Note: this is taken from my ebook With: A Guide to Informal Mentoring. Download it here.
“Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.” Paul, in I Cor. 11:1
Great men lead people, but greater men train leaders.” Bill Bright
Andy had only been a believer a short time when he came to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Young, fiery, and full of zeal, I liked him from the first day of class. He had another feature I greatly value in students: he was hungry to learn.
Teachable men make for great leaders.
So, I invited Andy to go with me on a trip. He asked questions you would expect from a hungry young Christ follower. He came from an unchurched background and wanted to focus every fiber of his life on following Christ. He knew he had much to learn and eagerly sought to grow.
I took him to Virginia for a weekend while I spoke at a church in the Tidewater area. We drove back through a hurricane (I made him drive my car, which was good for his faith development). On Saturday morning I got up early, as is my custom, to spend time with the Lord and to begin working on a project.
He sat up, looked around, and crawled out of his bed. He didn’t say anything (I am a gregarious person, but what I am focused on a project I become antisocial). A little later he looked at me and said, “You know, if you get up on Saturday morning instead of sleeping till noon, you can get a lot of school work done.”
I resisted saying “Way to go, Captain Obvious,” or “Nice job, Einstein.” Andy to that point had been a typical young man who felt entitled to stay out all hours at night and goof off all weekend. You know, like the college student who claims to be passionate for Jesus but really just loves to hang out.
I never gave him a lecture on study habits. I did not give him an inspiring talk on how to be the next great scholar. I simply got out of bed and got after it, and he was with me to see it.
So much of life is caught more than taught. Or better, taught by being caught. I learned more from my father and from mentors by watching than from listening, although both matter. I learned how to share Christ by going with someone and watching them.
Andy and some other students traveled with me for the next couple of years. We became so close that when I went on trips out of town in which he did not join me, Andy would go over and play with our then-young children. He took every class he could with me. In one particular class he met a young lady my wife and I knew very well. Her name was Tanya. She had lost her husband Ray, whom I had taught my first year at Southeastern, to a brain tumor. She asked me to speak at an event. I could not, but I had come to have a great deal of confidence in Andy, so I recommended him. Next thing you know, they were married, and now they have planted a vibrant church in Delaware and have some beautiful children of their own.
I am a killer matchmaker when I do not know what I am doing.
Andy represents the best teaching I have ever done. Yes, I have won various recognitions for my work as a classroom teacher. But the greatest award comes in the lives of men like Andy. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:2, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, recognized and read by everyone.”
Who are the Andy’s in your life? Who do you currently mentor?
The term “mentor” actually comes from Greek mythology. Before going away to fight the Trojan War, Odysseus sought to find a man who would care for his son Telemachus. Odysseus wanted a man to raise his son just as he would if he were there. He found a man who did just that.
Mentoring provides a higher form of leadership; a remarkable means to lead future (and current) leaders. The old saying, “he who thinks he is leading and no one is following, is only taking a walk,” can be applied to mentoring as well.
Consider this sobering question: If you stand before people as a pastor, a teacher, or a leader, and no one you teach or lead ever comes to you to be mentored, what of worth are you saying? If you live a life that demonstrates Jesus, you will have plenty of people who want to be mentored. Mentoring is not an institution to manage–it is a lifestyle to emulate.
If you are a pastor, you simply cannot reduce all your influence and teaching to the time in the pulpit, as vital as that time is. If you are a student pastor you surely want your impact to be greater than serving as a glorified social planner. You desire to invest in students, not just run a ministry. If you teach a Bible study, lead people in any capacity, and especially if you are a parent, mentoring should be a priority.
Paul sounded this advice to Timothy when he declared, “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). Paul mentored Timothy, and Timothy mentored others. Such multiplication is one of the great needs of the contemporary church.
I believe in formal mentoring. This fall I will meet weekly with a group of men from Southeastern who are also at my church in a weekly mentoring group. But I believe informal mentoring is an untapped resource to many.
Informal mentoring means simply involving individuals you seek to mentor in the regular, normal aspects of your life. Informal mentoring lets you see the person as they live life—how they respond to people, to circumstances, etc. But beware: it also lets them see you for who you are. If you as the mentor are better at talking than living, you will not long enjoy informal mentoring. It’s not either-or but both-and. As I noted I do both. But I can say without any hesitancy that the greatest impact God has given me in young adults whom I have mentored came through informal mentoring. There are some advantages to informal mentoring. Over the years I have mentored a host of students through both methods. One of the things I have learned about people I mentored is this: some want to be mentored because they want to be pushed, stretched, and challenged. Others think they want that, but what they really seek is approval. They prefer approval rather to admonition, and desire encouragement without rebuke.
But one cannot have true community, in a family, in a church, or in a mentoring relationship, without both encouragement and rebuke. A mentoring relationship implies the protégé has much to learn and seeks to learn from the mentor. But when the mentor realizes the person he mentors truly seeks encouragement and affirmation but will not take the hard lessons of stretching and rebuke, the mentoring relationship has hit a wall. Informal mentoring helps to discern just where that wall lies as you do life together outside the more sterile environment of a weekly group.
I have a remarkably busy schedule. Do you? The thing I love about informal mentoring is it allows me to pour my life into two or three young men (or more) in the course of life. It adds little extra time. There will certainly be some times when you plan specific meetings for one purpose or another, but they will be rare. And, sometimes your student may need you at a time that is not best for you. But can you truly think of something more important than to invest in someone else?
Informal mentoring also allows me to mentor people occasionally and yet effectively. For instance, if I take half a dozen people with me on a two hour trip to a college campus where I am speaking, we have four hours round trip time to talk about life and godliness.
Where are you going and what are you doing that could easily involve another person you seek to mentor? Pick up the phone. Give that one a call. And go do life together.
