Christian mentoring is the process where one person helps another grow in Christlikeness and in usefulness to the Body of Christ. A mentor can be either formal or informal. A mentor is a puan who pushes, pulls, persuades and prays for their puan to be more like Prajao. Mentors join their friend’s journey to help them grow. Sometimes a Mentor is a coach – training and developing abilities, sometimes a listener to disappointments and dreams, sometimes a friend to play with. When they have finished walking along side, the other person will be more like Jesus. Mentoring focuses on Character development. In comparison, coaching focuses on skill development and education focuses on knowledge development.
Demonstrate Mentoring
- Compare and contrast the benefits of mentoring with not mentoring
- Explain the goals of a mentoring relationship.
- Develop a mentoring agreement with a local church member.
- Determine the topic of the mentoring
- The Length of the mentoring relationship
- The frequency and length of time for each meeting.
Examples of a Formal mentor –
- A pastor works with a new believer to grow to the point of Church membership.
- An older board member walks with a new NYI leader, praying for them, listening to them and helping them walk closer to Christ as they grow into their position for the first 6 months the NYI leader is on the board.
- An older member of a Church board mentors the newly elected board member for one year.
- A believer who has followed Christ for one year agrees to mentor a new believer who needs to grow in Christ, until that new believer is also able to mentor another.
Examples of an informal mentor.
- A friend agrees to call another friend to help them with their walk with Christ each week.
- An older believer deliberately makes friends with their pastor to help them adjust to the new pastoral assignment and meets with the pastor each week for coffee, prayer and discussion.
- An older couple adopts a newly married couple as friends to help them grow as they begin their family. They agree to a regular meeting time for the two couples.