SO WHAT IS MENTORING ANYWAY?

For about 18 years I had been involved in the ministry of Bible Study Fellowship International, and I loved it for a variety of reasons.  By far the best byproduct of studying the Bible was getting to know Jesus personally.  Another was being part of the class leadership circle because it was there that I experienced the sweetness of fellowship that comes through group prayer.  We prayed primarily for the impact of the Word of God on the women and children who attended our class, but we also prayed for one another’s needs as leaders.  The prayer was specific and powerful and it knit us together in unity as we watched the Lord answer.

I left BSF to care for my mom and almost immediately I felt the loss of the fellowship of my praying sisters.  I knew they were still praying FOR me, but I was no longer praying WITH them.   I didn’t think I would ever leave BSF, but once I did, I knew that the Lord had called me out, so I spent the next year or so just praying and asking, “What next, Lord?”  

Increasingly the Lord burdened my heart with the loss of the fellowship of prayer.   During my years in BSF we had been members of 3 different churches yet I’d never experienced being part of a prayer group like the one I’d known there.   As I was lamenting about this to the Lord, I heard the voice of the Spirit say, “Why not share that with women at your church?”.   

That’s how the Lord led me to begin a number of one on one prayer relationships with other women.   Although I had never done anything like this before, I began to pray about who He wanted me to approach.  There was a young missionary woman in her late 20’s, home on furlough from Japan.  My husband and I supported her but I really did not know her well at all.  I asked if she would be interested in praying together once a week, and she was.   We prayed together through her struggles about whether to return to Japan after the sudden death of her younger sister from bacterial meningitis.  What began as a prayer relationship turned into a friendship and then a partnership in launching women’s ministries at our church.

Being with her helps me understand the mind of today’s 30 somethings and to really “see” and want to know the young adults that are part of our congregation.

When our new pastor was called three years ago, I approached his wife and asked if anyone had volunteered yet to be a prayer partner to her.   We prayed together through their adjustment to a whole new area of the country as well as to a new church.  Although she is younger than I am by 30 years, her gift of intentional hospitality and desire to reach out to unbelievers with the gospel is a motivator for me to do the same.

Another former BSF leader and I (mid-40s, Chinese, single) began praying to help her stay on track spiritually.  I’m learning so much from her about how to relate to people from a different cultural backgrounds in order to share Jesus with them.

Being a participant in a senior high mission’s trip to Nassau brought out a kindred spirit relationship with one of the high schoolers.  She and I began praying and sharing together the challenges we each have at our very different stages in life.

There is something else that has caused me to see the value in these relationships and that something is brought out in a poem by Roy Lessin called, “Just Think”.

JUST THINK

Just think, you’re here not by chance, but by God’s choosing.

His hand formed you and made you the person you are.

He compares you to no one else – you are one of a kind.

You lack nothing that His grace can’t give you.

He has allowed you to be here at this time in history to fulfill

His special purpose for this generation.

My mom died at the age of 78.  I turned 63 this year.  More and more the Lord has me wondering, “How much longer do I have to serve Him and what should that service look like now, at this stage of my life?”

I believe His answer is:  “Take what I’ve given you and build it into the lives of THIS generation of women”.

That is what I think mentoring is all about.  Paul says it best in 1 Thessalonians 2:8 “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”

Mentoring is simply spending time with a sister in Christ, sharing through our very lives not only what God has done to save us, but also what He’s doing now to transform us into the image of His Son.

We’ve all made dates with friends to have coffee, or lunch, so that we can talk about our families and work and the books we’re reading.  

Mentoring simply has a different focus.  It’s making a date to talk about the Lord and pray together.

So who is a mentor?

·         A mentor is someone who walks with the Lord and wants to encourage someone else in her walk with Him.

·         A mentor isn’t perfect, but she is growing as she spends time in God’s Word and in prayer herself so that she has something to offer.

·         A mentor is willing to invest time to encourage someone else’s spiritual growth.

·         A mentor isn’t an authority on how to walk with the Lord, she’s simply transparent – willing to share her own joys and shortcomings as she endeavors to walk with Him every day.

·         Does this sound like something you think the Lord would have you do?  Then read on.

 How do I find someone to mentor?

Pray and ask the Lord to point someone out.  

Approach her and ask, “Would you want to meet together once a week to pray?”  No one I’ve asked has EVER turned me down.  Usually they’re thrilled!

The Lord has been very creative in the means He’s used to bring women into my life.  Once an opportunity opened up through a chance conversation.  Another time I approached someone who looked lonely.  Another time someone who’d just lost her mom approached me because she knew I’d recently lost mine.

If the Lord is leading you to enter into a mentoring relationship, He’ll open a door of opportunity.  All you need to do is walk through.

When do I meet and for how long?

I am no longer working so my one on one relationships are scattered throughout my day and week.  Since the Lord brings these women into my life, I usually work around their schedules.  I meet two early in the morning before they go to work, and another after her shift in the afternoon.   

We usually agree in advance on the time and the duration of our time together – usually an hour works well.  You’ll want to be sure and stick to the time you set so your time together doesn’t become a burden.

You may want to start out with a trial period, say meeting for 3-6 months and then re-evaluating.  This gives each party the opportunity to determine whether they want to continue.   Sometimes the relationships just die out on their own through schedule changes or relocations.  Some are based on temporary need, like the friend who was grieving the loss of her mom.  So far I’ve found that even when distance separates us, the fellowship and friendship remains.

Where do we meet?

I meet the working women at a Paneras near their jobs, but I have also met at the church, or in a home, or in a car.  Our prayer together at Paneras doesn’t go unnoticed!  We’ve had an opportunity to get to know an employee whose husband became ill and had the privilege of praying for her and him.

What do we do when we’re together?

I have three different kinds of one on one relationships, all of them prayer relationships.   

You might choose at your first meeting to take time to get to know one another a little better and just chat the way you would at a coffee date.  You might ask what the expectations are for the person you’re desiring to mentor and then explain what your expectations are as well.   Ask how you can begin to pray for her and pray with her before you leave.

With a couple, I ask them how things are going spiritually in various areas of their lives, they tell me, I write it in a notebook, and I’m the only one to pray. We close our time with my praying aloud through their requests.

With others, the prayer time is mutual.  We each catch up with how the other is doing, writing down the requests, and then we take turns praying for one another.

And with the third, I’ve been sharing what I have learned about how to teach the Bible.   After working on that together all summer, she began her own study.  So now we catch up on what the Lord is doing in her and in her women and then pray for one another.

It is HUGELY exciting to see the way in which God works in the lives of these women and in my life as we pray together.   The prayer relationships always lead to real friendship and fellowship in the Lord and sometimes extend to doing other things together on occasion.  One of my first mentees taught me how to make stamped greeting cards and we sometimes get together still just to stamp.

Is the Lord leading YOU to reach out to someone else and share your life in the Lord with her?  Then say "Yes", and see where He leads you!