaplain Janet, is that you focus on the purpose of ministry when I get\nlost in the details.”<\/p>

That’s what mentors do—keep\nthings focused on why we’re doing what we do and who we’re doing it for.<\/p>

“It is beneficial\nfor many international students,” says Terry Burns, missions training center\ndirector, “to simply hear, ‘You’re going through a lot of stuff right now.’\nIt helps them understand that what they’re going through is difficult. We provide\nperspective.”<\/p>

Asking\ngood questions<\/h2>

\nOne of the most important\nduties of a good mentor is to ask the right questions. A mentor is not “the\nanswer person,” but rather, “the one who gets the mentoree to do helpful\nself-reflection.”<\/p>

Sometimes questions identify\na deeper issue.<\/p>

“A student I was working\nwith identified his need for exercise,” said Randy MacFarland. “As\nI probed further, he discovered that lack of exercise was a merely a symptom\nof a deeper issue: struggles with time management. This came out because I recognized\nthat his effective youth ministry and relational style made setting boundaries\nvery difficult. We discussed his roles and goals and how he might manage his\ntime better. Once a mentor picks up the threads in someone’s life you can really\noffer help.”<\/p>

Other times questions lead\nto personal fears that need to be confronted.<\/p>

“Let’s say the mentoree\nworks in a hospital emergency room, and a woman comes in who has been terribly\nbattered,” says Janet McCormack. “If the mentoree comes back and says,\n‘I just choked. I couldn’t even talk to this person,’ well, that would be most\npeople’s normal response.<\/p>

“Ask why. There are\nmany possible reasons. I’d ask, ‘What was going on inside of you when that happened?\nWhat were you thinking about?’<\/p>

“You may hear, ‘I\nremember when my mother was beaten,’ or ‘I can’t imagine a human being doing\nthat to another human being,’ or ‘I wanted to beat him.’ Their answers suggest\nhow to lead, how to teach.”<\/p>

It is beneficial if the\nmentoree also asks questions. Payne says, “We encourage students to come\nwith a fairly clear idea of what they need, and to come to each session with\na well-prepared question or two to ask the mentor.”<\/p>

Questions also challenge\nassumptions.<\/p>

“We just talked to\na student yesterday who wants to teach in Pakistan but doesn’t want to learn\nthe language,” says Terry Burns. “They speak English in Pakistan so\nhe’s getting a seminary education to teach Bible there in English. I said, ‘That’s\nan interesting assumption. Do you realize that although they speak English they\ndon’t think in English? They think like Pakistanis with a different worldview,\na different perspective. Is it realistic to assume that you can do ministry\nthere the way you do it here?’ His assumptions had to be changed.”<\/p>

Push\nin the right direction<\/h2>

\nMentors often nudge their\ncharges in directions that at first feel uncomfortable.<\/p>

For example, youth ministry\ninterns sometimes chafe when scheduled to work in the nursery, attend board\nmeetings, or write reports. They want to do the “teen things” they’re\nalready good at. Why make them work with babies or boards? To stretch them.\nWise mentors suggest, “Let’s see what else you’re good at.”<\/p>

McCormack trains her chaplain\nmentorees that way. She tells them, “You may be inexperienced here. You\nmay prefer one-on-one counseling, but if you’ve never organized a social event\nfor singles, now’s the time to try. You may not like it, and that’s okay. You\nneed to stretch. I won’t let you fail. If things fall apart, I’m here to catch\nyou.”<\/p>

As MacFarland says, “One\nof the life-long lessons in the Christian life is learning dependence upon God.\nTaking risks and working outside of our previous experience promotes growth\nand dependence upon God.”<\/p>

Competent\nto confront<\/h2>

A final skill\nmentors should hone is the skill of correcting. Mentors are like mirrors helping\nmentorees see what’s preventing them from being all that God wants them to be.\n“I’m not going to attack their character,” says Burns. “I just\nwant to hold up the mirror and say, ‘Do you see this?'”<\/p>

If the mentor has built\na relationship of trust and safety, the mentoree is more inclined to accept\ncorrection. They will think, “My mentor cares for me so I can hear what\nthey’re saying.”<\/p>

On one level, all Christians\nare accountable to follow Christ with integrity. But in a mentoring relationship,\nwe have an even greater platform for accountability. If a mentoree’s actions\nor work habits are inconsistent with their stated goals and commitment, the\nmentor needs to mention it.<\/p>

Payne describes his role\nthis way. “To pirate a phrase from a mentor of mine, I want to ‘make a\nclean wound.’ A clean wound is direct, not though the back door, a subtle dig,\ncircuitous, or sarcastic. Those are jagged wounds.<\/p>

“A clean wound is\nalso a wound that I own. I never confront beyond my own willingness to stay\nalongside the person and become part of the solution after I’ve made the wound.\nClean wounds heal, jagged wounds don’t.”<\/p>

“I have had to confront\nhospital chaplains,” says McCormack, “who find themselves visiting\npatients only from their own denomination, or avoiding those who are terminally\nill and seeing only those who are going to be healed. I remind them they are\nthere for all the patients. I confront their lame excuses.”<\/p>

Those\nin a hurry need not apply<\/h2>

\nMentoring is not for the\nimpatient. While it is one of the most effective means of developing effective\nChristians, it is also time-consuming.<\/p>

“In a culture that\npresses for instant results by following a few key principles,” says MacFarland,\n“the mentoring process can seem slow. But there is no short cut for equipping\npeople to become theologically astute, godly in character, and competent in\nministry.”<\/p>

The seemingly slow pace\nof mentoring is offset by its universal suitability for people of all ages,\nall races, and all nationalities. And all of life.<\/p>

“Mentoring is a ministry\nnever confined to vocational or organizational boundaries,” says Don Payne.\n“A person can retire from a pastorate or a program, but as a mentor you’re\nnever without a ministry.”<\/p>

And since no one ever outgrows\nthe need for increased character and competency, the need for mentoring continues.\nWe all need a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.\n<\/p>

Erik Johnson<\/strong>heads\nFamily Challenge Ministries\n1788 Harksell Road\nFerndale WA 98248<\/em>familychallenge@juno.com<\/a><\/p>

Questions\nMentors Ask<\/h2>

— How is your ministry\naffecting your own relationship with God?<\/p>

—How is your sense of\nGod’s call being clarified?<\/p>

—Where are your skills\nbeing tested?<\/p>

—Where is your character\nbeing tested?<\/p>

—What are your hopes and\ndreams for your future ministry?<\/p>

—How can I help you?<\/p>

— What evidence can you\npoint to of the presence and power of God in your ministry?<\/p>

— How is your relationship\/communication\nstyle impacting your ministry?<\/p>

— As you assess your growth,\nwhere do you see areas you need to work on? What are your felt deficiencies?\n<\/p>

—What are some new things\nyou could try?<\/p>

— What are some things\nwe could do that would help you to be more a person of integrity?<\/p>

— What pain have you experienced\nand what were some of the effects of that pain?<\/p>

—How has that shaped who\nyou are?<\/p>

— How might God use your\npast to prepare you for ministry in the future?<\/p>

— Let’s pretend that God\nknows what he’s doing in your life, even though things haven’t worked out as\nyou’d hoped. What might he be teaching you through that?<\/p>

Building\nConfidence<\/h2>

Most people approach any\nnew task—whether parenting or pastoring—with trepidation. Can I even do this?\nThus a mentor serves as a confidence builder.<\/p>

In my second assignment\nas an Air Force chaplain, people were dissatisfied and morale was terrible.\nThe commander asked me, the newbie, “What do you see going on?”<\/p>

The psychiatric social\nworker in me had seen some unhealthy ways they were doing things, so I gave\nmy slant on the situation. When I finished, I waited for him to take charge.\nInstead, he said, “And what are you doing about it?” My mouth dropped!\nI thought to myself, What am I doing about it? I’m just new! But I said, “Okay,\nhere’s what I’m going to do.”<\/p>

I told him and he said,\n“That’s great, Janet. What do I need to do about it?” I was floored\nagain! I was expecting to learn from him, but he assumed I had something to\noffer him! He pushed me through my discomfort. It was a real confidence booster.”\n<\/p>

—Janet McCormack<\/em><\/p>

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today\/Leadership<\/em>\nJournal. Click here<\/a> for reprint\ninformation on Leadership Journal.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though Rodger and Lynne Schmidt were planning to go to Africa as missionaries, they found themselves asking, “Is this really something we should be doing?”At the same time in the same city, another couple was also wrestling with their call, though from the other end of a missionary career. Now retired, this couple was Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1549],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[156],"tax_ctp_tags":[3372,3613,3793,4351,4459,5033,5042,5046,5049],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-14740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-erik-johnson","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-accountability","tax_ctp_tags-church-leadership","tax_ctp_tags-discipleship","tax_ctp_tags-leadership","tax_ctp_tags-mentoring","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-direction","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-formation","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-growth"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nHow 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