If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 2 Cor 5:17
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Investing in God’s people from life to life
These pages are designed to aid study or investigation for Christian discipleship through individual Bible study, Cell groups, Home groups, or meeting one to one. The questions could be used alone allowing each person to use their own Bible.
Introduction
Helping someone who is already established in faith to move on to mastery. The process of letting go of some of the rigour achieved in being established as love is developed. Here the student needs to develop their own expression of faith and be encouraged to explore new avenues of what it means to walk with God.
The term mentoring has been extended in recent years to any kind of developmental meeting. Here it is limited to those who are meeting someone who is already mature. For meeting with younger believers, see Enthuse New Faith, for helping someone who is at the beginning stages of a walk with God. Establish is for helping someone who has begun, but desires training in the ways of God. Equipping is for those who desire some training in ministry.
Help Zone
There are a number of elements in helping someone to develop to mastery in their faith. Here are some -
- Pray - This is a work of God, so we need to be praying.
- Develop Character - The aim above all things is for the development of love.
- Sensitive to Spirit - Watch how the Spirit is leading in the process.
- Tact & Courage - Strong leaders can be difficult to confront.
- Mentoring process - Talking through issues in search of understanding.
- Guiding Texts - A passage from the Bible can help keep the direction clear.
This ministry is fundamentally a ministry of God’s. We are partners with Him. As junior partners we must stay connected with the Lord of the ministry through prayer.
The mentoring process is to develop character. This can be quite a sensitive area, one is working with someone who has already demonstrated a degree of godliness, and maybe even effectiveness in ministry. There are however issues that keep the person from achieving their best. Good mentoring is not going to be a matter of identify and fix the issue, it needs patient work over a period of time.
- Making observations about how the person reacts under stress.
- Prayerful thinking about why it is that these reactions come out.
- Identifying strengths and weaknesses in ministry style.
- Helping someone identify their gifts.
- Helping someone find their best fit for a place of service in the kingdom.
- Helping people understand their temperament, and how that impacts on others.
- Helping the person change their ministry style to serve in love.
Since so much of what is to be observed is not obvious the mentor must have a degree of insight into the way people work. They must be sensitive to the Spirit of God since much of what is needed is being in the right place at the right time to hear the wrong thing at the wrong time.
A person who has advanced in leadership in ministry is often quite sure of themselves and hence quite difficult to bring to a place of recognising their own faults. It can require very good people skills and negotiating skills to help someone come to a place of accepting mistakes.
A mentoring session is the hardest of developmental relationships to tie down. Mentoring has little clear structure. beyond a conversation about issues that are presenting. As understanding and insight are gained, progress will be made. It cannot be viewed the same as coaching with its focus on what is practical and a clear path to results.
One of the great dangers in mentoring is losing the way. There is a sense in which one has no clear objective as one would have in ‘Establishing’. One of the ways that I have found helpful in overcoming this is to have in mind a guiding text. This is not a text pulled out of the Bible at random, but rather one that seems to be appropriate for the long term vision of the ministry that I am embarking on. It’s value is that I can refer back to it easily, even in mid conversation, to help me keep focus. Here is a page on the subject - Leader Guiding Texts.
MENTOR - mastering life
